By Gosan Godjaev

Turkey continues carrying on an ambitious and active foreign policy in the South Caucasus and the Central Asia. The Turkish diplomacy is still making efforts to expand its zones of influence being a “mediator” in solving regional and world problems such as the Karabakh conflict, the Arab-Israeli confrontation, and even the Iranian nuclear program. Obviously Turkey seeks to become a “big brother” for two and more regions having “a model of development” for the Turkic states.

Despite the Turkic heritage of many peoples from the Central Asia the Justice and Development Party (AKP) focuses on development of energy cooperation with the South Caucasus countries to reap a profit at the expense of the Central Asia countries that are located far away and are not rich in natural resources. All it is being done despite the statements about ethnic solidarity with them. Besides, Turkey will go till the end in deriving benefit from the economy and energy capacity of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is also a mediator in building a constructive dialogue between Turkey and the Turkic republics of the Central Asia.

It is clear that it has always been vital for Turkey to get cheap Azerbaijani oil and gas. The main task for Turkey is to gain control over transportation routes through Azerbaijan and other countries of the South Caucasus in order to achieve advantage over Russia and Iran in the South Caucasus.

There are two stages of the Turkish foreign policy towards the South Caucasus countries during the rule of the AKP. The first stage was in 2002-2008, the second one is from 2008 till present time. It is necessary to understand the ideology of the new entity in the Turkish political area in order to understand the changes in the Turkish foreign policy when the AKP came to power. Of course the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD) impacted on the AKP formation. Its members founded several AKP offices and were included in the electoral register. The Association also financed the new party. So, there is a conclusion that during the first years of rule the AKP counted on the economic projects and expansion of its economic influence abroad. It affected its policy in relation to the South Caucasus states. We see it in Azerbaijan. Many large economic projects were being triggered during this period. They are Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline, and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.

One of the features of the Turkish foreign policy second stage in relation to Azerbaijan is the use of “soft power” that has gradually been one of the foreign policy directions since 2002. So, using socio-political and socio-cultural channels for “soft power” appliance (particularly NGO and other “public diplomacy” tools) the AKP missionaries successfully entered not only domestic economic bodies, but also almost all state, social, and educational domestic institutions of the countries in the region including army, law, schools, universities, etc.

It is only natural that Azerbaijan is one of the first states that turned out to be influenced by Turkey in all state activities. According to many international experts the WWIII will be unleashed not in its usual form. They say that it has already been unleashed, and this war is the battle for people’s souls, it is conducted not in the battlefield, but in their heads. The example of it is the Soviet Union collapse without striking a blow. The Soviet Union was the most powerful state in terms of the military potential. Another example is the break-away of Ukraine from brotherly Russia without violence.

Are the Azerbaijani people ready to become a “sitting duck” of the “soft power” of Turkey, the country which prevailing over in economic pressure is ready to carry out the second part of the plan absorbing the Azerbaijani people on the spiritual and mental level and assimilating them into one Turkic state? Are they ready to forget their national history and traditions and become a raw material colony of the “pan-Turkic state”?

Source: http://sodrugestvo.info/?p=419178&lang=en

Three police officers testified in court on Sunday that a British journalist had claimed that he didn’t intend to kill his wife in July.

The 61-year-old British suspect, Francis Mathew, entered a not guilty plea to intentionally killing his wife by hitting her forehead twice with a hammer when he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance in September.

Records said Mathew, a former Gulf News staff member, allegedly struck his wife’s forehead with a hammer two times and killed her following a heated argument over financial issues. The incident allegedly happened around 7am on July 4 at the British couple’s villa in Umm Suqeim.

Giving their testimonies before presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi on Sunday, three police officers testified that the suspect told them during questioning that he fought with his wife and didn’t intend to kill her, but on-site examination of the murder scene implied that he had intended to kill her.

“While interrogating him, the suspect claimed that he had a fight with his wife over financial issues and debts … then when she pushed and belittled him and headed to the bedroom, he got angry and followed her. Then he grabbed the hammer and struck her, according to his police statement, but stressed that he didn’t intend to kill her.

However, the crime scene investigations showed as if he had intended to kill her,” testified a brigadier in response to a question by presiding judge Al Shamsi.

Cross-examined by the presiding judge and the suspect’s lawyer Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi, a police captain told the court that the couple had brawled for nearly two weeks over moving out from their villa in Umm Suqeim to a smaller flat.

“In the two weeks that preceded the incident, the suspect informed his wife that they had to move out to a flat … but she was against that. According to his statement to police, the Briton said the victim did not want to move out to a flat and insisted on a villa. He also claimed that on the day of the incident, she cursed and repeatedly pushed him … she also told him that he [being the man of the house] has to provide her with a villa to live in and not a flat. The suspect alleged that when she pushed and cursed him, he got angry when she walked to the room … so he claimed that he followed her and picked up the hammer on his way and then struck her. Though he said he didn’t intend to kill her, but the way in which the striking happened [on the head] proved otherwise,” said the captain.

A third witness, also a brigadier, testified in court that Mathew alleged during interrogations that the victim repeatedly cursed and pushed him in the kitchen when they were continuing a heated argument [over the same issue] and that had started the night before.

Presiding judge Al Shamsi adjourned the court to hear the remaining prosecution witnesses when it reconvenes on December 17.

Prosecutors are seeking a death sentence against the suspect as per Article 332 of the UAE Penal Code.

Dubai Police’s forensic examiner said the victim sustained fractures and bled from the head.

Original source

Restoring business and consumer confidence and ensuring economic growth are government’s top priorities following the decisions of rating agencies Moody’s Investor Service and Standard & Poor’s (S&P).

“Restoring business and consumer confidence, and catalysing inclusive growth is the top priority of government. To this end, government is working urgently and diligently on practical steps to provide the necessary policy certainty, environment conducive to investment, and predictability that the country so desperately needs. Decisive actions in managing government expenditure and closing the revenue gap are critical for achieving sound public finances,” National Treasury said on Saturday.

This follows the two rating agencies’ decisions made on Friday night.

In its assessment, S&P lowered South Africa’s long term foreign and local currency debt ratings by one notch each to ‘BB’ and ‘BB+’. The agency cited weak real nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth that has led to further deterioration of South Africa’s public finances beyond the rating agency’s previous expectations.

In September, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released GDP figures that showed that GDP grew by 2.5% quarter on quarter in the second quarter of 2017. The growth meant that the country exited a technical recession following a contraction of 0.7% in the first quarter and a 0.3% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2016.

The credit rating agency on Friday however changed the outlook to stable from negative citing “that the stable outlook reflects their view that South Africa’s credit metrics will remain broadly unchanged next year; and [that] their view that political distraction could abate following the party congress of the governing African National Congress (ANC) in December 2017, helping the government to focus on designing and implementing measures to improve economic growth and stabilize public finances.”

Moody’s

Meanwhile, Moody’s gave South Africa some reprieve by maintaining the country’s credit rating above junk at Baa3.

The ratings agency placed South Africa’s long-term foreign and local currency debt ratings of ‘Baa3’ on a 90-day review for a downgrade.

The ratings carry a negative outlook.

According to Moody’s, the decision to place South Africa’s rating on review for a downgrade was prompted by a series of recent developments which suggest that South Africa’s economic and fiscal challenges are more pronounced than Moody’s had previously assumed.

According to the rating agency, growth prospects are weaker and material budgetary revenue shortfalls have emerged alongside increased spending pressures.

The rating agency has further indicated that the review will allow it to assess the South African authorities’ willingness and ability to respond to the above rising pressures through growth-supportive fiscal adjustments that raises revenues and contain expenditures.

It will also look at structural economic reforms that ease domestic bottlenecks to growth and improvements to state owned enterprises governance in light of government exposures to contingent liabilities.

On Saturday, the government said it had noted the decisions and was mindful of the implications on the economy and investor sentiments going forward.

It further added that extensive engagements were held between all the rating agencies and government, both prior to and following the 2017 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) that was tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, last month.

Improving public finances

“There can therefore be no doubt of government’s strong commitment to addressing the structural constraints to growing the economy and improving public finances. The Presidential Fiscal Committee (PFC) is seized with the task of restoring business confidence in the immediate term and executing decisively growth-enhancing measures previously announced.

“Speculative grade ratings have negative implications for economic growth, borrowing costs for the economy as a whole, state owned companies’ ability to borrow and the ordinary person on the street,” said National Treasury.

Treasury highlighted that in the MTBPS chapter on Fiscal Policy, it indicated that additional spending cuts or tax increases of R40 billion (0.8% of GDP), would be required from 2018/19, in order to stabilise public debt below 60% of GDP over the next decade.

Over the next two weeks, the PFC and Cabinet will consider a package of measures to this effect, to be implemented from 2018. Specific details on these measures will be announced in the 2018 Budget.

In an interview with SAnews earlier this week, Treasury’s acting Accountant General Zanele Mxunyelwa urged South Africans to work together to ensure the country’s full economic recovery.

She said government is further working on cost containment measures.

“We are waiting for them but we believe that [every] economy has ups and downs. We should all work together to make sure that our economy improves,” said Mxunyulwa.

The agencies’ decisions follow hot on the heels of Fitch Ratings’ decision not to further downgrade South Africa deeper into junk status. In its reaction to the news on Thursday, government said the decision affords the country an opportunity to address the issues it faces.

Fitch on Thursday affirmed South Africa’s long-term foreign and local currency debt ratings at ‘BB+’ and maintained the stable outlook.

Access to higher education

Meanwhile, government said measures are being considered to improve access to higher education for all deserving students.

President Jacob Zuma – who released the findings of a Report of the Commission into the Feasibility of Fee-Free Higher Education and Training in South Africa earlier this month – has directed that these be implemented in a fiscally sustainable manner.

“Given the nation’s financial constraints, this necessarily implies a phased approach focusing on the neediest students. Work is underway between the Presidency, National Treasury and the Department of Higher Education and Training to finalise the new model for funding higher education, which will be announced in the near future.”

The 2018 Budget which will be tabled in February will outline decisive and specific policy measures to strengthen the fiscal framework, as an important contributor to improved confidence of all stakeholders, and a return to inclusive growth.

Returning to growth

While progress has been achieved on most of the 14 Confidence Boosting Measures announced by Minister Gigaba in July, decisively strengthening governance at Eskom – with the appointment of a highly trusted and capable board as a first step – is an urgent priority.

In addition, government will address the root causes of the revenue gap of R50 billion arising from the underperforming economy and a possible erosion of revenue collection capability.

In this regard, a judicial commission of enquiry is being undertaken, it said.

National Treasury remains the centre where budgeting occurs as provided for in the Constitution.

“It is also important to clarify that the Mandate Paper developed by the Department of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation serves to set priorities for the whole of government, ensuring alignment with the National Development Plan. The PFC streamlines decision-making, and provides the necessary authority to co-ordinate and ensure adherence to the fiscal framework by the entirety of government, driven at the Cabinet level.

“This in no way undermines the role of National Treasury in the budget-setting process.

“Going forward, government will continue to engage with all stakeholders, and the general public on all key developments as progress continues towards the finalisation of the 2018 Budget,” said Treasury.

In September, Minister in the Presidency responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe, said the Mandate Paper, developed to facilitate budget reprioritisation, will be used in this year’s budgeting process to align spending to government priorities.

The Mandate Paper was developed after the National Planning Commission recommended the intervention with the aim of guiding budget allocations and determining priority spending areas.

Despite the hue and cry made by the public and a certain section of the business community on Sri Lanka’s trade deficit with its neighboring giant, a top economist asserted such arguments do not show the real picture of the situation at hand and said one should not pay much attention to it.

While acknowledging the concern arises due to India being Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Chairman Dr. Razeen Sally said, “The argument that the trade deficit is bad is obviously economically-illiterate. The trade deficit with India doesn’t really tell us anything about the state of Indo-Lanka relations. Taking the situation in isolation, it is not a big deal as the public perception has it,” Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Chairman Dr. Razeen Sally told a forum in Colombo, this week, while acknowledging the complexities that may arise due to India being Sri Lanka’s trading partner.

He pointed out that it cannot be said with certainty that the deficit arises due to the unfair trade practices on the side of India or Sri Lanka.

Noting that trade is related to domestic intelligence, it was pointed out that the fundamental obstacles faced by Sri Lankan exports have much less to do with the barriers that other countries put in Sri Lanka’s way but instead it has much more to do with the domestic obstacles in doing business.

“In Sri Lanka, it is about the competitiveness agenda and has to do with our export potential to India as well. We must emphasize the mutual gain from the bilateral trade relation. As the Chinese puts it— a ‘win- win’ situation,” said Dr. Sally.

“We need to improve our exports to India, but at the same time, imports from India are a good thing for Sri Lankan consumers,” he added.

It was also pointed out that the strategy to be employed at this point of time is to have a less defensive position from the side of Sri Lanka in terms of trade and executing the reform agenda, which includes trade liberalization.

“So far we have a trade policy which is being held hostage in the trade negotiations with India, China and Singapore and that drives everything else. We need to have a domestic reform agenda on which we should build our trade negotiations,” he said.

Dr. Sally also opined that Sri Lanka appointing a new Finance Minister is “good news” and his keenness on trade liberalization is well pronounced. The tabling of a “different” budget is said to give hopes in kick-starting the much needed reform agenda.

By Gregory Elich*

President Mugabe blundered in not arranging an orderly transition to a successor while he was in a stronger political position. That failure left the door open for schemers like Emerson Mnangagwa and General Chiwenga. The coup was organized over many months to establish a transitional government that would include the opposition.

Long-roiling factional conflict within Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF political party exploded last week in a military coup that quickly seized control of the government and state media. The coup was led by Commander of Zimbabwe Defense Forces Constantino Chiwenga, who is closely aligned with former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Emboldened by President Robert Mugabe’s declining mental sharpness and physical health in recent years, Mnangagwa actively maneuvered to ensure that he would succeed the president. Mnangagwa served as one of Zimbabwe’s two vice presidents. From that position, he and his supporters, known as Team Lacoste, became embroiled in a bitter struggle with younger party members who coalesced around Secretary of Women’s Affairs Grace Mugabe, wife of the president, and whose group was known as Generation 40, or G40.

As early as 2015, Mnangagwa began reaching out to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to discuss plans to implement a five-year transition government, in which both men would play a leading role. The unity government would compensate and “reintegrate” dispossessed former owners of large-scale farms. Reuters obtained hundreds of internal documents from Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization that revealed the plan. “Key aspects of the transition planning described in the documents were corroborated by interviews with political, diplomatic and intelligence sources in Zimbabwe and South Africa,” reports Reuters. The same sources left open “the possibility that the government could be unelected.” In one report, it was said that Mugabe feared that Mnangagwa would attempt to reverse land reform. [1]

According to the documents, senior military officials met with Tsvangirai, many of whom were “saying it is better to clandestinely rally behind Tsvangirai for a change.” Security officials also secretly met with Mnangagwa to discuss Mugabe. “They all agree that Mugabe is now a security threat due to his ill health.”  Not surprisingly, “four people with direct knowledge of coalition-related discussions about post-Mugabe rebuilding” indicated that Great Britain had at least peripheral involvement in discussions, and British ambassador to Zimbabwe Catriona Laing was said to favor “Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe.” [2]

Such behind the scenes machinations did not sit well with G40, and mutual recrimination escalated between Team Lacoste and G40 in recent months. In an explosive politburo meeting on July 19, Minister of Higher Education Jonathan Moyo played a damning video that exposed Mnangagwa’s plans. The video accused him of “working to systematically undermine President Robert Mugabe by capturing the party and state institutions.” The video also revealed that General Chiwenga was deeply involved in those plans. Audio recordings of Zimpapers journalists stated that “they are working to further VP Mnangagwa’s succession agenda and that they work closely with General Chiwenga.” [3]

The video claimed that Mnangagwa’s allies in government were using their positions “to advance his bid to unconstitutionally and criminally succeed President Mugabe…The objective was to seize control of the party. That scheme is outlined and detailed in a successionist strategy document that was published in 2015 entitled Blue Ocean.” Quoting the Blue Ocean Strategy document, the video said: “Critical positions must be secured in these institutions and the personnel must be given instructions to hoard dossiers on the G40 brass and all echelons of the party.” [4]

The Blue Ocean Strategy sought to use the dossiers “to make it toxic for anyone to be associated with the G40 group.” Other tactics included attacks on the character of G40 members, and infiltrating the group and creating discord.  “Seeds of distrust must be sown in that alliance with the First Lady with immediate effect,” the document urged. [5] The campaign to discredit G40 was intended to clear the path to power for Mnangagwa.

By marshaling an impressive array of evidence, the video made a persuasive case, which the military coup on Mnangagwa’s behalf has amply confirmed.

Mnangagwa did not react with equanimity to the video. Moyo says that he responded to the presentation by “making a shocking statement to the effect that while he was in Mozambique, during the liberation struggle, people who made interventions such as my presentation to the Politburo on 19 July would have ‘their head separated from their shoulders’.” The effect of Mnangagwa’s statement, Moyo continued, “was to threaten me with murder.” [6]

Given the opportunity to answer Moyo’s charges, Mnangagwa delivered an 85-page report to President Mugabe in September. Mnangagwa claimed he was loyal, and without providing evidence, accused Moyo of being a CIA agent and that along with his cohorts in G40, was plotting against Mugabe. Mnangagwa asserted that Moyo was spreading falsehoods about an impending coup. “Professor Moyo concocted a story that his cousin Major Nkosana Moyo who is with the Presidential Guard informed you of a planned coup by the army and [to] install me as the country’s new leader.” [7] Moyo’s warning had been no falsehood.

On October 11, Mnangagwa went on the counterattack in a formal presentation at a politburo meeting. He repeated the allegation that Moyo was a CIA spy, which he asserted the U.S. Embassy in Harare had confirmed — as if the CIA is in the habit of announcing who its spies are. Mnangagwa pointed to Wikileaks documents concerning discussions Moyo held with U.S. officials during the years when Moyo was not a member of ZANU-PF. An official who attended the politburo meeting reported that Mnangagwa “said the whole army was loyal and played two video clips of General Chiwenga pledging loyalty to the national political leadership.” [8]

Mnangagwa accused Moyo of “harbor[ing] an agenda of destroying the party whether from within…or otherwise.” As proof of that intent, he quoted Moyo as having said, “Now, if your uneducated mind translates reform as destruction, to hell with you. That is not my problem, and I want to repeat that very statement that the best way to reform ZANU-PF is from within.” It is odd that Mnangagwa would be so uncomprehending as to choose such a statement to bolster his claim that Moyo was out to destroy the party. Mnangagwa added that he has “been trying to understand how a party as solid as ZANU-PF can at any given time be said to be in need of reform.” [9]

The bulk of the speech was devoted to quoting Moyo from his years outside the party, when he made some critical remarks, and which Moyo has never denied. Mnangagwa argued that Moyo “deceived” the Central Intelligence Organization into telling President Mugabe that “the army wanted to commit a coup,” and that Moyo “knows truly well that all these are lies and fabrications.”

Member of Parliament Shadreck Mashayamombe, Mnangagwa continued, unjustly claimed that the army would carry out a coup “in a brazen and bizarre attempt to tarnish my name. What has happened since then? Why should people believe your coup claims now when you have lied about that before?” [10] How different those questions look now!

In his response, Moyo pointed out that Mnangagwa had failed to address any of the issues he had raised in his earlier presentation concerning Mnangagwa’s plan to topple the government. Regarding Wikileaks documents, Moyo pointed out that there are many more documents referring to Mnangagwa than him. Furthermore, unlike Mnangagwa, Moyo never met a foreign official while he was in government without the presence of foreign ministry officials. [11]

Moyo revealed that when he was an independent candidate in the 2005 election, Mnangagwa helped fund him and other opposition candidates. Indeed, it was Mnangagwa who led the establishment of the short-lived United People’s Movement. “Throughout the planning process, we had several strategizing meetings…but you have not owned up to that. Instead, you have given a presentation that presents you as ‘comrade loyal’ when that is far from the truth.” [12]

The evidence for Mnangagwa’s perfidy was too abundant to ignore, and on November 9 he was expelled from ZANU-PF and removed from his position as one of Zimbabwe’s two vice presidents. Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere submitted a report to the politburo which listed other members of the plot to overthrow the government. [13]

Soon thereafter, Mnangagwa turned up in South Africa and issued a statement threatening that President Mugabe and those around him would be driven from the party “in the coming few weeks.” Ominously, he added that his supporters “will very soon control the levers of power” and he “shall return to Zimbabwe to lead you.” [14]

Zimbabwe security forces went on high alert following Mnangagwa’s threats. A source close to Mnangagwa said, “This is no longer a game, gloves are now off, and I can tell you he will be back as promised. He arrived in China [to join General Chiwenga during his visit] where he will meet key contacts.” [15]

General Chiwenga issued a statement condemning Mnangagwa’s opponents and warning darkly that due to political instability, “the military will not hesitate to step in.” ZANU-PF chairman Simon Khaya-Moyo responded by saying the statement suggested “treasonable conduct” and “was meant to incite insurrection and violent challenge to the constitutional order.” [16]

The cause of Zimbabwe’s current predicament, Western media inform us, is a simple one. President Mugabe’s wife harbored political ambitions to one day assume the highest office in the land. There is nothing else that one needs to know. Let us leave aside the temptation to wonder why mainstream media, with its near universal adoration of former president Bill Clinton’s wife for her political ambitions, somehow find it reprehensible for a strong black woman in a similar relationship to have political aspirations.

For her part, Grace Mugabe has sent mixed signals on succession, so it is unclear what her exact thoughts were on the matter. [17] What is certain is that President Mugabe blundered in not arranging an orderly transition to a successor while he was in a stronger political position, and that failure left the door open for schemers like Mnangagwa and Chiwenga.

The reality is that Grace Mugabe’s political base was too narrow and she was too unpopular for there ever have been a chance of her winning an election. Much of what support she did have would have evaporated upon President Mugabe’s demise. It is not even clear that Grace Mugabe had any chance of being named to take Mnangagwa’s place as vice president. It would be up to the upcoming party congress in December to choose the vice president, President Mugabe announced. [18] Furthermore, many reports indicate that President Mugabe favored Defense Minister Sydney Sekeramayi as his successor. [19] President Mugabe was well aware of his wife’s lack of widespread support and that her candidacy in a presidential election would be political suicide for ZANU-PF, in that she would be a rallying point for the opposition. [20]

General Chiwenga did not wait long to make good on his threat to launch a military coup. The government attempted to snuff out the rebellion before it started and dispatched a police paramilitary unit to the airport to arrest General Chiwenga upon his return from China. However, military intelligence caught wind of the plan and an army unit blocked the attempt, allowing Chiwenga to evade arrest. According to an official with knowledge of the incident, “When Chiwenga came, a team of soldiers dressed in National Handling Services (NHS) uniforms got inside the airport, while police positioned themselves to seize him. The soldiers reacted and disarmed them. The soldiers took off the NHS uniforms, revealing their camouflage fatigues, resulting in the police fleeing.” The army immediately set its long-planned coup in motion on the night of November 14-15, eliminating opposition by attacking policemen at the Parliament building and seizing the police paramilitary camp and armory. [21]

Armored vehicles and tanks rolled through Harare, taking control of key points. Gunfire was heard throughout the city, as the military hunted down and arrested every Mugabe supporter and member of G40 it could lay its hands on, not shying from the use of violence. According to one source, “The first casualty of the operation was Mugabe’s head of security,” Albert Ngulube. “He was grabbed right at Mugabe’s gate and taken to detention where he was brutally beaten.” Another source reported that soldiers took Ngulube’s “cellphone, watch and gold chain and later detained and interrogated him. He was heavily battered. He has some cracks on his head and could have died.” [22]

As one source reported, “Troops arrived at Kasukuwere’s house and shot their way into the residence before shelling it from about ten minutes…The families then escaped to Mugabe’s house…Moyo’s house was also stormed by soldiers.” Secretary of Youth Affairs Kudzai Chipanga and his wife were forced to strip naked and sit on the floor at a police station, where he was ordered to repeat the criticisms he had publicly made of General Chiwenga. Then he was severely beaten. The military later forced him to appear on television and apologize for having denounced Chiwenga’s threat to carry out a coup. [23]

Two Canadian journalists were falsely accused of working for the Central Intelligence Organization, and told by soldiers to lie on the ground. One of the journalists says, “And then they started beating us up. Anything that they had, with sticks, butt sticks, and at times they were using the guns that they had and someone was even saying ‘Hey, you can shoot them’.” Soldiers also walked on the journalists and the beatings lasted 15 to 20 minutes. [24]

When an army unit attacked the home of finance minister Ignatius Chombo, it shot dead his three guards. [25] Social media rumored that $10 million had been found in his home, but the photos posted proved to be disinformation. One photo was actually taken in Nigeria and the second photo in a police raid in Brazil. As one wag tweeted, juxtaposing a photo of the Brazil stash with the same photo identified as Chombo’s home, “Boxes of cash on the left were first found by police at apartment in Salvador, Brazil in September. Last night, same bags were found at house of Zimbabwe Finance Minister by the army.” [26]

“Basically, there is no government in Zimbabwe,” said an inside source. “Cabinet failed to seat on Tuesday because all ministers chose to stay away, fearing for their lives.” Among those who were arrested was Masvingo provincial minister Paul Chimedza, who failed in his attempt to flee the wave of repression sweeping the nation. [27]

The long-planned coup to install Mnangagwa was underway, but it was important for the military to present a façade of legality to appease the African Union. Enormous pressure was applied on President Mugabe to resign and appoint Mnangagwa as vice president. That would allow Mnangagwa to take over the reins of power in a legal manner. President Mugabe refused to buckle under intimidation, describing the coup as illegal – which, indeed, it was.

Opposition backers predominate in the cities, whereas Mugabe’s support is heavily concentrated in rural areas, where it can have little political effect. Western media portray the demonstration that was held in Harare to celebrate the coup as expressing the united voice of the people. All Zimbabweans, we were told, are happy at the turn of events. The demonstration represented the opinion of some people, but in what nation is there a monolithic political view? It is interesting how demonstrations only represent the “will of the people” when the cause is to the liking of Western elites. That said, economic difficulties – not entirely unrelated to Western sanctions – have contributed significantly to political dissatisfaction.

War Veterans’ chairman Chris Mutsvangwa, an ardent Mnangagwa supporter, revealed that the Army had capitalized on the Harare demonstration in an ugly bid to threaten Mugabe into capitulating. “The army gave the dictator a message earlier,” he said. “Either he steps down, or they will let the people into his mansion to take him. The army is threatening to unleash the people and let Mugabe be lynched. The generals said they will not shoot the people for him. Instead, they will abandon their posts and leave him to his fate.” [28]

The army was eager to install Mnangagwa as president, and Mugabe was not playing ball. The coup had long been in preparation, and as a leading opposition figure divulged, “a lot of talking was going on” between the army and “different factions to discuss the formation of a transitional government.” Discussions between the army and the opposition had been underway over the last several months. [29]

According to a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the plan by the army to bring the opposition into the government was “a done deal,” and was said to have “tacit agreement from regional powers.” [30]

Following the coup, Mnangagwa returned to Zimbabwe and began preparing to establish a transitional government that he would lead. It appears that South Africa may be playing some sort of role behind the scenes, as one source hinted. “The parties have been asked to prepare position papers ahead of the visit by [South African President Jacob] Zuma’s envoy. [MDC leader] Morgan Tsvangirai will present on behalf of his coalition, while [People’s Rainbow Alliance leader Joice] Mujuru will present on behalf of her coalition.” [31]

On Sunday, in the absence of Robert Mugabe’s supporters, ZANU-PF voted to expel the president from the party, and in his place appointed Emmerson Mnangagwa as head of the party. Mnangagwa and his backers were out for vengeance, and ZANU-PF announced that Grace Mugabe and G40 members would be prosecuted. [32] That still left the coup leaders without the means of “legally” installing Mnangagwa in power, so Mugabe was given a deadline of 24 hours to resign, or he would face impeachment on Tuesday. [33]

Western officials are keen to see the transitional government adopt economic policies to their liking. “It’s a transition to a new era for Zimbabwe; that’s really what we’re hoping for,” acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto said. [34] A European Union spokesperson announced that the EU is “committed to support Zimbabwe in the preparation of credible elections and the delivery of political and economic reforms.” [35] It can be expected that it will not be long before Western economic advisors are paying visits to the transitional government, urging it to enact reforms to liberalize the economy to suit Western investors.

* Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich. This article was originally published on Global Research and Counterpunch

Endnotes:
[1] Joe Brock, Ed Cropley, “Special Report: Behind the Scenes, Zimbabwe Politicians Plot Post-Mugabe Reforms,” Reuters, September 15, 2017.

[2] Joe Brock, Ed Cropley, “Special Report: Behind the Scenes, Zimbabwe Politicians Plot Post-Mugabe Reforms,” Reuters, September 15, 2017.

[3] Owen Gagare, “ZANU PF Politburo Video Exposé,” Zimbabwe Independent, August 11, 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTCeSOEotHc

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTCeSOEotHc

[5] Obey Manayiti, “The ‘Secret’ War Vets Document that Rattled Under-siege Mugabe,” Zimbabwe Standard, June 20, 2016.

[6] Everson Mushava, “Mnangagwa Threatened to Kill Me, Says Moyo,” Zimbabwe Standard, August 13, 2017.

[7] Owen Gagare, “Mnangagwa Comes Out Guns Blazing at Moyo,” Zimbabwe Independent, October 6, 2017.

[8] Wendy Muperi, “Fresh Politburo Details Emerge,” Zimbabwe Independent, October 20, 2017.

[9] Speech by Emmerson Mnangagwa, “Full Report: Mnangagwa Exposes Jonathan Moyo’s Ties to the CIA,” iHarare, October 9, 2017.

[10] Speech by Emmerson Mnangagwa, “Full Report: Mnangagwa Exposes Jonathan Moyo’s Ties to the CIA,” iHarare, October 9, 2017.

[11] Wendy Muperi, “Fresh Politburo Details Emerge,” Zimbabwe Independent, October 20, 2017.

[12] “Jonathan Moyo Spills the Beans on Mnangagwa,” Bulawayo 24 News, October 15, 2017.

[13] “Mnangagwa Fired from ZANU-PF,” New Zimbabwe, November 8, 2017.

Farirai Machivenyika, “ZANU-PF Expels Mnangagwa,” The Herald, November 9, 2017.

[14] Kitsepile Nyathi, “Mnangagwa Flees Zimbabwe, Vows to Oust Mugabe,” The Monitor, November 8, 2017.

[15] “Mnangawa Threats Rattle Mugabe,” Harare 24 News, November 10, 2017.

[16] “Zimbabwe ZANU-PF Unfazed by Chiwenga…Raps Him for Treasonous Statements…Reaffirms Primacy of Politics over Gun,” The Herald, November 15, 2017.

[17] Farai Mutsaka, “Wife of Zimbabwe’s Leader Tells Mugabe to Name Successor,” Associated Press, July 27, 2017.

[18] Obey Manayiti, “Mugave ‘Annoints’ Chosen Successor,” Zimbabwe Standard, June 4, 2017.

[19] Obey Manayiti, “Mugave ‘Annoints’ Chosen Successor,” Zimbabwe Standard, June 4, 2017.

Everson Mushava, “Prof Moyo Spills the Beans on Mnangagwa,” Zimbabwe Standard, October 15, 2017.

Wendy Muperi, “Succession Hopefuls Unfit to Govern,” Zimbabwe Independent, October 27, 2017.

[20] Interview with Piers Pigou, “Zimbabwe: Standoff in Zimbabwe as Struggle to Succeed Mugabe Deepens,” International Crisis Group, November 14, 2017.

[21] Bernard Mpofu, “Clashes Between Security Forces,” Zimbabwe Independent, November 17, 2017.

“How Army Takeover was Executed,” Zimbabwe Independent, November 17, 2017.

[22] “Mugabe-Generals Crunch Meeting: the Full Story,” iHarare, November 17, 2017.

Owen Gagare, “Mugabe’s Chief of Security Battered,” Zimbabwe Independent, November 17, 2017.

[23] “Mugabe-Generals Crunch Meeting: the Full Story,” iHarare, November 17, 2017.

“Zanu PF Chipanga Beaten Up by the Army at Borrowdale Police Station Around 03:00 AM, I Chombo, J Moyo, P Mphoko, P Zhuwao All Assaulted and Locked Up by Army at Unknown Place,” New Zimbabwe Vision, November 15, 2017.

[24] “Full Episode Transcript,” The Current program, CBC, November 17, 2017.

[25] “G40 Cabinet Ministers and Other Officials Detained by Military Police,” New Zimbabwe, November 15, 2017.

[26] “Zimbabwe crisis: Reality Check Debunks False Rumours and Fake Photo, BBC News, November 17, 2017.

[27] “Hide and Seek for ZANU-PF’s G40 Faction,” New Zimbabwe, November 17, 2017.

[28] “Robert Mugabe is Sacked by his Party and Replaced by ‘The Crocodile’ – but the reviled Zimbabwean dictator is still president and goes on hunger strike after vowing to die for ‘what is correct’,” Mail on Sunday, November 19, 2017.

[29] Jason Burke, “Zimbabwe: Mugabe and Military Talks Continue Amid Political Limbo,” The Guardian, November 16, 2017.

[30] David McKenzie, Jamie Tarabay, and Angela Dewan, “Mugabe’s Exit is ‘a Done Deal’ but Zimbabwe is Still in Limbo,” CNN, November 16, 2017.

[31] Dumisani Ndlela, “Transitional Govt Planned…as Mugabe is Cornered,” Financial Gazette, November 16, 2017.

[32] “Robert Mugabe Removed as Leader of Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF Party,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation,” November 19, 2017.

[33] “Longtime Zimbabwe Strongman Robert Mugabe Faces Impeachment,” Associated Press, November 19, 2017.

[34] Warren Strobel, “U.S. Wants ‘New Era’ in Zimbabwe: Official,” Reuters, November 16, 2017.

[35] “Statement by the Spokesperson on the situation in Zimbabwe,” European Union, November 15, 2017.

One of the new dynamics of the gathering geopolitical turbulence in Asia and its waters is the growing use of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’. During his extended visit to Asia in November 2017, United States (US) President Donald Trump has defined the region as ‘Indo-Pacific’ rather than the customary ‘Asia-Pacific’. Concepts of geopolitical space are never static, and Trump’s emphasis on the Indo-Pacific underlines the rise of India, China’s assertiveness and its expanding footprint in the Indian Ocean, as well as Washington’s plans to elevate its strategic partnership with New Delhi. It involves America’s strategic bet on India’s future role in shaping the security architecture in the eastern hemisphere. Actively promoted in recent years by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Indo-Pacific conception can be traced back to the decision of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to invite India as a founding member of the East Asia Summit in 2005. The durability of the Indo-Pacific dynamic, however, will depend essentially on New Delhi’s willingness to work with the US and its allies in the region.

By C Raja Mohan*

United States (US) President Donald Trump’s use of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ rather than the more familiar ‘Asia-Pacific’ during his first presidential visit to Asia during November 2017 has surprised many regional observers. However, the conception of the ‘Indo-Pacific’, as a coherent geopolitical space, has steadily gained traction in recent years amidst the rise of India, its deepening strategic ties with the US and Japan’s advocacy of this idea. Although its predecessors had begun to use the phrase occasionally, the Trump Administration has embraced it with some gusto. It has made the idea of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’, first articulated by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the new anchor of its Asia policy. The Indo-Pacific as a geopolitical construct is likely to endure only if New Delhi begins to play a larger role in shaping the security politics of a vast region stretching from the east coast of Africa to the Western Pacific and is more open to collaborative arrangements for regional security such as the quadrilateral mechanism among the US, Japan, India and Australia.

US Definition of the Indo-Pacific

‘India to the west and America to the east’ – this was the essence of the idea of Indo-Pacific, according to a senior White House Official briefing the press on Trump’s extended visit to Asia to participate in the forum for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the East Asia Summit (EAS). His visit also involved substantive bilateral engagements with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and others on the margins of the two summit meetings. Trump framed the region throughout his visit as the ‘Indo-Pacific’.3 The official added that, “We have strong and growing ties with India. We talk about “Indo- Pacific” in part because that phrase captures the importance of India’s rise”. The official argued that America’s security and prosperity depends on its maintaining access to this region for a free flow of commerce and that “a free and open Indo-Pacific speaks to that vision”.4

Trump’s National Security Advisor, General H R McMaster, defended the use of the concept in an interview with the China Global Television Network just before the president landed in Beijing. Pointing to the growing economic integration between East Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral, McMaster said the term better captures the new regional dynamic. “The idea of the Indo-Pacific and the proposition that India must be involved in shaping the Asian balance of power go well back in time. Before we trace the recent evolution of the concept, it is important to note that oceanographers use the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ to describe the bio- geographic region comprising the warm tropical waters of the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean.”5

Relevance of the Indo-Pacific

Amidst the surge of geopolitical thinking at the turn of the 20th century, Alfred Thayer Mahan talked of the region stretching from Asia Minor to the Korean Peninsula emerging as a decisive theatre in global politics.6 The German strategist Karl Haushofer spoke of the Indo- Pacific space in the 1920s.7 The importance of this region during the Second World War was reflected in the Burma-China-India theatre where the British Raj, the nationalist China and the US joined forces to end the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia.8 The inward orientation of China and India after the war saw the erosion of the concept of Indo-Pacific. If the two oceans as well as South and East Asia were increasingly seen as separate entities, the rise of China and the slower emergence of India inevitably restored the interconnections between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans as well as East and South Asia.

One of the earliest proponents of the case for putting India in the East Asian matrix came from Singapore. In a prescient address at the launch of the Institute of South Asian Studies in early 2005, then-Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said, “India’s rise compels us to look at our environment in new ways. It will be increasingly less tenable to regard South Asia and East Asia as distinct strategic theatres interacting only at the margins. Of course, US‐China‐Japan relations will still be important. But a new grand strategic triangle of US‐China‐India relations will be superimposed upon it, creating an environment of greater complexity.”9 Goh’s remarks came in the context of creating the new forum, the EAS, in 2005. Singapore extended strong support for admitting India as a founding member of the EAS.

If Singapore was quick to see the renewed relevance of India for the Asian security architecture, Japan embraced the concept whole-heartedly and articulated the concept of Indo-Pacific. Addressing the Indian Parliament in August 2007, Abe talked about the ‘confluence of the two seas’. “The Pacific and the Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity. A ‘broader Asia’ that broke away geographical boundaries is now beginning to take on a distinct form. Our two countries have the ability – and the responsibility – to ensure that it broadens yet further and to nurture and enrich these seas”.10

After Abe, then-US President Barack Obama’s Administration began to use the phrase occasionally. While some used the concept of ‘Indo-Pacific’, others began to use the term ‘Indo-Asia-Pacific’.11 However, the essence of the idea was similar – there was growing integration between the two oceans and that a rising India will have much to contribute to peace and prosperity in the region. Beyond the Indian factor, the framing of a space spanning the two oceans found quick resonance in two countries – Australia and Indonesia – which are located at the intersection of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.12 The debate on the problems and prospects for the new geopolitical construct gathered much intellectual steam in the second decade of the 21st century.13 While there was much support, there was also much criticism, especially from Beijing. The argument was that the Indo-Pacific was an artificial super- region being constructed to isolate China.14

The View in New Delhi

Like in many other countries, there was some hesitation in New Delhi about embracing the idea of Indo-Pacific. While some saw the opportunity for India to expand its global footprint, others saw it as a likely attempt by the US to draw India into a containment ring against China. While India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh occasionally used the term Indo-Pacific, not everyone in the government appeared convinced. If it was an ideological problem for some, others questioned the practical utility of the concept. Singh’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon pointed to the problems with defining the ‘Indo- Pacific’ as a single space, “The reason I cavil about calling the Indo-Pacific one space is because if we do, there is a danger of prescribing one medicine for the different security ailments that afflict the Indian Ocean, the seas near China, and the western Pacific.”15

The government of Narendra Modi, which took charge of the nation in May 2014, began to adopt the term ‘Indo-Pacific’, slowly but surely. In the vision statement issued by Modi and Obama in January 2015, the two leaders referred to the region as “the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean”.16 A year later, New Delhi was beginning to use both the terms ‘Asia-Pacific’ and the ‘Indo-Pacific’. In his address to the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2016, India’s then- Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said, “For India, located as we are at the centre of the Asian landmass astride the Indian Ocean, any reference to Asia implies its fullest geography ranging from the Suez to the shores of the Pacific.”

Since 2017, there has been a more frequent usage of the term Indo-Pacific by Modi and his advisers. The meeting between Trump and Modi in Washington at the end of June 2017 framed the Indo-US partnership in the context of the Indo-Pacific. “As responsible stewards in the Indo-Pacific region, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi agreed that a close partnership between the United States and India is central to peace and stability in the region.”17

New Delhi has also endorsed the conception of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ articulated by Abe. At the end of their meeting in Gujarat in September 2017, Modi and Abe underlined their “strong commitment to their values-based partnership in achieving a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region where sovereignty and international law are respected, and differences are resolved through dialogue, and where all countries, large or small, enjoy freedom of navigation and overflight, sustainable development, and a free, fair, and open trade and investment system.” The two leaders also pledged to “align Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy with India’s Act East Policy”, including through enhancing maritime security cooperation, improving connectivity in the wider Indo-Pacific region, and strengthening cooperation with the ASEAN.18

Towards the end of 2017, the US, too, is adopting the theme of a free and open Indo-Pacific. In his speech in October 2017, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for a hundred-year partnership in the Indo-Pacific between the US and an India that was ‘rising responsibly’. “The world’s center of gravity is shifting to the heart of the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. and India – with our shared goals of peace, security, freedom of navigation, and a free and open architecture – must serve as the eastern and western beacons of the Indo-Pacific. As the port and starboard lights between which the region can reach its greatest and best potential.”19 Tillerson was signalling that Washington has put the ‘Indo-Pacific’ firmly in the American strategic lexicon.

The Quadrilateral Coalition

That the Indo-Pacific is not amenable to a coherent regional architecture has been one of the main criticisms of the concept. However, the advocacy of the Indo-Pacific construct has been accompanied by the call for the creation of a coalition of like-minded democracies in the relevant region. In his speech to the Indian Parliament in 2007, Abe argued that the ‘broader Asia’, to be formed by the strategic partnership between Japan and India, “will evolve into an immense network spanning the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the United States of America and Australia. Open and transparent, this network will allow people, goods, capital, and knowledge to flow freely.”20 The quadrilateral seemed to perish after just one round of consultations among senior officials of the four countries in the summer of 2007 amidst protests from China.21 In 2008, the newly elected Australian government, led by Kevin Rudd, publicly rejected the concept of the Asian quadrilateral.22

That was not the end of the quadrilateral, though. After he returned as the Prime Minister of Japan at the end of 2012, Abe sought to revive the quadrilateral. In an article for the mass media, Abe confessed that he had significantly underestimated the pace and scope of China’s maritime rise when he addressed the Indian Parliament in 2007. Amidst China’s assertiveness in the East and South China Seas and its power projection into the Indian Ocean, Abe envisaged a strategy “whereby Australia, India, Japan, and the US state of Hawaii form a diamond to safeguard the maritime commons stretching from the Indian Ocean region to the western Pacific. I am prepared to invest, to the greatest possible extent, Japan’s capabilities in this security diamond.”23 Abe certainly kept his word and stepped up maritime activism in the Indo-Pacific and pressed India, the US and Australia to revive the quadrilateral. Although the Indian leaders across the political spectrum had special warmth for Abe, they seemed reluctant to revive the quadrilateral.24

Amidst the deteriorating relationship with China in 2016 and 2017, and the persistent calls from Washington and Tokyo to resurrect the quadrilateral, New Delhi appears to have made a fresh calculation on the pluses and minuses of joining such a forum. When Japan, on the eve of the EAS in November 2017, called for the quadrilateral again, New Delhi signalled its willingness to start consultations on the purposes of the renewed quadrilateral dialogue.25 Senior officials from the four countries are expected to meet on the margins of the 2017 EAS in the Philippines. These consultations must be viewed as a first step in a long journey that is bound to face many bumps on the road. The competing priorities and interests of the four partners, and their separate stakes in a reasonable relationship with China are likely to complicate the construction of a coalition. Nevertheless, Washington’s decision to firmly fit India into its Asian strategy and New Delhi’s readiness to shed the reservations about the quadrilateral have certainly improved the prospects for the Indo-Pacific as a credible geopolitical construct.

About the author
*Professor C Raja Mohan is Director of Carnegie India, Delhi, and Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He can be contacted at isascrm@nus.edu.sg and crmohan53@gmail.com. The author bears full responsibility for the facts cited and opinions expressed in this paper.

Source:
This article was published by ISAS as ISAS Insights Number 476 (PDF)

Notes:
3. “Indo-Pacific” over “Asia Pacific” reflects India’s rise: US official”, Economic Times, 5 November 2017. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/indo-pacific-over-asia-pacific-reflects-indias-rise-us-off icial/articleshow/61519684.cms. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
4. Ibid.
5. “Donald Trump’s China visit: US defends “Indo-Pacific” concept”, Economic Times, 8 November 2017. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/donald-trumps-china-visit-us-defends-indo-pacific-conc ept/articleshow/61564716.cms>. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
6. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Problem of Asia: Its Effect Upon International Politics (New York, 1900). Republished by Transaction Publishers, London, 2003, p. 66.
7. See Francis P Sempa, ‘Karl Haushofer and the Rise of the Monsoon Countries’, The Diplomat, 10 March 2015. Available at https://thediplomat.com/2015/03/karl-haushofer-and-the-rise-of-the-monsoon-countries/
8. See Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan (London: Penguin, 2005). See also Srinath Raghavan, India’s War: the Making of Modern South Asia, 1939- 1945 (Delhi: Penguin, 2016).
9. Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, Keynote address at the launch of the Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore, 27 January 2005. http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/speeches/view-html?filename=20050127 01.htm. Accessed on 8 November 2017.
10. PM Shinzo Abe, ‘Confluence of two seas’ Address to the Indian Parliament, 22 January 2007. http://www. mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/pmv0708/speech-2.html. Accessed on 8 November 2017.
11. See Rory Medcalf, ‘The Indo-Pacific: What’s in a name?”, The American Interest, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2013.
12. See Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, ‘An Indonesian Perspective on the Indo-Pacific’, speech in Washington DC, 16 May 2013; Department of Defence, Australian Government, Defence White Paper 2013
(Canberra, 2013).
13. See, for example, Michael Auslin, ‘Tipping point in the Indo-Pacific’, The American Interest, Vol. 6, No. 4,
2011; C. Raja Mohan, Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012); Chietgj, ‘Embedding India in Asia: Reaffirming the Indo-Pacific Concept’, Journal of Defence Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, 2014, pp. 83-110; Rory Medcalf, ‘Redefining the region: The Indo-Pacific Idea’, in Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment, 2015,
(London: IISS, 2015).
14. For a set of representative views, see Chengxin Pan, ‘The “Indo-Pacific” and geopolitical anxieties about
China’s rise in the Asian regional order’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 68, no. 4, 2014,
pp. 453-69.
15. Shivshankar Menon, Remarks at the launch of the book, Samudra Manthan in New Delhi, 4 March 2013.
16. ‘US-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean Region’, New Delhi, 25 January
2015. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/25/us-india-joint-strategic-vision-asia- pacific-and-indian-ocean-region. Accessed on 8 November 2017.
17. ‘Prosperity through Partnership: US-India Joint Statement’, Washington DC, 27 June 2017, http://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/28560/Joint+Statement++United+States+and+India+Pr osperity+Through+Partnership. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
18. ‘Japan-India Joint Statement: Towards a Free, Open and Prosperous Indo-Pacific’ Gandhi Nagar, 14 September 2017. http://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000289999.pdf. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
19. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, ‘Defining our relationship with India for the next century’, Washington DC, 18 October 2017. https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/10/274913.htm. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
20. Abe, ‘Confluence of two seas’, 2007, op cit, n. 9.
21. Siddharth Varadarajan, ‘Four power meeting drew Chinese demarche’, The Hindu, 14 June 2007;
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/Four-power-meeting-drew-Chinese-d%C3%A9marche/ar
ticle14777286.ece>. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
22. Greg Sheridan, ‘How to lose friends’, The Australian, 8 May 2008. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/
news/how-to-lose-friends/news-story/51ca371624d11e9342420c79b05897c6. Accessed on 9 November
2017.
23. Shinzo Abe, ‘Asia’s Democratic Security Diamond’, The Mint, 31 December 2012. http://www.livemint.
com/Opinion/viqg2XC8fhRfjTUIcctk0M/Asias-democratic-security-diamond.html. Accessed on 9 November 2017.
24. For a discussion of the Indian calculus on the quad, see Rohan Mukherjee, ‘A democratic quadrilateral in Asia?’ Gateway House, Mumbai, 14 February 2017. http://www.gatewayhouse.in/a-democratic-quadrilateral -in-asia/?utm_content=buffer8c087&utm_medium=social&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=b uffer>. Accessed on 10 November 2017.
25. See C Raja Mohan, ‘What the return of the quadrilateral says about India and emerging Asian geopolitics’, Indian Express, 29 October 2017. http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/in-fact-what-the-return-of- quadrilateral-says-about-india-and-emerging-asian-geopolitics-4912740/. Accessed on 10 November 2017.

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has arrived in Abidjan for a “working and friendship” visit to the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. The visit will be followed by the King’s participation in the upcoming 5th EU-AU Summit.

All of King Mohammed VI’s visits to Côte d’Ivoire aim to shape a project for a shared future, and the two countries work tirelessly to maintain and cement the indissoluble bonds which unite them, in order to give this fraternity the brightest, most tangible illustration.

It is worth reminding that at the Moroccan-Ivorian Economic Forum, held in Abidjan in February 2014, King Mohammed VI laid out a compelling vision for Africa’s development – He said that “This objective [prosperity for future generations] will even be more readily attainable when Africa overcomes its Afro-pessimism and unlocks its intellectual and material potential as well as that of all African peoples. Just imagine what our continent will look like, once it frees itself of its constraints and burdens

The Moroccan monarch stated that “Sustainable development is not something which can be achieved through decisions and ready-made prescriptions,” he said. “Nor is there a single model in this area. Each country follows a path of its own, having taken into consideration its historical development, cultural heritage, human and natural resources, specific political circumstances, as well as its economic choices and the obstacles and challenges facing it.”

By Gulshat Abdulaeva

Representatives of the Committee on Civil Society of Kazakhstan plan to transfer more than 200 state functions to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Chairman of the Committee Aliya Galimova believes that it is the NGOs that know the “weak spots” best when implementing state orders by state bodies, therefore, the function of providing methodological and advisory assistance to state bodies in the distribution of state contracts will be transferred to them.

On the territory of Kazakhstan, NAO “Civil Initiatives Supporting Center ” (NAO CISC) operates under the Ministry for Religious Affairs and Civil Society of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The main task of the Center is to provide state and non-governmental NGO grants and control over their implementation. public relations manager of CISC A.Sadubayeva commented on the principle of distribution of state funding in the form of granting such grants.

She reported, that in accordance with the legislative documents of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the governmental granting is carried out on the basis of the grant plan for non-governmental organizations of the authorized body in the field of interaction with non-governmental organizations and holding an open tender for granting to non-governmental organizations.

The decision on granting or not granting is accepted by the competitive commission by results of an estimation of applications and is made out by the conclusion.

The composition of the competitive commission is formed from experts proposed by the operator (NAO ” Civil Initiatives Supporting Center “) – 30% and from experts proposed by non-governmental organizations – 70%. The final composition of the competitive commission is approved by the operator of the NAO CISC on the basis of information on the presence or absence of a conflict of interest in accordance with subparagraph 6) of paragraph 2 of the Rules.

Thus, the distribution of grants takes into account the interests of both states and NGOs. As a result, the country’s population receives the necessary services, the state support system works and all parties are satisfied with the result.

However, in addition to NGOs, foundations and non-profit associations that meet government objectives, organizations in Kazakhstan operate in Kazakhstan, whose activities are almost not controlled by the authorities. Such NGOs provide reports on their organizational and financial activities only to their foreign sponsors, and not to the state bodies of the country in which they operate.

Financing is necessary for the existence and full functioning of NGOs. Sources of financing here can serve as the state, and any voluntary investments, including foreign ones.

Foreign investment does not always correspond to the goals and interests of the state on whose territory the NGO operates. Organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Freedom House and Amnesty International are influencing foreign policy. The first director of the NED, K. Gershman, openly admitted that the Foundation was a cover for the USA. The Foundation sponsored groups supporting US interests, active in France, supporting trade unions for professors and students in the fight against “organizing left-wing professors”, by sponsoring opposition seminars, posters, books and brochures. In the future, without the intervention of the Fund, the elections in Venezuela and Haiti, where he acted with the aim of undermining the activities of leftist movements, were not spared.

The Foundation finances the activities of another organization, Freedom House. Most recently, Freedom House actively participated in “the Arab Spring”, where it assisted in the training and funding of groups and individual representatives of civil society, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Center for Civil Rights in Bahrain and people’s activists, such as the Yemeni youth leader E. Cady.

Let us recall the events of 2010 in the south of Kyrgyzstan, which have become a real test for non-governmental organizations. For example, the NGO “Justice” in the framework of the work on the project “Interethnic Problems” collected information on interethnic relations by conducting interviews with the participants of the conflict on interethnic grounds that took place in Jalal-Abad and Osh regions. It sought information about the authority and leadership of ethnic Uzbeks, and then information was sent to the OSCE Headquarters in Bishkek.

“Freedom House” recently launched a project in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to monitor the situation in the field of human rights protection. One of the key areas is the training of young human rights defenders.

“USAID” actively finances youth organizations, through which it promotes the idea of amending the law of Kazakhstan “On Youth Policy”, as well as encourages NGOs working on youth policy to more actively operate social networking opportunities for campaigning supporters, for example, in “Twitter”.

President of the Citizens’ Alliance of Kazakhstan N.Erimbetov stated that he is against Kazakhstani NGOs receiving grants from foreign companies, because foreign money is hypocrisy and duplicity. According to him, the state will be able to finance the activities of those non-governmental organizations that are now receiving grants from foreign companies, provided that these projects are useful for the Kazakh society.

Source: http://sodrugestvo.info/?p=485241&lang=en

By Daljit Singh*

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited the United States from 23 to 26 October 2017 and had discussions with President Donald Trump, key economic and security members of his cabinet and important figures in Congress. He was the fourth Southeast Asian leader to meet with the US President. The others were the prime ministers of Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. His visit to Washington was sandwiched between his trip to China in September 2017 where he had met President Xi Jinping and President Trump’s scheduled visit to Asia in November.

The relationship between Singapore and the US dates back to the difficult formative period of Singapore in the late 1960s when it struggled to survive without natural resources, barely any manufacturing base or easy market access to the neighbouring region. It embraced American multinational corporations (MNCs) which were then being shunned by many developing countries as agents of exploitative neo-colonialism.

American MNCs, followed by others from Japan and Europe, enabled the Singapore authorities to provide jobs for their people and to propel the economy to a higher level. The economic and security relationship with the US has grown since then.

When Donald Trump was elected President of the US in 2016 there was considerable concern in Singapore about his trade protectionist stance, negative attitude to the Trans- Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP), criticisms of US alliances and his isolationist streak, also reflected in his “America First” slogan. Singapore’s former Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary, Bilahari Kausikan, reflected these concerns when he said that Trump’s election victory enhanced global political and economic uncertainties and “increased the risks for everyone.”1 But Singapore officials also said that Singapore was not going to sit back and wring their hands, but quickly and pragmatically adjust to the new realities.

And indeed it has done so. Singapore’s concerns have lessened since then because there have been substantial continuities in President Trump’s policies in Asia, though uncertainties still remain about trade issues and American stances on North Korea and China.

By all accounts, Prime Minister Lee’s visit went off well and reinforced the bilateral relationship. In press statements released on 23 October 2017 the President described Singapore as “one of our closest strategic partners in Asia” with which America’s friendship “has never been stronger than it is today”, while the Prime Minister described the relationship as “robust and enduring”, “deep and wide.” Earlier, in his CNBC interview on the eve of his visit to Washington, the Prime Minister had noted that the relationship was based on a “basic strategic congruence of views about the world, about the region, … and deep cooperation over many years.” Furthermore, the President accepted Prime Minister Lee’s invitation to visit Singapore 1n 2018.

MUTUAL BENEFITS

The mutual benefits of the relationship were spelt out in the joint statement the two leaders issued on 24 October 2014. Where the economic relationship was concerned, the role of the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement was emphasised. More than 4000 American firms have a presence in Singapore.2 The US, on its side, enjoys a trade surplus of about US$18 billion, not an insignificant fact in the context of President Trump’s views of America’s trade relations with other countries. Also, as the Prime Minister pointed out in his joint statement with the President to the press, despite its small size, Singapore is the second biggest Asian investor in the US, with about US$73.68 billion in stock investments, which has grown at an annual compound rate of 36.9 per cent from 2011 to 2016. 3

Defence relations were described by the two leaders as “a cornerstone of bilateral relations” and areas of defence cooperation were mentioned in the joint statement. It is clear that Singapore depends heavily on the US for the purchase of sophisticated military equipment for its armed forces and for honing the skills of its military personnel in their use through training and exercises.4 No other power can replace this dimension of Singapore’s security cooperation with the US. The US too benefits: US naval ships and military aircraft are rotationally deployed in Singapore while Changi Naval Base is used as a logistics and supply hub by the US navy. The leaders pledged to strengthen cooperation against ISIS and global terrorism and Singapore was noted as the only Asian country to have contributed both “assets and personnel to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.”

The joint statement also states: “Both leaders noted concerns about developments in the South China Sea. They reaffirmed the importance of safeguarding peace and stability and they reiterated their commitment to upholding the freedoms of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of sea [and] both leaders underscored the importance of the peaceful resolution of disputes, including full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, in accordance with universally recognised principles of international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

Singapore regards freedom of navigation and international law, including UNCLOS, as vital to its interests, so in reality there is little difference in what the two countries believe in. However Singapore has to be circumspect in relating these principles explicitly to the South China Sea because China has reportedly pressed it to avoid public remarks about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea under UNCLOS.5 Hence the wording of the joint statement on the South China Sea also shows to China how much Singapore is prepared to heed its sensitivities while preserving its own core interests. The paragraph on the South China Sea, including the reiteration of support by the two leaders of an “effective and binding” Code of Conduct also signals continuing US interest in the South China Sea.

In the joint statement, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to ASEAN Centrality and the importance of “strengthening the regional architecture…and the US-ASEAN strategic partnership.” This is a re-assuring endorsement of ASEAN. Together with President Trump’s planned attendance at the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines it reflects a continuity in US policy to ASEAN-based regionalism.

THE MESSAGES

An important purpose of the Prime Minister must have been to establish a good personal relationship with this most maverick of the post-World War Two American presidents, meeting him for the second time after an encounter on the sidelines of the earlier G-20 summit in Hamburg. The two leaders seem to have got on well. The body language of the President as he listened intently to the Prime Minister’s remarks at the delivery of the joint press statements certainly suggested this. The mutual benefits of the relationship as well as Singapore’s economic, social and governance achievements would have engendered the respect with which the President seemed to regard the Prime Minister and his team of ministers and officials.

What messages did the Prime Minister seek to deliver to the President and his Administration? From what can be gleaned from published material, they were:

• The critical importance of the US economic and security engagement in East Asia, both for US interests and for the benefit of the East Asian region, an engagement which over the past three quarters of a century has helped maintain peace and stability.
• The importance of maintaining free trade and open markets – a consistent Singapore message to the US for a long time. It has become even more important now because of the inward turn of the US domestic mood, and this US President’s trade protectionist impulses.
• The importance of maintaining a stable US-China relationship, as has been delivered regularly in the past. In his part of the joint statement made before the press in Washington, the Prime Minister made a strong plea for a “stable and constructive” US-China relationship but the US President did not mention the subject in his part of the statement.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF US ENGAGEMENT?

The Prime Minister knew that his messages were being delivered in very different circumstances from the past: the US mood and thinking had changed, East Asian power realities were changing and liberal internationalism was being increasingly questioned. So the old mantra calling for continuation of past policies would not be received in the same way as a decade or even a year ago.

The US has difficult choices to make. Some of what Singapore and ASEAN have traditionally wished for – such as a stable and peaceful US-China relationship based neither on confrontation nor on acquiescence in China’s strategic assertiveness – may be more difficult for the US to manage than in the past. The margin of American strategic predominance in the region has narrowed. From the US perspective, the issue is about how it is to have a tension-free relationship with a China that is seen to be chipping away at its strategic position in the region.

In his dialogue with the Council of Foreign Relations on 25 October, the Prime Minister noted that while he was confident after his discussions in Washington that the US would remain engaged in Asia, “they are talking about engaging in a different way…they would like to re-balance…”, that amounts to a different approach. He said the US has been the world’s most open market and now it thinks “others should be as open as us.”

He explained that while the US is not uncomfortable with the fact that US open markets enabled allies and friends like Japan, South Korea and others to rise, it now feels differently about China. The implication here seems to be that unlike the others, China, having benefited enormously from its economic relations with the US while keeping its own market restricted, now aims to evict the US security presence from Asia and create a Sino-centric Asia.6 So US policies can be expected to be adjusted to meet this new reality.

According to the Prime Minster, “I think it is reasonable to push for that (i.e. a more equitable trade and economic relationship with China) but if you want that to happen overnight it may well come to grief”, which conveys an understanding on his part of what the US seeks to do, while injecting a note of caution, even concern. But if, in US eyes, its leadership position is being challenged and the stakes are high, it would very likely give priority to its own national interests.

What kind of adjustment or “re-balance”, to use the Prime Minister’s term, would the US envisage? This is not clear at this stage. But there are significant voices in the present US administration who want to cut the huge trade surplus that China currently enjoys with the US. Also, the Korean nuclear crisis is becoming an American litmus test for China – whether China, which of all countries has the most leverage on Pyongyang, is prepared to exercise it decisively to help denuclearise North Korea. If nothing is done and North Korea acquires the capabilities to strike continental US with nuclear weapons, the credibility of US nuclear guarantees to its two northeast Asian allies would be undermined and the US strategic position in Asia weakened. The US will have to adopt measures to deal with such a contingency. One option would be to condone, even encourage, South Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear capabilities. Such a step may seem extreme at this juncture, but may not seem so when other options fail. After all, Trump had mentioned this approach favourably during the US Presidential election campaign in 2016. While such a policy could make for a more dangerous world it would also make China’s strategic situation more complicated, with two new nuclear powers, aligned to the US, near its door step.

Arguably, a change of approach would have come even if Trump had not been elected President because, over the past decade, many in the US foreign policy and security establishment have come to the conclusion that some of the comfortable assumptions about China’s future direction had proven to be misplaced and China was now becoming much more of a strategic competitor. This change of US thinking is likely to stay even when Trump is no longer President.

If the US is in a quandary about what to do about North Korea and China, the Chinese are also in a predicament over how to deal with the new US administration. They have a long history of statecraft and also possess the tactical instruments of Leninism which, in combination, allow them to pursue strategies patiently over the long term and change tactics as required by circumstances without the distractions and interruptions of any democratic election cycle. It is possible that they may offer the US a deal that would seem to ease the US predicament – of course at a price. Prime Minister Lee, in his dialogue at the Council of Foreign Relations, cautioned against a quick deal, pointing out that it would not constitute a “fundamental breakthrough” in US-China relations which can come about only gradually on the basis of a “shared frame of reference” and deeper mutual understanding of what each side wants. Or as he put it in response to another question: “…if you are able to work with them on a stable, gradually evolving relationship which gives them the space to grow their influence, but in a benign way, then we are fine.”

SINGAPORE AND CHINA

Singapore’s relations with the US and China developed on different trajectories from the start. Relations with the US advanced in the 1970s and 1980s when China was still weak and poor and when it was more than comfortable with a US military presence in the region to check the Soviet Union. Relations with China developed informally in the 1980s and expanded rapidly in various areas after the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1990. Like other countries in the region, Singapore sought to benefit from the economic opportunities that China’s rise offered, while also giving much in return.7 At the back of this was the vital imperative of having good political relations with the rising great power and to give it a stake in the region and in Singapore’s prosperity and well being.

During Prime Minister Lee’s public interviews and dialogues in the US, Singapore’s relationship with China inevitably cropped up. He described Singapore’s relations with both the US and China as “very important.” He expressed Singapore’s desire to keep on working closely with China in the many areas of cooperation that exist and regarded China’s quest for greater influence as perfectly legitimate as its power grows. He supported China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as do many other countries in Asia, and thought that BRI was a good framework within which China could expand its influence constructively by helping to provide needed infrastructure and connectivity.

However, there was also a note of wariness. He wondered if a powerful China would also be a benign China, whether in the future “they will feel now that I am strong, let me show the world what I can do.”8 And the BRI, he said, should happen in such a way that the region’s external links with Europe, America and the rest of the world remain open and the region remains an open region. He did not think any of the countries in the region would want to give up those links.9

CONCLUSION

After the latest meeting between the leaders of Singapore and the US, bilateral ties remain strong, with extensive cooperation in many areas. Prime Minister Lee established a good working relationship with President Trump and key members of the new administration. There was mention in the joint statement that the two sides discussed how to carry the relationship further but no details were released. Judging from what has been said in public, more of the discussion in Washington seemed to focus on regional rather than bilateral issues.

About the author:
* Daljit Singh is Senior Research Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and Coordinator of the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme.

Source:
This article was published by ISEAS as ISEAS Perspective Issue: 2017 No. 85 (PDF)

Notes:
1. Commentary in South China Morning Post, 13 November 2016
2. While it is generally well known that China is Singapore’s biggest trading partner, less well known is the extent and depth of the Singapore-US economic relationship. The stock of US investments in Singapore, in both manufacturing and services in 2015, was US$ 243.307 billion, larger than the stock of any other single country in Singapore – larger than that of Japan (US$114.186 billion) and far larger than that of China (US$ 20.786 billion) in 2015. These US investments in Singapore provide a huge number of jobs to Singaporeans. Figures are difficult to obtain but Prime Minister Lee, without being specific, referred to “tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands” of jobs in his briefing to Singapore journalists at the end of his visit to the US. The US is also the third largest trading partner with Singapore, after China and Malaysia
3. The deal to buy 39 commercial air liners from Boeing Corporation, inked during the Prime Minister’s visit would, according to him, sustain 70,000 direct or indirect jobs for the company.
4. In the joint statement to the media delivered in Washington after the bilateral discussions, Prime Minister Lee noted that Singapore trains more than 1000 military personnel in the US annually, with the Singapore Air Force training in eight locations spread across continental US as well as Guam.
5. This has been evident from conversations and discussions with Chinese scholars with close links to party and government circles in China.
6. While this may not be stated in an open and blunt way by the Chinese, it is clear enough from remarks of Chinese think tank members linked to the Communist Party and government that it is the ultimate goal. President Xi Jinping has said that Asian security should be looked after by Asians. See also China’s White Paper on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, issued in January 2017.
7. Singapore is the largest investor in China. It helped China shift from a command economy to a more market-oriented one. Singapore has trained over 50,000 Chinese officials since the early 1990s. On 17 April 2010, speaking at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, China’s Vice- President Li Yuanchao said: “Out of all the destinations, where we send our leading officials to receive training, Singapore is our top choice because Singapore is the most sincere in helping China to develop”.
8. Prime Minister Lee’s dialogue with the Council on Foreign Relations, 25 October 2017.
9. Dialogue with Council on Foreign Relations

By Tomas Liutkus*

When Antonio Tajani, European Parliament President, visited Bulgaria earlier this week, the country’s political leadership was keen to project the image of unwavering commitment to the EU.

During the visit, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borissov even claimed that Bulgarians are among the least Eurosceptic in Eastern Europe. But as is the case with most things in the Balkans, the country’s position in the EU is not so clear-cut. As Russia is making increasingly assertive moves to spread its influence across Eastern Europe, whether Bulgaria will stand steadfast has become a matter of debate.

Over the years, surveys have revealed that Bulgarian public opinion toward the EU often hangs in a precarious balance. The most recent Eurobarometer of September 2017, for example, revealed that 55 percent of respondents had a positive image of the EU. Although this result is indicative of a mild upward trend compared to the previous year, such a razor thin margin hardly means that Sofia’s European path is set in stone.

Having always had one foot in the West and the other in the East, Bulgaria has been performing a particularly delicate balancing act between the EU and Russia. Incumbent President Rumen Radev has hedged his bets in both directions, positioning himself in favor of maintaining friendly relations with Russia, while repeatedly stressing his Euro-Atlantic inclinations. While this leaves his true stance on the EU ambiguous, foreign diplomats ultimately found it unlikely that Radev would avert Bulgaria’s pro-EU course.

However, times have become more complicated and the carefully maintained balance is at risk to come undone. With the EU going through its arguably most difficult time since its inception, and with US President Donald Trump eager for better ties with Moscow, the EU is rapidly losing its role as the anchor fastening Bulgaria to the West. Russia was quick to jump on this opportunity to turn Bulgaria – as well as other Eastern EU members – away from Brussels, and draw Sofia closer into its orbit.

At the same time, rising nationalism with strong anti-European currents is increasingly weakening Radev’s hand. There is little doubt that the flames of nationalism are stoked by Russia. Between 2013 and 2016, the number of Eurosceptic and anti-NATO/US publications per year increased 16-fold and 34-fold, respectively. Meanwhile, availability of Russia-friendly propaganda increased 144 times, giving Bulgaria’s media landscape a distinctly pro-Russian touch.

The effects of this subversive campaign were clearly felt in the 2017 parliamentary elections, where Bulgaria’s government came to include far-right nationalist parties for the first time. They are opposing sanctions against Russia and have threatened to topple the government if it supported retaliatory measures against Moscow. In the 2016 presidential race, Krasimir Karachakanov, running on a conservative platform of nationalism and Orthodoxism, came in third place. Coupled with Bulgaria’s sizable Russian population, his party remains a potential vehicle for Russia to induce a decidedly anti-Western tone in public debates.

Even if the elections ultimately saw Radev emerge victoriously, his room for strategic action against Russia is critically restrained: Bulgaria is highly vulnerable to Russian pressure, owing to the fact that Russian companies own the Bulgarian energy market. Gazprom is the only natural gas player in the country, and controls the infrastructure to deliver half of the country’s gas resources. Lukoil is similarly positioned in fuel production and distribution, owning the only oil refinery and 50% of the wholesale fuel market.

Not only is Bulgaria’s energy security already shaky, but the problem could get worse. Moscow’s recently offered to provide the necessary funding for the modernization of Bulgaria’s energy sector. If this ambition came to pass, Russia would succeed in firmly entrenching itself further and pose an energy threat to Europe at large. Russia’s sway over the industry could see it potentially repeat the 2009 gas cut-off in Bulgaria and in Southeastern European countries depending on Bulgarian supply.

However, this is precisely where Brussels has the chance to step in and loosen Moscow’s chokehold. Through its Energy Union instrument, designed to improve the EU’s energy security through supply diversification, it possesses a potent means to counter Russian investments with European ones. The EU’s support and guidance is definitely needed to offset Bulgaria’s structural energy problems, including delays in building critical energy infrastructure – a gap Russia is only too eager to fill. As an added benefit, the Energy Union adds legal weight to the push-back on Russian energy firms like Gazprom, which the EU is investigating for abusing its market position by charging excessively high gas prices in Bulgaria.

More positive engagement with Bulgaria through the Energy Union could help reduce shortfalls in other areas crucial for reducing dependence on Russia, especially as the regulatory environment and trustworthiness of the authorities are concerned. Arbitrary enforcement of the rule of law is constantly cited as a primary reasons by investors to avoid the country. A clear commitment to help Bulgaria tackle its problems through the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CMV) would go a long way to encourage reforms that make the Bulgarian market more attractive to Western investors.

And that cooperation with the Energy Union yields positive results is more than wishful thinking. Lithuania managed to overcome its crippling dependency on Russian energy by diversifying its supply with the EU’s help. It began importing Scandinavian gas in 2014, opened an LNG terminal in Klaipėda, and inaugurated an electric grid link with Poland and Sweden in 2016. In fact, the EU’s engagement has already reduced Bulgaria’s reliance on Russia as well, as the Energy Union is slowly undermining the monopoly of Russian energy companies.

The EU has a chance to shine by providing positive examples of its actions in the country and thereby counter Russia’s battle for Bulgarian’s minds. Though closer engagement through the Energy Union and the CMV can only be a part in a broader strategy of improving conditions in Bulgaria, they are important steps in increasing economic and social opportunities through Western participation, rather than Russia’s.

About the author:
*Tomas Liutkus is an EU affairs consultant based out of Brussels, specialised in evaluation and performance audits.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Tony Balasevicius*

Introduction

In February 2014, anti-government protesters toppled the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych. Shortly thereafter, pro-Russian separatists began seizing infrastructure in Crimea while systematically occupying territory in the eastern part of the Ukraine. As it would later be revealed, many of these supposed separatists were, in fact, highly trained Russian Special Forces personnel wearing no insignia, the so-called “Little Green Men.” The precision with which these operations were carried out shocked many Western analysts. Not only for the speed at which events unfolded, but also for the efficiency with which the Russians were able to coordinate and execute the numerous operations they had in play.1

What was remarkable about the annexation of Crimea and subsequent fighting in Eastern Ukraine was the fact that Russia’s conventional military forces, which traditionally lead such operations, played only a supporting role. Even Russia’s high-profile Special Forces, which organized much of the resistance, secured key infrastructure, and established many of the checkpoints that sprang up throughout the peninsula, were not the decisive element in this conflict. In the end, it was the extensive and well-coordinated use of intelligence, psychological warfare, intimidation, bribery, and internet/media propaganda that undermined and eventually collapsed Ukrainian resistance.2 The end result was a clear and overwhelming victory achieved by what some are referring to as Russia’s “New Generation Warfare.”3

In adopting “New Generation Warfare” as a doctrine, the Russians have embraced hybrid warfare as a strategic tool. In the process, they have shifted the focus of conflict away from operational level conventional military campaigns and into the strategic realm. In so doing, they have redefined the concept of the battlefield and re-established the importance of national level strategic planning and coordination.

Russia’s success with “New Generation Warfare” means that they will likely continue refining and using this doctrine to achieve their strategic aims. With Canada ready to deploy a battle group into Latvia as part of NATO’s 5,000-strong rapid reaction force, it will need to understand how this doctrine works, and what its impacts may be. This article will look at the basic components of Russia’s “New Generation Warfare” and provide an overview of its underlying philosophy. However, in order to do this, it is important to first examine and understand the theory of hybrid warfare, and how it seeks to defeat an opponent.

Frank Hoffman and the Western Concept of Hybrid Wars

The Western view of hybrid warfare has been heavily influenced by Frank Hoffman, a Research Fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.4 In a 2007 monograph entitled Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, Hoffman laid out the key principles that have come to define Western perceptions of hybrid war. In this work, he defined hybrid wars as incorporating “…a range of different modes of warfare including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorism acts, including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder.”5 He described this form of warfare as blurring the lines between different types of conflict, those who fight them, and the technologies that are used.6 In this respect, Hoffman saw the world entering a period when multiple types of warfare would be used simultaneously by flexible and sophisticated adversaries.7

Hoffman believed: “The future does not portend a suite of distinct challenges with alternative or different methods but their convergence into multi-modal or Hybrid Wars.”8 He emphasized that units operating in such an environment would be hybrid in both form and application. As an example, he pointed out that future conflict would include hybrid organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, employing a diverse set of capabilities. Additionally, he envisioned states shifting their conventional units, to irregular formations, and adopting new tactics, as the Iraqi Fedayeen did in 2003.9 Hoffman also highlighted the fact that although these activities could be carried out by the same, or separate units, they would usually be operationally and tactically coordinated within the main battlespace by one headquarters to achieve synergistic effects.10

One of Hoffman’s most critical observations pertained to how hybrid wars would function in terms of the interaction between regular and irregular elements. He revealed that historically, many wars had seen both regular and irregular elements fighting; however, these elements traditionally operated in different theaters and/or in different formations. He hypothesized that in the future, this may no longer be the case. In fact, he declared that it would not be unusual for the irregular element to become operationally decisive, rather than just being relegated to the traditional role of a secondary player.11

Hoffman’s ideas regarding the simultaneous use of multiple forms of warfare, the employment of state level hybrid war, hierarchical political structures employing decentralized cells, and the emergence of the irregular element as a decisive, or at least, an equal partner in conflict have all played out in Russia’s “New Generation Warfare” doctrine. Yet, these ideas are rooted at the tactical and operational level, and alone, they do not fully explain the efficiency or success of recent Russian operations.12 To better understand Russian achievements with its hybrid warfare model, it is important to understand how those activities were coordinated at the strategic level as part of a well-developed doctrine focused upon achieving a single political objective. In seeking to better appreciate this aspect of Russian operations, it may be beneficial to examine the Chinese view on this subject.13

China’s View of Unrestricted Warfare

Traditionally, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) relied on a “Peoples War” doctrine, along with an emphasis upon numerical conventional force advantage to offset the technical superiority of its perceived opponents. However, as it started looking at power projection capabilities in the 1980s, the Chinese realized they needed to modernize both their force structure and doctrine.14 The stunning victory of the American-led coalition in the first Gulf War against Iraq gave the Chinese an opportunity to study best practices in modern military operations. From the PLA perspective, the conflict demonstrated that the balance in warfare had shifted heavily in favor of smaller, high technology forces.15

They were particularly impressed with the American use of new technologies, such as networked computers, precision-guided munitions, Global Positioning System (GPS), global telecommunications, and unmanned aerial vehicles.16 They realized that these capabilities gave the Americans an unprecedented degree of information about the opposing forces, and they believed this played a vital role in their subsequent destruction. As a result, PLA analysts started seeking ways to overcome this informational advantage.17

The result was a two-step process. First, the PLA embarked upon a program to become more technologically enabled by acquiring advanced equipment and weapon systems. However, they also looked at options to mitigate the advantages given to a high technology enemy.18 Part of this later effort bore fruit in February 1999, when two PLA Air Force colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, published a book entitled Unrestricted Warfare.

The thesis of their work was based upon the idea that there was little value in directly confronting American operational excellence on the battlefield. As a result, the focus of conflict needed to move away from conventional warfare. They argued this could be done by broadening the idea of conflict to include the various elements of national power. The authors reasoned that advances in technology and weapons, globalization, and the diffusion of state power had combined to create the needed conditions for this new form of warfare.19 Moreover, they suggested that those involved in the planning and conduct of warfare had generally viewed the non-military domains as little more than accessories that serve military requirements. As a result, the development of the modern battlefield, as well as possible changes in strategy and tactics, had been limited to that one domain.20

The authors understood that developing a strategy involving a number of different domains would require integrating a complex mix of information and resources. This process would start with producing a detailed knowledge of the strengths and limitations of one’s own national security capabilities. Armed with this information, a country would be able to superimpose “political and military factors on the economy, culture, foreign relations, technology, environment, natural resources, nationalities, and other parameters to draw out an ‘extended domain’”21 Once the strategic requirements (resources) were in place for this “extended domain,” a nation would be able to create the battlefield of battlefields.

In theory, the creation of the battlefield of battlefields would allow one to reduce the impact of superiority in one (military) battlefield by forcing an opponent to deal with many battlefields simultaneously.22 They termed the synthesis of these ideas “modified combined war that goes beyond limits.”23 A key pillar of this concept is to exploit the benefits of “combinations” in types of organizations and among the various domains of national power.24

In this respect, the authors reasoned that the key to victory on the battlefield of battlefields was understanding and coordinating the effective use of four specific types of combinations: Supra-National Combinations (combining national, international, and non-state organizations to a country’s benefit), Supra-Domain Combinations (combining battlefields and choosing the main domain), Supra-Means Combinations (combining all available means, military and non-military, to carry out operations), and Supra-Tier Combinations (combining all levels of conflict into each campaign).25

Integrated within the idea of combinations was the use of eight principles that they outlined as follows:

• Omni-directionality;
• Synchrony;
• Limited Objectives;
• Unlimited Measures;
• Asymmetry;
• Minimal Consumption;
• Multi-dimensional Coordination; and
• Adjustment and Control of the Entire Process.

Three of these principles are of special interest to the West in attempting to understand state level hybrid warfare. These include Omni-directionality, Synchrony, and Asymmetry.26

Omni-directionality – “is the starting point of ‘unrestricted war’ ideology and is a cover for this ideology…, there is no longer any distinction between what is or is not the battlefield. Spaces in nature including the ground, the seas, the air, and outer space are battlefields, but social spaces such as the military, politics, economics, culture, and the psyche are also battlefields. And the technological space linking these two great spaces is even more so the battlefield over which all antagonists spare no effort in contending. Warfare can be military, or it can be quasi-military, or it can be non-military. It can use violence, or it can be non-violent.”27

Synchrony – [is about] “Conducting actions in different spaces within the same period of time… So many objectives which in the past had to be accomplished in stages through an accumulation of battles and campaigns may now be accomplished quickly under conditions of simultaneous occurrence, simultaneous action, and simultaneous completion. Thus, stress on ‘synchrony’ in combat operations now exceeds the stress on phasing.” 28

Asymmetry –“…No matter whether it serves as a line of thought or as a principle guiding combat operations, asymmetry manifests itself to some extent in every aspect of warfare. Understanding and employing the principle of asymmetry correctly allows us always to find and exploit an enemy’s soft spots. The main fighting elements of some poor countries, weak countries, and non-state entities have all used ‘mouse toying with the cat’-type asymmetrical combat methods against much more powerful adversaries… Instead, the weaker side has contended with its adversary by using guerrilla war (mainly urban guerrilla war), terrorist war, holy war, protracted war, network war, and other) forms of combat.”29

The fundamental precept derived from the idea of combinations used within the context of these principles is that there is no longer a distinction between what is or is not a battlefield. Along with the traditional battlefields normally associated with military operations (Air, Land, Sea, Cyber, and Space) everything from politics, economics, culture, to the national psyche may now become a possible battlefield. The key feature of this type of warfare is the ability to conduct, coordinate, and synchronize actions within these different battlespaces, which potentially can, and in many instances should occur at the same time.30

The authors theorized that throughout history, military victories “…display a common phenomenon: the winner was the one who could combine well.”31 To highlight the idea of combining activities within multiple battlefields they introduced the concept of ‘simultaneously,’ and emphasized that it would play an increasingly important role in future operations.32 They reasoned that if a state could achieve a single full-depth, synchronized action across all battlefields, the paralysis caused to the enemy could be sufficient to decide the outcome of an entire war.33 The authors provide an example of how such an operation might unfold as it links into the concept of combinations:

…by using the combination method, a completely different scenario and game can occur: if the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent’s computer system in an attacking nation advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis. There is finally the forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty.34

In their analysis, Liang and Xiangsui suggested that preparation for and specific activities related to this form of conflict would likely occur well before the start of a formal declaration of war. Moreover, they saw the center of gravity focused upon creating social panic, leading to a political crisis. Once the crisis had developed sufficiently, conventional military force could be applied, but only to the extent necessary to achieve victory.

In developing this asymmetric approach, the authors concluded that asymmetry, which is at the heart of this type of warfare, should be used to find and exploit an enemy’s soft spots. They asserted that poor countries, weak countries, and non-state entities have all used some type of asymmetrical combat methods against much more powerful adversaries as a means to level the playing field. This means that when a country faces a technologically superior enemy, the key to success lies in moving the fight from pure military operations to a much broader interpretation of warfare, namely, one that includes Financial Warfare, Cultural Warfare, Media Warfare, Technological Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Network warfare, to name a few.35

By using such methods, a nation or non-state entity could minimize the impact of technological superiority and the associated increase in combat power that such advantages provide to a conventional military force. In so doing, a nation would make the enemy fight one’s own type of war, which, if done correctly, would occur on a number of different and more complex battlefields than has previously been the case. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what the Russians are now doing in Eastern Europe.

How much the Russians have been influenced by Chinese thinking on the subject of hybrid warfare is difficult to ascertain. It is clear that many of the key concepts underlining Unrestricted Warfare’s philosophy, particularly the ideas of coordination, synchrony, the ‘battlefield of battlefields,’ creating social panic leading to political crisis, and the judicious application of military force, have all been displayed in recent operations undertaken by the Russians. Also, much of this philosophy has been articulated in public statements by senior officials on how the Russians view the future of conflict within the context of “New Generation Warfare.”

Russia’s Doctrine of “New Generation Warfare” and the Future of Warfare36

The Russian concept of “New Generation Warfare” was first introduced to the public in a paper published by General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, in February 2013.37 In it, Gerasimov laid out a number of key principles behind Russia’s thinking on the employment of modern/hybrid warfare. The first principle revealed was the idea that the world is now in a continual state of conflict. He asserts, “…in the 21st Century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace.” He explains that the conduct of wars has changed as they are no longer declared and, having begun, they move in different and unfamiliar directions.38 He extrapolates on this statement by saying: “This unfamiliar template refers to asymmetrical operations using a host of [strategic] capabilities to ‘nullification of an enemy’s advantages in armed conflict.’ ”39

Gerasimov believes that the specific capabilities needed to affect change will include the use of Special Forces linking up with internal opposition groups throughout the target country to create an operational front that extends throughout the entire depth of the enemy’s territory. These actions will be combined with information operations, cyber warfare, legal warfare, economic war, and any other activities that are directly linked to the designated strategic outcome. He points out that the entirety of these activities would be initially selected, but constantly modified to meet the specific needs of a changing situation.40

The Russians deem that such methods, employed and sequenced properly, can, in a very short period of time, throw a stable and thriving state into a web of chaos, humanitarian upheaval, and outright civil war, making it susceptible to foreign intervention.41 Although Gerasimov acknowledges that such events were not traditionally part of what would be considered wartime activities, he believes that they will now become typical of conflict in the 21st Century.

The idea of collapsing a state onto itself through social upheaval, even before a declaration of war, is an important part of “New Generation Warfare’s” underlying methodology. In this respect, Gerasimov postulates: “The very ‘rules of war’ have changed…[as] the focus of applied methods of conflict has altered in the direction of the broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other non-military measures—applied in coordination with the protest potential of the population.”42 The example he uses to illustrate his point is NATO’s role in Libya, where a no-fly zone and naval blockade were combined with the use of private military contractors working closely with the armed formations of the opposition.43

Gerasimov also comprehends that new information technologies have allowed much of this change to occur. As a result, the information space has opened the door to the widespread use of asymmetrical possibilities for reducing the fighting potential of the enemy, particularly through the use of influence operations.44

Jānis Bērziņš, Managing Director for the Center for Security and Strategic Research at the National Defense Academy of Latvia, emphasizes this point. He asserts: “The Russians have placed the idea of influence operations at the very center of their operational planning and used all possible levers of national power to achieve this.”45 He adds: “These levers include skillful internal communications, deception operations, psychological operations, and well-constructed external communications.”46 Bērziņš explains that the Russians “…have demonstrated an innate understanding of the key target audiences and their probable behavior… Armed with this information they knew what to do, when and what the outcomes are likely to be.”47

The Russians feel that these changes in the conduct of conflict have reduced the importance of frontal engagements by large conventional military formations, which they believe are gradually becoming a thing of the past. This belief is due to the fact that even if conventional operations are required to finish off the enemy, this would be done primarily by using stand-off operations (i.e., indirect and/or precision fires), throughout the entire depth of its territory.48 The Russians perceive this shift towards irregular war and stand-off operations is blurring the lines between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels, as well as between offensive and defensive operations.49

These ideas of future conflict have been formally articulated into what has become known as the eight phases of “New Generation Warfare.” These phases provide a good template for understanding how the Russians could conduct a state-level hybrid war. They are as follows:

First Phase: deals with non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup);

Second Phase: special [specific] operations are used to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies. This is done by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions;

Third Phase: is focused on intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their service duties;

Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population. This is boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion;

Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units;

Sixth Phase: This phase deals with the commencement of military action, which is immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. This includes all types, forms, methods and forces, such as special operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, secret service intelligence, and industrial espionage;

Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operations, electronic warfare operations, aerospace operations, continuous air force harassment, combined with the use of high precision weapons launched from various platforms, including (long-range artillery, and weapons that are based on new physical principles, such as microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons); and

Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived, and transmit their coordinates to the attacker’s missile and artillery units; fire barrages are used to annihilate the defender’s resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by ground troops.50

Each of these phases can occur in sequence or simultaneously, depending upon the specific situation. According to Gerasimov, this new doctrine manifests itself in the use of asymmetric and indirect methods, along with the management of troops in a unified informational sphere.51 Should the conflict escalate, these activities would be followed by the massive use of high-precision weapons, special operations forces, and robotics. If necessary, the next step would involve simultaneous strikes on an enemy’s units and facilities, as well as battle on land, air, sea, and in the informational space.52

Strategic Thinking and the Coordination of State Tools

Notwithstanding the fact that there appears to be a number of similarities between Unrestricted Warfare’s philosophy and that of “New Generation Warfare” doctrine, it is clear that the Russians have taken significant steps towards creating the ‘battlefield of battlefields.’ Blurring the lines between strategic, operational, and tactical level operations while maintaining a unified informational sphere is almost impossible without the ability to conduct and coordinate the various events within the different battlespaces in a strategically effective manner. In fact, some believe that it’s this ability to synchronize that has constituted the biggest change in recent Russian operations. Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies (IFS), states: “Experts have focused on the military novelties in the Russian approach—the use of asymmetric, covert, and otherwise innovative military tools. However, the real novelty in Crimea was not how Russia used its armed might (in terms of new military doctrine), but rather how it combined the use of military with state tools.”53

It is this innovative integration and coordination of military and state tools that has allowed the Russians to seamlessly transition from peace to conflict. Importantly, if not significantly, very few international players understood what was actually occurring until it was almost all over.54 Ven Bruusgaard believes that this ability to coordinate has been the key to Russian success so far. She states: “Since Putin came to power, there has been increased academic and policy debate on the coordinated use of state tools to reach formulated goals. This awareness has led to a large-scale formulation of strategies on how to pursue policy goals, and, most recently, to bureaucratic changes that have likely improved Russia’s ability to use its policy tools in an integrated manner.”55

One of the more important of these bureaucratic changes has been the creation of the National Defense Coordination Center (NDCC), which reached initial operating capability in December 2014. The center has the task of coordinating 52 federal executive authorities and three state-owned corporations engaged in Russia’s defence. This includes the armed forces, the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, and the Emergencies Ministry.56 One could argue that the concept of the NDCC goes back to the Chinese idea of creating the “extended domain,” by integrating information that superimposes national interests and national security requirements onto the larger strategic situation map. If this is the case, it means that the Russians can now create and simultaneously coordinate their version of the ‘battlefield of battlefields.’57 More concerning is that they have changed the rules of the conflict game.

Conclusion

Russia’s adoption and employment of “New Generation Warfare” has validated key theories of hybrid warfare. Operations in Ukraine have shown that the Russians have skillfully moved the center of gravity for conflict from the operational level, where conventional military forces play a predominant role, into the strategic realm, where the integration of strategic planning and the coordination of state tools becomes the critical denominator.

The devastating effectiveness of this form of warfare can be seen within NATO today. More than two years after the annexation of Crimea, the alliance has still not developed a coherent strategy to counter Russia’s hybrid war activities in Ukraine. This inaction has created concern among some NATO members with respect to the Alliance’s resolve to protect, while others have openly questioned its ability to stand up to the Russians.

Russia’s success with “New Generation Warfare” means that they will continue refining and using this doctrine to achieve its strategic aims. Moreover, as time goes on, they will only become more effective as experience creates sophistication of both process and reaction. If Canada wishes to counter this type of warfare, it needs to understand what it seeks to achieve and how it is capable of accomplishing its goals. More importantly, it needs to develop an effective strategy to counter its multi-faceted capabilities. In this respect, we can no longer rely upon employing conventional solutions to unconventional problems, as we have done in the past.

About the author:
*Major Tony Balasevicius, CD, an experienced infantry officer, retired from the Canadian Forces in 2013. He currently serves as a Reserve Infantry Officer working in the Concept Group at the Canadian Army Warfare Centre in Kingston.

Source:
This article was published by the Canadian Military Journal, Volume 17, Number 3, Page 17.

Notes:

1. Jānis Bērziņš, Russia’s New Generation Warfare in Ukraine: Implications for Latvian Defense Policy (National Defense Academy of Latvia, Center for Security and Strategic Research; Policy Paper 2, 6 April 2014), p. 4. Note: Most of the troops involved in the operation comprised of naval infantry, airborne, and Spetsnaz commandos.
2. Ibid.
3. Note: “New Generation Warfare” has also been referred to as the Gerasimov Doctrine of Ambiguous Warfare, hybrid war,” “next generation warfare,” and “non-linear warfare.”
4. Francis G. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars. (Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007), p. 28, at http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/HybridWar_0108.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2015. Note: At the time he wrote the paper, Hoffman was an employee of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and working for the Marines.
5. Ibid, p. 29. Note: Over the years, he has modified this initial definition.
6. Ibid, p. 14.
7. Ibid, p. 28.
8. Ibid. Note: Hoffman states: “In such conflicts, future adversaries (state, state-sponsored groups, or self-funded actors) will exploit access to modern military capabilities including encrypted command systems, man-portable air to surface missiles, and other modern lethal systems, as well as promote protracted insurgencies that employ ambushes, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and coercive assassinations. This could include states blending high-tech capabilities, like anti-satellite weapons, with terrorism and cyber-warfare directed against financial targets.”
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid, p. 14.
11. Ibid, p. 29. Note: Hoffman stated that normally these units would be used to prolong the conflict, provoke overreactions, or siphon off resources from the enemy.
12. Dr. J. Paul de B. Taillon, Russian Strategic Methodology in the Ukraine Crisis: Back to the Future, http://mackenzieinstitute.com/russian-strategic-methodology-ukraine-crisis-back-future/. Accessed 7 August 2016. Note: Some analysts have concluded that Russian actions are little more than a variation on traditional Soviet approaches. Historically, such approaches have included the use of subversion, destabilization, and other ‘active measures’ along with the employment of Special Forces and proxies to achieve the desired political results. Dr. Taillon states, “The art of POLWAR was for the most part forgotten in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union. Known by its Soviet/Russian proponents and practitioners as “active measures” (aktivinyye meropriatia), it was employed extensively throughout the Cold War. The Soviet Union employed active measures as a means to change political situations to their advantage by utilizing conspiracy theories, disinformation, and propaganda to discredit and undermine the reputation of their targeted adversary. In some cases, they employed targeted terrorism and violence orchestrated by intelligence agents, saboteurs, and special operators attempting to change world events by using violent means.”
13. Keir Giles, Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West Continuity and Innovation in Moscow’s Exercise of Power, (Russia and Eurasia Programme, 21 March 2016), p. 2, at https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/publications/research/2016-03-21-russias-new-tools-giles.pdf. Accessed 14 June 2016.
14. Xiabing Li. A History of the Modern Chinese Army, (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, June 2007), p. 271.
15. Dean Cheng, Chinese Lessons From The Gulf Wars, found in Chinese Lessons from Other Peoples’ Wars, Andrew Scobell, David Lai, and Roy Kamphausen (Eds.),(Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2011), p. 159.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Dean Cheng “Unrestricted Warfare: Review Essay II” (Small Wars & Insurgencies, Spring 2000), p. 123, at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592310008423266?journalCode=fswi20&. Accessed 3 May 2015.
20. Ibid, p. 189.
21. Ibid, p.118. Note: This superimposes both national interests and national security requirements onto the larger strategic situation map.
22. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999), at http://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2015.
23. Ibid, p. 181.
24. Ibid.
25. Major John A. Van Messel, USMC Unrestricted Warfare: A Chinese doctrine for future warfare? At http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a509132.pdf, p. 7. Note: the author provides a good overview of both the combinations and principles.
26. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, p. 206.
27. Ibid, p. 207.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid, pp. 206-209.
30. Ibid, p. 208.
31. Ibid, p. 140. Note: By “combined well,” the authors meant that the winner was able to coordinate and synchronize the different forces they had available to them to enable victory.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid, p. 208.
34. Ibid, pp. 145-146.
35. Ibid, pp. 38-43.
36. Note: This section was originally published by the Mackenzie institute. Tony Balasevicius, Russia’s “New Generation War” and Its Implications for the Arctic, at http://mackenzieinstitute.com/russias-new-generation-war-implications-arctic/#reference-3. Accessed 24 July 2016.
37. Mark Galeotti, The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and Russian Non-Linear War, (blog in Moscow’s shadows), posted on line at https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/07/06. Accessed 1 May 2015. Note: The-Gerasimov-doctrine-and-Russian-non-linear-war, first appeared in the Federation Military-Industrial Kurier, 27 February 2013. Accessed 10 May 2015. Note: Many authorities on Russia believe that the article may have been written by someone else. Also, the same briefing was presented by the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Army General Valeriy Gerasimov, in January 2013 at the Russian Academy of Military Sciences’ annual meeting; key elements of the Gerasimov Doctrine have since been integrated into the new edition of the Russian Military Doctrine, as approved in December 2014.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid. Note: It should be noted that this is the underlying theme of Unrestricted Warfare.
40. Ibid. Note: This is the development of the ‘battlefield of battlefields.’
41. Col. S.G. Chekinov (Res.), Lt. Gen. S.A. Bogdanov (Ret.), The Nature and Content of a New-Generation War (Military Thought: A Russian Journal of Military Theory and Strategy), p. 13. Published on-line at http://www.eastviewpress.com/Files/
    MT_FROM%20THE%20CURRENT%20ISSUE_No.4_2013.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2015.
42. Ibid.
43. Galeotti.
44. Ibid.
45. Bērziņš, p. 6.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Chekinov and Bogdanov. p. 13.
49. Galeotti.
50. Tchekinov and Bogdanov, as quoted in Jānis Bērziņš, “Russia’s New Generation Warfare in Ukraine: Implications for Latvian Defense Policy,” Policy Paper 2, Center for Security and Strategic Research, National Defence Academy of Latvia, 6 April 2014.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Bruusgaard, Kristin Ven. 2014. “Crimea and Russia’s Strategic Overhaul,” in Parameters, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 81–90, at http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/issues/Autumn_2014/
    11_BruusgaardKristin_Crimea%20and%20Russia’s%20Strategic%20Overhaul.pdf. Accessed 15 June 2015.
54. Ibid, p. 89.
55. Ibid, p. 86.
56. What Is the Russia’s National Defense Control Center? How It Works? at https://southfront.org/russias-national-defense-control-center-works/. Accessed 1 September 2016. Note: Originally appeared at Rusplt, translated by Mikhail Alexandrovich exclusively for SouthFront.
57. Ibid, p. 118.

The High Court of Lahore ordered the release of Hafiz Saeed, pointed out as one of Mumbai’s 2008 attacks masterminds. The Laishkar-e-Taiba (LeT) co-founder and chief of militant group Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) was under house arrest since January. The news has spread with a mix of reactions: while the US and India expressed their disapproval of the Court’s decision, Pakistan remained silent over international protests.

The freedom of Hafiz Saeed, if not reverted, may have two serious implications for South Asia’s complex security environment: a) his leadership might motivate new attacks against Indian forces and/or territory; and b) the connivance of Islamabad and its Intelligence Agency with Pakistan-based terror groups undermines any commitments made regarding the Afghan conflict, turning the new strategy unveiled by U.S President, Donald Trump, ineffective.

As aforementioned, Hafiz Saeed is one of the founders of LeT and JuD. Both groups claim to have a convergent goal: to liberate Kashmir through jihadism from Indian administration and create a South Asian caliphate based on Salafi  ideals. Saeed himself has claimed in several occasions that jihad is the only way towards unifying Kashmir to the rest of Pakistan. Having India as their main enemy, both groups were held responsible for the major attacks against Indian territory in the last decades: the massacre of Pandits in Kashmir (1998), the Red Fort attack in Delhi (2000), the Parliament attack (2001), the Mumbai train bombings (2006) and the Mumbai attacks of 2008, to mention a few.

While the LeT works as an armed insurgency, the JuD has then and again acted as its political speaker – in August this year, it even declared that it would create a new political party in Pakistan. And whereas Saeed’s involvement as the mastermind of previously mentioned attacks is frequently pointed out, Islamabad has done little to contain his actions and influence over the Taliban’s ramifications. With his release and his recent speeches reinforcing the need for an armed militancy, it is expected that both LeT and JuD – and its coming political party – gain a new momentum, posing a major danger to South Asia’s security environment.

Second, although LeT and Jud have as a primary goal the unification of Kashmir and its liberation from the Indian administration, both groups have significant influence over the course of Afghanistan’s conflict. It has been known for some time that Pakistan-based groups offer military training and safe havens to the Afghan Taliban, making it difficult to achieve any real progress in America’s longest war. There can be no solution for Afghanistan’s conundrum without including Pakistan and its role in supporting regional insurgent groups. In July of 2016, Afghan officials blamed him for managing the activities of ISIS in Afghanistan and urged the Pakistani authorities to take measures against him.

One year later, Donald Trump outlined a “new” strategy for the US in Afghanistan, mentioning the facilities given by Pakistan to jihadists and calling for tougher actions against the Taliban in South Asia. Last month, after the threatening undertone, the US demonstrated interest in resuming talks in a more tempered way after Islamabad claimed to be committed to cooperating on counterterrorism issues. These efforts have been put at stake after Saeed’s release, showing that Pakistan’s stance will barely change without further pressure. It also undermines Trump’s strategy itself, as LeT and JuD will most likely keep on protecting and supporting the Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan.

The international community should watch closely the recent political context of Pakistan since Nawaz Sharif was ousted, as it affects directly the South Asian security environment, including the Afghan conflict. The recent events show how the Army, alongside with groups headed by Hafiz Saeed, are gradually enhancing their political influence – and subsequently, impacting the way the government deals with jihadist groups. The risks are even higher when one takes into account Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities: providing the insurgents a political room eases their access to these weapons. The release of Hafiz Saeed is yet another symptom of domestic institutional fragility which, in turn, endangers India’s regional security and also stalls any progress made by the efforts of Western coalition in Afghanistan.

*Luciane Noronha M. de Oliveira, Master of Arts in Maritime Studies and Fellow of South Asian Affairs of the Brazilian Naval War College. Luciane562@hotmail.com.

(RFE/RL) — The leader of Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has said that it is time for him to step aside.

“There was a time when people like me were needed to fight, to establish order,” Kadyrov said in an interview with public broadcaster Rossiya 1 thta was aired on November 26. “Now we have order.”

Kadyrov, 41, said his successor would be the prerogative of the Kremlin, adding that there were “several people who can do this job perfectly.”

Kadyrov did not state that he was resigning, and there was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.

Kadyrov has said before that it was time for him to be replaced as leader of Chechnya.

In February 2007, once Kadyrov had reached the minimum age of 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin nominated him as president of Chechnya. He won a new five-year term in September 2016.

Rights groups and critics have long accused blamed Kadyrov and his paramilitary forces for serious rights abuses, including the widespread use of kidnapping, torture, and extrajudicial murders. He recently faced international condemnation over reports of a crackdown on homosexuals.

The Chechen leader denies the charges.

Kadyrov also said in the interview that he was “more than certain” of the innocence of five men from Chechnya convicted in the 2015 murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.

“According to my information, these guys are totally innocent,” he said, adding that “someone needed to close the case, someone needed to state that the perpetrators were found.”

He did not elaborate.

Nemtsov, a reformist former first deputy prime minister who was a vocal critic of Putin and Kadyrov, was shot from behind on a bridge just outside the Kremlin in February 2015.

In July, a Moscow court sentenced the convicted triggerman, Zaur Dadayev, and four accomplices to prison terms ranging from 11 to 20 years.

Nemtsov’s relatives and associates believe that his killing was ordered at a higher level.

A meeting of the defense ministers of a Saudi-led anti-terrorism alliance of Muslim countries kicked off in Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday.

Held under the theme “Allied Against Terrorism”, the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) meeting was opened by Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohamed bin Salman.

Addressing the meeting, bin Salman said Muslim countries lacked coordination on fighting terrorist organizations over past years.

“This lack of coordination is now over by forming this coalition,” he said. “More than 40 countries send a strong message that they will work together and coordinate vigorously with a view to enhancing their [anti-terrorism] efforts.”

He vowed to stop terrorist groups from distorting the true image of Islam and its values.

“We will not allow [terrorist groups] to continue their effort to tarnish the peaceful Islamic region and terrorize innocents in Islamic countries,” he said.

The Saudi Crown Prince offered condolences to Egypt over a deadly mosque attack in the Sinai Peninsula on Friday, in which 305 people were killed and scores injured.

Sunday’s meeting is expected to discuss means of fighting terrorism and drying up its finances.

Qatar was not invited to the meeting

In June, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism, a claim vehemently denied by the Gulf state.

The 40-member anti-terrorism coalition was launched by Saudi Arabia in late 2015 with a view to fighting terrorism. It includes countries as Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and Egypt.

A declaration issued by a recent Arab-U.S.-Islamic summit in Riyadh in May unveiled that the alliance member states were ready to deploy 34,000 troops with a view to supporting operations against terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.

Original source

Dozens of police departments across the US are using special devices to track suspects without warrants. However, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers also capture data from regular people on the street.

The technology, which was developed for the military, mimics cell phone towers and tricks phones into routing signals through them. This allows police to a track suspect’s location. The machines even allow police to get the location of a phone without the user making a call or sending a text. The most common of these devices is called a “StingRay.”

Such devices can also collect the phone numbers a person has been calling and texting and even intercept the content of communications.

At least 72 state and local law enforcement departments in 24 states and 13 federal agencies use the devices, according to a new report from AP. The report notes that further details are hard to come by because the departments that use IMSI catchers must take the unusual step of signing non-disclosure agreements overseen by the FBI.

An FBI spokeswoman told the news agency that the agreements, which regularly involve the defense contractor that makes the machines, are intended to prevent the release of sensitive law enforcement information to the general public. Last year, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report that found the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security had spent a combined $95 million on 434 cell-site simulators between 2010 and 2014.

Civil liberties unions such as the NYCLU say the devices are extremely invasive because they operate in such a wide range, around two city blocks, that they don’t just grab up the target’s data but also information from other people in the area.

Law enforcement agencies have also gone to great lengths to conceal StingRay usage, in some instances even offering plea deals rather than divulging details on the machine.

In several states, courts are beginning to grapple with the issue. Earlier this month, a Brooklyn judge ruled that the police need an eavesdropping warrant to use a StingRay. In September, a federal court ruled use of the device without a warrant violated the US Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment.

By Ghazanfar Ali Khan

Defense ministers of the 41-nation Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) reaffirmed the importance of the military role in combating terrorism, and agreed to boost military capabilities as well as coordination to dismantle terrorist organizations.

The IMCTC defense ministers, in their maiden meeting here on Sunday, also agreed to step up cooperation to cut off financial support to terror outfits.

“The defense ministers emphasized the importance of providing necessary military capabilities to ensure that terrorist organizations are weakened, dismantled, eliminated and deprived of the opportunity to reorganize,” said a final declaration released by the IMCTC Ministers of Defense Council, here on Sunday. The declaration also “stressed the importance of the military role in combating terrorism, enhancing security and peace in the coalition member countries and contributing to regional and international security and peace.”

The final declaration, released after the meeting of the Ministers of Defense Council, also formally announced the launch of the IMCTC. The ministers expressed their deep appreciation for the efforts of the Kingdom in forming the coalition, and for hosting the inaugural meeting of the IMCTC ministers of defense.

The defense ministers also expressed their gratitude to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for presiding over the meeting and managing its proceedings.

Referring to the deliberations at the meeting, the declaration said: “Terrorism has become deadlier than ever before, particularly in our Islamic world, which suffers from the crimes of terrorism, inflicting heavy losses in property and lives, and has shattered the dreams of broad sectors of societies trying to live in peace and tranquility.”

The defense ministers called for combating extremism and terrorism in ideology domain, and reaffirmed their determination “to work with every possible means to confront extremism and terrorism, in all their ideological notions and perceptions, to reveal their truth.”

“The ministers renewed their determination to address terrorism through education and knowledge, to highlight correct Islamic concepts, and to establish the truth of moderate Islam, which is consistent with human nature and common values,” said the statement.

On the working mechanism of the IMCTC, the declaration said: “The defense ministers agreed to secure the IMCTC headquarters in Riyadh, provided that Saudi Arabia will meet the coalition’s needs and complete all necessary legal and regulatory requirements to enable it to carry out the tasks.”

They also agreed to appoint IMCTC officials including a secretary-general, while the member countries will be entrusted with the task to nominate their delegates. The statement further said that the Ministers of Defense Council will meet annually and whenever necessary, to follow up on the strategies, policies, plans and programs to achieve the IMCTC’s objectives.

The defense ministers also agreed to combat terrorism in the communications domain with emphasis on the role played by media and the importance of embracing the media channels in fighting terrorism.

The ministers also stressed “the importance of investing in digital media platforms to raise awareness among members of society and prevent them from succumbing to terrorist messaging.” On terror funding, the defense ministers emphasized the importance of draining the sources of terrorist financing and cutting off any financial support for terror operations and activities. “This can be achieved by coordinating efforts to combat terrorist funding and shutting down the flow permanently,” said the statement, calling for more actions to improve compliance with international standards.

By Jeoffrey Maitem

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday called off peace talks with communist rebels ahead of their likely inclusion on a terrorist watch list, the government’s chief peace adviser said.

The Duterte administration’s decision to end talks with the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), came after its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), launched deadly attacks last week in the southern region of Mindanao. These killed two people, including a baby girl, and wounded at least three officers and six civilians, according to military officials.

“We are hereby announcing today the cancellation of all planned meetings with them in line with the President’s directive that there will be no more peace talks,” Jesus Dureza, the government’s peace adviser, said.

“Recent tragic and violent incidents all over the country committed by the communist rebels left the President with no other choice but to arrive at this decision.”

The negotiations aimed at settling a 48-year communist insurgency bogged down in February when both sides accused each other of violating a truce agreement.

“President Duterte has taken unprecedented steps and has walked the so-called extra mile to bring peace. However, the communist party and its armed elements have not shown reciprocity,” Dureza said.

“There will be no peace negotiations anymore with the CPP/NPA/NDF until such a time as the desired enabling environment conducive to a change in the government’s position becomes evident. We will closely watch the developments,” he added.

The CPP has been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969, in one of Asia’s longest running insurgencies. Its New People’s Army (NPA) is known for hitting government targets in the countryside. Military estimates placed the NPA strength at more than 5,000 guerrillas scattered in more than 60 fronts throughout the country.

“Despite this setback, we remain steadfast and undeterred in our unrelenting journey for sustainable and just peace,” he said.

Vigorously pursue operations

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the military would keep pursuing operations against their armed components vigorously, and hit the communist rebels because of their “penchant for double talk” and mounting ongoing attacks.

“We strongly suggest to the NPA to lay down their arms, surrender, return to society, and be part of the real change espoused by the national leadership,” Lorenzana said.

Earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte had said he planned to classify the NPA as a terrorist organization. He said the rebels had lost their ideology and morphed into a plain bandit group over time.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson agreed it was about time that the rebel group was labeled a terror organization.

“They burn, destroy, kill innocent civilians to terrorize; they terrorize to sow fear and harass helpless civilians; they harass to extort under the guise of revolutionary taxation,” Lacson said.

Apart from killing two people and wounding nine others during last week’s spate of attacks in Mindanao, NPA rebels also captured two policemen who were manning a highway outpost. The guerrillas also torched two trucks along the same road connecting the provinces of Bukidnon and Lanao del Norte, the military said.

Duterte: Stop paying ‘revolutionary taxes’

In 2004, the peace talks between the government and the leftists also stalled after the United States listed the NPA and its parent body as foreign terrorist organizations.

On Tuesday, Duterte also warned mining firms operating in the countryside who give illegal “revolutionary taxes” to the guerrillas to stop the practice or be shut down.

He said it was “almost a public knowledge that mining companies are contributing to the taxation of the NPAs thereby giving them also strength, money to buy arms, and bullets and all in their desire to topple down the Republic of the Philippines.”

“For those who cannot resist (to fork over money), then you better close up,” Duterte said, adding that it was a “dangerous tendency of capitulating” to the pressure of the rebels.

He said negotiating with the rebels was like “an endurance contest,” and that terminating the talks also meant “categorizing them as terrorist group,” Duterte said.

“It’s not an entity anymore worth talking to,” Duterte said.

Mark Navales in Cotabato City contributed to this report.

By Ajmal Shams*

It has been three months since US President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 21 his administration’s official strategy for South Asia in general and for Afghanistan in particular. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s immediate response was one of optimism and support.

Ghani called the new US strategy “historic,” and said it showed the enduring US commitment to his country. But ordinary Afghans are yet to see the results in terms of its impact on security and economy.

As a result of Trump’s announcement, current troop levels have already increased to about 15,000 from the original 8,500. US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has made it clear that the size of the force will be as per military needs on the ground, not an arbitrary number. They are tasked to play both an advisory role and a counterinsurgency one. In addition, there are about 6,000 NATO troops, with the option of augmentation if required.

Trump’s vocal and frank declaration of his government’s stance has given new hope to the Afghan national unity government after months of ambiguity and confusion. He has exhibited political courage by negating his campaign promises of a complete pullout and disengagement. The realities on the ground must have caused Trump to change his mind. He has said a hasty withdrawal will create a vacuum that terrorists, including Daesh and Al-Qaeda, could instantly fill.

The main pillar of Trump’s strategy is a clear shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions on the ground, which makes sense both from Afghan and American standpoints. Growing Russian influence and potential support to the Taliban is also one of the rationales behind renewed US military commitment and a political roadmap for Afghanistan.

The most significant point of Trump’s new strategy is a clear opinion on Pakistan’s role regarding its so-called war on terror. He said Pakistan provided safe havens to terrorists that target Americans and their allies in Afghanistan.

This is very important for the Afghan government, as unlike most previous US leaders, Trump’s message was loud and clear regarding Pakistan. But three months since the new strategy, the implications for Pakistan of this important development are yet to be seen.

What was also noteworthy in Trump’s speech was a major shift in the US approach toward Afghanistan. America would no longer be involved in nation-building.

Moreover, no effort will be made to Americanize Afghanistan. This is highly significant for Afghans.

Imported solutions for nation-building, and adapting Afghanistan to American values, have not been productive in the past. Such bold indications by the Trump administration have been welcomed, and show a more meaningful engagement with the Afghan government and people.

Trump wants a victorious outcome for US engagement in Afghanistan. That does not mean a never-ending war, but an honorable end through military and political means.

The US must elaborate on the mechanisms and arrangements it wants to put in place to ensure the intended victory, especially how it would like to deal with Pakistan. The political and economic pressures that are planned to be exerted on Pakistan to ensure its genuine cooperation in the war on terror have not been specified yet.

Trump has also called for an Indian role in Afghanistan’s stabilization efforts, especially its active contribution in economic development. Afghanistan, being a landlocked country, mostly relies on Pakistan for its transit trade. Trading with India via Pakistan has always been problematic.

With the opening of the strategic Chahbahar port through Iran and connecting with India, it is the beginning of the end of Afghanistan’s dependency on Pakistan. The arrival of the first Indian shipment to Afghanistan via Chahbahar is the start of a new chapter in Indo-Afghan trade relations, and is expected to further boost bilateral economic ties.

Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan should not be interpreted as an excuse for more violence. The doors for a peaceful settlement are always open. A military solution has never been a viable option for our international partners and the Afghan leadership. Mattis has urged moderate members of the Taliban to join peace efforts, saying they could be part of the government if they renounce terrorism.

The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., believes that Afghan forces will go on the offensive against the Taliban in 2018 as part of a broader effort to force it to come to the negotiating table and end the conflict. “This is a fight-and-talk approach,” he said.

Afghans want peace and stability; they are tired of more than three decades of conflict and violence. There is renewed hope and optimism on the part of the Afghan government that the new US strategy will bring about a fundamental change in the rules of the game, forcing Pakistan to abandon its support to militant organizations and genuinely engage with Afghanistan for durable peace in the region.

* Ajmal Shams is president of the Afghanistan Social Democratic Party, and is based in Kabul. He is a deputy minister in the Afghan national unity government, and served as policy advisor to Dr. Ashraf Ghani when he chaired the security transition commission before his presidential bid. Twitter: @ajmshams

Neutrinos are abundant subatomic particles that are famous for passing through anything and everything, only very rarely interacting with matter. About 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second.

Now, scientists have demonstrated that the Earth stops energetic neutrinos–they do not go through everything. These high-energy neutrino interactions were seen by the IceCube detector, an array of 5,160 basketball-sized optical sensors deeply encased within a cubic kilometer of very clear Antarctic ice near the South Pole.

IceCube’s sensors do not directly observe neutrinos, but instead measure flashes of blue light, known as Cherenkov radiation, emitted by muons and other fast-moving charged particles, which are created when neutrinos interact with the ice, and by the charged particles produced when the muons interact as they move through the ice. By measuring the light patterns from these interactions in or near the detector array, IceCube can estimate the neutrinos’ directions and energies.

The study, published in the Nov. 22 issue of the journal Nature, was led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley.

Spencer Klein, who leads Berkeley Lab’s IceCube research team, commented “This analysis is important because it shows that IceCube can make real contributions to particle and nuclear physics, at energies above the reach of current accelerators.”

Sandra Miarecki, who performed much of the data analysis while working toward her PhD as an IceCube researcher at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, said, “It’s a multidisciplinary idea.” The analysis required input from geologists who have created models of the Earth’s interior from seismic studies. Physicists have used these models to help predict how neutrinos are absorbed in the Earth.

“You create ‘pretend’ muons that simulate the response of the sensors,” Miarecki said. “You have to simulate their behavior, there has to be an ice model to simulate the ice’s behavior, you also have to have cosmic ray simulations, and you have to simulate the Earth using equations. Then you have to predict, probability-wise, how often a particular muon would come through the Earth.”

The study’s results are based on one year of data from about 10,800 neutrino-related interactions, stemming from a natural supply of very energetic neutrinos from space that go through a thick and dense absorber: the Earth. The energy of the neutrinos was critical to the study, as higher energy neutrinos are more likely to interact with matter and be absorbed by the Earth.

Scientists found that there were fewer energetic neutrinos making it all the way through the Earth to the IceCube detector than from less obstructed paths, such as those coming in at near-horizontal trajectories. The probability of neutrinos being absorbed by the Earth was consistent with expectations from the Standard Model of particle physics, which scientists use to explain the fundamental forces and particles in the universe. This probability — that neutrinos of a given energy will interact with matter — is what physicists refer to as a “cross section.”

“Understanding how neutrinos interact is key to the operation of IceCube,” explained Francis Halzen, principal investigator for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of physics. Precision measurements at the HERA accelerator in Hamburg, Germany, allow us to compute the neutrino cross section with great accuracy within the Standard Model — which would apply to IceCube neutrinos of much higher energies if the Standard Model is valid at these energies. “We were of course hoping for some new physics to appear, but we unfortunately find that the Standard Model, as usual, withstands the test,” adds Halzen.

James Whitmore, program director in the National Science Foundation’s physics division, said, “IceCube was built to both explore the frontiers of physics and, in doing so, possibly challenge existing perceptions of the nature of universe. This new finding and others yet to come are in that spirit of scientific discovery.”

This study provides the first cross-section measurements for a neutrino energy range that is up to 1,000 times higher than previous measurements at particle accelerators. Most of the neutrinos selected for this study were more than a million times more energetic than the neutrinos produced by more familiar sources, like the sun or nuclear power plants. Researchers took care to ensure that the measurements were not distorted by detector problems or other uncertainties.

“Neutrinos have quite a well-earned reputation of surprising us with their behavior,” said Darren Grant, spokesperson for the IceCube Collaboration and a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Canada. “It is incredibly exciting to see this first measurement and the potential it holds for future precision tests.”

In addition to providing the first measurement of the Earth’s absorption of neutrinos, the analysis shows that IceCube’s scientific reach is extending beyond its core focus on particle physics discoveries and the emerging field of neutrino astronomy into the fields of planetary science and nuclear physics. This analysis will also interest geophysicists who would like to use neutrinos to image the Earth’s interior, although this will require more data than was used in the current study.

For this study, the IceCube Collaboration, which includes more than 300 members from 48 institutions in 12 countries, expanded its research partnership to include geologists in an even larger multidisciplinary team.

A deeper understanding of how often a neutrino will come through the Earth to eventually interact within the IceCube detector also requires detailed knowledge of the Antarctic ice properties, the interaction of cosmic rays with the Earth’s atmosphere, and how neutrinos interact with matter.

The neutrinos used in this analysis were mostly produced when hydrogen or heavier nuclei from high-energy cosmic rays, created outside the solar system, interacted with nitrogen or oxygen nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere. This creates a cascade of particles, including several types of subatomic particles that decay, producing neutrinos. These particles rain down on the Earth’s surface from all directions.

The analysis also included a small number of astrophysical neutrinos, which are produced outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, from cosmic accelerators unidentified to date, perhaps associated with supermassive black holes.

The neutrino-interaction events that were selected for the study have energies of at least one trillion electron volts, or a teraelectronvolt (TeV), roughly the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito. At this energy, the Earth’s absorption of neutrinos is relatively small, and the lowest energy neutrinos in the study largely served as an absorption-free baseline. The analysis was sensitive to absorption in the energy range from 6.3 TeV to 980 TeV, limited at the high-energy end by a shortage of sufficiently energetic neutrinos.

At these energies, each individual proton or neutron in a nucleus acts independently, so the absorption depends on the number of protons or neutrons that each neutrino encounters. The Earth’s core is particularly dense, so absorption is largest there. By comparison, the most energetic neutrinos that have been studied at human-built particle accelerators were at energies below 0.4 TeV. Researchers have used these accelerators to aim beams containing an enormous number of these lower energy neutrinos at massive detectors, but only a very tiny fraction yield interactions.

IceCube researchers used data collected from May 2010 to May 2011, from a partial array of 79 “strings,” each containing 60 sensors embedded more than a mile deep in the ice.

Gary Binder, a UC Berkeley graduate student affiliated with Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division, developed the software that was used to fit IceCube’s data to a model describing how neutrinos propagate through the Earth.

From this, the software determined the cross-section that best fit the data. University of Wisconsin – Madison student Chris Weaver developed the code for selecting the detection events that Miarecki used.

Simulations to support the analysis have been conducted using supercomputers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Berkeley Lab’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).

Physicists now hope to repeat the study using an expanded, multiyear analysis of data from the full 86-string IceCube array, which was completed in December 2010, and to look at higher ranges of neutrino energies for any hints of new physics beyond the Standard Model. IceCube has already detected multiple ultra-high-energy neutrinos, in the range of petaelectronvolts (PeV), which have a 1,000-times-higher energy than those detected in the TeV range.

Klein said, “Once we can reduce the uncertainties and can look at slightly higher energies, we can look at things like nuclear effects in the Earth, and collective electromagnetic effects.”

Binder added, “We can also study how much energy a neutrino transfers to a nucleus when it interacts, giving us another probe of nuclear structure and physics beyond the Standard Model.”

More data will both reduce the uncertainties and provide neutrinos at even higher energies, opening new opportunities to probe neutrino physics beyond the Standard Model. It will also enable scientists to explore the boundary between the Earth’s inner solid core and its liquid outer core.

A longer term goal is to build a larger detector, which would enable scientists to study neutrinos of even higher energies. The proposed IceCube-Gen2 would be 10 times larger than IceCube. Its larger size would enable the detector to collect more data from neutrinos at very high energies.

Some scientists are looking to build an even larger detector, 100 cubic kilometers or more, using a new approach that searches for pulses of radio waves produced when very high energy neutrinos interact in the ice. Measurements of neutrino absorption by a radio-based detector could be used to search for new phenomena that go well beyond the physics accounted for in the Standard Model and could scrutinize the structure of atomic nuclei in greater detail than those of other experiments.

Miarecki said, “This is pretty exciting – I couldn’t have thought of a more interesting project.”

Women prefer to get their mammograms every year, instead of every two years, according to a new study being presented this week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

“Women understand that yearly mammograms have been shown to save lives and do not consider previously reported ‘harms’ to be as important as getting screened,” said study author Ghizlane Bouzghar, M.D., chief radiology resident at Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.

For years, the standard recommendation among most medical groups was that women at average risk of breast cancer undergo screening mammography annually beginning at age 40. However, in 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a controversial recommendation that women at average risk be screened biennially, or every two years, beginning at age 50. This recommendation, reaffirmed in 2016, was based in part on the “harms” associated with screening mammography.

These “harms,” as defined by the USPSTF, include diagnosis and treatment of noninvasive and invasive breast cancers that would otherwise not have become a threat to a woman’s health and the unnecessary biopsies and associated anxieties resulting from false-positive results.

Others argue that while reducing over-diagnosis and false positives are a priority, the benefits of early detection far outweigh the negative factors associated with the perceived harms. Absent from the debate has been one notable opinion: that of the women being screened.

“The USPSTF associates annual screening mammography with ‘harm’ and recommends biennial screening mammography instead,” Dr. Bouzghar said. “However, there is no study to date that looked at women’s preference regarding annual versus biennial screening mammography, and whether women think that biennial screening causes less, equal or more anxiety.”

Dr. Bouzghar and colleagues at Einstein set out to determine whether women preferred annual or biennial screening and to investigate whether or not reported harms of mammography influenced this preference.

The research team surveyed 731 women (mean age 59) undergoing screening and diagnostic mammograms at Einstein from December 2016 to February 2017. Women were asked whether an abnormal mammogram or breast biopsy causes emotional harm, whether screening every two years was associated with less or more anxiety, and whether they preferred to have a screening mammogram every other year or every year.

Variables such as the patient’s age, race, family and personal history of breast cancer, prior biopsies and abnormal mammograms, and underlying anxiety disorder were also included.

Of the women surveyed, 71 percent preferred getting screened every year. A family history of breast cancer and prior breast biopsy were the only two variables to have an additional positive influence on annual screening preference.

“Many women are much better educated about the value of screening mammography than they are given credit for,” Dr. Bouzghar said. “I also think that some of the USPSTF’s concerns about the ‘harms’ were somewhat paternalistic, and in 2017 women are more empowered about many things, including their healthcare.”