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Making Batteries With Portabella Mushrooms

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Can portabella mushrooms stop cell phone batteries from degrading over time?

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering think so.

They have created a new type of lithium-ion battery anode using portabella mushrooms, which are inexpensive, environmentally friendly and easy to produce. The current industry standard for rechargeable lithium-ion battery anodes is synthetic graphite, which comes with a high cost of manufacturing because it requires tedious purification and preparation processes that are also harmful to the environment.

With the anticipated increase in batteries needed for electric vehicles and electronics, a cheaper and sustainable source to replace graphite is needed. Using biomass, a biological material from living or recently living organisms, as a replacement for graphite, has drawn recent attention because of its high carbon content, low cost and environmental friendliness.

UC Riverside engineers were drawn to using mushrooms as a form of biomass because past research has established they are highly porous, meaning they have a lot of small spaces for liquid or air to pass through. That porosity is important for batteries because it creates more space for the storage and transfer of energy, a critical component to improving battery performance.

In addition, the high potassium salt concentration in mushrooms allows for increased electrolyte-active material over time by activating more pores, gradually increasing its capacity.

A conventional anode allows lithium to fully access most of the material during the first few cycles and capacity fades from electrode damage occurs from that point on. The mushroom carbon anode technology could, with optimization, replace graphite anodes. It also provides a binderless and current-collector free approach to anode fabrication.

“With battery materials like this, future cell phones may see an increase in run time after many uses, rather than a decrease, due to apparent activation of blind pores within the carbon architectures as the cell charges and discharges over time,” said Brennan Campbell, a graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering program at UC Riverside.

The research findings were outlined in a paper, “Bio-Derived, Binderless, Hierarchically Porous Carbon Anodes for Li-ion Batteries,” published in the journal Scientific Reports. It was authored by Cengiz Ozkan and Mihri Ozkan, both professors in the Bourns College of Engineering, and three of their current or former graduate students: Campbell, Robert Ionescu and Zachary Favors.

Nanocarbon architectures derived from biological materials such as mushrooms can be considered a green and sustainable alternative to graphite-based anodes, said Cengiz Ozkan, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering.

The nano-ribbon-like architectures transform upon heat treatment into an interconnected porous network architecture which is important for battery electrodes because such architectures possess a very large surface area for the storage of energy, a critical component to improving battery performance.

One of the problems with conventional carbons, such as graphite, is that they are typically prepared with chemicals such as acids and activated by bases that are not environmentally friendly, said Mihri Ozkan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Therefore, the UC Riverside team is focused on naturally-derived carbons, such as the skin of the caps of portabella mushrooms, for making batteries.

It is expected that nearly 900,000 tons of natural raw graphite would be needed for anode fabrication for nearly six million electric vehicle forecast to be built by 2020. This requires that the graphite be treated with harsh chemicals, including hydrofluoric and sulfuric acids, a process that creates large quantities of hazardous waste. The European Union projects this process will be unsustainable in the future.

The Ozkan’s research is supported by the University of California, Riverside.

This paper involving mushrooms is published just over a year after the Ozkan’s labs developed a lithium-ion battery anode based on nanosilicon via beach sand as the natural raw material. Ozkan’s team is currently working on the development of pouch prototype batteries based on nanosilicon anodes.

The UCR Office of Technology Commercialization has filed patents for the inventions above.


Acquiring Four Gut Bacteria Can Decrease Asthma Risk In Infants

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New research by scientists at UBC and BC Children’s Hospital finds that infants can be protected from getting asthma if they acquire four types of gut bacteria by three months of age. More than 300 families from across Canada participated in this research through the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study.

“This research supports the hygiene hypothesis that we’re making our environment too clean. It shows that gut bacteria play a role in asthma, but it is early in life when the baby’s immune system is being established,” said the study’s co-lead researcher B. Brett Finlay, Peter Wall Distinguished Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories and the departments of microbiology & immunology and biochemistry and molecular biology at UBC.

Asthma rates have increased dramatically since the 1950s and now affect up to 20 per cent of children in western countries. The discovery opens the door to developing probiotic treatments for infants that prevent asthma. The finding could also be used to develop a test for predicting which children are at risk of developing asthma.

The researchers analyzed fecal samples from 319 children involved in the CHILD Study. Analysis of the gut bacteria from the samples revealed lower levels of four specific gut bacteria in three-month-old infants who were at an increased risk for asthma.

Most babies naturally acquire these four bacteria, nicknamed FLVR (Faecalibacterium, Lachnospira, Veillonella, Rothia), from their environments, but some do not, either because of the circumstances of their birth or other factors.

The researchers also found fewer differences in FLVR levels among one-year-old children, meaning the first three months are a critical time period for a baby’s developing immune system.

The researchers confirmed these findings in mice and also discovered that newborn mice inoculated with the FLVR bacteria developed less severe asthma.

“This discovery gives us new potential ways to prevent this disease that is life-threatening for many children. It shows there’s a short, maybe 100-day window for giving babies therapeutic interventions to protect against asthma,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Stuart Turvey, pediatric immunologist, BC Children’s Hospital, director of clinical research and senior clinician scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute, Aubrey J. Tingle Professor of Pediatric Immunology at UBC.

The researchers say that further study with a larger number of children is required to confirm these findings and reveal how these bacteria influence the development of asthma.

Gandhi Jayanti, Gandhi’s Dream – OpEd

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On behalf of those of us who struggle to honor Gandhi’s legacy to the world, I would like to wish Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi ‘happy birthday!’ Gandhi was born on October 2,1869 and had he defied both the assassin’s bullet and the aging process, he would have been 146 years old this year.

In theory, the world celebrates October 2 as the International Day of Nonviolence but it is a day that few remember or commemorate meaningfully. Perhaps this is appropriate given the rather desultory progress we have made in making our world nonviolent. Still, while our scorecard might not be what Gandhi would have hoped nearly 68 years after his death, a number of people are making a committed effort to create this nonviolent world. This effort, by its nature, must be multifaceted. Much of it is mundane; some of it profound. Let me tell you about some of these efforts by people I find pretty inspiring.

Leon Simweragi lives in Goma, a town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo near its borders with Rwanda and Uganda. Leon devotes his time to assisting former child soldiers to rehabilitate their lives through his youth group the Association de Jeunes Visionnaires pour le Développement Communautaire (AJVDC). He gives these young people opportunities to learn to read and write and to engage in youth entrepreneurship and leadership programs to fight against poverty and to promote peace and development in the region. He also organizes activities in which they can participate which strengthen their capacity to perceive that nonviolent cooperation can work, including to resolve conflict. Even sport can perform this function when he can get sufficient equipment for the purpose. You can read more about these efforts, and assist him if you like, here.

Lara Trace Hentz is a Shawnee-Cherokee multi-genre author, poet, journalist and activist. Her work is heavily focused on Native Americans and Native American adoption issues. Given her experience as an adoptee herself, Trace is an advocate for other Native American adoptees (‘split feathers’) who are trying to discover their biological connections. You can see one of her inspiring websites here.

César Gabriolli is a high school student in Brazil. He is ‘trying to understand the world’! César and another young Brazilian, Vitória Bittar, are good friends who spend time talking about ‘what we should do to help society improve somehow’. César recently spent some time in a small town in the United States and was particularly challenged by the fundamentalism he encountered there. So he did some research on the psychological origins of fundamentalism so that he could respond to the problem more effectively.

Dr Teck Young Wee, who is better known to his friends as Hakim, is the Singaporean mentor to the Afghan Peace Volunteers, a group of (mainly younger) people committed to ending war not just in Afghanistan but everywhere. If you would like to support their efforts, you can do so here: ‘The People’s Agreement to Abolish War‘. The APVs are also supported by Kathy Kelly who has been nonviolently resisting violence for most of her life and, as we might expect in this distorted world of ours, has the prison record to prove it. Strange, isn’t it, how the people who resist violence often end up in jail. Or worse.

Dr Katharina Bitzker is a German scholar engaged in ongoing research to understand the relationship between love – ‘one of the central experiences of human existence…with all its many facets (maternal, paternal, filial, sexual, platonic, romantic, spiritual, love of nature etc.)’ – and peace: a relationship that has been largely ignored by the academic community. But more importantly in my view, as a mother Katharina is committed to listening to her son Anatol; she does not tell him what to do. This means that the life experiences he generates are his own and the feelings that arise from these experiences reflect his choices, not hers. Parenting at its most powerful but, tragically, so rare.

Irakli Kakabadze is a performance artist and teacher in Georgia. His life includes leadership in two nonviolent revolutions: as a student leader in the anti-Soviet dissident movement from the late 1980s and as one of the leaders of the civil disobedience committee during the nonviolent Rose Revolution in 2003. During his nonviolent struggle for peace and human rights, Irakli has been arrested and assaulted on a number of occasions by the Soviet and Georgian police. He has also been awarded many prizes for his short stories and was one of the co-creators of the well-known electronic song ‘Postindustrial Boys’. He is a key figure in developing a facilitation method for conflict transformation and social change through artistic performance and has taught this
method for years in different universities, including at Cornell University.

I could keep writing all day about the inspirational people I know who do all they can to make Gandhi’s dream – a world without violence – into reality. However, it is time I reported a more painful truth. There is not enough of us! Yet. In fact, we still need another seven billion or so equally committed people. Because until each one of us is willing to make the commitment to work to end violence, our world will be violent. And we each pay the price for that. As do our children. And the planet.

So if you are willing to seriously contemplate where you stand on this most profound of all issues, I invite you to consider why human beings are violent in the first place – see ‘Why Violence?‘ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘ – and to consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth‘.

And if you would also like to participate in the effort being made by the people mentioned above and by many other people in 89 countries around the world, you are welcome to sign the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.

Gandhi’s dream of a world without violence might be fanciful. But, as John Lennon once sang, he is ‘not the only one’. Many of us share this dream. Are you a dreamer too?

EIA Releases US West Coast Transportation Fuels Supply/Demand Study – Analysis

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West Coast or Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 5 transportation fuels markets are tightly balanced, relatively isolated, and, in some cases, have unique product specifications, which often results in significant and persistent increases in prices in the wake of supply disruptions. On September 30, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released the PADD 5 Transportation Fuels Markets study, which examines transportation fuels (motor gasoline, distillate fuel, and jet fuel) supply, demand, and distribution at both the PADD level and for specific areas within PADD 5.

PADD 5 covers a large and diverse geography, and supply/demand balances and distribution patterns vary within the region. The study identified six distinct regional markets within PADD 5: Southern California and Southern Nevada; Northern California and Northern Nevada; Pacific Northwest, which includes Washington and Oregon; Arizona; Hawaii; and Alaska. These six regional markets vary significantly in demand; how transportation fuels are supplied, especially the share of supply provided by in-region refineries; and product distribution patterns (Figure 1 above).

For each of these regional markets as well as for PADD 5 as a whole, the study considers demand, supply sources, transportation logistics, and distribution infrastructure, using 2013 as a base year and taking into account expected changes in balances and infrastructure in subsequent years. Demand includes in-region consumption, transfers of fuels to other parts of the United States (other PADDs) and to other regional markets within PADD 5, and exports to the global market (Figure 2). Supply includes in-region refinery production, receipts of fuels produced in other U.S. regions and other PADD 5 regional markets, and imports. Distribution infrastructure includes storage terminals, pipelines, rail facilities, marine loading and unloading facilities, and marine vessel availability.twip150930fig2-lg

Southern California and Southern Nevada

The Southern California and Southern Nevada (SCSN) region includes the southernmost counties of California as well as the Las Vegas metropolitan area of southern Nevada. The region accounts for more than 40% of total PADD 5 motor gasoline demand, and about 7% of total U.S. demand. Because of the many military air bases and large commercial aviation hubs, jet fuel demand in the SCSN region accounts for about 45% of total PADD 5 jet fuel demand and 14% of U.S. demand. SCSN accounts for 32% of total PADD 5 distillate fuel demand, which is about 4% of U.S. demand.

A combination of in-region refinery production, marine-delivered fuels produced at refineries in northern California and Washington state, receipts of fuels produced at refineries in other PADDs, and imports from the global market supply the SCSN region with transportation fuels. The regional refineries do not produce sufficient gasoline or jet fuel to meet in-region demand but produce more distillate than is consumed in the region. In-region refinery production is supplemented with marine deliveries of product from refineries in northern California and Washington state as well as imports from the global market. Transportation fuels produced at SCSN refineries also supply Arizona and some are exported into the global market. Exports are primarily distillate fuel, which might not meet in-region specifications.

Northern California and Northern Nevada

The Northern California and Northern Nevada region (NCNN) includes counties in California north of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino counties, and in Nevada north of Las Vegas. In 2013, with average motor gasoline demand of 412,000 b/d, the region accounted for 27% of total PADD 5 motor gasoline demand and 5% of U.S. motor gasoline demand. NCNN distillate demand of 125,000 b/d in 2013 accounted for 25% of PADD 5 demand and 3% of U.S. demand. NCNN jet fuel demand averaged 88,000 b/d in 2013, 21% of PADD 5 demand and 6% of U.S. demand.

The region is supplied by in-region refinery production, and refineries in the region produce more motor gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel than is consumed in the region. As a result, NCNN supplies other regional markets in PADD 5, primarily SCSN, with motor gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel, and also exports these products. In 2013, the region exported 22,100 b/d of gasoline, 2,300 b/d of jet fuel, and 52,400 b/d of distillate fuel, primarily to Central and South America.

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest region (PNW) includes the states of Oregon and Washington. In 2013, with 277,300 b/d of motor gasoline demand, the region accounted for 18% of total PADD 5 motor gasoline demand and 3% of total U.S. demand. At 111,400 b/d, PNW demand for distillate fuel was 23% of PADD 5 demand and 3% of U.S. demand. Jet fuel demand in the Pacific Northwest averaged 51,400 b/d in 2013, 12% of PADD 5 demand and 4% of U.S. demand.

The region is supplied by a combination of in-region refinery production, imports, and receipts of product manufactured at refineries outside PADD 5. Refineries in the PNW produce about as much gasoline as is consumed in the region, but considerably more than enough distillate and jet to meet in-region demand. The region supplies distillate fuel and jet fuel to the global market and to other regions within PADD 5 and exports motor gasoline. The PNW also imports motor gasoline and a small amount of distillate. The combination of imports and exports is needed to manage distribution system inefficiencies and gasoline grade imbalances. The PNW typically does not receive product from other regions within PADD 5. In 2013, the region exported 26,000 b/d of motor gasoline, 26,800 b/d of jet fuel, and 43,200 b/d of distillate fuel, primarily to Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America.

Other Regions

The study also includes analysis of transportation fuels in Arizona, Hawaii, and Alaska. Additional studies are planned to analyze PADD 5 crude supply, PADD 1 (East Coast) and PADD 3 (Gulf Coast) transportation fuels markets, and PADD 2 (Midwest) and PADD 4 (Rocky Mountains) transportation fuels markets.

U.S. average retail gasoline and diesel fuel prices decrease

The U.S. average retail price of regular gasoline decreased one cent from the previous week to $2.32 per gallon on September 28, 2015, $1.03 per gallon lower than at the same time last year. Only the Midwest price increased, rising five cents to $2.33 per gallon. The West Coast price fell eight cents to $2.84 per gallon, followed by the Rocky Mountain price, which was down seven cents to $2.54 per gallon. The East Coast price decreased two cents to $2.19 per gallon, and the Gulf Coast price was down one cent to $2.02 per gallon.

The U.S. average price of diesel fuel decreased two cents from the prior week to $2.48 per gallon, down $1.28 per gallon from the same time last year. The Rocky Mountain price decreased four cents to $2.49 per gallon. The West Coast and Gulf Coast prices both fell two cents, to $2.69 per gallon and $2.32 per gallon, respectively. The East Coast and Midwest prices both decreased one cent, to $2.53 per gallon and $2.43 per gallon, respectively.

Propane inventories gain

U.S. propane stocks increased by 1.7 million barrels last week to 98.7 million barrels as of September 25, 2015, 19.2 million barrels (24.1%) higher than a year ago. Gulf Coast inventories increased by 0.8 million barrels and Midwest inventories increased by 0.6 million barrels. East Coast inventories increased by 0.2 million barrels and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories increased by 0.1 million barrels. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 4.7% of total propane inventories.

Grammatikakis: Water On Mars Discovery Reopens Question Of Life In Universe

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The sky and stars have always fascinated us and life outside our planet remains one of the great mysteries facing mankind. Monday, NASA announced that it has serious evidence of water on the surface of Mars. Following is an interview with European Union Parliament Member and astrophysicist Giorgos Grammatikakis (S&D, Greece), about Mars and what this discovery means.

What is the significance of this discovery?

You know, back in time we thought of Mars as a dead planet. Today, the picture has changed completely. It is a planet of enormous interest to science and NASA’s discovery is important not only because it is technologically very difficult to detect the water but because it reopens the big question of life in the universe.

What would it mean for humanity to find life elsewhere?

You know, it’s strange. Everyone wants extra-terrestrial life to exist. It is very difficult to say why but it seems to me that we don’t like being lonely, we don’t like thinking of our planet as being isolated. So we are seeking, with our imagination, with our books and in our thoughts green, red or blue little men. Life on Mars may well be discovered, but it will be in microbial form, infinitesimal, the absolute first building blocks of life. And nobody knows if it will be life that evolved sometime in the past or if it is still waiting to evolve.

I am sure that there is life elsewhere in the universe. We already know that, because we have discovered planets similar to Earth. But they are so far away that I regret to say, we will never get there. That’s why it’s maybe better to pay a bit more attention to our very own earth, to the poverty and inequality next to us and that are equally important.”

Does Europe invest enough in research and innovation?

Parliament always asks for more investment, and debates on matters such as these are always useful. Yet I would say that investment in research and innovation is never “enough”.

Research and innovation are not only about the satisfaction of discovering things but also lead to great and useful discoveries, such as lasers in healthcare and industry or the medical scanners that can save lives. Even if we don’t find evidence of life beyond Earth, our research will have refined our materials, improved our methods and eventually we will enjoy its fruit here, in our everyday lives.

Source: European Parliament News

EU Provides Additional €30 Million To Support Palestine Refugees

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In the context of the efforts to help addressing the plight of the refugees in the wider Middle East region, the European Union (EU) announced that it will support Palestine refugees with fresh funding totaling € 30 million.

This new assistance package announced at the visibility events in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York brings the total EU support provided to UNRWA in 2015 up to €125 million.

As a first step, the money will support core UNRWA programs, including education and health care. It comes in direct response to the deficit in the Agency’s core program budget, which had risked a delay in opening UNRWA schools on time for the current school year.

To that end, the EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhod Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn and UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl signed an agreement earlier today for the first €10 million, with an additional €10 million to follow in October.

The package also includes a further €10 million contribution to enable UNRWA to improve the education, health care and livelihoods of the 480,000 Palestine refugees living in Syria. This support will enhance their resilience and allow them to continue with their lives in Syria, rather than embarking on precarious migration routes to other countries.

According to Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, “The EU is the largest and most reliable donor to UNRWA in its invaluable work with Palestinian refugees, providing them with access to primary education, health and social services, even under very harsh conditions. This is an investment in their future and at the same time an investment in the stability in Europe’s neighbourhood. This additional contribution will also allow UNRWA to bridge its financing gap in 2015 and to move forward in the implementation of its reform process.”

UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl said, “This important and generous contribution from the EU means that we will be able to overcome our funding shortfall for the year, allowing us to concentrate our efforts on ensuring the long-term financial stability of UNRWA so that our core programmes are never again put at risk. I am deeply grateful for this latest commitment from the EU, which has long been a valued and reliable partner of UNRWA in providing for the needs of Palestine refugees. This support is crucial in ensuring that Palestine refugees will continue to have access to quality education, health care and life-saving services until a just solution for their plight is achieved.”

Call For Cambodia To Drop Case Against Opposition Senator

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Cambodian authorities should end the prosecution of an opposition senator who has been wrongfully charged with forgery and incitement for posting online an inaccurate version of a 1979 Cambodia-Vietnam treaty, Human Rights Watch said today. The next hearing in the case against Senator Hong Sok Hour is scheduled for October 2.

Hong Sok Hour, a dual Cambodian-French citizen who represents the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) in the Senate, was arrested on August 15 on public orders from Prime Minister Hun Sen. He ordered Sok Hour’s arrest after he posted a video clip on the Facebook page of Sam Rainsy, president of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, of which SRP is a founding party. The authorities denied Sok Hour bail, and he is being held pending trial. The judge in the case has refused to allow him to receive a specialist medical examination and possibly necessary treatment for hypertension and cardiac disease.

“Relations between Cambodia and Vietnam are politically sensitive, but they are no excuse for bringing criminal charges over a disputed document,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The Cambodian government has already pointed out that the document was inaccurate and in a democracy the matter should be left at that.”

There is no basis for forgery and incitement charges, which should be dropped and Hong Sok Hour immediately and unconditionally released.

The video at the center of the case contained a Khmer-language text purporting to be article 4 of the February 18, 1979 Treaty of Friendship between Cambodia and Vietnam, which was made public at the time. Shortly after the video was posted, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers declared the version it presented of article 4 was “fake.” In ordering Hong Sok Hour’s arrest, Hun Sen characterized the posting of the video as an “act of treason.”

Most contentious was a sentence saying that Cambodia and Vietnam had supposedly agreed to “dissolve” the border between the two countries. Issues related to the border have been a matter of controversy and concern in Cambodia for many decades and have recently been the subject of an outpouring of public discussion, including by both government and opposition politicians.

The government responded to the Facebook posting by disseminating the official Khmer-language text of article 4, which does not contain any reference to dissolution of the border. The discrepancy between the two texts is the basis for three charges against Hong Sok Hour: forgery via intentional alteration of a public document, knowing use of such a forged document, and incitement directly intended to generate “serious disturbance of the security of society” by such use.

There is no evidence, though, that Hong Sok Hour himself created the inaccurate text, that he was aware of inaccuracies in it, or that his intention in making it public was to cause anything more than further discussions of the border issue. An examination of the language used in the two texts strongly indicates that the version posted by Hong Sok Hour is not a forgery, but a bad translation back into Khmer of a poor translation of the Khmer original into French or English.

The procedures by which the authorities arrested Hong Sok Hour also raise serious concerns. The government asserted that because the video clip remained on Sam Rainsy’s Facebook page for several days, Hong Sok Hour could be arrested in flagrante delicto (in the act of committing a crime) and that therefore his parliamentary immunity as a senator from arrest, prosecution, and detention for expressions of opinions in the course of his senatorial duties did not apply.

After the government announced that he would be arrested, Hong Sok Hour went to and later left the French embassy. A heavily armed mixed force of counter-terrorism police, controlled by Hun Sen’s son-in-law Dy Vichea, and other forces carried out the arrest.

The prosecution of Hong Sok Hour contravenes Cambodia’s obligations on the rights to freedom of expression and opinion under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia is party. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors state compliance with the covenant, has stated that: “Laws that penalize the expression of opinions about historical facts are incompatible with the obligations that the Covenant imposes on States parties in relation to the respect for freedom of opinion and expression. The Covenant does not permit general prohibition of expressions of an erroneous opinion or an incorrect interpretation of past events.”

“Hun Sen has turned an inaccurate historical statement into a criminal offense to crack down on the political opposition and demonstrate that he can arrest and imprison anybody, anytime,” Adams said. “Cambodia’s donors should not let Hun Sen and his government get away with stifling free expression and the democratic process, but should jointly and publicly call for those practices to end.”

Fighting Islamic State: Getting Down To Root Causes – Analysis

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The rise of Islamic State (IS) beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq over the past one year has drawn comparison with the spread of communism more than a century ago. It has also pitted proponents of kinetic realpolitik seeking military defeat of the extremist against supporters of the notion that jihadism poses primarily an ideational threat.

However both schools of the debate focus on the violent nature of the threat and ways to neutralise it rather than on what has sparked the current menace that has been germinating and mushrooming over decades. Root causes figure in the competing visions of how the IS can best be confronted.

Debating the root causes

It has become common-place to speak of the need to tackle the root causes that make IS one of the most brutal insurgent groups in recent history, attractive to disaffected youth across the globe. Translating that notion into policy, however, is proving difficult, primarily because it is based on a truth that has far-reaching impact on the international community irrespective of how close or far its members are from the IS’ current borders.

It involves changing long-standing, ingrained policies at home that marginalise, exclude and stigmatise significant segments of society; emphasise security at the expense of freedoms and debate; and in more autocratic states that are abetted by the West, reduce citizens to obedient subjects through harsh repression and attenuation of religious belief to suit the interests of rulers.

Ultimately, IS has to be defeated not in its Syrian capital of Raqqa but in the dismal banlieues of French cities that furnish it with the largest contingent of European foreign fighters; the populous neighbourhoods in Tunisia that account for the single largest group of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq; in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, whose citizens account for the second largest number of foreign fighters and whose decades-ong effort to propagate a puritan, intolerant, interpretation of Islam has been a far more important breeding ground for jihadist thinking than the writings of militant Islamist thinkers like Sayyid Qutb; and in Western capitals led by Washington who view retrograde, repressive regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Focussing on root causes means broadening scholarly and policy debate to concentrate not only on what amounts to applying Band-Aid that fail to heal the festering open wounds but also to question assumptions made by the various schools of thought on how to solve the problem.

Jihadism: a symptom, not a root cause

The facts on the ground have already convincingly contradicted the notion that IS will be defeated militarily. A year into military efforts, air strikes have failed to put a serious dent in IS’s appeal or the amount of territory it controls; Iraqi regular and irregular forces have been unable to shift the balance of power on the battlefield; and no other member of the 60-nation coalition assembled by the US has been willing to deploy a ground force that potentially could defeat the jihadist group.

Yet, even such a hypothetical defeat would not solve the problem. Al Qaeda was degraded, to use the language of the Obama administration. Instead of reducing the threat of political violence, it produced ever more virulent forms of it, embodied by IS. It may be hard to imagine anything more brutal than IS, but it is a fair assumption that defeat of the group without tackling root causes would only lead to something that is even more violent and vicious.

There is much to be said for the notion of containment rather than defeat of IS in the belief that over time it would be forced to adapt its expansionist ambitions and brutal tactics as reality kicks in and the responsibility of government forces it to come to some kind of accommodation with the international community. Containment addresses the immediate problem but ignores factors that fuel radicalisation far from the warring state’s borders and make jihadism attractive to disaffected across the globe.

Similarly, the notion that the very existence of IS poses a greater threat to regional stability and security in the Middle East and North Africa than conventional or unconventional military power elevates jihadism – the violent establishment of pan-Islamic rule — to the status of a root cause rather than a symptom and expression of a greater and more complex problem.

Moreover, the ideological challenge posed by IS despite its discriminatory, exclusionary, narrow-minded interpretation of Islam, is primarily its equally problematic readings of the faith. IS shares some puritan concepts with Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism but rejects notions of monarchic rule and a clergy that uses puritanism to bolster the power of an autocratic family. IS’s caliphate contradicts Iran’s concept of the velayat-e-faqih, the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists. Its model of governance opposes the Muslim Brotherhood’s precepts, and ideas propagated by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates of an Islam that first and foremost prescribes absolute obedience to a ruler.

Putting one’s money where one’s mouth is

In other words, the ideological debate waged in the Muslim world is to a large extent dominated by schools of thought that do not advocate more open, liberal and pluralistic interpretations of Islam. That is where the real challenge lies. The international community would give more liberal Muslim voices significant credibility if it put its money where its mouth is. It should offer a pallet of policy options that take a stab at rooting out the problem and its underlying causes rather than confine it to self-serving regimes and their religious supporters.

Some of those who emphasise IS’ ideational challenge warn that jihadism, like concepts of Arabism and Arab nationalism that were popular in the past, could provoke conflict in and between Arab states. Reality on the ground has put that notion to rest. IS with its territorial base, coupled with multiple other factors, has demonstrated the fragility of existing Arab nation states and likely condemned to dustbins of history notions of Syria and Iraq as the nation states the world has known since the end of colonial rule.

By the same token, reducing the significance of recent attacks on mosques and tourist sites by IS fellow travellers in Tunisia, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia‎ to challenges to the political legitimacy and authority of those states, is to fail to recognise that IS fundamentally feeds on the failures of those regimes. These include the failure to provide their youth social and economic opportunity, and to adopt policies that are inclusionary not exclusionary, pluralistic not discriminatory, and encourage participation in political debates and processes rather cutting off all avenues for expression of discontent. Therein lie the root causes of the jihadism threatening the international community.

This article was published by RSIS


Transcript Of Kerry At Meeting On International Peace And Security And Countering Terrorism

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By John Kerry, US Secretary of State

(United Nations, New York City, September 30, 2015) — Mr. President, thank you very much and thank you for the chance to address this council, to all the colleagues on the Security Council. I appreciate the fact that Russia’s presidency has chosen to focus on this issue, and I welcome the opportunity to talk about the urgent challenge of countering terrorism in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere.

This is a topic that the council has explored many times. Going back to the 9/11 attacks and even before, we have come together fairly often to condemn terrorism and also to take concerted action to counter violent extremist organizations. So this is not a debate about goals, I don’t think. We all oppose the aggressive ambitions of such organizations as ISIL, al-Qaida, and groups that initiate or that are imitating them or affiliated with them. We all oppose the atrocities that they commit, and we all want to end the suffering that they continue to inflict.

So there’s no debate about that. The question that we face is: How do you best do it? There are basic principles that we believe should guide our strategy. First, in confronting terrorism, we have to take a comprehensive approach. That was quite eloquently talked about by our heads of state at the Countering Violent Extremism Summit that President Obama hosted. There was a great deal of discussion. I thought there were some very articulate statements about how one approaches the root causes. We have to deny safe haven, disrupt the flow of foreign fighters, block access to financing, and expose the lies that terrorist groups propagate – and that is particularly challenging in this world of constant media, constant access, 24/7/365. We’re living in a very different world, and terrorists have learned how to exploit that media in all kinds of ways.

We also need to exert pressure in support of peace, perhaps one of the most important components of our responsibility in places such as Libya, for instance, where instability feeds the kind of chaos and fear in which extremist organizations thrive – and we see that now with the presence of ISIL in Libya.

So this is the fundamental strategy that we’ve laid out for countering violent extremism. We’ve adopted this strategy. We’re strongly engaged in implementing it. We welcome the large number of nations that have joined as international actors in the counter-ISIL coalition and the Global Counterterrorism Forum and other regional organizations. But obviously, more needs to be done. We’ve been able to counter some foreign fighters and kept them from traveling, but still too many have been able to travel and still been able to reach the destination. We’ve been able to slow down and stop some elements of the financing, but still there’s too much money that still is able to reach terrorist activities and actors.

So our goal is to take urgent actions against immediate threats while also facing up to longer-term measures that prevent the recruitment of future generations of terrorists and improve governance and enhance economic opportunities so that radicalization is less likely. This is an enormous challenge for all of us; we know it. There are countless countries where 60, 65 percent of the population in some cases are under the age of 30, under the age of 25, the vast majority, under the age of 18 in majority in many countries. And unless they find opportunity and options, their minds will be stolen; their opportunities will be robbed forever by bad actors who grab them in that vacuum.

We also need to improve governance and enhance economic opportunity so that radicalization is less likely. Too many places still see too much corruption, and corruption robs the populations of their due and of their possibilities.

In each of these areas, we intend to work hard with all of you and with others not here to improve our chance for success by working with the concerned elements of civil society, including NGOs, religious leaders, and the private sector. And meanwhile, we have to continue our efforts to alleviate the immediate hardships that terrorists are causing. While we’ve been pushing humanitarian relief into areas, the international community absolutely has to do more. We are staring at a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding not in one or two places, but in multiple places, simultaneously.

And the humanitarian disaster that we are witnessing in and of itself should be enough reason to take on ISIL. And this has been a major topic of our discussions here over these past days, but it has to remain a core concern for all of us in the weeks to come. Every nation can do more. Two UN Security Council resolutions – 2139 and 2165 – clearly require – and everyone around this table voted for them – clearly require humanitarian access to besieged areas, and they call for an end to barrel bombs, specifically, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

Now, I’d like to add a few thoughts about Syria, specifically, ISIL and Russia. The United States supports any genuine effort to fight ISIL and al-Qaida-affiliated groups, especially al-Nusrah. If Russia’s recent actions and those now ongoing reflect a genuine commitment to defeat that organization, then we are prepared to welcome those efforts and to find a way to de-conflict our operations and thereby multiply the military pressure on ISIL and affiliated groups. But we must not and will not be confused in our fight against ISIL with support for Assad. Moreover, we have also made clear that we would have grave concerns should Russia strike areas where ISIL and al-Qaida-affiliated targets are not operating. Strikes of that kind would question Russia’s real intentions fighting ISIL or protecting the Assad regime.

Now, we have informed Russia that we are prepared to hold these de-confliction talks as early as possible – this week. But let me be clear: The United States and the coalition will continue our ongoing air operations as we have from the very beginning. We have conducted a number of strikes against ISIL targets in Syria over the past 24 hours, including just an hour ago, and these strikes will continue. Let me be clear: The coalition that we have built, more than 60 countries strong, has been taking on ISIL for more than a year – by liberating Sinjar Mountain, liberating Kobani, liberating Tikrit, where now more than 100,000 residents have been able to return to their homes and resume their lives; defending Mosul Dam, defending Haditha; protecting Baghdad, rescuing endangered minorities; killing ISIL leaders and facilitators; and taking away the entire northern border of Syria for ISIL east of the Euphrates River.

At the same time, we have mounted a comprehensive campaign to cut terrorist financing, curb recruitment of foreign fighters, and expose the lies that ISIL is perpetrating. Today, as we speak, south of Kirkuk, Kurdish Peshmerga are heroically liberating villages from ISIL under the cover of coalition airstrikes. In addition, we continue to admire the courage and the resilience that has been demonstrated for four long years of struggle by the legitimate opposition to Assad.

Let me remind this council that coalition air operations are grounded in well-established military procedures, firmly based in international law, and the requests of neighboring states for collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. That foundation has not changed, and we will continue our mission with the full sanction of international law.

Pursuant to these procedures in Syria over the past year, the coalition has now conducted nearly 3,000 airstrikes against ISIL targets, and we are now in position with France, Australia, Canada, Turkey, and other coalition partners joining the campaign, to dramatically accelerate our efforts. This is what we will do. Over the coming weeks we will be continuing our flights out of Incirlik base in Turkey to apply constant pressure on strategic areas held by ISIL in northwest Syria.

We will also be sustaining our support to anti-ISIL fighters in northeast Syria. These efforts will put greater pressure on ISIL’s operational areas, and we will ensure through precision airstrikes that ISIL leaders do not have any sanctuary anywhere on the ground in Syria.

So ISIL will soon face increasing pressure from multiple directions across the battlefield in Syria and Iraq. But as we have said from the start and as the Geneva communique codified, this fight cannot be won in the military sphere. It will require a political solution for the crisis of Syria. One thing is certain: The vast majority of states around this table know that the ISIL forces, ISIL itself, cannot be defeated as long as Bashar al-Assad remains president of Syria. It cannot happen by definition of the lines of this battle. It cannot happen because of who has lined up with whom and because of the nature of these protagonists.

And the reason for that is defined in the beginning by how this fight itself began. This fight began when young people, young Syrians looking for a future, wanting nothing more than opportunity and jobs and education, when they went out to demonstrate for the future and to claim the aspirations of young people, and Assad sent his thugs out to beat him – beat them up. The parents were outraged by the fact that their children, demonstrating peacefully, were beaten up. And they went out with their kids and they were met with bullets.

That is how this whole thing began – people in a country looking for a future who were instead met with repression, with torture, with gassing, with barrel bombs. Assad will never be accepted by those that he has harmed. Never possible to become a legitimate leader in the future. Never possible to lead a reconciliation nor a unification of a country. That could not happen until he makes clear his willingness to actually heal the nation, end the war, and decline to be part of the long-term future.

Today we must be focused on finding a solution that will stop the killing and lay the groundwork for a government that the Syrian people themselves can support. We know that the terrorists can neither unite the country nor govern it. We know that Assad can neither unite the country nor govern it. Neither extreme offers the solution that we need and want. What is more, our ability to develop a credible international political process would be a farce from the beginning – incredible enough that it won’t stop people from fighting – if it were perceived as a way to extend or strengthen Assad’s hold on power.

As President Obama said on Monday, “The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict. But we must recognize that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a simple return to the pre-war status quo.”

My colleagues, the Government of Russia has argued that we must support Assad in order to defeat ISIL. But the reality is that Assad has rarely chosen himself to fight ISIL. As the terrorists made inroads throughout large swaths of Syria and Iraq, raping, enslaving, and murdering civilians along the way, the Syrian regime didn’t try to stop them. Instead, it focused all of its military power on moderate opposition groups who were fighting for a voice in Syria.

Make no mistake, the answer to the Syrian civil war cannot be found in a military alliance with Assad. But I am convinced that it can be found. It can be found through a broadly supported diplomatic initiative aimed at a negotiated political transition – a transition that has been accepted by the Security Council, accepted by participants of the Perm 5 – consistent with the Geneva Communique, which would unite all Syrians who reject dictatorship and terrorism and want to build a stable and united society.

So in conclusion, I call on all concerned governments – including Russia, including Syria – to support a UN initiative to broker a political transition. Further delay is unconscionable. The opportunity is before us. And if we can succeed in marginalizing the terrorists in Syria and in bringing that country together, we can, all of us together, do exactly what this was set up to do, this Security Council and this institution. We can strike a huge blow against violent extremism not only in Syria – also in Iraq, across the Middle East, and around the world. And nothing would be more in keeping with the high purpose for which this Council was created 70 years ago. And nothing would better serve the interests of the people that all of us represent.

I hope we can achieve that. Thank you.

US Homeland Security’s Monaco Meets With Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah

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US Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco met Wednesday with Chief Executive of Afghanistan Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and congratulated him on the one year anniversary of the National Unity Government, and reiterated the ongoing US commitment to a stable, sovereign Afghanistan.

According to the White House, during the meeting, Monaco praised Afghan Security Forces’ efforts to counter the Taliban’s recent advances in Kunduz and reaffirmed continued US And Coalition support.

Both leaders agreed on the importance of the National Unity Government, led by President Ghani and supported by Chief Executive Abdullah, working together to deliver on its promises to the Afghan people, according to the White House.

During their meeting, Monaco and Dr. Abdullah acknowledged that this is a critical time of transition for Afghanistan and discussed how the United States and Afghanistan can ensure that Afghan security forces have the capabilities and training necessary to preserve the gains made over the past 13 years.

Additionally, Monaco and Dr. Abdullah affirmed the importance of continuing to work together to maintain a productive security and counterterrorism partnership in the years ahead, the White House said.

Southeast Asia’s Haze Problem: Why So Hard To Resolve? – Analysis

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Haze from Indonesian fires has again blanketed Singapore and Malaysia. Prevention strategies are improving, but will likely take years to become truly effective.

By Jackson Ewing*

Smoke from Indonesia has again brought large parts of Malaysia and Singapore to a halt. By the morning of 24 September 2015 the Pollution Standards Index (PSI) had crossed into the ‘Very Unhealthy’ range on its way to a ‘Hazardous’ rating, and by Friday the 24-hour PSI rating hovered between 264-321; the highest levels in 2015. Conditions have fluctuated since, but the haze continues to shake both countries and impact their economic life.

The effects of this type of haze are increasingly familiar. Schools were closed, the most vulnerable became sick, health care services were stressed, and businesses that remained open saw commerce decline. The financial costs will prove significant when the numbers are in. The 1997 episode – which until recent years set the benchmark for haze pollution – likely cost Singapore upwards of SGD250 million in health expenditures, tourism reductions and lost productivity. The episode in June and July of 2013 was far worse, with financial impacts that are still being assessed. Beyond the dollars and cents, the haze impacts the quality of life for Singaporeans and the island’s visitors in ways that only the experienced can appreciate.

So why is the haze problem so hard to solve?

Haze prevention efforts

After decades of regional, national, academic and civil society attention, the problem is as intractable as ever. Recent efforts to combat haze have been far from cursory. The source country Indonesia has enacted logging moratoria, combined its environmental and forestry ministries, and ratified – albeit with great delay – the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze in September 2014. It has improved its land concession maps, expanded programmes on community-based forest management and fire prevention, levied a fine of over USD25 million on an offending palm oil producer, and recently arrested executives of companies allegedly behind the current fires.

Singapore has commissioned studies on haze reduction, pursued tangible cooperation with nearby Indonesian provinces, and passed legislation holding offending companies culpable. Large private sector players have recognised the reputational risks they face from the haze, and dedicated greater resources towards eliminating haze-causing activities from their supply chains. Research institutes have improved monitoring and assessment, while civil society organisations have helped build capacities on the ground.

Still, the problem pervades the dry months and defies solutions. The primary reasons are three-fold.

Countervailing forces

Expanding palm oil and paper sectors: First, the forces causing the haze are outpacing efforts to mitigate it. While Indonesia has taken recent steps to combat the fires causing the haze, it has simultaneously advanced its palm oil and pulp and paper sectors as key engines of the wider economy. After surpassing Malaysia as the world’s leading producer of palm oil in 2006, Indonesia announced plans to double production and brought millions of new hectares under cultivation.

These plantations now cover an area more than twice the size of Singapore and Belgium. Meanwhile demand for paper continues to rise in emerging Asian economies, particularly China, and Indonesian plantations reflect the country’s place as a key supplier. Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry may expand by 20% between 2014 and 2016, and projects strong longer-term growth.

The boom in these sectors has changed their structures and characteristics. Expansion has been defined largely by estate-level land clearance, with blurred lines between corporate firms and the small-scale landowners they often contract out to. There is also a growing presence of mid-sized actors that develop plantations but have scant or non-existent public profiles.

These actors gain official and unofficial concessions from local governments, whose leaders seek capital for their budgets, their campaigns, and on some occasions their wallets. Haze does not present the same reputational risks to these mid-level operatives as it does to large corporations like Nestlé and Golden Agri-Resources – both of which have implemented haze prevention policies.

Hotter and drier: Second, the source areas of the haze are getting hotter and drier. Burning remains an attractive method for land clearing because it is quick and efficient, requires minimal labour, enriches soils, and acts as a default strategy in lieu of affordable alternatives. In years like 2015 with a strong El Niño warming trend, fires often become large and difficult to control. In carbon-rich peatlands, these fires can burn for weeks and spread far beyond their areas of origin; which in turn problematises efforts to establish culpability. With climate change projections predicting warming trends and drier months in equatorial Southeast Asia, these problems may well become more acute.

Long gestation: Third, the redoubled efforts to combat the haze are relatively new and will take time to be effective. Indonesia’s levying of fines and arresting of executives send important signals, but the legal processes surrounding these efforts take years and do not appreciably change the short-term conditions on the ground in Indonesian plantations.

It remains difficult to identify haze-causing culprits even with new legislation, greater enforcement ambitions, and better maps detailing where concessions are situated. Time may improve the effectiveness of these mechanisms, but, as the current smoke demonstrates, they are not up to the near-term challenge.

Hazy future

Despite these limitations, continued regional cooperation on the haze issue is imperative, without viable alternatives. Affected Indonesian citizens suffer even more painfully than their neighbours during acute haze episodes, and hope for solutions as much as anyone. Such solutions are taking shape, but better outcomes may be years in the offing.

Such is often the case with transboundary environmental challenges, which leave impacted countries vulnerable to effects that they cannot prevent through their own action. These countries are left to respond to the environmental stress that they inherit at home, while trying to stimulate changes in neighbouring territories.

Singapore is on such a trajectory, but, as Euston Quah and Tan Tsiat Siong recently wrote in the Straits Times, Singaporeans will likely be asked to “accept that the haze will be with us for years to come, and learn to live with it while mitigation efforts are ongoing”. This assessment seems likely to bear out, as near-term solutions remain difficult to see.

*Jackson Ewing is Director of Asian Sustainability at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS) of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This is a new RSIS series on the latest regional haze issue.

The Networked Societies Of War Fighters In A Battlespace Of Flows – Analysis

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By Maj Dave Blair, USAF*

In a hypothetical retelling of any of 100 recent battlefield encounters, two networks coalesce around a compound of buildings at the western border of a nation at war with itself. On one side, a disparate assemblage of fighters drawn from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Asia attempts to enter a country at war using an amalgam of ancient trade routes and modern commercial navigational and communications technology. Their stories are as diverse as their backgrounds—for one, an Internet web magazine linked them to a religious leader they once knew personally; for another, they come to avenge a brother or an uncle; a third comes for the prospect of adventure, as advertised by other fighters on streaming video. In a previous war, fighters might have brought with them their preferred printed propaganda piece, perhaps even a signed copy. In this war, those authors are very much present and part of the conversation, linked to their progeny by way of e-mail and voice over Internet protocol. The financiers are just as present, relationally linked to the real-time consequences of their donations.

This force exists in many spaces at once; it is anchored in relational space but flexible in physical space. The flexibility allows it to coalesce at a time and place of its choosing, achieve fleeting objectives, and disperse before an enemy can respond. This strategy works remarkably well against a conventional adversary, bound by physical areas of operation and beholden to fixed-response timelines.1

This force’s opposite number is strikingly similar in this regard: a diverse network of special operators, aircrews, and intelligence professionals, bound together by a mix of trust networks and modern communications technology, has been hunting this cell for some time now. One such team—a special operator working from a tactical headquarters, an MQ-1 aircrew in Nevada, a Liberty MC-12 crew, and a team of analysts in at least two places in the continental United States—locates and tracks this cell along a transit route.

Upon finding their quarry, helicopters full of operators, fixed-wing gunships, high-speed fighters, and sundry support aircraft press toward the cell before it can flee. Once they are established on scene, the target location provides a focal point for the operation, but the trust networks between operators continue to give the teams the nimbleness necessary to pursue the objective. These trust networks have been built over years through a combination of shared combat experience, in-person exercises, and weekly teleconferences. All of these places and times are invoked at once “on the op.”

This is a battle of small margins in brief windows. Victory goes to the side that can fix its opponent in a physical place while retaining the flexibility to bring its own forces to bear across physical space. In this case, it belongs to the special operations team members who can call upon forces from across 10,000 miles and bring them into this place. The terror cell, fixed in place and decoupled from its larger networks, cannot. The special operations team remains in a “space of flows” while the terror cell is trapped in a “space of places.”

Castells and the Space of Flows

In his seminal trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, sociologist Manuel Castells describes changes wrought by increasing global connectivity in the way societies perceive the intersection of social space, physical location, and relational networks. He defines space as “the material support of time-sharing social practices.”2 People must be somewhere to be together. In their seminal work on information theory, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver similarly identify a technologically facilitated layer of communications.3 Whether through the formal technology of electronic transmission or the social technology of language, societies construct (and are constructed by) shared spaces between people. This article argues that a battlespace is very much a “space” by Castells’s definition.

Castells describes two formulations of social space: societies can be organized around physical location, in a space of places, or around relational networks, in a space of flows.4 The space of places, the traditional mode of social organization, remains the dominant mode. According to Castells, “A place is a locale whose form, function and meaning are self-contained within the boundaries of physical continuity.”5 For instance, decades ago, a physical building might supply a social focal point for organizing the relationships of a company.6 In this space, flows are contained and summarized by physical geography. Incremental and territorial approaches to combat are captured well by this space of places, a fact demonstrated by both the classic command to “take that hill” and the ubiquitous idea of the combat zone.

In contrast, a space of flows is an abstract space built around social networks; accordingly, it is less bound to physical space and linear time. In Castells’s words, “The space of flows is the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through . . . purposeful, repetitive, programmable sequences of exchange and interaction between physically disjointed positions held by social actors in the economic, political, and symbolic structures of society” (emphasis in original).7 As a practical example, the discussion concerning a Facebook post relaxes the constraints of space and time that a normal conference would demand. A user can interact with a group of people not only without regard to distance but also without regard to time. A post takes virtually no time to update but persists long enough for one to interact with it hours or even days later. In a space of places, distance translates into time via physical transportation media; in a space of flows, distance and time are essentially unlinked due to the near-instant speed of global communications.

This is not to say that physical presence is unimportant in a place of flows. Quoting Gen James Jones and a host of others, “Virtual presence is actual absence.”8 In contemporary “coder” culture, relational network flows organize physical space. Relationships are embedded in semipermanent sociotechnical patterns such as e-mail lists and websites, and these relational networks coalesce into physical spaces.9 These networks do not diminish the need for interaction in physical places, but the need for a specific physical space becomes less important in this world. For instance, coder meet-up groups are structured in virtual space but gather in a variety of physical spaces to reinforce social relationships and accomplish tasks.10 In a space of flows, physical meetings primarily grow out of relational networks rather than relational networks primarily emerging from physical structure.

We might envision this difference by imagining different modes of interaction between the alumni of a given school. A class reunion that calls members back to the physical college for a homecoming weekend embodies place-based logic. Conversely, monthly happy-hour meet-ups among alumni in a given city grow from flow-based logic, especially if the meetings are arranged through a static online forum.

Flow-based logics increasingly complement, and in some cases supplant, the place-based logics in the business world. Telework has become an option for inclement weather days or as a means of minimizing time wasted during commuting. Increased use of inexpensive and convenient video teleconferencing mitigates some of the concomitant loss of face-to-face interaction. Improved remote desktop capabilities and increasingly accessible security technology allow businesses to maintain enterprise integrity from across diverse locations. Outsourcing and crowdsourcing transfers repetitive tasks to cheaper milieus via communications technology. Some technology startups so fully embrace these concepts that they forgo owning physical space entirely, creating a market for rentable “incubator” space.11 These same changes map onto emerging trends in warfare.

The Battlespace of Flows

The thesis of this article is straightforward: by means of networking technologies, warfare is increasingly becoming a space of flows. It holds that the flow-based logics that sparked these changes in the business world have initiated similar alterations in the world of armed conflict. Just as telework enhances the modern business space, so do the special operators physically present in the modern battlespace work alongside remote operators. Traditionally, we’ve seen “reachback” support based in the continental United States for deployed war fighters in the form of intelligence products or technical support, but this is something different. As opposed to traditional off-site support, which assists the decisions and actions of others, these remote operators take action and make determinations themselves that decide outcomes—their choices directly shape the battlespace. In an even more extreme form of flow-based warfare, cyberspace operators do not commit to a physical battlespace at all, except perhaps in their endgame. Even if software could generate physical effects, it would do so ad hoc, without any means or intent to hold that physical space.

Flow-based warfare is a form of fighting that can transcend physicality. The potential for physical effects without being physically proximate enables flow-based warfare to bypass boundaries. For instance, cyber warfare can access locations that would be prohibitively costly or politically difficult to reach through traditional physical force. Just as call centers allow companies to outsource algorithmic tasks, so do data links and satellites allow American commanders to generate persistent surveillance via remote aircraft from the location with the lowest manpower-deployment cost— the United States.

In a place-based world, only a state with fixed-location factories could churn out the tools of modern war. This fact provided the accountability necessary for making the Westphalian system work—a tank came from a factory somewhere, and that factory had a flag attached to it. As spaces of flows democratize information production in the business world (and, potentially, physical production with the advent of additive manufacturing or 3-D printing), they democratize the production of violence in war fighting.12 For both al-Qaeda and the United States government, flow-based warfare enabled coordinated violent action from network members in sundry locations. Since these flows are more complex than physical place, an organization must be able to think, coordinate, and act on a more abstract level to make use of them.

Small organizations tend to be nimbler in dealing with complex problems since they make better use of tacit knowledge and need not reduce a problem to coordinate a solution.13 Therefore, flow-based warfare likely will be adopted more rapidly and eagerly by small organizations with strong trust networks and less so by industrial, bureaucratic forms.14

This article proceeds with a plausibility probe of this thesis, using three cases from the past decade. First, it traces the reciprocal adoption of flow-based logics by al-Qaeda and the US special operations community. Second, it explores the extreme case of the MQ-1 Predator’s remote split operations (RSO) concept. Finally, it evaluates the effects of a mature form of flow-based warfare against a place-based adversary through the battlefield use of social media by the Free Libyan Army in 2011.

The article claims that flow-based warfare became a structural feature of the conflicts of the last decade. However, it does not claim that flow-based warfare has become more important than place-based warfare. Scoping the claim in this way diminishes the potential threat of selection bias. By establishing its presence and significance in the defining conflicts of that decade, the article demonstrates this claim. Additionally, since the special operations forces (SOF) case and the related Predator case both involve organizational learning and change toward flow-based warfare, they inherently include both negative and positive valences of our dependent variable. The article seeks to establish the heuristic utility of Castells’s concept of flows for describing certain recent changes in warfare. A follow-on research design that pays more attention to these negative cases might trace the contours of flow- based versus place-based conceptions of the battlespace over time.

Special Operations Forces versus al-Qaeda: The Adoption of Flow-Based Warfare

Flow-based warfare offers an excellent tool for an asymmetric adversary to attack a vastly superior place-based opponent. In a space of flows, the production of violence can be democratized in the same way that the production of information shifted from centralized news sources to social aggregation. Command and control can similarly be democratized. In a place-based system, one commander might have a radio channel for a given area—this structure lends itself toward centralized control and vertical command links. A modern war fighter has myriad means of communications that can potentially support communications with vast numbers of peer units—such technologies allow for lateral flat and ad hoc command structures. These flow-based structures can take form in a space, execute their mission so long as they retain relative advantage, and then disperse before a place-based adversary can marshal forces to respond.15

Moreover, a flat-networked insurgent group should find these sorts of logics easier to implement than a hierarchical, compartmentalized military.16 For this reason, illicit actors and terror groups were early adopters of flow-based war fighting.17 Al- Qaeda’s financial and recruiting networks cut across a number of different places. An amalgam of Chechens, Arabs, and Afghans constituted their forces in Afghanistan.18 Their money was infused through global financial systems from a variety of “donors” and was often conveyed through the technologically facilitated trust networks of hawala.19 Al-Qaeda itself might have been described as a space of flows rather than a space of places.

The Iraqi improvised explosive device (IED) network provided a clear expression of this space of flows. Financiers outside the country would pump resources into that system from sundry locations; engineers inside and outside the “combat zone” would counter coalition countermeasures with new designs; in-country bomb makers would assemble these designs; finally, the network would contract with local nationals to emplace these weapons.20 This network took ground only in the very last step, when it emplaced the weapon itself; the network held that ground only as long as it took to strike and then fell back to the space of flows. Place-based conventional forces had tremendous difficulty matching this flexibility. Although the flows- based network could not directly control ground, it could make the use of that ground extremely costly to its adversary.21

Early moves against this network remained locked in place-based logics. By adding armor and jammers to ground logistics vehicles, coalition forces became better prepared for their physical intersection of the IED network. Similarly, by increasing aerial patrols for IED emplacers, they sought to deny the physical lines of communications to their adversary. Unfortunately, these were both losing bets with terrible exchange ratios—the IED network could export most of its risk upstream to the space of flows, where it could not be targeted through these means. Moreover, the fact that the flow-based network could attack anywhere and at any time forced the place-based conventional forces to commit everywhere at all times. One IED design change could force an order-of-magnitude costlier response in armor, jammers, and patrols.22 For this reason, an Army brigadier general concluded that “you can’t armor your way out of this problem.”23

The alternative was a move toward flow-based warfare. According to a 2007 Washington Post article,

Ultimately, eliminating IEDs as a weapon of strategic influence—the U.S. government’s explicit ambition—is likely to depend on neutralizing the networks that buy, build and disseminate bombs. Military strategists have acknowledged that reality almost since the beginning of the long war, but only in the past year has it become an overarching counter-IED policy. Left of boom—the concept of disrupting the bomb chain long before detonation—is finally more than a slogan. If you don’t go after the network, you’re never going to stop these guys. Never. They’ll just keep killing people, the senior Pentagon official said. And the network is not a single monolithic organization, but rather a loosely knotted web of networks.24

Small teams with flat cultures and strong trust networks, empowered with rapid logistics and robust communications, could become the “network to defeat a network.”25 This network emerged gradually from the seedbed of elite SOF teams during the early 2000s. These teams already had strong reputations as well as habitual relationships with members of the interagency process and the intelligence community. Thus, they provided an excellent substrate for the growth of a flow-based network.

The latter took shape, in part, through an expanding group of liaison officers, sent both from and to these teams. These liaisons offered transgeographic and transinstitutional access for these teams. They also created alternative coordination pathways for the interagency process, using the trust networks of the SOF teams as a routing hub, thereby increasing the social power of the teams within that process.26 Over time, the alumni of the liaison group advanced within their own organizations, further enhancing the access of this network.

The network used this structure to implement a flow-based targeting cycle, which grew both more expansive and quicker throughout the campaign. This find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, and disseminate cycle allowed coalition SOF teams to pin their adversary network while retaining their own flexibility.27

The “fix” stage of this cycle invokes the idea of flow most clearly since it attempted to deny flow to the IED network by anchoring and holding its nodes in physical space.28 Over the course of the campaign, the growth of this cycle shifted the balance of networks in favor of the coalition and helped dislodge al-Qaeda-backed IED networks from Baghdad.

Although the “finish” stage of this cycle was both the most valiant and celebrated, the “fix” stage was often the limiting factor. To carry out an operation, surveillance as- sets would have to locate and track individuals from an adversary network until a strike force could take action against them. To keep an “unblinking eye” on these targets from identification to action, this network needed heretofore-impossible amounts of low-grade but long-dwell intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance time.29

Enter the Predator’s RSO concept, which uses sociotechnical flow to enable crews in the United States to pilot aircraft “down range.” This capability removed the deployment constraint for aircrews. Rather than maintain several crews to keep one deployed at all times, all crews could fly as many aircraft as were available at any given time. However, in doing so, crews from a place-based cockpit culture found themselves struggling to master a new, flow-based conception of what it meant to be a pilot.

Remote Split Operations: “You Are Now Entering the CENTCOM AOR”

Flow-based and place-based logics often fractiously collided in the marketplace. Telework is incongruous with place-based conceptions of work. An employee might be more productive by splitting a would-be two-hour commute between additional work time and additional family time, but this hour of increased productivity would not register with an organization whose incentive structures were oriented toward place. Market forces have adjudicated clashes between flow and place. In the case of place-based information technologies such as video rental stores, these proved fatal. Conversely, a number of ambitious flow-based online stores unpleasantly discovered the continuing relevance of place during the dot-com bubble. Our present business environment presents an incomplete synthesis of these two logics.

These same cultural collisions are happening presently between flow- and place-based logics in the military. From a place-based perspective, a Predator crew’s lack of physical presence in the battlespace inherently cheapens its work. This argument takes two major forms. First is the “no skin in the game” trope. A Predator crew does not directly experience risk comparable to that of ground troops in the course of its duties, thus diminishing the crew members’ professionalism or seriousness about their duties. Second, the “video game” trope holds that the reality of the experience of remote aviation stops at the ground station, and because of the distance of the connection, crews are held to feel disconnected from the effects of their choices.30

In fact, the Predator community members’ flow-based perspective concentrates on the equivalence of direct battlefield effects and the ramifications of those effects for their comrades.31 These institutional struggles over meanings are covered extensively in other works on the history of that technology.32 Rather than attempt to adjudicate these claims, this article holds that they are incommensurable but demonstrate real tensions between flow and place in the contemporary military context.33 The Predator community’s experience offers a window into cultural clashes that accompany transitions from place-based to flow-based conceptions of warfare.

To situate this case, the move toward flow-based warfare in the Predator platform was not inherent to the airframe’s “fly-by-wireless” control system.34 Pop analysis of the platform typically addresses the onboard automation and computers, presumably as a replacement for human judgment; such an approach is a fundamental misapprehension of the platform’s design and capabilities. In the words of Abraham Karem, primary designer of the aircraft, “Almost all of our subsystems from 1985–89 are still flying in some Predators today [in 2012], including its 27-year-old computer and, with minor changes, the ground station.”35 Processors that are outperformed by five-year-old smartphones should prove disappointing to both technofetishists and technophobes who see this aircraft as some sort of advanced war-fighting robot. As with any other aircraft, the heart of the system remains the aircrew, but the sea change is in the relationship of the aircrew to the aircraft.36

The craft and crews evolved toward a flow-based understanding of their relation- ship with each other. Much like previous remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), the GNAT 750, an early model in the Predator’s lineage, was essentially a long-dwell radio-controlled plane.37 This crew controlled the aircraft from a ground station within the combat theater. The production-model Predator incorporated a satellite data link that greatly expanded the range from which the craft could be flown—from line-of- sight range to anywhere in the satellite’s footprint. In this intermediate state, crews would still deploy to a forward operating location, and the craft could be flown within the same general theater but outside the immediate combat zone. This general model saw use during operations in the former Yugoslavia.38

During the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the RSO model connected these satellite downlinks to terrestrial communications circuits, allowing the craft to be flown from virtually any location on the global information grid. As previously noted, the act of piloting moved to a place where it was least logistically costly: the continental United States.39 Moreover, it enables data flows to non-colocated intelligence analysts, resulting in a transgeographic social network built around the focal point of a Predator mission. Managing this network is a primary issue for an RSO crew.

Coming to terms with the demands of a flow-based relationship between aircrew and aircraft proved challenging for previously place-based aircrews:

During our first year in the Predator, we found learning the domain a much greater obstacle than learning the aircraft. In manned aircraft, space was important—satellite communications and the Global Positioning System (GPS) served as critical mission enablers. In the Predator, though, space became part of our domain. Orbits and footprints turned into practical rather than academic concerns as we realized that losing a satellite link could cut our control cables. Further, cyberspace folded into our world; servers acted as the eyes with which we scanned for other aircraft. Simultaneously, our ability to interpret engine sounds and vibrations through a throttle quadrant atrophied. Our experience of aviation became more abstract as we adapted to our new domain—neither better nor worse but different as we gained a new common sense. For instance, in RPA common sense, it is commonsensical to “demand” effects (rather than “command” actions) from a number of aircraft at once through a multiplexer when doing so increases intelligence collection without degrading kinetic capabilities.40

Over time, the Predator and Reaper RPA communities reached some synthesis between the old and the new. As a symbol of this synthesis, RPA units began posting large signs over the entryway of their command centers declaring, “You are now entering the CENTCOM AOR [Central Command area of responsibility].” In an explicit formulation of a flow-based conception of a combat theater, the crews inside declared that they were in Afghanistan—in a substantive but nongeographic sense. Their duties, actions, and significant social relationships were more strongly manifest there than in their local physical environs.

In this synthetic identity, what one did in a place constituted his or her presence in that place. For this reason, a number of squadrons began to seek identity in “lineages of action” rather than in similarity of airframe.41

Narratives of persistent sensor-shooter gunships over the Ho Chi Minh Trail and stories of similarly low-performance but high-impact Cessna observation pilots from Vietnam became reservoirs for identity.42 This functional, human-centric lineage contrasts the normal hardware-centric interpretation, which traces the Predator to the Firebee “drone” and other remote predecessors.

This synthesis was hardly settled. In his autobiographical account Predator, Lt Col Matthew Martin recalled that the aforementioned sign “could just as easily have read You Are Now Entering C. S. Lewis’s Narnia for all that my two worlds intersected.”43 This idea of living in a space without places proved disorienting to crews over time, especially when life for both their comrades “down range” and their significant home relationships remained oriented around place.44

We have yet to understand the long-term effects of this conflict between cognitive distance and physical distance, especially when these effects are experienced in isolation.45

This situation was further complicated by the firm role of place in the American public discourse about war—to have someone use deadly force from within a place of peace was deeply incongruous with American expectations of a homeland essentially immune to organized armed violence. Perhaps this perspective explains the hyperbolic response to an op-ed by the Brookings Institution’s Peter W. Singer during the recent drone performance recognition controversy.46 Unfortunately, this yields a strange civil-military scenario in which a group of service members who are among those who kill the most in our wars are not included in the constructs that normally legitimate killing in war. Without straying too far into normative territory, the “video gamer” answer to this paradox—the idea that remote killing is less real—induces principal-agent problems into the act of legally legitimated killing. First, it lessens the gravity of lethal policy choices in the popular imagination, and second, it decouples those who carry out those choices from the constructs by which the larger society reconciles itself to those who kill in its name. Suffice it to say, the conflict between the Predator’s extreme case of flow-based warfare and traditional place-based conceptions of combat is far from being resolved.

Libyan Rebels: Crowdsourcing Intelligence

Our third case explores how flow can effectively repurpose extant networks against a territorial or bureaucratic adversary. Steve and Sonia Stottlemyre explored the Free Libyan Army’s use of online social infrastructure as a means for command, control, communications, and intelligence during the 2011 Libyan civil war.47 During the period of armed conflict, the same networks that had been built through social media during the uprising hosted ad hoc flow-based forms of command and control. These constructs proved resilient in their battle against Mu‘ammar Gadhafi’s traditional structures. Three vignettes illustrate this point.

Crowdsourced Human Intelligence

According to John Pollock of MIT’s Technology Review, one tech-savvy French intelligence officer leveraged social media to build an online human intelligence network with willing Free Libyan Army partners:

After about a hundred hours of work, Martin [a pseudonym] had 250 or so direct contacts in Libya and elsewhere. He created, in effect, a private intelligence network. Initially, he expected only “ambient” or background information, but the intelligence he gathered soon proved useful for both strategy and tactics. Martin tried alerting his hierarchy to its potential for following the flow of action on the ground. It took a while for them to accept this. “They were very afraid in the beginning, because they had no control,” he says, “[so] I ran a kind of laboratory.” He set up a desk and was given no military intelligence. His captain asked specific questions and matched Martin’s performance against more formal intelligence channels. Precise comparison is difficult, but Martin estimates that eventually 80 percent of the intelligence used by his [unit] came from his sources.48

This vignette demonstrates the use of flow that transcends place. The officer was able to build a network rapidly with no physical contact, organized around the simple principle of cooperation between NATO and the Libyan rebels. The network allowed mutual sense-making across geographic boundaries.

Crowdsourced Subject-Matter Expertise

These expertise-seeking flows went both ways. Libyan rebels could ask sundry tactical and engineering questions to networks of supporters and sympathizers around the world. In one particularly memorable episode, according to Pollock,

After weeks of skirmishes in the Nafusa Mountains southwest of Tripoli, Sifaw Twawa and his brigade of freedom fighters are at a standstill. It’s a mid-April night in 2011, and Twawa’s men are frightened. Lightly armed and hidden only by trees, they are a stone’s throw from one of four Grad 122-millimeter multiple-rocket launchers laying down a barrage on Yefren, their besieged hometown. These weapons can fire up to 40 unguided rockets in 20 seconds. Each round carries a high-explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 40 pounds. They urgently need to know how to deal with this, or they will have to pull back. Twawa’s cell phone rings.

Two friends are on the line, via a Skype conference call. Nureddin Ashammakhi is in Finland, where he heads a research team developing biomaterials technology, and Khalid Hatashe, a medical doctor, is in the United Kingdom. The Qaddafi regime trained Hatashe on Grads during his compulsory military service. He explains that Twawa’s katiba—brigade—is well short of the Grad’s minimum range: at this distance, any rockets fired would shoot past them. Hatashe adds that the launcher can be triggered from several hundred feet away using an electric cable, so the enemy may not be in or near the launch vehicle. Twawa’s men successfully attack the Grad—all because two civilians briefed their leader, over Skype, in a battlefield a continent away.49

These approaches, these global collaborations for local effect, became common- place over the course of the conflict. Again, Pollock writes,

As with Wikipedia, [weapons] . . . expertise might come from anyone—like Steen Kirby, a high- school student in the state of Georgia. As well as identifying weaponry, Kirby pulled together a group through Twitter to quickly produce English and Arabic guides to using an AK47, building makeshift Grad artillery shelters, and handling mines and unexploded ordnance, as well as detailed medical handbooks for use in the field. These were shared with freedom fighters in Tripoli, Misrata, and the Nafusa Mountains.

The Misratans showed impressive ingenuity. Engineers hacked new weapons—including a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a children’s toy—and adapted technology on the fly. Laptops, Google Earth on CD-ROMs, and iPhone compasses gave the freedom fighters range. After a rocket was fired, a spotter confirmed the hit, reporting that it had landed, for example, “30 yards from the restaurant.” They then calculated the precise distance on Google Earth and used the compass, along with angle and distance tables, to make adjustments.50

By applying flow-based approaches, the Libyan rebels redefined the boundaries of the battlespace. Rather than solely relying on physically present intelligence forces, a balance that would have overwhelmingly favored their adversary, they leveraged their cultural support through communications technology to pit advanced volunteers who were technically knowledgeable and cyber-savvy groups against their enemies.51

Repurposed Civilian Spaces of Flow

Finally, the Libyan rebels made extensive use of extant civilian communications architecture. Pollock notes that “as military budgets shrink, the world urbanizes, and . . . cheap handheld technology is making citizen networks an inevitable feature of the information battle space.”52 This was most apparent with the rebels’ use of Twitter, which Stottlemyre and Stottlemyre demonstrate through exchanges among rebels, crisis mappers, and various sympathizers:

Twitter acted as a platform for collaboration on and compilation of intelligence products. Many separate Twitter users began compiling data and information on their own pages. They Tweeted data they collected, information they processed, links to information provided in crisis maps, and Retweeted information provided via private and professional (i.e., media) Twitter users, thus creating a central repository of links to tactical information they deemed valuable.53

The increasingly common use of civilian communications by all parties in conflict supports their finding. Interestingly, since civilian telecommunications is intended to create lateral peer-to-peer communication, the collision of civilian communication with military command and control will likely be fractious. Historical ad hoc uses of such communications—most notably the utilization of a commercial telephone to call down gunship fire support during the invasion of Grenada—have been innovative and unconventional.

Altogether, the case of the Libyan civil war demonstrates how a local rebel group transformed its struggle by globalizing the conflict by employing flow-based tactics. In this campaign, we see a profound blurring of the lines between combatants and civilians because of extensive real-time collaboration. Flow-based conflict patterns may make framing and narrative far more important because people can opt in and opt out more easily through web-based collaboratives than they could with recruiting lines. Therefore, the decision to join a conflict may be increasingly about political will and social popularity since technological ability is ubiquitous. We also see how flow can bring virtual expertise and off-board skills into the battlespace without regard for where those skills are housed. The implications of these cyber-guerilla wars for civil-military interaction and noncombatant immunities bear much thought.

Conclusion: Coming to Terms with Flow-Based Warfare

This article set out to explore the thesis that recent changes in communications technology have increased the prevalence of flow-based warfare in modern conflict. We found either new or geatly expanded flow-based warfare in at least three major contemporary wars, thus demonstrating the utility of Castells’s theories as a heuristic for emerging forms of warfare, especially in understanding the adoption of these forms and the cultural clashes that surround them. As a plausibility probe, this effort should be considered theory building rather than theory testing. Follow-on research designs might establish the conditions under which flow-based warfare might be more likely adopted or effective. We also might evaluate the relative balance between flow-based and place-based logic in battlespaces over time.

Moving from academic to policy questions, we see that the rise of flow-based warfare brings with it new questions and new challenges. Such warfare has two imperatives: to protect fluidity and to fix the enemy in place. To the first point, one must protect connectivity and use it both to export risk into sanctuaries and import knowledge and resources from a wide range of sources.

Connectivity and its resulting flexibility keep situational awareness strong and allow the network to synchronize actions. This, in turn, enables the network to attack at a time and space of its choosing, attain its goals, and remove itself from the geographical place before the adversary can respond. The second imperative is to deny the enemy the ability to do the same. Fixing his network in place has the effect of isolating flows, interrupting connectivity, and dismembering the network, node by node. Dynamic strategies such as the classic Boydian observe-orient-decide-act loop work well toward these reciprocal offensive and defensive ends.54

Following Castells, flow-based warfare has two key types of players.55 First are the programmers, who build the narratives that bind and grow networks. These narrative-crafting skills are often associated with transformational leaders but are generally difficult to identify directly through status quo bureaucratic personnel systems. Second are the linkers, who identify mutually beneficial partnerships, storehouses of knowledge, and previously untapped resources for the network.56 The skills that make an excellent linker are often threatening to a centralized bureaucracy since effective linkers maintain wide networks of “off-org-chart” lateral ties.

Finally, flow-based warfare involves two issues. First, as alluded to in the previous paragraph, present industrial-age military personnel systems are poorly suited to managing a flow-capable force. A system that uses the attainment of static, formulaic goals as its primary metric for advancement has little chance of attracting, retaining, and developing these players. If a flow-based force were so easily identified by an algorithm, an enemy would easily pin it down as well.

The second issue is even more difficult. For Americans, the deep constructs that surround the fundamental civil-military problem—how we as a society deal with those who have killed in our name—are based almost entirely around place. The idea of combat as a place of legitimate killing is built explicitly in geographic zones. Someone who kills as part of a flow, as do Predator and Reaper crews, does not fall cleanly into these constructs. This creates a liminal space, which hampers our understanding of the reciprocal civil-military duties and responsibilities in flow-based warfare.

More so, Westphalian understandings of sovereignty and the concomitant accountability for the use of force are built explicitly (at least in their original form) around space. Cuius regio, eius religio assumes that regio (physical realm) is the core framing logic of the system.57 Given the increased global impact of transgeographic violence from flow-based networks, ungoverned and poorly governed places take on a new significance. These places can provide sanctuary for a “space of [violent] flows,” for which Westphalian accountability cannot provide effective recourse. The adoption of low-based warfare, at least in part, comes as a response to these threats. If sovereignty is a space, then one can envision a difficult debate about whether it is a space of places or a space of flows.

This discussion lies beyond our present scope, but it does highlight one final benefit of Castells’s heuristic—it is a critique of the state of the current “drones” debate. Armed RPAs are likely the most controversial expression of flow-based warfare, but the contemporary debate overly concentrates on the hardware and tends to neglect the humans. If a space is a material support to social practices, then it is fundamentally about people.58 Similarly, warfare is a human enterprise, undertaken by humans against other humans for human objectives. It involves technology, much like any other social practice, but it is never entirely constituted by hardware.59 Castells’s idea of flows refocuses us on the classic military principle that “war is an extension of politics with an admixture of other means” and dissuades us from the temptation to see war increasingly as a technical problem.60

Technology matters insofar as it changes relationships between people—in Melvin Kranzberg’s classic formulation, “technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.”61 Here, the communications technologies that enable flow-based operation of the Predator aircraft have no independent agency, but they do deeply shape the agency of all the players in that process. This influence matters in any of a number of ways, not the least of which is how we train and equip future forces and how we hold current forces accountable for their choices. In a closing recommendation, this article proposes that the academic discourse about emerging military technology might shelve the reductionist drones trope for a bit because those arguments tend to fixate on the technical aspects of a largely misunderstood and surprisingly banal technology. The debates that we should have are about the increasingly blurred distinction between combatants and civilians, the meaning of politics and narratives in a world of democratized violence, and the importance of evolving civil-military relations, given the changing meanings of place and flow in the battlespace.

About the author:
*Major Blair
(USAFA; MPP, Harvard Kennedy School; MA, PhD, Georgetown University) is the acting operations officer, assistant director of current operations, and MQ-1B evaluator pilot at the 3rd Special Operations Squadron, Cannon AFB, New Mexico. Most recently, he was a member of the initial class of the US Air Force chief of staff’s Captains’ PhD Scholars. He previously served as the assistant operations officer for war fighting and as an MQ-1B instructor pilot in the 3rd Special Operations Squadron, deploying several times as a liaison officer and an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance battle captain in Afghanistan and on emerging fronts. Major Blair began his flying career as an AC-130 gunship pilot with three deployments to Iraq. He has also served in the Defense Attaché Office–Moscow and the US Naval War College’s War Gaming Division. He writes on organizational structure, remotely piloted aircraft culture, and persistent airpower.

Source:
This article (PDF) was originally published in the Air and Space Power Journal Volume 29, Issue 5, Sept – Oct 2015.

Notes:
1. William H. McRaven, Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Presidio Press, 1996), 1–28.
2. Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, vol. 1, The Rise of the Net- work Society, 2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 441.
3. Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949), 1.
4. Castells, Rise of the Network Society, 442.
5. Ibid., 453.
6. Robert Sugden, “A Theory of Focal Points,” Economic Journal 105, no. 430 (1 May 1995): 533–50,
doi:10.2307/2235016.
7. Castells, Rise of the Network Society, 442.
8. “Keeping America Safe: The New Defense Strategy,” Deloitte FedCenter Interview, 7 March
2012, http://federalnewsradio.com/sponsored-content/2012/03/march-7th-2012/.
9. Pekka Himanen, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age (New York: Random
House, 2001), xiv–1.
10. See, for instance, “Computer Coding Meetups,” accessed 20 July 2015, http://coding.meetup.com/. 11. Idea incubators such as 1776 in Washington, DC, are an outgrowth of this trend. See “1776,” ac-
cessed 20 July 2015, http://1776dc.com/.
12. A similar trend occurred with the introduction of dynamite, which empowered anarchists
around the turn of the twentieth century.
13. To this point, the US Coast Guard adapted more quickly than its larger Bureau of Prohibition
counterpart to the challenge of rum-running networks in the 1920s. A major reason concerns the small size and deep connectivity of the Coast Guard’s officer corps. There were approximately 300 of- ficers total, the vast majority of whom knew each other from time at the Coast Guard Academy and shared time in service. Effectively, the most junior officer could reach the commandant with an inno- vation or a novel idea through two or, at most, three steps. National Archives, Records Group 26, Box 178; and Dr. William Thiesen and others, various interviews by the author, US Coast Guard Historian’s Office, Spring 2013.
14. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 262–306; and Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 1–26.
15. McRaven, Spec Ops, 1–28.
16. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Mili- tancy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001). This idea that certain groups can take on certain structures invokes a simplified version of Horowitz’s adoption capacity theory, especially the idea of organizational capacity. Michael Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).
17. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars, 1–28.
18. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 283–90.
19. Patrick M. Jost and Harjit Singh Sandhu, The Hawala Alternative Remittance System and Its Role in Money Laundering (Washington, DC: US Department of the Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and INTERPOL, 2000).
20. Rick Atkinson, “Left of Boom: The Struggle to Defeat Roadside Bombs,” pt. 1, “The IED Ap- pears,” Washington Post, 30 September 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article /2007/09/28/AR2007092801888.html.
21. This cost-imposition strategy roughly parallels the ubiquitous sea-control versus sea-denial na- val debates. Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, The Naval Memoirs of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes: The Narrow Seas to the Dardanelles, 1910–1915 (New York: Dutton, 1934–35); and Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 2nd ed. (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1983).
22. Atkinson, “Left of Boom,” pt. 3, “You Can’t Armor Your Way Out of This Problem,” 2 October 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/01/AR2007100101760.html.
23. Ibid., pt. 4, “If You Don’t Go After the Network, You’re Never Going to Stop These Guys. Never,” 3 October 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR20071002 02366_pf.html.
24. Ibid.
25. Stanley A. McChrystal, “It Takes a Network: The New Front Line of Modern Warfare,” Foreign Policy, 21 February 2011, http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/02/21/it-takes-a-network/.
26. For a text on the principles of social network analysis and an introduction to core concepts of information flow and institutional architecture, see Phillip Bonacich and Philip Lu, Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).
27. Charles Faint and Michael Harris, “F3EAD [find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, disseminate]: Ops /Intel Fusion ‘Feeds’ the SOF Targeting Process,” Small Wars Journal, 31 January 2012, http://smallwar sjournal.com/jrnl/art/f3ead-opsintel-fusion-%E2%80%9Cfeeds%E2%80%9D-the-sof-targeting-process.
28. Ibid.
29. Rebecca Grant, “Toward an Unblinking Eye,” Air Force Magazine 96, no. 10 (October 2012): 44–48. 30. Sundry responses to Col Hernando Ortega, “Psychological Health of RPA Aircrews” (presenta-
tion, Brookings Institution, 2013).
31. Maj David J. Blair and Capt Nick Helms, “The Swarm, the Cloud and the Importance of Getting
There First: What’s at Stake in the Remote Aviation Culture Debate,” Air and Space Power Journal 27, no. 4 (July–August 2013): 29–33, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/article.asp?id=161.
32. Notably, Maj Michael Kreutzer’s forthcoming Woodrow Wilson School dissertation on the adoption of remote aviation technology and Caitlin Lee’s forthcoming King’s College dissertation.
33. For a discussion of the concept of incommensurability, see Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 109–11.
34. Dave Blair, “Remote Aviation Technology—What Are We Actually Talking About?,” Center for Inter- national Maritime Security, 5 March 2014, http://cimsec.org/remote-aviation-technology-actually-talking/. 35. “The Dronefather,” Economist, 1 December 2012, http://www.economist.com/news/technology
-quarterly/21567205-abe-karem-created-robotic-plane-transformed-way-modern-warfare.
36. Blair and Helms, “Swarm, the Cloud,” 29–33.
37. Thomas P. Ehrhard, Air Force UAV’s: The Secret History (Arlington, VA: Mitchell Institute Press,
July 2010), http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA525674. 38. Timothy M. Cullen, “The MQ-9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft: Humans and Machines in Ac- tion” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011), 129, 216, http://18.7.29.232/handle/1721.1
/80249.
39. A prima facie case exists for the superiority of RSO in comparing hours of overwatch to resource
cost and constraints as compared to traditional deployments. A full-architecture cost comparison be- tween deployed operations and RSO depends greatly on modeling assumptions.
40. Blair and Helms, “Swarm, the Cloud,” 21.
41. Anonymous subject, interview by the author, 2013.
42. Anonymous subject, interview by the author, 2012.
43. Matt J. Martin and Charles W. Sasser, Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghan-
istan: A Pilot’s Story (Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2010), 45.
44. Hernando Ortega, “Telewarfare,” Air and Space Power Journal, forthcoming.
45. Ibid.
46. Peter W. Singer, “A Military Medal for Drone Strikes? Makes Sense,” Washington Post, 15 February
2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-military-medal-for-drone-strikes-makes-sense/2013/02 /15/e90c0638-76e4-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html.
47. Steve Stottlemyre and Sonia Stottlemyre, “Crisis Mapping Intelligence Information during the Libyan Civil War: An Exploratory Case Study,” Policy & Internet 4, issue 3–4 (December 2012): 24–39. 48. John Pollock, “People Power 2.0,” MIT Technology Review, 20 April 2012, http://www.technology
review.com/featuredstory/427640/people-power-20/. 49. Ibid.
50. Ibid. See also John Reed, “Libyan Rebels’ DIY Weapons Factory, Robots and All,” Defense Tech, 14 June 2011, http://defensetech.org/2011/06/14/libyan-rebels-diy-weapons-factory-robots-and-all. 51. The Standby Task Force was among these volunteers. Although not directly aligned with the
Libyan rebels, they were certainly in opposition to Gadhafi’s actions. See “The [Unexpected] Impact of the Libya Crisis Map and the Standby Volunteer Task Force,” Standby Task Force, accessed 20 July 2015, http://blog.standbytaskforce.com/2011/12/19/sbtf-libya-impact/.
52. Pollock, “People Power 2.0.”
53. Stottlemyre and Stottlemyre, “Crisis Mapping Intelligence Information,” 10.
54. See John R. Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3 September 1976, http://www.goalsys.com/books
/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf.
55. Manuel Castells, Communication Power (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009), 47.
56. The linkers are like Gladwell’s connectors and mavens. See Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping
Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Boston: Back Bay Books, 2002), 19.
57. The phrase “whose realm, his religion” is a foundation of the Westphalian system, which fo-
cused sovereignty at the level of the state rather than a superordinate structure such as Christendom or a flow-based structure such as the Hanse.
58. Castells, Rise of the Network Society, 147.
59. David A. Mindell, Iron Coffin: War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor (Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 133–49.
60. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. J. J. Graham, abridged ed. (New York: Penguin Classics, 1982), 119.
61. Melvin Kranzberg, “Technology and History: ‘Kranzberg’s Laws,’ ” Technology and Culture 27, no. 3 (July 1986): 544–60.

Norway Energy Profile: Europe’s Largest Petroleum Liquids Producer – Analysis

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Norway is the largest holder of crude oil and natural gas reserves in Europe, and it provides much of the petroleum liquids and natural gas consumed on the continent. Norway was the third-largest exporter of natural gas in the world after Russia and Qatar in 2013.

In 2014, the petroleum and natural gas sector accounted for 45% of Norway’s export revenues and more than 20% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).1 Norway’s petroleum and other liquids production peaked in 2001 at 3.4 million barrels per day (b/d) and declined to 1.8 million b/d in 2013 before growing to 1.9 million b/d in 2014. Natural gas production, on the other hand, increased nearly every year since 1993, except for a small decline in year-over-year production in 2011 and 2013. Natural gas production in 2014 was roughly the same as in 2013.

Hydropower is the principal source of Norway’s electricity supply, accounting for 96% of total net generation. In June 2012, government officials from Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom confirmed their plans for subsea electric power connections between their countries to strengthen the northern European electricity grid and to increase supply security. The Norwegian state-owned energy system operator, Statnett, will work with the United Kingdom’s National Grid to construct the Norway-United Kingdom cable connection, expected to be completed in 2021. Statnett will also cooperate with Germany to build the Norway-Germany cable, expected to be completed in 2019.2

The historic agreement between Norway and Russia, which defined their maritime boundaries in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Sea and resolved their 40-year old dispute, was fully ratified by both governments in early 2011, and went into effect in July 2011. As a result of the agreement, Norway gained about 34,000 square miles of continental shelf. The agreement requires the two countries to jointly develop oil and natural gas deposits that cross over their boundary.

Petroleum and other liquids

Norway is the largest oil producer and exporter in Western Europe.

According to the Oil & Gas Journal, Norway had 5.497 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves as of January 1, 2015, the largest oil reserves in Western Europe.3 All of Norway’s oil reserves are located offshore on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), which is divided into three sections: the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the Barents Sea. The bulk of Norway’s oil production occurs in the North Sea. New exploration and production activity is taking place further north in the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea, where small volumes of liquids and natural gas are currently being produced.

Sector organization

Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) is responsible for overseeing the country’s energy resources. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) reports to the MPE as an advisor, administers exploration and production activities on the NCS, and collects and analyzes data. State-owned Petoro manages the commercial aspects of the government’s financial interests in petroleum operations and associated activities. Petoro acts as the licensee for production licenses and companies.

The largest energy company operating in Norway is Statoil ASA, controlling 70% of Norway’s oil and natural gas production. Statoil ASA was created by the merger of Statoil and Norsk Hydro in October 2007. Norway’s government is the largest shareholder of Statoil, owning 67% of the international energy company.4 In addition to its operations in Norway, Statoil is a major international company, and it has interests in more than 30 countries.

Several international oil companies have a sizable presence in Norway. The Norwegian government’s subsidy of oil and natural gas exploration, introduced in 2005, refunds 78% of the exploration costs to the companies. In addition, taxes from onshore oil activities and from liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipped overseas were reduced, which has attracted additional international investment.

Exploration and production

In 2014, Norway produced 1.9 million barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum and other liquids (Figure 1), 3% higher than in 2013.5 Norway’s petroleum production has been gradually declining since 2001 as oil fields have matured, although production in 2014 was 3% higher than in 2013. The NPD expects that over the next several years, petroleum production will continue to decline slowly.6 The three largest producing crude and condensate fields in 2014 were Troll (126,000 b/d), Ekofisk (117,000 b/d), and Snorre (97,000 b/d).7 The Troll and Ekofisk fields are located in the Norwegian portion of the North Sea, where most of Norway’s current production occurs. Snorre field is located a little further north, in the southern Norwegian Sea.

Overall investment in the oil and natural gas industry is declining in response to lower oil prices. Additionally, investment is being diverted toward shutdown and removal of equipment at old fields and away from finding and developing new fields. Total investments in oil and natural gas extraction and pipeline transport in 2014 were 214 billion Norwegian kroner ($33 billion), 2 billion kroner higher than in 2013. However, in U.S. dollar terms, investments in 2014 were about 6% lower than in 2013. As of August 2015, total investments in 2015 compared with 2014 are estimated to be 10% lower in Norwegian krone terms. Spending on exploration and field development in the first half of 2015 was 18% lower than in the first half of 2014, while spending on shutdown and removal was more than 70% higher.8

North SeaNorway has been producing oil from the North Sea since 1971, and the North Sea still accounts for the bulk of Norway’s production. Although most of the Norway’s North Sea fields are in decline, there have still been several significant discoveries in the North Sea in recent years. The Norwegian Parliament approved joint development and operating plans in June 2012 for Lundin’s Edvard Grieg oil and natural gas field and Det Norske’s Ivar Aasen Field (formerly called Draupne). Estimated to hold 186 million barrels of oil equivalent, Edvard Grieg is scheduled to come onstream in the fourth quarter of 2015 and produce 90,000 b/d of oil at its peak production. The nearby Ivar Aasen field, estimated to have 188 million barrels of recoverable oil, will be tied into Edvard Grieg and begin producing oil in the fourth quarter of 2016.9

The Johan Sverdrup oil field was the largest oil discovery in the world in 2011, with reserves estimated at between 1.8 and 2.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. This field is located 96 miles west of Stavanger in the North Sea. Johan Sverdrup was initially believed to consist of two fields four miles apart: Avaldnes, discovered by Lundin in 2010, and Aldous, discovered by Statoil in 2011. Further exploration activities revealed they constitute one giant field, renamed Johan Sverdrup in 2012, when a cooperation agreement was signed between the field partners naming Statoil the operator. Partners also include Petoro, Det Norske, and Maersk. The field is expected to be a new stand-alone processing and transport hub, with production scheduled to start in late 2019, eventually reaching a peak of 550,000 b/d – 650,000 b/d, accounting for 25% of the forecasted production from the Norwegian continental shelf.10

Barents SeaGoliat is the first oil field to be developed in the Barents Sea. Discovered in 2000, Goliat’s proved oil reserves are estimated at 174 million barrels. Eni owns 65% of the field and is the operator, while Statoil owns the remaining 35%. The field is being developed with a cylindrical floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) platform. The FPSO was built in South Korea, shipped to Hammerfest, Norway, and in May 2015, towed to its destination at the Goliat field, offshore Norway. Production at Goliat is scheduled to begin before the end of 2015. The field is expected to produce 93,000 b/d of oil in its second year of production and decline rapidly thereafter. Goliat has estimated natural gas reserves of 282 billion cubic feet (Bcf). Produced natural gas will be reinjected into the formation to improve oil recovery.11

Johan Castberg is another recent discovery in Norway’s Barents Sea. The Johan Castberg field encompasses three finds made in 2011, 2012, and 2014. Johan Castberg holds an estimated 500 million barrels of oil. Statoil is the operator for the field and was due to decide on a development plan for the field in 2015.12 However, mostly because of its remote Arctic location, development of this field will be relatively expensive. In March 2015, Statoil announced that it was pushing back its concept selection decision to the second half of 2016, with an investment decision expected in 2017.13petroleum_production_consumption

Oil exports

According to Statistics Norway, Norway exported an estimated 1.28 million b/d of crude oil and condensate in 2014, of which 98% went to European countries (Figure 2).14 The top five importers of Norwegian crude and condensate in 2014 were the United Kingdom (41%), the Netherlands (27%), Germany (12%), Sweden (5%), and Denmark (3%).crude_oil_exports

Pipelines

Norway has an extensive network of subsea oil pipelines, including eight major domestic oil pipelines with a capacity to transport about 170,000 b/d of crude and condensate to processing terminals on Norway’s coast.15 There are many smaller pipelines that connect North Sea fields to one of the major pipelines. Remaining offshore oil production is brought ashore via shuttle tanker.

International oil pipelineConocoPhillips operates the 830,000 b/d capacity subsea Norpipe, which connects Norwegian oil fields in the Ekofisk system (as well as associated fields in both Norwegian and United Kingdom waters) to the oil terminal and refinery complex at Teesside, England.16

Brent benchmark crude

A benchmark crude is a specific crude oil that is widely and actively bought and sold, and to which other types of crude oil can be compared to determine a price by an agreed-upon differential. Brent, the most widely used global crude oil benchmark, is composed of four crude blends: Brent, Forties, Ekofisk, and Oseberg (BFOE). The Brent and Forties blends are produced offshore in the waters of the United Kingdom, and the Ekofisk and Oseberg blends are mainly produced offshore in the waters of Norway.

North Sea Brent crude oil loadings average slightly less than 1 million b/d, with the two Norwegian crude streams accounting for about 40% of the total.

The Brent benchmark was originally based on the output of the Brent field, a single field in the United Kingdom’s sector of the North Sea. However, as production from the Brent field declined, other fields and blends were added. Today the Brent benchmark encompasses the four BFOE crude blends, most of which are also now in decline. Production and loading of Ekofisk and Oseberg blend crudes have been generally declining in recent years, although production at Ekofisk did grow in 2014. Even though the benchmark itself accounts for only a small portion of total world crude production, it remains a key indicator for world crude oil pricing.

Refining

As of the end of 2014, Norway had 346,000 b/d of crude oil refining capacity The country has two major refining facilities: the 120,000 b/d refinery at Slagentangen, operated by ExxonMobil;17 and the 226,000 b/d Mongstad plant, operated by Statoil.18 Most of the output from both refineries is exported, and Norway is an important supplier of gasoline and diesel fuel to the European Union (EU). Statoil dominates the retail products market in Norway, and the company has also expanded into other European markets. The Port of Mongstad is the largest port in Norway measured by tonnage.

Natural gas

Norway is the world’s third-largest exporter of natural gas after Russia and Qatar, and the seventh-largest producer of dry natural gas as of 2013

According to the Oil & Gas Journal, Norway had 72 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proved natural gas reserves as of January 1, 2015.19 Despite maturing major natural gas fields in the North Sea, Norway has been able to sustain increases nearly every year in total natural gas production since 1993 by continuing to develop new fields.

Sector organization

As is the case with the oil sector, Statoil dominates natural gas production in Norway. A number of international oil and natural gas companies, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Total, Shell, and Eni, have a sizable presence in the natural gas and oil sectors in partnership with Statoil.

State-owned Gassco is the operator for Norway’s natural gas pipeline network, including the network of international pipelines and receiving terminals that exports Norway’s natural gas production to the United Kingdom and continental Europe. The pipelines are owned by Gassled, a joint venture, in which the Norwegian government has a 46% direct interest, and Statoil owns 5%. The remaining 49% is owned by two Canadian pension funds, other institutional investors, and private companies.

The Canadian pension funds invested in Gassled in 2011 expecting moderate but predictable returns, which are typical for established pipeline companies. However, in 2013, the Norwegian government announced that it would cut the tariff rate for natural gas pipelines by 90% as of January 1, 2016. The Canadian pension funds and some other investors filed a lawsuit claiming that the tariff reduction was illegal and financially damaging. In September 2015, the courts ruled in favor of the Norwegian government and the tariff change. Norway is generally a low-risk country for investors, where these types of disputes are rare.

Production and development

Norway produced slightly more than 3.8 Tcf of dry natural gas in 2014, roughly the same as in 2013 (Figure 3). Norway’s largest producing natural gas field is Troll, which produced 1.0 Tcf in 2014, representing about 27% of Norway’s total natural gas production that year. The three other largest-producing fields in 2014 were Ormen Lange (0.7 Tcf), Åsgard (0.3 Tcf), and Kvitebjørn (0.2 Tcf). These four fields accounted for slightly more than 60% of Norway’s total dry natural gas production in 2014.20

Two new natural gas and liquids fields are scheduled to start producing by the end of 2016 and by the end of 2017. The first to come online, the Martin Linge field in the North Sea, holds an estimated 0.7 Tcf of recoverable natural gas and about 66 million barrels of liquids. The Aasta Hansteen field is located in the Norwegian Sea, north of the Arctic Circle. This field is more than 180 miles from land. The development plan for the field includes building a nearly 300 mile undersea pipeline to take natural gas from the field to the Nyhamna natural gas processing plant. Aasta Hansteen holds an estimated 1.6 Tcf of recoverable natural gas as well as a small volume of liquids. Statoil, the main shareholder and operator of Aasta Hansteen, has also made several smaller discoveries in nearby fields that could be developed in the future.natural_gas_production_consumption

Exports

Norway exported about 95% of its natural gas production in 2014. Most of Norway’s natural gas exports were transported to European Union (EU) countries via Norway’s extensive export pipeline infrastructure, 0.1 Tcf was exported to EU countries as LNG, and the remaining 0.1 Tcf went to other parts of the world as LNG.21

International gas pipelinesNorway operates several important natural gas pipelines (Table 1)22 that connect directly with other European countries, including France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Germany. These pipelines are operated by Gassco. Some pipelines run directly from Norway’s major North Sea fields to processing facilities in the receiving country. Other pipelines connect Norway’s onshore processing facilities to European markets (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Domestic and international Norwegian pipelines
Source: The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, FACTS 2013
Source: The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, FACTS 2013
Table 1. Norway’s natural gas export pipelines
Facility Status Capacity (trillion cubic feet per year) Total length (miles) Origin Destination Details
Norpipe operating 0.6 280 Ekofisk area Emden, Germany started operation in 1977
Zeepipe I operating 0.5 500 Sleipner platform Zeebrugge, Belgium started operation in 1993
Europipe I operating 0.6 390 Draupner platform Dornum, Germany started operation in 1995
Zeepipe IIA and IIB operating 1.8 190 Kollsnes gas plant Sleipner platform (IIA) and Draupner platform (IIB) started operations in 1996 (IIA) and 1997 (IIB)
Franpipe operating 0.7 520 Draupner platform Dunkirk, France started operation in 1998
Europipe II operating 0.8 410 Kårstø gas plant Dornum, Germany started operation in 1999
Vesterled operating 0.5 220 Heimdal field St. Fergus, Scotland started operation in 2001
Langeled operating 0.9 720 Nyhamna gas plant Easington, England started operation in 2007. Connects to the Sleipner platform.
Tampen and Gjøa operating 0.6 14 Tampen and 80 Gjøa Statfjord and Gjøa fields connects to the FLAGS pipeline to St. Fergus, Scotland started operations in 2007 (Tampen) and 2010 (Gjøa)
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration based on Statoil and Gassco.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG)

Shipments of Norwegian liquefied natural gas (LNG) totaled approximately 184 Bcf in 2014, up from 122 Bcf in 2013 and 166 Bcf in 2012. European countries received about 60% of Norway’s LNG exports in 2014, most of which were exported to Spain (Figure 5).23

Norway’s first large-scale LNG liquefaction facility opened in 2007. Statoil operates the LNG export terminal and liquefaction facility at Melkoya, Norway, near Hammerfest. The facility draws gas from the Snohvit natural gas field, Norway’s first natural gas development in the Barents Sea. The Melkoya facility, the first large-scale LNG export terminal in Europe, has a design capacity of 4.2 million metric tons per year (mt/y) of LNG.

Norway has several small-scale LNG facilities, including three small-scale liquefaction plants with a combined capacity to produce 0.44 mt/y of LNG. Norway has been at the forefront of a growing small-scale LNG industry in the Nordic countries. LNG is distributed by small tanker ships and by tanker trucks to ports and inland facilities in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Finland’s first small-scale LNG receiving terminal is under construction and scheduled to come online in 2016. LNG is mainly used by industrial consumers, and it is increasingly being used as marine fuel.by_destination

Hydrocarbon gas liquids

Hydrocarbon gas liquids refers to both natural gas liquids (such as ethane, propane, and butanes) and olefins produced by natural gas processing plants, fractionators, crude oil refineries, and condensate splitters. Norway’s growing natural gas production has resulted in increasing yields of natural gas plant liquids (NGPL), making Norway Europe’s leading producer of NGPL. As natural gas production has grown in Norway, the quantities of recovered NGPL has increased significantly, from 124,000 b/d of oil equivalent in 2000 to 327,000 b/d of oil equivalent in 2014.24 Most NGPL are produced at the Kårstø processing plant, north of Stavanger, Norway, which can process about 3.1 Bcf per day of wet natural gas and unprocessed condensate that it receives from a number of fields on the Norwegian continental shelf, including Åsgard, Sleipner, and Mikkel.25

The significant NGPL output of the natural gas processing and fractionation capacity in Norway, particularly at Kårstø, has resulted in the port of Kårstø becoming the third-largest LPG export facility in the world. Propane and butane originating at the port move by tanker to destinations around the world.26 However, while Norway’s exports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, a mixture of propane and butane) continue to rise, output of ethane has been gradually declining.

Historically, ethane produced at Kårstø was shipped by barge to petrochemical crackers at Rafnes, Norway and Stenungsund, Sweden. The diminishing ethane output, however, is no longer sufficient for Ineos at Rafnes and Borealis at Stenungsund to operate their plants at full capacity. Seeking new supplies of ethane, in 2012 Ineos entered into a long-term supply agreement with Range Resources to import ethane from the U.S. Northeast. Ethane recovered alongside natural gas production in western Pennsylvania will be piped to the Marcus Hook terminal outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From there dedicated ethane carriers will transport the ethane to the Rafnes cracker.27 Once fully implemented in the fourth quarter of 2015, the arrangement will result in the first large-scale intercontinental movement of ethane in history. The arrangement will also result in Norway, a traditional energy exporter and historically a significant source of U.S. LPG imports, becoming a net importer of ethane from the United States.

Electricity

Hydropower accounts for 96% of the electricity produced in Norway.

Electricity generation in Norway in 2013 was 134 billion kilowatthours (BkWh), of which 129 BkWh came from hydropower. According to Statistics Norway, total net consumption of electricity in 2013 was 120 BkWh, less than 1% higher than in 2012.28

About 96% of all electricity generation in Norway comes from hydropower. The remaining electricity is generated from fossil fuels and other renewables including wind and biomass. The largest renewable energy power generator in Europe is Statkraft, which is owned by the Norwegian state and is a major supplier of hydropower. Norway’s electric grid is owned and operated by Statnett. Statnett is responsible for ensuring the reliability and efficiency of the electric grid and for balancing electricity supply and demand. The company is owned by the Norwegian state, and its revenues from operating the grid are regulated by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate under the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.

In the late 1990s, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark integrated their electricity markets into a single market for the Nordic region. In 2008, a 0.7 gigawatt capacity subsea power cable allowing trade between Norway and the Netherlands began operating. In addition, subsea power cables to connect Norway to the United Kingdom and to Germany are currently under construction. They are expected to be completed by 2019 and 2021, respectively, both with transmission capacities of 1.4 gigawatts.29 Norway also has a small interconnection with Russia in the far north. In 2013, Norway imported 10 BkWh of electricity and exported 15 BkWh. More than half of the imports and exports went to or came from Sweden. Trade with the Netherlands and Denmark accounted for most of the remaining imported and exported electricity, with only small amounts traded with Finland and Russia.

Notes:

  • Data presented in the text are the most recent available as of September 30, 2015.
  • Data are EIA estimates unless otherwise noted.

Endnotes:

1Statistics Norway, This is Norway 2015: What the figures say, (July 2015) p. 38.
2Statnett, Cable to the UK and NORD.LINK, accessed May 27, 2015
3Oil & Gas Journal, “Worldwide Look at Reserves and Production,” (December 1, 2014) p. 32.
4Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Facts 2014, (May 5, 2014), p. 29.
5Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Fact Pages, Monthly Production – by field, accessed August 18, 2015.
6Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, The shelf in 2014 – Petroleum production, (January 15, 2015).
7Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Fact Pages, Monthly Production – by field, accessed August 18, 2015.
8Statistics Norway, Investments in oil and gas, manufacturing, mining and electricity supply, Q3 2015, accessed August 25, 2015.
9Lundin Petroleum, Operations–Norway, accessed August 31, 2015.
10Statoil, Johan Sverdrup, accessed August 31, 2015 and Lundin Petroleum, Operations–Johan Sverdrup, accessed August 31, 2015.
11Eni Norge, Goliat Facts, accessed August 19, 2015.
12Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Fact Pages, Johan Castberg, accessed August 31, 2015.
13Statoil, “New timeline for Johan Castberg and Snorre 2040,” (March 6, 2015).
14Statistics Norway, External trade in goods, accessed August 24, 2015.
15Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Facts 2014, (May 5, 2014), p. 75.
16ConocoPhillips, Norway, The Pipelines, accessed August 27, 2015.
17ExxonMobil, Norway, Refining and supply, accessed August 26, 2015.
18Statoil, Annual Report 2014, p. 43.
19Oil & Gas Journal, “Worldwide Look at Reserves and Production,” (December 1, 2014) p. 32.
20Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Fact Pages, Monthly Production – by field, accessed August 18, 2015.
21Statistics Norway, External trade in goods, accessed August 24, 2015.
22Statoil, Norway’s Gas Transport System, accessed August 13, 2015 and Gassco, Pipelines and Platforms, accessed August 13, 2015.
23Statistics Norway, External trade in goods, accessed August 24, 2015.
24Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Production page, Yearly Production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, 1971-2014, accessed September 18, 2015.
25Statoil, Kårstø Processing Plant, accessed September 18, 2015.
26Ibid
27Ineos, “INEOS Europe AG announces a new agreement to source Ethane from the USA for import into Europe via the Sunoco Logistics, L.P. operated Mariner East project,” (September 26, 2012).
28Statistics Norway, Electricity, annual figures, 2013, Table 3: Generation, imports, exports and consumption of electricity (March 25, 2015).
29Statnett, Brief History, Cable to the UK, and NORD.LINK, accessed May 27, 2015.

Peru: State Of Emergency In Apurimac After Protests And Victims

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More soldiers and freedom for police in carrying out searches and arrests: this was the response of the government of President Ollanta Humala in declaring a state of emergency after the farmers protests against a copper mine run by a Chinese firm in the central-southern Apurimac region.

The emergency measures will remain in force for a month and will be able to be extended, as occurred this year in Arequipa, another area hit by social unrest.

The new decree was adopted after the police on Monday opened fire killing four farmers who had entered the Las Bamba mine property. The local farmers are protesting against the risk of mining activities polluting cropland and water sources.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Great Temptation – OpEd

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The negotiations on the Karabakh conflict settlement have been held against the background of tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani front. Remaining true to its tradition, Armenia has tried to destabilize the situation on the frontline before each round of the negotiations to divert the sides’ attention from the subject of the talks and make them feel satisfied with a restoration of the truce.

For years on end, the defense ministries of both countries have practically every day reported up to a hundred cases of ceasefire violations by the enemy on different sections of the front. However, the history of the conflict has not seen, perhaps since the time when the truce was signed in May 1994, the use of heavy artillery, long-range guns to pound enemy positions located many a dozen kilometers from the frontline.

A few days ago, the Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak, citing diplomatic sources, optimistically reported that a meeting was possible on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York not only between the two countries’ foreign ministers, but also their presidents. However, when gunfire thundered over Karabakh and both sides reported that not only military, but also civilians, were killed in frontline districts, it seemed that the ministers’ meeting was put into question.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs came up with a statement expressing concern about civilian casualties on both sides and urged Baku and Yerevan to display restraint. The parties to the conflict would not keep silent either. The foreign ministers exchanged accusations of deliberate ceasefire violation by the opposite side in order to derail the talks. As might be expected, the defense ministries of the two countries were less diplomatic and declared their intention to destroy without warning the enemy’s military hardware and equipment at the front and even in the rear.

At the same time, the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan emphasized that Armenians living in frontline villages have never been a target for Azerbaijani soldiers, unlike the Armenian side “shelling our villages and killing civilians, thus trying to recoup their losses on the battlefield”. “The interesting thing is that, for some reason, international structures which react instantly to losses on the Armenian side are indifferent to the shelling of populated localities and killing of civilians in Azerbaijan, turning a blind eye to crimes by Armenians,” the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan said after a civilian was killed by gunfire in a frontline village.

But the most memorable was the Armenian president who promised inevitable retribution by means of a punitive operation against ceasefire violators. In general, commenting on the situation on the frontline, Serzh Sargsyan was apparently confused and to such an extent as to say in the end that “Nagornyy Karabakh is an integral part of Armenia”.

Eventually, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group did manage not only to meet each of the ministers separately but also to bring them to the table. It is not difficult to guess what kind of sentiments prevailed at the negotiations.

Nonetheless, when the talks were over, the mediators described the meeting as productive. “The ministers agreed to prepare a meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan before the end of the current year. The co-chairs urged the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to accept a mechanism suggested by the mediators to investigate border incidents. Without it, the sides will continue to accuse each other of border incidents and casualties,” the mediators’ final statement reads.

It is evident that the Armenian side, brought by the two decades of inefficient negotiations to believe in the permanence of status quo in the conflict, found itself obviously confused. Azerbaijan has always stated that it has the right to regain sovereignty over the occupied lands by any means. Over the years of the negotiations, Yerevan has probably developed immunity to such statements. However, the return artillery fire at the separatists’ rear positions came as an unpleasant surprise to the Armenian authorities.

Serzh Sargsyan’s spontaneous statement that Karabakh is part of Armenia’s territory, which is obviously targeted at the much alarmed Armenian population, is just a proof to this. What else can these words indicate if not the Armenian authorities’ weakness and impotence? Yerevan believes its trump card is the possibility of recognizing the independence of Nagornyy Karabakh, allegedly keeping it for situation where the potential of peace talks is exhausted and Azerbaijan starts war. Now, by saying that Karabakh is Armenian territory, Sargsyan implies that such recognition is near at hand. But what can it change and whom can it stop?

By his statement, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan has confirmed the fact that this part of Azerbaijani territories is occupied by that country, said Press Secretary of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Haciyev. “The Armenian authorities’ statement that ‘Karabakh is an integral part of Armenia’ is iron-cast evidence of occupation of Azerbaijan’s territory by that country, Yerevan’s political and legal responsibility in the conflict and its true face,” the diplomat’s statement says.

Being aware of their powerlessness before the enemy, the Armenians are trying as usual to pacify the “aggressor” with someone else’s hands, hiding habitually behind the big brother’s back. At a meeting of ministers from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in New York, the Armenian Foreign Minister complained to his counterparts about “warlike Azerbaijan”. However, unfortunately for Nalbandian, the ministers of Armenia’s allied states never sent their troops to “pacify the aggressor” and, by all appearances, they chose to get away with words of sympathy. By the way, those countries, like the rest of the world, officially recognize Karabakh as inseparable part of Azerbaijan.

The Armenian authorities’ frantic attempts to draw the CSTO or at least only Russia into the conflict at any incident on the frontline, have long since become a subject of sarcasm in the analytical community of Armenia. It is noteworthy that a few days before the foreign ministers’ meeting, that country’s Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan proudly announced that the Armenian armed forces could cope with the situation in the conflict zone on their own and attempts to involve the CSTO in the confrontation after each ceasefire violation would mean admitting the Armenian army’s weakness before the enemy.

The Sargsyan regime is currently in an unenviable situation. A diplomatic source close to the negotiations has told R+ that practically all members of the international community involved in the peace process including Russia are speaking today about the need to start liberating the occupied Azerbaijani districts.

By the way, just there in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed Nagornyy Karabakh settlement with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and with the personal representative of the OSCE active chair for Nagornyy Karabakh. The sides discussed “urgent issues of Nagornyy Karabakh settlement and the current situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the line of contact”. “Each of the co-chairing countries is committed to this process, whether we are talking about the French or the American initiative in this direction, or the efforts of Russia, taking into account our relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Lavrov said at the meeting referring to his country’s special role in settling the problem.

Meanwhile Yerevan, which has not yet come to senses after big supplies of Russian arms to Azerbaijan and Baku-Moscow rapprochement in general, continues to receive unpleasant messages that this role about which Lavrov is speaking in no way coincides with the aspirations of the Armenians. Specialists of the Stratfor analytical centre which is also called a “shadow CIA” are rarely wrong in their forecasts. Thus they drew the conclusion in their recent analysis that Azerbaijan’s military activity in the Karabakh conflict zone to force Armenia to compromise is one of likely scenarios of evens agreed with Moscow for solving the problem.

“Moscow has recently displayed more flexibility toward Azerbaijani military actions on the line of contact, but Russia would be careful not to be seen as completely abandoning Armenia. Russia’s main objective would be to balance between the two sides and play the role of primary mediator,” Stratfor experts think. In the opinion of the authors of the material, the surge of tension in the conflict zone is acceptable for Moscow if it is sufficient to force Armenia to negotiate and if Russia keeps its influence in both countries. Among other possible scenarios, Stratfor analysts mention the complete withdrawal of Armenian troops from seven Azerbaijani districts neighbouring on Nagornyy Karabakh if Russian peacekeepers or international peacekeepers under Russian control are stationed in the region.

So, none of the likely scenarios is in favor of Armenia.

The loss of unconditional support from Russia, its main strategic ally, can compel confused Armenia to take any rash step. This is most probably the reason why Armenian military found no alternative to resorting to a tactic chosen by terrorists in the Middle East: to deliver strikes on the enemy from positions located in residential areas. They are committing armed provocations from behind the backs of civilians. After guaranteed return fire from the enemy, they will present likely victims among civilians to the entire world as evidence of the enemy’s brutality and criminal unscrupulousness. War is not a place where pilaff is dished out, Sargsyan said recently. So it is. But it is only terrorists that can hide behind civilians.

The conclusions from the recent events are obvious. Azerbaijan has always been against moving the Karabakh problem to the back burner as a “less urgent” one while crises are growing in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere. Eventually the threat of war being resumed in Karabakh has not diminished at all while the UN Security Council resolutions adopted 20 years ago remain valid. The escalation of tensions in the Karabakh conflict zone coincided with the period of a new session of the UN General Assembly where the most burning problems of global security are discussed and this is the best moment to persuade the world’s leading powers that the Armenian-Azerbaijani standoff is not “frozen”.

Baku is making it clear that it has no intention to tolerate forever procrastinations in fulfilling the US Security Council resolutions, that it has the right to settle independently the issue of liberation of Azerbaijani lands from occupation and the problem of a foreign state’s troops staying in its territory.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has commented in the same vein on the call of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to consider the issue of creating mechanisms to investigate incidents on the Karabakh frontline: “The creation of such a mechanism could be considered unless it serves to keep the current status quo which is not accepted by the presidents of the co-chairing countries and does not justify occupation”.

However hard might the situation be for the Sargsyan regime, it would be naive to expect it to heed the mediators’ advice and start a speedy withdrawal of troops from Azerbaijani territory because trying to hold the occupied lands is the only way for him to stay in power. But if he fails to become aware of this necessity, Armenian citizens must do this instead of him. They already can hardly bear the Sargsyan regime’s failures in domestic policy. But when the authorities hide from bullets behind the backs of civilians, it can put even the most patient people out of temper.

As it seems, right were those who predicted a new war over Karabakh after the First European Games held in Baku in June this year. Well-armed Azerbaijan may feel that it is the best moment for blitzkrieg, while the West and Russia are busy with crises in Middle East and Ukraine. The temptation is great.

Meanwhile the consequences are unpredictable.


Fate Of Biggest Little Country In Africa May Be Decided In English Courtroom – OpEd

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On July 6, 1189, after a period of armed revolt against his father Henry II, Richard the Lionheart ascended to the English throne.  Eighty-six years later, the first Statute of Westminster consigned the period prior to Richard I’s reign as “time immemorial,” or a time before legal history.  For the first time in the over eight centuries since English legal history began, an African head of state will appear before Her Majesty’s High Court of Justice in England.  The individual earning the somewhat dubious historical distinction is Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, the President of Djibouti.  Although he does not claim the divine right of kings that Richard did, he rules with an unquestioned power in his realm that rivals the authority held by any of England’s sovereigns.

The Republic of Djibouti has occupied an important position in the Horn of Africa, both geographically and politically.  Slightly bigger than the state of New Jersey, it is wedged up against the ocean by Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. However, this places it at the mouth of the Red Sea as it empties into the Indian Ocean, making it strategically important to the shipping lanes that pass by just off the coast.  It was part of the Land of Punt until becoming a French protectorate late in the 19th century, and finally gained independence in 1977.  In the almost four decades since, Djibouti has had only two presidents, with Guelleh being the second, in office since 1999.

Location of Djibouti. Source: CIA World Factbook.
Location of Djibouti. Source: CIA World Factbook.

The 67-year-old Guelleh (referred to colloquially by his initials IOG) has been criticized by many as a dictator hostile to human rights.  The United States Department of State recently released a 26-page report detailing human rights abuses under Guelleh.  The NGO Freedom House characterizes the country as “not free” in its latest report.  Allegations against the regime include arbitrary arrests, secret trials, restrictions on political gatherings, human trafficking, and genital mutilation, among others.  Despite calls to the contrary, the United States has largely ignored such abuses in favor of maintaining its lease for Camp Lemonnier, the US’s only base in Africa and a vital launch pad for combatting Somali pirates and terrorism in the region.

IOG’s uninterrupted reign as leader has been threatened most by the defendant in the aforementioned historic case, multimillionaire Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh.  Mr. Boreh, formerly a friend and major financial backer of IOG, parted ways with him when the latter sought to amend Djibouti’s constitution, scrapping the two-term maximum for holding the office of president.  Having eliminated every one of his enemies in the two prior elections, this set the stage for IOG to become president for life.  Boreh’s opposition to the country’s increasingly autocratic leader was predictably not well received, leading to an unrelenting campaign of threats and character assassinations aimed at him, effectively driving him from the country.

Not content simply to exile him from the nation, IOG had charges brought before British courts, alleging that Boreh was involved in a particular terrorist act in Djibouti, which paved the way for his conviction in absentia and, more importantly, the freezing of US$110 million of his assets.  However, the case began to unravel when it was brought to light in a subsequent hearing that telephone records that were the primary evidence of Boreh’s alleged guilt were altered.  As a result, a partner in the firm representing IOG (one of the world’s most prestigious law firms) is now facing sanctions himself in connection with the altered records.  Following the loss of the legal battle, the government of Djibouti launched another case against Boreh, this time on corruption charges, for which IOG will travel to London to give a testimony. But more importantly for Djibouti is the fact that Boreh’s assets are now unfrozen and he is poised to mark a significant challenge to IOG in the 2016 presidential elections should he decide to run.

Although Boreh represents an obstacle to IOG’s continued rule, this hasn’t stopped the leader from cementing ties with China, which will do no favors for the US’s position in the country or for any improvements in human rights.  China’s checkbook diplomacy has already made it difficult for the United States – it cost the US nearly twice as much as before to renew the lease on Camp Lemonnier.  China’s investment in the continent has steadily risen over the past several years, and Djibouti has not been ignored.  Last year the two countries inked a security and defense agreement over the objections of the United States.  In addition, China spent US$185 million to buy a controlling share of the Port of Djibouti and promised another US$420 million in improvements to its facilities.

As China’s relationship with Djibouti has waxed, the United States’ has waned.  A report this spring by the Washington Post highlighted the worsening problems in the US-Djibouti relationship.  According to the report, the situation at Camp Lemonnier has deteriorated to the point that routine aircraft operations have become routinely dangerous.  Djibouti flight controllers have exhibited behavior ranging from negligent (sleeping, playing video games) to hostile (forcing an aircraft whose crew the controller felt displayed disrespect to circle the airport until almost out of gas).  The situation is exponentially worse due to the fact that the base shares both its runways with the country’s one international airport and with French and Japanese military flights.

Nobody can say precisely what the future holds for Djibouti – a continued dictatorial reign of the country’s strongman, a resurgence of democracy in an area where it is a stranger, or something else entirely, brokered by powers outside the country’s control.  Whatever the outcome, it will be felt far beyond the tiny country’s borders, even as far as musty English courtrooms, where events such as this have no parallel, and the Memory of Man runneth not to the contrary.

About the author:
Originally from London, James Lessons recently graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in politics and international relations with a particular focus on the African region. He is currently working as a freelance research assistant and writer for a small economic risk consultancy.

In Syria, The Big Boys Are Playing – Analysis

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By Vikram Sood*

Syria and Iraq are no longer just a do-and-kill struggle being enacted by extreme radical Islamists in their brutal search for a Caliphate. The Big Boys – US and Russia — are now out in the open, the gloves are off and mind games are now being played where each blames the other for the escalation of the conflict.

Here in India, we usually get to hear the US and western version of the crisis. The Russian version is often muffled. Team America has Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel. The Russian team has China and Iran backing Syria. There are other interests at play too – mega-corporations dealing with energy – of oil and gas and their mega-profits are aligned with strategic interests of global powers.

What was intended to be part of a glorious Arab Spring in Syria has turned out to be a quagmire for the powers involved and an unending nightmare for the people of Syria and Iraq. Assad had seen what had happened to Gaddafi in Libya and how General Sisi had handled the situation in Egypt. He learnt from both examples and decided to stand and fight.

The result of this was a quagmire where conflicting national, regional and global interests have become entwined with sectarian, religious and ideological interests. In all this, President Putin is no longer a potential partner of the West but a potential threat amidst anticipation of likely Russian aggression in the region. The Russians favour united international action against ISIS in Syria, accompanied by regional and international pressure on these armed groups to look for a political solution and finally unified efforts to cut off funds to terrorists and to prevent them from entering Syria.

It is doubtful though that any adventurous steps will be possible from a US polity in election year with the situation in Afghanistan far from stable. There will, however, be considerable theatrics with the accompanying danger of these theatrics getting a life of their own and ending up in grim reality shows. Russian warships and a Chinese warship do have a presence at the east Mediterranean Syrian port of Tartus and enhanced Russian military presence in Latakia.

While the US and others like the French are likely to continue to carry out air strikes against ISIS in Syria, these are unlikely to defeat the terrorists or make their own countries any safer. Back in February 2012, Putin had been sharply critical of the US policy of “airstrike diplomacy”. It is doubtful though that the US will attack Syria as America is simply not prepared to commit ground forces in the region. Besides this will invoke direct support to Syria by both Russia and Iran and possibly some tacit support from the Chinese. The Russians have had a stake in Syria for decades and this increased presence is to prevent a possible effort to deconstruct the country and eject Russians.

There have been some bizarre suggestions from former officials of the administration that America should cultivate Al Qaeda affiliates like Al Nusra in Syria in their battles against ISIS. At best this is a display of cynical pragmatism but is more likely the result of confusion and desperation. Yet, since this has evoked some response in Washington probably means that the so-called moderate opposition to Assad does not exist. Also, the scheme to funnel assistance through Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar has not been successful. Further, the rebels trained in and by Americans have joined Al Nusra while others have handed over arms and ammunition to them. The majority of Syrians remain pro-Assad, while Assad is smarter. He has retained allies in Iran, Russia and China. This makes Iran vital for any solution in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It has been clear for some years now that the US can no longer act alone or only with some allies pursuing their own agenda. The message from the Russian move is clear. If there has to be victory against IS, it has to be in cooperation with the Russians along with the Iranians. Otherwise there could be confrontation. This maybe a bitter pill to swallow for a system used to having its own way in the region for decades but the choices are narrowing. One does not see a way out unless the regional countries supporting Assad are taken on board.

It can no longer be my way or the highway.

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

Courtesy: www.mid-day.com

Learning From China’s OBOR Playbook – Analysis

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The ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative announced by China last year is being actively implemented at the provincial level. A recent conference in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, provided a glimpse of China’s multi-pronged strategy to harness various resources available to make OBOR a success.

By Sameer Patil

A rare opportunity to travel recently to Lianyungang in Jiangsu province of China provided a good insight into the implementation of China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) strategy- the grand connectivity plan announced by President Xi Jinping last year, at the provincial level. The occasion was the ‘Yangtze River International Forum Summit 2015’ organised by the Jiangsu Association for Friendship and International Exchanges which brought together Chinese national and provincial policy makers, academicians, Chinese businesses, journalists, lawyers, among other. Gateway House was the only Indian representation and one of the very few outside entities attending the conference.

The conference was held in Lianyungang, a city situated on China’s North-eastern coast and a major shipping hub with its proximity to South Korea and Japan. Under the OBOR, the city has been designated as the starting point of the Eurasian Land Bridge- a 11,870 kms. trans-continental rail and road corridor to Europe, also called as the ‘New Silk Road’. As part of this, the Lianyungang city administration is also setting up an International Logistics Park, with the help of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which will provide logistics and warehouse service to the cargo coming in from the Lianyungang port.

Given the key location of Lianyungang, the conference was an opportunity to take stock of OBOR’s implementation – six months after China’s National Development and Reform Commission officially unveiled the OBOR vision document.

Most of the Chinese scholars agreed that OBOR has become the most important initiative for China’s foreign and domestic policies, but resented that some of China’s smaller neighbours such as Vietnam and Cambodia had not enthusiastically embraced this idea. Some suggested that for those countries which have reservations in aligning their domestic connectivity projects with OBOR, China should nonetheless help in implementing some of these road projects in South East Asia, earning Beijing goodwill.

There was a repeated emphasis on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and China-Pakistan economic cooperation. This was understandable because currently CPEC is the only part of the OBOR plan to materialise outside of China’s boundaries. This repeated emphasis on China-Pakistan cooperation notwithstanding, the forum did not have any representation from Pakistan or any Chinese company invested in Pakistan although many of the projects under the CPEC are already approved projects and investments.

Concomitantly, many were also curious about India’s and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s views on the OBOR and the CPEC. PM Modi was described by one Chinese speaker as India’s Deng Xiaoping, who opened China to the world in the late 1980s. Clearly, the Chinese have expectations from Modi. Such was the level of curiosity among the Chinese side that this author was asked to give a speech on India’s attitude towards the OBOR and the CPEC, at the last minute.

Being a provincial conference, most of the discussions were in Mandarin, and focused on supporting Chinese businesses to become active participants in OBOR. Many speakers noted that ‘going out’ (investing abroad) has become a trend for Chinese companies – described as the 3.0 version of China’s going-abroad initiative (1.0 being the launch of China’s economic reforms in the 1980s and 2.0 being China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001). However, current Chinese overseas investment is mostly by state-owned enterprises such as Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation. The government wants to change this by encouraging and assisting private enterprises to participate in external projects under OBOR and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

As part of this, the government is holding orientation sessions for its private enterprises to increase awareness of the economic opportunities therein, even promising financial help to local entrepreneurs who want to invest abroad. One such step is aligning the China-Africa Development Fund, set up in 2007, to OBOR to help Chinese private enterprises to enter the African market. [After Pakistan and South-east Asia, China has decided to focus on the African continent for OBOR].

Another step is orienting Chinese lawyers to study the domestic legislations of those countries/regions where OBOR will roll out. For instance, Jiangsu province has a training programme for its lawyers to study the laws of Pakistan, South-East Asia and Africa, with a focus on dispute settlement, intellectual property rights, trade laws, procurement procedures. Many risk management firms are being actively asked by the government to help private enterprises carry out due diligence, study risks and conduct public relations exercises to win bids for foreign projects. Industrial associations in various provinces are researching various aspects of OBOR and how their own provinces will benefit.

Insights such as these from inside China on how a grand initiative like OBOR is being implemented, is critical learning for India. India too is considering its own plans for trans-national corridors and increasing its overseas economic profile by fostering closer links with businesses. Indian policy makers will do well to study China’s implementation of OBOR, especially at the provincial level.

About the author:
*Sameer Patil
is Fellow, National Security, Ethnic Conflict and Terrorism, at Gateway House.

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

10 Dead In Oregon College Shooting, Obama Demands ‘Common Sense’ Gun Laws

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An angry President Barack Obama demanded the American people push Congress to pass “common sense” gun laws after a gunman murdered 10 people Thursday and wounded seven at an Oregon college.

A grim Obama appeared on television hours after the shootings to remind the nation that the majority of Americans, including law-abiding gun owners, want tougher laws.

He said Americans have become numb to what has become routine in the U.S. — a mass shooting, followed by his White House statements, and the response by those who oppose more gun control. He said the argument that more guns make people safer cannot be done with a straight face.

Obama appealed to voters to remember who supports and opposes gun laws in next year’s elections.

Details of the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on the U.S. Pacific coast, remain unclear, including the exact number of victims.

But Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin confirmed that the shooter was killed exchanging gunfire with police. Hanlin said the 20-year-old gunman opened fire in one of the classrooms and police immediately responded to emergency telephone calls.

At a news conference late Thursday, Hanlin said, “we think we know who the shooter is,” but added that he will never use the shooter’s name. He said, “I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act.” He encouraged members of the media to avoid using, repeating, or sensationalizing the shooter’s name.

The interim president of the college, Rita Cavin, appeared at the same news conference to offer her condolences to the families of the victims and “the families of anybody who was hurt today, emotionally or physically.” She said “this has been a long, sad, tragic day” at the college and thanked the many people she said rushed to the aid of the school and its students and staff.

The sheriff said many law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, are involved in the investigation. Officials are making sure the campus is safe and looking for a motive.

Authorities believe the gunman was familiar with the college and the building. They also say he wrote on a social media website about what he was planning to do. One survivor told reporters that the shooter demanded to know the religion of everyone in the classroom before he started shooting.

But investigators believe this was a case of domestic terrorism with no ties to any international group.

Sheriff Hanlin called Thursday’s incident a “huge shock” to the quiet rural county, where few residents are strangers.

About 3,000 students attend Umpqua Community College. Fifty-eight percent of them are female. Most of the students are 30 and older who go to the school part-time to prepare to change careers.

In another incident Thursday, a gunman in Inglis, Florida, was reported to have killed three people, including himself, in a confrontation at a private home. At least one other person was reported injured.

Obama Praises Sri Lanka President Sirisena’s Commitment For Democracy

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US President Barack Obama praised President Maithripala Sirisena’s commitment and actions taken for strengthening of democracy and good governance in Sri Lanka.

According to the Sri Lanka government, Obama made these remarks Sept. 28 at a meeting with President Sirisena while participating in the 70th session of the UNGA.

President Obama expressed his appreciation about the changes occurred in Sri Lanka under the new government.

In response, President Sirisena said his determination is to build reconciliation in the country. “I strongly believe that reconciliation should be established in the country after bringing an end to the war,” Sirisena said, according to the Sri Lanka government.

Additionally, when Sirisena requested for assistance for poverty alleviation, the US President stated his government will extend fullest assistance to Sri Lanka in that regard.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, at his meeting with President Sirisena on Saturday (Sep. 26) stated that President Maithripala Sirisena has won the grace of world leaders today because he is leading the country towards a correct path. He wished well for President Sirisena’s programs to achieve this objective.

A meeting between President Sirisena and the President of South Korea Park Chung-hee was also held during the session. They discussed about the well-being of Sri Lankan workers in South Korea. The South Korean President expressed a highly positive response to the request made by President Sirisena for more employment opportunities to Sri Lankans. She also affirmed South Korean assistance to Sri Lanka’s attempts to seek solutions for the garbage problem in Sri Lanka.

President Sirisena also met the President of New Zealand John Key. The New Zealand President said more investors will be encouraged to invest in Sri Lanka. They also discussed the ways to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.

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