By Dr. Subhash Kapila*

Strategically responding to China’s conflict escalation in South China Sea, newly elected President Widodo announced Indonesia’s New Maritime Strategy in November 2014.

Contextually, Indonesia should have responded much earlier for a redefinition of Indonesia’s maritime postures in keeping with China’s enlarging escalation of conflict in the South China Sea against Indonesia’s ASEAN neighbours.

Regrettably this did not take place for multiple reasons which prompted earlier Indonesian political dispensation to adopt a “Hands-Off” policy posture on South China Sea conflicts.

Indonesia’s previous Foreign Minister thought it more prudent to adopt such an attitude as China’s military brinkmanship had directly not touched Indonesia. Also, the prevailing view was that with such a posture, Indonesia would be enabled to play the role of a ‘honest broker’ and not antagonise China.

Such a policy steered and dominated by the previous Foreign Minister was strongly contested by Indonesia’s powerful military who viewed with alarm China’s conflict escalation with Vietnam and the Philippines and China’s creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea for supplementing China’s strategy to achieve what I have always termed at international seminars as China’s strategy of achieving “Full Spectrum Dominance of the South China Sea”.

The Indonesian military was also disturbed that Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s posture was ignoring the fact that Chinese claim-lines in the South China Sea also impinged on Indonesian waters around the Natuna Islands and it was only a matter of time that China would focus her strategic gaze on the Natuna Islands as it had done in the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands.

The above strategic reality emerged forcefully last year when Chinese PLA Navy ships exercised in the waters around Natuna Islands and Chinese Navy ships passed through the Indonesian straits into the southern waters of Indonesia and the northern waters of Australia.

Further China continued to be silent on persistent Indonesian demands to provide the exact co-ordinates of the southern limits of its so-called and self-claimed Nine Dash Line to enable Indonesian assessment of China’s illegal claims on Indonesian waters around the oil-rich Natuna Islands.

Political sensitivity within Indonesia on the evolving China Threat in the southern segment of the South China Sea and Indonesia’s lack of adequate maritime security thereof commensurate with Indonesia’s strategic archipelago configuration bridging the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean forced this issue into electoral politics of last year’s presidential elections.

It was during his election campaign in May 2014 that now Indonesian President Joko Widodo spelt out his vision of what is now Indonesia’s New Maritime Strategy or Maritime Doctrine.

The Strategic Doctrine envisioned that on assumption of office of Indonesia’s President he would essentially focus on reinforcing Indonesian maritime security, modernisation and upgradation of Indonesian Navy maritime capabilities across the board and that Indonesian foreign policy would be significantly enlarged towards full coverage of the Indo Pacific region.

The East Asia Summit last November was the apt venue for the new Indonesian President to unveil this new strategic doctrine formally to an international audience of global leaders.

Indonesia had therefore given clear notice that it was intent on emerging as a strong maritime power in the Indo Pacific region commensurate with her stature in South East Asia and her archipelago configuration.

Essentially, Indonesia’s New Maritime Strategy in terms of operationalization has surfaced in three areas. First, nearly $6 billion has initially been earmarked for upgradation of Indonesian naval bases and ports besides establishing new naval bases. Second, the strategic Natuna Island on which China’s strategic gaze is now fixed is being developed into a major Navy and Air Force military base. Third, Indonesia has commenced expansion of the Indonesian Navy by ordering two naval frigates from the Netherlands, three naval corvettes from the United Kingdom and three submarines from South Korea. More acquisitions are on the cards.

The implications of Indonesia’s New Maritime Strategy can be strategically analysed and encapsulated under two heads of the regional and global impact with reference to the conflict escalation in the South China Sea.

Regionally, Indonesia now ceases to sit on the fence with a ‘Hands Off” attitude in relation to China’s extending her unimpeded aggressive maritime footprints in the southern waters of the South China Sea. This should reinforce ASEAN unity in relation to limiting China’s brinkmanship in the South China Sea.

Relating this development specifically to the South China Sea conflict escalation by China, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines already victims of Chinese military aggression would stand strategically heartened as Indonesian hither-to-fore “Hands Off Strategy” was encouraging China’s military aggressiveness. Logically, one can expect sometime in the near future a semblance of an integrated South China Sea maritime strategy between Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Globally, Indonesia’s emergence as a maritime power of consequence in relation to both the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean would be widely welcomed by the United States, Japan, Australia and India. With maritime security synergy already in evidence in the region between these Indo Pacific Powers, the addition of like-minded maritime posture by Indonesia would significantly add to their combined maritime weight and capabilities.

China is likely to be significantly impacted as this development contributes to a significant maritime counterweight emerging in the Indo Pacific in response to Chinese maritime designs in the South China Sea and ultimately in the Indian Ocean.

Closer home where India and Indonesia are only about a hundred kilometres apart, far more strategic synergy can be expected between the two nations to reinforce their strategic ties not proactively followed in the past few years.

Concluding, it can be observed that upgradation of Indonesia’s maritime posture and capabilities were a long overdue process. Indonesia wasted years neglecting this imperative on a misreading of Chinese intentions in the South China Sea. President Jokowi has taken the bold step of initiating the process of modernisation and expansion of Indonesia’s naval capabilities which can be hoped would restore a strategic balance not only in the South China Sea but also in the Indian Ocean eastern segment.

*Dr Subhash Kapila is a graduate of the Royal British Army Staff College, Camberley and combines a rich experience of Indian Army, Cabinet Secretariat, and diplomatic assignments in Bhutan, Japan, South Korea and USA. Currently, Consultant International Relations & Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. He can be reached at drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com

The post South China Sea And Indonesia’s New Maritime Strategy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter discussed regional security interests and bilateral issues with senior leaders from the African nation of Djibouti during a 30-minute meeting at the Pentagon yesterday, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

The secretary met with Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali Youssouf, Defense Minister Hassan Darar Houffaneh and other senior Djiboutian officials, Kirby said in a statement.

Topics the leaders discussed included this week’s inaugural binational forum, counterterrorism and maritime operations, support for Camp Lemonnier, and the initiation of a partnership between Djibouti and the Kentucky National Guard via the State Partnership Program.

Shared Commitment to Fighting Terrorism

Camp Lemonnier is home to Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, a U.S. military headquarters that works with partner nations, coalition forces, and interagency and governmental organizations to achieve a unified effort in countering violent extremist groups in East Africa.

“Secretary Carter highlighted U.S. and Djiboutian shared commitment to fighting terrorism throughout the Horn of Africa that has made East Africa and America safer,” Kirby said. “He lauded Djibouti’s decision to deploy additional forces to Somalia, emphasizing the importance of continued bilateral and regional cooperation in operations to defeat al-Shabab.”

The post Carter Meets At Pentagon With Senior Leaders From Djibouti appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

On Feb. 22, former President Nasheed was arrested at  hi home by the Police on fresh charges of charges of terrorism. This arrest is a blatant violation of all norms of justice and fair play and the international community have already shown concern and some have even condemned the arrest.

Supporters of Nasheed had crowded round his house at the time of his arrest. Nasheed was badly manhandled and dragged some distance before being thrown into a vehicle. In the process he was seen limping with a sling on his shoulder at the time of being produced before the court.

Earlier Nasheed was being tried at Hulhumale magistrate’s court on charges of illegally detaining a criminal judge while he was President in 2012. Nasheed had challenged the jurisdiction of the Hulhulu Court and the case was being dragged on deliberately.

All of a sudden, the Prosecutor General withdrew the charges and made out fresh charges for acts of terrorism which carry a heavy penalty or banishment of 10 to 15 years.

Nasheed had never missed the trial and had been staying in Male along, though going in and out of the country on his tours. The arrest warrant said “terrorism charges have been brought against the fears that he may not attend the court or go into custody.” The warrant has many flaws.

The court has ordered that Nasheed will be kept under detention until the completion of trial and I know for certain until his sentencing.

President Yameen could not have been more cruel and vindictive.

Consider the background of the Prosecutor General and the three Judges appointed for the trial. Aishath Velezine, a former member of the Judicial Service Commission has pointed out the following aspects.

• The current Prosecutor General is a former criminal judge who has worked under the Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Mohamed, the judge who was allegedly detained in 2012 on orders of the then President Nasheed. Nasheed is being charged precisely for the same charges.
• Two of the judges were involved in a cover up of a misconduct of an appointed Judge.
• The third one has a criminal record.

These are the judges who are presiding over this trial.

The arrests have been made under the old archaic law of the penal code where any act can be termed as “terrorist.” The old 1990 terrorist act states that kidnapping, abduction and attempt to kidnap or abduct as acts of terror. A new penal code is being drafted but the government would appear to be rather happy to go along with the old laws.

It may be recalled that in the dictatorial days of Gayoom, Nasheed was charged under terrorism when he made a “sit in protest” in the public square. Maldives had in the past always misused the terrorism laws and charging Nasheed now for ordering the arrest of a criminal court judge for his misconduct three years ago is no surprise either!

Nasheed has been denied legal assistance. The five lawyers who were defending Nasheed in the magistrate’s court had not registered in higher court of three judges and so were not allowed. It takes two days to register and make all the formalities for registration. Yet the court was not willing to wait and started the trial at 4 PM on 23d itself! Nasheed is being tried with no lawyer to assist him.

Police have also taken into custody MDP Chairperson Ali Waheed for no reason given.

It all started with the two major parties the MDP of Nasheed and Gasim Ibrahim of Jumhooree party. Night protests have been going on since 11th February.

The immediate provocation appears to be a mass rally by the followers of the two parties on 19th night in a bid to rally supporters for a massive demonstration on February 27th.

It is hoped that India will respond in a more objective manner in this crisis rather than what it did in 2012 during the unofficial coup, when the government rushed post haste to recognise the new regime and the portraits of Nasheed were hurriedly removed within a few hours!

It is important to recognise who our friends are.

The post Maldives: Little Hope Of Fair Trial For Nasheed – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Reports say the masked man with a British accent who has featured in several Islamic State beheading videos has been identified.

The BBC reported on February 26 that the militant known as “Jihadi John” is Muhammad Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British man in his mid-twenties believed to be from West London, who was known to British security services.

The Washington Post newspaper said Emwazi was a Briton from a well-to-do family who graduated from college with a degree in computer programming.

The University of Westminster confirmed that a student of that name graduated in 2009.

British antiterrorism officials wouldn’t confirm the man’s identity, citing a “live counterterrorism investigation.”

National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the United States couldn’t confirm or deny the identity, either.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also declined to confirm the identity of the suspect.

Earnest said that investigators over the last several months “have found it to their advantage to not talk publicly about the details or progress of that investigation.”

“Jihadi John” appeared in a video released in August showing the killing of American journalist James Foley.

Former IS prisoners identified him as one of a group of British militants that captives had nicknamed “The Beatles.”

A man with similar stature and voice also featured in videos of the killings of American journalist Steven Sotloff, Britons David Haines and Alan Hemming and U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

The reports said Emwazi was known to Britain’s intelligence services before he traveled to Syria in 2012.

CAGE, a London-based advocacy group that counsels Muslims in conflict with British intelligence services, said Emwazi first contacted the group in 2009.

According to CAGE, Emwazi said he had traveled to Tanzania after leaving university, but was deported and questioned in Amsterdam by British and Dutch intelligence services, who suspected him of attempting to join al-Shabaab militants in Somalia.

In 2010, Emwazi alleged that British intelligence services were preventing him from traveling to Kuwait, where he planned to work and marry.

CAGE quoted an email Emwazi had sent saying, “I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started. But now I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London.”

The post ‘Jihadi John’ Identified appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program is offering rewards for information on two associates of the extremist group Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG). Secretary of State John Kerry has authorized rewards of up to $3 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Abdul Saboor and up to $2 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Abdullah Nowbahar.

HIG is an offshoot of Hezb-e Islami (“Party of Islam”), a political and paramilitary organization in Afghanistan founded in 1976 by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. HIG has espoused virulently anti-U.S. ideologies, and supports making Afghanistan an Islamic state rooted in sharia (Islamic law).

According to the US State Department, Abdul Saboor is an explosives expert associated with HIG who is responsible for the May 16, 2013 suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, which destroyed a U.S. armored vehicle. The attack killed two U.S. soldiers, four U.S. civilian contractors, and eight Afghans—including two children, and wounded at least 37 others.

Saboor and HIG explosives expert Abdullah Nowbahar were key participants in the September 18, 2012 SVBIED attack against a bus carrying foreign employees of a firm that provided aviation services to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, according to the US State Department. More than a dozen people were killed and nearly a dozen more were injured in the attack.

The post US Offers Rewards For Information On Two Members Of Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jo Fahy

Whether it’s a turban or a headscarf, showing your religion in Switzerland can make others treat you extremely differently. From stares in the street to difficulty in getting a job, Swiss research has found a religious piece of clothing makes a difference.

Amina Elaian-Talibi was the first in canton Neuchâtel – and one of the first in Switzerland – to wear the hijab, a headscarf, to school, back when she was 11.

“It was important in the sense that it was the sign of puberty in a girl. It was also a sense of pride because I wanted to show that I was a practising Muslim and that I believed in my religion,” Elaian-Talibi, now 28 and a Swiss citizen, told swissinfo.ch.

She had to fight for her right to wear it at the time, going through a series of appeals, and believes she is still discriminated against today, albeit in a more subtle way.

“Now I am fighting to work as someone who wears a headscarf…I did my studies and now for the past two years I haven’t been able to find work.”

Elaian-Talibi is one of only 4.9% of people in Switzerland who identify themselves as Muslim, according to the most recent figures from the Federal Statistical Office in 2012.

Members of other religions are so few in number they barely register in the statistics. Could this lack of visibility and a resulting dearth of personal interaction with people wearing religious clothing lead to negative preconceptions?

Jacqueline Grigo, a researcher into religion at the University of Zurich interviewed 20 people in canton Zurich who wore some form of religious clothing and followed six subjects over the course of three years. The aim of her research, published in February 2015, was to find out how these people felt they were perceived by society.

“What was interesting from [almost] all of the people was not just the feeling that they were not positively perceived, but the feeling that they were actually discriminated against,” Grigo told swissinfo.ch.

She heard about the difficulties of finding work or being chosen to rent a flat in addition to being insulted, laughed at or even attacked. “They were under the impression that the more people knew about the religion, the easier it would be [for them],” Grigo said.

Elaian-Talibi believes that in general Swiss society is accepting of headscarves, but only “when it remains a private matter”.

“When it goes into the public sphere they’re less [open]. In the workplace they’re not especially open to veiled women.”

Fear of the unknown?

Although it’s estimated only around 100 women in Switzerland wear a burka (a full face and body covering), a people’s initiative banning the covering or concealment of the face in any public place is set to be launched imminently. Signature collection will likely start in the spring.

Based heavily on an initiative on the same topic that voters in canton Ticino approved in 2013, the text does not specifically refer to the burka or niqab (a veil covering the face but not the eyes). A statement released by the rightwing Egerkinger committee behind the idea underlined the right to freedom of expression in Switzerland, commenting that “opinions are expressed in a free country with an uncovered face as free people, and so-to-say face to face”.

The statement added that “parallel structures such as Sharia [Islamic law] have no place in Switzerland” and that Muslims “only call for equality when they are in the minority”.

Elaian-Talibi struggles to understand how the ‘burka ban’, as it has become known, has made its way onto the popular agenda. “This shouldn’t be an issue,” she said, adding that “maybe only a few” women actually wear the burka in Switzerland. “It’s not even worth discussing it.”

Grigo says there is a “certain secularisation ideal” in Europe, meaning people are “essentially not religious or they keep their religion private”.

“That’s why people who wear their religion openly are regarded somewhat suspiciously,” she said.

She also believes that Islam is portrayed “very negatively” in the media in general, often in negative contexts, and that “the Muslims who wear headscarves see the effect of that”. A study of this issue in Switzerland as part of a national research programme found that “political calculations” of rightwing parties and an “over-simplification” by the media were contributing factors to Muslims being portrayed as a threat.

From turbans to habits

Grigo’s research involved a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, a Catholic nun with a habit, a Tibetan Buddhist monk with a robe, a male orthodox Jew with sidelocks, a hat and a kaftan, a Sikh with a turban and a man from the “Schwarze Braut” (black beard) group, a non-denominational, youth subculture “who listen to goth-metal music, discuss the Bible and drink beer”.

All lived in canton Zurich, though not all were Swiss, and all had “concrete examples” of prejudice.

“I really experienced the feelings they told me about,” said Grigo as she described the time she spent with each of her study subjects.

“I actually experienced people looking at them with distrust or crossing the street to avoid them or giving them nervous looks…I noticed that.”

But it wasn’t all bad. The Muslim woman in her study recounted times when people asked questions out of genuine interest about her headscarf and the Sikh recalled a time he heard a father explain to his son what the turban stands for.

“It moved him to tears that someone knew about that and could explain it.”

The common experience for Grigo’s study subjects was turned on its head for the Tibetan Buddhist monk, though.

“Tibet and Buddhism are perhaps somewhat idealised,” Grigo said. His experience so far in Switzerland “was a little uncomfortable because it was like exotifying or idealisation”.

Doing more to explain who these people are beyond the turban or the headscarf is not the real issue for Grigo. Instead, she said, we should be “a bit more sensible about diversity” and “accept that some people are different”.

The post When Did Showing Your Faith Become So Controversial? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Tamar Friedman*

In the upcoming Israeli elections on March 17, no one party is expected to win a majority of seats in the 120-seat Knesset; hence, as usual, the party that wins is not the party that leads in the vote but the party that can put together a coalition with a majority of seats, or 61. The two leading parties, Likud (led by Benjamin Netanyahu) and the Zionist Union (led jointly by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni) are neck and neck in the polls, each hovering around 24 seats.. But the question is: Which of them can form the winning coalition?

Below are projections of three possible coalition outcomes. The first scenario imagines a Netanyahu-led coalition that relies on the support of rightist parties. The second explores two possible coalitions led by the Zionist Union, one aligning with other anti-Netanyahu (though not necessarily leftist) parties and one aligning with the Arab list. The third depicts a unity government wherein Likud and the Zionist Union enter into coalition with one another. Though this coalition could hypothetically be led by either party, it is more likely to occur if Herzog is asked to form a government. The core parties likely to make up each coalition are highlighted in a darker blue. The projections are based on a 2/18 Knesset Channel Poll.

Scenario A: Rightist Government

With a rightist government, Netanyahu should be able to get a core group of about 53 seats (highlighted in darker blue). As the numbers now stand, the Netanyahu-led coalition would fall just short of the 61 seats it needs should either Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) or Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) refuse to join a Netanyahu-led coalition, as each has threatened.

Scenario B: Anti-Bibi Government

The leftist parties could be joined by the Ultra-Orthodox party UTJ, or possibly by Shas. Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, is a wildcard since Lieberman has claimed both that he does not want Netanyahu back in office and that he won’t join a Zionist Union-led government.

OR

The Arab List is unlikely to join a coalition of Zionist parties but. However, this is a possibility and the 2/19 Channel 10 poll shows this coalition winning 62 seats.

Situation C: Unity Government

Herzog predicted that Likud would replace Netanyahu as chairman to form a unity government with the Zionist Union if Herzog forms a coalition.

About the author:
*Tamar Friedman is an intern at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania studying Political Science and the Modern Middle East.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

The post Israeli Elections 2015: Possible Coalitions – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Tinatin Jvania*

Georgia’s current leaders have expressed disquiet at the growing number of opposition figures taking up senior posts with the Ukrainian government.

The latest appointment came on February 16, when Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin announced that David Sakvarelidze, a lawmaker from Georgia’s opposition United National Movement party (UNM) had been hired as his deputy.

Sakvarelidze, who was Georgia’s deputy chief prosecutor general, will now lead reforms in the in the Ukrainian service, oversee human resources and work to harmonise the system with European Union mechanisms.

Sakveridze’s appointment came soon after former president Mikheil Saakashvili became a freelance advisor to Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko. Saakashvili will also head the Advisory International Council for Reforms in Ukraine.

The move infuriated the current Georgian government, who are seeking Saakashvili’s extradition on charges of abuse of office.

Ukraine’s ambassador was summoned to the Georgian foreign ministry to explain this and other appointments. Georgian prosecutors have asked their Ukrainian counterparts to comply with the extradition request.

Tbilisi is also seeking the extradition of former justice minister Zurab Adeishvili, who is now advising Kiev on anti-corruption legislation.

Ukraine has refused to comply with either request.

The Poroshenko administration, tasked with taking action on widespread corruption and mismanagement, is trying to draw on the experience of the UNM government, which lost power in a 2012 parliamentary election. Saakashvili stepped down as president the following year.

While Saakashvili was president between 2004 and 2013, law enforcement underwent sweeping reforms, action was taken to curb corruption, and the economy was deregulated.

Saakashvili’s appointment is particularly galling for Georgia’s current leaders.

“It’s very sad. I find it regrettable,” Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream coalition now running the government, told the Kviris Palitra newspaper. “It isn’t a tragedy, but there’s nothing positive about it, I won’t hide that.

“Saakashvili played a central role in the errors that were made during the tragedy that was the August 2008 war. And it is of course dangerous that this individual is now in an advisory role there.”

Other recent appointments include Georgia’s former health minister Alexander Kvitashvili, who took up a similar post in Kiev in December; former deputy interior minister Yekaterina Zguladze-Glucksmann, who became the equivalent in the Ukrainian government; and Gia Getsadze, who held various senior positions in the Saakashvili administration and is now deputy justice minister in Ukraine.

Saakashvili told the independent Russian television channel Rain this month that many more of his fellow-countrymen were now working in the fields of justice and policing in Ukraine.

“It’s up to 100 people, and many of them are working in senior official positions,” he said.

Tbilisi is also concerned about the presence of Georgian nationals fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the east of the country. There are believed to be several dozen, mostly former military or special forces personnel.

Many Georgians feel sympathetic towards Ukraine and see the ongoing conflict there as a disturbing reflection of their own situation. In August 2008, Georgia and Russia fought a brief war, after which Moscow swiftly recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as separate states.

Despite the cordial relationship with Ukraine, the governing Georgian Dream coalition has been infuriated by the hiring of so many leading UNM figures.

“I respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and I don’t intend to comment on its domestic politics,” President Giorgi Margvelashvili told reporters on February 17. “But I will also note that this situation is cause for some inconvenience.”

Commentators in Georgia say the government will need to tread a fine line between expressing reservations about the use of UNM advisors and criticising the choices made by Ukraine’s leaders.

“It is Ukraine’s sovereign right to hire whatever advisers it wants. The UNM always had close ties with Ukraine, but the principal factor is that its reforms in Georgia were generally successful and it has unique experience of reforming a post-Soviet state,” Korneli Kakachia, an associate professor in Tbilisi State University’s political science department, told IWPR. “The Ukrainian authorities are very well aware of the problems that existed under the Saakashvili government, but that’s totally unimportant to them.”

Kakachia said the fact that two former Georgian officials were wanted on criminal charges had caused some embarrassment, but pointed out that Ukraine was not the first country to refuse extradition requests from Tbilisi. France and Greece have previously taken a similar position.

“I think that in the context, it’s wrong to make harsh remarks about Ukraine, since it is a very important and strategic partner for Georgia,” Kakachia said.

Elene Khoshtaria, head of the think-tank Georgia’s Reforms Associates, said party politics should not be an issue at a pivotal historical moment at which Tbilisi needed to show “support and solidarity”.

“Right now, the entire civilised world should be focused on supporting Ukraine and helping it maintain its sovereignty. Any decision the Kiev authorities take towards this end must be supported since the situation is so dramatic. It would be wrong to prioritise domestical political interests,” she told IWPR.

“If the Ukrainian authorities need help from anyone else, that help must be given, regardless of one’s sympathies or animosities,” she continued. “I can understand the legal aspect – the criminal cases brought against these people – but one needs to remember that international view differs from the Georgian one, and it comes close to holding that these people are being persecuted for political reasons.”

Kakha Gogolashvili, a political analyst with the Centre for European Studies in Tbilisi, said the extradition issue had already been dealt with and was in any case a legal matter, not a political one.

“The government should not make a big political campaign out of this,” he said. “It would be a mistake to enter into a confrontation with the Ukrainian authorities, who are clearly giving a major role to their Georgian advisers. A confrontation over this issue could be perceived as an attempt to obstruct [Ukraine’s] effort to consolidate, pursue reforms and repel the aggression it faces.”

Kakachia believes Georgia’s current leaders are afraid that opposition figures will make a success of their time in Ukraine. That would not only strengthen their position back home, but also invite people to take a fresh look at the Saakashvili administration’s legacy.

“They [the current authorities] have this internalised fear, all the more so since the current government is not particularly reform-minded,” he added.

Gogolashvili agreed that success in Ukraine could translate into a strengthened role for the UNM at home, allowing it to capitalise on economic and social problems and Georgian Dream’s dwindling popularity.

“If the reforms in Ukraine really bring swift and effective results, they will be held up as an example, and the role played by Georgians will be emphasised,” he said. “It will strengthen the [UNM] party’s position in Georgia.”

At the same time, Gogolashvili said, “it could also have the opposite effect – if reforms in Ukraine don’t succeed, this will of course will be used by the UNM’s opponents in Georgia.”

*Tinatin Jvania is a freelance journalist in Tbilisi. This article was published at IWPR’s CRS Issue 768.

The post Georgian Government Concerned About Opposition Role In Ukraine appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By O. Bahadir Dincer*

The troops who were guarding the tomb of Süleyman Şah, a small enclave of Turkish territory within Syria, have been high on Turkey’s agenda since the breakout of the civil war in Syria. Previously, debates prevailed around whether the Syrian regime would attack the tomb or not, and what Turkey’s response to such an act would have been. These debates were held one more time within the context of ISIS’s activity in the region. In particular, it was speculated that the tomb had become a bargaining chip in the Turkish government’s negotiations with ISIS to secure the release of the 49 hostages that had been taken by the organization upon storming the Turkish consulate in Mosul last summer. Here it was allegedly hypothesized that the small patch of territory may be given to ISIS in exchange for the hostages’ safe return.

It is impossible to know whether these claims are true or not. Yet, the one thing that is evident is that the 44 Turkish soldiers guarding the tomb have not been rotated for several months (allegedly since last March) due to security concerns, even though under normal circumstances a rotation should take place once in every 2-3 months.

Additionally, Turkey’s increasingly straightforward stance against ISIS has heightened the risk that Turkey could also become a target of the organization, especially after the brutal murders of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh and the 21 Egyptian Copts. Notably, the agreement signed last week between Turkey and the U.S for training and arming the Syrian rebels in fight with ISIS is a significant step which has a real potential to increase the probability of ISIS attack against Turkey.

It is known that Turkish security forces are on alert against any attack ISIS could carry out within or without the borders of Turkey. In any case, these recent conjectures suggest that the security of the tomb had become increasingly at risk. Considering this, the operation to evacuate the soldiers guarding the tomb was launched out of military necessity. Thus, on the surface it seems that the main objective of the so-called “Operation Shah Euphrates” was to secure the tomb and the return of the Turkish soldiers stationed there. Indeed, an attack on the tomb or the materialization of another hostage crisis could weaken the Turkish government’s hand as it prepares for parliamentary elections in June. From this viewpoint, it could be argued that the operation intended to eliminate a liability that could be used against Turkey, and specifically the current Turkish government.

However, from a much broader angle, we can evaluate the operation from 3 different perspectives:

i) As a result of the erroneous/insufficient policies it had adopted – misjudging its capacity – initially in its handling of the Syrian Civil War in general and later in its handling of the ISIS crisis, it has become clear that Turkey was left with no other option but to launch the operation in the way that it did. Due to previous mistakes, Turkey has come to somehow give up on its only piece of sovereign territory outside its borders. The constrictions on Turkey’s room for maneuver matured over time and rendered an alternative approach to the Shah Süleyman dilemma impossible. In other words, path dependency led Turkey to take this action.

ii) Regardless of political considerations, the soldiers who protected the tomb for months and those who carried out the operation have successfully fulfilled their missions.

iii) It should be stated that this operation has added an utterly different dimension to issues that are already disadvantageous to Turkey, such as the Kurdish question with regard to the PKK in Turkey and PYD in Rojava. Considering reports from the region, it seems that after the original mausoleum and its contents were evacuated, the tomb’s new site is under the control of the PYD, a reality that is sure to cause severe debates in Turkey and abroad. Additionally, it also seems that the political implications of the way that the operation was carried out will be the topic of heated discussion. And obviously, Turkey’s impasse, its lack of any alternative course of action, is likely to further in Syria.

The evacuation of the at-risk soldiers could certainly facilitate the effectuation of easy and bold actions for Turkey in the fight against ISIS. Yet, I would like to stress that the possibility of ISIS attacking Turkey is already quite high. Thereby, Turkey’s execution of bolder actions in the near future and the evacuation of the soldiers are not mutually exclusive. It is known that there is a general assumption among the anti-Turkey block that Turkey has remained in touch with ISIS. Nevertheless, it is not fair to say that the Turkish state is or will be cooperating with terrorists.

Moreover, in Turkey at the moment almost all international developments of this nature can be reflected in domestic politics. The Turkish government is depicting the evacuation of the soldiers as a significant success. It seems this will be another matter of debate in Turkey before the elections. In addition to this, seeing that the operation was carried out concurrent to the heated parliamentary discussions on the controversial internal security bill, to which the opposition is vehemently opposed, the question may come to the minds of whether this operation actually sought to shift the focus, to distract. Nonetheless, considering the existing security risk, regarding this operation simply as a move whose aim was to alter the domestic agenda is not realistic. Moreover, despite the government’s best efforts, the general conviction, particularly among the nationalists, is that to give up Turkish territory is completely and utterly unacceptable.

*O. Bahadir Dincer, USAK Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

This article was first published at Alsharq Alawsat daily news paper in Arabic language on 25.02.2015

The post Operation Shah Euphrates And What It Brings To Mind – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Merve Göktaş

The multinational energy giant Chevron has begun to turn back its plans to explore for shale gas in Romania. Chevron has stated that this decision has been met as the project in Romania “does not currently compete (favorably) with other investment opportunities in [its] global portfolio”, according to CNBC news.

Last month Chevron terminated shale gas agreements in Ukraine and Lithuania, and therewith, in combination with its recent withdrawal from Romanian, the company’s European vision has been laid to rest.

With regard to the company’s disengagement from Romania, Chevron Spokesperson Kent Robertson said “Chevron intends to pursue relinquishment of its interest in these (Romanian) concessions in 2015” in an email which was sent to Reuters. In 2014, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta sought to put an end to controversies over shale gas exploration by saying that Romania in fact did not have any shale gas reserves. Nonetheless, Chevron still continued to analyze the possibility of shale gas reserves in northeastern Romania before ultimately deciding to terminate its research.

However, the US Energy Information Administration has estimated that Romania’s shale gas resources are the third largest deposit in Europe after those found estimated to lie within France and Poland. In response, the Romania government cancelled its moratorium on hydraulic fracking in March 2013 and Chevron commenced initial exploration activities in 2014 in the country despite public opposition.

On the other hand, environmentalist groups such as Greenpeace have seen Chevron’s withdrawal as a major victory. “[It is] mostly a victory of the common people, the villagers, who stood up for their villages, for their land and their children against both the careless corporates and the Romanian Government”, Greenpeace Romania Campaign Coordinator Alexandru Riza told Sputnik, going on to say, “But I am quite skeptical that there will be others willing to risk losing so much money on results that have been unconfirmed.” Here, Riza added that Greenpeace will continue its work to protect people and the environment from the multiple risks posed by hydraulic fracking.

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A man has gone on a shooting spree in rural Missouri, killing seven people before turning the gun on himself, local media report.

The rampage occurred in the rural Missouri community of Tyrone, which is located roughly 40 miles north of the Arkansas border in Texas County.

According to a statement released by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, at 10:15 p.m. on the evening of February 26, the Texas Country Sheriff’s Department received a phone call from a female juvenile indicating she was in a residence in Tyrone and had heard gunshots. When police responded to the call, they found two bodies. The girl, meanwhile, had fled to a neighboring house.

“Further investigation revealed five additional victims who were deceased and one additional victim who was deceased and one additional victim who was wounded in three additional residences. All three residences were in Tyrone,” the statement read.

An elderly female who had died of natural causes was also found at another residence. A total of nine deceased individuals, including the shooter and the elderly female, were discovered. The individual who sustained injuries in the rampage was taken to an area hospital, AP reports.

Texas County Sheriff James Sigman told the Houston Herald there are four confirmed crime scenes in Tyrone. A fifth and six location have also been identified in nearby Shannon County.

A Missouri State Highway Patrol confirmed the death of the alleged shooter to the paper. The 36-year-old assailant was reportedly found dead in a parked car in Shannon County, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Staff at schools in the area were told to arrive early to provide counseling to students.

Authorities have yet to identify the victims or the gunman.

The Missouri Highway Patrol is set to hold a news conference on Friday to provide further details.

A motive behind the killings or any potential connection between the shooter and his victims remains unclear.

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Turkey does not place a high priority on fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as Daesh) jihadists and as a result foreign fighters are able to travel through the country into Syria, US intelligence chief James Clapper said Thursday.

“Public opinion polls show in Turkey they don’t see ISIL as a primary threat,” Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.

According to the director of national intelligence, the Turkish government had “other priorities and other interests” and was more concerned with Kurdish opposition and the country’s economy.

Clapper, who wasn’t optimistic Turkey would take a more active role in the war against ISIS, said that the effect of Turkey’s approach was to allow a “permissive” climate for foreign recruits heading to Syria to take arms for the ISIS group.

“And of course, the consequence of that is a permissive environment… because of their laws and the ability of people to travel through Turkey en route to Syria,” he said.

“So somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 percent of those foreign fighters find their way to Syria through Turkey.”

According to a UN report published in November, Turkey has been singled out as a major transit point for ISIS’ oil deliveries, with trucks often returning to Iraq or Syria with refined products.

The spy chief said some other governments in the Middle East have been loath to to join the US-led coalition against ISIS because of Washington’s reluctance to directly confront the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But the “brutal savagery” of the ISIS militants, including the beheadings of hostages and the immolation of a captured Jordanian fighter pilot, “have had a galvanizing effect on opinion in the Mideast region,” he said.

There was more willingness to cooperate with the United States in the war effort, with some Arab countries now sharing intelligence with Washington, he said.

The spy chief acknowledged that the US faced intelligence “gaps” in Syria, as Washington had no embassy or any major presence on the ground.

Many critics opposed to US-led coalition involvement in the conflict with ISIS have pointed out that Washington in partnership with its Gulf and Western allies, including Turkey, played a role in the formation and expansion of extremist groups like ISIS by arming, financing and politically empowering armed opposition groups in Syria.

ISIS spearheaded a militant offensive that began in the northern city of Mosul in June and swept down to overrun much of Iraq’s north and expanded to neighboring Syria.

ISIS facing financial issues, US intelligence chief claims

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, ISIS was struggling to find the money to pay for electrical power and other services, Clapper claimed.

“They do not have enough financial wherewithal to provide the services, municipal services that are required to run a city of a million people,” he said. “We’re seeing signs of electricity outages, shortages of food and commodities.”

According to Clapper, there were signs that ISIS was resorting to conscription to fill their ranks after having suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, especially in the Syrian border town of Kobane.

He said that “at least” 3,000 ISIS fighters were killed in US-led airstrikes before the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) seized the symbolic town from ISIS on January 26 after four months of fighting.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that US-led airstrikes against ISIS had killed more than 1,600 people in Syria, including 1,465 ISIS members.

US Central Command chief General Lloyd Austin claimed that the airstrikes had killed 8,500 ISIS fighters in both Iraq and Syria, without giving specific details for each country. Death tolls are hard to verify independently in the war-stricken areas under ISIS control, as both ISIS and the coalition against it have a vested interest in emphasizing their respective successes.

Despite claims of successes by the US-led coalition, the air campaign remains the subject of debate, with critics pointing to ISIS advances and battlefield successes despite the raids.

Original article

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A government that conducts spying operations on this scale has not only lost credibility; it has lost the right to govern.

By Erwan Fouéré*

For the past few weeks, Macedonia has been rocked by revelations of massive wiretapping of its citizens, over a period spanning several years. The surveillance operation covered over 20,000 people – including ministers, judges, business people, journalists and even foreign diplomats – in a country of only 2 million. The fact that the government seemed to be spying on its own ministers speaks volumes about the nature of the regime.

The wiretapped conversations, in voices that are clearly identifiable, provide vivid examples of alleged corruption in every sector and level of government.

The Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, has tried to lay blame for the wiretapping on foreign intelligence services – which he has refused to identify – and has accused the opposition leader, Zoran Zaev, of plotting a coup. Zaev is charged with espionage and has had his passport removed.

This is not the first time that the government has invoked espionage as a convenient excuse for locking up those it considers undesirable. It begs the question why the Prime Minister is obsessed with foreign intelligence services, as if spies were lurking at every street corner in Macedonia, when all he can offer of any, admittedly dubious, strategic value are oversized statues of Alexander The Great.

It does not require much imagination to point to the Prime Minister together with the chief of the state security, Saso Mijalkov, as the likely masterminds of this vast exercise in wiretapping.

A sinister figure, who is also the Prime Minister’s cousin, Mijalkov is always seen shadowing the Prime Minister and wields powers beyond any judicial control or parliamentary oversight. He is seen as the alter ego of the Prime Minister and as the power behind the ruling Internal Revolutionary Organisation – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, VMRO-DPMNE, which Gruevski leads.

This is a government which, over the nine years that it has been in power, has strengthened its repressive grip over the country. Its ethno-nationalist and populist brand of politics, a throwback to the era of Slobodan Milosevic, has resulted in the re-emergence of deep tensions in a country that already witnessed a bloody ethnic conflict in 2001.

After peace was restored following the Ohrid Framework Agreement, brokered in August 2001, reforms were pursued in the succeeding years in line with the objective of joining the EU. The international community hailed Macedonia as a success story in terms of multi-ethnic cooperation in the Balkan region, so much so that the EU granted it candidate status in 2005.

All of that changed with the election in 2006 of the current Prime Minister and his VMRO-DPMNE party. Since then, Macedonia has lurched from one crisis to another, with periodic flare-ups of inter-ethnic violence and growing polarization in society.

The early parliamentary elections of June 2008 saw outbreaks of violence with one fatality and many injuries. In December 2012, violence erupted in parliament itself, with the forcible eviction from the chamber of all the opposition MPs together with journalists present. Following the last parliamentary elections of 2014, which were marred by intimidation and other serious irregularities, which the OSCE election observation report highlighted, the opposition decided to boycott parliament, a boycott that continues to this day.

The Prime Minister has failed to resolve the ongoing parliamentary crisis and restore some semblance of political dialogue. On the contrary, he has pursued a ruthless campaign against all those who openly criticize him, with many languishing in prison, often on fabricated charges, as revealed in the wiretapped transcripts.

The ruling party does not tolerate any minority or dissenting views, and uses fear and intimidation to exercise its repressive authority over society. It has the worst media freedom record in the Balkan region; the latest Reporters Without Borders index ranks it in 123rd place, just above Angola, a drop of almost 90 places from 2009, when it was ranked 34th.

Civil society organisations that speak out in defense of human rights and greater tolerance in society have also been the target of vitriolic government attacks. As if that was not enough, incidences of hate speech, incitement to violence and homophobic sentiments are a common feature of the popular TV talk shows that are periodically graced with the presence of the Prime Minister and even the President.

The government, meanwhile, tries to burnish its business-friendly image with glitzy advertisements on CNN and vaunts its high rating on the World Bank Doing Business Index. Under this veneer of normality, however, lies a corrupt system of public tendering for contracts.

This latest scandal shows the deep-seated corrupt and evil nature of the regime. Regardless of who is behind the wiretapping, the transcripts provide ample evidence of a ruling party that deliberately ignores the institutional process and separation of powers, operates by its own rules and violates all basic standards of democracy and even of decency.

The coarse and even profane language used by party officials in some of the released taped conversations would not be out of place in a Banana Republic.

A government that conducts a spying operation on such an industrial scale on its own people and even on members of its own party has lost all credibility and indeed any legitimacy to remain as a government.

That one man and his party can turn a success story into such a nightmare underlines the fragility of Macedonia as a functioning state.

It is high time the international community, in particular the EU, paid more attention to what is happening. Merely calling for institutions to function as we expect them to is not enough, when faced with such a regime.

It should offer support to those citizens who are courageous enough to continue the fight for dignity and basic human rights, despite extensive harassment, intimidation and even imprisonment. They are the only hope for preserving the soul of Macedonia from further erosion by a discredited regime, which has put its own narrow party interests ahead of the interests of the country and its citizens.

*Erwan Fouéré is Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, and was the EU Special Representative in Macedonia from 2005 to 2011.

The post Gruevski Has Made A Nightmare Out Of Macedonia – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Republican-dominated Congress, with the help of a cadre of sell-out conservative Democrats in both chambers, are gearing up to attack Social Security again, under the guise of “saving” the program.

The attack will be brutal, because the program’s assassins understand that this is probably their last chance to undermine Social Security. With the Baby Boom generation born after 1946 now seriously starting to file for retirement benefits, it will soon become such a mainstay for so many people that it will be impregnable, unless already undermined.

A person born in 1946 could have retired at age 62 as early as 2008, and next year could retire at 70 and receive maximum benefits. There are already seven years’ worth of Baby Boomers who are at least eligible to start collecting benefits. By the time the last Baby Boomer born in 1964 is eligible to retire in 2026, the “senior lobby” of Social Security-eligible voters will be more double what it is today, and more importantly, will represent a 50% larger as a proportion of the voting population than in today’s population. Social Security’s enemies in Congress and in the business world know that as powerful as the elderly vote is today it will be 50% more powerful in years to come. And don’t forget, it’s not just retirees who ardently support Social Security. It’s people in their 50s and early 60s, who are looking ahead at the program as their salvation in retirement.

Polls show that even among the young, there is strong and abiding support for this flawed but critical program founded in 1936, which today provides 100% of income for one-seventh of all America’s elderly, and 90% or more of income for one-third of the elderly. Another one-third depend upon those benefits for more than half their income. Most of the rest too depend on their Social Security benefits for basic expenses like food and rent. It’s the rare American who just uses their benefit checks for vacations, luxury purchases or investment purposes.

But for all that Americans remain incredibly ignorant about the program, and are losing out on many of its benefits because of that ignorance. If this information were more readily available and understandable, it would be far harder for the program’s enemies to successfully attack it.

The post If We’re Going to Defend Social Security We Need To Understand It – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A friend’s five year old daughter recently asked him to ‘turn off the radio news’ because its ‘always so miserable’ – is anyone else sick and tired of reading and hearing continuously disturbing, depressing news items? I know I am. The corporate worldwide media peddles a relentlessly bleak vision of life and world affairs, and acting in partnership with governments of all shades, seems determined to keep us all in a condition of perpetual anxiety and insecurity. However, there is much to cheer and feel positive about in this beautiful world of ours; allow me to share one of the more extraordinary, albeit controversial stories that the mainstream media largely ignores. It is a message of hope, and if true there may just be the chance, that “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” As the 13th century Christian mystic Dame Julian of Norwich famously said.

Over the past thirty years or so British artist and writer Benjamin Crème travelled the globe telling anyone who would listen that Maitreya, the World Teacher, the ‘Coming One’ for this time, is in the world and is gradually, patiently emerging into public view. Crème’s work “has been to make the initial approach to the public, to help create a climate of hope and expectancy. And to this end he has given hundreds of media interviews, constantly lectured and written an impressive array of books, as well as editing Share International Magazine since its inception.

The idea of a teacher coming forth to share his wisdom and vision of life with humanity at times of crisis and upheaval is of course not new. In the Bhagavad Gita (Book iv, sutra 7 & 8) – the cornerstone of Hinduism – Krishna tells His disciple Arjuna, that “whenever there is a withering of the law and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides, then I manifest myself. For the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of such as do evil, for the firm establishing of the Law, I come to birth age after age.” Looking around this world of ours there would certainly appear to be an “uprising of lawlessness on all sides,” and the implementation of man-made laws, (never mind the adherence to Laws from a ‘higher source’), is definitely withering!

Krishna is One great teacher amongst many who have graced us with their presence over the centuries: Mohammad, Christ, the Buddha, Sankaracharya, Vyasa, Mithra, Rama are some of the other major historical figures. They have shared their knowledge and given out the teachings that inspire and guide millions of people around the world.

The Time is Right

The appearance of a divine teacher in our IT, scientifically-oriented world sounds fantastical to many who will no doubt dismiss even the possibility; but it is a promise held close by all the world’s religions and hoped for by millions of believers. Christians of course look for the second coming of Christ, Buddhists are expecting a new Buddha, called Maitreya Buddha, Hindus await the return of Krishna, Muslims, the Imam Mardi and Jews are still hoping for the Messiah. Esoteric literature makes clear, and many believe, that these are but different names for one and the same individual: the World Teacher, whose personal name is Maitreya. He was foretold to come at this time by the previous Buddha, Gautama Buddha, who is reported to have said (2,600 years ago) that, “at the beginning of this cycle there would come into the world another great teacher, a Buddha like himself, by name Maitreya”…. who “would inspire humanity to create a brilliant golden civilization based, as he put it, on Righteousness and Truth.” Two qualities that most would agree are sorely missing in this world, particularly in the world of politics and economics – imagine corporations, bankers and politicians speaking the truth and acting with righteousness!

Maitreya, Crème explains, is the head of a large group of perfected, ‘Self-Realised’ individuals, an idea found in a range of esoteric texts. They are collectively known under various names: the Great White Brotherhood, the Society of Illumined Minds, the Elder Brothers of Humanity, the Teachers, the Guides, the Mahatmas, the Masters of Wisdom and the Lords of Compassion. It is from this group of spiritual giants (who we are told, have lived for millennia in the mountains and deserts of the world) according to various sources that the teacher has cyclically emerged down the ages. We are living at the beginning of a new cosmic cycle or age: the ‘Age of Aquarius’. It is at just such an auspicious time that a guide would be expected to come forth, and is indeed hoped for by millions of people – religiously inclined and not.

Crème points to a wide range of signs, which he says Maitreya and His group is responsible for, to substantiate his claim. From the worldwide appearance of multi-coloured moving ‘stars’; to mysterious patterns of light, which for decades have adorned seemingly random buildings in Europe and America; hundreds of weeping statues of deities (mainly Jesus and the Madonna); the extraordinary Hindu ‘Milk Miracle’, which has occurred three times since 1995; the flowing of ‘healing water’ in Tlacote Mexico (since May 1991) and elsewhere – and many more baffling phenomena.

As well as these unexplained ‘miracles’ invoked as signs of Maitreya’s presence, there is a raft of more down -to-earth events, which suggest we are living in unprecedented times of change – much needed, with the inevitable uncertainty.

In amongst the outward turmoil there is evidence of a shift in thinking, small and subtle, but potent and real, taking place amongst large numbers; sharing, social responsibility and ideas of collective action, cooperation and unity are its hallmark. The worldwide protest movement, that has seen huge numbers take to the streets demanding freedom, justice, an end to government corruption and ideological interventions, bears witness to such a change. Against this progressive development religious extremism has swept across the Middle East and large parts of Africa, and the neo-conservative reactionary forces throughout the world close ranks, resist change and seek to do all they can to maintain the divisive unjust status quo.

Perhaps there is a connection between Maitreya’s promised emergence and these various global happenings.

The story is an extraordinary message of hope – something which is in very short supply. At the very least it demands our attention and open-minded enquiry; if true and it is somehow compelling, it will be seen to be of unprecedented importance.

The post Hope And Wonder Amidst The Misery – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

There is a significant risk to your privacy whenever you visit a health-related web page. An analysis of over 80,000 such web pages shows that nine out of ten visits result in personal health information being leaked to third parties, including online advertisers and data brokers.

This puts users are risk for two significant reasons: first, people’s health interests may be publicly identified along with their names. This could happen because criminals get ahold of the information, it is accidentally leaked, or data brokers collect and sell the information. Second, many online marketers use algorithmic tools which automatically cluster people into groups with names like “target” and “waste”. Predictably, those in the “target” category are extended favorable discounts at retailers and advance notice of sales. Given that 62 percent of bankruptcies are the result of medical expenses, it is possible anyone visiting medical websites may be grouped into the “waste” category and denied favorable offers.

For individuals, this means profiles are built based on web page visits, potentially resulting in someone being labeled a commercial risk due to the fact that they have used a site like WebMD.com or CDC.gov to look up health information for themselves, a family member, or a friend. Given that data brokers are free to sell any information they collect regarding visits to health websites, those visiting such sites are potentially at risk of being discriminated against by potential employers, retailers, or anybody else with the money to buy the data.

These findings are reported in the article “Privacy Implications of Health Information Seeking on the Web,” appearing in the March 2015 issue of Communication of the ACM.

Timothy Libert, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication wrote the article. He authored a software tool that investigates Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests initiated to third party advertisers and data brokers. He found that 91 percent of health-related web pages initiate HTTP requests to third-parties. Seventy percent of these requests include information about specific symptoms, treatment, or diseases (AIDS, Cancer, etc.). The vast majority of these requests go to a handful of online advertisers: Google collects user information from 78 percent of pages, comScore 38 percent, and Facebook 31 percent. Two data brokers, Experian and Acxiom, were also found on thousands of pages.

“Google offers a number of services which collect detailed personal information such as a user’s persona email (Gmail), work email (Apps for Business), and physical location (Google Maps),” Libert writes. “For those who use Google’s social media offering, Google+, a real name is forcefully encouraged. By combining the many types of information held by Google services, it would be fairly trivial for the company to match real identities to “anonymous” web browsing data.” Indeed, in 2014, the The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found Google to be violating privacy Canadian laws.

“Advertisers promise their methods are wholly anonymous and therefore benign,” Libert writes. “Yet identification is now always required for discriminatory behavior to occur.” He cites a 2013 study where individuals’ names were associated with web searches of a criminal record, simply based on whether someone had a “black name.”

“Personal health information – historically protected by the Hippocratic Oath – has suddenly become the property of private corporations who may sell it to the highest bidder or accidentally misuse it to discriminate against the ill,” Libert said. “As health information seeking has moved online, the privacy of a doctor’s office has been traded in for the silent intrusion of behavioral tracking.”

Online privacy has for some time been a concern. Studies conducted by Annenberg dating back to 1999 indicate wariness among Americans about how their personal information may be used. And slightly more than one in every three Americans even knows that private third-parties can track their visits to health-related websites.

Libert points out that the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) is not meant to police business practices by third party commercial entities or data brokers. The field of regulation is widely nonexistent in the U.S., meaning that individuals looking up health information online are left exposed and vulnerable.

According to Libert, “Proving privacy harms is always a difficult task. However, this study demonstrates that data on online health information seeking is being collected by entities not subject to regulation oversight. This information can be inadvertently misused, sold, or even stolen. Clearly there is a need for discussion with respect to legislation, policies, and oversight to address health privacy in the age of the internet”.

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By Vinay Kaushal

The defence expenditure of a country is determined by many factors, both objective and subjective. These include:

• The strategic environment and threat perception at a particular time. This may lead to the problem of short-term focus on defence and crisis management when things go wrong.
• The view of the government regarding its responsibilities towards the social, developmental and protective functions of the state and the relative priorities accorded to these functions.
• The perceived opportunity cost of defence spending. The more the social and

developmental demands on the government, the higher the opportunity cost of defence becomes. But this is balanced by the ‘opportunity cost of not spending on defence’, which implies a determination and acceptance of the associated risk.

• The extent to which a government wishes to employ its defence forces to support diplomatic initiatives (for example, peace support operations) and as instruments for disaster relief and the provision of essential services.
• Defence spending spin-offs. Where positive spin-offs for the economic, technological and social development of the country can be obtained, defence spending will receive stronger national support. It is therefore to the advantage of defence strategists and planners to seek positive ways and means to enhance spin-offs on defence spending. In this regard, the ‘Make in India’ policy initiative is a cause that all stakeholders must wholeheartedly contribute to.

Defence Budgets do not have the inherent flexibility necessary to absorb annual fluctuations. They need a steady long-term direction. Whether it is the most valuable asset, ‘Manpower’ and its induction and training, or the acquisition of platforms and their life cycle costs and infrastructure, a long-term view is needed. Regardless of the need, the defence budget will always be limited by the available national income. This simply implies that defence policy and strategy must be aligned with the dictates of economic feasibility. What is feasible in financial terms is articulated in India in the five yearly reports of the Finance commission (the report of the 13th Finance commission was submitted in 2009 and the 14th finance commission this month) as well as in the erstwhile Planning Commission’s Five Year Plans.

The defence establishment in India including both the services and the civil component have unfortunately neither invested time in interaction with these bodies (Ministry of Defence interactions with the 13th & 14th Finance Commissions were for  one day each – 27 March 2009 and 16 April 2014) nor taken their recommendations seriously. It has always lived in the hope that it will get what it needs.

Indications of Financial Feasibility

13th Finance Commission

• Recognised that modernisation of the defence forces is a high priority.
• Recognised the need to provide for some real growth in defence revenue expenditure, to allow for adequate depreciation and maintenance.
• Noted that the Ministry of Finance had projected a growth rate of seven per cent per annum for defence revenue expenditure and 10 per cent per annum for capital expenditure.
• The resultant projection for the overall annual growth rate of defence expenditure was 8.33 per cent.
• It was of the view that there exists considerable scope to improve the quality and efficiency of defence expenditure through increased private sector engagement, import substitution and indigenisation as well as improvements in procedures and practices and better project management within the parameters of Government of India’s policy. Efforts in this direction will further expand the fiscal space available for defence spending.

12th Plan (2012-2017) Approach Paper

• Defence expenditure is projected to fall from 1.83 per cent of GDP in the base year (2012) to 1.56 per cent of GDP in the final year (2017). This is based on defence revenue and defence capital expenditure increasing annually, in nominal terms, by about 7.5 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. Since defence expenditure is already very low as a percentage of GDP, this projection may actually be conservative.

14th Finance Commission

• Defence expenditure as a percentage of total expenditure is estimated to come down by about one point from 13.8 per cent in 2009-10 to 12.8 per cent in 2014-15 (Budget Estimates).
• Defence expenditure is important and hence resource allocation would have to be done carefully by analysing the competing demands on resources from all sectors, within the overall resource envelope available to the Union Government. Much of the demand on resources from the Ministry of Defence has been in the nature of capital expenditure, which is beyond the scope of the Commission’s assessment. Recognising that revenue expenditure is critical for defence preparedness and maintenance, the Commission kept the defence revenue expenditure-GDP ratio constant during the projection period, instead of allowing growth to decelerate (see graph below), as was the case in the past. In other words, the rate of defence revenue expenditure has been allowed to increase at the same rate as that of the GDP, which is substantially higher than the past growth of defence revenue expenditure.

Union Budget 2014-2015

• The Medium Term Fiscal Policy Statement presented along with the Union Budget on 10 July 2014 states at para 38 that the total defence expenditure as a ratio of GDP is projected to remain at 1.7 per cent in FY 2015-16 and 2016-17 and that Defence services Revenue expenditure is projected to grow at 7.2 per cent.

Trend in Defence Expenditure since 2000

Defence expenditure (both Revenue & Capital) forms a part of the Non-Plan expenditure. While in 2000-01 it used be about 20.5 per cent (Revenue 15.33 & Capital 5.1) of the Non plan expenditure, it has come down to about 18.5 per cent (Revenue 11.18 & Capital 7.45). This is indicated in the graph below.

Source: Union Budget –Annexure III

Defence Budget 2015-16

Going by news reports, like in the previous financial years, in 2014-15 as well, a large amount of the Defence Capital Budget was withdrawn at the Revised Estimates stage and some of this amount was allocated to the Revenue budget to meet shortfall. The defence budget allocation since 2012-13 has been on the lines of the 12th Plan approach paper of the erstwhile Planning Commission. The consistency in the approaches of the 13th Finance Commission, 12th Plan approach paper, Medium Term Fiscal Policy Statement, and the 14th Finance Commission make it easy to reasonably estimate the Defence Budget for 2015-16. Based on the above, the defence budget both for 2015-16 and 2016-17 are estimated in the table below.

Militaries in general and more so in India where there is no serious discussion when law makers take up the Defence Budget for discussion think of civilians as ignorant of security matters. The reverse is also true: defence planners continue to make plans without regard to the availability of resources. This is likely to be proven when the actual budget is presented tomorrow. It is a fairly simple exercise to estimate what the defence budget will be given available indicators. My assessment is that the Budget Estimate for defence is likely to be around Rs. 250,000 crore, with 105,000 crore for Capital Expenditure and 145,000 Crore for Revenue Expenditure.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/DefenceBudget2015%20-16_vkaushal_270215.html

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By Hormoz Baradaran*

These days, the western winds are not bringing good news to Tel Aviv. The old friends in the West are gradually increasing their distance from Israel as if they are trying to evade an Ebola patient. The political culture and overall orientation of the public opinion in Europe and the United States is gradually changing and there is small, if any, tendency to continue their costly support for Israelis. Israel, on the other hand, has had no choice, but to leave the West and turn toward the East; toward New Delhi, Beijing and Tokyo.

Hundreds of British artists recently vowed to put a cultural embargo on Israel. Even the Jewish community in the UK clearly announced that it does not recognize any red lines from now on and will openly take Israel to task. Thousands of kilometers away, one of the most creditable universities of the United States, that is, the Stanford, decided to withdraw its investment in those companies that are accomplice to Israel’s occupationism. The United States did not miss even a single moment to support Israel in the 1940s. Now, a new opinion poll conducted by the CNN news network has shown that three-fourths of the American people are urging the White House to remain impartial in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The American officials are now at loggerheads with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, due to his harsh rhetoric and radical approach against a nuclear agreement with Iran. Netanyahu is supposed to be in Washington a few days from now to address the US Congress without permission or consent of the US administration. In that address, he is expected to take a direct aim at Iran’s nuclear program. However, Europeans have their own reasons to be indignant with Netanyahu. The Western public opinion is now really fed-up with the continued occupationism of Israel and continuation of its illegal settlements’ construction in the West Bank. The parliaments in a number of European countries have already reached the conclusion that Israel is not honest in peace talks with Palestinians and, therefore, they have chosen to recognize the independence of the Palestinian state.

A few weeks ago, 63 members of the European Parliament went further and asked for the abrogation of a partnership agreement with Israel. That agreement allows Tel Aviv to have unlimited access to Europe’s financial resources and embark on unlimited trade exchanges with all companies on the Green Continent. Now that more European countries are considering bans against Israel, it is possible for the US President Barack Obama’s administration not to be willing to use its veto right in support of Israel anymore.

For Israel, economic and cultural sanctions from Europe are much more painful and scary than the US president not using his veto power in favor of Tel Aviv. The politicians in Israel can wait until Obama leaves the White House and good old days of warm relations with Americans are back. However, they are scared of economic wrath of Europe and its aftermath. Israel’s economy is so fragile, especially in the housing sector.

During past years, inability of the Israeli government for coping with the housing crisis has time and again elicited angry reactions from Israelis and has made them pour into the streets in multitudes. So, in order to reduce possible losses resulting from the sanctions imposed by Europe, as Israel’s biggest trade partner, the officials in Tel Aviv have been looking to eastern markets in China, India and Japan. Last year, the volume of trade exchanges between Israel and these Asian giants surpassed Tel Aviv’s trade with Washington for the first time in its history. India is now one of the biggest buyers of Israeli arms.

Following Russia, Israel is also the second largest provider of military technology to China. Israel aims to keep India and China dependent on its military industry so that in addition to switching its market stakes from Europe to the East, it would be able to reckon on Beijing’s veto when negotiating with Palestinians. However, China’s veto will not come very easy and inexpressive. China also needs markets in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states as well as other countries that form an opposite front to Israel. Therefore, Beijing will have to create a kind of balance among all its trade partners.

On the other hand, China is expected to emerge as a new superpower in the 21st century. However, it has not sent any powerful signal yet to show that Beijing is willing to be a major player in international political game. In fact, the area of interest for the Chinese statesmen is economy, not politics. On the other hand, India and Japan lack needed means to influence the Middle Eastern countries, nor have they adequate political clout to appear as determining powers in the political arena of the Middle East.

Israel owes everything it has to Europeans that created it in the early years of the 20th century. Israel even owes its nuclear arsenal to France and the UK, which helped it to secretly acquire nuclear weapons as reward for Israel’s attack on Egypt in 1956. Of course, these special relations are still there, but the viewpoints of the European founders of Israel are clearly changing and the future generation of the European politicians will make more use of cultural, economic and political tools at their disposal to rein in the regime that they once created with their own hands.

* Hormoz Baradaran
‎Deputy International Editor at “Iran Newspaper”

Source: Iran Newspaper
http://iran-newspaper.com/
Translated By: Iran Review.Org

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The so-called Islamic State’s radical interpretation of Islam enjoys little support among leading Sunni and Salafist preachers, observe Erwin van Veen and Iba Abdo. At the same time, you shouldn’t expect these religious leaders to help stem the tide of disaffected Muslims making their way to IS strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

By Erwin van Veen and Iba Abdo*

The Islamic State (IS) has spent the past few months making its interpretation of the Islamic faith as clear to the world as possible. Through its proclamations, actions and professional media campaigns, the group has drawn stark boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in which adherence to its version of Islam is the overriding criterion for ‘citizenship’ in its Caliphate. The most recent spate of graphic videos shows that the price for being on the wrong side of this divide is death and destruction.

Accordingly, the IS attempts to position itself as the only legitimate source and authority of a radical and conservative interpretation of Islam that rests on four key components: 1) the elevation of the Quran, the Prophet and the four ‘rightly guided’ caliphs as the only sources of religious guidance; 2) a literal understanding of their sayings and actions; 3) the enforcement of these strictures without mercy; and 4) imposing them on others, with violence if necessary.

As a result, the IS’s long-term success and sustainability would seem to rest in part on the credibility of its interpretation of Islam, the extent to which it resonates with Sunni adherents to the faith and their acceptance of its claim of religious authority. This begs a couple of questions: to what extent does the Islamic State’s interpretation of Islam tie in with those of pre-eminent Sunni religious leaders and Salafist preachers? Indeed, what does making such comparisons tell us about the religious credibility of IS’ senior figures?

The Saudi Line

A number of public statements made between March 2012 and October 2014 suggest that the Grand-Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdelaziz Ben Abdallah al-Sheikh, did not directly condemn the actions of the Islamic State, but focused instead on calling on youth to refrain from joining jihadist groups in general. This only began to change in August 2014 after he branded extremists as ‘ evil persons and factions’ and the IS as ´ enemy number one of Islam ´. Both instances occurred well after IS’s occupation of Mosul in June 2014. His slowness of response earned a public reprimand by the then King of Saudi Arabia, in which he described the country’s sheikhs and muftis as ‘lazy and silent’ in their condemnation of radical Islamist groups. However,  the Grand Mufti’s public statements until August 2014 did not seek to substantively dispute or delegitimize the main religious tenets of the IS specifically.

Indeed, the chronology of the Grand-Mufti’s statements must be interpreted in the context of the historical religious-political alliance between Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) and Muhammad bin Saud on which rule in Saudi Arabia is grounded. If the Grand-Mufti is considered as the present-day representative of the Wahhabi side of this alliance, he can alternatively be seen as a religious extension of royal power, a very senior civil servant on the government payroll, or a long-time ally of the Saudi royal family. This helps to reinforce an apparent double bind that echoes through the Grand-Mufti public remarks concerning the IS.

The issue here is that a number of Saudi scholars and writers, such as Adel al-Kalbani (former imam of the King Khaled mosque in Riyadh), Abdallah al-Maliki and Mansour al-Hajla have pointed to the similarities that exist between the ideological foundations of the IS and Wahhabi versions of Islam. And because the legitimacy of the Saudi state derives in part from its Wahhabi alliance, this fuels perceptions that decades of Saudi sponsorship of Wahhabism has contributed to the rise of the IS. It also helps to explain why the Grand-Mufti avoided direct references to the organization until it became no longer tenable (i.e. after Saudi Arabia joined the anti-IS coalition) and why he has made little effort to discuss the substance of its interpretation of Islam: doing so risks highlighting uncomfortable commonalities. Consequently, the Grand-Mufti’s statements largely represent a negative branding and procedural rejection of IS’ religious credentials without much by way of supporting arguments.

The View from Egypt

In contrast with his Saudi counterpart, the Grand-Mufti of Egypt, Shawki Ibrahim Allam, made much more of an effort to delegitimize the religious tenets of the IS between June 2014 and November 2014 – when Egypt’s domestic power struggle had come to an end. For example, he denounced the demolition of the Yunus shrine at Mosul by referring to the tolerance that the Prophet preached throughout his life. The Grand-Mufti has also disputed the legal basis that the IS provided for making Christians pay ‘protection money’. More importantly, he has emphasized on at least two occasions that he has created an observatory at the Dar al-Itfaa educational institute that monitors and responds to extremist Islamic rulings (‘fatwas’) on the basis of religious jurisprudence and accepted methods of interpretation (see for example its substantive rejection of IS’s interpretation of Islam here).

However, what unites both Grand-Muftis is that their respective criticisms of IS’ religious credentials are unlikely to enjoy much impact beyond Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That’s because the IS can easily portray both of them to the wider Muslim community as extensions of corrupt tribal royalty or military dictatorship. The Saudi Grand-Mufti is appointed by the Saudi King by royal decree, while his Egyptian counterpart is elected by the Council of Senior Scholars of Al-Azhar, an organization that was established in 2012 by the Egyptian council of ministers. These arrangements provide the IS with good opportunities to push believers towards more radical and less regulated religious institutions – much like its own.

Beyond traditional authority

What is more surprising perhaps, is that many influential Salafist preachers share the Grand-Muftis’ opinion that the IS’s religious interpretation of Islam leaves a lot to be desired. This has been accompanied by a general condemnation of the brutality of the organization’s (now well-documented) methods. This includes the heavy-handedness that the IS applies to Muslim communities under its jurisdiction, its killing of innocent people (including Muslims) and loose application of takfir (excommunication on the pain of death), which are all regarded as overly radical (‘ghulaat’) and un-Islamic. In response, some of these preachers, including the Egyptian Mohammed Hassan and the Syrian Adnaan al-Arour, have been threatened or attacked by IS militants.

Unlike the Grand-Muftis, the Salafist preachers often have millions of followers on Twitter and other social media websites. This suggests that their condemnation of the IS is more likely to resonate with Muslims than any proclamation coming out of Saudi Arabia or Egypt. Yet, while many of these preachers are vocal in their condemnation of the IS, they are nevertheless also largely in favor of jihad – albeit tempered by religious discipline. Preachers like Kuwait’s Shafi al-Ajami and Saudi Arabia’s Mohsen al-Awaji initially seemed to cautiously promote the war in Syria, but later changed their stance because of IS’s practices, its political abuse of jihad and the alleged involvement of foreign intelligence services. There are also preachers, including Shafi al-Ajami and Yiad Qenaiby, that are clear supporters of Al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Finally, many of these Salafist preachers – most prominently the Jordanian Abu Mohammed al-Makdisi – have at times voiced strong opposition to the international alliance against IS. Al-Makdisi, for example, has gone as far as describing it a ‘crusader’s campaign’ – irrespective of his anti-IS stance.

Yet, despite its  best efforts, the IS has consistently failed to gain either the endorsement or the practical support of these and more traditional leading figures in the Sunni religious establishment. That is potentially problematic for a movement that is lacking in religious credibility. From what is known about IS’ most senior religious figureheads, such as Othman al-Razih, Abu Usama al-Kahtani, Husam Naji Shnein and Turki Bin Ali, it is likely that some hold relevant degrees on matters such as Islamic jurisprudence. Beyond this, however, there is very little evidence to suggest that any of them have occupied significant positions of religious authority. In addition, the few available accounts of hostages that have survived IS captivity suggest the religious veneer of the IS is thin and rests to an appreciable extent on political or self-interpretation of Islam.

It is evident that a ‘battle for interpretation’ of Sunni Islam is in full swing and that clear front lines exist between the traditional Sunni religious establishment, radical Islamist groups and influential Salafist preachers. It’s also clear that the IS’s interpretation of Islam enjoys little support amongst many Salafist preachers and traditional Sunni religious leaders. But the fact that many Sunni youths are still joining the ranks of the IS reinforces the notion that their views do not necessarily discourage them. This is in part because the poor socio-economic prospects that many in the Middle East continue to face – as consistently flagged by a series of Arab Development Reports – must also be taken into account. The same could be said of feelings of marginalization, identity struggles and the challenging economic conditions for a number of Muslims in those Western countries that are home to sizeable communities. Such factors make it unlikely that the West will be able to capitalize upon the broad rejection of the IS’ religious ‘ideology’ by leading Sunni figures.

*About the authors:
Erwin van Veen is a Senior Research Fellow at Clingendael’s Conflict Research Unit. He specializes in the politics and change dynamics of security and justice provision, with a particular interest in the Middle East.

Iba Abdo is a Project Assistant at Clingendael’s Conflict Research Unit with a focus on the Middle East.

The post Do-It-Yourself Islam? Views On Religious Credibility Of Islamic State – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Chris Miller*

The news about Russia’s economy keeps getting worse. The IMF predicts that the country’s GDP will shrink by 3 percent in 2015. Other forecasters fear the recession will be even worse. Meanwhile, Russia’s central bank has admitted that inflation might hit 15 percent this year. Unemployment is rising, too. The Kremlin has already spent $100 billion—roughly a fifth of its reserves—fighting the crisis. Now, Moscow is seeking to apportion the costs of the recession, determining who will pay via higher taxes or lower benefits. In the face of the ruble’s collapse, business groups are demanding bailouts and appear to be succeeding. The Kremlin is adopting a strategy of austerity, including swinging budget cuts and perhaps pension cuts, too. Given that Putin’s rule has been predicated on steadily rising living standards, the Russian government’s response to the crisis risks undermining the foundations of its own legitimacy.

Causes and Consequences of Russia’s Recession

Oil prices fell by 50 percent over the second half of 2014, and though they have recovered slightly in recent weeks—hitting $60 per barrel—reduced energy export revenue is the main source of drag on Russia’s economy. Indeed, the problem is not only oil: the price at which Russia sells gas to Europe, which is contractually linked to oil prices, will fall by a third in 2015.

If low energy prices were the only blow to Russia’s economy, it would be painful but not a knock-out punch. Yet the economic effect of falling export revenue is compounded by the Kremlin’s expansive—and expensive—foreign policy. The deployment of Russia soldiers to Ukraine is itself a costly undertaking, yet the Western sanctions that war provoked have proven more debilitating still. Many big Russian companies, from state-owned oil giant Rosneft to banks such as VTB, face restrictions on raising capital in US and European markets. Most of Russia’s biggest firms had come to depend on Western investors for funding, and many have billions of dollars in debt that they are now struggling to refinance.

The combination of these factors will throw Russia into a painful recession in 2015 and perhaps beyond. The Kremlin’s response thus far has been to redistribute the burden of the recession without addressing its fundamental causes. The country’s dependence on energy exports cannot be eliminated overnight, of course, but Putin has decided to suffer through Western sanctions rather than withdraw troops from Ukraine.

To preserve his freedom of action in the short term, Putin has taken steps to shore up the government budget by letting the ruble fall sharply against the dollar. That has shifted costs on to corporations with foreign currency debts and on to consumers, all of whom import goods that now cost far more in ruble terms. Yet the depreciation of the ruble was just the opening move in a long-term chess game that will apportion the costs of the recession. Someone will ultimately need to pay the bill that is coming due. The Russian government has some capacity to borrow funds from international markets given its low debt levels, but the combination of war and low oil prices has left foreign investors skittish. S&P, a ratings agency, recently downgraded Russia to junk status. Unless oil prices rapidly recover, spending will need to be cut, either by the government, businesses, or the population. Powerbrokers in Moscow are currently jockeying over budgets and bailouts, as each group seeks to force others to bear the brunt of Russia’s recession.

Addressing the Cost of Sanctions

The easiest way of dealing with the recession would be to remove some of the factors that are causing Russia’s economy to contract—above all, the Western financial sanctions. Sanctions have not only cut off many of Russia’s biggest firms from Western financial markets, the threat of further sanctions has forced the government and many companies to seek alternate suppliers to hedge against the risk that sanctions are deepened. Kommersant, a leading newspaper, has reported that Russia’s government is considering bans on importing many types of machinery, in part as a sop to domestic industries, but in part to prepare for an expansion of sanctions. Individual firms have been forced to take action on their own, too. Gazprom, for example, is looking to find new suppliers for $2.5 billion of its annual investment spending, replacing Western industrial groups such as Siemens and Caterpillar with partners from Belarus, Israel, India, and other countries that will not participate in potential future sanctions. Such a move may protect Gazprom from sanctions, but it will also raise the firm’s costs—a further result of the war on Ukraine.

Despite the recent ceasefire deal in Minsk, the Kremlin looks unlikely to offer the type of concessions that would lead Germany or the US to consider lifting sanctions. This has not stopped Moscow from searching for ways to make its Ukraine policy less costly. One of the least noticed stipulations of the Minsk agreement was the call for “a full restoration of social and economic connections, including social transfers, such as payments of pensions and other payments” between the Donbass and the rest of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s government had previously taken steps to cut the occupied territories off from the Ukrainian financial system and economy. Kyiv prohibited the payment of pensions to the occupied areas, officially on the grounds that the Russian-backed separatists might seize pensions to help fund their war effort. That presented serious financial risks to Russia, since it left open the possibility that Moscow would be forced to fund the Donbass separatists indefinitely. At the Minsk talks, Moscow insisted upon a resumption of economic ties between the Donbass and the rest of Ukraine in part to shift the financial burden back onto the Ukrainian government. This shows that the Kremlin is not unaware of the spiraling costs of its war effort, and will seek to economize when possible. But Putin so far appears willing to bear the burden of Western sanctions in order to achieve his aims in Ukraine.

Corporate Bailouts

Moscow’s response to the economic crisis has already involved bailing out politically-influential corporations. Some bailouts were inevitable, given that the devaluation of the ruble placed immense pressure on firms that had ruble income but dollar debts. Many of Russia’s banks, for example, face insolvency as non-performing loans multiply and dollar debts become increasingly unserviceable. Like Western countries after the 2008 financial crisis, Russia also has banks that are ‘too big to fail.’ These banks will receive whatever government support they need to ensure they do not collapse and endanger Russia’s broader financial system in the process.

Moscow is in the midst of a debate about what other businesses should receive bail outs. It is not only banks that are under financial pressure. Big industrials and petrochemical firms have sought state aid, too, and some have already received help. Russian Railroads, for example, benefited from a deal whereby a government savings fund invested in state-owned bank VTB, which in turn lent money, presumably at below-market rates, to fund Russian Railroads’ long-term investment program. Whether these loans will actually get paid back is unclear. Even more controversial was the backdoor bailout of Rosneft, the state-owned oil firm which is lumbering under an enormous load of dollar-denominated debt. In December 2014, Rosneft received preferential regulatory treatment from the central bank to help it refinance debt, sparking a huge fall in the ruble once currency traders became aware of the shadowy deal.

Some in the Kremlin are trying to systematize corporate bailouts in an attempt to limit the overall cost and to prevent the anti-crisis program from becoming a feeding trough for the country’s corporate titans. Early signs do not look good. Leading businessman Mikhail Fridman penned an op-ed in the Financial Times in early February pinning blame for the crisis on Russia’s overdependence on state-owned energy firms. Fridman’s implicit conclusion was that state-directed investment had not worked in the past, and it will not work now—so Russia’s government should avoid handing out more funds to big firms. Yet a week after Fridman’s op-ed, Rosneft head and long-time Putin ally Igor Sechin published a response, arguing that the fall in the oil price was caused by “grotesque” market manipulation and speculation. Sechin’s conclusion was that only a strong state could overcome market speculation.

Sechin’s approach—which envisions large-scale state backing of business—appears to be winning out. At the beginning of February, the Ministry of Economic Development listed 199 firms that were eligible to apply for government aid, including not only banks, but also mining companies, airlines, a fertilizer producer, retail chains, and cell phone operators. Almost all of these companies will be hit by the recession, but it is hard to see how financial troubles at, say, a telecom firm would endanger the country’s economy. Instead, business interests are likely to take advantage of the anti-crisis program to gain access to low interest rate loans or other handouts, which would amount to a transfer of resources from taxpayers to corporations. That many of the firms that have received bailouts so far are run by former KGB colleagues of Putin’s—whether Russian Railroad President Vladimir Yakunin or Sechin himself—does not inspire confidence. As in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Russian firms are likely to receive a significant infusion of resources from the state budget, at taxpayers’ expense.

Austerity and Russian Politics

For most of Putin’s time in office, high oil prices have made it possible to avoid tough decisions about distribution. Throughout the 2000s, Russia’s economic pie was growing so rapidly that everyone could have a slice. Wages rose sharply, benefiting average Russians, while windfall oil rents meant the state still had plenty of resources to distribute to political allies. The coming recession, however, will bring distributional questions to the fore. Who will pay the bill? Unwilling to reverse course in Ukraine or to restrain oligarchs seeking for bailouts, the Kremlin appears to have decided to make the population pay through austerity.

To some extent, this has already begun. Inflation has crept upwards even as wage growth has slowed, degrading the purchasing power of Russians’ incomes. Unemployment is increasing. The devaluation of the ruble will raise prices for imported goods, forcing Russians to cut back not only on luxuries such as European holidays, but also on basics such as clothes and food, much of which is imported.

Other measures to shift costs on the population are also being considered. In response to the crisis, Russia is cutting government spending by 10 percent across the board, except for the military’s rearmament program, which will be maintained at current levels. This will reduce the provision of education, health, and other social programs. At the same time, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin—a long-time influential advisor to Putin on economic questions—has joined forces with several current ministers to demand an increase in the age at which Russians receive state pensions. Russia’s current retirement age, at 55 for women and 60 for men, is low by European standards, though Russian life expectancy is lower than Western Europe’s. Yet this question is as much political as it is economic. Over the past 15 years, Putin’s government has been predicated on steadily increasing living standards, and the pension debate will be a test of whether Putin feels he can break this social contract.

That would be a risky move. Signs of discontent are already visible. Polls suggest that average Russians have not yet begun to register higher inflation, though there was a much-publicized scare late last year when supermarkets in several regions ran out of grechka, a buckwheat porridge that is a Russian staple. More worrisome for the Kremlin are complaints about public services. Doctors, who are state employees, attracted much support as they led mass rallies against cuts to health spending last fall. More recently, train ticket price hikes led to popular outrage that forced Putin to publicly criticize his ministers. Yet given the government’s decision to adopt austerity uncoupled with any attempt to improve efficiency, declining public services are inevitable.

The social tension that recession unleashes will create new challenges, but it is unlikely to threaten Russia’s political stability in the short term. By helping to raise living standards throughout the 2000s, Putin has accumulated a large reserve of popular trust that he can now draw on. And his ‘political technologists’ have honed their skills for ensuring that the opposition remains divided and under constant legal pressure. When opposition leader Alexey Navalny began attracting attention with calls for an anti-crisis protest on March 1, ten other groups, including the Communist Party, filed for permission to hold protests that same day, a classic diversionary tactic. Games like this have proven repeatedly effective over Putin’s 15 years in power. As wages stagnate and unemployment picks up, Putin’s core claim to economic competency will begin to erode. The longer the recession lasts, the more Putin will have to rely on nationalism and repression to sustain his rule.

About the author:
*Chris Miller, Associate Scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale. In 2012-2014, he worked as a visiting researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center while on an Alfa Fellowship and taught history at the New Economic School, a university in Moscow. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

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