Researchers at the University of Adelaide have found yeasts that naturally occur on wine grapes may improve wines produced in warmer climates. Up until now the use of these ‘natural’ or ‘wild’ yeasts during the production process has mostly been discouraged by wine makers.

The study, published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, focusses on the effects of Lachancea thermotolerans yeast which occurs naturally on grapes.

“This important research shows a potential new way for oenologists to improve the quality of wine grown in warm climates using different strains of naturally-occurring yeasts,” says Vladimir Jiranek, Professor of Oenology and Head of the Department of Wine and Food Science, University of Adelaide.

Dr Ana Hranilovic, a recent PhD graduate from the University’s ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production, carried out the research with support from the University of Bordeaux, Charles Sturt University, CSIRO and Laffort Oenology.

“Intentional over-ripening of grapes, as well as rising global temperatures due to climate change, produce excess sugar in grapes, which are converted to ethanol during fermentation. This results in highly alcoholic wines,” says Dr Hranilovic.

“Highly alcoholic wines may not necessarily be a good thing. Wine fashions change as consumers’ tastes change but also these wines can lack acidity, be different in flavour and lead to a higher cost to the consumer in the form of higher taxes.”

‘Fixing’ such wines can be difficult or costly. For example, boosting acidity for a ‘fresher’ taste and to reduce the risk of bacterial spoilage adds to the production costs.

A solution to all of these problems may be the use of different yeasts. While these have always been around, efforts were made to suppress them during production. “These yeasts don’t always improve wine as they can cause different off-flavours,” says Dr Hranilovic.

However, this study has highlighted that certain strains of naturally-occurring yeasts have beneficial effects in wine production.

“The yeast Lachancea thermotolerans produces high levels of acidity in the form of lactic or ‘good’ acid. This type of acid improves the wine by giving it a soft, mellow taste.”

“But Lachancea thermotolerans, and other similar yeasts, cannot be used on their own as they are not capable of consuming all the grape sugars. They must be used in conjunction with the typical ‘wine yeasts’.

“We now need to do more research into how different blends of yeasts affect the taste and the quality of wine,” says Dr Hranilovic.

“The ultimate aim of the research is to produce a simple method of blending different strains of yeasts to improve the quality of wine,” says Professor Jiranek.

As sea levels continue to rise and more severe storms, like Hurricanes Maria and Michael, threaten coastline communities, local leaders need to assess the hazards and vulnerabilities of their locale. Risk assessment and risk mitigation practices can be beneficial in creating adaptation plans and making mitigation decisions for coastal communities. As scientists ponder the possibility of category six hurricanes, previous disaster prevention plans are no longer adequate for current threats from severe weather.

Recent disasters from severe weather events across the globe stress the urgency for cities to adapt to these hazards, but there is considerable debate about which adaptation techniques actually reduce vulnerability. Tom Logan, M.Sc., University of Michigan, and his collaborators used a coupled tsunami-inundation and land use change model to show that hard-adaptive measures, such as building seawalls, can inadvertently increase long-term vulnerability to natural events. They also found that increasing hazard awareness, by educating the community, can reduce vulnerability.

The results of the study, “Neglecting behavioral feedbacks in quantitative risk assessment can lead to maladaptation to natural hazards,” challenge existing hazard adaptation practice and highlight that ignoring the dynamic feedbacks, such as urban development and evolving risks, can alter the assessment of whether strategies are effective or not.

Flood risks threaten cities worldwide and climate change will only exacerbate the situation. However, making decisions aimed at reducing flood damages means communicating challenging ideas to decision-makers and the general public. Tamsin Lyle, M.Eng., MRM, P.Eng., Ebbwater Consulting Inc., and her team have been working with the City of Vancouver to communicate to city staff and stakeholders the issues about flood, flood risk and risk tolerance, all of which have been changing with the climate. During her presentation, “Risk communication was hard enough when climate was stationary,” Lyle will be sharing some of the lessons learned about what worked in terms of effectively communicating their message.

“Some of the tools that we developed and will be presenting push boundaries in terms of coupling flood impacts and likelihoods with non-stationary climate hazards,” states Lyle. “We have added a third dimension to traditional ideas and methods. This was effective at showing how flood mitigation actions work over time.”

There has been abundant evidence that psychological mechanisms such as motivated reasoning might discourage certain segments of the population from paying attention to climate change-related information. Janet Yang, Ph.D., University of Buffalo, and her team of researchers conducted a series of experiments in which messages were designed to highlight the impact of climate change in the U.S. or in a distant country, as well as messages about climate change’s impacts on familiar objects, such as coffee, or on an unfamiliar disease, such as babesiosis.

The study, “Using psychological distance as a framing strategy to communicate about climate change,” examined whether these messages influenced American adults’ risk perceptions and emotional responses to climate change, as well as their support for climate mitigation policies and intentions to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. Yang found that highlighting climate change impacts that were far away and unfamiliar forced individuals to rely more heavily on their political ideology. Narrowing the distance of the impact, however, was effective in reducing ideological polarization.

“Cultivating the sense of closeness is even more critical when strong issue-specific values are yet to be formed in segments of the population,” states Yang. “Therefore, scholars need to identify more effective strategies to narrow the psychological distance of important social issues.”

Despite scientific claims, news headlines have been riddled with speculation and discussion concerning the relationship between human-driven climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. Rachel Dryden, M.Sc., Carnegie Mellon University, and her team of researchers conducted a study, “Public perceptions of climate attribution,” that explores when and how lay people attribute extreme weather events to climate change. Frequency, severity and type of event were all considered factors that influenced people’s judgements.

“This study uses a novel application of psychophysics to address human perception of extreme events as it relates to climate change,” states Dryden. “It could also be used as a predictive tool in anticipating how people may react to future extreme weather events. The results could also inform the evaluation of alternative warning or media-reporting strategies for climate attribution of extreme weather events.”

Drawing on theories of reconstructive memory and cultural theory, Gisela Böhm, University of Bergen, and her team of researchers studied how people understand and tell stories about climate change in order to reveal how these stories are shaped by people’s fundamental values and beliefs. The questions addressed by this study, “Motivated reconstruction of memory: How worldviews shape the recollection and communication of climate change narratives,” include, (1) Do people remember information differently depending on whether that information is consistent or inconsistent with their views? (2) Do people tell climate stories differently depending on whether the listener shares or opposes their views?

Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast is a 50-year plan for reducing flood risk and preventing land loss, with six billion dollars allocated towards nonstructural flood risk reduction measures such as elevating homes, floodproofing commercial properties and buying out high-risk assets through voluntary acquisitions. However, the plan is only in the early stages of development with regards to an implementation strategy and setting mitigation standards.

David R. Johnson, Ph.D., Purdue University, and his team of researchers have identified strategies for implementing the plan options that will perform well over a wide range of future conditions and improve upon the expected risk reduction of similar projects. The study, “Robust funding allocations for nonstructural flood risk mitigation in Louisiana’s coastal zone,” has the potential to improve the cost effectiveness of investments in flood protection, increasing the resilience of coastal communities against hurricanes.

Predicting future flood risks, and therefore planning to protect communities from future floods, can be difficult due to fluctuations in the size and number of flood events per year, and sea level rise. The City of Vancouver is facing a projected sea level rise of one meter by 2100 and must determine how to implement appropriate mitigation measured in time to protect the floodplain. A presentation titled “A sea-level rise adaptation planning framework for Vancouver, British Columbia” by Christian Beaudrie, M.Eng., Ph.D., Compass Resource Management, Ltd., investigates the use of novel risk elicitation methods and risk timing tools to help city planners understand what assets and communities are at risk, to identify what level of risk is acceptable, and to determine when risks will reach unacceptable levels, allowing ample time for protections to be put in place.

For communities not faced with imminent flood risks, a different extreme weather event threatens to destroy communities: wildfires. Over the past several decades, wildfire events have increased in frequency, extent and intensity, and have lengthened the wildfire season in some locations. Research conducted by Alison Cullen, Sc.D., and Harry Podschwit, University of Washington, assessed the likelihood of multiple synchronous large wildfires, which strain management capacity, and its spatial variability across the U.S.

The study, “Past patterns and trends in simultaneity of very large wildfires: Implications for risk management,” explores national and regional preparedness levels which support decision-making about levels of readiness prior to and during the season. They also examined characteristics associated with incident prioritization of actively burning fires. This work will provide statistical insights regarding the historical characteristics of simultaneous wildfire activity and provide a launching point for future scientific research.

The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is enough to curdle the blood of any fiscal conservative.

According to the report, US federal debt held by the public relative to GDP currently stands at 78 percent (debt issued in Treasury securities). If current trends hold, that number will reach 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade, and 152 percent of GDP by 2048. Broadly speaking, the expansion is being fueled by outlays for Social Security and Medicare and increasingly burdensome interest payments on preexisting debt.

The country’s darkening fiscal outlook is sure to resonate in future elections in the United States, but there’s a crucial international dimension here as well.

Background

Spending growth will contribute to widening deficits over the next 30 years.

The CBO predicts that Social Security spending will grow from 4.9 percent of GDP in 2018 to 6.3 percent in 2048; health care programs (including Medicare and Medicaid among others) will rise from 5.2 percent to 8.7 percent, mostly on the back of an aging population and high healthcare costs per person; and interest payments will balloon from 1.6 percent to 5.3 percent.

Annual deficits are projected to rise from 3.9 percent in 2018 to 8.4 percent in 2048.

Discretionary spending relative to GDP over the same period is expected to fall, if nothing because the budgetary math increasingly won’t allow for it. Discretionary spending was 6.3 percent of GDP in 2018; the CBO expects that number to fall to 5.5 percent by 2048.

Revenues are expected to remain flat for the next few years and then jump in 2026, when income tax cuts from this year’s tax act are set to expire. Revenues would then grow in-step with the economy, but they would still fail to keep pace with spending growth.

Impact

The CBO projections are grim enough as-is, but the reality could turn out even worse. The CBO makes various assumptions when calculating its estimates – assumptions on growth, interest rates, productivity, and labor participation. And while there is some room on the upside for better-than-expected overall results (for example, if the political will materialized in Washington to address the debt problem sooner rather than later), there’s considerable downside risks as well.

Interest rates

One such risk stems from unforeseen fluctuations in interest rates. The post-2009 era has seen unprecedentedly low rates, which have produced a favorable borrowing environment for the US government. The CBO foresees the yield on 10-year Treasuries rising to 3.7 percent by 2028 and then 4.8 percent in 2048. The average yield from the period of 1990-2007 was 5.8 percent.

Bond yields are a product of supply and demand. There has been ample supply as US governments over the past two decades have sought outside funding to fill their deficit gaps. But what about demand?

The United States government has always benefitted from crisp foreign demand for US Treasuries, which are seen as a safe-haven asset denominated in a global and relatively stable currency (critically, nearly all global oil sales are settled in USD). Countries like Japan and China have amassed huge reserves of US government debt, holding some $1.030 trillion and $1.179 trillion in Treasuries respectively as of early 2018. Their purchases of US debt serve to depress yields, which in turn makes it cheaper for the US government to borrow and finance its agenda at home and abroad.

There’s reason to believe that US Treasuries will be less appealing for foreign governments over the short-to-medium term. One consistent drag will stem from the United States’ growing debt pile; not insofar that it represents a risk of default per se, but rather a risk of currency devaluation in order to make the debt easier to pay off at some point in the future. If the US dollar tanks, it makes foreign Treasury holdings less valuable relative to the local currency in question.

There’s also the fact that, as states move further along the development curve, maintaining large holdings of foreign exchange becomes less crucial to their economic stability. We’re already seeing signs of this as Japanese and Chinese investors start to divest from Treasuries. Such divestment is sure to proceed slowly so as not to cause a panic and impact the value of a country’s remaining holdings. China in particular has been especially circumspect over the past year, presumably because it doesn’t want to give the impression it’s triggering the ‘nuclear option’ in its ongoing trade war with the United States. That nuclear option would be a liquidation of its USD-denominated reserves – a move that would cause US Treasury yields to surge, but severely undercut the value of China’s remaining holdings in the process.

USD-denominated assets have been the global the benchmark for foreign reserves since the gold standard was abandoned in the 20^th century. This may not always be the case, but for now USD primacy is definitely bolstered by a lack of credible alternatives. The euro is held in the reserve portfolio of various governments, but the spectre of Greece and perennial risks to the long-term stability of the euro zone continue to relegate the currency to a secondary position behind the USD. The renminbi is another possible alternative, but it remains illiquid as a global currency barring a wave of new reforms in China.

The situation could well change in the 30 years considered by these CBO projections, especially if the expected debt accumulation actually comes to pass. In other words, just like the gold standard that preceded it, the US dollar may not always be viewed as the standard-bearer of global finance. And if a reckoning does eventually occur, it will surely have been expedited by the precarious fiscal outlook of the US government.

Growth shocks

Another realistic contingency that the CBO outlook ignores is a systemic shock like the 2008-2009 Great Recession. Tough to predict, these events can scuttle even the most exacting economic projections.

In 2007, the US debt stood at just 35 percent of GDP, nearly half of its current level. Post-2009 simulative policy responses were spend-heavy, impacting the government’s bottom line in ways that still resonate to this day. One 2012 estimate from the US Treasury put the total exposure for US taxpayers at $24 trillion in response to the Great Recession – and that’s just on the spending side of the equation. In terms of revenues, systemic economic shocks can wipe out trillions of household wealth, hollow out the employment market for several years, and undercut the government’s tax base. (Though in some respects, US taxpayers actually gained when distressed assets and Treasuries were eventually sold off).

The CBO projections use a baseline of 1.9 percent annual growth for the next 30 years. The rate is lower than the historical average of 2.8 percent owing in large part to tepid growth of the US labor pool.

Forecast

We’re still well within the bounds of normalcy here.

Washington is ignoring the long-term track of government finances, and the global financial system is still dominated by Wall Street (notwithstanding a few early signs of dissent, such as calls in the EU for an alternative system for the Continent and the proliferation of bilateral deals to settle trade accounts in local currencies). US debt levels also remain within elevated-but-acceptable limits at 78 percent GDP, with a deficit of just under 4 percent.

But it’s from here on out where the normalcy potentially dissipates, at least if the CBO projections prove correct. The borrowing binge of the past decade was aided by record-low yield rates thanks to QE and the uncertain fate of the euro zone. Now yields are normalizing, and so too is the long-term fiscal impact of the government deficit, which in turn drives upward pressure on borrowing rates as demand for Treasuries dries up.

In other words, US finances are now entering a dangerous cycle of debt begetting more debt.

It will take rare political will to right the country’s fiscal ship, and the sooner it arrives, the less pain there will be over the long run. However, should Washington politicians continue to ignore the problem, we could be looking at a very different global financial system by the time the CBO projections’ end-date of 2048 finally rolls around.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

On December 3rd, Gallup bannered “Government Favored to Ensure Healthcare, but Not Deliver It” and reported that 57% of Americans say “It is government’s responsibility to see that all have healthcare” but only 40% of Americans want a “government-run” healthcare system to be available to everyone who wants it. In other words: many Americans want other Americans to be forced into corporate and non-profit — privately run — healthcare. Lots of Americans are irrationally rabid against any sort of socialism, even the democratic types of socialism that exist in many European countries such as Sweden, where the quality of healthcare has been proven in international studies to be superior to America’s, and where the per-person cost of healthcare is around half as high as in America. The healthcare industry and its executives and its lobbies and its paid-off politicians have plenty of libertarian fools in America who, by their political participation, make life worse for all other Americans by effectively blocking socialization of the healthcare function. Gallup’s December 3rd poll also found this mental illness, libertarianism, to be especially common among Republicans: Whereas 65% of Democrats endorse universal availability of a government-run healthcare system, just 13% of Republicans do. So, Republican voters are terrific for the drug companies and the rest of the ‘health’care (actually sickness) industries.

Gallup has polled Americans on many questions about healthcare policy. One poll they published 16 May 2016, titled “Majority in U.S. Support Idea of Fed-Funded Healthcare System”, reported that 58% of Americans wanted “Replacing the ACA [Obamacare] with a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans.” Only 37% opposed it. A tiny 5% had no opinion. Perhaps that was a high-water mark for the American public’s support of socialization of the healthcare function in America.

On 20 November 2014, Gallup headlined “Majority Say Not Gov’t Duty to Provide Healthcare for All” and reported that, “For the third consecutive year, a majority of Americans (52%) agree with the position that it is not the federal government’s responsibility to ensure that all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to the start of Barack Obama’s presidency in 2009, a majority of Americans consistently took the opposite view” (that it’s not government’s responsibility to see that all have healthcare). But if it’s “not the federal government’s responsibility to ensure that all Americans have healthcare coverage” (presumably meaning for all basic healthcare, but not for vanity medical services such as “tucks” and other non-health-related medical services), then even life-saving medical care, and also essential preventive care (which lowers overall medical costs), will be available only to people who can pay for it; other people will just have to die, unless they can find someone (perhaps a relative) who is willing to pay. Of course, this type of system — the “Greed is good” system — will also mean that people die young and that disability-rates, and associated incapacity at work, will be high, and all of this will lower economic productivity. Welcome to the United States! (Of course, it’s lots better than places such as Honduras.)

Is it likely that majorities really do want single-payer, but not from the government? Hardly: a gratuitous addition of stockholders’ profits into the costs for providing essential and economic-productivity-enhancing healthcare services that everyone should have access to if it’s really needed (lawfully prescribed etc.) won’t just distort the incentives to medical-services providers (and so reduce both health and economic productivity), but it will also waste the money of medical consumers (government or otherwise). But what about having ‘non-profit’ firms provide the single-payer services, instead of the democratically accountable government doing that? Non-profits cut out profits, and so eliminate the distortions that stockholders’ wants introduce into the providing of any services (wants such as stockbrokers have, who pump the investments that pay them the highest commissions, which necessarily harms their investors). However, the top executives even of ‘non-profit’ firms can pay themselves whatever their friends who sit on their board of trustees will approve; and so a ‘non-profit’ provider, too, can be, at least to that extent, a scam. (And, of course, in an entirely free market, there is no regulation, and therefore scams will be routine; so, only crooks would want that, anyway. But all the propaganda in the U.S. praises “a free market.”)

These are reasons why the countries that have the highest life-expectancies, and therefore the best health-outcomes, are the same as the countries that have socialized basic healthcare services, paid for normally entirely through taxes and provided to all citizens as a basic human right instead of as a privilege that’s available only to individuals who can afford it. (Of course, “tucks” and such get charged extra to the patient.) The United States has by far the costliest health care in terms of not only what Americans pay for it but in terms of healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP, and yet the U.S. has the lowest life-expectancy of all OECD countries; the U.S. has the most-free-market healthcare, and also the worst healthcare, among all of the economically developed countries — all (except the U.S.) of which provide guaranteed basic healthcare services to all citizens: essential services free as a right, not charged as a privilege. America’s combination of the worst healthcare plus the by-far-costliest healthcare is no coincidence; and healthcare profits in America are the world’s highest; so, the present American system is terrific for those stockholders (whose firms hire the lobbyists and their politicians who write America’s healthcare-laws). Because basic healthcare in the United States is a privilege instead of a right, the U.S. is the only economically developed nation that does not have universal coverage, health insurance for 100% of its citizenry, healthcare as a guaranteed right instead of dependent upon the patient’s ability-to-pay. When Barack Obama entered the White House, the uninsured rate was 14.6%; when he left office it was 10.9%; the insured rate when he started was 85.4%, and it was 89.1% when he left office. His repeated promises of “universal coverage” were blatant lies. His plan was in no way designed for “universal coverage”; that promise was a lie from the very outset.

In the OECD’s “Health at a Glance 2015” (which covers 44 nations), the United States scored at or near the bottom for almost all indicators of healthcare-quality, including: Life expectancy, Access to care, Quality of care, Doctors per capita, and Hospital beds per capita. We were by far the highest on Pharmaceutical expenditure per capita. Oddly, three nations, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, were exceptionally high in both their heart-disease death-rates and their cancer death-rates; plus their life-expectancies were even lower than America’s, and their most carefully medically calculated measured “Quality of care” rankings were also generally as bad as the United States. However, in the latest calculated year, which is shown there, which was 2013, “Health expenditure per capita” (p. 165) was U.S. $8,713; Switzerland $6,325; UK $3,235; Czech Republic $2,040, Slovak Republic $2,010; and Hungary $1,719. So, America’s was over four times as high as the healthcare costs of some of the other countries in its class — i.e. in the overall worst class. Generally the top-performing nations were: Japan, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland. Switzerland was the second-highest in cost-of-care ($6,325), right below the United States. Norway was third-costliest, $5,862. Sweden was fifth-costliest, $4,904. Japan was 14th-costliest, $3,713. Finland was 17th-costliest, $3,442. Italy was twentieth-costliest, $3,077. The average OECD cost for all the 44 nations was $3,453, which was less than half of America’s obscene $8,713. Whether Obamacare changes any of those U.S. rankings is too early to tell. However, the U.S. is such an extreme “outlier” so that our healthcare system would need to be replaced root-and-branch in order to be competitive with any other nation’s in terms of delivering value-for-the-money, instead of rip-off (which is its existing outlier status — unparalleled by any other country’s, for delivering lousy value). It is so bottom-of-the-barrel, that it is below the barrel. This is by far the world’s most-free-market healthcare system, but our government spends more per-capita on it than do other nations’ governments that pay almost all of their citizens’ healthcare costs. Wow! In fact, as shown in the chart “9.3. Health expenditure as a share of GDP, 2013 (or nearest year)” on page 167 of that OECD report, the U.S. is the only country where the private sector pays more of the nation’s healthcare costs than does the public sector, the government. America is a libertarian’s paradise. No other nation comes anywhere close to that degree of non-governmental providing of the healthcare function. Every other nation has socialized the healthcare-function to a vastly higher extent than the U.S. has. That’s how corrupt America is.

Lots of other countries are more corrupt in the pettier forms of corruption such as bribery, but perhaps few match America’s higher-level, and far more complex, systemic corruption. It benefits only the super-rich, and their lobbyists and other agents.

*Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010

It is attrition, suffocation and contortion. While Theresa May’s Brexit program, weak, compromising and cobbled as it is, endures that bit longer, her opponents from within and without government have been essentially undercutting her on various fronts.

Foppish and solutions-free Boris Johnson does so from the perspective that the May program as it has been agreed to with the EU so far is a case of Britannia surrendering to the wickedness of the Continent. He prefers, according to Sir Roger Gale, “the grievance to the solution”.

In the Commons, Johnson persisted with his motif of imprisonment and punishment for the sceptred isle: that the bureaucrats across the channel were cooking up a terrible fate for Britain were the backstop not to be removed from any arrangement. “They will keep us in permanent captivity as a momento mori, as a reminder to the world of what happens to all those who try to leave the EU.” Britain would be hostage to Spanish claims on Gibraltar, the French purloining of its fish and bankers, and German pressing for concessions on the free movement of EU nationals.

Opposition parties assail the prime minister from the perspective that the entire campaign for Brexit, and government behaviour since, has been a tissue of irresponsibility and lying. They are often not sure which, but they are chancing it. Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn is, however, playing a double game. Being himself sympathetic with the Leavers, he can only, as of this time, trash the Chequers proposals with indignant scrutiny. Before his fellow parliamentarians, Corbyn insisted that May’s plan would cause a severe case of economic shrinkage: some 4 percent, precipitating the loss of £100 billion over the course of fifteen years.

What exercised the House of Commons on this occasion most, however, was a historical incident of singular rarity. Members from Labour and the DUP were permitted by Speaker John Bercow to submit an emergency motion to find the government in contempt. The motion carried.

The May government had not done itself any favours in that regard, equipping opponents with the bombs to duly situate under their chairs. As if channelling her former self as home minister, the secretive May refused to release the full legal advice behind the Brexit deal that may yet be doomed. A circulating rumour (for much, in these shadows, remains rumour), is the fear that the backstop might keep Northern Ireland in the EU customs union indefinitely.

The government defence proved to be stock standard and would, in most instances, have worked: to release such a report would expose vulnerabilities in negotiating positions ahead of further talks with the EU, thereby rewarding the very individuals deemed enemies by many in parliament. Besides, argued transport secretary Chris Grayling, himself a former lord chancellor, it remained “a central part of the principles of our legal system that the advice provided from a lawyer to their client is treated as confidential.”

Such is the dire, panicked state of British politics at the moment than even old principles of legal propriety, including that of professional privilege, should be seen to be broken in the higher national interest. Parliament, as the people’s arbiter, must be informed, and not releasing the attorney general’s legal advice failed to comply, according to the parties behind the contempt motion, with the Commons resolution of November 13. That resolution stemmed from the principle that legal advice on the Brexit deal would be published in its entirety.

Attempt to placate opponents were duly made. The first was the release by the government of an overview on Monday covering the gist of the attorney general’s legal advice. Then came the appearance of Attorney General Geoffrey Cox in the Chamber. He expressed a willingness to answer questions put to him, but this proved a minor sedative to the proceedings. A three-line whip, deployed by Conservative MPs in an effort to shield the government, also failed.

Cox’s responses conceded various government weaknesses in their negotiations with the EU. He would have preferred, for instance, “a unilateral right of termination” over the Northern Ireland backstop. Additionally, he would have also liked to see “a clause that would have allowed us to exit if negotiations had irretrievably broken down.” But such frankness was to no avail, and Andrea Leadsom, the Commons leader, was compelled to accede to the wishes of the opponents, with the full advice set to be published on Wednesday.

Contempt matters are ancient things, the sort referred to a privileges committee. But the focus here will be less seeking sanction against any relevant minister, including Cox, than the vote on December 11 in a house that is already faltering. The government, surmised shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer, “has lost its majority and the respect of the house”. At this point, the deal in this form will be scuppered, leaving a drawing board bereft of options. Those filling the void will do so with a formula so repetitive it has become traditional: extol the scenario of total collapse, or embrace the fiction a world outside Europe that can act as appropriate replacement for British trade and power.

Global capitalism is growing old because in the last ages it is falling apart. The first yield example of this decline was economic depression of 1930s and global financial crash of 1997 in the East that began from Thailand, spread in contagion context over to the whole East Asia and finally reached Russia in 1998. Russia suffered from the complete economic meltdown. The crisis was scary and had brought a complex version of socio-economic challenges to the newly born Russian state.

With this economic jolt, the crisis had also dragged Latin America into its ardor because the global capitalism is linked with all nations not only via free trade but via free movement of capital too. Lenin predicted the crisis hundred years ago, when he published his famous piece “Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism”. Moreover, it is a fact that the sudden economic crash has a contagion effect: the economic depression on one side of the globe has a spill over effect over all other nations.

Basically, it was the rapid growth of global financial market that made the complacent financial elite over-confident, who were suddenly stricken by the Minsky moment, which proclaims that the big economies often collapse because of the over-confidence. I was indeed the over-confidence of global capitalist elite on the financial market stability that led to the crisis and finally brought another financial blow in 2008. The global financial system is circulatory system that absorbs capital and release it through investment in the global market generating enormous surplus from the periphery.

But the over-investment without market vitality leads to over-credit creation and this happened after the financial recovery in 2000, that has finally bankrupted big banks around the globe such as Lehman brothers. It was all about the trust in the global financial market that disappeared because of the emergence of crises after crises.

The economic meltdown of 2008 has greatly provoked the instability around the globe as the markets began to crumble and eurozone suddenly suffered from the steep depression mainly because the southern European economies collapsed. Though, Germany and France attempted to establish a European banking union to tackle the crisis, but it was too late to rally against the ‘too big to fail’ phenomenon. The same crisis engulfed the wall street in the US, and the trust of American people in the financial institutions was stalwartly betrayed. With the growing resentment, people rallied against the wall street by initiating “Occupy wall street movement” in 2009, one year after the meltdown.

The Fed-Reserve also suffered from the balance sheet crisis and annual economic growth rate fell below 4% for the first time since the great depression of 1930s. Moreover, in order to compensate the budget deficit, the US asked China to lend her a large sum of money. It was again China which rescued global capitalism from the collapse as it did back in the 1980s by opening its market to the European and American corporations. With this approach, China tried its best to balance the crisis, but the consequences of 2008 meltdown were much severe because the whole Europe was suffering from the austerity and bailout crisis. Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece were the major Euro-Zone countries that suffered at larger scale because of the global market strangulation especially European.

On the contrary, the global supply chains and the direction of the flow of Capital reversed as it began flowing back from the peripheries towards center. This directly impacted the global GDP growth that suffered because of the decline in global trade and investment. Now, the question that still lingers everyone’s mind is that; who is to blame for these acute crises? —perhaps the question was never answered by the capitalist elite because they explicitly know where the actual contradictions reside.

This was actually the staunch failure of Capitalism, that has long been promising static growth, prosperity, and development. But the emergence of crisis after crisis has divulged the very context of capitalism and brought it to the knees. Consequently, one of the most surprising fact in the post-2008 crisis period was accountability because not even a single banker was jailed or sued for being major suspects behind the crisis. In this way the trust of ordinary masses in liberal democratic capitalism faded because the promise of so-called sustainable growth and development was never achieved, and it was a betrayal. Likewise, the trust of peripheral economies upon center went into vertical dispersion that led to the boycott and divestment attitude towards globalism.

Recently, another crisis seemed to emerge because last month in October, the global stock markets suffered from huge loss in stocks and prizes even the financial went on to calling it “Red October”. Since then the global indexes of the stock exchange markets depicts no hope of recovery, the oil prizes also fell from $70 to $65 that indeed gives a clear indication of the coming crisis, which will affect all the financial sectors of the global economy including energy and financial market—this time it seems that global capitalism is in retreat.

*Shahzada Rahim is a postgraduate student with keen interest of writing on history, geopolitics, Current affairs, and International political economy.

The use of malicious software to attack IoT devices like smart home security monitoring systems is rising substantially and growing more sophisticated as cyber criminals take advantage of lax security, Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report 2019 warned on Tuesday.

Driven by financial and other nefarious purposes, IoT botnet activity accounted for 78% of malware detection events in communication service provider (CSP) networks in 2018, according to the report, which is based on data aggregated from monitoring network traffic this year on more than 150 million devices globally where Nokia’s NetGuard Endpoint Security product is deployed.

That is up sharply from 33% in 2016, when IoT botnets were first seen in meaningful numbers. A botnet is a system of computers that can be infected with malicious software and controlled by a single computer for doing things like stealing bank account information and shuttering web sites.

“Cyber criminals are switching gears from the traditional computer and smartphone ecosystems and now targeting the growing number of vulnerable IoT devices that are being deployed. You have thousands of IoT device manufacturers wanting to move product fast to market and, unfortunately, security is often an afterthought,” said Kevin McNamee, director of Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Lab and lead author of the report. In 2018, IoT bots made up 16% of infected devices in CSP networks, up significantly from the 3.5% observed in 2017.

As an indicator of the rising threat, the report found that malware-infected crypto-coin mining is expanding from high-end servers with specialized processors to IoT devices as well as smartphones and web browsers. Crypto-coin mining is generally the process by which crypto currency transactions are verified and added to blockchain technology systems.

Industry analysts widely expect IoT device adoption to accelerate with 5G. The high bandwidth, large-scale and ultra-low latency capabilities of 5G greatly facilitate connecting billions of things to the internet, including smart home security monitoring systems, vehicles, drones and medical devices.

But, as the Threat Intelligence report’s findings underscore, lagging security protection of many current IoT devices and increasing technical sophistication are giving cyber criminals broader scope for successfully launching IoT device attacks.

“Cyber criminals have increasingly smart tools to scan for and to quickly exploit vulnerable devices, and they have new tools for spreading their malware and bypassing firewalls. If a vulnerable device is deployed on the internet, it will be exploited in a matter of minutes,” McNamee said.

Also explaining some of the rise in IoT device malware infection rates is the fact that attacks on mobile and fixed networks in 2018 decreased from previous years. This is a result not only of cyber criminals looking further afield for softer targets, like IoT devices, but of better-protected networks, platforms and mobile devices that are designed and built with security in mind.

The Nokia NetGuard security suite provides protection against a wide variety of bots and malware. The suite aggregates, analyses and correlates security data from a variety of sources, including endpoint detection software, to help security teams control risks and costs and to improve decision making.

The NetGuard Endpoint Security software includes an IoT behavioral anomaly detection component that is capable of constantly tracking devices against security threats. The individual traffic profiles of any device, including an IoT device, are machine-learned automatically by the Endpoint system; any anomalies detected triggers immediate trouble-shooting against threats.

Hurriyat (M) Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has recently tweeted that the number of Kashmiris’ killed by security forces in 2018 has crossed the 400 mark. He has appealed to the international community to, “help stop the massacre of Kashmiris’ unleashed by Indian forces.” The tweet has come as a prelude to a decision of the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) of Kashmir to observe Human Rights Week from December, 03, onwards. The appeal should have set alarm bells ringing all over the world; surprisingly, it has not elicited any response!

A careful collation of the civilian fatalities that occurred in 2018 gives a different picture! At the outset it is necessary to note that the collation done for the purpose of this article is not based on any official figures; it is a consolidation of what has been reported by the media. There could be some errors due to oversight but, in no case, will these inaccuracies be more than 3 to 5 percent.

From the data available, the number of Kashmiris’ killed due to firing on mobs by security forces during incidents of stone pelting and other forms of violent activity is between 40 and 45. This also includes civilians killed when mobs attempted to disrupt operations by the security forces. Even if this figure is increased by a whopping 100 percent,it does not reach to even a quarter of what the Mirwaiz is claiming.

Another 45 to 50 civilians have been killed in circumstances that are controversial as both the security forces and militants blame each other for the deaths. However, even after giving benefit of doubt to Mirwaiz by assuming that security forces are also responsible for these killings, the number adds up to 85 or a maximum of 95 civilian fatalities. If we once again increase this cumulative figure by 100 percent, the total number falls woefully short of the figure given by the Mirwaiz.

Yet, since it is inconceivable that the Hurriyat (M) Chairman could have made an error of such glaring proportions, it becomes incumbent to give maximum leverage to the wording of the tweet which speaks of the “number of Kashmiris’ killed up to now this year.” The scope, therefore, can be enlarged to include deaths of all Kashmiris’ due to militancy related reasons including local militants killed during this year. About 150 to 200 local militants have been killed by security forces in 2018, but this figure includes foreign militants also. If we take 125 to 150 as the figure for Kashmiri militants killed the total goes up to 205 or 235.

These figures do not reach anywhere near the quoted figure of 400. In his tweet Mirwaiz has attributed 400 deaths to “Indian forces” and so the total fatalities (both confirmed and alleged) caused by “Indian forces” remains much lower than what he is claiming. 40 to 45 J&K police men have been killed in militancy related incidents during this year but technically speaking these figures cannot be included since Mirwaiz has qualified in his tweet that he is specifically referring to Kashmiris’ killed by “Indian forces.” However, even if we add these numbers the figure of 400 fatalities still eludes us!

If the number of civilians killed by unknown gunmen is also taken into account then we may get a bit nearer to the fatality figure of 400 given by Mirwaiz. The militants may have accused Indian forces and intelligence agencies for these killings, but despite this, the international community isn’t likely to accept this version for two reasons. First, most of these deceased were killed on suspicions of having passed-on information about militants to security forces. Second, the hand of militant groups in such killing has already been revealed by Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) which has accepted responsibility for many such killings and even put out videos of such killings on social media.

It is being assumed mostly that the international community exhibits lack of concern regarding what is happening in Kashmir and it does not respond to the appeals of the Hurriyat. This impression is far from the truth! Being a potential flashpoint that could trigger-off an armed confrontation between the two nuclear states of India and Pakistan, attention of the world remains focused on Kashmir and the international community will, under no circumstances, permit any “massacre” here (as the Mirwaiz has tweeted).

The most likely reason for the international community’s lack of concern could be the wide disparity in the fatality figures tweeted by Mirwaiz and the respective data that various countries keep compiling with pinpoint accuracy. Therefore, Hurriyat (M) should either give a detailed breakdown of the 400 deaths or if there has been some error while counting fatalities, then have the grace to admit the same.

Be that as it may, even one fatality, civilian or military, is too much for any civilized society to bear and every effort needs to be directed towards ensuring that the same does not happen. It is here that the political leadership and civil society of Kashmir, including the Hurriyat, needs to play a proactive role. The violent activity and human rights violations by militants that is resulting in so many deaths needs to be stopped. The international community may be more responsive to the aspirations of the Kashmir community if they are expressed peacefully and within the ambit of internationally accepted political norms. It is quite evident that the gun has not served the purpose of Kashmir; it would be a good idea to opt for a second option that is based on peaceful means.

There is no point in losing the youth to the cult of violence. One can only hope that peace will become a reality in Kashmir in the near future, the people have suffered enough.

Author is a Kashmir based senior journalist and a political commentator

The 11th Astana talks were held on 28-29 November at Astana, Kazakistan. All the three guarantor states—Russia, Iran and Turkey along with the Syrian government and the armed opposition, as well as Jordan – an observer country – participated. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura also participated in the meeting. The US did not attend the meeting.

The outcome of the meeting was not fruitful. It is because the parties could not consent on one of the important issues that they were supposed to discuss and conclude upon. In the month of October, a proposal for the formation of a committee to draft a new Syrian constitution was laid out. However, after the two-day talks, no consent could be arrived on the proposal. Syria has been facing a stalemate in the formation of the committee since the last 10 months. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Mr. Mistura commented on the failure of the formation as a ‘missed opportunity’ for the people of Syria. The action plan was for the establishment of a credible, balanced and inclusive, Syrian-owned, Syrian-led, UN-facilitated constitutional committee.

Apart from the formation of the new Syrian constitution, the guarantor states and the other parties also discussed on the failure of the 10-week-old truce in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib after confrontations between rebels and government early this week threatened to derail the Sochi The discussions were also on creating conditions for the return of refugees and internally displaced people, as well as post-conflict reconstruction in the war-torn country. The participants also denounced the militant groups’ activities of firing shells filled with chlorine gas at Idlib this week.

During the talks, Russia, Iran and Turkey rejected “all desperate attempts” by foreign-backed militant groups to undermine the sovereignty of the Syrian nation. They along with the other participants rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism. They expressed their determination to stand against separatist agendas aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as well as the national security of neighboring countries.

During the talk, the Syrian government accused Turkey for not being serious regarding the resolution of the problem. It said that Turkey is the main cause for the ongoing hostilities along with US, UK and France. Ankara is been charged for supporting the terrorist groups in Syria, including Idlib. Turkey has denied the accusations and has reiterated their commitment towards the de-escalation and stabilization in Idlib and the overall country. Russia appreciated Turkey’s help and support towards implementation of the Sochi agreement of September. The Russian foreign ministry said that terrorist groups like Jabat al-Nusra is trying to derail Ankara’s efforts in helping the Syrian government. It also pointed out that these non-state actors are also trying to disrupt the cooperation between Russia and Turkey. Though the two countries will not allow to disrupt their cooperation however, the discomfort in Ankara is evident regarding the Kurdish participation in the resolution of the Syrian crisis.

After the end of the two-day talks, the three guarantor states—Russia, Iran and Turkey came up with a joint statement. The document confirms the readiness to fully implement the Memorandum on stabilization in Idlib and apply further efforts to launch the Syrian constitutional committee. The 12th round of Astana talks will be held in February 2019. They began in January 2017 and have paralleled UN efforts in Geneva.

The Astana talks have regularly been taking place since 2017. This format is meant to complement the UN-led peace process. Despite, the 11 rounds of talk, there has been no fruitful solution towards the ending of the devastating plight of the Syrian people. It is because of the vested interests of all the stakeholders who are not genuinely interested in resolving the crisis.

Russia, Iran and Turkey are taking the imitative because of their stakes in the country and the region.

*Dr. Indrani Talukdar is a Research Fellow at ICWA, New Delhi.

Disclaimer: The views are that of the author’s and not of the Council.

By Irina Slav

To cut and push up prices or not to cut and preserve market share, this is the question that Saudi Arabia is facing ahead of this year’s December OPEC meeting. It seems like just yesterday when OPEC met in 2016 and decided to cut production by 1.8 million barrels daily, including from Russia, to reverse the free fall of oil prices. At the time, it worked because everyone was desperate. Now, many OPEC members are both desperate while not yet recovered from the 2014 blow. Saudi Arabia is not an exception.

A recent report from Capital Economics said Saudi Arabia has its problems but it could withstand lower oil prices without feeling too much of a pinch. “Even if [Brent] prices fall further to $40-$50 a barrel, immediate balance of payments strains are unlikely to emerge,” the report said, with its authors adding the Kingdom would be able to finance its trade deficit from its foreign exchange reserves “for at least a decade.”

This suggestion is not universally accepted. Reuters’ John Kemp this week offered a different perspective in his regular column on oil, noting Saudi Arabia’s foreign exchange reserves currently stand at US$500 billion, down from nearly US$750 billion in 2014 when the oil prices slumped under the weight of U.S. shale oil. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is in a major push to diversify its revenue streams and has committed a lot of money to it.

Also, Kemp wrote, “The kingdom probably needs to keep several hundred billion dollars’ worth of reserve assets on hand to maintain confidence in its fixed exchange-rate peg to the U.S. dollar and prevent a run on the currency.”

It’s a classic rock and a hard place situation for the Saudis. On the one hand, they could continue pumping at the current record rate or close to it, pressuring prices further, which is what they did in 2014. That strategy hurt U.S. shale substantially, but the attempted assault did not go quite as planned. Now, it will once again hurt U.S. shale, but again, it won’t beat the resilience of the US shale patch. That much should have become clear in the past three years.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia could start cutting, but it will need to convince all other OPEC members to join the cuts and, more importantly, Russia. Reuters earlier today reported, quoting unnamed sources, that Russia had “accepted the need to cut production” and prices immediately jumped, once again highlighting how important the Russia-Saudi Arabia cooperation has become for oil markets, if it even needs highlighting.

For now, it seems like a cut is the more likely outcome. In spite of reservations expressed by Nigeria and Libya, if Saudi Arabia managed to convince everyone to cut amid the major tensions with Iran ahead of the U.S. sanctions, then it could probably convince them again, if only on the grounds that if they don’t start cutting all will suffer.

Kemp agrees. “Saudi Arabia cannot afford another slump in oil prices,” he warns. “It needs to keep revenues high to help its economy climb out of recession and finance ambitious social and economic transformation programs.”

Yet the Kingdom is preparing. Kpler reported this week loadings of Saudi crude since the start of November had reached new highs of 8.14 million bpd, which was 770,000 bpd more than the average daily loadings rate for October and much higher than the last 2018 high of 7.766 million bpd booked for June. The bulk of the increase comes from China, with shipments in that direction up by more than half a million barrels daily in November from October. Production is also at record highs, like Russia’s was ahead of the first cuts in 2016. Perhaps we are seeing a lesson learned there or perhaps the Kingdom is out of options besides cutting.

Source: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Saudi-Dilemma-To-Cut-Or-Not-To-Cut.html

Curiosity for the undiscovered last tribe, that tantalising moment when eyes are cast upon the previously unseen, remains the anthropological Holy Grail. But to do so would lead to the natural consequences that come with contact and invasion: the foisting of an alien divinity upon others, most probably a monotheistic Sky God, whose grammatically challenged invocations are found in a holy text. Then would come the introduction of terminal disease, the mod cons, and ultimate extinction.

For the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, isolation is both conservation and vulnerability. Encounters have been recorded, though these are unflattering for modern audiences reared on sanitised words. Marco Polo wrote, around 1296, of “a very large and wealthy island called Angaman” populated by men with “heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes also like dogs. I assure you that, as regards their heads, they all look like big mastiffs”. An inventive man, was the cheeky Dalmatian.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four adds to the exotica of terror, with his Dr. Watson describing a villainous Andaman Islander sporting “murderous darts” and a “face [that] was enough to give a man a sleepless night.” He had “features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty.” Never to be outdone, Sherlock Holmes, plucking a volume from his shelf, finds it describing a people, after Polo’s fashion, as “naturally hideous having large misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes, and distorted features.”

Contact with the shy locals has proven fatal, though not always. In 1867, the passengers and crew of the wrecked Indian merchantman, the Nineveh, managed to survive attacks launched by, in the description of the captain’s report, “perfectly naked” men “with short hair and red painted noses… making sounds like pa on ough”.

A more recent display was at hand in August 1981, when the crew of the Panamanian-registered freighter, the Primrose, ran aground on a reef near North Sentinel after enduring heavy weather. Initial relief turned to terror. “Wild men, estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons are making two or three wooden boats,” came the wired distress call from the captain, sent to the Regent Shipping Company’s offices in Hong Kong. “Worrying they will board us at sunset. All crew members’ lives not guaranteed.” The crew, armed with piping, axes and a flare gun – kept up a week long vigil till the arrival of both a tugboat and helicopter, courtesy of the Indian Navy.

In 2006, two apparently intoxicated Indian fishermen, Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari, were less fortunate in their poaching ventures, meeting their gruesome end after straying into the island’s proximity. Efforts by an Indian Coast Guard helicopter to recover the bodies was foiled by Sentinelese armed with bows and arrows.

The dangers were just as grave to the tribes ringed by the Andaman Sea. Colonialism, fuelled by the penal experiments pioneered by such vessels as the East Indian Company steamer Pluto, put pay to the culture of the Great Andamanese people, their people perishing to measles and syphilis.

A British naval officer, Maurice Vidal Portman, gave the world a highly conventional demonstration about how a new civilisation treats another: You kidnap their members, and observe them in captivity. Essentially incarcerating a select few, adults and offspring, Portman witnessed the adults ail and die. The orphaned children were returned to their abode. He did, at least, have the grim sense to observe in 1899 that, “We cannot be said to have done anything more than increase their general terror of, and hostility to, all comers.”

Efforts to engage the islanders, propelled by insatiable curiosity, have never stopped. As late as 1975, the efforts by a documentary maker for National Geographic attempting to cover North Sentinel resulted in an arrow in the leg. In 2000, historian Adam Goodheart got the bug and ventured to North Sentinel, observing, from a safe distance along the shoreline, figures “facing us, and one of them was holding something long and thin – a spear? A bow? Impossible to tell.” The title of his contribution to The American Scholar was predictably inelegant and suggestive: “The Last Island of the Savages.”

The Indian government has banned travel to the island on penalty, a situation that has had the unintended effect of turning the surviving individuals in question into residents of an open air, inaccessible zoo. That zoo, a natural entrapment of hunter-gatherers, is written about as an existence of finite contingency, a curiosity that must surely meet its demographic, if not cultural reckoning. Sita Venkateswar, writing in The Scientific American, asks how long this “window to our past” will remain open.

A degree of added exoticism that accompanies such moves has also been accentuated by a 2017 ban on the taking of photographs or the making of videos of the protected Jarawa and other tribal communities of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, including the Andamanese, Onges, Sentinelese Nicobarese and Shom Pens. As the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) outlined in a statement last year, “removal of these objectionable video films from YouTube and initiate action on those who uploaded these video clips on social media platforms” was an imperative. Penalties of up to three years imprisonment apply.

John Allen Chau fell for the temptation, wishing to bring his own variant of the Sky God to this population numbering anywhere between 50 to 150 people. Had he been a more cognisant student of the island’s history, he would been aware that those bringing gifts, however well intentioned, are bound to be met by more arrows than sympathy. The crew of anthropologists, armed police and a photographer for National Geographic met just that in 1974 despite, wishing to, according to one of the scientists, “win the natives’ friendship by friendly gestures and plenty of gifts.” History is replete with instances where the gift-giving foreigner ends up doing far more than simply being generous; disease, alcohol, land theft tend to follow, almost always with the god of Christianity thrown in. Chau’s own gifts were more modest: a small soccer ball, fishing line, a pair of scissors.

On North Sentinel Island, the hopeful Chau envisaged, according to his notes, a “kingdom of Jesus” springing up in the community, a proselytising language all too reminiscent of those missionary forebears described by Edward Andrews in 2010 as “ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them”. All Nations, an international Christian missionary group, merely confirmed this sentiment: “John was a gracious and sensitive ambassador of Jesus Christ.”

An unimpressed Dependra Pathak, director general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, steadfastly denied any tourist label for the intrepidly foolish Chau, feeling that he had gotten there under false pretences. (God bothering types can be economical with motives when required.) “We refuse to call him a tourist. Yes, he came on a tourist visa but he came with a specific purpose to preach on a prohibited island.”

The 26 year old from Washington State became a twenty-first century victim of an old curiosity. He had done so before, some four times, always with the assistance of local fishermen who gave him unheeded warnings. Accounts of these visits, both in terms of frequency and how he got to the island, vary: he is said to have also ventured to North Sentinel by canoe from November 15 on a few occasions, having made contact with the inhabitants. On those occasions, he returned safely, though he was attacked.

Chau showed the quizzical nature of the confused faithful. Why would these tribesmen be aggressive? He, as any truly paternalistic invader, had “been so nice to them”. His faith was sufficiently strong to excuse any death he might suffer. “Do not blame the natives if I am killed.” And killed he was, his dragged body seen on the beach on November 17 by the fishermen who warned him. With a globe now choked by the mantra of mandatory interconnectedness, being an untouched island community is not only a heresy but a crime for the curious. “They are not wanting anything from you,” explained the Indian anthropologist T.N. Pandit, who had made visits to North Sentinel between 1967 and 1991. “They suspect that we have no good intentions.” How logically prescient.

By Daniel Lacalle*

The G20 meeting in Buenos Aires had a primary objective. To reach an agreement between the United States and China.

However, the announced agreement is more a “diplomatic truce” than a real agreement.

The United States commits to delaying tariffs against China that would start on January 1st, 2019 and China commits to purchase more agricultural and energy products (LNG, liquefied natural gas) in addition to promising to advance in legal security, compliance with contracts, the opening of capital markets and protection of intellectual property.

However, the wording is vague, the commitments are conditional and the time is limited.

When we talk about trade wars as if they were something new, we make a diagnosis mistake. We’ve been in a trade war for years. The United States has been denouncing trade barriers imposed by China and other countries directly and indirectly for years, with a World Trade Organization that did nothing about it.

The United States acted in the wrong way, and between 2009 and 2016 introduced more protectionist measures than any other G-20 country. The World Trade Organization warned on several occasions before the Trump administration took office of the increase in protectionism since 2011.

China desperately needs to keep the trade surplus with the United States to maintain its extremely indebted growth model. More than the United States needs China to purchase its debt.

China is not the main holder of US bonds (not even the largest foreign buyer). The largest holders are North American institutions and investors in their vast majority.

The United States has seen demand for its bonds remain robust and yields have not soared even with China and the Fed selling. Meanwhile, China’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen.

China’s foreign currency reserves fell to the lowest level in 18 months in October. A reduction of $ 33.9 billion in October, the worst since December 2016 and the lowest level since April 2017.

China cannot maintain its growth – based on a huge debt bubble – if its exports to the US fall. There is no other market that can offset its exports to North America. And its trade surplus with the United States is already over 275 billion dollars per year, the biggest contributor to the Chinese GDP from the external sector.

A drop in the growth of China’s exports would mean a much larger collapse of its foreign exchange reserves, which are down 30% since the 2014 highs.

A collapse in foreign exchange reserves also accentuates the already existing capital flights, which in turn would lead to more capital controls and, with it, three effects. Lower growth, an increase in the already high debt and the risk of a very important devaluation of the yuan.

These three effects have already happened in 2018.

In summary, for China, the trade war is devastating. For the US it is negative, but for China it is a disaster.

The United States exports very little (11% of GDP), so any threat that leads to an agreement is good.

A trade war can generate higher costs of goods and services for Americans, but the reality is that China exports disinflation and, if any, inflation expectations are falling, not rising.

This does not mean I support trade wars. It means that the idea that both sides are equally negatively impacted is simply empirically incorrect.

As such, the agreement announced between the US and China in the G20 is nothing more than a “conditional ceasefire”.

China has little intention of guaranteeing intellectual property and eliminating capital controls or the immense interference between political and legal power.

The increase in purchases from China to the United States announced is likely to have a very low impact on the trade surplus . China’s trade surplus with the US has skyrocketed in 2018 from 21.9 billion dollars in January to 34.1 billion in September. If China doubles its purchases of agricultural and energy products from the United States, something very difficult to achieve, this surplus would only fall by a maximum figure of 3 billion US dollars.

This agreement is only a pause, and the announced tariffs would be recovered if improvements are not evident. The tariffs announced for January 1st would be increased to 25% if China does not comply in 90 days.

The differences in the interpretation of the agreement between the Chinese and US administrations can be seen in their official statements.

While the US says that China will change its policy with respect to intellectual property, capital control and legal security, China only says that they “will work together”. While the US states that the agreement is invalidated after 90 days, China does not mention the deadline. While the US mentions that the purchases of North American products will increase in specific sectors, China only talks about buying more products.

This agreement does not change the trade and policy differences of both countries, but it is very similar to the failed agreement reached with China in May that ended in nothing. We have to be very cautious and wait to see if real economic data improves. If China continues to devalue the Yuan and inject capital into its financial and corporate sectors it will be a sign that the agreement has no credibility for the Chinese government itself. Furthermore, as leading indicators show, the global slowdown is much deeper and complex than the differences between China and the US on trade. If the global economy recovered the trade growth levels of 201, global GDP slowdown would still be evident, and more pronounced than consensus currently estimates.

This trade deal is not only vague, conditional and temporary… It does not disguise the slowdown of major economies, which had nothing to do with trade wars and a lot to do with debt saturation.

Be careful thinking that this is a catalyst that puts the world back in growth and multiple expansion modes. The reality is that this deal is not a catalyst for the global economy.

Originally published at DLacalle.com

About the author:
*Daniel Lacalle has a PhD in Economics and is author of Escape from the Central Bank Trap, Life In The Financial Markets and The Energy World Is Flat.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

In a recent peace conference in Moscow, Taliban representatives from their office in Qatar sat in front of the Russian media cameras and gave interview to a select number of Russian women journalists. It was a message of change as compared to their brutal regime and their repressive policies towards Afghan women. The move was calculated and strategic; it was to send a message to the world that they have changed and no more a threat to regional and global security. Question is have they really changed and cut ties with Al Qaeda and its allies? Are they really different after almost two decades of fighting? Has the Taliban movement been fundamentally transformed or they have just become really good politicians i.e. pretenders and sugarcoating themselves into a new role only to change later on once they assume power.

On the other hand – US and its NATO allies feel they are bear trapped in Afghanistan and are risk averse. They are in a rush to a graceful exit for its forces with a political cover as a successful conclusion to the Afghan war. This mindset has made them to pretend that the Afghan Taliban have changed and they are now effectively representing an insurgency against the Afghan government born out of corruption, warlordism and a lack of a broad-based government in Kabul. A mere simplification of a much more complex problem with regional and global dimensions not to mention the role they played through their haphazard and quick fix policies and their unwillingness to address the big elephant in the room which are Taliban safe havens across the border in Pakistan under the cover and support of the notorious Pakistani inter service intelligence service (ISI).

The fact of the matter remains that the Afghan Taliban have not changed and has deep ties with remnants of Al Qaeda and regional terror outfits. A fact long known to western and regional intelligence agencies. Taliban, as a group, haven’t changed in nature and its objectives. It still serves as an umbrella organization to many terrorist organisations including Al Qaeda and provide them the enabling environment to plan, train and equip for their next deadly missions in the subcontinent and beyond. Any scheme to use Taliban as a proxy force for fighting Al Qaeda and ISKP will be an exercise in futility. Taliban and its allies continue to pose security threats to the United States and its allies west. Though, what has really changed about the Taliban is their increasing legitimacy as a proxy force and gun for hire by the regional security agencies. Today – there are at least six different factions within the Taliban on the payroll of Afghan neighbors and their security establishments. Pakistan no longer controls the monopoly of control over the Taliban as a proxy force and their many shuras i.e. councils in different Pakistani cities. Taliban are effectively a rug-tag force for hire to the highest regional bidder with deep ties to organized crime in the region.

Taliban and Al Qaeda

Taliban and Al Qaeda still enjoy a cozy and intimate relationship. Taliban leaders from the Quetta shura participated in the coronation ceremony of Bin Laden son as his successor while Al Qaeda second-in-command paid his tribute and declared loyalty to both former Taliban Emir, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor and the incumbent leader of Taliban, Maulavi Haibatullah Akhund, who have both enjoyed religious and political support from Al Qaeda leader. Furthermore, Al Qaeda leader, Ayman Al Zawahiri, has sent from time to time delegations to mediate inbetween Taliban leaders when differences emerged between different faction within the Taliban on matters related to leadership succession, logistics, war and peace. Al Qaeda have also used its network of fundraisers in the Gulf countries to raise funds for the “Taliban jihad” in Afghanistan.

After 9/11, President Bush before announcing global war on terror and operation enduring freedom laid out three conditions for the Taliban regime to remain in power: cut ties with Al Qaeda, hand over Osama Bin Laden and respect human rights. Almost two decades later, Taliban leaders continue to receive advice, financial support albeit meager and host Al Qaeda second in command Ayman Al Zawahiri; Osama bin Laden was not handed over and lived under the protection of Taliban and their Pakistani sponsors until the job was done by American NAVY SEALS and finally Taliban continue to violate human rights en mass and provide sanctuary to regional terror outfits such as ETIM, AL QAEDA, ETIM, LeT and the likes. Taliban to date remain a credible security threat to the region and the world at large. Those who legitimise this group as merely an insurgent group with no ambitions beyond Afghanistan should simply look at their brothers in arms in different battles i.e. Punjabis, Arabs, Uzbeks, Uighurs and the likes. Today one third of the battled field manpower of Taliban consist of foreign fighters who fight under the command and rank of Taliban in various battled fields across Afghanistan. Question is why term them an insurgency and provide them with political cover and sugarcoating two decades later on?

The United States toppled the Taliban regime because it hosted and provided the enablers for Osama Bin Laden and his lieutenants who carried out the tragic attacks of September 11 not because they were running a reign of terror on Afghans. How come this same yesteryears terror group have turned into an insurgent group fighting for an internal cause? The truth is that the Taliban have neither changed in nature nor in objectives. It is still serving as an umbrella organisation and incubator of various terrorist groups. It has not shown neither in word nor in action that it has denounced Al Qaeda and cut its ties with all terrorist organisations. Any other portrayal of this group is pure myth and political convenience.

Taliban and ISKP

The formula of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” does not hold truth when it comes to using Taliban as a proxy force to fight Islamic State off shoot in the AfPak region. While the approach and organisation of the two groups may be different but essentially the Taliban movement share the same religious ideology and world view as IS. ISKP is a mixture of disenchanted Taliban and various jihadi groups members with a flavor of various regional intelligence projects. Taliban have never fought ISKP groups in any part of Afghanistan in a meaningful way. More often than not, Taliban operations against ISKP were retaliatory in nature or based on orders from Iranian revolutionary guard, Russian KGB or the Pakistani ISI for clearance operations along Afghan Iranian and Afghan Pakistani borders. Taliban to date lack a coherent anti-Daesh campaign whereas Afghan forces have killed more three ISKP emirs, dozens of its deputies and mid ranking commanders.

In fact, Taliban have pooled resources and joined hands with ISKP in certain parts of Afghanistan especially in the north and northeastern part of the country to fight Afghan forces. While they have fought each other over resources, territory and population centers in eastern and southern Afghanistan. There is also a close relationships between the Haqqani, Taliban’s fighting arm and ISKP, almost an alliance since a close member of the Haqqani family is considered to be one of the founders of ISKP branch in AfPak area.

Taliban and Regional Terrorist Outfits

Taliban movement continue to serve as an umbrella organisation for regional terrorist groups from Pakistan i.e. LeT, JeM, Sepah e Sahaba and the likes; Arab -mercenary fighters from Libya, Iraq and Syria; Central Asia – IMU, Ansarullah, Jundullah; China – ETIM; Russian – various Chechen groups. These groups bring critical skill set and resources to the Taliban leadership and battlefield such as explosive making, effective command and control and above all extortion through organised crime. One third of the strength of the Taliban fighters in various battlefields are foreign fighters from a mixture of these groups. This was the exact case when the Taliban regime was in power in 1990s and they used these groups in their battles against the former recognised government of Afghanistan led by former President Burhannuddin Rabbani.

Today – Pakistani, Arab, Central Asian, Russia and Chinese terrorist groups who are fighting in Afghanistan provide critical skill sets i.e. command and control, explosives and bomb making in their fights against US, NATO and Afghan forces. On the contrast, the foreign fighters are merely transit fighters many of whom will jump to the first opportunity of waging jihad and attacking targets in their countries of origin with the exception of Pakistani fighters who are almost state sanctioned fighters.

The Cost of Taliban Returning to Power in Afghanistan

Taliban have not yet demonstrated in word or action that they have cut ties with Al Qaeda; no longer serve as an umbrella and incubator to regional and global terrorist organisations such as IMU, ETIM, LeT, Sepah and the likes and will not serve as another Hezbollah type proxy group to Russia and Iran. Therefore, any effort of legitimisation of this group as an indigenous insurgent group with no agenda beyond Afghan borders is an exercise in futile because their return to power will embolden their terrorist allies and enforce their conservative Islamic view of the world. This essentially means we are back to zero and all the sacrifices of US, NATO and Afghans in blood and treasure were in vein. To avoid such a scenario, the United States together with Afghan neighbors to reach consensus on three major points: a. Taliban movement should publicly cut ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist group and shun away their fighters from their ranks. b. Under military pressure bow down to a political settlement. c. provide guarantees it won’t serve as an armed proxy group for regional players including Iran and Russia.

Any measure short of these actions will only lead to an emboldened Islamic terrorist groups, resurgence of Al Qaeda, higher level of threats to US and its western allies and a possible civil war in Afghanistan with the current Afghan government and security forces in disarray and a party to it. Time and credible action is of essence here.

*Tamim Asey is the former Afghan Deputy Minister of Defense and Director General at the Afghan National Security Council. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Security studies in London. He can be reached via twitter @tamimasey and Facebook @Tamim Asey.

The long anticipated Second US-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue has come and gone and there with no apparent progress on any of the wicked issues – especially their confrontation in the South China Sea.  Sharp policy differences and high tensions remain with no apparently agreed risk reduction measures in place.

The  9 November meeting in Washington was between delegations led by Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis  for the U.S. and Politburo Member Yang Jiechi and Defense Minster Wei Fenghe for China.  Their meeting had been postponed, reportedly due to rising tensions between their militaries.   Indeed, some question why the meeting took place at all– especially in Washington.

After declining to make Wei available in Beijing for an earlier meeting with Mattis that forced Washington to cancel, it is surprising that China agreed to send their representatives to Washington. It would seem that either there were urgent security matters to discuss or China wanted something – – or both.  Perhaps their main purpose was to prepare for the expected meeting between their leaders on the sidelines of the upcoming Group 20 summit in Argentina.  Or perhaps China wanted to ascertain if Mattis was staying in his post despite rumors to the contrary, and if not who and what policy would likely replace him.  It may also have been keen to determine if their military relations could continue and be productive.

Despite soothing rhetoric – primarily from the U.S.– there is clearly concern on both sides.  According to General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, militaries had met about four months ago to increase transparency and reduce the risk of miscalculation.

Military to military relations are perhaps the most significant dimension of overall US-China relations because they can be a stabilizing force when relations in other spheres break down.  Indeed in June President Xi Jinping called the US-China military relationship the “model component of our overall bilateral relations”.   A Chinese defense ministry spokesperson has said it hopes the military relationship can become a “stabilizer” for overall ties.   As Randall Schriver, a top Pentagon Official for Asia said before the meeting such “high level talks are especially valuable during times of tension”. Given the current poor and worsening political and diplomatic relations between the two, the meeting was considered critical in setting the tone for the near future.

But on 4 October, US Vice President Michael Pence gave a cold war like, ‘it’s us or them’ speech https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-administrations-policy-toward-china/ criticizing China across the board.  He highlighted the recent ‘unsafe’ challenge by a Chinese destroyer to the USS Decatur as it was undertaking a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) against China’s claims in the South China Sea and added belligerently “We will not be intimidated, and we will not stand down.” More ominous to China, the U.S. has also stepped up its nuclear capable B52 over flights of the East and South China Seas.

Observers had hoped the meeting would lead to some tension -lowering agreements or at least public statements from both to that effect.  For example, Zhao Minghao writing in the Global Time said “It is expected this dialogue will ease the rising tensions between Beijing and Washington _ _.” Indeed, Schriver said the talks would include “risk reduction efforts that the two countries can undertake which aim to drive down the chance of an inadvertent clash”. They must be disappointed. The delegation leaders’ joint press conference was certainly not reassuring.

The two sides said they “had candid and in – depth conversations _ _,” ‘diplomatese’ for sharp disagreements.  Indeed, the two basically reiterated their positions and talked past each other with no sign of compromise on specifics.  Pompeo said “I was clear _ _ that we have continued concern about China’s activities and militarization in the South China Sea.  We pressed China to live up to its past commitments in this area.”  This is a reference to Chinese President Xi’s supposed “pledge” to not militarize the features.

But this may be a misunderstanding that has been repeated over and over until it has become a dangerous ‘alternative fact’. President Xi did not say that China would “not militarize the islands”. According to the translation, he said “_ _ China does not intend to pursue militarization [of the features].  The key words are “intend” and “militarization”. First of all China may well have not intended to “militarize” the features. But when Vietnam and the U.S. took what it considered threatening military actions in the area,  it may have felt a need to respond.  Indeed, China has repeatedly warned that if the US persisted with provocative intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) probes and FONOPs near its coast and occupied features it could prepare to defend itself.  Moreover, China apparently does not consider defensive installations “militarization”.

Mattis stated “we also discussed the importance for all military, law enforcement, and civilian vessels and aircraft, including those in the PLA Navy, the Chinese Coast Guard, and the PRC Maritime Militia, to operate in a safe and professional manner, in accordance with international law _ _ _.” This was probably a reference to the Decatur incident in which the U.S. considers China at fault. He then reiterated Department of Defense slogan that “the United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.”

Yang responded to Pompeo that “we expect the United States to respect China’s security interests in the Asia Pacific, China’s sovereignty and development interests.”  “We believe that no country should use any excuse to engage in militarization in the region, _ _ _” “to use the freedom of navigation and overflight as an excuse to pursue military actions is unjustifiable.”

He also “reiterated China’s “principled position on this issue and pointed out that China has indisputable sovereignty over islands in Nansha and its adjacent waters.  On its own territory, China is undertaking some constructions to build civilian facilities and necessary defense facilities.”­ _ _ ” That is the right of preservations and self-defense that international law has provided for sovereign states that has nothing to do with militarization” “_ _ the Chinese side made it clear to the United States that it should stop sending its vessels and military aircraft close to Chinese islands and reefs and stop actions that undermine China’s sovereignty and security interest.”  Mattis and Wei also held one-on-one talks later Friday afternoon and perhaps  some specific risk reduction measures were discussed then. But there has been no public information on what was discussed or agreed—if anything.

Of course the leaders tried to put a best face on the lack of progress. They said the two sides committed to support peace and stability in the South China Sea, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea in accordance with international law.  Both sides committed to ensure air and maritime safety, and manage risks in a constructive manner.  But these were just platitudes, often stated but not observed.  If lowering tensions and the risk of a clash was the purpose, the meeting appears to have been a failure.

*Mark J. Valencia, Adjunct Visiting Senior Scholar,National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China

This piece first appeared in the South China Morning Post.  https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2172977/south-china-sea-us-and-chinese-military

During the 1988 presidential campaign, I was a Bradley Resident Scholar at The Heritage Foundation. My first book, The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union, published in 1985, was the magnet that landed me the job.

It was also a time when Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, loudly proclaimed that he was “a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union.” It didn’t take long before those working for Vice President George H.W. Bush contacted me hoping to obtain inside information on the organization: Bush was running for president.

I happily gave the Bush team what they wanted, and appeared on several talk-TV shows, notably “Crossfire,” defending Bush against his critics. The ACLU issue took off like a rocket. “It sometimes seems as though the election is more about the ACLU than anything else,” complained NBC anchor Tom Brokaw.

Before the first presidential debate, the Bush campaign asked me to provide them with a list of some of the most controversial ACLU policies. I did, and Bush quickly mastered them (my first of two books on the ACLU was an extension of my NYU Ph.D. dissertation on the organization; my other book, Twilight of Liberty: The Legacy of the ACLU, was published in 1994 and a new Afterword edition appeared in 2001).

During the debate, ABC anchor Peter Jennings asked candidate George Bush why he continued to make an issue out of Michael Dukakis’ membership in the ACLU. Here is what Bush said.

“I simply don’t want to see the ratings on movies—I don’t want my ten-year-old grandchild to go into an X-rated movie. I like those ratings systems. I don’t think they’re right to try to take the tax exemption away from the Catholic Church. I don’t want to see the kiddie pornographic laws repealed. I don’t want to see under God come out from our currency. Now, these are all positions of the ACLU, and I don’t agree with them.”

The ACLU and the New York Times accused Bush of distorting the ACLU’s record. They were wrong. I supplied David Margolick of the Times with the evidence that I gave to the Bush campaign, taken straight from the ACLU’s Policy Guide.

The ACLU was on record opposing the Motion Picture Association of America’s movie rating system, even though this was a purely voluntary nongovernmental body. The ACLU Foundation and the New York Civil Liberties Union had filed an amicus brief in support of the Abortion Rights Mobilization to secure standing in its lawsuit seeking to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status.

The ACLU lost in a unanimous decision in the U.S. Supreme Court (New York Ferber, 1982) seeking to protect the production, sale, and distribution of child pornography. And its opposition to “In God We Trust” on coins was long-standing, a position that the founder of the ACLU, Roger Baldwin, told me was “one of the more foolish statements” the organization ever made.

Looking back at this presidential campaign, Garry Wills noted how incendiary these cultural issues were. “The Bush campaign was able to exacerbate this struggle, calling on the advice of William A. Donohue, the sociologist who wrote the right wing’s favorite book on the subject, The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union. Donohue, for instance, gave the campaign the useful political charge that the ACLU would keep ‘kiddie porn’ legal.”

God bless President George H.W. Bush. I am delighted to have played a small role in his life.

By Zachary Selden*

(FPRI) — Headlines such as “Trump calls NATO obsolete,” “Trump bashes allies,” and “Trump says Putin meeting easiest” fuel speculation that the U.S. is on the verge of abandoning its traditional allies in Europe in favor of an improved relationship with Russia.[1] Of course, President Donald Trump’s own inflammatory comments are the source of much of this speculation, particularly his solicitousness towards Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki Summit that sparked outrage among even his Republican allies for his acceptance of Putin’s denial of Russian interference in U.S. elections. Yet, the actions of the current administration speak to a very different reality. Rather than weakening, the U.S. military commitment to Europe has actually increased during Trump’s presidency in ways that send direct signals to Russia and limit potential Russian involvement in Europe. What accounts for this disparity between rhetoric and action?

Path-dependency could account for why the U.S. maintains its existing commitments, but it cannot explain why the U.S. has strengthened its ability to deter Russia since 2016. This disparity between rhetoric and action is a product of President Trump’s negotiating style developed in his business practices. He makes no secret about his ideas on how to negotiate and the lessons he has learned from a lifetime in what he describes as the Hobbesian world of commercial real estate. There is ample reason to question if the approach President Trump brings to the table is appropriate for international relations, but it is unlikely to change. Those concerned about the transatlantic relationship should recognize Trump’s rhetorical style for what it is and act accordingly. Donald Trump may be a blunt instrument in a transatlantic relationship more used to nuanced discourse, but this is an opportunity to forge a somewhat different security relationship that would lead to a more mature relationship. For decades, the U.S. has pressured its European partners to take more responsibility for security in their region, and the European Union has sought to build a role for itself as an independent security provider. The transatlantic relationship can be reconstituted around the shared interest of deterring Russian interference in Europe while the EU builds a capacity to manage the myriad of other security concerns across Europe and the broader neighborhood. Provided that this does not lead to weakness that can exploited by Russia—and the increased U.S. military commitment to Europe is aimed at preventing that—this is a moment to forge a new relationship that would suit both long-term U.S. and EU objectives, as well as bring NATO back to its original purpose.

An Increased U.S. Commitment to Europe under the Trump Administration

Despite the harsh tweets and awkward summit meetings, the U.S. commitment to the defense of Europe from Russian action has undeniably strengthened over the past two years. This can be seen in personnel choices for key positions in the administration, an increased American military presence and specific capabilities in the region, and energy development in the U.S. that undercuts Russia’s leverage in Europe. Developments in any one of these areas could be dismissed as coincidental, but there is a distinct pattern emerging that demonstrates a coordinated effort to boost American deterrent power in the most vulnerable parts of Europe.

The Trump administration’s personnel choices show a strong preference for policy professionals known for their firm approach toward Russia. National Security Advisor John Bolton is known for his abrasive comments about Iran and North Korea, but Bolton often reserves his harshest comments for Russia and Vladimir Putin. In recent years, Bolton has referred to Putin as a habitual liar, arguing in 2017 that, “for Trump it should be a highly salutary lesson about the character of Russia’s leadership to watch Putin lie to him. And it should be a fire-bell-in-the-night warning about the value Moscow places on honesty…negotiate with Russia at your peril.”[2] Bolton consistently argues for a harder line on Russia and sanctions that would affect the Russian elite.

Kay Bailey Hutchison was selected by the Trump administration as the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO. As a Senator, Hutchison was a strong supporter of the Alliance, and she did not shy away from calling out Russia for its actions to destabilize Europe at her confirmation hearing. “Russian disinformation campaigns and malign influence activities targeting NATO Allies and Partners,” said Hutchison, “seek to undermine Western democratic institutions and principles, and sow disunity in longstanding transatlantic bonds.” Nothing in her actions as Ambassador suggest anything other than a firm U.S. commitment to the Alliance and skepticism that Russia can be brought into a productive relationship in the near future.

The Trump administration placed Jakub Grygiel on the Policy Planning staff at the State Department and nominated A. Wess Mitchell as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, two key positions for shaping transatlantic policy. Grygiel and Mitchell are known for their 2016 book The Unquiet Frontier, a volume that was highly critical of what they viewed as an overly accommodating policy of Russia during the Obama administration.[3] Grygiel and Mitchell advocate a policy that bolsters the Alliance network in Central and Eastern Europe, where it is most subject to Russia’s probing.

The point here is not to catalog the statements of every official involved in the transatlantic security relationship, but rather to underscore that the personnel choices reflect a distinct worldview that sees Russia as a strategic competitor in Europe that must be deterred. It views the American alliance system and the U.S. commitment to its most vulnerable members as critical to American credibility. The Trump administration could have filled these positions with individuals representing a worldview of realist restraint, or of greater accommodation of Russian interests in Europe. Instead, the president turned to a group of policy professionals that are known for their hawkish views on Russia and their commitment to the U.S.-led alliance system in Europe.

Personnel choices mean little unless those advisors’ recommendations are acted upon. Since the start of the Trump administration, the U.S. has both doubled down on the Obama administration’s policy to reinforce the Baltic states and increased the U.S. presence in Ukraine. The U.S. military presence in the Baltic states is part of the European Reassurance Initiative to bolster the defense of the most exposed members of the Alliance. Each Baltic state and Poland has a brigade of Allied forces stationed in it with the U.S. taking the lead role in Poland. This is a continuation of a policy begun under President Obama, but the U.S. has bolstered its commitment under President Trump. First, the U.S. sent special forces trainers to work with Baltic troops on guerrilla warfare techniques in March 2018.[4] This took place during a scheduled exercise focused on more conventional tactics and was a clear indication to Russia that even a rapid conventional military victory in the Baltic states would not be the end of the conflict. Second, the U.S. is boosting its conventional power in the region. In May 2018, the U.S. tested its ability to rapidly move heavy military equipment into Europe with a massive movement of 87 Abrams tanks and more than 500 other armored vehicles.[5] But in probably the clearest message to Russia, the U.S. began to openly consider deploying a carrier strike group in the Mediterranean Sea as a specific deterrent to Russia that would free other U.S. Navy vessels to patrol the Baltic and Black Seas.[6]

The U.S. also increased its presence in, and military assistance to, Ukraine. The sale of lethal arms including Javelin anti-tank missiles beginning in 2017 is a significant change from the Obama administration policy that denied Ukraine such assistance. In addition, the U.S. began building a maritime operations center in 2017 on the Black Sea coast in Ochakiv, Ukraine. The official purpose of the operations center is to “maximize European reassurance initiatives” and “deliver flexible maritime capabilities through the full range of military operations.”[7] Building such a facility as close as possible to the contested Crimea and the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet surely did not go unnoticed in Moscow.

In addition, the U.S. sent a strong signal to Russia in Syria about its willingness to use force in a confrontation with Russian military contractors in February 2018. A key part of Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy is the use of non-uniformed military personnel in eastern Ukraine that allows Russia to deny its military is engaged in the conflict. Similarly, the Russian government often uses “contractors” in Syria as part of their effort to militarily assist the Bashar al-Assad regime. When U.S. special forces found themselves and their Syrian allies being advanced upon by a column of Russian contract soldiers, they issued a warning as per the agreed upon deconfliction policy. When the column continued its advance, U.S. forces killed and wounded approximately 300 Russian contractors. The message cannot be mistaken in Moscow: if its “little green men” come in contact with U.S. forces in Ukraine, the Baltic states, or elsewhere, the results may be deadly.

The U.S. is also undercutting Russian influence in Europe through its gas exports. The American gas boom began under the previous administration, but it has increased with the Trump administration’s emphasis on “energy dominance.” With the construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Bulgaria, the mix of gas sources in Europe is changing. American gas exports to Europe are likely to remain a relatively small part of European consumption, but American natural gas production has driven the global price down to low levels that cut into the profits of the major Russian gas export company, which is seen as a “piggy bank” for Kremlin activities.[8] Gazprom maintains its grip on European markets, but its ability to raise prices for political purposes is hamstrung by the effects of American gas production and exports that set an effective ceiling on prices. If Gazprom were to play an aggressive game in the future that looked anything like the gas wars of the mid 2000s, the result would be to make U.S. (and other) LNG sources much more competitive in the European market and reduce Russian market share. The amount of American gas entering Europe is small, but the reduction of Russian leverage it creates is disproportionately large.

The Future of the Transatlantic Relationship

The core of the transatlantic security relationship will remain strong, not because of sentiment or vague commitments to shared values, but because of mutual national interests. For the U.S., blunting Russia in Europe is a key priority as defined by the National Defense Strategy set forth under the Trump administration. That strategy could have gone in other directions, defining security and the national interest in terms of other priorities put forward by the administration such as checking illegal immigration or defeating radical Islamist terrorist groups. Instead, the key points are about reorienting the use of American military power to counter the influence of strategic competitors, especially Russia and China.

Rather than hanging on every tweet from President Trump, his rhetorical bombast should be understood for what it is: part of a negotiating strategy to bring the administration closer to its goals. In terms of Europe and the transatlantic relationship, those goals are relatively consistent with those of previous administrations despite the vast differences in style. Once again, the National Security Strategy is very clear as to what the U.S. perceives as the main dangers to itself and global order, and a robust defense of Europe from Russian interference is plainly stated as a main priority.

Thus, the U.S. will remain involved in the defense of Europe, but the administration clearly wants Europe to do more to defend itself from Russian involvement and other potential threats such as those emanating from the southern frontier of the region. Once again, this is nothing new, and the Obama administration pushed for the same thing. At least on paper, this is also what many U.S. allies in Europe claim to want as well. This is an opportunity to strike a new strategic relationship that recognizes the differences in interests, but also the common interest in blocking Russian influence in Europe. What might emerge is a somewhat more balanced relationship that finally allows Europe more independent influence in the international environment but retains a strong transatlantic link based on minimizing Russian disruption of the region. To get there, however, we need to collectively move beyond an obsession with Trump’s seeming inability to play according to the rules of diplomatic behavior.

About the author:
*Zachary Selden is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] See for example, Ashley Parker, “Trump says NATO is ‘Obsolete’, UN a ‘political game,’” New York Times, 2 April 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/02/donald-trump-tells-crowd-hed-be-fine-if-nato-broke-up/; Brittany De Lea, “Trump bashes NATO members: who pays what?” Fox Business, 10 July 2018 https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-bashes-nato-members-who-pays-what.amp; Veronica Stracqualursi, “Trump says Putin meeting may be, ‘the easiest of them all,’” CNN, 10 July 2018 https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/10/politics/trump-putin-meeting/index.html

[2] John Bolton, “Vladimir Putin looked Trump in the eye and lied to him,” The Telegraph, 10 July 2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/10/vladimir-putin-looked-trump-eye-lied-negotiate-russia-peril/

[3] Jakub Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell, The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Alliance and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).

[4] Eric Schmitt, “In Eastern Europe, U.S. military girds against Russian might and manipulation,” New York Times, 27 June 2018.

[5] Sebastian Sprenger, “U.S. Army flows fresh tanks, troops into Europe,” Defense News, 23 May 2018. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/05/23/us-army-flows-fresh-tanks-troops-into-europe/

[6] David Larter, “U.S. weighs keeping carrier strike group in Europe as a check on Russia,” Defense News, 20 April 2018. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/04/20/us-weighs-keeping-carrier-strike-group-in-europe-as-a-check-on-russia/

[7] “Seabees break ground on maritime operations center in Ukraine” U.S. Department of Defense press release, 7 August 2017.

[8] Leon Aron, “What does Putin want?” Commentary (December 2006): 19-24.

By Andrei Kadomtsev*

On November 25, leaders of the EU member states approved an agreement on the withdrawal of Great Britain from the Union. The last objections, voiced by Spain, were lifted after Madrid received “assurances from the British government concerning Gibraltar.” Now the British Prime Minister Theresa May will have to secure the approval of the country’s parliament. This may prove to be more difficult than reaching agreement on Brexit with member of the European Union. According to commentators, few, if any in the UK, endorse the agreement in its present version. If backed by the British Parliament, the deal will then have to be favored by a simple majority of the European Parliament. Afterwards, the EU Council will hold a vote, in which the support of at least 20 member countries is required, representing at least 65% of the Union’s population. No endorsement by national parliaments is required. Should the decision receive the approval of all parties involved, the exit procedure will start on March 29, 2019. The transition period will last at least 18 months.

Last week, the text of the Brexit agreement, which is nearly six hundred pages long, was finally approved. Next, British Prime Minister Teresa May eventually succeeded in winning the support of most Cabinet members. At the same time, a number of ministers, including Dominic Raab, who is in charge of exiting the EU, resigned in protest against the final version. Now, the British Parliament is to vote on the bill to achieve agreement with the EU on the terms of the exit in early December. In addition to the text of the Agreement, a Political Declaration has been drafted which briefly describes the main principles of further relations between the UK and the EU, including the positions of the two parties in future negotiations on a trade agreement.

The 17-month negotiations marathon was extremely difficult. Triggered largely by discontent about the so-called “uncontrolled” influx of migrants, Britain’s exit from the EU quickly turned from a “technical” issue into one of the main challenges to the future of the Union. The EU’s position of late has been to “minimize the damage from Brexit”. In early September, when the third round of negotiations between London and Brussels came to a close, most observers said, it fell through. It was only by mid-November that the parties had harmonized their positions on the financial conditions of the exit, the protection of the rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom and the British in Europe, as well as on the “consistency of talks about the future”.

At present, the outcome for the EU looks fairly beneficial. According to The Economist, the British authorities have failed to achieve more than half of their original goals. London’s independence from the EU in matters of trade and customs regulation has been postponed at least until 2021. Until then, the UK will remain within the regulatory procedures of the EU Customs Union and will continue to live by the standards of the EU’s common market and their interpretation by the European Court of Justice. The UK will pay the EU about £ 39 billion in a one-off payment and there might be additional payments in the future. Instead of signing a comprehensive free trade agreement by March 2019, which London had sought to secure so much, a Political Declaration was approved which states the parties’ intention to conclude such an agreement “in the future.”

What can be seen as success for the UK is the cessation of the free movement of people between the UK and the EU. However, the approved version of the Brexit agreement envisages visa-free travel for both Europeans and the British “for tourist or business purposes.” Finally, London managed to secure the preservation of the “transparent” land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. At the same time, it had to be paid for with the de facto retention of Northern Ireland within the EU’s jurisdiction, pending “further arrangements” to be reached during the transition period – that is, until December 2020 at the earliest.

The two leading EU countries – Germany and France – have managed to demonstrate the Union’s strong unity in the face of outgoing Britain. The Brexit Agreement was clinched on Brussels’ terms, which imply de facto payment, in the literal and figurative sense of the word, of a sort of indemnities. Meanwhile, it may turn out that the tough stance of Paris and Berlin on Great Britain will not bring any special political dividends either to Macron, whose reformist ideas are garnering less and less support in the EU, or to Merkel, who announced her intention to resign as chancellor by 2021. Finally, the mounting friction between Brussels and Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna, and now, Rome, shows that the deep-seated causes that underlie Britain’s choice of two years ago to vote for leaving the EU, are still there. And the position of Britain’s opponents who are trying, in the name of deepening EU integration, to turn a blind eye to problems for which there can be no politically correct solutions, is triggering ever more irritation on the part of European voters. Meanwhile, there is only 6 months to go before elections to the European Parliament are due to take place.

In turn, Theresa May is convinced that she has succeeded in achieving “the best deal possible.” Finance minister Philip Hammond has described the deal with the EU as “the best option for the British economy.” Meanwhile, this agreement has cost May a lot politically. In addition to resignations among Cabinet members, a number of parliamentarians from the Conservative Party persist in their attempts to raise the issue of confidence in the prime minister. The final document is subject to serious criticism, both by opponents and supporters of Brexit, including a considerable number of outspoken representatives of the Conservative Party. For example, Boris Johnson, one of the trailblazers of Brexit, a former foreign minister, and a favorite in the so far unofficial campaign for the post of prime minister, has voted the version of the Agreement signed with the EU as “a huge mistake.” According to Johnson, by approving the current text of the agreement “Britain will become a satellite state.” In this regard, experts anticipate serious difficulties, up to the rejection of the Agreement, or, at least, a significant delay in terms of passing the text through the British Parliament. A negative result will require the government to submit a new action plan within three weeks, but no later than January 21 of next year.

Teresa May’s major problem is that for success she needs more than the votes of her party. A small majority in parliament is provided by the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). However, many DUP members are extremely dissatisfied with the de facto preservation of EU regulation in Northern Ireland, which is enshrined in the Brexit Agreement. In their opinion, such a “compromise” “undermines the unity of Britain.” In addition, a week ago, not only the majority of opposition MPs, but also several dozen Conservatives came out against the May plan. According to critics, the deal agreed by May forces the UK to continue to follow EU regulations for an unspecified period of time. While doing so, London will not be able to influence decisions taken in Brussels, nor will it be able to withdraw from the Agreement unilaterally. Thus, the likelihood  of a negative vote in the House of Commons is estimated as fairly high. Besides, the mounting contradictions within the ruling circles of Great Britain may provoke a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister May before the agreement is submitted to parliament. The loss of confidence in the prime minister would lead either to the arrival at Downing Street of a supporter of a tougher course on the EU, or to early elections. In both cases, the chances of Britain exiting the EU without any agreement will increase significantly.

According to the Times, members of the House of Commons will have to choose between a “bad deal” and two alternatives, which are likely to be even worse. If parliamentarians vote against the May plan, Britain will either leave the EU without any agreement at all – “tough Brexit”, or will hold a second referendum, in the hope that this time the people will vote to maintain membership in the European Union. Both options are extremely risky. ‘Tough Brexit’ can trigger a massive political and socio-economic crisis. “Another referendum will further divide the already divided country, make the population angry over the need for another voting, will further complicate relations with Brussels, and on top of that, it does not guarantee that the result will be different”.

It cannot be ruled out that there are quite a few in Europe who, deep in their hearts, hope for such a development of events. Brexit without an agreement would mean that Britain would have to build legal relations with continental Europe almost from scratch, that is, in such a way which will demonstrate to all potentially “hesitant” members of the EU that attempts to undermine the Union will bring them only huge losses and damages. And another referendum as such would deal a substantial blow to euro-skeptics and “populists” of every description. An even greater effect would be London’s rejection of Brexit. This would seriously strengthen the position of supporters of European integration in the context of their struggle for the posts in the EU executive and legislative branches in 2019.

Thus, chances are still high that London, with or without a “deal”, will have to pay the highest possible price for independence. Against this background, the incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May is rapidly losing popularity, both among voters and within her own party. As the voices of supporters of the “re-referendum” on EU membership are getting louder, the question that arises is whether the success, albeit a compromise, which Downing Street has achieved so far, will be just another Pyrrhic victory, of which the British history has seen so many. Or will Brexit give a new impetus to the development of the United Kingdom? No one can predict now.

*Andrei Kadomtsev, political scientist. First published in our partner International Affairs

Source: Modern Diplomacy

Full security prevails in Iran’s southeastern port city of Chabahar where a suicide car bomb attack killed and injured a number of people on Thursday morning, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Force Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour said.

Speaking to Tasnim on Thursday, General Pakpour, who was at the scene of the attack, said calm and security has returned to Chabahar as the security forces have brought the situation under control.

He said an explosive-laden vehicle attacked the city’s police headquarters in the morning, killing and injuring a number of people.

“It was a blind terrorist attack that has had no achievement for the terrorists,” the commander stressed.

The general said a number of guards at the entrance of the police headquarters have been martyred and wounded.

He also dismissed reports that the police commander of Chabahar is among those killed in the attack, saying the suicide vehicle did not enter the premises of the headquarters.

President Donald Trump will name State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. news agencies report.

Trump is expected to make the announcement official in a tweet Friday.

Nauert came to the State Department after a stint at Fox News as an anchor and correspondent, where, according to her State Department biography, she covered global and domestic crises, and interviewed top politicians and military officials.

Prior to Fox, Nauert worked at ABC News.

If she is nominated and accepts the position, she could likely face some tough questioning during her Senate confirmation hearings about her apparent lack of diplomatic or policy-making experience.

She is said to be close to both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and has traveled extensively with the secretary.

Nauert would replace Ambassador Nikki Haley who announced in October she would be leaving the job by the end of the year.

Pope Francis will visit Abu Dhabi in the UAE in February, the Vatican said on Thursday, in his seventh trip to a predominantly Muslim nation to call for inter-religious peace.

The trip will take place from Feb. 3-5. The Vatican said the pope had accepted an invitation from Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and the Catholic community there. He will attend an inter-faith meeting.

Crown Prince Mohammed said in a tweet that the pope “is a symbol of peace, tolerance and the promotion of brotherhood. We look forward to a historic visit, through which we will seek dialogue on the peaceful coexistence among peoples.”

Pope Francis was quick in the months after his election in 2013 to make overtures to worshippers from other religions, inviting two old friends from Buenos Aires – a Rabbi and a Muslim professor – on a trip to the Middle East where he condemned religious hatred.

Francis has already visited Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Bangladesh and Azerbaijan, the Palestinian territories and used those trips to call for inter-religious dialogue and to condemn the notion of violence in the name of God.

“The theme of the visit is ‘Make Me a Channel of Your Peace’ – and that’s the Pope’s intention in going to the United Arab Emirates. How all people of goodwill can work for peace will be a major topic on this trip,” Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said.

The theme is taken from the opening words of the Prayer of Peace of Francis of Assisi, the saint whose name the pope took during his election ceremony.

“This visit, like the one to Egypt (in 2017), shows the fundamental importance the Holy Father gives to inter-religious dialogue. Pope Francis visiting the Arab world is a perfect example of the culture of encounter,” Burke said.

Bishop Paul Hinder of the Arabian Vicariate of Southern Arabia (UAE, Oman and Yemen) said: “I express my gratitude to the UAE government, which has made this visit possible. I urge the Christian community and our Catholic faithful that we respect and cooperate with the instructions of a special team, which is being put in place for the visit.

“The team will work closely with the government to ensure this visit goes smoothly and according to plan.

“The generosity of the UAE government has also been extended in making it possible to celebrate a Mass, which will be on February 5 at a public venue in Abu Dhabi. These are warm and kind gestures that we appreciate and acknowledge.”

The pope’s trip to the UAE will come ahead of a visit in March to Morocco.