By Martin Tillier

Oil’s rapid decline since August of last year has been dramatic. To listen to some commentators you would also think it is unprecedented and irreversible.

Those claiming that oil will continue to fall from here and remain low for evermore, however, are flying in the face of both history and common sense. The question we should be asking ourselves is not if oil prices will recover, but when they will.

Figure 1: Inflation adjusted WTI since Jan 1985. Chart from Macrotrends.net

From June of 2014 until now, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil has fallen approximately 57 percent. As the above chart shows, there have been drops of a similar percentage five times in the last 30 years. The rate of recovery has been different each time, but recovery has come. In addition, since 1999 the chart shows a consistent pattern of higher lows. In other words, oil is a volatile market, but prices are in a long term upward trend.

Charts can only tell us so much, however. Even a long term trend can be broken if fundamental conditions change, and that, say those predicting that oil will never recover, is what has happened. There is no doubt that supply has increased. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” technology has unlocked reserves of oil and natural gas previously thought of as unrecoverable. Supply alone, however, doesn’t determine price. We must also consider demand, and that has been increasing too.

According to this chart, from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), demand has been increasing along with supply since 2010. Admittedly there has been a production surplus since the beginning of 2014 but that is nothing new and is forecast to be back in balance by the end of this year. The increased production, then, is in response to increasing demand; hardly a recipe for a protracted period of low prices. The supply situation makes it unlikely that the recovery will be rapid, but a gradual move up over the next few years is the only logical conclusion.

The low price brigade cites another factor in making their predictions, the rise of alternative energy sources. There is no doubt that there have been significant advances in that area, particularly in wind and solar power, but, according to the EIA, renewables currently account for 11 percent of the world’s energy consumption. That number will undoubtedly grow in the coming years, but, whether we like it or not, oil consumption still looks set to grow over the next few years. Fracking can fill some of that demand, but the simple fact remains that oil is still used extensively, and we are using more of it every year. The price simply cannot stay low for an extended period, but while it does it will delay research and infrastructure spending on renewables, slowing the pace of their adoption.

Any increase in price would be hastened by a decision from OPEC and Saudi Arabia in particular, to reduce production. Right now they say that that is not on the cards, and why would they cut back? Their attitude seems to be that the oversupply was not their doing, and as their oil is cheap to produce, they can sit back and watch those who did cause the problem, most notably the upstart American companies, suffer. OPEC has always played the long game and will undoubtedly do so again, but once the lesson has been taught the pressure to restrict supply somewhat will mount. Again it may take time, but it will probably come.

History tells us that the price of oil will bounce back, but so does basic logic. Oil is a finite resource that we are using at an increasing rate, and as long as that situation remains, the laws of supply and demand mean that the price must recover. That is a good thing. As long as oil remains cheap there is little incentive to invest in the alternatives that we will inevitably need someday, nor to reduce our consumption of what is essentially a dirty fuel source. So, enjoy low fuel prices while you can, but don’t expect them to last forever.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Heres-What-Will-Send-Oil-Prices-Back-Up-Again.html

The post Here’s What Will Send Oil Prices Back Up Again – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Paul Collier*

Africa is currently facing two entirely distinct security threats, one from the rise of radical Islam, the other from increased natural resource extraction. African security forces are ill-equipped to meet these threats. Much of this is deep-rooted, rather than due to deficiencies that could readily be addressed. I first set out each of the new security threats. I then turn to Africa’s military capacity, tracing its limitations to underlying motivations. I suggest that the most straightforward way of changing the belief systems that generate motivation is strengthening national identity, but that this has been made more difficult by the divisive force of electoral competition. I conclude that Africa will need three forms of international support.

Threat 1: Radical Islam

Radical Islam is a global phenomenon, generated by the uncontrolled dissemination of extremist ideology, supported by vast private wealth in the Gulf, the use of which is not subject to scrutiny. It poses a distinctive threat to Africa partly because many African countries have substantial Muslim populations that, in conditions of poverty and poor governance, can easily become disaffected.

Additionally, the threat is distinctive because the organizations needed to counter it effectively require a level of sophistication and cost that are beyond the means of most African militaries.

The threat from radical Islam has recently been evident in Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR), Kenya and Nigeria. In Mali and CAR it was existential: without timely French military intervention both states would have been overrun and fallen to radical Islamic forces. In Nigeria and Kenya the threat has taken the form of sensational terrorism that, while not threatening the states themselves, is highly damaging to their international reputations. This difference in consequences is primarily due to the greater military capacity of Nigeria and Kenya: both countries have economies that are sufficiently robust to finance militaries with the capacity to defeat feasible rebel challenges. However, their security forces are not adequate for the more demanding task of preventing the escalation of terrorism.

In all four situations the Islamic terrorism is a spill-over from failing neighbouring countries in which Islamic militants have been able to build their military capacity. The meltdown in Libya, which is ongoing, provided a base from which a rebel force could equip itself sufficiently to defeat the Malian army; the endemic insecurity of vast areas of the Sahel enabled a rebel force to defeat the army of CAR and to infiltrate North-East Nigeria; and Islamists in Somalia were able to mount terrorist attacks in Kenya. Geography, more than policy differences, probably accounts for why it is these countries and not others that are facing the worst threats: these countries border on failing states. But there is clearly potential for terrorism to spread.

Threat 2: Natural Resource Discoveries

Although Africa has long been a natural resource exporter, until recently it was only lightly prospected: resource extraction per square mile was much lower than in other regions. The high commodity prices of the past decade have triggered a wave of investment in prospecting and, because Africa was the least explored region, it became the favored location for exploration.

During the past decade many valuable resources have been discovered in previously resource-poor African countries, often in remote areas. During the present decade the mines and transport infrastructure will be developed in order to exploit these discoveries.1

While natural resources have the potential to finance development, they also have the potential to catalyze violent conflict.2 Valuable resources have sometimes been a source of finance for rebel groups, as with diamonds in Angola and Sierra Leone. They have also raised the stakes for capturing power, while reducing the need for accountability to citizens by displacing taxes as the primary source of state revenue: the resulting contamination of politics has long been illustrated by Nigeria. Further, since valuable resources are never evenly spread throughout a territory, they give well-endowed regions an incentive to try to secede from the nation, as with the Katanga region of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Biafra region of Nigeria.

The localized nature of resource discoveries interacts with strong sub-national identities to create serious security vulnerabilities. The same national and sub-national identities can be entirely compatible in the context of cooperation, but become oppositional once the ownership of valuable resources becomes salient. This is by no means Africa-specific: Scotland is an example. For three centuries being Scottish was not seen as incompatible with being British: for much of this period the most salient activity was the common task of defence against external threat. However, during the past decade of high oil prices, the oil off the shore of Scotland has replaced external security as the most salient issue, leading to strong pressure for secession. Because African sub-national identities are so strong, this interaction of resources and local identity is likely to be particularly troubling in the region. The recent oil discovery in Kenya is located in a remote area whose people, the Turkana, have never been integrated into Kenyan identity. Oil activities soon had to be suspended due to local violence. Even in Tanzania, the discovery of gas offshore of the region of Mtwara led to riots and four deaths because people in the region claimed that it belonged to them, not
to the nation. Currently, South Sudan has collapsed into civil war because the oil which is the government’s sole source of finance is located in the territory of the Nuer tribe, whereas the government is controlled by the Dinka, their ancestral rivals.

African Military Capacity

The limitations of African militaries in response to these threats have been all too evident. Their weakness in Mali and the CAR was probably inevitable in view of their economic and geographic fundamentals: these territories are basically too poor to impose security on their highly dispersed populations. While retrospectively it is always easy to identify political weaknesses, prior to its collapse Mali was not on any of the three independently maintained lists of fragile states (e.g. by the World Bank, OECD, or the EU3). By African standards, it was one of the better-conducted democracies. Hence, any solution to insecurity in these and similar countries will require a degree of external military assistance. In contrast, the limitations of the military in Nigeria and Kenya are not fundamentally economic. In both countries the military tasks required to respond to terrorist attacks were relatively modest. In Nigeria, 200 schoolgirls were abducted by a small rebel group and taken to a forest area, yet they could not be traced by the Nigerian military. In Kenya, a shopping mall in Nairobi was overrun by terrorists and coastal villages were brutally attacked. When soldiers were called in to the Nairobi shopping mall they took the opportunity to loot the shops rather than stop the carnage; on the coast, following the attack, terrorists were able to repeat the slaughter in a neighboring village. These failings are not, fundamentally, due to an inadequate budget, but to something both deeper and less tractable: motivation.

Conventionally, economics has analyzed motivation in terms of financial incentives linked to monitored performance. However, as argued by Akerlof and Kranton4, in many contexts this is not an effective solution. They show that in high-productivity private sector firms the most common solution to the challenge of retaining motivation is that the organization succeeds in getting its workforce to internalize its objectives. Through internalization, scale and specialization are reconciled with motivation. While internalization rather than financial incentives is the preferred solution in many commercial organizations, it is far more important in public organizations. The nature of the work usually limits the scope for using high-powered financial incentives because individual performance is difficult to monitor, while the objectives of the organization lend themselves to internalization more readily than those of most firms. This is true of the military, par excellence. So, to understand military organizations it is essential to understand the psychological mechanics of internalization.

Directly, internalization is a change in identity: hence the name that Akerlof and Kranton give to their book. The military recruit internalizes the proposition, “I am a good soldier.” This change in identity enhances performance because it implies new norms: a good soldier bravely fights the enemy. What brings about the change in identity is a changed perception of some aspects of how the world works. Psychologists have established that overwhelmingly people acquire their understanding of the world not through analytic expositions but through narratives. The soldier changes his perception because he comes to accept a set of narratives, such as “this army is essential for the peace of the country.” Identities, narratives and norms, which I will term collectively beliefs, are the psychological processes that determine internalization. In turn, beliefs are generated though participation in social networks within which information circulates. In summary, an “effective organization” is a locally stable constellation of identities, narratives, norms and networks that makes the workforce productive by reconciling scale and specialization with motivation.

Most African countries are chronically short of such public organizations: shirking and corruption are debilitating and endemic. Many armies are no more effective than other parts of the public sector. Nevertheless, an army should be the easiest public organization to make effective. All militaries have at their disposal an identity, a narrative and a norm that are functional and compatible, and a network that can be used to deliver them. Indeed, while Akerlof and Kranton take most of their examples from the private sector, their archetypical example of an effective organization, used as the opening illustration in their book, is the U.S. Army. Around the developed world, armies recruit low-skilled teenage males and are able to motivate many of them to risk their lives, a degree of motivation which even investment banks using high-powered incentives to the limit seldom achieve. Globally, the military has the monopoly on the right to promote the narrative that its workers are defending the nation. While particular circumstances can undermine this narrative, in most circumstances it is a powerful one. The narrative supports clear norms of personal courage and sacrifice both for the national interest, and that of the team. Between them, the narrative and norm support the internalization of an identity: “I am a member of a team that defends the nation.”

Not only are the beliefs attractive and reinforcing, the hierarchical, team-based, and hermetic nature of military networks gives military leaders a potent vehicle for delivering beliefs to the workforce. In contrast, political leaders might lack networks for building motivation in teachers. Whereas soldiers live together in barracks, teachers live in their local communities. Above the level of headmaster, there is little organizational structure whereby Ministries of Education can deliver functional beliefs to teachers: there is little that is national about a typical teacher’s experience of the job. The military hierarchy leads all the way up to the Head of State. In consequence, it may be easier for the Head of State to inculcate a common norm of public service among soldiers than among teachers. The easy communication afforded to military leaders by means of the networks they control carries a qualification. If the conduct of leaders is visibly incompatible with the beliefs they promote then the process degenerates into theatre: participants merely perform a role and understand that that is what others are doing.

In summary, it is easier to build functional beliefs through a military network than in either a democratic political party or the civilian parts of the public sector. Although other public sector organizations can invoke narratives of the national interest, none is as potent as that of defending the nation: teenage boys do not dream of being tax inspectors.

Motivation, Nationalism and Democracy: Links and Tensions

Two key building blocks in the belief system that generates and sustains an effective military are nationalism and heroic leadership. The nation is what the military protects, and the nation’s leader is visibly self-sacrificing in the national interest. Directly, nationalism provides a shared identity, but it also involves a supporting narrative, typically of a past struggle that has forged the nation, with heroes of that struggle as role models. From this follows the norm of service to protect the nation. Internalization, and the nationalism that facilitates it, are not the only mechanisms for motivation: men fight for their colleagues. But comradeship alone is not enough: lacking a sense of public duty, Kenyan soldiers chose to loot together rather than to fight together.

Most African militaries are ineffective because most African countries lack a strong sense of national identity and their leaders have ostentatiously eschewed self-sacrifice. The contrast between the founding presidents of Kenya and Tanzania demonstrates the long- term consequences. In Kenya, President Jomo Kenyatta behaved like most other African presidents, using his power to favor his own tribe over its rivals. Exceptionally, and in contrast, the Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, prioritized building national identity. He introduced a national language, a common school curriculum, and a neutrally sited new capital city, while requiring civil servants to work in regions other than that of their birth. Also exceptionally, Nyerere lived modestly making his narrative of a common national struggle credible, whereas Kenyatta amassed one of the largest fortunes in the world. Forty years later Eduard Miguel compared similar multi-ethnic villages on either side of the border to see whether people could cooperate to maintain a well.5 On the Kenyan side of the border people had not learned to cooperate across tribal lines whereas on the Tanzanian side they had.

When President Nyerere set about building a sense of common Tanzanian identity, he was concerned that multi-party democracy would make the task more difficult. Inevitably, political parties would be organized on the basis of established sub-national, tribal, identities. The rivalry and competition between parties would likely reinforce these identities, overriding his desired new narrative of shared identity based on shared endeavour. His opposition to multi-party politics was not based on a personal calculation of power retention. Elections were held in which the population was given a yes/no choice of whether to re- elect the President, and in 1984, feeling responsible for the failure of his economic policies, he resigned.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union practical international action has promoted, and increasingly insisted, on multi-party electoral competition as the defining feature of the passage to modernity. This policy has not been directed specifically to Africa: its core foci were in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. But aid to Africa gave Western governments the power to insist. An inadvertent consequence is that in most African countries at no stage has there been an environment conducive to building a strong national identity. Polities passed directly from ethnically divisive autocracy to ethnically divisive electoral competition.

The weakness of national identity has made motivation more difficult in all public service organizations. Teachers do not show up for class; nurses steal drugs; tax officials extort bribes rather than raise revenue for government. But arguably, it is the military that is most reliant upon national identity for the vital psychological process of internalization of organizational objectives. In the absence of a sense of shared national identity, teachers may still be motivated by a desire to pass on learning, and nurses by a desire to heal the sick. But without a sense of shared identity it is difficult to see why soldiers would risk their lives.

The most striking exceptions to African public sector weakness are in Ethiopia and Rwanda. Not only have both got effective militaries, but both have very low levels of corruption and have delivered rapid, broad-based economic growth for their citizens. Neither of these political systems is a conventional democracy: while elections are held, neither government would acquiesce in a loss of political power. In consequence, they have been subject to much international criticism. In place of multi-party electoral competition, they have a mass national party: the public officials who administer government functions are members of the party. In turn, the party has emerged out of a successful rebel movement. The conditions necessary for military success were not only military patterns of command, but a set of beliefs – an ideology – in which the key tenets were personal sacrifice for the goal of national liberation and development. This ideology could only be made credible to ordinary rebel fighters if the leadership itself set an example. In both countries leaders and leadership teams lived frugally. Not only was this imperative for the practical military functioning of the rebel organization, once these beliefs had been internalized across the higher cadres of party membership they enabled a wider range of functions to be performed to an adequate standard once in government. While both rebel organizations were ethnically based and retain a strong ethnic core, their ideology was national rather than ethnic. Consistent with their ideology, in their evolution to mass national parties they have gradually broadened their membership to include other ethnic groups. For example, upon the death of Meles Zenawi in 2012, his replacement as Head of Government was from southern Ethiopia rather than his native Tigray.

The internalized ideology of party cadres has provided an effective, albeit unconventional, form of checks and balances on the use of power. Elsewhere in Africa, alongside electoral competition there is now a conventional suite of checks and balances such as courts and audits. However, while more readily recognizable to the Western eye, they have proved to be easy to circumvent.

Implications for International Policy

For the next decade the security threats from radical Islam and natural resource discoveries are likely to be important issues in Africa. African militaries are mostly in no condition to meet these threats. If my diagnosis is correct, that the underlying problem is the weakness of national identity, this is unlikely to be remedied. On the contrary, localized natural resource discoveries, religious polarization, and multi-party winner-take-all politics played for heightened stakes, may all further tend to weaken national identity.

This prospect has three broad security implications for international policy. One is that in the neighborhoods of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, it might be advisable to strengthen some states that could become neighborhood anchors. A second is that the confidence placed in electoral competition may need to be questioned: some unconventional forms of governance may nevertheless work reasonably well in African conditions. The third is that for several states external military assistance is likely to be necessary. It is, however, important to recognize that each of these has the potential to go badly wrong.

Using international policy to favor countries that are judged to be strategically important can backfire. The favored governments can exaggerate their fortune and relax the necessary focus on delivering services to citizens. Neighboring governments can become resentful, impeding cooperation. Nevertheless, there are currently some situations in Africa where promoting neighborhood bulwarks would be sensible. In Francophone West Africa two countries have recently emerged from fragility and now have considerable potential. Guinea has its best government since independence and is beginning to exploit its vast natural resource wealth. By harnessing this wealth, the country has the opportunity for economic transformation over the next decade. Similarly, Cote d’Ivoire, having emerged from a decade of civil war, now has the opportunity for rapid resource-financed development. In both countries a legacy of conflict has left them short of management capacity across the public sector. International action to strengthen this capacity has been slow to scale up so as to accelerate recovery.

In the Horn of Africa Ethiopia and Kenya are vital bulwarks. Yet the core economic strategy of the Ethiopian government to industrialize on the back of cheap hydropower has been frustrated by international opposition to dams. This matter should be recognized as a legitimate choice of a legitimate government. Analogously, the Kenyan government is currently facing international pressure to cooperate in the trial of its President and Vice-President at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. While the international desire to end political impunity is commendable, the Kenyan situation is highly peculiar. While the President and Vice-President are accused of having previously sanctioned organized violence against each others’ supporters, they are now manifestly reconciled in a political alliance which has been endorsed by citizens through an election. In consequence, the action of the court appears locally as re-enacting colonialism rather than as breaking the cycle of impunity.

A more eclectic approach to African political development risks giving license for the repeat of past political abuses: autocracy, ethnic dominance, and corruption. However, properly done it would shift emphasis from the forms of power acquisition to the substance of how power is being used. Financial integrity and wider ethnic social inclusion would become more important, with a particular focus on the good management of natural resources. Conversely, in those contexts in which these criteria were being met, the right to challenge power would become less important. Manifestly, the task of building national identity cannot be assisted externally. But the current insistence upon multi-party electoral competition in contexts of weak checks and balances on the use of power once won, has created powerfully divisive forces. Ultimately, the most desirable remedy for this situation is much stronger checks and balances. But checks and balances are processes rather than events, and they have proved to be difficult to build in African conditions. In some countries they may require a much longer time horizon than the timetables of radical Islam and resource discoveries are likely to permit. In such contexts a more rapidly achievable outcome might be for ruling parties to be encouraged to evolve into mass organizations with an ideology of national development, ethnic inclusion, and leadership self-sacrifice.

External military assistance has had a terrible decade and the potential for mistakes is evident. However, Africa is a far less demanding security challenge than the Middle East in this regard.

The immediate priorities arise from radical Islam. There is an urgent need for strengthened security in the Sahel, and enhanced intelligence against terrorism, especially in East Africa. Countering the security risks from the growth of natural resource extraction is less immediate but it is also more difficult to achieve a military solution.

The threat from radical Islam in the Sahel requires security cooperation among African countries. The regional hegemons, South Africa and Nigeria, have both recognized this need but neither is strong enough to be able to satisfy it. For example, South Africa had a force in CAR at the time it was overrun, but the force was too small and was rapidly withdrawn after taking casualties. As in the Europe of seventy years ago, cooperation is impeded by a long history of rivalries: Sahelian countries have periodically been at war with each other; Nigeria and South Africa are bitter rivals for the role of leadership, while both are viewed with suspicion by smaller countries. As in Europe, the solution is to catalyze cooperation externally. Either the African Union, or ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), could be the African partner organization. The international partner could be the UN, NATO, or an ad hoc consortium of interested parties such as China, the U.S., France, and the UK. The key elements of cooperation would be mutual commitments. The external parties would commit to substantial and sustained financial, logistic, and training support for an African military force, but would eschew troops on the ground.

The African parties would commit to contribute sufficient manpower to a standing force, a genuinely unified command structure, an unambiguous mandate for combat operations, clear rules for when such an engagement would be authorized, and a precisely specified and speedy authorizing mechanism. It might be a decade before an effective force was fully in place. But both Islamic radicalism and natural resource extraction are probably still in their early stages: in a decade the need for containing the associated security problems is likely to have increased.

The need for enhanced counter-terrorism intelligence, especially in East Africa, may be more difficult to meet. Intelligence cannot reasonably be shared with organizations that are too weak to keep it secure. The pervasive corruption of the African public sector therefore precludes substantial sharing. The alternative is to finance and train self-contained intelligence gathering capacity country-by-country.

While the threat from radical Islam is immediate, that from natural resources is likely to build up gradually over the decade. Unfortunately, neither the pan-African force needed for the Sahel, nor enhanced counter-terrorist intelligence would address it. It would be highly problematic to use a pan-African military force to suppress rebellions in resource-rich regions demanding greater autonomy. The commitments would risk being open-ended, and would encourage government intransigence. Cumulatively, such uses would undermine continued international support. The only feasible military counter to resource-based rebellions is to have a strong and effective national army, but building such nation-by-nation military capacity is beyond the power of international actors. The revealed weakness of the Nigerian military was not due to a lack of budget: the Nigerian military commands a budget far higher than could be attained in any other African country. The revealed weakness of the Kenyan military was that its soldiers were less interested in protecting citizens than in shopping: such a deficiency is not amenable to foreign training. It is worth noting that there is nothing specifically African about these failings: the revealed weaknesses of the Iraqi army, despite external efforts far in excess of anything conceivable for Africa, are informative.

Rather, the most credible solution to the threat posed by the enhanced importance of natural resources is political: better domestic governance of natural resources can reduce the risk of violence. This has several key components: resolving tensions between national and local interests; building trust in the financial integrity of budgets; and managing expectations.

There are two sources of tension between the local and the national: ownership of the revenues and environmental damage. By far the best time to resolve ownership issues is before the resource has been discovered. Sir Seretse Khama, the first president of Botswana, had the foresight to tour the country prior to prospecting for diamonds with the message, “can we agree that anything we find belongs to all of us?” Prior to discovery, brute self-interest is sufficient to get agreement to such a proposition; after discovery, self-interest drags the fortunate locality into indignant assertions of ownership. Environmental damage is necessarily borne locally not nationally. Building systems that ensure speedy and proportionate compensation in remote and weakly governed areas is difficult but essential. The Delta region of Nigeria illustrates the disastrous consequences of early neglect: local populations resorted to violence to force compensation, and this evolved into an extortion racket. Without trust in the financial integrity of budgets, local populations come to believe that their valuable resources are being stolen by distant elites. Since African governments start from a position of deep suspicion among citizens, building trust requires drastic enhancement of practical budget transparency. In the absence of an active policy to manage expectations, the announcement of a valuable resource discovery is liable to trigger wildly exaggerated hopes. Poor people have no familiarity in digesting news expressed in billions of dollars and millions of barrels. Again, the political leadership of Botswana provides a model. Citizens were educated in the need for patience – “we’re poor and so we must carry a heavy load.” This narrative was operationalized into a policy of using diamond revenues to accumulate assets rather than to finance immediate increases in consumption. Such political wisdom remains rare.

There is a lot that international political action can do to enhance the governance of natural resources. To date, there has been considerable progress in revenue transparency, but there has as yet been little attention to the transparency of expenditure, which is obviously of more concern to citizens. The onus for building effective systems of compensation for environmental damage is on the international companies that extract resources. The management of expectations through a positive narrative of prudent accumulation is beginning: the Norwegian model of a sovereign wealth fund has become fashionable. However, as yet this probably reflects isomorphic mimicry of institutions, rather than a genuine attempt to harness an economic opportunity: alongside sovereign wealth funds, governments are issuing bonds to finance consumption.

Conclusion

Africa has been through a successful decade of rapid growth. However, it is facing new security threats that are likely to be beyond its current or feasible domestic military capacity. While the threat from the increasing importance of natural resources can best be countered by improved economic governance, that from Islamic extremism probably requires international military assistance, at least to the neighbourhoods of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. In the longer term, African governments will need to improve domestic military effectiveness. However, I have suggested that the current lack of effectiveness is rooted in a more general lack of worker motivation in the public sector. In this case, rectifying it may depend upon resetting the identities, narratives and norms which underpin motivation. Leaders may be able to achieve such a reset through national parties, embodying an ideology of ethnic inclusivity and personal sacrifice, as appears to be underway in Rwanda and Ethiopia. Such a strategy differs considerably from the preferred Western approach of multi-party electoral competition. But in retrospect, the emphasis on the process by which power is acquired, as opposed to how it is used, may have been misplaced.

About the author:
*Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy and Director for the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the University of Oxford.

Source:
This article was originally published in the PRISM Journal Vol 5, No. 2, pps. 31-41 (PDF), which is published by the National Defense University.

Notes
1. Collier, Paul. The Plundered Planet: Why We Must, and How We Can, Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
2. Collier, Paul. Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. New York: Harper, 2009.
3. Please see the following for more informa- tion: http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/fragilityconflictvio- lence and http://www.oecd.org/dac/incaf/
.4 Akerlof, George A., and Rachel E. Kranton. Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-being. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
5. Miguel, Edward. “Tribe or Nation?: Nation Building and Public Goods in Kenya versus Tanzania.” World Politics 56, no. 3 (2004): 327-62.

The post Security Threats Facing Africa And Its Capacity To Respond – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan*

The trilateral Russia, India and China (RIC) forum concluded its 13th foreign ministers meeting in Beijing on February 2, 2015. Calling for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, the RIC communiqué stated: “Foreign Ministers of China and Russia reiterated the importance they attached to the status of India in international affairs and supported its aspiration to play a greater role in the United Nations.” The leaders reiterated the importance of UN reforms in order to make it more representative and have countries such as India and Brazil play a bigger role in the UN. They noted the importance of new players in the context of framing effective responses to contemporary and emerging challenges.

The debate around India’s UNSC aspirations is decades old. India began to argue for better representation based on its population, territory and economy, political system, civilisational legacy and ethnic, cultural, and religious diversities. India’s quest for the UNSC seat began to pick greater momentum in the recent years with New Delhi articulating these issues at every bilateral, regional and multilateral fora. US President Barack Obama’s endorsement in this regard in 2010 made a big shift as far as the P-5 dynamics are concerned. China remains the only P-5 country that has still not endorsed India’s membership into the UNSC.

Making some small change in its stance on UN Security Council expansion and India’s aspirations to become a permanent member, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, “The reform of the UN Security Council should give priority to increasing the representativeness of developing countries.” As part of a larger package around UN reforms, India earlier pitched its permanent UNSC seat along with Brazil, Germany and Japan. While Russia and China became open to the idea of India and Brazil, they are quite about Japan’s candidature. Given the strained relations between Japan and China around issues of history and territory, it is unlikely that Beijing will come around to endorsing Japan’s candidature in the near future.

Does the RIC statement mean that China has had a change of mind as far as India’s UNSC membership is concerned? While the Chinese comments are no way departing from the Chinese official stance, it still is a stronger reiteration to include India as a member of the UNSC. Nevertheless, this is far from a complete endorsement. The spokesperson in fact qualified China’s support by saying “Beijing would like to reach “broadest consensus through diplomatic means” on UNSC reform.

Indeed, it is not clear that it is a distinct shift in China’s policy to support India’s candidature. The Chinese position is borne more out of compulsion of being part of the RIC. Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who was there in Beijing for the meeting said that India had pushed two major issues – India’s permanent membership into the UNSC and support for debate within the UN for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. After holding talks several times on these issues, China has finally voiced support. The point is that China might find it extremely difficult to include this in a bilateral joint statement but India could possibly use other regional forums such as BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to enlist the Chinese support on this issue. Even though India is only an Observer at the SCO at this stage, China is increasingly leaning with others to include India as a full member. Obviously the Chinese agreed to consider India’s membership seriously only after brokering a similar deal for Pakistan, who is also an Observer currently.

Whether China’s support in these forums mean anything can be put to test only when there is a fresh move in the UN to undertake some of these long overdue reforms. But even the minimal change in China’s posture on the issue of India’s UNSC membership should be welcomed. India should also press such issues in bilateral talks but the bilateral dialogues are usually tied down on more critical issues such as regarding the border. Nevertheless, the issue of India’s UNSC seat came up during President Xi Jinping’s visit to India in September 2014, where he stated that China would support India’s bid for a permanent Security Council seat in an expanded Security Council. Among areas of cooperation, India should highlight this as an area that might bring good will for China if it did adopt a friendlier attitude.

*Dr Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

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EIA’s December Petroleum Supply Monthly data show that exports of noncrude petroleum products from the United States averaged 3.8 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2014, an increase of 347,000 bbl/d from 2013, and a new record high. Increased exports of motor gasoline and hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL), including propane and butane, were the main contributors to the trend, while exports of distillate decreased.

Record-high U.S. refinery runs, which averaged 16.1 million bbl/d in 2014, and increased global demand for petroleum products allowed U.S. petroleum product exports to increase for the 13th consecutive year. U.S. exports are mostly sent to nearby markets in Central America and South America, which grew year-over-year by 172,000 bbl/d (15%), followed by exports to Canada and Mexico, which rose 80,000 bbl/d (8%). The only decline in exports was to the Middle East, which went from 55,000 bbl/d in 2013 to 47,000 bbl/d in 2014. However, in 2014, there was more change on a product-by-product basis, both in quantity exported and destination—in particular exports of motor gasoline, HGLs, and distillate (Figure 1).

December 2014 exports of motor gasoline, which include finished gasoline and gasoline blending components, set a record high at 875,000 bbl/d. For the past several years, monthly exports of gasoline have been highest in November and December (Figure 2). As noted in a recent EIA analysis, low seasonal U.S. gasoline demand in December creates a larger surplus of gasoline, particularly on the U.S. Gulf Coast (PADD 3), resulting in increased exports to destinations farther afield such as Africa and Asia. As evidence of this trend, exports of motor gasoline to Africa and Asia rose 2,200 bbl/d (6%) and 1,200 bbl/d (20%), respectively, in 2014. The largest increase was in exports of motor gasoline to Central America and South America, which increased 42,000 bbl/d (27%). The leading recipients were Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama.

Increased U.S. production and capacity to export HGLs, particularly on the U.S. Gulf Coast, allowed exports of propane and butane to increase by 121,000 bbl/d (40%) and 44,000 bbl/d (149%), respectively, over 2013. Exports of propane to Asia, particularly Japan and China, where the fuel is used in cooking, heating, transportation, and as a petrochemical feedstock, nearly doubled in 2014 from 2013, increasing 40,000 bbl/d (95%). Propane exports to Central America and South America, historically the principal destination for U.S. propane, increased 31,000 bbl/d (21%) from 2013. Exports of butane, which shares some uses with propane but is more suitable for use in warmer climates, grew to 74,000 bbl/d. In 2014, the United States exported 20,000 bbl/d of butane to Africa, an increase of 17,200 bbl/d (628%) from a year earlier (Figure 1).

Increases in motor gasoline and HGL exports offset a decline in distillate exports, which decreased 19,500 bbl/d, the first year-over-year decline in distillate exports since 2003. While exports of distillate increased year-over-year to traditional U.S. export destinations like Central America and South America, whose imports from the United States rose 39,000 bbl/d (7%), and North America, which grew 3,000 bbl/d (2%), they were offset by declines in exports to Western Europe and Africa, which decreased by 62,000 bbl/d (15%) and 8,700 bbl/d (35%), respectively, in 2014. In the second half of the year increased European refinery runs, exports from recently upgraded Russian refineries, and new refinery capacity in the Middle East increased supply to European distillate markets, reducing the need for distillate from the United States (Figure 3).

U.S. average gasoline price up 14 cents, diesel prices increase

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline rose 14 cents over last week, to $2.47 per gallon as of March 3, 2015, down $1.01 per gallon from a year ago. The large one-week increase in the U.S. average is the result of higher crude oil prices passed through to retail gasoline, exacerbated by a larger West Coast price increase as a result of regional refinery disruptions. The West Coast price increased 37 cents to $3.13 per gallon. The Gulf Coast price was up 11 cents to $2.22 per gallon, followed by the Midwest price, which rose 10 cents to $2.38 per gallon. The East Coast and Rocky Mountain price each increased eight cents to $2.39 per gallon, and $2.12 per gallon, respectively.

The U.S. average price for diesel fuel increased four cents from the week prior to $2.94 per gallon, down $1.08 per gallon from the same time last year. The East Coast price increased eight cents, to $3.08 per gallon. The West Coast price rose three cents to $3.08 per gallon, and the Rocky Mountain price increased two cents to $2.78 per gallon. The Midwest price rose two cents to $2.85 per gallon, while the Gulf Coast price was up less than a penny to $2.80 per gallon.

Propane inventories fall

U.S. propane stocks decreased by 4.2 million barrels last week to 55.1 million barrels as of February 27, 2015, 27.9 million barrels (102.8%) higher than a year ago. Midwest inventories decreased by 2.5 million barrels and East Coast inventories decreased by 0.9 million barrels. Gulf Coast inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 8.1% of total propane inventories.

Residential heating fuel prices Increase

As of March 2, 2015, residential heating oil prices averaged nearly $3.29 per gallon, 10 cents per gallon higher than last week, and almost 94 cents per gallon less than last year’s price for the same week. Wholesale heating oil prices averaged $2.37 per gallon, nearly 7 cents per gallon higher than last week and almost 99 cents per gallon lower when compared to the same time last year.

Residential propane prices averaged just below $2.36 per gallon, about 1 cent per gallon higher than last week, and 94 cents per gallon less than the price at the same time last year. The average wholesale propane price increased by 3 cents per gallon this week to 78 cents per gallon, nearly 73 cents per gallon lower than the March 3, 2014 price.

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By N. Sathiya Moorthy*

In a move that was waiting for long to happen, community leaders from a dozen hamlets in the Karaikkal enclave of the Union Territory of Puducherry have decided to penalise their errant fishermen, crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) into Sri Lankan waters. Well-knit and equally respected as the community panchayats are, the Karaikkal decision means that boat owners would from now on be fined Rs.50,000 for each violation, and also face a three-month fishing ban, imposed and enforced, as per local traditions.

The decision follows a recent mid-sea episode in which the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) arrested 86 Indian fishermen, many of them from Karaikkal, in mid-sea, after they had crossed the IMBL. Though the local media has shied away, Sri Lankan counterparts have reported/claimed that the SLN intervention was necessitated, supposedly, after the Indian fishers clashed with their Tamil brethren, from the Northern Province in particular.

This is the second such incident in two years. Earlier, Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen encircled their Indian brethren in mid-sea, stoned and attacked them, for encroaching into their waters, destroyed their vessels and gears with their speeding trawlers and large and heavy nets. The arrested Indian fishermen, including those injured in the attack, were later let off at the instance of the two governments.

This time round, the Sri Lankan fishermen have claimed that they were the victims of attacks by their Indian counterparts, who allegedly used knives and stones. Some Sri Lankan media reports, quoting their fishers, also said that the attackers had allegedly used guns – which as a ‘self-defence’ weapon, some Tamil Nadu political party leaders had been recommending for some time. It’s not known if guns and such other weapons were at all used, and if so, has it been brought to the notice of the Indian government.

Community panchayats, or khap panchayats, are banned under the Indian law. In Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, there are specific orders of the jurisdictional Madras High Court against such practices. However, the reality of the situation is that they are in vogue and effective – depending on the issues and concerns attending on them. Sans the Sri Lankan angle, fishing communities in these parts have always resorted to community panchayats for resolving inter-hamlet and intra-hamlet fishing issues, through negotiations, penalty and the like.

For long thus, there have been suggestions for the governments at the Centre and the state to coopt these community panchayats to ensure that their constituents do not flout the law of the land, particularly in terms of smuggling of every kind. It acquired greater relevance and urgency post-26/11, where going beyond compliance, using fishermen and their community panchayats as effective sources of human intelligence and monitoring came to be flagged.

For long, however, there have been suggestions for the fisheries, revenue and police officials across southern Tamil Nadu to coopt the fishermen panchayats to ensure that their constituents did not cross the IMBL and get into avoidable trouble. The absence of clear-cut directions, officially or otherwise, has hampered such an initiative. It also owes to the politico-administrative perception and position, particularly in Tamil Nadu, pertaining to the ‘historic rights’ of its fishermen in their ‘traditional waters’. The pending Supreme Court case on Katchchativu, now in Sri Lanka’s ownership and possession, has been another dampener.

Pending a final solution, there are suggestions for the coastal district administrations in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to work with the village panchayats to regulate fishers’ outing across the IMBL and to collect more data and information, so as to work out a feasible solution. The role of the fishermen panchayats in obtaining information on mid-sea incidents of every kind, including those involving Sri Lankan Tamil fishers and their Navy, is acknowledged.

Goodwill, no solution

In the changed political circumstances in Sri Lanka and despite the abundance of goodwill between the two governments and leaderships at the national level in the two countries, no immediate solution is likely to the vexatious fishermen issue. If anything, the Sri Lankan Tamil fishers have hardened their position in these past weeks after President Maithripala Sirisena assumed office. After living through an increasing air of permissiveness that the Indian fishermen, they say, tended to exploit more than in the past.

In Delhi on his maiden overseas visit after assuming office, President Sirisena concurred with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the fishermen was a ‘livelihood issue’, which needed to be addressed through negotiations between the affected parties. In doing so, the two leaders reiterated the earlier commitment in this regard by their respective foreign ministers – Mangala Samaraweera (Sri Lanka) and Sushma Swaraj (India). Like his president, Samaraweera had made India his first overseas destination after assuming office.

It has been a repeat of sorts for the two governments to reiterate what had been their shared view since 2008. In pursuance thereof, fishermen representatives from the two countries held two rounds of officially sponsored talks last year. They were held in Chennai and Colombo, respectively. Elections in the two countries intervened afterward, and the two leaders at their Delhi talks have promised to revive the process.

Taking off from an initiative of the kind by the centre – and not otherwise claimed/reported — the Tamil Nadu government proposed the third round of fishers’ talks at Chennai on March 5. The Sri Lankan government has since clarified that they would need more time as they were busy implementing President Sirisena’s 100-day programme. It is unclear how an unrelated work of the kind would come in the way of the 100-day programme, but the restlessness among the Tamil fishermen in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province is more pronounced than under the predecessor regime of president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Before emplaning for India, President Sirisena held unprecedented consultations with the top leadership of the Tamil-majority Northern Province. They included Governor H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and Fisheries Minister Deniswaran. At the meeting with President Sirisena, the Northern Province leadership had reportedly underscored the damage to the livelihood of their fishermen, caused by the mindless bottom-trawling by Indian fishers, particularly from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Later, in Delhi with President Sirisena, Sri Lanka’s Health Minister and Cabinet Spokesperson, Rajitha Senaratne, is reported to have elaborated on the fishing issue to the Indian leadership. As fisheries minister under Rajapaksa, he had taken a tough position on fishermen’s violation of territorial waters, even by Sri Lankan fishers. This was despite his being sympathetic and supportive of the larger Sri Lankan Tamil cause on the ethnic issue and power devolution.

Freedom, post-poll

Maybe breathing a whiff of freedom post-poll, Tamil fishers and their representatives in the Northern Province have been constantly going/responding to the local media with their woes against the Indian fishermen, their vessels, gears and fishing methods all of which are banned in Sri Lanka. They complained that the Indian fishermen were exploiting the new-found bonhomie between the governments in the two countries, and over-exploiting the fish resources in Sri Lankan waters, and also damaging their own boats and gears, possibly as never before.

The Northern fishermen also blamed it on the air of greater permissiveness that had pervaded their seas, as the Indian fishers now seemed confident that the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) would not challenge them or arrest them, under the changed political circumstances in that country. The Indian fishermen, they say, were also confident that the present-day Sri Lankan government would not detain them and/or their boats for a long period, as used to be the case in the last two or three years of the Rajapaksa regime – or, so goes the argument.

Since President Sirisena assumed office, the Sri Lankan government first released Indian fishermen in detention, followed by boats that had been held back for a couple of years or more. However, in the days after President Sirisena’s visit, when the Northern fishers’ voice also became loud and vociferous, the Sri Lanka Navy has begun chasing/detaining Indian fishers, all over again. However, there has not been any serious issue, as the prevailing catch is said to be low, even otherwise.

‘Indian invaders’

Until the mid-sea episode and the detention of 86 Indians, Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen were apprehensive that their government will continue to go slow on taking any action against whom they now dub are ‘Indian invaders’ until the conclusion of Prime Minister Modi’s visit to their country in mid-March. Earlier, they used to dub it ‘poaching’. Depending on the political environment of the day or otherwise, the Sri Lankan government and the SLN, for their part, would often add/restrict it to ‘violation of territorial waters’. Not any more, it would seem – according to Sri Lanka’s Northern fishers.

While willing to talk to their Indian brethren, it is not easy for the Sri Lankan fishermen, returning to their seas and livelihood after three decades of war, violence and fishing ban enforced by the armed forces, to share their lot even with their Indian brethren. This would be more so if the latter were to continue deploying banned fishing methods, vessels and gears, which have destroyed much of the marine resources already, they say quoting independent studies from across the world.

For the Tamil Nadu fishermen, their ‘livelihood concerns’ also continue to revolve around fishing in the shallow waters along Sri Lanka’s northern and eastern coasts, with high-volume shrimp catch for exports. Having risked their lives and limbs under a more aggressive government and naval presence on the other side of the international maritime border line (IMBL), they would not fear anything but fear, according to their Sri Lankan counterparts. This could lead to escalating SLN presence and pressures, which could once again strain bilateral relations at all levels.

Confused as yet on what to make out of the Sri Lankan presidential polls, the Tamil Nadu government, ruling AIADMK and divided sections of the pan-Tamil Dravidian polity otherwise, they would all jump at any possible ‘excesses’ by the Sri Lanka Navy as they used to do in the past. The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too has been sending out confusing/wrong signals to the fishermen in the state, “now that Modi, and not Manmohan Singh, is prime minister”.

It’s all easier said than done. The real cure, it is said, lies in encouraging, aiding and training the Indian fishermen to take to deep-sea fishing in a big way, and identifying/finding profitable markets for their catch through government agencies and/or private big-players. The Tamil Nadu government had prepared a master plan for the purpose and at present grants 50 percent grant for vessel conversion to facilitate deep-sea fishing, up from 25 percent two years ago.

The state government’s request for funding the conversion and attendant changes to physical infrastructure was presented by then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa at her maiden meeting with Prime Minister Modi. It needs to be taken forward without further delay, with the full realisation that the state government is the implementing agency under the Constitution, and the community panchayats are at the tail end of it all.

*N. Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at sathiyam54@gmail.com

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By Anuradha Rai*

The first round of recent strategic trilateral dialogue between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan has been held on 10 February 2015 in Kabul. Though, the meeting that was concluded between the three sides has mainly focused on the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process for which both Pakistan and China has expressed their full support like the past meetings.

What lies besides this is important for India. From the year 2012, when the first Afghanistan-China- Pakistan trilateral dialogue was held in Beijing, to 2015 meeting that has been recently held, a lot of changes can be identified in the Chinese approach towards Afghanistan. In 2012, Chinese interest in Afghanistan was limited to supporting Pakistan to increase its influence and control in the country. But slowly and strategically, China has increased its role and influence in the economic and political scenarios in Afghanistan through its direct involvement and intensified its Afghan Diplomacy.

In the recent meeting, the three sides agreed to carry out practical cooperation program under the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue and to deepen cooperation in the fields of counter-terrorism and security. It has been argued that China’s increased involvement in Afghanistan is in view to fill the power vacuum created in the aftermath of the US and NATO troops’ withdrawal with increasing apprehension that the void could lead to Al-Qaeda and Taliban staging a comeback. China has already beefed up security along the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Afghanistan to prevent infiltration of the militants supporting the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). It is this movement that is said to be behind the violent attacks in the volatile Xinjiang where the Uyghur Muslims were restive over settlements of Hans.

However, the recent developments in which China has extended support to build a hydro-dam and improve railway and highway connectivity between Pakistan and Afghanistan proves that it is no more going to keep a low position and the Communist giant seeks to play a larger role in the war-torn country. Furthermore, bilateral meetings were also held between Afghanistan and Chinese sides to discuss the greater role China could play. Other then these, many meetings have been held between Afghanistan and Chinese sides at foreign ministerial levels to discuss the cooperation between the two countries. Recently, a delegation representing the Taliban insurgency recently visited China where it held talks with Chinese officials, but few details were made available to media by either side.

These recent diplomatic activities by China and its increasing interest in Afghanistan could be understood as a part of China’s ambitious effort to increase its influence and control in South Asia. China, in the recent past, has build strong inroads in Sri-Lanka, Nepal and Myanmar challenging India and changing the power dynamics in the region.

Indian Counter-strategy

India is facing the challenge of balancing China in South Asia, a region once dominated by India. Similar challenge exists in Afghanistan too. Besides countering Pakistan, India also has to deal with the Pakistan-China nexus in Afghanistan and for this India needs a strong and well thought counter-strategy. In Afghanistan, India enjoys the edge of cultural closeness, counter-terrorist measures, its democratic and liberal politics and its reputation of a peaceful and stable country. However, the important thing is that how India is and will be using these leverages in its bilateral relation with Afghanistan.

Before the trilateral meeting between Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, The Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan met the Indian Ambassador to Kabul H.E Amir Shina on 3 February 2015. H.E Mr. Rabbani while expressing his happiness for meeting the Indian Ambassador talked about the historical and friendly ties between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Republic of India. In the meeting, India expressed its commitment to continue its assistance to Afghanistan and in the coming year Afghanistan and India will work closely for the implementation of the trade and transit agreement of SAARC and development of Bamyan as the cultural capital of SAARC.

Earlier, on 10 September 2014, Foreign Minister Zarar Ahmad Osmani met with Mrs. Sushma Swaraj the Indian Foreign Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Mr. Osmani called the friendly and historic relations between the two countries very important. Pointing at big projects like the Salma Dam, Afghan Parliament’s Building, the network for transferring electricity from neighboring countries, providing Afghans with scholarships, establishing the Institute of Mines, building the Agriculture University in Kandahar, and the training of Afghan Security Forces, Mr. Osmani said, “The Indian people and government have a special position among the Afghan people and government due to the historic and friendly relations and their generous support for Afghanistan.” Having considered the cooperation with the Afghan people and government one of her government’s main responsibilities, the Indian Foreign Minister said, “Stability and development in Afghanistan is of high importance for the Indian people and government.”

Conclusion

The recent government in New Delhi is trying hard to gain the ground it was gradually losing due to ineffective and immature foreign policy with the neighboring countries. In Afghanistan too, India is trying hard to strengthen the ties and play bigger role to counter the possible terrorist nexus that could become big challenge for India if the Pakistani and Afghan terrorist outfits combines. To strengthen the bilateral ties, India is using the cultural and historical links it had once shared with Afghanistan, i.e., ‘Indian soft power’, besides its involvement in economic activities. However, what India needs now is greater role in the politics of Afghanistan. India, a stable democracy with well tested and successful government structures and disciplined army has more to offer to Afghanistan than its neighboring Pakistan or China.

*Anuradha Rai has been awarded her Doctoral degree from CIPOD/SIS/JNU. and is a faculty member at Rani Durgawati University, Jabalpur. She can be contacted at anuradharai07@gmail.com.

The post China Silently Making Its Way To Afghanistan – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Joshua Kucera

A six-ship NATO naval group is conducting joint exercises in the Black Sea, and the Russian military is taking advantage of the event to carry out war games of a sort.

The NATO group is led by an American admiral aboard the USS Vicksburg, and also includes warships from Canada, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Turkey. The training “will include simulated anti-air and anti-submarine warfare exercises, as well as simulated small boat attacks and basic ship handling manoeuvres,” according to a release from NATO.

An anonymous source in the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, Crimea, told agency RIA Novosti that they are following the deployment and using it as an opportunity to practice testing the NATO forces’ anti-aircraft systems. The probing is being carried out by Su-30 fighters and Su-24 bombers, the source said:

“Our pilots are mainly monitoring the direction of the NATO ships and monitoring the tasks that they are carrying out on their visit to the sea,” the source said. “In addition, the ships’ crews are no doubt conducting exercises with our planes to practice an air attack, which gives our pilots the opportunity to gain experience maneuvering and conducting aerial surveillance both in and outside of the range of the anti-aircraft systems.”

The U.S. and its NATO partners have substantially stepped up their patrols in the Black Sea over the past year. And this isn’t the first time Russia has made it known that they are watching the increased presence warily: In July, for example, another anonymous source told Russian media that “the aviation of the Black Sea Fleet is paying special attention” to an American warship, the USS Vella Gulf, then in the sea. But this new announcement seems to take the rhetorical intimidation, at least, to a new level. (Who knows what’s actually happening between the ships and the planes.)

Meanwhile, NATO’s top military commander testified before the U.S. Congress last week that the alliance was increasing its presence in the sea in response to Russia’s “increased and aggressive posture in the region.” The commander, General Philip Breedlove, added that “active discussions” were underway with Ukraine to set up next year’s iteration of the regular Sea Breeze joint naval exercises.

The post Russia Says It’s Probing Defenses Of NATO Ships In Black Sea appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Subir Bhaumik(

Avijit Roy had been threatened with death frequently but he had never taken it seriously. A senior police official, when pulled up for failing to protect him, made the point: “He had never asked for security, so what do we do”. Dhaka is the city Avijit was born and grew up in, and like many a free thinker in Bangladesh, he was unwilling to surrender to fear. His last blog post in bdnews24.com, where I work as senior editor, was filed five hours before his death.

Like many other free thinkers in Bangladesh, Avijit received death threats from Islamist bloggers who went to the extent of announcing on the Internet that he cannot be killed when in the US but he will be killed once he comes back to the country.

Bangladesh has a powerful tradition of free thinking and secularism born out of the spirit of the 1971 Liberation War. The new generation of bloggers who take on the Islamist fanatics in the battle for Bangladesh’s soul are the latest in the long generation of Bengalis who have fought against communalism and fundamentalism. Their numbers and the intensity of their commitment have grown over the years. Two years ago, they hit the streets of Dhaka in huge numbers and turned Shahbagh Square into a showpiece of mass mobilisation against Islamist fundamentalism at a time when Cairo’s Tahrir Square was taken over by the supporters of Muslim Brotherhood. Their agitation forced the government to amend the law for trial of 1971 war criminals and led to the hanging of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla. Avijit, a bio-engineer and a naturalised US citizen, was one of the spearheads of this progressive blogging fraternity in Bangladesh.

But even as the Shahbagh movement was gathering strength, blogger leader Rajib Haider was murdered near his home in Dhaka’s Mirpur in February 2013. Two years later, in the same month when Bangladesh celebrates its Amar Ekushe (Immortal 21st – or 21st of February for saluting the martyrs of the Bengali Language movement) and the wonderful Bengal spring, you have a new martyr for the cause. In many ways, Avijit Roy’s murder resembles those of Rajib Haider and the Rajshahi University teachers, Mohammad Yunus and Shafiul Islam. Or the murderous attack on popular writer Humayun Azad in 2004, who later died in Germany while under treatment.

The 1999 attack on popular poet Shamshur Rahman was the beginning of this new wave of periodic attacks against the secular Bengali intelligentsia, whose undying spirit made Bangladesh a reality. Islamist radicals, many returning from the jihad in Afghanistan, were organised into radical underground outfits like the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islam (HuJI) or later the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). One can find a striking resemblance between these new Islamist radical groups and the Pakistan army and its local cohorts like the Al Badr, Al Shams and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Barely two days before Dhaka fell to the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini in December 1971, the Pakistanis and their cohorts had picked up the leading lights of the Bengali cultural brigade and brutally murdered them by dozens. The nation continues to observe December 14 as ‘Shahid Buddhijibi Dibas’ (Martyred Intellectuals Day) to remember the likes of Shahidullah Kaiser and Munir Choudhury who were butchered by Islamist fanatics supporting the Pakistani war effort. For Pakistan’s military rulers, these intellectuals were the specific targets because they were the ones who sold the dream of an independent secular Bangladesh to millions of their people.

Lawrence Lifschultz describes Bangladesh as an ‘unfinished revolution’. The radical Islamist challenge has grown over the years since the Afghan jihad and 9/11 created a space for pan-Islamist jihad across the world. Secular Bangladesh anchored by powerful Bengali linguistic nationalism is an anathema for the thought leaders of the global jihad. No wonder, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri calls for a ‘powerful uprising’ against the present Awami League government. If Hasina government’s determination to push for the 1971 war crimes trials is part of the effort to complete the ‘unfinished revolution’, the attacks on bloggers Rajib Haider and Avijit Roy, teachers Mohammed Yunus and Saiful Islam, writer Humayun Azad or poet Shamsur Rahman are all part of this ‘counter revolution’ – to turn Bangladesh on its head and bury the spirit of 1971.

So for those who see the violence during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-sponsored agitation as a ‘battle of the Begums’, the murder of Avijit Roy will hopefully drive home the point that Bangladesh stands dangerously close to a violent confrontation that involves a fundamental challenge to the spirit of 1971 that led to its birth. That confrontation is linked to the one for political power, of the street battles and the fire bombings, because without political power neither the unfinished revolution nor the counter revolution can be won. Avijit Roy was murdered not by a foreign jihadi using sophisticated weapons but by homegrown fanatics using machetes, by people who know him well and who surely followed him for a week since he landed in Dhaka and started visiting the Ekushe Book Fair to launch his latest books. Books that advocated the spirit of science and the voice of reason in a world threatened by religious fanaticism.

Machete-wielding assailants hacked to death Roy on Feb 26 while returning from a book fair.

His murder will not silence the voice of secularism and reason in Bangladesh, if the responses of free thinkers and bloggers are anything to go by. The country has more men and women of courage and conviction espousing the spirit of 1971 than the jihadis can possibly kill. They transcend generations. But the police failure to track down the killers of Avijit Roy so far does point to serious weaknesses of state power in the fight against Islamist radicalism. Months of relentless violence during the ongoing BNP-sponsored transport blockade seems to be adversely impacting on the police and security forces.

*Subir Bhaumik is a veteran journalist and author. He can be reached at contributions@spsindia.in

The post Bangladesh Blogger’s Murder: Islamists Can Never Win – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Reeta Tremblay*

The legislative assembly elections in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, with the highest voter turnout since 1987, have resulted in a regional divide and without giving any party a majority mandate. Two months later, on February 24 the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 28 seats, almost all from the Kashmir Valley, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 25 seats from the Jammu region, announced the formation of a ‘partnership government’.

PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti, was careful to point out that the new government was not about power sharing but was founded upon an agenda for alliance which goes beyond a common minimum programme. It was, she said, unlike other previous accords of Sheikh-Indira (1974), Farooq-Rajiv (1986), and Omar-Rahul (2009). While determining the agenda for good governance and peace, the new PDP and BJP partnership, according to Mehbooba, is premised upon fulfilling first and foremost the aspirations, interests and priorities of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Through this agenda for alliance, she asserted, India has an opportunity to win the hearts of the people by overcoming “the distance” which the people of the state feel from the country.

Irrespective of the broad ideological differences between the two parties, both the BJP and the PDP need to be congratulated for forming a representative government, for respecting the popular mandate given to each by both the Valley and the Jammu region, and for proposing a common agenda for governance which could push for the removal of corruption, enhance inclusive development and meet the daily needs of the population.

Mehbooba is quite right in her assertion that this is an excellent opportunity for the BJP as well as the PDP and the country to move forward the agenda of peace and security, on the one hand, while on the other hand, reconciling both the identity-based as well as economic development demands of the different regions of the state with those of the nation. Jammu and Kashmir’s story is a complex one and the responses of the population of the three regions of the state – Jammu, the Valley and Ladakh – are distinct. Within the dominant framework of the special status of the state within India and the overarching ‘Kashmiriyat’ identity, there are competing regional political narratives – the nationalist/secessionist/irredentist in the Valley; the pro-integration/autonomy/Hindu/secular in Jammu; and the nationalist- Muslim/pro-integration-Buddhist in Ladakh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was strategic during the election campaign by not mentioning Article 370, and for the first time in Kashmir’s nationalist/secessionist movement history, the army apologized for its excesses. Modi’s efforts to initiate a dialogue with Pakistan and send India’s foreign secretary on a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) tour along with his open assertion of religious tolerance have most probably played a positive role in the PDP-BJP negotiations.

Amongst the PDP’s six-point charter of demands, the three most important ones were: the protection of Article 370, on special status to Kashmir, the revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan and the separatists. But most of all, the PDP needed to ensure the protection of the special status for the state, a make-or-break position for itself in the Valley, which it appears to have done.

The BJP would be well advised to understand the Jammu electorate which overwhelmingly supported the party in the 2014 parliamentary and the legislative assembly elections. Over the last six decades, Jammu region with its two-thirds Hindu population should be credited for supporting the secular character of Jammu and Kashmir’s government. One cannot deny, that since 1952, a minority Jammu’s Hindus has consistently remained committed to the Hindu nationalist symbols and to the BJP cause of complete accession of the state to India through the revocation of Article 370. Nevertheless, a much larger majority of Hindus in the Jammu region has traditionally voted mostly for Congress (only exceptionally for the National Conference) for its secular symbolism.

It is this preponderant majority that, in these two recent elections shifted its support to the BJP, not because of its religious agenda but because of the BJP’s promise of an inclusive development agenda. Modi’s campaign has worked for both these communities, particularly for the latter who, in addition to responding to his agenda for development and the removal of corruption, appear to favour his approach towards cross-border terrorism, dealing openly with Pakistan on the Kashmir conflict and the Western Pakistani refugees without citizenship rights in the state. If it wishes to remain in the governing position in the state, the BJP would need to understand the ground reality that its victory in Jammu cannot be simply reduced to religious reasons and rethink its polemical agenda about the revocation of Article 370. The regional electoral history shows that Jammu’s citizens are known to shift their political allegiances to ensure that they are not perceived as communal. The BJP cannot take Jammu’s Hindu voters for granted.

*Reeta Tremblay is Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and a specialist on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations. She can be contacted at reeta@uvic.ca

The post Jammu And Kashmir: A Vote For Inclusive Development – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Hassan Mneimneh, principal at Middle East Alternatives, Washington in his recent article – ‘The “Arab Spring” that is no more’, on the fourth anniversary of the event remarked that only Tunisia, where the first spark of the Arab Spring was ignited, does not get a failing grade. He added that Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” can be considered a success because the country has experienced comparatively less violence and effectively transited to a new constitutional order. Mneimneh saw Tunisia’s success as being relative in “avoiding the slippages suffered by other Arab countries and restoring state authority”.

In the last four years, Tunisia has gone through the entire cycle of ousting an apparently lifelong president, drafting a new constitution, lifting the 37-month old state of emergency and organising a round of fully democratic legislative and presidential elections. This article looks at some the achievements of Tunisia of the last few years and the growing challenges it continues to face as the new unity government in Tunis completes a month in office.

Tunisian Society

The society is fractured along two main lines. The first division is between the young and still largely unemployed generation and their older fellow citizens. The second divide has its basis in the economic disparity between the country’s coastal areas, particularly its northern part, and the less developed and often marginalized inner regions.

The latest elections between Essebsi and his rival, Moncef Marzouki held in November last year highlighted the first fault-line. The presidential elections saw a low youth voter turnout with over 80% of 18-25 year olds boycotting the vote. For the country’s youth, the Jasmine Revolution, which they spearheaded four years ago, has failed to fundamentally change the composition of the Tunisian elite. It has also inadvertently adversely impacted the economic condition of the very same segment of the population that had led the struggle against the authoritarian regime of former president Ben Ali.

The second cause of worry for the Tunisian society is the fact that it is also a primary source (largest contributor after Saudi Arabia) of foreign fighters for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. Tunisians have also faced the threat of terrorism, from militants operating from neighbouring Libya and Algeria. “Work, Freedom and National Dignity”, the war cry of the revolution continues to resound even today. Yet Tunisia has notable achievements to its credit.

Achievements

The year 2014 in Tunisia’s history marked the drafting of the country’s constitution, a landmark legislative election, and the first presidential runoff in the country’s history. The final draft of the Tunisian constitution was approved by the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) on January 27, 2014 (the third one in the country’s history, after those of 1861 and 1959).It replaced the 1959 constitution that was drafted when Tunisia gained its independence from France. The drafting process had numerous hurdles, such as the assassination of the two NCA members Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi. The second Tunisian constitution was adopted peacefully. On March 5, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki lifted the state of emergency that had been in effect for 37 months. The state of emergency had been effective since January 15, 2011; the day after former president Ben Ali fled the country.

Elections

After the establishment of the constitution, the elections were the next step towards democracy. The new constitution created a 217-seat assembly of the Representatives of the People. The election for legislature was organized by the Independent Authority for Election (French ISIE) on October 26. Nidaa Tounes emerged as the leading party with 86 seats and 37.56% of the votes polled.

Following the legislative elections, the first round of presidential elections took place on November 23. Beji Caid Essebsi, former cabinet minister of Tunisia, and former interim President Marzouki were chosen by Tunisian voters as the top two candidates, who then competed in a second round, a runoff election held on December 21. This resulted in Essebsi’s victory who received 55.68 percent of votes over Marzouki, who gained only 44.32 percent of votes. The first freely chosen president of Tunisia had been elected. On January 6, 2015 Habib Essid was nominated by Nidaa Tounes party to be prime minister and establish the new government; Essid is an American-trained economist who served under Ben Ali, as well as in the interim government.

On February 3, Essid presented his proposed cabinet for the second time in two weeks, after the first cabinet failed a no-confidence vote. This was preceded by a decision by the Islamist Ennahdha party – which has 69 seats in parliament – to join the new government. Ennahdha reportedly received four positions in the new government: three chief administrators, and one minister of employment and vocational training. The new cabinet was approved by a comfortable majority of 166 MPs.

Tunisian Jihadists

As early as June 2014, according to one estimate, nearly 2,400 Tunisian jihadists were fighting alongside the Syrian rebels, and 80% of them were with the IS. As per the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies, 14 Tunisians were also involved in suicide attacks in Iraq in March and April 2014. Unfortunately the motivation for these youth lies within the country. There is an increasing sentiment among the part of the population in post-revolutionary Tunisia that even the revolution has failed them.

Discontentment is also seen as part of the reason why, despite its banning and a broad crackdown on their members, jihadist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) and the IS continue to attract Tunisian recruits. AST, which has been responsible for the storming of the US Embassy in Tunis in 2012 and the assassination of Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, has capitalized on the discontent and fissures in the Tunisian society. Disaffection in a section of the society is also the reason why continuing crackdown on extremists in Tunisia has not yielded expected results.

According to Nasr Ben Soltana, the head of the Tunisian Center for Global Security Studies, the Tunisian state’s laxity toward certain activities of fundamentalist groups, the takeover of mosques and the presidential amnesty that resulted in the release of several prisoners, including fundamentalists, has also contributed to increase in terrorism in the country. The proliferation of weapons from Libya, propaganda on the Internet, the indoctrination of youth and political rhetoric of some leaders openly calling for jihad have aggravated the situation.

Challenges

It is clear that the main challenge presently faced by Tunisia comes from the fact that the deeper political economy of the country has yet to be reshaped to foster more democratic, equitable and sustainable networks, institutions and relationships. The challenge can be met by a determined government in Tunis. However, the next major test could be gathering force outside the Tunisian borders.

The recent beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya by IS has brought fresh challenges to the Maghreb including Tunisia. IS maybe looking to the region to relieve pressure from the coalition operations in the Middle East. Besides fresh recruits and a new conflict zone, IS, quite worryingly, maybe thinking of Maghreb as its springboard for strikes into Europe; and Tunisia will find itself in the thick of such a game plan.

*Monish Gulati is Associate Director with the Society for Policy Studies. He can be contacted at mgulati@spsindia.in

This article was published at South Asia Monitor.

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The US ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was attacked by an armed individual in Seoul, leaving him seriously injured, according to the country’s Yonhap news agency.

Lippert was at a breakfast forum in central Seoul when the attack occurred. During the attack, Lippert was slashed in the face by an unidentified man, a witness told Reuters. Other outlets are reporting that the assailant used a razor.

“The guy comes in wearing traditional Korean brown and tan dress. He yells something, goes up to the ambassador and slashes him in the face,” Michael Lammbrau of the Arirang Institute think tank, who witnessed the attack, said to Reuters.

“People wrestled the guy to the ground, the ambassador was still in his chair. The ambassador fought him from his seat. He was escorted out afterwards. There was a trail of blood behind him. He had about a seven inch-long gash on the right side of his face,” he added.

Images posted online show the ambassador with blood splattered on his hands and clothing as he clutches the right side of his face. He has been hospitalized and White House officials said the injuries are not life-threatening. President Barack Obama has also called Lippert to wish him a speedy recovery, the White House added.

“We strongly condemn this act of violence,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Park Geun-hye called the incident an “attack on the South Korea-US alliance.”

The man responsible for the attack was arrested and has been identified as a 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong, Reuters reported. Notably, this isn’t the first time Kim has attacked a foreign diplomat, as he was jailed in 2010 for throwing a piece of concrete at a Japanese ambassador.

Cho also tweeted that the attacker said “Both Koreas need to be united,” while AP reported that this statement was made during the attack. Meanwhile, other outlets are reporting that the man yelled, “No drills for war,” referencing joint military drills conducted by the US and South Korea.

Since the attack occurred, video has surfaced online that allegedly shows officials taking the suspect to the ground.

The post US Ambassador To South Korea Attacked, Slashed In Face appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The critical events of 2014 – intervention in Ukraine, ISIS violence and cheap oil – showed Europe once again the urgency of ensuring stability not only in the political field , but also on its energy front.

The European Union is now looking to push forward the realization of the Southern Gas Corridor project that will start with the Azerbaijani gas and then allow Central Asian gas to reach Europe.

The creation of energy hubs with multiple suppliers will be a solution for Europe, which as Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice-president in charge of Europe’s energy agenda said, “get tired of having a discussion on how to make it through the next winter”.

The EU imported 53 percent of its consumed energy in 2014, to a cost of about €400 billion, according to the European Commission. Six of the 28 EU member states are 100 percent dependent on Russian gas which makes up 27 percent of all gas consumed by the EU.

Moscow’s canceling of the South Stream gas pipeline to Europe reinforced Russia’s reputation as an unreliable partner, thus accelerating Europe’s search for alternative supply sources and with such a scenario, Turkmenistan is among the most benefiting sides.

Do’s and don’ts

Some might question why so many pipelines and huge volumes offered when Europe’s energy demand is not so big. The answer is diversification. Over-reliance on one supply, such as Russia or on one market – such as China in case of Turkmenistan, is not practical.
Dimitar Bechev, the senior visiting fellow at LSEE Research on South Eastern Europe, also notes that the matter isn’t about volumes but about prices and the diversification of supplies.

“Demand in Europe may be stagnant yet countries in Central Europe and the Balkans are paying a premium for Gazprom deliveries and are vulnerable to cut-offs because of Ukraine. The Southern Gas Corridor looks feasible but the real challenge will be scaling it up from 16 bcm as it stands now,” Bechev wrote in an e-mail to AzerNews.

While the TAP project, one of the core links of the Southern Gas Corridor, will only supply roughly 2 percent of European demand, the project’s executives say capacity can be lifted to 20bn cm after 2020.

To secure those increased volumes, Europe turned its eyes to Turkmenistan, which has the world’s fourth-biggest gas reserves.
“As part of a revitalized European energy and climate diplomacy, the EU will use all its foreign policy instruments to establish strategic energy partnerships with increasingly important producing and transit countries or regions such as Algeria and Turkey; Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan; the Middle East; Africa and other potential suppliers,” new Union Energy Package said.

Diversification is also relevant for Turkmenistan, which is keen on reaching European consumers despite its key partners hunger for energy, namely China.

Turkmenistan, with its giant natural gas reserves certainly has enough gas to supply more markets. Following disputes with Russia, and a cold winds in geopolitical relations between the West and Moscow, there is no doubt European energy security would benefit from the Central Asian country.

Turkmenistan needs to diversify from its single customer policy, in view of a new competitive dynamic in between China and Russia as the latter has agreed to build the “Power of Siberia” pipeline running from Eastern Siberia to China.

New markets are particularly important given recent moves of Turkmenistan’s other customer – Gazprom. Brussels’ race against Beijing to secure Turkmen gas gathered pace after Gazprom announced it will decrease its imports from Turkmenistan. Recent developments show that Turkmenistan is showing renewed signs of interest toward expanding its Western export route.

However, there are many challenges to Turkmenistan’s participation in the Southern Gas Corridor, which could be realized with the Trans Caspian Pipeline, pipeline through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan.

The Caspian littoral states have yet to decide on the Caspian Sea’s status, at a time when Iran and Russia have expressed their opposition, in particular toward a pipeline running through the Caspian. Moscow also accused Europe of interfering in Caspian Sea affairs.

Speaking about numerous challenges to Turkmenistan’s joining the European gas race and Moscow’s possible counter moves, Bechev said pressure should be expected.

“I’m sure there’ll be pressure – Caspian delimitation, Turkmens in big Russian cities, Turkmen leadership assets. Also positive incentives – better price for Turkmen gas which Gazprom gets at fire-sale levels,” he wrote.

Given the complications and too many parties involved in the decision-making process, the Trans Caspian Project has been in and out for nearly two decades.

Meanwhile, a key player in any negotiations will be Turkey, as the country holds leverage in pipeline politics after Moscow instituted to build Turkish Stream, a South Stream alternative under the Black Sea to Turkey.

The country has emerged as a key place from where to transit eastern gas to Western Europe due to risky Ukrainian territories. And now Turkey may take revenge for the EU-membership leverage that Brussels used to voice in many political discussions.

But there can also be another scenario, the EU that is not so willing to accept Russian gas on Russian conditions can accept Turkey in its membership and secure its energy routes.

In case Europe is to finance any pipeline, it would be better off doing so as part of an effort to diversify its sources of natural gas, rather than deepen its dependence on Russia.

Then, even Turkish Stream can be a friendly route to Trans Anatolian Natural gas pipeline, which has been named a strategic project for Baku, Ankara and Tbilisi.

“The Southern Gas Corridor can coexist with Turkish Stream which, in my opinion, will be a much more low-key affair geared toward Turkey’s market and not the 63 bcm replica of South Stream,” Bechev assures.

Regarding a possible Iranian gas supply toward Europe, Bechev said Iran seems close to a deal but that he’d be cautious about its prospects as a gas exporter.

“Domestic demand there sucks up all extracted gas and dispute-ridden Iranian-Turkish trade in gas has shown Tehran is far from a reliable supplier. It all depends on whether the political opening brings in foreign investment to tap into new fields – but then again energy firms have to factor in political risk and plunging gas prices in the short and medium term,” he wrote.

As to whether or not the Southern Gas Corridor can defeat its rivals, Bechev said that’ll be very tough.

“Scaling up from 16 bcm a year will be a challenge. Azerbaijan has the commercial interest as does Turkmenistan and others but they are all vulnerable to Russian pressure. Moscow can live with the Southern Gas Corridor in its present shape but if the stakes go up it’ll take a tougher approach,” he concluded.

The Southern Gas Corridor, stretching over 3,500 kilometers, crossing seven countries and involving more than a dozen major energy companies, is expected to transport gas from the Shah Deniz, the largest natural gas field in Azerbaijan and one of the biggest in the world.

Shah Deniz gas will reach Europe in 2020 with the expansion of the South Caucasus Gas Pipeline up to 23.4 billion cubic meters per year, as well as the construction of the TANAP and Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipelines. TANAP will be commissioned in 2018, while the TAP pipeline in 2020.

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As ASEAN enters a critical year in which it has to declare itself as a single ASEAN Community, a fundamental question needs to be asked: Is ASEAN integration a growing reality or an aspiration that remains unfulfilled?

By Barry Desker*

For the ASEAN member states, the benchmark of successful regionalism has been ASEAN’s effectiveness in bringing the region closer. ASEAN has provided a forum for closer consultations while promoting the habit of cooperation. The lack of intra-state conflict in a region derided as a cockpit of war and the Balkans of the East during the 1950s and 1960s has been credited to ASEAN’s success in moulding a greater regional consciousness among policymakers.

Still, in the first 40 years of its existence – from 1967 to 2007 – only 30 per cent of ASEAN agreements were implemented. I was therefore sceptical of the impact of the ASEAN Charter when it was adopted in November 2007.

Disappointing decisions

At that time, I criticised the codifying of existing norms instead of breaking new ground. I was disappointed that the ASEAN leaders reacted conservatively to the recommendations of the Eminent Persons Group report, which presented ground-breaking and innovative proposals for ASEAN integration, including a proposal that the ministers who handle security, economic and sociocultural issues report directly to the ASEAN Summit.

I argued against the stress on consensus decision-making, which resulted in a conservative, lowest common-denominator approach. This “ASEAN Way” has now become embedded in regional institutional structures and is an obstacle in community-building efforts.

Since 2008, ASEAN has performed better than expected. Statistically, 90 per cent of the targets under the three ASEAN Community Pillars have been achieved. The focus has been on inter-governmental agreements concluded and ratified, work plans adopted, studies undertaken, committees formed and other similar actions. There is less attention to the effectiveness of these measures and the extent of implementation, from the perspective of reducing transaction costs, increasing intra-ASEAN flows and improving the pace and depth of ASEAN integration.

Ties with major powers

ASEAN’s great achievement has been in facilitating regional relationships with the major powers as well as with international and regional groupings. The East Asia Summit (or EAS, made up of the Asean 10 plus the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and India) and the ASEAN Plus Three (or APT, made up of the ASEAN 10 plus China, Japan and South Korea) are central institutions in these relationships.

One problem has been the competing proposals for regional economic integration, with the EAS promoting the Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia (CEPEA) and the APT pushing for an East Asia Free Trade Agreement (EAFTA). The launch of negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in November 2012 was a step forward. ASEAN could avoid a choice between the two alternative economic visions.

More significantly, as a multilateral agreement, it offers the opportunity to avoid the trade-distorting aspects of single-country free trade agreements (FTAs), since ASEAN’s partners – Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – are states which have already concluded FTAs with ASEAN.

The presence of India in the group is, however, a point of concern as India has often been the cause of deadlocks in multilateral trade and economic negotiations. During the 1996 negotiations for the first Information Technology Agreement, my Indian counterpart blocked a consensus, fearing a loss in customs duties.

He had no idea India’s information technology industry would be a major beneficiary. Despite the pro-business thrust of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration today, there will be a need to overcome the instincts of the Indian bureaucracy if RCEP negotiations are to be successfully concluded.

Lack of ASEAN mindset

If we look at ASEAN beyond this year, the key concern is that ASEAN integration remains an illusion. ASEAN is a diplomatic community with little impact on the lives of most people in its 10 member states. Its members have diverse political, economic and legal systems and are at different levels of economic development.

There is a real worry that a “two-stage” ASEAN is emerging, with the six earlier members plus Vietnam leading the way while Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos remain mired in their least-developed country status. Within the member states, loyalties and affinities are centred on the local level, with the idea of commitment to the nation state receiving more traction today, especially in urban areas.

There is hardly any ASEAN mindset, except among policymakers, academics and journalists. Most businessmen resist closer economic cooperation if it undermines their existing market dominance but are keen on opening the markets of their neighbours. Strikingly, ASEAN policymakers appear to have tunnel vision. The three Community Pillars – political-security, economic and sociocultural – are discussed within silos and there is poor cross-sectoral interaction.

What is lacking is a “whole of government” approach. ASEAN policymakers focus on their individual sectoral responsibilities and are unable to relate their concerns to the issues affecting other sectors of society. While there is considerable discussion of ASEAN connectivity, difficult issues of “behind the border” integration need to be addressed. Critical aspects include the harmonisation of customs standards, the standardisation of legal regimes and the development of infocommunications technology infrastructure.

Fragile unity

Even when proposals are made which appear intended to promote closer integration, they fail to take reality into account. At the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Kota Kinabalu in January, Malaysia reiterated the call for a common ASEAN time zone for the capitals of Asean countries. But Timor Leste is in a time zone 2 1/2 hours ahead of Myanmar. Does this mean that the door is closed to Timor Leste’s future membership as alignment with a common ASEAN time zone would make little sense?

A growing worry is the fragile state of ASEAN unity. The ability of external parties to shape the positions of ASEAN members on regional issues such as the competing maritime claims in the South China Sea could undermine efforts to create an agreed ASEAN view. As China exerts its influence on ASEAN members to prevent any decisions which could affect its preference for bilateral negotiations, it will be increasingly difficult to reach an ASEAN consensus.

In July 2012, Cambodia blocked the inclusion of any reference to the South China Sea disputes, resulting in ASEAN’s failure to issue a communique for the first time after an ASEAN Ministerial Meeting. This development is a harbinger of future trends.

There will be pressures on ASEAN states to avoid criticisms of external powers, and the more vulnerable ASEAN members may feel obliged to agree with their external patrons. ASEAN communiques could therefore see a papering over of critical differences and the appearance of ASEAN unity concealing sharp differences of views.

*The writer is Distinguished Fellow and Bakrie Professor of South-east Asia Policy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. This first appeared in The Straits Times.

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Mohamed Ibrahim has been removed from his post as Egypt’s Interior Minister in a surprise cabinet reshuffle involving eight ministries.

He will be replaced by Maj. Gen. Magdi Abdel-Ghaffar, a leading figure in national security.

The ministries included in the move are communication, education, agriculture, housing, tourism, technical education and training, culture and — most prominently — interior.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab confirmed the reshuffle during a press conference for the upcoming economic conference.

He said the eight new ministers had been sworn in earlier on Thursday.

Ibrahim, recently a controversial figure amid what is perceived to be a heavy security crackdown on state opponents, was originally appointed in a cabinet reshuffle in January 2013. He was one of the few ministers to keep his post after the ouster of ex-President Mohamed Morsi.

Human rights activists and opposition figures have been calling for his dismissal since the death of leftist activist Shaimaa Sabbagh in January 2015.

Egypt has been witnessing an acute security situation since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in summer 2013.

The situation has intensified recently with shootings and bomb attacks occurring at an increasing frequency. They also appear to happen in more civilian areas after months of attacks mainly targeting police and army personnel and facilities, claimed by anti-government militant Islamist groups.

In addition, incidents involving policemen in deadly violence against civilians have increased, drawing wide criticisms.

The reshuffle, involving Ibrahim, comes ahead of Egypt’s anticipated investment summit expected to be held in Sharm El-Sheikh between March 13-15. Egypt has been hoping to attract investors for its cash-strapped economy.

Original article

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By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

The European Union is ready to arbitrate in the worsening dispute in Macedonia over claims of mass eavesdropping by the government, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, and Enlargement Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, said in Brussels on Wednesday.

“In these particular conditions, even more, it [help] is obviously needed”, Mogherini said, adding that “Together with the Commissioner Hahn with whom our work in the Balkans is very much coordinated… for sure it [Macedonia] will stay on the agenda”.

Asked about the possible escalation of instability in Macedonia, Mogherini warned in a sombre tone: “I am afraid that the question is not if there is going to be instability.”

Hahn meanwhile said Brussels had showed “readiness to arbitrate between the different parties” and he believed Macedonia’s main political players would accept this support.

“We have offered our assistance to resolve the current crisis. I think both parties have to move. They have to respect rule of laws. They have to respect independence of the judiciary, freedom of media and they should look for having similar, or the same, political standards in terms of parliamentary work as is the case in other countries,” Hahn said.

“We will see what will be the next step. But, in order to keep this European perspective, it is indeed necessary to resolve problems in the country and to come back to adequate international European standards,” the Commissioner added.

The latest political conflict erupted on February 9 when the opposition Social Democrat leader, Zoran Zaev, alleged that the government had wiretapped over 20,000 people in the country of 2 million.

Zaev said the eavesdropping had been orchestrated by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and the secret police chief, Saso Mijalkov.

Since then, the opposition has released further batches of tapped conversations, suggesting routine interference in the work of the courts, among other matters.

Gruevski, who has been in power since 2006, has accused Zaev of collaborating with an unnamed foreign secret service to obtain the material.

He has also accused Zaev of trying to use the material to blackmail state officials in order to grab power. His passport has been confiscated.

Zaev has denied collaborating with foreign intelligence, insisting that all the material came from sources in Macedonia’s own intelligence services.

In Berlin, the Foreign Policy Commission of the German Bundestag discussed the wire-tapping affair on Wednesday.

After the session, Klaus Braehmig, from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, CDU, told Deutsche Welle that the political situation in Macedonia was “increasingly unstable and unclear”.

He said: “Conflicts between the government and the opposition, the problematic interethnic coexistence between the Macedonians and Albanians and the restriction on the press freedoms give cause for great concern.

“In addition, we receive reports of strong corrupt structures. These findings were presented during today’s meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee,” Braehmig added, noting that such developments jeopardized Macedonia’s prospects of EU integration.

“Macedonia’s integration in the EU and NATO is endangered by the authoritarian course taken by the Macedonian government,” he said.

“The EU progress reports clearly state that the country is not mature for accession. Domestic political reforms and democratization processes are needed,” he concluded.

The post EU Offers To Mediate In Macedonia’s Wiretaps Row appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(Civil.Ge) — Hit by “severe external shocks”, Georgia’s economic growth could reach only 2% this year, but even this projection is subject to risks, said a mission from the International Monetary Fund, which visited the country on February 23-March 4.

The government, which less than three months ago set economic growth target at 5%, said last week that it would cut this year’s growth forecast to 2%. There was only 0.5% year-on-year GDP growth in January.

Crisis in Ukraine, deepening recession in Russia and currency devaluations in Georgia’s trading partner countries in the region led to decline in exports and remittances, resulting in lower foreign earnings and causing depreciation of Georgian currency lari (GEL), according to IMF mission, which visited Georgia to assess the impact from developments in neighboring countries on its economy.

Although GEL gained 6.8% over the past week to 2.1078 per U.S. dollar, it’s still weaker compared to 1.7542 in early November, before it started depreciation. At the peak of its recent depreciation on February 25-26, GEL had 29% of its value lost against U.S. dollar since early November.

Georgian exports declined 30% year-on-year in January and remittances were down by 23% y/y in the same month. Number of tourists in Georgia was 7.8% lower in January-February than year ago. The current account deficit increased to about 9.5% of GDP in 2014.

Although annual inflation was only 1.3% in February, far short of central bank’s target of 5%, it will likely pick up somewhat in coming months because of GEL depreciation, according to IMF.

Praising government for keeping the budget deficit to 3% of GDP in 2014, well below IMF’s ongoing program target with Georgia, the mission also said that for 2015 the government will need to take measures to keep the budget deficit “under control” as lower than initially forecasted economic growth will result in less than projected tax revenues in the budget.

“The government has appropriately taken steps in this direction, including by limiting employee bonuses and by taking efforts to contain administrative spending,” IMF mission said in a statement.

The government said it would cut administrative spending and revise the budget, but it has yet to present a detailed scheme.

Mark Griffiths, who led the IMF mission, said at a news conference in Tbilisi on March 4 that in order to limit the increase in the budget deficit, the government will have to cut spending or increase taxes, or the both.

“The problem is that budget deficit could increase so we need to limit that. I know that it’s not the best time to increase taxes, but the government has to choose which taxes to increase or which spending to cut… This is a difficult choice for them, but they have to do this,” he said.

The mission said in the statement that spending on the social safety programs should be maintained and “targeting improved to protect the vulnerable and the poor.”

“Because of its solid fundamentals, reform-minded authorities and the Association Agreement with the EU, Georgia is well placed to overcome the current challenges,” it said.

“We look forward to plans to accelerate reforms to make Georgia a more attractive place for doing business and for investing, for creating jobs, and for boosting growth in the future. These should include easing recent restrictions on foreign businesses, seeking out new private investment, boosting saving through pension and capital market reforms and raising education standards,” IMF mission said.

IMF ‘Fully Supports’ C.Bank’s Policy

IMF mission also said that it “fully supports” policy of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) to “refrain from intervening in the foreign exchange market and to allow Lari to float.”

In a written statement on February 26, ex-PM Bidzina Ivanishvili accused the central bank and its president Giorgi Kadagidze’s “inaction and wrong actions” for GEL depreciation. He claimed that the central bank did not intervene sufficiently to help stop sharp fall of GEL and suggested that the central bank should have sold more U.S. dollars from its reserves. After Ivanishvili’s statement was released, some government members and representatives of the GD ruling coalition also voiced criticism of the central bank.

IMF mission said that central bank’s intervention “to resist shocks, that will likely be long-lasting, would only waste Georgia’s foreign currency reserves and slow the reduction of Georgia’s trade deficit with the rest of the world.”

Central bank’s reserves stood at USD 2.61 billion as of end-January. USD 120 million was spent from reserves as of February 24.

Speaking at the news conference Griffiths, who led the mission, said: “It’s important to avoid blame-game and to focus on solutions.”

“We need to protect independence of the central bank; they are doing a good job,” he said. “I think that political attacks are not the best way forward in this difficult time.”

IMF mission said in its statement that independence of the central bank should be “preserved and respected, so that it is free to pursue its main objective of price stability, and to make sure that the financial sector stays healthy, which will support long-term stable economic growth.”

“The government and the NBG need to work together now – in a way that respects each other’s areas of responsibility and central bank independence – on a comprehensive action plan to address these new challenges.”

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By Emre Tunç Sakaoğlu

After a previous contraction in January, manufacturing activity in China remained in negative territory in February, according to the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) released on the first day of March jointly by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

China’s manufacturing output diminished for the first time after 27 months last January. The manufacturing PMI for January came at 49.8, while the relevant figure for February was 49.9, indicating a fraction point increase. On the other hand, the official non-manufacturing PMI for February, which covers services and the construction sector, rose by 0.2 percent from 53.7 in January to 53.9.

According to a statement by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the new orders subindex of February’s official PMI was recorded at 50.4, the input-price subindex at 43.9, and the production subindex at 51.4. Compared with the relevant figures from January, the new orders subindex rose 0.2 percentage points, while the input-price subindex increased by 2 percent. In contrast, the producton subindex decreased by 0.3 percentage points.

The official index is a major indicator of China’s economic well-being and monitored closely by economists and investors all around the globe. It is a key measure of manufacturing sector, with readings over 50 indicating an expansion while those below 50 indicating contraction.

PMI figures have been deteriorating for three months in a row until last month’s relative recovery. According to Zhang Qinghe, a senior analyst with the NBS quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Chinese domestic demand is picking up to a certain degree, which plays an important role in the relative rise of PMI figures.

Normally PMI figures may show seasonal fluctuation in January or February, with the corresponding Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations interrupting production and boosting demand for food products. These products make up a large portion of the basket which is used in calculating the CPI, hence inflation.

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BY Nurzhanat Ametbek

The U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was injured in an attack by an armed assailant in Seoul on Thursday morning. Korean officials worried that such an act of violence may worsen the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

Reports said Lippert was slashed on his right cheek with a razor blade when he was preparing for a lecture at a venue in Sejong Cultural Center in central Seoul. Lippert was quickly sent to a hospital for treatment. The extent of his injuries is not known yet, but “injuries are not life threatening” Department spokeswoman Marie Harf stated on CNN.

Who is the assailant?

Yoo Seungki reported from Seoul, the assailant was a 55-year old man called Kim Ki-jong, who is the head of a South Korean progressive cultural activity group. Kim had been punished in 2010 for throwing concrete at the Japanese ambassador to Seoul, and he had been punished by a suspended two-year jail term.

Kim expressed his strong opposition to “war exercises,” when he was arrested, addressing the South Korea-U.S. annual military exercises called “Key Resolve” and “Foal Eagle” that was hold on Monday.

Why the U.S. ambassador was targeted?

The 42-year old Lippert took office last year, and it was the first attack against a U.S. ambassador to South Korea reported Xinhua.

According to Yoo’s report from Seoul, the U.S. ambassador Mark Lippert is believed to be close to U.S. President Barack Obama. Lippert is very popular among South Koreans for his friendly actions and words toward the country. He gave his son — born in Seoul in January — a Korean name “Sejun”, and he posted it online through his SNS account.

Asked why he targeted the U.S. ambassador, Kim said that the South Korea-U.S. war games have prevented Korean families from being reunited, which were separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. And he consist that he did the “right thing to do” as he has protested against war in the past 30 years.

Responses of the White House and South Korea to the attack

After the attack, President Obama had called Lippert and wished his speedy recovery; the White House condemned the violence.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye described the violence as “unpardonable attack against the South Korea-U.S. alliance” as well as a physical attack against the U.S. ambassador. Park also expressed her consolations toward Lippert, President Obama and the U.S. government.

Ruling party floor leader Yoo Seung-min expressed deep worries that this kind of violence may worsen the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

The attack on the U.S. ambassador represented an anti-American sentiment shared by some South Koreans that this act of violence may delay the reunification of the two Koreas reported as Seoul (Xinhua) on March 5.

The post Concerns Attack On US Ambassador May Worsen US-South Korea Relations appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr Subhash Kapila*

Pakistan for decades, and now Afghanistan, lately are strategic dead-weights and non-performing assets in terms of Indian foreign policy and Indian security interests.

Pakistan and Afghanistan may be strategic assets for United States national interests in South West Asia and that by itself is no reason for India to adopt American foster children in the region.

Pakistan has never shed its visceral hatred for India for over six decades now and four unprovoked and unsuccessful wars against India. There is something sinister in Pakistan’s DNA and especially that of the Pakistan Army generals. No amount of Indian antibiotics in terms of olive branches, Track II toTrack IV processes and use of Indian Special Envoys can treat Pakistan’s insecurities vis-à-vis India.

Successive Indian Governments of different political dispensations, including the present one, stood and stand distracted, from wider successes in Indian foreign policy initiatives because of the disproportionate attention bestowed on Pakistan.

The above chiefly arises from Indian subservience to American security interests in the region and Indian governments’ propensity to outsource their Pakistan foreign policy to Washington.

In the last fifteen years of the so-called US-India Strategic Partnership, can any authoritative source, quote one instance in relation to Pakistan where the United States gave priority to Indian security interests?

The same pattern is visible in Afghanistan where the United States through the newly US-installed Afghan President is engaged in applying salve to Pakistan Army’ sensitivities by weaning away Afghanistan from its decade old proximity to India. The new Afghan President as reported in the media has cancelled a number of military contracts to India and commenced training of Afghan Army officers in Pakistani training establishments. This, notwithstanding the billions of dollars pumped by India in reconstruction projects in war-ravaged Afghanistan which in itself was complimenting US interests in Afghanistan.

The Indian foreign policy establishment contextually needs to answer a number of crucial questions in relation to its Pakistan policy. Who needs peace and reconciliation in South Asia, India or Pakistan? Can a hostile Pakistan arrest India’s ascendant power trajectory? Would the global community not engage a rising India because of Pakistan’s hostility?

Obviously, it is Pakistan that needs peace and stability, both within and without, to ensure its continued survival as a viable nation-state.

A hostile Pakistan despite its nuclear weapons arsenal is in no position to impede a rising India. The global community, including United States and China, have by now already demonstrated that it is in their strategic interests to engage and cultivate India.

The next question that India foreign policy establishment needs to answer is that if by some magic wand the Indian Special Envoys or the Foreign Secretary succeeds in making Pakistan reasonable, would such a born-again Pakistan be a strategic asset to India? The answer is a big NO. Its latent hostility would resurface again because of strategic compulsions of the Pakistan Army.

Afghanistan is condemned to violence and turbulence at the hands of the Pakistan Army and the United States misconceived assessment that Pakistan Army is a US strategic asset. With a pliable Afghanistan President susceptible and responsive to US and Pakistan Army pressures, Afghanistan ceases to be a strategic asset to India even existentially.

India would have to recast and revive its older policy of cultivating and supporting the Northern Alliance. United States seems to have forgotten that it was on the shoulders of the Northern Alliance that US Forces rode into Kabul.

The above course may be viewed by the United States as contradictory to its strategic formulations, so what? India’s national security imperatives dictate such a policy.

There will be a howl of Indian protests from the Indian Pakistani-apologists that dialogue, engagement and peaceful resolution of disputes are an inescapable imperative for India. The utter poverty of such thinking is exposed by Pakistan’s regrettable approaches to Indian peace moves of the last over six decades.

Can India create a new and alternative strategic asset for itself in the region on its Western Flank?

Yes, it can, if it only chooses to stop being distracted by its endless and fruitless strategic attention on Pakistan and Afghanistan and divert its strategic attention, time and focus on Iran with which it has a Strategic Partnership.

Iran, like India, and unlike Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a regional power and shares a civilizational heritage with India. Iran’s geographical contiguity with Pakistan and Afghanistan confer mutual strategic advantages. Both India and Iran enjoy strategic convergences in the region. It was regrettable that in the middle of the last decade India under Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh buckled under (once again) US pressure to downgrade its strategic ties with Iran.

India and Iran can be strategic assets for each other and it was this reality that had impelled Iran even under the Shah regime to reverse gears from its US- induced fixations on Pakistan, and make moves for strategic proximity to India.

Concluding, one would like to assert that Indian foreign policy radar can afford to delete the Pakistan and Afghanistan blips without serious setbacks to its strategic interests. However, to do so India would have to stop outsourcing its Western Flanks security interests to Washington.

*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 India’s Foreign Policy Radar: Imperatives To Delete Pakistan And Afghanistan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Bhaskar Roy*

The assassination of Avijit Roy on Dhaka university campus on February 26 is a message to the secular and free thinking society of Bangladesh that the forces of religious intolerant groups are rising at a pace that even the Jamaatul Mujahidin Bangladesh(JMB) could not attain during the BNP-JEI rule from 2001-2006.

During their government, the BNP-JEI combine had a certain accountability to the international community. Today, in the opposition, they have a free hand in creating havoc and raising a new state within the state in Bangladesh that aims to rule by terror. Their excuse, fresh elections to rectify a so-called “flawed” election in which the BNP and its 20-party alliance declined to take part.

Avijit Roy, a 42- year old American citizen of Bangladeshi origin was returning from the “Ekushey” book fair, held in commemoration of the “21 February 1952” language movement that sowed the seeds of East Pakistan’s (Now Bangladesh) separation from West Pakistan (now Pakistan) leading to the Liberation war of 1971. Roy’s wife, Rafida Ahmed Banna, was seriously injured in the incident.

Avijit Roy, who lived in Atalanta, USA, was in Dhaka to attend the “Ekushey” book fair, where two of his recent books were on sale. Of his several books “The Philosophy of Disbelief” and “The Virus of Faith” received critical appreciation across the world. He also ran a website “Mokto-Mona” (freedom of Thought). A prolific writer promoting freedom of thought, religious tolerance, humanism and secularism, Roy became a target of Islamist terrorist groups. He had received several threats to his life before he was killed.

Roy’s father, Dr. Ajoy Roy, a retired physics lecturer of Dhaka University, stood by his son’s belief and work. His life is also under terrorist threat.

A group called Ansar Bangla 7 claimed responsibility for Avijit’s murder. The Police are not yet sure about this group, or whether it is a faction of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a known terrorist organization. ABT was involved in the 2013 assassination of Rajib Haider, another secularist and anti-Islamic activist. Another well known terrorist group, Ansar al Islam claimed responsibility for killing Prof. Shafiqul Islam of Rajshahi University in 2004.

A spokesman from the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) announced that a suspect, Farabi Shafiur Reheman was arrested on February 2. He is allegedly a member of the banned Islamist outfit Hizb-ut-Tehrir (HUT).

On taking over as Prime Minister in January 2009, Sk. Hasina promised to oust terrorism from the country. Very high priority was given to this task and significant success achieved initially.

The terrorists went underground at first, but have recently come out aggressively, almost without fear. How did this transition take place? This could not have happened without financial and institutional support, and indoctrination in its new form, which makes organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda attractive to young men and women who are being blinded and brain-washed to follow the dream of an Islamic caliphate in Bangladesh. The old theory that poverty leads to extremism is no longer valid.

A UK – based international NGO, Muslim Aid, was closed down last month in Bangladesh for funding Rohingya Muslims for questionable activities in Teknaf near the border with Myanmar. A former Chairman of Muslim Aid, Chaudhury Mueen-Uddin has been sentenced for his involvement in crimes again humanity during the liberation war of 1971. Another UK- based NGO, Blue Crescent was expelled from Bangladesh a few years ago.

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) is suspected to be the kingpin. Its association with the ISI is well known, and it has been debarred as a political party for its refusal to abide by the Election Commission laws and constitution of Bangladesh. The JEI itself is a conglomerate with business interests and social work institutions all over the country.

It is suspected that the JEI and its students’ wing, the Islamic Chhatra Shibir (ICS) are coordinating most of these terrorist groups. The JEI’s stated objective is to bring in Shariya rule in the country and form a confederation with Pakistan.

The international community especially the US, UK and EU have condemned the assassination of Avijit Roy. Bangladesh has accepted the US offer of assistance in the investigation.

A brief note on the background of the outburst of radical Islamism and terrorism in Bangladesh.

Army Chief and President Zia-ur-Rehman lifted Bangladesh’s ban on the JEI and the ICS in 1978. Both these linked organizations were banned because of their cooperation with Pakistani forces and crimes against humanity. Several of their leaders are being tried for their crimes currently.

Radical Islam reared its head when some 40,000 Bangladeshi jihadists returned after fighting against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) was formed in Dhaka in 1998. Their slogan was “We are all Taliban, Bangladesh will be Afghanistan”.

The Jamatul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB) was formed the same year. The Awami League which was in power then can be faulted for not taking decisive action against these outfits.

When the BNP-JEI combine with two other parties came to power in 2001, it was open season for the terrorists. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and JEI Amir Matiur Reheman Nizami initially even denied the existence of the JMB. Terrorist groups were used as political weapons, much in the way Pakistan has been using terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), Jaish-e-Mohammad and others as political and foreign policy assets.

According to eminent Bangladeshi scholar and researcher Prof. Abul Barkat (2006), of the 125 Islamic militant organizations or supporters of militancy, most belong to the Moududi School, the JEI and ICS, Islami Oikyo Jote (IOJ), the Quami Madrassa or to the Taliban School controlled by ISI.

According to former Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Shafi Sami (2005), Bangladeshi fundamentalists had trained around 50,000 cadres with financial and technical assistance from Al Qaeda. Sami identified groups like HUJI, JMB, Hizbut Touheed, Shadat-e-Hikma, Shadat-e-Nabuwat and ICS.

Available statistics between 1997 – 2005 record the following terrorist funding figures.

Al Harmain Foundation brought in approximately $ 34 million between 1997-2001. The Kuwaiti Revival of Islami Heritage Society (RIHS) brought in about $ 25 million annually till it was banned in 2005. The RIHS was closely associated with JMB, JMJB and Sadat-e-Hikma. Pakistani national Mohammad Sajid who was arrested in 1999 for an attempt on the life of poet Shamsur Rehman, confessed he had received some 200 crore Taka ((approx $ 34 million) from Osama Bin Laden affiliated organizations. The money was distributed among 421 Quami Madrassas to train HUJI terrorists.

It would be pertinent to mention that the former commander of HUJI, Mufti Hannan, confessed to planning the grenade attack on Sk. Hasina on August 21, 2004. He also named BNP minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury, Ruhul Quddus Talukdar Dulu and others as conspirators. Terrorist links go up to Begum Khaleda Zia’s elder son Tareque Reheman, and even to the Begum herself. Lutffozaman Babar, Khaleda Zia’s Minister for Home Affairs, is in jail for aiding and abetting terrorists, especially the JMB.

What make things more alarming is the fact that a diplomatic officer from the Pakistani High Commission was arrested in Dhaka recently for funding and tasking terrorist groups including the JEI. Following this, the head of Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) in Dhaka was deported by the authorities after his house was searched.

The agitation against the Awami League led government in Dhaka is nearing the brink. More than 100 people have died in arson since the protests began on January 6. Hurling country made bombs including petrol bombs is no civil protest movement. It is terrorism. Several JEI and ICS cadre along with some BNP members have been arrested in this connection. Terrorist literature including videos of ISIS have been recovered.

A new entrant is the HUT, a banned organization, which attempted a military uprising or coup against Sk. Hasina. Very briefly, Bangladesh appears to be bursting at the seams. Given the directions that the ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates are taking, it is not only South Asia or India that is at grave risk. The west is too because some of these organizations, like the HUT and Muslim Aid have their roots and sympathizers in the UK, Europe and the US.

The JMB had first established its branch in Murshidabad, India in 2004. Following the recent bomb blasts, bomb making units and indoctrination activities have been unearthed in different parts of India. The HUT showed its face in New Delhi during the Batla House incident on September 19, 2008 in New Delhi. The HUT is particularly dangerous as it quietly works among the educated, officers in the government and the armed force.

What the west, especially the US, UK and EU can do is to try and cut off terrorist funding in Bangladesh. These outfits including the JEI and ICS cannot be treated as moderate “Muslims” but organizations of terrorists and violent extremists. It for President Barack Obama to walk his talk to his recent counter-terrorism conference.

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

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