The recent suicide bombing of a popular Sufi shrine in Sindh is the latest operation of a recently formed alliance of militant jihadist and sectarian groups that includes Islamic State (IS) and organisations associated with the Pakistani Taliban.

By James M. Dorsey and Azaz Syed*

The bombing of the shrine of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in the southern Pakistani town of Sehwan by a female suicide bomber that killed 83 people, including 20 children, was the alliance’s ninth attack in a week. The grouping earlier targeted the Punjabi parliament, military outposts, a TV crew, and a provincial police station. The alliance represents a joining of forces by Pakistani and Afghan jihadists and groups who trace their origins to sectarian organisations that have deep social roots. The alliance’s declared aim is to challenge the state at a time that Pakistan is under external pressure to clean-up its counterterrorism act. A recent Pakistani crackdown on militants has been selective, half-hearted, and largely ineffective.

Pakistan has blamed Afghanistan-based militants for the attacks, demanded that Afghanistan hand over 76 militants allegedly associated with the alliance, and closed its border in Afghanistan while it hunts down alliance operatives on its own territory. Counterterrorism officials said the alliance of eight organisations formed late last year included IS, the Pakistani Taliban and some of its associates, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LJA), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), and Jundallah.

Wreaking Havoc

Members of the alliance have demonstrated their ability to wreak havoc long before they decided to join forces. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for a December 2014 attack on a public military school in which 141 people, including 132 school children, were killed. The attack sparked public outrage and forced the government to announce a national action plan to crack down on militants and political violence. The plan has so far largely proven to be a paper tiger.

LJA and IS said they carried out an attack last October on a police academy in Quetta that left 62 cadets dead. In August, JuA wiped out a generation of Baluch lawyers who had gathered at a hospital in Quetta to mourn the killing of a colleague, the second one to be assassinated in a week.

The bombings and killings did little to persuade Pakistan’s security establishment that long-standing military and intelligence support for groups that did the country’s geopolitical bidding in Kashmir and Afghanistan as well as for sectarian and ultra-conservative organisations and religious schools that often also benefitted from Saudi funding was backfiring. The support has allowed some of these groups to garner popular support and make significant inroads into branches of the state.

Differing Attitudes

Credible Pakistani media reports, denied by the government as well as the military, said that the attacks had brought out sharp differences between various branches of government and the state over attitudes towards the militants during a meeting last year of civilian, military and intelligence leaders. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his foreign minister Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry were reported to have told military and intelligence commanders that Pakistan risked international isolation because of its failure to enforce the national action plan.

JuA last month announced the alliance’s challenging of the state with its declaration of Operation Ghazi, named after Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a leader of Islamabad’s controversial Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, widely viewed as jihadist nerve centre, who was killed in clashes in 2007 with the military. The group said the alliance would target provincial parliaments; security forces, including the military, intelligence and the police; financial institutions; non-Islamic political parties; media; co-ed educational institutions; Shiites and Ahmadis, a group widely viewed by conservative Muslims as heretics that have been declared non-Muslims in Pakistan’s constitution.

There is little indication that the formation of the alliance and the launch of its violent campaign will spark a fundamental re-think of its longstanding differentiation between militant groups that do its geopolitical bidding and those that target the Pakistani state.

Business As Usual

Despite the crackdown in the wake of the most recent attacks, Pakistan’s refusal to put an end to its selective countering of political violence was evident in an earlier crackdown on groups that are believed to have close ties to the security establishment.

In a bid to prevent a possible inclusion of Pakistan in a re-working by President Donald J. Trump of his troubled ban on travel to the United States from violence-prone Muslim countries, Pakistan last month put leaders of another internationally designated group under house arrest. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global inter-governmental body that combats money laundering and funding of political violence, is expected to discuss Pakistan in the coming days at a meeting in Paris.

In addition to treating the leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely seen as a front for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, with kid’s gloves rather than putting them in prison, the government has so far remained silent about the group’s intention to resume operations under a new name. The government has also said nothing about the group’s plans to register itself as a political party.

To Ban or Not to Ban?

Analysts with close ties to the military have argued that simply banning JuD and seizing its assets would not solve the problem because of the group’s widespread popular support. Some analysts draw a comparison to militant Islamist groups in the Middle East such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah in Lebanon that have garnered popular support by functioning both as political parties and social service organisations.

“Ensuring that such groups disavow violence and have a path towards participation in a pluralistic, competitive political environment is more likely to offer the prospect of greater stability. That may work for some groups like JuD but not for those responsible for this week’s wave of indiscriminate killing,” one analyst said.

*James M. Dorsey PhD is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture. Azaz Syed is an award-winning Pakistani investigative reporter for Geo News and The News. He is the author of the acclaimed book, The Secrets of Pakistan’s War On Al-Qaida.

This article was published at RSIS.

By Terri Moon

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis completed his first trip to the Middle East, where he gained valuable insight as he prepares to make key policy decisions, including submitting the results of a review of the department’s strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to the White House, Pentagon press operations director Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters this morning.

In a memorandum signed Jan. 28, President Donald Trump ordered the Defense Department to come up with a new plan within 30 days to defeat ISIS. Davis said the review is due early next week, and added, “we’re on track to deliver it on time.”

Whole-of-Government Plan

The captain called the review a comprehensive, whole-of-government plan.

“It will address ISIS globally, and it is not just a DoD plan,” he said. “We’re charged with leading the development of the plan, but it absolutely calls upon the capabilities of other departments.”

Davis said the White House memorandum “puts the bull’s eye of the target squarely on DoD to lead it, but it is absolutely being done with the input of other agencies. We chair it. We’re developing the strategy, but we’re doing it together with other departments.”

Review Involves Many Countries

The review will be an outline of a strategy that encompasses numerous issues surrounding the defeat of ISIS, he said. “We have been working diligently with our interagency partners to develop it with the intelligence community, our military commanders on the ground, the Joint Staff and our policy team here, and it represents the input of a number of other departments.”

The captain said that the proposed plan will go to the president, who will make decisions based on the recommendations contained in the review.

Countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya and others in the Southeast Asia region are included in the review, he said, “in the sense that this is going to explore the strategy for how we combat ISIS outside of Iraq and Syria, where we’ve seen ISIS spring up in other places.”

By Pushpita Das

Beginning with the spike in budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2009-10 following the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, the MHA has been witnessing a steady increase in its allocations over the years. In the last three years too, allocations have increased from Rs. 61,401.78 crore in 2014-15 to 65,651.10 crore in 2015-16, and to 73,406.37 crore in 2016-17. For the upcoming financial year 2017-18 as well, this upward trend has persisted with allocations reaching Rs. 83,823 crore, a hike of around 11.5 per cent over that of the previous year.

Of the total allocations to the MHA, allocation made under the head ‘Police’ pertains to matters of internal security such as the central armed police forces (CAPFs), central police organisations (CPOs), border infrastructure, intelligence, disaster and emergency management, etc. The increased budgetary allocations under the ‘Police’ head over the years reflect the growing concerns over various internal security challenges plaguing the country as well as a firm intent to tackle them. The emphasis, has been to prioritise these threats and challenges and deal with them in a concerted and sustained manner through security interventions and development activities.

One of the serious internal security threats that the country has been grappling with for more than a decade is left wing extremism (LWE). At present, 106 districts in 10 states are affected by LWE.1 Although the primary responsibility of fighting LWE lies with the concerned states, the Union government assists them by providing battalions of central armed police forces to counter the subversive activities of left wing extremists and maintain public order. Given that the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is the primary force deployed in the LWE-affected states, the Government of India had, in 2009, sanctioned funds for raising 39 additional battalions of the CRPF. As a result, the CRPF has been receiving the highest allocations in successive budgets since then. In the previous fiscal year, the force received Rs. 16,228. 18 crore, which has been increased by another 1635.35 crore to Rs. 17,868.53 crore for 2017-18. Of the sanctioned 39 battalions, 26 have been raised till 2016 and the remainder is to be raised by 2018-19.

Another way in which the Union government assists the LWE affected state governments is by providing funds for capacity building through various security related expenditure (SRE) schemes. Under these schemes, the Union government reimburses the expenditure incurred by LWE-affected states in training and operational requirements of the security forces, insurance of police personnel, ex gratia payments to the families of civilian or security forces personnel killed in LWE violence, compensation to surrendered left wing extremist cadres under the surrender and rehabilitation policy of the respective states, etc. In the last two financial years, i.e. 2015-16 and 2016-17 (until 15 November 2016), funds released to LWE states under these schemes were Rs. 258.65 crore and 111.49 crore, respectively. For the upcoming fiscal year, the budgetary allocation under SRE has been pegged at Rs. 1,222 crore, an increase of Rs. 380 crore from the previous year. Since SRE also comprises expenditures incurred by Jammu and Kashmir and insurgency affected states in the North East, the rise of almost 45 per cent under this head could be because of the deteriorating security situation and the expectation of a consequent rise in spending under SRE in these states.

Border management is the second area that has witnessed a substantial increase in budgetary allocations for the fiscal year 2017-18. The need to effectively secure the country’s international borders against infiltration, trafficking and irregular crossings has become even more pressing following a series of successful infiltration attempts by Pakistani terrorists through the India-Pakistan international border and subsequent attacks on strategic installations in the past couple of years. These attacks have raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of the present border management system in thwarting such border breaches and has compelled the Union government to undertake measures to fortify the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders in particular. Towards this end, the Union government had decided to enhance surveillance and detection by building ditch cum fence barriers, putting up laser walls along riverine stretches, employing sensors, cameras and tunnel detection gadgets, building roads and other infrastructures along the borders. The implementation of the comprehensive integrated border management systems (CIBMS) along the India-Pakistan border on a pilot basis is a step in this direction. Accordingly, Rs. 2,600 crore has been allocated for border infrastructure, of which 2,355 crore is for capital expenditure i.e., spending on fences, electronic surveillance gadgets, etc. This amount is, however, lower than the Rs. 2,490 crore provisioned for 2016-17. One of the reasons for the lower allocation could be the under or non-utilisation of funds due to various reasons, a fact revealed by the revised budget of 2016-17, where the expenditure under capital outlay has been reduced to Rs. 1,722.33 crore.

Similarly, budgetary allocations for the border guarding forces have been substantially increased to improve their strength and efficiency. Allocations under this sub-head are made for raising additional battalions, training, procurement of weapons and ammunition, administrative requirements, etc. The Border Security Force (BSF), which has responsibility for the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders, received the highest amount of Rs. 15,569.11 crore, an increase of Rs. 917 crores from the previous year. Furthermore, the Land Port Authority of India (LPAI), entrusted with the mandate to build and manage integrated check posts (ICPs), received Rs. 300 crore for 2017-18, an increase of 241 per cent from the previous year. This highlights the government’s commitment towards greater regional integration by ensuring the smooth and efficient cross border movement of people and goods. Likewise, the Border Area Development Programme (BADP), a scheme to meet the infrastructural requirements of the border people, received an enhanced allocation of Rs. 1100 crore, an increase of 11 per cent from 2016-17.

The third segment which received a substantial increase in allocations is police modernisation and infrastructure. Under police modernisation, Rs. 800 crore has been allocated for modernisation of the state police forces. This sum includes grants by the Union government to states to strengthen police infrastructure in terms of training, weaponry, mobility and communication, and the establishment of secure police stations. Further, it also includes the establishment and upkeep of the crime and criminal network tracking system (CCTNS). Building projects, both residential and office, for CAPFs and COPs received Rs. 4008.06 crore, indicating the seriousness of the Union government to improve the living and working conditions of these police organisations.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB), which in recent years has been augmenting its strength, has also received an allocation of Rs. 1,577 crore, an increase of 11 per cent from the previous year. Most of the expenditure, however, will be revenue outlay indicating an increase in spending on salaries and perks of personnel. In the past, the IB was functioning at a reduced strength with a shortfall of around 2000 agents, but in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack, calls were made to strengthen the IB in a comprehensive manner through increased recruitments, among other things. The IB has been recruiting personnel since 2009 but this is yet to reflect accurately in the manpower strength since full induction of operatives would only happen after the completion of their training. Last but not the least, Delhi Police, the National Emergency Response System for crimes against women and national disaster schemes also received increased budgetary allocations for the fiscal year 2017-18.

The enhanced budgetary allocations for the MHA since 2009 reflect the efforts of the successive Union governments to comprehensively overhaul the internal security set up of the country through a series of measures such as capacity building of security and law enforcement organisations through strength augmentation, improved training, modern weaponry and other infrastructure, technical upgradation; enhancing intelligence gathering, analysis and dissemination; infrastructure development in violence affected areas as well as border regions; improving responses to natural disaster and other emergencies; etc. The budgetary allocations for the fiscal year 2017-18 is a continuation of this process. Though the Union government has been making substantial budget allocations to the MHA, the ministry’s efforts to bring about the desired reforms have, however, shown mixed results so far. While the revenue outlays have been increasing, the capital outlays have seen troughs and crests in the last four years. This indicates that while the concerned organisations have been successful in increasing manpower, they have been unable to build up the commensurate infrastructure required for capacity building such as training schools and laboratories, and procuring additional vehicles and boats, arms and ammunitions, computers and surveillance equipment, etc. Efforts, therefore, must be made to fully utilise the budgetary outlays provided to the MHA in order to achieve a comprehensive reform of the internal security system of the country.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://idsa.in/idsacomments/analysis-internal-security-budget-2017-18_pdas_210217

1. Left Wing Extremism (LWE) Division, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, at http://mha.nic.in/naxal_new (Accessed on February 17, 2017)

By Elise Harris

The Vatican and one of Islam’s most renowned schools of Sunni thought are joining forces to discuss how they can work together in combating religious extremism that uses God’s name to justify violence.

On Feb. 21 the Vatican announced that Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, will travel to Cairo to participate in a special seminar at the Al-Azhar University.

He will be joined by the council’s secretary, Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, and the head of their Office for Islam, Msgr. Khaled Akasheh, to discuss the theme “The role of al-Azhar al-Sharif and of the Vatican in countering the phenomena of fanaticism, extremism and violence in the name of religion.”

The meeting will take place “on the vigil” of Feb. 24 in honor of Pope Saint John Paul II’s visit to the university on that day in 2000. It will also be attended by the Holy See’s ambassador to Egypt, Archbishop Bruno Musarò, as well as various representatives from Al-Azhar.

Currently Ahmed al Tayyeb, the Imam of al Azhar is considered by some Muslims to be the highest authority the 1.5-billion strong Sunni Muslim world and oversees Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque and the prestigious al-Azhar University attached to it.

Founded in the Fatimid dynasty in the late 10th century together with the adjoining mosque, the university is one of the most renowned study centers for the legal principals of Sunni Islam.

Al Tayyeb paid a visit to the Vatican May 23 for a meeting with Pope Francis, which marked a major step in thawing relations between the al-Azhar institution and the Holy See, which were strained in 2011 with claims that Pope Benedict XVI had “interfered” in Egypt’s internal affairs by condemning a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria during the time of Coptic Christmas.

Since then relations have continued to move forward at a surprisingly fast pace, leading to the Oct. 21 announcement from the Vatican that sometime this spring the Holy See and the Al-Azhar Mosque and adjunct University will officially resume dialogue.

After the announcement, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, traveled to Cairo for an Oct. 23 meeting with a delegation from Al-Azhar to discuss the details.

Bishop Ayuso made a similar visit to Al-Azhar in July 2016, where he met with Sunni academic and politician Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk that to discuss the formal resumption of dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Al-Azhar University, which culminated in the Oct. 23 encounter.

The current seminar, which is the work of several “preliminary meetings,” can been seen as the next step in officially restoring ties.

In an interview with Vatican Radio published May 24, the day after his historic visit to the Vatican, Al Tayyeb spoke out harshly against terrorism carried out by extremist Islamic groups such as ISIS, saying that “those who kill Muslims, and who also kill Christians, have misunderstood the texts of Islam either intentionally or by negligence.”

“We must not blame religions because of the deviations of some of their followers,” he said, and issued a global appeal asking that the entire world to “close ranks to confront and put an end to terrorism.”

If the growing problem of terrorism is neglected, it’s not just the east that will pay the price, but “both east and west could suffer together, as we have seen.”

In their Feb. 21 communique, the Vatican also announced that from Feb. 21-25 the annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel will take place in Dakar, Senegal.

Founded by St. John Paul II in 1984, the foundation was establish by the late pontiff after his first visit to Africa, during which he came face to face with the daily suffering the people endured due to years of draught and desertification.

While the foundation was previously under the care of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the dicastery has since merged with several others to form a new, mega-dicastery for Integral Human Development, which is now responsible for the Sahel foundation.

The 5-day meeting will be attended by various representatives from the Holy See, including the new dicastery’s secretary, Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, who will participate as an observer, and the Vatican ambassador to Senegal, Archbishop Michael Wallace Banach.

According to the communique, discussion will focus largely on projects awaiting funding. In 2016 alone 43 projects in 6 countries were financed for a grand total of $550,000. Since the foundation’s beginning until 2015, they have financed roughly 3,200 projects in the Sahel region, for a total of more than $37,000,000.

With particular help received from both the Italian and German bishops conferences, specific projects focus on eliminating desertification and managing and developing agricultural units, as well as other projects aimed at providing water pumping systems and improving drinking water and renewable energies. The foundation also seeks to form skilled technical personnel.

Recent data from the Human Development Index, which measures the level of development in each country worldwide, shows that 19 of the 20 least developed countries on the list come from Africa, the communique said. Of these 19 countries, 7 are from the Sahel region.

In addition to desertification, the index lists several other factors that compound the situation, including frequent food crisis, the exhaustion of natural resources, particularly water, and violence carried out by extremist groups.

Members of the Board of Directors attending the meeting are: Bishop Sanou Lucas Kalfa of Banfora, Burkina Faso, who is the president; Bishop Mamba Paul Abel of Ziguinchor, Senegal, who is the vice-president; Bishop Happe Martin Albert of Nouakchott, Mauritania, who is the treasurer; Bishop Ouédraogo Ambroise of Maradi, Niger; Bishop Ildo Fortes of Mindelo, Cape Verde; Archbishop Djitangar Edmond of N’Djamena, Chad; Bishop Ellison Robert Patrick of Banjul, Gambia; Bishop Pedro Carlos Zilli of Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau and Bishop Traoré Augustin of Segou, Mali.

By Aline Barros

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued two new memos outlining the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive orders to stop illegal immigration while deporting undocumented immigrants out of the U.S.

The documents, issued Tuesday by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, expand the priority list for immigrants who face immediate removal, summarize a plan to hire thousands of enforcement agents, and assign local authorities to act as immigration officers to apply immigration laws.

“Effective immediately,” the document read, “department personnel shall faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States against all removable aliens.”

The memos, first leaked to the media on Friday, have only one exception: the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — immigrants who came to the United States at a young age and have been protected under a program established by former President Barack Obama.

Approximately 750,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age — known as “dreamers” — depend on the program to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

Trump told the media during a news conference last week he plans to deal with DACA “with heart,” a subject he called “very, very tough.”

“You have some absolutely incredible kids, I would say mostly,” Trump said. “I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do, and you know the law is rough.”
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, center, accompanied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan, right, and a member of his security detail, attends a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters.

Tuesday’s memos are a direct interpretation of the January 25 immigration executive orders signed by Trump.

Kelly’s directive on border patrol focuses on a proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall as a necessary tool to “deter and prevent” illegal entry of immigrants.

Immigrants’ rights advocates say new immigration policies of the Trump administration are intent on inflicting cruelty on millions of immigrant families across the country.

“Virtually every immigrant is now a priority for detention and deportation. Immigration and border agents will increase dramatically in number and are empowered to operate unfettered,” Joanne Lin, American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel, has shared in a statement.

“State and local law enforcement agencies, including those with records of racial profiling and police brutality, are encouraged to become immigration agents,” said Lin.

The DHS memos are different from Trump’s reported new executive order to ban travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. The original order has been blocked by federal courts, and a newly written order is expected this week.

By Elizabeth Quintana

Once seen as the exclusive domain of superpowers, space is becoming affordable for an increasing range of actors. However, like the cyber domain, space, too, is becoming more congested, contested and competitive. Driven by national ambition, geostrategic tensions and burgeoning economic opportunities, Asian countries’ space capabilities are developing at an astonishing rate. This is a truly exciting time to be in the space sector, but the implications of the new Asian Space Race may have far-reaching consequences.

The global space sector was worth $330 billion in 2015 and is one of the fastest-growing industries in the global economy. Today, space services are filtering into almost every aspect of modern life: satellite communications support, internet and TV services, distance learning, telemedicine and asset tracking; earth observation satellites that provide disaster monitoring, fisheries management, crop forecasting and urban planning; precision, navigation and timing signals that are used for navigation in ships, aircraft and land vehicles, but which also support a range of public transport and taxi apps; these signals are also now widely used for financial transactions.

Once dominated by government agencies, 76% of revenue in the space sector is today generated by commercial activities. This has been achieved through the continued miniaturisation of electronics, which has permitted the construction of mini-satellites―‘cubesats’―with capabilities previously only seen on much larger platforms. As a consequence, satellite manufacture and launch have become affordable for a greater number of nation states (70 states now consider themselves to be ‘space-faring nations’) and falling costs are also attracting an increasing breadth of commercial organisations to the space sector (even small to medium enterprises and universities). Indeed, the commercial space sector is experiencing something of a revolution as ‘NewSpace’ pioneers,’ new companies funded by wealthy entrepreneurs, have sought to upend the established commercial space sector, which they consider to be too slow and unambitious.

Other innovations, like the upcoming launch of the OneWeb mega-constellation into the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), are also important advances in the space industry. This 680+ satellite constellation aims to provide affordable broadband globally and helps reach parts of the world that do not currently have access to the internet. Other entities are also proposing similar initiatives. Similar innovations are taking place in earth observation through companies such as Planet Labs, which aims to launch over 100 cubesats, Google’s TerraBella and DigitalGlobe, which offers military-grade imagery commercially.^[i] If all the mega-constellations planned come to fruition, the total number of satellites in orbit around the Earth will increase to around 8,000. Such plans are only buttressing the impetus to mass-manufacture satellites, which in turn is driving new solutions for cost-effective and rapid access to the LEO through the development of cheaper, reusable launch vehicles and space planes. It is also raising the very serious issues of tracking and removing space debris, space situational awareness and even space traffic management.

Asian space programmes

While much of the attention in the West has focused on high-profile NewSpace entrepreneurs, the Asian space sector is entering into something of a renaissance period. Government space agencies still dominate this market, with Russia and China the most established and active space actors. Both have recognised space as a critical element of the US network-centric warfare concept and have also identified it as America’s Achilles heel. They have worked actively over the last fifteen years to close the gap with the United States through investment in space platforms, anti-satellite capabilities and missions in the military, commercial and scientific domains, and by integrating space into a broader deterrence strategy.

China has perhaps the most ambitious space programme in the region and has seen a remarkable string of successes in 2016: it launched a new launch facility in Hainan province; brought out three new launchers; tested space debris removal and on-orbit servicing capabilities; launched the world’s first quantum communications satellite as well as a new maritime surveillance satellite providing a perpetual gaze over the South China Sea; and undertook a successful 30-day mission to its Tiangong-2 space capsule, paving the way for a permanently manned space station in the 2020s.

Russia has continued to witness success in the commercial space launch market, but President Putin has prioritised military space capabilities over the last fifteen years as he has sought to modernise the Russian Armed Forces. Recent tensions with NATO have spilled into the space domain, and operations in Syria have also highlighted the need for Russia to invest in hyperspectral and earth observation capabilities to help meet the growing demands of its counterterrorism campaign.

India and Japan, too, have developed impressive space expertise. Whilst they have traditionally upheld their commitment to use space for peaceful purposes, both are increasingly leaning towards military space programmes. This is with a view of offsetting the threats posed by regional competitors, predominantly China and North Korea. Similarly, South Korea has been accelerating its indigenous space programme, developing earth observation satellites and an indigenous launch vehicle in response to the developing nuclear programme in North Korea.

A number of smaller Asian nations are also growing space programmes, procuring or developing satellite communication (SATCOM) services and using the cubesat revolution to develop earth observation satellites―and this is being used by larger Asian nations to gain influence and customers for their launch vehicles. Indonesia, for instance, has launched two indigenous satellites, and plans to launch a military SATCOM capability in 2017. South Korea’s fledgling space programme is maturing, and it is currently working to develop a national launch vehicle―NARO 2―following the success of the Russian-supported NARO-1 programme. Singaporean companies and universities launched six technology demonstrator cubesats in December 2015 onboard an Indian PSLV.^[ii]

In addition, there are two multinational bodies operating in Asia. The first is the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (ASPRAF), set up in 1993 by Japan and with 40 member states from around the Asia-Pacific region but also a number of European states, such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France. The second is the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization that is led by China, has a fee-paying membership and is a more select grouping.

Japan has been particularly busy helping build space capacity across Asia. For example, the Bangladesh space agency, SPARRO, has been collaborating with the United States and Japan for a number of years now, gaining access to some of their constellations. It now intends to launch its own geostationary communications satellite in December 2017. Bhutan has sent three engineers to train in Japan and is looking to develop an earth observation cubesat, which it will launch in 2018. Similarly, the Philippines launched its very first earth observation micro-satellite in 2016. Developed indigenously with the help of two Japanese universities. Vietnam, too, has had support from Japan to build its national space centre and is co-developing both an electro-optical and radar satellites.

Meanwhile, China, too, has offered combined satellite and launch services to a range countries. China launched the first communications satellite owned by LAOS, to provide services such as distance education and medicine, telecommunications and internet links, as well as facilitate anti-disaster efforts across the mountainous nation. China partnered with Sri Lankan firm SupremeSat to launch a communications satellite in 2012, and the China Great Wall Industry Corporation will launch a communications satellite for Thaicom in 2019. China has struggled with garnering commercial business, however, as the United States banned the export of its satellites and its satellite components to China in 2011, and US components are an integral component of most communications satellites today.

Regional and global positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems

PNT systems are arguably the most important space services. The US GPS constellation was the first global provider of PNT and has seen a range of countries look to supplement the capability with their own national, regional or global systems. Today, 100% US precision-guided munitions rely on GPS but as mentioned previously, the civilian/commercial reliance on GPS is arguably just as important. Most, if not all, PNT systems are dual use, i.e., they have a commercially available capability and a second signal designed to be more resistant to interference. Almost all PNT systems are interoperable or designed to be complementary. All smart phones designed after 2015 will use both GPS and Russian GLONASS chips, for example. Having access to greater numbers of satellites is useful in heavily urbanised environments or in mountainous regions that are likely to find it difficult to have direct line of sight to a satellite.

GLONASS was the first competitor to the PNT system. It was first launched in 1982 and operating in 1995, but it was in 2001 that Putin personally prioritised the constellation in 2001; in 2003, the second generation constellation GLONASS-M was launched. They have now started building and launching the third generation GLONASS-K.

The Chinese Beidou system continues to expand beyond its borders, . providing a regional service with plans to achieve global coverage by 2020. Whilst the American GPS system is a transmit-only capability, Beidou can also receive and retransmit small amounts of data, which means that it also provides a regional (and eventually global) low-rate communications capability for the People’s Liberation Army.

As for India, it completed its indigenous seven-satellite regional navigation system. Japan’s four-satellite Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, designed to be interoperable with US GPS and provide regional service in Indonesia and Australia, is slated to be operational in 2018.

Space situational awareness (SSA)

SSA is important, as satellites do not have the ability to ‘see’ where they are travelling. Objects in LEO around the Earth travel faster than 28,000 kilometres per hour; a collision with another object is likely to cause significant damage. In addition, nation states are liable for any damage caused by a satellite operated from their territory, whether it is nationally or commercially owned. There is no limit to this liability. Objects are therefore tracked in space to avoid collisions. Although there are only some 1,400 active satellites in orbit around the Earth today, there are also defunct satellites floating around, parts of space launchers and other debris that circles the Earth—including, by the by, a spanner lost by an astronaut during a space walk on the International Space Station.

Satellite operators will clearly wish to know not only if their satellites are operating safely, but also if other operators are contesting their ability to operate. Space objects are typically tracked by ground-based sensors (mainly radars, to allow all-weather capability). However, it is also possible to use space-based assets. The United States is looking to upgrade its SSA capabilities through the building of a ‘space fence,’ which will allow it to track objects just a few centimetres across. Russia, too, has sought to upgrade its space surveillance network.^[iii] Ten local sites will receive enhanced radar and laser-optical systems to help spot objects down to two to three centimetres. Russia has also proposed to share its data through the United Nations to all space operators, although it’s proposal has been shot down. At present, the US Joint Space Operations Centre (JSPOC) is the only organisation providing space situational data.

Curiously, China has been very quiet about its national space surveillance network. Analysts have surmised that China repurposes existing facilities and assets to perform SSA, although this was largely seen to be for the objective of tracking its own satellites rather than to gauge actions and intentions of other satellites in the skies.^[iv]

Japan has also announced that it will dedicate part of its National Defense forces to monitoring space debris and protecting its satellites from 2019 onwards.^[v] The military force likely drawn from the Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces will also work with their US counterparts to share data and enhance cooperation in space.

Debris removal capabilities

With so much debris flying around LEO and mega-constellations looking to launch in the next two years, there is a pressing need to start to remove some of the space debris. However, under UN Outer Space Treaty, a nation state is responsible for the safe operation of its own satellites, which means no other nation state can remove it without the owner’s permission. As a consequence, tests of “debris removal capabilities” are viewed with healthy dose of suspicion: one man’s debris removal capability is another man’s anti-satellite capability.

Again, Asian regional powers have attempted to find solutions, ranging from China’s Aolong-1 satellite with a robot arm meant to remove space debris to Russia’s series of mysterious manoeuvres with its Luch satellite to Japan’s KITE that attracts debris, and will be running a test in 2017. Japan even has commercial offering—the ELSA satellite—that identifies a piece of space debris, sticks to it, then drags it out of orbit with both burning out upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

On-orbit refuelling

China tested on-orbit refuelling in the LEO in June 2016 when its first first satellite-to-satellite refuelling system was launched. Only the United States has successfully undertaken on-orbit refuelling of satellites . US companies such as ATK Orbital are keen to start offering on-orbit services from 2020 onwards.

The US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to launch a larger, more sophisticated craft for the US Air Force in 2020. The Phoenix in-orbit servicing programme, currently delayed due to technical and cost concerns, will also be able to carry out jobs such as repairing, upgrading and refuelling ageing satellites. It would even be able to “turn foreign satellites into US spy satellites,” according to the US Air Force.

While this technology offers practical advantages, not least among them that it will extend the life of valuable (and expensive) platforms, very same technology can be used for nefarious purposes. It is difficult to retain international confidence in the adoption of new technologies if these systems are used to damage another state’s platforms. The situation becomes even more complex where commercial satellites are involved. These platforms are often providing services for government agencies or carrying government payloads, in which case they may well be legitimate targets according to the Laws of Armed Conflict. However, given the fragile nature of the space environment, it behoves every state to act responsibly in order to avoid polluting entire orbits.

Space launches

Overall, Asia is proving to be the most active continent in terms of space launches. China successfully launched 21 vehicles of the 83 launched in 2016, just one less than the United States, while Russia launched 18 vehicles successfully out of 19. India added another seven launches to the Asian total in 2016, its Polar Space Launch Vehicle proving a very reliable and cost-effective means of launching large numbers of small satellites into the LEO. With launch costs as little as $20 million per launch—a fifth of Ariane 5 launch costs and a third of the cost of SpaceX’s Falcon X space launcher—the Indian PSLV looks to be well positioned to take advantage of a lucrative LEO market in the next few years. In fact, PSLV is set to launch a record 83 satellites in January 2017.^[vi]

In May of last year, as a step towards developing a reusable launch vehicle that can return to the earth’s surface after having launched a spacecraft into orbit, India tested indigenous technology demonstrator of a reusable launch vehicle.^[vii] While the flight only lasted around 20 minutes, it proved a number of technologies, such as autonomous navigation, guidance and control, reusable thermal-protection system, and re-entry mission management for this robotic spaceplane.

Elsewhere, Japan conducted four H-IIA launches throughout the year, including 16 satellites on 9 December, as well as the second launch of its Epsilon solid-fuel launcher, designed to launch scientific satellites, into the Medium Earth Orbit. It continues work on its H-III launcher, which should launch in the early 2020s.

Manned, lunar and deep space missions

Although civil in nature, many of the Asian manned, lunar and deep space missions are maturing. These are likely to also have geopolitical ramifications, not least because in China many of these missions are also run by the People’s Liberation Army.

According to a recent “White Paper on China’s Space Activities in 2016,”^[viii] China made a successful trip to asteroid Toutatis in December 2012, a soft landing on the moon in 2013 with the Chang’e-3 lunar probe and is planning a return to the moon in 2017 to collect a sample with Chang’e 5. This will be followed up with a mission to the far side of the moon in 2018. It plans to send a mission to Mars by 2020 to carry out orbiting and roving activities. It also states ambitions for asteroid exploration and a Jupiter fly-by.

Japan, too, has conducted lunar missions. In 2007, as part of the SELENE mission, a lunar orbitor Kaguya observed the moon for over a year and crash-landeded in 2009 at the end of its mission. Japan is planning a lunar rover mission SELENE-2 in 2017 and a sample-collection mission SELENE-3 in 2020. Looking further afield, Japan has already conducted missions to observe a comet, Mars and Venus in 2015. It plans to return to Mars in 2018 with an orbiter and a rover.

The Indian lunar mission is known as Chandrayaan. Chandrayaan-1 was launched in 2008 with the aim to map the moon. Amongst its many notable successes was the discovery of water on the moon, which will be vital for human life support in the event of the establishment of a lunar base. A follow-up mission will be launched in 2017, and will deliver a lunar rover. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan^[ix] is currently celebrating its first year. A follow-up mission is expected some time in the period of 2018 to 2020. Follow-up missions to Venus and an asteroid mission have also been touted.^[x]

In conclusion

Space underpins much of modern life, so much so that it is now considered a critical national infrastructure in some parts of the world. The sector is undergoing some dramatic changes. In the West, this change is driven by the commercial sector whereas Asian space programmes still remain largely government-driven. However, the sheer range and ambition of Asian space programmes is breath-taking and there is no sign that the pace of activity is slowing—quite the opposite.

China is rapidly closing the gap with the US with a series of ambitious projects and demonstrating extraordinary breadth and depth of expertise in military, commercial and scientific projects. It has developed a number of anti-satellite technologies, predominantly to deter the United States, but will itself become more vulnerable to anti-satellite attacks as its space infrastructure expands.

Russia continues to demonstrate its expertise in space launch, missile systems and electronic warfare. It has not invested heavily in its own satellite infrastructure beyond GLONASS but, despite some problems with reliability, continues to be a significant player on the international launch market and therefore crucial to the development of the global space community.

Japan, India and South Korea are keen to exploit the commercial and technological advantages, but are also investing steadily in a range of government programmes in response to increasingly bellicose neighbours. Unlike European counterparts who have opted to develop large-scale space projects through multinational organisations such as the European Space Agency , India and Japan have national ambitions for deep space, although they remain committed to international collaboration. India, in particular, looks well-poised to exploit the commercial space launch market. Its recent proposal to release satellite imagery data to the commercial sector in order to help drive a new market in data services is an inspired innovation.

The next five years will see a number of nations move towards lunar and deep space missions. If geopolitics continue to remain tense here on Earth, space missions are likely to be seen increasingly as expressions of that competition. While competition may well spur nations to speed up their plans for space in the short term, it could be extremely destructive in the long run. Furthermore, deep space missions are likely to be unmanned or robotic in the first instance. This lowers the risk calculus for would-be aggressors. A smashed robot is frustrating but unlikely to be the reason for a state to retaliate. Governments, commercial and scientific organisations will therefore need to be cognisant of the broader geopolitical environment in which they may be operating and take necessary precautions.

As the number of actors in space increases, it will become increasingly important for the international community to agree on space situational awareness, space traffic management and space debris removal in order to allow continued access to this important global common. However, the difficulties in trying to establish international norms in the cyber domain suggest that this will be far from simple.

This article was originally published in ‘Raisina Files: Debating the world in the Asian Century

^[i] DigitalGlobe offers imagery at 30 cm resolution. Achieving resolution under 50 cm is normally considered impressive for national electro-optic earth observation satellites. “About Us,” DigitalGlobe, https://www.digitalglobe.com/about/our-company.

^[ii] William Graham, “Indian PSLV lofts six Singaporean satellites,” Nasa Space Flight, December 15, 2015, https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/12/indian-pslv-six-singaporean-satellites/.

^[iii] “Russian Space Surveillance System (RSSS),” GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/russia/space-surveillance.htm.

^[iv] “Chinese space surveillance,” GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/china/space-surveillance.htm.

^[v] AFP, “Japan Is Launching A Military ‘Space Force’ To Protect Satellites From Space Debris,” Business Insider, August 4, 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-is-launching-a-military-space-force–its-first-mission-is-to-protect-satellites-from-space-debris-2014-8?IR=T.

^[vi] PTI, “ISRO to launch 83 satellites in one go in Jan.,” The Hindu, December 1, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/ISRO-to-launch-83-satellites-in-one-go-in-Jan./article16730366.ece.

^[vii] Dennis S. Jesudasan, “Indigenous technology demonstrator of reusable launch vehicle tested successfully,” The Hindu, May 23, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/india-successfully-launches-reusable-launch-vehicle/article8635448.ece.

^[viii] “China’s Space Activities in 2016,” Xinhua, December 27, 2016, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2016-12/27/c_135935416.htm.

^[ix] Jonathan Amos, “Why India’s Mars mission is so cheap—and thrilling,” BBC, September 24, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29341850.

^[x] Ted Ranosa, “India Plans Mission To Venus Following Success Of Mars Orbiter, Tech Times, July 23, 2015, http://www.techtimes.com/articles/71256/20150723/india-plans-mission-to-venus-following-success-of-mars-orbiter.htm.

By Bhairav Acharya

There is no Asian approach to encryption. The Internet transcends conventional borders and so does the encryption that travels with it. But there is a growing Asian security dialogue and an emerging debate on encryption in Asia. That debate has been overshadowed by the disjointed responses of individual countries to specific aspects of encryption. Bahrain, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, amongst others, formally disallow different forms of client-side encryption. A larger list of countries have decryption-on-demand laws. They are not very different from Western liberal democracies where calls for encryption bans and backdoors are commonplace.

In India, the surveillance and encryption debate is marked by contradictions. We are losing out, the claim goes, because the technologies and infrastructure of digital communications are located abroad. We must sacrifice our freedoms, another claim goes, because only high levels of surveillance can protect us. Unfortunately, these reductive arguments, designed to appeal to nationalism and insecurity, have captured the national discourse. They have helped to shape a statist, blunt and control-oriented approach to encryption. Taking their cue from China, several Asian countries including India want to impose their sovereignty on the Internet, strictly license encryption products, have unfettered access to Internet communications and more. This ‘Internet sovereignty’ approach to encryption will fail.

This essay explains the basics of how encryption works; provides a high-level account of the American crypto-wars and how they manifest in India; looks at how mass surveillance fears have fuelled a new phase of the crypto-wars; and demonstrates the futility of the Indian government’s nationalism-laced approach to encryption, particularly in relation to data localisation, Internet sovereignty and the withdrawn National Encryption Policy of 2015. Looking ahead, this essay argues that encryption cannot be stopped; cybersecurity depends on strong encryption; and India’s security and prosperity depend on the widespread adoption of encryption.

If it stopped pursuing the Internet sovereignty approach and supported strong encryption without backdoors instead, India would break ranks with many Asian countries. But since there is no multilateral cybersecurity cooperation regime in Asia that India participates in, that would not be a loss. On the other hand, India should drive the Asian cybersecurity debate towards unbreakable encryption in the interests of its emerging digital economy, democratic values and national security.

The Basics of Encryption

Encryption is the conversion of intelligible data (plaintext), such as files or messages, into an unintelligible form (ciphertext) and decryption is the reversion of ciphertext to plaintext. Encryption occurs through the application of a cipher, a cryptographic algorithm that links the plaintext and ciphertext. The algorithm contains at least one variable parameter (key) that changes each time data is encrypted. The key is determined by a random number generating algorithm. For encryption to work, the key must be secret. Encryption does not encompass data conversion using a fixed key with no variable parameter (scrambling).^[1]

Until the 1970s, both the encrypter and decrypter had to have a pair of identical keys (symmetric-key encryption). The system has two main weaknesses. First, the key has to be shared before the message (key exchange). Second, secrecy is inversely proportional to the number of people in the know—intuitively, not mathematically. Moreover, the sender is not sure that the key reached the intended receiver, and the receiver is not sure that her key was authentic (authentication problem). That is because of the danger of the key exchange being intercepted by a third party who may access the messages as they flow or impersonate either the sender or receiver (man-in-the-middle).

Most key exchange problems were solved by the invention of public key cryptography in the 1970s. Two non-identical but mathematically linked keys are created, one to encrypt a message and the other to decrypt it (asymmetric-key encryption). A receiver makes one of her keys publicly available (public key) but keeps the other one secret (private key). A sender encrypts her message using the receiver’s public key which the latter decrypts with her private key. To solve the authentication problem, the sender, who has also made her public key available, signs her message with her private key which can only be decrypted with her public key to verify her signature (digital signature).

When designed and implemented well, public key cryptography is unbreakable. It obviates backdoors because no man-in-the-middle has the receiver’s private key. It can assure message integrity by algorithmically assigning the data a fixed value (hashing) which can be verified for consistency. However, public key cryptography is computationally intensive and slow to operate so it is rarely used for real-time communications which continue to be symmetrically encrypted.

The Crypto-Wars

The encryption debate is United States-centric because, for better or for worse, American laws have shaped the Internet’s architecture and the availability of encryption products. Public key cryptography did not begin to find mass application until the 1990s. The primary cryptosystem in regular use, the Data Encryption Standard (DES), developed by IBM in the 1970s, and approved by the NSA, used a symmetric-key algorithm with a weak key. As Internet use grew, businesses improved the security of their products to encourage consumer confidence.

For individuals who did not want to depend on off-the-shelf encryption, the asymmetric-key Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptosystem, developed in 1991, offered client-side encryption for messages. PGP provides unbreakable encryption for messages even when passing through known backdoors. No one besides the sender and receiver can access the plaintext making strong PGP immune to man-in-the-middle attacks (end-to-end encryption).

In the early 1990s, American telecom carriers were upgrading from analogue to packet-switched digital transmissions. The US government pushed carriers to install the ‘Clipper chip,’ a chipset that used a symmetric-key algorithm to encrypt voice data with a key developed by the NSA. The Clipper chip was to be installed in phones and a key copy surrendered to government to be held in escrow.

There are two fundamental problems with government key escrow. First, escrow of any sort only works when the third-party escrow agent is trusted by the other parties to handle the object of their transaction―in this case, keys. When a government wiretaps a private communication, it is not a third-party; so in a surveillance situation the government cannot by definition perform escrow functions. Second, the key is vulnerable to attack while stored in escrow. When the Clipper algorithms were declassified by the US government, they were swiftly shown to be vulnerable to high-speed, high-volume key guesses (brute-force attack).

At the same time, the US legislature enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA). It compelled telecom carriers to technologically enable government wiretaps. There were three significant limitations. First, the government was prevented from banning commercial encryption. Second, the law was restricted to the public switched telecom network (PSTN); it did not cover Internet services such as voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) calls. Third, communications carriers were exempted from the duty to decrypt messages (decryption mandate) if they did not have the means to do so.

In 2005, CALEA was extended to cover VoIP and broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) even though they are not PSTN-based. But it still did not cover non-ISP-provided Internet email or over-the-top (OTT) instant messengers. Consequently, while Skype had to have CALEA-mandated backdoors, Gmail or WhatsApp were free from backdoors and the decryption mandate. That set the stage for the second phase of the crypto-wars.

In India, the Central Monitoring System (CMS) corresponds to CALEA in several ways.  Until recently, telecom carriers were restricted to 40-bit encryption which was even weaker than the 64-bit key found in the 1980s-vintage A5/1 cipher used in the 2G GSM standard.^[2] Some carriers simply did not encrypt and voice calls could be lifted off-the-air. The CMS requires carriers to provide the government with a seamless interception interface irrespective of their network encryption. It covers VoIP and ISPs too. Unless an Indian user uses client-side public key encryption or commercial end-to-end encryption, their communications have permanent backdoors.

The CMS is more than an interception interface. It creates a centralised database which even Britain’s recent “snoopers’ charter” failed to do. Will Delhi misuse its technological capabilities? We do not know. But we do know that the government has a long history of illegal wiretaps. The issue has been consistently raised in Parliament and covered in the press.^[3] Interceptions and decryptions are ordered by bureaucrats with little understanding of the law and no independent oversight mechanism. Private carriers have obeyed even procedurally-irregular interception orders instead of pushing back against irregular surveillance.^[4] Nevertheless, the government asks us to trust it to use the CMS in accordance with law. It would not be an unfair assessment to say that businesses and individuals will be more interested in encrypting their communications from now on.

The Blackberry Episode

From 2008 the Indian government pressured Blackberry-maker Research in Motion (RIM) to decrypt messages on demand or hand over their key. RIM faced similar measures in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The campaign against RIM was more about enforcing Indian jurisdiction on a foreign company than it was about the national security risks of encryption. There are two kinds of Blackberry services. For companies, RIM installs a local Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and employees’ emails are routed through the BES with strong encryption. In most cases, RIM does not have the key and cannot decrypt BES messages. In any event, terrorists are not employees, they do not use BES services.

For individuals, RIM has an unencrypted Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) network. This is most likely how terrorists using Blackberrys communicate. BIS emails can be intercepted as plaintext provided the local carrier removes any transport layer encryption it added.^[5] Instant messages via the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) app are transmitted on the basis of unique device-specific numbers (PIN). PIN to PIN messaging, another option for terrorists, are not encrypted, they are only scrambled using a single, global key.^[6] They can be intercepted and routed to a third Blackberry quite easily, a textbook man-in-the-middle attack.^[7]

Essentially, if the government wanted to intercept someone’s BIS communications, it was free to do so under Indian law. There would have to be an interception order under either section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) read with rule 3 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring, and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009 (Interception Rules), or section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951. On the other hand, if, hypothetically, the BIS server was located in India, then access to data on it could be ordered under section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), a significantly lower threshold.

There is legal uncertainty regarding data access procedures because interception law is largely observed in the breach. Sections 69 and 69B of the IT Act, read with their respective rules, grant access to stored information and communications data, but in 2014 the Central Bureau of Investigation was using section 91 of the CrPC to access communications data. It is likely that other law enforcement agencies were doing the same and still are. There is no transparency and no accountability for legal abuse. In any event, the Interception Rules almost certainly suffer from excessive delegation and are ultra vires their parent statute.

So why did the government go after RIM? Perhaps it was anxious to demonstrate a tough line on security and singled out Blackberry because it was an iconic brand. That was how RIM’s chief executive officer viewed the incident in 2011.^[8] It is most likely that the government wanted RIM to install mirror servers in India to fulfil its grievances regarding data localisation. But by singling out RIM, the government scored an own goal. As long as terrorists used the BIS service to communicate, intercepting their unencrypted communications was possible.^[9] Now they have probably migrated to more secure services. Witless nationalism, which thoroughly pervades the government’s approach to encryption, damages India’s national security.

RIM has stressed that the “solution” it gave the Indian government does not involve its BES platform, only its unencrypted BIS network.^[10] Is there a BIS proxy server in India? Probably not, the repercussions for RIM outweigh any Indian market gains. Does RIM reroute all Indian traffic from its foreign BIS server to India? Maybe, but that would be non-targeted mass surveillance, which is illegal. Did RIM simply guarantee that it would positively respond to every government request for targeted BIS data? This is most likely, but it is not a gain because the government had technological access to it anyway.^[11]

The New Crypto-War

The race for stronger encryption in America is fuelled by fears of further CALEA extensions to cover Internet services and withdraw the guarantee against the decryption mandate. The push probably began with Edward Snowden’s disclosures of pervasive global Internet surveillance by Western intelligence agencies, which brought privacy to the forefront of public attention. Fears of NSA overreach are not misplaced. In 2013, a random number-generating algorithm that had been recommended for cryptographers had to be abandoned after claims that it contained an NSA-planted backdoor.

In that context, Internet companies began to adopt unbreakable encryption. For transmission, businesses are gradually implementing end-to-end encryption. KakaoTalk, South Korea’s most popular messaging app, introduced optional end-to-end encryption 2014. WhatsApp, the most popular messenger in India, rolled out its end-to-end encryption system in 2016. However, WhatsApp’s claim to not have the decryption keys has been challenged and, in any event, it does preserve metadata.[12] For storage, phones manufacturers are introducing strong device encryption paired with measures to thwart brute-force attacks including passcode authentication delays, challenge-response tests, and automatic data erasure (device locking).

In 2014, Apple introduced default device locking based on a key which it did not know, thereby voluntarily shutting itself out of the data access process. Soon after, FBI director James Comey delivered his famous ‘going dark’ speech: “[E]ncryption threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place.”^[13] Apple refused to obey a court order to jailbreak the phone on the ground that the government could not compel it to write code. A central question in the Apple-FBI dispute is whether the government can enforce the decryption mandate against Internet companies. Apple is not in the telecommunications business, it is an information services company and is therefore exempt from CALEA.

In India, the decryption mandate is contained in section 69 of the IT Act read with rules 5 and 17 of the Interception Rules. However, the rules only apply in respect of a “decryption key holder” and in the case of end-to-end encryption, nobody but the sender and receiver holds the key. Will the Indian government enforce the decryption mandate against individuals and risk violating the fundamental right against self-incrimination under article 20(3) of the Constitution? This issue needs to be authoritatively decided by the constitutional courts. Several Asian countries have versions of the decryption mandate in their laws but, unlike India, many do not have independent judiciaries.

If the ‘going dark’ campaign reflects the American security establishment’s alarm at the modern encryption business, the Indian authorities are still primarily concerned about Internet sovereignty. Both views are misguided but, additionally, the Indian view is detached from reality. In 2014, national security advisor Ajit Doval said: “One of the problems we have is that technologically we have lost out in certain areas where the root servers are all under control of countries [in] the West, mainly the US. […] They are helpful to us in some areas, but not always helpful, particularly in the corporate world.”^[14] For Doval, the issue is still about extending Delhi’s writ to Internet companies. If that happens, we are told, cybersecurity will bloom at the command of the Indian state.

The Internet sovereignty approach to encryption is stuck in a Cold War time warp. It continues to have currency in Asia because of China’s success at firewalling its Internet and strictly controlling encryption protocols. But even China was forced to drop a provision in its 2015 anti-terror law which required official vetting of commercial encryption. For India, such an approach is anathema to free markets and free speech. A state-controlled Internet with state-sanctioned encryption would be as counterproductive as a return to the centrally-planned command economy. Instead of trying to achieve an Internet license raj, India needs to promote cybersecurity by encouraging the creation of state-of-the-art encryption products and enabling domestic Internet companies to compete in the global marketplace.

For those anticipating forward-thinking cybersecurity and a vibrant high-technology sector, the draft National Encryption Policy of 2015 was a disappointment. The policy was based on the belief that the Internet ecosystem is a pyramid with the government at the top, businesses in the middle and citizens at the bottom. That is far from the truth. Nevertheless, the policy gave the government the exclusive power to sanction cryptographic algorithms and key sizes, demanded the registration of businesses and apps that used encryption, and banned citizens from encrypting or using commercial encryption without the government’s permission. Moreover, whenever anything was encrypted, the policy demanded that a copy of the plaintext was to be stored for three months and surrendered on demand. Such a move would have seriously jeopardised national security.

The policy revealed an abysmal lack of awareness amongst cybersecurity regulators which should concern us all. The government has promised to return with a redrafted encryption policy. It might be better worded but it will likely advocate a government monopoly over encryption, compulsory backdoors, mandatory data localisation and other measures to consolidate state control.

Looking Ahead

Governments have long attempted to control encryption and prevent it from crossing borders. Those attempts have failed because the Internet is global. The PGP cryptosystem was classified as a munition and banned from export but its creator published its source code as a book―because books are constitutionally protected―and bypassed the control regime. When the Snowden disclosures revealed governmental attempts to compromise encryption, the private sector responded with end-to-end encryption and device locking. Encryption protects free speech and, like speech, it cannot be perfectly controlled.

Strong cryptography has proliferated well beyond the control of governments. Yet, that has not stopped the Indian government from trying to impose import, use and export controls on encryption products. The withdrawn encryption policy stopped Indians from using cryptography without government approval based on key size. The policy also called for export controls. However, if Indian smartphone makers or Internet companies are bound by a low encryption standard, they will not be able to compete in the global marketplace. Governments cannot stop individuals from using encryption products and should not waste public resources trying to do so. India should do the opposite: encourage domestic cryptographic talent and champion ‘Made in India’ commercial encryption products.

The debate over backdoors is gathering pace. After the Clipper chip failed, there were proposals for commercial key escrow where the keys would be held by private third-parties. It was opposed because of the inherent risks of key escrow. Eleven leading cryptographers published a seminal paper in 1997 concluding that key escrow would result in “substantial sacrifices in security and greatly increased costs to the end-user.”^[15] In 2015, the NSA proposed a new split-key escrow system. Create a ‘golden key,’ the NSA said, split it into several pieces, and distribute the pieces amongst multiple third-parties so that no one alone could use the key. That proposal too has been dismissed by cryptographers.

Last year, a comprehensive group of companies, cryptographers, policy organisations and security experts sent the US president a letter warning him of the dangers of backdoors. The principle is simple―if you build a backdoor, everybody will use it, not just the police. It will also be used by hackers, data thieves, hostile governments, terrorists and criminals. Encryption is either breakable or unbreakable, backdoored or end-to-end―it is one or the other. When a backdoor is installed, it creates a security vulnerability which will eventually be maliciously exploited. The argument that the backdoor will be well-guarded is baseless. There are numerous reports of protected systems being broken in to through backdoors. For example, in 2010, China exploited a US government backdoor to hack Gmail.^[16]

India does not have a data breach law so we simply do not know how often our government has been hacked. Be under no illusions: India’s public cybersecurity is in shambles. There are continuous reports of hacks, mostly attributed to China, including breaches of defence servers carrying military secrets.^[17] Even the official digital certificates repository has been breached.^[18] There have also been a string of unreported incidents including hostile interceptions of communications, numerous brute-force attacks on weak encryption and malware on government servers. The bottom line is that there is no realistic way that the Indian government can secure any backdoors it may be given. The state’s cybersecurity capabilities may increase in the future but backdoors will never stop being dangerous.

The quickest path to cybersecurity is for India’s private sector to take the lead. The future promises massive network-dependent and data-intensive projects piloted by the private sector. The nascent Aadhaar-based, digital payments system will revolutionise the financial technology sector. Increasing broadband penetration has made India the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market that is catalysing the telecommunications and Internet sector. The ‘Digital India’ programme for Internet delivery of government services will exponentially increase the volume of sensitive traffic. These projects and India’s economy as a whole can only be secured through the pervasive use of unbreakable encryption. That would have a cascading effect on the rest of the Indian Internet.

Setting encryption standards to secure India’s future should be a collaborative exercise. The open competition to choose the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) remains the gold standard in cryptographic adoption. NIST, the US government’s cryptographic standards agency, prescribed neutral minimum requirements and called for algorithmic proposals. Fifteen proposals were received, transparently tested, rigorously cryptanalysed, and their findings openly discussed in conferences. The process represented NIST’s acceptance that it did not possess the monopoly of cryptographic expertise as well as the view that everybody has a stake in encryption, not just the state.

In India, barring a few civil society organisations, unbreakable encryption has no champions. The argument for India is not that we should sacrifice national security for stronger encryption. The truth is that to protect our national security, we need unbreakable encryption. Since encryption is key to cybersecurity which, in turn, is the foundation of the emerging digital economy, strong encryption will promote prosperity. Ultimately, what is best for Indian citizens and businesses is also best for the Indian government: an Internet with unbreakable encryption. If there is ever an Asian approach to encryption, let it be the same.

This article was originally published in ‘Raisina Files: Debating the world in the Asian Century

^[1] C.C. Mann, “A Primer on Public-key Encryption,” The Atlantic, September 2002, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/09/a-primer-on-public-key-encryption/302574.

^[2] B. Acharya, “The Short-lived Adventure of India’s Encryption Policy,” Berkeley Information Privacy Law Association, December 1, 2015, https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bipla/the-short-lived-adventure-of-indias-encryption-policy/.

^[3] For a recent parliamentary intervention, see Shadi Lal Batra, Rajya Sabha, Unstarred Question No. 2556, Illegal Phone Tapping and Monitoring of Phone Calls, March 20, 2013.

^[4] P. Prakash, “Misuse of Surveillance Powers in India,” Centre for Internet & Society, December 6, 2013, http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/misuse-surveillance-powers-india-case1.

^[5] “Comparing BIS and BES,” Blackberry Knowledge Base, August 15, 2015, http://support.blackberry.com/kb/articleDetail?ArticleNumber=000003652.

^[6] R. Halevy, “FAQ: Blackberry Messenger and PIN Messages are Not Encrypted,” Berry Review, August 6, 2010, http://www.berryreview.com/2010/08/06/faq-blackberry-messenger-pin-messages-are-not-encrypted/; C. Parsons, “Decrypting Blackberry Security, Decentralizing the Future,” Citizen Lab, November 29, 2010, https://citizenlab.org/2010/11/decrypting-blackberry-security-decentralizing-the-future/.

^[7] What is peer-to-peer message encryption?,” Blackberry Knowledge Base, August 15, 2015, http://support.blackberry.com/kb/articleDetail?articleNumber=000010498.

^[8] “RIM CEO calls a halt to BBC Click interview,” BBC, April 13, 2011, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9456798.stm.

^[9] See R. Halevy, “FAQ: What Communication is Encrypted on Your Blackberry,” Berry Review, August 6, 2010, http://www.berryreview.com/2010/08/06/faq-what-communication-is-encrypted-on-your-blackberry/.

^[10] Quoted from J. Horwitz, “After a lengthy battle, BlackBerry will finally let the Indian government monitor its servers,” TNW, July 10, 2013, http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle-blackberry-will-finally-let-the-indian-government-monitor-its-servers/.

^[11] See B. Schneier, “UAE to Ban Blackberrys,” Schneier on Security (blog), August 3, 2010, https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/08/uae_to_ban_blac.html, Aug, 3, 2010.

[12] M. Ganguly, “WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages,” The Guardian, January 13, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/13/whatsapp-backdoor-allows-snooping-on-encrypted-messages.

^[13] J. Comey, “Going Dark: Are Technology, Privacy, and Public Safety on a Collision Course,” FBI, October 16, 2014, https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/going-dark-are-technology-privacy-and-public-safety-on-a-collision-course.

^[14] Quoted from P.M. Vincent, “NSA flags corporate control over cyberspace,” The Hindu, November 23, 2014, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/nsa-flags-corporate-control-over-cyberspace/article6626059.ece.

^[15] H. Abelson et al, “The Risks of Key Recovery, Key Escrow, and Trusted Third-Party Encryption,” Schneier on Security (blog), May 26, 1997, https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-key-escrow.pdf.

^[16] B. Schneier, “U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google,” CNN, January 32, 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/.

^[17] M. Balachandran, “The Chinese government may have been spying on India’s leaders and defence companies for a decade,” Quartz, April 13, 2015, https://qz.com/381897/the-chinese-government-may-have-been-spying-on-indias-leaders-and-defence-companies-for-a-decade/.

^[18] L. Constantin, “Digital certificate breach at Indian authority also targeted Yahoo domains, possibly others,” CSO, July 10, 2014, http://www.csoonline.com/article/2452595/security/digital-certificate-breach-at-indian-authority-also-targeted-yahoo-domains-possibly-others.html.

Facebook’s WhatsApp has cloned Snapchat’s popular stories format and is using it to replace its old text-based status messages. The feature began rolling out to WhatsApp’s billion-plus users on Monday, February 20 on Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone, The Verge says.

As on Snapchat, WhatsApp stories are posted from an in-app camera. Once you’ve taken a photo, you can adorn it with drawings, text, and emoji. Once you post your story, it appears in a new “status” tab, where your contacts can view it for the next 24 hours. You can reply to friends’ updates directly from the post.

WhatsApp becomes the fourth Facebook product to clone Snapchat stories. Instagram was the first, in August. It was followed by Facebook Messenger and then Facebook itself, both of which are still testing the feature in a small number of countries. WhatsApp is Facebook’s second product to roll the feature out globally.

WhatsApp positioned the update as a gift to users on its 8th birthday, and a kind of symbolic return to its origins. “When WhatsApp launched nearly 8 years ago (on February 24), it started as an app for sharing status updates, where people could type a short line of text to let their friends know what they were up to,” the company said in a blog post. “When we noticed people were using the feature to communicate in real time, we redesigned WhatsApp as a messaging app.”

Two of the leading experts on the Russian Orthodox Church, Nikolay Mitrokhin of Bremen University and Sergey Chaplin, former head of the Moscow patriarchate’s publications arm, say Patriarch Kirill’s effort to grab power and property is alienating Russians, marginalizing the church, and reducing its influence at home and abroad.

In a commentary for the Grani portal, Mitrokhin says that the conflict over St. Isaac’s has now become “an all-Russian scandal,” one that has not ended despite Putin’s decision to return things to where they were before it started, given that church services had been held there even when it was only a museum (graniru.org/opinion/mitrokhin/m.258944.html).

“Initially,” he writes, “the authorities simply intended to satisfy Patriarch Kirill’s request about the transfer of St. Isaac’s” and assumed that they would not face serious protests and could ignore any that might occur. But the protests turned out to be far larger and far more widely supported than anyone anticipated.

Indeed, Mitrokhin says, “by their size, these protests in Petersburg were no smaller than those against the beginning of the war in Ukraine three years ago. [And] by their importance, they exceeded them because they showed that ‘the Putin majority’” was now distancing itself from Putin and his officials.

Most immediately, however, the people have been distancing itself from the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Kirill personally. Discussions on television and in the media show that neither has the standing it did and that those who might have been unwilling to criticize it are now attacking both across the board.

Kirill had to use “to the full his personal resources in the battle for specific objects of property,” Mitrokhin continues, “and to attract to his cause ever more doubtful allies, right-wing radicals from the personal guard of ‘Forty by Forty’ and the young football fanatics from ‘the Nevsky Front.’”

That accelerated the decline in his influence far more than even the drift of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churh away from Moscow. In fact, it is now totally possible to speak about “the intensification of the process of the dissolution of the Russian Orthodox church in Russia itself.” And that process is now feeding upon itself.

“The Internet is filled with stories” written by “’former priests’ who are disappointed and seeking for themselves a new place in life,” Mitrokhin reports. There is now an extremely active site, ahilla.ru/, filled with such stories, and it is supplemented by others on a VKontakte page, vk.com/atheist__blog.

As a result, the Germany-based Russian scholar says, however things develop around the conflict over St. Isaac’s, the position of the church inside Russia is going to be weakened, as is that of those who thought they could use the church as a fundamental support for the existing political system.

Chaplin makes a similar article in Gazeta, saying that the church has only itself to blame for what has happened because it has refused to treat the population as an equal and has assumed it can behave crudely and even viciously because of its good relations with Putin’s power vertical (gazeta.ru/comments/2017/02/16_a_10529081.shtml).

Not all the statements made by priests and hierarchs are approved by the patriarch, Chaplin says. “On the contrary,” many now feel free to say what they like with little regard for anyone or anything. But all of their remarks show that the Moscow Patriarchate does not feel than any “serious conversation with society” is needed.

Instead, these people only talk to and speak like mid-level officials with all the crudeness Russians have long expected. And that in turn means that neither the church as a body of believers nor as a bureaucratic structure is capable of “controlling the situation,” something all Russians can see.

It may be, Chaplin says, that in a post-secular society where the church is a participant, extremist and crude declarations will win some support; but it is absolutely certain that these statements will alienate more than they attract and thus undermine any possibility that the Russian Orthodox Church can play the role it aspires to.

Assam Tribune in its 12 February 2017 issue refers to a “new phenomenon of infiltration of Hindu people from Bangladesh” into Assam and the deposit of “substantial amount of Indian currency” in banks of districts bordering with Bangladesh following the demonetisation move. The front page report without citing its sources refers to a “common feeling among the minority Hindus in Bangladesh” that “they would be safe in India if they manage to sneak in”.

Since the police and security forces do not have “clear-cut instruction from the government”, the report points, the detention of “suspected Hindu migrants” at the border has led to “instances of tension in some parts of the Barak Valley”. It does not elaborate on the details and nature of tension in this predominantly Muslim majority area. What, however, it does mention that overall illegal movement of people into Assam from Bangladesh has come down because of an increase “in the deployment of Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and economic development in the neighbouring areas of Bangladesh”. It cites the instance of a decline in the number of the daily wage labourers and rickshaw pullers from Bangladesh who used to come over to towns of Karimganj in search of work. A new trend of migration has replaced such population movement taking advantage of the fact that 75 kilometres of the international border abutting the Barak Valley is riverine without any physical barrier. In the dry season, some parts of the Kushiyara river, which forms the international border between India and Bangladesh, can be crossed on foot. Boats of both the countries ply on the river allowing riders to shift from one boat to another to enter India. On 7 February 2016, the Supreme Court had expressed its ‘strongest displeasure’ over the manner in which fencing work along the Indo-Bangladesh has been progressing, by describing the affidavit by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in this regard as an “exercise in vagueness with no specific detail”.

The state government in Assam headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, feels that such migration of Hindus is far less than that of the Muslim migrants. In a statement, in November 2016, Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma pointed at the 5.5 million illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh who he claimed have altered the demography in 11 districts. Although there has never been an official estimate of illegal migrants in Assam, the 5.5 million figure is widely quoted by political entities in Assam. According to the 2011 census, moreover, nine districts are Muslim majority, a rise from six districts which were Muslim majority in 2001. Minister Sarma claimed that Hindu migrants in Assam in comparison number only 0.1 to 0.15 million.

He went on to exert the people of the state to choose their enemies between the Muslim and Hindu migrants while asserting that he does not “feel good” in Muslim majority districts. 

Assam government’s moves complements New Delhi’s declaration of intent of welcoming all non-Muslim minorities from Muslim majority countries, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan with open arms by proposing an amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 in the form of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The Bill is under the scrutiny of a parliamentary committee. The dwindling Hindu population and their religious persecution in countries like Bangladesh has also become a cause of concern for India. According to the 2011 census, the Hindu population in Bangladesh has come down to only 8.2 percent. A series of incidents of hacking of Hindus to death have surfaced in Bangladesh in 2016. Some of these killings have been owned by the Islamic State. Hindu organisations see a new pattern in the killings. While earlier the pattern of violence was directed at “mostly about grabbing Hindu land and property”, the recent violence has been all about “slaughtering ordinary landless poor Hindus with no social or economic standing”, claimed the Dhaka based Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council (HBCUC). Such narratives form the core of the BJP’s moves. Narendra Modi, during his election campaign in 2014 promised to throw out all illegal Bangladeshis after BJP came to power. He, as prime minister, repeated the same promise in September 2015. While the government is yet to act upon that promise, Mr. Modi has further affirmed said that Hindu migrants from Bangladesh would get Indian citizenship as they ‘should not suffer in other countries’.

“We have a responsibility toward Hindus who are harassed and suffer in other countries. Where will they go? India is the only place for them. Our government cannot continue to harass them. We will have to accommodate them here”, he said on 22 September 2015.

On 7 September 2015, the MHA issued a notification allowing persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered into India on or before 31 December 2014 to stay on without any valid documents. At the same time, the MHA opposed the move by Ministry of External Affairs in April 2016 to liberalise the visa regime with Bangladesh citing security threats. The fact that Bangladesh is the biggest source of foreign tourists to India – over 1.13 million came in 2015 and 0.55 million came in 2016 – was not taken into consideration. While factors like health care facilities in India and trade opportunities appear to have pushed Bangladesh to the top spot, suspicion lingered on the threats posed by the Bangladeshis to India’s security.

The Telegraph in its 5 April 2016 issue succinctly commented, ‘electronic visa facility has been offered to the citizens of the island of Niue, with a total population of 1,100, but not Bangladesh which sends three times the number of tourists each day on average.’

Significant opposition to any form of migration, irrespective of religion, from Bangladesh exists in Assam, especially among the community based groups. The influential All Assam Student’s Union (AASU) announced that it will resist any such move by the government to grant citizenship to foreigners, whether Hindu or Muslim. Other activists claim that such moves are communally motivated and are attempts to “bring Hindu Rashtra into the legal framework through the backdoor.” The Assam Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chhatra Parishad (AJYCP), a youth organisation with large mass base all over the state, claims that MHA’s September 2015 notification is an abrogation of the 1985 Assam Accord. The Accord clearly states that foreigners who came to Assam on or after 25 March 1971 will be expelled. Assam’s present chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal himself has been a long time crusader against illegal Muslim migration from Bangladesh. Taking the growing anger of Assam’s population into account, New Delhi in 2015 even considered a plan to distribute the non-Muslim Bangladeshi population to several states as Assam alone cannot bear such an enormous load of population. There was apprehension among the BJP leadership in Assam that such a move of settling the Hindu migrants in Assam alone would affect the party’s prospects in the May 2016 Assembly polls. However, a rousing victory for the party appears to have emboldened it to implement the plan. This was apparent in the November 2016 statement of Minister Sarma.

Asked to clarify if BJP indeed has a policy of differentiation between Hindu and Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Sarma said, “Yes, we do. We clearly do. After all, the country was divided in the name of religion. Thus it is not a new thing.”

For long, the BJP has refused to acknowledge the economic nature of migration from Bangladesh and termed movement of Muslim migrants as a concerted demographic invasion. The explanation that migration is critically connected to a ‘demand and supply’-phenomenon and continued in response to a rising demand in Assam for a wide range of activities has been dismissed. As a result, opinions favouring a system of work permits for the migrants which will allow Bangladeshis legally work within India and disincentivize illegal ingress into India has fallen in deaf ears. The concern that Hindus are being persecuted in Bangladesh and hence must be allowed a safe haven in India, somehow, misses the most obvious outcome- this policy will not do anything to stop the depletion of Hindu population within Bangladesh. Instead of exerting diplomatic pressure on the India-friendly Awami League government and strengthening its hand to stop the attacks on the Hindu population, New Delhi seems to embarking on a dangerous path that will embolden the anti-Hindu radical groups within Bangladesh. Worse still, it may further lead to fresh tensions within the fragile northeast. If Muslim migrants are perceived to have exerted pressure on the scarce resources within Assam, how will the Hindu migrants be any different needs some honest introspection.

*Bibhu Prasad Routray is Director, Mantraya, where this article was published. This analysis is a part of Mantraya’s “Borderlands” project.)

References

1. Alok Tikoo Singh, “Migration fears as Bangla zealots go after Hindus”, Times of India, 16 June 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Migration-fears-as-Bangla-zealots-go-after-Hindus/articleshow/52772620.cms
2. Anita Joshua, ” Trump order ‘parallel’ in Modi bill: Citizenship bill before House panel criticised for religious discrimination”, Telegraph, 31 January 2017, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170131/jsp/nation/story_133255.jsp#.WKKLr2997IV
3. Bibhu Prasad Routray. “Illegal Bangladeshi Migration into the Northeast: Policy Making, Politics, and Hurdles”, Eastern Quarterly, Vol.7, Issues III & IV, Autumn & Winter 2011, pp. 90-103, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2325783
4. “‘Citizenship amendment bill communally motivated’: Activists”, The Hindu, 30 September 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/%E2%80%98Citizenship-amendment-bill-communally-motivated%E2%80%99-Activists/article15007768.ece
5. Daulat Rahman, “Centre warned against bill”, Telegraph, 29 September 2016, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1160929/jsp/frontpage/story_110863.jsp#.WKFJOlN97IU
6. Deepshikha Ghosh, “Come May 16, Bangladeshi immigrants must pack up: Narendra Modi”, NDTV, 22 September 2015, http://www.ndtv.com/elections-news/come-may-16-bangladeshi-immigrants-must-pack-up-narendra-modi-559164
7. Kalyan Barooah, “SC slams Centre over Indo-Bangla fencing work”, Assam Tribune, 8 February 2017, http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=feb0817/at055
8. Manan Kumar, “Taking cue from Europe, India to distribute ‘illegal Hindu migrants’ from Assam across states”, DNA, 24 September 2015, http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-taking-cue-from-europe-india-to-distribute-illegal-hindu-migrants-from-assam-across-states-2128086
9. R Dutta Choudhury, “Spurt in infiltration of Hindus from Bangladesh”, Assam Tribune, 13 February 2017, http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=feb1317/at052.
10. Samudra Gupta Kashyap, “Choose your enemy, Hindu or Muslim migrants: Assam BJP minister Himanta Biswa Sarma”, Indian Express, 2 November 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/choose-your-enemy-hindu-or-muslim-migrants-bjp-assam-minister-himanta-biswa-sarma-3733080/.

By Natalia Zaba and Dusica Tomovic

A Russian suspected by Montenegro of masterminding the recent alleged coup attempt was a military officer who was expelled from Poland amid an espionage scandal in 2014, a Polish diplomat told BIRN.

The Polish ambassador to Podgorica, Irena Tatarzynska, told BIRN that Russian military officer Eduard Shishmakov, one of the leading suspects in the alleged coup plot in Montenegro, was thrown out of Poland due to a spying accusation.

Tatarzynska said Shishmakov was a deputy military attache at Russia’s embassy in Warsaw, but was declared persona non grata in Poland in June 2014, along with three other Russian citizens, because it was believed that they were involved in spying.

“For us [in Poland] it was a really unpleasant case, a deputy military attache was declared persona non grata. But for the Polish state, this case is over,” Tatarzynska said.

“Now we have been informed that the same person was engaged with the alleged coup,” she added.

But she said that until the results of the coup plot investigation were made public, it was too early for further comment.

Shishmakov was expelled from Poland after weekly news magazine Wprost June 2014 published transcripts of illegally-recorded conversations between top Polish officials including interior minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, National Bank chairman Marek Belka, foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski and finance minister Jacek Rostowski.

As a result of the scandal, nine top Polish officials including Rostowski and Sikorski resigned, while Poland expelled four Russian diplomats. Two Poles are also facing trial for allegedly spying for Russia.

Polish media speculated at the time that Shishmakov was a spy but Russian officials denied this. Moscow also threw out four Polish officials in retaliation.

Montenegro’s chief prosecutor Milivoje Katnic on Sunday accused Russia of orchestrating an attempted coup on October 16 in Montenegro in a bid to overthrow Podgorica’s pro-Western government and stop the Balkan country from joining NATO.

According to Katnic, the head of the group that was plotting the coup was Russian citizen Edward Shirokov.

Katnic said Shirokov’s real name was Edward Shishmakov, however.

“In 2014, Shishmakov was a deputy military attache at the Russian embassy in Poland, but got expelled because of espionage for Russia as a persona non grata,” Katnic said.

He said that Shishmakov was a member of the Russian security services and had been given a new passport under the name Shirokov.

Sky News on Monday published photos of two passports with the names Eduard Shishmakov and Eduard Shirokov, saying they were the same man. Both passports show the same birth date and have an almost identical photograph.

Sky News also claimed that Western intelligence sources have proof that Shirokov was an officer of the GRU, the Russian foreign military intelligence agency.

Moscow has rejected allegations of involvement in a coup plot in Montenegro, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the claims were “absurd” because Russia did not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also a report in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper which claimed that the Kremlin had a direct hand in a plot to kill Montenegro’s former Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and stop the country from joining NATO.

He said the allegation was on a par with claims that Russia’s secret services had links to President Donald Trump’s administration and that Russian hackers had targeted the West and interfered in election campaigns.

“We haven’t been presented with a single fact, out of all these false allegations,” Lavrov said.

Montenegro’s anti-NATO opposition has also continued to claim that the pro-Western government formerly led by Djukanovic faked the coup plot to discredit it.

Two MPs from the pro-Russian opposition alliance, the Democratic Front, Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic, who are also suspects in the coup case, were questioned on Monday.

Mandic and Knezevic, however, accuse the prosecution of working in favour of Djukanovic’s ruling Democratic Party of Socialists.

This is a story about Farzana, translated by her daughter Zarghuna and written up by Maya Evans

When I was six life was good; I didn’t know anything outside my mother and father’s world. In the village where I lived it was possible to see the mud houses from far away. The Baba Mountains stretched forever into the distance. In spring everything was lush green, the water flowed from the mountains feeding the stream in front of our house, all the time you could hear water flowing. People worked hard on the land every day in the mountains herding sheep and goats or working in the shops at the Bazaar. Women made bread in tandoors. Life in the village of Topi was hard but people were happy.

I had just started school for maybe a month when the war started. The Russians had come to Bamiyan and it was the beginning of war for Afghanistan. When the helicopters started to drop bombs on our village the people fled to the mountains to live in caves. Sometimes two families would live in a cave for two or three months. We loaded food and blankets onto a donkey and crossed the rocky mountain paths to the safety of the caves. During the day the men would go out to cut alfalfa and the women sometimes travelled back to the farms to collect vegetables. I stayed in the cave and played with my dolls and my siblings, an older sister and two big brothers.

It took a long time for the Russian war to end, maybe two or three Presidents passed. It was hard growing up under constant pressure. People were always afraid and they couldn’t travel freely. When I was twelve I got to travel with my grandmother to Kabul when it was under the control of the Russian ‘iron fist’. Although Kabul was full of Russians then, and ‘bad men’ who would beat people, Afghan women wore short skirts and sometimes didn’t wear head scarves. I remember once being on a bus and a woman admired my handmade scarf from Bamiyan. The woman stroked it and said she had never seen a scarf like mine and asked me to bring one back from Bamiyan for her.

Kabul was clean then, not like today. The rivers, which now contain more rubbish than water, were a source of life and leisure for Afghans, with people fishing on the banks and even swimming. The streets weren’t crowded and the air was clean. I remember seeing the Russian tanks leaving to fight in the Panjsheer valley. When the soldiers left they were happy but when they returned they were beaten, carrying their dead and wounded from a battle. This victory made the Tajik Commander Ahmed Sheer Mahsood’s name, forever glorified in Afghan history as ‘The Lion of the Panjsheer’.

After the war people were very poor and there wasn’t much food. Many Afghans became refugees in Iran including my two brothers. One of my brothers travelled on foot in women’s clothing to avoid being forced to become a fighter. Those still living in the village returned to work on their farms, growing potatoes and wheat, and keeping cows. My grandmother and I planned to follow my brothers but my older sister, who had recently married in Kabul, fell pregnant so my grandmother stayed to help her with the baby.

By the time that war ended I was thirteen and it was decided that I should marry. It was autumn when I married. It was an exciting day and although it wasn’t my decision, I realised I had to accept it. My husband Rahmony was around nineteen years old and was handsome and kind. We had grown up in the same village so I already knew him. Everyone knew everyone in the village as there were only around 32 families.

My mother and father-in-law brought candies to the wedding and threw them in the air like confetti. The women played the doryha drum and danced, while they sang a special coming of age song. When I went to live with her husband’s family it was very difficult as it was a big family, he had three brothers and four sisters plus grandparents. One of the brothers had already married so his wife also lived in the house. My husband was gentle and he would sweep the floor and cook. His brother would say he was not a real man but I loved him and appreciated his kindness. Unlike other husbands he never beat me.

Every day I washed the clothes, collected alfalfa off the land and milked the sheep and cows. The alfalfa naturally grew near the potatoes and wheat and we knew that the crops would grow strong if the alfalfa grew. The men were all farmers and would spend the day working on the land.

Then the fighting started again and many of the men joined the Mujahuddin, but not Rahmony, he stayed to work on the land as he didn’t like the violence.

The men would mainly fight each other in the mountains but sometimes violence came to the village. I often saw flame throwers – canisters of gas propelled through the air by a flame. The fighting was between five groups and they would fire at anyone who was walking around. The different groups were drawn up along ethnic lines and were supported by different countries. ‘Nasar’ were helped by the Americans, ‘Harakat’ and ‘Scepor’ were backed by Iran, ‘Jamyat’ were Tajik and Pashtoon and there was also ‘Shora’. They all fought in the ‘Jang-e-dohkhely’ – the ‘war inside’.

I heard from the people in my village that America was a country far away but I didn’t know where. I heard the names of other countries like Iran, Russia and Pakistan, but only when people in the village talked about where the weapons came from.

I was fifteen when my first child Khamed was born. Life was hard because of the Mujahuddin but because of my husband Rahmony I was happy. A year later my second son Lolla was born, then four years later my first daughter Zarghuna was our third blessing.

After the Mujahuddin things weren’t clear. Najibullah became President and I thought he was good for the people. I remember listening to the radio at home, being warmed by the flames of our stove. I heard Najibullah’s voice crackling through the radio, with his message urging for peace and asking the fighters in the mountains to come down, to have peace and life. But they did not listen. I didn’t understand why they continued to fight, maybe it had something to do with the business of weapons, but I don’t know.

By this point my second daughter Karima had arrived, and then my younger sons Abdul and Arif making six. Life for me was the same; I still went out to collect alfalfa for the cows, washed clothes and looked after my family. My eldest daughter Zarghuna adored her father and never liked to be separated from him. Sometimes he liked to sleep outside under the stars and although she was afraid of the worms in the ground, she would insist on sleeping next to him, lulled to sleep by the sound of the stream running past their home. Rahmony was keen for his daughters to attend school. It was he who enrolled Zarghuna at age six and it was him who often fetched her from school.

And then the Taliban came to Kabul.

I had heard from others in the village that the Taliban killed everyone, especially the Hazaras, but I did not believe these stories. Then one day men from the Mujahuddin returned to the village and said the Taliban were coming, and that even they were afraid. At first the Talibs arrived by car and then on horseback. They carried guns and long knives. I realised then that the stories I had heard were true.

There was no time, it was chaos. Rahmony and I collected up all our children, except for Khamed and Abdul who were missing. But the family had to flee for their lives – immediately. During the day we crossed mountains, and that night we saw the smoke of burning houses which the Taliban had set alight. We had nearly escaped to the safety of the mountain tops where the Taliban would not find us.

We were not the only family who were fleeing. In our group were Rahmony’s brother and his family plus two other men. We walked for nearly a day when we became aware of the voices of Talibs close by so we crouched in the shady shadows under an overhanging cliff. Everyone was frozen to their hiding space. Karima said that she was thirsty but still we didn’t move as we could sense danger was near. The women were praying that the Taliban would not see them; we needed to stay hidden for just a few more hours and then dusk would hide our escape into the mountains where we would not be found.

A man whom we didn’t know happened to wander past, he wasn’t a Talib and he did not sense the imminent danger. He could see the group sheltering under the rock and called them to come out. His voice cut the silence of the mountains.

I had dressed my young son Lolla in my own clothing so he looked like a girl, but there was no disguising Rahmony, his brother and the two other men. Zarghuna clung to her father as the Talibs ordered the men out of our hiding place. Rahmony took his scarf and wrapped it around seven year old Zarghuna, his daughter who never liked to be away from him, he told her not to be afraid and that he would always be with her.

Five minutes later we heard the sound of gunfire.

The Taliban told the women and children to return home. The shock left me unable talk and my legs stopped working. I had to go down the mountain by dragging myself along the ground. The next day we decided to try and find Rahmony but it was snowing and very cold. We searched but did not find him.

Rahmony’s Mother realised that the men had been killed so she went out to find the bodies. She discovered them not far from where we had been separated, holes were dug and they were buried at the spot that they had been killed.

Rahmony, my kind and handsome husband was gone.

Now I had to think about the lives of my six children. At first I didn’t want to tell Arif and Karima that the Taliban had killed their father, plus I still had no news about my eldest son Khamed and four year old Abdul. We asked the people returning from the mountains if they had seen them, but they had not. After twenty days the people in the village said that they must have been killed by the Taliban, but finally after forty long days a cousin came to say that they were safe and at an aunt’s house.

Life was nearly impossible without Rahmony. Two of his brothers and his father had also been killed. I asked his remaining family if I could have his share of the land, one of the brothers agreed but the other did not. But I was now the head of a family and like an Afghan man I claimed my piece of land.  Security was still bad, the threat of the Taliban still loomed heavily so we sold our remaining livestock and planned to leave. We bought two sacks of flour for bread and loaded up our donkey. I lead my young family as we travelled for weeks; sleeping on hilltops and under the stars, dodging Talibs. Abdul was still a slow walker and Arif had to be carried, but still I kept my family together and safe.

Finally we reached the outskirts of Kabul and found a kind woman who wanted to share her large house with a family which did not have any men. Her husband and father had both left for Pakistan leaving her with three children and the house to look after. The room which we were given was beautiful as the kind woman’s father was rich. Lolla, now eleven, managed to get a job in a local shop and also went to the mountains with Khamed to collect bushes to fuel the tandoor and sell to other families.

We stayed in that house for six months until relatives in Bamiyan told us it was safe to return, that the Taliban had gone. We made the long journey back to our village, though by now it was winter so the journey was extra arduous. We collected wood and bushes during the day to burn at night.

When we returned to our house we found that someone else had been there. The pictures on the wall had been burnt, a box of clothes which we left in the corner had been thrown outside, and on the floor were bullets. My grandmother told stories of becoming a cook for the Taliban. They would call her ‘mother’ and bring chicken for her to cook or flour to make bread. The Talibs who occupied the village were different from the Talibs who first came and killed and beat women for not wearing socks. These Talibs accepted my grandmother and even gave her a new scarf because the one she wore was thread bare.

When the Americans came the Taliban left in cars with camouflage netting stretched across the roofs.

I remember food parcels being dropped from the sky and one of my neighbours running out into the field, unaware of a land mine which someone had planted during one of the many wars. Then foreign soldiers came but the village people did not ask questions. It was a time of peace even though everyone was poor and many people had been killed or had left.

Things were expensive. Khamed worked on the land and Lolla sold things on the street like bubblegum, socks, matches and walnuts – a walnut in its shell was 2 Afghanis (around 2p). Karima and Zarghuna worked at home washing clothes and collecting water from the spring, they also returned to school.

After so much travel and being hungry and scared, we found hope to be alive.

This interview took place when Farzana travelled from Bamiyan to Kabul for Zarghuna’s graduation ceremony. Today the roads from Bamiyan are extremely unsafe as they’re patrolled by the Taliban, ISIS and criminals. If a bus is stopped people say they are travelling to see family or for hospital, if students or government workers are found they are likely to be executed. If foreigners are discovered they will be kidnapped or killed. A white flag on a house signals the Taliban.

Zarghuna is a member of the Afghan Peace Volunteers; she is the first person in her family to become a college graduate, the first woman in her village and one of the first APVs. She translated her mother’s story and added details from her own recollections. Farzana was extremely proud to see her daughter graduate.

This was also written the week a UNAMA report was published stated that a record number of 3,948 civilians were killed in 2016 and 7,920 injured. Since 2009, the armed conflict in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 24,841 civilians and injured 45,347 others.

Maya co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence-UK  

According to the recently published Global Economic Prospects, a World Bank Group flagship report, the year 2016 was marked by stagnant global trade, subdued investment, and heightened policy uncertainty. For 2017, a subdued recovery is expected, with receding obstacles to activity in commodity exporters and solid domestic demand in commodity importers.

Additionally, weak investment is weighing on medium-term prospects across many emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). Although fiscal stimulus in major economies, if implemented, may boost global growth above expectations, risks to growth forecasts remain tilted to the downside.

Figure 1. Source: World Bank 2017. Note: GDP Growth, Constant 2010 USD

For Eritrea, GDP growth was slightly above 4% in 2016, outpacing the global average, as well as GDP growth in the advanced economies, developing economies, and Africa (see figure 1).

As well, Eritrea’s projected growth for the next several years is expected to outpace global projections (see figure 2). Importantly, such economic growth can be central to poverty reduction and the realization of broader development goals. Moving forward, Eritrea can address several areas in order to sustain positive economic momentum and enhance overall development.

Manufacturing and skills development

Figure 2. Source: World Bank 2017. Note: GDP Growth, Constant 2010 USD

An area Eritrea should prioritize is manufacturing and skills development. As Eritrea continues to grow and integrate into the broader regional and global economy, it is vital to raise and vary exports, moving away from low-value added and potentially unstable primary products. Manufacturing is essential to growth, and with rapid technical change and global economic integration, it is becoming important as a means of modernizing and diversifying the economic base.

Consequently, focusing on and investing in technical and vocational programs and human capital development are key since they can help build and refine the population’s skills and capabilities to compete within fiercely competitive markets. Notably, advanced skills are not just a requirement for “hi-tech” sectors; even supposedly “simple” areas such as apparel, footwear, and basic engineering products require a degree of skills to compete. Of further importance, a skilled, knowledgeable workforce dramatically improves the investment climate since trained, skilled workers create an attractive economic environment for investors.

Beyond their necessity for competing in regional or global markets, Eritrea should invest in technical and vocational skills programs and human capital development since they help in the fulfillment of a range of fundamental human rights, significantly contribute to social inclusion, can considerably raise productivity and earnings (particularly of the working poor), reduce unemployment, increase the efficiency of entrepreneurs, and play positive, influential roles in crime and poverty reduction (AfDB; BCG; World Bank 2014).

The importance of technical and vocational skills and human capital development is particularly apparent in relation to skills gaps. Skills gaps are prevalent across much of the developing world – such as in Eritrea – and they persist despite generally high unemployment rates. Potential workers, lacking the skills and training required by various industries, remain idle and unproductive. An insightful case is Sri Lanka; while the country has the most educated workforce in South Asia, with 87 percent of citizens completing secondary school, its workforce is not equipped with the right skills to be machine operators, technicians, sales associates, and managers (World Bank 2014). In this context, vocational and technical training programs can provide workers with the vital skills required by dynamic, evolving economies, and can ultimately help address problems of unemployment and lack of productivity (BCG).

Notably, skills acquired from or honed within technical and vocational programs are especially significant for youth. Young people frequently remain at the end of the job queue for the formal labor market because they lack adequate skills and experience (Boateng 2002). With little access to formal employment, youth may instead turn to the informal sector. While the informal sector can frequently offer certain tangible benefits, it can also be characterized by long, unpredictable hours and limited protections, returns, safety, or security. More problematically, youth unemployment can also potentially lead to emigration, or crime and other harmful or dangerous behaviors, such as sex work or illicit drug use.

Overall, vocational and technical programs and human capital development are critical elements in encouraging and accelerating development, inclusive growth, and poverty reduction through economic transformation and job creation (AfDB). Moving forward, Eritrea should continue to invest in vocational and technical programs, and seek to enhance their overall effectiveness and impact. Doing so will require firm political commitment, the ongoing participation and cooperation of local and international partners, sustainable financing (especially for infrastructure and equipment), and the foresight to ensure that expansion does not dilute the quality of training.

To augment impact, the potential for enterprise-based training should be explored, while technical and vocational programs should be carefully assessed, diversified, and matched with the skills required by the labor market, possibly with the active participation of employers (Kanyenze, Mhone and Spareboom 2000; World Bank 2014). An illustrative example is the system of productivity councils that was a fundamental component of the rapid growth and success of the East Asian economies. Specifically, the system involved the specific skills profile required by the private sector being fed directly into the curricula of the educational and technical sector.

Finally, the Eritrean government and relevant stakeholders can further develop awareness campaigns illustrating that technical and vocational programs are an important means of empowering individuals to fully develop their capabilities and tangibly improve their lives. Importantly, these campaigns will help garner greater attention and participation, while counteracting potential obstacles related to perceptions of the alleged low prestige of technical and vocational programs.

Fisheries

Eritrea’s coastline on the Red Sea is approximately 1200 kilometers, making it one of the longest in the world, with approximately 1000 kilometers more coming from its numerous islands on the Red Sea. Notably, the waters of the southern part of the Red Sea are highly productive and rich in biodiversity, with substantial populations of over 1000 species of fish. Commercially valuable fish include groupers, snappers, emperors, lizardfish, breams, jacks, trevallies, mackerels, tunas, sharks, sardines, and anchovies.

However, while the region, which includes hundreds of islands as well as the major ports of Massawa in central Eritrea and Assab in the south, has a potential yield of 80000 metric tons of fish per year, Eritrea’s annual total capture production remains quite low. Thus, not only can the fisheries sector play an important role for poverty reduction, employment, income generation, food security (e.g. through reducing the need to depend on food imports to fill gaps), and nutrition (e.g. fish products are an important source of animal protein and essential micronutrients for balanced nutrition and good health), it also holds the potential to be a significant export industry and thus contribute to overall development and growth.

It is imperative, however, that Eritrea develop this sector in environmentally-friendly, sustainable ways. Proper management can avoid pollution and destructive fishing practices, ultimately ensuring the continued productivity of coastal waters and future growth, food security and jobs for coastal communities.

Tourism

Globally, the tourism industry accounts for about 10 percent of global GDP and one out of every 11 jobs. Tourism is an important foreign exchange earner, and many countries encourage tourism to help promote development and economic growth. The conclusion that tourism benefits nations’ economies applies both to developed nations and developing countries, although the effect may be stronger for less-developed countries with a relatively simple economy – such as Eritrea (Sahli and Carey 2013).

For Eritrea, a country blessed with a warm, hospitable climate, rich cultural heritage, and great natural assets, the tourism sector holds enormous potential to reduce poverty and enhance economic growth. However, the country must remain committed to the continued development of basic infrastructure (e.g. roads and airport facilities).

Furthermore, the experience of countries that have developed successful tourism sectors (e.g. the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN]) can offer important lessons for Eritrea, particularly in terms of improving connectivity, visa facilitation, and services. While tourism can promote growth and development, Eritrea must also make efforts to minimize or avoid potential adverse effects (e.g. on environment, cultural heritage, or local communities).

* Dr. Fikrejesus Amahazion, PhD is a Horn of Africa scholar focusing on African development, human rights and political economy.

(EurActiv) — Britain will have to pay a “very hefty” bill to leave the European Union and negotiating a new relationship with the bloc will take years, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker warned Tuesday.

Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to trigger the Brexit negotiations by the end of March following the shock referendum in June last year.

“It will be a difficult negotiation that will take years for us to agree on the exit terms and on the future architecture of relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union,” Juncker told the Belgian parliament.

“The British must know – and they know it already – that it will not be at a discount or zero cost,” the former Luxembourg premier said in his hour-long speech.

“The British are expected to respect the commitments they made. And so the bill, to say it a bit coarsely, will be very hefty,” added Juncker.

European sources said Brussels could hand Britain an exit bill of up to €60 billion to cover commitments already made by London toward the EU budget.

The European Commission has declined to provide any figure until now.

“We must settle this matter, not with a heart filled with hostility but with the knowledge that the continent owes much to Britain,” Juncker said, referring to Churchill’s role in defeating fascism.

“But we must not be naive either,” he added.

Spanish exports of goods in 2016 grew by 1.7% compared to the same period the previous year, reaching a total of 254.53 billion euros, an all-time high. Imports diminished by 0.4% to 273.28 billion euros.

Consequently, the trade deficit for the year stood at 18.75 billion euros, 22.4% less than in 2015 and the second best balance since 1997, only behind 2013. Spanish exports performed better than those of the Eurozone and the European Union as a whole.

The coverage rate – exports over imports – stood at 93.1% (91.2% in 2015), the second best figure ever, beaten only by 2013.

By volume, exports increased by 3.5%, since prices fell by 1.7%. Meanwhile imports grew by 2.8% due to prices measured by Unit Value Indices (which only measure the prices of exported products) having fallen by 3.1%.

The non-energy balance posted a deficit of 2.52 billion euros (versus a surplus of 1.91 billion euros in 2015) and the energy deficit fell by 37.8% to 16.24 billion euros (versus 26.09 billion euros in 2015).

The performance of Spanish exports in 2016 was better than that of the Eurozone (up by 0.7%) and the EU as a whole (down by 0.1%). Exports by Germany (1.2%) and Italy (1.1%) increased to a lesser extent than in Spain, while in France (-0.9%), UK (-0.2%), USA (-3.2%), China (-6.4%) and Japan (-7.4%) exports all shrank.

In 2016 the number of exporters grew by 1% over 2015 to 148,794. In comparison with 2008 (the maximum achieved in the previous upward cycle), this represents a 46.7% increase. The number of regular exporters (those exporting for at least four straight years) also grew, by 4.2% to 49,792.

As tyrants take control of democracies, they typically do 7 things:

1. They exaggerate their mandate to govern – claiming, for example, that they won an election by a “landslide” even after losing the popular vote. They criticize any finding that they or co-conspirators stole the election. And they repeatedly claim “massive voter fraud” in the absence of any evidence, in order to have an excuse to restrict voting by opponents in subsequent elections.

2. They turn the public against journalists or media outlets that criticize them, calling them “deceitful” and “scum,” and telling the public that the press is a “public enemy.” They hold few, if any, press conferences, and prefer to communicate with the public directly through mass rallies and unfiltered statements (or what we might now call “tweets”).

3. They repeatedly lie to the public, even when confronted with the facts.  Repeated enough, these lies cause some of the public to doubt the truth, and to believe fictions that support the tyrants’ goals.

4. They blame economic stresses on immigrants or racial or religious minorities, and foment public bias or even violence against them. They threaten mass deportations, “registries” of religious minorities, and the banning of refugees.

5. They attack the motives of anyone who opposes them, including judges. They attribute acts of domestic violence to “enemies within,” and use such events as excuses to beef up internal security and limit civil liberties.

6. They appoint family members to high positions of authority. They ppoint their own personal security force rather than a security detail accountable to the public. And they put generals into top civilian posts.

7. They keep their personal finances secret, and draw no distinction between personal property and public property – profiteering from their public office.

Consider yourself warned.

The UK Home Office is accelerating its drive for “illegal” migrants and those refused asylum to return home voluntarily – a tactic publicised as more cost-effective and “humane” than forced returns. But how “voluntary” are these returns really? And how have NGOs become complicit in this strategy?

By Lotte Lewis Smith**

The UK is the only EU country with no time limit on immigration detention. Since being refused asylum, 19-year-old Aamir* from Afghanistan has been held at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, near Heathrow Airport, for eight months. He has no idea when he’ll be released or deported.

Without adequate access to legal or psychological support in detention, and no release date, Aamir is considering “voluntarily” returning to Afghanistan, a country where a prolonged conflict has worsened in the past year, displacing hundreds of thousands from their homes.

“I can’t sleep or eat. There is no one to talk to. I feel like I’m going crazy,” he told IRIN. “I don’t want to go back to Afghanistan – my whole family is dead there – but I am scared I’ll kill myself if I don’t leave this place soon.”

The primary targets of the UK Home Office’s Voluntary Return Service, though, are people outside of detention who are living on a minimal support grant. In April, as a result of the 2016 Immigration Act, that support – £73.90 a week for families/£36 for single adults and government-contracted housing – will be discontinued for those whose initial asylum claims have been refused.

Although an initial asylum refusal is by no means the end of the legal road (87 percent of refusals of asylum claims by Eritreans were overturned by judges on appeal in 2015), the Home Office encourages people seeking asylum who’ve had an initial negative decision to accept voluntary return in order to avoid destitution. For non-European nationals, destitution is considered a breach of the conditions under which they can legally stay in the UK and can be used as grounds for enforced removal.

“Voluntary”?

In late 2015, the Home Office cut nearly £2 million in funding to Refugee Action, a charity that ran the UK’s Assisted Voluntary Return programme from 2011. Refugee Action claimed to deliver “free impartial, independent and confidential advice” regarding voluntary return.

Starting in January 2016, the Home Office began running an in-house Voluntary Return Service (VRS). Refugee Action described the change as “part of a wider strategy by the government to strengthen the ‘hostile environment’ and create stronger incentives for voluntary return”.

VRS seeks to “achieve” 31,500 removals over three years, with a budget of £18,638,296. It mainly targets people in the UK “illegally”. Another related programme, called “Assisted Voluntary Return”, provides up to £2,000 to help returnees “find somewhere to live, find a job or start a business” and is aimed specifically at survivors of trafficking, families, unaccompanied minors, people with ongoing asylum cases, and people who have exhausted the appeals process.

Whilst people who opt for voluntary return may not come into direct contact with restraints, guards, or physical force, the transition to a Home Office-run service has raised concerns about “voluntariness”, particularly when offered to people faced with the prospect of indefinite detention and enforced removal.

Hannah* said the Home Office tried to coerce her and her young child into accepting voluntary return to East Africa by threatening to cut her asylum support when her initial asylum application was refused.

Whilst at her local Home Office reporting centre, Hannah said she was approached by an employee who asked if she would consider returning home “voluntarily” and even offered to help pack her bags and order her a taxi to the airport. According to Hannah, she proceeded to threaten her and her son with deportation if she didn’t accept this “help”, and told her to go away and think about it.

The next time Hannah visited the centre, she told staff she was preparing a fresh asylum claim – evidenced with a letter from her lawyer – and didn’t want to sign documents consenting to “voluntarily” return. She was consequently required to travel more than two hours every day to report at the centre “until further notice”. Once there, Hannah said she faced verbal abuse and intimidation from employees who, in addition to threatening to cut her asylum support, told her she could be arrested if she didn’t comply. Had she given in to the pressure and signed the form agreeing to voluntary return, Hannah would have lost the right to submit a fresh asylum claim and could have faced forced return if she later tried to withdraw her consent.

Hibiscus Initiatives

The Home Office refused to comment about individual cases like Hannah’s, but IRIN’s investigation found that when such tactics fail it looks to trusted organisations to “persuade” people to leave the UK voluntarily. As one senior manager noted in 2014: “It’s a matter of trust; they [NGOs such as Refugee Action] can have discussions with migrant groups that the Home Office can’t… realistically we know that there’s a concern about engaging directly with the government.”

One NGO benefiting from this strategy is Hibiscus Initiatives, a registered charity with “teams” based at the Yarl’s Wood, Colnbrook, and Harmondsworth detention centres. The charity runs an “International Resettlement” project – funded by the Home Office since 2012 – which provides “independent advice to detainees and practical assistance to make resettlement in their home country easier”.

Unlike Refugee Action, which was transparent about its financial relationship with the Home Office, Hibiscus Initiatives doesn’t list the Home Office as one of its funders on its website. However, its financial statements show that in the year ending March 2016, the Home Office paid the charity a total of £400,000, accounting for 68 percent of its “contract income”.

The Home Office told IRIN it “has no contract with Hibiscus Initiatives” and a spokesperson described the organisation as “a registered charity who provide independent returns facilitation support and advice to non-EU detainees”. But government documents show that the Home Office made 10 grants, each over £25,000, to the charity between August 2015 and August 2016, under the category of “Immigration Enforcement”.

The grants are drawn from the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), which lists Hibiscus Initiatives as “State/federal authorities”, and describes the purpose of the project as “to support the UK priority on returns by contributing towards 600 successful, compliant returns per year”.

The NGO’s Trustees’ Report, published in March 2016, notes that the International Resettlement Team “exceeds” these “demanding targets by a very large margin”.

NGO “dilemma”

Hibiscus Initiatives claim to have provided a “human and caring service” to 3,115 people at immigration detention centres last year.

Kayla*, a Zimbabwean woman detained at Yarl’s Wood, recalled her experiences of the charity: “They said that if I don’t return voluntarily I will stay in detention… I don’t feel like they are supporting me; I think they are the same as the guards – they just want to please the Home Office.”

Another detainee, Mark*, talked to IRIN over the phone from Colnbrook detention centre about his encounters with Hibiscus Initiatives: “They kept talking to me about returning voluntarily, returning freely… But I am in detention, how would it be free? They didn’t listen to me when I said I want to fight my case, to stay with my kids here in the UK… All they do is tell me I would be better off leaving… It’s not advice; it feels like a command.”

At the time of publication, Hibiscus Initiatives had not responded to several requests for comment from IRIN.

But Frances Webber, a former human rights barrister and vice-chair of the Institute of Race Relations who has written about the politics of voluntary return, noted: “NGOs such as Hibiscus Initiatives… face the dilemma that their concern for people’s safety, wellbeing and rights comes up against, and must cede to, Home Office enforcement strategy, which offers ‘voluntary return’ solely as an alternative to indefinite detention, persisting destitution and enforced deportation. The most they can do is sugar-coat the pill.”

*Names have been changed

** Lotte Lewis Smith, Investigative journalist and volunteer at The Unity Centre, a migrant solidarity centre based in Scotland. This article was published by IRIN.

By William Chislett*

Spain’s exports of goods rose in 2016 for the seventh year running, defying expectations that they would tail off as the economy recovers and domestic consumption picks up.

Exports were 1.7% higher than in 2015 at €254.5 billion and imports 0.4% lower at €273.3 billion (see Figure 1). As a result, the trade deficit fell 22.4% to €18.7 billion, the second lowest figure since 1997. Coupled with a buoyant tourism year (75.3 million visitors and spending of around €77 billion), the better trade figures helped to generate another current-account surplus (estimated at 2% of GDP). From 1990 to 2012, Spain had current-account deficits every year.

The coverage ratio (the percentage of imports covered by exports) was 93.4%, up from 66.8% in 2008 when the economy went into a prolonged decline, which ended in 2014 with anaemic growth. Since then the economy has continued to grow, but only at some point this year will the GDP level return to its pre-crisis level.

The €65.3 billion rise in exports since 2008 is a striking achievement, given that Spain is not known for being a country of export prowess. Faced with plummeting demand from consumers, companies and the government, companies have had no alternative but to seek out markets abroad or in some cases face going to the wall, particularly small and medium-sized ones. Exports thus became a matter of survival.

Spain achieved this, despite the rise of countries such as China and India. Its share of world trade held steady between 2013 and 2015 (latest year available) at 1.7% (see Figure 2).

Export growth, spurred by productivity gains and restored competitiveness, has been faster than powerhouse Germany’s, France’s and Italy’s, albeit from a smaller base.

The sharp rise in Spain’s unemployment rate from 8% in 2007 to a peak of 27% in 2013 (18.6% at the end of 2016) has reduced wages in real terms and lowered unit labour costs. The government’s 2012 labour-market reforms have enabled companies to negotiate wages and working conditions more flexibly, while the euro’s depreciation against the US dollar has benefited Spain’s exports to non-euro zone countries.

These factors, in turn, have spurred foreign direct investment in Spain, some of which has gone to major exporting industries, notably the automotive industry (which accounted for 17.7% of total exports last year).

One sector that has made particularly impressive strides is food and drink which, together with tobacco, generated almost 17% of total exports, not far from the automotive industry, all of whose car producers, unlike food and drink, are in multinational hands. Spanish ham, for instance, is beginning to gain popularity in China and olive oil in the US.

The number of companies exporting rose from 109,363 in 2010 to 147,334 in 2016 (down from a peak of 151,160 in 2013), 47,768 of whom were regular exporters (more than four consecutive years), 23.3% higher than in 2010. Many companies that started exporting after 2011, at the height of Spain’s recession, are still exporting. This is a significant structural improvement, particularly given the fixed costs companies incur when they enter foreign markets, and one that needs to be maintained if Spain is to keep on improving its export performance.

A very small number of exporters, however, still account for a big share of exports. The 10 largest exporters accounted for 15.8% of total exports last year, a larger share than in 2010 (see Figure 3).

The high export concentration is due to the high atomisation in Spanish companies: their average size is a fraction compared to that of many other developed economies. This atomisation limits export capacity as it is widely accepted that firm size is the largest single determinant for Spanish companies to start exporting. Larger firms tend to have higher productivity growth, so their unit labour costs typically rise less than for smaller and less productive firms. Critical mass also enables companies to access funding from banks and capital markets.

In order to build on its export success, Spain needs more medium-sized and large companies. Almost 40% of employment in Spain is generated by large and medium-sized companies, which represent, respectively, 0.1% and 0.7% of the total number of companies, while the remaining 60% of jobs are generated by 99% of companies. According to the OECD, more than 40% of workers in Spain are hired by firms with fewer than 10 employees compared to 29% in France, 19% in Germany and 11% in the US.

The challenge for Spain is to find ways to encourage companies to grow in size, without which the export performance will be difficult to sustain.

About the author:
*William Chislett, Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

Republicans pause on border walls and tariffs – as realization sets in about reduced profits, higher prices for US consumers.

By David Dapice*

While some critics say the proposed wall in remote border stretches will accomplish little at great cost, even conservatives worry that a tariff on Mexican goods is a tax increase that will fall on US consumers and disrupt a tightly integrated auto market. More generally, proposed tax changes aim to shift the burden of taxes to consumption, while benefit cuts paying for income tax reductions would, on balance, hurt most groups in the bottom 90 percent. None of this will help US manufacturing output or jobs.

US President Donald Trump has proposed, as a way for making Mexico pay for the multibillion dollar wall along the US-Mexican border, a tax on Mexican imports. Even a 2 percent tariff – just a tenth of the 20 percent rate floated as a possibility – would raise more than $5 billion a year. Over four years, that could pay for the wall.

But Mexicans would not necessarily pay for the tariff.

To economists, this is a familiar problem and a question of tax incidence. Say that you live in a city with a hot rental housing market and the city raises real estate taxes. Of course, the owners of the rentals write the checks for the taxes, but most simply pass on the costs to renters by raising monthly rates. Renters end up paying for the tax increase.

A tax on Mexican imports would prompt US consumers to seek substitutes – there may be alternative beers but few alternatives to consumers who like tequila. For tomatoes and other fresh vegetables, the price of alternative supplies may be quite a bit more expensive than Mexican tomatoes and in that case US prices would rise to offset the tax. If that were the case, US consumers would pay the tax, much like the renters in the previous example. This is the most likely outcome for the most part if tariffs are raised and would also raise prices for vehicles, machinery, mineral fuels and medical instruments – Mexico’s leading imports to the United States.

Keep in mind that the economies of the two nations are closely tied, so if Mexico exports more to the US, the country also tends to import more from the US. This is not equally true of China or Germany.

Mexico is currently the third largest US trading partner in goods, with $531 billion in trade during 2015. Mexico’s imports from the US were 80 percent of their exports to the US in 2015. China’s imports from the US are 25 percent of their exports to the US and Germany’s ratio was about 40 percent.

Shooting one’s foot? US exports to Mexico – and related US jobs – have grown at a faster pace than the trade deficit since NAFTA went into effect in 1994; while data for trade in services are not available, the US now has a trade surplus in that area (Data: US Census and US Trade Representative’s office)

So if the United States wants to export more, then it should divert trade to neighbors like Mexico and Canada that buy more of what we sell. Of course, if every nation acted on the impulse to impose tariffs in retaliation for a bilateral trade imbalance, tariffs would escalate and trade would shrink. There is no economic rationale to demand that trade be balanced with each nation engaged in trade. But hitting Mexico is a bad idea even if the mercantile impulse, favoring exports and wanting to depress imports, guided policy. In the North America Free Trade Agreement, the US export-to-import ratio is 87 percent versus 59 percent for non-NAFTA, as reported by US Census data for goods traded in 2015.

One purpose for NAFTA is to help integrate Mexico’s economy into the global trade network and create jobs that lessen the need for young Mexican worker to migrate north. Since 2008, estimates of net Mexican migration to the United States have been negative. The flows of migrants have been mainly from Central America fleeing gang violence. Mexican and US governments have cooperated to stop those flows.  If relations deteriorate, it is likely that these illegal flows will increase. Tunnels can be built under walls, and the United States would struggle if Mexico dispensed with border enforcement.

Another angle to consider are the flows of goods back and forth across the border. Autos typically involve parts from many countries – even the most “American made” vehicles only have about 75 percent US content and these include some from Toyota and Honda, not just General Motors. Putting high tariffs on the trade in auto parts would drive up the price of US vehicles and make billions of dollars of factory investments and millions of jobs uneconomic.

The goal may be to restore US factory jobs, but here is the real problem with plans for the wall and the antagonism to trade: Most job losses in manufacturing were due to automation rather than trade or migrants. Most responsible estimates of the decline in factory jobs put automation at 80 to 90 percent of the decrease, with trade representing perhaps 10 percent and migration much less. Most illegal migrants work in services or construction, as do most US workers. Relatively few work in factories. To reduce migration and trade as the cure for rustbelt problems is simply wrong. The disruption to trade and the retaliation from trading partners are likely to increase the costs of the wall/tariff approach with few benefits for the workers with a high school education or less, about 60 percent of the population, who have been left behind in recent decades.

Of course, the wall is only part of the overall economic approach likely in the new administration. Virtually all Republicans want income tax cuts that largely benefit the rich. To pay for tax cuts and promised spending on infrastructure, some suggest a border tax that would not allow deduction of imports for calculation of income taxes on profits while removing exports profits from taxation. Taken together with income tax cuts, this would shift the burden of taxation onto consumers and away from those with high incomes with high savings. Many anticipate higher interest rates as a result of these policies, and this again would favor the wealthy relative to borrowers, as the upper tenth of households have 63 percent of financial assets, according to Federal Reserve surveys.  Republican proposals also include cuts in subsidies for health care, education, housing and even retirement benefits, and this in turn would shift income from the poor and middle classes to the upper 10 or even 1 percent of the population.

In this context, the emphasis on a wall with Mexico and tariffs on trade can be seen either as a cynical political diversion or a case of poorly grasped causality. If the major problems have been caused by automation and poor and insufficient education, the proper response is to help workers and communities rather than try to cling to jobs that will not materialize. Subsidies for courses in community colleges, including for older workers, to earn reasonable wages in other jobs would be better than bullying companies to keep jobs here and, as a result, become uncompetitive compared to corporations elsewhere which are free to make the best choices for low cost production.  Increased input costs and a strong dollar would depress manufacturing output and jobs.

Overall then, aside from the meager people-smuggling control benefits of the wall , the plans to pay for the wall with higher tariffs on Mexican goods fail every test even in Trump’s own terms. The wall and the resulting trade tensions would weaken US competitiveness and be economically disruptive, leading to more costs for US consumers and producers while not addressing the real problems confronting the nation or the workers who voted for Trump.

*David Dapice is the economist of the Vietnam Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

By Clint Watts*

(FPRI) — “I’ve got Captain McMaster for MilArt!” West Point cadets enrolled in Military History 302 during the early 1990’s spoke with pride if they were the lucky few drawing McMaster’s section.  They studied combat under the tutelage of Desert Storm’s most notable young war hero – the commander of E Troop, 2^nd Armored Cavalry Regiment whose unit decimated Iraqi forces at the battle of 73 Easting.  McMaster led by example, inspired young cadets, soldiers and officers – both up and down the chain-of-command with his knowledge and spirit.  Today, Lieutenant General McMaster continues this legacy becoming National Security Advisor and hopefully saving America from a calamitous start to a new presidential administration.

National security scholars immediately cheered President Trump’s replacement after the disastrously short tenure of retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn.  Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster too is a popular Army general but more qualified and better suited for the position in every way compared to Flynn.  While General David Petraeus often receives credit for the military’s great “surge” in Iraq a decade ago, McMaster, as commander of the 3^rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal`Afar, largely invented and honed the counterinsurgency approach later adopted by forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. A hero of two wars, McMaster’s inspirational inclusive leadership has won him supporters up and down the ranks in contrast to Flynn’s divisiveness and spite for the Obama administration, which won President Trump’s ear but immediately created a wedge between the intelligence community and the new administration. Flynn’s relationship and perceived influence by Russia led to a scandal bringing his demise.  McMaster on the other hand, as typified by every chapter in his career, recently helped move the U.S. Army out of the counterterrorism era preparing U.S. forces for the sophisticated rise of Russian hybrid warfare used in Ukraine. McMaster’s selection will likely bring unity and focus in countering Russia aggression as compared to Flynn’s bizarre romance with a nation that compromised him.

For Americans fearful of an ideological Stephen Bannon-Mike Flynn cabal propelling the U.S. into an apocalyptic showdown with Islam, McMaster may be the perfect pick for National Security Advisor. He’ll take in information and opinions, study the details, design the strategy, implement it, and drive it through the administration.  McMaster’s competence and battlefield creativity arrives from years of scholarship where he earned both a doctorate and penned an essential tome, Dereliction Of Duty, describing U.S. mistakes in the Vietnam war – notably the failure of U.S. generals to stand up to civilian leadership.  McMaster adapted this lesson into his own career — known for speaking his mind even when it may have cost him promotions. McMaster will be an essential voice to counter President Trump’s affinity for crazy conspiracies of those inside or outside the administration – whether it is chief strategist Bannon or InfoWar’s Alex Jones.

Trump’s pick of McMaster seems more palatable in light of his previous choice Flynn, but Americans should be vexed by President Trump’s apparent insecurity with regards to national security. In Trump’s game of national security ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ – only famous military flag officers can participate. Having initially appointed three former generals as National Security Advisor and the heads of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, Trump next offered the National Security Advisor position to former Navy SEAL Vice Admiral Bob Harward who turned down the job.  Again, retired General David Petraeus’ name rose into discussions as a replacement, but Petraeus signaled fear of the position noting in Munich:

“Whoever it is that would agree to take that position certainly should do so with some very, very significant assurances that he or she would have authorities over the personnel of the organization — that there would be a commitment to a disciplined process and procedures”.

Reports on Saturday noted four candidates in contention for the position – three of whom were generals.  The lone civilian mentioned, John Bolton, has, for some, a radioactive reputation and too hawkish views.

President Trump’s confused worldview, love for celebrity, and desire to appear tough has him reaching for those who embody what he is not: a strong commander-in-chief. Trump appears unable to envision any viable civilians for top defense positions. This fame fueled policy pattern is not limited to national security either. Trump’s preference for celebrity over credentials appears in domestic politics where he appointed well known presidential candidate and later backer Ben Carson, a doctor, to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development despite having no experience in the discipline or bureaucratic management expertise. Trump paired this odd choice alongside meetings with musician Kanye West and comedian Steve Harvey to discuss cultural issues and inner city problems. In all cases, Trump prefers names he sees on Twitter to those he could review in resumes.

Aside from the singular focus on military generals, Trump’s national security team represents a “Team of Friends” rather than a “Team of Rivals”—the inverse approach pursued by President Obama in 2008.  Generals Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster—and Flynn before him—all fought the last decade’s counterinsurgencies on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. If America needs to fight and win a land war in Asia, no better assemblage of leaders could be collected. Their cohesion will aid communication and bring needed unity of command to a Trump administration off to a disastrous start.

But the “Team of Friends” approach has a downside as well. Trump’s celebrity generals ground combat depth is unparalleled, and their lack of national security breadth is unprecedented.  All are masters in the art of war, but none would be thought of as natural diplomats, economic savants, purveyors of air power, nerds in naval operations, executors of law enforcement and intelligence operations, cyber savvy tacticians, interagency hardball champions, or nation-state chess players. Even more, generals believing they could operate on fewer resources are rarer than snow leopards, calling into question Trump calls for future government cost cutting.

Traditionally, national security teams seek a diverse blend of civil servants, academics, intelligence professionals and military veterans to adequately prepare the country for a host of scenarios and adversaries. Trump’s generals, no doubt, will be the best fit to fight the Islamic State today and al Qaeda last decade. But, this crew seems ill-suited for many top national security challenges. Easing tensions with China and Iran, quelling Russian cyber attacks and influence operations, restoring alliances in Europe and the Middle East, preparing for the security effects of climate change in the Arctic and mitigating nuclear proliferation – none of these issues will be areas where Trump’s generals will naturally excel.

McMaster’s selection as National Security will present a tradeoff for U.S. national security.  McMaster is a good choice who will provide stability, experience, discipline and above all a clear head to a White House inner circle littered with ideologues pushing simultaneously for wars with China, Iran, and “Radical Islam.” His first challenge will be to corral the most bizarre and reckless assemblage of White House advisors he inherited. McMaster’s intelligence and deep connections to more reasonable pragmatists like Secretary of Defense Mattis will hopefully prevent the nation from a fall into an ill-conceived conflict.

At another level though, the U.S. must ultimately return its national security to civilian leadership as designed. National security executed by such a narrow set of military ground commanders will leave America framing all engagements as war, prepared for too few adversaries and focused on a limited set of options. McMaster is the general America needs today, but moving forward America needs fewer generals and a more diverse national security team combining the best of both the military and civilian world moving forward.

About the author:
*Clint Watts is a Robert A. Fox Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on the Middle East as well as a Senior Fellow with its Program on National Security. He serves as the President of Miburo Solutions, Inc. Watts’ research focuses on analyzing transnational threat groups operating in local environments on a global scale. Before starting Miburo Solutions, he served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, and as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC).

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.