By Andrea Little Limbago

Cyberspace is frequently referred to as the fifth domain, alluding to its perceived role as the next major battlefield after land, sea, air, and space. However, this oversimplification of cyberspace underestimates its transformational impact within and across each of these domains. Moreover, framing cyber solely as a battlefield and coercive domain ignores the diverse ways in which both state and nonstate actors use cyber statecraft to pursue their objectives. It is an understatement to say that the introduction of cyberspace as a fifth domain has had disruptive effects on the international system, but to date there has been little discussion on the myriad ways in which actors exploit cyberspace for geopolitical gain. From Stuxnet at one extreme to government-sponsored Facebook accounts at the other, digital disruption has significantly increased the tools available to state and nonstate actors. Even transitions of power are now often first publicized in cyberspace. For example, following the recent coup in Thailand, martial law was officially declared via Twitter and a new Facebook account and was dubbed by some researchers as a #cybercoup.

To better evaluate the strategic implications of cyber as a domain in which to achieve national security objectives—from antiaccess/area denial to governance, democratization, and economic growth—policymakers need a rigorous, multifaceted framework that examines cyber statecraft not only as a military tool, but also as a more holistic form of statecraft. Such a framework is long overdue to help make sense of the great technological disruption that continues to shape the international political system. While the military component is essential, cyber statecraft is often viewed only through this coercive lens, when in fact it is much broader. Even within the military aspects of cyber statecraft, little has been written about the various tools available to actors in this domain, which has led to everything from cyber censorship to cyber espionage being lumped together under the broad umbrella of cyber attacks. These comparisons greatly impede the ability of practitioners and theorists alike to assess the strategic implications of cyber statecraft.

In comparing cyber studies to the evolution of nuclear strategic studies, Joseph Nye notes, “Strategic studies of the cyber domain are chronologically equivalent to 1960 but conceptually more equivalent to 1950.”1 In short, cyberspace analyses and theories lag behind changes in the operating environment, resulting in a theoretical and operational void that has strategic implications. The classification of cyberspace as solely a domain of conflict has contributed to this theoretical stagnation, limiting policymakers’ understanding of the ways in which cyberspace can be leveraged for broader applications of statecraft. But the militarization of cyberspace is not the only culprit here; the gap between the technical and national security policy communities is also partially to blame. The technical nature of discussions on cyberspace has hindered a coherent understanding of cyber as statecraft. Moreover, the phenomenal speed of technological change has rendered it difficult for policymakers and the larger strategic studies community to remain apace of developments within the cyber domain.

The Cyber Statecraft Spectrum

On the surface, it may seem pedantic to build a theoretical framework for analyzing and understanding the various implementations of cyber statecraft. Lacking such a framework, however, cyber statecraft risks perpetuating the perception that it is solely an offensive tool. In his book A Fierce Domain, Jason Healey notes the increasing militarization of the term cyber.2 While initially a neutral term, current references to cyber generally imply offensive behavior, while Internet is used when discussing the positive technological impacts of cyberspace. In fact, discussion of cyberspace as a unique domain has decreased dramatically over the last 15 years. This trend is quite stark when conducting a quick review of Google search term trends for cyberspace, as depicted in figure 1. Cyber is increasingly used as a prefix for a variety of offensive activities such as cyberwar, cybercrime, and cyber attacks.
This trend parallels changes in perceptions of economic statecraft, which was initially viewed as a form of state coercive power. As mercantilism gave way to a more liberal global economy, strategists began to attribute pacifying effects to economic statecraft as well. The recognition of the potential of economic tools to promote peace and development helped ensure that economic statecraft was viewed as more than just a coercive tool in power politics. Just as economic statecraft generally refers to the use of economics as a persuasive political instrument, cyber statecraft can be similarly regarded as the use of cyber tools to achieve political objectives. Moreover, unlike other tools of statecraft, cyber tools are not pigeonholed into a discrete category. Cyber statecraft permeates each of the diplomatic, information, military, and economic elements of power. This likely is due to the unique nature of cyberspace and its multiple layers, including both the physical and communication domains. In each case, however, cyber statecraft serves as the means to achieve political goals within that element of power. Similar to the rise of economic statecraft during the mercantilist period, cyber statecraft has emerged as an omnipresent tool of choice in the current era of globalization and pervasive information technology.

Contrary to common perceptions, cyber statecraft is used to exert both hard power (that is, coercion, punishment) and soft power (such as persuasion to adopt similar goals, attraction), and everything in between. While by no means an exhaustive list, figure 2 depicts a broad categorization of the cyber tools most frequently employed, ranging from positive incentives for Internet freedom and access on one extreme to offensive cyber attacks on the other. This framework depicts the physical layers of cyberspace on either extreme of the spectrum, with the communication aspects occupying the middle ground.
The remainder of this article provides current, concrete examples of the use of cyber statecraft across the power spectrum and, in doing so, suggests a strategic framework for understanding and leveraging cyber as tool of statecraft. As the following examples illustrate, state and nonstate actors employ cyber statecraft in diverse ways to pursue a range of objectives. As with other forms of statecraft, cyber statecraft can be used for benign or malicious intents. In conjunction with the tool employed, intent becomes an additional determining factor of whether the application of cyber statecraft is a carrot or a stick. Therefore, the goal is not to provide an exhaustive overview of every tool possible within cyber statecraft, but rather to expand perceptions of cyberspace to include the diversity of tools accessible within this domain along the power spectrum. Moreover, as the examples illustrate, cyber statecraft is unique in its asymmetric nature, capable of empowering not only major powers but also serving as a means for weaker actors to have a disproportionate impact in the international arena.

Investment in Internet Infrastructure and Access

State investment in cyber infrastructure—while also promoting connectivity through physical infrastructure—fosters technology-driven solutions to a wide range of economic, political, and social issues that plague the developed and developing world alike. Many governments—and even some nonstate actors—implement cyber infrastructure to empower populations through the positive externalities that often coincide with Internet access. Therefore, government investment both in the expansion of physical infrastructure as well as in access to the Internet is absolutely essential for achieving political objectives. Information technology infrastructure—including the hardware as well as its legal aspects—serves as the mechanism through which governments transmit content used for attraction and persuasion. Numerous positive political and economic externalities have been associated with greater Internet access, especially in the developing world. Greater Internet access can increase private-sector competitiveness, enhance educational opportunities, and spark economic efficiencies. For instance, technological participation—only possible via an existing cyber infrastructure—can provide a means for reaching at-risk populations. Connectivity could become a key tool in combating radicalization by providing greater access to information, education, and economic opportunities as well as entertainment. The possible economic benefits are particularly prevalent in populations that rely on mobile money transfers and Internet banking as core components of their economy.

The potential for this soft power mode of cyber statecraft to shape the current geopolitical environment is likely to grow as Internet access continues to spread globally—especially as countries leapfrog archaic technologies in favor of modern communication systems. For instance, the 2012 World Bank report Information and Communication for Development identifies mobile broadband as having an even stronger impact on economic growth than fixed broadband.3 In many developing countries, mobile money platforms enable both aid organizations and the domestic population to circumvent economic blockades and provide assistance as well as integration with the global economy.

Kenya is one of a growing number of countries that has received accolades for its concerted expansion of Internet access over the past few years. According to the World Bank World Development Indicators, Internet usage in Kenya has increased by 400 percent over the last 5 years.4 This is significant, particularly since Kenya was threatened with rising unrest following a controversial election in 2007, when less than 10 percent of the population had Internet access. The impact of this expanded access is not solely economic. It also encourages the development of human capital through access to online education tools and information such as daily market prices—essential knowledge in agrarian areas.

As Kenya’s situation demonstrates, investments in Internet expansion are critical to a government’s ability to provide the environmental conditions for the effective use of soft power. While not necessarily new, this phenomenon has recently received more rigorous attention as governments devote resources specifically for the creation and expansion of Internet architecture and a technology-based economy. In the 1970s, for example, India set aside an area near Bangalore to create an electronic city. However, the legal and economic systems lagged behind, and the information technology hub did not truly begin to emerge until economic liberalization took hold in the 1990s.

Building up a cyber architecture is not solely a tool for achieving inward-facing domestic objectives, but it is also emerging as a component of power politics as states vie for regional influence. For example, fiber networks and cell towers can be used to help build alliances between countries and expand a major power’s sphere of influence. This tactic is also increasingly employed by some multinational corporations to achieve their own objectives. Google’s Project Link, which aims to build fiber networks in Africa, is a case in point. Conversely, the Europe/Brazil effort to build an underwater cable with the goal of circumventing U.S. surveillance efforts demonstrates the role of power politics within cyberspace. Finally, the creation of cyber infrastructure could become a tool in peacekeeping missions and conflict interventions. Following a conflict, restoring the cyber infrastructure may become just as important as providing access to essential services such as security, water, and electricity as technology becomes the medium through which disparate aid efforts and financial assistance can be coordinated and systematically dispersed, while also serving as the bedrock for reconstructing postconflict political, economic, and social institutions.

Factual Information and Data Dissemination

While the popular discussion focuses heavily on Internet censorship, many state and nonstate actors also leverage cyberspace as a means to diffuse factual information to their populations, provide greater transparency, and signal their intent. In Iran, President Hassan Rouhani ran on a platform of greater Internet openness. While he has undoubtedly implemented coercive cyber tools, which will be discussed subsequently, Rouhani simultaneously uses his Twitter account to spread a more positive message of transparency. Recently, he used Twitter to congratulate Iranian mathematician and Fields Medal–winner Maryam Mirzakhani, and included a picture of her without a headscarf—an apparent attempt at demonstrating openness and preventing further “brain drain” from Iran. This is not a single occurrence with Rouhani. He also previously tweeted the content of his call with President Barack Obama following the September 2013 United Nations General Assembly in New York. Similarly, the Thai government’s tweet announcing martial law can be viewed as a means of promoting transparency by openly disseminating critical information to the greater population. Twitter remains a mechanism through which the Thai people interact with the new military-led government.

Governments also employ cyber tools to defend their actions or indirectly signal intent that would be politically imprudent to express directly. For instance, President Dilma Rousseff used her Twitter account to defend Brazil’s preparation for the World Cup. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also appears to be using his Twitter account to signal to the Japanese people his foreign policy intentions. Abe only follows a handful of people on Twitter, but India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of them. It is too soon to tell whether this indicates closer future ties between the two countries, but social media is an easy and subtle way to inform the population of a leader’s intent or interests.

Finally, mobile technologies have provided the technological foundation for community policing programs in both the developing and the developed world. Rwanda has implemented crowd-sourcing initiatives that leverage mobile platforms to strengthen the rule of law, thereby enabling the community to pass along information regarding looting and violent incidents and to simply serve as citizen journalists. The crowd-sourcing of information for the purpose of depicting events factually and in real time is not limited to state actors but is actually a tactic employed more often by nonstate actors such as nongovernmental organizations as well as the general population. This is apparent during events as diverse as the Venezuelan protests, the Wenzhou train crash in China, and the recent Ebola crisis in West Africa. Of course, intent plays a key role in categorizing cyber behavior as the insertion of factual information or as propaganda. Government propagation of false information is increasingly common.

Propaganda

The spectrum of cyber statecraft has geopolitical relevance not only through its positive tools of persuasion and attraction. Cyber statecraft is also used by governments and nonstate actors for more punitive intents and the dispersal of misinformation. Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior epitomizes the exploitation of cyberspace as a propaganda machine. He has used fake Facebook accounts and other well-known social media outlets to depict the Crimean annexation in a positive light. This includes, but is not limited to, falsifying crimes and atrocities committed by Ukrainian extremists. He also has employed the Web to shape the narrative regarding Malaysian Flight 17, providing a range of incredible scenarios ranging from denial that it was shot down to claiming he was the intended target. Similar to how leaders used traditional tools of statecraft in previous eras, he relies on cyber tools to promote a rally-round-the-flag effect and gain domestic support for Russian policy. As in historical examples, Putin applies not just one tool of cyber statecraft but instead integrates cyber propaganda with rising censorship and greater government control of the Internet. China takes a somewhat different approach to online propaganda. The government hires online commentators, often referred to as the 50-cent party, who are paid to participate in online communities to counter anti-party content, promulgate the party agenda, or deter sensitive content.

Violent extremist organizations similarly employ cyber statecraft as a propaganda tool and a key mechanism for recruitment and radicalization. Social media is largely used as the venue for these propaganda instruments. However, some of the more tech-savvy groups, such as Hizballah, have also created apps to recruit followers and disperse their ideologies. Other nonstate groups, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and those linked closely to governments such as the Syrian Electronic Army, similarly create YouTube videos and Twitter accounts as revisionist mechanisms to shape the discourse on current events or to propagate the promise of a luxurious lifestyle as a member of their groups.

Censorship

State use of cyberspace applies to both the manipulation of content, as previously discussed, and the censorship of it. Internet censorship has produced a wide range of outcomes, and the conditions under which it achieves the desired result remain vague. Depending on its depth and breadth, Internet censorship may actually fuel unrest instead of extinguishing it. For instance, Venezuela’s attempts in 2014 to censor Twitter only ignited growing protests against the government. Thailand has similarly tried to censor various social media sites, both after protests began last year and after the imposition of martial law. Turkey recently lifted its block on YouTube, which was enacted after recordings of a security meeting were leaked. The subsequent political crisis resulted in increased Internet censorship over the last year, which sparked protests that still plague the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government. Similarly, Rouhani recently banned Instagram, which now joins Facebook and Twitter as an officially banned social media outlet in Iran. Ironically, Rouhani himself is a prolific Instagram user with a large following. Finally, the Serbian government’s mismanagement in the wake of some of the country’s worst flooding in over a century ignited a vocal cyber backlash. In response, the Serbian government employed censorship to control the narrative, removing sites that highlighted erroneous government actions or were critical of the government writ large.

While the previous examples focus on Internet censorship as a means to limit antigovernment content, China has taken a somewhat different approach, albeit with similar tools. A recent Harvard publication, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,”5 analyzes a wide range of social media data and finds that the major goal of Chinese censorship is to prevent social mobilization. While the previous examples focus on limiting antigovernment rhetoric, Chinese leadership is much more likely to censor any content that may lead to group mobilization, regardless of the topic of the content. This tendency surfaced in 2014 with the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Chinese censors blocked major social media outlets and references pertaining directly or indirectly to Tiananmen Square, with the objective of preventing any similar social mobilization.

Offensive Cyber Attacks

At the extreme end of the cyber statecraft spectrum, an actor’s offensive use of cyber tools rounds out their punitive uses in statecraft. Offensive cyber tools range dramatically in severity and they themselves comprise a broad spectrum of statecraft tools. They could arguably be compartmentalized into four distinct areas: insertion (for example, malware), blocking (distributed denial of service ), removal (cyber espionage), and destruction (such as of critical information or infrastructure). In 2009, the United Arab Emirates relied on the partially state-owned telecommunications company Etisalat to request that its BlackBerry users update their phones with service enhancements, which consequently implemented spyware on devices that provided the government with unauthorized access to private information. The pro-government Syrian Electronic Army, a loosely knit group of hacktivists, went even further and has been credited with—among other cyber attacks—the implementation of Dark Comet and Blackshades malware against antigovernment activists. Although the strength of its direct ties to the Bashar al-Asad regime is unclear, the nonstate group does function as a government surrogate and has aimed domestic attacks against antigovernment activists. Many of their tools bear a resemblance to those used by Iran against its population during the Green Revolution, and many analysts believe Syria is using Iranian-designed offensive software. It is possible the Asad regime used similar tools in 2012 during the unprecedented 2-day Internet blackout in Syria.

These examples illustrate the increasing trend of states employing cyber sticks against their own populations. Of course, offensive cyber statecraft is not limited to domestic implementations. Cyber attacks have also clearly become a tool in interstate power politics, evident in conflicts and disputes as diverse as those between North and South Korea, Russia and Georgia, and India and Pakistan. In some of these instances, similar to how the Syrian Electronic Army has perpetrated cyber offense, nonstate groups closely aligned with the state government actually carry out the cyber attack, elevating the complexity of the interstate conflict due to the ambiguous nature of attribution in cyberspace. States certainly have the advantage in implementing highly technical and complex offensive tools such as those used in the Olympic Games, the German-based R2D2 Trojan, and Russian CosmicDuke. Similarly, to date, interstate dynamics maintain a monopoly on the use of destructive cyber tools such as Stuxnet, which damaged Iranian nuclear reactors in Natanz, as well as the Shamoon virus, which attacked the Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco. Shamoon infected three-quarters of the company’s personal computers (PCs), but was stopped before affecting the oil supply. The Aramco attack required the company to replace tens of thousands of its PCs and is believed to have originated from Iran.

Given the asymmetric nature of the cyber domain, these tools do not reside solely in the domain of state actors, although the scale and scope can obviously vary significantly when employed by nonstate actors. Chinese hackers recently stole health records by exploiting the Heartbleed bug, while the Target and Neiman Marcus data breaches are perhaps the most prominent examples of successful cyber espionage aimed at multinational corporations. The decentralized, loosely knit hacktivist group Anonymous has aimed its tools at both state and nonstate groups, carrying out DDoS attacks against the Israeli government and using their cyber exploits to support Arab Spring movements. Nevertheless, governments are countering the group’s influence. The British government’s DDoS attacks against Anonymous might be the first publicized instance of a state-sponsored DDoS campaign. As these examples continue to surface, each new revelation sets a precedent for a potential rise in offensive cyber statecraft within cyberspace. However, attribution issues escalate the role of misperception within cyberspace, rendering it much more difficult to comprehend the long-term impact that the instantiation of these tools will have on international relations.

Conclusion

This initial overview of a cyber statecraft framework—and the range of tools available to state and nonstate actors—provides a more structured and nuanced approach for exploring and understanding the growing use and implications of cyber statecraft. This is long overdue, as the national security implications of cyber statecraft remain greatly underexplored yet are rising in importance. Cyber as a tool of statecraft has been commandeered by an overemphasis on its militarized aspects. This focus on cyber’s offensive manifestations ignores the nuanced nature of this critical domain and its broader application to geopolitics. Although powerful and disruptive, cyber statecraft comprises much more than just intelligence or offensive capabilities. Analysts and policymakers alike must begin viewing cyber statecraft not as a discrete offensive tool useful only in narrow cases, but rather as a form of statecraft on par with other more traditional forms of statecraft, with state and nonstate applications ranging from attraction to coercion along the soft-hard power continuum. Applying a more formalized statecraft model to cyberspace helps add robustness and promote greater comprehension of the role of cyber statecraft for security and policy leaders, while adding to the international relations community’s understanding of the national security and geopolitical implications of cyber statecraft and cyberspace writ large.

It is time to end the hyperfocus on cyber as a predominantly offensive tool that is not only inherently destabilizing and exacerbates the security dilemma, but also omits the diverse ways states operate within the domain. The examination of cyber as statecraft would also benefit from increased coordination between the technology and strategic studies communities. The technical nature of this domain is likely one of the causes of the inattention cyber statecraft has received relative to its importance in the international system. Although still in its infancy as a domain, a cyber statecraft framework will enable more holistic thinking about how actors leverage cyberspace and will ideally open the door for future research at the technology-policy nexus, and thus promote an expanded comprehension of the ways in which this technical disruption affects global affairs.

Source:
This article was originally published in the Joint Force Quarterly 78, which is published by the National Defense University.

Notes:

1. Joseph S. Nye, “Nuclear Lessons for Cyber Security,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 5 (2011), 19.
2. Jason Healey, ed., A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace, 1986 to 2012 (Vienna, VA: Cyber Conflict Studies Association, 2013).
3. World Bank, Information and Communication for Development: Maximizing Mobile (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2012).
4. World Bank, World Development Indicators (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2015), available at <http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi>.
5. Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review 107 (May 2, 2013), available at <http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/censored.pdf>.

A shadowy group of militant soccer fans that has largely lied low since it participated in mass anti-government protests in 2013 that led to the military overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has claimed responsibility for a car bomb near a Cairo security building that injured at least six policemen.

Whether the group, the Black Bloc, was responsible or not, it is the first time a soccer-related group claims responsibility for an act of political violence and reflects a trend towards radicalization among politicized football fans. The claim on Facebook also would be the first time that a supposedly anti-Islamist group has targeted an institution of the Egyptian state.

“We declare full and complete responsibility for the blasts, which occurred about an hour ago,” the Black Bloc said adding that it was a response to detention of large numbers of people who have either not been charged with an offence or are facing what the group called “non-criminal” charges.

The government of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the general who shed his uniform after staging a coup against Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president, has introduced draconic laws to suppress dissent and critical media reporting, killed more than 1,400 people since the July 2013 military takeover, and imprisoned tens of thousands.

Mr. Al Sisi this week approved new counter-terrorism laws that establish special courts, offer additional protection from legal consequences for military and police officers who have used force, and ban the media from taking exception to government accounts of political violence.

Amnesty International, in a recently published report entitled ‘Generation Jail: Egypt’s youth go from protest to prison,’ said “a generation of young Egyptian activists that came to the fore around the ousting of repressive ruler Hosni Mubarak in 2011 is today languishing behind bars.” It said that the “mass protests have given way to mass arrests, as 2011’s ‘Generation Protest’ has become 2015’s ‘Generation Jail.'”

The Black Bloc emerged in early 2013 as a group of masked black clad vigilantes founded primarily by battle-steeled soccer supporters with the aim of protecting protesters against violence by Mr. Morsi’s supporters. The group sided with police and security forces in the summer of 2013 in their brutal crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

If Black Bloc’s claim is accurate, it would constitute the first time soccer fans have resorted to bombings rather than clashes with security forces or the storming of stadia and buildings. Even if the claim proves to be a publicity stunt, it would suggest a split in the ranks of Egypt’s significant movement of militant, well-organized, highly politicized and street-battle hardened soccer fans.

Iyad al Baghdadi, a prominent Egyptian blogger, who was forced into exile in Norway first by Egypt and then by the United Arab Emirates, cast doubt on the Black Bloc claim. “Claim of responsibility by the#Egypt Black Bloc (anti-Islamist, anarchist?). FB post, so pretty unreliable,” Mr. Al Baghdadi said in a tweet.

Black Bloc is alongside Ultras Nahdawy formed by soccer fans with Islamist leanings who constitute the backbone of the anti-Al Sisi student movement the only group of football activists that is not associated with a specific club.

The Black Bloc claim would suggest that anger at the Al Sisi regime’s brutal and draconic repression and failure to address frustration in Egypt’s youth bulge at a lack of economic and social prospects has gone beyond the Islamist insurgency in the Sinai and less militant Islamist opposition to the government to incorporate more secular groups that once supported the military and the security forces.

It also potentially signals that radicalization that no longer is limited to Islamists. The last year has shown primarily a fringe of Islamist-leaning soccer fans crossing the line from non-violent to violent protest.

People who were at the birth of the ultras in Egypt in 2007 as they grew to be one of the country’s largest social movements and with the exception of Bedouins and Islamists in the Sinai, the only group that consistently confronted the Mubarak regime’s security forces in clashes in stadia and current soccer fan activists have been warning that frustration among Egyptian youth is boiling and could turn violent. The ultras played a key role in the 2011 protests that toppled Mr. Mubarak and most anti-government protests since.

“We had high hopes. We staged the revolution in 2011. The new generation has nothing to lose. We recognize that football is political. That’s why we are involved not only in football but also in politics. We oppose the brutality of this regime and its pawns. Neither Sisi nor (Mansour) Mortada, (president of storied Cairo club Al Zamalek DC) are interested in politics. Their language is exclusively the language of repression,” said an ultra who is also a student leader.

“This is a new generation. It’s a generation that can’t be controlled. They don’t read. They believe in action and experience. They have balls. When the opportunity arises they will do something bigger than we ever did,” noted a founder of one of Egypt’s foremost militant fan groups or ultras.

Added another original ultra: “Things will eventually burst. When and where nobody knows. But the writing is on the wall.”

Concern that soccer stadia like in the waning years of Mr Mubarak would again become venues of protest persuaded Mr. Al-Sisi to keep stadia closed to the public during matches. An effort to ban the ultras as terrorist organizations is making its way through the courts.

Mr. Al-Sisi’s one attempt to reopen stadia in February was immediately shelved after 20 fans were killed by security forces at a stadium in Cairo during the first match for which a limited number of tickets were made available.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press briefing that the general election in Sri Lanka were conducted peacefully and smoothly.

“The United National Front for Good Governance led by Ranil Wickremesinghe won the election and will form the new government. We express our congratulations to the Sri Lankan people. We believe that under the leadership of the new government, Sri Lanka will achieve greater progress in its economic and social development,” Chunying said.

According to Chunying, China and Sri Lanka are time-tested good friends and partners. The friendly cooperation between the two countries meets the fundamental interests of the two sides, and echoes the common aspiration of the two peoples.

The Chinese side attaches great importance to its relations with Sri Lanka. China stands ready to work with Sri Lanka to consolidate the traditional friendship, trengthen mutually-beneficial cooperation, and elevate China-Sri Lanka strategic cooperation partnership to a new level, the spokesperson reiterated.

By Mark Schoeman*

The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) between the member states of three African regional economic communities – SADC, EAC, and COMESA – has been heralded as one of the most important developments in African regional integration.

The agreement aims to create a free trade area between 26 African countries, from the Cape in the South to Cairo in the North, creating a combined market of up to 625 million people. While there has been much hype around the launch of the TFTA, the anticipated benefits from the agreement are likely to be many years away. In the interim, speculation is rife regarding how realistic the agreement is, what the potential benefits are, and who will get to share in the spoils, if at all.

Winners and losers – who stands to gain?

The export profiles of the largest economies in each region – South Africa in the South, Kenya in the East, and Egypt in the North – match well with the import requirements of many of the smaller member states. This indicates that tariff liberalisation should have a trade-creating effect and should help these big regional economies increase their trade across regional groupings on the continent.

However, the export structure of South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt are relatively similar and these countries will likely see an increase in competition with one another within their traditional regions of dominance. Which country will derive the biggest benefit will depend on which country is more efficient at producing a particular product, although proximity to markets, local knowledge, and brand recognition may dampen the change in consumption patterns. The benefit of this increased competition will also accrue to consumers as the price of goods and services is decreased. Ethiopia is another regional powerhouse in East Africa, but its prospects for regional trade are considerably smaller because its export profile is very much geared towards the European market.

What benefit is there for the smaller member states if the large regional economies stand to gain? Their opportunity lies in the possibility of entering regional value chains – providing the inputs to the products and services produced by the major regional economies. The theory is that the larger the local market for these goods (created by the free trade area), the greater the production and the more these regional economies will draw on inputs from their neighbours or countries from other regional groupings.

NTBs, transport infrastructure, and industrial Policy

The TFTA agreement does not only contain tariff liberalisation measures, but places a heavy emphasis on non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs), the development of transport infrastructure, and the development of a common industrial policy. All of these require a large amount of co-ordination and co-operation among member states, something which African states have struggled with in the past. The most difficult area of co-operation will be on industrial policy where the economic requirements of different member states with vastly different economies will make devising a common industrial policy stance difficult. The Southern African Customs Union (SACU), a much smaller regional grouping, has been trying to develop a common industrial policy since the signing of its 2002 agreement but has been largely unsuccessful because its member states face very different economic challenges (South Africa compared to Lesotho or Swaziland, for example).

Non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs) remain a pertinent obstacle to intra-African trade and have not been successfully dealt with by regional economic communities (REC). In preparation for the TFTA, each of the RECs implemented an NTB Monitoring Mechanism which allows private sector actors to register NTBs they experience online which then get sent directly to the offending state to be resolved. In the case of SADC, while the mechanism has been successful in having NTBs reported, many of the NTBs are not eliminated and some of the reported NTBs have sat on the system for over 3 years. This largely comes down to disagreements among the public and private sector and about the nature and legitimacy of these NTBs. The mechanism has not provided a platform for dialogue among offending states and the private sector actors who are experiencing these NTBs, and so has failed at achieving NTB elimination. This is partly due to capacity constraints such as a lack of budget to facilitate public-private dialogue among the state authorities tasked with NTB elimination, as well as a lack of human capital and training on NTB elimination among these authorities’ staff. It is also partly due to the co-operative, rather than litigious, model of regional integration that African RECs have adopted which means that there is little that one state can do to hold another state to their NTB elimination obligations. The TFTA’s success at eliminating NTBs will depend on whether significant public-private dialogue is created and sustained.

Transport infrastructure development could be the low-hanging fruit which the TFTA agreement will be able to make progress on. There are already a number of infrastructure development initiatives underway such as the African Development Bank’s Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa and the World Bank’s Global Infrastructure Facility. The majority of intra-African trade is facilitated by road networks which places severe strain on road infrastructure. This is despite Southern Africa having the largest contiguous single-gauge rail network in the world. The infrastructure development challenge is, therefore, not only about constructing new infrastructure, but upgrading and rehabilitating existing transport networks. The advantages of developing transport infrastructure will be realised by all member states, and there are a number of development finance institutions, including the BRICS New Development Bank, which are willing to finance these projects. However, successful transport infrastructure projects require co-operation among two or more member states and co-ordination between a variety of public and private stakeholders.

Implementation challenges and the road ahead

The TFTA is an important milestone for African regional integration. The agreement is the result of five years of negotiations – an achievement in and of itself. However, it is too early to start celebrating the benefits of the agreement as there are a number of implementation challenges which lie ahead.

Only 16 countries have actually signed the TFTA agreement so far – the rest have signed a memorandum of understanding which commits them to significantly work towards signing the actual agreement. Many of the smaller states, such as Mozambique, have voiced concerns over the impact the agreement would have on their small economies, and require more time to assess these effects. The agreement requires two thirds of the member states to sign the agreement to come into force. Once that happens, the agreement then needs to be ratified by each individual member state and domestic laws and tariff structures need to be changed to reflect the terms of the agreement. So while the launching of the agreement was an important milestone, we are still a long way away from the terms of the agreement coming into force among all 26 potential member states.

Some critics of the TFTA have brought up the fact that the three regional economic communities which make up the TFTA have been slow to make progress and still exhibit low levels of intra-regional trade. While this is true for SADC, the TFTA may actually help with the process of deepening regional integration in these regional economic communities. SADC generally lags behind other regional groupings in its rate of intra-regional trade and implementation of regional trade facilitation policies. In being grouped with more successful RECs, SADC has a greater opportunity and impetus to learn from the success and implementation policies of others in the TFTA. For example, while SADC had a form of NTB monitoring in place before entering TFTA discussions, it was only placed online and made readily accessible to the private sector through donor support as part of the TFTA negotiation process.

Conclusion

Given the history and current nature of regional integration on the continent, the private sector will ultimately have to be the champion of regional integration in Africa. Whether the TFTA will be successful or not will depend on whether industrialists and entrepreneurs take advantage of the provisions of the agreement to invest in regional value chains across the continent. It is unfortunate that the TFTA does not make much mention of co-operation on FDI issues as foreign investors will hopefully see Africa as a more attractive investment destination due to the creation of a larger market, and there is scope for African countries to co-operate on FDI regulation. The creation of a regional FDI policy would makes Africa’s regional economic communities more appealing and provide impetus for investors to build cross-border operations.

*Mark Schoeman is a researcher in SAIIA’s Economic Diplomacy Programme.

Source: SAIIA

Obviously, April 04, 2004 changed my life forever.

Even if I hadn’t become an internationally (in)famous peace activist, I still never would have been the same after my oldest child, my son, Casey was killed in another Imperial war for profit and domination of natural resources.

If a person hasn’t had the dreadful experience of being “regretfully” (yeah, right) informed that he/she has unnaturally outlived a child, I will try to explain it to you: it’s like having your heart ripped out of your chest, spindled, mutilated, stomped on, yet, somehow, you survive that profound shock. As a mother, I can assure you, dear reader, that childdeath is far more painful than childbirth.

Anyway, I survived the initial shock and the numbness (and alcohol consumption) that got me through the first week: Casey’s body being returned to us in the shipping department of United Airlines in a cardboard box. His funeral detail wasn’t even there with us: he was picking up his rental car. I sat on the curb of the loading dock sobbing my eyes out while my oldest child, my love, was being treated like a box of whatever. There was no honor guard, but that is fitting because there is exactly no honor in dying for a bloodthirsty and greedy Empire.

The first year was the toughest for me. There were many times that I wanted to take the entire bottle of sleeping pills that an unenlightened MD had prescribed for me. The only thing preventing me during that darkest of times was my surviving children.

I heard many platitudes from well-meaning, but unintentionally cruel people. “He’s in a better place.” “You’ll see him again.” “Time heals all.” And, my personal “favorite:” “At least he died doing what he loved.” However, the only platitude that really spoke to me during that whole time was, “What is, is.”

Because “what is, is” just says it all in three words. No matter how I raged against the fact that Casey was dead and no matter how I raged against the machine that killed him, we (not just I) existed in a certain reality: One where wars were (and still are) being fought; occupations were/are being courageously resisted, and sons and daughters were/are being killed, or maimed for life.

“What is, is” partially liberated me from the guilt and regrets I was having. As a human with memories and biological urges to protect my children, I can still look back and pick and choose the places I “went wrong” and long for an alternate reality where I made better choices and Casey was still alive. However, that is “stinkin’ thinkin'” and an exercise in futility; “what is, is” forced me to look ahead and see what I could do to help others not have to go through what Casey and our family was/is going through.

I have heard from so many people around the world who positively affirm my work. Casey’s sacrifice and my reaction to it have changed lives and, if Casey is dead and “what is, is,” to me, helping others is our human duty and I feel satisfied that we did/are doing just that.

Now, our family has a new “what is, is” situation. My sister, best friend, and peace-partner, Dede Miller has Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. I am her primary caregiver and, I don’t mind saying (without going into too much detail), it’s not that easy. Again, with human nature, we are flooded with platitudes (and much good advice) and with my human nature, I am looking back on the last many years when I tried to get Dede to make healthier lifestyle and dietary choices. I don’t know if it would have prevented her cancer, but I know if she followed my pleadings, she would have been much stronger to fight it.

“What is, is” comes back to me, not “water under the bridge.” Water is water and how do we know we aren’t looking at the same water going under that same bridge? Simply put, now we are existing in a reality where Dede has cancer and where we are put into numerous situations on a daily basis that give us an opportunity to help others who don’t have the same access to information and support that we have.

I have been able to share with other cancer patients about the effective (proven) alternative therapies and many times, sitting in an infusion center (chemo or Vitamin C) with others is like having a mini support group and many wonderful interactions have already occurred.

This past week when Dede was undergoing chemo, I walked into the infusion center and looked up and I saw two old friends that I used to go to church with here in Vacaville before Casey was killed. The man is retired military, so, through the grapevine, I had heard that he was extremely upset with my antiwar activism.

As soon as I saw “Bill and Judy,” I rushed over and saw that they were sitting with their son and he had been recently diagnosed with liver cancer. We hugged and cried and I was able to give them information about “Radical Remission” and the phone number for our alternative doctor. At that moment, politics didn’t matter. The current wars were even further away and we connected in a very real and human way. It was a terrible situation in which to have a reunion, but “what is, is,” and I think we found healing and tapped into a universal love for family and each other. Maybe, we’ll put on our gloves and spar about politics later, but there is a time for every purpose, turn, turn, turn.

Here I am getting all metaphysical and philosophical, but, cancer is about the most real sh#t we face. It must be dealt with, but one needs to find hope and peace of mind in the midst of each battle.

While dealing with the cancer and the cancer industrial complex is our current battle, it has also become another way for Dede and I to repay some “karmic” debt for being human, and to help others.

That’s who we are; that’s what we do.

Corporate welfare is often camouflaged in taxes that seem neutral on their face but give windfalls to big entrenched corporations at the expense of average people and small businesses.

Take a look at commercial property taxes in California, for example.

In 1978 California voters passed Proposition 13 – which began to assess property for tax purposes at its price when it was bought, rather than its current market price.

This has protected homeowners and renters. But it’s also given a quiet windfall to entrenched corporate owners of commercial property.

Corporations don’t need this protection. They’re in the real economy. They’re supposed to compete on a level playing field with new companies whose property taxes are based on current market prices.

This corporate windfall has caused three big problems.

First, it’s shifted more of the property tax on to California homeowners.

Back in 1978, corporations paid 44 percent of all property taxes and homeowners paid 56 percent. Now, after exploiting this loophole for years, corporations pay only 28 percent of property taxes, while homeowners pick up 72 percent of the tab.

Second, it’s robbed California of billions of dollars to support schools and local services. If all corporations were paying the property taxes they should be paying, schools and local services would have $9 billion dollars more in revenues this year.

Third, it penalizes new and expanding businesses that don’t get this windfall because their commercial property is assessed at the current market price – but they compete for customers with companies whose property is assessed at the price they purchased it years ago.

That’s unfair and it’s bad for the economy because California needs new and expanding businesses.

Today, almost half of all commercial properties in California pay their fair share of property taxes, but they’re hobbled by those that don’t.

This loophole must be closed. All corporations should be paying commercial property taxes based on current market prices.

The giant corporations that are currently exploiting the loophole for their own profits obviously don’t want it closed, so they’re trying to scare people by saying closing it will cause businesses to leave California.

That’s baloney. Leveling the playing field for all businesses will make the California economy more efficient, and help new and expanding businesses.

Besides, California’s property taxes are already much lower than the national average. So even if corporations pay their full share, they’re still getting a great deal.

Right now, a grassroots movement is growing of Californians determined to reform this broken commercial property tax system, and who know California needs more stable funding for its schools, libraries, roads, and communities.

(RFE/RL) — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has tendered his resignation and proposed holding an early election in the crisis-hit country on September 20.

Tsipras said in a nationally televised address on August 20 that the mandate he received in January has been “exhausted” and that the Greek people now “must decide anew.”

Before the address, the far-left leader submitted his government’s resignation to President Prokopis Pavlopoulos.

Greek stocks and bonds dropped on August 20 as Tsipras met with members of his cabinet in Athens to discuss his next move after the approval of a bailout of 86 billion euros ($96 billion) from the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund.

Tsipras, who was elected in January on an anti-austerity platform, last week approved sweeping economic overhauls attached to the bailout at the cost of seeing his Syriza party split, as many opposed the EU-mandated reforms.

A Greek government official said that Tsipras might hold a vote of confidence soon after the August 20 deadline for a debt repayment, a move that could trigger early elections.

The United Nations Security Council should impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government following the government’s repeated air attacks on Douma’s popular markets and residential areas on August 16, 2015. The attacks killed at least 112 people, whom witnesses and first responders described as overwhelmingly civilian.

The Syrian air force conducted four airstrikes within minutes of one another on the main street vendor markets in Douma, the most populous town in besieged eastern Ghouta, an area under the control of opposition armed groups. Human Rights Watch spoke to four witnesses who said that there were no military targets nearby and that the nearest base or combatant front line was at least two kilometers away. Syrian authorities did not comment directly on the strikes other than to criticize the UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura, who had called the strikes on Douma “devastating” and “unacceptable.”

“Bombing a market full of shoppers and vendors in broad daylight shows the Syrian government’s appalling disregard for civilians,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director. “This latest carnage is another reminder – if any was still needed – of the urgent need for the Security Council to act on its previous resolutions and take steps to stop indiscriminate attacks.”

Witnesses and first responders told Human Rights Watch that the four airstrikes hit the crowded markets, known locally as the al-Hal, al-Houboub, and al-Ghanam markets, at about noon. All three markets are within 500 meters of one another. Two first responders described a chaotic scene, with the dead and injured scattered on the streets. They said they found about 70 bodies and large numbers of wounded as they arrived. About five minutes after the four airstrikes, government forces fired mortars and rockets into the area, killing six more people, the witnesses said.

Later that afternoon, airstrikes hit a residential area in Douma known as Masaken, or Abed al-Raouf. One Masaken resident told Human Rights Watch that the strikes killed at least 30 people and that government forces opened fire later in the day on those trying to bury relatives in the cemetery. “We had to run 400 meters to the cemetery under the sniper’s bullets to bury my cousin,” he said. “On our way back, mortars started falling again and two people were injured from shrapnel while burying the victims. They do not even want us to bury our martyrs.”

The Douma Local Council reported that the August 16 attacks killed a total of 112 and injured 550 civilians, 40 percent of them children, as well as 8 women. The Unified Medical Office of Douma, which coordinates medical care in the area, reported that doctors performed 116 surgeries on the wounded, including 9 amputations.

These were not the first midday attacks on busy markets in eastern Ghouta. Amnesty International investigated air strikes on the market in Hamouria on January 25 shortly after Friday prayers that it said killed more than 40 civilians, and on the market of Kafr Batna on February 5 at about 1 p.m. that it said killed 45 civilians.

According to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC), a local monitoring group, government aerial and shelling attacks killed at least 462 civilians and 16 fighters in eastern Ghouta between January and June.

Armed groups operating in eastern Ghouta have also indiscriminately shelled civilians living in nearby government-held territory. A March Human Rights Watch report documents indiscriminate shelling of residential areas and markets by armed groups and called on the Security Council to impose a suspension of all military assistance to parties implicated in widespread or systematic violations.

The latest flare-up between government forces and armed groups in eastern Ghouta began on August 12, when armed groups launched mortar shells on several areas in Damascus hours ahead of a visit by the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Zarif, killing 11 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Shortly afterward, government warplanes unleashed a wave of airstrikes on several opposition-held suburbs of the capital, including Douma, killing 37, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

On February 22, 2014, the Security Council demanded “that all parties immediately cease all attacks against civilians, as well as the indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment,” in its resolution 2139. On August 17, one day after the Ghouta attacks, the Security Council issued a presidential statement reiterating its demands that all parties cease attacks against civilians as well as any indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas.

(RFE/RL) — Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen moved the date for a referendum on scrapping opt-outs from EU justice affairs policies, in order to avoid it being influence by Britain’s Brexit debate.

In June, the newly elected Liberal leader announced that he would move it to late 2015. Previously, the former centre-left Danish government had said that it would hold the referendum no later than April 2016. As reported in Berlingske, the prime minister will announce the date on Friday (21 August).

According to Politiken, Rasmussen decided to change the date in order to avoid British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reform negotiations with the EU, and an EU referendum, which is likely to take place in 2016, fearing that they would sway Danish voters. Rasmussen is hoping for a ‘Yes’ in the Danish referendum.

If Cameron achieves his desired reforms, the British premier will push to stay in the Union. Otherwise, the Tories might campaign to leave the EU. This decision could have far-reaching consequences for trade, investment and the United Kingdom’s international standing.

Since 1993, Denmark has had four EU opt-outs, including one on justice.

But a majority of both leftist and right-wing parties in the Danish parliament have proposed an opt-in version, similar to the ones in the UK and Ireland, as they are worried that Denmark would be kicked out of Europol, which the country has been a member of for 17 years, if it does not adopt a similar arrangement.

Politiken said that since Cameron’s demands for reform will be proposed during the EU summit in Brussels 17-18 December, and since Rasmussen expects leaks of the proposals to circulate shortly before the summit, the Danish referendum is now likely to take place at the end of November.

Not Eurosceptic

The new Danish government, which was elected in June has until now proven to be less Eurosceptic than expected. As the government counts on support from the far-right, the Eurosceptic Danish People’s Party, many commentators have predicted that Denmark would change its otherwise pro-EU policies.

The Danish People’s Party has called for fewer Danish EU referendums in the future that could risk seeing the country move closer to the EU core. The party also wants border controls, which breach the Schengen agreement, as well as Denmark actively taking part in the British reform negotiations to change the rules for EU citizens who claim benefits in other EU member states.

But Rasmussen has gone up against these demands. First, the premier stated that he is likely to call for another referendum to get rid of another Danish EU opt-out on defence. Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen has agreed to set up border controls, but only in conformity with Schengen rules.

Finally, the Danish People’s Party is unhappy that the prime minister has not mentioned the British reform negotiations since he was elected. The EU is also absent from the government’s key priorities.

“This is disappointing,” Søren Espersen, an MP from the party, told broadcaster DR. “This goes against the things that were said during the general election campaign, where it was said that we should follow the British negotiations.”

“The US and it’s allies want to keep this monster (ISIS) in check, but they don’t want to destroy it. All their military, political and media campaigns are smokescreens. What the West has done so far has strengthened terrorism not ended it. The proof of this is the fact that terrorism has spread everywhere, its material resources have increased, and its ranks have swollen.” -— Syrian President Bashar al Assad

Has US policy in Syria fallen prey to the political ambitions of one man, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?

Certainly not. Washington has its own malignant agenda in Syria, which is to topple Syrian President Bashar al Assad, split the country into pieces, lock-down critical pipeline corridors, and establish a “Salafist principality” that will justify continued US intervention across the Middle East for the foreseeable future. These are the objectives of US policy and they haven’t changed because of anything Erdogan has done.

That’s not to say that Erdogan hasn’t complicated matters by requiring the US to play by Turkey’s rules.  He has. Just look at the Incirlik deal. In theory, it looks like a win-win for US war-planners who will now be able to cross into Syrian airspace in 15 minutes instead of the two hours it took from Bahrain. But the devil is in the details which suggest constraints on the US military’s ability to conduct its own campaign or even choose its own targets. Take a look at this excerpt from an article in Al Monitor:

“Turkey wants to open Incirlik not only to US warplanes but also to the aircraft of anti-IS NATO members France, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Canada. What Turkey wants to accomplish here is to affix NATO legitimacy to the operation by reinforcing the perception that operations against IS targets in Syria are part of a NATO mission.

Turkey insists that operations, flight routes and targets should be decided collectively by the coordination cell, but subject to Turkey’s final approval. This means decisions made at Incirlik must be conveyed to Ankara immediately. The coordination center in Ankara must be kept informed of all operations and flights in real time with Incirlik.

Ankara is trying to insert a clause that gives it the authority to send back the coalition planes in case of contravention of the agreement.

…. The emerging concept is coordinated planning of Turkish air operations against the PKK in Iraq and US attacks against IS. The United States and Turkey would know all the details of each other’s operations in Iraq, but not interfere with each other.”  (“What’s US really doing at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base?“, Al Monitor)

If it sounds like Erdogan is in the drivers seat, it’s because he is. The US will have to do whatever Ankara tells it to do or get the boot. It’s that simple. How do you think the Obama crew is going to like taking orders from a megalomaniac like Erdogan?

They’re not going to like it at all, but they’re going to have to suck it up and play along if they want to get rid of Assad. And, whether they admit it or not, removing Assad is their top priority, so they’ll probably do what they’re told.

And did you notice how Erdogan wants to get NATO involved? That’s because his generals were resisting any action against Syria without international approval. Now that Erdogan has gotten the thumbs up from NATO and Uncle Sam, the military can bomb the Kurds “til their hearts content” and never worry about punitive sanctions or future war crimes tribunals.

Also, Erdogan is going to have the final say-so on who is targeted and who isn’t, which means that his attacks on the People’s Protection Units (YPG) or the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and can continue unabated, but Washington will have to get the go-ahead for their attacks on ISIS.  Looking at it from this angle, the agreement doesn’t look nearly as rosy as the media has been saying.  Even so, the Pentagon still believes Incirlik will be a “gamechanger”, which it could be since the real goal is not to eliminate ISIS, but to create a no-fly zone across Syria that reinforces US-proxy fighters in their war against the Syrian gov forces.  Of course, US officials are not about to call the no-fly zone a no-fly zone because that would be an act of war and a violation of international law.  Instead, they’re going to stick to their script, pretend nothing is happening, dodge the question whenever possible, and get their buddies in the media to keep the matter off the front page, which is exactly what they’ve been doing up to now.

But there will be consequences for intensifying the war effort,  after all, Syria does have a few powerful friends that can make US flyovers a bit more difficult. Putin, for example, is not just going to roll over and play dead. Check this out from BGN News:

“Six MiG-31 fighter jets from Russia have landed in Damascus, in partial fulfillment of a protocol signed between Moscow and the Syrian regime in 2007.  Developed by the Soviet Air Force, the Mikoyan MiG-31 is a supersonic jet, and one of the fastest fighter planes in the world. The jets have a target range of approximately 200 kilometers.”

(“Russia sends six fighter jets to Syrian administration“, BGN News)

And this is just the first shot fired over Washington’s bow.  They’ll be more to come as the conflict intensifies. But the message is clear, Russia and Iran are not going to allow a repeat of Libya in Syria. They’re committed to preventing the violent overthrown of Assad and the descent of Syria into anarchy.  Case in point: Check out this blurb from the Miami Herald:

“According to Hamid-Rezi Taraghi, the international affairs spokesman for the Islamic Coalition party and a former member of parliament, Iran is prepared to send Iranian forces into Syria. “If necessary, we will… send up to 100,000 Basij or revolutionary guard fighters. “They’re always ready,” said Taraghi.”

(“Iran’s perspective on Syria: U.S. allies to blame for rise of Islamic State“, Miami Herald)

The point is, Iran sees the war on Assad as a war on Tehran, so it’s not going to back down. They’ll send troops and supplies to Syria thinking that “it’s better to fight the US and its allies there, rather than here.”  So, while US officials are crowing about the “gamechanger” Incirlik deal, what they’ve really done is they’ve thrown more gas on a fire that was already raging increasing the chances of a regional war that could eventually pit Moscow against Washington. Now check out this quote from an op-ed in Turkish daily Hurriyet:

 “For Syria, there is no hope of maintaining its unitary status. As the diplomatic bargaining over dividing what is left of Syria among the parties continues at full speed, Turkey is understandably seeking to carve out a buffer zone to protect its interests.”  (“Conquering Aleppo“, Selin Nasi, Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey)

Bingo. This is exactly what Erdogan has in mind, and ostensibly, the US has agreed to help him achieve his territorial aims in exchange for the use of Incirlik. Some will disagree with this analysis, but it’s absurd to think that Washington doesn’t know what Erdogan is up to.  He’s carving off a nice big chunk of north Syria to add to Turkey’s landmass while Obama and Co. look the other way. That’s what’s really going on. Here’s more clarification from the same article:

“Claims that Turkish military forces on Aug. 10 entered the planned zone in Syria via the Öncüpınar/Bab al-Salameh border crossing along with the Sultan Murat Brigade, which is composed of Turkmens, presents a worrying picture, especially when taken in conjunction with pro-government media headlines that cheerfully proclaimed Aleppo as the 82nd province of Turkey. The Turkmen card, which Turkey saves for rainy days as a foreign policy option, is on the table once again – something that is not surprising when nationalist sentiments are also on the rise. The perils of this political gamble loom large: Any attack against our Turkmen brothers in the safe zone could easily spark a military clash and drag Turkey into war…..

In the end, do we really want to fight for an 82nd province?”

So Turkey’s right wing pundits are saying that Aleppo, (which is in N Syria) is “Turkey’s 82nd province”?

Yep, they sure are, which means the path has been cleared for a major invasion followed by a land-grab in northern Syria (including Aleppo) using the justification of establishing a “safety zone”. The assumption is that the US will provide air cover for this blatant act of aggression, and that the UN will sweep the whole matter under the rug since Erdogan already got the green light from both Washington and NATO. Meanwhile, Washington plans to pound the holy crap out of any Syrian government forces that come with a 50 mile radius of their glorious army of Takferi “moderates”, you know, the same moderates that cut off heads and rape teenage girls. These are America’s allies in its war against Assad, er, ISIS.

Of course, if the US was serious about fighting terrorism, they’d assist Assad in his battle against jihadi groups operating in Syria, and then move on to the vipers lairs in Ankara and Riyadh, the cesspits from whence all terror emerges. Check out this clip from Hurriyet on the problems Germany has had dealing with double-dealing Erdogan:

“The second and perhaps more troubling concern emerged within the German security establishment when Turkey’s neck-deep involvement in supporting radical groups fighting to topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria reached out to expatriates in Germany. Erdoğan’s secret support for radical groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra and the Ahrar al-Sham was closely monitored by German intelligence. Several test cases where Turkey failed to turn over high-profile ISIL suspects detained by Turkish police and wanted in Germany but instead let them join ISIL’s ranks in Syria convinced Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government that Erdoğan is simply playing a duplicitous game regarding the security of its allies…..

The threat of the possible radicalization of Turkish Muslims in Germany as a result of controversial policies pursued by Islamists in the AKP government (Erdogan’s party), which was accused of facilitating the flow of foreign fighters arriving in Syria from all over the world, is something about which the German government is very concerned.” (“Islamists risk rupture in Turkey’s ties with Germany“, Hurriyet)

How do you like them apples?  So Obama wants to topple Assad who has NO history of supporting terrorist organizations, and join forces with Erdogan who, according to German intelligence, is not only “neck-deep.. in supporting radical groups”, but has also taken a lot of these bad apples that Germany wants to prosecute, and sent them off to fight in Syria.

And this is the guy that Obama just hopped into bed with?

Erdogan is a duplicitous-troublemaking narcissist and everyone in Washington knows it. They know he’s planning to steal Syrian land, just like they know that he’s butchering the Kurds for no reason. They also know he’s gaming the system so he can declare himself Supreme Leader of Turkey following snap elections in October. They know it all, but they don’t care, because Washington is so obsessed with its single-minded hatred of Assad, that they’d make a pact with Beelzebub Satan if they thought it would move them closer to their ultimate objective. That’s why they don’t mind throwing their lot with the likes of Erdogan.

By the way,  the author of the previous op-ed clearly states that the  ISIL suspects that were rounded up after the terrorist bombing in Suruc (which was used as the pretext for bombing the Kurds) have all been released. I’m not kidding. Think of how ridiculous that is. The Turkish government justifies a war on the basis of lies about an ISIS bombing “in the homeland”, and then releases all the suspects, refuses to conduct an independent investigation, detains all the eyewitnesses who were present at the time, and fails to produce a shred of evidence proving that their implausible explanation of the attack actually happened.

If you think that Turkey is fast slipping into the Twilight Zone, you’re probably right.

Here’s what you’re not going to read about Erdogan in the western media. Erdogan just lost his Parliamentary majority in June dashing his hopes of becoming Turkey’s Grand Sultan for eternity. Also, he has rejected the idea of a coalition government because he doesn’t like the idea of sharing power with members of other political parties. That means that there’s going to be snap elections sometime in late October.  Erdogan expects to win a clear majority since voters typically support the sitting government during times of crisis.  The problem is that, the polls are not running in Erdogan’s favor, mainly because more and more people see him as a power-hungry opportunist who uses terrorism to achieve his own ends. In a recent survey by the Gezici Research Company,   the Justice and Development Party (Erdogan’s party) is losing ground.  “According to the results, 39.2 percent of respondents said they would vote for the AK Party, a fall of 1.6 percentage points from the official results of the parliamentary election on June 7.” Even more shocking: “Fifty-six percent of those who participated in the survey believe that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is responsible for the war-like situation in the country that began shortly after the failure of the AK Party to win a majority in the general election.” (Today’s Zaman)

In other words, a growing number of Turkish voters have seen through Erdogan’s self-serving terrorist ruse. For once, the terror card has not succeeded in building support for some lame political demagogue looking to shoehorn his way into power. Of course, none of this has put a damper on Erdogan who is as determined as ever to establish one-man-rule by hook or crook. According to Hurriyet:

“Erdogan… has made it clear that he is not interested in a U.S. or French type of system where the president is answerable to the legislature, and is hemmed in by constitutional checks and balances which guard the system against the abuse of power by the president…..

He said on Aug. 14 that because he was elected by the people last year, there was already a de facto change in the administrative system in Turkey and all he needs now is a new constitution. This statement came despite the fact he has no parliamentary power to do that and despite the fact that no polls are hinting that he will be able to achieve it in a new parliamentary formation.” (“Seizing an election“, Murat Yetkin, Hurriyet)

In other words, Erdogan is claiming that he is Turkey’s king whether he reclaims a majority in parliament or not, and whether changes are made to the constitution or not.  He’s the king because, well, because he says so, that’s why.

This is the madman who is now Washington’s number one ally in its bloody war against Assad. Not only was he allegedly involved in ISIS seizure of Mosul, (according to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki: “What happened in Mosul was a conspiracy planned in Ankara” ) he’s he’s also “neck-deep” …”in supporting radical groups …. such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra and the Ahrar al-Sham was closely monitored by German intelligence.” (Hurriyet)

So why does Washington want to team up with someone who’s so obviously connected to very groups it claims to be fighting?

To remove Assad, of course.  What other reason could there be?

Obama is convinced he can use Erdogan long enough to topple Assad and then dump him as soon as the job is done. But would Erdogan really be foolish enough to order his troops to attack Damascus?

Probably not, because if he did, there’d be a mutiny in the military and Erdogan’s career would be kaput.

But if Turkish troops aren’t going to take the Capital, then how is Obama going to pull this thing off?

Special Forces leading US-backed jihadi militias into battle? Is that the plan?

It could work, but neither Iran nor Russia would allow it. After all, if Assad falls, then Tehran knows that it’s next in line, so they’re going to defend Damascus to the very end. The same goes for Putin, although for different reasons.  As a staunch defender of national sovereignty, self determination and international law, the Russian president will eventually realize that he can’t back down, that if he doesn’t stand up to US aggression in Syria, his credibility as leader of the new multipolar global system will be in tatters.  He can’t afford to let that happen. Russia will have to get involved.

So this is where the rubber meets the road, where Moscow and Tehran finally face off with Uncle Sam. Of course, there doesn’t have to be a confrontation. There are other options. Iran is promoting a four-point plan that calls for an immediate cease-fire, the creation of a national unity government, a rewriting of Syria’s constitution to include the majority of Syrian ethnic groups and new national elections under international supervision. It’s a good plan and it’s the best way to stop the violence and end the crisis. But the US isn’t going to sign-on to Iran’s peace deal. No way. Washington wants regime change and it’s not going to stop until Assad is gone.  That means there’s going to be a war, a war that will pit the United States against Syria, Iran and Russia.

Has anyone in Washington even thought about what that might mean?

By Vikram Sood*

Open source data compiled by the New Delhi-based South Asia Terrorism Portal in 2014, listed recovery of 153 bullet-riddled bodies in Balochistan as against 39 in the previous year. Most of these were recoveries from three mass graves in the Khuzdar district in southern Balochistan, where Baloch separatism is stronger. These recoveries confirmed the assessment that a sustained campaign by the state’s covert agencies to target Baloch nationalists had been launched, which meant disappearances accompanied by a ‘kill and dump’ policy.

Killings since 2004 have been through its favourite terror groups, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (aka Ahle Wal Sunnat Jamat) which primarily targeted the Shia Hazaras, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan as well as Ahrar-e-Hind (pompously describes itself as the Liberators of India). The usual technique has been to introduce religious fanatics into the process so that religious overtones make elimination of secular nationalists that much easier. Mama Qadir, a veteran Baloch, had led a long march last year from Quetta to Islamabad to highlight the nearly 19,000 disappearances since 2001, but there was no government response and there was little coverage of this effort.

The latest onslaught by government forces has been in many parts of the Awaran district. This was launched by Pakistan military using helicopter gunships and aerial support beginning on Eid (July 18). The operation was accompanied by a media blackout and there were massive casualties and abductions. According to reports filtering out from the locked-out province, more than 100 civilians, including women and children, have died early in the attack with the casualties expected to mount as more succumb to their injuries. The Baloch also fear that the military operation in the area will not be terminated until all evidence of the killings has been removed.

The campaign of Baloch nationalists gets muddied in the profitable business of protection money earned by the Frontier Corps from the coal mines in the Harnai and Zarkoon districts. There are 250 coal mines in Balochistan producing an estimated 188 million tonnes of coal. On any given day, the mines produce 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes and the FC pockets about a million rupees a day. These are the profits of war for the FC. Then there are copper mines, gas fields with the Chinese and Fauji Foundation interests in all the development projects.

If Twitter were the yardstick of modern-day communication then on my timeline, the largest number of tweets in the last few weeks was from the Baloch. In one representative day, at least 80-100 tweets feature with a rising graph in the days preceding August 11, the day Baloch nationalists describe as their Independence Day. Their tweets speak of their tragedy, sorrow and forlorn hope; of missing sons, husbands and fathers, torture and staged encounters. Above all, they speak of a yearning desire for independence.

Others too would also have received similar tweets and Facebook posts, many of which are addressed to politicians, newspapers and TV .Yet for some unknown reason, the Baloch get no attention in India media or think tanks or other discussion groups.

Unfortunately, the Baloch have received little attention as the rest of the world is more involved with what is happening in West Asia and the rise of the ISIS. In the region itself, the US and the West are more concerned with pulling out of Afghanistan with some reputation of invincibility intact. Highlighting the plight of the Baloch would mean criticising Pakistan, on whom the West depends to extricate itself. It is much easier instead to assuage national conscience by talking of the Rohingyas because Myanmar enables the West the luxury to safely exhibit its human rights beliefs.

Current Western disinterest is in contrast to the time when in the mid-1940s, the British were agonising about ways to secure the interests of the Empire against Stalin after their departure from India. An unsigned British memorandum of May 19, 1948 mentioned that “The Indus Valley, western Punjab, and Baluchistan [the north west] are vital to any strategic plans for the defence of the important Muslim belt … the oil supplies of the Middle east.” Today, as the Chinese solidify their presence in Gilgit-Baltistan, bordering Xinjiang and Afghanistan, and control over Gwadar overlooking the entry to the Persian Gulf, the US seems to have ceded ground to the Chinese in this region.

Time will tell if the US is retreating or drawing the Chinese in to the quagmire. Neither is likely to give any solace to the Baloch.

*The writer is an Advisor to Observer Research Foundation and a former chief of Research and Analysis Wing

Courtesy: www.mid-day.com

By Hal Brands*

Retrenchment is all the rage in the academic strategic studies community.[1] In recent years, a growing number of scholars—including prominent international-relations “realists” like Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, and Christopher Layne—have argued that Washington should retreat from the ambitious strategy it has followed since World War II, and that it should embrace a far more austere approach to world affairs. In particular, they have contended that America should pursue a minimalist approach known as “offshore balancing.” In brief, offshore balancing envisions rolling back U.S. force posture and alliance commitments abroad, and significantly reducing the overall assertiveness of U.S. policy. Offshore balancing “is an idea whose time has come,” writes Walt; in the post-Iraq War and post-financial crisis context, dramatic retrenchment has become both desirable and imperative.[2]

Arguments for offshore balancing are premised on a less-is-more logic: that reducing U.S. commitments and activism can actually lead to greater security and influence at a far lower financial price. After more than a decade of expensive and inconclusive wars, such logic can seem quite appealing. Yet upon closer inspection, offshore balancing loses its luster. The financial and geopolitical benefits of that strategy are significantly overstated, while the probable dangers and costs are often obscured. Offshore balancing effectively promises the best of all worlds, but if implemented it would likely endanger the international influence and stability that the United States has long enjoyed, and render the country vulnerable to higher longer-term risks and costs. Retrenchment chic must therefore be carefully scrutinized: as America considers its grand strategic course in coming years, it should steer clear of offshore balancing.

Why Try Offshore Balancing?

Since World War II, the United States has pursued an ambitious and engaged strategy in global affairs. It has sought to foster an international environment conducive to the spread of free markets and democracy, and to uphold a favorable global balance of power in which no hostile power can dominate one of the three regions—Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf—of critical economic or strategic importance to the United States. To attain these goals, in turn, America has made numerous overseas security commitments, and substantiated those commitments through the forward deployment of military forces. The precise timing and nature of these commitments has varied by region, of course, but the basic logic has always been the same. U.S. commitments have functioned to prevent any rival from exerting control over a vital area, and to mute destabilizing regional security competitions. They have promoted the climate of reassurance in which democracy and market economies could thrive, and restrained nuclear proliferation by reducing the insecurity of key U.S. allies. Beyond all this, U.S. commitments have pushed American power and influence deep into critical regions. In numerous ways, security guarantees and forward deployments have been the backbone of postwar U.S. strategy.

For many decades, this strategy has served America well. Yet since the end of the Cold War, and particularly in the last decade, many academic analysts have claimed that the strategy has outlived its usefulness. They argue that there is no longer the same danger of a hostile power like the Soviet Union overrunning a vital region, and that Washington—amid post-financial crisis austerity—can no longer afford such extensive commitments. They also argue that a strategy designed during the Cold War has caused myriad geopolitical problems in the post-Cold War world. It has enabled endemic free-riding by U.S. allies, while antagonizing key regional powers—like Russia and China—who view American presence as a threat to their own security. Likewise, offshore balancers contend that the strategy actually encourages jihadist terrorism by placing American troops on Muslim holy ground, and that U.S. assertiveness fuels—rather than restrains—nuclear proliferation by menacing the very survival of countries like Iran and North Korea. From this perspective, it is American strength, and not American weakness, that incites so many of the security challenges the country currently confronts.[3]

These critiques have informed the widespread academic appeal of offshore balancing. Like most mainstream observers, offshore balancers agree that U.S. policy must prevent any unfriendly power from dominating Europe, East Asia, or the Persian Gulf.  Yet they believe that permanent U.S. force deployments and security guarantees are not needed to achieve this goal. Rather, offshore balancers think that Washington can rely on local actors to contain most threats in these regions, supporting them with economic, diplomatic, or indirect military aid (like arms sales) as necessary. Only when a crucial regional balance threatens to collapse altogether—only when a hostile actor threatens to overrun or otherwise control that area—should Washington intervene by going onshore with its own military forces. Once the aggressor is defeated and the balance restored, U.S. forces should return offshore again.

In practical terms, offshore balancing therefore entails a marked retrenchment of U.S. presence overseas. Offshore balancers have argued that America should withdraw from NATO’s military command, for instance, or at least withdraw all permanently stationed U.S. troops from Europe. They have urged forswearing onshore peacetime deployments in the Gulf, and relying on “over-the-horizon” capabilities should trouble erupt. In East Asia, most offshore balancers favor preserving strong naval/air forces to deter a rising China. Yet they have also advocated, variously, withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea, ending the ambiguous security commitment to Taiwan, modifying or terminating the alliance with Japan, or removing U.S. forces from that country.

All of this retrenchment would be accompanied by significant cuts in force structure, and by a far more modest approach to foreign policy writ large. Democracy-promotion and other “ideological” objectives would be sharply downgraded; the use of force for anything other than preservation of a critical regional balance would be strictly avoided. In essence, offshore balancing calls for a rupture with the postwar pattern of American strategy, and a reversion to an earlier type of approach. Prior to 1945, the United States generally eschewed peacetime commitments in Europe or in East Asia, intervening only to prevent or reverse the conquest of those regions during the world wars. That strategy worked well then, offshore balancers argue, and it would work equally well today.

In fact, offshore balancers contend that their strategy would produce a host of financial and geopolitical benefits. It would slash U.S. defense costs, and compel key regional players—Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany—to shoulder greater responsibility for preserving international order. It would give Washington greater flexibility and influence in global affairs, by freeing it from needless commitments and allowing it to focus on core balance-of-power issues. Finally, offshore balancing would reduce key threats to American interests, by easing the blowback that U.S. policies have created. Retracting the U.S. security footprint in Europe and East Asia would reduce tensions with Russia and China, for example, while retrenchment would also address the root causes of nuclear proliferation by easing the insecurity of states like Iran and North Korea. The same goes for terrorism: scholars like Robert Pape contend that an end to U.S. troop deployments in the greater Middle East would assuage Muslim anger and largely defuse the jihadist threat.[4] Across an entire range of key issues, then, retrenchment could markedly improve U.S. fortunes. Indeed, if taken at face value, offshore balancing seems to be a nearly ideal grand strategy for America.

Not Such a Bargain…

The allure of offshore balancing is largely illusory, however, and the issue of financial cost starts to demonstrate why. One purported advantage of offshore balancing is that it will help liberate the country from unbearable financial strains. Offshore balancers argue that there will be significant economies achieved by avoiding “wars of choice,” and that offshore balancing will permit dramatic cuts in overseas basing and force structure. (One scholar predicts, for instance, that offshore balancing would permit 50 percent cuts in ground forces, and 25-33 percent cuts in air and naval forces.[5]) Yet in reality, those savings would likely be far less than advertised.

For one thing, the existing U.S. strategy is not actually that expensive by historical standards. Total defense spending (including money for overseas wars) has averaged between 3 and 4 percent of GDP since the mid-1990s, rising to 4.7 percent in 2010 but falling to roughly 3.5 percent in 2014.[6] When we compare this spending to Cold War-era budgets that sometimes reached over 10 percent of GDP, it quickly becomes apparent that the current strategy is not nearly so economically backbreaking as sometimes portrayed.

Nor would offshore balancing be so cheap. An offshore-balancing type military must still be capable of intervening decisively in regional conflicts, and forcing its way back onshore if the balance breaks. It also must have the air and naval power needed to dominate the global commons and push into contested areas in time of crisis. An offshore-balancing military would therefore still need to be capable of rapid, decisive global power-projection, with all the massive costs that endeavor entails. Even closing overseas bases and stationing U.S. forces closer to home would not greatly mitigate such costs: one RAND Corporation study points out that relocating two squadrons of F-16s from Italy to the United States would reduce operational costs by just 6 percent annually.[7]

When these issues are considered, offshore balancing no longer seems such a bargain. And one must also weigh the possibility that modest savings now might lead to higher costs later. After all, when the United States practiced a version of offshore balancing toward Europe and East Asia during the first half of the 20^th century, it ended up having to fight major wars to restore regional balances that had either collapsed or were in severe peril of doing so. Staying offshore might save money in the short-term, but the more economical long-term strategy is to make those onshore commitments that can fortify the regional balance and keep the peace.

Exaggerated Security Benefits: Terrorism and Proliferation

What about the purported security benefits of offshore balancing? Here too, those benefits are exaggerated and the costs understated. When it comes to terrorism, for instance, offshore balancers are actually right that the U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia after 1990 was a principal cause of al-Qaeda’s attacks against American targets, and that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq also acted as a magnet for terrorist attacks. In this sense, there is something to the claim that onshore presence in the Persian Gulf has sometimes attracted extremist violence. Yet the corollary—that offshore balancing would largely solve the problem—remains dubious, for two reasons.

First, the stationing of U.S. troops in Muslim countries is only one of many causes of anti-American terrorism. Others include anger at U.S. support for authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes, Washington’s relationship with Israel, and Western “cultural imperialism” in the Middle East. U.S. military withdrawal from the Middle East would not ameliorate these other grievances, and it might actually inflame them further. For if the United States embraced offshore balancing, it would presumably become more reliant on friendly Arab dictators—as well as Israel—as bulwarks of stability in a volatile region.

Second, offshore might undercut counter-terrorism in other ways, as well. Forsaking U.S. forward presence would deprive the country of the overseas bases and contingents that American forces have repeatedly used in counter-terrorism operations over the past 30 years. It would also deprive the country of crucial diplomatic and intelligence leverage. U.S. forward deployments and commitments have long provided influence that Washington has used to evoke greater cooperation on what Robert Art calls the “quieter phase of fighting terrorism”—intelligence-sharing, diplomatic partnerships, and other behind-the-scenes measures that are crucial to fighting terrorist groups.[8] Were America to slash its security posture, this influence would presumably shrink, as well. Offshore balancing, then, is no panacea when it comes to counter-terrorism. It holds some advantages, but significant dangers lurk just below the surface.

The same is true of proliferation. Offshore balancers are right that U.S. policy can appear threatening to its adversaries, and that some countries—China during the Cold War, Iran and North Korea since the 1990s—have sought to develop nuclear weapons in part as a way of countering American pressure and coercion. The trouble, however, is that shifting to offshore balancing would hardly rectify the situation. After all, academic research indicates that there are numerous reasons why “rogue states” seek nuclear weapons, from desires for international or domestic prestige to desires to wield the bomb as a tool of offensive or coercive leverage.[9] The causes of proliferation, like the causes of terrorism, are quite complex, and so altering U.S. policy would touch only one piece of the problem.

In fact, it would probably make that problem far worse. What offshore balancers frequently forget is that, far from being an overall stimulant to proliferation, U.S. force presence and security commitments have, on aggregate, massively impeded that phenomenon. U.S. security guarantees have reduced the perceived need for America’s allies to seek nuclear weapons, while giving Washington powerful influence that it can use to dissuade prospective proliferators. In numerous cases since the 1950s—from Germany and Italy, to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan—these aspects of U.S. policy have proven central to limiting the spread of nuclear arms. Were the United States now to terminate or dramatically reduce its overseas commitments, it stands to reason that it would also lose this non-proliferation leverage. Offshore balancing would therefore likely result in a more proliferated, and more dangerous, world.

Less Influence, More Instability

These issues touch on a broader problem of offshore balancing—that contrary to what its proponents claim, it is likely to cause greater international instability and reduced U.S. global influence. The reason for this is quite simply that both international stability and U.S. influence have long been thoroughly interlinked with America’s forward presence. Regarding influence, the protection that Washington has afforded its allies has also given the United States great sway over those allies’ policies, just as American-led alliances have served as vehicles for shaping political, security, and economic agendas across key regions and relationships. Regarding stability, the “American pacifier” has suppressed precisely the competitive geopolitical dynamics that can so easily foster conflict and violence. U.S. presence has limited arms races and counter-productive competitions by providing security in regions like Europe and East Asia; it has also soothed historical rivalries and provided a climate of reassurance more conductive to multilateral cooperation in these areas. Overall, American presence has induced caution in the behavior of allies and adversaries alike, deterring aggression and checking other types of destabilizing behavior. As even John Mearsheimer has acknowledged, Washington “acts as a night watchman,” giving order to an otherwise anarchical environment.[10]

If Washington abandoned this role, the most likely byproduct is that U.S. influence and global stability alike would suffer. The United States would effectively be surrendering its most powerful source of leverage vis-à-vis friends and allies, and jeopardizing its position of leadership in key regions. It would also be courting pronounced turmoil in those areas. Long-dormant security competitions might revive as countries felt forced to arm themselves more vigorously; historical rivalries between old enemies might resurge absent U.S. protection and the reassurance it offers. Even more dangerously, countries that aim to challenge existing regional orders—think Russia in Europe, or Iran in the Middle East—might feel more empowered to assert their interests. If the United States has been a kind of Leviathan in key regions, one scholar notes, then “take away that Leviathan and there is likely to be big trouble.”[11]

Looking at the global horizon today, one can readily discern where such trouble might occur. In Europe, Putin’s Russia is already destabilizing and threatening its neighbors, and challenging the post-Cold War settlement in the region. In the Gulf and broader Middle East, fears of Iranian ascendancy have stoked region-wide tensions and rivalry, even as U.S. partners also face a profound threat to regional stability in the form of the Islamic State. In East Asia, an increasingly powerful China is rubbing up against the regional status quo, raising concerns among its neighbors—many of whom also have historical grievances against one another. In these conditions, removing the American pacifier would not produce low-cost stability, but rather increased turmoil and upheaval.

Over time, such turmoil and upheaval could conceivably lead to a scenario in which a hostile power threatened to gain primacy in a key geopolitical region. Yet even if this nightmare scenario did not come to pass, increased geopolitical instability could be quite damaging to U.S. interests. It is not hard to imagine, for instance, how increased conflict might undermine the multilateral cooperation that is required to address transnational threats from piracy to pandemics. Nor is it hard to imagine how a complex and interdependent global economy might be disrupted by escalating geopolitical competition in regions of great commercial and financial importance. Nor, for that matter, is it hard to imagine how increased global tumult might prejudice prospects for the continued international spread—or consolidation—of democracy. Were a turn to offshore balancing to produce a less stable global environment, a whole range of essential American goals and objectives could easily be jeopardized.

Conclusion

Offshore balancing is an alluring idea because it promises that less can be more—that the United States can actually improve its security and international position by slashing its overseas commitments. Things that seem too good to be true usually are, however, and upon closer scrutiny offshore balancing no longer appears so appealing. The benefits of that strategy are not as great as often advertised; the risks and dangers, by contrast, are quite significant. Offshore balancers may claim that their strategy offers a path to cut-rate security and stability for the United States, yet the more likely consequences would be to jeopardize the stability, security, and influence that U.S. policy has long afforded, and to trade moderate short-term savings for higher long-term dangers and costs.

To be clear, this is not to argue against any sort of flexibility or adaptation in U.S. strategy, or to argue against the idea of strategic recalibration (such as the Obama administration has pursued) within the broader framework of continued, energetic global engagement. Such adaptation and recalibration has long been a feature of postwar U.S. strategy, and it will continue to be essential in the years ahead.  What will be equally important, however, is to avoid the extreme of dramatic retrenchment—and to reject the false allure of offshore balancing.

About the author:
*Hal Brands, a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, serves on the faculty of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. He is author of What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (Cornell University Press, 2014).

Source:
This article was published by the Hudson Institute.

Notes:
[1] This essay is adapted from Hal Brands, “Fools Rush Out? The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing,” Washington Quarterly, Summer 2015; and Hal Brands, The Limits of Offshore Balancing (Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, forthcoming). These longer studies are more extensively sourced than the present essay; readers interested in the underlying source material are advised to consult those longer studies.

In recent months, China has become more assertive in its cyber security policies, asserting its right on its own “cyberspace sovereignty”. The motivations over the move towards more stringent cyber policies are examined in this commentary.

By Eugene EG Tan*

China, through its official newspaper, China Daily, announced on 28 May 2015 that it will prepare a five-year cyber security plan to protect state secrets and data. Earlier in May, China also included cyber security into its draft national security law to tighten the legal framework governing its cyberspace.

Although China’s approach to cyberspace governance has been somewhat heavy handed, there have been marked developments and heightened intervention in China’s cyberspace policy in the past year. The details of this policy change have yet to be fleshed out, but bigger question marks loom over the motivations and the timing of this policy change.

National Security Posture

This change prima facie is to further improve China’s national security posture in cyberspace, amid allegations that software codes designed by American firms allow for the United States to gain access to data from Chinese users. According to the Chinese government, the new plan would focus on improving the security for software used by government departments, state-owned enterprises and financial institutions.

China has also been trying to move away from foreign providers of software after Windows ended support for its XP operating system in mid-2014, rendering the majority of Chinese government computers, which mainly still run XP, at risk to security breaches. In retaliation, the Chinese government chose to exclude the Windows 8 operating system from its procurement lists, and supported the organic local development of Linux-based operating systems.

However, this is not the first time China has taken action on foreign software providers. In a move to bolster its cyber security in January 2015, the Chinese government forced United States companies selling software to state-run Chinese finance firms to hand over the source codes and use Chinese-designed security algorithms instead. Heightened security checks have also been placed by the Chinese government on United States-based vendors before these products can be used by state-owned financial institutions.

The refusal of United States government agencies to allow Chinese hardware manufacturers to sell equipment, on suspicion that backdoor mechanisms are written into the code and hardware to conduct surveillance, has also fuelled the national security debate in China. Chinese authorities have argued that the degree of control that its government is exerting on technology companies is similar to that of the United States government, and it is well within its rights to do so.

Nationalism and party survival

Amid the bluster over national security issues, the desire to protect the legacy and legitimacy of hegemonic ideological control by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot be overlooked in this cyber security policy change. In a draft national security law in June 2015, there was renewed emphasis on safeguarding against “harmful moral standards” – suggesting that dissent against the values of the party and the state will be clamped down.

While this stance on dissent and the absolutist nature of state control is not new, the timing of the announcement does highlight the preoccupation of the party with the control of information dissemination, especially in cyberspace where party rhetoric and persecution of activists have been ratcheted up. The Cyberspace Administration of China released Cyberspace Spirit in February 2015, a song that extolls the virtues of internet control. The lyrics further reveal the desire of China to be a strong nation in cyberspace, and the use of the internet to propagate positive messages about China.

With positive messaging in cyberspace the goal of the Chinese government, criticism has been brutally suppressed. In late-May 2015, a prominent activist-blogger against government abuse, Wu Gan, was arrested in Jiangxi on charges of defamation, “inciting the subversion of state power”, and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. The arrest of the high-profile Wu was trumpeted across all state media, and showed the state was changing gears in response to well-received online dissidents for fear of losing control in cyberspace.

Implications of tighter control

Cyber security in China thus is not solely a one-dimensioned effort to keep intruders out of China’s cyberspace, but also is an attempt to control voices bounded by the great firewall. The abrupt tightening of cyber security measures seem to suggest that China is increasingly wary of the impact that voices and activities in cyberspace can cause in the physical realm.

It is also because of this insecurity that China will be more assertive in its posture with regard to its foreign partners, be it governments or private vendors. Lu Wei, Director of China’s State Information Office, put it bluntly in December 2014, that the current multilateral international state system, and not a multi stakeholder model, is China’s solution to cyberspace management. The ownership of the internet in China belongs to the state alone, which control will only strengthen.

Hence, it can be seen that cyber security is of paramount importance to the Chinese government, not just because of the security of its systems, but also the political implications of maintaining control over the monopoly of information which is too great for the Chinese government to ignore. The nationalist and party-centric leanings of the new National Security policy need to be further unpacked with regard to issues that involve the Chinese national interest, like territorial claims and terrorism, as well as party interests such as corruption and abuses of power.

*Eugene EG Tan is an Associate Research Fellow with the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a component of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Leading scientists and experts in the field of rhino conservation state in a new paper that it is safe to consider the Sumatran rhinoceros extinct in the wild in Malaysia. The survival of the Sumatran rhino now depends on the 100 or fewer remaining individuals in the wild in Indonesia and the nine rhinos in captivity.

Despite intensive survey efforts, there have been no signs of the wild Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Malaysia since 2007, apart from two females that were captured for breeding purposes in 2011 and 2014. Scientists now consider the species extinct in the wild in Malaysia. The experts urge conservation efforts in Indonesia to pick up the pace.

The conclusions are published online in Oryx, the International Journal of Conservation, led by the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen. Partners include WWF, the International Rhino Foundation and IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which is in charge of the global Red List of Threatened Species.

Surviving rhinos are too far apart

“It is vital for the survival of the species that all remaining Sumatran rhinos are viewed as a metapopulation, meaning that all are managed in a single program across national and international borders in order to maximize overall birth rate. This includes the individuals currently held in captivity,” said lead author and PhD student Rasmus Gren Havmøller from the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate.

The experts point to the creation of intensive management zones as a solution; areas with increased protection against poaching, where individual rhinos can be relocated to, in order to increase the number of potential and suitable mating partners.

Historically ranging across most of Southeast Asia, the Sumatran rhino is now only found in the wild in Indonesia. Here, less than 100 individuals in total are estimated to live in three separate populations, one of which has seen a critical decline in distribution range of 70 % over the last decade. This trend echoes how the Sumatran rhino population dropped from around 500 to extinction between 1980 and 2005 in Sumatra’s largest protected area, the enormous 1,379,100 hectare Kerinci Sebelat National Park.

Apart from the wild populations, nine Sumatran rhinos are in captivity, with one in Cincinnati Zoo in U.S.A (soon to be moved to Indonesia), three held at facilities in Sabah, Malaysia for attempts to produce embryos by in vitro fertilization, and five in the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Two year old conservation strategy awaits political will

The intensive management zones as well as the single population strategy are two of four key actions identified back in April 2013 at the Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit in Singapore and agreed upon that same year by the Indonesian government in the Bandar Lampung Declaration.

“The tiger in India was saved from extinction due to the direct intervention of Mrs. Gandhi, the then prime minister, who set up Project Tiger. A similar high level intervention by President Joko Widodo of Indonesia could help pull the Sumatran rhinos back from the brink,” said Christy Williams, co-author and coordinator of the WWF Asian and Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy.

Widodo Ramono, co-author and Director of the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia (YABI) elaborated: “Serious effort by the government of Indonesia should be put to strengthen rhino protection by creating Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ), intensive survey of the current known habitats, habitat management, captive breeding, and mobilizing national resources and support from related local governments and other stakeholders.”

The global conservation strategy also included the continued development of Rhino Protection Units at sites with remaining breeding populations. While this has been achieved, the authors highlight a need for strengthening the units against poaching efforts, especially in northern Sumatra. With a high demand for rhinoceros horns in black markets in Asia, poaching continues to be a significant threat to the species.

Finally, captive breeding was included in 2013 as one of the key conservation actions, but the necessary reproductive technology may still take years to develop, during which time we may lose the Sumatran rhino in the wild, said the authors.

Amid continued difficulties around assessing bioweapons threats, especially given limited empirical data, Crystal Boddie and colleagues took another route to gauge their danger: the collective judgment of multiple experts.

The experts’ opinions on bioweapons-related risks were quite diverse, the Policy Forum authors said, adding to the challenge around developing a regulatory system for legitimate dual use research.

The team explained how they employed a Delphi Method study to query the beliefs and opinions of 59 experts in order to assess the bioweapons threat and the potential for misuse of scientific research toward bioweapons development.

Among questions asked of the experts, they were queried about the most likely actor or agent to be used in a biological attack, the ability of the intelligence community to anticipate such an occurrence, and the appropriateness of biodefense experiments.

The participants’ experience and expertise varied, and so did their opinions.

For example, those trained as biological scientists perceived a lower likelihood of bioweapons use than other participants, in many cases.

And experts older than 50 years of age believed the likelihood of an attack was greater than did Generation X and/or Millennials (21 to 49 years of age).

The results portray the disagreement among authorities over the threat from biological weapons, said the team.

Four rockets landed in northern Israel Thursday afternoon after being shot from Syria, sparking a fire but causing no injuries.

The rockets landed in the northern Galilee and Golan Heights, the Israeli military said in a statement.

Sirens sounded in several communities around Israel’s north at about 5:45 p.m.

The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that “4 rockets were launched from the Syrian Golan Heights, landing in the upper Galilee and the Israeli Golan Heights.”

No injuries were reported, the army said.

Two of the rockets landed near a kibbutz in the Hula Valley in the Upper Galilee, according to Israeli media reports.

Soldiers were dispatched to the area to locate the rockets immediately after the attack and determine where they came from.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. According to Channel 2 news, the rockets were shot intentionally and not as part of spillover from the Syrian civil war.

An Israel Radio report said the rockets were artillery shells.

The Upper Galilee Regional Council instructed residents to remain near safe places.

Last month, a malfunction triggered air raid sirens across Israel’s north, sending residents into bomb shelters.

Israeli officials recently held a large-scale drill in Israel’s north to prepare for the possibility of a large scale attack from either Syria or Lebanon, including the possibility of an Israeli offensive into Syria.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and top military officials visited the northern border and vowed to strike anybody who threatened Israel.

“We are ready for any eventuality. Those who try to attack us — we will hurt them,” Netanyahu said.

Original article

In his 2015 state visit to Kenya and Ethiopia—his fourth presidential visit to the African continent—US President Barack Obama argued that Africa’s economic engagement with the US offers the best opportunity for economic empowerment, especially in terms of job creation and capacity building. Echoing a critique of Chinese economic engagement in Africa raised by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2011, President Obama suggested that China’s investments in Africa were essentially extractive and self-serving, and did not offer the long-term benefits that American investment would generate.1

However, the facts on the ground belie President Obama’s and Secretary Clinton’s critique that China is only in Africa for resource extraction. In particular, China’s construction of much-needed infrastructure offers its African partners with the “hardware” needed for their long-term economic development. As the New York Times pointedly observed, President Obama’s speech in Ethiopia was delivered at the headquarters of the African Union, a complex that was constructed with Chinese funds, and Ethiopia itself is one of the African countries that has benefited from Chinese infrastructure investment.2 Indeed, the transportation and energy infrastructure development that is being provided by Chinese projects across Africa is necessary for the continent’s growth. In particular, the expansion of Africa’s electrical grid is necessary for industrialization efforts across the continent. As Ugandan economist Elly Twineyo explains:

“The Chinese give roads, they give power, that is the form of aid which Africa wants now.”3

Economic Engagement

China’s construction of transportation and energy infrastructure in Africa, along with cities, and trade and industrial zones, has notably changed the urban landscape of its African partners, thereby creating concrete testimonials to the Chinese commitment to African development.4 This stands in sharp contrast to US economic engagement with the continent. President Obama’s Power Africa initiative, which was launched in 2013, is one of his administration’s key developmental initiatives for Africa, with an ambitious goal of doubling Africa’s access to electricity in five years. However as the New York Times recently noted, Africans have yet to receive any electricity from Power Africa two years into the project.5 China’s Xinhua news agency highlighted this as an example of Western aid failing to match its rhetoric in Africa.6 Power Africa’s lack of progress offers a mirror to China’s record of aid and investment in Africa, including the infrastructure megaprojects that have been and are being constructed across the continent, including those that will be constructed under the framework of China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.7

Indeed, in contrast to the meager US investments in Africa’s energy infrastructure, China’s investments are objectively far more substantial. In the case of Kenya, Chinese financing in the energy sector—including a 1.2 billion USD financing package from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for the construction of a 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant, and a separate loan from China’s Export-Import Bank for the construction of a 50 megawatt solar power plant—is 6 times greater than US financing for Kenyan energy projects, and the Chinese financed projects will generate 2.5 times more electricity than the US-financed projects. In Ethiopia, Chinese investments in hydropower and the electrical grid contrast with an absence of investment from the US. Little wonder Ethiopian foreign minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus observed that the lack of US investment in in his country is “really not as one would expect.” This is especially so given President Obama’s rhetoric of the benefits of US investment.8

President Obama’s other claim that Chinese projects in Africa do not improve the human capacity of the locals is also belied by the facts on the ground, as skills transfers from Chinese experts to local workers have been taking place in Chinese infrastructural projects across Africa. In Uganda, for example, local construction workers involved in the construction of the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway have received training to upgrade their skills. Such capacity building is indeed beneficial for the Chinese projects as a properly trained local workforce eliminates or at least reduces the need to incur the substantial costs involved in hiring expatriate experts from China.9

Chinese and US engagement in Africa can also be contrasted in the area of trade. Even as China’s economy decelerates to a “new normal” of single-digit growth, Chinese trade with Africa remains strong. In 2014, Sino-African trade reached 220 billion USD, three times the value of US-African trade.10 So far in 2015 Chinese trade has already surpassed US trade in key African markets like Nigeria.11 In the oil and gas sector, Chinese demand has proven to be a lifeline for African producers like Angola, Nigeria, and Equatorial Guinea, especially since the US shale oil revolution has led to a steep decline in US imports of oil from overseas producers like Africa and the Middle East.12 In terms of development assistance, Africa received 12 billion USD in loans and development aid from China in 2014, and Chinese financing to Africa is expected to increase to 1 trillion USD by 2025. For those African states which are unable to secure financing at affordable rates from Western financial institutions, China offers low-interest loans or countertrade arrangements that allow these states to pay for development projects with natural resources.13

Non-Interference

One of the appealing aspects of Chinese aid and investment for its Africa partners is the Chinese government’s principle of non-interference in the partner nation’s internal affairs.14 This stands in sharp contrast to the West, which instead uses aid as a platform to spread what its governments see as Euro-American best practices to its aid recipients. President Obama’s recent African tour offers a good illustration of this, when he chastised Kenya’s government for its anti-gay discrimination.15 China’s Xinhua news agency alluded to this juxtaposition with the Chinese non-interference policy when it criticized President Obama for “ignoring cultural differences” and “imposing his values on the continent.”16 To be sure, the Chinese government takes the challenge of respecting cultural differences seriously, and has disciplined its expatriate citizens for outraging the cultural sensitivities of their host countries, including a Chinese restauranteur in Kenya who had implemented an ill-advised “No Africans after 5 PM” policy.17

A second instance of interference occurred when President Obama lectured Africa’s long-serving leaders on the need to respect term limits to their power.18 This drew a sharp response from leaders like Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni who argued that Africa’s underdevelopment was instead rooted in economic causes like a lack of infrastructure and a common market.19 This highlighted the work of the Chinese in closing this infrastructure gap without interfering in the internal affairs of their host countries.

Risk Appetites

Another key difference between Chinese and US enterprises in Africa is in their appetite for risk. China’s comparatively larger risk appetite can be seen in the willingness of its firms to undertake megaprojects in some of the world’s most dangerous regions, for example Pakistan’s Balochistan province, where several Chinese workers at the Gwadar port project have been killed by separatist rebels.20 This risk appetite can also be seen in China’s engagement with Somalia. Not only has China become one of Somalia’s top donors of development assistance, dating from the outbreak of the Somali civil war in 1991, Chinese firms have also been actively exploring investment opportunities in sectors like oil and gas. As this is one of the frontier markets which Western firms regard as posing too much political risk to safely pursue investment, Somalia appreciates the development assistance and investment provided by China. Further Sino-Somali cooperation can be expected in the future, especially since Somalia’s 3,025 km coast—the longest in Africa—offers a gateway into the African continent for China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road development plan. In terms of future prospects for cooperation, the Somali government welcomes the sort of infrastructure megaprojects that Chinese firms have constructed or are constructing elsewhere in Africa, especially since these can kickstart Somalia’s interrupted economic development.21

However, the continued insecurity in Somalia continues to pose significant risk, as China was sharply reminded of when one of its citizens, a security official at the Chinese embassy, was recently killed in a car bombing in Mogadishu, the first fatality suffered by a Chinese diplomatic mission since the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.22 Despite the tragedy, China has reaffirmed that it will not leave Somalia but will instead continue the urgent task of Somalia’s reconstruction.23

Military Cooperation

While Chinese economic engagement in Africa has been very visible, thanks to the scale of its infrastructure projects, the US footprint has been far more secretive, as the most significant US activity on the continent involves military cooperation in the War on Terror.24 However, inflexibility in certain US policies has paradoxically impaired the fight against terrorism, as can be seen in the case of the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. Last month the recently-elected Nigerian President Muhammudu Buhari echoed the complaint of the administration of his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan that the US has crippled his country’s fight against Boko Haram with its ban on the supply of much needed heavy weaponry to the Nigerian military.25 This ban had been put in place in response to reports of human rights violations by the Nigerian security forces, and the US government has noted that such arms supplies may resume following improvements in the Nigerian military’s human rights record.26

However, this is a situation where human rights reforms may come at the cost of civilian lives lost to Boko Haram’s intensifying terror campaign. As of this time of writing, over 17,000 people are estimated to have lost their lives in the conflict, and Boko Haram has expanded its attacks beyond Nigeria’s borders into neighbouring Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.27 Apart from the loss of lives, a serious regional refugee crisis has also resulted from the insurgency. The number of Nigerian refugees at Cameroon’s Minawao refugee camp stands at 44,000 and the number grows daily, and another 30,000 Nigerians are estimated to have sought refuge in Cameroon outside Minawao. In Niger’s impoverished Diffa region, the arrival of over 150,000 refugees has swollen the local population by a third, worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis.28 Apart from these Nigerian refugees who have fled across the border, another 1.5 million have become internally displaced refugees within Nigeria.29 Boko Haram’s recent decision to become the West African affiliate of the Islamic State is a warning that the insurgency could become worse, especially if the Islamic State sends its experienced fighters to provide guidance and support to the West African front of their jihad.30

The unhappiness of the current and former Nigerian presidents can be appreciated in the fact that Boko Haram was almost defeated earlier this year by assaults by regional military forces, including the Chadian and Nigerien armies. However, following the Nigerian general elections in March, Boko Haram suddenly resumed, at an intensified pace, its use of older terrorist tactics like suicide bombings.31 While supplies from the US of equipment like armored trucks and ambulances have continued, Nigeria has had to turn to other countries like China for supplies of much-needed weaponry.32 President Buhari has also sought to revitalize Nigeria’s domestic arms production capability to reduce its reliance on foreign manufactured weaponry. However it is doubtful if this boost in domestic arms production will happen in time to make an impact in the fight against Boko Haram.33 The spreading insecurity caused by Boko Haram is a threat not just to US global security interests and to the stability of the affected states, but also to Chinese economic projects in the region, as Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping of Chinese workers in northern Cameroon illustrates.34

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Notes:
1. Peter Baker, “Obama, on China’s Turf, Presents U.S. as a Better Partner for Africa,” New York Times, July 29, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/world/africa/obama-on-chinas-turf-presents-us-as-a-better-partner-for-africa.html. Andrew Quinn, “Clinton warns against ‘new colonialism’ in Africa,” Reuters, June 11, 2011, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/11/us-clinton-africa-idUSTRE75A0RI20110611. Janet Eom, “When the U.S. visits Africa, so does China,” China in Africa: The Real Story, August 9, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/2015/08/guest-post-when-us-visits-africa-so.html.

2 Baker, “Obama, on China’s Turf.”

3 Ronald Ssekandi and Yuan Qing, “China’s investment in infrastructure key to Africa’s development: experts,” Xinhua, February 23, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0224/c90883-8853073.html.

4 Lily Kuo, “Photos: African cities are starting to look eerily like Chinese ones,” Quartz, August 16, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://qz.com/480625/photos-african-cities-are-starting-to-look-eerily-like-chinese-ones/.

5 Ron Nixon, “Obama’s ‘Power Africa’ Project Is Off to a Sputtering Start,” New York Times, July 21, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/world/africa/obamas-power-africa-project-is-off-to-a-sputtering-start.html.

6 “Despite fanfare, U.S. aid programs for Africa fail to make big difference,” Xinhua, July 27, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/27/c_134451370.htm.

7 Cheng Lu, “Return of maritime Silk Road does not forget Africa,” Xinhua, February 12, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://en.people.cn/business/n/2015/0212/c90778-8850090.html.

8 Baker, “Obama, on China’s Turf.” Charles Kenny, “Obama Teaches Africa to Fish,” The Atlantic, July 29, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/obama-africa-investment-kenya-ethiopia/399851/.

9 Ronald Ssekandi, “Chinese companies in Uganda, a source of skill transfer to Ugandan youths,” Xinhua, August 17, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=298160.

10 Deborah Brautigam, “What does China’s shock yuan devaluation mean for Africa?” CNN, August 18, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/18/opinions/china-yuan-devaluation-africa-deborah-brautigam/index.html. Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “China’s Transition to the ‘New Normal': Challenges and Opportunities,” Eurasia Review, April 2, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/02042015-chinas-transition-to-the-new-normal-challenges-and-opportunities-analysis/.

11 Bassey Udo, “China Tops U.S. As Nigeria’s Biggest Trade Partner,” Premium Times, August 19, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/oil-and-gas/188666-china-tops-u-s-as-nigerias-biggest-trade-partner.html.

12 Baker, “Obama, on China’s Turf.” Javier Blas, “US-Africa oil trade wanes after shale revolution,” Financial Times, August 3, 2014, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e89f6368-129f-11e4-a6d4-00144feabdc0.html. David Sheppard and Gregory Meyer, “China oil imports surpass those of US,” Financial Times, May 10, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/342b3a2e-f5a7-11e4-bc6d-00144feab7de.html.

13 Baker, “Obama, on China’s Turf.” Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Africa and China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 13 (2015), accessed August 18, 2015, http://japanfocus.org/-Alvin_Cheng_Hin-Lim/4296.

14 Lim, “Africa and China’s.”

15 Kristen Holmes and Eugene Scott, “Obama lectures Kenyan president on gay rights,” CNN, July 25, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/25/politics/obama-kenya-kenyatta/.

16 “Obama criticized for pushing gay rights in Africa,” Xinhua, July 26, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/26/c_134447690.htm.

17 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “Al-Shabab and the Garissa Massacre: Implications for China in East Africa,” Eurasia Review, April 3, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/03042015-al-shabab-and-the-garissa-massacre-implications-for-china-in-east-africa-analysis/.

18 Peter Baker, “‘Nobody Should Be President for Life,’ Obama Tells Africa,” New York Times, July 28, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/world/africa/obama-in-africa-says-he-could-win-third-term.html.

19 “Ugandan president raps Obama over term limits,” Xinhua, August 12, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.africareview.com/News/Ugandan-president-raps-Obama-over-term-limits/-/979180/2829548/-/l4vydw/-/index.html.

20 Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim, “‘Iron Brothers’: Sino-Pakistani Relations and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,” Eurasia Review, May 7, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.eurasiareview.com/07052015-iron-brothers-sino-pakistani-relations-and-the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-analysis/.

21 Lucie Morangi, “Somalia takes stock of progress,” China Daily, August 7, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/weekly/2015-08/07/content_21526702.htm. “Somali President Says Relationship With China ‘Has Never Been Cut,’” Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, October 14, 2014, accessed August 18, 2015, http://allafrica.com/stories/201410161557.html. Adam Wolfe, “China’s risky bet in Somalia,” Asia Times, July 24, 2007, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IG24Cb01.html. Barney Jopson, “Somalia oil deal for China,” Financial Times, July 13, 2007, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/20a8a430-3167-11dc-891f-0000779fd2ac.html.

22 Andrea Chen, “Chinese embassy security official killed in bomb attack in Somalia,” South China Morning Post, July 27, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1843943/chinese-diplomat-killed-bomb-attack-somalia-says. Ju Chuanjiang and Chen Mengwei, “Slain soldier’s remains returned to Shandong,” China Daily, August 3, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/2015-08/03/content_21488878.htm.

23 Hou Liqiang, “Ambassador says China ‘will not leave’ nation despite deadly attack,” China Daily, July 31, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-07/31/content_21466057.htm. Hou Liqiang, “Somali official says friendship between two countries intact,” China Daily, August 3, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-08/03/content_21487629.htm.

24 Marc Daalder and Nick Turse, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: The U.S. Military Is in Africa—But What Is It Doing There?” In These Times, August 17, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://inthesetimes.com/article/18323/us-military-africa-africom-nick-turse.

25 Adam Nossiter, “Boko Haram Helped by U.S. Policies, Nigerian President Says,” New York Times, July 23, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/world/africa/muhammadu-buhari-says-us-should-arm-nigeria-against-boko-haram.html. “Boko Haram crisis: Nigeria fury over US arms refusal,” BBC, November 11, 2014, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30006066.

26 Amnesty International, “Nigeria: Gruesome footage implicates military in war crimes,” August 5, 2014, accessed August 18, 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/08/nigeria-gruesome-footage-implicates-military-war-crimes/. “U.S. lawmakers offer Nigeria support in Boko Haram fight,” Reuters, August 4, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/04/us-nigeria-violence-usa-idUSKCN0Q91R320150804.

27 Moki Kindzeka, “Cameroon steps up security over Boko Haram,” Deutsche Welle, August 13, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.dw.com/en/cameroon-steps-up-security-over-boko-haram/a-18648169. “Boko Haram crisis: Attack in Niger kills dozens,” BBC, June 18, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33186154. “‘Boko Haram slit throats of 26 civilians’ in Chad,” Al Jazeera, July 8, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/haram-slit-throats-26-civilians-chad-150708171934359.html. Amnesty International, “Nigeria: Horror in numbers,” June 3, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/06/nigeria-horror-in-numbers/.

28 Sylvestre Tetchiada, “Refugees pour into Cameroon fearing Boko Haram,” IRIN, August 10, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.irinnews.org/report/101845/refugees-pour-into-cameroon-fearing-boko-haram. “Refugees Fleeing Boko Haram Raids Flood Niger’s Diffa Region,” Reuters, July 22, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.voanews.com/content/refugees-fleeing-boko-haram-flood-niger-diffa-region/2873785.html.

29 “One million IDP’s in Nigeria — UN Official,” NAN, August 19, 2015, accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/08/one-million-idps-in-nigeria-un-official/.

30 Adam Withnall, “Boko Haram renames itself Islamic State’s West Africa Province (Iswap) as militants launch new offensive against government forces,” The Independent, April 26, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/boko-haram-renames-itself-islamic-states-west-africa-province-iswap-as-militants-launch-new-offensive-against-government-forces-10204918.html.

31 Siobhán O’Grady, “Boko Haram Steps Up Attacks After Buhari’s Vows to Defeat the Group,” Foreign Policy, July 2, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/02/boko-haram-steps-up-attacks-after-buharis-vows-to-defeat-the-group/. Jennifer Keltz, “Boko Haram Returning to Terrorist Tactics after Loss of Territory,” Center for Security Policy, July 6, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/07/06/boko-haram-returning-to-terrorist-tactics-after-loss-of-territory/.

32 Michel Arseneault, “US exporting arms to Nigeria despite ‘ban,’” RFI, August 14, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20150814-us-exporting-arms-nigeria-despite-ban.

33 Sara Aridi, “Will a ‘modest military industrial complex’ help Nigeria defeat Boko Haram?” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/0808/Will-a-modest-military-industrial-complex-help-Nigeria-defeat-Boko-Haram. “Nigeria to step up local arms manufacture in Boko Haram fight,” AFP, August 7, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015, http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-step-local-arms-manufacture-boko-haram-fight-204203263.html.

34 Michael Martinez, Christabelle Fombu, and Pierre Meilhan, “Boko Haram attack on Chinese firm in Cameroon; soldier reported killed,” CNN, May 17, 2014, accessed August 20, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/17/world/africa/cameroon-china-boko-haram/.

The announcement that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will resign, and snap elections will be held on September 20, could give the Greek people a chance to reconsider whether the “euro at any cost” strategy is a rational decision, Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today.

Weisbrot said the economic impact of leaving the euro (a so-called “Grexit”) would be less severe than the continuing depression that will result from a new bailout arrangement Tsipras’ government has negotiated with the European authorities.

“European Union officials have already said that, under the new agreement, the Greek economy will remain in depression for this year and next,” Weisbrot said. “This is not a bailout for the Greek people – this is the Greek people being thrown overboard.”

Weisbrot noted that even this prognosis, which forecasts a return to growth in 2017, is likely to be over-optimistic. Almost every forecast from the IMF, for example, since 2010 has been wrong, and the outcome has been significantly worse.

“Many people accept this continued punishment because they think the alternative would be worse,” Weisbrot said. “But it is unlikely that Greece would remain in depression for longer than what is forecast for the current program, if the country were to issue its own currency. And it could avoid some of the worst ‘reforms’ that the European authorities are demanding.”

Tsipras announced today that he will step down and call snap elections for September 20. The news comes following the Hellenic Parliament’s passage of a bailout deal negotiated with the European authorities, but one-third of the members of parliament of Tsipras’ Syriza party either voted against the deal or abstained. Tsipras was not expected to survive a censure vote.

Tsipras’ acceptance of the bailout arrangement, which entails continued austerity measures, has been seen by some in the Syriza party, and others, as an unacceptable reversal of his previous vows to reject further spending cuts and other austerity.

“The Greek depression, even under current EU forecasts, will be one of the worst depressions in modern times,” Weisbrot noted.

In the olden days, campaigning for the United States presidential election would begin in the small States of New Hampshire and Iowa. These are the States that still have early primary elections for the two major parties (Democratic and Republican) to select their nominee for the general election. Iowa conducts its election through the caucus system, where registered voters of the parties gather in small meetings to vote for their nominee. New Hampshire allows its residents to vote. But the scale of the State is so small that they might as well gather in school cafeterias and cavernous barns to discuss their way to a decision. This is called retail politics. One would not have been able to understand a U.S. election cycle without a visit to these States, it was the only way to get a whiff of what was to come.

Things have changed dramatically in U.S. politics. Now the presidential campaign is non-stop, with potential nominees calibrating handshakes and comments with an eye to focus groups and the eventual election. The country is deeply polarised with nearly as many people who are diehard Democrats as Republicans. The presidential election is decided by the small margin of “independent voters”, whose choices are the only ones that matter. But to get to the presidential election, the candidates must run the gauntlet of the base of their party. This is where matters become complex. Despite the marginal gap between the Democrats and the Republicans on major issues, small differences become greatly magnified in the primary campaigns. Both Democrats and Republicans have to appeal to their respective bases to earn their votes and loyalty. Careful calibration allows the candidates to froth for their following and appeal to the fickle independent voters. Unlimited money has lubricated campaigns to shout at voters through advertisements. Television debates are often the first time voters see the candidates.

Democrats have an easier time this year. The have all but anointed their candidate—Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has a long resume and a longer list of supporters. She raises money effortlessly and has a devoted following among the party faithful. Her challenger, the putative socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is drawing large crowds, but he confesses that he is in the fray merely to sharpen the issues. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” Sanders said recently, “but I like Hillary Clinton.” Hillary Clinton appeals to all wings of the Democratic Party. This is not difficult. For all her problems, she appears more sensible on most issues beside the paranoid bellow from the 17 Republican candidates. The Republican drift into bewildering rhetoric and the U.S. elite’s condescension toward Sanders’ pitch against income inequality make Hillary Clinton the preferred candidate. Close scrutiny of her record will likely not be done for any microscopic evaluation would show that she is not as liberal as she claims to be (to appeal to the Democrats). This will be another campaign of style rather than substance.

The first Republican debate, in Cleveland (Ohio), provided the full spectacle. The 17 candidates had to be divided into two sections, with the top 10 in the polls meeting in the evening while the lesser seven (including Bobby Jindal) in the late afternoon. The billionaire Donald Trump, who leads the field, set his mark on the debate with his brash personality and his take-no-prisoners attitude. When asked about sexist remarks he made, Trump said, to applause, that he opposes “total political correctness”. He did not apologise for anything. Trump appeals to white men who feel that their country has slipped away from them. They do not want Trump to speak carefully. They want barnstorming rhetoric of the Right that disdains social progress and attacks their bugbear, Big Government. Other candidates fought for the same demographic but none of them have the carefree confidence of Trump. This is not his career. He has no stakes in the race. But he has plenty of money, celebrity appeal and a base that enjoys his cavalier directness. Trump is a serious threat to the Republican Party and a boon to Hillary Clinton.

The establishment’s candidate, Jeb Bush, came across as dull and uninterested. He was outflanked by the testosterone of Trump on the one side and Chris Christie and Rand Paul on the other. These are men’s men—gender equality, gay marriage and social programmes are all equally reviled. These are emblems, for them, of the Nanny State.

In the 2012 election that re-elected Barack Obama, 56 per cent of the women voted for the Democrat; 54 per cent of the men voted for the Republican. This gender gap has widened since then. If the contest in 2016 is between Hillary Clinton and any one of these Republican men, the gap will widen yet. Bush is not temperamentally as much a man’s man as the others, or indeed as his brother. But he has to run with a gun in one hand and a scowl on his face. No other mode is possible. Gentleness and humaneness are mistaken for weakness in the Republican Party. The ridiculous exaggerations of manliness on display at the debate are necessary. The old pastor Mike Huckabee had to try his hand as a military hawk. He had to go after “transgender soldiers”: “The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.” The audience liked this line. It comes from a man who has no military experience. He came to politics from the Church. This is not the Church of forgiveness. This is the Southern Baptist world of James Robison and Jerry Falwell. Their machismo is reserved for their antipathy to gays and lesbians. “Gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you,” said Falwell in 1977. The word kill is essential here. It links the obsessive disregard for social progress with guns—a toxic cocktail of the American Right.

New Libertarianism

The libertarian wing of the Republican Party finds its standard both in Trump (who is against all of Big Government) and Paul (whose father, Ron, was the leader of that wing). Paul opposes government surveillance and is wary of military intervention, both issues that bring him on the wrong side of his party. Libertarianism is no longer stuck in its classic mode of opposition to government intervention in the lives of citizens. Most Republicans are now fairly comfortable with Big Government even if they will never admit to it. Government surveillance is forgiven if it is seen to be a protection against terrorism or promotion of big business. No war is to be disdained by the Republicans, who would like to use all of the tax coffers to finance the military and the police. There is no hesitation about government spending here. Republicans are equally interested in prohibitions—against homosexuality, against gender equality, against the right of minorities to live with dignity. What characterises the new libertarianism is the right to be offensive, the right to live without “political correctness”. This strand of Republicanism draws from the well of old racism and traditionalism. It would be like a return to the old days when minorities could be openly disparaged as well as when women had fewer opinions and more recipes. Sexism and racism are packaged neatly as liberty. It is what turns off women and minorities from the spectre of Republicanism.

Neither of the political parties will address the pressing issues that continue to plague the U.S.—recession, substantial unemployment, high personal debt, low levels of confidence in the political system. Hillary Clinton will not have to make a case on any of these issues despite the entreaties of Sanders to at least discuss the perils of high income inequality. She will shrewdly avoid making any specific commitments. Hillary Clinton is already running on the fact of her obvious intelligence and her general belief in a social safety net. This appeals to liberals, who are terrified by the Republicans, and will likely draw significant numbers of women among the independents to give her an easy victory. The more Trump fulminates, the less Hillary Clinton will need to offer her agenda.

This article originally appeared in Frontline and is reprinted with permission.

By Deepti Mahajan Mittal*

The analysis of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech had not died down when he delivered another high-energy address to a crowd of about 50,000 Indian expatriates residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The enthusiasm of the assorted group of expats reflected their appreciation of the Indian effort to strengthen India-UAE ties.

Notwithstanding the allegation that Modi has spent a significant part of his time as PM touring foreign countries, and that he needs to spend more political energy on resolving domestic issues, it is clear that Modi’s visit to the UAE came at a critical juncture in India’s relations with West Asia. A visit by an Indian Premier to the UAE was long due.

The implications for India-UAE relations, and the messages that the PM wanted to convey to international and domestic audiences have to be deciphered as much from the text of the issued joint statement as from the visit’s agenda and his address at the Dubai Cricket Stadium. During the short two-day visit, a range of issues were discussed by the Prime Minister and his hosting counterparts, even while the PM’s schedule weaved-in close interactions with the Indian community in the UAE throughout.

Security interests

The strong strategic dimension to the trip was unmissable. Coming soon after the Iran-P5+1-EU Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action set to bring Iran back into the diplomatic mainstream, and before the PM’s planned visit to Israel, the trip is being seen as part of India’s effort to balance its relations with multiple actors in the West Asian region – a tightrope walk of being friends with countries that may not even recognise each other as legal, political entities. Despite the long-standing trade links, deep cultural and demographic ties with the West Asian countries, India has not invested enough diplomatic and political energy in positioning itself as a key strategic partner to them. While this is not India’s failing alone and a range of issues (China’s rise as an economic powerhouse in Asia, India-Pakistan tensions, the pulls and pushes of Indo-US diplomacy, amongst others) have contributed to the lack of strategic depth enjoyed by India in the region, it is time for the Indian government to recognise the need to occupy the lost strategic space.

At a time when the West Asian region is in the throes of instability, and is plagued by extremist activity playing out in the global political theatre, it is critical for India to cement its ties with key regional players including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The UAE trip of PM Modi is a good start. The India-UAE Joint Statement’s focus on condemning terrorism and countries that harbour terrorists and related infrastructure presented a common stance that targeted both government-supported and non-governmental terrorist activities, be it supported by Pakistan or perpetuated by the Islamic State. Cooperation in the areas of intelligence and maritime security would serve both countries’ security and trade interests. The continuing security dialogue at the level of National Security Advisors and National Security Councils is well-advised. The euphoria created by the visit needs to be followed up with regular engagement and concrete action.

At the public address in Dubai, the Prime Minister recounted his foreign policy successes, including the India-Bangladesh border deal and provision of aid to earthquake-hit Nepal. The special mention of the countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) merits note and exhibited support to a common regional South Asian vision. However, one country-name that was conspicuous by its overt absence in the speech was Pakistan. Without naming the country, however, the Prime Minister sent a strong message to Islamabad, denouncing state-sponsored terrorism and clarifying that India’s connections with its other SAARC neighbours will not be held hostage by Pakistan’s refusal to engage.

While one may not agree with Modi’s idiom and pomposity, the Prime Minister’s statements are significant, especially as they are coming at a time when the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is facing criticism for moving ahead with the NSA-level India-Pakistan dialogue amidst ceasefire violations at the border and continued terrorist attacks. Despite the Bharatiya Janta Party’s traditional position of ‘terror and talks cannot go together,’ it is important for the political leaderships in both India and Pakistan to continue dialogue while maintaining that India is persistent in its pursuit of terror masterminds and will not tolerate Pakistan-sponsored extremist activity on its soil. Such a stand supported by a West Asian country only strengthens India’s voice.

Economic ties

Trade and investment, as was anticipated, was a core bilateral area of interest highlighted by the leaderships of the two countries. On boosting trade, the Joint Statement included a time-bound target of 60% increase over the next five years. A UAE-India Investment Fund has been established with the objective of channelling UAE investment into India, targeting USD 75 billion. Addressing Emirati and Indian business leaders at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, the Prime Minister called for investments in India’s growing infrastructure sector, including in the development of affordable housing and railways. While the commitment of USD 75 billion investment by Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is being seen as a big win, it needs to be borne in mind that along with the opportunities emerging from demand for infrastructure, what India also needs to offer to its investors is a competitive business environment devoid of bureaucratic roadblocks, such as the ones encountered by the Jet-Etihad deal.

The Indian diaspora

Given that over 2.5 million Indians live in the UAE, of which 65% are blue collar workers, migrant-worker rights is a critical concern for Indian expatriates in the UAE. PM Modi’s visit to a labour camp in Abu Dhabi was the Indian government’s message to the expat community that it cares for the welfare of its workers in the Gulf. Addressing a packed Dubai cricket stadium the next day, the Prime Minister made reference to the camp visit, assuring his audience that he had conveyed the issues he was apprised of by labour-workers to the Indian Embassy and Consulate General officials. He also said that Indian officials and staff have been advised to hold periodic consular service camps at sites where large labour populations reside.

That India and the UAE have embarked on a high-level comprehensive dialogue is encouraging. The countries will now need to do immense ground work to activate shared principles and commitments articulated during the two days. The India-UAE bilateral agenda also holds lessons for the conduct of domestic politics. The NDA government, and the Prime Minister himself, need to be mindful that domestic and international policy often go hand-in-hand. An international statement deploring other countries’ efforts to give “religious and sectarian colour to political issues” needs to be matched by action on religious extremist groups at home and strong condemnation of the use of religion for political gains.

Further, increasing the Indian economy’s ‘competitiveness,’ to attract foreign investment to infrastructure, does not only include smooth clearances but pursuit of a development paradigm that values multi-stakeholder engagement and sustainability – economic, social and environmental. It is only then that the country will be able to provide its investors the right business environment, devoid of simmering administrative inefficiency. Indian foreign policy goals need to reflect the country’s developmental vision and work towards its achievement, and not least, India’s ties with the UAE.

*The author is a Dubai-based international affairs, energy and environment professional. She can be reached at deepti.dm@gmail.com.