By Nikhila Natarajan

Skivving at work and secretly hoping for an H1B interview confirmation from the US Embassy is a theme that’s bitten the dust for Indian millennials working in technology companies here.

They must start performing in India first.

Millennials’ reboot

Even before Donald Trump’s tough stand on immigration, H1B visas had become a lot tougher to come by. What’s changed now is that technology companies in India are choosing who to send on H1Bs much more carefully — “highly skilled is now really highly skilled, not just any team lead or project manager, as it used to be earlier.”

Take Accenture, for example. This US headquartered company which has 100,000 people in India, its largest workforce world over. With H1B exits from India getting scrunched after Donald Trump’s tough talk on immigration, team leaders are seeing a pleasant upside — freshers from engineering colleges and people with three to four years experience who would earlier be skivving at work now “have to perform because their career growth will have to happen here until the US clampdown eases,” says the head of a 100 strong US healthcare team at Accenture.

Senior management folks of Indian IT companies are mighty pleased with the fallout — Trump has done for them what they could not do for many years — get the under-30s to work harder in the early years of career.

Nationalism in a foreign land has turned out to be a fine weapon for Indian IT minders.

Will all H1B workers be paid at least $130,000?

No, not for now. This became a juicy news headline simply because it was one of the several hot buttons mentioned prominently in a proposed bill that remains pending. Thousands of bills are proposed in Congress each year, only a small number are ever signed into law. Despite that statistic, there are solid reasons that Americans are pushing for the higher base rate — it’s one way to raise the quality and a first rate method to pre-empt some of the common loopholes that H1B shops exploit in the US.

Indian nationals are the largest single group of recipients of the 65,000 H1B visas issued yearly to new applicants under a Congress mandated cap. Exemptions on the cap are available to up to 20,000 applicants who have a US master’s degree.

The actual number of Indian nationals working in the United States under the H1B programme is significantly higher, however, because H1B visas typically roll over in a three year plus three year cycle.

How much riskier is post-Trump H1B stamping?

There are altogether three kinds of outcomes for US visa applicants — approval, rejection and refusal under 221 (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This third outcome is what keeps the legal wonks at body shopping companies in the US terribly busy.

Once there’s a 221 (g) refusal, it can take many months or years for a final decision. For workers in the IT consulting, these kinds of refusals have returned big time and Trump has nothing to do with it. Closer scrutiny is always possible under any administration basis complaints to the Department of Labor that oversees the H1B worker visas.

Although this kind of refusal is more common in H1B filings involving offsite staff, onsite employees and consultants are also under the scanner.

Why is this happening? One look at the Department of Labor’s blacklist and you’ll know. US cities are rife with people running shady H1B corner shops whose owners look the other way when their H1B workers flout rules in exchange for a foothold in the US. A DoL H1B section wonk who prefers to be anonymous tells us this story.

Ramesh, a Java programmer from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, living in one of the seedier parts of Rego Park in New York, lost his job at an investment bank in Manhattan. Although he went to work in Manhattan, he was part of the corp to corp arrangement now fairly common among IT workers — where Ramesh’s H1B is held by a body shopper who in turn leases Ramesh out to the end client. The bank pays the body shopper who keeps a generous cut and pays the rest to Ramesh. It isn’t necessary that there’s only one layer in corp to corp although it helps all downstream parties when the layers are less.

When Ramesh did not find work for four weeks, he got worried because there were bills to pay and he decided to do something radical. He reworked his resume and posed as a PMP or project management professional, and set about looking for colleagues or friends who could take the interview call on phone — the first round is rarely a face to face. Ramesh eventually found a willing ally, thinking he’ll get through the initial hurdles and while the company gets its act together, he’ll prepare for the PMP exam and make it all work. The guy who took the phone interview ratted on Ramesh, DoL got onto the case, Ramesh’s H1B holding company may soon be blacklisted.

This is just one of the many sketchy side-businesses that have thrived in the last decade or so. The criticism that most often finds play in news cycles is that outsourcers get Indian workers on low salaries without attempting to find American talent. Here’s one of the numerous ways that happens. An H1B visa holder lands a job with the end client and then informs the body shopping company which officially “employs” him about the deal. Next, that company advertises in a remote corner of some obscure local rag for the same position and hopes that either no one sees it or the rate is so bad no American will apply and the rest goes as per script.

In January 2017 alone, three bills have been introduced in the US Congress to amend various provisions of the H1B nomenclature that will make it increasingly difficult to commit fraud. These bills draw from detailed information from the Department of Labor and civil society on cases like Ramesh who try to subvert the system.

Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi writes, “[A]s much as the technicalities of the immigration regime, we should worry about the subtle re-emergence of such (racist/xenophobic) attitudes in the policy discourse of the Trump administration. When a white supremacist like Steven Bannon publicly grumbles about South Asians heading Silicon Valley corporations, the echoes of Church are unmistakable.”

That too, this too.

The American judiciary will likely play an outsize role in a Trump presidency and keep checking presidential interference in foreign affairs. Immigration will likely dominate most battles. Given that Trump will not back down and there’s a 4-4 split in the US Supreme Court, travel rules will remain fluid for a while. This will add to the worries of India’s H1B workers.

Chinese authorities in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang have banned all Christian activities not linked to state-approved churches, launching a region-wide crackdown on unofficial worship in the name of “anti-terrorism” measures.

Underground Catholic churches and Protestant house churches have been warned to halt all activity throughout the region, Radio Free Asia reported a religious affairs official as confirming.

“Yes, that’s right,” said the official, by phone from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region government’s religious and ethnic minority affairs bureau.

“They all have to worship in [an officially approved] church,” the official said, indicating that both Catholics and Protestants are affected by the new measures.

China is home to an estimated 68 million Protestants, of whom 23 million worship in state-affiliated churches, and some nine million Catholics, 5.7 million of whom belong to state-sponsored organizations.

The atheist Chinese Communist Party has stepped up controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens in recent years, putting increasing pressure on faith groups to join the Protestant Three Self Patriotic Association or the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which has no ties with the Vatican.

The administration of President Xi Jinping regards Christianity as a dangerous foreign import, with officials warning last year against the “infiltration of Western hostile forces” in the form of religion.

The new rules have already begun to be implemented in some areas of Xinjiang.

A resident of Aksu in Shayar county said churches in the cities of Aksu and Korla had stopped meeting altogether, and that local people had been warned not to meet privately for worship.

“They warned us that we can’t do that, and that we’ll be charged with illegal assembly if we get caught, and be locked up,” the resident said.

By Jim Garamone

Countering the threats posed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — and countering violent extremism — is still the correct way to benchmark what the Defense Department must do to prepare the joint force, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the Brookings Institution Monday.

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford spoke generally about strategy and specifically about Russia and Syria during a session with Brookings Fellow Michael O’Hanlon.

“If you look at the capabilities presented by those four-plus-one threats … it gives you the full spectrum of the challenges we may face,” the chairman said.

Dunford hastened to add that he does not anticipate fighting any of these nation states, but they present the capabilities that the U.S. military would have to overcome should deterrence fail.

Existential Threat

Russia is an existential threat to the United States, he said. The nation is modernizing its nuclear enterprise, cyber capabilities, land, sea and air forces and space capabilities. And Russia has a strategy that uses information, cyber, diplomacy and military capabilities short of war to accomplish strategic goals, Dunford noted.

“What they seek to do in all of that is to undermine the credibility of our ability to meet our alliance commitments to NATO and then [operating against] the cohesion of the NATO alliance would be would be an objective of Russian activity,” he said.

Dunford reiterated U.S. support for NATO and said the United States is fully prepared to meet Article 5 commitments to NATO allies — an attack on one nation is an attack on all. He also reiterated his earlier statements that NATO nations need to meet their agreed-upon goal of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. Only five nations do so now.

It is also important that the alliance continue to transform, “to be relevant for the threats of today and tomorrow,” the chairman said.

Gerasimov Meeting

Dunford said his recent meeting with Russian chief of defense Gen. Valery Gerasimov in Baku, Azerbaijan, was a chance to keep the lines of communication open to minimize chances of misunderstandings between the two nations becoming incidents.

The U.S. military cannot, by law, cooperate with the Russian military, he noted, but that does not and should not preclude communications. The chairman said that U.S. and Russian officials communicate at the purely tactical level to ensure there is no conflict between the two sides over Syria.

In discussing operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Dunford stressed that the 30-day review that President Donald J. Trump ordered is a political-military plan. “In the development of the plan, we have been engaged at every level of the State Department,” he said. The intelligence community and the Treasury Department have also been full members in forming the plan.

“Anything we do on the ground has to be in the context of political objectives or it is not going to be successful,” the chairman said. “We are in the business of providing integrated options to the president to deal with the challenge he has articulated. It will be a whole-of-government approach.”

Transregional Threat

The threat that needs to be addressed is not contained within Syria and Iraq, Dunford said, it is transregional. “In this particular case, we are talking about ISIS, but it’s also al-Qaida and other groups that present a transregional threat. When we go to the president with options, it will be in the context of a transregional threat,” he said.

The plan needs to cut the connective tissue between the groups that now form the threat, the chairman said. “Then, working in cooperation with local and coalition forces, drive the threat down to the point where local law enforcement and security forces can deal with that threat,” Dunford said.

The global community’s cultural adjustment to China’s rise as a global hegemon will be prolonged and vexatious. Given the long western dominance, the Chinese ‘cultural way’ might be cause of much political tension in East-West relationships.

By Victor R Savage*

Notwithstanding US President Donald Trump’s unconventional detractions since assuming office, he will not subvert the current narrative of China’s global rise and the international dislocation of its impact on geopolitical changes and the contest of United States-China relationships. The subtext which the global community will need to adapt to is not just the political, economic and security dimensions but the cultural perspective which undergirds the psychological concerns in the western mindset.

China had no problem imbibing the capitalist economic system in three decades by nationalising it and thriving on it. But the issue of the western adaptation to Chinese culture and society is more likely to be a prolonged and vexing proposition, best captured by Braudel’s concept of the ‘longue duree’ or the long history.

The East-West Culture Divide

The rise of the geopolitical contestations between China and the US will once again resurrect as one of the three perennial metageographical myths between East and West. This cultural divide between the Orient and Occident is likely to be amplified for various reasons.

Firstly, it might be trite to say the cultural differences between China and the west is wide and will pose major western cultural challenge to the new Asian dragon. The west often misreads China because China’s political culture is different from the liberal, individualistic, Weberian-rational western paradigm. China’s Confucian ethos and communist system provides a top down system of command which western based democratic polities will find hard to adjust to.

Secondly, depending on how far one wants to go in history, the west has dominated the global political landscape intermittently since the time of Roman Imperialism. Especially for the developing countries, western colonialism over 400 years has conditioned citizens to western administration, law, land tenure systems and education. After all, nearly all the developing countries speak an array of European languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch which underscore the transfer of European culture.

Thirdly, for centuries the world has seen global hegemons emanating from the west. The baton has passed from the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch to the British and French and currently the Americans. Indeed the era of Pax Britannica and Pax Americana had been a relatively smooth transfer of global power along relatively similar socio-cultural lines with English as the dominant language. This 200 years of British-American global hegemony has culturally conditioned much of the world from Australia to South Africa with little cultural adjustment required in the changeover of power.

China’s entry as a superpower is thus a major civilisational break in global geopolitics after a long gestation of western hegemony. It partly underscores Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’ thesis which translates as a major western cultural adjustment to a ‘non-western’ (civilisation) impetus or in Edward Said’s orientalism thesis of “us” versus “others”. Donald Trump’s presidency and Brexit reflect the westerners’ fear of ‘foreigners’ undermining the western ethos and ‘corrupting’ European civilisation.

China’s Geo-cultural Statement

We are ringside participants in the abrupt change from an anglicised western world to an eastern tradition or the Beijing consensus. What makes the Chinese global impact greater is that China has been contained like a jack-in-the-box situation and now that the lid has been opened, the rising dragon has sprung out and vigorously making up for lost time.

Its current leadership is impatient for recognition as a global power. Despite its long civilisational history, the current Chinese power elites behave like products of a nouveau riche culture: proud and self-centred. Chinese cultural influence will permeate in two ways:

Firstly, Chinese language is not an international currency of cultural exchange and hence China’s political behaviour will remain areas of circumspection by the global community. We already see the negative feedback to Chinese economic investment and development aid in African countries and Sri Lanka. Rather than the Chinese language spreading around the world, it seems that English is diffusing rapidly in China.

Ironically, the more Chinese master English, the less the propensity for the global community to learn Chinese. Hence China might remain in the international community as a cultural enigma, politically opaque because its language is not easily diffused and understood.

Secondly, China’s ‘communist’ party system remains an aberration to a global community engaged in a more open, democratic system of relations. Increasingly China expects the world to adjust to its brand of authoritarian politics. Its recent White Paper on “China’s Policies on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation” shows a contempt for international law in asserting its own unilateral national priorities.

China pays lip service to equal representation of all nation-states but in reality it believes in a pecking order (read Beijing order) of big, medium and small states. For China, the Middle Kingdom mentality prevails and it wants to resurrect the patron-client relationships it had with small neighbouring cosmic kingdoms and mandala polities.

Western Democracies vs Chinese Authoritarianism

Western systems of democracy and capitalism have become political and economic norms internationally but are now being challenged by both Islamist politics and the rise of China. China’s brand of national mercantilist capitalism is jarring to its western laisse faire trading counterparts and its global politics is driven by ‘core’ national interests.

Historically, China has been accustomed to its supreme civilisation status; as the American political scientist Lucian Pye aptly noted “China is a civilisation pretending to be a nation-state”. However it makes no pretence about its international standing by reminding small states not to take sides in power politics and to know their place in the global arena. Already Singapore’s supposed non-neutral position over the South China Sea is bearing the economic and political brunt of China’s authoritarian rule.

The question is whether China will be able to use its cultural soft power in its global hegemonic designs. The west has and will continue to have an advantage in cultural soft power – film, music, art, dance, literature – because the Chinese government suppresses domestic popular culture and individual freedoms. Such policies will in turn undermine the leadership’s desire for allowing a thousand flowers of creativity and innovation to bloom in its quest for developed status. The future of east-west relations will require sensitive cultural negotiations.

*Victor R Savage PhD is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

To say that UC San Diego archaeologist Geoffrey Braswell was surprised to discover a precious jewel in Nim Li Punit in southern Belize is something of an understatement.

“It was like finding the Hope Diamond in Peoria instead of New York,” said Braswell, who led the dig that uncovered a large piece of carved jade once belonging to an ancient Maya king. “We would expect something like it in one of the big cities of the Maya world. Instead, here it was, far from the center,” he said.

The jewel — a jade pendant worn on a king’s chest during key religious ceremonies — was first unearthed in 2015. It is now housed at the Central Bank of Belize, along with other national treasures. Braswell recently published a paper in the Cambridge University journal Ancient Mesoamerica detailing the jewel’s significance. A second paper, in the Journal of Field Archaeology, describes the excavations.

The pendant is remarkable for being the second largest Maya jade found in Belize to date, said Braswell, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at UC San Diego. The pendant measures 7.4 inches wide, 4.1 inches high and just 0.3 inches thick. Sawing it into this thin, flat form with string, fat and jade dust would have been a technical feat. But what makes the pendant even more remarkable, Braswell said, is that it’s the only one known to be inscribed with a historical text. Carved into the pendant’s back are 30 hieroglyphs about its first owner.

“It literally speaks to us,” Braswell said. “The story it tells is a short but important one.” He believes it may even change what we know about the Maya.

Also important: The pendant was “not torn out of history by looters,” said Braswell. “To find it on a legal expedition, in context, gives us information about the site and the jewel that we couldn’t have otherwise had or maybe even imagined.”

Where the jewel was found

Nim Li Punit is a small site in the Toledo District of Belize. It sits on a ridge in the Maya Mountains, near the contemporary village of Indian Creek. Eight different types of parrot fly overhead. It rains nine months of the year.

On the southeastern edge of the ancient Maya zone (more than 250 miles south of Chichen Itza in Mexico, where similar but smaller breast pieces have been found), Nim Li Punit is estimated to have been inhabited between A.D. 150 and 850. The site’s name means “big hat.” It was dubbed that, after its rediscovery in 1976, for the elaborate headdress sported by one of its stone figures. Its ancient name might be Wakam or Kawam, but this is not certain.

Braswell, UC San Diego graduate students Maya Azarova and Mario Borrero, along with a crew of local people, were excavating a palace built around the year 400 when they found a collapsed, but intact, tomb. Inside the tomb, which dates to about A.D. 800, were 25 pottery vessels, a large stone that had been flaked into the shape of a deity and the precious jade pectoral. Except for a couple of teeth, there were no human remains.

What was it doing there?

The pendant is in the shape of a T. Its front is carved with a T also. This is the Mayan glyph “ik’,” which stands for “wind and breath.” It was buried, Braswell said, in a curious, T-shaped platform. And one of the pots discovered with it, a vessel with a beaked face, probably depicts a Maya god of wind.

Wind was seen as vital by the Maya. It brought annual monsoon rains that made the crops grow. And Maya kings — as divine rulers responsible for the weather — performed rituals according to their sacred calendar, burning and scattering incense to bring on the wind and life-giving rains. According to the inscription on its back, Braswell said, the pendant was first used in A.D. 672 in just such a ritual.

Two relief sculptures on large rock slabs at Nim Li Punit also corroborate that use. In both sculptures, a king is shown wearing the T-shaped pendant while scattering incense, in A.D. 721 and 731, some 50 and 60 years after the pendant was first worn.

By the year 800, the pendant was buried, not with its human owner, it seems, but just with other objects. Why? The pendant wasn’t a bauble, Braswell said, “it had immense power and magic.” Could it have been buried as a dedication to the wind god? That’s Braswell’s educated hunch.

Maya kingdoms were collapsing throughout Belize and Guatemala around A.D. 800, Braswell said. Population levels plummeted. Within a generation of the construction of the tomb, Nim Li Punit itself was abandoned.

“A recent theory is that climate change caused droughts that led to the widespread failure of agriculture and the collapse of Maya civilization,” Braswell said. “The dedication of this tomb at that time of crisis to the wind god who brings the annual rains lends support to this theory, and should remind us all about the danger of climate change.”

Still and again: What was it doing there?

The inscription on the back of the pendant is perhaps the most intriguing thing about it, Braswell said. The text is still being analyzed by Braswell’s coauthor on the Ancient Mesoamerica paper, Christian Prager of the University of Bonn. And Mayan script itself is not yet fully deciphered or agreed upon.

But Prager and Braswell’s interpretation of the text so far is this: The jewel was made for the king Janaab’ Ohl K’inich. In addition to noting the pendant’s first use in A.D. 672 for an incense-scattering ceremony, the hieroglyphs describe the king’s parentage. His mother, the text implies, was from Cahal Pech, a distant site in western Belize. The king’s father died before aged 20 and may have come from somewhere in Guatemala.

It also describes the accession rites of the king in A.D. 647, Braswell said, and ends with a passage that possibly links the king to the powerful and immense Maya city of Caracol, located in modern-day Belize.

“It tells a political story far from Nim Li Punit,” Braswell said. He notes that Cahal Pech, the mother’s birthplace, for example, is 60 miles away. That’s a five-hour bus ride today, and back then would have been many days’ walk — through rainforest and across mountains. How did the pendant come to this outpost?

While it’s possible it had been stolen from an important place and whisked away to the provinces, Braswell doesn’t think so. He believes the pendant is telling us about the arrival of royalty at Nim Li Punit, the founding of a new dynasty. The writing on the pendant is not particularly old by Maya standards, but it’s the oldest found at Nim Li Punit so far, Braswell said. It’s also only after the pendant’s arrival that other hieroglyphs and images of royalty begin to show up on the site’s stelae, or sculptured stone slabs.

It could be that king Janaab’ Ohl K’inich himself moved to Nim Li Punit, Braswell said. Or it could be that a great Maya state was trying to ally with the provinces, expand its power or curry favor by presenting a local king with the jewel. Either way, Braswell believes, the writing on the pendant indicates ties that had been previously unknown.

“We didn’t think we’d find royal, political connections to the north and the west of Nim Li Punit,” said Braswell, who has been excavating in Belize since 2001 and at Nim Li Punit since 2010. “We thought if there were any at all that they’d be to the south and east.”

Even if you ignore the writing and its apparent royal provenance, the jade stone itself is from the mountains of Guatemala, southwest of Belize. There are few earlier indications of trade in that direction either, Braswell said.

We may never know exactly why the pendant came to Nim Li Punit or why it was buried as it was, but Braswell’s project to understand the site continues. He plans to return in the spring of 2017. This time, he also wants to see if he might discover a tie to the Caribbean Sea. After all, that’s a mere 12 miles downriver, a four-hour trip by canoe.

New research from North Carolina State University offers insights into how far and how fast cyborg cockroaches – or biobots – move when exploring new spaces. The work moves researchers closer to their goal of using biobots to explore collapsed buildings and other spaces in order to identify survivors.

NC State researchers have developed cockroach biobots that can be remotely controlled and carry technology that may be used to map disaster areas and identify survivors in the wake of a calamity.

For this technology to become viable, the researchers needed to answer fundamental questions about how and where the biobots move in unfamiliar territory. Two forthcoming papers address those questions.

The first paper answers questions about whether biobot technology can accurately determine how and whether biobots are moving.

The researchers followed biobot movements visually and compared their actual motion to the motion being reported by the biobot’s inertial measurement units. The study found that the biobot technology was a reliable indicator of how the biobots were moving.

The second paper addresses bigger questions: How far will the biobots travel? How fast? Are biobots more efficient at exploring space when allowed to move without guidance? Or can remote-control commands expedite the process?

These questions are important because the answers could help researchers determine how many biobots they may need to introduce to an area in order to explore it effectively in a given amount of time.

For this study, researchers introduced biobots into a circular structure. Some biobots were allowed to move at will, while others were given random commands to move forward, left or right.

The researchers found that unguided biobots preferred to hug the wall of the circle. But by sending the biobots random commands, the biobots spent more time moving, moved more quickly and were at least five times more likely to move away from the wall and into open space.

“Our earlier studies had shown that we can use neural stimulation to control the direction of a roach and make it go from one point to another,” says Alper Bozkurt, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of the two papers. “This [second] study shows that by randomly stimulating the roaches we can benefit from their natural walking and instincts to search an unknown area. Their electronic backpacks can initiate these pulses without us seeing where the roaches are and let them autonomously scan a region.”

“This is practical information we can use to get biobots to explore a space more quickly,” says Edgar Lobaton, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author on the two papers. “That’s especially important when you consider that time is of the essence when you are trying to save lives after a disaster.”

Lead author of the first paper, “A Study on Motion Mode Identification for Cyborg Roaches,” is NC State Ph.D. student Jeremy Cole. The paper was co-authored by Ph.D. student Farrokh Mohammadzadeh, undergraduate Christopher Bollinger, former Ph.D. student Tahmid Latif, Bozkurt and Lobaton.

Lead author of the second paper, “Biobotic Motion and Behavior Analysis in Response to Directional Neurostimulation,” is former NC State Ph.D. student Alireza Dirafzoon. The paper was co-authored by Latif, former Ph.D. student Fengyuan Gong, professor of electrical and computer engineering Mihail Sichitiu, Bozkurt and Lobaton.

It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute. Consider his speech last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). It was reported as “fiery” and “blistering,” but it was also full of contradictions.

In the speech, President Trump correctly pointed out that the last 15 years of US military action in the Middle East has been an almost incomprehensible waste of money – six trillion dollars, he said – and that after all that US war and meddling the region was actually in worse shape than before we started.

It would have been better for US Presidents to have spent the last 15 years at the beach than to have pursued its Middle East war policy, he added, stating that the US infrastructure could have been rebuilt several times over with the money wasted on such militarism.

All good points from the President.

But then minutes later in the same speech he seemed to forget what he just said about wasting money on militarism. He promised he would be “upgrading all of our military, all of our military, offensive, defensive, everything,” in what would be “one of the greatest military buildups in American history.”

This “greatest” military buildup is in addition to the trillions he plans on spending to make sure the US nuclear arsenal is at the “top of the pack” in the world, as he told the press last Thursday. And that is in addition to the trillion dollar nuclear “modernization” program that is carrying over from the Obama Administration.

Of course when it comes to nuclear weapons, the United States already is at the “top of the pack,” having nearly 7,000 nuclear warheads. How many times do we need to be able to blow up the world?

At CPAC, President Trump is worried about needlessly spending money on military misadventures, but then in the same speech he promised even more military misadventures in the Middle East.

Where is the money going to come from for all this? Is the President going to raise taxes to pay for it? Is he going to make massive cuts in domestic spending?

In the same CPAC speech, President Trump reiterated his vow to “massively lower taxes on the middle class, reduce taxes on American business, and make our tax code more simple and much more fair for everyone.” And that’s all good. So it’s not coming from there.

Will he cut domestic spending? The President has indicated that he also wants a massive infrastructure modernization program launched in the near future. The plan will likely cost far in excess of the trillion dollars the President has suggested.

That leaves only one solution: printing money out of thin air. It has been the favorite trick of his predecessors. While he correctly condemns the $20 trillion national debt passed down from previous Administrations, his policies promise to add to that number in a massive way. Printing money out of thin air destroys the currency, hastening a US economic collapse and placing a very cruel tax on the working and middle classes as well.

Following the President’s constantly changing policies can make you dizzy. That’s a shame because the solution is very simple: end the US military empire overseas, cut taxes and regulations at home, end the welfare magnet for illegal immigration, and end the drug war. And then get out of the way.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

The Saudi Ministry of Trade and Investment will assess a plan to amend regulations to allow expatriates to invest in the Kingdom within specific regulations and standards in addition to paying taxes.

Majed Al-Qassabi, minister of trade and investment, said the move will lead to the elimination of the phenomenon of commercial cover-up in the country.

He said during the launch of the “growth-parallel market” that the ministry “intended to attract quality foreign investment to create new jobs and contribute to the transfer of knowledge to Saudi Arabia.”

Mohammed bin Abdullah Al-Kuwaiz, vice chairman of the Capital Market Authority, said that the parallel market will precede the main market to be available to various categories of foreign investors in the future.

“The Capital Market Authority is currently working with ‘Tadawul’ to prepare all the legal and technical aspects. The declaration of the schedule is expected during the second quarter of this year,” Al-Kuwaiz said.

He added that Saudi Aramco’s launch on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) depends on the inclusion of the market in emerging global markets indices, which requires regulatory and structural aspects.

Al-Kuwaiz said the launch of the growth-parallel market provides funding through the financial market for a new class of companies and productive projects. He added: “It is considered a channel to diversify investments and increase the pace of investment to establish new projects.”

Al-Kuwaiz pointed out that the number and size of companies that are trading are equal to or greater than those achieved in the days following the launch of other parallel markets around the world.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stressed that, “a very exciting project exists for Spain”. He also reminded separatist leaders that “all 46 million Spaniards” are subject to the law and urged them to always uphold and respect the rulings handed down by the Supreme Court.

​”Spain is in very good health, it is the oldest nation in Europe, it has been around for a long time and there is a majority interest in remaining together,” said Rajoy on Monday, adding that right now “a very exciting project exists for Spain’s future.”

After taking part in an informative breakfast with the Chairman of the People’s Party in Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno, Rajoy referred in this way to the statements made by the former councillor to the presidency of the Regional Government of Catalonia, Francesc Homs, who declared before the Supreme Court on Monday. In this regard, Mariano Rajoy recalled that, just like “the other 46 million Spaniards”, he is subject to the law.

Accordingly, Rajoy trusts that this trial will develop “with all normality” and stressed that, whatever the decision taken by the court, “I will uphold and respect it, as indeed I always do.”

Rajoy pointed out that “a referendum cannot be held” on independence and “everyone knows that it would be illegal, even those people who are saying that they will hold it”. He stressed that “absolutely no-one is above the law, nor can that be the case”. He also underlined that every citizen is under an obligation to follow the law, particularly “those who hold responsibility for governing”.

Rajoy concluded his speech by stressing that at this time Spain is in a good position in Europe and that, after overcoming a serious economic crisis, it is seen as a country which has known how to act “at times of difficulty.” Consequently, he claimed that “we can all feel proud of our country, despite those people who only want to focus on negative aspects”.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., issued the following statement after voting “present” on a Senate procedural vote Monday that begins debate on the nomination of Rep. Ryan Zinke to be the next secretary of the Department of the Interior.

“Congressman Zinke and I have had several discussions about forestry – especially about how to get the harvest up in a sustainable way, create jobs in rural America and protect our special places,” Wyden said.

“Yet so far, it has proven impossible to get even a twig of information about his intentions for Oregon’s O&C forests. Oregonians deserve to have this information before a final vote on the Congressman’s nomination to be the next secretary of the Interior.”

Wyden abstained from voting during the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s vote on Jan. 31 because of news reports that indicated Zinke was interested in transferring federal forest management from the U.S. Forest Service to the Interior Department.

The confirmation vote is expected later this week.

States usually conduct ‘strategic dialogues to conduct regular, high level, comprehensive and forward looking exchanges on wide ranges of issues’. Pakistan and United States last year recommenced the stalled series of extensive working groups, to revisit and manage the ties between two states at different levels, known as ministerial-level strategic dialogue.

In wake of this resumed platform after three years of hiatus, the US Secretary of State John Kerry lately welcomed Pakistani Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sirtaj Aziz to convene the multi-faceted Dialogue and to build long-term cooperation in energy, strategic stability and nonproliferation, the Defense Consultative Group, Counterterrorism, Economics and Education.

Notwithstanding sharing the common drivers, the bilateral relationship has been facing the tailspin due to many suspicions and expectations. Although there have been array of bilateral activities and not much could provide a breakthrough or buzz the headlines, yet state level interaction between two states holds undeniable significance because the course of dialogue go to lengths to mark a renewed vitality relations. On the contrary, historically, Pakistan and US relations are defined more appropriately by the term kinetic than bilateral. The US largely is being viewed as a state that treated Pakistan merely to uphold its strategic interests in the region.

It was expected that Pakistan-US dialogue would take place this February, however with new Trump administration, this dialogue is facing a setback. There are certain issues that were discussed previously and still the issues have not reached on any consensus.

In the same vein, the Afghanistan problem remains a focal agenda to add any noticeable progress to these strategic dialogues. Pakistan remained the key member to all the quadrilateral, trilateral, bilateral discussions, which took place to support an Afghan-led peace process. However, Pakistan faced a hard time to convince Haqqanis towards negotiating table which led to question its influential role in the process. Despite the fact that US recognized the extraordinary and real sacrifices of Pakistan’s military, especially in previous Operation Zarb-e-Azb, US remains skeptical of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism strategy in the region.

Likewise, the attack on Indian Air Force base last year in Pathankot reverted all the efforts and appreciations related to Pakistan’s counter-terrorism measures. Although there has been appreciation to Pakistan’s commitment not to differentiate between terrorist groups in the implementation of this strategy, still there surfaced demands to take concrete steps to show the world its commitment not to differentiate between terrorist groups.

However, the fact that both countries share the objectives related to counterterrorism and their relations have been pushed through Afghanistan affairs cannot be underrated.

Moreover, for decades, the major reason of complicated relations between the two states has been the disagreements over limits on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Granted the United States is appreciative of Pakistan’s nuclear security measures, yet the frustration expressed over the so-called ‘growing nuclear arsenals’ of Pakistan on every significant event comes as no surprise. Pakistan has affirmed that it would not sign any deal that would limit its nuclear program and compromise its national interests when India and US persist to strengthen their defense and nuclear cooperation.

These realities suggest that the prospects of civilian nuclear deal and Pakistan’s NSG membership on a criteria-based approach are doubtful in such circumstances. It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan has approved the inter-agency process to ratify the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (Amended) and reiterated its determination to take all possible measures to make national security robust that could enable it to effectively respond to the threats to national security without indulging in an arms race.

Pakistan has also participated in the IAEA nuclear safety action plan. Additionally it has extended its cooperation in other areas with the IAEA to improve nuclear security. The persistent demands to put limits on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is the result of ignoring these efforts taken by Pakistan with regards to its weapon’s security and control measures; compliance to global norms; capacity to keep them safe; and their risk environments.

Notwithstanding the abovementioned realities, the strategic dialogue process is of evident importance as it reestablished a certain level of normalcy in relations. The previous trend showed that if Pakistan improves ties with neighbors and put limits on its nuclear program then the engagements declared by US in the dialogue would be easy, otherwise there would be another twirl in the roller coaster relationship but what the Trump administration brings for Pakistan is yet to be seen.

Consequently, it would take time to witness a transformation in the sentiment of the relationship that continues to be defined by concerns rather than pledges. Hence, a sustainable course needs to be adopted to lift this loaded relationship. Otherwise if the US continues to exercise its previous Asia pivot strategy without realizing deterrence theory in South Asia and Pakistan’s interests in the region then the future dialogues would also prove another episode in the saga of random talks and ineffectual outcomes. Evidently, just entitling ‘strategic’ dialogue will not transform the transactional relationship into strategic relationship without mutual trust and interests which should be developed with new administration in US.

*Maimuna Ashraf is a member of an Islamabad based think tank, Strategic Vision Institute (SVI). She works on issues related to nuclear non-proliferation and South Asian nuclear equation. Furthermore, she regularly writes for national and international dailies.

A highly regarded professor in Zabol University in southeastern Iran has been sentenced to imprisonment and flogging for posting protests against university administration on Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging application popular in Iran.

Vaghayeh Etegafhieh daily reports that a member of Zabol University Science Faculty has been sentenced to four years in jail and 75 lashes for protesting against the university’s management. Without identifying the professor the report adds that the accused professor had been recognized earlier as an Exemplary Professor by the university faculty.

Zabol University Science Faculty members have filed several complaints against the university administration. However, the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology which oversees Zabol University has not responded to any of these complaints. The Zabol University faculty has complained about instances of plagiarism, favouritism and the university’s decline in national ranking from 103 to 127.

Nepotism, coercion to sign petitions in support of the university president, threat of dismissal and fabrication of charges against students are also among other complaints cited by Zabol University faculty.

Members of the university’s Science Faculty have written two letters to protest against these problems and have pointed the finger at Moosa Bohlooli the head of the university which was appointed to the position by the Minister of Science, Mohammad Farhadi. They maintain that this appointment “reeks of nepotism”.

The letters also refer to instances of plagiarism and false claim of contributions by well-known scholars in articles published by Moosa Bohlooli. The Rohani administration has not addressed any of the accusations listed in the two letters from Zabol University Science Faculty.

Meanwhile Bohlooli has dismissed all the accusations and has told Vaghayeh Etegaghieh that they are all “nonsense”.

Zabol University regulations stipulate that faculty members have the right to elect the University head themselves through a democratic process.

Having received no response to their letters of complaint, the faculty members reportedly launched a Telegram page entitled “Transparency Watch” to post their complaints against the university administration. The move allegedly triggers fury from the administration which leads them to file charges against the top university professor known as the Exemplary Professor of their institution.

The unnamed individual has been charged with libel, defamation, spreading lies and disturbing public opinion for which the court has passed a sentence of four years in jail and 75 lashes.

Zabol Unversity president Moosa Bohlooli has claimed that the charges filed against this professor are of a personal nature and are not related to the activities of the Telegram page.

Zabol is the capital of the province of Sistan and Baluchestan in southeast Iran and home to Zabol University, the largest university in a province that the Bluchi ethnic minority resides.

The province has been suffering from lack of access to resources and the central government in Tehran often dismisses the needs and the human rights of the Bluch minority. There is constant conflict that often involves suppression of the locals by the intelligence officers or paramilitary Basijis. Many executive and governmental positions in the province are filled by favoritism to non-locals who are chosen by the central government.

By Michael Lelyveld

With pressure rising on both its foreign exchange reserves and its currency, China has chosen to let its reserves slip, at least for now.

For months, China’s authorities have been faced with a choice between keeping the value of the yuan from sinking below the psychological floor of seven to the U.S. dollar or letting foreign reserves fall below the U.S. $3-trillion mark.

On Feb. 7, the choice became clear as the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) announced that China’s forex reserves had dropped to U.S. $2.99 trillion in January from U.S. $3.01 trillion the month before.

In a statement, SAFE said the loss resulted from “intervention to maintain equilibrium” in supporting the yuan’s value.

Over the past year, the downward drag on the currency has contrasted sharply with government statements of confidence that the economy is meeting its targets with a steady and sustainable growth rate of 6.7 percent in 2016.

But after the reduction in reserves to levels last seen in 2011, state media alternated between giving assurances and acknowledging concerns.

“The persistent decline of China’s forex reserves has caused widespread concern about the country’s overall financial stability, as the diminishing stockpile, still the world’s largest, is perceived as shielding the economy from currency and foreign trade volatility,” the official Xinhua news agency said.

Mathematically, the monthly decrease of U.S. $12.3 billion represents a loss of just 0.4 percent of China’s cash pool.

But psychologically, the seventh monthly decline in a row may matter more, despite official assurances to the contrary.

“Reserves of $3 trillion were claimed to be the psychological bottom line for investor confidence by some people, who thought dipping below that would cause investors to panic,” the official English-language China Daily said.

The paper stressed that there was “no need to worry,” arguing that “one should not artificially set a ‘psychological limit’ for China’s foreign exchange reserves.”

But the monthly dip was only a token of the 25-percent loss since China’s forex reserves hit a high of $3.99 trillion in mid-2014.

HIgh-level shakeup

Worldwide currency markets will be watching to see whether the support strategy continues after a high-level shakeup of China’s economic positions announced Friday.

In advance of annual legislative meetings, the government said that Vice-Minister He Lifeng would replace retiring Xu Shaoshi as head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top planning agency.

Vice-Minister Zhong Shan was named to lead the Commerce Ministry after Gao Hucheng, 66, steps down, state media said.

And Guo Shuqing resigned as governor of coastal Shandong province to succeed Shang Fulin as chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).

The impact on exchange rate policy remained unclear. So far, People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, 69, has remained in his post.

Only two to three years ago, China’s worry was about keeping speculative “hot money” out of the country in anticipation that the yuan would appreciate against the dollar.

But with weakening economic growth and the recovery of the U.S. economy, China’s concern has been to curb capital outflows from chasing the stronger dollar and rising interest rates in the United States.

Last year, the yuan depreciated by about 6.5 percent, reaching a low of 6.96 to the dollar in December, perilously close to the “psychological limit.”

In January, the currency rose by about 1 percent as the dollar weakened with uncertainties over U.S. policies and the pace of rate hikes. The yuan finished last week slightly stronger at 6.86 to the dollar.

But the combination of economic and political pressures on China has given rise to a debate over which measure of the country’s financial stability needs more defending.

“The foreign exchange regulators realized they cannot disregard market talk on the U.S. $3-trillion level, so they quickly sent messages to the market to dispel these concerns,” Xie Yaxuan, head of research at China Merchants Securities, told the South China Morning Post.

But others argued that the yuan’s value should take precedence over reserve concerns, the paper said.

“A stable yuan exchange rate is currently the most important policy target for China,” said Shen Jianguang, chief economist at Mizuho Securities Asia.

Worst of both worlds

Still others saw the choice as the worst of both worlds.

Some analysts fear that falling reserves could trigger a deep devaluation of the currency and a further stiffening of capital controls, Reuters reported.

“With FX reserves below $3 trillion, we can expect capital controls as well as tightening yuan liquidity to continue, as the authorities try to avoid a further drawdown,” said Chester Liaw, an economist at Forecast Pte Ltd. in Singapore, according to Reuters.

In the end, the choice to defend the currency or the reserves against the psychological limits may matter little, since confidence in China is likely to suffer either way, said Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

China’s choice seems to have been guided by a political decision to reduce the risk that the administration of President Donald Trump might charge it with currency manipulation if the yuan weakens further.

“I think it was partly influenced by hopes of arresting a U.S. decision that China is a currency manipulator,” Hufbauer said. “That may have been underlying the decision, but I’m sure it was a hard one for the authorities to make.”

During the recent U.S. presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump accused China of deliberately lowering the yuan’s value to gain an unfair advantage for its exports. Trump threatened to retaliate with high tariffs on Chinese goods.

Some experts have warned that new across-the-board tariffs could touch off a trade war.

Waiting on report

Last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Bloomberg News that there would be no announcement of a decision on the currency manipulation question before a scheduled report from the department in April.

On Feb. 14, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is examining a possible alternative that would define currency manipulation by any country as an unfair subsidy.

Such a move could open the door for anti-subsidy claims by individual companies without singling out China, the paper reported.

In a reaction to the report, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang denied that the country has ever undervalued the yuan to gain an export advantage.

China will continue to reform its rate setting procedures for the currency, Geng said in a China Daily report.

How long China can afford to spend down its reserves is a matter of debate.

Although the stockpile remains substantial, the level is gradually approaching the minimum level of U.S. $2.6-2.8 trillion that China needs to maintain confidence that it can cover its imports and debt service, according to International Monetary Fund methodology cited by Reuters.

Chinese economists have argued that adequacy can be maintained at lower reserve levels.

The currency concerns have already led to a tightening of China’s capital controls.

In January, the government ordered tougher restrictions for individuals using their annual foreign exchange quotas to purchase up to $50,000 of U.S. currency.

But the new rules may have actually motivated some citizens to make conversions into dollars, China Daily reported, suggesting that some fear even tighter limits ahead.

‘No going back’

On Feb. 13, SAFE Director Pan Gongsheng told China Business News that the country “will not return to its old path of capital controls or go backwards on its foreign exchange management policies.”

But the pledge may be a matter of interpretation.

China will “enhance the scrutiny of forex transactions’ authenticity and regularity, intensify the crackdown on irregularities, and ensure the healthy development of forex markets,” Xinhua quoted Pan as saying.

The new limits on individual exchanges of yuan into dollars follows a SAFE statement last year that authorities were “closely monitoring the tendency of ‘irrational’ overseas investment in some areas,” including real estate, hotels, and sports.

The investments are suspected as schemes to get cash out of the country and into safer dollars, further eroding China’s reserves and undermining the yuan.

The higher bar for capital outflows has already had a major impact on China’s outbound direct investment (ODI), which plunged 35.7 percent in January after climbing 44 percent in 2016.

Pan cited a “blindness in outbound investment” and urged a focus on investing in areas of China’s strategic initiatives, including the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) program for foreign trade development and international industrial cooperation.

“A curious discussion” has broken out in the Azerbaijani segment of the Internet concerning the possibility that Azerbaijan could shift from being a Shiia majority country to being a Sunni majority one and that Baku would like that to happen so Azerbaijan would line up with Turkey and Kazakhstan rather than with Iran.

In reporting this, Ali Abbasov of the OnKavkaz portal argues that this is happening because of tensions between Sunni Muslim states and Shiia Iran and because of Baku’s desire to line up with the former rather than the latter (onkavkaz.com/news/1558-baku-vozvraschaet-azerbaidzhan-k-sunnizmu-chtoby-uiti-ot-irana-i-vstat-v-rjad-s-ankaroi-i-astan.html).

While such a shift in religious affiliation would seem unlikely in most cases, there are at least two reasons why it may not be in Azerbaijan’s case. On the one hand, the split between Shiia and Sunnis in that country is much closer than many imagine, with roughly 60 percent of the population being Shiia and 40 percent Sunni.

And on the other, the legacy of communist-era anti-religious efforts means that many in Azerbaijan just as is the case in other post-Soviet states know far less about the specifics of their religious attachments than many assume. Indeed, for most of the past two decades, people there have referred to mosques as being “Turkish” or “Iranian” rather than Sunni or Shiia.

Consequently, it could very well be possible for Azerbaijan to “flip” in religious terms and for the government to organize such a change, although it would certainly be contested by Shiia inside Azerbaijan, by Shiia in the Azerbaijani majority in Iran, and by the Islamic Republic of Iran itself.

In any case, the discussion itself merits the close attention Abbasov has paid it.

Those taking part in the discussion, he says, have pointed out that President Ilham Aliyev very much wants his country to be part of the Muslim world that has good ties with the West rather than part of it with bad relations not only with the West in general but with Israel in particular.

Moreover, given Baku’s close relations with Turkey, the nature of Islam in Azerbaijan has become more important for Aliyev following the victory of the more religious party of Erdogan in Turkey. Consequently, to the extent that Baku wants to underscore its ties with Ankara, it now must focus on religion as well as nationality.

And, according to the discussants, Baku views the primary supporters of Shiia Islam in Azerbaijan to be the Talysh and Tats, two Irano-language speaking nations who do not share Aliyev’s Turkic centric view of Azerbaijani identity. Indeed, much of the recent crackdown in Shiia Muslims in Azerbaijan has been directed against members of these two groups.

But perhaps most intriguingly, at least one person taking part in these discussions recalled that Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current Azerbaijani president, wanted to send into retirement Allashakhyur Pasha-zade, the Shiite head of the Administration of Muslims of Azerbaijan, because Pasha-zade was Talysh by origin.

Heydar Aliyev didn’t take that step because of Pasha-zade’s influence in the North Caucasus and elsewhere, but if his son is going to try to shift Azerbaijan from the Shiite to the Sunni camp, it is entirely likely that he will seek to oust Pasha-zade and possibly even disband his administrative structure.

By Theodore Bromund, Luke Coffey and Daniel Kochis*

Europe is less secure, and less securely prosperous, today than it was when President Obama entered office in 2009. The responsibilities for these failures do not rest only with the United States: Washington cannot help Europe if Europe does not help itself. Nevertheless, U.S. policy towards Europe since 2009—and in increasing measure, since 1991—has been fundamentally misconceived. The Trump Administration should re-examine all aspects of that policy.

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy toward Europe has drifted far from its initial premises; Europe itself has changed beyond recognition. The U.S. needs to recognize this fact. President Trump should direct the National Security Council (NSC) to oversee a comprehensive study of U.S. policy toward Europe, a study based on enduring American interests in Europe, the lessons of the post-1945 era, and on the new features of Europe that have emerged since 1991.

This study should be based on the premise that European security and prosperity are fundamental interests of the United States, interests best advanced in the security realm by NATO and in the economic realm by free cooperation within and among free democracies.

1. Take Advantage of the Opportunities Created by Brexit

By the end of March 2017, Britain will trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which will start its exit from the European Union (EU), a process that will be complete within two years. By leaving the EU, Britain will recover the power to negotiate its own trade deals. When President Obama imprudently intervened in the June 2016 referendum on Britain’s EU membership, he threatened that, if Britain voted to leave, it would be at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal with the U.S. Now that Brexit is a reality, Britain should be first in line.

While Britain cannot sign a deal with the U.S. before it officially exits the EU, it can start to discuss now, at various levels of formality, the parameters of the deal. The aim of the U.S.—and Britain—in these discussions should be to secure the best deal that can be done quickly, not a perfect deal done slowly. The deal should focus on:

• Eliminating tariffs and quotas on visible trade,
• Ensuring the continuation of the investment freedom both countries enjoy, and
• Developing systems of mutual recognition for standards in a few high-value areas.

Such a trade deal would be good for both nations, and would set a valuable example of liberalization for the rest of the world.1

2. Rethink Support for the European Union

After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. believed it could safely reduce its exposure to Europe and increasingly came to see support for the EU as central to its European policy. U.S. backing for the EU is therefore not a sign of U.S. commitment to Europe. It is the sign of the waning of that commitment, the end of serious U.S. thought about how it should uphold American interests on the continent, and the outsourcing of those interests to the EU.

If the U.S. continues to base its European policy on unthinking support for the supranational EU, it will continue to see rising political illiberalism, more economic strains, and a weaker transatlantic security relationship. The EU encourages these developments by:

These things are not in the interests of the nations of Europe or of the United States.

The true interest of the U.S. is to return to the ideas that saved Europe after 1945:

• Infringing on national sovereignty,
• Preventing the creation of genuine transatlantic free trade areas,
• Harming transatlantic security,
• Distorting European immigration policies, and
• Wasting taxpayer money.
• Economic freedom,
• Multilateral cooperation for security and prosperity, and
• Democratic national government.

The U.S. should therefore re-examine its support for the EU, and instead focus on building and sustaining closer relations with European governments.2

3. Constrain the Russian Bear

The U.S. cannot afford to approach Russia as though the problems it is creating are separate and unrelated. At the heart of these problems is a single one: the nature of the Russian regime.

Clarity in U.S. strategy toward Russia begins with understanding that President Putin’s regime is an autocracy that justifies and sustains its political power by force, fraud, and an ideological assault on the West in general and the U.S. in particular. The U.S. needs to approach Russia as Russia is, in reality, not as the U.S. wishes Russia to be. As a result, the U.S. needs to start from a position of strength. Beginning with weakness only encourages Russian aggression.

In order to constrain Russia, U.S. policy should include the following actions:

• Imposing reputational, rhetorical, economic, financial, and military costs on Russia;
• Strengthening existing U.S. sanctions on Russia for its illegitimate invasion and occupation of Crimea and Ukraine;
• Increasing military and political support to Ukraine;
• Increasing the strength of U.S. forces deployed in Europe; and
• Recognizing that Russia is making a wide-ranging effort to suborn the nations on its periphery and developing, as required by the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, a strategy for countering its information war.

4. Lead NATO Back to Basics

NATO was founded in 1949 to protect the territorial integrity of its members and—if required—defeat a Soviet invasion. While NATO’s members are no longer worried about the spread of communism, many current NATO members are worried about protecting their territory from Russian expansion and influence.

The cornerstone of the NATO alliance is its founding treaty, which states in Article 5 that an attack on one member is an attack on all members. If the U.S. were to walk away from this commitment in the face of Russian threats, serious security consequences with significant economic implications would ensue. Of course, the U.S. cannot sustain NATO on its own. Full burden-sharing by NATO’s European members is both a military and political necessity.

NATO needs to return to basics, with territorial defense as its primary goal and the focus of its capabilities. NATO does not have to be everywhere in the world doing everything all the time, and it should shy away from out-of-area military interventions. If the U.S. deems a military intervention outside NATO’s area of responsibility necessary, it should be executed through a “coalition of the willing”—not through NATO.

5. Adapt A Realistic Approach on Migrants and Terrorism

The massive number of migrants to Europe pose many challenges to European nations and societies. The “open door” policies of Berlin and Stockholm have amplified the scale of the crisis. European nations need to adopt immediately a more cautious approach.

Islamist terrorists have reached Europe hidden in migrant flows in order to commit attacks. Islamist propaganda has also radicalized individuals already on European soil. Encrypted messaging apps have allowed terrorists overseas to capitalize on this radicalization by remotely encouraging, planning, and supporting attacks.

To respond to the challenges of the migrant crisis, European nations should:

• Invest in border security and properly vet migrant flows, with a particular emphasis on individuals with non-existing or fraudulent documentation;
• Deport people who are rejected for asylum or who have committed criminal offenses;
• Develop better screening methods for migrants;
• Equip adequately intelligence agencies and police to better target and disrupt domestic terrorist threats;
• Share with the U.S. best practices and implement policies to prevent radicalization and discredit Islamist ideology; and
• Provide more robust military assistance to destroy terrorist groups overseas before they are able to commit further atrocities in Europe.

What the U.S. Should Do

The Trump Administration should repair U.S. policy on Europe by:

• Conducting an NSC-led study on the ways to advance enduring U.S. interests in Europe;
• Rapidly negotiating a liberalizing U.S.–U.K. free trade area;
• Re-committing to European security by leading NATO back to basics and ending U.S. support for European Defense Integration; and
• Encouraging our European allies to take a realistic approach towards migrants and to aggressively tackle the scourge of Islamist radicalism.

Conclusion

As in 1945, the first U.S. interest in Europe is peace. The threat to peace in Europe today derives from its troubled periphery, from an aggressive Russia to the chaotic Middle East, as well as from its own policy errors. Europe’s central error has been its increasing economic and political centralization, manifested in the increasing supranationalism of the EU. The U.S. can and should stop supporting this error.

The U.S. also values prosperity and democracy. These issues are closely linked to the U.S.’s support for the EU. While many EU economies would have slow growth or high debt without the euro, the euro has made their position worse. That, in turn, has placed their political systems under stress. Both the U.S. and the EU need to re-learn a lesson from the 1930s: Bad economics lead to bad politics, and make the burden of bad political decisions harder to bear.

It is still in the interests of the U.S., as it was in the 1940s, to help Europe’s democracies defend themselves from external threats. The best tool for that purpose is still NATO. Any organization, including the EU, which detracts from this transatlantic instrument does a profound disservice to American and European interests. Recognizing this, and recommitting the U.S. to leadership in Europe, is profoundly in the interests of all.

*About the authors:
Theodore Bromund, Senior Research Fellow in Anglo-American Relations

Luke Coffey, Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy

Daniel Kochis, Policy Analyst in European Affairs

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation

Notes:
[1] See Ted R. Bromund, “U.S. Interests in the United Kingdom and Europe After Brexit,” Heritage Commentary, September 14, 2016, http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2016/9/us-interests-in-the-united-kingdom-and-europe-after-brexit.

[2] See Ted R. Bromund “America’s Outdated Europe Policy: In 2017, the Next President Must Adapt to New Reality,” Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 4559, May 18, 2016, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/05/americas-outdated-europe-policy-in-2017-the-next-president-must-adapt-to-new-reality.

By M.C. Abad, Jr.*

The Philippines takes over the chairmanship of ASEAN in 2017 coinciding with the organization’s historic 50th anniversary. The Philippines only had the opportunity to chair ASEAN four times in five decades. This is understandable in an organization which started only to hold annual summits after almost three decades of existence.

It is hard to evaluate the success or failure of a member’s chairmanship on the basis of a rotating year-long chairmanship. A major decision or project usually requires multiyear consensus building. ASEAN operates on medium to long-term plans. We are reminded today that ASEAN has a 10-year ASEAN Community Vision 2025, which was adopted at Kuala Lumpur in 2015.

Having said this, I believe that developments in the region are influenced more by events or confluence of events rather than by formal planning.

For example, the end of the Cold War in the early 90s provided Southeast Asia peace dividends that saw the deepening of its agenda and broadening of its membership. The mood was so positive that it was possible to create an inclusive security forum for the Asia-Pacific involving many Asian states plus all the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council under the ASEAN Regional Forum.

It also paved the way for the membership of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam (CLMV) countries into ASEAN fulfilling the vision of ASEAN 10. Even the decision to hold annual Summit came about only after the end of the Cold War.

On the economic front, the economic rise of China and India in the 1990s heightened economic competition in the region. At the initiative of Singapore, ASEAN commissioned McKinsey & Company to assess ASEAN’s competitiveness and recommend the way forward. As a result, ASEAN established the High Level Task Force on ASEAN Economic Integration which recommended the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).

Interestingly, an AEC was not even in the vocabulary of the ASEAN Vision 2020 when it was negotiated and then adopted at the 30th anniversary commemorative summit in December 1997. It was overtaken by the Asian financial crisis even before its adoption.

It would take another six years for the AEC to appear in the vocabulary of ASEAN under the Indonesian Chairmanship. Then, when the Philippines took the chairmanship in 2007, it helped build consensus to quicken the AEC timetable from 17 to 12 years.

Another example was the Indian Ocean earthquake, which devastated Banda Aceh on Christmas day of 2004 and jolted the unprepared ASEAN. Within seven months, ASEAN adopted the Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response.

This is not to say that planning and visioning have no value. They are important for building consensus and socialization. But they tend to drag until major challenges and opportunities present themselves.

Fortunately, member countries find ways to align and agree when they have to, despite initial differences in priorities, capabilities, and perceptions. The point is that ASEAN’s progress should be assessed both on the basis of its intentions and responses to the demands of the times. An effective ASEAN Chair should be both capable of building consensus and courageous in navigating even uncharted waters.

Philippine priorities under its 2017 chairmanship

The Philippine-chosen theme “Partnering for change and engaging the world” is both positive and alarming. It is positive because it is outward looking. It is alarming because ‘change’ in international relations could mean realignment. However, based on the presentation today and the speech of President Rodrigo Duterte on January 15, 2017 in Davao City, which called for renewed constructive engagement with ASEAN Dialogue Partners, I do not expect disruptive changes.

But ‘change’ in its ordinary meaning might in fact be needed by ASEAN once in a while. ASEAN would not reach its full potential without opening up its comfort zone to new challenges and opportunities. Sometimes the voice of challenge is the voice of the future.

In fact, engaging the world has been ASEAN’s hallmark with its dialogue partnership system established as early as the mid-70s and further enriched by the plus systems, such as the ASEAN Plus 1, 3 or 6. ASEAN’s linkages even go beyond the Dialogue Partners because ASEAN Third Country Committees, formal or informal, exist in their host countries worldwide. ASEAN just needs to energize and inspire them.

While there is nothing new in engaging the world, it is still important to reiterate such outlook, particularly at this time when inward-looking tendencies could bring fear, anxieties and even possible instability in some parts of the world.

On this point, I have two suggestions: The first is that the Philippines should accelerate if not make happen the membership of East Timor into ASEAN. It is the only country within Southeast Asian geographic footprint that is not part of the Association. It is a democratic country in transition. It deserves support of like-minded states.

The Filipino people were among those who demonstrated open solidarity with the East Timor independence movement, which even caused a ripple in our diplomatic relations with Indonesia at that time. The longer their membership is delayed, the more difficult if might be for East Timor to move up, if not catch up, with the rest of Southeast Asia. If this could be done or a fast track process is at least agreed, the Philippine Chairmanship would not just be remembered for it for a long time, but we would earn a grateful nation.

The second is that international dialogue on the West Philippines Sea should continue. President Duterte did not mention UNCLOS in his January 15 speech. But several times, he mentioned the need for the respect for the rule of law. Today, we also heard that the Philippines will pursue maritime security and cooperation.

The Philippines has no illusion that solutions to the overlapping territorial claims in the whole of the South China Sea are within reach. Far from it. Our immediate concern should be to prevent disputes from escalating into armed confrontation and that our medium term preoccupation should be to build mutual confidence, cooperation and a framework for the pacific settlement of disputes. The only cooperative dialogue could bring these about.

With or without the South China Sea issue, ASEAN and China will always be neighbors. We should hammer out a modus operandi that can withstand our differences and maintain regional stability. The SCS is, of course, an important test. But it could be considered an outlier because of its sovereignty and regime threatening elements. It is also an issue not just among the claimant states, but also the user states. So while it could serve as a confidence-building opportunity, it also needs confidence building in the broader strategic milieu, such as in the relations among the Major Powers.

To be specific, the Philippines should bring up confidence building measures and cooperative activities already agreed 25 years ago among ASEAN countries and 15 years ago between ASEAN and China.1 After all, the substantive content of these already established agreements and the illusive code of conduct in the South China Sea may not really be that fundamental. What matters now is sincerity and intention.

My take on the legally-binding Code of Conduct is that claimant states should negotiate and adopt it first before opening it to other countries. An instrument of accession should be opened to all concerned countries, particularly those using the South China Sea for commercial and patrolling purposes. It would be like the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation which has been acceded to by 22 countries, including all permanent members of UNSC. It need not be strictly an ASEAN-China document, but it could have differentiated rights and responsibilities between the claimants and non-claimant states.

ASEAN 50 years hence

In an insightful essay2 authored by the Dean of the LKY School of Government and our very own Rhoda Severino, they concluded that the greatest achievement of ASEAN has been the preservation of peace in our region. If we accept that, then we know our mission for the next 50 years – to preserve it and build on it.

Providing economic and social development for its people is a primary responsibility of each country. But it could only do so to its full potential in an environment of peace. Differences among nations will always be around. What’s important therefore is for countries to be predisposed to the pacific settlement of disputes.

How should we get there? Once in a while, we hear comments saying that CBMs and preventive diplomacy are solutions looking for problems. But that is, not in fact, the issue. The real tragedy happens when problems heat up and preventive diplomacy freezes.

It is time that we give life to the agreed mechanisms and processes to take cognizance of crisis situations, such as the ASEAN Troika, Friends of the ARF Chair; the High Council under the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, and modalities for good offices, conciliation and mediation provided for under the ASEAN Charter.

The political community blueprint has committed to promoting democratic institutions in the region; a culture of peace including its inclusion in the academic curriculum; interfaith dialogue; humanitarian assistance in the event of conflict; and counter-terrorism cooperation, among others. We are not lacking in agenda, but we need more actions.

Before we forget, the ASEAN Charter gave a very important role for the ASEAN Chairman; that is to “ensure an effective and timely response to urgent issues or crisis situations affecting ASEAN.” ASEAN might want to put in place the ‘early warning system’ called for by the political community blueprint to support such important mandate of the ASEAN Chair.

Concluding remarks

In conclusion, the Philippines should remain and contribute to ASEAN because that is our regional home. A regional identity gives us wider and deeper anchor in international relations. For various reasons, we will not always find eager support for all our causes from among its members. But a stable and peaceful Southeast Asia gives us crucial space and time to grow and become a strong nation.

It is in our interest for Southeast Asia to have confidence in itself. We should continue to support its soft power (i.e., convening ARF 24 and EAS 16) and in encouraging the Major Powers to improve their relations for their own good and to eliminate or reduce the complications in the relationship between smaller and larger states in our neighborhood.

Any coalition of countries is only as strong as its weakest member. It is, therefore, important for every member of ASEAN to be resilient. This was the reason why ASEAN decided to consolidate the ASEAN 10 on its 30th anniversary despite the newer members’ different stages of readiness. President Duterte recognizes this when he said in his Jan 15 speech that the unity that built ASEAN over the last five decades will be crucial to its continued success. We should not allow other countries or issues to divide ASEAN.

National sovereignty is not just a right. It is a responsibility. The international system of states is based on the notion that each member has the capacity to act not only rationally and responsibly, but also with credibility, so that we could all contribute to the stability of that international system. Failed and weak states not only place at risk their own citizens, but also the international community if they become sources or transit points of terrorists, drug traffickers, international criminal networks, or even transnational environmental hazards.

They also indirectly threaten their neighbors if they allow themselves to be bullied if not overtaken by countries with “imperial tendencies,” to use the term of Carl Bildt in his most recent comment on what’s happening in Europe. Every state should strive to be a stable frontline state, which has the will, recourse, and might to take measures of defensive nature.

In the end, therefore, the Philippines must take care of itself. It is obvious as it is serious. We build and maintain bridges with others, of course, particularly those with whom we share fundamental and universal values. Our identity is in fact partly others. But we could only be a valuable member of the community of nations if we are not a burden, but instead able to contribute in meaningful ways. We should have the means to help ourselves and others. To be able to do that, we should not be distracted from building our national economy in the years ahead.

Such is the paradox of being a responsible member of the international community: that we live for ourselves and for others and that we maintain peace through individual and collective resilience.

Let us wish the Philippines success as it takes the helm of ASEAN at the beginning of its next 50 years.

**Comments presented as a discussant at the Foreign Service Institute’s Mangrove Forum on International Relations on “The Philippines Chairmanship of ASEAN” held on 24 January 2017 at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza, Pasay City.

About the author:
*M.C. Abad, Jr. is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies (ISDS) Philippines and the author of The Philippines in ASEAN (2011). Previously based at the ASEAN Headquarters in Jakarta, he served as Spokesperson and Head of Public Affairs, Special Assistant to three ASEAN Secretaries-General, and Director of the ASEAN Regional Forum Unit.

Source:
This article was published by FSI. The views expressed in this publication are of the authors alone and do not reflect the official position of the Foreign Service Institute, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Government of the Philippines.

Endnotes
1 These include holding dialogues among defense and military officials and undertaking cooperative activities like marine environmental protection and scientific research, the safety of navigation, search and rescue operation, and combating transnational crime, including trafficking in illicit drugs, piracy and armed robbery at sea, and illegal traffic in arms.

2 Kishore Mahbubani and Rhoda Severino, “ASEAN: The Way Forward,” Commentary, McKinsey & Company, Singapore, May 2014. http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/asean-the-way-forward.

Tehran on Wednesday sent a team for talks in Saudi Arabia on the next annual pilgrimage after missing the hajj in 2016 at a time of rising tensions between the two countries, Iran’s culture minister said.

“A delegation has been sent from the Islamic Republic of Iran to Saudi Arabia to follow up on the hajj,” Culture Minister Reza Salehi Amiri told state television.

“Iran’s policy is to send pilgrims to the hajj (this year), of course, if Saudi Arabia accepts our conditions,” he said.

“In a letter I’ve written to the Saudi hajj minister I have specified our conditions…If they accept our conditions, we will definitely send pilgrims (this) year, otherwise the responsibility” will be on Saudi Arabia, said Amiri.

On January 10, Iran said it had received an official invitation from Saudi Arabia for its pilgrims to attend this year’s hajj.

There was no official Iranian delegation at last year’s pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites in western Saudi Arabia after Riyadh severed ties with Tehran following the torching of its missions in Tehran and Mashhad by protesters.

It was the first time in three decades that Iranian pilgrims had been absent and followed years of worsening relations between the two Gulf neighbours and regional rivals over the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

Negotiations for Iranian pilgrims to join last year’s pilgrimage broke down over where their visas should be issued and over security.

Iran says 464 of its nationals were killed in the 2015 stampede outside Mecca.

They were among more than 2,300 people killed in the worst ever disaster to strike the hajj – one of the five pillars of Islam – which capable Muslims must perform at least once.

Original source

Several French politicians, pollsters, and commentators have conceded that Marine Le Pen may win the French presidential elections in May.

A Le Pen victory would continue the populist trend set by Brexit and the election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. President last year, neither of which were forecast by insiders and industry pundits.

With polls consistently placing Le Pen out in front for first round voting, the former Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned France’s establishment of the “danger” of assuming she cannot win, Euractiv has reported.

Valls pointed to Trump’s victory, unforeseen by the political establishment, to add: “What has changed in the world and Europe since Nov. 8 is that it’s possible.”

The former conservative Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, too, admitted this month: “I think Madame Le Pen could be elected.”

Le Pen has maintained a strong lead in first round polling since 2013 and is therefore widely expected to top the preliminary vote on 23 April with around a quarter of the vote.

Polling for the second round on 7 May, in which the top two candidates go head to head, currently shows her losing out to her main rival, former socialist Emmanual Macron, by a margin of about 20 per cent.

But pollsters say that even a narrow shift, from 60-40 to 55-45 in Macron’s favour, could throw the final result into doubt.

Ifop’s Jérôme Fourquet told AFP that if by early May the polls still place Le Pen at 40 per cent to 60 per cent for her rival, “the gap is too big for there to be a surprise.

“But if it’s 55-45, it could be a different matter,” he said, adding that her performance in the first round would be crucial if she is to gain enough momentum to snatch a win in the second round.

When canvassed by L’Opinion newspaper in mid-February, pollsters were reluctant to give any certainties.

Bernard Sananes of the Elabe polling group remarked it was “both possible and improbable”. Others were more forthright, with Jérôme Sainte-Marie of Polling Vox saying: “Against Macron, she has a chance of winning.”

The race so far has been marked by allegations of fraudulent behaviour levelled at both Le Pen and the Les Republicains candidate François Fillon, with both candidates being accused of wrongly using Parliamentary expenses and funds, in Fillon’s case, to hire family members as staff.

But while Fillon’s campaign has been hard hit by the allegations, sending him sliding to third place in the polls, Le Pen’s support has held firm.

By Nilova Roy Chaudhury*

Repeatedly thwarted by China from gaining entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), India has moved to remind the world about its strong anti-nuclear proliferation credentials and showcase why it is a good candidate for entry into the global nuclear commerce body.

India hosted a crucial global meet against nuclear terrorism in February to showcase its non-proliferation history and bolster its case for NSG entry. The Implementation and Assessment Group Meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) was held in New Delhi. The meeting again highlighted the continued priority India attaches to nuclear security and efforts to strengthen institutional non-proliferation frameworks and promote international cooperation.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), “This event highlights India’s commitment to global nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It is a part of our overall engagement with the international community on nuclear security issues.”

Inaugurating the meeting, India’s Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, “Terrorism remains the most pervasive and serious challenge to international security. If access to nuclear technology changes state behaviour, it is only to be expected that it would also impact on non-state calculations. Nuclear security, therefore, will be a continuing concern, especially as terrorist groups and non-state actors strike deeper roots and explore different avenues to spread terror,” Jaishankar said.

Around 150 delegates from GICNT partner countries and international organisations participated in the event. The GICNT was launched in 2006, jointly by Russia and the US. It now includes 86 partner-nations and five official observer organisations. The GICNT comprises four working groups; Implementation and Assessment Group, Nuclear Detection Working Group, Nuclear Forensics Working Group and Response and Mitigation Working Group.

“The possible use of weapons of mass destruction and related material by terrorists is no longer a theoretical concern,” the MEA statement said. “A breach of nuclear security may lead to unimaginable consequences. It is imperative to strengthen international efforts to combat such threats.”

India is party to all the 13 universal instruments accepted as benchmarks for a nation’s commitments to combat international terrorism. India is party to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials (CPPNM) and has ratified its 2005 amendment. India is also part of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

A pioneer of the non-proliferation movement, IIndia at the meeting highlighted measures it has taken.

India’s export controls list and guidelines have been harmonized with those of the NSG. In 2005, India enacted the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems Act, 2005. This fulfils India’s obligations under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. Institutionally, the security of all nuclear and radiological material in India is ensured through oversight by India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

Although not a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), India, for the first time, was invited to and participated in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which guarantees the Latin American region as a nuclear-weapons free zone. The Treaty remains the only Nuclear Weapon Free Zone that has an organizational structure to ensure its compliance and to promote its objectives.

For India to attend Commemorative Conference on February 14 was a symbolic gesture, underlining the faith reposed by the host nation, Mexico, a crucial NSG member which had, in 2016, raised some doubts about India’s NSG entry.

India has supported numerous nuclear disarmament proposals at various international fora. Its nuclear policy combines protection of national security in a nuclearised global order and the responsible use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes for meeting its developmental needs.

India also moved Monday, February 20, to extend an agreement with Pakistan to reduce the risk of accidents related to nuclear weapons. First signed as a confidence –boosting measure between the two countries in 2007, the agreement was valid for 10 years. The pact has been extended for five years.

According to the pact, both India and Pakistan have to inform each other immediately if an accident occurs relating to nuclear weapons, which could create the risk of a radioactive fallout, with devastating consequences, or create the risk of an outbreak of a nuclear war between the two countries.

*The author is a veteran journalist and writer on strategic affairs

By S. Binodkumar Singh*

On February 8, 2017, six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were shot dead by terrorists of the Islamic State (IS) aka Daesh in the Qushtapa District of Jawzjan Province. The day after the killings, ICRC suspended its operations in Afghanistan.

On February 7, 2017, at least 22 people were killed while more than 41 were injured in a suicide attack outside Afghanistan’s Supreme Court complex in the national capital, Kabul. Later, in a post on Twitter on the next day, Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack.

On January 10, 2017, at least 38 people were killed and another 72 were wounded in two back-to-back explosions in Kabul city. Kabul police officials disclosed that the majority of those killed or wounded were civilians. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the explosions.

On January 10, 2017, in a separate incident in Kandahar Province, as many as 13 civilians were killed, including five United Arab Emirates (UAE) diplomats, in an explosion at the residence of the Kandahar Provincial Governor while he was hosting a dinner for visiting diplomats and dignitaries. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Thus, civilian continue to bear the brunt of terrorism in Afghanistan in 2017. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) at least 121 civilians have already been killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2017 (data till February 13).

Moreover, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which began systematically documenting civilian casualties on January 1, 2009, has recorded 70,188 civilian casualties (24,841 dead and 45,347 injured) up to December 31, 2016. Through 2016, UNAMA recorded 11,418 civilian casualties (3,498 civilians dead and 7,920 injured). It is the highest civilian casualty recorded by UNAMA in a single year. UNAMA recorded 11,002 civilian casualties (3,545 civilians dead and 7,457 injured) in 2015 and 10,534 civilian casualties (3,701 civilians dead and 6,833 injured) in 2014.

Meanwhile, the battle between the Security Forces (SFs) and the Taliban to establish effective control over areas across Afghanistan intensified further through 2016. According to the United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD), from January 1, 2016, through November 12, 2016, as many as 6,785 Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) service members were killed and an additional 11,777 members were wounded. The DoD reported that the majority of ANDSF casualties continue to be the result of direct-fire attacks, with IED explosions and mine strikes accounting for much lower levels of casualties. ANDSF includes the Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan Air Force (AAF) and Afghan National Police (ANP).

In contrast, fatalities among the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Forces continued to decline, with 16 fatalities in 2016, as against 27 in 2015 and 75 in 2014. A total of 3,528 NATO personnel, including 2,392 US troopers, have been killed so far, since 2001. The increase in fatalities among ANDSF, on the one hand, and simultaneous decline in NATO fatalities, on the other, is primarily because NATO Forces have ceased operating as combat forces (barring a few specific operations) since the beginning of 2015, and ANDSF has taken up the lead in fighting the terrorists.

Though there is no specific data on the number of terrorists killed in Afghanistan, according to partial data compiled by SATP, at least 11,469 terrorists were killed through 2016, as against 10,628 such fatalities in 2015. Most of the terrorists killed belonged to the Taliban.

According to US Force-Afghanistan (USFOR-A), as of November 26, 2016, the ANDSF assigned force strength was 322,585, including 174,950 of ANA and 147,635 of ANP. Meanwhile, according to US DoD, as of December 2016, the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) launched on January 1, 2015, to train, advise and assists the mission in Afghanistan, consisted of 13,332 U.S. and Coalition personnel. Of that number, 6,941 were U.S. forces and 6,391 were from 26 NATO allies and 12 non-NATO partners.

However, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in its latest Quarterly Report released on January 30, 2017, offered bleak progress statistics about Afghanistan. An estimated 57.2 per cent of the country’s 407 Districts are under Afghan government control or influence as of November 15, 2016 — a 6.2 percent decrease from the 63.4 percent reported in the preceding quarter in late August 2016, and a nearly 15 percent decrease since November 2015.

Further, Afghanistan’s largest independent news agency, Pajhwok Afghan News, on February 7, 2017, reported that as many as 704 people were killed and 563 others wounded in 137 attacks in January 2017 in 24 of the 34 provinces of the country, showing a 10 per cent spike in attacks and a 17 percent rise in causalities compared to December 2016.

At this time, even though the Afghan Taliban has declared that it has no intention of participating in peace talks with the Afghan government, despite international efforts, an attempt is being made to bring the rebels to the talks table. The first round of official peace talks between the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government had taken place in the intervening night of July 7 and July 8, 2015, in Murree in Pakistan, with an agreement to meet again on August 15 and 16, 2015, in the Qatar capital, Doha. Before the second round of talks could take place, the Afghan government disclosed, on July 29, 2015, that Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban, had died in April 2013 in Pakistan – a fact both the Pakistani agencies and the Taliban leadership had kept secret, even as they continued to manipulate Mullah Omar’s identity, issuing several statements on his behalf.

Subsequently, the Taliban split into two factions – one led by Pakistan’s nominee, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor and another by Mullah Mohammad Rasool. The next round of talks failed to materialise.

Significantly, Tadamichi Yamamoto, head of UNAMA, in his quarterly briefing to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in New York on December 19, 2016, urged the Taliban to enter into direct talks with the government, without preconditions, to prevent further bloodshed in the country. However, responding to the renewed call for talks by Yamamoto on December 23, 2016, Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, declared: “Our fight is for independence, and as long as foreign occupation forces are present here (in Afghanistan) any talk about peace and reconciliation is meaningless.”

Further, on January 25, 2017, the Taliban group issued an open letter claiming: “The Afghans, as a nation ravaged by war for 38 long years, sincerely want to bring this war to an end. However, they know – despite whatever reasons for previous wars – that the principle cause for the ongoing conflict is the presence of foreign occupying forces in our independent country.”

The fifth meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China on the Afghan peace and reconciliation process was held in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 18, 2016. The QCG reiterated that violence served no purpose and that peace negotiations remained the only option for a political settlement, and member countries resolved to use their respective leverages and influence to secure an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process. Separately, the third session of the trilateral “working group” of Russia, China and Pakistan on Afghanistan held in Moscow on December 27, 2016, discussed the current situation of Afghanistan decided to work towards delisting the Afghan Taliban from the world body’s sanctions list in a move purportedly aimed at launching peaceful dialogue between Afghanistan’s government and the insurgent groups.

While the Taliban has regained significant ground, it has now entered into a fratricidal turf war with its own splinters. Several deadly clashes have taken place across the country, particularly in western provinces, following the announcement of the death of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. In the latest incident of infighting among the Taliban factions, on January 8, 2017, at least ten Taliban cadres were killed in Bakwa District in a landmine explosion orchestrated by a rival group in Farah Province. Indeed, the IS, which made inroads into Afghanistan subsequent to the June 2014 release of Daesh’s ‘world domination map’, has benefited from Taliban infighting, taking recruits from Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda defectors. But, the US military and its Afghan partners have managed to push back Daesh’s presence in the country from nearly a dozen Districts to just two or three. Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, spokesman of the US Army in Afghanistan, thus asserted, on December 22, 2016: “A year ago, US commanders estimated the strength of the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan at between 1,500 and 3,000 members. Today, it is about 1,000. We think we’ve significantly reduced that presence.”

Afghanistan’s principal problem, however, remains Pakistan. Exposing Islamabad’s role, Afghanistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Mahmoud Saikal, stated, on January 11, 2017: “The cycle of violence and insecurity in Afghanistan, and our part of the world is inextricably linked to the presence of sanctuaries and safe havens in the region, from which extremist groups are sustained and enjoy an incessant flow of political, financial, material and logistical support for the continuation of their malicious activities.”

Endorsing Afghanistan’s view that terrorists are able to strike whenever they want to because of the existence of terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan, US Defense Secretary General James Mattis declared, on January 12, 2017, “Sanctuaries and freedom of movement for the Afghan Taliban and associated militant networks inside Pakistani territory is a key operational issue faced by the Afghan security forces.” Further, on February 9, 2017, General John Nicholson, commander of the US forces and the NATO-led RSM in Afghanistan added: “The Taliban and Haqqani network are the greatest threats to security in Afghanistan. Their senior leaders remain insulated from pressure and enjoy freedom of action within Pakistan safe havens.”

No end is presently visible for Afghanistan’s crisis. Afghan Forces are reeling under circumstances created by the withdrawal of an overwhelming proportion of NATO Forces, though the small remaining contingents continue to provide active support.

There is, however, far greater recognition today of Pakistan’s enduring mischief in Afghanistan, and a growing willingness among engaged powers to impose costs on Islamabad for its malfeasance. With the change of regime in Washington, there is an expectation that this will translated into effective policy.

It remains to be seen whether this will exercise sufficient pressure on Islamabad to act against the Taliban. Otherwise, there is little hope of peace in this war-wracked nation.

*Dr Binodkumar Singh is Research Associate at the Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in