Reindeer may be best known for pulling Santa’s sleigh, but a new study suggests they may have a part to play in slowing down climate change too.

A team of researchers, writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that when reindeer reduce the height and abundance of shrubs on the Arctic tundra through grazing, the level of surface albedo – the amount of solar energy (shortwave radiation) reflected by the Earth back into space – is increased.

The study’s lead author, Dr Mariska te Beest, from Umeå University in Sweden, said: “Our theory was that heavy grazing by reindeer increases summer albedo, through a reduction in shrub height, abundance and leaf area index (LAI). The effect reindeer grazing can have on albedo and energy balances is potentially large enough to be regionally important. It also points towards herbivore management being a possible tool to combat future warming. Most of the arctic tundra is grazed by either domesticated or wild reindeer, so this is an important finding.

“Of course, the impact the reindeer have will vary according to their densities and the subsequent effects on the vegetation levels across the whole tundra.”

The study combined land surface computer modelling with measurements of albedo and vegetation characteristics taken in the field. The team carried out their field measurements in Reisadalen (Sámi: Raisduoddar), Troms, Norway, in an area with four topographically-defined vegetation types that varied in shrub height and abundance. They used a unique experimental set-up, where a more-than 50 year-old fence separated areas experiencing either light or heavy grazing by reindeer.

Working through the summer season, the team estimated reindeer activity in the study areas by using vegetation trampling indicators, and through collecting dung. They also measured the abundance of vegetation, its leaf area index, and the soil moisture and temperature levels, as well as the albedo levels.

Dr te Beest said: “We found that high densities of reindeer changed arctic tundra vegetation by decreasing shrub abundance. This resulted in corresponding shifts in LAI, canopy height and NDVI – the amount of live green vegetation.

“These pronounced changes in vegetation led in a substantial increase in albedo across the growing season. Our modelling results showed this increase in albedo would result in a corresponding decrease in net radiation and latent and sensible heat fluxes – indicating that heavily grazed sites absorbed less radiation.

“Our results show that reindeer have a potential cooling effect on climate, by changing the summer albedo. Although the estimated differences might appear small, they are large enough to have consequences for the regional energy balance.”

The first living golden jackal in the Czech Republic was reported by researchers from Charles University, Prague. The scientists captured the canid on camera multiple times over the span of a year and a half some 40 km away from the capital. Once considered native to northern Africa and southern Eurasia, the species seems to be quite rapidly extending its range towards the north of Europe. The study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

In June 2015, while doing a research project for her Master’s degree in Central Bohemia, Czech Republic, Klára Pyšková, a student at the Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague, produced the first photograph of a living golden jackal individual captured by a camera trap in the country.

The aim of her study was broader, addressing common carnivore species composition in different habitats typical for central European landscape, about 40 km away from Prague. While the golden jackal capture was not completely unexpected, since several individuals of this species had previously been reported from the country, it was still a surprising discovery – all previously observed animals were either shot or victims of roadkill, and considered rather incidental records.

“The habitat, where the golden jackal decided to settle, resembles the landscapes which these animals prefer in their natural distribution area, the Balkans – an open grass-shrubland surrounded by a forest. It is one of the warmest areas in the country, with mild winters. The observed animal was mostly active at dusk and dawn, with majority of the sightings occurring in the morning hours,” explained Klára Pyšková. In a paper, she co-authored with a group of researchers from Charles University and Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, among them her supervisors Ivan Horáček and David Storch, they report on a long-term monitoring of the animal in an area of approximately 90 km².

The golden jackal first reached the Czech republic in the late 1990s, probably coming from Austria. The first, albeit unconfirmed report of its presence is from May of 1998, of two individuals reportedly sighted in central Bohemia. Almost a decade later, in 2006, a carcass of an adult golden jackal was found by the side of the road in Moravia, the eastern part of the country.

Since then, several verified and non-verified records have been made. The photographs captured by Klára Pyšková were the first evidence of a living individual that seems to have settled permanently in the country. The researchers have not observed any cubs or a mate, and although they cannot completely dismiss the occurrence of another individual, they consider it very unlikely. The sex of the animal could not be determined.

“While the golden jackal is a species that has historically never lived in the area, where the study was conducted, and, therefore, might not be appropriate to call it native, it cannot be considered invasive. Invasive species are those that have been intentionally or unintentionally brought to a new area by humans – this is not the case of the golden jackal here,” said Klára Pyšková.

“This being said, there are several factors that have likely facilitated the spread, including indirect human influence,” added the researcher. “Ongoing global change is bringing about shifts in species distributions that include both the spread of populations of invasive species and range expansions or contractions of native biota. In Europe, this is typically reflected in species moving from the south-eastern part of the continent to the north-west, most often in response to increasing temperatures that allow organisms to colonize areas that were previously unsuitable. Other suggested factors are human-caused changes in the overall character of landscapes, the lack of natural predators, particularly wolves, and high adaptability of the species.”

By Elise Harris

After the recent unauthorized ordination of bishops in China, which falls just ahead of a major meeting for Chinese Catholic representatives, the Vatican has issued a statement reaffirming their position on the matter.

“Some journalists have asked for the Holy See’s thoughts regarding both the recent episcopal ordinations in Chengdu and Xichang and the Ninth Assembly of Representatives of Chinese Catholics,” a Dec. 19 communique from Vatican spokesman Greg Burke read.

With the latter set to take place in just a few days, Burke stressed that the Holy See’s position on two events, “which involve aspects of doctrine and the discipline of the Church,” have been “noted for some time.”

In fact, the Vatican issued statement Nov. 7 stressing that rumored bishop ordinations taking place within the so-called “underground Church” in China had neither the authorization of the Holy See, nor had they been officially communicated.

“The Holy See has not authorized any ordination, nor has it been officially informed of such events. Should such episcopal ordinations have occurred, they would constitute a grave violation of canonical norms,” the communique read.

In his Dec. 19 statement, Burke noted the presence of an illegitimate bishop at the ordinations, stressing that his “canonical position is still being studied” following “his illegitimate ordination.”

The bishop’s presence “has created hardship for the parties concerned and turmoil among Chinese Catholics,” Burke said, adding that the Holy See “understands their pain.”

The ordinations happened shortly before the Ninth Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, which is set to take place Dec. 26-30 in Beijing.

Considered the most authoritative gathering of the official, State-recognized Church in China, the meeting, according to its statutes, is called the “sovereign body” of the Church. It brings together not only bishops recognized by Vatican, but also those who are not recognized, and who are illegitimate or have even been excommunicated.

Representatives of China’s Patriotic Association (PA), both Catholics and atheists, will join the bishops, as well as a number of priests, nuns and lay people.

The last such meeting took place in 2010, just three years after Benedict XVI in a 2007 letter to Catholics in China said the Assembly, as well as the PA, were “incompatible with Catholic doctrine,” since in the assembly both legitimate and illegitimate bishops were treated equally by the PA, particularly regarding the Sacraments.

Some bishops recognized by the Holy See who refused to attend were eventually forced, many of them after having been kidnapped.

On the assembly set to take place later this month, Burke in his statement said the Holy See is waiting to pass judgement “based on proven facts.”

“In the meantime, she is certain that all Catholics in China wait with trepidation for positive signs, which help them to have confidence in the dialogue between civil authorities and the Holy See and to hope in a future of unity and harmony.”

Ever since the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Holy See has had a reduced diplomatic presence in Beijing, with the nunciature being moved to Taiwan in 1951.

China-Vatican relations have been cool ever since, but with some apparent thaws. After Benedict XVI’s letter to Catholics in China in 2007, a series of bishops’ appointments approved both by the Chinese government and the Holy See took place.

The Church in China, however, is still in a difficult situation. The government of the Chinese People’s Republic never recognized the Holy See’s authority to appoint bishops. Instead, it established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which is a sort of ecclesiastical hierarchy officially recognized by the Chinese authorities.

For this reason, Chinese bishops recognized by the Holy See entered a clandestine state, thus giving life to the so called “underground Church” that is not recognized by the government.

However, despite the hiccups that still exist, the Vatican has been working hard to come to an agreement with the Chinese government, particularly regarding the appointment of bishops.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, told nuncios gathered in Rome Sept. 16-18 that current talks with China are centered on bishop appointments, but as of now haven’t touched the possibility of establishing diplomatic ties.

If an agreement on bishop appointments were to be reached, it will likely be based on Parolin’s model implemented in Vietnam back in 1996, in which the Holy See proposes a set of three bishops to the Hanoi government, and Hanoi makes its choice.

Fighters with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) have indiscriminately attacked civilian areas in eastern Mosul with mortar rounds and explosives, and deliberately shot at fleeing residents, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. Iraqi and coalition forces have also killed and wounded civilians by striking or deploying from homes.

Fleeing residents who spoke with Human Rights Watch said that ISIS justified the attacks on civilians because many of them had refused the group’s orders to join its retreat west to areas of Mosul that it still controlled, where they feared they would be used as human shields. Residents said ISIS members told them in person, by radio, and over mosque loudspeakers that those who stayed behind were “unbelievers” and therefore valid targets along with the Iraqi and coalition forces.

“If ISIS really cared about the people trapped in its so-called caliphate it would let them flee to safety,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, it is indiscriminately or deliberately killing and wounding people for refusing to be human shields.”

In interviews in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in December, 2016, Human Rights Watch spoke with more than 50 residents who had fled eastern Mosul. Thirty-one of them provided firsthand accounts of 18 mortar or sniper attacks, car bombings, or detonations of improvised explosive devices by ISIS that indiscriminately or directly killed or wounded civilians. Witnesses said that some ISIS mortar attacks took place in areas where Iraqi military forces had positioned soldiers inside homes or on residential rooftops in densely populated areas. Five witnesses described what they said were three separate Iraqi or coalition airstrikes that targeted ISIS fighters similarly positioned on residential rooftops or in alleys between homes, but that also killed civilians.

The incidents took place from the third week of November into the first week of December. The witnesses said that 19 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the attacks by both sides that they described, but that these were a fraction of the total. The United Nations reported that 926 civilians were killed and 930 wounded in November in Iraq from violence including acts of terrorism and armed conflict. Of those, 332 were killed and 114 injured in Nineveh, the governorate that includes Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

In the days before the Iraqi ground forces entered neighborhoods in eastern Mosul, most of those interviewed said, ISIS fighters began rounding up civilians to retreat with them. But many refused.

“They were coming door-to-door, saying, ‘Do you want to leave with us or not?’” said “Ammar,” who fled the eastern Mosul neighborhood of Intisar after being wounded in an ISIS mortar strike on December 5. “We said we would not go with them and they said, ‘You are kuffar [unbelievers]. … They said, ‘Whatever happens to you guys, you deserve it.’”

“Ammar” said that on November 30, using binoculars, he stood on a rooftop and saw an ISIS gunman on another rooftop across a nearby, two-lane highway, firing on Iraqi forces while flanked by a woman on one side and a child on the other.

The witnesses described house-to-house combat between ISIS fighters and Iraqi forces, particularly the Golden Division, the most prominent of Iraq’s Special Forces, in areas still inhabited by large numbers of civilians. They said they knew ISIS was responsible for multiple mortar rounds and sniper fire because those attacks came from the direction of ISIS-controlled areas where there were no Iraqi forces.

“Asma,” from al-Qadisiyah al-Thaniyah neighborhood, said that an ISIS mortar shell hit and wounded her three young children – “Alaa,” 12, “Mohamed,” 10, and “Rasha,” 5 – at about 11:30 a.m. on December 1, as they played in the family’s courtyard.

“The mortar [shell] hit when I had gone to get water from the [local] tank because there was no running water,” she said. “When I came back out Alaa hugged me and I saw that half his face was blown off.”

Several witnesses said that when either ISIS or Iraqi military forces took up positions inside homes or on residential rooftops they generally did not give residents a say in the matter. The United Nations Human Rights Office also made this point, saying residents had reported that ISIS on November 11 shot dead 12 civilians in the Bakr neighborhood for refusing to let them launch rockets from their rooftops. In some cases, the witnesses told Human Rights Watch, by the time Iraqi or coalition forces attacked the ISIS positions in homes, the ISIS fighters had already left.

A dozen residents told Human Rights Watch they had to leave their homes as a result and seek shelter in nearby buildings that in some cases were also hit by ISIS mortar rounds or car bombs, or Iraqi or coalition airstrikes.

(EurActiv) — Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis said on Tuesday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel bore responsibility for the attack on a Berlin Christmas market and that migrants had “no place” in Europe.

The migration wave hitting the continent must be stopped, Babis added in comments quoted by news website parliamentnilisty.cz.

A truck crashed into the market on Monday evening, killing 12 and wounding dozens. A Pakistani asylum seeker was arrested as the suspected driver but police have said the real perpetrator could still be on the run.

Central European leaders have been among the harshest critics of the European Union’s response to the rising number of refugees and migrants entering the bloc to flee war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere and have refused EU executive-proposed quotas for asylum seekers.

Many leaders have spoken out against Merkel’s open-door migration policy and Babis raised the issue again in reaction to the attack.

“Unfortunately…(this) policy is responsible for this dreadful act. It was she who let migrants enter Germany and the whole of Europe in uncontrolled waves, without papers, therefore without knowing who they really are,” Babis said.

“Germany is paying a high price for this policy.”

Babis leads the junior government party ANO that leads opinion polls before a national election due by next October, leaving him well-positioned to become the next prime minister.

He said the best solution to Europe’s migrant crisis was financial help for states in North Africa from which people are fleeing or stopping the six-year-old war in Syria.

“The solution is peace in Syria and the return of migrants to their homes. There is no place for them in Europe,” he said.

The design of the Paris Agreement set the stage for a technical meeting in COP 22 but the stakes were raised in the aftermath of the US election. The rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement has accelerated the development of the Paris rulebook that is expected to be finalised in 2018. Implementation, increased ambition and a just transition are the pending tasks in the minds of negotiators amid statements of the irreversibility of climate action.

By Lara Lázaro-Touza*

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement the world of climate politics and policies has experienced a year of accelerated change. Scientific data on ever-increasing temperatures, evidence of our limited mitigation, adaptation and finance actions, a rapidly changing energy landscape, the UK vote to leave the EU, the adoption of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the establishment of a Global Market- based Measure (GMBM) under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the entry into force of the Paris Agreement and the US elections have all kept the climate community busy prior to the climate meeting in Marrakech.

After the political climax in Paris, and given the design of the Paris Agreement, COP 22 was expected to be a technical meeting. Progress was indeed made as regards the initial understanding of countries’ positions, processes and plans. And, for the first time after a big negotiating breakthrough such as that opened up by the Paris Agreement, there was no major backtracking or re-opening of the agreed text.

The unexpectedly fast entry into force of the Paris Agreement has led to an accelerated roadmap for the development of the Paris rulebook that will govern international climate action in the post Kyoto-Protocol era. Hence, the transitional period from ratification to implementation and rule development will be necessarily short. Some may argue that excessively so, as agreeing on the entire set of rules for a permanent climate governance system is likely to be a complex endeavour that could benefit from a longer development timeframe.

Other interesting developments announced at the Marrakech climate meeting, aside from the political declaration (the Marrakech Action Proclamation for our Climate and Sustainable Development) include: the Partnership for Global Climate Action that seeks to engage Parties and non-Parties in pre-2020 action (in the absence of a Doha Amendment entry into force); the 2050 Pathways Platform to foster the development of deep decarbonisation initiatives across sectors; and the Climate Vulnerable Forum Vision, where 48 climate vulnerable developing countries from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific have pledged to go 100% renewable. Finally, there is a joint declaration to develop a Roadmap for Sustainable Electricity Trade between Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France and Germany.

Analysis

Context

This section will discuss the contextual factors that preceded COP 22 in Marrakech. These include: the scientific data available as regards climate change; the insufficient advances in mitigation commitments compared to our 2ºC benchmark as well as our insufficient adaptation finance efforts; a brief reflection on the changing narrative of the economics of climate change since the publication of the Stern Review 10 years ago; advances in the competitiveness and deployment of renewable energy; unforeseen political events; citizen views on climate change; and climate and related agreements since the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

(1) Science

Scientific information regarding climate change in 2016 has not been positive. In July NASA reported that the first six months of the year had been the hottest on record since 1880. Additionally, Arctic sea ice had reached its lowest extent for five out of the six first months in 2016 since records began in 1979 (NASA, 2016). By mid-November the Washington Post reported that Arctic scientists were warning that mean temperatures in that area were a staggering 20ºC warmer than usual (Mooney & Samenow, 2016). These and other (more contested and alarming) findings (see Hansen et al., 2016) come after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC’s Fifth Assessment report that warned that climate change is unequivocal, with a clear anthropogenic component and already affecting humans and ecosystems alike (IPCC, 2014).

(2) Commitments and gaps: mitigation and adaptation finance

In terms of progress made towards our temperature goal, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) emissions gap reports have been telling us since 2010 that there is a wide and non-diminishing gap¹ between our commitments and a pathway consistent with a 2ºC target (see UNEP, 2010; UNEP, 2011; UNEP, 21013; UNEP, 2014; UNEP, 2015; and UNEP, 2016b). In fact, the 2016 Emission Gap Report (UNEP, 2016b) warns that climate action both pre-2020 and pre-2030 has to be significantly ramped up to meet our goals. This is so because full implementation of the INDCs will overshoot our ‘well below’ 2ºC by over one degree centigrade (UNEP, 2016b).

As regards action to bridge the emissions gap, the latest UNEP report recommends further improvements in energy efficiency in the building, transport and industrial sectors. In the building sector, building energy codes and energy certificates are recommended. At an industry level the adoption of energy management systems and standards should be pursued. On the transport front the report focuses on improving vehicle efficiency, promoting electric mobility² and improving logistics.

Additionally, UNEP (2016b) underlines that despite the added complexity of including non-state actors in the calculations (due to the uncertainty about the additionality of their actions, accounting concerns and questions regarding potential overlaps with actions by other institutions), their role is essential to achieve a low carbon transition. What is more, actions by non-state actors can additionally help mobilise policy makers towards the implementation of increasingly ambitious climate policies.

Key to the lasting engagement of developing countries in the fight against climate change is the availability of climate finance. In fact, many of the NDCs are conditional (or contain conditionality clauses) on the availability of finance in their commitments. To help evaluate the adaptation aspect of finance, the second iteration of the Adaptation Finance Gap Report (UNEP, 2016c) analyses adaptation costs, the finance available to cover these costs and the gap between the two. Despite the need for further information and despite the various methods used to account for adaptation costs, the report offers a range of adaptation cost estimates based on existing studies. These adaptation costs range from US$140 billion to US$300 billion by 2030 and from US$280 billion to US$500 billion in 2050. Total adaptation finance amounted to US$25 billion in 2014. UNEP (2016c) estimates that avoiding the adaptation gap in 2030 would require multiplying available finance from developed to developing countries by six to 13 in 2030 and by 12 to 22 in 2050.

(3) Economics: from costs to opportunities

As for the economics of climate change, 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the Stern Review. As Lord Stern recently stated (see Stern, 2016, and Stern, 2006), the key messages, that have arguably stood the test of time, were:

• Climate change is a global threat, affecting the poor and most vulnerable disproportionately.
• Climate change is the largest externality (market failure) we have ever experienced but there is still time for tackling the problem before the worst consequences hit.
• The cost of inaction significantly exceeds the cost of action³ although large uncertainties existed as regards these costs at the time the Stern Review was released.
• Prompt action is strongly recommended.
• Policies can yield promising results, especially if concerted global climate action is forthcoming.
• Proactive adaptation should be considered as a priority given the inevitability of the consequences of the change in climate already built into the system.

After the academic debates on the results of the Stern Review (Tol & Yohe, 2006; Carter et al., 2006; Byatt et al., 2006; Nordhaus, 2007; and Dietz, Hope, Stern & Zenghelis, 2007) and the subsequent analyses on model limitations (Stern, 2013), uncertainties and fat-tail probability distributions of climate damages –plus the limits these may imply for the use of cost benefit analysis (Weitzman 2009, 2010; and Pyndick, 2011)– the economic narrative on the reasons for climate action (see Dell. et al., 2011; Burke et al., 2015; and Wagner & Weitzman, 2015) strengthened in the public eye. This narrative also morphed from emphasising the cost of action versus inaction into emphasising the opportunities of climate action, while acknowledging some additional upfront investment costs will exist and institutional barriers will have to be addressed. This has been particularly so since the publication of the New Climate Economy Report (GCEC, 2014, 2015 and 2016).

(4) Energy: renewable electricity and e-transport?

As the energy sector is key in the transition to a low carbon economy,⁴ developments in the costs of renewables are important to watch. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) produced from renewable sources both in OECD and in non-OECD countries is lower (on average) than producing electricity from diesel. The same holds true for electricity produced from onshore wind, biomass, hydropower and geothermal energy vis-à-vis electricity produced using other fossil fuels (IRENA, 2014). In fact, in some locations hydropower and geothermal are the cheapest sources for electricity production (see Figure 1). Bloomberg New Energy Finance (2016) expects that electricity produced from wind and solar will become cost competitive across a large number of countries and in terms of deployment, since 2013 there is more power installed from renewable energy sources than from fossil fuel sources.

Other sectors such as transport⁵ are key in decarbonising the economy. In fact, the International Energy Agency IEA (2016) recently stated that in order to meet their 2ºC scenario (2DS), there was a need to reach 10% of global penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) in 2030 and over 40% (1 billion light duty vehicles, LDVs) in 2050 up from 0,1% today in a market with a prominently Chinese, Norwegian and Dutch demand (IEA, 2016). Infrastructure, cost⁶ and institutional barriers are yet to be tackled in earnest for such a significant uptake. Policies guided towards pushing the uptake of electric cars and vans en masse (such as reducing taxes or providing subsidies to electric vehicles, ensuring every new building has plugs for e-cars or making use of command and control regulations to avoid the most polluting cars entering city centres to mitigate air pollution problems) can nudge consumers towards low CO2 vehicles when an alternative to public transport is needed.

(5) Politics: surprise, surprise

As regards politics, 2016 has been a year of surprises for climate change. The vote to leave the EU by the UK was unexpected and it is arguably too early to discern the consequences for EU climate policies. Despite the small contribution of the UK to world emissions (1,3%), its potential divorce from the EU could imply that the Europeans will lose of one of their most skilful climate negotiators in the international arena. It could also mean a weakening of the EU’s internal climate ambition due to the relative strengthening of less ambitious member states such as Poland.

The European Emission Trading System (one of Europe’s flagship climate initiatives that has been strongly supported by the UK) could be affected by Brexit should the UK decide to operate a separate Emissions Trading System (ETS) or if the UK and the EU end up de-linking and re-linking their emission trading systems. European energy efficiency and renewable ambition could, however, be raised in the absence of the UK that has been less ambitious than other member states. British-inspired calls for cutting EU red tape could be softened if article 50 is finally invoked, appeasing concerns regarding a possible weakening of European environmental standards.

On the other side of the Atlantic, America’s election of Donald Trump as its 45th President again caught the world off guard. Given the strident campaign rhetoric regarding climate change, dubbed a hoax made in China to reduce America’s competitiveness by the President-elect, the first reaction of the international climate-change policy community after the elections could be described as one of shock and concern. It also inevitably raised the stakes of COP 22 and prompted a political declaration by world leaders regarding their steadfast determination to pursue decisive climate action.

In the aftermath of the US elections, the issue was not only about getting the first truly global climate agreement to work, the fight was, once again, to keep global climate multilateralism alive. The first test for the Paris Agreement has come early on in its life. However, both the design of the agreement (based on countries’ self-interest and inclusive of non-state actors) and the resolve of major emitters including China and India, as well as emerging climate leaders –such as the High Ambition Coalition or the Climate Vulnerable Forum– seem to have helped us pass this test.

As for the consequences of a Trump Presidency in the US on climate change the jury is still out. If he abides by his campaign promises, President Trump will pull out of the international climate regime. This drastic step would take one year if he were to decide to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), leaving the US as the only major power in the world outside the global climate-change framework of action. If Trump decided instead to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, article 28 states that this would take three years after entry into force of the agreement and one year after the notification of withdrawal has been deposited. If this were the route taken, the US withdrawal would come as Trump’s term in office ends.

Other actions announced by Trump could, however, be as damaging as a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, or even more damaging. Trump could, for instance, cut domestic funding for climate research. America is a powerhouse in terms of climate analyses and this would damage international understanding of the phenomenon. Trump could fail to honour America’s financial commitments towards the international community (ie, US$ 3 billion, Green Climate Fund, 2016) thereby increasing tensions between developed and developing countries regarding climate finance. Trump’s replacement of Judge Scalia could undermine the Clean Power Plan, one of the key pieces of climate legislation of the Obama Administration, which seeks to reduce GHG emissions from power plants by 32% in 2030 compared with 2005 levels. These, plus the recent appointment of Myron Ebell, climate-change denier and contrarian to the Clean Power Plan, to run the Environmental Protection Agency transition team are indeed a cause for concern.

Not all is lost though. The economic case for climate action is growing (GCEC, 2016; and The Economist, 2016) and if Trump wants to make America great again the clean tech and renewable energy sectors can provide the country with growth, jobs and a competitive edge in the next wave of innovation (Wilenius & Kurki, 2012). Additionally, the Federal government, though important, is not the only piece of the climate puzzle in the US. Action at the state and city levels is likely to continue apace (Hultman, 2016).

(6) Citizens

As regards global citizen views on climate change, the survey conducted in 2015 called World Wide Views⁷ on Climate and Energy shows that 78% of respondents were very concerned about climate change. In line with the above discussion regarding the economics of climate change, two thirds of respondents see climate policies as an opportunity to improve the quality of life and 63% said they would support all the necessary policies for limiting temperature increases by 2ºC. Respondents were also overwhelmingly in favour of the use of economic instruments such as taxes to implement climate policies, although citizens in the US, China and Russia were less in favour of CO2 taxation (Danish Board of Technology Foundation, Missions Publiques and the French National Commission for Public Debate, 2015).

Of potential interest to Trump, according to a survey conducted by Yale University in March 2016, 70% of Americans believe climate change is happening, with 58% being at least somewhat worried about climate change and 61% of respondents supporting climate action by the US independently of what other countries do (Leiserowitz et al., 2016).

In terms of foreign policy, climate change is an area governments should address as one of their top priorities, according to citizens, at lease in some countries. In two recent surveys conducted by the Elcano Royal Institute in 2016, respondents across 10 different countries were asked to choose the first, second and third foreign-policy priorities for their governments. Once they responded the question, an index was calculated to compound their preferences. According to this index, respondents in Germany, France and the US stated that the fight against climate change was their second foreign policy priority- the first being fighting international terrorism. The UK and Portugal placed climate change fourth and sixth in the index, respectively (see Figure 2).

For other countries in which the option of investing in development aid was not included (Colombia, Peru, Morocco, China and India) the results indicate that it is only in Latin American countries, Colombia and Peru, that the fight against climate change is considered the second most important foreign-policy priority –the first being improving the country’s image–. In China, climate change is ranked third, after increasing the country’s influence in the world and improving its image. Both of these top priorities could arguably be achieved, inter alia, by stepping up China’s game in the global fight against climate change in the (expected) absence of national-level US leadership during the Trump era. As regards India, the results indicate that fighting against climate change would come fourth in the index for foreign-policy priorities, just above increasing the country’s influence on the world. For Morocco, and despite its COP 22 presidency starting just a few months after the survey was conducted, the fight against climate change was the last of the foreign policy priorities according to survey results (see Figure 3).

Reflecting on what Spanish people consider their top foreign-policy priorities it is interesting to read the Elcano Royal Institute’s forthcoming 38th survey (Barómetro del Real Instituto Elcano, BRIE). In this survey the index shows that respondents in Spain see the fight against climate change as the second most important foreign-policy priority after fighting jihadist terrorism¹⁰ (see Figure 4). In fact, Spanish citizens have ranked climate change as the second top foreign-policy priority in every survey since 2011 and consider climate change one of the greatest threats to Spain (Real Instituto Elcano, forthcoming, 2016b, 2015 and 2013). The newly appointed government in Spain could reflect on the above data and continue engaging in international and national climate action, aligning its priorities with those of its citizens.

(7) The Paris Agreement and other climate-related agreements since 2015

The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015. Its main goal, in line with the UNFCCC, is avoiding a dangerous interference with the climate system. In order to meet this goal the agreement seeks to limit global mean-temperature increases to ‘well below’ 2ºC (aspiring to 1.5ºC) compared with pre-industrial levels. It also strives for a balance between emissions and absorption (removals by sinks such as forests) in the second half of the century, in line with the scientific warnings that stabilisation of temperature requires gradually reducing emissions to zero (Thomas et al., 2016).

The Paris Agreement resorts to a hybrid system to achieve its goals. The bottom-up process –embedded in global climate governance since the Copenhagen Accords– requires Parties to periodically present national commitments¹¹ for curbing greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are to be increasingly ambitious. The top-down approach entails both a periodic review of the progress made (via the all-important transparency mechanism) and guidance to achieve the above stated goals (Stavins, 2015). Market and non-market mechanisms have also been enshrined in the Paris Agreement as additional instruments to nudge the low carbon transition. Moving away from the Kyoto-style penalty system for non-compliance, Paris hopes to engage countries in increasing cooperation that is in the Parties’ self-interest, expressed through their national commitments.

In order to enable developing countries to meet their commitments, the accompanying decision to the Paris Agreement stresses the need for scaling up finance (to the tune of US$ 100 billion annually by 2020, echoing the Copenhagen Accord, and above that amount after 2025). Technology, capacity building and increasing adaptation capacity are further pillars of the accord.¹²

This new landmark global framework for climate action was to enter into force 30 days after 55 Parties, amounting to 55% of world GHG emissions, deposited their instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval. China and the US ratified ahead of the G-20 meeting in September 2016, putting pressure on the EU to do so. When the EU, among others, ratified the Paris Agreement on 5 October, the double requirement for entry into force was achieved. Hence, on 4 November 2016 the Paris Agreement entered into force. This is quite an achievement that had been in the making since (at least) the diplomatic debacle of COP 15.¹³. Few expected the Paris Agreement to enter into force less than a year after its adoption. In fact, this is one of the fastest entries into force within the international agreements realm and by far the fastest of any climate-change treaty.¹⁴ It therefore seems that the ‘spirit of Paris’ has survived a turbulent 2016.

Other international meetings have taken place –and agreements have been adopted– in 2016 that add to the great diplomatic success of the Paris Agreement and that, indeed, signal an unprecedented momentum in climate action, despite the election of Donald Trump in the US. These agreements include the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol and the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).

The Montreal Protocol that entered into force in 1989 regulates the use and phasing out of substances that deplete the ozone layer. Many of these substances, such as hydroflourocarbons (HFCs), are also powerful greenhouse gases. The Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol adopted in 2016 has mandated a phase-down of HFCs for developed countries starting in 2019 (UNEP, 2016a). Developing countries will have a longer time frame for reducing consumption of HFCs (2024 or 2028 depending on the country). By 2040 the goal is to limit consumption to 15% to 20% of countries’ baselines. The Kigali amendment has been widely praised as a very positive development for climate action, with announcements that claim that it could even prevent 0,5ºC of global warming. Climate experts caution against excessive optimism as some of the effects of phasing out HFCs might have already been accounted for within the NDCs.

The aviation sector, currently responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions and one of the fastest in emissions growth, celebrated its 39th Assembly of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Governments, industries and other stakeholders agreed on a global market mechanism called Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). The mechanism’s goal is to achieve carbon neutrality from 2020 onwards, based on carbon emissions in 2019-20, it is to be hoped without incentivising companies to unduly increase their emissions during that period. Despite having been criticised by countries such as India (for being unfair) as well as by NGOs (that blame the aviation industry for using offsets rather than abating), the decision by ICAO has been commended by some climate negotiators who believe that progress has been significant as this type of initiative was unthinkable just a few years ago.

Headline results from COP 22

Given the design of the Paris Agreement, with its five-year review cycles, facilitative dialogue in 2018, etc., COP 22 was never expected to be a meeting of grand political announcements and big agreements. In fact, as Pete Betts recently argued,¹⁵ according to the mantra of climate negotiators that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’, the complete rulebook for the Paris Agreement was not to be expected until at least 2018 (COP 24). Given this mantra and the results from COP 22, it seems that the package-deal approval approach will push ahead. This is so despite some less-developed countries wanting to adopt individual decisions concerning the Paris rulebook as soon as they are ready, that is, without waiting for the entire Paris rulebook package to be agreed (ENB, 2016).

As regards the headline results in Marrakech, it can be argued that initial understanding of Party positioning, procedural advances in the Paris rulebook, plans and calls for submissions were the key outcomes of COP 22 (C2es, 2016). It is also worth noting that, according to Alina Averchenkova,¹⁶ contrary to previous COPs that succeeded the adoption of landmark climate agreements, there was no backtracking during COP 22, perhaps ironically due to the need to counteract the Trump effect. With the above considerations in mind some salient issues discussed in Marrakech are summarised in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Summary of some headline results from Marrakech

Sources: UNFCCC (2016), C2es (2016), LSE (2016), ENB (2016), Lázaro-Touza & Atkinson (2013).

Beyond the advances in procedural elements mentioned above, the key political declaration arising from COP 22 was the Marrakech Action Proclamation for our Climate and Sustainable Development. Of little practical substance, the proclamation is important because it reiterates the high-level political commitment to increasingly ambitious climate action that is mindful of asymmetric national circumstances. It also recognises the transition towards a low-carbon economy as an opportunity and encourages multi-stakeholder engagement in climate action. This recognition of climate action as an economic opportunity signals a paradigm change in the political narrative of climate change that arguably started 10 years ago with the publication of the Stern Review.

The results as regards the multi-level and multi-stakeholder engagement with the UNFCCC framework materialised in the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action heralded by the Climate Champions Hakima el Haite and Laurence Tubiana. The goal of the initiative is to foster action and interaction between Parties and non-Parties (firms, subnational and local governments as well as NGOs and civil society organisations) prior to 2020. It calls for climate policy coherence (integration) in order to ensure effective cooperation.

Complementing the UNFCCC negotiations, the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action seeks to help track non-Party actions, increase ambition, identify priorities and help exchange information and experiences. The initial topics the partnership will focus on include: land-use, oceans and coastal zones, water, human settlements, transport, energy and industry. Transverse issues will include gender, education, health and ‘decent work’. In fact, the inclusion of the concept of a ‘just transition’ is seen by some negotiators, such as Emmanuel Guérin,¹⁸ as absolutely crucial to counteract phenomena of disenfranchisement of the population with the low carbon transition that will inevitably alter production and consumption systems. This is a topic requiring further academic and political attention if we are to ensure social appropriation of the low-carbon transition. The partnership will meet throughout the year as well as during the COP and will produce the Yearbook of Global Climate Action, containing information on policy options for decision-makers to consider.

Also under the aegis of the Climate Champions, the ‘2050 Pathways Platform’ was announced during COP 22. The platform’s goal is to foster the development of deep decarbonisation pathways so that the goal of carbon neutrality –balancing emissions and absorption capacity by sinks– is reached. This is to be achieved through the integration (‘mainstreaming’ in UN policy parlance) of climate-policy considerations across sectors.¹⁹

Another welcome development arising from Marrakech was the Climate Vulnerable Forum Vision, according to which 48 developing countries will strive to reach 100% renewable-energy production. This group of countries can be seen as significantly pushing the current political ambition regarding climate change. The leadership void left by the US could be filled by these newly emerged leaders plus China and the High Ambition Coalition (including the EU) in a move à la 2001 when the US failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and the EU took the lead in global climate action.

Finally, during COP 22 the governments of Morocco, Germany, Portugal and Spain signed a joint declaration on the establishment of a Roadmap for Sustainable Electricity Trade between Morocco and the European Internal Energy Market. The declaration acknowledges that in order for the EU to meet its commitment to reach 27% of renewable energy consumption by 2030 and for Morocco to meet its commitment of producing 52% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030, enhanced electricity market integration between the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Europe could be mutually beneficial. The effective implementation of this roadmap would also help in the integration of renewable electricity. The purpose of the roadmap is to identify and suggest ways to eliminate barriers to trade in sustainable electricity (EC, 2016). Signatories of the joint declaration have pledged to work on a Sustainable Electricity Trade Roadmap (SET Roadmap) and to work towards an agreement that could be ready for COP 23.

Conclusions

After a turbulent 2016, COP 22 –dubbed the ‘Action and Implementation COP– delivered a roadmap for operationalising the Paris rulebook in 2018. It also provided guidance on how to proceed for the successful development of the facilitative dialogue. Some progress was made in the analysis of positions regarding implementation and compliance, mitigation, adaptation, transparency and the global stocktake. And, as explained above, there were a host of initiatives from Party and non-Party actors that reiterated the momentum of climate action.

Some of the challenges that remain include the entry into force of the Doha Amendment that establishes the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that would increase ambition pre-2020. Developing domestic legislative frameworks to match NDCs and increasing ambition are still pending tasks. All of these, with a just transition in mind to help gain acceptance of low carbon strategies by citizens. In terms of expected hurdles, flexibility issues between developed and developing countries and allocation of responsibilities are expected to lead to disagreements in future meetings.

As regards the leadership void left by the US there are indications that the world, perhaps through the actions of newly emerged climate leaders (among others), will work à la 2001 when the EU performed a directional leadership role in the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol after the US failed to ratify the agreement.

Should the world push ahead with its climate commitments, the case for decisive climate action is likely to be made based on the economics on transitioning to a low carbon future, the co-benefits of a decarbonised development model (Stern et al., 2016), better messaging and (sadly) increasing climate change experience, especially with extreme weather events (Dunlap et al., 2016).

About the author:
*Lara Lázaro-Touza, Senior Research Fellow, Elcano Royal Institute | @lazarotouza

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute.

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¹ The emissions gap for 2030 is currently 12GTCO2e to 14 GtCO2e for 2°C scenarios and 3 GtCO2e larger for 1.5ºC scenarios according to UNEP (2016b).

By Manpreet Sethi*

Thomas Schelling, a noted nuclear strategist who passed away recently, explained brinkmanship as a strategy that “means manipulating the shared risk of war. It means exploiting the danger that somebody may inadvertently go over the brink, dragging the other with him” (Arms and Influence, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 98-99). He graphically described this with the analogy of two cars heading towards an intersection from different directions. As one of the drivers accelerates his vehicle, he gives a signal to the other of his determination to cross first. By doing so, he has placed the onus of the decision on the other side to either slow down to let him pass, or to ignore his signal and carry on at the same speed even at the risk of a collision that would be equally harmful to both. If the second driver slows down, the first has successfully managed to use brinksmanship to deter the second driver by the threat of an accident.

It is easy to apply this example to the Pakistan-India equation in order to understand the strategy of nuclear brinksmanship as used by Pakistan to buttress its deterrence. Pakistan may be compared to the first driver who accelerates his speed (or indulges in provocative acts of terrorism) and then seeks to deter India from crossing the intersection (or launching a military response) by suggesting the possibility of collision (or the threat of an all-out nuclear war).
Besides India, Pak strategy of brinksmanship is also meant to magnify the fears of the international community. Pakistan’s military works on the assumption that a ‘concerned’ international community (especially the US) would restrain India from using military force. This then, in Pakistan’s perception, gives it the immunity to execute its strategy of bleeding India through a thousand cuts, while constraining India’s response to merely dressing its wounds without being able to strike at the hand making the injuries.

India has faced this behaviour for at least two decades by now and has understood the compulsions for Pakistan’s behaviour, as well as its limitations. The response to Uri through a surgical strike was a move to explore other by-lanes that could be taken instead of being cowed down by the threat of collision on the main intersection. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s propensity to cry nuclear wolf every now and then is now well understood by India and the international community.

Another subscriber to the strategy of nuclear brinksmanship that has been well known to the international community is the DPRK. Since the conduct of its first nuclear test in 2006, it has paced its provocative acts of nuclear and missile testing in order to garner attention through the negative route of raising risks. The tests are aimed at not just perfecting technologies but more importantly at creating the dread of growing risks in the region as a way of drawing attention. However, Kim Jong-un’s nuclear brinksmanship has not elicited the desired response from the US. In fact, the Obama administration was wary of giving the impression that it was having to engage with DPRK with a nuclear gun to its head and hence refused to do so on terms set by Kim.

Meanwhile, more recently, another country seems to have joined the ranks of those exercising nuclear brinksmanship for deterrence. President Putin has been making extremely overt noises about Russian nuclear weapons capability since the annexation of Crimea, and ostensibly, to deter interference over Ukraine. In October 2016, Russia moved its nuclear-capable missiles close to Poland and Lithuania in a clear signal to NATO and the US. A little earlier, Russian media held out stories on bomb shelters and conduct of exercises with nuclear weapons. Russian bombers have flown across and close to US borders often. Russia has also chosen to abandon the long held practice of keeping nuclear arms control issues independent of the overall political relations between Russia and the US. Its decision to walk out of the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement for political reasons is only one example of the display of its willingness to take nuclear chances.

With the new presidency about to be inaugurated in the US and going by the not-so-encouraging utterances of President-elect Donald Trump, one is not sure about how the US would deal with Russian behaviour. Would Putin be met with Trump’s version of nuclear brinksmanship? Would that cancel out each other’s moves? Or raise the nuclear temperature?
While the purpose of brinksmanship strategies is essentially deterrence, the dangers of a cavalier acceptance of risks are well known. If anything, Cold War nuclear politics brought home the need for strategic stability between two nuclear nations. In contemporary times, when nuclear dyads have proliferated, the need for stability is even greater.

Brinksmanship strategies that appear to be working raise the salience of nuclear weapons and increase their attraction for proliferation. None of this is good for international stability and security. It is therefore imperative that responsible nuclear powers around the world use every opportunity to drive home the limitations and uselessness of nuclear brinksmanship by exposing the hollowness of the threats to use nuclear weapons.

Ironically, it would be better also for the countries playing the game of nuclear brinksmanship that the nuclear emperor is not exposed for not wearing any clothes.

*Manpreet Sethi
Senior Fellow and Project Leader, Nuclear Security, Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), New Delhi

By Abhijnan Rej

The third general to be nominated to a key national security position is Marine Corps General John Kelly. Kelly served as the commander of the US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) — an area of responsibility that covered Mexico, South and Central America, and the Caribbean — between 2012 and 2016. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate him to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — the third largest cabinet department within the United States government.

One of the key focus areas of USSOUTHCOM has been surveillance and disruption of illicit narcotics and human trafficking networks and, as such, it enjoys a synergy of interest with domestic security concerns — DHS’s purview. Trump’s choice of Kelly — a much more low-key figure than Michael Flynn and James Mattis — seems to be natural. Kelly has long maintained a crime-terror nexus spanning West Asia, Africa and South America emerging as the next big threat to American national security. As head of DHS, thwarting this nexus will be his key priority.

The Department of Homeland Security itself is a creation of the 11 September, 2001 attacks. The attacks showed a deep disconnect between the intelligence agencies of the United States, law enforcement, and the immigration services. For example, soon after the attacks it became clear that two of the 9/11 hijackers were granted entry to the US despite being already noted as Al-Qaeda operatives by the CIA. Created in 2002, DHS is chartered to act as a single-point department dedicated to the prevention of terrorist attacks inside the US. However, the DHS has since faced criticism about its byzantine structure and its alleged role in privacy violation.

With the election of Trump, DHS will come into renewed focus as the parent cabinet department in charge of the citizenship and immigration, as well as customs and border protection services. One of the most divisive elements of Trump’s campaign was his harsh line towards immigration in general, and from Mexico as well as Muslim-majority parts of the world in particular. Trump’s rhetoric about building a “wall” between Mexico and the US will most likely remain just that — rhetoric. But Kelly’s DHS will have much greater latitude in enforcing a tougher line on immigration on national-security grounds.

In a 2014 interview to a US military journal, Kelly noted that the greatest threat to the United States emanating in the western hemisphere is “(…) the threat to the US coming through illicit networks” that link narco-traffickers to international terrorists. Noting that most instances where the US government has knowledge of links between the two remain classified, Kelly said, “We know that there are international terrorist organisations making vast amounts of money laundering drug proceeds that come out of the United States.”

In a statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2014, Kelly specifically named the Iran-backed and Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah as exploiting “Venezuela, and the Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay Tri-Border to engage in money laundering and other illegal endeavours, as well as recruitment and radicalisation efforts”.

A particular story stand out which justifies Kelly’s concerns about active terror-trafficking networks in action – straight of a Hollywood movie in its sheer audacity as well as apparent improbability. On 11 October 2011, the US government announced that it had evidence to prosecute two Iranian nationals, including one suspected Iranian Revolutionary Guard operative, for an attempt to assassinate the-then Saudi ambassador to the US, Adel al-Juber in a Washington D.C. restaurant. This in itself was exceptional in that the Iranians were bold enough to plot something like this on US soil.

This was just the tip of the iceberg. The Iranians had in fact tried to get a Mexico-based narco-trafficker to carry out the assassination – as well as bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies, the US government alleged. (Not all were convinced that this was indeed a legitimate plan enjoying the approval of the Iranian government. Part of the scepticism stemmed from the fact that the Mexican narco-trafficker in question was, in fact, an undercover US Drug Enforcement Administration agent.)

But the terror-crime nexus about which Kelly has so apprehensively spoken on a number of occasions remains a reality in other instances. For example, Dawood Ibrahim’s nephew, Sohail Kaskar, was arrested in the US in December 2015 on charges of narcotics trafficking as well as intending to supply missile launchers to FARC — a Columbia-based terrorist organisation. The American journalist Gretchen Peters has extensively documented the deep links between Islamist terrorism and narcotics trade and trafficking in her 2010 book Seeds of Terror.

Kelly, in his statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed his deep concern that many smuggling pipelines “lead directly into the United States, representing a potential vulnerability that could be exploited by terrorist groups seeking to do us harm.” A persistent fear here is that terrorists would use smuggling routes to sneak a weapon of mass destruction — perhaps nuclear — into the continental United States.

Kelly, as the Secretary of Homeland Security, is better placed than many — through his experience in USSOUTHCOM — to assess the threats from the narco-terror nexus. The over-bureaucratised DHS has often been accused of falling behind the curve when it comes to assessing emerging threats. Kelly’s DHS will most likely be more proactive — provided Washington politics and inter-departmental squabbles don’t exhaust the general’s energy.

This article originally appeared in Firstpost.

Commentators like himself who have been pointing to the “soft” Germanization of Kaliningrad over the past few years have been routinely denounced as fools or fantasts or worse, Andrey Vypolzov says. And the former governor of the region has just said that there is no Germanization going on there (kaliningrad.kp.ru/daily/26621/3639284/).

A week ago in a Regnum commentary, Vypolzov warned that “’a German order’” was on the march in the former East Prussia and that people should be asking whether “tomorrow there will be an occupation” (regnum.ru/news/polit/2218090.html). For that he writes today, he has been dismissed as an alarmist (regnum.ru/news/polit/2219919.html).

Such criticism doesn’t bother him, he says; but what does is this: the Kaliningrad intelligentsia “with unconcealed delight” accepted his two main theses that the return of that region to the German “cultural code” is now “close to the point of no return” and that “the self-identification of a significant part of Kaliningrad young people” has moved in that direction.

Many of these young people, Vypolzov argues, have hidden behind the official slogan of “Kaliningrad as Russian Europe,” an idea that resembles the notion of Ukraine as part of Europe and that thus constitutes an attempt at a Euromaidan within the borders of the Russian Federation.

For almost 30 years, Russian officials have failed to take much notice of “the soft autonomization of Kaliningrad oblast (and ‘Germanization’ is very much a part of this process” or of the appearance of what he dismisses as “a so-called Kaliningrad identity,” separate and apart from the Russian.

According to Vypolzov, Moscow took notice of this danger following Vladimir Putin’s decree of January 31, 2016, which dropped the Russian government’s 1992 commitment to restore a German territorial autonomy, and moved to close a variety of German institutions in Kaliningrad.

Given protests in the 1990s against restoring a German autonomy in the Middle Volga, there was never a chance that Moscow would take that step, as much as many Germans had hoped. Instead, many Germans had placed their hopes in Kaliningrad, which as Koenigsberg until 1945 had been German anyway.

Now, Putin has ended their hopes in this regard, but instead of coming to terms with that, some German activists in Kaliningrad and elsewhere have stepped up their activities, viewing that territory as their only hope for a German territory within Russia or alternatively an independent German republic.

Kaliningrad is not very German, Vypolzov says. There were only about 7500 ethnic Germans in that region at the time of the 2010 census, less than one percent of the oblast’s population and a tiny fraction of the nearly 400,000 ethnic Germans who live in the Russian Federation.

But there is another way to look at it, and supporters of the Germanization of Kaliningrad do just that. On the one hand, they note that the number of ethnic Germans in the exclave has increased 600 percent. And on the other, they point out that there is no titular nationality in Kaliningrad that might get in the way of their aspirations.

Those who think in this way have even dreamed up a name for what the Russian commentator describes as “a new Frankenstein monster.” Their land, they have decided, should be called the Baltic Slavic-German Republic. But unless there is a new crisis which Berlin seeks to exploit and Moscow fails to oppose, that isn’t going to happen, Vypolzov says.

Those who dismiss what is happening now, however, may discover that the risks of something going wrong in the future will only increase, the commentator continues – and such dismissals all too often as in the case with current and present officials in the exclave who are too willing to say “’the swastika was an ancient Slavic symbol.’”

President Obama signed the 21^st Century Cures Act on December 13. Promoted as a pro-innovation bill, the new law will improve the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory processes; as well as fund Vice-President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, the National Institutes of Health, and steps to reduce the opioid epidemic.

However, the final version of the bill also included an important payment reform: Significantly expanding the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) by small businesses. The Affordable Care Act limited employers’ use of these funding vehicles. The IRS promulgated rules levying an excise tax of up to $100 per employee per day.

The advantage of HRAs and similar funding vehicles is that they allow employers to give money directly to employees, who can spend it on medical care. This gets around health insurers’ bureaucracies, which add unnecessary administrative costs.

Obamacare was supposed to be a hand-out to health insurers. It did not quite work out that way. Nevertheless, the law forces as much health spending as possible through insurers’ claims processing. Not only does this add bureaucracy, but it inhibits proper price formation (which in a normal market takes place where the marginal supplier meets the marginal producer). Instead, U.S. health prices are determined administratively between insurers, governments, and providers.

Advocates of consumer-driven health care hope that an ever increasing share of medical payments will be paid by patients directly to providers. At some point, the insurers’ role in price-fixing will become so obviously absurd it will fall apart, and prices will be determined in a more properly functioning market.

21^st Century Cures removes the Affordable Care Act’s constraints on small businesses using HRAs to fund employees’ medical spending, instead of overpriced health insurance. As one tax expert notes:

Because of the ACA, many small employers have been prohibited from using reimbursement arrangements that previously were long-standing and effective methods of providing employees with health care benefits. The new law is a welcome modification to the ACA since it gives small employers excise tax relief plus a method for providing health benefits to their employees via the QSEHRA [Qualifying Small Employer HRA].

Hopefully, more such reforms will come in the next Congress.

This article was published by The Beacon.

US Defense Department officials on Wednesday held a video conference with Russian Defense Ministry counterparts, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.

The call was co-chaired by Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Elissa Slotkin and Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Clarke, the Joint Staff’s vice director of strategic plans and policy, Cook said.

The video conference was the latest in a continuing dialogue with the Russian Defense Ministry under the memorandum of understanding for the safety of flight in Syria to ensure that each side continues to adhere to agreed-upon measures to mitigate incidents in the air over Syria, the press secretary said.

“Department officials discussed ongoing work regarding the safety of operations since the two sides last met,” Cook said. “The two sides reiterated the utility of adhering to the memorandum of understanding to avoid accidents and misunderstandings in the air space over Syria.”

The lack of an aggressive U.S. response to China’s stealing of an American underwater drone has caused hand-wringing among the many U.S. allies in East Asia. The drone was swiped from right under the nose of an unarmed U.S. Navy research vessel that was gathering underwater information which would be useful in monitoring Chinese submarines.

That research vessel was not only in international waters but even outside the nine-dashed line—the ridiculously expansive area claimed by China in the South China Sea. China came up with the cockamamie story that it snatched the drone to ensure marine safety, but many analysts think it may have done so to protest the actions of President-elect Donald Trump—his questioning of the well-established “one-China” policy and his fielding of a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, which also seemed to undermine that policy.

After China’s seeming protest, it has agreed to give back the drone. Despite this being a minor incident, American allies in the East Asian region are questioning “U.S. resolve,” because the United States did not display its dominant fleet to do retaliatory muscle-flexing in the area.

Yet the United States should not rise to the bait. Such taunts of U.S. weakness by American allies around the world frequently have been used to get the United States to spend more effort and resources on the defense of what are now very rich nations. U.S. alliances around the world are outdated vestiges of the Cold War, merely impeding U.S. flexibility and continuing the potential to drag the nation into a needless war with nuclear-armed powers, such as Russia or China.

Thus, although Donald Trump, during his campaign, horrified the U.S. foreign policy establishment, he was quite right to question such obsolete obligations for the United States to provide the expensive first line of defense for countries that should be banding together to do so against these great powers. Instead, the United States should follow the very successful model it used in World War II: America formed ad hoc alliances to intervene as a “balancer-of-last resort” only when the balance of power in Europe or East Asia got out of whack.

In the seas near China, the United States has stated that it is neutral in the territorial disputes between China and other nations; in reality, it sides with allies such as Japan and the Philippines. Under the guise of “ensuring international navigation,” it sends its Navy to police waters in which it has no vital interest. If China, or any other nation, starts illegally interdicting U.S. commerce through those waters, only then should the U.S. Navy escort such vessels. However, because international trade is very important to the Chines economy, China would probably have no incentive to mess with U.S. commerce in the area.

Therefore, the insignificant stealing of a U.S. military drone and Trump’s correct questioning of burdensome U.S. alliances should lead to a larger national discussion about what the U.S. military is doing in these and other waters near faraway lands. This debate even could be part of a larger discussion about what the United States should be doing in the world, given its $20-trillion-dollar national debt and desperate need for economic renewal. Perhaps defending the country and its political system should take precedence over petty jousting with China in the South China Sea.

This article was published at Huffington Post and is reprinted with permission.

The II National Action Plan for the implementation of Resolution 1325, currently being prepared by the Spanish Government, should build on lessons learnt and include specific measures and best practices if it aims to achieve any advancement in the women, peace and security agenda.

By María Solanas Cardín*

Nine years after the approval of the I National Action Plan for the implementation of Resolution 1325 –and mainly driven by its participation, as a non-permanent member, in the United Nations Security Council during the 2015-16 biennium–, the Spanish Government has marked the women, peace and security agenda as a priority, undertaking to draft a II National Action Plan. The number of challenges outstanding, almost 16 years after the approval of Resolution 1325, calls for a global commitment that is sustained over time and for actions and measures in field operations supported by sufficient funding (the most serious and persistent impediment for implementation of Resolution 1325). The alliance with local organisations and agents, mainly women’s organisations, has proved to be the most efficient way to promote and ensure a significant participation by women in the prevention of conflicts and in peace-building. Only a Plan based on such premises will effectively contribute towards the implementation of Resolution 1325.

Analysis

An essential political agenda, the agenda of international peace and security

Resolution 1325 (and the seven subsequent resolutions which complement it) on women, peace and security constitutes a solid regulatory framework for the United Nations organisation addressing the main responsibility of the Security Council: to keep international peace and security. In order to achieve this goal, gender equality is an essential condition which has also proven to be indispensable for the consolidation and sustainability of peace.

This is a political agenda –and not only and intrinsically a technical agenda based on expertise– sustained on the rights/efficiency binomial: on the one hand, the right of women to participate, with an equal footing to men, in the achievement and consolidation of peace; and, on the other, the close link between women’s leadership and participation in building sustainable peace.¹ Its direct interdependence with the agenda of gender equality and empowerment of women –and, therefore, with one of the  essential goals to achieve the Sustainable Development Objectives for 2030– underlines its priority nature and its need to occupy a position of preference in the political agenda.

The agenda in terms of women, peace and security mainly affects the area of foreign action and policy, but also requires policies regarding gender equality, as well as justice, home affairs, defence, healthcare, cooperation and education, among others.

It is a good example of the synergy that exists between the domestic and foreign dimensions of policies, but can also reveal, as the case may be, any inconsistencies that exist between ambitious objectives abroad which are not matched by domestic policies.² The complexity of the challenges it addresses renders a multidimensional agenda which requires a political will that is permanent and sustained over time, the provision of human and financial resources in the short and medium term, measurable goals and objectives and continuous monitoring and assessment. The political nature of the agenda lends relevance to the participation of Parliament in the follow-up of its achievements, as well as of civil society, a key player in the observance and implementation of the objectives of Resolution 1325.

The I National Action Plan: good intentions but few results

Spain was among the first 10 countries in the world that drew up national action plans for the implementation of Resolution 1325.³ Approved on 30 November 2007 by Agreement of the Cabinet of Ministers, this first Plan continues to be in force. At that time, only Denmark, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Ivory Coast, Austria and the Netherlands,⁴ as well as Spain, had approved national plans.

The main purpose of the National Action Plans is none other than to include the objectives of Resolution 1325 in the national planning, thus ensuring that the gender perspective and the significant participation of women becomes an objective of all national agencies involved in the prevention of conflicts and in the achievement and consolidation of peace. National plans are therefore of an instrumental nature (they do not constitute objectives in and of themselves) designed to achieve the objectives of Resolution 1325 in field operations. A number of the 60 countries worldwide which have approved national action plans to date⁵ are either currently preparing a II Plan or –as is the case of Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK– are currently implementing their III National Action Plan.

The commitments undertaken in the 2007 Spanish plan,⁶ despite reflecting Spain’s political intention to promote and commit to this agenda, lacked specific measures to achieve the objectives set; they did not have sufficient human and financial means; there was an evident imbalance between the greater involvement of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and Defence and those of Equality, Justice, Education, Health, Employment or the Interior; and they failed to include outcome indicators or rigorous assessment and accountability mechanisms. Among the more positive aspects are the coordination role of the female Ambassador on Special Mission for the Promotion of Gender Equality (a post eliminated in 2011) responsible for chairing the monitoring group formed by the Ministers involved; and the commitment to establish coordination mechanisms with civil society with a view to exchanging information on actions carried out in connection with Resolution 1325 and presenting an annual follow-up report.

After almost nine years since its approval, and in view of the follow-up reports presented by both the administration⁷ and civil society,⁸ and the limited real impact achieved by the plan, the need to consider the preparation of a new National Action Plan –and not just an update of the existing one–⁹ has become evident. The participation of Spain as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council during the biennium 2015-16, and the fact that it was Spain’s turn to preside the UNSC during the month of October 2015, coinciding with the XV anniversary of Resolution 1325, has undoubtedly contributed to this realisation. These international obligations have acted as an incentive to revitalise an agenda which had lost some momentum at a national level over the last few years.

Learning from lessons and incorporating best practices

The implementation of Resolution 1325 has been –and continues to be– a long road fraught with obstacles (beginning with the marked inequality of gender, of a structural nature, and particularly in the realms of political participation and empowerment of women).¹⁰ It has also been a course filled with trial and error, of lessons learnt, both in the United Nations, the EU and other regional organisations, and in countries that have undertaken to promote its objectives. Translating the resolutions into actual solutions continues to be an outstanding challenge in most cases. However, there are some specific examples of success, such as the Colombia peace process,¹¹ where effective policies can be identified and efforts are focused in the right direction.

A new Plan is, without a doubt, a valuable opportunity. But it can also become a lost opportunity if the experience accumulated so far cannot be exploited, posing feasible initiatives and specific proposals to be applied in the field, well beyond the theory, the rhetoric and the good intentions that have plagued many of the national plans. First, it should take into account, with a critical and pragmatic approach, the recommendations contained in the Spanish follow-up reports, as well as lessons learnt in other national experiences, and incorporate, by way of a guideline, the specific proposals of the assessment report of the Global Study.¹² The examples set by the three countries which have already implemented their III National Action Plan –the UK¹³ (2014-17), Sweden¹⁴ (2016-20) and the Netherlands¹⁵ (2016-19)–, whose best practices to an extent have been contained in this work, may also prove useful.

1. Inclusive participation in the preparation, implementation, monitoring and assessment of the Plan. The joint preparation of the Plan (in close cooperation with civil society) has been considered one of the best practices to achieve effective plans that can be implemented in the field, in a concrete and realistic manner. In most cases, it is the civilian organisations of countries in conflict and post-conflict which are best placed to implement the objectives of Resolution 1325. Their significant participation in the design of the Plan ensures expertise on the context, as well as on the needs and desires of women. Both the Dutch III Plan¹⁶ and the Swedish one have been drawn up by reference groups comprised of representatives from the government and of civil society organisations, who will also contribute to their implementation and follow-up.
2. Impact indicators, annual assessment and accountability. As mentioned above, the absence of outcome indicators renders practically impossible the measurement of the progress achieved by the plan, as well as a rigorous and useful assessment of the adequacy of the measures implemented. Impact indicators must include baselines (as in the case of the British III NAP, for instance) as benchmarks to indicate the starting point and therefore allow the effort and the real measureable impact of the plan to be evaluated. Both the United Nations and the EU have designed quantitative (number of women, but also percentages) and qualitative impact indicators which can be added to the Plan, making any necessary adjustments for the case of Spain. An annual assessment, as has been undertaken by the British, Dutch and Swedish plans, seems to be an optimal solution, as it enables precise monitoring to be carried out and the suggestion of appropriate rectification or necessary reinforcement, as the case may be, of some measures. The national Parliament must be involved in the follow-up of the Plan and as an accountability mechanism. The presentation in Parliament and the debate on the follow-up reports are some of the best practices to guarantee efficacy and accountability.
3. A proper institutional framework in each unit of the administration involved, as well as a coordinating body.¹⁷ The existence of a focal point in each of the Ministries and units involved (Defence, Interior, Education, Culture and Sports, Health, Social Affairs and Equality, Institute for Women and Equal Opportunities, and the Spanish International Cooperation and Development Agency, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation) is essential to drive the Plan in sustained and permanent manner and to monitor and, as the case may be, correct any measures that need to be changed or reinforced. In addition, the existence of a figure to coordinate all of the administration agencies involved, to provide coherence to all of the actions implemented and to help maintain the political momentum of this agenda, also acting as the interlocutor with civil society organisations, is also essential. A good example of this is the Embassy for gender equality (in existence in Sweden since 2015, and which also coordinates the government’s feminist policies; as the Swedish Plan rightly points out, this role serves to strengthen Sweden’s profile in the Women, Peace and Security dossier).
4. Local action, in the field, is absolutely essential. The consideration of local players and women’s organisations in the field as partners is critical to achieve the objectives of Resolution 1325. The support of women’s organisations in the field is the most positive lesson learnt, the most reiterated recommendation and the measure that has proved to be the most efficient of all those evaluated over the past 16 years. Permanent contact with women’s organisations is essential in the prevention of conflict, as it enables the outlook and views of women to be taken into consideration when designing early warning systems and mechanisms in conflictive areas, and the gender perspective to be included in their analysis. As the II Dutch Plan underlines, local women’s organisations are ‘well placed to act in the field, are able to interact and exchange information, lobby and exercise political influence; they document human rights violations and sexual violence incidents and pressure governments and the United Nations to improve policies and frameworks for the efficient implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda’. Acting locally has proved efficient even at the preparation stage of the Plan. Consultations in the field (as were carried out by the Swedish government both to embassies and local civilian peace-building organisations and national authorities at ground level) are essential when seeking to design the most efficient specific measures.
5. Funding, indispensable to achieve the objectives. Identified by the Global Study as the ‘most serious and constant obstacle’ to meet the commitments, the allocation of resources is one of the keys to ensure the influence and significant participation of women in peace process and prevention of conflicts. The Global Study stresses that ‘accessible, flexible and foreseeable funding for civilian women’s organisations is indispensable to achieve specific results’, and proposes that member states, regional organisations and the United Nations system should undertake to allocate at least 15% of the funds assigned to the peace and security agenda to programmes whose main objective is to respond to the specific needs of women and to promote gender equality. Resolution 2242, approved in October 2015 under the Spanish Presidency of the UNSC, highlights the critical nature of the financing gap of women’s organisations, identifying the Global Acceleration Instrument on Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action as a channel to attract funding, coordinate responses and accelerate implementation.

Thinking globally, but acting locally: eight specific measures for the II National Action Plan

Direct contact with reality and the local players in countries which are fragile, in conflict or post-conflict, has proved indispensable for the prevention and the implementation of peace process leading to sustainable agreements. In this regard, permanent contact in the field –via national diplomatic representations– with local women’s organisations and other civilian organisations and NGOs is essential to enhance the leadership and visibility of women and their significant participation in peace-building process. By way of recommendation of specific measures which will help to boost the objectives of Resolution 1325, below are some which, based on best practices, could be included in the II National Action Plan:

1. Promotion of leadership of more women at decision-making levels, both domestically and in international organisations. The British II Plan has undertaken to encourage the appointment of more women in senior decision-making positions in areas addressing conflict, stability and security abroad (United Nations and other regional organisations), but also to increase women’s participation in the domestic sphere in senior positions so that, by the end of the term of the Plan (2017), 50% of new appointments are women.
2. Support to civilian organisations in the field in countries at risk, in conflict and post-conflict involved in peace-building process, particularly to women’s rights organisations, through dialogue, enhanced visibility, dialogue and regular interchange with Embassies and other national agencies in the field, as well as technical support and mediation training.
3. Financial support, sustained over time, to women’s organisations promoting equality, women’s empowerment, conflict prevention and peace process, with a specific budgetary allocation and establishment of a minimum amount of the overall peace and security budget. This priority would likewise go hand in hand with the reinforcement of feminist and women’s organisation in civil society as reflected in the Spanish Cooperation Master Plan.¹⁸ In addition to public funding, which is essential, public-private alliances might be an option worth considering. The international peace and security and gender equality cause might arouse the interest and support of the private sector, shoring up the effort of the administration and boosted by it.
4. Support to women mediators in peace process, creating a women mediation network similar to that established in Sweden in cooperation with the Folke Bernadotte Academy,¹⁹ or the network of Nordic Women Mediators (NOREF),²⁰ to help identify women mediators, enhancing their visibility and training.
5. Priority implementation of the National Action Plan in those countries which can benefit from added value and which provide the best circumstances for the promotion of the Resolution 1325 objectives. Following the model proposed by the Dutch III NAP, these would be the countries in the foreign policy spotlight and where there is room for manoeuvre, local partners, national non-governmental organisations working in field operations and participation in civilian and/or military multilateral missions, among others. In Spain’s case, the combination of diplomatic efforts, ODA and other development contribution mechanisms, the presence of Spanish NGOs in the field and the necessary support to women’s organisations could be provided, for instance, in Mali, Colombia and the Palestinian territories, all countries in conflict or post-conflict situations where Spain could implement specific measures to support women’s participation, in the medium and long term, in peace-building process.
6. Annual evaluation carried out by civilian organisations, providing the public administration with an independent assessment which enables the least effective measures to be corrected and those yielding better results to be strengthened.
7. Presentation and debate in the Parliament of the Plan and evaluation reports, so that the Parliament participates in the follow-up of action implemented and the accountability of the legislative power is guaranteed.
8. Permanent encouragement and promotion at an international level and in all organisations of which Spain is a member (United Nations, EU, OSCE, NATO, United Nations Human Rights Council in the event its candidacy is successful, etc.) included in the women, peace and security agenda, thus consolidating Spain’s leading position in the promotion of gender equality. The active participation in the recently created Network of Focal Points of Women, Peace and Security²¹ –presented in the United Nations on 23 September– must be consolidated, along with the active participation in the EU Women, Peace and Security Task Force. In addition, Spain should actively support and propose the measures promoted by the Principal Adviser on Gender and on the Implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 on European External Action Service, Mara Marinaki.

What profile should define Spain in the United Nations?

In its candidacy to the UNSC for the 2015-16 biennium, the Spanish government defined gender equality as ‘one of the main objectives of Spanish foreign policy and diplomacy’ and included, among the 10 reasons underpinning its application, that of ‘giving human rights and gender equality and women’s participation in peace-building their rightful place in ensuring security and stability’.²² Upon gaining its membership, Spain identified gender equality as one of the priorities during the biennium, having assumed the presidency of the Security Council during the month of October last year, coinciding with the XV anniversary of Resolution 1325. During its presidency Spain promoted the approval of a new Women, Peace and Security Resolution: Resolution 2242.

The biennium in the United Nations has given Spain the chance to assume a leadership role which, following this momentum, should help to consolidate gender equality as a priority objective of foreign policy (and not only as a tool serving foreign policy goals). To remain active in the Women, Peace and Security agenda should be an objective of the whole of the administration, headed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, helping to consolidate a leading position in the long term. The identification and recognition of Spain as one of the leading countries in the promotion of gender equality –which, after several years of setback, the membership of the UNSC has helped to restore– is an asset which must be preserved and consolidated one of the hallmarks of Spain’s foreign action in the world. It would also become part of the footprint left by Spain during its time in the Security Council, of the profile which would identify it for future candidacies and an area in which its contribution and added value in a medium term agenda such as that of Sustainable Development Objectives would be widely acknowledged.

Conclusions

The Women, Peace and Security agenda (which entails the promotion of global objectives such as international peace and security and gender equality, and local action in field operations to achieve its objectives) must be viewed as a priority objective of foreign action and policy, involving the whole of the administration, and helping to create synergies between the reals of foreign and domestic policies.

The drafting of a II National Action Plan is a valuable opportunity to make a significant contribution to the implementation of Resolution 1325, incorporating some of the new and more ambitious goals of Resolution 2242, such as that of having more women leaders at decision-making levels or the training of mediators. However, if the necessary human and financial resources in line with the level of its aspirations are not provided, it runs the risk of becoming a lost opportunity.

Therefore it is paramount that the Plan contains a balanced commitment of all units of the administration, establishes institutional coordination mechanisms to enable the agenda to be promoted, involves dialogue with civil society, incorporates impact measurement, assessment and monitoring mechanisms and, particularly, includes specific measures in the field to provide support –mainly financial and political– to women’s organisations, and the leadership and participation of women in the prevention of conflicts and in peace-building and consolidation processes.

About the author:
*María Solanas Cardín, Project Manager at the Elcano Royal Institute | @Maria_Solanas

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute. Original version in Spanish: Ocho recomendaciones para el II Plan de Acción Nacional sobre Mujeres, Paz y Seguridad

Notes:
¹ María Solanas (2016), ‘Aplicando la Resolución 1325: más mujeres en posición de liderazgo, más paz’, Elcano Blog, Elcano Royal Institute.

Israel has informed the United States that Lebanese Hezbollah fighters in Syria are using U.S. armored personnel carriers originally supplied to the Lebanese Army, a senior Israeli military officer said on Wednesday, December 21, according to Reuters.

The U.S. State Department said last month that the American embassy in Beirut was working to investigate images on social media purporting to show Hezbollah, which supports President Bashar al-Assad, displaying U.S. military equipment in Syria.

Those images were widely reported to have been of U.S.-made M113 armored personnel carriers, which the State Department said were extremely common in the region.

In an intelligence briefing to foreign reporters in Tel Aviv, the senior officer showed a photograph of military vehicles, which he said included U.S.-made armored personnel carriers (APCs), along a road.

“These APCs are of the Hezbollah, while fighting in Syria, that they took from the Lebanese armed forces,” he said in English, describing the guerrilla group as dominant in Lebanon.

“We shared this information with other countries, including the U.S. of course, and I can even say that we recognized these specific APCs with some specific parameters that we know … these were given to the Lebanese armed forces. It’s not an assumption,” said the officer, who under the rules of the briefing could not be identified by name, rank or position.

Western diplomatic sources have said the APCs were delivered to the Lebanese Army by the United States as part of a program to equip that force.

The officer made no comment about when the APCs would have been supplied to the Lebanese Army.

The officer said Hezbollah has 8,000 fighters in Syria where more than 1,700 of the group’s combatants have been killed since 2011.

Israel and Hezbollah, which the officer said has 30,000 members, half of them combatants, last fought a war in 2006.

On 12 December, the British government officially adopted a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes legitimate criticism of Israel.

The definition was adopted earlier in the year by pro-Israeli group IHRA, although it was considered but abandoned by the European anti-racism agency in 2005.

It is a rather dangerous move which will most likely lead to an expanding chasm between British civil society and Britain’s political elite.

Israeli and pro-Israeli groups in the West have always been keen on conflating genuine racism and genuine criticism of the State of Israel, which stands accused of violating scores of United Nations resolutions and of war crimes in the occupied territories, especially in the Gaza Strip.

Adopting the new definition comes on the heels of a manufactured crisis in British politics, in which the Labour party, under Jeremy Corbyn, was falsely accused of being “soft” on anti-Semitism among its members. This “crisis” was engineered by pro-Israeli groups to detract from genuine campaigning among Labour supporters, in order to bind Israel to its international obligations, and end the siege and occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Last October, a cross-party group issued a report that contributed to the confusion of ideas, condemning the use of the word “Zionist” as pejorative, and claiming that such a use “has no place in civil society”.

While efforts to protect Israel from freedom of speech in Britain are still gathering steam, the debate in the United States has been stifled long ago. There is little room for any criticism of Israel in mainstream American media or “polite” society. Effectively, this means that US policy in the Middle East remains beholden only to Israeli interests, the diktats of its powerful pressure and lobby groups.

Following suit, the UK is now adopting that same self-defeating position, an issue which is hardly new. In fact, Friday of last week was an anniversary of great relevance to this very issue.

On 16 December 1991, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 46/86, a single, reticent statement: “The General Assembly decides to revoke the determination contained in its resolution 3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975.”

This was a reversal of an earlier resolution that equated Israel’s political ideology, Zionism and racism.

The longer text of the initial resolution, 3379 of 1975, was based on a clear set of principles, including UN resolution 2106 of 1965 that defined racial discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin.”

The reversal of that resolution was the outcome of vigorous US lobbying and pressures that lasted for years. In 1991, Israel insisted that it would not join the US-sponsored Madrid peace talks without the disavowal of 3379 first. With the UN being one of the Madrid Talks’ sponsors, the US pressure paid its dividends at last, and UN members were obliged to overturn their early verdicts.

However, equating Zionism with racism is not the only comparison that is often conjured by Israel’s critics.

Recently, Ecuadorian envoy to the United Nations, Horacio Sevilla was adamant in his comments before a UN session, marking 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

After he repudiated “with all our strength the persecution and genocide” unleashed by “Nazism against the Hebrew people,” he added, “but I cannot remember anything more similar in our contemporary history than the eviction, persecution and genocide that today imperialism and Zionism do against the Palestinian people.”

The tirade of condemnations that followed was expected, as Israeli officials seized yet another opportunity to hurl anti-Semitic accusations against the United Nations for persistently targeting Israel, while, supposedly, excluding others from censure.

As far as Israel is concerned, any criticism of the state and its political ideology is anti-Semitic as are any demands for accountability from Israel regarding its military conducts during war.

But why is Israel so concerned with definitions?

At the heart of Israel’s very existence lurks a sense of vulnerability which all the nuclear warheads and firepower cannot redeem.

Outlawing the use of the term Zionism is ludicrous and impractical, if not altogether impossible.

For Israelis who embrace the term, Zionism is many things, while for Palestinians, who learned to loathe it, it is, ultimately a single ideology.

In an article published in 2012, Israeli author Uri Avnery acknowledged the many shades of Zionism – early socialist Zionism (obsessed with the colour red, and mobilising around Jewish-only unions and Kibbutzim); religious Zionism which sees itself as the “forerunner of the Messiah”; right-wing Zionism which demands a “Jewish state in all of historical Palestine”, and secular, liberal Zionism as envisioned by its founder, Theodor Herzl.

For a Palestinian whose land was illegally confiscated, home demolished and life endangered by these very “Zionist” forces, Avnery’s itemisation is insignificant. For them the term “Zionist” is essentially pejorative, and is anyone who advocates, participates in or justifies Israeli aggressive actions based on his/her support and sympathy for political Zionism.

In his article, “Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims”, the late Palestinian Professor Edward Said elaborates: “It is not unreasonable to find that the entire Palestinian-Arab experience seems unanimous about the view that Zionism visited upon the Arabs a singular injustice, and that even before the British handed Palestine over to Zionist settlers upon which to establish a state formally in 1948, Palestinians universally opposed and variously tried to resist Zionist colonialism.”

Many countries share the Palestinian perception of Zionism as a form of colonialism, and that prevailing perception is a historical fact, not a product of collective anti-Semitic illusion.

The reason why the question and debate of Zionism must not waver to any intimidation is that the essence of Zionism never matured, evolved or changed from its early, colonial version.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe agrees. “The Zionist ideology and strategy has not changed from its very beginning,” he wrote. “The idea was ‘We want to create a Jewish state in Palestine but also a Jewish democracy’. So the Zionists needed to have a Jewish majority all the time … Therefore, ethnic cleansing was the only real solution from the Zionist perspective.”

This remains the main driving force behind Israeli policy towards Palestinians and Israel’s refusal to break away from a 19th century colonial enterprise into a modern, democratic state for all its citizens.

To do so, would be to sacrifice the core of its Zionist ideology, constructed on an amalgam of ethno-religious identities, and to embrace a universal form of democracy in a state where Jews and Arabs are treated as equals.

By Jim Garamone

The return of land on Okinawa’s Northern Training Area will reduce the footprint of US forces on the Japanese island by 20 percent, officials in Japan said Wednesday.

US forces returned title to 10,000 acres of the training area during a ceremony hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his office in Tokyo. US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy and Air Force Lt. Gen. Jerry Martinez, the commander of U.S. Forces Japan, attended the ceremony. A second ceremony will take place on Okinawa tomorrow.

During the ceremony, Kennedy said the transfer marks a milestone in the US-Japan alliance. “This return will reduce our footprint in Okinawa by about 20 percent, and it is an important step in the Okinawa consolidation plan, which will eventually result in the transfer of 60 acres of land south of Kadena Air Base,” she said.

The transfer demonstrates the U.S. commitment to reducing the impact on the citizens of Japan who live on Okinawa while still maintaining commitments to the defense of Japan, said the ambassador added.

“Most importantly, on behalf of the United States government and the American people, I would like to express our deep gratitude to all the communities in Japan – especially those in Okinawa – that host United States bases,” Kennedy said. “Our service men and women are honored to live in these communities as they undertake their mission for the defense of Japan and the security of the Asia-Pacific region. Japan and the United States are the closest of allies, and our global partnership is a force for peace and stability.”

During his visit to Japan Dec. 7, Defense Secretary Ash Carter emphasized the importance of the land return.

“We’re also realigning our joint force posture in Japan, relocating Marines to Guam and reducing our footprint on Okinawa while maintaining the personnel and capabilities needed to keep Japan and the region secure,” he said during a joint news conference with Defense Minister Tomomi Inada. “We appreciate the government of Japan’s continued commitment to this project.”

Largest Land Return

Carter said the land return is the largest since 1972, when the United States returned sovereignty over the island to Japan. U.S. forces captured the island from Japan in April 1945 in a costly battle.

“Regarding the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, we still have issues remaining that need to be addressed,” Inada said, noting that she and Carter reaffirmed in their discussions that the Futenma Replacement Facility at Henoko Bay is the only solution that permits the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

“I requested Secretary Carter to continue cooperation on initiatives to mitigate impacts on Okinawa and we both agree to continue cooperation,” she added.

The transfer comes following Japanese progress in constructing helipads and access roads in a portion of the Northern Training Area, U.S. Forces Japan officials said in a news release.

Training

The Northern Training Area, also known as Camp Gonsalves or the Jungle Warfare Training Center, is a 19,300-acre U.S. installation in northern Okinawa. Aside from a few support buildings, roads and ranges, it consists almost entirely of untouched rainforest. It is the largest U.S. installation in Japan.

The area is home to some endangered species, and it abuts the Yanbaru Wildlife Center.

Training will still be conducted on the remainder of the area, officials said.

“This decreased training area on Okinawa will not deteriorate our commitment or our ability towards working with the government of Japan and our partners in the Japan Self Defense Force in mutual defense of this country,” Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Japan, said in a statement posted on Facebook today.

“Our capabilities to operate in the Pacific will remain consistent, even within a smaller space,” he said. “We have plans for many more [Special Action Committee on Okinawa] agreements and other returns to be implemented in coming years, because we are respectful of the feelings of Okinawans that our footprint must be reduced.”

The partial return of the Northern Training Area is one step in consolidating U.S. facilities on the island. The eventual goal is to return most of the American facilities south of Kadena Air Base. The return of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, in particular, has been a major goal of both the U.S. and Japan for several years, officials said.

Saudi Arabia’s 2017 budget, announced today, will include some tough decisions which neither nationals nor expats living in the Kingdom are used to nor will find easy.

However, with the ongoing oil price crisis, Riyadh — which until today still relies mostly on the energy economy — had only one of two options: Fight or flight.

Rather than burying its head in the sand, praying for solutions and exhausting its reserves, the government opted for the more difficult of the two choices: To fight.

Believing that the best time to introduce reforms is when your back is against the wall, the Saudi leadership earlier this year announced an ambitious, yet undoubtedly challenging, set of reforms under the umbrella of Vision 2030. It was an overarching initiative spearheaded by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is head of the Kingdom’s Council of Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA).

Many Saudis believe in the vision and value its importance, particularly given that it was crafted after a series of focus groups and workshops, which included many representatives of the country’s population. However, there were those — mostly people who benefit from the status quo — who sought to brush off the reforms as either unattainable or unnecessary.

Of course, there is no question that, over at least the next two years, the majority will suffer from a financial pinch — and the criticism of the reform plans will now undoubtedly increase.

After all, citizens and residents of the oil-rich Kingdom are not used to paying a higher rate for energy prices; and of course, the impact does not stop there, as the domino effect will also mean price increases for goods and services; many of which will soon also be subject to a value-added tax (VAT).

Expats working in the Kingdom, who also began paying a higher rate on their entry/exit visas this year, will also be subjected to paying fees for as long as they work in Saudi Arabia. However, these fees are minimal and are in no way comparable those levied in the US or European countries, where not only a hefty income tax (reaching 50 percent in some cases) applies, but also taxes on energy, water, municipality or council services, property transactions, inheritance and even TV licenses.

Yet to say that these Saudi reforms were not necessary is simply ignorant. Numbers Arab News has reviewed with senior government officials over the past few days demonstrate a real “doomsday scenario” within less than five years if such reforms were not introduced as quickly as they have been.

The good news is that the 2017 budget, and the government’s budget-balancing act it aims to achieve by 2020, has assumed only the worst-case scenario. Things will be ever rosier if positive factors come to pass, such as the imminent oil output deal, and the eagerly-anticipated Saudi Aramco initial public offering.

We should not neglect to mention that the price hikes are going to be introduced alongside a generous government assistance program, the aim of which is twofold. It will both help Saudis on low incomes cope with the increased rates, while at the same time attempt to limit waste and rectify bad habits by offering incentives to citizens who cut down on their energy and water consumption.

The measures announced today come with a whole set of commitments designed so that the people of the Kingdom will begin seeing the results as soon as possible, and that a budgetary balance is achieved by 2020, paving the way for a sustainable economic future.

First and foremost, Riyadh has pledged full transparency on its projects and spending. Now, while some might be wary of Saudi Arabia’s dealing with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the reality is what better “seal of approval” could the economy get than working with the IMF and other such internationally-trusted entities?

What is interesting is that the pledge of being transparent is not only directed outwards, but inwards as well; even though the government does not actually have to make such promises. Among the reforms it intends to introduce is a public record detailing the achievements, KPIs and spending of different ministries and entities.

Will this succeed? Well, there have been many Saudi projects which were announced and never delivered; however, the majority of the ones that were fruitful had one thing in common: The involvement of the head of state himself.

A few days ago, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman addressed Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council and made it clear he is fully supportive of the reforms. He was also the first to subscribe to full transparency when it comes to the reality of what the various economic reforms will entail.

As he said earlier this year, they “might be painful in the short run but ultimately aim to protect the economy from worse problems.”

By Felix K. Chang*

(FPRI) — Last week, a Chinese naval vessel which had been shadowing the USNS Bowditch, a U.S. Navy oceanographic ship, scooped up one of the ship’s unmanned underwater survey drones about 80 km off the Philippine coast. Washington demanded the drone’s return. Over the weekend, China’s Ministry of Defense said that it would transfer the drone back to the United States; and by Tuesday afternoon it was back in American hands. Though the incident was quickly settled, it could have easily escalated. Some initially feared a replay of the 2001 crisis in which China impounded a damaged U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft for three months after a Chinese J-8 fighter collided with it over the South China Sea.

Lest anyone think that the recent rapprochement between China and the Philippines would restore calm to the South China Sea, the drone incident demonstrated that tensions there remain high. Even more worrisome in the longer run is the steady militarization of the region’s disputed islands.

Vietnam’s Response to China

Considering what Vietnam sees as China’s repeated provocations—from its use of the Hai Yang Shi You 981 offshore oil drilling rig in disputed waters to its construction of military-grade airfields on Chinese-occupied islands—Hanoi has felt justified to respond in kind. Last year, it extended the runway on Vietnamese-held Spratly Island from under 760 meters to over 1,000 meters, long enough to accommodate maritime surveillance and transport aircraft. Then in August, Reuters reported that Vietnam had discretely deployed mobile rocket launchers on some of the other islands that it holds.[1] Once assembled and armed, Vietnam could easily target China’s nearby island airfields and military facilities.

China’s Response to Vietnam

Conscious of such dangers, China has taken precautions. Satellite imagery recently revealed that China has installed large anti-aircraft guns and close-in weapons systems capable of shooting down cruise missiles on each of its islands.[2] Earlier this year, China deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile systems on Woody Island in the Paracel archipelago. Perhaps they will also appear on Chinese-occupied islands in the Spratly archipelago, if more foreign aircraft are seen overhead. No doubt China is preparing itself for an armed challenge, whether from competing South China Sea claimants or the United States. As China’s Ministry of Defense posted on its microblog last Friday, “Were someone to be threatening you with armed force outside your front door, would you not get ready with even a slingshot?”[3]

The Philippines’ Resignation

Meanwhile, the Philippines’ response to all this went in the opposite direction after the election of Rodrigo Duterte as its president in June. Duterte’s foreign minister, Perfecto Yasay, signaled the Philippines’ resignation to China’s military construction. “We cannot stop China at this point in time and say do not put that up,” he said.[4] Instead, the Philippines would focus on furthering its economic ties with China. That strategy has paid off so far. In October, China promised Duterte that it would provide the Philippines with investment and financing worth $24 billion. The following month, the Chinese coast guard allowed Filipino fishermen to return to the waters near Scarborough Shoal for the first time since the 2012 standoff there between Chinese and Philippine authorities.

That the Philippines has gone wobbly on standing up to China probably came as little surprise to Vietnamese leaders, who always doubted Philippine commitment. For the moment, Vietnam is doing its best to match China’s actions. And so the militarization of the South China Sea continues. Hopefully future incidents in its waters will end as peacefully as the most recent one did.

About the author:
*Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of DecisionQ, a predictive analytics company in the national security and healthcare industries. He has worked with a number of digital, consumer services, and renewable energy entrepreneurs for years.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] Greg Torode, “Exclusive: Vietnam moves new rocket launchers into disputed South China Sea – sources,” Reuters, Aug. 10, 2016.

[2] “China’s New Spratly Island Defenses,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Dec. 13, 2016, https://amti.csis.org.

[3] Li Xiaokun, “Island defenses ‘legitimate, legal’,” China Daily, Dec. 16, 2016.

[4] Jeannette I. Andrade, “PH helpless vs China–Yasay,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, Dec. 17, 2016.

By Abhijnan Rej*

While James Mattis — Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defence position — was pushing the new counter-insurgency doctrine into action in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump’s NSA-designate Michael Flynn was serving as the intelligence head of the United States Joint Special Operations Command (Jsoc). Jsoc integrates special operators from the army, navy, and the air force, and is tasked with command over all covert and other sub-conventional activity that the United States military undertakes in war. It also enjoys close working relationships with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division.

The intelligence arm of Jsoc that Flynn led was responsible for intelligence-gathering to support on-ground operations, for interrogation of captured terrorists, and for interfacing intelligence analysts with combat teams in real time. Flynn’s experience with Jsoc in Iraq, as Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, for the coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan and, finally, as the Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency – Pentagon’s behemoth spy agency – shaped and moulded his world-view and led him to fall out with Obama – and to eventually endorse Trump.

This world view posits radical Islam as an existential threat to the United States, at par with Soviet communism at the height of the Cold War. The fight against radical Islam is a generational struggle that is nowhere near to being over, adherents to this world-view would hold. While this was also the implicit belief of the Bush-era neoconservatives, what makes Flynn stand out is his assertion that the enemy is not simply a motley crew of insurgents prowling the badlands of international politics – however threatening it may be. Rather it is “a political ideology based on a religion,” as Flynn told journalist Mehdi Hasan in January this year.

It is this very expansiveness of conception that worries Flynn’s (and Trump’s) detractors – and assures many around the world who have maintained that Obama, in hurry to end wars he didn’t start, has relinquished American initiative in the fight against global jihad. While Obama’s drone strikes has had limited utility in diminishing the threat emanating from the Af-Pak region, Islamist radicals have created a proto-state across Iraq and Syria. And as the ongoing difficulties in recapturing Mosul illustrate, the news of impending death of IS is vastly exaggerated.

A brilliant Politico profile of Flynn – published before Trump’s election, in October – termed him as “America’s angriest general.” Unlike most of Bush’s neoconservative mouthpieces, Flynn’s way of looking at the world was not shaped by debate in think-tanks and universities. Rather, as the Politico profile describes it, it was by his face-to-face encounters with the adversary – in form of captured high-ranking members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) – that shaped Flynn’s conviction “that ‘core Al Qaeda’ wasn’t actually compromised of human beings, but rather it was an ideology with a particular version of Islam at its center.” This is politically-incorrect stuff. But is it accurate?

Flynn’s detainees were working for Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who led AQI which would, in time, morph into IS as we know the group today. Zarqawi’s career as a jihadist was shaped by his time in Osama bin Laden’s pre-2001 Afghanistan where he formed a close relationship with jihadi theorist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. Al-Suri literally wrote the most authoritative manual on the strategy of global jihad. (This Firstpost article summarizes some recent research on al-Suri’s contributions.) His description of al-Qaeda – which was repeated by other suspects captured by the United States prior to 9/11 – is notable:

Al-Qaeda is not an organization, it is not a group, nor do we want it to be […] It is a call, a reference, a methodology.

Nizam la tanzim; system, not organization – that was al-Qaeda 2.0, the precursor to IS. But a system of what? Of a restoration of the Islamic caliphate, following the calls of ideologues of political Islam like Sayyid Qutb.

Michael Flynn’s subjects had provided him with a fundamental insight: this is not an amorphous “war against terror” (whatever that means). It is a war against a particular ideology. Obama, Trump’s supporters would contend, either failed to see it as such or (much worse) ignored it as politically-inexpedient. And from this insight, other policy prescriptions that Flynn has advocated – and would now put in place as Trump’s NSA – would follow.

But a war on an ideology is more than as-and-when kinetic action in far-flung areas of the world. By its very definition, it requires the deployment of all resources the United States has, much like the policy of containment against the Soviet Union American diplomat George Kennan had advocated at the start of the Cold War. How the Trump administration defines, and fights, this war will shape much of the future in the Middle East and North Africa in the years to come.

This article originally appeared in Firstpost.

By Marcus Tanner

The British government’s code of conduct declares ministers must ensure “that no conflict arises, or appears to rise, between their public duties and their private interests”.

Labour MPs say Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson used a visit to the Geca Kon Belgrade bookstore, held officially to discuss press freedom, to promote “The Churchill Factor,” his book on Britain’s wartime premier.

The left-leaning UK Guardian broke the story when it reported that Johnson’s Serbian publicist was present at the event and that he was photographed in front of a cutout poster of the book’s front cover.

Labour MPs have demanded that Prime Minister Theresa May investigate whether the code was breached. Shadow foreign minister Clive Lewis said: “Boris Johnson’s conduct has raised questions on his ability to represent Britain internationally, let alone hold the office of Foreign Secretary. It is not acceptable that on Armistice Day, Boris used a state visit as an opportunity for self-promotion.”

Johnson’s office has shrugged off the idea that the wealthy minister – a prolific author – could have had any interest in selling his book in Serbia, which is not known as a lucrative market for English-language authors.

Johnson has had a difficult time in office managing the transition from MP and mischief-making journalist to government minister. A recent speech criticising Saudi Arabia for waging proxy wars in the region angered the Prime Minister’s office, which prizes good relations with the Gulf kingdom.