By Ausra Park*

(FPRI) — Lithuania’s 2009 presidential campaign was the dullest since the office of the president was re-established seventeen years ago. As one academic remarked, “The 2009 Lithuanian presidential race resembled a cemetery: There was deadly silence”[1]—even though seven candidates ran for the office. Dalia Grybauskaite, a former diplomat, finance minister, and EU budget commissioner, stood out since she was the only one of “presidential caliber.” More importantly, since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis unfolded during the campaign, the focus was on the domestic economic situation rather than foreign policy. Grybauskaite emphasized her expertise in finance and distinguished herself from the other candidates by running as an independent despite her previous affiliation to the ex-communist party.

Surprisingly, then, when Grybauskaite made her name on the world stage, it was not due to domestic politics or economic stabilization, but through her vocal foreign policy. Although presently Grybauskaite is known for being a vocal critic of Russia and stands firmly with the U.S. and NATO, when she won the presidency in 2009, she signaled that her foreign policy priorities would be different from those of her predecessor, Valdas Adamkus. The new president implied that she would be more pragmatic. Adamkus’s “unbalanced” foreign policy of befriending “beggars” such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova in Eastern Europe would be reevaluated. And Russia-phobic tendencies would be terminated. Such public statements implied that Lithuania’s foreign policy would change sharply.

Turning towards the EU, but…

An early indicator for Grybauskaite’s new foreign policy was her statements as European Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget from 2004 to 2009. While Lithuania was befriending and supporting “beggars,” it had confrontational relations with key states in the EU. Grybauskaite intended to make EU and Nordic orientation the cornerstone of a multi-vector Lithuanian foreign policy. She signaled that her highest priority was to establish closer ties with France and Germany, which would increase Lithuania’s political weight in the EU. To achieve this goal, Lithuania would sign strategic partnership treaties with as many EU countries as possible, reducing its focus on neighboring Poland. Instead of going to Warsaw for her first official state visit—a tradition followed by all Lithuanian presidents since 1994—she went to Sweden.

In developing ties with the two most important states in the EU, less than three months into her presidency, Grybauskaite achieved her first major foreign policy victory by signing a strategic partnership treaty with France. It is unclear why France signed this treaty given that the countries have no particular historical ties or common interests. Unsurprisingly, six years later, real benefits of this treaty are hard to identify.

One of her presidency’s biggest political disappointments remains the elusiveness of a strategic partnership with Germany. Although Grybauskaite decided to restrain criticism of the Russo-German Nord Stream gas pipeline, such restraint did not result in talks with Berlin on a treaty. Germany’s lack of interest in such a treaty did not discourage Grybauskaite’s foreign policy ambitions. In her forthright political rhetoric in 2011 and 2013, Grybauskaite confidently called Germany Lithuania’s strategic partner, “forgetting” the fact that the two states have no such agreement.

Given Grybauskaite’s work at the European Commission, some analysts claimed that Grybauskaite was bound to advocate Euro-centric foreign policies. Her engagement with the EU and her collaboration with the Scandinavian states were indeed evidence of a greater personal prioritization of the EU in Lithuania’s foreign policy, especially compared to Adamkus. This focus on Europe was magnified by Lithuania’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2013, a period that focused on economic and financial issues. Because of her background, Grybauskaite played a major role in these debates. Grybauskaite was awarded the International Charlemagne Prize in May 2013 as an acknowledgement of her EU-focused foreign policies.

…distancing from the U.S.?

Determined to move Lithuania away from a U.S.-oriented foreign policy that she believed Adamkus pursued, Grybauskaite became the first president to assert that Lithuania’s foreign policy would not depend on the U.S. or NATO. However, Grybauskaite also sought to assure NATO allies that she would honor and uphold Lithuania’s commitments to Euro-Atlantic organizations and that Lithuania would participate in international missions. She supported a U.S. initiative on the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality worldwide, demonstrating that Lithuania focused not only on security, but also social justice. Similarly, Grybauskaite expressed her intentions to maintain NATO’s open-door policy and participate in activities that addressed energy and cyber security issues.

However, Lithuania’s relations with the U.S. began to deteriorate within a year. In 2010, the U.S. and Russia began discussing the New START nuclear agreement, provoking intense debates in the post-communist bloc. Obama’s Asian pivot and his “reset” with Russia signaled to Grybauskaite that the U.S. had new priorities and was downgrading the importance it placed on small countries like Lithuania. Grybauskaite spoke out against the New START agreement.

After signing the treaty, President Obama organized a dinner with Central and Eastern European heads of state in Prague in 2010 to address their concerns. Grybauskaite declined Obama’s invitation. An avalanche of criticism ensued. Even the international media thought that such behavior “[c]oming from a country roughly one-hundredth America’s size, […] showed a startling self-confidence, even by Lithuanian standards.” It was not the country, but rather Grybauskaite, who was demonstrating such self-confidence: she saw no tangible outcome that such a meeting could produce. Some analysts even claimed that her actions signaled that Lithuania’s loyalty to the U.S. was being replaced by loyalty to Brussels.

Relations with the U.S. went from bad to worse as Grybauskaite showed no signs of toning down criticism of NATO and, indirectly, the Obama administration. She insisted that a NATO defense plan for Poland must include the three Baltic States. “Yes, you have to be a strict and loud partner if you want to be heard in the conversation,” Grybauskaite explained in a 2011 interview. “Lithuania is not used to a straightforward, terse, forceful way of making statements. I admit using this style in pushing NATO defense plans for the Baltic States.” Once NATO decided to provide defense plans for the Baltic States, Grybauskaite claimed credit for this achievement.

For several months in late 2011, Grybauskaite tried to refrain from new criticism of the U.S. But her assertive leadership style and stern rhetoric toward the Obama administration soon reemerged. When participating in the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, she claimed that Obama changed his position on the NATO anti-missile defense system and on U.S. relations with Russia more generally—all thanks to her influence. “The result of my efforts was that the United States and President Obama personally are very clearly formulating and very clearly supporting our opinion on anti-missile defense, air policing, and energy security,” Grybauskaite announced.

Grybauskaite’s self-confidence angered the White House, but it also suggested that she overestimated her influence on great power politics. In 2013, she again claimed that the U.S. was pursuing a new geopolitical orientation, namely, focusing on the Nordic and Baltic countries; her assertion was refuted by local political analysts as unsubstantiated.

Given the pattern that was established from 2009-2013, it was doubtful that Grybauskaite would change her style, rhetoric, or views about the U.S. and NATO or that the U.S.-Lithuania relationship would become cordial any time soon. She believed that she had “liberated” Lithuania from a “hostage” status in relation to the U.S. and that under her leadership, the bilateral relationship was finally grounded on constructive collaboration and tangible benefits.

However, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, altering geopolitical realities in Europe, Grybauskaite was forced to make a U-turn in her policy priorities and her “anti-American” predisposition. She realized that without U.S. military and financial support, Lithuania could not withstand Russia’s military threat. Not only did Grybauskaite change her position on defense, pressuring the government into boosting defense spending, but she also supported reintroducing the military draft. She became a staunch critic of Russia and President Putin. Thus, changes in international context forced Grybauskaite to alter her policies toward the U.S., making them closer to those that were pursued by Adamkus.

Given the concerns that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raised in Lithuania, no one questioned her U-turn in foreign policy. In fact, Grybauskaite’s criticism of Russia put her in a stronger political position, and her approval ratings spiked to new highs. Given new geopolitical realities, the anti-Russia platform proved to be indispensable for her re-election in 2014. Ironically, a president who came to power promising to “liberate” Lithuania from its dependence on the U.S. and NATO now finds that her close relationship with them is key to her political success and Lithuania’s security.

About the author:
*Ausra Park is an Assistant Professor at Siena College, NY. Her research focuses on post-communist political leadership profiling, comparative foreign policy, political psychology, gender and politics, and social justice issues (human trafficking). She has received numerous prestigious grants from international organizations such as Fulbright, IREX, German Marshall Fund of the US, and others. She is currently working on two book manuscripts that examine Baltic leadership and the first female presidents in the Eastern post-communist bloc.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Leka, A. 2009a. “Prezidento rinkimai Lietuvoje: dar vienas laidotuviu requiem partinei systemai.” Veidas, May 11.

With the fall of Aleppo concludes another chapter in the never-ending saga of the Syrian conflict. The Russian bear has spoken and the noose around Bashar al-Assad’s neck is today considerable looser. Will it signify the end of the conflict and the definitive death knell of the Syrian opposition? Or will the conflict continue to morph into another form of violence involving Islamic State militants and leading to a new stalemate. A cynical Nietzsche might conclude haplessly that the Syrian conflict is an example of the theory of eternal recurrence.

Of course, the calculating Russians do not share in the Nietzschean world view and have pursued a deliberate political strategy aimed at extending their power abroad and regaining the stature of a great power. It is this nostalgia of empire, not unknown to their new found Turkish colleagues, that will ensure their ultimate downfall in the region that they claim to know so well.

In the meantime, several elements have lined up in an extremely beneficial way for the Russians to attain their objectives in Syria. There was the surprising lack of leadership from the West right from the very start of the conflict. President Obama’s ‘leading-from-behind’ isolationist policy might well have gotten him re-elected President in 2012 but it also ensured that the Russians would have a clear path in front of them whether in Eastern Europe or in Syria.

During the first years of the conflict, only the Turks seemed bent on making Bashar al-Assad pay. However, in the last year, after the downing of a Russian jet in Turkish airspace, a curious period of detente has intervened in Turkish-Russian affairs. Up until then, Russia could count on their veto power in the UN Security Council to deflect any international action on Syria, be it a no-fly zone, humanitarian efforts to assist the victims of Russian air strikes or censure motions against their Syrian ally.

Turkish Intentions

The main priority of Turkish foreign policy is and has always been about the Kurds. It is the Kurds, not Gulen. Suspicion and even hatred of the Kurds is the historical cement upon which Turkish nationalism is built and it includes all main Turkish political parties including a broad consensus within the population. Since it is now apparent that the rebels are not going to defeat Bashar any time soon, Turkish authorities prefer to have the Russians and their Syrian ally on their southern border rather than the armed Kurds (PYD or the PKK). Already the Western powers have been organizing the Kurdish opposition against Islamic state in Iraq. When that adventure is over, Syria may be next and feature an emboldened Kurdish military presence with more modern Western arms.

The Russian Play

Now that Aleppo has fallen and Bashar is temporarily back in the saddle, the Russians are resolutely moving to sue for a peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict. Such a resolution would confirm Russia’s regional hegemony and crown their military glory with success. For this, it was necessary to get the Turks on side. In this regard, the coup d’état was a godsend not only for Turkish President Erdogan but for the Russians. The coup helped to weaken the already deteriorating Turkish relationship with the West just enough to allow for flexibility on Syria.

Not that the Russians believe the delusions about Gulen and his hand in everything from the downing of the Russian jet, to the coup d’état and now, the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey. The Russians are also delusional if they think that the Syrian Turkish border can be sealed or even if President Erdogan can muster enough political support to attempt it.

Ambassador Karlov’s Assassination

For the Russians, the death of Ambassador Karlov is collateral damage relative to their campaign of destruction in Syria. For now, the Russians are confident that they can organize a lasting peace in Syria now that the ‘terrorist’ rebels have been defeated. Such is the hope of the meetings today in Moscow by Russian, Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers. However, the Ambassador Karlov’s death may signify something quite different. On the face of it, the assassination was payback for the Aleppo carnage. It may be just the beginning.

Most Syrian rebels are not terrorists. By making them leave Aleppo, the rebels can either lay down their arms or continue the struggle from the countryside. If they choose to do the latter, which I believe they will, the struggle will morph into a classic guerilla warfare with the countryside in the hands of the rebels, and the cities controlled by the regime. The borders will remain porous. Even as Aleppo was falling, Bashar’s exhausted troops were unable to stop Islamic state from retaking Palmyra. In such a situation, Russian air power will be less effective as targets become fewer and less concentrated. It will become a multi-front war in which Iranian and Russian support will be essential to keep Bashar and his Alawite minority in power.

In such a scenario, the Russian peace initiative will dissolve even with tacit Turkish support. The Russian Cindarella story on Syria might well end up looking more like regional quicksand. Despite all of the Russian brutality, Syria will not go the way of Chechniya. The Russians will not be able to leave as victors.

(EurActiv) — Scotland wants to stay in the European Union’s single market after the United Kingdom leaves the bloc and will push for more powers to protect its interests, head of government Nicola Sturgeon said Tuesday.

In a paper published Tuesday, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon outlined a wish list of Scottish demands following the UK’s Brexit vote.

Top of the list is that the whole country should remain in the EU and that if the UK does leave, then Scotland should remain in the single market.

“We are determined to maintain Scotland’s current position in the European single market,” Sturgeon said in Scotland’s Place in Europe.

The UK voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48% but Scotland, one of the UK’s four nations, voted to stay.

“There has to be a way to effectively square the circle (between the two results). Will this be easy? No… but I believe this is achievable,” she told a news conference.

“First and foremost, this is about us trying to convince the UK that these are proposals worthy of being considered.

“We believe our practical solutions are reasonable and in the best interests of Scotland, in a context that will be complex and unprecedented whatever the ultimate outcome.”

Sturgeon said the option of independence, which Scots rejected in 2014, had to be kept available and that she wanted to remain a full member of the EU.

“The option of independence must remain on the table,” Sturgeon said. “Brexit is a problem not of Scotland’s making.”

Scotland, she said, needed a fundamental review of its devolution settlement and that powers over immigration were vital to protect Scotland’s interests.

Scotland wants control of its own migration policy to shore up its ageing population and its more sparsely populated rural territory north of the English border.

But Scotland’s wish list is a difficult one to satisfy. While allowing free migration may be a priority for Scotland, curbing it has been set as a priority by UK Prime Minister Theresa May.

In London, May’s spokesperson said the prime minister will carefully consider the Scottish proposals.

But he added: “Our position is there shouldn’t be a second (independence) referendum. There was a referendum, it was only two years ago, the result was very decisive (and) both parties agreed to abide by the result.”

By Mariya Cheresheva

After a two-hour meeting on Tuesday between the coalition partners in the outgoing government – the centre-right GERB of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, the right-wing Reformist bloc and the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition – GERB’s vice-president Tsvetan Tsvetanov announced that early elections must be held.

Tsvetanov said the coalition partners had failed to agree on a new cabinet.

“There are certain differences on which we could not reach a consensus,” he told journalists after the meeting.

A caretaker government must now be established by President Rosen Plevneliev to govern ahead of the polls.

This was the final attempt by the parties to form a new cabinet after Borissov announced his resignation on November 14.

After he announced he was quitting, in an attempt to avert a cabinet crisis, President Plevneliev handed a mandate for setting up a government to Bulgaria’s two largest parties, GERB and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, but both rejected it and urged early election.

On December 13, however, the Reformist Bloc, a minor coalition partner in the outgoing cabinet, accepted the third and final mandate from Plevneliev, and attempted to form a new governing coalition.

On Monday, both of its potential partners, GERB and the Patriotic Front, which itself was hoping to receive a mandate earlier in December, gave positive signals that they could join a coalition under certain conditions.

None of the parties commented on why the negotiations failed on Tuesday.

Nayden Zelenogorsky, co-leader of the Reformist Bloc, said however that all the parties had “worked hard” to reach an agreement.

He said he hoped that in the new parliament there would be enough points of agreements between the three so that they can “continue with the reforms”.

After the failure to form a government, President Plevneliev may face a serious challenge in appointing the third caretaker government in his five-year-mandate.

His task is far more complicated this time as his mandate is about to expire. He is due to hand over office to President-elect Rumen Radev on January 22.

Officials at the president’s office told BIRN earlier in December that it was not clear who the caretaker prime minister and his interim ministers would be because there were few potential candidates willing to undertake such a short-term job.

Various politicians have pointed to the spring of 2017 as the earliest possible date for holding early parliamentary elections.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bulgaria-heads-to-early-elections-12-20-2016#sthash.tCS0LMri.dpuf

By Marcela Ganea

Any country along the ‘One Belt, One Road’ routes may be of interest to China if it possesses significant assets, and may in turn benefit from this massive infrastructure development project.

“Belt and Road is the project of the century because it has many stakeholders and will produce manifold effects on the countries involved. There are also a large number of challenges that lie ahead for the Chinese institutions in charge of this project,” believes Liviu Muresan, president of EURISC, a Bucharest-based think tank that has been working with Chinese academics, researchers, and China-based think tanks for many years.

The importance of think tanks as complements to governmental efforts to establish partnerships for transcontinental projects has become obvious in recent years. In August 2016, the European Council on Foreign Affairs wrote that “Xi Jinping’s call for the construction of ‘think tanks with Chinese characteristics’ has led to a proliferation of institutes and an expansion of their portfolio of activities, their international networks, and their public profiles.”

A country like Romania can play a role in the energy sector, critical infrastructure, and the peaceful use of the outer space. In this, Romania needs a wise multilateral foreign policy. While remaining a strategic partner for the U.S., as the Eastern frontier of the Euro-Atlantic structure and a major geopolitical actor on the Black Sea, Romania must build a strong policy with the East.

Romania has expertise in critical infrastructures, ranging from the maritime field to space. Space is a key enabler for critical infrastructure that coordinate systems on Earth, and the field is usually approached through joint projects because one country cannot manage all the risks. EURISC has introduced the critical infrastructure dimension in the Belt and Road project during discussions with Chinese partners, think-tanks, and the China National Petroleum Corporation last summer. Expertise in resilience and critical infrastructure is something few organizations possess. The Shanghai Institute for International Studies, an influential Chinese think tank both in China and abroad, considered EURISC’s  contribution on “Critical Infrastructure Perspective on the Belt and Road Initiative and its Opportunities and Challenges”  to be a useful conceptual approach for research and cooperation within the 16+1 initiative and Belt and Road Initiative.

The Romanian astronaut Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu, who holds high positions in international space organizations, is already cooperating with China within the Association of Space Explorers (ASE). Six Chinese astronauts are members of ASE and Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut, is a member of the ASE Board.  In November 2016 in Bucharest, the Romanian Space Agency signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese National Space Administration for bilateral cooperation in exploration and peaceful use of outer space. Romania has been represented by Mr. Prunariu in the UN COPUOS (Committee on the Peaceful Uses of the Outer Space) since 1992 and he even served as president of the UN COPUOS between 2010-2012.

Romania also has the chance to host an energy center and can become one of China’s long-term economic partners in the energy field. Romania has a huge processing capacity of 5 million tonnes in good, competitive refineries and this should be an asset to put on the table for Silk Road development. Romania was the first country to exploit petroleum by training petroleum engineers and building one of the first refineries, and it has not lost this knowledge nor expertise.

From previous joint projects, Romanians know that discussions are fruitful but commercially harsh because the Chinese are very determined business partners.

“There are huge interests at stake, so economic and political elements will need balancing,” says Muresan. “Let us look for instance at the maritime route…and the recently developed relation between China and Egypt, a country with a strategic channel, and China’s interest in funding the new Egyptian capital city shows that China is interested in making its connections with the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, let us contemplate China’s involvement in the Middle East because China wants to develop the China-Iran-Romania route, as suggested by the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.” Muresan also calls attention to the risks involved in the project: “the routes cross some highly unstable areas and we don’t know yet if the project will stabilize them or if it will increase tensions between neighboring countries…… Our Chinese colleagues are analyzing, together with the Russians and Central Asians, the implications of these routes from East to West.” With a planned infrastructure investment of 4 trillion euro, in an investment spanning 30 years, the Belt and Road Initiative encompasses Eurasia “like a pair of scissors,” involving 70% of the Earth’s energy resources, but China will find itself in very thorny regions across Eurasia.

Think tanks should get involved in the Three Seas Initiative (Adriatic, Baltic and Black Sea countries) that China believes to serve its interest in the Silk Road project. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the biggest Chinese think tank, with 4,000 researchers and 90 research centers, is encouraging this step, and Serbia and the Baltic countries turned out to be very dynamic and eager to take responsibilities in the project. Moreover, it seems that, beyond their specialized professional purpose, the meetings organized by the Chinese think tanks are meant to generate consensus and trust regarding mutual goals before making concrete proposals and half of the European participants spoke Chinese during their discussions with the Chinese counterparts.

Some analysts feel that, for some time, Russia maintained its influence through gas and petroleum, but, at present, China seems to have created routes to attract energy resources from territories under its own influence. However, relations between China and Russia may remain supportive due to their mutual interest in weakening American influence.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

By Faisal J. Abbas*

Monday’s atrocious attacks that targeted civilians at a Christmas market in Berlin and Muslims praying in a mosque in Zurich resemble two sides of the same coin of hatred. Both acts of terrorism should be condemned, and neither should be tolerated.

Monday was an exceptionally sad day, given that on the same night Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was brutally assassinated in a chilling televised scene that many only thought could happen in James Bond movies.

“The world has become a scary place,” is what you often hear people repeat in such circumstances. To a certain extent they are correct, as nobody can disagree that such developments are worrisome. However, I am not so sure they spell the end of time just yet.

Our world has always been subject to acts of violence, war, crime and terrorism. Perpetrators of such gruesome acts could be governments such as Syria’s, organized criminal groups such as the mafia, clean-shaven white men such as the 1996 Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, and of course the likes of Daesh and Al-Qaeda supporters, who terrorize in the name of religion.

Yet we should not allow all this to distract us from the other realities and positive developments on the ground. For example, both Turkey and Russia have shown tremendous maturity and self-restraint in dealing with the aftermath of the assassination, and the meeting between the Russians and Turks to discuss a possible solution for Syria still took place.

In Switzerland and across Europe, many took to social media to show solidarity with Muslim fellow citizens, and made it a point to say what happened in Zurich is just as bad as what happened in Berlin.

These are extremely good reactions that should not be ignored, as one could easily be dragged into focusing on those who celebrated both awful incidents, whether right-wing Christian extremists or pro-Daesh Islamic fundamentalists. The reality is that neither group represents the majority of either faith.

As for Berlin, I write these lines only four days after I was there to attend the annual conference of one of the city’s great institutions: The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD). What was surreal was that the discussions at the conference, which concluded a day prior to the Berlin Christmas market attack, focused on how to nurture discussions between different cultures and help eliminate misunderstandings.

The ICD runs impressive programs aiming to promote human rights and combat discrimination. As one can imagine, the Middle East and North Africa (including Syria, Iraq and the refugee crisis) featured heavily in the discussions. At the event, you run into progressive politicians, tolerant religious figures, courageous lawmakers and impressive thinkers who, if they ran the world, would certainly make it a better one.

The problem is that the tolerant, rational approach of such individuals cannot compete with a populist, sensationalist one in a post-truth era, and targeting innocent people at a Christmas market does not make their job in standing up to the far-right easier. We have seen plenty of the bad and ugly rise to power this year, so let us pray — and work hard — to ensure that 2017 brings in a bit more of the good!

*Faisal J. Abbas is the editor-in-chief of Arab News. He can be reached on Twitter @FaisalJAbbas

The world’s largest digital survey of the visible Universe, mapping billions of stars and galaxies, has been publicly released.

The data has been made available by the international Pan-STARRS project, which includes scientists from Queen’s University Belfast, who have predicted that it will lead to new discoveries about the Universe.

Astronomers and cosmologists used a 1.8-metre telescope at the summit of Haleakalā, on Maui, Hawaii, to repeatedly image three quarters of the visible sky over four years.

Three billion sources

The data they have captured in the Pan-STARRS1 Surveys is made up of three billion separate sources, including stars, galaxies, and other space objects.

This immense collection of information contains two petabytes of computer data – equivalent to one billion selfies or one hundred times the total content of Wikipedia.

Pan-STARRS is hosted by the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, which is releasing the data alongside the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA.

The international collaboration also includes Queen’s University Belfast and the Universities of Durham and Edinburgh and is supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation.Durham’s contribution was funded by a generous donation from the Ogden Trust and Durham University.

Luminous distant explosions

Queen’s University Belfast Professor Stephen Smartt, who is Chair of the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Science Council, said: “We’ve worked on this project for more than five years at Queen’s and have found the most luminous distant explosions in the Universe and also nearby asteroids in our solar system.

“It was a fantastic team effort and now we hope the whole science community will benefit from this public release of our data.”

Digital survey

In May 2010, the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, observatory embarked on a digital survey of the sky in visible and near infrared light.

This was the first survey with a goal of observing the sky very rapidly over and over again, looking for moving objects and transient or variable objects, including asteroids that could potentially threaten the Earth.

Dr Ken Chambers, Director of the Pan-STARRS Observatories, at the University of Hawaii, said: “The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys allow anyone to access millions of images and use the database and catalogues containing precision measurements of billions of stars and galaxies.

“Pan-STARRS has already made discoveries from Near Earth Objects and Kuiper Belt Objects in the Solar System to lonely planets between the stars; it has mapped the dust in three dimensions in our galaxy and found new streams of stars; and it has found new kinds of exploding stars and distant quasars in the early Universe.”

Static sky

The roll-out of the survey data is being done in two steps.

Today’s release is the “Static Sky” which provides an average value for the position, brightness and colour for objects captured in the sky at individual moments in time.

In 2017, a second set of data will be released including catalogues and images from each of the individual snapshots that Pan-STARRS took of a given region of sky.

If you’re shivering from unusually teeth-rattling cold this holiday season, global warming is probably the last thing on your mind.

“The local weather conditions people experience likely play a role in what they think about the broader climate,” said Utah State University researcher Peter Howe. “Climate change is causing record-breaking heat around the world, but the variability of the climate means that some places are still reaching record-breaking cold. If you’re living in a place where there’s been more record cold weather than record heat lately, you may doubt reports of climate change.”

Howe said people’s beliefs about climate change are driven by many factors, but a new study in which he participated suggests weather events in your own backyard may be an important influence.

With colleagues Robert Kaufmann, Sucharita Gopal, Jackie Liederman, Xiaojing Tang and Michelle Gilmore of Boston University; Michael Mann of The George Washington University and Felix Pretis of the University of Oxford, Howe published findings in the Dec. 19, 2016, Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Howe, assistant professor of human-environment geography in USU’s Department of Environment and Society and the USU Ecology Center, generated the public opinion dataset used in the analysis. The collected information is based on a statistical model of more than 12,000 survey respondents across the nation from 2008 to 2013 collected by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason Center for Climate Change Communication.

“We found that places with more record high temperatures than lows have more residents who believe the planet is warming,” he said. “Conversely, in places with more record low temperatures, more people tend to doubt global warming.”

The study notes part of this dichotomy may be because early terminology used to describe climate change suggested the earth was simply warming, rather than changing in innumerable but measurable ways.

“One of the greatest challenges to communicating scientific findings about climate change is the cognitive disconnect between local and global events,” said Mann, one of Howe’s partners in the study. “It’s easy to assume that what you experience at home must be happening elsewhere.”

The scientists note the importance of differentiating between weather, the temperatures of a relatively short period of time, such as a season, and climate, the average temperature over a period of 25 or 30 years. Emphasizing the different between weather and climate may help the scientific community more effectively explain climate change, they said.

“Our work highlights some of the challenges of communicating about climate change, and the importance of situating people’s experiences at the local level within the larger global context,” Howe said.

Competitive sports and games are all about the performance of players and teams, which results in performance-based hierarchies. Because such performance is measurable and is the result of varied rules, sports and games are considered a suitable model to help understand unrelated social or economic systems characterized by similar rules-based complexity.

Now, a team of Mexican scientists have used the performance of national teams in tennis, chess, golf, poker and football as a test-bed for identifying universal features in the creation of hierarchies—such as the stratified structure found in the global hierarchical distribution of wealth.

José Morales from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues found they could, in principle, predict changes in rank occupancy over the course of a contender’s lifetime, regardless of the particularities of the sports or activity. These findings, published in EPJ Data Science , enhance the ability to forecast how stratification occurs in competitive activities.

The authors set out to determine the path to establishing complex hierarchies, like sports teams’ performance rankings. Their objective was to detect statistical regularities that indicate how competition shapes the hierarchies of players and teams.

In particular, the team analyzed how the performance rankings of players and teams for several sports and specific games evolved over time—referred to as rank diversity, a concept previously used to study how vocabulary changes in time in the context of linguistics.

They found that ranking hierarchies may be driven by the same underlying generic mechanisms as rank formation, regardless of the nature of the teams’ or players’ characteristics. This means that the measure of the number of elements occupying a given performance rank over a length of time has the same functional form in sports and games as in languages; another system where competition is determined by the use or disuse of grammatical structures instead of sports rules.

Blossoms have scored the highest-selling debut album of 2016, beating the likes of Zayn and Jack Garrett, NME reports.

Released on August 5, NME described the album as leaping “from their chart-bound Trojan horse as modernist rock heroes,” adding that “it’s tuneful, romance-based radio pop with slivers of guitar for decoration.”

The self-titled LP currently sits on 65,123 sales. Zayn’s ‘Mind Of Mine’, released on March 25, is in second place on 64,211, while Jack Garratt’s ‘Phase’, which came out on February 19, has figures of 62,217.

Speaking to Music Week, managing director of Blossoms label Virgin EMI Clive Cawley puts their success down to various factors. “It was EPs, touring, merch bundles, album bundles… Fan engagement, I’d say,” he told Music Week. “They’re one of the few artists to have A-List at [BBC] Radio 1,2 and 6. It’s pretty niche to develop them that way.

“We came out in week 28, so it’s amazing to be up there against Zayn and Jack Garratt – who both released earlier – as a brand new band.” Meanwhile, Island marketing director Guillermo Ramos said that Garratt’s campaign – which kicked off with the BRITs Critics’ Choice award – revolved around “bringing the Jack Garratt world to life”.

He added: “Jack made a hugely exciting, genre-bending album which is hardly how you’d describe a lot of previous [Critics’ Choice] winners, if you look at Adele, Ellie Goulding or Tom Odell. If anything, what Jack did was show the BRITs attracts a more diverse range of artists.”

Earlier this month, The Courteeners spoke on why they chose Blossoms for their huge Manchester show. “They’re a real grassroots northern band – no leg-ups from anybody or anything like that,” frontman Liam Fray commented.

“They’ve grafted their balls off and toured extensively. Great pop songs, good lads, what’s not to love about it? It’s a proper old-school story – four lads meet at college and start a band,” he added.

“That’s what we want in this country, it should be celebrated. It gives me faith a little bit as well. None of their dads are loaded and gave them a million quid to set up a studio. They’re normal lads who wrote songs in their bedrooms like we did. Great, they should be celebrated. It doesn’t matter about anything else – you need the songs.”

By Kurtis Simpson*

China’s rising economic, political and military power is the most geopolitically significant development of the post-Cold War period. For some, America’s unipolar moment has passed, and the essential debates now focus on the rate and relativity of US hegemonic decline.1 In tandem with this, the question of can China rise peacefully must be considered?2 All such external preoccupations rest, however, on assumptions of continued economic growth and internal stability.3 The tipping point in both positive and negative scenarios alike in China is civilian-military (civ-mil) relations. This single factor is all determining, under-studied, and currently in a period of profound transition.

To date, the literature on civ-mil relations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is overly reductionist in its scope, simplifying relations between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to a single entity, built on dubious assumptions (for example, over-emphasizing the reach and control of the Party) and finally, prone to exaggerating some trends, most notably professionalization of the military, at the expense of others, including divided loyalties, the decentralization of power, and the endless political bargaining that now characterizes the relations between Party, military, and bureaucratic stakeholders.

The purpose of this article is threefold. It will first place civ-mil relations in a historical context, mapping fundamental transitional changes between the revolutionary period (1921-1949), the politicized era (1949-1976), and the modernization years (1976-2014). Second, it will highlight evolving trend lines in CCP-PLA relations, identifying emerging tensions. Third, it will provide a cursory assessment of early signals or indications of future friction points.

A critical review of civ-mil relations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) makes apparent that the military’s political power resources are increasing; a relationship of ‘conditional compliance’ now exists where the Party is required to negotiate with the PLA on key issues (whether it be funding increases, force development, or foreign policy priorities) for its continued support. As a result, the potential for fractures between the Party and PLA are increasingly possible during crises situations.

Prior to beginning with a historic examination of civilian-military relations in China, we need first to root our discussion in a viable theoretical framework, or model, in which to help organize the information/evidence being considered. As expansively covered by Michael Kiselycznyk and Phillip Saunders, perspectives on Chinese elite politics are relatively few in number, and often period specific.4 Each is not without its limitations, but all have explanatory potential. Of growing relevance, however, is the bureaucratic politics approach, because not only does it easily incorporate the tenets of earlier schools (such as symbiosis, factionalism, and the Party control lens) it, moreover, best captures the PRC’s current political landscape of distributive power. In essence, since the 1978 economic reforms, the CCP’s receding ideological justification for rule, and varied rates of development in China’s 34 provinces, the country has increasingly witnessed ‘fragmentary authoritarianism,’ where the control of a paramount leader (such as Mao Zedong) is greatly reduced, a growing separation between the economic and political spheres more pronounced, and individual ‘pockets’ of authority—often the result of ‘factions’ within both the Party and the PLA—more evident. The end result of this is increased “bargaining” both between and within government and military apparatuses, a process which requires negotiations, exchanges, and consensus building.5 This type of interaction is strikingly different than that which first typified Party-PLA relations in the early revolutionary period.

Party-PLA Relations during the Revolutionary Period (1921-1949)

The CCP (founded in 1921) and the PLA (established in 1927) originally enjoyed a level of intimate interaction or ‘fusion’ typical of the militaries and revolutionaries coalescing in a united front, or common cause, to overthrow an existent political order. This pattern is well documented, and will only be briefly touched upon here.6 In short, where elites regularly circulate between military and non-military posts, a symbiotic relationship forms where ideas, authorities, allegiances and circles of interaction take root, fostering a common commitment and vision towards a desired end state. In the case of China, what is referred to as ‘symbiosis’ started in 1934-35 while the Communists were in retreat during “The Long March” period. As a consequence of this shared experience, close cooperation between military and civilian figures resulted in significant overlap in leadership roles, with key individuals (most notably Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping) being dubbed “dual role elites.”7

Up until the declaration of Chinese independence, the military was a major recruiter for the Party and a strict ratio of Party members to non-Party members among combat soldiers was upheld. They were, in a sense, two faces of the same organized elite. For many years, political leaders were also generals or political commissars in military units; the party and the army “…formed throughout their history a single institutional system, with a single elite performing simultaneously the functions of political and military leadership.”8 While in many respects effective and efficient, the merger of the military with the political, particularly absent of institutions, over time opened the door to significant infighting when differences arose, often ending in intensive ideological campaigns (such as the Great Leap Forward, 1958-1961), massive popular mobilizations, and widespread national unrest.

The Politicization of the PLA under Mao Zedong (1949-1976)

Upon assuming power, Chairman Mao Zedong early on turned to the military to champion and enable his ideas and to serve as his last line of defence. While less critical in the honeymoon period of the early-1950s, the PLA was increasingly drawn into the political realm, most notably during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a decade long period of social turmoil and populist furor spawned by the PRC’s senior most leaders. While beyond the scope of this article to discuss in any detail, the research of others chronicles how overtly enmeshed in politics the PLA became during this period, serving as a direct tool of Mao and his inner clique.9

Unable to effectively mobilize radicals and students, in early January 1967, Mao and the Central Cultural Revolutionary Group (CCRG) ordered troops to ‘support the masses of the revolutionary left.’ As the campaign developed and became ever more chaotic over the following months, the army was subsequently directed to restore order, ultimately granting PLA members sweeping latitude to use any means necessary to reaffirm peace.10 In a fluid political situation, PLA members were pitted against the populace, who asserted they were acting as directed by China’s leaders, forced to adjudicate between opposing interests, and autonomously resolve unrest all over the country with no rules of engagement, clear direction, or often even understanding of the context of a given problem as it varied dramatically throughout China depending on the parties involved, the interpretation of the ideological direction being followed, and the local agendas at play.

For more than a decade, the PLA was the only institution in the PRC still functioning. The military was decisive in both policy-making and determining power struggles on many levels.11 While the details remain opaque, in 1970-1971, military commanders were reportedly divided, with some supporting Marshal Lin Biao, Vice-Premier, in a purported counter-revolutionary coup d’état. Throughout the period, other incidents of intra-party conflict drew the military into non-military matters and significantly eroded earlier periods of harmonious symbiosis. With the death of Mao in 1976 and the rehabilitation of Deng, specific actions were undertaken to modernize the military and professionalize it. While successful on many fronts, these transformations have also not been without complications and unanticipated consequences.

A New Focus on Modernization (1976-2012): Defining Trends

Increased Professionalization

In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, the PLA has become a focal point for reform, improvement, and de-politicization. The armed forces were downsized from 4.5 million to 2.2 today. It is rapidly becoming a more modern force which is increasingly educated, better equipped, more regimented with retirements, selection and recruiting. Doctrinal adjustments are regularly made and announced in biannual Defence White Papers, moving the army along a continuum away from land based notions of “People’s War” to concepts like “Limited War under High Technology Conditions.”12 Highlights of this trajectory include: professional military education; specialization in key knowledge sectors like cyber security; a primacy placed on science and technology; improved training and augmented technical skills; the integration and operation of more sophisticated military kit; improvements to command and control; and a focus upon combined joint operations.13

Since 1997, China’s military budget has increased at double digit rates, with much of these augmentations going to offset higher salaries, better housing, and improved facilities. In 2014, official defence spending was published as US$ 131.57 billion; the second largest in the world, and by some intelligence estimates, only half the actual number.14 Increased professionalism is, however, a two-edged sword. While on one level it removes the military from the daily entanglements of political life, it also promotes a greater sense of autonomy, corporateness, and a sense of responsibility to intervene if vital interests are threatened, coupled with the expertise to do, so should the occasion arise.15

A Reduced Emphasis upon Political Work or Ideological Study

While exceptions to the rule exist (such as the immediate period following the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre), military professionalization has generally resulted in less emphasis on political work and political education (relative to the time spent on military duties). The eroding foundations of Communist ideology are particularly of high impact on the military, as this calls directly into question the forces’ raison d’être—the promotion of Communist ideals through revolution and unqualified support of the Party. While Marxist ideology can still be invoked as required justification when needed, it is not treated in the sacrosanct manner it once was and this significantly reduces the ‘connective tissue’ seamlessly joining the Party and the PLA.

The Growing Bifurcation of Elites

China’s transition into a developed country with a relatively modern military force has demanded a move away from “dual role elites” to streams of distinct and separate senior officials who no longer share similar backgrounds, work experiences, or career paths. Promoted according to functional area expertise, few common bonds (including formal educational experience, common technical knowledge, shared management history, and common political connections) join military professionals, Party leaders, and senior civil servants, as was once the case with their revolutionary predecessors. The implications of this are important. Common frames of reference do not currently exist, and the potential for miscommunication is high. Civilian leaders do not regularly interact with their military counterparts, and a general ignorance of military tactics, training, and procedures continues, which is not systematized through effective briefing channels.16 In short, the growing bifurcation of elites impedes relationships built on trust as the distance between the military sphere and the political sphere lengthens. In particular, varying perspectives on national security issues are increasingly evident.

Divided State-Party-Citizenry Loyalties

In China, theoretically, the Communist Party, state apparatus, and military are all distinct entities with formal authorities, accountabilities, and responsibilities. In practice, the Party dominates all according to varying degrees through its membership, appointment routines, and sanctions. This too, however, is evolving. As China modernizes, power is becoming more decentralized, and the legitimacy of the Party (or lack thereof) is linked almost solely to the country’s economic performance. In fundamental respects, China’s legislature (or National People’s Congress) and its Standing Committee are now more appropriately serving an oversight function of the military. Directly linked to this is the NPC’s role in approving the military’s annual budget allocation. Once a ‘rubber-stamp’ process, this is less and less the case.

The emergence of a stronger state structure with ties to the military is fostering a duality of legally and administratively distinct centres (one state, one party) with which the PLA must successfully interact, each often sharing overlaps in membership, but at times competing and conflicting agendas.17 In short, where the Party provides guidance and direction, the state administers and implements policy on a day-to-day basis. The constitutional ambiguity of the military’s allegiance to the Party and the state potentially fosters conflictual loyalties, and challenges the asserted shorthand understanding that the Party and PLA are indivisible and the same. Moreover, the Army’s de facto loyalty to China’s citizenry is historically founded (hence the name “the People’s Liberation Army”), and when tested on 4 June 1989 [Tiananmen Square uprising in Beijing], manifested itself in command and control issues (troops in some cases would not fire of protestors). Long-standing damage to a relationship previously viewed by both sides as inviolable continues to this day, and many assert that even if ordered, such violent suppression would not happen again in light of this precedent and the fallout from it.18

Internal Factionalism within the PLA

Paralleling divided loyalties between Chinese Party, military and government bodies, one must also recognize that within each, factions exist, based upon generational, personal, professional, geographic, or institutional allegiances.19 These minor fault lines are most pronounced during crises, and they continue independent of professionalization.20 As was demonstrated by the civil-military dynamics of the Chinese government’s suppression of student demonstrators, both divisions and allegiances of interests emerged with respect to how to contain this situation and factional interests largely determined which troops would carry out the orders, who commanded them, what civilian Party leaders supported the actions, and who would be sanctioned following the mêlée. A consequence of factionalism within the PLA is that the Party’s control mechanisms (particularly because rule of law and constitutional restraints on the military are weak) needs to be robust to control not only a single military chain of command but (particularly during crises) perhaps more than one. This is not likely the case. A review of the evidence indicates the military’s influence, on the whole, is increasing, and the Party’s control decreasing.

On one level, the Party clearly controls the military as the Central Military Commission or CMC (the highest military oversight body in the PRC) is chaired by a civilian, President Xi Jinping. Moreover, the PLAs representation on formal political decision making bodies (such as the Politburo Standing Committee, the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the NPC) has decreased over the years, but this does not necessary equate to a reduced level of influence. For example, the two Vice-Chairman of the CMC are now military generals, as are the remaining other eight members. Irrespective of institutional membership, military leaders retain considerable say. Personal interactions and informal meetings with senior party elites provide venues to sway decisions. They do, also, hold important places on leading small groups dedicated to issues like Taiwan and other security questions, such as the South China Seas.21

In a similar vein, other methods of Party influence, as exercised through political commissars, party committees, and discipline inspection commissions are no longer empowered to enforce the ideological dictates of a paramount leader. In the face of diffuse reporting chains, competing allegiances, and often effective socialization by the military units they are supposed to be watching over, most do not provide the Party guardian and guidance function once so pervasive.

While perhaps overstated, Paltiel’s observation that “…China’s energies over the past century and half have given the military a prominent and even dominant role in the state, preempting civilian control and inhibiting the exercise of constitutional authority” is likely now truer than ever before in history.22 While still loyal to the party as an institution, the PLA is not unconditionally subservient to a particular leader and retains the resources to enter the political arena if (at the highest levels) a decision is made to do so.

Assessing the Implications of the Civilian-Military Trend Lines in China

The civilian-military trend lines evident in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution affirm that the symbiotic nature of the Party-PLA relationship has morphed in important respects since the late1960s. The promotion of professionalism, a reduced role for ideological indoctrination, an increasing bifurcation of civil-military elites, and growing state powers (complete with divided loyalties and continued factionalism) has complicated the political landscape informing how the CCP interacts with the PLA. If, as postulated, we have moved from a fused, ‘dual role elite’ model to one of ‘conditional compliance’ in which the military actually holds a preponderance of the power capabilities and where its interests are satisfied through concessions, bargaining, and pay-offs, empirical evidence should reflect this. A review of China’s three major leadership changes since the transition from the revolutionary ‘Old Guard’ to the modern technocrats confirms this.

Jiang Zemin (1989-2004)

Formally anointed and legitimized by Deng in 1989, Jiang assumed leadership without military credentials and few allies, viewed by many as a ‘caretaker’ Party Secretary in the wake of the Tiananmen Massacre. Despite his limitations, Jiang was well versed in the vicissitudes of palace politics. Informed by a high political acumen, he immediately promoted an image as an involved Commander-in-Chief, personally visiting all seven military regions, a sign of commitment not made by either the likes of Mao or Deng. Symbolic gestures like this were bolstered by his providing incentives to the PLA, such as: consistent raises in the defence budget; funds for military modernization; as well as equipment, logistics, and augmented R&D.23

Referred to as the ‘silk-wrapped needle,’ Jiang marshalled Party resources to not only reward, but to punish.24 His institutional authority over appointments enabled him to manipulate factions, dismiss those who opposed him, enforce new rigid retirement standards, and promote loyalists. A delicate equilibrium was established during the early-1990s until his semi-retirement in 2004,25 where Jiang guaranteed military priorities such as supporting ‘mechanization’ and an ‘information-based military’ (promoting the concept of RMA with Chinese characteristics) in exchange for the PLA backing of his legacy contributions to Marxist Leninist Mao Zedong thought with the enshrinement of his “Three Represents” doctrine.

Hu Jintao (2002-2012)

Like Jiang, Hu Jintao’s succession was the product of negotiation, compromise, and concessions. While neither opposed by the PLA, nor supported by the military ‘brass,’ Hu was a known commodity, having served as Vice-President (1998) and CMC Vice-Chairman since 1999. He was deemed acceptable until proven otherwise. In the shadow of Jiang (who retained the position of CMC Chair until 2004), Hu did not exert the same kind of influence in, nor engender the same kind of deference from, China’s military, but equally proved capable of fostering a pragmatic relationship with the army which ensured its interests, and in so doing, legitimized his leadership position.

Ceding much of the military planning and operational decisions to the PLA directly, Hu played to his strengths and focused upon national security issues (such as the successful resolution of SARs in China), which bolstered his credibility as a populist leader among the masses, indirectly increasing his power within both the military and the Party. Additionally, he focused upon foreign military security affairs (most notably, North Korea-US negotiations), which enabled him to link his personal political agenda with the military’s latest ambitions.

In according the military a distinct place in China’s national development plan, supporting China’s rise, and ensuring its vital interests, Hu recognized the military’s evolving requirement to ‘go global’ and its worldwide interests in non-combat operations, such as peacekeeping and disaster relief, as well as stakes in the open seas, outer space, and cyberspace as interest frontiers with no geographic boundaries.26 Under the slogan of ‘China’s historical mission in the new phase of the new century’ and his acquiescence to the PLA’s stated requirements ‘to win local wars under modern conditions’ by funding new technology acquisition, Hu received the army’s formal recognition for his contributions to military thought based upon “scientific development” which informed a “strategic guiding theory,” resulting in a new operational orientation for China’s military. Emulating his predecessor, Hu won ‘conditional compliance’ from the PLA by successfully bartering military needs and wants for the army’s support and endorsement of his political tenure. This was not done outside of self-interest. Hu, as did Jiang, skillfully coopted, fired, and promoted select Generals to serve his greater ends, and he did this through varied means. Ultimately, however, it was done in a manner acceptable to the military.

Xi Jinping (2012-Present)

Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, while replicating the ‘horse-trading’ of Jiang and Hu, marks a fundamental departure in leadership style. Often described as a transformative leader, Xi is openly critical of his predecessors and rails against earlier periods where reform stalled and corruption grew.27 An advocate of ‘top-level design,’ incrementalism is being supplanted by a massive attempt to centralize all aspects of the CCP’s power, which includes a major restructuring of the economy, government, administration, and military.

Nicknamed “the gun and the knife” as a slight for his attempts to simultaneously control the army, police, spies, and the ‘graft busters,’ Xi’s power appears uncontested at present. Nevertheless, he is also viewed as ‘pushing the envelope too far’ and endangering the equilibrium which has been established between the Party and PLA over the past 25 years. For example, only two years into his mandate, he fostered a Cult of Personality, “the Spirit of Xi Jinping” which was officially elevated to the same standing as that of Mao and Deng, by comparison, foundational figures in Chinese history. His open attacks of political ‘enemies’ (most notably Zhou Yongkang, a Politburo Standing Committee member and former security czar) breeds fear among almost every senior official, all of whom are vulnerable on some point. Equally true, an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign is inciting comrades to turn on comrades, not unlike a massive game of prisoner’s dilemma.

Nowhere is the pressure for reform greater than in the PLA. Xi advocates administering the army with strictness and austerity, promoting frugality and obedience. At his direction, “mass-line educational campaigns” designed to “rectify work style” through criticism and self-criticism are being implemented.28 Ideological and political building is now equated with army building, as a means of ensuring the Party’s uncontested grip over the troops ideologically, politically, and organizationally. Select military regions (those opposite Taiwan and adjacent to the South China Seas) and commanders from those regions are witnessing favoritism and promotion at the expense of others. Moreover, a new “CMC Chairmanship Responsibility System” has been instituted, which directly calls into question the support of some of Xi’s senior-most generals.

A ‘hardliner’ by nature, Xi recognizes that he must earn the support of the PLA. New military priorities he supports include: accelerating modernization; Joint Command and C4ISR; training; talent management, as well as equipment and force modernization. That said, his goal of achieving the Chinese dream of building a “wealthy, powerful, democratic, civilized, and harmonious socialist modernized nation” by 2021, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, is exceptionally ambitious. It will require endless commitments to competing interests in a period of economic stagnation and global economic downturn. Should the PLA come to believe they are not first in line for government largess, support for Xi could erode very quickly.29

Conclusion and Outlook

Projections of China’s purported rise to global Superpower status, or its possible implosion due to political infighting, an economic downturn, or large-scale civil unrest resulting from any number of possible reasons (ranging from the rural-urban divide or massive health issues) makes for rich debate. What is certain is that regardless of outcome, China’s civil-military relations will be a determining factor in how events unfold. This subject matter is profoundly understudied by Western scholars, particularly since the relationship between the Party and the PLA has been witnessing a fundamental transformation since the late-1960s.

Civilian-military relations in the PRC have morphed from a symbiotic nature during the revolutionary period (1921-1949), to a political nature after the founding of China in 1949, to a situation best described as ‘conditional compliance’ in the modernization era (1976-2014), where PLA support was secured through funding increases, political bartering, and guarantees to prioritize military development goals on an a priori basis with other competing domestic interests. Conditional compliance is an outcome of evolving civ-mil trends, which include the PLA’s professionalization and its growing sense of autonomy, reduced political study and indoctrination among Officers and enlisted men alike, the growing bifurcation of military and civilian elites, a sense of divided loyalties between the military, state, Party, and populace, as well as factionalism and weakened Party levers of control.

Irrespective of these trends, under the leadership reigns of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao (stretching from 1989-2012) an equilibrium was established where both the Party and PLA secured mutually beneficial results useful enough to keep the arrangement functioning. The succession of hardline Xi Jinping in 2012 is, however, increasingly calling this delicate balance into question.

Xi’s massive ongoing recentralization of power goals, his ‘Cult of Personality’ as China’s paramount leader, rather than acting as ‘first among peers,’ his prosecution of all possible political threats, and his zealous commitment to Communist ideology over all else, fundamentally risks alienating now entrenched alternative centres of power or ‘fragmentary authoritarianism,’ which has been a product of China’s modernization. If this proves true, there is a very realistic case for the PLA to redefine or terminate its backing of the Communist Party and opt for a new type of power sharing arrangement.

While impossible to predict, key indicators capable of fomenting such a dramatic change in China include the following: (a) President Xi pushing his personal agenda for China and self-aggrandizement to a point where it fundamentally challenges other entrenched interests; (b) a political-military crisis (such as with Japan and the East China Seas, Taiwan, or interests in the South China Seas) which involve external nations—particularly the US—and divide civilian/military interests on how to respond; or (c) a social crisis where mass mobilization takes place and civ-mil factions disagree on either how address the situation, or on who makes the decision when and where to act.

Each of the dire scenarios listed is a real possibility and all would be determined by the nature of civ-mil relations in China. Increased scholarly attention, critical thinking, and improved surveillance of early warning signals portending such possibilities must become a priority for Western intelligence analysts, militaries, and strategic planners.

About the author:
*Kurtis H. Simpson has been conducting research on China’s leadership, Communist Party politics, the People’s Liberation Army and foreign policy for over 30 years. After receiving a scholarship to study in Nanjing following the ‘Tiananmen Massacre’ of 1989, he completed both a Master’s Degree and a Ph.D at York University and commenced his professional career as an intelligence analyst at the Privy Council Office in 1997. He subsequently assumed leadership of the Asia Research Section at the Department of National Defence’s Chief Defence Intelligence (CDI) organization, and has filled numerous Director’s Positions in Transnational Relations, Global Issues, Policy, Programmes, and Personnel. He has published over 100 largely classified assessments, articles, and conference proceedings, and has served as the Head of Delegation abroad for the Canadian government. Dr. Simpson has recently been named a Centre Director with Defence Research and Development Canada.

Source:
This article was published by the Canadian Military Journal

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Notes:

1. See for example Christopher Layne, “This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana,” in International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, 2012, pp. 203-213.
2. The most objective and balanced report of the shift to global multipolarity and the rise of China can be found in National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030: Alternate Worlds. NIC 2012-01, December 2012.
3. For a summary of the risks to China, see David Shambaugh, “The Coming Chinese Crackup,” in The Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coming-chinese-crack-up-1425659198
4. Michael Kiselycznyk and Phillip C. Saunders, “Civil-Military Relations in China: Assessing the PLA’s Role in Elite Politics,” in Institute for National Strategic Studies China Strategic Perspectives, No.2. (Washington, DC: National Defence University Press, 2010), p.11.
5. Kenneth G. Lieberthal, “Introduction: The ‘Fragmented Authoritarianism” Model and Its Limitations,” in Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China, edited by Kenneth G. Lieberthal and David M. Lampton, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992, pp.6-10.
6. Jeremy Paltiel, “Civil-Military Relations in China: An Obstacle to Constitutionalism?” in Journal of Chinese Law, No. 9 (1995), pp. 35-64.
7. Andrew Scobell, “Why the People’s Army Fired on the People: The Chinese Military and Tiananmen,” in Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 1992, p.194.
8. Paltiel, p. 44.
9. See for example Li Ke and Chi Shengzhang, The Liberation Army in the Great Cultural Revolution. (Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1989).
10. For a very good summary of this period see Andrew Scobell, “Seventy-Five Years of Civil-Military Relations: Lessons Learned.” The Lessons of History: The People’s Liberations Army at 75, edited by Laurie Burkitt, Andrew Scobell, and Larry M.Wortzel. US Army War College: July 2003, pp. 427-450.
11. Jagannath P. Panda, “Leadership, Factional Politics and China’s Civil-Military Dynamic: Post-17th Party Congress Patterns,” in Strategic Analysis, Vol. 33, No. 5, August 2009, pp.716-729.
12. The continual list of adaptive initiatives to China’s military are well chronicled in regular online publications, such as The China Brief produced by the Jamestown Foundation. http://www.jamestown.org/chinabrief/
13. For an comprehensive assessment of China’s military modernization see, Michael S. Chase et.al., China’s Incomplete Military Transformation-Assessing the Weaknesses of the PLA. (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2015). www.rand.org/t/RR893
14. Consistent number/estimates are published online http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_China
15. Andrew Scobell, “China’s Evolving Civil-Military Relations: Creeping Guojia.” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 31, No. 2, Winter 2005, pp.227-244.
16. After reviewing incidents with the US and Japanese militaries and aspects of Sino-Taiwanese threat posturing, Andrew Scobell concludes that “….the incidents strongly suggest that civilian leaders were not aware of the specific activities and timetables, and had poor oversight.” See Andrew Scobell, “Is There a Civil-Military Gap in China’s Peaceful Rise?” in Parameters, Summer 2009, p.14.
17. Andrew Scobell, “China’s Evolving Civil-Military Relations: Creeping Guojia,” in Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 31, No. 2, Winter 2005, pp.227-244.
18. Andrew Scobell, “Why the People’s Army Fired on the People: The Chinese Military and Tiananmen,” in Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 1992, pp.193-213.
19. Often cited factions include the Shanghai faction, the Party Youth League faction, the Communist Party School faction, and others across a broad political spectrum, or those based upon the PLA’s field army structure.
20. Thomas J. Bickford, “A Retrospective on the Study of Chinese Civil Military Relations Since 1979: What have we learned? Where do we go?” in Seeking Truth from Facts: A Retrospective on Chinese Military Studies in the Post-Mao Era, edited by James C Mulvenon. (Washington DC: Rand Centre for Asia Pacific Policy, 2001), pp.23-24.
21. Michael D. Swaine, The Role of the Chinese Military in National Security Policymaking. (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1998).
22. Paltiel, “Civil-Military Relations in China…”, p. 39.
23. Wei-Chin, Lee. “China’s Military after the Sixteenth Party Congress: Long March to Eternity,” in JAAS, Vol. 38, No. 4-5, 2003, p. 429.
24. Reports indicate that by 1992 alone early retirements, rotations, or dismissals led to the replacement of almost half of the PLA generals (some 300 individuals). As well, the commanders and political commissars of all seven MRs were changed, enshrining Jiang at the forefront of PLA leadership. A second wave of reorganization occurred between 1993-1995, which resulted in the demotion of a further 100 officers.
25. In a deal reached between both Party and PLA leaders, Jiang (like Deng) upon retirement retained Chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to ensure continuity of leadership and to retain a powerbase to fully protect his own personal interests.
26. Jagannath P. Panda, “Leadership, Factional Politics and China’s Civil-Military Dynamic,” p.721.
27. Joseph Fewsmith, “The 16th Party Congress: Implications for Understanding Chinese Politics,” in China Leadership Monitor-The Hoover Institute, 2003, pp.43-53.
28. James C. Mulvenon, “Comrade, Where’s My Military Car? Xi Jinping’s Throwback Mass-Line Campaign to Curb PLA Corruption.” in China Leadership Monitor-The Hoover Institute, No. 42, pp.1-5.
29. Press reports as early as 2013 suggest that while the PLA continues to pay homage to Xi, support is more ritualistic than sincere and being exacerbated by his factional tendencies.

By Oscar Silva-Valladares

Donald Trump’s foreign policy views have generated a lot of controversy ever since he became a credible contender in the US presidential race. As president-elect, his remarks and, more important, his initial decisions, continue rattling the nerves of the US mainstream political apparatus across party lines, particularly as his judgement relates to the tumultuous US relationship with Russia.

To the establishment’s dismay, Trump has nominated ExxonMobil’s CEO, an oil businessman with extensive dealings in Russia, as secretary of state in the coming administration. The uproar that this appointment caused shed some light on the views (and limitations) of US officialdom on foreign policy and Russia in particular. Rex Tillerson is aggressively questioned for being ‘a Russian friend,’ a corporate business dealmaker with potential conflicts of interest, for not having international political experience and/or because his nomination implies a foreign policy devoid of ‘moral clarity.’ These arguments deserve some reflection.

Historically, US foreign policy has had a propensity for presenting itself as driven by values and principles. The roots of this belief are quite complex and include a sense of ‘exceptionalism,’ a belief deeply rooted in the American psyche and its messianic role and which has strong religious (Protestant) roots. Borrowing a term from the financial investment world, I would describe it as a ‘value-oriented’ foreign policy. Although this is not the norm in international relations (Russia and China, conspicuously, do not do this), this moral posturing has old precedents. Consider, for instance, the stance of Athens during the Peloponnesian War as defender and promoter of democracy in the Hellenic states and Pericles’ famous funeral speech presenting Athens as the example to follow (which reminds of John Kennedy’s talk at the height of the Cold War). As far as we know, it all ended up in tears for Athens.

The value-oriented attribute of American foreign policy has evolved since the country’s independence and its early incursions in the global arena. As a young nation, the U.S. understandably feared becoming again a European colony, prompting it to develop a formal policy of excluding European powers from the entire continent. ‘America for Americans,’ James Monroe’s slogan, was until very recently presented as a generous and disinterested call for independence of the entire Western hemisphere from old colonialism, but in reality it meant much more. Following the independence of most of Hispanic America and the growing economic and military strength of the United States, an opportunity for US hegemony opened up in the New World. Latin America was the first field (and victim) of American supremacy during the 19th century. However, US foreign policy didn’t always pretend to follow a moral compass. It is still debatable if Franklin Roosevelt actually said that a tin pot dictator from Nicaragua (or the Dominican Republic) ‘may be a son of a bitch but he’s our son of a bitch,’ but the statement candidly reflected what American foreign policy was (and mostly is, considering some of its allies) all about. From early days, this moral high ground was perceived by a few discerning ones with skepticism; the U.S. tried to justify its participation in World Word I as defender of democracy (the real reasons being more down to earth, including Germany’s threat to US merchant ships), an argument presented by Woodrow Wilson which some was criticized as having feeble feet since US allies included Imperial Britain and Tsarist Russia.

At the dawn of World War II, the US moral portrayal in foreign policy took a more definite shape. The fight against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was convincingly presented as a struggle for freedom and (once again) democracy, although this banner never ceased to cause discomfort given the US alliance with the Soviet Union, arguably the epitome of tyranny for most Americans. With the Nazi defeat and America’s refocus on the Soviet Union and its allies as main adversaries, the focus on values could take a clearer role with a lower risk of being named hypocritical. The international Marxist call, led by the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic of China, for so-called worldwide liberation against US capitalist hegemony, having also a very strong moral and ideological background, facilitated the U.S. to present its moral banderol once more. It also made it easier to justify (or simply ignore any criticism of) the C.I.A.’s prolific sequel of regime change actions and other mischief across the world.

Although the alleged correctness of US foreign policy still has plenty of supporters, for reasons ranging from pure political convenience to sincere ideological beliefs, the real consequences of American foreign policy for a least a century cannot be ignored. The United States’ undoubted contribution to the defeat of fascism in World War II, on one side of the balance, is outweighed by decades of death and destruction in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the name of freedom. US foreign policymakers forgot more than once that acting in the name of morality and righteousness led to the worst excesses of the European religious wars and the French Revolution. This is the fundamental flaw of believing in a value-oriented foreign policy. In international relations, one-sided morality will always clash with raison d’état and will inevitably be sacrificed. It would be more ethically convincing to believe that the primary duty of any government is to protect its citizens. ‘We must take care of our own people first,’ Trump’s battle cry during his presidential campaign, struck more than one chord. This, of course, has dangerous implications as governments collide, as they have done during the entire history, in the protection (right or wrong, real or alleged) of their people. But this is the world we live in, hopefully improved by the growth of a true international order where guiding principles will reflect the beliefs of the entire civilized world.

In the current global geopolitical stage, US foreign policy could not have found a more convincing adversary than Russia. The sins of Crimea, Georgia, and the Syrian civil war (plus the more recent hacking accusations ironically pointed out by the C.I.A., the world’s master of surveillance which recently finished quite successfully a wiretapping exercise on America’s top allies, including Frau Merkel) are enough reasons for many to put Russia in the dock and even to discuss potential military retaliation. But way before these events, the American elite had assimilated with gusto ancient European fears of Russia that over centuries came from different directions, from Karl Marx’s repeated calls for a Prussian invasion to topple the Tsar (to get rid of what he believed was the most despotic European government and pave the way to European social revolution) to Adolf Hitler’s vow in his last military proclaim that ‘Europe will never become Russian’ (he genuinely believed that Russia was an Asian nation). No matter how appealing may still be Russian culture in certain segments of Western intellect, this vast country is still an enigma. Of course in Washington D.C. everybody in power is aware and happy of the demise of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, but very few seem to realize that Russia is a country vastly different from the Soviet Union (a confusion well noted by Alexander Solzhenitsyn). On Crimea and the Ukraine crisis, few American politicians have tried to understand Russia’s position and what the Kievan Rus is all about, and have simply resorted to a Manichean judgmental approach.

The particular antipathy that vast segments of the American establishment have toward Russia has complex roots. The U.S.S.R. symbolized to America everything that was against the raison d’être of the U.S., i.e. its liberal democracy and its capitalist system. Few have noticed that Marxism does not present a challenge any longer (or has receded until better times), much less from Russia.

It is tempting for American politicians to simplify the world’s dynamics given the country’s straightforward geography and relatively simple neighborhood, compared with Russia’s 14 borders, having being invaded by every single meaningful European and Asiatic power (plus the U.S. during the Russian Civil War) at one point or another. Americans have difficulty understanding the depth of the pain of World Word II in the Russian soul (which makes ordinary Russians truly wary of military confrontation): as much as every life matters, 418,500 American deaths cannot weigh heavier than 24 million former Soviet citizens.

In American leading circles, nobody gives credit (to the contrary, it would be considered laughable) to the role of Russia in the remarkable peaceful demise of the Soviet Union, a very first in the history of humankind. If an objective measure would be used to rank states according to Western perceived shortcomings, Russia would not fare worse than most countries but nevertheless the perception would still place it at the very bottom.

I suspect, however, that there are growing limits to Russo-phobia despite one of the most systematic anti-Russian campaigns that the Western media ever led. Trump’s remarkable victory is a proof of this.

While the Western mainstream media keeps (and will continue) its focus on Russia’s wrongdoings, American investments and dealings in Russia are growing, from real estate to natural resources. The apparent contradiction between an American policy aimed at causing Russia economic injury (through sanctions) and an increasing bilateral business environment is clarified when we remember that the ultimate beneficiary of American assertiveness towards Russia is the U.S. military-industrial complex, presciently (and ironically) denounced by NATO’s first Supreme Commander and later on U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower.

During the Cold War, the impact and even the existence of the U.S. military-industrial complex were successfully dismissed as mere communist propaganda. But the facts are overwhelming. The U.S. defense budget is more than 1/3 of the world’s total and larger than the combined budget of the next 7 countries. 59% of arms sales from the world’s top 100 companies are made by American companies. US arms exports conservatively represent 1/3 of the total world sales. US defense spending represents 9.2% of the country’s general government expenditure. It would be simplistic to reduce US foreign policy to the role of a globetrotter weapons salesman, but it is equally naive to ignore that the US defense industry has had a lasting impact on American decision making.

Can US foreign policy rely on alternative economic and social forces less lethal that the military-industrial complex? If this is possible, then we have a ray of hope in a world that day by day becomes more dangerous. While consumption prompts business sales, war (i.e. weapons consumption) does not need to be a main driver of jobs and government taxes. A foreign policy that considers broader and more stable interests in bilateral and multilateral relations could develop better measures of self-restraint.

Donald Trump as US President presents the possibility of doing politics with non-conventional (i.e. less ideologically charged) eyes. As a down to earth (real estate) businessman, Trump had to walk through life literally with his five senses open. During his campaign he deplored the state of US infrastructure in comparison to the impressive constructions that oil has funded in places like Dubai. This could not have escaped him, but likely it evades most US politicians that land in foreign countries with lavish receptions and undue attention that deludes and prevents them from noticing the real world. Until now, Trump’s world has been more real that Hillary Clinton’s universe of like politicians, lobbyists, campaign financiers, and sycophants.

At some point in their professional lives, full time politicians inevitably lose perspective. This makes them gravitate around the key eternal bureaucracies (the ‘curia’ in the governmental makeup, defense/intelligence establishments) and fall in the trap of the immovable agendas of these entities. For ambitious but inept politicians (and opportunists playing politics), perennial playbooks offer the opportunity to avoid accountability and decision-making; this is for instance the reality of many Central and Eastern European governments following the diktats of NATO and the European Union establishment, but that is another matter.

In his efforts to reshape US international relations, Donald Trump could build strong and natural allies in a world that has deeply changed, and where multilateralism plays a growing role (to the consternation of those that thought that the demise of the Soviet Union would consolidate the United States’ world predominance). Hopefully, he will understand that the U.S. has growing limitations in its ability to exercise military power for a variety of reasons, including a dramatic change in the dimension and nature of military conflicts and its waning economic power. Historically, military power outlasts economic power (the Soviet Union was a good example). It would be a supreme irony if the U.S. would follow a path similar to the Soviet fate.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

With reform-minded folks in charge of the Executive and Legislative Branches, unelected, unaccountable, un-removable bureaucrats may soon be exerting far less power over our policies, regulations, lives and livelihoods. Energy and climate are high on the fix-it list. Another important topic is insecticides.

The European Union and Canada have provided object lessons in how not to regulate these important chemicals. Scott Pruitt and his new team over at EPA will certainly want to avoid their malpractice.

For nearly a decade, manufactured controversies have raged around a relatively new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. These advanced systemic crop protectors are absorbed into the plant itself and thus target only pests that suck or chew on crops, particularly during the plants’ early growth phases.

That minimizes impacts on beneficial insects – like crop-pollinating bees. domesticated and wild bees are barely exposed and thus unlikely to be harmed when neonic seed or soil treatments are used, in contrast to what can happen when manmade or “organic” chemicals are sprayed on crops. But despite this minimal risk, anti-pesticide activists have tried for years to blame neonics for recent honeybee health problems.

In 2013, their well-funded advocacy campaigns played a major role in causing the EU’s decision-making European Commission to impose a “two-year” ban on using neonicotinoids with bee-attractive crops.

Not surprisingly, almost four years later, there is no sign that the Commission will reconsider its position, despite accumulating evidence that managed bee populations are not now and never were in any danger of collapse or extinction. As my longer article on MasterResource.org explains, that evidence includes the EU’s own 2014 and 2015/16 studies, and nearly a dozen large-scale field studies around the world.

Going even further, the European Food Safety Authority now says bees are at grave risk from neonics used on European crops that do not attract bees, such as winter cereals, beets, potatoes, leafy vegetables, maize (corn) and sorghum – whether the neonics are seed treatments, foliar sprays or soil applications. There may be no actual evidence of harm, the EFSA says, but a risk to bees “cannot be excluded.”

Just as crazy, the agency’s 2013 Bee Guidance Reference Document lets bureaucrats decide which studies and data can be accepted and deemed relevant – and which can be ignored. It also means chemicals that can control crop pests may never be approved; and only ineffective chemicals will be approved (along with chemicals that are or could be dangerous for bees, but are deemed to be “natural” or “organic”).

That explains why EU member nation governments for three years have refused to approve the BGRD. However, in the wacky world of EU regulations, the mere fact that member governments have refused to approve a guidance document doesn’t prevent unelected Eurocrats from using it to advance their agendas.

The BGRD specifies a three-tier scheme for evaluating potential impacts on bees. At Tier 1, extremely low laboratory test thresholds pretty much automatically force evaluations under more complex, costly and time-consuming second and third tiers. At the highest tier – full field testing – the guidance specifies wide spatial separation requirements between test fields and control fields, where beehives are located.

To ensure experimental integrity, the BGRD requires that neonic test areas must be free of other pesticide-treated, bee-attractive crops, and far enough away from such areas that tests are not affected. But that means scientists need areas four times larger than Paris, France. That’s virtually impossible in densely populated Europe. Catch 22!

To pass the “no risk” test, evaluators must then prove the pesticide being tested doesn’t produce more than a 7% fluctuation in a beehive’s populations. But natural fluctuations can easily reach 15% from frigid cold snaps, infestations by Varroa destructor mites, or even beekeepers applying chemicals to hives to control mites or other pests and diseases. So it’s impossible to show that population changes greater than 7% were not due to neonic use on crops. Catch-22 again! But it gets even worse.

Euro regulators even ignored some of the best available data: large-scale field studies done under Good Laboratory Practices. Nearly a dozen such studies consistently demonstrate that no observable adverse effects on honeybees result from field-realistic exposures to properly applied neonic pesticides.

But instead of accepting these studies, EU bureaucrats rely on laboratory studies that other researchers have shown consistently overdose bees with pesticides. That lets regulators focus on adverse neonic impacts that can justify bans, but under conditions that bees would never encounter in the real world.

In another case, five carefully conducted, inter-related studies published in the journal Ecotoxicology covered a large-scale 2013-14 northern Germany field study of honey bees, bumble bees and solitary red mason bees that forage in oilseed rape (akin to canola) fields treated with the neonic Clothianidin.

The elaborate, sophisticated studies assessed neonic residues from bees and hives under actual field conditions. They found that the residues were well below levels that can adversely affect bees – and that neonics “did not cause any detrimental effects on the development or reproduction” any of the three species. Enter Joseph Heller, yet again.

The studies were paid for by Bayer CropLife, because EU agencies generally don’t fund such studies (though they do give millions a year to environmentalist groups). Voila! Anti-pesticide activists can challenge and dismiss the well-documented experimental results – and the EFSA can ignore the results in reaching its latest conclusions on risks to bees that are not attracted to neonic-protected crops. All because of a guidance document that EU member states never approved!

Unfortunately, bad science and regulatory policy are not confined only to the other side of the Atlantic.  HealthCanada recently imposed a phased-in ban on another relatively new neonic pesticide. It did so using an EU-like Catch-22 approach, despite any actual evidence of real-world harm – and without considering insect infestations, crop losses, the absence of safe alternative pesticides, or the fact that other insecticides actually are harmful to bees and/or aquatic life.

All this suggests there is ample reason to worry about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s own inbred inclinations. A late 2014 EPA study/memorandum contends that neonic pesticides were ineffective in controlling soy crop pests. It was refuted by scientists who had better data and repudiated by the US Department of Agriculture. But EPA did not withdraw or cancel the 2014 soy efficacy memo.

A 2015 preliminary EPA assessment essentially exonerated neonic seed treatments, as posing virtually no risk to bees. But another one said neonics on citrus trees are potentially dangerous, even though neonics as the only solution for “citrus greening” disease that is decimating lemon, orange and grapefruit trees.

These EU, Canadian and EPA actions offer important lessons for Trump-Pruitt pesticide regulators.

• Stick to risk-based standards embedded in U.S. legislation, and avoid any drift toward the “precautionary principle,” which looks only at alleged or inflated risks from using chemicals – never at the risks of not using them, and never at risks that could be reduced or eliminated by using the chemicals.
• Focus on replicable, evidence-based, field-tested science. Don’t let agenda-driven activists pressure EPA (or the Agriculture Department) into excluding the best and most relevant available data.
• Revise or eliminate standards, policies and regulations that were based on less than defensible, real-world data and analyses; that do not fully consider the costs and benefits of using (or not using) available chemicals; or that fail to balance demonstrated agricultural, consumer and environmental considerations.

EPA policies on neonics and other issues would be a perfect place to begin changing the way Washington works.

Russia adroitly links seemingly distant global events, using each as leverage for plans elsewhere.

By Taehwa Hong*

World War II is not over yet. Technically, Japan and Russia are still at war. After the United States dropped an atomic bomb at Hiroshima, Joseph Stalin hurriedly ordered the Red Army to join the Pacific Theater, declaring war on Imperial Japan. In the process the Soviet Union “liberated” the islands of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and the Habomai group. Even after Japan’s surrender to the allies in August 1945, the USSR continued to occupy the “Southern Kurils,” and Russian troops are stationed on the islands to this day.

This territorial dispute has long obstructed the formal signing of a ceasefire, and in December Russia’s President Vladimir Putin met with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to discuss the handover of two islands.

Russia’s attempt to improve relations with Japan comes at a time of a Russian pivot to Asia, whereby it tries to profit from the delicate balance of power among the United States, Japan and China. With increasing tensions between Japan and China, the former is wary of the prospect of Russia-China partnership in the region. In September, Russia and China conducted joint naval exercises in the South China Sea. Russia is well aware of its advantages and hopes to secure a flow of Japanese investment to the Russian Far East. Russia also expects relief from the sanctions Japan put in place in accordance with the West embargo following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. At the same time, Russia continues to enjoy a cordial relationship with China, its largest trading partner since 2011. In 2014 the two nations agreed to construct a pipeline that will deliver 38 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to China annually and sealed a landmark $400 billion gas deal.

Russia’s expanded role in East Asia has less to do with engagement in the region than with the promotion of its national interests globally. In fact, Russia’s trade in Asia accounts for less than 1 percent of the region. As The Economist rightly pointed out in November, “Russia’s trade policy in the region boils down to selling weapons to anyone who will buy them.” Russia has been adroitly linking seemingly distant global events, using each issue as leverage for the other. In October, Russia suspended a Plutonium Disposition Agreement with the United States after the State Department announced suspension of talks on Syria. In 2008, Russia used the prospect of a joint anti-terrorism front with the West as leverage to avoid retaliation for the invasion of Georgia.

Cooperation with Japan in East Asia can be used as leverage in dealing with China, amid speculations that China’s One Belt One Road initiative will collide with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, the single biggest Russian project in Asia. Although Russia and China remain strategic partners, China’s growing influence in the former Soviet zones jeopardizes Russia’s potential sphere of influence in Central Asia. In recent years, former Soviet states have looked eastward to balance Russian influence. For instance, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan explicitly made their commitment to neutrality policy, detaching themselves gradually from Russia’s grip. Azerbaijan is keen to participate in the China’s One Belt One Road project, as it has much to gain from the development of infrastructures in the port of Baku, its capital, on the Caspian Sea. China replaced Russia as the biggest buyer of Turkmenistan’s gas in 2015, while Russian imports of Turkmen gas decreased from 40 billion cubic meters in 2008 to about 10 billion cubic meters in subsequent years.

The Ukraine crisis, plummeting global oil prices and international sanctions reveal the limitations of reliance on Russia. Overall, the Eurasian Economic Union faces internal problems already, as Russia imposes a single tariff based on its own pre-existing trade barriers. As Cholpon Orozobekova has noted, the union’s tariffs on goods from China are painful for countries such as Kyrgyzstan, which uses Chinese imports to produce and re-export. Against this backdrop, growing Chinese power in the former Soviet states poses a serious challenge to Moscow’s broader goal of remaining a major power in Eurasia. Chinese diplomats have argued that One Belt One Road and the Eurasian Economic Union will synergize to create opportunities for infrastructure construction – and although it’s true that economic projects aren’t zero-sum games, Russia remains politically cautious and skeptical towards China. Moscow has long enjoyed political influence and manipulations in Central Asian countries, using economic links and investment projects as bargaining chips. Furthermore, Russia have already seen how economic issues can bring political fallout with the Ukraine Revolution, triggered by a botched Russia-Ukraine trade deal that would have kept Ukraine away from the European Union.

Russia does not go as far as endorsing China’s claims when it comes to South China Sea, mostly resorting to diplomatic calls for restraint. And compare this to US State Department statements in support of its ally Japan that explicitly call out “coercive economic actions,” “confrontational rhetoric” and “escalation of tension” by China. Russia recognizes China’s self-proclaimed Air Defense Identification Zone, but abstains from direct involvement in the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute. Improved relations with Japan may be useful for Putin when pressuring China to recognize the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet zone, where effort has been invested to maintain powerhouse status.

It took place in August 2013. It was a hack of unprecedented scale, impetuous, audacious, and, if we are to believe Yahoo, undetected at the time. The result of that effort across 1 billion accounts was a profitable use of material to spammers and cyber criminals operating on the dark web, with some estimates on proceeds coming to $300,000.

The breached data comprised email addresses, names, phone numbers, birthdays, hashed passwords, and an assortment of encrypted and unencrypted security questions, with their answers. If the company’s public front is to believed, the hack avoided unencrypted passwords, credit card numbers or information related to bank accounts.

To this could be added the hack of 2014, disclosed in September, that targeted the details of half a million accounts. The words from the publicity arm of the company were hardly encouraging. The one billion-account hack was “distinct from the incident we disclosed on September 22, 2016.”[1]

What was the CEO Marissa Mayer thinking on becoming CEO? Security could hardly have been a priority. This is in stark contrast to the bruising the company got six years ago when it, along with Google and other technology companies, received the unwanted attention of Chinese military hackers.

Responses varied. Sergey Brin of Google hired a swathe of security engineers with enticing bonuses. Yahoo preferred dragging its collective, corporate feet, facing internal battles between the “Paranoids,” as Yahoo’s security term is known as, and the rest of the business, on security costs.[2]

According to Jeremiah Grossman, a former information security officer for Yahoo, “there’s confusion, there’s frustration, and there’s not a lot of support for the security team” (Wired, Dec 14). To this company atmospherics could also be added the general desire on the part of the wonks to keep mum on the issue of whether it had received the attention of hackers.

Nor is Mayer anywhere in sight. In the unconvincing words of a Yahoo spokeswoman, “Marissa and our executive team have been deeply engaged in our ongoing investigation.”[3] According to the Financial Times, she should have been engaged right back in July, when she already had knowledge about the 2013 hack. This raised “questions about whether [she] withheld information from investors, regulators and its acquirer Verizon until this week.” Very naughty indeed.

This kaleidoscope of chaos has come to light as Mayer has been working on making Yahoo appealing to Verizon to the tune of $4.8 billion, which was pretty much all that was looking up for the company.

That appeal, even for this sick man of the technology field, has worn off considerably with two massive hacks in succession, suggesting that the company has not taken heed of the vast information insurgency being pursued across the Internet. In the ruthless technology jungle, Yahoo has lagged and limped. Verizon, while still on board, wants amendments to the deal.

Having taken their eyes off matters of security, it is fitting to consider the extent Yahoo is liable for having a system that offered such ready pickings. Numerous states have onerous obligations on data companies to protect the integrity of what is gathered under their watch. A standard of care, the breach of which incurs penalties, is assumed.

Britain’s deputy information commissioner, Simon Entwisle, is eyeing the company, as are his colleagues at several other watchdogs. The Information Commissioner’s Office has some form, having fined TalkTalk to the tune of £400,000 for a cyber attack that took place in October last year. The theft of personal data there involved 157,000 customers. Among them were 16,000 instances where bank account details were also pilfered.

Despite TalkTalk’s cooperative demeanour (the company claimed “to be open and honest with our customers from the outset”), the fine remained. “Yes, hacking is wrong,” observed Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, “but that is not an excuse for companies to abdicate their security obligations.” It was incumbent on the company to do “more to safeguard its customer information. It did not and we have taken action.”[4]

The Yahoo account holder may also rush to keyboard or pad to whisk away the account into oblivion, bidding a bitter adieu to the flawed technology giant. But as has been noted, even after a Yahoo email account is deleted, “the actual details of the account won’t be cleared from Yahoo’s database for 90 days and even then, Yahoo may retain some information.”[5]

Reeling and recoiling, the Yahoo top brass have had little in the way of answers. The market is doing the talking for them on one level, while customers will, in all likelihood, do the other. But the damage is done, and any deletion of the Yahoo account is about to have a weak futility to it. In the age of the deep hack, not even deletion will assist you.

Notes:
[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/12/yahoo-hack-billion-users/

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/technology/yahoo-data-breach-hacking.html?_r=0

[3] http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/yahoo-just-had-two-biggest-hacks-ever-so-why-haven-n696496

[4] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37565367

[5] http://theconversation.com/second-revealed-yahoo-hack-means-it-really-is-time-to-delete-your-yahoo-account-70556

There’s a reason we don’t let nine-year-olds vote.

But what about those overgrown children who are nine between the ears?

It wasn’t long ago that Hillary Clinton condemned Donald Trump for refusing “to say he would respect the results of this election.” Calling it something “no other presidential nominee has ever done,” she proclaimed, “[B]y doing that, he is threatening our democracy.”

Of course, that was when Clinton was sure she’d win.

Now, with liberals having rioted, issued death threats against Trump electors and basically having thrown a tantrum, it’s apparent they’re willing to storm the walls of the Bastille to get their way.

In a most puerile display of petulance, of unmitigated childishness, the claim Hillary didn’t really lose because she “won the popular vote” has become popular liberal sentiment. Well, consider an analogy. Did you know that in tennis you can win more games than your opponent but lose the match? If I lose 6-0, 6-7, 6-7, I’ve won 18 games to my opponent’s 14. Such outcomes do sometimes occur, yet in all my years playing competitive tennis (my former life), I never heard anyone losing such a match, anytime, anywhere, claim he really won. It never enters your mind. You know the rules. You accepted the rules going in. You played by the rules. And you lost under the rules. Period.

In fact, I’ve never seen even the youngest child make such a claim. But now some of the oldest Democrats are doing just that regarding the election. It’s dishonorable, childish, unmanly and, frankly, utterly pathetic.

To be clear, the overgrown juveniles have every right to lobby to change the Electoral College system for future contests, misguided though such a goal is. But to claim you “didn’t really lose” — after embarking upon the process knowing the rules, strategizing based upon the rules and competing under them — is taking sore-loser status to new lows.

It also reflects ignorance. Not only does the “We really won” claim ignore that not only would Trump (and Clinton) have campaigned differently had we operated based on popular vote, but voters would have behaved differently; for example, perhaps millions of blue-state Republicans stayed home Election Day, realizing their votes would be irrelevant. Again, contests are waged based on the rules in place, not on rules not in place.

We also have no idea what the popular-vote total actually is because not all the votes were counted. Some states have laws dictating that if the margin of victory is too great to be overcome by uncounted votes (e.g., absentee ballots), they need not be counted. The reason for this imprecision is that you don’t have to be precise about what is not a determining factor in the outcome.

And we don’t have a “popular vote.”

It’s much as how in tennis, while I can win more points than my opponent but lose the match, I never once knew what the points total was. It wasn’t counted because it was irrelevant.

Then, since liberals claim this matter is about legitimacy, let’s talk about illegitimate votes. Reporting on the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, even the liberal Washington Post told us in 2014 that more “than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples [taken by researchers] indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted.” The Post further informs, “Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.”

In other words and quite laughably, liberals want to label Trump’s victory illegitimate based on a popular vote that itself is known to be illegitimate. Oh, and spare me the “Vote fraud is unproven and hardly ever occurs” line. With liberals having pushed Jill Stein’s recount efforts with jihadist-like zeal, this claim is more hollow than ever.

As to the real threat to our nation, the liberals illustrate it well, being the “men of intemperate minds [who] cannot be free” and whose “passions forge their fetters.” For barbarity begets tyranny. Like a child losing privileges due to irresponsibility, if people prove too immature to govern themselves, they will ultimately lose the power to do so. This is why it’s too bad voting rights can’t be granted based on mental age — it could save our republic.

Dear President Obama:

On November 28, 2016, Jimmy Carter, the President who negotiated the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978, wrote an op ed for the New York Times titled, “America Must Recognize Palestine.” His urgent plea was directed to you to take “the vital step…to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership,” before you leave office on January 20, 2017.

Mr. Carter referenced your reaffirmation in 2009 of the Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt and United Nations Resolution 242 when you called “for a complete freeze on settlement expansion on Palestinian territory that is illegal under international law.” He noted that in 2011 you made clear that, in your words, “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines” and that “negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine.”

Former President Carter sees that the “combined weight of United States recognition, United Nations membership [for Palestine] and a UN Security Council resolution solidly grounded in international law would lay the foundation for future diplomacy.”

With Israeli lawmakers moving to annex more Palestinian land (the 22 percent left of old Palestine), prompting a public plea by outgoing UN chief Ban Ki-moon to reconsider, and the forthcoming carte blanche for Israeli repression of the Palestinians from the Trump Administration, Mr. Carter sees these measures as “the best—now, perhaps, the only—means of countering the one-state reality that Israel is imposing on itself and the Palestinian people” and “that could destroy the Israeli democracy.”

He adds that “recognition of Palestine and a new Security Council resolution are not radical new measures, but a natural outgrowth of America’s support for a two-state solution.”

In the remaining post-election weeks of your final term, you are freer than you’ve ever been to make these decisions for peace and justice in that troubled area—moves rooted in your pronouncements early in your first term.

More than any other president, you have approved the greatest transfer of the latest military weapons, research and intelligence to the Israeli government. More than any president, you have agreed to an unprecedented 10 year deal for the multi-billion dollar annual military assistance program. No other country has ever come close to receiving that gift from the American Taxpayers.

More than any other president, you have been forbearing to the extreme when the Israeli prime minister, in an impetuous move, widely criticized in Israel, circumvented the White House in 2015 so as to undermine your delicate, multi-lateral negotiations with Iran by his addressing a joint session of Congress.

In return for all this largess and astonishing self-restraint, you have been the subject of a non-stop revilement in Israel with ugly racist epithets and absurd accusations of anti-Semitism against Jews. This campaign of calumny has brought down your approval polls there often to single digits and diminished the Israeli peace movement.

Is it not time for action on behalf of regional peace? You’ll have the support of the active peacemakers on both sides—including numerous former heads of the Israeli domestic and foreign intelligence agencies (see The Gatekeeper and the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace), former cabinet ministers, mayors and public intellectuals, not to mention stalwart Israeli human rights organizations, such as B’Tselem.

As if any further urgency to act is needed, you must be appalled by the declarations of Donald Trump and his selection of his bankruptcy lawyer, who is privy to Trump’s innermost business dealings, David Friedman, to be the next Ambassador to Israel.

Friedman, who has accused you of ”blatant anti-Semitism ,” is a hard-liner on Israeli colonial expansionism and annexations in the West Bank. His bigotry against Palestinian Arabs is deep and long standing, making him an anti-Semite against these Arabs whose Semitic ancestors have lived there since time immemorial (See James Zogby’s “The Other Anti-Semitism”). If Friedman reflects Mr. Trump’s policies, the uncontrollable eruption of this long-simmering conflict is seen as a near certainty by expanding Jewish-American groups such as J Street and Jewish Voices for Peace.

What more foreboding  do you need?

Many commentators who know you have described your last year in office as rounding out your historical legacy as President. I have suggested a number of initiatives that help define your presidency (see Return to Sender).

But Jimmy Carter is experienced, right and prescient—he’s earned that encomium—in believing that joining the community of nations by recognizing Palestine, allowing the UN security Council resolution to be passed and supporting UN membership for Palestine could be your most consequential contribution to Middle East security, and our domestic priorities, with other likely collateral benefits for world peace.

The American people, for the most part, including Jewish and Arab Americans, judging by the polls over time, would applaud such statesman-like actions.

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader

By Rajesh Rajagopalan

A month after his victory and a month away from actually taking the oath of office, President-elect Donald Trump is clearly overturning Washington’s established foreign policy consensus. The implications of the strategic changes Trump is introducing are quite profound, if they actually become policy. It could indicate that the US will now play a much more central role in maintaining a strategic balance in Asia and possibly drive a wedge between China and Russia. This should be welcome in New Delhi, where most strategic analysts have been puzzled by the US reluctance to take on China, a stronger adversary, while haranguing Russia, which is too weak to pose much threat to the US. But Trump’s foreign policy and style have dangers also that New Delhi must consider as it tries to figure out how to deal with a radically new Washington.

On the campaign trail, Trump was lambasted for what the Washington Post characterised as an “incoherent, inconsistent, incomprehensible foreign policy.” After he won the election, opinions on his foreign policy did not improve much. But nevertheless, there is a core consistency in Trump’s strategic approach: it is defined by a hardline approach to China and a softer view of Russia. This upends decades of US strategic policy, which took a harder line on Russia and a softer approach to China.

There was a logic to such an approach during the Cold War, when Russia represented a more serious threat. But the Russian collapse at the end the Cold War, and China’s resurgence over the last two decades, did not lead to the necessary strategic reappraisal in Washington. Instead the US continued to mollycoddle a rising China, and worry and irritate a weakened Russia, driving Moscow into Beijing’s arms. Despite rhetorical recognition of US’s growing relative weakness, there was little attempt in Washington to reassess the consequences of the changing balance of power between the US, China and Russia, let alone adjust US policy to this change.

Trump’s approach dramatically shifts America’s strategic weight against China, while at the same time potentially splitting the emerging Sino-Russian axis. Both elements of his approach — countering China as well as partnering Russia — are very visible. His most dramatic intervention so far has been in setting up a congratulatory phone call with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, a break from a tradition of several decades of the US President not talking to Taiwanese leaders. After some initial surprise, China’s response has gotten angrier, but Trump has pushed back too. This is another change: until now, all it took for a US administration to scamper for cover was a raised Chinese eyebrow. Trump is signaling that China cannot unilaterally set such red lines.

This needed to be done. The US has for too long stepped back rather than confront China, even though the US has gained little by way of Chinese cooperation. Such confrontation carries risks for both sides, but these are risks that both sides should cooperate in avoiding, and it is not US’s sole responsibility. US reluctance to challenge China so far has only appeared to embolden China, not lead to China’s cooperation. Righting this balance was long overdue. For example, on Taiwan specifically, China has succeeded in creating the impression that the US accepts China’s “one-China” policy, though the US position itself is somewhat more complicated, as John Tkacik points out. An additional, unintended benefit, has been that Trump’s hardline on China has garnered Trump greater support within the Republican strategic community.

Trump’s tough approach to China should generally be welcome in the region. If the Trump administration is truly willing to use America’s weight to right the increasingly skewed balance of power in the region, that can only benefit the region, and India.

The other side of the equation, of warmer feelings towards Russian and President Vladimir Putin, has also been highly visible and indeed much more controversial. It has generally been met by with puzzlement or else with ridicule, as an indication of Trump’s strongman tendencies which reveal itself in his love for other strongmen. Even Republicans have opposed Trump’s views on Russia, with several former Republican officials signing an open letter disapproving it, though the base of the GOP and even some leaders have supported Trump. Trump has refused to criticise Russian intervention in Ukraine and Syria, or even Russian hacking of the Democratic party and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Strategically, closer ties with Russia makes sense for the US. Russia, save for its nuclear weapons, is a much weaker power today, but one that is valuable to China for a variety of reasons including its diplomatic clout, its military technology and its natural resources. Preventing a Russia-China axis should have been a major US strategic objective, which should not have been too difficult considering these are neighbours that have had a history of political and territorial conflict. Instead, American and European behaviour forced Moscow to seek alignment with China. This is not to excuse Russian behaviour in Ukraine or Georgia or Syria, or its threat to the Baltics. But an easier way to ensure Russian cooperation in all these cases would have been to find a modus vivendi that would have provided security for both Russia and its smaller neighbours. Trump’s revision of US policies towards Russia is thus also long overdue.

An America partnering with Russia and containing China is an ideal opportunity for New Delhi and for the rest of Asia. For India, Russia has been historically a close strategic partner and the US a new one, and it would be difficult for New Delhi to maneuver between them if they are on bad terms. While the US is without doubt a more valuable partner today, India cannot easily ignore its dependence on Russia just yet. And a Sino-Russian partnership would be a serious strategic headache for India. Thus there is little doubt that India stands to benefit if Trump brings US and Russia closer and splits Russia from its entente cordiale with China. Russia may be less important to the rest of Asia, but anything that limits China’s power would obviously benefit them too.

Unfortunately, this rosy strategic picture has a number of blemishes that New Delhi would be wise to consider too. The most important is that it is not clear that Trump is basing his approach on any careful consideration of strategic choices. So far, neither Trump nor his supporters or campaign have presented any well thought strategic rationale for his choices, leading to the unsettling conclusion that these are random thoughts that have internal logic and consistency only by chance. As Thomas Wright recently argued about Trump’s foreign policy, “it is hard to say if small actions are part of a coherent strategy or if he is simply winging it.” If this is a valid conclusion, the danger is that US strategy could change very quickly, if Trump falls out with Putin or if China is smart enough to find a way to appease or appeal to Trump. India, as well as Washington’s other allies and partners, need predictability and dependability from the senior partner in the alliance. It is early days yet, of course, but Trump needs to generate some confidence that there will be some stability in his approach, possibly by outlining a strategic rationale for his policies.

Second, much of Trump’s criticism of China has to do with China’s mercenary trade policies that exploits liberal trade unfairly. Trump has repeatedly blamed China for stealing US jobs, though data has consistently shown that the vast majority of manufacturing jobs lost in the US is due to automation, not China. Though China can make some concessions — on currency valuation, or greater market access, for example — it is unlikely that Beijing will be able to satisfy Trump’s demands. The consequences, if Trump is serious, could be a trade war that could escalate to beggar-thy-neighbour policies that will leave not only China and the US worse off, but seriously damage the other Asia Pacific economies, including those of India and Japan. The US needs to counter China and oppose China’s unfair trade practices, and it might lead to a trade war if China is obdurate, but a trade war cannot be the starting point.

Third, Trump’s focus on China’s trade policies also suggest the additional danger that if China is able to successfully negotiate a deal with Beijing, the US might cut a separate deal with Beijing and leave its allies in the region in the lurch. Of course, this is a problem for all allies at all times — think of poor Taiwan itself — abandoned because the US decided that it had bigger fish to fry. The evidence on this so far in a Trump administration is mixed. On the positive side, Taiwan, the first point of tension, is a political rather than an economic issue, and many of Trump’s advisors are concerned more about the political and military challenge that China presents than simply trade issues. On the negative side, Trump has been harsh about free riding allies and appears far more unilateralist in his approach, suggesting he does not see much use for allies, or at the least, that allies will have to walk behind than alongside the US. It is too early to figure out which of these tendencies will prevail.

This leads to the final point: the role of allies in Trump’s strategy. American strategy until now has been to enroll allies in its strategic projects, not because the US can’t go it alone but because it is cheaper and more legitimizing to have others support you. Trump seems to think of allies only in terms of the former, as a way to reduce US material burden. On the one hand, this is not a new issue: US has for decades tried to get its allies — from Europe to Asia — to bear a fair portion of this burden. On the other hand, the US has never threatened to walk away unless it is paid, as Trump has implied. Even the most unilateralist of US administrations, George W. Bush’s for example, understood the need of alliances as legitimising tools. The Trump administration needs to realise this too.

For US allies and partners in Asia, US unilateralism has both benefits and risks. If the US is willing to balance China on its own, it absolves allies and partners of both the political cost of joining an anti-China group as well as the material costs of balancing, while benefiting from China’s containment. But the downsides are also great: a fire in the region will singe everyone. An additional concern for US allies will be that a volatile Trump will need to be handled with kid’s gloves: the usual practice of cursing Washington for six days in a week and expecting its help on the seventh might no longer apply.

For the last decade, the problem was that the US seemed to ignore the rising challenge from China and Washington’s policies only seemed to strengthen Beijing. US allies in Asia were desperate for the US to step up. Trump’s efforts to befriend Russia and balance China makes perfect strategic sense. The problem is that it is not clear that it is strategic.

The protests in the lead-up to Jakarta’s gubernatorial elections, demanding the ouster of minority candidate Ahok for blasphemy, demonstrated how religion, in its decontextualised form, was employed for politics. The misuse of sacred texts for political gains can undermine the pluralistic tradition of Indonesian Islam.

By Nursheila Muez*

Jakarta recently witnessed its biggest rallies in years when on 4 November 2016, some 100,000 people took to the streets. Most called for the arrest, and some demanded the execution, of Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, for alleged blasphemy. Thousands more were involved in a second rally on 2 December. These rallies were organised by the National Fatwa Guardians of the Indonesian Ulama Council (GNPF-MUI) and led by the conservative Muslim group Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), under the banner “Bela Islam” (Defend Islam). They were followed by the court trial of Ahok for blasphemy the week after.

While grievances with Ahok should not be dismissed as purely religiously driven – claims of corruption and policies biased towards the middle class ethnic Chinese minority are allegedly aplenty – mass support and mobilisation were possible precisely because of the use of religious rhetoric. This has led many media reports to simply frame the protests as a sign of a radical and hardline strain of Islam taking hold in Jakarta. What the hardliners have also demonstrated was how a decontextualised reading of a sacred text – in this case the Quran – can lead to ends that stir up public peace and social cohesion.

Reading Q 5:51 in Context<?h2>

Ahok, a Chinese Christian, had suggested that verse 51 of Chapter 5 of the Quran (Q 5:51) had been misused by his political opponents to sway voters and justify their assertion that Muslims could not have him as their political leader. The MUI responded by saying that in so claiming, Ahok had defamed the Quran and blasphemed Islam.

Taken literally, verse Q 5:51 discourages Muslims from taking as friends, confidants and leaders, their Abrahamic brethren, the Christians and Jews. However, this verse should not be read out of context without consideration for its historical circumstances. It was revealed at a time of hostilities between a nascent Muslim community and specific tribes, including particular Christian tribes – not Jews and Christians as such – in seventh century Arabia.

Indeed, some scholars have acknowledged the Qur’an holds Christians in high regard and singles them out as being “closest in affection” to Muslims (Q 5:82). It also makes reference to the People of the Book, which could be read to include Christians, as belonging to an “upright community” (Q 3:113).

Contextualisation in Islamic Tradition

Reading the Quran in context refers to the understanding of the meaning and objective of revelation in relation to a specific context, and then being able to apply its teachings anew taking into account contemporary realities. Indeed, the very act of contextualising the religion has been integral to its historical acceptance by distinct peoples living in diverse places at different times.

Islam’s ability to incorporate external elements from other non-Muslim cultures has allowed it to flourish in places like China, once thought to be a remote and an unlikely destination for Muslims. For instance, the Chinese ulama’ of the 17th-century such as Wang Dai-yu (d. 1660) and Liu Zhi (d. 1739) wrote about and taught Islam, using Confucian terminology and categories of thought. In this manner, the concepts of God, prophethood, heaven and hell became intelligible for the Chinese community. As a result, Chinese Muslims are able to live a form of Islam that is familiar, while still in accordance with the dictates of the religion.

Centuries earlier, Muslim philosophers such as al-Kindi (d. 873), al-Farabi (d. 950) and Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) synthesised the writings of Plato and Aristotle with Islamic philosophy. Beyond translating the texts, these philosophers made significant contributions to the corpus of knowledge in the world. For example, al-Kindi repurposed the Greek notion of the first principle (arche) to be the Creator, thereby bringing out the relevance of Greek philosophy not only to Islam but to other monotheistic religions like Christianity in the West.

Contextualisation Within Ethical Boundaries

The examples from the Quran and from within the Islamic tradition are theological and historical justifications to contextualisation within Islam. Nevertheless, contextualisation has been met with scepticism by some who argued that it can lead to moral relativism or a dilution of the “true Islam”. How then can we ensure that Islam does not become too foreign or unrecognisable? What are the elements of the religion that can be contextualised?

The Islamic scholarly tradition has established a hierarchy of values in Islam that could help us in distinguishing the permanent elements of the religion (tsawabit) from those that are changing (mutaghayyirat), in order to derive meaning from the Quran and address the challenges of contextualisation. They set the boundaries for contextualisation and ensure that efforts at doing so do not fall into moral relativism. At the same time, recognising the existence of a hierarchy of values would also prevent interpretations that conflict with the very substance or universal values of the religion.

An example of an obligatory value in Islam is its theological worldview of One God that creates and sustains the universe. This explains why, despite being heavily influenced by Greek learning in philosophy and the sciences, classical Muslim scholars engaged with Greek philosophy but did not freely import Greek mythology into its literary corpus because of concerns that doing so undermined its monotheistic worldview.

Islam in Contemporary Context

This episode has put at stake a critical matter for Indonesian Islam. It is not the transitory issue of the electioneering for the governor of Jakarta or Ahok’s ouster as such that is of fundamental concern here. What is at stake crucially is how a religious rationalisation through a decontextualised reading of the Qur’an that is unfriendly towards Christians and other non-Muslims could become encrusted into the tradition of Islam in Indonesia.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim community, and is a pluralistic society. On the very subject of Islam’s hospitality to other religions, it has much to offer to the Muslim world of today, which is riven by religiously-motivated violence. It behooves Muslim scholars and leaders to challenge the misuse of religious scriptures for errant political ends through their contextualised reading.

*Nursheila Muez is a Research Analyst with the Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies Programme (SRP), at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. A version of this appeared earlier in The Straits Times.

This is the true story of retired Army Major Mike Neulander, who now lives in Newport News, Virginia, and who is now a Judaic silversmith.

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In the fall of 1990, I received notice that I would be transferred to the First Cavalry Division, which was headed for Saudi Arabia. Then as now, Jews were forbidden to enter the country. But our Secretary of Defense told the king of Saudi Arabia, “We have Jews in our military. They’ve trained with their units and they’re going. Blink and look the other way.”With Kuwait occupied and the Iraqis at his border, King Fahd did the practical thing. We shipped out.

But there was a problem. Normally the dog tags of Jewish servicemen are imprinted “Jewish.” But the army, fearing that this would put Jewish soldiers at great risk should they be captured, substituted “Protestant B” on the tags. I didn’t like the whole idea of classifying Jews as Protestant-anything, and so I decided to leave my dog tag alone. I figured if I were captured, it was in God’s hands. Changing my tags was tantamount to denying my religion, and I couldn’t swallow that.

In September 1990 I went off to defend a country that I was prohibited from entering. The “Jewish” on my dog tag remained as clear and unmistakable as the American star on the hood of every Army truck.

A few days after my arrival, the Baptist chaplain told me. “I just got a secret message through channels,” he said. “There’s going to be a Jewish holiday. You want to go? It’s at 1800 hours at Dhahran Airbase.”

The holiday turned out to be Simhat Torah, a holiday that I hadn’t celebrated since I was a kid. Services were held in absolute secrecy in a windowless room. We couldn’t risk singing or dancing. We were strangers to one another in a land stranger than any of us had ever experienced, but for that brief hour, we felt at home.

The next time I was able to do anything remotely Jewish was Chanukah.

As Rabbi Romer talked about the theme of Chanukah and the ragtag bunch of Maccabee soldiers fighting Israel’s oppressors thousands of years ago, it wasn’t hard to make the connection to what lay ahead of us. There, in the middle of the desert, inside an green tent, we felt like we were Maccabees.

We blessed the candles, praising God for the miracles He performed, in those days and now. And we sang the special blessing, the Shehecheyanu, thanking God for keeping us in life and for enabling us to reach this season. The feeling of unity was as pervasive as our apprehension. I felt more Jewish there on that lonely Saudi plain, our tanks and guns at the ready, than I had ever felt back home in a synagogue.

That Chanukah in the desert gave me the urge to reconnect with Judaism. I felt religion welling up inside me. I know that part of my feelings were tied to the looming war and my desire to get with God before the unknown descended on us.

The soldier sitting beside me stared ahead at nothing in particular, absentmindedly fingering his dog tag. “How’d you classify?” I asked, nodding to my tag. Silently, he withdrew the metal rectangle from beneath his shirt and held it out for me to read. Like mine, his read, “Jewish.”

During the remaining months before we returned home I never met a Jewish soldier whose dog tag was “Protestant B.” Maybe I had experienced a modern miracle of Hanukah dedication right before my eyes.