(FPRI) — On September 11, 2014, a flurry of tweets, a fake Wikipedia page, and photoshopped imagery of CNN news articles spread across the internet to convince Americans that ISIS had attacked a chemical plant in Louisiana. Widespread panic ensued, and many locals called authorities seeking updates, only to discover the entire disaster was a hoax and the plant was fine. The American people had been fooled. This incident was not a harmless prank. It was a targeted attack most likely conducted by Russia, and it illustrates a crucial lesson in the destabilization potential of disinformation.
The web brigades that carried out this operation work for Russia’s Internet Research Agency, an organization that fills entire office buildings with well-paid trolls to bombard online comment streams with anti-Western sentiments and amplify fake news stories. The work of this organization illustrates a grand shift in Russian political strategy; a shift towards conducting influence operations to undermine stability and advance Russian interests, a shift that is encapsulated in publicly available Russian Military doctrine, and a shift that the U.S. is not positioned to counter.
While targeted counter-efforts are sprouting up across the West, a comprehensive strategy is still missing. The United States, as a global superpower and key player in the NATO alliance, must take the initiative to lead its Western allies towards a broader long-term strategy for countering foreign information warfare. Washington should learn from past U.S. initiatives to secure the domestic information space as well as from the success of its Baltic allies in building grassroots public resilience by deliberately raising public awareness of the Russian misinformation threat. A robust U.S. strategy would create positive spillovers for the security of NATO allies, creating a united front against Moscow’s subversion.
Lacking Institutional Capabilities
As Moscow’s use of disinformation rises, the West’s stakes in information war increase. A dangerous mixture of Russia’s declining superpower status and rising tensions between Moscow and the West suggest that the Kremlin will continue to pressure its Western geopolitical competitors. Information warfare is cheap, potent, ubiquitous, and is likely to become one of the Kremlin’s primary tools.
The U.S. is ill-prepared to face this threat as Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has illustrated. As of yet, no major unclassified initiatives have been created, no new governmental departments established, and over a quarter of Americans disapprove of the Justice Department appointing special counsel to investigate Russian meddling in the election. What has come in response to the meddling, however, is an additional $80 million in funding to the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and a broadening of the Center’s mission from fighting ISIL’s internet propaganda to countering Russian disinformation abroad. However, these funds have been frozen by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as part of a budget review. Some have alleged that Tillerson is hesitant to use the money, fearing further deterioration in U.S.-Russia relations. The U.S. domestic response to disinformation remains reactive, lagging Russian information capabilities.
Washington will have to mobilize resources swiftly, especially if it aims to remain on par with other Western allies and their specialized counter-disinformation units. Furthermore, the United States must decide how to best format its efforts. The Baltics found success in combatting the threat at a grassroots level, but the local character of disinformation allows transplanting allied strategies only to a certain extent. To best understand what works in the United States, its leadership should seek guidance from the toolbox of the Cold War, where Washington faced a similar disinformation threat from the Soviet Union.
Learning from the Cold War
Washington policymakers grappled with Russian misinformation campaigns frequently throughout the Cold War. The best and most effective example of U.S. countermeasures against foreign propaganda has been the Active Measures Working Group. Formed in 1981 under the direction of the State Department, the Active Measures Working Group emerged in an American information environment like today’s. After a decade of neglecting to counter Soviet misinformation and failing to classify Soviet propaganda as a primary concern, the United States was vulnerable to Soviet disinformation. The group, comprised of an inter-agency medley of diplomatic, defense, and intelligence officials, began to change this dynamic. Over the course of a decade, the organization published reports that debunked several cases of Soviet disinformation, most notably a false story released by the KGB regarding the U.S. military’s role in creating the AIDS virus. The group’s frequent releases alerted the American public and Washington officials to the Soviet propaganda threat.
The United States has also taken an offensive stance in the information space in the past. For example, the United States Information Agency countered Soviet propaganda by broadcasting pro-Western messages to strategic countries from its creation in 1953 to its dissolution in 1999, and the State Department’s Global Engagement Center has since adopted similar tasks. Washington has even used disinformation through the Pentagon’s now-defunct Office of Strategic Influence, which conducted influence operations in the early days of the Iraq War.
Despite the debatable efficacy of these offensive strategies, the Active Measures Working Group’s defensive initiatives elevated public awareness of Soviet disinformation. In the internet age, Russia has become better equipped to quickly spread fake news to target audiences, requiring Washington to make some updates to any future strategy that rests on the teachings of the past. However, at a base level, the Active Measures Working Group offers a strong model for future U.S. counter-disinformation initiatives.
Looking at current U.S. anti-disinformation programs, only one has the capacity to achieve any meaningful victories in the information realm—the State Department’s previously mentioned Global Engagement Center. However, this initiative has severe shortcomings, namely its frozen funding and explicit focus on countering disinformation abroad rather than at home, further illustrating Washington’s current inadequacy in facing these threats.
These past strategies offer important advice for securing the attention of the grassroots—the primary target of disinformation. According to a Pew Research Center survey, the public already expects to be responsible for fighting disinformation, but only if the burden is shared equally with the government and social networking sites. However, only certain portions of the U.S. government retain meaningful public trust, with national defense-focused federal agencies enjoying the highest level of confidence and other government entities—such as the IRS and Congress—suffering from historic lows. While the severity of mistrust is a new development, the general trend is not. The aforementioned successful efforts were all tied to nonpartisan federal agencies staffed by national security professionals. Future implementation would benefit from adopting a similar structure.
Fighting to Win the Information War
If Washington hopes to win in the information space, changes to the U.S. position and understanding of information warfare will be necessary. Furthermore, information threats will have to be confronted both strategically and tactically. Without such shifts in U.S. policy, the West will remain vulnerable to future disinformation incursions, an unacceptable outcome.
Washington should start by un-freezing and utilizing the Global Engagement Center’s $80 million in funding that has been set aside to counter foreign disinformation and propaganda abroad. To maximize effectiveness, this strategy must be paired with a domestic partner-initiative that will similarly counter foreign influence targeted at domestic U.S. audiences. It is vital that this modern successor to the Active Measures Working Group goes beyond the original Group’s responsibilities of merely uncovering individual fake news stories because the breadth and the speed of disinformation proliferation on the internet make such a targeted approach unfeasible and ineffective. Instead, the proposed organization should focus on studying the trends of misinformation within the U.S. to understand a few key points—where the fake news is coming from, who is sending it, and who it is reaching—and propose to the appropriate authorities how to best counter these assaults in a way that minimizes any impact on U.S. democratic ideals and civil liberties. This group would place all study on the topic under one institutional roof, better integrating threat analysis and recommendation responsibilities.
However, the real benefit of these initiatives is in the message they will send to Western, liberal democratic allies. Given the United States’ traditional position as a global leader, its current role at the center of several international organizations and Washington’s preeminent leadership in the current world order, it is almost certain that a strong recognition of the disinformation threat in Washington would increase focus on this issue across NATO capitals and strategic planning offices. As previously discussed, many states and organizations have their own initiatives to counter disinformation, yet these unconnected initiatives could greatly benefit from enhanced coordination, cooperation, and knowledge sharing. Peak integration is only possible when the U.S. sets the West’s agenda. Washington must reclaim this responsibility.
*About the authors:
Eriks K. Selga is an Associate Scholar at FPRI’s Eurasia Program and a lawyer at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Benjamin Rasmussen is a Military and Political Intelligence Specialist at the Global Intelligence Trust LLC and a researcher for the Security and Foreign Policy Center of the Roosevelt Institute at Yale.
The epic sale in mid-November of the painting Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci at the auction price of more than $450 million to a Middle Eastern buyer contained within its occasion three key lessons about the difference between market value and the market for Value — a distinction that perhaps best defines the long-term difference between wealth and money.
First, the multi-billion dollar art market, though traditionally driven by very volatile, unpredictable and slightly obscene vagaries of taste, is today witnessing a renaissance in the estimation of art as a great storehouse of value based upon a centuries-old standard of Time. Second, art-as-hot-commodity, with its legions of dealers, brokers, appraisers, scholars, historians, vetting-experts, authentication-specialists, financiers, fakes, flakes, charlatans and money-launderers, is shifting to a highly privatized model in which micro-entrepreneur dealers of outstanding reputation and sole proprietorship are leading the forefront of the market’s growth. Third, and most importantly, is that the return of Old Master painting (as refers to works dating from between 1250 to about 1850) and those categorized as Classic Modern (works through the first half of the 20th century) to market prominence highlights the growing significance of the hard-asset ‘mentality’ that is coming to dominate the long-term view of wealth security.
This last point cannot be underestimated. The turn towards a more serious, less trend-based, less commercial-celebrity view of the art market follows upon a very resilient recovery of that market overall since the 2008 financial crisis. The shift is also an important statement about the current attractiveness of hard-assets in general and of the massive movement of wealth in the direction of investment outside of the stock market.
According to one of the most authoritative art market reports in the industry, that of The European Fine Arts Fair (TEFAF), the premiere international art fair gathering, total sales in 2016 were $45 billion dollars, up 1.7% since 2015; art dealers report an ‘extremely positive’ outlook for the results of 2017. The bulk of these sales took place within the private sector–that is to say, away from public action, with preference for privately-brokered auctions at the major houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Throughout, Old Masters, (and “Classic Modern”) works have stolen the show.
Old Masters as an art category was dismissed for decades for not offering as much excitement or controversy as contemporary works. These paintings, except for the occasional, odd, super-sale tended not to command the incredible prices of contemporary painting. Yet, all that changed last year. The sale of Lot and His Daughters by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) for $58 million at Christie’s London in July 2016 was, until this November, the most expensive Old Master painting to sell at Christie’s entire 250 year-old history. (It was the second-most expensive work by Rubens to be sold at auction after the 2002 sale of The Master and the Innocents for $78 million at Sotheby’s London). Other great sales of late include a Claude Monet (1840-1926), Meule for $87 million in 2016; Danaë by Orazio Gentileschi (1562-1647), which fetched $30 million that year; a John Constable (1776-1837), View on the Stour Near Dedham, went for $19 million also last year, and several others.
In February 2017, a ravishingly gorgeous Parmigianino (1503 -1540) entitled Virgin and Child with Saint Mary Magdalene was the subject of a $30 million tug of war between the United Kingdom, which wanted to keep the painting in the country, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, which sought to obtain it. (The UK has thus far won out). In July 2017, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles spent over $100 million for sixteen Old Master paintings–its biggest acquisition ever–while the U.S. has also experienced a 4.85% increase in the price of Old Masters and Impressionist Art over the course of 2016.
Key here is that the total sales value of the Old Master market exceeded that of the modern art market for the first time in the last five years. The fact that these older works–lacking the glamor of the “new” and of trend-setting names–reached a peak at auction in 2016 underscores the unease on the part of the mega-wealthy with regard to the state of the economy and highlights their under-the-radar desire for “sure thing” safe haven investments. It is a highly significant wealth trend, in which the return to investment in such works is the attraction to those works having endured the test of time–a clear demonstration of the longing for stable, solid value.
The country to watch in all of this is that of the biggest art market of all: China. In the past couple of years, high-net worth Chinese collectors began to move away from young contemporary artists to embrace Chinese Old Master and post-war artists, many of these latter being those collectors’ generational counterparts. Statistics confirm this cultural trend: the total sales volume of Old Masters in China increased 36% in 2016, reaching a peak at $1.25 billion. Meanwhile, in 2016, the average price of Old Master works sold in China saw a steep increase of 45%, compared with those in 2015.
This hard-asset psychology is underscored by the new trend of dealers as well. For years, a kind of flash-in-the-pan art broker dominated the scene to buy and sell contemporary works or to set up online auction houses and galleries (which have only had partial success and only for far lower-priced works). Of late, competitive advantage has come to those dealers with esteemed attributes such as reputation, credibility, and ultimately taste– all of which denote longevity, stability and resilience in the art world. These well-established experts are the moving force in the art dealer market today.
As if suddenly, that which was once hip to own in terms of ‘name’ has begun to fade quite drastically. Contemporary art — the art of ‘today’ or of highly commercial pop-art — has begun to wobble in terms of market sales. For example, Andy Warhol, traditionally a heavy-weight, experienced a 68% drop in auction sales volume, from $525 million in 2015 down to $168 million in 2016 worldwide. Francis Bacon and Cy Twombly also saw their auction sales drop by more than 60%. Pablo Picasso is himself experiencing a kind of saturation-fatigue, and his sales have decreased in volume by nearly 50%.
Of course, despite the favorable turn towards long-term value and the primacy of reputation, the art market is not a sector that is by any means free of controversy and corruption. The desire for privacy, financial opacity and the ability to remain anonymous in buying and selling have propelled buyers at the top-end of the market into privately-brokered deals—with all the safe-havens, off-shore accounts, hidden wealth and countries with easier financial regulations to accommodate the business. It is perhaps unsurprising that the world’s largest auction markets, where cross-border trade is at its highest, occur where Freeports are strategically situated.
Nonetheless, the art market is undergoing a genuine game-changing dynamic for the better that any follower of the hard-asset world of investment should observe at close range. This search for known value, for a connection to history and tradition; to see great works of art that transcend the vicissitudes and whims of fad, tastes, trends, serves as a critical study of how wealth sees itself and where its sees itself over the long-term. It is, too, a most welcome breath of fresh air in a world that seems ever intent on debasing its own cultural standards — as much, perhaps, as it has its own currencies.
About the author:
*Marcia Christoff-Kurapovna contributed feature pieces and op-eds on Swiss and Liechtenstein banking issues for The Wall Street Journal Europe while based in Vienna, Austria; she also authored a column, ‘Swiss Watch.’ She currently lives in Washington, DC where she is a speech and op-ed writer to foreign dignitaries.
The Jerusalem story is the centerpiece of news this week. Donald Trump and Mike Pence, an evangelical, in favor of moving the embassy and Rex Tillerson and John Mattis opposed in their discussion prior to the announcement. That State and Defense departments both found the move detrimental to U.S. interests underlines how politics trump sound policy.
Mr. Trump is trying to wrap up his evangelical constituency ahead of the 2018 and 2020 elections. Of course it was an unconditional gift for Netanyahu, in desperate need of any success as his criminal investigation for financial corruption approaches a climax. Domestic concerns remain in the present while deliverables for Palestinians are in the future … a distant future.
It was also a gift for the Iranians and a slap for the Saudis, who have been moving closer to Israel. Turkey has now stepped up to take the leadership role for the Muslim community. Mr. Erdogan has threatened to cut off diplomatic relations with Israel; he has also called for a meeting of Muslim leaders next week in Istanbul.
Not just the Saudis, other staunch mideast U.S. allies like Jordan and Egypt have been undermined. Al-Azhar the claimed arbiter of Sunni Moslem teachings, said the action will open the gates of hell. Even the Orthodox church in Egypt condemned it as violating international laws and agreements.
The West Bank erupted in demonstrations and burning of the U.S. flag and effigies of President Trump. Palestinians leaders both Muslim and Christian (Mahmoud Abbas and Hanan Ashrawi) spoke out against it. An interesting dynamic when evangelical Christians appear to favor Israel over fellow Christians in Palestine. But the alliance is one of temporary convenience.
Evangelicals believe in the ‘rapture’ when they will be taken to heaven. For that to happen the Messiah must return to earth, which requires the necessary condition of Jews controlling all of Israel, especially Jerusalem. However, rapture includes only those who accept Jesus as their savior. The rest, including Jews, are cast into the other place.
Trump’s only support lies with right-wing Israelis; the rest including the UN, the EU, UK, Russia, China, India, and the Muslim world from Africa to Indonesia are opposed to the gesture — a hollow one in the face of reality.
Not at all the undivided capital of Israel, Jerusalem has 220,000 Palestinians in the historic East where all the iconic religious places are located. These Palestinians have no vote, their land is occupied territory, and the U.S. has now therefore contravened international law and the Oslo Accords through an implicit assumption of Israeli suzerainty. The fact remains, Israelis seldom venture into East Jerusalem and Palestinians stay away from the West part. It is not one city but two. The U.S. will be the sole country in the world with an embassy there — a hardship post when all the embassy parties will be in Tel Aviv!
A final word: The highly successful former editor of Vanity Fair, Tina Brown, has written an autobiography (reviewed in The New Yorker, November 20, 2017). Trump is mentioned here and there … at a 1987 dinner party given by Ann Getty, he can be seen promoting himself. But the best is Brown’s read of “The Art of the Deal” a book she had decided to excerpt in Vanity Fair. “It feels, when you have finished it, as if you’ve been nose to nose for four hours with an entertaining con man.” She adds, “I suspect the American public will like nothing better.” Now we just have to wait until they begin feel the eventual bite of the tax bill, the missing “great” healthcare plan, and the absent flood of good jobs before his voters figure the con. So the shoring up of evangelicals.
In the meantime, ask yourself this question: When the U.S. embassy moves to Jerusalem, what will happen to the one in Tel Aviv … another Trump Tower?
About the author:
*Dr. Arshad M. Khan is a former Professor based in the US. Educated at King’s College London, OSU and The University of Chicago, he has a multidisciplinary background that has frequently informed his research. Thus he headed the analysis of an innovation survey of Norway, and his work on SMEs published in major journals has been widely cited. He has for several decades also written for the press: These articles and occasional comments have appeared in print media such as The Dallas Morning News, Dawn (Pakistan), The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Monitor, The Wall Street Journal and others. On the internet, he has written for Antiwar.com, Asia Times, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Countercurrents, Dissident Voice, Eurasia Review and Modern Diplomacy among many. His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in its Congressional Record.
In a new record for the persecution of the media in Turkey, a total of 68 journalists are due to appear in court in four different trials during the week of 4 to 11 December. A third of these journalists are already detained.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it condemns the baseless terrorism charges on which they are being tried and reiterates its call for their immediate release. All 68 are accused of supporting or belonging to a terrorist organization and most of them are also accused of “trying to overthrow the government and constitutional order.”
Forty-four of them have already spent around 18 months in provisional detention. RSF’s Turkey representative, Erol Önderoğlu, is attending all the hearings, which are taking place in Istanbul and its suburbs.
“With the same extremely grave charges, the same abuse of provisional detention and the same contempt for due process, these four trials illustrate the scale of the criminalization of journalism in Turkey,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.
“The judicial system is now just serving as a veneer to disguise the deliberate elimination of all dissent. We reiterate our call to the authorities to free imprisoned journalists at once and to abandon these political trials.”
The week-long judicial marathon began on 4 December with the resumption of the trial of 29 journalists charged with acting as the “media wing” of the Gülen Movement, which is accused by the government of being behind the July 2016 coup attempt.
Two of these journalists, Murat Aksoy and Atilla Taş, were released at the previous hearing but 20 of them, including Abdullah Kılıç, Habip Güler and Yakup Çetin, are still detained and the 4 December hearing ending with the decision to keep them in detention until the next one, scheduled for 6 February. They are facing a possible sentence of between ten years in prison and life without any parole.
The trial of six journalists in connection with revelations about President Erdoğan’s son-in-law, energy minister Berat Albayrak, resumed yesterday. Two of them, investigative reporter Tunca Öğreten and Mahir Kanaat of the left-wing daily BirGün, were finally freed under judicial control after nearly a year of provisional detention.
None of the six is now detained but they are still facing possible 15-year jail sentences on charges of cooperating with a group of hackers and divulging state secrets in order to assist various terrorist organizations by “creating a negative perception of the authorities.” The next hearing has been set for 3 April.
The trial of 30 former journalists and employees of the daily newspaper Zaman will resume tomorrow. Twenty-one of them, including Şahin Alpay, Ahmet Turan Alkan and Ali Bulaç, are in provisional detention. The case against them is largely based on the mere fact that they worked for Zaman, which was regarded as sympathetic to the Gülen Movement and was dissolved by decree in July 2016. Each of them is facing the possibility of three life sentences.
The well-known journalists Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak, whose trial on similar charges will resume on 11 December, are all in provisional detention. Their criticism of the government is alleged to have “prepared the way” for the coup attempt, which Ahmet Altan is also accused of supporting by means of “subliminal messages.”
The four lawyers who defend the Altan brothers were expelled from the courtroom during the last hearing. The prosecutor is due to present his summing-up at the hearing on 11 December.
The already worrying media situation in Turkey has become critical under the state of emergency proclaimed after the July 2016 coup attempt. Around 150 media outlets have been closed, mass trials are being held and the country now holds the world record for the number of journalists detained. Turkey is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
The Russian military intervention in Syria on September 30, 2015, took many by surprise, but was years in the making. To evaluate its origins, success, and implications, it is necessary to understand how Russia’s domestic and foreign policies have developed under President Vladimir Putin and the ways in which they affect Moscow’s Middle East policy.
A Russian presence in the Middle East is hardly new. Imperial Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union, both asserted interest in the region and used it as an arena of competition with the West. It was not until the 1990s, during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency that Russia briefly retreated from the region. When Putin officially came to power in May 2000, he sought to restore Moscow’s image as a great power in the context of renewed zero-sum anti-Westernism. Within this framework, he has aimed from the start to return Russia to the Middle East. Syria was a critical piece of the puzzle.
Putin has multiple goals and interests in Syria, but his overarching concern has always been his regime’s survival. In Russia, domestic and foreign policy blur into one another, and foreign policy often becomes more aggressive at times of domestic discord. Putin believes his own political longevity will require a deft handling of his relationship with the West, involving simultaneous confrontation and engagement, and it is within that context that his Syrian intervention should be viewed. His interest in Syria has less to do with the country itself than with the gains it represents for the Kremlin both domestically and vis-à-vis the West.
Ultimately, it was years of Western enabling—perceived by Moscow as weakness—that emboldened Putin to intervene. Cooperation with Russia will not bring stability to Syria because Moscow’s priorities lie elsewhere.
Russia’s Duality
Putin embarked on an authoritarian path as soon as he came to power, going after Russia’s fledgling free press and creating a “vertical of power.”[1] At first, Putin took small steps, and many in the West were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, particularly as the Cold War had ended, and Russia was no longer a priority.
However, a look at Russia’s major official documents during Putin’s rule reveals that on a fundamental level, the Kremlin viewed the West with hostility and distrust from the very beginning. Moscow’s January 2000 Foreign Policy Concept—which, among other goals, aimed at returning Russia to the Middle East—highlighted “attempts to create an international relations structure based on domination by developed Western countries in the international community, under U.S. leadership” while asserting that NATO expansionism was among the major threats facing Russia.[2] Fast forward to Moscow’s most recent version of this document, dated December 2016, which expresses the same sentiment: “[S]ystemic problems in the Euro-Atlantic region that have accumulated over the last quarter century are manifested in the geopolitical expansion pursued by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] and the European Union.”[3]
These anti-Western ideas were rooted in the vision of a “multipolar world” advanced by the skilled Arabist and former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, who believed Moscow should not let Washington dominate any region—least of all the Middle East. This thinking guides the Kremlin to this day.
Moscow’s anti-Westernism and siege mentality originate in czarist Russia, the government of which often pointed to the West at times of trouble to distract the public from its own failings. The Soviet government continued this tradition. At the same time, of course, the Russian leadership from Peter the Great to Joseph Stalin relied on Western technology and expertise to help the country develop and stave off economic difficulties.[4]
Russia cannot take on the West directly; indeed, it needs it to survive. Moscow seeks instead to slowly undermine the Western global order through engagement and corruption of its elites. The title of Russian analyst Lilia Shevtsova’s March 2017 article sums it up: “Russia cannot live with the West—or without it.”[5]
Fear of Regime Change
November 2003 marked the beginning of the “Color Revolutions”—peaceful uprisings against corrupt regimes that swept the post-Soviet space, beginning with Georgia’s Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of late 2004-05. At the time, the Middle East was also touched by change: Lebanon underwent the Cedar Revolution in February-April 2005.
Peaceful uprisings against corrupt regimes swept the post-Soviet space, beginning with Georgia’s Rose Revolution (above) and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in late 2004-05. Lebanon also underwent a revolution in 2005. Putin saw the hand of Washington behind these events.
Putin saw the hand of Washington behind these events. As a KBG man in the Soviet security agency, he watched the Soviet Union itself instigate uprisings to undermine unfriendly regimes. Putin, whose understanding of the West and especially the United States has always been limited, could not imagine that the West would behave any differently towards him. As far as he is concerned, the only difference between himself and the West is wealth. According to one Russian political analyst, “Putin sincerely believes the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine was instigated by the U.S. State Department … [and] he hates the West for it.”[6]
That year, Putin became noticeably more aggressive in the foreign policy arena and more authoritarian on the domestic front. To justify the domestic measures, he used the September 2004 terrorist seizure of a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, although it was Moscow’s rescue attempt that led to the deaths of more than 300 hostages, the vast majority of whom were children.[7]
When the Arab upheavals began in December 2010, the Kremlin viewed them the same way it saw the color revolutions—and by this time Putin had become much more belligerent. Kremlin-controlled media referred to the uprisings as “chaos.” For the Russian public, the turbulent 1990s that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse became synonymous with chaos; the message resonated with Russians and indirectly supported the dichotomy of chaos vs. order that Putin had worked on establishing since his ascent to power.[8]
In October 2011, following a U.N.-led campaign, Libyan dictator Mu’ammar Qaddafi met a gruesome end after Western-backed National Transitional Council forces found him hiding in a tunnel in Sirte. Putin, who was now prime minister, saw in those events a U.N.-approved and U.S.-led color revolution that had ousted another authoritarian leader. [9] Later that year, Russia was swept by the largest anti-government protests since the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin blamed U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton for having “given the signal” for protesters to come out.[10] Given this mindset, it is hardly surprising that Putin backed Bashar Assad when protests broke out in Damascus in March 2011. Putin had no intention of abandoning the Syrian dictator, as protecting Assad meant protecting himself.
It is no accident that the Kremlin has always insisted that it went into Syria at Assad’s request to protect a “legitimate government” against terrorists. This line was designed to pound into the Russian audience the message that revolt against any government is always wrong. “Nobody can be allowed to try to implement the ‘Libyan scenario’ in Syria,” Putin said in February 2012.[11]
The Kremlin rhetoric of purported U.S.-led regime change worldwide has only grown in recent years. In December 2016, one major Kremlin-controlled publication unambiguously described the Arab upheavals as a “series of government coups … initiated by the American special services.”[12] Speaking at a public forum in August 2017, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov highlighted the Kremlin’s conviction that Washington was behind all regime change:
Anywhere, in any country—in Eastern Europe, in Central Europe—there are a lot of facts when the U.S. embassy literally runs the [political] processes, including the actions of the opposition … I think they [Americans] themselves don’t consider it an intervention because, first, they [think they] can do anything, and second, it’s in their blood.[13]
Expansion, Buffer Zones, and Warm Water Ports
Czarist Russia always expanded, but that approach created a vicious cycle. The more peripheral lands the Kremlin conquered, the more Russia absorbed non-Russian ethnicities whose loyalty the government questioned, and the more insecure it felt at its core. It then sought yet more buffer zones through further expansion and repression.[14]
A traditional land power, Russia has also sought warm water ports since Peter the Great. Subsequent czars, especially Catherine the Great, followed this tradition, as did the Soviet Union. Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideas replaced Russia’s historic messianic mission of protecting Orthodox Christianity, but in essence, both approaches promoted aggression and expansionism, as well as the prevention of countries on the periphery from moving closer to the West.
Putin, who has never overcome his KGB origins, is the latest iteration of this history. His two invasions prior to Syria—Georgia and Ukraine—targeted countries that were moving closer to the West and possessed warm water ports. In both cases, Putin laid the groundwork for invasion through small steps that many Western analysts did not recognize as preparations for war. This approach is called maskirovka, a uniquely Russian concept of military deception.[15]
The August 2008 invasion of Georgia exposed many weaknesses in the Russian armed forces, prompting Moscow to embark on wide-scale military reform. In February 2012, Putin renewed the emphasis on improving Russia’s armed forces, including the navy.[16] He repeated this again the following year: “I would like to reiterate again that the development of a powerful, effective navy is one of Russia’s chief priorities,” he said at the inauguration of Russia’s first new class of submarines since 1991.[17] The naval doctrine of July 2017 listed among Moscow’s objects the pursuit of “other countries, most notably the United States and its allies; of dominance of the world’s oceans … and also of the crushing superiority of their naval forces.”[18]
Special Relationship with Damascus
Russian ships at the port of Tartus, Syria. Russia has sought warm water ports since Peter the Great. Following the Cold War, Moscow has maintained a permanent presence in the Mediterranean at its naval facility in Tartus.
Syria was critical to the Soviet Union’s position in the Middle East during the Cold War. Its location—bordering the Mediterranean, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq—made it strategically vital. Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, was Moscow’s closest ally in the Arab world since Egypt’s defection from the Soviet orbit in the mid-1970s, and Moscow had deep military, economic, political, and cultural connections to Damascus.[19] On a personal level, Syrians felt a connection with Russians, who did not look down on them as they did on other nations in the region.[20]
After the Cold War, Moscow retained a naval facility at Tartus, Syria, its only base outside the former Soviet Union and the sole location where it maintains a permanent presence in the Mediterranean. Both Putin and Bashar Assad came to power in 2000 and have worked from the start to improve ties. Assad, for his part, admired Putin’s efforts to reduce Western influence and efforts to create a “multipolar” world.
Arms trade between the countries quickly intensified. A significant breakthrough in bilateral relations came in January 2005 when the Kremlin announced it would write off most of Syria’s $13.4 billion Soviet-era debts to Moscow and sell weaponry to Damascus. In exchange, Assad granted Russia permission to develop further its naval facilities at Tartus and Latakia. Between 2007 and 2011, Damascus purchased 78 percent of its weaponry from Russia, a six-fold increase compared to the previous five years.[21]
Beyond weapons, Russian companies reportedly had investments in Syria worth $19.4 billion in 2009,[22] but perhaps more importantly, had outstanding oil and gas projects as well as a nuclear power plant.[23] In 2009, Assad reportedly refused, under pressure from Moscow, to sign a Qatari proposal to build a gas pipeline to Turkey through Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia as it would have undermined Russia’s position in the European gas market.[24]
Thus, Putin had multiple reasons to stand by Assad, which he did from the very beginning. He protected him in numerous ways, through loans, arms, trade, and diplomatic support. One example of subtle but crucial support was the June 2012 Geneva Communiqué, which outlined a U.N. roadmap for ending the violence and establishing the Transitional Governing Body (TGB) in Syria. At the Kremlin’s insistence, the document is vague about which opposition groups can be included in the TGB. This allowed Moscow to engage with those who did not demand Assad’s departure.
In 2013, Moscow visibly increased its presence in Syria.[25] When, in August 2013, Assad used chemical weapons in Ghouta, the rebel-held suburb of Damascus, killing more than 1,400 civilians, including more than 400 children,[26] he crossed President Obama’s “red line” for a military intervention. To prevent a U.S. response, Putin relied, among other things, on a Soviet-originated concept of “reflexive control”—the idea of shaping a subject’s perception to get him to do voluntarily what the Kremlin wanted him to do.[27] Oftentimes the subject is already predisposed toward making that choice, so it is simply a matter of pushing the right buttons.
To preempt a U.S. response following a chemical attack in Ghouta by the Assad regime, Putin sent a Moskva missile cruiser, a Baltic Fleet destroyer, and a Black Sea Fleet frigate into the eastern Mediterranean.
Putin perceived, correctly, that the U.S. president did not want to get involved in Syria militarily and worked to make sure Obama’s desire prevailed. “We have our plans,” Putin warned in September 2013 in the context of discussion of an intervention,[28] and sent a Moskva missile cruiser, a Baltic Fleet destroyer, and a Black Sea Fleet frigate into the eastern Mediterranean.[29]
Putin is nothing if not pragmatic. He had no interest in a direct military confrontation with the United States. These steps were intended not to cause a confrontation but to increase fear of one and bolster the perception of Putin’s unpredictability. Concurrently, Putin crafted a Russia-led deal to avoid military action against Assad in exchange for a Russia-supervised removal of Assad’s disclosed chemical weapons arsenal—resources Moscow had helped Assad assemble in the first place.[30]
Assad escaped a military intervention, but doubts remained about his undisclosed stockpiles. Smaller-scale chemical weapons attacks continued, and a September 2017 U.N. war crimes investigation found that Assad had used chemical weapons more than two dozen times in the last six years.[31]
In July 2015, as the Syrian regime was losing ground, the commander of the Iranian elite Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, visited Moscow to discuss Syria. This was likely the first step toward the Russian intervention, which would come two months later.[32] There were reports of Russia’s increased buildup in Syria, but just as in Georgia, most analysts missed its significance.
Once Putin intervened, his actions—particularly the bombing campaign—demonstrated that he wanted to force the West to choose in Syria between the Islamic State (ISIS) and Assad. The vast majority of Russia’s airstrikes did not target ISIS and, at times, even strengthened it. At the same time, Putin further entrenched Russia’s military in Syria by establishing the Khmeimim airbase, which became primary for Russian air force operations. Russian ships in Tartus also played a major role in supporting Moscow’s aerial bombing campaign.
In March 2016, Putin announced that Russia had completed its mission in Syria and was withdrawing “the main part” of its armed forces—but this was another deception. The Russian presence only grew. Khmeimim became permanent in October 2016 while, in January 2017, Moscow extended the lease on Tartus for the next forty-nine years—free of charge. At the same time, Russia set up its own peace talks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, to diminish the role of the Geneva peace talks.
On April 4, 2017, Assad unleashed his largest chemical attack since Ghouta in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, in Idlib province. For the first time, Washington, now under President Donald Trump, responded with a targeted strike against Assad. The strike sent the right message, but the message needed to be consistent, and instead, it turned out to be a one-off. Once Putin understood that, he took the initiative once again, helping to lead an effort for a partial ceasefire in southwest Syria. Soon Washington and Moscow had returned to cooperating over the embattled country. After Putin and Trump met in Hamburg on July 7, 2017, this cooperation culminated in the latest ceasefire and the establishment of so-called de-escalation zones led by Russia, Turkey, and Iran.[33]
The agreement worried Israel because it did not require Iran and its allied militias to avoid the Golan Heights—indeed, it barely acknowledged Tehran’s role in Syria.[34] But Putin got exactly what he wanted: cooperation on his own terms. The Russia-led de-escalation zones have a weaker protective framework than a Western-backed no-fly zone would have had and help to stabilize the Assad regime further.
Moscow deployed its military police to monitor the ceasefire, and the Kremlin-controlled press splashed stories all over the news about Russia’s peacemaking efforts and Syrian life returning to normal. On July 31, Moscow commemorated Russia’s Navy Day, and for the first time, celebrations took place in Syria.[35] Assad emerged in the strongest military position he had enjoyed since protests broke out against him in March 2011.
Evaluating Putin’s Success
Geostrategic gains. The Russian intervention in Syria saved Assad, enabled Putin to project great power status at the expense of the West, and entrenched Moscow further in the region. Putin’s support for Assad caused the West to accept Moscow’s terms in Syria. It also enabled Moscow to capitalize on the massive refugee flows into Europe by strengthening the far right and far left parties Putin has supported for years in the interest of destabilizing Europe. Because as long as Assad or someone like him is in charge in Damascus, most Syrian refugees will not return.
Putin can also claim partial success in deterring Washington in the Middle East. His military moves, from Georgia to Ukraine to Syria,[36] show he aims to reestablish a Russian presence across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean by creating and extending buffer zones along Russia’s periphery (anti-access area denial bubbles, A2AD). By definition, these moves are an attempt to reduce Western ability to operate. “Putin is establishing a long-term military presence in the Mediterranean Sea in part to contest the United States’ ability to operate freely and [to] hold NATO’s southern flank at risk,” concludes a July 2017 report by the Institute for the Study of War.[37]
A complete buffer means no one else can operate in a particular space. Putin has not achieved this, but the U.S. military now has to take Russia into account when considering action. It was likely the Russian presence, for example, that prompted Washington to employ cruise missile strikes against Assad’s Shayrat airbase on April 7, 2017 because such missiles are used when there is a high risk to pilot-manned aircraft. Such risks exist in Syria where the U.S. administration now has to coordinate with Russian air defense, and where there is a high possibility of miscalculation.[38] In August 2017, Moscow and Assad formally linked their air defenses in Syria,[39] which could further limit the ability of the U.S. military to support its local partners on the ground.
Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu (seated, left) and Iranian counterpart Hossein Dehghan sign an agreement to expand military ties, Tehran, January 2015. Not since World War II, has Tehran permitted a foreign country to base itself in Iran, but in August 2016, it allowed Moscow to use its Hamedan base.
While Putin seeks to have relations with all parties in the Middle East, his actions in Syria demonstrate a clear pro-Shiite tilt. Russian-Iranian cooperation had been accelerating for years, but Syria increased it to an unprecedented level. For example, in August 2016, Tehran allowed Moscow to use its Hamedan base. Not since World War II has Tehran allowed a foreign country to base itself in Iran. Despite anger at Moscow’s publicizing of the use of the base, Tehran said it would allow Russia to use more air bases in the future.[40]
In late August 2017, Assad publicly thanked Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah for their support. The same month, Germany’s Die Welt discovered that Tehran was transferring weapons to Russia for maintenance via Syria in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231.[41] And in September 2017, Moscow threatened to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution renewing the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon’s mandate if the U.N. labelled Hezbollah a terrorist organization.[42]
These developments show that the Russian-Iranian cooperation continues to grow, despite many predictions of a split due to their historic rivalry. This cooperation holds wide implications for U.S. policy in the Middle East. Tehran’s and Moscow’s goals in Syria are not identical, but they do not clash, and their united opposition to the West allows them to put their differences aside. For Putin, it is easier to confront the West as part of a bloc than on his own.
Domestic distraction and economic boost. Russia has a long history of turning aggressive in world affairs at times of domestic tension. Thus, the famous Russian nineteenth century satirist Soltykov-Shchedrin wrote, “[The Russian powers that be] are talking a lot about patriotism. Must have stolen again.”[43] Before the Crimea annexation, Russia’s economy had been in decline for years, and Putin’s approval ratings had reached an all-time low. After Crimea, Putin’s popularity reached an all-time high. As with Ukraine, Syria served as a distraction: a temporary drug that allowed the Russian people to forget their problems, shift blame away from their government, and indulge in feelings of patriotism.
Approval ratings in Russia are largely engineered, and Putin incessantly asks state-run pollsters to run surveys. If he believed the polling results, he would not need the constant reassurance. Yet it is fair to say that his approval did rise, even if not as much as official polls suggest, making public satisfaction another tangible success of Putin’s Syrian adventure. Feelings of elation do not last, however, and Putin will need new adventures. Syria is unlikely to be his last gambit.
On the fiscal side, the real costs of Russia’s Syria campaign remain unknown and are likely higher than the official figures, but the intervention does not appear to have emptied the state’s coffers. By the most generous estimates of Russia’s liberal party, Yabloko, the Syrian intervention cost the country approximately 140 billion roubles (roughly $2.5 billion) between September 2015 and July 2017.[44] This is a modest figure compared to Russia’s annual defense budget, which reached $69 billion in 2016, almost a 6 percent increase from 2015.[45]
More to the point, Putin used Syria as a training ground for the military and a place to advertise Russia’s weaponry, and it paid off. “The chance to test weapons in real combat can’t be overestimated,” said Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov. “Customers have started queuing up for the weapons that have proven themselves in Syria.”[46]
Moreover, in the first week of September 2017, Assad’s forces led a successful offensive against ISIS in Deir Ezzour, the center of Syria’s oil production, thereby placing him ahead of U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces into the area. Putin promptly congratulated the Syrian president,[47] and Moscow’s presence in the country will enable it to take part in rebuilding and operating Syria’s energy infrastructure. These energy resources are limited but are large enough to make the country essentially energy-independent. They also offer both strategic and economic benefits to Moscow, whose control over the energy sector will solidify its role as Assad’s “indispensable ally.” That position will in turn justify the continued Russian military presence in Syria, necessary to protect Moscow’s economic interests.
One thing Putin hoped for but did not achieve with his Syria intervention was the lifting of sanctions for his aggression in Ukraine. But on balance, his wins far outweigh his losses.
Terrorism Threat?
Putin repeatedly justified his Syria intervention with the need to strike terrorists, mainly ISIS, so jihadists do not return to Russia. Russia does indeed struggle with radical Islamism, and it only takes a few returning terrorists to stage an attack. It is also a matter of concern that Russian citizens have joined ISIS. The exact number is a matter of debate, but it is substantial enough to have made Russian the third most popular language for ISIS propaganda.[48]
Moscow is itself responsible for the rise of domestic Islamic extremism and continues to encourage it internationally. In April 2007, Moscow installed Ramzan Kadyrov (left), a former mujahid, here with Putin, to pacify Chechnya.
But as is usually the case with the Kremlin, the obvious argument is deceptive. Moscow is itself responsible for the rise of domestic Islamic extremism and continues to encourage it internationally. Russia’s current problems in the North Caucasus began with Chechnya’s secular struggle for independence in the 1990s, and the country grew increasingly Islamist largely because of Russia’s abusive policies and willingness to work with more radical elements of the opposition.[49] Ramzan Kadyrov, the man Moscow installed in April 2007 to pacify Chechnya, was himself a former mujahid who oversaw the republic’s Islamization.[50]
It was not until late 2013 that those North Caucasians who went to Syria and Iraq began to see themselves as part of global jihad. Prior to that point, what they wanted was to fight the Russian government.[51] “No single politician or government agency can guarantee today that the Islamic state which Kadyrov has created in Chechnya … will not be transformed over time into another ISIS,” wrote Russian liberal politician Ilya Yashin in a February 2016 report.[52] According to credible reporting, Russia’s Federal Security Service directly pushed North Caucasians out of the country to join ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria through Turkey, especially in the run-up to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, essentially controlling the flow of fighters going into Syria.[53] At the same time, Moscow’s abusive and discriminatory policies toward its own Muslims have also contributed to radicalization.
Many, especially in the Middle East, believe that Russia, for all its faults, is pro-secular. Its ties to Iran are seen as an exception and are in any case believed to be skin deep. This view is flawed. From Hezbollah to Hamas, Moscow will cynically work with any group which can fulfill the Kremlin’s larger purpose.
If Moscow’s priority were in fact to target Islamist terrorism, it would have focused its campaign in Syria on ISIS rather than on protecting Assad.[54] Putin’s support for Assad—the man who caused the protest movement in Syria to radicalize—shows that Moscow is willing to back any actor who facilitates the rise of extremism if doing so suits its purposes. In October 2017, Moscow vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of the U.N. group investigating who was responsible for the April 2017 chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun just days before the group officially came out with its report. The report named the Syrian government as the perpetrator of the attack. These actions show that Moscow supports Assad no matter the depths of his depravities.[55]
Just as Putin presented himself to the West as a counterterrorism partner in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Assad initially presented himself as a secular leader fighting Sunni extremists. But his regime protected the Alawite minority at the expense of all other Syrians and did not shy away from encouraging radicalization. Not only did Assad inject radicals into the protest movement that broke out against him in the spring of 2011, but much earlier, during the 2003 Iraq war, he allowed Sunni extremist fighters from around the region to cross into Iraq via Syria. And when Assad supported the anti-U.S. insurgency, Putin looked the other way.
Conclusion
It is dangerous to over- or underestimate Vladimir Putin. He had plans for the Middle East, particularly Syria, from the very beginning, and pursued them consistently. As he did so, the West dismissed Russia’s influence as inconsequential, wavered, and failed to craft its own clear vision. Putin quickly adapted as realities changed.
Yet for all his commitment to undermining the West, Putin could not have entrenched Russia in Syria to the extent he has if Washington had taken the lead and used force against Assad. Putin tested the waters and stepped in when he felt he could get away with it. His Syrian adventure is a testament to the persistent Western failure to understand Russia, a country whose problems go well beyond Putin or any other individual.[56] Just as the Soviet Union often did, Putin, took advantage of Western ambiguity in the Middle East while Western policymakers tried to divine the Kremlin’s endgame.
As of this writing, Putin has obtained most of what he wanted in Syria: Assad is in a strong negotiating position; his traditional foes are increasingly coming to accept Moscow’s view,[57] and Russia’s presence and influence in Syria are assured. As Putin gears up for a presidential election in March 2018, in which he is all but assured another six-year term, he is not bogged down in Syria. He can tout his peacemaking ability and cooperation with the West even as he is mocking it. Moscow’s cooperation with Tehran shows no signs of abating, a relationship that holds great implications for U.S. regional policy.
The Syrian conflict is extraordinarily complex and far from over. In July 2017, a senior State Department official said that Washington hoped Moscow would “freeze” the conflict—a highly unfortunate turn of phrase, as the Kremlin has years of experience in freezing conflicts to suit its purposes. With its expansion into the Middle East, the Kremlin will increasingly see this region as its sphere of influence, and a frozen conflict in Syria would surely suit Moscow’s aims.
However, Russia’s future is uncertain. Its economic situation is stable but stagnant; dissatisfaction is growing, and major protests do erupt. The country may be slowly degrading, but it retains a number of strengths and is growing increasingly militarized.
Western policymakers must recognize that the Kremlin will not be an honest broker in Syria and must work to reestablish Western leadership rather than allow Moscow to take the lead. A revitalized engagement by the West is the only way to deter Moscow’s entrenchment in the region and its consequent negative influence. The Kremlin is committed to the long game. The West should be, too.
About the author:
*Anna Borshchevskaya is the Ira Weiner fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy where she focuses on Russia’s policy towards the Middle East.
[3] “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation (approved by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on November 30, 2016),” MFA, Moscow, Dec. 1, 2016.
[4] Joseph Stalin, Stalin I.V. Cochineniya—Т. 13, Beseda s polkovnikom Robinsom, 13 maya 1933 g (Kratkaya zapis’) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoye izdatel’stvo politicheskoy literatury, 1951), pp. 260–73.
[18] Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii, State System of Legal Information, Moscow, no. 327, July 20, 2017.
[19] Yevgeny Primakov, Russia and the Arabs (New York: Basic Books, 2009), p. 240; Anna Borshchevskaya, “Russia’s Many Interests in Syria,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, D.C., Jan. 24, 2013.
[20] Author telephone interview with Robert Rook, director of interdisciplinary studies, professor of history, Towson University, Md., Aug. 15, 2017.
[25] John Parker, “Understanding Putin through a Middle Eastern Looking Glass,” Strategic Perspectives, no. 19, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Washington, D.C., July 2015.
[37] Charles Frattini III and Genevieve Casagrande, “Russia’s Mediterranean Threat to NATO,” Institute for the Study of War, Washington, D.C., July 13, 2017.
[38] Author interview with anonymous U.S. aviation source, Washington, D.C., Aug. 17-18, 2017.
[51] Jean-François Ratelle, “North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: Assessing the threat of returnees to the Russian Federation,” Caucasus Survey, Sept. 2016, pp. 218-38.
[52] Ilya Yashin, “A Threat to National Security: An independent expert report,” Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and Free Russia, Moscow, Feb. 2016.
[53] Elena Milashina, “Khalifat? Primanka dlya durakov!” Novaya Gazeta (Moscow), July 29, 2015.
[54] Genevieve Casagrande and Ellen Stockert, “Russian Airstrikes in Syria: Pre- and Post- Ceasefire,” Institute for the Study of War, Washington, D.C., accessed Oct. 13, 2017.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi on Saturday declared the end of military operations against Daesh and the liberation of all Iraqi territory formerly held by it.
“Your land has been completely liberated, and your raped cities and villages have returned to the homeland, and the dream of liberation has become a reality,” he said in a broadcast address to the Iraqi people.
“We have accomplished the difficult mission in hard circumstances, and we have won with the help of God, the steadfastness of our people and the bravery of our armed forces,” he added.
“We declare to our people and to all the world that the our heroes arrived at the last Daesh stronghold, liberated it and raised the flag of Iraq over the western parts of Anbar (province).”
Abadi said Sunday would be a national holiday to celebrate “Victory Day.”
Vast swathes of northern and western Iraq fell to Daesh in June 2014. Since then, Iraqi security forces, backed by Shiite-dominated paramilitary groups and the US-led coalition, have fought to liberate those lands.
Tens of thousands of civilians and security personnel were killed, and more than 5 million people displaced, during the war, with an estimated $100 billion worth of destruction to infrastructure and private property.
Al-Jazeera, the vast desert between Anbar in the west and Nineveh province in the north, which stretches along the border with Syria, was Daesh’s last stronghold in Iraq.
Abadi’s announcement came after Special Forces Gen. Abdul-Ameer Yar Allah, commander of operations in Al-Jazeera and the Upper Euphrates, said his troops had completed their mission by liberating the desert area and taking control of the 183-km-long border with Syria.
The end of the war leaves Iraq facing many challenges, particularly corruption, against which Abadi launched a campaign last month.
“Combating corruption in Iraq is much harder than combating Daesh,” Rahman Al-Jobouri, a political analyst based in the US, told Arab News.
“Abadi needs time and political will. He doesn’t have much time until the elections, and the political will isn’t available.”
A series of renewed attacks by the Islamic State group against Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra; the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda) in northwest Syria has seen forces of the self-declared caliphate make major gains up the length of a key highway that runs between the cities of Hama to Aleppo, Al-Masdar News reports.
After nearly two weeks of inactivity, IS militants operating in Hama province’s northern countryside burst forward from their positions several days ago capturing over a dozen villages and towns from Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham in rapid succession.
During the process, the small IS bastion in the region has also expanded control over a major highway that runs from Hama to Aleppo via Tal ad-Daman adding a degree of strategic value to its latest conquests.
Furthermore, not only has IS been gaining ground against Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham, but it has also been inflicting horrific losses against the rival jihadist organization. A surprise raiding operation three days ago saw Islamic State militants kill nearly three dozen Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham fighters.
Although sharing a virtually identical ideology to Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamic State’s presence in and around has been bitterly contested for years now.
Even prior to IS establishing a proper military toe-hold in rebel-held northwest Syria around two months ago, Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham launched constant crackdowns to weed out and exterminate the Islamic State sleeper agents operating throughout the region.
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono have announced the successful conclusion of the final discussions on the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
Building on the political agreement in principle reached during the EU-Japan Summit on 6 July 2017, negotiators from both sides have been tying up the last details in order to finish the legal text. This process is now finalised.
The way to theoutcome was paved by the strong personal engagement of the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe throughout the process and notably in 2017 at the occasion of their meetings held in Brussels, in March and in the margins of the G7 Summit in Taormina, in May.
The conclusion of these negotiations is an important milestone to put in place the biggest bilateral trade agreement ever negotiated by the European Union. The Economic Partnership Agreement will open huge market opportunities for both sides, strengthen cooperation between Europe and Japan in a range of areas, reaffirm their shared commitment to sustainable development, and include for the first time a specific commitment to the Paris climate agreement.
After confirming the conclusion of this process in a phone call with Prime Minister Abe, President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “This is the EU at its best, delivering both on form and on substance. The EU and Japan send a powerful message in defence of open, fair and rules-based trade. This agreement enshrines common values and principles, and brings tangible benefits to both sides while safeguarding each other’s sensitivities. In line with the commitment made in July, we finalised the discussions before the end of the year. We will now do the necessary to submit the agreement to the European Parliament and EU’s Member States so that our companies and citizens can start exploring its full potential before the end of the mandate of my Commission.”
“Right on time – we are delivering on our promise to finalise this win-win agreement during this year,” said Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström. “The EU and Japan share a common vision for an open and rules-based world economy that guarantees the highest standards. Today, we are sending a message to other countries about the importance of free and fair trade, and of shaping globalisation.. The potential of this deal is enormous and I’m glad that the EU and Japan remain fully on course to sign it next year. That way, EU firms, workers and consumers will be able to enjoy the benefits as soon as possible.”
Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan said: “This agreement represents the most significant and far reaching deal ever concluded by the EU in agri-food trade. It will provide huge growth opportunities for our agri-food exporters in a very large, mature and sophisticated market. We were successful in developing a model free trade agreement that fits our export profile, while still delivering a mutually beneficial agreement with our partner. This shows the EU as a global leader and standard-setter in shaping international trade and its rules – a concrete example of the EU harnessing globalisation to benefit our citizens. EU agri-food exports create high-quality jobs, most of them in rural areas.”
The outstanding technical discussions that have taken place since July have included: stabilising the commitments of the EU and Japan on tariffs and services; settling on the final provisions for protection of EU and Japanese Geographical Indications; concluding the chapters on good regulatory practices and regulatory cooperation, and transparency; strengthening the commitment to the Paris agreement in the trade and sustainable development chapter; as well as clearing up a number of minor remaining issues in several parts of the agreement.
The main elements of the agreement
The Economic Partnership Agreement will remove the vast majority of the €1 billion of duties paid annually by EU companies exporting to Japan, as well as a number of long-standing regulatory barriers. It will also open up the Japanese market of 127 million consumers to key EU agricultural exports and will increase EU export opportunities in a range of other sectors.
With regards to agricultural exports from the EU, the agreement will, in particular:
scrap duties on many cheeses such as Gouda and Cheddar (which currently are at 29.8%) as well as on wine exports (currently at 15% on average);
allow the EU to increase its beef exports to Japan substantially, while on pork there will be duty-free trade in processed meat and almost duty-free trade for fresh meat;
ensure the protection in Japan of more than 200 high-quality European agricultural products, so called Geographical Indications (GIs), and will also ensure the protection of a selection of Japanese GIs in the EU.
The agreement also opens up services markets, in particular financial services, e-commerce, telecommunications and transport. It also…
guarantees EU companies access to the large procurement markets of Japan in 48 large cities, and removes obstacles to procurement in the economically important railway sector at national level;
addresses specific sensitivities in the EU, for instance in the automotive sector, with transition periods before markets are opened.
The deal also includes a comprehensive chapter on trade and sustainable development; sets the highest standards of labour, safety, environmental and consumer protection; strengthens EU and Japan’s actions on sustainable development and climate change and fully safeguards public services.
Concerning data protection, which is being dealt with separately from the Economic Partnership Agreement, a Joint Statement was issued during the July Summit, in which the EU and Japan stress the importance of ensuring a high level of privacy and security of personal data as a fundamental right and as a central factor of consumer trust in the digital economy, which also further facilitate mutual data flows, leading to the development of digital economy. With the recent reforms of their respective privacy legislation, the two sides have further increased the convergence between their systems, which rest notably on an overarching privacy law, a core set of individual rights and enforcement by independent supervisory authorities. This offers new opportunities to facilitate data exchanges, including through a simultaneous finding of an adequate level of protection by both sides. The EU and Japan continue working towards adopting adequacy decisions under the respective data protection rules as soon as possible in 2018.
Next steps
This announcement means that the EU and Japan will now start the legal verification of the text, also known as “legal scrubbing”.
Once this exercise is completed, the English text of the agreement will be translated into the other 23 official languages of the EU, as well as into Japanese.
The Commission will then submit the agreement for the approval of the European Parliament and EU Member States, aiming for its entry into force before the end of the current mandate of the European Commission in 2019.
At the same time, negotiations continue on investment protection standards and investment protection dispute resolution. The firm commitment on both sides is to reach convergence in the investment protection negotiations as soon as possible, in light of their shared commitment to a stable and secure investment environment in Europe and Japan.
Macedonia’s prosecution has launched a probe into allegations that former high-ranking Macedonian officials have used companies in neighbouring Serbia for money-laundering schemes.
The prosecution said on Friday that it is probing allegations made by Serbian opposition leader Vuk Jeremic, who last week alleged that people close to former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski have been intensively buying Serbian firms as part of a money-laundering scheme.
“The Organised Crime Prosecution has launched a pre-investigation procedure after hearing allegations, due to indications of money laundering,” the prosecution said in a statement.
It said that the probe “refers to alleged money laundering in the Republic of Serbia carried out by high-ranking Macedonian officials and their connection to persons and legal entities in Serbia and the Czech Republic”.
Jeremic, who is a former Serbian foreign minister and leader of the opposition People’s Party, made the allegations to Serbia’s TV NASA last week.
“Those who formed part of the regime of Nikola Gruevski have started to extract money from Macedonia in panic,” Jeremic claimed.
He alleged that the schemes involved the illegal transfer of money from offshore bank accounts via the Netherlands and the Czech Republic into Serbian businesses.
Gruevski’s former ruling VMRO DPMNE party, which was ousted from government in May after spending more than 11 years in power, denied Jeremic’s accusations immediately after the interview.
In reaction to the Macedonian prosecution statement about the probe, the VMRO DPMNE said that it was further proof that after the change in central government, the legal system in the country was no longer functional.
Since leaving office, top officials from the former ruling party which was in power for more than 11 years, Gruevski among them, have been facing a series of investigations and charges raised by Macedonia’s Special Prosecution, SJO.
Indian activists blamed the government’s rightwing Hindu ideology Friday for a Muslim man’s gruesome killing, which was videotaped and posted online, and which police believe was religiously motivated.
A Hindu man, Shambunath Raigar, is in custody as a suspect in the slaying of Muslim laborer Mohammad Afrazul in western Rajasthan state on Wednesday, police said. The suspect had allegedly objected to the Muslim’s intention to marry a local Hindu woman.
The video, which went viral on social media, shows Afrazul, 35, being hacked with a machete, set on fire, and burned alive. The suspect is seen in the video wearing a saffron-colored outfit and shouting anti-Muslim rants, police said. These include warnings against so-called “love jihad,” in which male members of India’s Muslim minority men allegedly feign love for Hindu women in order to marry and subsequently convert them to Islam.
The color saffron is associated with India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“We have arrested [a] person called Shambunath Raigar for the crime. He seems unrepentant,” a police official in Rajsamand town, Rajasthan, told BenarNews on condition of anonymity.
“Afrazul was in love with a Hindu girl from his [Raigar’s] locality,” he said.
Supreme Court case
The killing occurred amid an ongoing Supreme Court hearing of a Hindu who claims that his daughter was forced into marriage by a suspected Indian Muslim member of the extremist group Islamic State for the sole purpose of converting and radicalizing her.
“The BJP-RSS have a single point communal agenda and is out there to spoil communal harmony. They have an agenda of dividing and spreading fear among people. Human rights do not exist according to them,” Shakir Ali of the All Indian Minorities Commission told BenarNews.
Rubina Patel, a prominent Muslim women’s rights activist, said “love jihad” was a word coined by politicians to foment social discord and divisions.
“People have been falling in love for centuries regardless of religion. If it’s becoming an issue for the sake of politics, it is wrong. Misguiding a boy or a girl – or the whole community – that something called love jihad is happening is wrong,” she told BenarNews.
‘Provoking our girls’
According to right-wing activists, “love jihad” exists and is on the rise in India.
“The Supreme Court has also accepted its existence. The media has extensively surveyed and assessed it across the country and found it to be true. The Hindus are very much provoked by love jihad,” Amit Aryan, president of Jai Shiv Sena, a Hindu group, told BenarNews.
“Wednesday’s incident is proof that Muslim men are provoking our girls,” he said.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, however, described the incident as “deplorable.” Meanwhile, here fellow BJP members said that occurrences of Muslims marrying women from other religions for conversion purposes were common but the term “love jihad” was not created by the party.
“Love-jihad is coined by the Kerala High Court. Some three years back, around 50,000 Hindus and Christians were radicalized and converted to Islam there. The issue was discussed even by the Congress party and LDF (Left Democratic Front) in the Kerala Assembly when several members of the Church had raised it,” BJP spokesman, GVL Narsimha Rao, told BenarNews.
“It [these conversions] are a real social and security problem. The NIA has also investigated some cases. It’s not a creation by anybody but a real, social, security and law and order problem in country,” he said, referring to India’s National Investigation Agency.
Many regional officials from across Indonesia have committed to combatting a rise in intolerance and extremism.
Their commitment was made following a national conference in Jakarta on the importance of preventing sectarianism from marring elections for political office.
About 200 district and local officials, including mayors, participated along with civil society organizations.
The gathering was organized by the National Commission on Human Rights, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) and the office of President Joko Widodo.
There was recognition that sectarianism was a significant factor in the defeat early this year of Chinese Christian Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok, in his bid to be re-elected governor of Jakarta.
Ahok was accused by Islamic militants of blasphemy for challenging a claim that Muslims should only vote for other Muslims.
Sectarian tensions are likely to build further as the country holds provincial, regional, district and municipal elections in June 2018 and a presidential election in May 2019.
Rights activists called on officials at the lower levels of government not to rely on the central government to tackle extremism.
A rights activist, Holy Servant Sister Genobeba Amaral, welcomed the regional government officials’ commitment.
“I believe if they do something, society will follow,” she said.
Clashes erupted in the Issawiya and al-Tur neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem between Palestinian youth and Israeli forces late Friday night.
Israeli forces raided the neighborhoods and closed the entrance of Issawiya and the main street in al-Tur.
Member of local follow-up committee in Issawiya, Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, told Ma’an that Israeli forces used rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas to suppress youths who threw rocks and Molotov cocktails.
Witnesses in al-Tur said that Israeli forces detained four Palestinians from the village, closed the main street and prevented vehicle entry.
Meanwhile, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center said in a statement that eleven Palestinians, mostly teens, were detained during sit-ins in the streets of East Jerusalem on Friday.
(RFE/RL) — Ukrainian opposition politician and former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has declared a hunger strike, his lawyer told journalists on December 9.
Attorney Ruslan Chornolutskiy released a letter from Saakashvili calling on supporters to protest in Kyiv on December 10 and to call for the impeachment of President Petro Poroshenko.
Also on December 9, a spokesman for the Prosecutor-General’s Office said prosecutors would ask a court to place Saakashvili under house arrest with electronic monitoring pending trial.
Ukrainian officials have accused Saakashvili of abetting an alleged “criminal group” led by former President Viktor Yanukoych — who was pushed from power in 2014 and fled to Russia — and have suggested that his protests are part of a Russian plot against Ukraine.
Saakashvili has dismissed the claims.
Saakashvili was arrested in the Ukrainian capital late on December 8, prompting hundreds of his supporters to demonstrate for his release.
The firebrand activist’s supporters gathered in a narrow street outside the police station where he was taken late on December 8, not far from the parliament building, shouting “Shame” and “Kyiv, get up!” while a large number of police in riot gear stood guard.
Close ally and fellow Georgian David Sakvarelidze called on Kyiv residents to take to the streets to protest Saakashvili’s recapture, which he blamed on President Poroshenko.
“Today Poroshenko broke all records and went down in history as a dictator who does this to political opponents,” Sakvarelidze told TV channel NewsOne.
Three associates of Saakashvili told RFE/RL that he was arrested at a friend’s apartment where he was visiting earlier on December 8. Sakvarelidze said the agents were from the state security agency SBU.
Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a post to his Facebook page that “everything was done to avoid bloodshed.”
“The detainee is placed in a temporary detention facility,” he wrote.
Hours earlier, Saakashvili called on Ukrainians to demonstrate in Kyiv on December 10. In a Facebook post, Saakashvili told supporters he had lost his voice and was running a temperature but would “be by your side again” at a midday march to Kyiv’s Independence Square, which was the site of the months-long 2013-14 protests that ousted the country’s pro-Russia president.
Saakashvili, who became governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region in 2015 but quit a year later and is now a vocal opponent of Poroshenko, thanked backers for their support in the tumult of recent days.
Law-enforcement officers searched Saakashvili’s apartment in Kyiv on December 5, dragged him off the roof, and bundled him into a car. But supporters blocked the streets and pulled him from the vehicle, and he led a march to parliament.
A day later, police raided a protest tent camp near parliament, but Saakashvili was not detained and a 24-hour deadline for him to turn himself in passed without visible action by the authorities.
The search of Saakashvili’s home was conducted two days after his Movement of New Forces party organized a rally in Kyiv calling for Poroshenko’s impeachment and for legislation that would allow it to take place.
Poroshenko late on December 8 said international experts may help justice officials investigate the charges against Saakashvili, adding that he was sure Saakashvili would get a fair trial in Ukraine.
“I don’t exclude that the inquiry may ask for extra expertise, including from international organizations, to enhance trust,” Poroshenko told reporters during a visit to Vilnius to meet with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.
Saakashvili “has to answer to investigators and to society regarding the accusations against him,” Poroshenko said. “If he doesn’t answer, it only means that these accusations are well-founded.”
“If he flees from the investigation, this undermines his credibility,” Poroshenko said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri Saturday blasted the apparent visit to south Lebanon by an Iraqi militia leader.
“It constitutes a violation of Lebanese law and I contacted the military and security leaders concerned to conduct the necessary investigations and take measures,” Hariri said, according to a statement from his office.
The statement added that a video had been circulating on social media showing Iraqi militia commander touring southern border villages in military uniform.
“The video was filmed six days ago and constitutes a violation of Lebanese law,” the prime minister said.
Hariri contacted military and security leaders concerned to conduct the necessary investigations and take measures to prevent any person or party from carrying out foreign military activity on Lebanese territory.
“Measures should be taken to prevent any illegal acts as is shown in the video and prevent the person involved from entering Lebanon,” he said.
Quoting a security source, MTV reported that an “Iraqi military commander entered Lebanon illegally and the case is being followed up.”
When contacted for further details, an Army spokesperson said they had no further information regarding the incident.
A diocese in one of Mexico’s most violence-ridden states has indicated it will avoid scheduling Masses for Christmas and its octave at “high risk” times. It has also asked the state’s police to protect parishioners.
“With respect to the problem of insecurity, for the most part the established schedule has been kept, but we are trying to avoid scheduling certain times that could be high risk,” Fr. José Luis Compeán Rueda, vicar general of the Diocese of Tabasco, said at a Dec. 3 press conference in Villahermosa, capital of the Mexican state of Tabasco.
El Heraldo de Tabasco reported that Fr. Compean said he had met with the head of Tabasco’s Department of Public Safety, Jorge Aguirre Carbajal, to talk about the problem of the lack of public safety and said that “they will take appropriate steps as needed.”
“We hope the different state or municipal authorities will take corresponding measures to provide protection, not exclusively to the Church, but to all of society,” he said.
Fr. Compeán noted that during the year end festivities crime increases because people are getting paid Christmas bonuses and buying Christmas presents.
A September report prepared by the Tabasco Citizens’ Observatory revealed that in 2017 Tabasco occupied first place in the nation in kidnappings per capita.
“The State of Tabasco held first place in five categories of crime: kidnapping, aggravated robbery, robbery of businesses, holdups of passersby and livestock rustling” the director of Analysis and Statistics of the Tabasco Citizens’ Observatory, Julia Arrivillaga, told Televisa.
The Catholic Multimedia Center released a report in August showing that Tabasco is one of the most dangerous states for priests, and that Mexico is the most violent country for priests in Latin America.
Observations of two galaxies made with the National Science Foundation-funded Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope suggest that large galaxies formed faster than scientists had previously thought.
The two galaxies, first discovered by the South Pole Telescope at NSF’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, were massive and star-filled at a time when the cosmos was less than a billion years old.
The observation came as a surprise, considering astronomers had thought that the first galaxies, which formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, were similar to today’s dwarf galaxies — collections of stars much smaller than the Milky Way. After a few billion years, these early, smaller galaxies became the building blocks of the larger galaxies that came to dominate the universe, scientists believed.
But the latest ALMA observations push this epoch of massive-galaxy formation back further into the past, as the two galaxies were giants when the universe was only 780 million years old. ALMA also revealed that these large galaxies were nestled inside an even-more-massive cosmic structure, a halo of dark matter several trillion times more massive than the sun. The discovery provides new details about the emergence of large galaxies and the role that dark matter plays in assembling the most massive structures in the universe.
The researchers report their findings in the journal Nature.
“With these exquisite ALMA observations, astronomers are seeing the most massive galaxy known in the first billion years of the Universe in the process of assembling itself,” said Dan Marrone, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona in Tucson and lead author on the paper, whose research received NSF support, including an NSF CAREER grant.
Viewing distant galaxies means looking back through time, in a sense. The energy from those objects takes so long to reach Earth that researchers today view events that occurred billions of years ago. The astronomy team captured data from these two galaxies as they were during a period of cosmic history known as the Epoch of Reionization, when most of intergalactic space was suffused with an obscuring fog of cold hydrogen gas. As more stars and galaxies formed, their energy eventually ionized the hydrogen between the galaxies, revealing the universe as we see it today.
The observations showed the two galaxies in such close proximity — less than the distance from the Earth to the center of our galaxy — that they were certainly on course to merge and form the largest galaxy ever observed in the Epoch of Reionization.
“We usually view that as the time of little galaxies working hard to chew away at the neutral intergalactic medium,” said Marrone. “Mounting observational evidence with ALMA, however, has helped to reshape that story and continues to push back the time at which truly massive galaxies first emerged in the universe.”
The galaxies that Marrone and his team studied, collectively known as SPT0311-58, were originally identified as a single luminous source by the 10-meter South Pole Telescope (SPT) survey. SPT is supported by NSF’s Office of Polar Programs, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program.
“These discoveries are made possible by close cooperation between NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences and Office of Polar Programs, both supporting the ALMA and SPT facilities; such cooperation will be essential to achieving the goals of Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-messenger Astrophysics, one of the “10 Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments,” said Vladimir Papitashvili, NSF program director for Antarctic Astrophysics and Geospace Sciences.
These first observations indicated an object was very distant and glowing brightly in infrared light, meaning that it was extremely dusty and likely going through a burst of star formation. Subsequent observations with ALMA revealed the distance and dual nature of the object, clearly resolving the pair of interacting galaxies.
To make this observation, ALMA had some help from a gravitational lens, which provided an observing boost to the telescope. Gravitational lenses form when an intervening massive object, like a galaxy or galaxy cluster, bends the light from more distant galaxies. They do, however, distort the appearance of the object being studied, requiring sophisticated computer models to reconstruct the image as it would appear in its unaltered state.
This “de-lensing” process provided intriguing details about the galaxies, showing that the larger of the two is forming stars at a rate of 2,900 solar masses per year. It also contains about 270 billion times the mass of our sun in gas and nearly 3 billion times the mass of our sun in dust.
“That’s a whopping large quantity of dust, considering the young age of the system,” noted ALMA team member Justin Spilker, a recent graduate of the University of Arizona and now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.
The astronomers determined that this galaxy’s rapid star formation was likely triggered by a close encounter with its slightly smaller companion, which already hosts about 35 billion solar masses of stars and is increasing its rate of starburst at the breakneck pace of 540 solar masses per year.
The researchers note that galaxies of this earlier era are messier than the ones we see in the nearby universe. Their more jumbled shapes would be due to the vast stores of gas raining down on them and their ongoing interactions and mergers with their neighbors.
The new observations also allowed the researchers to infer the presence of a truly massive dark matter halo surrounding both galaxies. Dark matter provides the pull of gravity that causes the universe to collapse into structures (galaxies, groups and clusters of galaxies, etc.).
“If you want to see if a galaxy makes sense in our current understanding of cosmology, you want to look at the dark matter halo — the collapsed dark matter structure — in which it resides,” said Chris Hayward, an associate research scientist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York City who provides theoretical support for the ALMA follow-up of SPT-discovered galaxies. “Fortunately, we know very well the ratio between dark matter and normal matter in the universe, so we can estimate what the dark matter halo mass must be.”
By comparing their calculations with current cosmological predictions, the researchers found that this halo is one of the most massive that should exist at that time.
“There are more galaxies discovered with the South Pole Telescope that we’re following up, and there is a lot more survey data that we are just starting to analyze. Our hope is to find more objects like this, possibly even more distant ones, to better understand this population of extreme dusty galaxies and especially their relation to the bulk population of galaxies at this epoch,” said Joaquin Vieira, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign and member of the SPT team whose study of SPT-discovered galaxies is funded through NSF’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants program.
“In any case, our next round of ALMA observations should help us understand how quickly these galaxies came together and improve our understanding of massive galaxy formation during reionization,” Marrone said.
A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the Electronics-Inspired Interdisciplinary Research Institute (EIIRIS) at Toyohashi University of Technology has developed an ultrastretchable bioprobe using Kirigami designs.
The Kirigami-based bioprobe enables one to follow the shape of spherical and large deformable biological samples such as heart and brain tissues. In addition, its low strain-force characteristic reduces the force induced on organs, thereby enabling minimally invasive biological signal recording.
High stretchability and deformability are promising properties to increase the applications of flexible film electronics including sensors, actuators, and energy harvesters. In particular, they have great potential for applications related to three-dimensional soft biological samples such as organs and tissues that exhibit large and rapid changes in their surface area and volume (e.g., a beating heart).
However, conventional elastomer-based stretchable devices require a large strain-force to stretch it, that arises from an intrinsic material property. This makes it impossible to follow the deformation of soft biological tissues, thereby preventing natural deformation and growth. For device applications pertaining to soft biological samples, it is extremely important to reduce the strain-force characteristic of the stretchable devices to realize low invasiveness and safe measurements.
A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the EIIRIS at Toyohashi University of Technology has developed an ultrastretchable bioprobe using Kirigami designs.
“To realize the ultrastretchable bioprobe with low strain-force characteristic, we used a Kirigami design as the device pattern. The remarkable feature of Kirigami is that rigid and unstretchable materials can be rendered more stretchable compared to other elastomer-based stretchable materials. The stretching mechanism is based on an out-of-plane bending of the thin film rather than stretching of the material; therefore, the strain-stress characteristic is extremely low compared to that of elastomer-based stretchable devices,” explained the first author of the article, Ph.D. candidate Yusuke Morikawa.
The leader of the research team, Associate Professor Takeshi Kawano, said, “The idea germinated in my mind one morning when I woke up and saw my son playing with Origami and Kirigami. I saw him realize high stretchability of the paper while creating the Kirigami designs. This made me wonder whether it is possible to develop stretchable electronics using the concept of Kirigami. Surprisingly, our preliminary studies on Kirigami-based parylene films by microelectromechanical systems technology exhibited high stretchability of 1,100%. In addition, we are extremely excited that the fabricated Kirigami-based bioprobes possess the distinct advantages of high stretchability and deformability, and are capable of recording biological signals from the cortical surface and beating heart of a mouse.”
The research team believes that the Kirigami-based bioprobes can also be used to probe tissues and organs that exhibit time-dependent changes in their surface and volume due to growth or disease. This is expected to lead to the eventual realization of a completely new measurement method that can be instrumental in understanding the mechanisms governing growth and diseases like Alzheimer’s.
SLAPP stands for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.” It is a lawsuit brought by big corporations intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the overwhelming costs of a legal defense until they’re forced to abandon their criticism or opposition. And it may be the biggest threat to the resistance you’ve never heard of.
Here’s an example: Resolute Forest Products, one of Canada’s largest logging and paper companies, has sued, in a U.S. court, environmental groups that have been campaigning to save Canada’s boreal forest.
Resolute based its lawsuit on a U.S. conspiracy and racketeering law (RICO) intended to ensnare mobsters. Resolute alleged that the environmental groups have been illegally conspiring to extort the company’s customers and to defraud their own donors.
The suit wasn’t designed to win in court. It was designed to distract and silence critics. This is punishment for speaking out. Thankfully, a federal court agrees and a judge just dismissed Resolute’s claims. But other corporate bullies are still trying to use this playbook.
Here’s another example: Remember the indigenous led movement at Standing Rock, when hundreds of nations and their allies came together and stood up against the destructive Dakota Access Pipeline?
In August, Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind that pipeline, filed a similar RICO case against Greenpeace entities and two other defendants over Standing Rock. The suit accuses them of participating in a sprawling criminal conspiracy to disrupt business and defraud donors. The lawsuit even alleges they support eco-terrorism and engage in drug trafficking.
The lawsuit claims Greenpeace cost the company $300 million. Since RICO claims entitle plaintiffs to recover triple damages, the case potentially could cost Greenpeace $900 million. That would be the end of Greenpeace.
But, again, winning isn’t necessarily the goal of SLAPP suits. Just by filing the suits, Energy Transfer Partners and Resolute are trying to drain environmental groups of time, energy, and resources they need, so they can’t continue to fight to protect the environment.
Connect the dots, and consider the chilling effect SLAPP suits are having on any group seeking to protect public health, worker’s rights, and even our democracy.
Who’s behind all of this? Both the lawsuits I just mentioned were filed by Michael Bowe. He is also a member of Donald Trump’s personal legal team. Bowe has publicly stated that he’s in conversations with other corporations considering filing their own SLAPP lawsuits.
If the goal is to silence public-interest groups, the rest of us must speak out. Wealthy corporations must know they can’t SLAPP the public into silence.
For most of the quarter century since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania recovered their de facto independence, when Russian or Western analysts spoke about demographic problems in them, they focused almost entirely on the role of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in their populations.
But now, as that issue has faded – the ethnic Russian share of the populations has fallen as a result of differential birth and death rates and departures, and the role of non-citizens has declined as ever more “Russians” choose to become citizens of these countries – analysts both in Russia and the West are focusing on the real demographic challenges to these countries.
There are three main kinds: rapidly aging populations as a result of low and declining birth rates and longer live expectancies, the exodus of young and well-educated cohorts to other parts of Europe, and the declining size of the workforce capable of paying the taxes to support the elderly.
Such problems are not unique to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; but they are especially marked in these three countries. And Russian commentators are now focusing on these issues even more than on ethnic ones in their efforts to find ways to attack the Baltic countries or to gain leverage on their activities.
Much of this decline, Nosovich says, is among people who should be paying the taxes that will be needed to cope with the rising share of the populations in the three over the age of 65. Without their presence and their taxes, the Baltic governments will be forced to cut pensions and thus anger many older people who had been among their biggest boosters.
Maranda Bechman, chief statistician of Latvia’s Central Statistical Administration, says she doesn’t want to call this “a catastrophe, but the situation resulting from the loss of [this portion of] the population is very serious.” And Priit Riistok of Estonia’s finance ministry says exactly the same thing.
To cope with that, these countries need to attract more immigrants, but they do not see where such people are likely to come from or how they could be integrated. And consequently, barring breakthroughs in productivity, the economies of the three are likely to stagnate or even decline, forcing them to try to get more help from the EU at a time the EU is cutting back.
Many in the Baltic countries believe that they can be “’the hospice of Europe,’ in which elderly residents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will peacefully live out their time,” Nosovich says. “But instead of a quiet old age and a slow decline, these countries are going to face a systemic crisis and social catastrophe.”
He says that the social and political stability in the three now resembles that in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. “Then the Soviet authorities” received praise for their breakthroughs. But that didn’t last because the regime proved incapable of translating these into forces that would help the entire population.
Something similar is happening in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now, Nosovich says. “The long-term demographic trends are just as fatal as the economic ones were for the Soviet Union.” Up to now, few in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius appear all that disturbed; but that will change as conditions begin to deteriorate.
Nosovich almost certainly overstates the problem especially given the history of Baltic inventiveness, but his remarks are important for two reasons. On the one hand, he is pointing to a real problem not linked to ethnicity, an implicit confession that from Moscow’s point of view that factor isn’t as important as it once was.
And on the other, his attention to this issue suggests that many in Moscow may be factoring it rather than just ethnicity in their plans to continue to seek to destabilize the Baltic countries. If that is the case, then the Balts and their friends need to take these trends seriously indeed.
Analysis of military actions in Syria in the past month shows that Uyghur militants of Turkestan Islamic Party(TIP) hold their positions taken up earlier in Idlib province and are in no haste to go back to China. On November 23, 2017, the media center of TIPIslam Avazi (Voice of Islam)via Telegram posted a video in which jihadists destroyed two tanksТ-62 and nearly ten soldiers of the Syrian army. TIP used advanced anti-tank weapons, armored vehicles and drones, which confirms its good military technical capability.
The Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan established in the 80s of last century in Chinese Xingjian was later renamed into the Turkestan Islamic Party and since 1997 it has been known to be based in Afghanistan. Since then, TIP is actively cooperating with terrorist groups al Qaeda and Taliban. In 1998, the leader of TIP, HasanMahsum, received a passport from the Taliban in Kabul. As was reported by the Permanent Mission of the PRC to the UN, in October 2000 Osama bin Laden financed the TIP with $300,000.
Close cooperation with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan has radicalized the ideology of the TIP and jihadism has become a key element of the party platform.The TIP adopted the ideology of al Qaeda along with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, whose members were the natives of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.The Uyghur and Central Asian militants underwent joint military training in camps based in Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Qandahar, Sheberghan, and Wardak. After the commencement of the military operation of the Afghanistan-based US forces and the fall of the Taliban regime, the base of TIP became Waziristan. After Hasan Mahsumwas killed in 2003 in the joint operation of the U.S. and Pakistan armed forces in South Waziristan, the leader of TIP became Abd al-Haqq al Turkistani. He managed to unite a vast number of Islamic radicals from Central Asia and China scattered throughout Waziristan, who fled prosecutions and repressions in their motherland. Abdul Haqq was appointed to al Qaeda’s elite Shura Council in 2005. Today Abd al-Haqqis located in northern Syria and continues to be the leader of the TIP.
After the outbreak of the civil war, Syria became the site for the deployment of many terrorist groups in the world. In February 2012, on the recommendation of al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al Zawahiri, TIP jihadists moved to Idlibprovince, and together with Jabhat al-Nusra are fighting against government forces of Bashar al-Assad.
Thedata on the number of Uyghur TIP militants located in Syria varies. According to Dubai-based Arabic Al Aan TV, from 10,000 to 20,000 Chinese Uyghurs moved to Zanbaq and Jisr al Shughour to join the military wing of al Qaeda in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, which significantly changed the demography of Idlib province. But this version is hardly probable. Syria’s ambassador in Beijing, Imad Moustapha, had said that there are about 5 000 Uyghurs fighting against the Syrian army. But based on an analysis of independent sources, Turkish and Arab media, as well as videos from the scenes of fighting and drills posted by Islam Avazi Media Center, we had claimed earlier that there were more than 2,000 Uyghur militants of Turkestan Islamic Party in Syria. Moreover, about 600 Uyghurs joined ISIS, most of whom have died so far or fled back to Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
It should be noted that many Uyghurs, who fled from China, came to Syria with their wives and children. The Media Center Islam Avazi regularly produces video reports on how children of Uyghur militants of TIP undergo military training and learn the basics of Sharia law. According to the Islam Avaziin Telegram, “hundreds and hundreds of Uyghur children are brought up in Syria and in the future will become real soldiers of Allah and will liberate the land of East Turkestan from the unfaithful Chinese through jihad.”
The transportation of a family can sometimes cost up to $10,000. To reach Syria, the Uyghurs use different routes. Due to low travel expenses, many people prefer to travel to Turkey through the countries of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan) and then cross the Syrian border. Some arrive through Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is considered a more established route. There are people among TIP militants who covered a long distance through the countries of Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore), even coming through Australia. But the main transport shipment point is Turkey. The Erdogan government, due to linguistic, religious and ethnic similarities, is more supportive of Uyghur refugees and provides consular support to them.
The evolution of the Jihadist ideology of the Turkestan Islamic Party
The ideology of TIP has come a long way from Uyghur nationalism, the struggle for independent Uyghurstan to the global jihad. The ideology of the group sharply radicalized in 2000-2012, when the leaders of TIP fully adopted the concept of global jihad from al Qaeda and the Taliban. Close cooperation with Ayman al-Zawahiri finally proved to the leader of TIP Abd al-Ḥaqq and his closest associates that “the path of jihad is the only way to prevent Chinese repression, protect our religion, language, national culture and liberate the lands of East Turkestan from the government of Beijing.”
Despite the widening range of ideology, the anti-Chinese slogan and call for jihad against Beijing remains the main doctrine of TIP. All Islam Avazi propaganda materials raise the issue of Xinjiang and express concern about the repression of Uyghur Muslims in the XUAR. TIP leaders are constantly appealing to issues that are traditionally painful for Uyghurssuch as the no-growth policy, the expansion of Xinjiang by the Chinese, discrimination against national minorities and the persecution of Islam by Beijing. “Fighting against China is our Islamic responsibility,” one of the Islamic ideologists of the party, Abdullah Mansour, said. According to the logic of TIP leaders, the armed struggle against China is not a political task of the party, but the will of Allah. Thus, throughout its existence, the TIP combines two categories in its ideology: global jihad and a narrow anti-Chinese direction. Yet the ultimate goal of both directions is the establishment of the Caliphate.
The anti-Chinese slogan of TIP is actively supported by the leader of al Qaeda Ayman al Zawahiri. He has repeatedly praised “the heroism of Uyghur Muslims for their commitment to jihad all over the world.” Zawahiri lauds leaders of the Turkistan Islamic Party ShaykhHasanMahsum and Abd al-Ḥaqq. Zawahiri blasts the Chinese government as an “atheist occupier,” saying that Chinese authorities prevent the Muslims of East Turkistan from “performing their religious rites” and forces them to “change their religion.” This is the tactics of al-Qaeda. Al Qaeda has consistently portrayed Muslims as the victims of various aggressors, thereby seeking to capitalize on the discontent within local Muslim populations.
In the competitive struggle between alQaeda and ISIS for leadership in the global jihad, the head of TIP Abd al-Ḥaqq strongly supported the position of his spiritual mentor Zawahiri. He said that the proclamation of the “Caliphate” was like reaping the unripe harvest because it was created without the approval of Islamic leaders and the Muslim ummah. In his opinion, the Islamic State had to be declared on the basis of Sharia law, not political interests. He compared ISIS with a bastard, which is considered to be the gravest sin in Islam. Abd al-Ḥaqqroundly condemned the actions of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and urged the Uyghurs to leave the territory of the so-called Islamic State.
This position of TIP has been caused by the three factors. First, while supporting Zawahiri, the leader of the Uygur jihadists tried to observe the continuity of the ideological concept of jihad adopted from alQaeda. Secondfactor was the desire to preserve the core structure and independence of TIP. Third factor was not to lose leadership within the group. As practice has shown, the choice of Abd al-Ḥaqq in favor of alQaeda proved to be justified from the point of view of survival and preservation of Uyghur militants amid the fall of ISIS. Therefore, the TIP group still acts as an independent participant in transnational radical Islamism. TIP managed to combine ethnic identity and the principles of global jihad, which contradict each other.
After a careful analysis of the speeches of the leaders of TIP on the Internet, articles of Islamic Turkistan(تركستاناإلسالمية) magazine in Arabic, video and audio materialsin the Media Center Islam Avazi, we can conclude that the ideology of the Turkestan Islamic Party is based on Wahhabism and militant Salafism. It was the religious works of Islamic thinkers Muhammad ibn al-Wahhab, Ibn Taymiya, SayyidQutb, Ayman al Zawahiri that became the ideological basis of the TIP together with the Uyghur mentality. The ideological doctrine plays an important role in the radicalization of the Uyghur youth, as well as in the search for and attraction of more potential supporters to TIP. Radical Wahhabism and Salafism had a significant impact on the mindset of Uyghur militants.
Another peculiarity of TIP is the desire of Uyghur militants to adapt to local environment, mix well with local residents of Idlib and not toadvertise, unlike ISIS, cruel executions in their propaganda materials on the web. According to political scientist Colin P. Clarke, TIP works well with locals in the territories where it is present and has readily cooperated with a number of non-Uyghur jihadists who are part of JFS in key battlefield operations in Latakia and Aleppo. In those towns occupied by JFS, TIP members are relatively popular because they are not associated with administrative issues, such as levying taxes or enforcing Sharia law.
This practice corresponds to the doctrinal strategy of al Qaeda, whose leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said, “We adapt to the practical reality wherever it is. We would take into account the circumstances of each jihadist arena and what achieves its interests.”
The foggy future of Uighur Jihadists
Today, while ISIS has almost been destroyed and the government of Bashar Assad, with the help of Russia and Iran, is trying to take control of the country’s main cities, many jihadists of the Islamic State are leaving Syria. But unlike them, Uyghur militants of TIP are in no haste to return to China, although they promise to return to their homeland in their propaganda materials and conduct jihad against Chinese atheists.
First, this is dueto the tactics of guerrilla warfare of alQaeda, which has experience of underground survival in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the African subcontinent.
Second, many Uyghurs came to Syria with their families and spent considerable financial resources on the trip. According to the analyst of Al Arabiya MohanadHage Ali, some sold their homes, businesses to raise money for the trip. During their stay in Syria, many of them managed to settle down, adapt to local conditions. Therefore, they intend to stay in the Middle East for a long time.
Third, the strategic ally of TIP Jabhat Fateh al-Sham acting as a defender of the Muslim Sunnis of Syria will play a significant role in armed struggle with the government forces of Syria and will support the Uygur jihadists, who are also Sunni. Therefore, the massive return of TIP militants to China should not be expected.
But if the military situation in Syria does not develop in favor of TIP, the Uyghurs will seek an underground shelter in the countries of Central Asia, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But this won’t reduce the threat to China. On the contrary, different branches of the Turkestan Islamic Party in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East will pose a great threat to Beijing’s implementation of its super-project “One Belt One Road”.
Therefore, China is interested in the military defeat of the radical Islamic groups operating in Syria and Iraq and the physical destruction of the maximum possible number of Uyghur militants fighting therein. The Chinese government has already announced its willingness to participate in the post-war reconstruction of Syria and Iraq. Beijing and Damascus have already begun discussing post-war infrastructure investment in Syria.This provides additional leverage for Beijing to persecute and expel Uyghur militants of TIP from Syria and Iraq.
About the author:
*Uran Botobekov, Doctor of Political Science (PhD), expert on Political Islam
