By Dorothy E. Denning

As the US Department of Defense (DOD) formulates strategy and doctrine for operating in cyberspace, it is vital to understand the domain and how it relates to the traditional domains of land, sea, air, and space. While cyberspace has distinct technologies and methods, it shares many characteristics with the traditional domains, and some of the conventional wisdom about how cyberspace differs from them does not hold up under examination.

These similarities are especially relevant when it comes to strategies for deterrence. Just as any attempt to develop a single deterrence strategy for all undesirable activity across the traditional domains would be fraught with difficulty, so too for cyberspace. Yet this is how many authors have approached the topic of deterrence in cyberspace. Instead, by focusing on particular cyber weapons that are amenable to deterrence or drawing from existing deterrence regimes, the issues become more tractable.

But first, two key attributes of cyberspace must be examined, as they show why cyberspace strongly resembles traditional domains. These are the roles played by man vs. nature and the malleability of the domains. Other similarities across the domains are described later in the context of deterrence.

Man and Nature

Conventional wisdom holds that cyberspace is made by man, whereas the traditional domains were created by nature. This is reflected in the Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace: “Although it is a man-made domain, cyberspace is now as relevant a domain for DoD activities as the naturally occurring domains of land, sea, air, and space.”1 General Michael Hayden, USAF (Ret.), former Director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), similarly noted: “the other domains are natural, created by God, and this one is the creation of man.”2

This distinction of manmade vs. natural permeates the cyber warfare literature. Martin Libicki, a senior management scientist at the RAND Corporation and one of the leading thinkers about cyber warfare, writes, “Everyone concedes that cyberspace is man-made. This is what makes it different from its predecessors.”3

While it is certainly true that cyberspace would not exist without the computers and networks created by man, all domains of warfare, with the possible exception of land, are fundamentally manmade. The maritime domain would not exist without boats, the air domain without planes, and the space domain without rockets and satellites. Indeed, these domains, along with their respective military forces, were created only after the introduction of naval vessels, military aircraft, and spacecraft, respectively. Even the domain of land is substantially manmade. Although land forces could in principle fight it out with sticks and stones, and move only on foot or the backs of horses and camels, they instead deploy a plethora of manmade tools, vehicles, and weapons to support operations over terrain that has been substantially altered by man through the construction of roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings, canals, pipelines, and so on. Indeed, urban warfare takes place in an environment that is predominantly manmade. Nature, and especially geography, still matter, but none of the traditional domains, including land, can be understood, let alone operationalized, in today’s world without accounting for the artifacts of mankind and the changes man has made to the environment.

At the same time, cyberspace has a substantial natural component. It relies heavily on electromagnetic waves, as well as natural elements such as silicon. Indeed, the electromagnetic spectrum—that is, the range of all possible wavelengths and their associated frequencies, to include radio, infrared, and light waves—is crucial to communications in cyberspace. All communications, regardless of whether they are transmitted through the air or over wires or optical fibers, take the form of electromagnetic waves. And even though these waves are generated by manmade devices that convert digital information into continuously varying wave forms, they have the same physical makeup and are constrained by the same laws of physics as the naturally occurring ones in background radiation. Electromagnetic waves are to cyberspace much as land, water, air, and space are to the traditional domains of warfare. They are a medium for movement, in this case digital objects instead of people and equipment. The waves themselves travel through land, water, air, or space, so in a sense they are a medium within the other media—but then so too are rivers and canals with respect to land.

Computer networks, of course, are manmade. But they are like the manmade road and rail networks in the domain of land; both provide infrastructure over which much movement takes place. Moreover, just as the placement of roads and train tracks is strongly influenced by geography, so too is the placement of cyber infrastructure such as cell towers and cables.

There is another, perhaps even more fundamental reason why the man vs. nature dichotomy breaks down: all of the domains encompass more than just their physical manifestations. They are domains of human practice and, as such, constrained by the actions and decisions of humans. For example, even though the borders separating one country from another often follow natural geographic formations such as mountain ranges and bodies of water, they are set by man, as are the boundaries that separate one property owner from another within a country. Moreover, the legitimacy of these borders relies on human agreements, which in turn are backed by manmade laws, regulations, and means of enforcement. International borders are often at the root of conflict, such as those involving Ukraine, Georgia, Kashmir, and islands in the South China Sea. But even when borders are not in dispute, conflict can emerge over other human agreements, especially those of national governance. The civil war in Syria and recent coup in Thailand illustrate this fact.

Recognizing the role of humans in all domains of warfare is essential to understanding deterrence. Deterrence is fundamentally about influencing the decisions and actions (or inactions) taken by human beings, not nature. It is highly dependent on human agreements, both nationally and internationally.

At the international level, the Charter of the United Nations (UN) together with other international agreements, including the Geneva and Hague conventions and customary international law, form a body of agreements referred to as the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), which is concerned with state activity across all domains of warfare, prescribing conditions under which states may and may not use their military forces. State activity is also constrained by numerous other agreements that cover such areas as trade, travel, telecommunications, finance, the environment, energy, weapons, crime, and embassies.

At the national level, domestic laws, regulations, contracts, and other types of agreements, together with various means of enforcement including police and the criminal justice system, restrict activity within a state’s borders. Within organizations, policies, procedures, and personnel agreements restrict the actions of their employees.

As domains of human practice, all domains of warfare are further constrained by the skill and initiative of their human practitioners, and by the resources those practitioners are able to acquire to meet their objectives. Nature, by itself, will not engage a foreign adversary. Militaries must plan, resource, and execute their operations, whether in cyberspace or a traditional domain of warfare. While some of the skills needed to operate effectively in the cyber domain differ from those in other domains of warfare, other skills such as the ability to communicate effectively, work with others, build trust, and manage projects do not.

It is tempting to think that it is easier, cheaper, and faster to act in cyberspace than in traditional domains. After all, it is just a matter of moving, processing, and storing bits—not people and physical objects. But resources and skillsets matter as much in cyberspace as any other domain. Lacking adequate bandwidth, for example, it may be faster to move digital objects by downloading them to portable media and shipping the media than by sending them over a slow network. And surely one of the reasons why terrorists still prefer bombs to bytes is that it is easier for them to build and deploy explosives than to achieve comparable effects with cyber weapons. Developing a sophisticated cyber warfare capability requires considerable upfront investment.

Malleability

The manmade vs. nature distinction has led to a conclusion that cyberspace is easier to change than the traditional domains. General Hayden, for example, wrote, “Man can actually change this geography, and anything that happens there actually creates a change in someone’s physical space.”4 Libicki emphasized the importance of this aspect: “What matters is that cyberspace is highly malleable by its owners, hence its defenders, in ways other media are not.”5 If true, this would suggest that cyberspace might be more amenable to deterrence by denial, that is, through security defenses, than other domains of warfare.

While some things are easy to change in cyberspace, the overall malleability of the domain is severely limited by standards, interoperability requirements, legacy software, regulations, and the resources and inertia needed to make changes. The switch from version 4 to version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IP), for example, has been taking years. As of May 2014, the bulk of Internet traffic is still carried in version 4 packets, including over 96 percent of the traffic connecting to Google servers.6 There are many reasons for the slow adoption, but a survey of industry professionals found that the top reasons were transition costs, compatibility issues, and security concerns.7 The security issues are interesting; while version 6 mandates support for encryption and authentication, it effectively breaks security products such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems that were developed for version 4.

There are numerous other examples demonstrating the slow adoption of new Internet protocols and standards, including ones that would thwart many of the cyber attacks that plague cyberspace today, such as denial-of-service and phishing attacks that rely on spoofing an IP address, email account, or organization in cyberspace.8 In addition, organizations can be slow to adopt improved versions of operating systems and application software, as illustrated by the many installations still running Windows XP and applications built for it, and they can be slow to install security patches for published vulnerabilities.

This lag in adoption is seen in industrial control systems that operate critical infrastructure such as power generation and distribution, oil and gas distribution, and water treatment and distribution. Many of these systems run legacy software that offers practically no security, but meets performance, reliability, and safety objectives that drove decisions before the threat of cyber attacks became an issue. To make matters worse, these systems are often connected to the Internet, exposing them to cyber threats for which they lack defenses. Operators may be reluctant to update and patch these systems for fear of breaking something and disrupting essential services.

Within the Federal Government, the ability to acquire new cyber technologies is hampered by procurement regulations. Acquisition delays of 5 to 10 years are not uncommon in the military.

The malleability of cyberspace is also constrained by the time and resources required to install infrastructure such as cables and satellites, as well as by the laws of nature. Fred Cohen, for example, showed three decades ago that it was impossible to develop a computer program that would detect any computer virus by either its appearance or its behavior.9

At the same time, traditional domains of warfare, especially land, can be reasonably malleable. While building highways and bridges can take considerable time, and mountains and forests are immovable, it can be relatively easy to make certain types of changes in some geographic areas—for example, to install surveillance equipment, plant and detonate explosives, and reposition troops—all of which can significantly impact military operations. In all domains, militaries have to contend with change and uncertainty brought on by adversary actions and nature.

Cyberspace itself is also increasing the malleability of other domains of warfare. With additive manufacturing, also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, it becomes possible to transform digital blueprints into physical weapons and other types of devices. Instead of building a device in a manufacturing plant in one country and then shipping it to a facility in another, a digital blueprint can be transmitted to a 3D printer at the intended destination.

Cyberspace has an advantage over the traditional domains in that if a cyber operation alters digital objects without affecting objects external to cyberspace, its effects can be undone by restoring the original bits. Thus, if a cyber operation shuts down a power generator by tampering with bits in its control system, for example, it may be possible to restore power simply by resetting the bits. By contrast, if the generator is shut down with a bomb, it must be physically rebuilt or replaced. Additive manufacturing, however, may someday remove even some of this advantage.

Deterrence in Cyberspace

The literature on cyber deterrence reveals many challenges to the very concept.10 These include the:

• difficulty of attributing cyber attacks to their perpetrators
  ease of acquiring cyber weapons and conducting cyber attacks
• broad scope of state and nonstate actors who engage in cyber attacks for a multitude of reasons and against both state and nonstate targets
• short shelf life of many cyber weapons
• difficulty of establishing thresholds and red lines for cyber aggression
• difficulty of setting and enforcing international norms regarding cyber behavior
• challenges associated with avoiding escalation.

Authors who have compared cyber deterrence with nuclear deterrence have generally found that the principles that have made nuclear deterrence effective for over half a century fall apart in cyberspace.11

One reason why the concept of cyber deterrence raises so many challenges is that the term is extremely broad. In no other domain of warfare do we address the topic of deterrence across an entire domain. There is no notion of “land deterrence,” “sea deterrence,” “air deterrence,” or “space deterrence.” Rather, we direct our attention to particular weapons and activity. Some of these may be tied to specific domains of warfare and even geographic areas, such as deterrence of Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, but others are not, such as deterrence of state-level aggression generally.

Consider nuclear deterrence. It is about a specific type of weapon, not a domain of warfare. In fact, it crosses all domains of warfare, as nuclear weapons can be launched from land-based missiles, fired from submarines, or dropped from bombers against targets in any domain. The success of nuclear deterrence is contingent on the nature of the weapon, which inherently limits its casual development and deployment. Nuclear deterrence is directed primarily at nation-states and, by extension, state-sponsored terrorists. It relies primarily on retaliation or punishment, including nuclear counterstrikes leading to mutually assured destruction. But nuclear deterrence also depends on restricting the states that have nuclear arsenals and the spread of the knowledge and materials required to develop the weapons, sometimes called “deterrence by denial.” This in turn is supported by the establishment of international norms and agreements that limit the acquisition and use of nuclear technologies, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. Both denial and norms can have a deterrent effect by dissuading parties from even attempting to acquire nuclear weapons.

In traditional domains of warfare, there are all sorts of nefarious activity that one would like to deter, including bombings, chemical and biological attacks, genocide, terrorism, armed invasions by foreign military forces, theft, bribery, fraud, extortion, embezzlement, insider trading, political corruption, arson, murder, espionage, vandalism, kidnapping, sexual assault, child and elder abuse, and animal abuse. Some of this activity falls in the area of national security and military operations, but other activity falls in the area of domestic crime and law enforcement. Given the enormous scope of the actors and activities involved, it would be difficult to develop an effective deterrence strategy that covered it all. Attempting to do so would inevitably raise many of the same problems that have surfaced in studies of cyber deterrence. For example, like many cyber weapons, many physical weapons, to include knives and guns, are easy to acquire and difficult to control. Street crimes such as vandalism, arson, and theft can be easy to commit but difficult to prevent and attribute.

Cyberspace is becoming as rich a domain of activity as land. It supports a large and ever growing set of operations relating to communication, finance, business, commerce, education and training, research, entertainment, health care, the environment, energy, government, military operations, and more. And, like all domains of warfare, it is used for both civilian and military activity. To get our hands around deterrence in cyberspace, we need to move beyond general statements about the domain as a whole to statements about situations where deterrence could play a meaningful role. One might argue that cyber deterrence is really about a particular type of weapon and not the domain, and in that regard its focus is similar to nuclear deterrence. But the comparison is not fair. Cyber weapons constitute the entire set of methods and tools that can produce effects in cyberspace, ranging from simple weapons that are readily acquired and used by “script kiddies” with no real skill in the domain, to those that require an advanced capability to develop and successfully deploy, such as was the case with Stuxnet. They also range from weapons whose effects are minor to ones that could potentially lead to death. By contrast, nuclear weapons are a highly lethal subset of all explosives, and explosives in turn are just a subset of all the physical weapons that can produce effects in traditional domains.

Just as we do not sweep all physical weapons into a single strategy of deterrence, we should not try to sweep all cyber weapons into a single strategy. Rather, we need to narrow our treatment of deterrence as it relates to cyberspace. The following suggests two approaches: one centered on particular cyber weapons, the other on existing deterrence regimes. These are not exclusive, but rather orthogonal or complementary. Others have advocated tackling the deterrence issues by taking into account the geopolitical context12 and applying principles of tailored deterrence, both of which can be used with the ones suggested in this article.13

Deterrence for Classes of Cyber Weapons

The first approach is to focus on relatively narrow classes of cyber weapons where deterrence might be feasible. For example, consider nuclear electromagnetic pulse weapons, sometimes referred to as nuclear EMPs or simply NEMPs. These are nuclear weapons that would be detonated at high altitudes above Earth with the objective of damaging electronic devices rather than killing persons or blowing up buildings. Because so much critical infrastructure depends on computers and other electronic devices, the effects of a well-placed NEMP attack could be devastating not only to cyberspace but also to all domains of activity and society as a whole. Testifying before Congress, former CIA Director James Woolsey noted that a nuclear warhead, launched with a medium-range missile from the Gulf of Mexico and detonating at an altitude of 400 kilometers, would generate an EMP field on the ground with a radius of 2,200 kilometers, “covering all of the contiguous 48 United States, causing a nationwide blackout and collapse of the critical infrastructures everywhere.”14

Because NEMPs are nuclear weapons, they automatically fall under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence. In addition, unlike nuclear weapons that detonate directly against their targets, their effects can be denied, as electronics can be hardened against the damaging radiation emitted by these weapons. While such hardening may not be practical for all electronic devices, it might be worth applying to critical infrastructures vital to society.

Numerous cyber weapons lend themselves to deterrence by denial, including any weapon that can be thwarted with the adoption of existing security technologies and practices. As noted earlier, many denial-of-service and phishing attacks can be stopped with anti-spoofing technologies that already exist. Deterrence strategy could focus on stimulating greater adoption of these technologies and on developing additional ones. In addition, many cyber weapons exploit vulnerabilities in existing systems for which there are patches or fixes. Deterrence strategy could promote more rapid and widespread adoption of these fixes. Strong defenses can convince would-be perpetrators that a cyber attack will likely fail and, therefore, is not worth implementing.

Some classes of cyber weapons might be suitable for deterrence by punishment. Even though many cyber attacks are difficult to attribute and therefore punish, others are not. Cyber activists operating under the banner of Anonymous, for example, used a cyber weapon called the Low Orbit Ion Cannon to conduct denial-of-service attacks against targeted Web sites. This tool did not, however, give its users anonymity, and 19 people who used it during “Operation Payback” in 2011 against PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa were identified and arrested, including 14 in the United States.15

Still other types of cyber weapons might be suitable for deterrence by norms and agreements. NEMPs, as nuclear weapons, fall in this category. If a cyber weapon is ever developed that could cause massive deaths, it might be similarly categorized.

Deterrence Through Established Regimes

A second approach to deterrence in cyberspace is through the application of deterrence regimes established for other kinds of activity. As already noted, we can do this with NEMPs, drawing on existing strategies and mechanisms for nuclear deterrence. But we can also do it more broadly and apply established strategy for deterring state-level aggression and crime by nonstate actors.

LOAC is particularly relevant to deterring state-level aggression. Although it predates cyberspace, government officials, scholars in the area of international law, and cyber experts generally agree that it applies to cyberspace. A UN group of government experts affirmed this: “International law, and in particular the United Nations Charter, is applicable and is essential to maintaining peace and stability and promoting an open, secure, peaceful and accessible” cyberspace.16 The Tallinn Manual, sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, offers rules for applying LOAC to cyberspace,17 and DOD has stated that its actions in cyberspace will be governed by LOAC and all other applicable domestic and international legal frameworks.18 LOAC supports deterrence by both norms and punishment by establishing principles for the use of force by states and for responses by the international community to state acts of aggression.

In addition to LOAC, other international agreements might serve to deter certain activity. One such agreement is the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which requires participating nations to protect trade secrets. Both the United States and China are members of WTO, and in response to the indictments of five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for stealing trade secrets, Senator Charles Schumer called on the U.S. representative to the WTO to file suit at the WTO against China for state-backed cyber espionage.19

Well-tempered statecraft can deter aggressive state behavior in all domains of warfare. Also, to the extent that the affairs of states are intertwined, especially economically, there is some deterrence by interdependency or entanglement; if one state harms another, it will also harm itself.

Crimes committed by nonstate actors have been deterred traditionally through norms via religious and moral teachings as well as crime statutes; by punishment via law enforcement and the criminal justice system; and by denial via fences, locks, alarms, guards, and other mechanisms that control entry into protected spaces. In addition, surveillance devices such as security cameras can help catch criminals such as shoplifters, muggers, and vandals who would otherwise not be identified and caught, thereby strengthening deterrence by punishment. Community policing, especially in “hot spots,” and neighborhood watch groups can also deter street crime.

Cyber crimes can be deterred by the same types of mechanisms. In the United States, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, together with its amendments and other laws that apply to cyberspace, set norms for acceptable behavior in cyberspace. Many of these norms appear in the domestic crime laws of other countries as well. In addition, they are included in the Council of Europe (COE) Convention on Cybercrime. As of March 2014, 42 countries had ratified the Convention and 11 more had signed it, showing strong international consensus regarding much cyber activity.²⁰ While these laws obviously have not deterred those persons who commit cyber crimes, they likely deter those who view themselves as law-abiding citizens.

At least one study has shown that deterrence by punishment applies to cyber crime. Researchers at the National University of Singapore found a 36 percent reduction in cyber attacks relating to 49 reports of government enforcement actions in eight countries.²¹ However, more studies are needed to validate (or refute) these results and to determine factors that can make a difference. While it would be overly optimistic to assume that the persons behind all cyber attacks could be caught and punished, improved methods of cyber forensics and attribution, coupled with greater international cooperation such as that facilitated by the COE Convention on Cybercrime, could lead to greater deterrence by punishment.

Deterrence by denial is practiced every day in cyberspace via cyber security mechanisms and practices, including the regular installation of security patches, the use of strong methods for authentication, and the application of firewalls, black and white lists, intrusion prevention systems, antivirus tools, encryption, and so forth. We can aim for even more effective cyber security in the future by placing greater emphasis on security during the design, development, installation, and operation of new cyber technologies, but it is not likely to ever be completely foolproof, for much the same reason that crime overall will never be fully eliminated. Still, denial offers the best means of deterrence, whether in cyberspace or not, in those situations where it can be applied and is cost effective. Much of the literature on deterrence in cyberspace recognizes this.

Conclusions

Cyber technologies are inherently different from those that define the traditional domains of warfare. After all, they are used to move, process, and store digital objects across computer networks—not people and physical objects across land, sea, air, and space. But technology aside, cyberspace shares many of the same characteristics as other domains of warfare. All have both manmade and natural elements, and the malleability of all is subject to considerable constraint. Importantly, all are domains of human practice, characterized by a wide range of activity by both state and nonstate actors, some of which is hard to attribute, and by a variety of weapons ranging in availability, cost, and effects produced.

Because cyberspace is such a rich domain, studies of “cyber deterrence” raise as many problems as would be raised by a comparable study of “land deterrence.” This does not mean that deterrence in cyberspace is impossible, only that a more focused approach is needed, as has been followed in traditional domains of warfare. One possible approach is to consider classes of cyber weapons that lend themselves to deterrence. Another is to consider existing deterrence regimes, including international regimes governing nation-states and domestic regimes governing nonstate criminal behavior. These approaches can be combined with others that are tailored to particular actors or geopolitical contexts. Together, they may offer a tractable approach to deterrence in cyberspace.

Source:
This article was originally published in the Joint Force Quarterly 77, which is published by the National Defense University.

Notes:

1. Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, July 2011), 5, available at <www.defense.gov/news/d20110714cyber.pdf>.
2. Michael V. Hayden, “The Future of Things ‘Cyber,’” Strategic Studies Quarterly (Spring 2011), 4, available at <www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2011/spring/hayden.pdf>.
3. Martin C. Libicki, “Cyberspace Is Not a Warfighting Domain,” I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society 8, no. 2 (2012), 324, available at <http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/is/files/2012/02/4.Libicki.pdf>.
4. Hayden, 4.
5. Libicki, 324.
6. IPv6 Statistics, accessed May 14, 2014, at <www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html#tab=ipv6-adoption>.
7. Aman Yadav et al., “IPv6 Protocol Adoption in the U.S.: Why Is It So Slow?” Capstone paper, University of Colorado, May 4, 2012, available at <http://morse.colorado.edu/~tlen5710/12s/IPv6Protocol.pdf>.
8. Examples of protocols and standards that would significantly improve cyber security include the Network Ingress Filtering standard, which would put an end to many large-scale denial-of-service attacks that rely on Internet Protocol address spoofing; the Domain Name System Security Extensions, which protect against cyber attacks such as domain spoofing and hijacking; the Secure Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which addresses serious security issues with BGP that can lead to network blackouts and make traffic more vulnerable to adversary eavesdropping; and Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance for authenticating email, which would combat many email security issues such as phishing and spam that rely on spoofing the sender.
9. Fred Cohen, “Computer Viruses: Theory and Experiments,” University of Southern California, August 31, 1984, available at <http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~aprakash/eecs588/handouts/cohen-viruses.html>.
10. See, for example, Martin C. Libicki, Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009); Martin C. Libicki, “Deterrence in Cyberspace,” High Frontier 5, no. 3 (May 2009), 15–20; “Letter Report for the Committee on Deterring Cyberattacks: Informing Strategies and Developing Options for U.S. Policy,” Washington, DC, National Research Council, March 25, 2010; Jonathan Solomon, “Cyberdeterrence Between Nation-States: Plausible Strategy or a Pipe Dream?” Strategic Studies Quarterly 5, no. 1 (Spring 2011); and Emilio Iasiello, “Is Cyber Deterrence an Illusory Course of Action?” Journal of Strategic Security 7, no. 1 (2013), 54–67.
11. See, for example, David Elliott, “Deterring Strategic Cyberattack,” IEEE Security & Privacy (September/October 2011), 36–39.
12. Will Goodman, “Cyber Deterrence: Tougher in Theory Than in Practice,” Strategic Studies Quarterly (Fall 2010), 102–135.
13. Richard L. Kugler, “Deterrence of Cyber Attacks,” in Cyberpower and National Security, ed. Franklin D. Kramer, Stuart H. Starr, and Larry K. Wentz (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2009), 309–340.
14. James R. Woolsey, “Testimony Before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,” Washington, DC, May 21, 2013, available at <http://highfrontier.org/r-james-woolsey-testimony-before-the-house-committee-on-energy-and-commerce-may-21-2013/#sthash.PsBE9is7.dpbs>.
15. Frazier McGinn, “Anonymous Arrested for DDoS Against PayPal,” Examiner.com, July 19, 2011, available at <www.examiner.com/article/anonymous-arrested-for-ddos-agaisnt-paypal>.
16. Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security, Report A/68/69 (New York: United Nations General Assembly, June 24, 2013).
17. Michael Schmitt, ed., The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
18. Department of Defense Cyberspace Policy Report: A Report to Congress Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Section 934 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, November 2011).
19. Press release from the office of Senator Charles E. Schumer, United States Senator for New York, May 22, 2014.
20. Council of Europe, “Convention on Cybercrime,” available at <http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=185&CM=8&DF=&CL=ENG>.
21. I.P.L Png and Chen-yu Wang, “The Deterrent Effect of Enforcement Against Computer Hackers: Cross-Country Evidence,” Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, March 2007, available at <http://weis2007.econinfosec.org/papers/77.pdf>.

The post Rethinking The Cyber Domain And Deterrence – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By P. K. Gautam

India’s appetite for gold leads to an annual import of about 800 to 1,000 tonnes of the precious metal. This import of gold is a principal cause for the country’s chronic trade imbalance. Many Indian temples and places of worship and pilgrimage hold large quantities of gold, which they have accumulated from donations of jewelry and gold bars and coins over the centuries. These lie in the security of temple vaults. In addition, there are large personal collections of gold held by individuals and families.

According to media reports, the government is planning to launch a scheme in May 2015 that will encourage temples to deposit their gold with banks in return for interest payments. It is also contemplating the idea of extending this scheme to individuals and families who hold an estimated 17,000 tonnes of gold. The idea is that the consequent reduction in gold imports will relieve pressure on foreign exchange reserves and contribute to correcting the balance of trade.

It is common knowledge that there are two aspects to this issue of India’s demand for gold. First, the Indian penchant for holding gold is linked not so much to religious but socio-economic reasons. Second, a sizeable number of devotees offer gold as offerings to the gods. Both aspects are sensitive in nature. Therefore, it would need a great deal of public education to motivate and convince the people to participate in this scheme. In other words, the government has to think how it can better incentivize temple trusts and citizens to deposit their gold. In the past, a similar scheme was thought of in 1999. But that did not take off because the incentive in the form of interests offered was too low.

It is here that Kautilya’s Arthashastra comes handy. Kautilya’s Arthashastra is an areligious manual that serves as a guide for the internal and external administration of the state. State-making, war-making, protection and resource extraction remain the main activities of the state and Kautilya focused on these core activities. In this regard, he began his discussion first by identifying the elements that make up a state. This is his famous saptanga theory or the seven Prakrits or constituent elements of a state. These seven elements in order of priority are: the svamin (king or ruler), amatya (body of ministers and structure of administration), janapada/rastra (territory including agricultural land, mines, forest, pastures, water resources and communication system for trade), durga/pura (fort), kosha (treasury), danda/bala (army) and mitra (ally). Kautilya further elaborates on the need to take care of these elements. Importantly, in Book Eight, he warns that vyasanas (calamities) may affect these prakrits and details the various calamities in this regard.

Gold has been a measuring rod of the state treasury, then as now. The importance of treasury (kosha) is thus obvious. Kautilya argues that the treasury (kosha) is more important than the army (danda/bala). The latter, he argued, can be raised and maintained only with the help of a well-filled treasury. He explains further in Chapter One, sutras 48-49, in Book 8 that, “In the absence of a treasury, the army goes over to the enemy or kills the kings. And the treasury, ensuring (the success of) all endeavours, is the means of deeds of piety (dharma) and sensual pleasure (kama).” These passages in the Arthashastra demonstrate the importance of the treasury in the state’s scheme of things. In the modern sense, a well-filled treasury translates into a healthy and vibrant economy.

Further, Kautilya has also given a clear structure of power or prabhashakti (might), which flows out of the combination of the treasury and the army in the overall context of state power and its ability to attain its goals and ensure security. Today, these concepts are no different. In the modern discourse, a strong and vibrant economy is a prerequisite for state strength. Maintaining the fiscal balance and a healthy foreign exchange reserve are important in this regard.

In the methods suggested for improving the financial health of the state, Kautilya argues that when the treasury gets depleted, concerted efforts become necessary for its replenishment. He even recommends extraordinary measures in emergency situations. In his study of the Arthashastra of Kautilya, the great translator and commentator Professor R.P. Kangle showed how Book 5 (Secret Conduct), Chapter Two, Section 90 ‘Replenishment of the Treasury’ recommends several measures to recharge the treasury. These include: higher than normal levies and taxes during times of war or calamities; requesting contributions for specific undertakings from the people; asking the rich to pay according to their means and in return conferring titles, decorations and other honours upon them. These are all more or less open demands made by the ruler on his subjects. But in a subsequent part of the same Section 90 (from sutra 37 to 69), Kautilya’s Arthashastra describes a number of not so open and mostly quite dubious ways of replenishing the treasury. The first of these is appropriating the property of heretical samghas or temples in collusion with their trustees who are to justify it by stating that the property has burned down or has been lost (5.2.37-38). Secondly, the miraculous manifestation of a deity should be arranged and fairs and festivals started in its honour to provide a source of income to the state; a number of ways in which the credulity of the people is to be exploited in this manner are described (5.2.39-45). Third, secret agents posing as traders should receive deposits or loans on a large scale and get the whole ‘stolen’ at night’ (5.2.46-51). Other measures recommended are to be employed only against dusyas, i.e. those suspected of treason, and not ordinary citizens. For instance, the property of dusyas may be confiscated after getting them entrapped in some serious crime through state agents (5.2.52-69). It needs to be emphasised that Kangle had correctly argued that “it is certainly impossible to believe that the devious ways of replenishing the treasury described in the latter half of the Chapter (sutras 37 to 69) are recommended as normal sources of state income.”

What do we take away from this rich ancient Indian manual on statecraft? First, the idea of extracting unused temple gold and property is not new. There is a demonstrated utility in such measures for shoring up the state’s reserves, with concepts suitably modified for modern times. The Constitution does not debar the state from requesting gold from citizens during times of crises. Many citizens donated gold voluntarily for the 1962 war.

In this context, the government needs to think how it can better motivate temple trusts and citizens to deposit their gold in banks. While the Arthashastra may not offer ready solutions in this regard, especially given the changed modern context, it does highlight the importance of incentivising/beguiling citizens and institutions to part with their wealth for the larger purposes of strengthening the state. We should not forget that the modern state and even more so the modern democratic state is but the expression of the collective will of the people. The guiding principle should therefore be: will the people be happy with this scheme? For this, proper feedback needs to be taken for the scheme to have any success. Kautilya’s Core Introductory Message in Rules for the King (1.19.34) needs to be the final guide in this regard: “In the happiness of the subjects lies the happiness of the king and in what is beneficial to the subjects his own benefit. What is dear to himself is not beneficial to the king, but what is dear to the subjects is beneficial (to him).”

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

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/UsingTempleGoldforShoringup_pkgautam_170415.html

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(EurActiv) — An official of Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom told a Brussels audience that his company could guarantee a levelized price for electricity of $50/MWh from new nuclear plants it builds, if the client chooses the firm’s services for their lifecycle. According to EU policies, however, fuel supply should be diversified.

Speaking at an event organised by New Nuclear Watch Europe, Kirill Komarov, First Deputy CEO of Rosatom, said that his company was the only one able to guarantee a low price for electricity, if European countries chose the full package of its services.

Komarov said that all power plants in the EU are ageing, and that almost half of the electricity generation capacities was likely to be shut down in the coming decades.

“Half of the 131 European nuclear power plants have been operating for more than 29 years. This ageing nuclear fleet requires immediate decisions regarding new plant construction or the life extension of existing ones,” he said.

Organising investment for a nuclear plant is a major challenge for European countries who wish to develop nuclear energy, said several speakers at the conference. Komarov argued that the best way to organise investment is by being able to guarantee the levelised cost of electricity during the entire lifecycle of a nuclear power plant.

“We at Rosatom have the target to arrive at $50/MWh as a levelised cost of electricity, covering everything,” he said, explaining that this would fuel supply for 60 years of operation, and eventual decommissioning.

‘All in one package’

The Rosatom official argued that such a price, which is very competitive compared to other energy sources, can be guaranteed if “a lot of efforts and technologies are combined in one package”, with Rosatom not only constructing the plant, but “guaranteeing its future”.

He said that Rosatom is constructing nine nuclear units on the territory of Russia, each with a capacity of 1000 or 1200 MW and eleven abroad.

“If you have such big package, if you have serial construction, you can be on time and in budget,” he conteded.

However, the EU policy regarding fuel security is that countries should have at least two sources for supply of nuclear fuel.

Komarov said Rosatom was against politicising issues and stood for a free and fair market.

“When people are talking about dependency from Russia and monopoly from Russia, they maybe don’t know, that in the last ten years, there were more than ten tender procedures in five countries that are using nuclear technology, so it’s not direct supply, it was tender procedure. Yes, all these tender procedures were won by Rosatom, thanks to the fair market procedures. We proposed good price, good quality, good conditions for the customer,” he said.

“Sometimes we hear some interesting ideas that it’s obligatory that there should be a second supplier for each and every nuclear power plant. If you have a fair competition, somebody will win and will supply the plant. If you are obliged to have a second supplier, this is not a competition. We are strongly against this approach,” Komarov commented.

The Rosatom official said his company was also developing the capacity to supply fuel to Western-built plants, but expressed the concern that “special efforts” to distort the market could make such efforts obsolete.

Euratom: No contract is valid without our signature

Euratom Director-General Stamatios Tsalas said that according to the Euratom treaty, which is binding for member states, it is this agency who should buy the nuclear fuel and then give it to the utilities. But in reality, a simplified procedure has been used where the utilities look at what producers offer. When they make their contracts, they send them to the agency for approval.

“Without our signature contacts are not applicable according to EU law,” he said.

Tsalas explained that the European nuclear market underwent a change with the accession of the new member states, because in the older member states, it has always been the case that building a reactor and supplying the fuel were separate issues. All old member states that use nuclear energy use more than one supplier, whereas all new member states with nuclear power plants use Russian nuclear fuel.

For technical reasons, if a country loses its supplier, it would take years before it would find a new one, the Euratom director stated.

“We cannot go so far to say that you should not get Russian fuel. To the contrary, you should always have the possibility to buy Russian fuel, but there should be an alternative, so in case you need it, you can have it,” he said.

But he added that an alternative was not possible without a market. He used the example of Bulgaria, who recently turned to Westinghouse as an alternative supplier for its Kozlodui nuclear power plant.

“If Westinghouse would produce fuel for a Bulgarian reactor, they would like to know that they would have a chance to sell it. They would not make an investment to develop it in order to have it in petto, just in case that Russian supplies do not happen. This is why we believe that it is necessary to have developments in this direction, to have alternatives for supply, and to have a market,” Tsalas said.

He also argued that Bulgaria did wrong by approaching Westinghouse for building a new reactor at Kozlodui, instead of calling an open tender. Westinghouse has rejected the offer, and Bulgaria has lost valuable time in the process.

Towards the end of the conference, after Komarov had left to catch his plane, Tsalas commented:

“Russia is a difficult partner. We don’t consider Russia someone who should be expelled from the European market, that’s unimaginable. Nevertheless their market is not in the game. And we don’t see any evolution in this respect,” he said, alluding to the fact that Russia has 18 Russian-made nuclear reactors on its soil, while Western firms are excluded from building nuclear plants on Russian soil.”

He also referred to the new Russian-built Finnish nuclear power plant at Fennovoima, in the country’s north. The planned fuel supply for Fennovoima was recently passed by Euratom, and requires no further attention from the European Commission.

“We discussed the Finnish reactor before there was a geopolitical discussion about Ukraine. And I’m very happy about that. Because we have the positions we have taken concerning the openness of the market, after a certain time, for the supply of nuclear fuel, before there was any political problem with Russia,” Tsalas stressed.

Georgi Gotev

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Burying the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, has been mooted as one geoengineering approach to ameliorating climate change. To be effective, trapping the gas in geological deposits would be the for the very long term, thousands of years.

Now, a team in Brazil, writing in the International Journal of Global Warming has reviewed the risk assessments for this technology and suggests a lack of knowledge means we should be cautious of turning to this method rather than finding sustainable ways to reduce emissions at their source.

Maísa Matos Paraguassú of the Federal University of Bahia and colleagues there and at Salvador University explain how the scientific consensus suggests that anthropogenic carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere underpins the greenhouse effect. Rising concentrations of the gas could lead to an uncontrollable rise in global average temperatures with concomitant effects on our planet’s climate and devastating local effects in extreme cases.

Numerous proposals have been put forward to sequester carbon dioxide from emissions sources, such as power stations the electricity-generating turbines within which are powered by fossil fuels, and vehicle exhausts. But, ultimately, there need to be global repositories within which the gas can be stored indefinitely in sublimed or mineralized form.

Of course, the sequestration, conversion and transportation of trapped carbon dioxide has its own energy and emissions costs. Nevertheless, if sufficient of this greenhouse gas can be held within geological formations, then there might be a way to tame the potentially runaway effect of climate change that would ensue if atmospheric levels continue to rise.

“Risk can be obtained from the ‘combination of uncertainty and damage’, the ‘ratio between hazard and safeguard’, and the ‘combination of probability and consequence’,” the team reports, quoting various research teams from the last thirty years or so.

For geological storage of carbon, there are technological risks as well as risks associated with the geology and geography of any chosen deposition site. The risks of a leak from a large deposit might well be enormous. It is difficult to determine how big that risk actually is because geological sites do not conform to the standardized structures and materials one would expect with a design industrial storage facility, for instance.

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By Gwynne Dyer

Killer robots is a dreadful name, don’t you think? It reminds you of the killing machines in the “Terminator” series and the “Battle Droids” of “Star Wars.” “Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems” is a much classier name, and the acronym is even better: LAWS. So the international conference that opened at the United Nations Geneva office on Monday is about LAWS.

Don’t think “drones” here. Drones loiter almost silently, high in the air above your picnic, until the operator back in Las Vegas decides that you are plotting a terrorist attack and orders the drone to kill you and your family. But at least there is an operator, a human being in the decision-making loop.

With LAWS, there isn’t. The machine sorts through its algorithms, and decides on its own whether to kill you or not. So you’ll probably be glad to know that there are no operational machines of that sort — yet. But military researchers in various countries are working hard on them, and they probably will exist in 10 or 20 years.

Unless we ban them. That’s what the conference in Geneva is about. It’s a meeting of diplomats, arms control experts and ethics and human rights specialists who, if they agree that this is a real threat, will put it on the agenda of the next November’s annual meeting of the countries that have signed the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). So it’s early days yet, and there’s still a chance to nip this in the bud.

That’s an awkward name, but not nearly as clumsy as the full name: The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. But it actually has done some good already, and it may do some more.

Protocol 1 bans “The use of weapons the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which are not detectable by X-rays in the human body.” Protocol II requires countries that use land mines to make them deactivate automatically after a certain period. Protocol V, added in 1995, prohibits the use of blinding laser weapons.

The world would be a worse place if they did not exist. They do exist, and by and large they are obeyed. But none of these weapons would make a decisive difference in actual battle, whereas they cause or would cause great human misery, so it was easy to ban them.

The problem with killer robots is that they could make a decisive difference in battle. They don’t get tired, they don’t get paralyzed with fear, and if you lose them, so what? It’s just a machine. There’s no person in there. But that’s precisely the problem: There’s no person in there. Do you trust the machine to make decisions about killing people — who’s a soldier and a legitimate target, who’s an innocent civilian — all by itself?

So by all means let’s ban purpose-built killer robots if we can: This is an initiative that deserves our support. So it is also time to start working on international rules governing their behavior.

Isaac Asomov’s Three Laws of Robotics (written in 1942) would be a good point of departure.

One: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Two: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Three: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The post Killer Robots: Not A Good Idea – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has sought Pakistan’s help in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table for a peaceful settlement of the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan, the local media reports. President Ghani expressed these considerations to the Chief minister of the Pakistani Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pervez Khattak, in a meeting in Kabul.

The visit of the delegation headed by Khattak was part of the government’s efforts to boost bilateral relations, particularly in trade and commerce.

Afghan officials said Pakistan, on Ghani’s request, promised to facilitate negotiations between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban as early as the first week of March, although initial interests have not yet led to concrete progress.

“I saw a strong desire in the Afghan leadership for peace and friendship with Pakistan”, Khattak said. “There is sincerity in Afghanistan and we should seize this opportunity”, he added referring to Ghani stressing that his nation wants “a strong and permanent friendship with Pakistan”.

During the visit, the Afghan minister for refugees and repatriation and Foreign minister raised the issue of arrests and alleged harassment of undocumented Afghans. “We want all Afghans to return to their homeland and contribute in its development and reconstruction”, Foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani said, adding that the Afghan government needed time to develop a strategy to absorb its returning citizens.

The post Afghanistan: Ghani Wants Pakistan’s Help In Talks With Taliban appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In this week’s address, US President Barack Obama spoke about his commitment to combating the threat of climate change and to keeping ourselves and future generations safe. The effects of climate change can no longer be denied or ignored – 2014 was the planet’s warmest year recorded, and 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have happened this century. Climate change poses risks to our national security, our economy, and our public health. The President has already taken historic steps to address climate change, but there’s more that the United States and the international community can do. That’s why next Wednesday, on Earth Day, in the latest part of his effort to call attention to and act on the threat of climate change, the President will visit the Florida Everglades and speak about the threat that climate change poses to our economy and to the world.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
April 18, 2015

Hi everybody. Wednesday is Earth Day, a day to appreciate and protect this precious planet we call home. And today, there’s no greater threat to our planet than climate change.

2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Fourteen of the 15 hottest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century. This winter was cold in parts of our country – as some folks in Congress like to point out – but around the world, it was the warmest ever recorded.

And the fact that the climate is changing has very serious implications for the way we live now. Stronger storms. Deeper droughts. Longer wildfire seasons. The world’s top climate scientists are warning us that a changing climate already affects the air our kids breathe. Last week, the Surgeon General and I spoke with public experts about how climate change is already affecting patients across the country. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security.

And on Earth Day, I’m going to visit the Florida Everglades to talk about the way that climate change threatens our economy. The Everglades is one of the most special places in our country. But it’s also one of the most fragile. Rising sea levels are putting a national treasure – and an economic engine for the South Florida tourism industry – at risk.

So climate change can no longer be denied – or ignored. The world is looking to the United States – to us – to lead. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re using more clean energy than ever before. America is number one in wind power, and every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008. We’re taking steps to waste less energy, with more fuel-efficient cars that save us money at the pump, and more energy-efficient buildings that save us money on our electricity bills.

So thanks in part to these actions, our carbon pollution has fallen by 10 percent since 2007, even as we’ve grown our economy and seen the longest streak of private-sector job growth on record. We’ve committed to doubling the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China has committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions. And because the world’s two largest economies came together, there’s new hope that, with American leadership, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to prevent the worst impacts of climate change before it’s too late.

This is an issue that’s bigger and longer-lasting than my presidency. It’s about protecting our God-given natural wonders, and the good jobs that rely on them. It’s about shielding our cities and our families from disaster and harm. It’s about keeping our kids healthy and safe. This is the only planet we’ve got. And years from now, I want to be able to look our children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them that we did everything we could to protect it.

Thanks everybody, and have a great weekend.

The post Obama: Climate Change Can No Longer Be Ignored – Transcript appeared first on Eurasia Review.

At least 33 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a series of explosions in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, according to police and local media. ISIS has claimed responsibility.

A blast took place outside a local bank, police chief Fazel Ahmad Sherzad told Reuters.

The attacker was riding a motorbike and detonated his explosives while military personnel and civilians were waiting to receive their salaries from the bank, Sherzad said.

Brutal images of the injured and the dead at the scene have been circulating online.

According to some reports, the first explosion was shortly followed by another blast. At least one suicide bomber was reportedly involved. Witnesses heard a third blast, but according to local media reports it was a controlled explosion by authorities, who detonated another suspicious device.

The Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL) extremist group has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Afghan Pajhwok news agency, citing the group’s spokesman.

Earlier, Taliban denied involvement, condemning the attack.

“It was an evil act. We strongly condemn it,” the Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told Reuters.

Ambulances have reportedly been carrying numerous dead and wounded from the scene, while people have been rushing to donate blood to the victims.

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Australian police forces have arrested five teenagers for planning to purportedly launch an Islamic State (Daesh)-inspired terrorist attack.

According to Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan on Saturday, the arrested individuals were plotting to carry out a terrorist attack using “edged weapons” at the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day ceremonies in the southeastern city of Melbourne.

The ceremony is held annually on April 25 to commemorate the country’s first major military operations in 1915 during World War I.

“At this stage, we have no information that it was a planned beheading. But there was reference to an attack on police,” he said, adding, “Some evidence that we have collected at a couple of the scenes, and some other information we have, leads us to believe that this particular matter was ISIS (ISIL)-inspired.”

Earlier in the day, Australia’s Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan stated that the teens were affiliated with Numan Haider, a 18-year-old ISIL sympathizer, who stabbed two police forces and was later gunned down in Melbourne last September.

Phelan added that the Australian forces had kept tabs on the arrested teens for months.

“This is a new paradigm for police. These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary and simple…. All you need these days is a knife, a flag and a camera and one can commit a terrorist act,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot called on the public to take part in the ANZAC Day ceremony to show their solidarity in the face of rising terrorist threats.

“The best sign of defiance we can give to those who would do us harm is to go about a normal, peaceful, free and fair Australian life,” he said, adding, “And I say to everyone who is thinking of going to an ANZAC Day event, please don’t be deterred. Turn up in the largest possible numbers to support our country.”

Back in December 2014, a gunman believed to represent the ISIL terrorist group took 18 people hostage in a 16-hour siege at a Sydney cafe. Two hostages died during the standoff and the gunman was shot dead by police.

The ISIL terrorist group, with members from several Western countries, controls swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, and has been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.

Original article

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christy, trying to change the subject from his own shabby performance as governor, has called for $1 trillion in cuts to Social Security and Medicare over 10 years, claiming it’s time for a “grownup discussion” of the alleged funding crisis facing both critically important programs.

Actually, his claim that the programs are too expensive is childish and misleading. Yes there is a projected shortfall in funds to cover benefits for a looming wave of Baby Boomers in retirement, starting in 2033, assuming nothing is done by Congress to raise revenues, but actually fixing that problem is easy.

Here’s one proposal for solving the shortfall in the Social Security Trust Fund that was set up in 1983 to pre-fund the surge in benefits expected as the Baby Boomer generation retires, but which, because of stagnant wages, longer life expectancy, and a decade of no economic growth is going to be depleted prematurely: just raise the payroll tax that employers have to contribute to Social Security.

Studies have shown that just raising the FICA tax, historically paid 50% by workers and 50% by employers, by 1% each, would eliminate the Trust Fund shortfall completely. That’s $10 more on a $1000 weekly paycheck, $3 more on a $300 paycheck — a barely noticeable uptick in taxation to assure full benefits through one’s retired years.

This simple solution has been opposed, not so much by the public, but by corporate America, which doesn’t want to pay higher payroll taxes for its employees. Republicans, and some conservative Democrats who receive oodles of corporate campaign cash, listen to that kind of thing.

But the truth is corporate America has been doing just fine. It’s just the American worker who’s been suffering. In fact, the reason workers have been suffering is that they have been getting short-changed their bosses.

Economists have been pointing out that where normally, productivity gains made through automation, which allow workers to produce more revenues and profits for employers, have funded gains in overall living standards. But since the 1970s, with the orchestrated weakening of labor unions, and the shift in taxes from the rich and corporations to the middle class, the benefits of increased worker productivity, instead of going to workers, or being shared by workers and management, have mostly been accruing to the owners, managers and the investor class, not to workers.

Between 1973 and 2011, for example, productivity per worker in the US grew by 80.4%, while the median compensation to workers, in constant dollars, only grew by 10.7%. That is to say that over the past 40 years, 90 cents of every dollar of increased profits from improved worker productivity has gone to the capitalists (owners and shareholders) while only ten cents has gone to the workers actually doing the producing.

Get that? We should all be 80.4% wealthier today in constant dollars than we were back in 1973, but we’re not. Only the rich are, which explains the current wealth gap.

If we can’t make the bosses pay more to their employees, the least we can do is make the them pay more into those workers’ Social Security fund. How to accomplish that? Just raise just the employer share of the payroll tax, say by 2 percentage points to 8.2% of payroll instead of the current 6.2%.

Trust Fund shortfall solved for as far out as the eye can see of the actuaries calculate.

While we’re at it, we should of course also get rid of that outrageous cap on the payroll tax, which currently applies only to the first $118,000 in annual wages, and not at all to income from investments. If we eliminated that cap, making all income subject to the FICA tax at 6.2% for employees and 8.2% for employers (the way it’s already done for the Medicare tax) and also taxed so-called “unearned income” from investments, we could substantially boost Social Security benefits for all Americans so that instead of just keeping beneficiaries from the poorhouse, we would allow everyone to retire without having to suffer a decline in their standard of living.

Then people in the US could, like their counterparts in more civilized nations like those in Europe and Scandinavia, look forward to old age instead of living in fear of what financial advisors call “outliving your benefits.”

By the way, I would not advocate raising the FICA tax for the self-employed, who already have to pay both the employer and employee share of the tax — a total of 12.4%. My argument there is that unlike in the case of workers on a job, the self-employed cannot steal the benefits of increased productivity from herself (for example when a freelancer buys and starts to write with a computer, the productivity gain goes to the writer). At the same time, the self-employed are already paying 12.4% of their net profits into FICA, double the rate of employees, so asking them to pay even more to match a combined higher tax for employees and employers would be extortionate.

I would propose that we go beyond this modest proposal, and raise the employer payroll tax even further, so that Social Security benefits could provide retirees and the disabled with a livable income, as is done in most of Europe and Scandinavia. Think that’s raising employer taxes too much? Here are some examples of employer taxes for social security programs in Europe: In Germany, the payroll tax for employer and employee is 9.35%; in Finland, employers pay the full tax which is %23% of wages. In France, it’s 13.4% for employees, 18.2% for employers.) If the companies in those countries can afford to do this, so can those in the US.

Consider that when it was designed, Social Security was meant to be only one leg of a three-legged retirement stool, with the other two legs being personal savings and a company pension.

Well, we all know that company pensions are vanishing, as employers, undeterred by a union movement that they have all but killed off through their lobbying and buying of politicians. So that “leg” is gone. And as for personal savings, the screws that have been put to wages and salaries over the past few decades have left most Americans living from paycheck to paycheck, unable to save. The average assets saved for retirement these days among people 60 or older is less than $25,000! So there goes that “leg” too.

Clearly, Social Security — the only retirement “leg” standing — has to be bolstered in the US if we don’t want our elderly and infirm living in cardboard boxes on the nation’s streets and heating grates in coming years (as some already are doing).

So here’s the answer: Raise the employer share of the FICA tax by at least 2%, eliminate the cap on income subject to FICA, and put a FICA tax on investment income (what the IRS appropriately calls “unearned income”).

The post Time To Recover Productivity Gains Our Bosses Have Expropriated For Decades – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Following the heavy coverage of AIPAC’s (the virulently pro-Israeli government lobby) multi-day annual Washington convention in March, the mainstream media might have been interested for once in covering alternative viewpoints like those discussed at the April 10^th conference “The Israel Lobby: Is it Good for the US? Is it Good for Israel?” (Israellobbyus.org). Fairness and balance in reporting should produce at least some coverage of such an event.

Organized by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which was launched about thirty years ago by a British Army Officer who served in World War II and two retired U.S. Ambassadors to countries in the Middle East (wrmea.org), the day-long program at the prestigious National Press Club should have been intriguing to reporters. After all, are they not interested in important, taboo-challenging presentations on a critical dimension of U.S. foreign and military policy?

The presenters were much more newsworthy than most of the speakers at the AIPAC convention who redundantly restated the predictable AIPAC line. “The Israel Lobby: Is it Good for the US? Is it Good for Israel?” had presenters ranging from the courageous, principled columnist, Gideon Levy of Israel’s best and most serious newspaper, Haaretz; Princeton Professor emeritus of international law and the former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestinian territories, Richard Falk; former members of Congress, Paul Findley (R-IL) and Nick Rahall (D-WV); author and an Israeli general’s son, Miko Peled; Dr. Jack Shaheen, the award-winning author documenting stereotypes of Arabs and Arab-Americans in Hollywood and the U.S. media; and even a former AIPAC supporter M. J. Rosenberg (mjrosenberg.net) who witnessed the power of AIPAC money as both a congressional staffer and later an AIPAC senior staffer in the nineteen eighties.

Gideon Levy, the dean of Israeli Journalists, who knows first-hand the situation on the ground in Israel and occupied Palestine, referred to Israel’s intensely intrusive pressure on the U.S. during Iranian nuclear negotiations. He offered the phrase: “United States of Israel,” and said, “many times when someone looks at the relations between Israel and the United States, one might ask, who is really the superpower between the two?”

Mr. Levy described Israel as a society that “lives in denial, totally disconnected from reality” that “lost connection with the reality in its backyard, it totally lost connection with the international environment.”

The veteran journalist stunned the packed audience when he said that “the two state solution is dead.” With the Israeli occupation going “deeper and deeper,” he pointed to the “systematic dehumanization of the Palestinians,” Israelis presenting themselves as occupying victims and the belief by many Israelis that they “are the chosen people” and “have the right to do what we want,” as the basis for the occupation.

The serious, continuing breaches over decades of international law by Israel and its backer, the U.S. government, were described by Richard Falk who felt the brunt of these powers during his six-year term as the UN Rapporteur just for connecting the facts to the laws, and noting widely acknowledged continuing violations of UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions.

Former Congressman Paul Findley spoke of politicians cowering before AIPAC because of the “anxiety over being accused of anti-Semitism.” AIPAC is a leading anti-Semitic organization against the Arab peoples and the thousands of innocent civilian Palestinians and Lebanese children and adults slaughtered by the U.S.-armed Israeli armed forces. (See Doctor James Zogby’s remarks about ‘The Other Anti-Semitism’, delivered Hebrew University in Israel in 1994.)

AIPAC, knowing that the Israeli military was engaged daily as brutalizing occupiers, has never openly disavowed its support for such destruction of innocent humans and human rights even when the videotaped devastation horrified the civilized world. AIPAC was conspicuously silent during the illegal U.S. invasion and violent sociocide of Iraq—a nation that did not threaten the U.S.

A surprise speaker was the just defeated 38-year veteran of the House of Representatives, former Congressman Nick Joe Rahall. Apparently, now extricated from AIPAC’s Congressional clutches, he is now free to stand tall for human rights and speak freely and describe the congressional obeisance to the Israel lobby from the inside.

Unfortunately, there was no panel representing either U.S. taxpayers, who foot the bill for the billions of dollars spent yearly, nor the U.S. soldiers who have been sent to kill or be killed in military invasions and other attacks backed by this self-defeating Israeli-U.S. government alliance that just worsens the insecurities in the Middle East, spreads into savage sectarian struggles and portends more boomerangs against peace and justice in the world.

So, where were the reporters of the mainstream media? Where was C-SPAN during a week when Congress was on a holiday and their cameras were not preoccupied by Capitol Hill activities—its foremost priority? Apparently, the American people were only to see and hear the extreme views of AIPAC that do not even command the support of a majority of American Jews who do favor a two-state solution, along with a majority of Arab-Americans.

It is true that a few members of the mainstream media RSVP’d to attend this conference, but they did not show up or write anything about it before or after.

Nonetheless, thanks to the Internet, you can see the entire one-day conference online.

In the meantime, how about a little retrospective evaluation, by those so authorized, in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and Reuters to make better judgements about providing balanced news  the next time around. As for the absentee “fair and balanced” Fox News—well, what do you expect?

The post Ralph Nader: For Conference On Israel Lobby, Press Blackout At Press Club – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Presidential elections and tournament hosting in the world of soccer appear to be seldom won on the merits of a candidate or bidder’s proposition. Instead, the outcome of polls and bids are frequently the result of backslapping, backstabbing backroom politicking between global soccer managers and political leaders.

World soccer is about to get another taste of the global soccer’s wheeling and dealing with the likely election of Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the head of the Association of National Committees (ANOC), the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the influential Solidarity Commission of the International Olympic Committee as an Asian member of world soccer body FIFA’s executive committee.

A Kuwaiti politician, former oil and information minister, and past head of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as his country’s National Security Council, Sheikh Ahmed is already being touted as a possible future president of FIFA in 2019. If successful Sheikh Ahmed would succeed FIFA president Sepp Blatter who is expected to win a fifth term in next month’s poll.

The president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, who is a shoe-in for re-election with no opponent in an AFC presidential election at the end of this month thanks to Sheikh Ahmed’s support, has already paved the way for his Kuwaiti sponsor. Assured of his FIFA vice presidency that comes automatically with his virtually certain re-election as AFC president, Sheikh Salman has manipulated AFC election procedures to position Sheikh Ahmed.

The manipulation says much about the non-transparent political dealings in global soccer designed to not only maintain political control but also ensure that a closed circle of executives and politicians remain in power.

It comes as a book by two Sunday Times reporter scheduled for publication next week discloses Mr. Blatter’s deal with Qatar’s ruling family that ensured his re-election for a fourth term in 2011 in exchange for ensuring that Qatar would not be deprived of its right to host the 2022 World Cup irrespective of whether the Gulf state had violated FIFA bidding rules or not.

It also comes weeks after Sheikh Ahmed in a humiliating defeat in a power struggle within the Kuwaiti ruling family was forced to publicly apologize for accusing former prime minister Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and former speaker Jassem Mohammad Abdul-Mohsen Al-Karafi of attempting to overthrow the government as well as money laundering and abuse of public funds. A court declared documents and video evidence put forward by Sheikh Ahmed to have been fabrications.

In an apology on Kuwait television addressed to the former officials as well as his uncle, the emir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, and his uncle, Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Sheikh Ahmed offered “my deep apologies and express my profound regrets for my recent prejudice, abuse and slander, intentional and unintentional, and which were based on the information and documents concerning the interests of the country that I had received.” He said he had believed that the information was credible and correct.

“As I seek pardon from Your Highness, I stress that what happened will be a lesson from which I will benefit and draw appropriate conclusions. I am in full compliance with the orders and directives of Your Highness and I promise to turn the page on this matter and not to raise it again,” Sheikh Ahmed said.

Humiliated at home, the incident is likely to blunt Sheikh Ahmed’s immediate political ambitions in Kuwait. However, that is not true for the world of global sports where he is already considered to be one its most powerful players. And Sheikh Salman is happy to lend a helping hand should Sheikh Ahmed wish to expand his empire after the Kuwaiti announced two months ago that he would be a candidate for one of three elected Asian seats on FIFA’s executive committee.

Sheikh Ahmed has opted to run for the two-year Asian vacancy rather than one of the two four-year openings on the FIFA board. That would allow him to be re-elected in 2017 and position him as a sitting FIFA executive committee member for the 2019 presidential election.

To ensure that Sheikh Ahmed’s strategy works, Sheikh Salman has agreed, according to veteran sports journalist Keir Radnedge, to manipulate the election in a way that Sheikh Ahmed is guaranteed a two-year rather than a four-year seat on the FIFA executive.

“The (normal) election procedure is sequential. The candidate with fewest votes drops out until only three FIFA-bound ‘survivors’ remain. Under current statutes the top two would take the four-year slots with the third-placed candidate taking up the two-year role. This uncertainty does not suit Sheikh Ahmad’s ambitions as he bounces back from a rare political setback at home,” Mr. Radnedge noted in World Soccer, assuming that under standing procedure Sheikh Ahmed would garner enough votes for a four-year seat.

As a result, AFC at its congress at the end of this month in Sheikh Salman’s home country of Bahrain will vote on instructions of the AFC president separately for the four and two-year positions.

Mr. Radnedge noted that Sheikh Salman’s manipulation in favour of Sheikh Ahmed highlighted the fact that little had changed in AFC governance since the Bahraini official came to office in 2013 with a pledge to clean up the organization. Sheikh Salman was elected as the AFC was being rocked by a scandal that led to the banning for life from involvement in soccer of its former president, Mohammed Bin Hammam, on charges of financial abuse and mismanagement and question marks about the integrity of the awarding of a $1 billion contract to Singapore-based World Sports Group.

Since coming to office, Sheikh Salman has ensured that a damning audit of Mr. Bin Hammam’s management that contained far-reaching recommendations for further investigation and possible legal action was buried and that power was further concentrated in his hands at the expense of greater transparency and accountability.

“The manoeuvring illustrates that the AFC has made little progress since Bin Hammam was expelled from football for life by FIFA… In fact, no serious attempt has been made to resolve concerns over the controversial World Sports Group commercial contract and the disturbing complexities emanating from the Bin Hammam affair,” Mr. Radnedge said.

The post Global Soccer’s Backslapping, Backstabbing Backroom Deal-Making Politics – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Sanjeev Ahluwalia*

Netizen-citizens who participate in public debate from the comfort of their broadband enabled “home” space are a furiously engaged and vocal lot in India. 800,000 of them voiced their support for the nebulous concept of “net neutrality” in an outpouring of outraged emotion, similar to the 2011 Arab Spring which put paid to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

Unlike the Arab Spring, this was the revolt of the empowered- internet penetration in India is barely 20%; broadband access is just 8% and 80% of net access is by the privileged owners of smart phones. This boils down to a privileged population of around 9 million netizens in a country of 1230 million citizens.

Like the Arab Spring, the netizen revolt was against a “perceived” threat to their empowerment. In this case, cheap access to the internet, which ironically is also one of PM Modi’s promises to the entire nation.

Keen to dampen the “revolt of the privileged” and anxious to avoid a political fallout, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Union Telecommunication Minister, hastily set up an expert committee this week to advise him on the subject and publicly re-committed to make the net accessible for all. Sundry netas (politicians) waded in, some equating “net neutrality” with democracy, others raising it to the level of a fundamental right.

The occasion for this frenzy was an exceedingly well articulated and informative Consultation Paper issued by the telecom regulator-TRAI, calling for comments by April 24, on the need, or otherwise, to regulate Over The Top (OTT) services- communication service providers like Facebook or Google; content providers like You Tube or Netflicks; apps providers like Apple or Cloud computing and storage; e-commerce sites like eBay, Amazon and Flipkart. All these provide unregulated, unlicensed voice, audio or text services; they do not need to buy spectrum; they free ride over the “telecom pipes” built by telecom providers and incur none of the obligations (user data privacy, transparency in data management, data security) loaded by the government onto licensed Indian Telecomm providers- Airtel, Vodaphone, Idea, Reliance Comm, TATA Teleservices and Reliance JIO Infocomm.

The cause celebre inciting the wrath of netizens was an impending deal between Airtel-India’s largest and most internationalized mobile services provider and Flipkart-a Singapore-India e-retailer, which went from being a start-up in 2008 to a valuation of US$ 12 billion in end 2014. The deal in question was a “zero-rating” agreement under which customers would get free net access to the Flipkart services with the latter compensating Airtel directly. It is unclear if exclusive hosting of Flipkart on the Airtel network was built into the deal.

Rahul Khullar, the upright and technically brilliant, ex-babu (bureaucrat), economist who chairs the telecom regulator-TRAI, was as astonished as the Minister of telecom by the virulence and strength of the customer reaction. He went public yesterday and blamed the “noise” around the otherwise rather bland, technical concept of “net neutrality (NN)” as an outcome of “a corporate war between a media house and a service provider”.

Here are some facts drawn from the TRAI consultation paper followed by opinions.

Perfect NN is a mirage

First, as the TRAI paper acknowledges, perfect net neutrality (NN) is not practiced anywhere nor is it technically efficient. Management discretion with respect to the manner in which data packets move through the telecom pipes must be left with the service provider so that outcomes (service quality and cost) are optimized.

Inefficient “Free riders” impose costs

Second, just as democracy, by definition, requires the limitation of certain types of individual freedom in the interest of the common good, “free riding” by any player imposes an unfair cost on someone else, which has to be guarded against. This is best done by allowing the market forces of competition and prices to prevail with the government looking closely only at a single bottom line- sustainable benefit for the retail customer.

Innovation, yes but “free riding” no!

Third, for every start up like Flipkart which goes from zero to hero in five years, including by minimizing their upfront cost through “free riding”, there are Dumbo individual users like me who pay Rs 650 every month for a 3GB data plan but end up using only 1 GB. The spectrum space paid for, but left unused by us, is used by the Flipkarts to leverage their business.

Nothing wrong with that. If you are dumb you should lose out. But here is the knockout punch. Costless “free riding” works for all only till there is spare capacity in the “spectrum pipes”. The contention of the telecom providers is that the growth of data intensive OTT products (movies on YouTube and Netflicks; real time Cloud Storage; voice and audio services like Skype and Google Chat) have shrunk the space available in the “pipes” and reduced the quality of service for customers who use conventional voice and data services provided by telecom companies. Ergo new investment is needed to upgrade the “pipes” and more spectrum is needed to accommodate the growth of data intensive 3G and 4G services.

The looming transmission capacity gap

Fourth, demand is exploding. Evolved services like VOIP, video services, digital services-including telemedicine, cloud computing and storage are all data intensive and requires data transmission at high speed (data streaming) with no breaks in between, unlike emails and text, which can take intermittent transmission. Text and standard content can be transmitted using a speed less than 1 Mega Bits per second (MBps). Movies in comparison require speeds of up to 10 MBps. Higher the speed more the requirement of spectrum since there are no “data packet gaps”, which can be packed in with say text, to optimize capacity usage – much like airlines pack spare seats with last minute, flexible time, low priced flyers. TRAI reports that 36% of mobile usage in India is already for movies or video. The global average is 70%. Growth to global levels is limited only by our quality degrading, low transmission capacity.

The government has no time bound, publicly announced plan for releasing spectrum currently hoarded by the army and by the public sector telecom companies-public gifts to them from before spectrum allocation was liberalized and its commercial value became common knowledge.

A spectrum availability gap consequently looms, as TRAI has pointed out to government. This means that TSPs have no option but to extract higher revenue efficiency from the existing spectrum for upgrading infrastructure.

Who should pay for OTT services?

Fifth, it is a standard rule of utility pricing that those on whose account an incremental cost is incurred must be made to pay the higher cost. Prior to the onset of internet based voice, video and instant messaging (chat) the normal share of “voice telephony” in TSP revenues was 70% and the residual 30% was data- sms, emails and other net usage.

Today, globally, the volume of SKYPE (the sms, voice and video over internet firm) traffic is 40% of conventional telephony and its nominal growth is larger than the growth of conventional telephony. Is this the end of the road then for conventional telephone companies? Not quite. In India and similar developing countries, conventional telephony has a reprieve. Until the transmission pipes can be strengthened to deliver good quality OTT services the demand for them will remain constrained. It is not uncommon, even today, for customers to resort to the fixed telephone network when mobile calls have a problem getting connected or get “dropped”.

Clearly, potential customers of OTT services, like movies, cloud computing and music should be ready to pay for the improved net services whilst those who are content with low data intensity conventional services, like text, should be insulated from the price hike. This requires progressive, price discrimination based on data use. Netizens point out that they already subscribe to TSP data plans for high speed access at prices determined by the market.

But TSPs complain that fierce competition constrains them from hiking data access charges for high speed data access. But the generous valuations put by incumbent TSPs in trying to hang onto spectrum allocations in the February 2015 auctions weakens their case of financial stress. The TRAI paper, unfortunately, does not share a marginal cost based assessment of the revenue requirement of TSPs to improve quality and enlarge access.

Willingness to pay

Customers should theoretically be willing to pay a higher price for accessing OTT services but India is a very price sensitive market. Over the last two decades, liberalization, fierce private sector competition and a “Nelson’s eye” regulatory approach to the quality of service, resulted in declining telecom rates and increasing usage. This has fueled a “feel good factor”. No one wants to bust the party.

Whilst conventional TSPs have a vested interest in improving infrastructure quality their business model is under threat from technology and innovation. They have lost business in the lucrative sms market to “free” messaging services like WhatsApp (in the US it charges an annual fee of US$ 1) even though sms charges are nominal at Rs 1 per message. CARE-an Indian rating agency, estimates that the nominal revenues from sms reduced by around Rs 4000 crores (US$ 0.6 billion) in 2013. TSP voice telephony is similarly under attack from voice OTT services. Call charges at Rs 0.5 per minute are the lowest in the world but still uncompetitive with the data cost of a VOIP call of only Rs 4 per minute. This could mean the capacity of TSPs to bear additional “pain” is limited, especially after the generous amounts bid by them in the February 2015 spectrum auctions.

That leaves only the stand-alone communication, content and app providers like Google, Facebook, Amazon – the free riders- who are unwilling to share this cost. However, their Indian clones, like Flipkart may well be willing to submit to licensing and revenue sharing just to grab market share from the entrenched global players-at least in India.

Three options, for taking us out of this conundrum, present themselves:

Back to the future: Minimum data access tariff

First: The nub of the problem is how to extract some of the enormous value being generated in unlicensed OTT services who free ride. TRAI declared regulatory forbearance on telecom tariffs with the onset of competition in services. The results have proved their wisdom. But TSPs complain a combination of artificially created spectrum scarcity have forced spectrum pricing up. Technological innovation has reduced margins on conventional telephony services and revenue flows instead to the OTT providers. The result is shrinking bottom lines for TSPs and cut backs on network upgrades.

One option could be for TRAI to prescribe a minimum tariff for high speed data access, based on the marginal cost of service studies, to ensure sufficient head room for network upgrade and access related investment. This minimum tariff could even be “discovered” by a reverse auction amongst TSPs-along the lines of the coal auctions for user power plants. The alternative is for TRAI do determine the minimum access tariff in the usual manner. This would force user charges for high speed data access up and better compensate TSPs.

The downside is that this option wrecks the ongoing party of the last decade with declining tariff fueling customer well-being. This may not be the best way to ring inAche Din (PM Modi’s Good Days Are Here assurance)

Bring OTTs into the red tape tangle

Second: The government could license all OTT service providers and divert the additional funds to licensed TSPs to meet their network upgrade costs. This would provide some financial relief to the TSPs and avoid a direct increase in customer telecom tariffs. But the License Fee would have to be significant to make a difference.

The biggest risk is that OTT providers, who by definition are “innovators”, dislike getting caught in red tape. Many of these are global players and shy of entangling with local laws. They could simply walk away. This may not necessarily be a bad thing since in China it resulted in the development of local clones. But India is presently not China. More significantly high License fees will be a bigger barrier for small local “innovators” who lack the deep pockets of foreign OTT providers.

To avoid the considerable barrier of a high upfront License Fee it could be recovered periodically linked to actual network use by an OTT provider. But this arrangement would need to be tracked by DOT or TRAI generating more red tape for OTT to tangle with.

Most important, PM Modi is in the process of defining an “International India”. Reducing transaction cost is an important part of the initiative. Putting OTTs into the muck of red tape does not align with all the assurances of enhancing the ease of “Doing Business”.

OTTs as bulk proxy customers of TSPs

Third, government could work on a dual strategy of massaging both the supply and the demand side of the market. On the supply side, government could announce a time bound plan to release more spectrum to ensure that the scarcity premium on spectrum becomes less burdensome for TSPs.

On the demand side, it could exercise regulatory forbearance from second-guessing the amount of “fat” there is to reallocate between customers, TSPs and OTTs. Instead it could let business arrangements prevail by encouraging mutually beneficial deals between TSPs and OTT providers, whist keeping an eye out to insulate retail customers.

In fact the Airtel- Flipkart deal was a step in this direction. Flipkart proposed to become a proxy, bulk customer for Airtel and pay it directly for the usage of all those who access its services. Small customers of Flipkart would have gained through free access.

To guard against arbitrary blocking or slowing down of access to other OTT providers, who do not choose to have such arrangements or in favour of proprietary OTT products of the TSP themselves, TRAI would need to announce a plan for exercising better oversight over data packet management to limit arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination by TSPs.

This arrangement continues the “party mood” for small consumers. It regularizes an innovative way out of the conundrum, already conceived between Flipkart and Airtel and puts pressure on global OTT players to play ball. India is the fastest growing market for the consumption of OTT products. This provides some leverage to us to lay down reasonable and light handed rules without going to the extreme step of exclusion of foreign OTTs adopted by China. Democracy is indivisible.

*The writer is an Advisor to Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

The post Net Neutrality: A Threat To PM Modi’s Vision? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury*

Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia might have miscalculated when it went into Yemen, not with boots on the ground but with bombs from the air, to try and deter the advance of the Shiite Houthi rebels. Riyadh and its Gulf allies, somewhat grandiosely called their intervention ‘Operation Decisive Storm’, obviously borrowing the jargon from the West. When it began the airstrikes, which appeared to be in imitation of a number of similar Western actions in the Middle East and North Africa, the Saudis and their co-bombers might have assumed it would be a cake-walk. It wasn’t.

Notwithstanding mounting civilian casualties, the Houthis fought back with resilience that took the Gulf monarchies by surprise. In their consternation, the monarchies turned to the militarily most powerful Muslim State, the nuclear-armed Pakistan, asking for military support. The Pakistani response was a greater shock to them than even the trail of Houthi successes. The government in Islamabad demurred, and then turned the ball over to the Parliament, which after a long and arduous debate, declined.

It was not an easy decision, and when the outcome was apparent, after five days of heated debate, it belied any impressions that the Pakistani lawmakers are guided more by their hearts than their heads. It is easy to see why their hearts should be with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the other Gulf Sheikhdoms. Saudi Arabia’s largesse to Pakistan has always flowed freely. For instance, after the natural disaster that Pakistan suffered in 2010 Saudi coffers opened up, both private ones of the royalty and of the State. Over US$ 361 million was immediately released, and Riyadh also initiated the world’s largest ‘air relief bridge’ to Pakistan. The syncretic Islam largely practised by Pakistanis places great store by the symbolic citadels of the faith, and the Saudi King is the guardian of the two holiest shrines of Islam. On military matters the two countries enjoy the closest partnership. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the Gulf States host millions of Pakistani workers whose remittances keep the Pakistani economy afloat. With the UAE bilateral trade has also ballooned above US$ 10 billion.

The fact that perceived national self-interest could supersede material and spiritual yearnings might have come as bit of a surprise to the Gulf capitals, but that was indeed the case with the Pakistani leadership. There was a tinge of sophistry in the manner in which the Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar conveyed the decision to the outside world. “The Parliament of Pakistan calls upon the warring factions in Yemen to resolve their disputes peacefully through dialogue”: fair enough, there could be no quarrel with that. ‘Dispute-resolution through dialogue’ is like motherhood, which no one can find unacceptable. Then he states a fact, somewhat alarming: “(It) apprehends that the crisis in Yemen could plunge the region into turmoil”, a distinct possibility. Thereafter Dar makes the key disclosure: “(It) desires that Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis”. As a sop to the Saudis, he added in a rhetorical flourish, with more sound than substance, that “(The Parliament) expresses unequivocal support for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and affirms that in case of any violation of territorial integrity or any threat to Harmain Sharifain [Islamic holy places], Pakistan will stand shoulder to shoulder with Saudi Arabia and its people”. Translation: Pakistan will only intervene if Saudi territory or holy places are attacked, but would not participate in any military campaign in Yemen against the Shiite Houthis.

The emotional proximity to the Gulf rulers notwithstanding, Pakistan had reasons to be circumspect. Pakistan is well aware that for it, or perhaps for any other non-Arab Muslim country, to take open sides in what is clearly a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran would be like rushing in where angels fear to tread. Pakistan shares a 900-kilometre border with Iran, where at times tensions have prevailed. About 20% of the 180 million Pakistani are Shias, and sectarian violence in places has been rife. The Pakistan Foreign Office, with its penchant for drawing on tradition, has recollections of happy times with Tehran dating back to the Cold war days.

Recently, to reignite those sentiments, and to instil some hard-headed realities into Islamabad’s psyche, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, a diplomat of consummate skill, with whom the author has related over several decades, visited the Pakistani capital. Zarif’s main Pakistani counterparts, Sartaj Aziz and Syed Tariq Fatmi (Pakistan does not have a designated Foreign Minister, but the role is fulfilled by the former, called Adviser, and the latter, named Prime Minister’s Special Assistant) – wise men of considerable intellect and experience, also refused to upset the applecart of reason – and may have counselled their decision-making colleagues to be cautious. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was persuaded, as was the Parliament, and though Nawaz himself made some pro- Saudi remarks, the sum and substance of the Parliamentary resolution remained intact.

Does this mean a widened and unbridgeable gulf between the Arab monarchies and Pakistan? Not necessarily. While adopting their formal position, the utterances of the Pakistani leadership thereafter, the Prime Minister included, lends credence to the idea that a modicum of practical military support to the Saudis, in a routine fashion, could be extended, at levels below what could lead the Iranians to raise a hue and cry. In the real-world diplomacy, the country that has nuclear weapons does not always call the shots, as is evidenced in this carefully nuanced treatment of Saudi request to Pakistan.

Yemen attracts interest in many non-Arab Muslim countries. Events in Yemen have wide implications, particularly in Muslim-majority countries in the region where power, politics and spirituality closely intersect, as Yemeni Saints and preachers have travelled to those parts to propagate Islam, as Hazrat Shahjalal in present-day Bangladesh. Also, countries where there is an influential body of Muslim citizens, such as Singapore, many claim Yemeni roots. How these people view the civil war in Yemen is important to these governments.

By intervening in Yemen, the Gulf monarchies might have unleashed forces they may be unable to control. The implications of the event go far beyond its immediate context. The Pakistani decision may serve as a frame of reference to these nations, who have interests, though not necessarily stakes. Despite the brouhaha that the Parliamentary resolution in Islamabad produced, nothing much is likely to change in terms of relations between the monarchies and Pakistan. Princes and Sheikhs from Gulf Arabia will still treat Pakistan as their playground. They will still come to Pakistan to hunt rare birds with their falcons, which is a sport denied to the local Pakistani hoi polloi – and, even the better-bred! Pakistani businessmen will still treat Dubai as their trading hub, and continue to draw spiritual pabulum from their pilgrimages to Saudi cities. What Pakistan, and other non-Arab Muslim countries will perhaps need to develop, in response to the Yemeni crisis and other emerging intra-Arab issues, is the deft art of running with the hare, and hunting with the hound.

About the author:
*Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh, and he can be contacted at isasiac@nus.edu.sg. Opinions expressed in this paper, based on research by the author, do not necessarily reflect the views of ISAS.

Source:
This article was published by ISAS as ISAS Brief Number 365 April (PDF)

The post Yemen, Pakistan And Arab Monarchies: Widening Gulf? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Una Hajdari

Kosovo opposition parties announced a protest in Pristina on Saturday against what they call the “hijacking of the government” by the ruling parties, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).

They called on all “unsatisfied citizens, farmers, students and all of those who are unemployed” to join them.

They will lead a march through central Pristina, passing by all the institutions that they allege have been “seized” by the ruling parties, including the Constitutional Court, the electricity distributor and Radio Television of Kosovo.

The march is due to finish up in front of the government building.

The united opposition parties, which include the Vetevendosje Movement, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) and the Initiative for Kosovo (NISMA), are calling for the removal of the Justice Minister Hajredin Kuci, the resignation of the head of the constitutional court and the removal of the RTK management.

They are also against the formation of the Association of Serb Municipalities, which will represent Serb-majority areas in Kosovo, and will be set up as part of the Brussels Agreement to normalise ties with Belgrade.

The protests are seen as a continuation of demonstrations in January which led to the removal of Serb minister Aleksandar Jablanovic.

However one protest ended in clashes with police in Pristina that left over 170 people injured and 120 arrested.

The post Kosovo Opposition Parties Plan Anti-Government Protest appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Create problems and then offer solutions

We continue with the analyzing of Media (il)literacy within South-East Europe having in mind that having illiterate (media kind of) people within the area is blessing for the politicians.

“I know, it is true, it was reported in the media“, people usually say in reference to the content of the news on any News channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo*, Macedonia…

2. Create problems and then offer solutions (by Noam Chomsky)

This method is also called “problem-reaction- solution.“ It creates a problem, a “situation” referred to cause some reaction in the audience, making this the principal of the steps that you want to accept. For example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks such that the public is the one who demands tougher security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom. Or, create an economic crisis to accept as a necessary the evil retreat of social rights and the dismantling of public services.

Croatia: The story of the Mayor of Croatian capitol in 2014/15, Mr. Milan Bandić, instead of being just a problem of  the Court and Prosecutor’s offices, exactly thanks to the two methods mentioned above became a problem nation wide. The country is full of corruption, with hatred being expressed against other who are different, nepotism and legally elected thieves are rife, and now it has a problem with the Mayor who has been in power since 2000 (three times elected) and is accused of allegedly being a “capo di tutti capi“ in reference to agreed upon tenders and the wasting of public money without a plan or purposes. So what  was the solution? Arrest him, than release him, so that he can conduct his duty, but he cannot talk to the more than 90 witnesses against him (who, by the way, work within the city council), than wait for the Prosecutor’s office to appeal on his release. The Mayor can be seen jogging every morning on Zagreb streets and talking with the people. That is the solution, yes, the solution of organized anarchy in South-East Europe.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Milorad Dodik, a Serb, president of the Republika Srpskaentity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, first said that genocide in Srebrenica in 1995 had not happened (a decision given by International Court in Den Haag), but just a huge crime. He than visited Srebrenica, on April 16 and repeated his claim that really huge crimes had happened in Srebrenica. Than the solution came from the words from a Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegović who said, “It is good that Dodik has visited Potočari (part of Srebrenica, comment S.H.), but it would be much better if he admitted that in that place has happened a genocide.”

Why is this a solution? The easy answer is within the words of Bakir’s father, Alija Izetbegović, who was back in 1995 the president of the Bosnia and Herzegovina presidency who, when asked by Richard Holbrooke (USA) to ban SDS (Serbian Democratic Party) from the political field after the war in BiH, simply said…No, I can easily agree with them, much easier than with SDP (Social Democratic Party)…In the meantime, SDS became a very moderate party and SNSD (Dodik’s party: Union of Indepedent Social Democrats) became a right-wing party while at the same time having two strange words within their title “social” and “democratic.” Yes, the answer was given at that time, and has became the solution now. This solution makes us all cry for all the victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Serbia: When Aleksandar Vučić was elected to become the new Prime Minister of Serbia in April 27, 2014  the problem that he was faced with was the war against corruption, nepotism, hatred of others and ignorance in Serbia. The solution was that he via the media sweetly explains what the problems are and what he will do to solve them. But, on the ground in real life nothing has happened towards that. So far. Or is this just a circle of trust. One win of power, while another one came on power. And we ride the merry-go-round. Against the people.

Montenegro: “Cyrillic letter (writing) is not equal with Latinic letter (writing)“ claims the Montenegro opposition, which has asked for the Law for the protection of Cyrillic letter (writing) in Montenegro. The solution is there, in a country suffering from corruption and nepotism, to deal with the issue of letters (writing), instead of focusing on the everyday and people’s life. Yes, let us sit down and imagine what is next. Maybe, why we have such a small country? Let us make it bigger. Through letters (writing).

Macedonia:  The constant problem between the majority of Macedonians and the minority of Albanians is an artificially created problem. Why? Because the thieves in both ethnicities are thieves and nothing else. The problem of Macedonia just on the surface does indeed look like an ethnicity problem. The solution has been seen as the creation of enclaves, where simply the worth “law of rule“, instead “rule of law“, is the practice. But, let’s play with national issues, why not.

Like in all countries that came out from Ex-Yugoslavia, the most important problem is the “nation.”

Me, modest as I am, I have a solution: “The Nation is part of History. We just need to wait for the end of…History.”

Last but not least, what does Media (il)literacy have to do with the above mentioned cases? Again, the answer is very simple. The ones who read, watch and listen to the media about these subject, are just absorbing the content on the basis of (il)literacy and not on the basis an interaction of knowledge and news. We have to teach us to read everything, watch everything and listen to everything (as much as we can) and than to make that the foundation for the final solution on the basis of interaction of the facts. Easy to say, but very difficult to gain. Again, why? Language barriers, for example in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia. While they do not need translators, they speak “different” languages. How will they then read, listen and watch other media from other areas? Even in Macedonia.

Finally, the solution for media (il)literacy is mixture of the news within one channel on which every hour there should be different news about same topic. It will be fun. Finally, after the wars. To have fun and see the stupidity and amateurism on one channel. Finally! Or not, depending who you ask.

P.S. Next time: The gradual strategy

The post South-East Europe On The Edge Of Civilization: Media (il)literacy – Essay appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Unidentified militia fired on a hospital in southern Yemen that pro-Houthi soldiers had endangered, in violation of the laws of war. All parties to Yemen’s conflict should take necessary measures to ensure that medical facilities and personnel do not come under attack so that patients can be treated.

Yemeni army forces fighting on behalf of the Houthis endangered the hospital, in the city of Lahej, by shutting off the hospital lights and deploying snipers nearby on April 13, 2015, and two days later stationing a tank at the hospital entrance. Opposing gunmen carried out attacks beginning on April 13 that repeatedly struck the hospital and put medical personnel at grave risk. As of April 16, fighting was continuing in the vicinity, with both groups using rocket-propelled grenades and other military weaponry.

“Fighters on both sides in Lahej have unlawfully put a hospital in the middle of a battle,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “For the safety of doctors and patients it’s crucial for all sides to stay away from medical facilities and allow them to function.”

Ibn Khaldun Hospital is on the outskirts of Lahej, just north of Aden in southern Yemen. When fighting escalated in the area after March 26, the hospital staff evacuated all patients except those receiving emergency assistance. Three doctors working at the hospital told Human Rights Watch that on the evening of April 13 they heard gunfire and saw militia of unknown affiliation attack a military checkpoint about 500 meters from the hospital.

The army deployed snipers in buildings near the hospital, increasing the likelihood it would be damaged by fighting, Human Rights Watch said. Dr. Jaem al-Hilali said that on the night of April 13, four soldiers forcibly entered the house where his family and five other families live, across the street from the hospital. “My father tried to stop them from entering, but one of the soldiers threatened him, pointing a gun to his head,” he said. “We decided it was best to let them in. They proceeded to the roof where they set up snipers. I moved my family out the next day.”

Several hours into the fighting on April 13, two soldiers entered the hospital and ordered the doctors to turn off the hospital’s external lights so that they could hide along the walls of the building. By this time the hospital was no longer housing any patients, but 20 staff remained, the doctors said. Dr. Hussein al-Yazidi told Human Rights Watch that some rockets and other projectiles then hit the hospital, breaking a window and damaging some walls. Bullets also hit a spare tank of diesel fuel for the hospital generator, causing it to leak. The use of such direct fire weapons suggests that the attackers knew they were hitting a hospital, Human Rights Watch said.

The doctors said fighting subsided on the morning of April 14 and people were able to leave and enter the hospital, including new patients. At about 10 a.m., several army officers entered the hospital, saying that they were there to investigate what the doctors were doing. They left shortly thereafter. Dr. Abd al-Majeed Atif told Human Rights Watch that on the following day, April 15, the army stationed a tank 10 to 20 meters from the gate of the main entrance to the hospital. The tank has since fired on targets and received fire with various levels of intensity. “We had to force all the remaining patients to leave and cancel a Caesarian operation we had planned for that day,” Dr. Atif said. “We cannot use the front door of the hospital and need to leave through the back door – we are all in extreme danger.” The doctors said that soldiers were stationed at the back door, though the use of armed guards at a medical facility is permissible. No civilian casualties were reported at the hospital.

In addition to the damage from the fighting, Ibn Khaldun Hospital faced increasing shortages. The doctors told Human Rights Watch that the hospital was running low on diesel fuel, needed for running its generator. They said food stocks in the area were also running low and that vehicles with supplies were not coming in because of the ongoing fighting and lack of fuel.

Under the laws of war applicable to the armed conflict in Yemen, all hospitals and other medical facilities, whether civilian or military, have special protection. They may not be targeted, even if being used to treat enemy fighters. Medical facilities remain protected unless they are used to commit hostile acts that are outside their humanitarian function. Even then, they are only subject to attack after a warning has been given setting a reasonable time limit, and after such warning has gone unheeded. Armed forces or groups should not occupy medical facilities.

As of April 14, the fighting in Yemen, including airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, had killed at least 364 civilians, including at least 84 children, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Human Rights Watch has documented strikes that may have been indiscriminate or disproportionate in violation of the laws of war.

“All warring sides in Yemen need to get the message out that hospitals have special protections,” Stork said. “Ensuring their safety benefits everyone.”

The post Yemen: Fighting Damages Hospital, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Leonard Brecken

This week the EIA once again capitulated on the myth that rig counts don’t matter and the productivity of wells would largely offset, leaving the industry on a continuous path to higher output. The current consensus of 500,000 B/D additional growth in 2015 US production now appears very much at risk.

Look how far we have come, folks, from all that media hysteria this past year. Reuters even wrote an article stating that the EIA prediction of a sequential decline in oil production in May vs. April would be the first, if proven, true prediction. Meanwhile, fact checking would indicate that this, in fact, occurred last week as reported here. In any event the EIA now thinks that production will decline 57,000 B/D in May counter to earlier expectations that the Permian would largely offset declines in the Eagle Ford and the Bakken. This is despite higher productivity of existing wells proving that rig count does matter and the market has underestimated the effects of high decline rates.

Further, the hysteria about Cushing overflowing with oil also appears unlikely to occur, as a result. Yet another in a string of attempts by the media to misconstrue the facts.

Now as a topper, we hear from the North Dakota Resource Management that amazingly February oil output fell 1% sequentially in the month despite producing wells increasing! Thus even the theory that well productivity would increase is dispelled. To reiterate, look for EIA to revise its oil production estimates for 1Q after the crisis wanes later in 2015. The warning in an article here sounded that producers reaching deep into the lower cost, most productive regions (which is clearly occurring in Bakken), would come at a price.

That price is depletion of those regions at a faster rate, leading to cost pressures down the road. If prices don’t rise to offset those higher drilling costs then production will start declining. A further point, the talk of all these uncompleted wells potentially coming on line during 2015 can now be looked upon as not increasing output, but as an effort to maintain it which was the theory here all along (another media theory dispelled makes what, 4?).

One has to wonder if “Peak Oil” at the current price deck in the US is very real indeed. Look for draws and not inventory additions to start in earnest in May. The next media spin will now focus on future risks to oil supply in 2016 to keep the oil curve flat, whether it be the rise in the US dollar or Iran. The short term risks appear to be clearing so the attention will be turning on preventing prices from rising too high. Just this morning, Dow Jones ran an article quoting the Citibank oil analyst that days of triple digit prices are in past. Thump…that’s the sound once again of someone falling off their chair in utter amazement as to what is occurring to distort reality.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Has-The-U.S.-Reached-Peak-Oil-At-Current-Price-Levels.html

The post Has US Reached ‘Peak Oil’ At Current Price Levels? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Iran’s supreme leader says the United States has created the “myth” of nuclear weapons to paint Tehran as a “source of threat.” The tough rhetoric comes days before nuclear talks are set to resume in Vienna.

“They created the myth of nuclear weapons so they could say the Islamic Republic is a source of threat,” Khamenei said in a televised address to a hall of several hundred military commanders, as cited by Reuters. “No, the source of threat is America itself, with its unrestrained, destabilizing interventions,” he added.

Earlier, Iran’s most powerful figure, argued no deal on Tehran’s nuclear program was possible without the simultaneous lifting of all sanctions against the country. The US has rejected the condition.

Khamenei urged the Iranian military elite to be ready to repel any attack.

“They threaten Iran and want us to have no capabilities for defense,” he said. “The US threatens in the most shameless way to deliver a strike against Iran. That is why, we must be prepared for defense in any case.”

The statement has been seen as a response to the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who earlier said that deliveries of Russian S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran would not affect America’s ability to strike Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, has meanwhile rejected a demand by US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who said a final nuclear agreement must include inspections of Iranian military sites.

Salami described possible inspections as a “national humiliation.”

“This subject is treasonous and selling out the country, and if anyone speaks of it, we will respond with hot lead,” he said, in comments cited by state news agency IRNA.

The post Khamenei Says US Is Creating Iran Nuclear Weapons ‘Myth’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Islamic State has released another video showing the murder of Ethiopian Christians in Libya on Sunday, AP reported.

In the 29-minute video, the extremists executed two separate groups of Ethiopian Christians, one that was held in Libya’s eastern province of Barka and another in the southern province of Fazzan.

In the half-hour of buildup before the mass execution, the militants called Christians and Jews “infidels” and explained how Muslims should deal with those who follow the religions. The Christians are given three choices: to convert to Islam, pay a fine while being humiliated, or be killed.

The video then switches from the captives being fatally shot in the south to the captives being beheaded in the east.

Daesh’s presence in Libya has gained momentum as the country has struggled to establish a government and rival factions fight for power.

Daesh has especially been targeting non-Muslims in its fight for territory, having recently beheaded Coptic Christians in Egypt and kidnapped hundreds of Yazidis in Iraq.

In the video Christians were interviewed about how the extremists treated them in the Daesh-controlled territory. The interview subjects responded by saying they paid the non-Muslim tax and were left alone, seemingly in an appeal for residents to pay the imposed fines.

The post Islamic State Video Shows Slaying Of Ethiopian Christians In Libya appeared first on Eurasia Review.