By Ralph Nader

If you haven’t yet heard of Ron Unz, you may soon. The conservative, successful software developer, theoretical physicist from Harvard and former publisher of the American Conservative magazine is launching a California initiative that asks voters in November to raise the state minimum wage to $12 per hour (it is now $8 an hour and is going to $9 an hour by July, 2014).

In commencing this effort, Mr. Unz is uniting conservatives and liberals in supporting this initiative and is hopeful that Silicon Valley billionaires or megabillionaires will help fund this citizens’ campaign.

If this sounds quixotic, put that reaction on hold. Mr. Unz’s mind seethes with logic. He believes that a left-right coalition behind a higher minimum wage makes perfect sense. Conservatives, he argues in many an article, would see a decline in taxpayer assistance to low-income people – food stamps, housing aid, Medicaid, etc. – if employers, not taxpayers, paid workers about what labor was paid in 1968, adjusted for inflation. And liberals have always believed in this social safety net on the grounds that workers earned it and that nobody, with or without children, working full time should be living in poverty.

Next month, my new book elaborates on the power of emerging left-right coalitions on many issues (Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State).

My 2009 book Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! (a work of political fiction) showed in realistic detail what a few very wealthy, enlightened people could do to build a democratic society and persuade Congress and others to advance numerous overdue improvements for workers, taxpayers and consumers.

So Ron Unz is in the vanguard of a re-alignment of American politics (Unz.com). He is ready to collect the signatures to get the minimum wage initiative on the ballot and passed (the polls are very favorable) by asking Silicon Valley’s fabulous wealthy to put up a few million dollars.

Here is an excerpt presenting his case in a paid adjustment that was printed in the Daily Post newspaper this week.

“Enacting a $12 per hour minimum wage in California would transform our low-wage society and allow our state to once again lead the nation.

The California cost of living is far above the national average, which is why we have the highest rate of poverty in America—worse than Mississippi, Alabama, or West Virginia. That’s why a minimum wage of $12 per hour is very reasonable for our state.

Adjusted for living costs, a $12 minimum wage is California is about $9.25 at the federal level. That’s less than what President Obama has proposed and what conservative Bill O’Reilly of Fox News has endorsed. But a $12 minimum wage would lift millions of Californians out of poverty.

$15 Billion per Year. That’s how much working families would gain if the California minimum wage were raised to $12 per hour.

American taxpayers would also save billions of dollars each year once those low-wage workers no longer require Food Stamps and other anti-poverty assistance from the government.”

Then comes his appeal to the super-rich:

“Would you like to change the world? An investment of less than $2 million today would get our initiative on the November ballot. It would raise the annual incomes of low-wage California workers by $15 billion starting in 2016. $2 million for $15 billion. That’s a better ratio than was achieved by the early backers of Apple, Google, or Facebook.

California law requires the identities of all donors to be disclosed. So the people of this state – and of the whole nation – will know who helped to raise the wages of California workers by $15 billion per year. They will know who acted to lift millions of California workers out of poverty and to take them off Food Stamps and other government programs funded by the taxpayer. That person could be you.

There is more information at www.HigherWages.org or contact me at Ron@HigherWages.org.”

My guess is that he will soon attract some big donors. Ron Unz has won state-wide initiatives before when no one gave him a chance. He believes this one is another winner. California is poised to make history.

Unfortunately, progress on raising the minimum wage in Congress has stalled. U.S. Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) is having problems with some of his own Democrats (he has postponed the Senate vote on the $10.10 per hour minimum wage over three years) until next month.

Who do these Senators purport to represent on this basic issue of fairness for 30 million workers making less today than workers made in 1968, adjusted for inflation? They’re not representing these workers who clean up after them, produce and serve their food, take care of their ailing parents. They’re representing rich campaign contributors, the Walmarts, the McDonalds and the other big companies that employ two-thirds of hard-pressed low-income workers in this country.

With eighty percent of the American people, including a majority of Republicans, behind raising the minimum wage, it should not be too hard to move these Senators into the Yes column. Surround their Congressional offices with demonstrators from the thirty million Americans and their supporters. Flood them with e-mails, calls and letters demanding that they come back home for personal meetings with the voters to answer workers’ questions on the minimum wage.

These resisting or on-the-fence Senators are Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), Senator Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE).

Just show up people, and you’ll see these fluttering politicians running for cover and supporting justice for the people.

For more information, visit timeforaraise.org.

The article California’s Coming Minimum Wage Restoration – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By The Heritage Foundation

By Steven P. Bucci, Ph.D., Nile Gardiner, Ph.D. and Luke Coffey

On February 28, Russian troops, aided by pro-Russian local militia, began violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity by occupying important sites across the Crimean Peninsula. Under the pretext of “protecting Russian people,” the deployment of Russian troops into Crimea demonstrates a blatant disregard of Ukraine’s national sovereignty.

Russia’s anachronistic irredentist behavior has no place in the 21st century. Understandably, Moscow’s behavior has made many NATO partners nervous. Ukraine does not enjoy the security guarantees afforded to America’s NATO allies, nor should the U.S. give any impression that it does. However, there are steps that can be taken to keep America’s NATO allies safe while demonstrating to Russia that its behavior is unacceptable.

Ukrainian People Speak, Russia Reacts

After three months of mass street demonstrations, the Ukrainian people have succeeded in ousting their corrupt and incompetent president, the Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych. On February 22, the Ukrainian parliament acted in favor of the people it represents: It granted amnesty to all political prisoners, brought back the constitution of 2004 (which reduces the powers of the president), and announced an early presidential election in May.

Not content with the Ukrainian people looking West, Putin has indicated that he will protect ethnic Russians living in Crimea and Ukraine’s other eastern provinces. In the past week, bellicose rhetoric on his part has been combined with major military training events in the region. This has culminated into what can only be described as an incremental military intervention by Russia into the Crimean Peninsula. Russia’s parliament has even authorized the use of military force in Ukraine.

Early reports indicate that Moscow has reinforced its military installations in Crimea with thousands of personnel. These troops are backed by Crimean nationalists posing as local militia. Under a 2010 basing agreement, Russia can station up to 25,000 military personnel, 388 naval vessels, and 161 aircraft in Crimea. All of this means that Putin will attempt to do what he pleases in Crimea and claim that it is all legitimate. It is, however, a clear violation of Ukraine’s national sovereignty.

The Failure of the Russian Reset and the Collapse of the Obama Doctrine

Russians respect strength and consistency, neither of which has been displayed by President Obama or his European counterparts. Russian behavior in Crimea was made possible by the failure of the Russian “reset,” the disarming of Europe by European politicians, and the reduction and disengagement of U.S. military forces in Europe.

From almost the beginning, President Obama’s foreign policy has been an empty shell masking a spectacular lack of American leadership on the world stage. This flawed approach, with a fundamental rejection of the notion of American exceptionalism, is amply on display in the Ukrainian crisis, where America’s voice has barely been heard. As the latest developments over Crimea have shown, the Russian reset has spectacularly backfired, resulting in staggering complacency in Washington over Moscow’s ambitions.

The Obama Doctrine has been a monumental failure because it fails to protect and advance U.S. interests. It is the antithesis of Ronald Reagan’s bold approach, which was based on powerful American leadership on the world stage, including a willingness to firmly stand up to America’s adversaries. Perhaps even worse, many of America’s traditional allies are questioning America’s resolve to transatlantic relations and NATO’s security guarantee.

Time for a Real Strategy

The U.S. should do the following to send a clear message to Moscow:

• Show U.S. commitment to NATO. First and foremost, the U.S. should be reassuring those NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe that their defense is guaranteed and that spillover from any possible conflict will be contained. This could mean temporarily deploying assets to the region required to defend the territorial integrity of NATO countries near Russia. More importantly, it should be made crystal clear to Russia that any armed aggression toward a NATO member will immediately cause the U.S. to call for NATO to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
• Enact sanctions on Russia. This is a moment for strong U.S. leadership, with Washington implementing targeted sanctions aimed directly at Russian officials responsible for violating Ukrainian sovereignty, including freezing financial assets and imposing visa bans. The White House should make it clear that any Russian military intervention in Ukraine would pose a threat to the free world, not least in a country that sits right on NATO’s border.
• Enforce the Magnitsky Act. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was passed by Congress in 2012 and denies U.S. visas to, and places financial sanctions on, Russian officials and individuals guilty of human rights violations. It should be swiftly enforced against any Russian officials involved in the incursions into Crimea and any human rights violations in Ukraine.
• Work with European partners. The President himself should take the lead in urging European allies to adopt a robust stance against Russian expansionism and join the U.S. in a tough sanctions regime that will directly impact those in Russia’s government involved in any aggression in Ukraine. Working with the EU would be hopeless. Instead, the U.S. should work bilaterally and multilaterally with key European countries, bypassing the Brussels bureaucracy when possible.
• Improve and deepen relations with Eastern Europe beyond defense. In addition to showing a renewed commitment to NATO, the U.S. should look at other means to demonstrate its support, such as creating new opportunities for liquefied natural gas exports to its European partners, many of whom rely on Russia for 100 percent of their energy needs.
• Withdraw immediately from New START. New START is a fundamentally flawed treaty that dramatically undercuts the security of the U.S. and its allies. It is an extraordinarily good deal for the Russians, as it significantly limits Washington’s ability to deploy an effective global missile defense system. It does nothing at all to advance U.S. security while handing Moscow a significant strategic edge.

Advance American Interests

Recent events have confirmed what many already knew: The so-called Russian reset is dead. Furthermore, it is looking increasingly likely that part of Ukraine is now under de facto Russian control.

America’s leaders today should follow the example of President Reagan three decades ago: demonstrate American commitment to Europe, guarantee unparalleled American strength, and confront tyranny when it threatens American interests. With strength and consistency, Russia’s recent actions could have been prevented or at least mitigated. It might be too late for Crimea, but the U.S. cannot allow the contagion to spread.

—Steven P. Bucci, PhD, is Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy, a department of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies; Nile Gardiner, PhD, is Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a department of the Davis Institute; and Luke Coffey is Margaret Thatcher Fellow in the Thatcher Center at The Heritage Foundation.

The article Russia, The West, And Ukraine: Time For A Strategy, Not Hope – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By F18News

By Victoria Arnold

Acquiring and retaining places of worship in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi is difficult for some local residents, Forum 18 News Service notes. During the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, athletes have been able to use dedicated worship space at the inter-confessional centre, with separate prayer rooms for the Orthodox, other Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu faiths, as well as chaplains of these beliefs.

Sochi’s Muslims, however, are still without a mosque, and a long-established Protestant community is embroiled in a legal battle to retain their Church.

Still no mosque in Sochi

Sochi’s 20,000 strong Muslim population continues to worship in basement prayer rooms while awaiting the provision of a mosque. The town’s Yasin Musim community – which now has over 130 worshippers – has since 1996 asked repeatedly for land and permission to build, and has been repeatedly denied or ignored. “Whenever I find somewhere, the [city] Architectural Department says that it’s already sold, obstructed by pipes, or something else”, then Chair Ravza Ramazanova told Forum 18 in May 2006.

Not only in Sochi, but also in the capital Moscow and in parts of Russia considered ethnically Russian such as St Petersburg, Muslims face persistent difficulties building mosques. In 2009, then President Dmitri Medvedev publicly backed the idea of building a mosque for Sochi. But as yet the authorities have taken no concrete action to enable a mosque to be built.

Yasin community Chair Valery Ilyasov was keen to stress to Forum 18 on 25 February that his community encounters no day to day problems, and that dedicated prayer rooms had been provided in the Olympic villages. But these facilities are located in zones reserved solely for athletes, the Olympic press office in Sochi told Forum 18 on 4 March. Ilyasov stated though that a promised Islamic Cultural Centre, agreed by the Yasin community and Sochi mayor Anatoly Pakhomov in February 2012, has not yet been built. Local Muslims’ only access to a mosque is in the village of Tkhagapsh, more than two hours’ drive away.

Despite plans for a mosque being discussed several times in the years of preparation for the Winter Olympics (ranging from a permanent structure in an Olympic village to construction as part of a complex of religious buildings on an artificial island shaped like the outline of Russia), no site has been allocated and no financial assistance forthcoming from the city or regional authorities. A spokesperson for Sochi’s Department of Information and Analytical Work refused to comment on the possibility of mosque construction after the Olympics, when reached by Forum 18 on 3 March 2014.

Financial support

Immediately after the Winter Olympics “measures will be taken to construct the mosque”, Mufti Askarbii Kardanov of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Adygea and the Krasnodar Region told the Kavkazskaya Politika website on 22 January. Contacted by Forum 18 on 4 March Mufti Kardanov said that “there will be no problem building a mosque in Sochi if we had money .. that is, if we find sponsors”, and remarked that similar problems of funding exist “not only in Sochi .. but in other places, in Tuapse, in Adler, in Novorossiisk, in Anapa”.

Asked if the authorities would provide funds, Mufti Kardanov pointed out that religion is separate from the state in Russia. Forum 18 notes, however, that Krasnodar Region allotted more than 525 million Roubles (about 87,123,000 Norwegian Kroner, 10,552,000 Euros, or 14,520,000 US Dollars) from its budget for the construction of the vast Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Image of Christ at the Olympic Park in Sochi’s Adler district. The Church was consecrated on 2 February.

The House of the Gospel

In January 2013 Sochi administration decided to sell off much of its municipal property. This meant that the congregation of the House of the Gospel Protestant Church is faced with losing the site it has occupied rent-free since 1993. Two court hearings so far have failed to secure the Church’s rights to the property, and the community is now preparing to appeal a third time.

The Church complex houses two prayer halls, a Sunday school, a publishing outlet, offices, and departments for missionary work and philanthropy, and includes the original building granted by the city administration to the congregation “for charitable and liturgical purposes” in 1993, as well as new structures erected at the community’s own expense.

In 2007 the House of the Gospel and Sochi’s property department signed a contract transferring the title of the property to the Church, and allowing it free use of the building.

Property boom sparked fears

In February 2011, the Church applied to Sochi administration to have the property transferred to its full ownership under the 2010 Federal Law ‘On the transfer of state or municipal owned property of religious purpose to religious organizations’, but this request was ignored by the authorities.

(Transfer of the ownership of places of worship under the Federal Law continues to be problematic for all religious confessions – see Forum 18′s general Russia religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1722.)

In March 2013, Sochi administration told the House of the Gospel Church that its land and buildings were to be auctioned off under the city’s privatisation programme, and that the 2010 property law did not apply.

Sochi is now the third most expensive city in Russia after Moscow and St Petersburg, with average property prices for February 2014 reaching 77,000 Roubles (about 12,790 Norwegian Kroner, 1,550 Euros, or 2,130 US Dollars) per square metre. A spokesperson for the House of the Gospel told Forum 18 on 20 February that he thought the Church’s prime location on a major central street, close to the local offices of the FSB security service, was the principal reason behind the proposed sale. The Church community’s 2011 attempt to gain full ownership was motivated by fears that the site would prove attractive to investors drawn by Sochi’s Olympic boom.

Legal dispute

The House of the Gospel submitted a complaint to the Krasnodar Regional Arbitration Court on 7 May 2013, arguing that the Sochi administration’s two years of inaction over their lawful request for ownership were “unlawful and in breach of their rights”, according to court documents seen by Forum 18. The Church also asked that the administration should be obliged to respond to their application and hand over the property as originally requested. Sochi administration in its turn argued that the 2010 religious property transfer law did not apply, and there was no reason for them to give the land and buildings to the Church.

At a hearing on 9 October 2013, Krasnodar Regional Arbitration Court partially upheld the Church’s complaint. It ruled that Sochi administration’s long delay had indeed been unlawful, and that it must consider the House of the Gospel’s request for full ownership of the property and provide a “reasoned response” to it. The Court also ruled, however, that the property could not be transferred to the ownership of the Church because its boundaries had not been established in accordance with Russian land law, and it could therefore not be subject to legal transactions (such as under the 2010 religious property transfer law).

Appeal

Sochi administration contested the first part of this ruling in the 15th Arbitration Appeals Court in Rostov on 17 January 2014, in which the Krasnodar court’s decision in favour of the Church was overturned on a legal technicality. Under Russia’s Arbitration Code, the plaintiff must register their complaint with an arbitration court within three months of the perceived infringement of their legal rights. According to the 15th Court, in documents seen by Forum 18, the House of the Gospel should have applied to the Krasnodar Regional Arbitration Court by 18 July 2011, i.e. three months after the 30 day period within which the Sochi Administration was legally obliged to respond to their request for transfer of ownership.

Because the Church did not approach the court until May 2013 – which delay was due to Sochi administrations’ failure to respond to the Church – the Church’s case was overturned by the Appeal Court, and Sochi administration relieved of the obligation to respond to the transfer request.

The House of the Gospel is now preparing both to challenge this ruling and to demonstrate their rights to the property at the Federal Arbitration Court of the North Caucasus. The date of the hearing will be set on 25 March.

Sochi’s Department for Property Relations would not discuss the case when Forum 18 telephoned on 3 March.

Other sold property, Church building not yet sold

While the case is pending, the Church’s land and buildings have not been put up for auction and its activities continue, including the operation of a hospitality centre for visitors during the Olympics and Paralympics.

Many of the other properties on the list prepared by Sochi administration, seen by Forum 18, have already been sold at auctions held throughout 2013. They have all been commercial or mixed commercial/residential properties, or municipal facilities. The House of the Gospel is the only self-contained entity and the only non-governmental, non-commercial organisation likely to be affected by the sale. The spokesperson for the Church could not say whether any alternative accommodation would be provided, if Sochi administration succeeds in auctioning off the Church building.

The article Russia: Still No Mosque For Sochi, Protestants Struggle To Keep Church appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By James Petras

The Obama regime, in coordination with its allies and proxies, has re-launched a virulent world-wide campaign to destroy independent governments, encircle and ultimately, undermine global competitors, and establish a new US – EU centered world order.

We will proceed by identifying the recent ‘cycles’ of US empire-building; the advances and retreats; the methods and strategies; the results and perspectives. Our main focus is on the imperial dynamics driving the US toward greater military confrontations, up to and including conditions which can lead to a world war.

Recent Imperial Cycles

US empire-building has not been a linear process. The recent decades provide ample evidence of contradictory experiences. Summarily we can identify several phases in which empire-building has experienced broad advances and sharp setbacks – with certain caveats. We are looking at global processes, in which there are also limited counter-tendencies: In the midst of large-scale imperial advances, particular regions, countries or movements successfully resisted or even reversed the imperial thrust. Secondly, the cyclical nature of empire-building in no way puts in doubt the imperial character of the state and economy and its relentless drive to dominate, exploit and accumulate. Thirdly, the methods and strategy directing each imperial advance differ according to changes among targeted countries.

Over the past thirty years we can identify three phases in empire-building.

Imperial Advance 1980’s to 2000

In the period roughly from the mid-1980’s to the year 2000, empire-building expanded on a global scale.

(A). Imperial Expansion in the former Communist regions

The US and EU penetrated and hegemonized Eastern Europe; disintegrated and pillaged Russia and the USSR; privatized and denationalized hundreds of billions of dollars worth of public enterprises, mass media outlets and banks; incorporated military bases throughout Eastern Europe into NATO and established satellite regimes as willing accomplices in imperial conquests in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

(B). Imperial Expansion in Latin America

Beginning from the early 1980’s to the end of the century, empire-building advanced throughout Latin America under the formula of “free markets and free elections”.

From Mexico to Argentina, empire-centered, neo-liberal regimes privatized and denationalized over 5,000 public enterprises and banks, benefiting US and European multi-nationals. Political leaders lined up with the US in international forums. Latin American generals responded favorably to US-centered military operations. Bankers extracted billions in debt payments and laundered many billions more in illicit money. The US-centered, continent-wide “North American Free Trade Agreement” appeared to advance according to schedule.

(C).Imperial Advances in Asia and Africa

Communist and nationalist regimes shed their leftist and anti-imperialist policies and opened their societies and economies to capitalist penetration. In Africa, two key “leftist” countries, Angola and post-apartheid South Africa adopted “free market policies”.

In Asia, China and Indo-China moved decisively toward capitalist development strategies; foreign investment, privatizations and intense exploitation of labor replaced collectivist egalitarianism and anti-imperialism. India, and other state-directed capitalist countries, like South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, liberalized their economies. Imperial advances were accompanied by greater economic volatility, a sharpening of the class struggle and an opening of the electoral process to accommodate competing capitalist factions.

Empire-building expanded under the slogan of “free markets and fair elections” – markets dominated by giant multi-nationals and elections, which assured elite successes.

Imperial Retreat and Reverses: 2000-2008

The brutal costs of the advance of empire led to a global counter-tendency, a wave of anti-neoliberal uprisings and military resistance to US invasions. Between 2000 – 2008 empire-building was under siege and in retreat.

Russia and China Challenge the Empire

US empire-building ceased to expand and conquer in two strategic regions: Russia and Asia. Under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, the Russian state was reconstructed; pillage and disintegration was reversed. The economy was harnessed to domestic development. The military was integrated into a system of national defense and security. Russia once again became a major player in regional and international politics.

China’s turn toward capitalism was accompanied by a dynamic state presence and a direct role in promoting double digit growth for two decades: China becoming the second largest economy in the world, displacing the US as the major trading partner in Asia and Latin America. The US economic empire was in retreat.

Latin America: The End of the Neo-Liberal Empire

Neo-liberalism and US-centered ‘integration’ led to pillage, economic crises and major popular upheavals, leading to the ascendancy of new center-left and left regimes. ‘Post neo-liberal’ administrations emerged in Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Central America and Uruguay. US empire-builders suffered several strategic defeats.

The US effort to secure a continent-wide free trade agreement fell apart and was replaced by regional integration organizations that excluded the US and Canada. In its place, Washington signed bi-lateral agreements with Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Panama and Peru.

Latin America diversified its markets in Asia and Europe: China replaced the US as its main trading partner. Extractive development strategies and high commodity prices financed greater social spending and political independence.

Selective nationalizations, increased state regulation and debt renegotiations weakened US leverage over the Latin American economies. Venezuela, under President Hugo Chavez successfully challenged US hegemony in the Caribbean via regional organizations. Caribbean economies achieved greater independence and economic viability through membership in PETROCARIBE, a program through which they received petrol from Venezuela at subsidized prices. Central American and Andean countries increased security and trade via the regional organization, ALBA. Venezuela provided an alternative development model to the US-centered neo-liberal approach, in which earnings from the extractive economy financed large-scale social programs.

From the end of the Clinton Administration to the end of the Bush Administration, the economic empire was in retreat. The empire lost Asian and Latin American markets to China. Latin America gained greater political independence. The Middle East became ‘contested terrain’. A revised and stronger Russian state opposed further encroachments on its borders. Military resistance and defeats in Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Lebanon challenged US dominance.

Imperial Offensive: Obama’s Advances the Empire

The entire period of the Obama regime has been taken up with reversing the retreat of empire-building. To that end Obama has developed a primarily military strategy (1) confrontation and encircling China and Russia, (2) undermining and overthrowing independent governments in Latin America and re-imposing neo-liberal client regimes, and (3) launching covert and overt military assaults on independent regimes everywhere.

The empire-building offensive of the 21st century differs from that of the previous decade in several crucial ways: Neo-liberal economic doctrines are discredited and electorates are not so easily convinced of the beneficence of falling under US hegemony. In other words, empire-builders cannot rely on diplomacy, elections and free market propaganda to expand their imperial reach as they did in the 1990’s.

To reverse the retreat and advance 21st century empire-building, Washington realized it had to rely on force and violence. The Obama regime allocated billions of dollars to finance arms for mercenaries, salaries for street fighters and campaign expenses for electoral clients engaged in destabilization campaigns. Diplomatic duplicity and broken agreements replaced negotiated settlements – on a grand scale.

Throughout the Obama period not a single imperial advance was secured via elections, diplomatic agreements or political negotiations. The Obama Presidency sought and secured the massification of global spy network (NSA) and the almost daily murder of political adversaries via drones and other means. Covert killer operations under the US Special Forces expanded throughout the world. Obama assumed dictatorial prerogatives, including the power to order the arbitrary assassination of U.S. citizens.

The unfolding of the Obama regime’s global effort to stem the imperial retreat and re-launch empire-building “pivoted” almost exclusively on military instruments: armed proxies, aerial assaults, coups and violent putschist power grabs. Thugs, mobs, Islamist terrorists, Zionist militarists and a medley of retrograde separatist assassins were the tools of imperial advance. The choice of imperial proxies varied according to time and political circumstances.

Confronting and Degrading China: Military Encirclement and Economic Exclusion

Faced with the loss of markets and the challenges of China as a global competitor, Washington developed two major lines of attack: 1. An economic strategy designed to deepen the integration of Asian and Latin America countries in a free trade pact that excludes China (the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement); and 2. Pentagon-designed military plan Air-Sea Battle , which targets China’s mainland with a full-scale air and missile assault if Washington’s current strategy of controlling China’s commercial maritime lifeline fails (FT, 2/10/14). While an offensive military strategy is still on the Pentagon’s drawing board, the Obama regime is building up its maritime armada a few short miles off China’s coast , expanding its military bases in the Philippines, Australia and Japan and tightening the noose around China’s strategic maritime routes for vital imports like oil, gas and raw materials.

The US is actively promoting an Indo-Japanese military alliance as part of its strategy of military encirclement of China. Joint military maneuvers, high-level military coordination and meetings between Japanese and Indian military officials are seen by the Pentagon as strategic advances in isolating China and reinforcing the US stranglehold on China’s maritime routes to the Middle East, Southeast Asia and beyond. India, according to one of India’s leading weeklies, is viewed “as a junior partner of the US. The Indian Navy is fast becoming the chief policeman of the Indian Ocean and the Indian military’s dependence on the U.S. military-industrial complex is increasing…” (Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai), 2/15/14, p. 9. The US is also escalating its support for violent separatist movements in China, namely the Tibetans, Uighurs and other Islamists. Obama’s meeting with the Dali Lama was emblematic of Washington’s efforts to foment internal unrest.

The gross political intervention of outgoing U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke in domestic Chinese politics is an indication that diplomacy is not the Obama regime’s prime policy instrument when it comes to dealing with China. Ambassador Locke openly met with Uighur and Tibetan separatists and publicly disparaged China’s economic success and political system while openly encouraging opposition politics (FT, 2/28/14, p. 2).

The Obama regime’s attempt to advance empire in Asia via military confrontation and trade pacts, which exclude China, has led China to build-up its military capacity to avoid maritime strangulation. China answers the US trade threat by advancing its productive capacity, diversifying its trade relations, increasing its ties with Russia and deepening its domestic market.

To date, the Obama regime’s reckless militarization of the Pacific has not led to an open break in relations with China, but the military road to advancing empire at China’s expense threatens a global economic catastrophe or worse, a world war.

Imperial Advance: Isolating, Encircling and Degrading Russia

With the advent of President Vladimir Putin and the reconstitution of the Russian state and economy, the U.S. lost a vassal client and source of plundered wealth. Washington’s empire-builders continued to seek Russian ‘cooperation and collaboration’ in undermining independent states, isolating China and pursuing its colonial wars. The Russian state, under Putin and Medvedev, had sought to accommodate U.S. empire builders via negotiated agreements, which would enhance Russia’s position in Europe, recognize Russian strategic borders and acknowledge Russian security concerns. However, Russian diplomacy secured few and transitory gains while the US and EU made major gains with Russian complicity and passivity.

The un-stated agenda of Washington, especially with Obama’s drive to re-launch a new wave of imperial conquests, was to undermine Russia’s re-emergence as a major player in world politics. The strategic idea was to isolate Russia, weaken its growing international presence and return it to the vassal status of the Yeltsin period, if possible.

From the US – EU takeover of Eastern Europe , the Balkans and Baltic states, and their transformation into NATO military bases and capitalist vassal states in the early 1990’s, to the penetration and pillage of Russia during the Yeltsin years, the prime purpose of Western policy has been to establish a unipolar empire under US domination.

The EU and the US proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia into subservient mini-states. They then bombed Serbia in order to carve off Kosovo, destroying one of the few independent countries still allied with Russia. The U.S. then moved on to foment uprisings in Georgia, Ukraine and Chechnya. They bombed, invaded and later occupied Iraq – a former Russian ally in the Gulf region.

The driving strategy of US policy was to encircle and reduce Russia to the status of a weak, marginal power, and to undermine Vladimir Putin’s efforts to restore Russia’s position as a regional power. In 2008 Washington’s puppet regime in Georgia, tested the mettle of the Russian state by launching an assault on South Ossetia, killing at least 10 Russian peacekeepers and wounding hundreds (not to mention thousands of civilians). Then-Russian President Medvedev responded by sending the Russian armed forces to repel Georgian troops and support the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

U.S. diplomatic agreements with Russia had been asymmetrical – Russia was to acquiesce in Western expansion in exchange for ‘political acceptance’. Duplicity trumped open-diplomacy. Despite agreements to the contrary, U.S. bases and missile installations were established throughout Eastern Europe, pointing at Russia, under the pretext that they were “really targeting Iran”. Even as Russia protested that post-Cold War agreements were breached, the Empire ignored Moscow’s complaints and encirclement advanced.

In a further diplomatic disaster, Russia and China signed off on a U.S.-authored United Nations Security Council agreement to allow NATO to engage in “humanitarian overflights” in Libya. NATO immediately took this as the ‘green light’ for attack and converted ‘humanitarian intervention’ into a devastating aerial bombing campaign that led to the overthrow of Libya’s legitimate government and the destruction of Libya as viable, independent North African state. By signing the ‘humanitarian’ UN agreement, Russia and China lost a friendly government and trading partner in Africa! Even earlier, the Russians had agreed to allow the US to transport weapons and troops through Russian Federation territory to support the US invasion of Afghanistan … with no reciprocal gain (except perhaps an even greater flood of Afghan heroin).

Russian diplomats agreed to US (Zionist)-authored UN economic sanctions against Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program … undermining a political ally and lucrative market. Moscow believed that by backing US sanctions on Iran and granting transport routes to Afghanistan in late 2001 they would receive some ‘security guarantees’ from the Americans regarding the separatist movements in the Caucuses. The U.S. ‘reciprocated’ by further backing Chechen separatist leaders exiled in the US despite the on-going terror campaigns against Russian civilians – up to and even after the Chechen slaughter of hundreds of school children and teachers in Beslan in 2004….

With the US under Obama advancing its encirclement of Russia in Eurasia and its isolation in North Africa and the Middle East, Putin finally decided to draw a line by backing Russia’s only remaining ally in the Middle East, Syria. Putin sought to secure a negotiated end to the Western-Gulf Monarchist-backed mercenary invasion of Damascus. To little avail: The US and EU increased arms shipments, military trainers and financing to the 30,000 Islamist mercenaries based in Jordan as they engaged in cross-border attacks to overthrow the Syrian government.

Washington and Brussels continued their imperial push toward the Russian heartland by organizing and financing a violent seizure of power (putsch) in western Ukraine. The Obama regime financed a coalition of armed neo-Nazi street fighters and neo-liberal politicos, to the tune of $5 billion dollars, to overthrow the elected regime. The putschists then moved to end Crimean autonomy and break long-standing military treaty agreements with Russia. Under enormous pressure from the autonomous Crimean government and the vast majority of the population and facing the critical loss of its naval and military facilities on the Black Sea, Putin, finally, forcefully moved Russian troops into a defensive mode in Crimea.

The Obama regime launched a series of aggressive moves against Russia to isolate it and to buttress it faltering puppet regime in Kiev: economic sanctions and expulsions were the order of the day … Obama’s seizure of the Ukraine signaled the start of a ‘new Cold War’. The seizure of the Ukraine was part of Obama’s grand ongoing strategy of advancing empire.

The Ukraine power grab signaled the biggest geo-political challenge to the continued existence of the Russian state. Obama seeks to extend and deepen the imperial sweep across Europe to the Caucuses: the violent regime coup and subsequent defense of the puppet regime in Kiev are key elements in undermining a key adversary– Russia.

After pretending to ‘partner’ with Russia, while slicing off Russian allies in the Balkans and Mid-East over the previous decades, Obama made his most audacious and reckless move. Casting off all pretexts of peaceful co-existence and mutual accommodation, the Obama regime broke a power-sharing agreement with Russia over Ukrainian governance and backed the neo-Nazi putsch.

The Obama regime assumed that having secured Russia’s earlier acquiescence in the face of advancing US imperial power in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Gulf region, Washington’s empire-builders made the fateful decision to test Russia in its most strategic geopolitical region, one directly affecting the Russian people and its most strategic military assets. Russia reacted in the only language understood in Washington and Brussels: with a major military mobilization. Obama’s advance of ‘empire-building via salami tactics’ and duplicitous diplomacy was nearing an end.

Advancing Empire in the Middle East and Latin America

The imperial advance of the 1990’s came to an end by the middle of the first decade of the new millennium. Defeats in Afghanistan, withdrawal from Iraq, the demise of puppet regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, election losses in the Ukraine and the defeat and demise of pro-U.S. neo-liberal regimes in Latin America were exacerbated by a deepening economic crisis in the imperial centers of Europe and Wall Street.

Obama had few economic and political options to advance the empire. Yet his regime was determined to end the retreat and advance the empire; he resorted to tactics and strategies more akin to 19th century colonial and 20th century totalitarian regimes.

The methods were violent- militarism was the policy pivot. But at a time of domestic imperial exhaustion, new military tactics replaced large-scale ground force invasions. Proxy-armed mercenaries took center stage in overthrowing regimes targeted by the US. Political and ideological affinities were subsumed under the generic euphemism of “rebels”. The mass media alternated between pressuring for greater military escalation and endorsing the existing level of imperial warfare. The entire political spectrum in Europe and the US shifted rightward – even as the majority of the electorate rejected new military engagements, especially ground wars.

Obama escalated troops in Afghanistan, launched an air war that overthrew President Gadhafi and turned the Libya into a broken, failed state. Proxy wars became the new strategy to advance imperial empire-building. Syria was targeted – tens of thousands of Islamist extremists were recruited and funded by imperial regimes and despotic Gulf monarchies. Millions of refugees fled, tens of thousands were killed

In Latin America, Obama backed the military coup in Honduras overthrowing the elected Liberal government of President Manuel Zelaya, he recognized a congressional coup ousting the elected center-left government in Paraguay while refusing to recognize the election victory of President Maduro in Venezuela. In the face of Maduro’s win in Venezuela, Washington backed several months of mob street violence in an attempt to destabilize the country.

In the Ukraine, Egypt, Venezuela and Thailand, ‘the street’ replaced elections. Obama’s strategic imperial goals have focused on the re-conquest and pillage of Russia and its return to the vassal status of the Boris Yeltsin years, Latin America’s return to the neo-liberal regimes of 1990’s and China to the submissiveness of the 1980’s. The imperial strategy has been ‘to conquer from within’ setting the stage for domination from the outside.

Advancing Empire: Israel and the Middle East Detour

One of the great historical paradoxes of the U.S. imperial retreat of the 21st century has been the role played by influence of Israel and its Zionist Fifth Column embedded within the U.S. political power structure. Washington’s wars and sanctions in the Middle East have been largely at the behest of influential ‘Israel Firsters’ in the White House, Pentagon, Treasury and National Security Council and Congress.

It was largely because the US was engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that Washington “neglected” China’s growing economic prowess. By concentrating on ‘wars for Israel’ in the Middle East, the U.S. has not been in a position to challenge the rise of nationalism and populism in Latin America. Protracted ‘wars for Israel’ have exhausted the US economy and the American public’s enthusiasm for new ground wars elsewhere.

Zionist ideologues, dubbed “neo-conservatives”, were instrumental in shaping the global militarist approach to empire-building and marginalizing the market-driven empire building, favored by the multi-nationals and giant extractive industry.

Obama’s attempt to halt the retreat of empire caused by Zionist militarism has not borne fruit: His effort to co-opt Zionists and pressure Israel to stop fomenting new wars in the Middle East is a failure. His ‘pivot to Asia’ has turned into a strategy of brute military encirclement of China. His overtures to Iran have been stymied by the Zionist power bloc in Congress and the imposition of Israeli-dictated terms of negotiations. The entire “advance of the empire-building project”, which was to define the Obama legacy, has been weakened by the enormous cost of heeding the advice and directives of the Israel-loyalists within his Administration. Israel, one of the most brutal colonial powers, has paradoxically and unintentionally played a major role in undermining Obama’s efforts to reverse the decline of empire and advance the U.S. diplomatic and economic dimensions of empire-building

Results and Perspectives: Advancing Empire in the Post Neo-Liberal Period

Obama’s reckless effort to advance empire in the second decade of the 21st century is far more dangerous than his predecessors in the late 20th century. Russia has recovered. It is not the disintegrating state that Bush and Clinton dismembered and pillaged. China is no longer a rising market economy so eager to trade with the US while overlooking American incursions into Chinese territorial waters. Today China is a major economic power, wielding economic leverage in the form of $3 Trillion in U.S. Treasury notes. China no longer tolerates U.S. interference in its domestic politics- it is willing to crack down on U.S.-backed ethnic separatists and terrorists.

Latin America, including Venezuela, have developed autonomous regional organizations, diversified their markets to Asia and established a powerful post-neoliberal consensus. Venezuela has turned its military, once the favorite instrument of US-engineered coups, into a bulwark of the existing democratic order.

The electoral road to US empire-building has been closed or requires tight imperial “supervision” to secure “favorable outcomes”. Washington’s new policy of choice is violence: enlisting mob action, mercenary extremists, Islamists and Uighur terrorists, neo-Nazis and the riff raff of the world in its service.

The balance sheet of six years of “advancing empire” under Obama is in doubt. The violent overthrow of President Gadhafi did not lead to a stable client regime: the utter destruction and chaos in Libya has undercut the imperial presence. Syria is under attack but by anti-Western Islamist fanatics. The defeat of Assad will not ‘advance empire’ as much as it will expand radical Islamist (including Al Qaeda) power.

The Ukraine puppet regime of neo-liberals and neo-Nazis is literally bankrupt, riven with internal conflicts and facing profound regional divisions. Russia is threatened, but their leaders have taken decisive military action to defend their Crimean allies and strategic military bases.

Obama has provoked and threatened adversaries but has not secured much in terms of valuable allies or clients. His effort to replicate the imperial advances of the 1990’s has failed because the relationships of power between Europe and Russia, Japan and China, and Venezuela and Colombia have changed. Proxies, predator drones and the US Special Forces are not able to reverse the retreat. The economic crisis has cut too deep; the domestic exhaustion with empire is too pervasive. The cost of sustaining Israel is too high. Advancing empire in these circumstances is a dangerous game: it risks a larger nuclear war to overcome adversity and retreat.

The article Obama’s Advancing Empire: Putsch, Pillage And Duplicity – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By American Forces Press Service

By Cheryl Pellerin

The U.S. Navy is contributing to the international search effort for a Malaysia Airlines jet that dropped off the radar of Subang, Indonesia, traffic controllers early Saturday morning while over the South China Sea, according to a statement from the U.S. Seventh Fleet public affairs office.

Flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200 aircraft, departed Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. Saturday local time and was scheduled to land at Beijing International Airport at 6:30am Beijing time. The flight has 227 passengers from 14 nations, mainly China, and 12 crewmembers. According to the Malaysia Airlines website, three Americans were also aboard.

Today, the USS Pinckney, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer homeported in San Diego, was dispatched to the southern coast of Vietnam to join teams from Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam in search and rescue efforts already underway, according to the Malaysia Airlines website.

Pinckney was conducting training and maritime security operations in international waters of the South China Sea. The ship could be in vicinity of the missing jet within 24 hours and carries two MH-60R helicopters that can be equipped for search and rescue.

The Seventh Fleet PAO says a P-3C Orion aircraft also will depart shortly from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, bringing long-range search, radar and communications capabilities to the efforts.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those affected by this tragic event,” PAO officials said in the statement, which also requested that all questions about the event be directed to the Navy Office of Information, or CHINFO, duty officer.

The article US Navy Helps In Search For Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By COHA

By Larry Birns, Frederick B. Mills and Ronn Pineo

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) applauds the declaration of the Organization of American States issued yesterday, “Solidarity and Support for Democratic Institutions, Dialogue, and Peace in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” The statement represents a complete repudiation of the Venezuelan far right’s coup strategy and offers a powerful endorsement for the democratic process. In its statement the OAS voiced its support for the steps taken by President Nicolas Maduro in convening a national peace conference.

During the presidency of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela led the way in the creation of Latin American organizations that championed regional independence and integration. Through CELAC, UNASUR, and ALBA Latin America came together in new organizations that specifically excluded the United States and Canada. The OAS therefore stood at the crossroads during its closed-door discussions in Washington yesterday: continued relevance or obsolescence. CELAC had already issued a statement insisting that the region be a zone of peace and mutual respect among nations, and next week UNASUR is likely to declare its solidarity with the Venezuelan government. Therefore, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza’s leadership in drawing together the support for this important declaration was vital for maintaining OAS significance in inter-American affairs.

The OAS called for universal respect for human and civil rights, standing in clear opposition to the violent extremists in Venezuela bent on extra-constitutional regime change. The OAS declared “its appreciation, full support, and encouragement for the initiatives and the efforts of the democratically-elected Government of Venezuela and [called upon] all political, economic, and social sectors to continue to move forward with the process of national dialogue towards political and social reconciliation, in the framework of full respect by all democratic actors for the constitutional guarantees of all.”

The United States, Canada, and Panamá voted against the declaration. The U.S. led the opposition to the declaration, maintaining that the OAS was one-sided in backing the Venezuelan government. The U.S. view was that the statement undercut “the commitments of all OAS member states to promote and protect human rights and democracy…the OAS has a responsibility to remain neutral,” the U.S. said. The OAS, “cannot take sides.”

However, Washington has been consistently one-sided regarding Venezuela, providing unyielding support for the opposition. Under President George W. Bush the U.S. eagerly backed the short-lived 2002 coup against the constitutional order. More recently, Washington refused to recognize the presidency of Nicolas Maduro after the April 2013 elections. And over the past month, Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncements on Venezuela have shown a highly selective indignation at the violence in the country. The U.S. stance has had the practical effect of buttressing the “exit” strategy that is preferred by the golpistas, even as this approach is roundly rejected by a large majority of Venezuelans, left and right, who want peace and respect for the constitution. Even the right-wing popular front strategy of Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles is disavowing the violence at the barricades.

The OAS declaration represents yet another failure for U.S. diplomacy in the region. As COHA Director Larry Birns has observed, “since the coup in Honduras in 2009, Washington has actually moved to the right on Latin America policy. Not even conservative governments, with the exception of a predictable satrapy in Panama, want to see a small but resourceful minority engineer regime change in the region.”

As the OAS action has made plain, the U.S. is increasingly isolated in the region. The OAS has joined the other hemispheric organizations in a rather stunning verdict. The United States is increasingly ignored because its views and policies stand in opposition to those who would support independent and authentic democracies that advance social and economic justice.

Larry Birns, COHA Director; Frederick B. Mills, COHA Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Bowie State University; Ronn Pineo, COHA Senior Analyst and Chair of the Department of History, Towson University

The article The Council Of Hemispheric Affairs Applauds OAS Solidarity With Venezuela – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By TransConflict

Russia will create an atmosphere in which European countries – unsure of their relationship with Russia and Ukraine – will question not only Crimea’s right to self-determination but also all of eastern Ukraine. In this atmosphere Putin will obscure the very fact that Russia has invaded a foreign country with no justifiable pretext.

By Scott Schenking

As policy makers continue to work through their next moves and question Putin’s intentions, it is worth taking a look back into the history of relations between Ukraine, Russia and the United States from Ukraine’s independence in 1991 to the start of the Orange Revolution in 2004. The patterns of behavior then have been repeated through the last decade and Putin appears to be maneuvering to reverse the mistakes of the 1990’s that led to a weakened Russian position. Now that Putin has learned from lost opportunities he will exploit Ukrainian and international community divisions while seeking to extract the maximum possible gain from his current position in Crimea. International community unity over protecting Ukrainian territorial integrity will be essential to force Putin’s withdrawal from Crimea especially if diplomacy fails and military options are on the table.

This article will take an in-depth look at Ukraine development in the 1990s, Russia-NATO and Russia-Ukraine relations and U.S. policy in Ukraine prior to the Orange Revolution.  From this study, a clear pattern of behavior in Putin’s handling of Ukraine emerges which may give us some insight into future decisions.

Ukraine  

Ever since independence Ukraine has faced two internal issues: regionalization and an east-west split. Ukraine’s national security concept of 1997 defined regional separatist tendencies as one of the key potential threats. The problem Ukraine faces with regionalism is that it has weakened the central government. As political issues revolve solely around regional problems, issues central to government are not solved by a coalition of parties. The risk continuously exists that regions could not only seek to secede but place regional interest far ahead of national interest. In seeking to build a new national identity the breakdown of the country into such strong regional ties hindered the development of a strong central relationship as support for central government decisions were often overridden by regional interests.

The ethnic issue in Ukraine in the 90’s is best understood by looking at differing nationalist movements active prior to the Orange Revolution.  The Popular Movement for Restructuring in Ukraine (Rukh) party, the only opposition to the Communist Party, gained important government seats in the 1991 referendum but split into many factions once in power. While Rukh overall has generally displayed tolerance and moderation on the ethnic question, perceiving the danger of alienating eastern Ukrainians, the more radical leaders in western Ukraine have been less restrained in criticizing “Russophone” elements in eastern Ukraine. They demanded a government crackdown against separatist tendencies in Crimea and Donbas in the early 1990s. Now Rukh has been divided into a series of parties that represent the right and center-right of Ukraine.

The most difficult ethnic area for Ukraine is, of course, the Crimean peninsula. In this area most people identify themselves as Russian and separatist forces have been prominent since independence.  Yet, the majority of Crimeans participated in the March 1994 Ukrainian elections despite separatist calls for a boycott. One of the major forces pushing for Crimean independence was the Republican Movement of Crimea.  The party called for a ‘treaty’ between Ukraine and Crimea and for dual citizenship (Ukrainian and Russian) during these elections and received 75% of voters’ support but internal dynamics in Crimea prevented rapid implementation. In March 1995, then Ukrainian President Kuchma abolished the Crimean presidency and annulled its separate constitution saying that it violated the Ukrainian constitution. The new Ukrainian constitution afforded Crimea a significant degree of autonomy and its own regional constitution. These moves by Kiev in 1995 temporarily reduced tensions and quelled an active separatist movement.

There is little evidence from the national development of Ukraine that it has abused the ethnic minorities within the country. Kiev has suppressed separatist movement, but in doing so they have granted regional governments autonomy. It can be fairly stated that the ethnic minorities have retained their right to self-determination short of separation from the state. We can also see from this brief history that the struggles in Ukraine are less about conflicts over ethnicity and more a classic struggle for power in the central government.  Once a party has a prominent position of power it can drive the national agenda in a manner that is directly beneficial for the region that voted the party to power.

These divisions have caused the Ukrainian government to be traditionally hindered by political instability.  During 2003, political instability within Ukraine was heightened as a result of a growing confrontation between supporters and opponents of then President Kuchma. A stable parliamentary majority did not exist which heightened parliamentary paralysis.  The volatile political context prevented anything more than gradual reform. The primary problem causing political instability within Ukraine is less an issue of ethnic divisions but more of a lack of party consolidation. In the March 2002 election, for example, more than 30 political parties competed and only a handful exceeded the 4% threshold for parliamentary representation.

The political dynamics of Ukraine in the 1990s consisted of parties from the right of center, the pro-president center, the anti-president groups and the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU). The CPU was the most organized and consolidated political party and maintained control over a sizable share of the legislature. The CPU’s parliamentary representation dropped by one-half in the 2002 election, when it won just 65 of the 450 seats in parliament and currently holds just 32 seats in parliament. The issue of party splits within a government is not unusual and not always debilitating. However, in a nation that is attempting intense reform while dealing with rampant corruption this paralysis is devastating to stability and progress. Ukraine has been on a slow track to development. The combination of government corruption and political instability has caused stagnation in effective institution building.

This confusion within the country during its early development prevented Ukraine from moving in a single, clear direction.  The CPU maintained a strong presence early on and the many divisions in the pro-reform parties prevented the creation of a distinct pro-European platform.  Ukrainian parties quickly moved to whatever actor, internal or external, that might give their party a boost.  This vacillation became a critical factor in the relationship between Ukraine and the United States and Russia.

Russia

A confidential statement to President Kuchma from Russian Foreign Minister Udovenko in 1995 eerily outlined Russia’s view of its relationship with Ukraine.

“Russia has no intention to build its relations with the CIS countries in line with international law, nor respect the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty, and non-interference in domestic affairs.  The integration, proclaimed as useful and necessary in Yeltsin’s decree in fact means undermining CIS countries’ sovereignty, subordinating their activity to Russia’s interests and restoring the centralized superpower.”

Despite this harsh statement, Russian relations have not always been directive with Ukraine.  In order to put Russia’s relationship with Ukraine into the right context we should first examine the changing relationship Russia has had with NATO.  Russia has evolved since the end of the Cold War from attempts to rebuild Russian prestige in cooperation with NATO, to a period of open mistrust and resentment, to the more modern period of manipulation, coercion and aggression.

At the end of the Cold War Russia hoped that NATO would dissolve similarly to the Warsaw Pact.  Opposed to further enlargement to the East, Russia sought to engage NATO with alternative choices.  When the Partnership for Peace Program was being developed, Gorbechev proposed in mid-September 1993 a NATO-Russia treaty as an alternative to NATO enlargement.  Russia wanted relations to be closer between Russia and NATO than relations between NATO and Central Europe.  But this strategy failed to slow NATO expansion.

The first step to Russia’s initial strategy began on June 22, 1994 in the “Summary of Conclusions of Discussion between the NAC (North Atlantic Council) and Foreign Minister of Russia Andrei Kozyrev,” in which NATO and Russia agree to pursue cooperation beyond Partnership for Peace.  A year later this was followed by the May 31, 1995 “Areas of Pursuance” document, Russia’s Individual Partnership Program with NATO and Russian participation in IFOR in Bosnia.  During this process, Kozyrev, the minister of foreign affairs, thought that Russia needed to ensure that the Central European Countries (CEC) did not get preferential treatment in the process of integration.  Russia was seeking to avoid international isolation by integrating simultaneously with Central Europe.  Russia failed to achieve this objective as the CEC moved rapidly to join NATO.  In January 1996, Yevgeni Primakov who felt that a realistic agreement on the enlargement of NATO would be better than no agreement at all replaced Kozyrev.  Eventually, this led to the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation, Security Between NATO and the Russian Federation,” signed in Paris on May 17, 1997. The main principle of the Founding Act stated,  “NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries. They share the goal of overcoming the vestiges of earlier confrontation and competition and of strengthening mutual trust and cooperation.” This act established the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council to carry out the aims of the Founding Act. Yet, after enlargement it became clear that Russia was still marginalized in comparison with its former Soviet states that joined with Europe.

The spirit of this relationship shifted during the Yugoslav crisis into resentment and mistrust.  On March 24, 1999 just two weeks after the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary formally became NATO members, NATO launched its military action against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo campaign. This was part of a new NATO concept of conducting NATO supported “non-article 5 crisis response operations.” Russia felt directly challenged and threatened by these actions, stating that NATO actions made the Founding Act a useless document and undermined the sovereignty of states. During this period there was a dramatic shift in public opinion of NATO within Russia. Prior to Kosovo, belief that NATO was a direct threat to Russia was at 31-48% but following Kosovo the figure rose to 86-92%.  As a result of this crisis domestic limitations were placed on Russian leadership in dealing with NATO.  During this period, Putin revised the Russian National Security Concept, the Military Doctrine, and the Foreign Policy Concept.  For the first time since the end of the Cold War, NATO’s eastward expansion was directly identified as a threat to Russia.

Initially, the overall relationship between Russia and NATO appeared to warm with the election of Vladimir Putin.  Despite harsh words directed specifically to NATO in the 2000 National Security Concept, Putin also heavily focused on multilateralism, which was one of the most repeated ideas in the new concept.  Putin placed economics in the forefront as both a threat to Russia and a means toward greater Russian global influence.  The National Security Concept describes a Russia that fears global isolation, a loss of influence and the need to strengthen economic opportunities.  Despite misgivings over NATO expansion, the need for multilateral cooperation with the West for economic and security reasons took precedence.  At the time Russian President Putin appeared to support close NATO-Russian cooperation and acceptance of future NATO expansion.  After meeting in Crawford, Texas following September 11^th, Putin pledged to “work together with NATO and other NATO members to improve, strengthen and enhance the relationship between NATO and Russia.”

The NATO-Russian Council, developed in 2002, replaced the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council from the Founding Act and provides the groundwork for specific mutual security cooperation.  Within the framework NATO and Russia work on the struggle against terrorism, crisis management, non-proliferation, arms control and confidence building measures, theater missile defense, search and rescue at sea, military to military cooperation, defense reform and civil emergencies.  What the NATO-Russia Council provided Russia in 2002 was the ability to work with NATO as a strong partner rather than simply one of the then 19 members.  This provided Russia with a feeling of true partnership to NATO and a direct ability to influence security affairs.  Despite this new partnership, Putin remained skeptical about the role of future NATO expansion suggesting in one speech that any sovereign country has the right to join whatever alliance it wishes even if that is NATO but stressing in other speeches that the mechanical expansion of NATO will not be positive for security in Europe.

In this context we can understand the relationship with Ukraine during the same period. In 2003, relations between Russia and Ukraine began to warm. President Putin declared 2003 the Year of Russia in Ukraine in an active drive to promote stronger ties. He began the year by signing a border treaty with Ukraine that according to Kuchma was a “healthy compromise” on border issues.  Putin stressed that he considers Ukraine to be an equal partner and is taking action to demonstrate equal relations. In a January 2003 speech in Kiev over the border treaty he stated, “I would like to stress again that Russia made the step deliberately, believing that we have to solve all issues that make anybody at all doubt that Russia is willing to develop relations with Ukraine on the basis of equality.

Despite these overtures, the rationale behind Russia’s rapprochement with Ukraine was unclear.  Throughout 2002, an on-going trade war continued. Russia placed pressure on Ukraine to join the EEC (Eurasian Economic Community) despite duties imposed on imports into Russia. Russian companies continued to buy Ukrainian companies while Russian oil companies operated freely in Ukraine with little competition.  Russia’s desire to strengthen the EEC with CIS states did not appear to be an attempt to build a truly open free trade zone, but to expand Russia’s trading partners solely on terms favorable to Russia.

In an interview with a Russia Duma speaker in 2002, he stressed that Ukraine should not join NATO but should join the EEC. Despite continuing trade wars and a 20% reduction in Ukraine-Russian trade in 2002, he believed that Ukraine’s route to strength is through closer ties to Russia and not with the West. He specifically linked NATO to the EEC when he stated his belief that NATO membership could be viewed as a pass to the European Union that would draw Ukraine away from the EEC. Even as Kuchma and Putin drew closer, the intent of Russia remained unclear. Was Russia willing to treat Ukraine as an equal partner or use Ukraine to build Russia into a Great Power?

Despite oil and natural gas reserves in Ukraine, Ukraine remains dependent on foreign sources for 75% of its oil and 80% of its natural gas needs, most of which comes from Russia. The Russian Druzhb pipeline goes through Ukraine on its way to Slovakia and Hungary and eventually Western Europe and provides Ukraine with transit fees. However, Ukraine’s consumption costs exceed its transit fees resulting in an estimated $2 billion debt with Russia. In 2000, Russia accused Ukraine of illegally siphoning oil from its pipelines and began to demand repayment of its debt over ten years.  Realizing Ukraine’s inability to pay, Russia proposed exchanging equity in Ukraine’s pipeline for debt relief.  Ukraine scoffed at the idea since pipeline transit fees are one of its largest steady sources of income.

The competition for the western European oil market and debate over transit fees has strained Ukraine-Russian relations for years. Accusations have been cast across both borders. Russia accuses Ukraine of illegally siphoning gas, while Ukraine accused Russia of unfair trade practices that strangle Ukrainian oil competition and drive prices higher. In 2002, an international consortium between Russia, Germany and Ukraine began negotiations to stabilize control of the Ukrainian pipeline system. Germany agreed to finance improvements in the system, while Russia’s largest oil company, Gazprom, ceased talks of a Ukrainian bypass and agreed to fair transit fees. With a stake in the business, Ukraine’s state owned pipeline system agreed to stop siphoning gas destined for needs out of the country.

During this early period, Putin attempted to gain control of Ukraine through influence. While Ukraine’s western reform process lost momentum, Putin stepped forward and gained an ally with President Kuchma.  Prior to the Orange Revolution, Putin believed it possible to keep Ukraine as a nearly subordinated state to Russia without the need for overt coercion. The United States policies in Ukraine slowly helped Putin to achieve this objective not because of a failed U.S. approach but due to an undecided Ukraine unable to commit to reform to join the rest of Europe.

United States

Relations between the United States and Ukraine began ambiguously with Ukraine’s declaration of independence in 1991.  The United States maintained a Russocentric approach to Ukraine with an inability to separate Ukraine from Russia.  These poor relations were exemplified by President H.W. Bush’s “Chicken Kiev” speech in Kiev on 01 August 1991 in which Bush recommended that Ukraine should give up “nationalist ambitions.”  This speech displayed a United States misunderstanding of Ukraine’s intent through an inability to separate Ukraine from Russia.

During 1992-1994, relations with Ukraine took on a more focused tone.  The United States sole intent was to ensure Ukraine’s ratification and compliance with START I and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The intense level of negotiations and pressure placed on Ukraine by the United States made clear that the United States interest was not in Ukraine’s future as a country, but in the security of nuclear weapons.  America was preoccupied with security against Russia and not with stability in Eastern Europe or Ukraine.  This led to mistrust and resentment.  In 1993, several Ukrainian parliamentarians angrily denounced the United States articles and newspaper editorials that described Ukraine as a pariah state and a “barrier to nuclear peace.” The denouncement urged such dramatic action as isolating Ukraine and withholding all technical assistance until it fulfilled its security obligations. Especially alarming to Ukraine were joint public statements made by President Clinton and Russian President Yeltsin at the Vancouver Summit urging Ukraine’s compliance with START I and NPT.

Ultimately, Ukraine ratified START I in February 1994 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in November 1994.  It was in this context that the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 was signed between the U.S., UK, Russia and Ukraine. As an attempt to entice Ukraine to sign the NPT the memorandum guarantees that the signatories would respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine but it falls short of acting as a mutual defense agreement. In fact, the only obligation of response of the U.S. and UK is to bring issues of territorial infractions to the United Nations Security Council. Establishing a mutual defense agreement with Ukraine in 1994 would have preempted the role of NATO and made further cooperation with the alliance duplicative.

The period between 1994 and 1999 saw an increase in bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and the United States. Clinton recognized the critical role that Ukraine could play to European security and pushed for an increase in economic and military aid. The U.S. committed $700 million in technical assistance to Ukraine. The Joint Commission on Trade and Investment chaired by U.S. Department of Commerce and Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations was established to lower trade barriers and stimulate foreign investment. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) made $50 million available in funding for investment projects in Ukraine. Benefits of the United States Generalized System of Preferences were extended providing Kiev with duty-free access to the United States market for some 400 products. Internationally, the United States advanced a proposal at the G-7 Naples Summit in 1994, to provide Ukraine with a $4 billion economic aid package that was approved.  The U.S. supported the creation of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund totaling $150 million to promote private sector development in Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.

Between 1995 and 1999 cooperation continued to increase.  In 1995, the U.S. offered a billion dollars in balance-of-payments support for export credits. The Gore-Kuchma Binational Commission was established in 1996 to “realize the full promise of the United States-Ukraine relationship.”  Presidents Bill Clinton and Leonid Kuchma stated in a joint declaration in May 1995 that, “independent Ukraine, secure in its internationally recognized borders, is a key factor of stability and security in Europe.”

Cooperation with NATO continued to grow with the United States support.  In 1994, Ukraine became the first CIS country to join Partnership for Peace program with NATO. In September 1995, an Individual Partnership Program for Ukraine was approved. Finally, on July 9^th, 1997 the NATO-Ukraine Charter on Distinctive Partnership was signed.

But in 2000, relations began to slowly deteriorate.  United States aid was not being met with aggressive economic reform and a reduction in corruption. In August 2000, the United States placed pressure on Ukraine to cease its bombers for gas program with Russia. The US threatened to stop providing funds for the decommissioning of Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal if Kiev continued to transfer bombers to Russia to offset its massive gas debts. Ukraine Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko was considering handing over 10 Tu-95 and 60 Tu-1 bomber planes to offset part of Kiev’s massive gas debts.  In 1999, Ukraine gave Russia 11 bombers as repayment for $285 million of its total debt, which Russia claims is over $2 billion.

Further, the effect of US aid was not being positively felt throughout Ukraine. In 1998, the Clinton administration persuaded the Ukrainian government to order Turboatom, a producer of giant steam turbines and one of Ukraine’s largest enterprises, to back out of the Iranian project. The move was regarded as a great success of American policy and it was expected that it would seriously disrupt Russia’s ability to complete the Iranian power station. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright traveled to Kiev in March 1998 and praised President Leonid Kuchma for “great statesmanship” in joining the struggle to “halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”  However, construction at the Bushehr power plant was due to be completed in 2002. Russia was expected to earn about $1 billion from the project. Part of that went to its largest turbine manufacturer, a St. Petersburg company, which took over Ukraine’s contract to produce the turbine that was delivered to Iran in September 2001.  In the end, the only party that was hurt by American intervention was Ukraine. “This was one of our biggest contracts, and losing it has been a very serious blow to the economy of our region,” said Anatoly A. Bugaets, Turboatom’s general director. “But of course we are law abiding people, and when a decision is made at the highest level, we have to obey.”

During this period Ukraine and Kuchma continued to receive US support. Madeleine Albright praised President Leonid Kuchma in Kiev on 15 April 2000, saying his re-election has given fresh impetus to reforms in Ukraine. “I was very impressed by President Kuchma’s…desire to move the reform process forward and by the work the prime minister, [Viktor Yushchenko], is undertaking.” The U.S. government granted $195 million in aid to Ukraine in 1999. Albright pledged $78 million to build new power production capacities at Ukraine’s other nuclear power plants as compensation for closing Chernobyl.

In 2001, the United States and Ukraine entered into further arms agreements when Ukraine’s Economics and European Integration Ministry and the United States Defense Department signed an agreement to assist Ukraine in introducing the export control system to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.  Yet, the relations began to cool in 2001 when the US imposed trade sanctions on Ukraine after its parliament was unwilling to pass legislations that would prevent the illegal production of compact discs in the country. During this same year, Ukraine accidentally shot down a Russian airliner over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001. Information that the United States had concerning the incident placed America and Moscow at odds over Ukraine, thus further straining relations between the US and Ukraine.

In 2002, the issues between the United States and Ukraine came to a boiling point leading to Kuchma not being invited to the NATO Prague Summit in November 2002. The key issue that placed Kuchma and the United States at odds was the alleged sale of military equipment to Iraq. In September 2002, the United States froze financial aid to Ukraine because of evidence it acquired linking Kuchma to the illegal sale of radar equipment to Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions. In addition, the US suspected Ukraine of selling pontoon bridges to Iraq in further violation of the restrictions.  In response to these allegations, Kuchma was not invited to attend the NATO summit in Prague providing Ukraine with a clear signal of its standing with NATO.

The United States’ early attempts at engaging Ukraine were overly optimistic. The US hoped that Ukraine could be forced into a shock therapy similar to Poland but the reforms have progressed slowly and produced few results. What they initiated was an increase in Ukrainian aspirations for rapid integration with Europe and the United States. As these aspirations continued to rise, US support dwindled in response to a slow reform process and Ukraine resentment of the United States grew for using aid as internal leverage. As a result, Kuchma sought to build ties with any nation that may benefit Ukraine’s economy. The negative implications were seen in Kuchma’s overtures to Iran and Iraq, two countries considered to be part of the “axis of evil” by the Bush administration as well as closer relations with Russia.

Putin and Kuchma worked closely together on increasing economic and military ties.  Putin supported Kuchma as president of Ukraine and strongly supported his recent election as chairman of the CIS Council of Heads of State. This significant appointment demonstrated Kuchma’s desire to move to the East; despite a foreign policy that states western integration as a key goal. Since the Prague Summit, Russia’s President Putin proved a greater influence on Kuchma than United States President Bush.

The policies of the United States regarding Ukraine have been viewed by many in the country as vacillating and unreliable.  Ukrainian attempts to move to the West did not meet their expectation of rapid absorption into Euro-Atlantic structures nor provide a solution for their economic woes.  Many in Ukraine left the 1990s with a belief that their true economic interests lie with Russia.  As Putin opened the Year of Ukraine in 2003 it seemed to some to be a time of growing economic deals with Russia with few strings attached.  The heavy requirements of reform and the appearance of many lost opportunities further helped to exacerbate the already existing divisions in Ukraine.

The next move

Now is the time when Putin wants to capitalize on Western past mistakes while learning from his own.  Putin’s strategy in Ukraine:  obfuscate, divide and remain. Russia will flood the international community and Ukraine with a continuous stream of false information.  For nearly ten years Putin’s strategy in Ukraine remained unclear and ambiguous and it was in this atmosphere of confusion that his influence grew.  Russia will create an atmosphere in which European countries – unsure of their relationship with Russia and Ukraine – will question not only Crimea’s right to self-determination but also all of eastern Ukraine. In this atmosphere Putin will obscure the very fact that Russia has invaded a foreign country with no justifiable pretext. As part of this strategy, Putin will attempt manoeuvres to provoke a response from the Ukraine government, its citizens, or the international community. It will be critical for the international community to remain united on supporting the complete territorial integrity of Ukraine especially in the face of potential military action.  Only if unified can allies hope to control Putin’s next move rather than play the game according to his rules.

Putin is a masterful political player and will seek every option available to divide the international community as well as to divide Ukraine itself. At some point, Russia will try to inflict harm on Western Europe by cutting oil and gas in “retaliation” for a move by Ukraine or the United States.  Russian and European business loses will be blamed on US intervention and the Russian people and parliament will rally around Putin as a leader who is finally correcting the losses Russia has suffered during the last two decades.  In Ukraine, Putin will capitalize on already existing divisions.  He will remind Ukraine of how little progress they have made with the European Union while inflating the role of Russian investment in Ukraine. He will follow the Kosovo example and encourage regions to accept their right to self-determination and declare their own independence. If any region declares independence Russian troops will enter quickly to secure their “right” to self-determination from Kiev “aggression”.

Finally, Putin has attempted to play diplomatically in the past to put Russia first in the region and it did not work for Russia in the 1990s.  Now, he will play militarily and Georgia was only a precursor. It is reasonable to expect that Putin will not leave Crimea until the peninsula is de facto an independent state. One of the key concessions he will seek is a forced continuance of the lease, if not ownership, of the Russian naval base in Sevastopol but this is less about geostrategic positioning than it is about proving a capacity to assert Russian interest. He will follow lessons he learned from Kosovo and stay in the region on a near permanent basis, dragging out negotiations while making all attempts to wear down and divide the international community. While military options should not be a first resort of the international community we must not assume that Putin will leave Crimea under diplomatic or economic pressure alone. The international community must now accept that we have entered a new stage of relations with Russia in which Putin will aggressively pursue Russia’s interests with military force.  Only a unified stance against Russia will remove Putin’s power.

Scott Schenking , Lt.Col. (ret.) was an advisor on the Western Balkans in the U.S. Department of Defense from 2006 until he concluded military service in 2013.  His most recent assignment was as Deputy Defense Attaché in the U.S. Embassy, Sarajevo.  Scott is currently studying international law and conflict dispute resolution with the University of London.

The article Back To The 90s: How Past Mistakes Will Drive Ukraine’s Future – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

By Obja Borah Hazarika

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned home on March 4, 2014 after concluding his two-day visit to Myanmar during which he attended the 3rd BIMSTEC Summit. Singh travelled to Myanmar after a gap of nearly two years, in what could be his last foreign trip as prime minister.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) emerged from the Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand Economic Cooperation Group formed in 1997. Myanmar joined in 1997, while Nepal and Bhutan joined in 2004. The first summit of the BIMSTEC was held in Bangkok in 2004. India hosted the second summit in 2008. Nepal will assume the chair after Myanmar.

The transcript of the media briefing by the foreign secretary of India released on Feb 26, 2014 stated that BIMSTEC is an expression of India’s Look East Policy of the 1990s, coinciding with Thailand’s Look West Policy.

The seven members of the BIMSTEC, namely, India, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh bring together over 20 percent of world population, and a GDP of over US$ 2.5 trillion, making it an important demographic and economic powerhouse. BIMSTEC provides a link between SAARC and ASEAN, between South Asia and Southeast Asia, and seeks to promote cooperation among the member countries.

India was a pioneer of BIMSTEC along with Thailand. BIMSTEC has 14 priority areas with lead countries. India is the lead country in four priority areas: (1) transport and communication, (2) tourism, (3) environment and disaster management, and (4) counterterrorism and transnational crime. There has been tangible progress in all four priority areas led by India and Manmohan Singh addressed each of these issues in his statement during the summit.

The prime minister’s statement prior to his departure for the 3rd BIMSTEC which was released on March 3, 2014, stated that BIMSTEC lies at the crossroads between SAARC and ASEAN, drawing its energy from the natural convergence of the countries around the Bay of Bengal. It stressed that connectivity and sub-regional cooperation in trade and investment, energy, climate, tourism, agriculture and other areas provide the spark for the growth engine in the region.

It also articulated that tackling security challenges in the region required the collective vision and determination of all concerned countries of the BIMSTEC. Peace, stability and development in BIMSTEC countries, was remarked upon as being indispensible for the forward march of Asia as a whole. It also emphasized that India’s bilateral relations with BIMSTEC countries are among India’s most important in the world.

The statement by the Indian prime minister at the 3rd BIMSTEC Summit, in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, stressed on several vital aspects of the BIMSTEC vision. Chief among them was the aspect of increasing vigorous investment in building connectivity both physical and digital in the BIMSTEC region which can be crucial in the journey to enhance cooperation and integration in the region.

It also stressed that trade and economic cooperation should figure high on the list of priorities of the BIMSTEC and that the member countries should aim for an early conclusion of the BIMSTEC Free Trade Agreement for trade in goods and extend it to investment and services. Among other things, it also mentioned that security of the BIMSTEC countries is indivisible. Terrorism and piracy were identified as security threats warranting immediate cooperation among member states in their efforts to counter them.

The Third BIMSTEC Summit Declaration mentioned the ongoing cooperative endeavours of this regional grouping and also provided a glimpse of the future activities of this group. Most significantly it resolved to commit increased efforts in accomplishing the founding aims and purposes of BIMSTEC.

It also stressed that the BIMSTEC had decided to move forward towards finalization of a series of agreements which included the draft Agreement on Trade in Goods with agreed General Rules of Origin and Product Specific Rules, and the signing of the Agreement on Dispute Settlement Procedures, and the Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters under the Framework Agreement on the BIMSTEC Free Trade Area.

It also directed the BIMSTEC Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC) to expedite its work for the conclusion of the Agreement on Trade in Goods by the end of 2014, and to continue its efforts for early finalization of the Agreement on Services and Investments.

Among other notable pronouncements, it expressed satisfaction at the continuing work on developing physical connectivity in BIMSTEC region and the progress made in updating the BIMSTEC- Transport Infrastructure and Logistics Study (BTILS) supported by the Asian Development Bank for enhancement of intraregional connectivity, transport infrastructure and logistics, and welcomed efforts to identify concrete projects for implementation.

There were three notable documents which were signed during the 3rd BIMSTEC Summit in Nay Pyi Taw.

1. Memorandum of Association on the Establishment of the BIMSTEC Permanent Secretariat. The BIMSTEC leaders welcomed the appointment of Sumith Nakandala of Sri Lanka as the first secretary general of BIMSTEC.

2. Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the BIMSTEC Cultural Industries Commission (BCIC) and BIMSTEC Cultural Industries Observatory (BCIO).

3. Memorandum of Association among BIMSTEC member countries concerning establishment of a BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate.

These three documents paved the way for greater cooperation and collective action among the members of the BIMSTEC. The 3rd Summit of the BIMSTEC was thus another milestone in the efforts of the member countries to enhance connectivity and cooperation among them.

The expanse of cooperation has increased from technical and economic to include other important aspects like that of culture and weather and climate. People-to-people contacts were also emphasized with an insistence made in the Summit Declaration on working towards the possibility of visa free travel for the people of member countries.

The presence of the heads of states of Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan made it an event which not only took stock and advanced the BIMSTEC agenda, but also became an avenue for summit diplomacy apart from underscoring the extreme importance the countries attached to this regional grouping. There were several bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit.

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Myanmar President U Thein Sein, Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, making it a fruitful and productive event for all heads of state and prominent statespersons concerned. BIMSTEC, which has been one of the many prongs of India’s Look East Policy, is crucial for India’s 21st century diplomacy and the successful progress of the BIMSTEC not only justifies its creation but also provides a rationale for embarking on other regional endeavours with neighbouring and adjacent countries sharing mutual problems, prospects and visions in the contemporary times.

(Obja Borah Hazarika is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Dibrugarh University, Assam, and can be contacted at obja11@gmail.com)

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor.

The article BIMSTEC Summit In Myanmar: A Platform For Trans-Regional Cooperation – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Oriental Review

By Alexander Mezyaev

A number of international organizations are in the process of studying the legal aspects of the situation in and around Ukraine from point of view of international law. The United Nations, in particular the Security Council, is the main entity authorized to come up with priority assessments according to article 21 of UN Charter and the very fact of Ukraine’s membership in the organization.

For the last days the UN Security Council (UNSC) has had three times the issue on its agenda. The first time it was done on February 28. There was nothing but an official communique informing that a session took place. Then the issue was considered on March 1 and March 3.

First, Ukraine used the term «aggression» to describe the Russia’s actions. On February 28 and March 1 the UNSC sessions were called upon Ukraine’s initiative for the reason of «Russia’s aggression» against Ukraine. The official letter of Ukraine dated February 28 stated there was «a threat to Ukraine’s territorial integrity» caused by «deteriorating situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea». The next day on March 1 another letter used the term «aggression against Ukraine».

On March 3 the United Nations Security Council deliberations were focused on two aspects of international law. First, Ukraine reported that Russia rejected its request to launch immediate consultations in accordance with article 7 of the 1997 a bilateral Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership. Second, it affirmed that «The Russian Federation has brutally violated the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations, obliging all Member States, inter alia, to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State».

The both arguments put forward by the so-called representative of Ukraine have weak points. The matter is that from legal point of view there has been no request made asking Russia to hold any consultations. This affirmation is obvious because there is no legal entity in existence to do so.

On March 3 the Russian Permanent Representative presented to the UN Security Council members a letter signed by President Yanukovych on March 1 requesting for the military Russian military assistance. It said,

«As the legitimately elected President of Ukraine, I wish to inform you that events in my country and capital have placed Ukraine on the brink of civil war. Chaos and anarchy reign throughout the country. The lives, security and rights of the people, particularly in the south-east and in Crimea, are under threat. Open acts of terror and violence are being committed under the influence of Western countries. People are being persecuted on the basis of their language and political beliefs. I therefore call on President Vladimir Putin of Russia to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order and stability in defence of the people of Ukraine».

Talking about the situation in Ukraine, the key issue is the legality of the government. Is it legal or not, this fundamental question provides a clue to all further deliberations.

It’s not legitimacy but rather legality that is in question; does the government have a right to function according to law? Many have absolutely forgotten this term making all considerations and analysis (if miserable and sometimes legally incompetent attempts could be termed so) boil down to «legitimacy». There is a significant difference. Legality or lawfulness is a strictly defined notion based on norms of internal and international law. Legitimacy is a purely theoretical legal term. It is defined by law scholars and has no commonly accepted or even legally binding criterion. Now why everybody keeps on talking over and over again about the «legitimacy» of power while fully ignoring the term «legality»?

These are the words by US State Department spokesman:

«We are in the same place we have been in, which is that we don’t – we believe that Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership. So we continue to believe that he’s lost legitimacy and our focus remains on the path forward».

This «explanation» has nothing to do with the law and is flagrantly incompetent.  The USA demonstrates that it badly lacks legal arguments to substantiate its stance on Ukraine by substituting the notion of legality (lawfulness) with the blur conception of legitimacy. The West tries to cheat with a sleight-of-hand: it suggests that the legality of legal power be proven instead of making the putschists, who staged the coup, come with legal substantiations proving the legality of their actions!

The Ukraine’s Constitution envisions four ways to deprive the President of power according to article 11: resignation, health reasons, demise and impeachment. Nothing like that has taken place. The Verkhovna Rada’s (parliament) vote to dismiss Yanukovych contradicts the Constitution making it a criminal act. Now the question comes up: why should Russia have any deals with criminals. There is no answer to this question from legal point of view.

Someone Sergeev, who speaks at the United Nations Security Council sessions, cannot be considered a legal representative of the Ukraine’s government; it means that all letters sent by illegal authorities have no whatsoever relevance. That’s why Russia is not going to discuss the bilateral Russia-Ukraine Treaty of 1997. There is no legal entity to talk with! The putschists and their Western sponsors pretend it’s beyond their comprehension.

It’s worth to pay attention on how the Ukrainian Association of International Law, or, to be more precise, its Presidential Council, reacted under the circumstances. Ukrainian lawyers argued that the Russia’s decision to demonstratively reject the preliminary consultations with Ukraine and the guarantors of its territorial integrity (the US, the UK, France and China) is not only a violation of UN Charter and general international law, but also a show of disdain for the international obligations under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Any lawyer can see the trick here. To hold consultations with who? Displaying artificial open-heartedness, Ukrainian lawyers say «with Ukraine». Pretending to be naïve they get around the key legal issue – the criminal nature of the staged coup.

Why should Russia forget about legality and start to talk and make deals with the bandits in power?

On March 5,  the so called representative of Ukraine tried to prove that the request addressed by Yanukovych to Russia had no legal grounds. His statement said that according to article 85 (item 23) of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada has exclusive powers to allow the deployment of foreign armed forces on the national territory. Once there was no approval, the request of Yanukovych had no legal basis. This is another attempt to distort the reality: the Rada has the authority to approve the President’s decision but not take it instead of him. The very fact that the Rada has not approved the decision does not automatically make it illegal. In his March 5 letter the so called Representative of Ukraine could not explain why Yanukovych should no longer be considered the President of Ukraine. The letter does not contain reference to any legal act.

From legal point of view, what is happening in Ukraine is a crisis provoked by the coup staged in Kiev when armed extremists grabbed power in the country.

An armed coup is a criminal offense. Those who claim to be the new government of Ukraine have no legality and their actions have no legal ground from the point of view of the Russian Federation. The Russia’s stance fully corresponds to the national laws; the President’s decision to use the armed forces abroad is taken in conformity with the Constitution and the effective federal law, as well as the laws of Ukraine. Russia has not breached any international norms. Whatever the West says about the violation of the United Nations Charter and other international documents is based on the wrong foundation because the legal status of the Ukraine’s new government is an open question. The West has taken part in the overthrow of democratically elected government and has recognized those who have been involved in the actions punishable by national criminal code. It means that the West itself is in flagrant violation of international legal norms…

The article Is The New Ukrainian Government Legal? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SATP

By Ambreen Agha

“If you want to destabilize Pakistan,” an unnamed senior Police Officer in the Province notes, “you have to destabilize Punjab.” That, precisely, is the intention of an accelerating and expanding campaign of Islamist extremist terrorism in Pakistan, linked intimately to the Taliban – al Qaeda complex, and to the growing movement of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has turned renegade against its original sponsors and handlers in the Pakistan establishment and Army.” –  Tempest of Terror,  August 2009

On March 3, 2014, at least 11 persons, including Additional District and Sessions Judge Rafaqat Awan and a woman lawyer, were killed, and another 25 were injured, when terrorists carried out a suicide attack at the courthouse complex located in the F-8 area of Islamabad. According to reports, the terrorists entered the complex and opened fire indiscriminately at everyone, hurled hand grenades and later exploded their suicide vests.

The TTP ‘spokesman’ Shahidullah Shahid, distancing his outfit from the attack, clarified, “We have already declared a ceasefire and we strictly adhere to our deal with the Government. Our colleagues in the organisation also cannot violate this agreement”. On declaring an ‘unconditional’ ceasefire, on March 2, 2014, Shahid had stated, “Following a positive response from the Government, an appeal from religious scholars, in honour of the representative committee and in the greater interest of Islam and Pakistan, we have decided not to carry out any activities for one month… We hope that the Government will take our ceasefire announcement seriously and will work to move forward in a positive way while keeping the peace process away from all types of politics.” The Nawaz Sharif Government and TTP resumed negotiations in the second phase of talks on March 5, 2014.

Meanwhile, ‘spokesman’ of the Ahrar-ul-Hind (AH), a TTP splinter group, claiming responsibility for the attack, declared that the judicial system in the country was ‘un-Islamic’ and that they would continue their ‘struggle’ till Sharia’h law was enforced. Further, while dispelling any confusion over its alleged links with the TTP, he said, “We are an independent group and have no links with TTP. We were a part of TTP earlier but now we operate independently.”

Earlier, on February 7, 2014, five officials were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up during a search operation jointly launched by Police and Intelligence Agencies in the Khanewal District of Punjab Province.

Prior to this, on January 20, 2014, a TTP suicide bomber killed 13 persons, including eight soldiers and three children, and wounded another 29, when he blew himself up at Royal Artillery Bazaar, close to the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi District. Claiming responsibility for the attack, TTP ‘spokesman’ Shahidullah Shahid announced, “It [the attack] was carried out by one of our suicide bombers to take revenge for the Red Mosque massacre. We will continue our struggle against the secular system.” The Pakistani Army had conducted operations at Red Mosque in 2007.

These incidents are not in isolation. The first two months and seven days of the current year have already recorded 39 fatalities, including 23 civilians, nine Security Force (SF) personnel and seven terrorists, in nine incidents of killing, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP).

In 2013, a total of 81 persons, including 64 civilians, seven SF personnel and 10 terrorists were killed in total 20 separate terrorism related incidents of killing, as compared to 104 persons killed in 19 such incidents in 2012, registering a decline of 22.11 percent in fatalities.

The decline registered in overall fatalities is mainly due to the SFs’ reluctance to counter the terrorists’ threat. Indeed, as compared to 2012, the year 2013 witnessed a decline of 75.86 and 37.5 per cent in fatalities among SFs and terrorists, respectively. Perhaps emboldened by the evident operational paralysis among the state’s security agencies, terrorists killed a slightly higher number of civilians in 2013, as against the previous year.

Other parameters of violence have varied widely. Out of 20 incidents of killing in 2013, seven were major incidents (involving three or more killings) resulting in 40 deaths, as compared to five major incidents in 2012 that accounted for 76 deaths. While the Province recorded only one suicide attack in 2013, same as in 2012, the resultant fatalities stood at five and 11 respectively. At least five bomb blasts occurred in 2013, which claimed 14 lives and left 73 injured. In 2012, the number of bomb blasts stood at 10 with 51 fatalities. Incidents of sectarian violence, however, increased considerably from four in 2012 to 13 in 2013. The resultant fatalities, though, remained almost the same: 42 in 2013 as against 43 in 2012.

The possibility of escalation of violence cannot be ruled out as a result of the considerable and increasing presence of at least 57 extremist and terrorist outfits in Punjab alone Out of the 57 extremist organisations found in Punjab, at least 28 homegrown outfits exist in the provincial capital, Lahore, making it the most violent among the 36 Districts of the Province, followed by Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Significantly, Lahore has witnessed a total of 563 fatalities since 2005, according to partial data compiled by SATP, compared to 225 in Rawalpindi and 222 in Islamabad, in the same period. However, in 2013 Rawalpindi recorded the maximum fatalities, 26 in nine incidents of killing, followed by Lahore, with 14 in seven terrorism incidents.

The Province is also home to various foreign terrorists, including the Afghan Taliban and Uzbek terrorists. Talibanisation is, consequently, no longer a local affair, and manifests a dual strategy of both importing foreign radicals into the Province and exporting radical Islamism. Significantly, on December 15, 2012, suicide bombers of the TTP in collusion with foreign terrorists of Dagestani and Uzbek origin, attacked the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) base inside the Bacha Khan International Airport of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On December 18, 2012, the then Federal Minister of Education Sheikh Waqas Akram disclosed in the National Assembly, that banned terrorist outfits in Punjab had contacts with Uzbek terrorists, who charged USD 40,000 for carrying out terrorist attacks within Pakistan.

Punjab has also proved to be a major ideological sanctuary and recruitment base for terrorists, as well as a source for the export of the terrorist theology and activities beyond borders. A September 7, 2013, media report quoting analyst Mansur Mehsud, who runs the FATA Research Institute (FRI), stated that terrorists based in Punjab Province were being trained for an ethnicity-based civil war in neighboring Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2014. Mehsud explains:

Before, they [terrorists in Punjab] were keeping a low profile. But just in the last two or three years, hundreds have been coming from Punjab. Everyone knows that when NATO and the American troops leave Afghanistan there will be fighting between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns.

Indeed, in a media interview in 2013, a senior Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) member, who goes by the pseudonym Ahmed Zia Siddiqui, declared, “We will go to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban as we have done in the past.” When asked whether the Punjab-based terrorists were preparing for war in Afghanistan after the foreign withdrawal, he replied, “Absolutely.”

In one of his bizarre claims, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) founder and Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, while addressing a gathering at Markaz-e-Khyber in the Nishatabad area of Faisalabad District on February 23, 2014, alleged that America, India and their allies were trying their best to ‘crush’ Pakistan from the East and West, and that India was supporting terrorism in Pakistan. Significantly, these gatherings and pronouncements fuel the jihad culture of Punjab, radicalizing madrassa educated youth, face of future religious extremism. In the last two years, Saeed has organised and led five grand rallies, three in 2013 and two in 2012, with the sole purpose of disseminating hatred and sowing the seeds of extreme orthodoxy. Appearing openly at a rally in Islamabad on September 6, 2013, he denounced India as a ‘terrorist state’, while more than 10,000 of his supporters chanted slogans of “holy war” against India and ‘War will continue until the liberation of Kashmir’. Further, he told a frenzied crowd, “The United States and India are very angry with us. This means God is happy with us.” Unsurprisingly, former ISI chief Hamid Gul added during the rally, “They should know there are a lot of people here who are waiting for the conquest of India. It will be our privilege to take part in this war.”

Punjab is experiencing a tsunami of extremist forces. Significantly, apart from the principal TTP organization, separate local wings of the outfit, such as the TTP-Tariq Karwan Group in Mianwali District in the North of Punjab and the Fidayeen-e-Islami wing of TTP in Lahore District in the East, thrive, and have the potential to multiply further, swelling the radical Islamist wave in the Province. The ideological heads of these extremist formations move around openly with impunity and ease across the Province, including Provincial Capital Lahore and Federal Capital Islamabad. Saeed once audaciously declared, “I move about like an ordinary person – that is my style.” Saeed has also expressed appreciation of the ‘security’ offered to him, declaring, on January 1, 2012:
Pakistan is unmatched in terms of the freedom it allows for the pursuit of jihad and for the spread of Islam. No other territory in the world matched Pakistan and it was a great blessing from Allah… Non-Muslims were conspiring against Pakistan both internally and externally.

With no one to hold them to account, these radicalized forces find fertile grounds in Punjab, creating an escalating threat of destabilizing across the entire region. With little realistic expectations from the peace talks, several of the Army’s self-created terrorist proxies have turned against their masters. Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe that a substantially collusive and compromised civilian Government will do anything more than the military establishment to eliminate Islamist extremist formations that have, for decades, been harnessed against Pakistan’s perceived external enemies, even if some of these terrorist groupings have turned renegade against their erstwhile sponsors.

Ambreen Agha
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The article Pakistan: Simmering Cauldron In Punjab – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SATP

By Mrinal Kanta Das

In the night of February 22, 2014, around 150 heavily armed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres attacked the Amas Police Station in the Gaya District of Bihar, bringing traffic to a grinding halt on both the New Delhi and Kolkata side of the Grand Trunk Road. The exchange of fire between the Maoists and the Police continued for nearly two hours before the Maoists retreated. Though the Maoists failed to inflict any casualty on the Police side, a civilian taxi driver was killed in the crossfire. Reports suggested that the two sides exchanged about 600 rounds of fire.

On December 31, 2014, a group of nearly 50 Maoist cadres had attacked a highway construction site in Gaya District and torched construction machinery.

On July 17, 2013, at least three Special Auxiliary Police (SAP) troopers and two guards of a private road construction company were killed and seven others were injured, when over 125 Maoist cadres attacked the base camp of the company at Goh in Aurangabad District.

On June 13, 2013, a group of around 200 Maoist cadres had attacked the Dhanbad-Patna Intercity Express at the Bhalui halt near Jamui District, killing three persons and injuring six passengers.

Swarming attacks have become a rarity in most other Maoist-afflicted States, but their persistence in Bihar demonstrates both the capacity of the rebels in the State, and their efforts to stage a comeback there. Nine of 13 such incidents recorded in 2013 occurred in Bihar alone, with Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh accounting for two each. This comes at a time when the State had the opportunity to go after a substantially weakened Maoist network. After securing some tentative but significant gains against the Maoists in 2011 and 2012, Bihar appears to have squandered the opportunity, with its anti-Maoist campaign losing focus. There simply cannot be any acceptable explanation for a State losing 27 Security Force personnel [Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) data] to Maoist attacks in 2013 without inflicting a single casualty on the Maoists.

According UMHA data, a total of 69 persons – 42 civilians and 27 SF personnel – were killed in Bihar in Naxalite (Left Wing Extremism) violence in 2013, as against 49 persons – 34 civilians, 10 SF personnel and five extremists – were killed in 2012. Significantly, this yields a 270 per cent Year-on-Year (YoY) escalation in SF fatalities, even as the Maoists managed to reduce their own losses to zero. Civilian killings by Maoists also increased significantly. Partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) confirms these trends. However, SATP records two Maoist fatalities in 2013, of cadres killed by the Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), a breakaway faction of the CPI-Maoist, which has turned into its bitter rival.

In the first two months of 2014, the Maoists have already killed at least five civilians while two Maoists have been killed. Prima facie, the Maoist problem in Bihar appears to be worsening again. Apart from the adverse fatalities trends, the arrest and surrender data is also discouraging. 311 Maoists were arrested in 2013, as against 426 in 2012, while just three Maoists surrendered in 2013, as against 42 in 2012.

Significantly, number of encounters with Police has halved to six from 12 between 2012 and 2013, while the number of attacks on the Police increased from seven to 10. Further, the number of arms snatched increased from just two in 2012, to 38 in 2013, while the number of arms recovered decreased from 151 to 88.

Further, according to partial SATP data, at least four incidents of abduction, eight incidents of arson, two incidents of extortion and call for bandhs on three occasions, were recorded against the Maoists in 2013.

Maoist violence in Bihar has also witnessed a significant geographical recovery. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data, Maoist-related incidents (both violent and non-violent) were reported from 23 out of a total of 38 Districts in 2013, as against 19 Districts in 2012, down from 24 Districts in 2011. However, just three Districts – Aurangabad, Gaya and Jamui – accounted for over 60 per cent of the total fatalities in the State in 2013. There were seven major incidents (each resulting in three or more fatalities) in Bihar in 2013, of which six were reported from these three Districts – Aurangabad (3), Gaya (2) and Jamui (1). One major incident was recorded in Munger District.

On the basis of underground and over ground activities of Maoists as well as the frequency and intensity of violence, three Districts – Aurangabad, Gaya, and Jamui – are categorized as highly affected; another four – Rohtas, Vaishali, Muzaffarpur and Munger – are moderately affected; while sixteen Districts – Arwal, Hazaribagh, Banka, Nawada, Kaimur, Lakhisarai, East Champaran, Jehanabad, Nalanda, Sheohar, Patna, Purnia, Saran, Lakhisarai, Gopalganj and Khagaria – are marginally affected.

On February 17, 2014, SFs seized 3,400 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, used for making Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), along with a large number of detonators, during anti-Maoist operations in Rohtas District. Earlier, on February 10, 2014, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troops recovered acid bulbs, chargers, megaphones and around 1,680 rounds of ammunition of a .22mm rifle from a Maoist hideout in Gaya District.

Reflecting a dim view of the performance of the State Police and SFs in Bihar, an assessment prepared by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) titled “Left-Wing Extremism: Trends in 2013″, warned of the resurrection of Maoist activities in the State, owing to poor counter-insurgency efforts by the Bihar Government. The report noted, “Any respite, at this stage, such as provided by the feeble anti-Naxal response in Bihar, could be fatal to the gains made by security forces” and could help Maoists “form new battle-ready companies and units.” The assessment emphasised that a 57 per cent increase in terms of killings in the State had been recorded, even though the rise in the number of incidents was only five percent.

The problem with counter-insurgency operation in Bihar is further compounded by a reported trust deficit between the State Police and Central Forces deployed in the State. The Gaya District Police, on November 18, 2013, arrested one CRPF officer, Assistant Commandant Sanjay Kumar Yadav, posted in Barachatti (Gaya), on charges of leaking crucial information on security operations to the Maoists. Police had filed an FIR against him on November 14. Police claimed that many anti-Maoist operations had ended in failure due to leakage of information by the Assistant Commandant. However, CRPF sources, on condition of anonymity, insist that, even if the charges against the officer are true, it would have been better not to have arrested the officer at that point of time. Five days after a case was lodged against Yadav, who hails from Bihar, Bihar Director General of Police (DGP) Abhayanand sent a letter to the Central Government, urging it to relocate the 159th Battalion of CRPF outside the State, and to substitute it by another battalion. It also urged the Centre not to post any CRPF officer who belonged to Bihar for anti-Maoist operations in the State.

Despite the evidence of data, State officials, quite surprisingly, claimed that Bihar had, in fact, been carrying out specific intelligence-based operations and been quite successful in arresting the ‘maximum number’ of Maoists in 2013. A top State Police official thus asserted, “Only killing Maoists is not a sign of big operations”, adding that the clearing of the entire Chakarbanda area in Gaya District — which had once been a Maoist stronghold where Police did not even think of entering — was an example of how the State has been doing intelligence-based operation quietly.

Complicating the situation further, the Nitish Kumar Government has still not abandoned the illusion of fighting Maoists with ‘development’. On December 2, 2013, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar declared that Bihar did not have a “magic wand” to stop the Maoist attacks, and the answer lay in initiating multiple measures, including socio-economic development.

While the Chief Minister looks for a magic wand to stop Maoist attack, the Police population ratio of Bihar stands at meagre 68 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2012) per 100,000 population, even lower than it was a decade earlier, at 69 in 2002, and less than half the national average of 138 in 2012. Not surprisingly, the State Government is constantly looking for the deployment of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) battalions to tackle every security crisis in the State. There are at least six battalions of CAPFs deployed in the Bihar. Further, on January 13, 2014, CRPF deployed close to 200 commandos of its elite Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) battalion to bring a greater effectiveness to its offensives in the State. The Bihar Government has also proposed the setting up of 242 armed fighting companies of the State Police, of which 44 companies will be a dedicated force to deal with rioting, while the remaining would be engaged in operations against the Maoists and organized crime.

Bihar’s anti-Maoist operations appear to have lost focus in 2013, and the counter-insurgency advantages secured in the preceding years have been squandered. The State Government’s reluctance to act firmly and consistently against the Maoists has provided the rebels much needed breathing space, which they are expected to exploit to the fullest, to frame their strategy for the revival of the movement which, in their own assessment, is at a “critical stage” across the country.

Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The article India: Advantage Squandered In Bihar – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

Saudi Arabian businesses have lost an estimated SR800 million because of the government’s feminization program, a member of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) claimed on Monday.

The claim comes as the Ministry of Labor launched the third phase of its feminization program covering shops selling women’s bags, shoes, perfume and clothing; and said it would punish those failing to employ Saudi women.

Mohammad Al-Shahri, chairman of the JCCI’s textile and clothing committee, said 25 percent of small and medium-sized shops have shut down, while many others are considering pulling out of the market.

Al-Shahri said the feminization program has affected large and small businesses. He said many businesses closed because of high costs, including the expense of employing women for two shifts at double the salaries of expatriates, rising rents and the levy imposed on companies under the Saudization program.

He said committee members and merchants are not opposed to the feminization program but have found it difficult to implement it. This has resulted in many businesses losing money and closing down, he said.

Al-Shahri said the Labor Ministry should have discussed the program with businesspeople before introducing it, to give them enough time to express their views and concerns.

It is estimated that 25 percent of small and medium companies make up 80 percent of the market for female clothing.

Some merchants working in the clothing sector agreed with Al-Shahri’s comments.

Mohammad Hakim, who has 35 stores selling readymade clothes, said he had to close down 10 lingerie shops because he could not find women workers. These stores were in Al-Makarona complex in Jeddah on the main road.

He claimed he lost SR2 million. He estimated that 30 percent of stores that sold women’s clothing had closed down permanently.

Hakim said women should undergo training for a period of three months before being employed on a permanent basis. He called on the ministry to slow down the process of feminizing shops.

Ziyad Al-Bassam, chairman of the JCCI board, has welcomed the feminization program as positive for the industry because it allowed many women to set up their own small and medium businesses.
Al-Bassam said the JCCI is ready to train and support women in various sales professions.

Mahmoud Maqsood Khan, an investment and human resources consultant in the Gulf region, said the ministry did publish its proposals on feminization on its portals, “Bawaba” and “Together,” for businesspeople to consider.

Fahad Al-Takhifi, assistant deputy minister for development, said government was determined to implement the feminization program. He said the ministry had given businesses enough time to gradually implement the program.

He said the ministry would punish those who do not abide by the new labor laws. “We will not be lenient with those who fail to implement the Saudization of lingerie shops and will continue our inspections of such stores across the Kingdom.”

In a statement on the launch of the third phase of the feminization program, he said the ministry’s inspectors have taken action against 1,173 shops that had violated the regulations.

He said the third phase would cover shops selling women’s perfumes, maternal care goods, shoes, vanity bags, readymade dresses, women’s clothing and dressmaking materials.

The article Saudi Arabia: Claims Feminization Of Shops To Blame For SR800m Loss appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SAAG

By Col. R. Hariharan

Indians who have been facing terrorist attacks for decades will condemn the dastardly attack at Kunming railway station in the early hours on March 2 that took 29 innocent lives. Over 100 people were reported injured in the attack. The masked terrorists wielding fruit knives struck wildly at the people crowding the station. Xinhua reported that a gang of eight “appeared to be expert at hacking people” took part in the attack.

The same agency also reported that the Kunming Public Security Bureau’s four-man SWAT team patrolling the city responding to the alert reached the station in ten minutes and in the midst of all the chaos managed to shoot and kill four of the five terrorists including a masked woman. The fifth member was wounded. It said the terrorists dressed in black when challenged stood their ground and the SWAT team leader managed to shoot a woman attacker who threw a knife at him.

China’s security forces including PLA, Special Forces, Border troops, Public Security forces, and the police have been honing their counter terrorist operational skills during the last few years. Counter terrorism has been the focus their joint training programmes with the forces of other countries including Russia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The public security forces response to Kunming attack has shown their training has paid off. Their operational readiness – to react and respond in real time – and the professional competency demonstrated in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province, far away from Xinjiang which had been the focus of militant attacks is really commendable.

The Kunming attack brings back the unpleasant memories of Mumbai police’s clumsy response and utter lack of preparedness despite prior intelligence during the 26/11 terrorist attacks carried out on 12 targets by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiyaba (LeT) terrorists who infiltrated into the city and held it to ransom for four days from November 26, 2008. They killed in all 164 people and injured 308 others. Two LeT terrorists who reached the Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus (the Victoria Terminus) station opened AK-47 fire on passengers waiting there, killing 58 of them and wounding 104. The policemen on duty at the station opened fire with their obsolete rifles and managed to kill one terrorist. The efforts of the Union Home Ministry to streamline and coordinate the state’s readiness to respond to terrorist attacks that started immediately thereafter are yet to be completed!

The alleged mastermind behind the Kunming attack was identified as Abdurehim Kurban, which is probably a Uyghur name. Though the State media blamed Saturday night’s attack on “Xinjiang separatist forces” they did not mention the Uighur connection to such attacks. Evidently they were following President Xi Jinping’s call for resolute opposition against any words and actions that damage the country’s ethnic unity while referring to the attack.

As things happen in China’s controlled media environment, the local newspapers did not report the Kunming attack immediately on occurrence. But they preferred the safer option of leading with the news of the 12th National Peoples Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (NC-CPPCC ) at Beijing rather than the terrorist attack. They carried the news only the when micro blog messages about the attack flooded the internet. This contrasts sharply with our free media which vied with each other to provide real time coverage of the security forces operations that benefitted the attackers more than the public!

The President taking part in a plenum discussion with the members of the NC-CPPCC said, “we will build a ‘wall of bronze and iron’ for the ethnic unity, social stability and the national unity.” But unfortunately this is not being reflected in the state’s heavy handed response meted out to public protests by Uyghur and Tibetan minority in Xinjiang and Tibet respectively.

Kunming has a small Uyghur community confined to Dashuying village. According to locals they had come to Kunming to make a living. Kunming also has Uyghur eateries, which serve Naan like rotis in the evening, a treat for Indian visitors. Obviously, local Uyghurs will be facing the brunt of the fall out of the terrorist attack. So Xi Jinping’s point is well taken. President Xi is fully conscious of the threats to ethnic unity as the Uyghur and Tibetan minority communities are unhappy at the threat to their distinct identity, culture and languages as Han colonisation has been continuing relentlessly.

So the disturbed social environment within the two regions cannot be wished away when the state considers action against the “terrorists, extremists and separatists “ (as Chinese seem to distinguish the various shades of Uyghur activists) infiltrating across the international borders. India’s own experience has shown in the Northeast that lasting solutions for insurgency have to be found through political measures in tandem with military operations to make the militants and insurgents wither away without popular support.

Unfortunately this does not seem to be happening in Xinjiang. The Xinhua interview with the deputy commander of the Xinjiang Military Area Command Major General Saimati Muhammat an ethnic Uyghur attending the NC-CPPCC at Bejjing as a member reflects it. He is reported to have said “Counter-terrorism arrangements are in place to prevent serious incidents in Xinjiang.” He added that the armed forces in Xinjiang would never ease border controls, implying all the attackers do not belong to the country.

It is obvious that there is more than ethnic or religious background to the ‘Xinjiang separatist strikes’ (as they are officially termed). Many Uyghurs including the moderate ones have a grouse against the Han colonisers who had been inducted into the Province for over six decades. They threaten not only to subsume Uyghur identity but monopolise development and employment opportunities which are tilted in favour of Han population. Some of their complaints relating to ban on keeping a beard or wearing a headscarf by women are common to Muslims of various ethnicity in China. The state has responded to these grievances in a highhanded manner. For in instance the medium of instruction in school is Mandarin Chinese and very few books are published in Uyghur.

According to China Daily, the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region’s is doubling the allocation for its Public Security Bureau to Yuan 2 million ($330,420) to strengthen the counter terrorism effort as per the government’s draft budget report released at the annual session of Xinjiang Regional People’s Congress. But that alone is not going to improve the situation. There has to be greater understanding from the state to involve the minority population in the mainstream, rather than segregating them in ghettoes.

(The writer Col R Hariharan a retired MI officer, is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South Asia Analysis Group. E-mail: colhari@yahoo.com. Blog: www.colhariharan.org)

The article China: Kunming Terrorist Attack – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

By Linda S. Heard

Saudi Arabia’s decision to call a spade a spade by branding the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) “terrorist” along with other groups bent on destabilizing the Arab world was wise. It is not the moderate organization that it deceitfully portrays itself. It’s rather a shape-shifter molding its statements for public consumption according to the prevailing political ambience. Its militant wings are cloaked in different guises. The MB has schemed toward its endgame of ruling the region according to its distorted interpretation of Islam since its inception in 1928.

The UAE was quick to support the Kingdom announcing it will cooperate with Saudi Arabia’s efforts to deal with “those terrorist groups through liquidating all forms of material and moral support.”

Dubai’s Deputy Chairman of Dubai Police Dahi Khalfan Tamim has their measure. Last year, he accused the Muslim Brotherhood of plotting to overthrow the UAE government. They will start with Kuwait and move on to the other Gulf countries in 2016, he predicted. He complained bitterly on Twitter that the West “sympathizes, adopts and supports” the Brotherhood, adding that the reason remained a mystery.

A mystery indeed! Following Egypt’s labeling of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, MB head honchos on the run set-up shop in a north London suburb from where they direct their operations.

Britain’s Foreign Office was quick to affirm that their activities were legitimate.

Whereas the UK tolerates a Muslim Brotherhood presence, the US administration appears to relish it. The White House has persistently petitioned for the release of ousted President Muhammad Mursi. He is the man who petitioned the US to release Omar Abdel Rahman (known as the Blind Sheikh) jailed for participating in a plot to blow-up the World Trade Center in 1993 — and who invited terrorist groups into the Sinai.

Recorded conversations, transcribed by the Egyptian paper Al-Watan, between Mursi and Mohammed Zawahiri — a brother of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri — speak volumes. Mursi congratulates Zawahiri on his release from prison, requests support from the militants and assures this sibling of the world’s “most wanted” that he would do his best to bring Ayman back to Egypt “with his head held high.”

For his part, Zawahiri hails Mursi’s presidential success. “All secular infidels would now be removed from Egypt,” he says. In other exchange, he asks Mursi to pardon jailed militants and requests permission to set-up militant training camps in Sinai to support the MB. Mursi agrees, adding that he would also provide them with facilities along Egypt’s border with Libya

One of Mursi’s influential sidekicks Khairat Al-Shater, known to have helped fund the terrorist Ansar Beit El-Maqdis in Sinai, was visited by Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham in his jail cell. The duo subsequently pressed the Egyptian authorities to release him. Clearly, they’ve not read the MB’s memorandum on “The General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” issued in May 1991.
The White House has announced it is not considering placing the MB on its terrorist blacklist and insists that Egypt should let bygones be bygones by bringing the MB back into the political fold, which feeds the suspicions of those who believe the US and the MB are somehow hand-in-glove.

Former Rep. Allen West has suggested that individuals with links to the MB have “infiltrated” the Obama administration. In 2012, five Republican lawmakers, including Michele Bachmann, requested the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, defense and State to investigate government “policies and activities that appear to be the result of influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

US’ seeming solidarity with the MB, whose founders’ ideology spawned Al-Qaeda, is mystifying. But testimony made before the House Select Committee on Intelligence by Dr. Nathan Brown, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace may provide a clue.

“My view of the Brotherhood is that its rise would confront the US with some political challenges, but those challenges would be most successfully met if the Brotherhood is integrated as a normal political actor in the various countries in which it operates. Seen that way, the Brotherhood is far more a political than a security concern for the US.” There’s an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” concept here. More importantly he seems to suggest that let’s keep them busy messing up their home countries so they’ll leave us alone.

There’s been much discussion surrounding Qatar’s attitude toward the MB. Despite Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain having withdrawn their ambassadors from Doha to protest the Gulf State’s “interference in their internal affairs” and its failure to implement an agreement on the security and stability of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Qatar remains defiant. The main points of stress are:

• Qatar’s staunch support of the MB and its provision of safe haven to Brotherhood leaders.

• Unending insults toward GCC countries and vilification of Egypt’s interim government from the lips of the Muslim Brotherhood’s de facto spiritual leader who lives in Doha.

•   Al-Jazeera’s relentless MB propaganda.

Qatar insists it will not bow to pressure to change its foreign policy or abandon the MB but is otherwise being placatory. It does not intend withdrawing its own envoys in retaliation.

Again why one of the wealthiest countries on the planet hurtling along a beyond 21st century futuristic trajectory should risk alienating its closest regional allies with which it has close tribal, economic and social relationships — and in the worst case scenario being ejected from the GCC — is beyond belief. It doesn’t make sense…unless, perhaps, this tiny country is being leant on from an outside entity or entities. It’s almost impossible to see into the minds of the Qatari powers-that-be, but in the absence of explanations from Doha as to why the MB is its newish best friend, the possibility that its strings are being pulled remains food for thought.

The article Muslim Brotherhood: A Pariah That Should Be Shunned By All – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mary L. G. Theroux

A few weeks ago, Obama triumphantly announced NSA spying “reforms” that got lots of front page coverage, but amounted to: Absolutely No Change.

Further, his speech carried his full endorsement of the sweeping collection and storage in bulk of private phone calls, emails, email address books, online transaction information, location data, and more, on millions of Americans neither guilty nor even suspected of anything.

More recently, NSA’s outgoing director, General Keith Alexander, testified quite differently before the Senate:

The remarks by NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander were striking because the government’s justification for the data-collection program has been that the NSA needs the full database of Americans’ call records to uncover otherwise unknown terrorist connections.

But Gen. Alexander instead signaled that the information the NSA needs about terrorist connections might be obtainable without first collecting what officials have termed “the whole haystack” of U.S. phone data.

Explaining the option, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that intelligence agencies could “look at what data you actually need and get only that data.”

What a concept! Don’t tap everyone’s cell phones, email accounts, computers, capture and store every personal tidbit, to be perused when and if you might like to. Only gather information on those suspected of wrong-doing (and, hey, if you’re feeling really generous: get a warrant)!

Interestingly, the General’s testimony didn’t make the front page, and President Obama hasn’t acknowledged the recommendation.

Instead, as observed by the New Yorker:

Obama won’t dismantle a single N.S.A. program, not even those that have been involved in spying on the leaders of America’s allies and hacking into the databases of companies like Google and Facebook without any court approval. He won’t end the practice by which the N.S.A and other government agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, can obtain access to Americans’ data records simply by issuing a so-called National Security Letter, which doesn’t require the rubber stamp of the FISA court.

… Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Times, “the President will go down in history for having retained and defended George W. Bush’s surveillance programs rather than reformed them.”

He ought more accurately to have said, “and expanded” Bush’s surveillance programs.

So why won’t the President pay any attention to the recommendations of the General put in charge of the NSA—wouldn’t Obama expect Gen. Alexander to know whereof he speaks?

Because, as has been known since time immemorial, and as our Founders sought to guard this republic against: power corrupts and no politician vested with power will willingly surrender one jot or one tittle of it.

Which is why it won’t help to elect a “good guy” (or gal) next time. The ring, once held, enchants.

We must wrest it from their grasp, throw it into the fire, and never allow it to be so accrued again.

The article NSA Chief Recommends Severely Curtailing Spying. Obama Won’t – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ria Novosti

Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov said Monday that preparations for the the southern Ukrainian region to become part of Russia are already underway.

Crimea was flooded with Russian troops following the fall of the government in the capital, Kiev, last month and a referendum to decide whether the region will become part of Russia will take place on March 16.

The peninsula will be ready to begin using Russian law within a couple of months of a pro-secession vote, and the local Finance Ministry is already working on a roadmap for switching from the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, to the Russian ruble, Aksyonov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

The referendum in Crimea, where ethnic Russians make up about 60 percent of the population, is widely expected to return a favourable result that will pave the way for annexation by Moscow.

Aksyonov also promised that Ukrainian would cease to be an official language if Crimea joined Russia.

“We use two languages on a daily basis – Russian and Crimean Tatar,” Aksyonov said. “It’s certain that the republic [of Crimea] will have two languages.”

About 15 percent of Crimea’s population of about 2 million people are ethnic Tatars, among whom support for the incoming regime in Kiev is reportedly strong. Aksyonov has also promised senior political positions in a new Crimean government to members of the Tatar community.

Formerly the leader of a local pro-Russian political party, Aksyonov was appointed prime minister last month by a vote in the Crimean parliament. At the time of the vote the parliament was being guarded by unidentified, masked gunmen who occupied the building the previous night.

Large quantities of heavily armed Russian troops accompanied by armored personnel carriers, military jeeps and other vehicles have entered Crimea in recent weeks.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the presence of Russian military in the region and maintains that the armed men are members of local self defense organizations.

The planned referendum has been brought forward twice from its original date of May 25 since it was announced by local lawmakers last month.

The authorities in Kiev and international leaders have condemned the referendum as illegitimate.

The article Crimean Prime Minister: Talks Underway For Joining Russia appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference Monday to reveal arms recently seized by the Israeli navy. Israeli officials say the arms were traveling from Iran to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

In his speech at Eilat port, Netanyahu blasted the West for its recent efforts to thaw relations with Iran.

“We have been witness to the smiles and the handshakes between representatives of the West and the heads of the Iranian regime in Tehran, even as these missiles were being unloaded here in Eilat,” he said.

Netanyahu has been heavily critical of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani.

“They want to continue perpetuating the illusion that Iran has changed direction. The facts that we are showing here, on this platform, show the complete opposite,” the prime minster added.

The Klos-C ship had 40 long-range M-302 rockets, 181 122mm mortar shells, and roughly 400,000 7.62 caliber rounds.

The crew is set to be released in a few days, as Israeli officials believe the crew was genuinely unaware of their illegal cargo.

Original article

The article Israel Displays Arms Seized From Iran appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By TransConflict

Beyond the question of what exactly the Western powers expect of Russia and how likely it is that Russia will meet those expectations there is a more fundamental question that should be asked. Why should the west care what happens with Crimea? What US national interests, for example, are at stake there? What difference would it make if the people of Crimea decide to leave Ukraine – as the Kosovo Albanians did with Serbia – and join Russia.

By Gerard M. Gallucci

The US continues to stumble around like a zombie vis-à-vis Ukraine.  As Russia makes clearer with every response to the latest reiteration of the Western demand that it remove its forces from Crimea, this is not going to happen.  The West, led by the US, demands that Russian troops be withdrawn and Ukrainian sovereignty respected.  It offers international monitors to ensure no one is threatening Russians in Ukraine – as Moscow disingenuously charges –  as well as negotiations to ensure Russian interests.  It warns of sanctions while the US presses forward with its own first tranche targeted on individuals and entities deemed to be violating Ukraine sovereignty.  Russia responds with further moves to push not only for increased Crimean autonomy but now for outright annexation.  The US already is warning it would not recognize such a move.  It is deploying planes and ships to the region.  The UK foreign minister warns of a “shooting war” should Russia move elsewhere into eastern Ukraine.  Putin just shakes off Western demands and threats and, early last week, ordered the test firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile just to remind anyone who forgot that Russia remains a nuclear power.  It seems that Western policy is to continue asking Putin to give up and retreat in the face of every indication he has no intention to do so.

Some – including now the New York Times – are beginning to notice that the Russians appear to be taking advantage of precedents set by the US and EU for previous armed interventions and unilateral political alterations.  At the top of many lists is the 1999 NATO intervention in Serbia – taken without any UN Security Council authorization – and the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence taken outside the framework of UNSCR 1244.  The US and most EU members recognized the new “state” even though it violated Serbian sovereignty.  The US has consistently argued that the Kosovo intervention and eventual rejection of Serbia’s claim to its cultural homeland were “unique” and set no precedents.  The US continues to repeat the same refrain now, suggesting that the NATO intervention there was to protect people and arguing that Serbia lost its claim to Kosovo because of its actions there. But all this is clearly in the eye of the beholder and ignores that others may see things differently and see their own national interests at stake in other places, such as Russia in Ukraine.

Without reprising the complex history of Ukraine and Crimea, the essentials appear clear.  Russia sees the US and Western Europe trying to extend their political and economic empire into the very birthplace of its civilization.  Russia sees an effort to manage a post-Yanukovych transition agreed in negotiations immediately trashed and recognized by the West.  Putin put pieces on the board in Crimea – the actions on the ground over the last several days – while signaling that he is open to deal with the new Ukrainian government and accept that Yanukovych is history.  Perhaps there are genuine negotiations going on between the parties behind closed doors.  But the rhetoric from the West suggests that all Moscow is getting in return is continued US and EU demands that first it surrender.

Beyond the question of what exactly the Western powers expect of Russia and how likely it is that Russia will meet those expectations there is a more fundamental question that should be asked.   Why should the west care what happens with Crimea?  What US national interests, for example, are at stake there?  What difference would it make if the people of Crimea decide to leave Ukraine – as the Kosovo Albanians did with Serbia – and join Russia.  We all know the shallow historical connection of Crimea to Ukraine and that Russians are a large majority there.  Why could the West not accept Russian annexation of Crimea as a somewhat belated border adjustment in the wake of the end of the USSR?   The knee-jerk support the West gives to Ukrainian sovereignty cannot in the full light of day be seen as simply “principled.”  Rather it is an assertion that when the West violates international standards – that force may be used only with the approval of the UNSC and that state sovereignty must otherwise be respected – it’s okay because it’s the good guys doing it.  When others do the same, it is unacceptable.

Perhaps Putin missed a trick in not seeking a Security Council resolution calling for the reestablishment of the legitimate government in Ukraine with a possibility of sanctions to back it up.  It could have cited threats to ethnic Russians and their language.  The US, France and UK would probably have refused and Russia could then have acted on its own anyway.  But the charade of going to the UN would have made the analogy to the 1999 Kosovo intervention complete.

Ultimately, the US and its European allies should take a deep breath and consider their real interests.  A new cold war with Russia over Crimea serves no one, including Ukraine.  The West should ratchet down the rhetoric and avoid military gestures that we really have no intention – and certainly no interest – in backing up.  We should focus instead on practical relations with Moscow so that important equities elsewhere can be preserved, including cooperation on issues such as Syria and Iran.  Our continued partnership with Russia on the International Space Station shows that we can work together.  It will take accepting that however much we dislike Putin rubbing our noses in our own past actions, we have to work with realities and recognize Russia’s bottom lines.  Nothing in Crimea merits putting our common interests at risk.  Indeed, we should let relations between Ukraine and Russia seek their own level.  NATO and the EU marched up to the very borders of the old USSR and, in the Baltics, past them.  It’s not unreasonable to accept that Russia has its own regional interests so close to home.  How would the US feel if China sought a greater role in Mexico?  How did the US feel about Soviet missiles in Cuba?  What was that Monroe Doctrine all about?

Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat and UN peacekeeper. He worked as part of US efforts to resolve the conflicts in Angola, South Africa and Sudan and as Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008 and as Chief of Staff for the UN mission in East Timor from November 2008 until June 2010. He will serve as Diplomat-in-Residence at Drake University for the 2013-14 school year.

The article Why Should We Care About Crimea? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SAAG

By Bhaskar Roy

China’s declaration (March 5) raising its military budget for 2014 by 12.2% to almost $132 billion should not be surprising. In fact, it would have been surprising if China had cut its defence budget or made a small increase.

Instead, what should be catching the eye would be Premier Li Keqiang’s assertion in his report to the National People’s Congress’ (NPC) annual session on March 5 “We will safeguard the victory of Second World War and the post-war international order, and will not allow anyone to reverse the course of history”. According to some senior experts of Chinese institutions this was, perhaps the first time that such words were mentioned in the government’s work report and they were a strong warning to Japan.

Premier Li’s report went on to make the following three points (i) China will work for peace but would resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and the post war international order, (ii) The country will resolutely safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests, and fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and business overseas, and (iii) China will play a constructive role in resolving global and hotspot issues and work to make the international order more just and equitable.

This is a new, assertive and daring official position taken by the People’s Republic of China, and it is obvious that this position is quite openly backed by its growing military power. Enough signals have been received from China that late senior leader Deng Xiaoping’s theory of “building strength while keeping a low profile” is no longer in vogue among China’s leadership. But it is very difficult to say with certainty whether Deng’s advice has been cast overboard or kept aside.

The NPC report makes it clear that the Chinese government is no longer satisfied playing a regional role, but demands a global role commensurate with its clout as the second largest economy in the world after the United States.

Li Keqiang’s government report was accompanied by a barrage of articles from the official media, especially the Xinhua, justifying the continuous rise of defence expenditure. It was argued that every country needs a military budget that meets its defence needs; the size of the country and its roles as a key cornerstone of regional and global peace, as well as the largest contributor to UN peace keeping missions demand that its defence outlays increase relatively. In the same breath it was said that the expenditure is both in proportion to GDP and per capita terms. Worries of China’s neighbours including Japan were dismissed as “unfounded and misplaced”.

The Xinhua propaganda barrage reiterated that military power (of China) ensured peace, China faced several challenges, and the real threats to regional security were mainly the “mounting assertiveness” of some of the South China Sea claimants, the US re-balancing to the Asia Pacific region and resurgence of Japanese radical nationalism.

Part of President Xi Jinping’s repeated emphasis on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for combat readiness and to win a war and his “China dream” vision to return the country to its “central kingdom” status could be felt in this new discourse on defence in the government report. But there appears to be some difference on the speed and ambit of the process. It is understood that the process should begin from its neighbourhood. Pledging to safeguard the post war international order is a clear reference to Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu in Chinese) chain of islands. China claims the Diaoyu as both historical and post-war settlement, while Japan controls them. The US-Japan security treaty covers the Diaoyu, but the US is also against Japan provoking a situation. The matter was precipitated when the Japanese government purchased the islands from a private Japanese owner, with Beijing fearing Tokyo was closing any scope for negotiations. One of Tokyo’s apprehensions was that a rising powerful China may in a sudden sweep take over these uninhabited islands, as it did with the Paracels from Vietnam in the South China Sea.

Beijing’s sudden declaration of Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea raised concerns, though both Japan and South Korea had denoted theirs much earlier. But the claimed air space clash, with those of Japan and South Korea through rhetorics over the issue appears to have subsided.

Equally volatile is the situation in South China Sea over the sovereignty of the Spratly group of islands. China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the entire group of islands, while the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim small parts. China’s nine-dashed lines claim 80 percent of the South China Sea. The nine-dashed lines do not have any legal or historical basis, but Beijing continues to emphasize that its claims are non-negotiable. The only discussion it is willing to enter is on the basis that the other party acknowledges Beijing’s sovereignty. China has categorically rejected international laws in South China Sea because its claims do not stand.

The South China Sea issue is a major question of security and stability in this part of the world. Not is only the water around the Spratly Islands are estimated to have huge hydrocarbon deposits and is rich in marine life, the South China Sea is the waterway for almost 50% of the world trade.

For some years now China has been trying to persuade the US to agree that South China Sea is China’s “core interest”, that is, China can use its military to establish control over these waters. The US (read Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) refused. The US has too many interests in the region to hand over the Asia-Pacific region to China even under a G-2 (US-China supreme) condition to manage the world. Nevertheless, US President Barack Obama had offered China a G-2 position during his first visit to China in his first term as president, but the Chinese leadership declined.

The main Chinese leadership still remains cautious and prefers a step by step approach even in their ‘China dream’ pursuit. First to deal with it is what can be called its main adversary, the Japanese led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japan must be contained first, but how is the question.

Simultaneous is the question of the South China Sea. China’s main conflict at the moment is now with the Philippines over maritime territory. Declaration of the controversial fishing zone in the Sea under China’s Hainan province followed by more aggressive naval patrols have added to the tension. Manila taking the case to the UN Commission of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) has also irritated Beijing. Compounding the issue is the fact that the US has a defence security agreement with the Philippines.

Vietnam is working with China for better relations and economic development, but has a keen eye on its own interests. It is building its navy, especially the submarine arm with Russian transfers, and has virtually offered berthing facility to the US Navy. US- Vietnam military contacts have ensued.

China also intends to secure its overseas interests including its businesses and people. It demonstrated its ability, evacuating Chinese workers in Libya during the Libyan civil war. The Chinese navy has done some commendable job in anti-piracy work off Somalia.

As China’s interests spread across the globe, so does its scouting for energy resources, raw material, and business opportunities. Beijing expects not to rely on others but to do the job of protection themselves. At the moment the area envisioned by Beijing is the first island chain in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean region, Africa, Gulf and West Asia. This envisages not only a huge naval force of competing modernization, but also bases in friendly foreign countries.

Similarly, to resolve global issues and hotspots, as stated by Li Keqiang, China has to acquire the status and military strength of a super power.

To that end, China’s military expenditure has to increase and rapidly. Experts assess the current $ 132 billion budget announced for 2014 does not show the real expenditure in critical military area. At least another 50 to 60 billion dollars would have to be added. In fact, the 12.2% increase in the budget appears to have been a little cautious to address international reactions especially from its maritime neighbours. During the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao leaderships the budget grew at an average of 15% to 16%.

There have been harsh and threatening rhetorics from a section of Chinese strategic experts mainly connected to the military-statements like China is entitled to use all means at its disposal to settle disputes to its satisfaction in the South China Sea, including “employing its full capacities to assert sovereignty”.

The ever predictable Maj. Gen (Rtd) Luo Gan’s recipe for Japan is to teach Tokyo a lesson. Maj Gen (Rtd) Qian Lihua, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was of the opinion that China was not what it was in 1894-5 or 1930s and 1940s and can contain the development of Japan’s militarism.

Yet, the official Chinese line on Japan though strong, does not cross the red line. The aggressiveness is reserved for Shinzo Abe and his supporters, calling them right wing militarists. Abe’s quest to alter the post-war peace constitution and pledge to build an independently strong military has disturbed China. His resumption of talks with India in the peaceful nuclear field is read by China with strong apprehension. A militarily strong Japan capable of independently defending itself against China could get out of US control under a proud Japanese leader wanting to erase the shame of World War II.

Therefore, the official Chinese line encourages peace and stability and a win-win economic cooperation. If Japan starts moving its investment away from China, it can find other destinations including India, and Beijing can be a net loser. But no such signs are visible.

Whether China is ready for a quick strike local war is the question. The countries of the region are tied in a cobweb of alliances and agreements mainly with the US. Russia has returned its focus of interest in the region and is unlikely to encourage Chinese military adventurism.

China’s modern war record is not encouraging. Except for winning the 1962 border conflict with India, it has lost twice to Japan (1894-5, and 1930s and 40s). In trying to teach Vietnam a lesson in 1979, it got a bloody nose.

China is currently trying to bolster its access denial armament like DF-26C and DF-21D missiles, stealth fighters and information warfare capabilities.

China’s internal situation is under considerable stress and challenges. Minority issues are rising. Global attention is returning to the Tibet issue and the Dalai Lama. Pro-independence Uighur militants have taken to a more desperate path which is nearing suicide attacks. Last year 13 Uighur related incidents took place. This year, already two have happened.

On the other hand, the Chinese leaders have to control ultra-nationalism which they have fomented. Within the tight system freedom of speech has gained a new momentum, and the authorities do not appear to be winning. The budget for internal security has reached the level of the defence budget.

Hence, there are balances and counter-balances ensuring stability unless something goes wrong drastically.

Nevertheless, China will continue with its defence modernization and accumulation. The old Ukranian aircraft carrier the “Varyag” has been refurbished and inducted in the navy as the “Liaoning”. A second carrier is under construction. After that, another three are expected. The stress on the navy is followed by the air force.

In the next five to ten years, Chinese task forces can be expected firmly placed in both ends of the Indian Ocean. The coming scenario makes for an interesting study for Indian defence planners and managers.

Note: The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com

The article China: The Strategic Planning Of Defence Expenditure – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Peter Tase

Despite efforts to join the European Union, Albania remains still quite distant from integration. The Albanian government remains weak and unwilling to prosecute former top level officials, including former prime ministers and former members of the executive branch. Another chronic problem is that the judiciary remains a tool of the opposition party – the Democratic Party of Albania – while the Prosecutor General’s office is weak and ineffective.

Public order and security remain under threat in Albania. For example, only in January and February 2014 there were at least twenty explosions of C4 and other bomb incidents in the major urban cities of Albania. As a result some of these victims were high ranking officials, including city hall mayors, National Police Chiefs, Prosecutors, Judges and locally influential business people; additionally a cell-phone activated bomb placed in the prefect’s car failed to detonate in front of the Prime Minister’s Office.

The United States and Albania had secretly arranged an agreement on the decommissioning of Syrian chemical weapons, of more than 1400 tons, that were to be shipped to Albania. Under the agreement, besides the Syrian weapons, some 30 toxic sites in Albania would also be cleaned up. Some of these toxic sites are believed to being causing cases of cancer and lung disease among people in the surrounding areas. The Democratic Party of Albania reneged on its promised support for the deal that was reached with U.S. Ambassador Alexander Arvizu, and instead supported peaceful demonstrations in the streets of Tirana against the deal. (A few days before marching in the streets, Democratic Party Leaders had agreed with Ambassador Arvizu that they would not place obstacles to the shipment of Syrian chemical weapons to Albania.

So long as Albania has corruption, impunity, traffic of influence and an unjust judiciary are not addressed, admission to the EU is unlikely. According to the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative, based in Germany, Albania is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe and the most corrupt in the Balkans. The German NGO ranked Albania 95 out of the 176 countries monitored in 2011. This ranking slipped to 113 in 2012 and 116 in 2013, on the RACI Corruption Perception Index. Transparency International, which advocates good governance and an end to corruption, wrote in a recent report, “In Albania corruption is registering a new physiognomy in a favorable political environment, with characteristics like a new systems for money laundering, financing of political parties from illegal activities, the capture of the state through the control of procurement and privatization, human and narcotics trafficking and the impunity of high State officials before the justice system and the law.”

Unlike almost every country in the Balkan region, Albania has not arrested any prominent figures or corrupt government officials to bring them into prosecution and press charges. Arrests have been made on corruption cases for the following: former Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase, former Croatian prime minster Ivo Sanader, former Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša, and former prime minister of Bosnia-Hercegovina Franjo Tujman. What about Albania? So far there has been no one arrested, prosecution cases remain dormant in the courts for months or years, while in the end just punishment is not handed down.

While the issue of private property is a persistent challenge for Prime Minister Edi Rama, and illegal building of private residences and hotel businesses along the Adriatic and Ionian shores are coming to an halt, he has other challenges to address. For example, he must address Albania’s negative image that continues to be broadcast to the world. For example, on January 11, 2011, three innocent bystanders, in a peaceful protest were killed by members of Albania’s National Guard while standing on the boulevard near the prime minister’s office. For this crime, and others, such as the 2008 explosions at the Gerdec army barracks which caused the destruction of an entire village and the deaths of 27 people, there is no one in jail today. Moreover the defense minister of that time remains a member of Albania’s parliament. This is a genuine sign of how Albania’s justice system operates.

Incompetence, kleptocracy, lack of professionalism and political demagoguery have been at the center stage of Albanian society over the last 24 years of transition to democracy. Hope remains high for Prime Minister Rama’s government to improvement the nation’s image abroad, establish joint infrastructure projects with Kosovo, and make Albania a Balkan success story of trust and stability.

The article Albania’s Long Road To EU Integration – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.