The expectation by some governors that other governors will support them in every way is clearly misplaced to judge by a somewhat strange incident involving Leonid Markelov, the governor of Mari El, and Nikita Belykh, the governor of neighboring Kirov oblast.

While this case involves something trivial, it does call attention to the fact that if any opposition figure did take power in one of the regions or even municipalities in the Russian Federation, he or she could behave in ways that might affect political outcomes far beyond the borders of his or her own fiefdom.

And the risks of that are certainly one of the drivers pushing the Putin regime in the direction of a single-party dictatorship lest someone using the remaining vestiges of federalism in the Russian Federation might behave in precisely that way, creating problems that could potentially send shockwaves through a variety of federal subjects.

On October 19, “Novaya gazeta” reports today, Markelov gave a press conference at which he denounced the Kirov governor for allowing Sergey Mamayev, who was Markelov’s opponent in the recent gubernatorial elections to print his campaign literature and signs in Kirov oblast (novayagazeta.ru/politics/70432.html).

Belykh’s willingness to do so, Markelov said, showed a lack of “corporate” sensitivity and respect. “I don’t know why Kirov oblast became the battle staff against Markelov,” Markelov continued speaking of himself in the third person as he often does. Other oblast leaders “chose a different way of behaving” and didn’t print Mamayev’s broadsides.

Even before Markelov’s press conference, the government-controlled media launched a series of attacks on Kirov oblast and its leadership, comparing it unfavorably with Markelov’s fiefdom. So far, “Novaya gazeta” reports, officials and the media in Kirov oblast have not responded in kind.

One Duma deputy, however, has responded, suggesting that Markelov should be concentrating on the problems in his own republic rather than looking for them elsewhere – especially since he barely squeaked through the 50 percent barrier in the first round of gubernatorial elections.

Markelov who is deeply unpopular with many groups in his republic and who routinely ranks low on the lists of effective heads of federal subjects got only 50.76 percent of the vote. His opponent Mamayev received 32.31 percent and has appealed to the courts to invalidate the 0.77 percent of the ballots that would be necessary to force a second round.

Transpacific Partnership boosts UN Sustainable Development Goals in some ways and undermines them in others.

By Shuaihua Wallace Cheng*

Major deals between developed and developing economies are not commonplace: On September 25, the 193 members of the United Nations announced a new global action plan for achieving Sustainable Development Goals including no poverty in any form by 2030. A week later, the Transpacific Trade Partnership, or TPP, concluded negotiations that form the largest regional trade agreement in history, one representing nearly 40 percent of global GDP.

It is pertinent to ask, to what extent will the TPP bolster or undercut the SDGs? The answer – it’s a mixed bag.

The Pacific trade deal presents four major strengths that contribute to implementation of the SDGs:

First, with more than 18,000 tariff lines reduced to zero, according to a fact sheet provided by the Office of US Trade Representative, 12 countries will merge into a more integrated market. This will significantly lower transaction costs for firms to trade among the TPP members, boosting economic growth and creating jobs. Liberalization of some critical sectors in difficult markets – such as Japan’s agricultural products, including rice, wheat and beef, or Canada’s dairy products – may pave the way for these countries to open these sectors in future negotiations with other countries.

Second, on environmental protection, the TPP agreement should be given credit for having a higher level of commitment than previous trade agreements. The parties promise to cut the most harmful fishery subsidies and prohibit illicit trade activities from illegal logging and wildlife trafficking – great steps toward supporting SDG 14, protecting life below the water, and SDG 15 protecting life on land.

Third, the TPP pact has one chapter dedicated to labor rights to prevent the race to the bottom. Its members make an explicit statement supporting international core labor standards, from the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively to prohibitions against child labor and forced labor, and protection against employment discrimination. Although these standards are only minimum requirements to all signatory countries under the International Labour Organization, this is the first time they will be incorporated in a large regional trade agreement with “teeth,” namely, possible trade sanctions against producers who violate core standards.

Fourth, this agreement will make some positive contributions to other sustainable development goals, by emphasizing good governance, anti-corruption measures and codes of conduct with high standards. TPP also has a chapter on development and capacity building. These are in line with the SDG 16 addressing justice and good governance and SDG 17 on effective partnership.

However, the TPP agreement will have negative impact on poor countries and people in vulnerable situations, while the SDGs obligate all countries to carry out an effective partnership to “work in a spirit of global solidarity, in particular solidarity with the poorest and with people in vulnerable situations.”

Citizens of a poor country outside the negotiations will have no say at all on how TPP will affect their interests. For example, US subsidies to cotton farmers have been the largest concern for cotton farmers in poor countries. According to a research by Oxfam, US cotton farmers receive three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people. Trade-distorting cotton subsidies have pushed down the global price of cotton, costing Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali more than US $100 million a year.

Even for Vietnam, the poorest developing country within the TPP, its export potentials in labor-intensive sectors such as textile and clothing will be compromised by a restrictive “yarn forward” rule of origin insisted on by the US – if Vietnamese clothing exporters would like to enjoy the TPP market’s zero tariff, all components, from yarn to fabric to final item, must be produced by one of the members to the agreement. Note that the US is the most competitive producer of yarn, thread and fabric among the TPP countries.

In another area, the agreement risks going in an opposite direction against SDG 3, which explicitly calls for the provision of “access to affordable essential medicines and vaccines, in accordance with the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, which affirms the right of developing countries to use to the full the provisions in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights regarding flexibilities to protect public health, and, in particular, provide access to medicines for all.” Many professionals and civil society organizations argue that the agreement will endanger access to medicine for people needing lifesaving treatments, particularly in the poorest countries. Although there is not much information on what the final compromise between the US and Australia really means, the agreement obviously adds new obligations to some TPP members such as Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia and Mexico. According to Doctors Without Borders, the TPP deal will drive up costs for some of the most expensive drugs on the market in the poorest countries by delaying cheaper, generic versions. Investors’ rights should be protected to encourage innovation, but in the areas critical to the public interest, US negotiators should not have catered to the business lobby alone.

This acquiescence to the demands of business interests likewise led to US cherry-picking practices in the Doha Development Round negotiations of the World Trade Organization. The US negotiators have preliminarily secured the trade facilitation agreement, the expansion of information technology agreement and possible liberalization of environmental goods under the WTO frameworks, for which their business groups lobbied. However, the US leaves behind critical issues for developing countries, such as trade-distorting domestic farm subsidies, anti-dumping rules and tariff escalation of some products.

All of this is legal, even if detrimental.

The challenge is that in a new context of pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals over the next 15 years, the world needs leadership. As a nation promoting universal values of freedom, democracy and equality, the United States is in a good position to lead. US political leaders should not merely follow US business interests, but stand for these higher values.

In this TPP agreement, the US has made positive steps in promoting trade for growth, strengthening environmental and labor protections in international commerce, and advancing anti-corruption principles. However, the country fails to support sustainable development by refusing to discontinue subsidies harmful to poorest countries outside the TPP, by insisting on the yarn-forward rule of origin and pushing unbalanced intellectual property protections that will likely cost lives.

If President Barack Obama would like to be remembered as a great global leader rather than a follower of business interests, he may need a bigger legacy than TPP.

There is a chance at the upcoming December WTO Ministerial Meeting in Nairobi. The president should ask his trade officials to work more constructively with trading partners and deliver a more development-friendly package than the TPP. The United States should abide by the WTO’s Hong Kong Declaration in 2005 to provide duty- and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all products originating from the least developed countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal, allowing them equal trading terms with TPP member Vietnam and providing them with a more flexible rule of origin.

The United States should also take the lead, urging the European Union and China to also act, to eliminate cotton subsidies and save the livelihoods of 10 million African farmers. Finally, the United States should adjust its position on data exclusivity protections of new pharmaceutical products by offering exceptions for developing countries so as to ensure poorest patients’ access to essential medicines. These high standards are genuine and moral.

*Shuaihua Wallace Cheng, PhD, is the managing director for China at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, and a Yale World Fellow in 2015. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Selcuk Çolakoğlu

August 15 is both South Korea and North Korea’s Independence Day. Korea, occupied by Japan from 1910-1945, was expected to achieve its freedom along with the defeat of Japan in World War II. The United States and the Soviet Union, when they came to the Korean Peninsula to take possession of the Japanese troops, each established its own de facto occupation along the 38th parallel. At first, no one expected the de facto occupied zones would turn into a permanent border.

However, soon the outbreak of the Cold War led to Korea’s division into two, as with Germany and Vietnam. Once it was clear that the emerged two parts of Korea could no longer be united, two separate states were declared with separate regimes in 1948 on the Peninsula. The Republic of Korea, which was the US’s ally and was adopting a capitalist economic model, appeared in the South, while the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which was an ally of the Soviet Union and was adopting the socialist economic model, appeared in the North. The Korean War happened between 1950 and 1953, in which the great powers also took place, and brought greater political and social rupture instead of reuniting the country.

Successful development and democratization in South Korea

After the Korean War, both sides gave weight to their models and development processes and began to show themselves as successful model countries. During the 1950s and 1960s, North Korea seemed to have moral superiority on unification in terms of economic development and political motivation. South Korea started practicing a development program, which continued from the early 1960s to the present day.

By the 1980s, South Korea began to be called the “miracle on the Han River.” Allowing Seoul to host the 1988 Summer Olympics can be seen as a reward from the international system for the successful development of South Korea. On the other hand, during this period South Korea was criticized politically, for it was still ruled by generals and did not have a liberal democracy. South Korea managed to overcome this democratic deficit by the 1987 Constitution, which was reached by making a large social consensus before the Seoul Olympics. Indeed, in the period from 1987 to 2015, South Korea promoted democracy step by step, and it eventually became a social welfare state.

North Korea isolated itself

The successful story presented by North Korea has returned to the conditions of the 1970s. Just like the other socialist countries, North Korea was not able to renew its industry, and its economic efficiency dropped quickly. In the 1980s, the superiority of conventional weapons moved from North to South. After 1978, the People’s Republic of China shifted towards economic reforms, the Eastern Bloc fell apart in the late 1980s, and then the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. All of these occurrences left North Korea alone in the world both politically and ideologically. During this period, North Korea’s priority was to keep the regime alive as well as to produce nuclear weapons. Due to the conditions of the collapsed economy and isolation from the outside world, North Korea entered into an existential crisis and therefore lost its military superiority over South Korea.

After 1991, the Western countries, including Russia, considered the possibility that the Pyongyang regime may collapse at any moment, but the regime survived. Even at the expense of turning the North Korean regime into a dynasty, the change of leadership survived undamaged. After North Korea’s founding father Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994, his son Kim Jong-il came to power. After his death, his grandson Kim Jong-un came to power in 2011. North Korea’s success in the international political arena ensured its neighbor China would continue to give support. Since the end of 1990, Russia has also been providing support to North Korea in critical times.

Another of North Korea’s successes, despite international pressure, is its production of nuclear weapons and the development of medium- and long-range missile technology. Thus, South Korea, with conventional weapons, had the opportunity to balance the disadvantageous situation against Japan and American forces in the region with its nuclear weapons capacity.

Is Korean unification possible?

As of now, neither of the Koreas nor the big powers in the region foresee unification in the short term. Moreover, normalizing relations between the Koreas still seems far away. A new strain of celebrations that lead to clashes on the border, where the 70th anniversary of independence was celebrated last August, reveals how sensitive the Korean problem is.

Although the Koreas defused the crisis with confidence-building measures, there is no guarantee that there will not be a new conflict on the boundary at any moment. However, it is thought that Russia, and especially China, will not allow North Korea to go so far as to begin a war. On the other hand, some experts claim that North Korea is actually not an unpredictable actor, and that there is rationality in all applications of its foreign policy. According to this claim, North Korea first escalates tension, then draws international public attention to the region, then starts negotiation with the other party (South Korea, the United States, sometimes with Japan), and during the negotiation, in return for reconciliation, it tries to achieve some economic concessions and political benefits.

Against all odds, in the near future and long term, South Korea has identified unification with North Korea as a strategy. South Korea’s unification envisaged here is not sudden and unilateral; it includes a gradual process that is approved by all parties. At this point in the process, the country attaches importance to support from the US and Japan as well as China and Russia. During Kim Jong-un’s presidency, the decline of relations between North Korea and China was seen as a window of opportunity for South Korea. In this respect, despite the US’s objections, South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s participation in the second World War memorial in Beijing was a reflection of its above mentioned attempts.

South Korea’s desire for unification with North Korea is not only a political objective, it’s also an economic rationale. In order to remain competitive across the globe, South Korea must have a larger population and landmass. In the case of unification, in order to benefit from cheap labor, South Korea can open factories in North Korea instead of China and other Southeast Asian countries.

Thus, something equivalent to the Kaesong industrial plant, which was founded on the northern side of the border in 2002, can be implemented. Presently, workers in the Kaesong industrial plants are North Koreans, while engineers and managers are South Koreans who must enter and depart from the border daily. In the case of unification, South Korea is planning to capture a new economic impetus through investments in infrastructure and other projects in the North.

It’s quite difficult to make a prediction in regards to Korean unification due to the current situation. It’s a reality that the current regime in North Korea is not taking kindly to the unification and even the normalization of relations with South Korea under present conditions. On the other hand, South Korea continues to improve strategies related to unification, and in order to unify with North Korea without troubles and with fewer costs, South Korea is also trying to expand cooperation possibilities in its international arena. Ultimately time seems to work in favor of South Korea in the Korean Peninsula.

* This article was first published in Analist Monthly Journal’s October issue in Turkish language.

Disney is the latest media company to stream its many shows and films online, VentureBeat reports.

Next month, the company will launch a subscription streaming service in the U.K.– called DisneyLife — that will give viewers access to content packages for £9.99 a month (about $15 a month). In addition to movies and television programs, the new subscription service will feature Disney-created books and music. Subscription content can also be made available for viewing offline.

For now, the service will be limited to the U.K.; however Disney plans to roll it out broadly to Spain, Italy, France, and Germany in the next year. It’s worth noting that Disney doesn’t appear to have any immediate plans to bring this subscription program to the U.S. That’s likely because of existing contracts the company has in place with cable providers in the U.S.

DisneyLife will feature packages of content, like access to Disney Classics or the whole Pixar catalog. To the dismay of some, neither Lucasfilm nor Marvel movies will be a part of the subscription. The subscription plan will be very “Disney” in its design. For instance, users will be able to create Disney-inspired avatars for themselves.

In the wake of Netflix’s and Amazon’s successes with online-only content, many media companies, like HBO, Showtime, and CBS, have turned their attention toward streaming, though Disney is by far the biggest to do so.

There’s a view of Syria, common even among some peace activists in the United States, that because the United States has been making everything worse in Syria and the entire Middle East for years, Russian bombs will make things better.

While the actions of the United States and its allies will lead to victory for the Islamic State, horror for millions of people, and chronic chaos in Syria along the lines of post-liberation Iraq and Libya, Russian bombs — this view maintains — will destroy ISIS, restore order, uphold the rule of law, and establish peace.

I’ve been informed repeatedly that because I’m opposed to Russian bombing, I’m opposed to peace, I’m in favor of war, I want ISIS to win, I lack any concern for the suffering Syrian people, and my mind is either overly simplistic or somehow diseased.

This line of thinking is a mirror image of the many self-identified peace activists in the United States who for years now have been insisting that the United States must violently overthrow the government of Syria. That crowd has even found itself aligned with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry who in 2013 told the U.S. public that if we didn’t support bombing Syria, we were in favor of the Syrian regime murdering children with chemical weapons. To our credit, most of us rejected that logic.

Advocates for U.S. bombs and advocates for Russian bombs each see a particular evil and wish to remedy it. The evil of the Syrian government, while often exaggerated and embellished, is real enough. The evil of the U.S. government, and what it has done to Iraq and Libya and Syria, can hardly be overstated. Both groups, however, place their faith in violence as the tool for remedying violence, revealing deep beliefs in the power of force that are clearly at odds with professed commitments to peace.

Dropping bombs kills and injures civilians, traumatizes children who survive, harms infrastructure, destroys housing, poisons the environment, creates refugees, fuels bitter commitments to violence, and wastes massive resources that could have gone into aid and rebuilding. These are all well documented facts about every past bombing campaign in the history of the earth. In theory, peace activists agree with these facts. In practice, they are not outweighed by other concerns of realpolitik; rather, they are avoided entirely.

When the U.S. bombs a hospital in Afghanistan, we’re outraged. When Russia is accused of bombing a hospital in Syria, we avoid knowing about it. (Or, if we’re from another camp, we put on our outrage for Syrian bombs but imagine U.S. bombs planting little flowers of democracy.) In wars that we oppose, we debunk claims to precision from the bombers. But good bombs are imagined has hitting just the right spots. After so many endlessly drawn-out U.S. wars that were advertised as quick and easy, we’ve begun to recognize the unpredictability of campaigns of mass murder — and yet awareness of war’s unpredictability doesn’t seem to play at all into praise for Russian bombers joining in an already chaotic civil/proxy war.

The United States is accusing Russia of murdering people it armed and trained to murder different people. Some of those people are now asking for missiles with which to shoot down Russian planes. Russian planes have nearly come into conflict with Israeli and U.S. planes. A major figure in the Ukrainian government wants to help ISIS attack Russians. Members of Congress and pundits in the United States are urging conflict directly with Russia. Warmongers in Washington have been working hard to stir up conflict with Russia in Ukraine — now their hope lies in Syria. Russian bombs only heighten U.S.-Russian tensions.

When you unscramble the chaos of forces, and questionable claims about those forces, on the ground in Syria, some facts stand out: The United States wants to overthrow the government of Syria. Russia wants to maintain the government of Syria, or at least protect it from violent overthrow. (Russia in 2012 was open to a peace process that would have removed President Bashar al Assad from power, and the United States dismissed it out of hand in favor of his imminent violent overthrow.) The United States and Russia are the world’s major nuclear powers. Their relations have been deteriorating rapidly, as NATO has expanded and the U.S. has orchestrated a coup in Ukraine.

A war with Russia and the United States on different sides, and all sorts of opportunities for incidents, accidents, and misunderstandings, risks everything. Russian bombs solve nothing. When the dust clears, how will the war be ended? Will Russian bombs leave behind generous good-willed people eager to negotiate, unlike U.S. bombs, which leave behind anger and hostility? We’ve learned to ask the U.S. government to spell out its “exit strategy” as it dives into each new war. What is Russia’s?

Here’s my position: Murder isn’t moderate.

You cannot find “moderate” murderers and engage them to kill extremist murderers. You cannot bomb the extremist murderers without producing more murderers than you kill. What’s needed now, as in 2012 when the United States brushed it aside, is a peace process. First a cease fire. Then an arms embargo. And a halt to training and providing fighters and funding by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, and all other parties. Then major aid and restitution, and a negotiated settlement in which, in fact, Russia should be included — as it is located in that region of the world — and the United States should not, as it has no legitimate business being there.

This is what has been needed for years and will continue to be needed as long as it is avoided. More bombs make this more difficult, no matter who’s dropping them.

This article was published at Telesur.

Five days of sectarian violence that gripped Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, between September 25 and October 1, 2015, led to at least 31 targeted killings of civilians.

Based on interviews in Bangui, conducted between October 7 and 13 with witnesses, Human Rights Watch found that at least 31 civilians, possibly many more, were shot at point-blank range or stabbed to death, or their throats were slit. The vast majority of killings were by armed members of Muslim self-defense groups, although armed members of the mostly Christian and animist anti-balaka group also incited and participated in the violence, at times fighting with the Muslim groups. Some of the victims were burned in their homes or in places where they sought shelter. The victims included nine women – one of them eight-months pregnant – and four elderly men. Human Rights Watch confirmed eight other cases in which the victims were armed men.

“Civilians in Bangui urgently need protection from the brutal sectarian violence that once again has engulfed their city,” said Lewis Mudge, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The interim government and international peacekeepers should be ready to react quickly to save lives when sectarian violence breaks out.”

In addition to the killings, armed men from both communities looted and destroyed property. Using satellite imagery analysis, Human Rights Watch identified at least 250 destroyed structures from the neighborhoods near Kilomètre 5, the city’s main Muslim enclave. Two churches and a mosque were also destroyed.

Protecting civilians from further violence of this nature will require rapid responses to requests for help on existing hotlines and more active patrolling by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in flashpoint areas, where communities of different sectarian backgrounds come into contact with one another, Human Rights Watch said. Since the violence ended on October 1, Human Rights Watch has received credible reports of continued isolated killings in the neighborhoods north of Kilomètre 5.

The UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, had approximately 1,120 police and 1,100 soldiers stationed in Bangui at the time, supported by 900 French peacekeepers known as Sangaris. UN officials said the peacekeepers helped to bring 200 aid agency and UN staff to safety and to secure key installations in the city, including the airport and government buildings. The peacekeepers also prevented armed men from other parts of the country from entering the capital. UN officials told Human Rights Watch that their efforts to protect civilians were hampered by barricades set up by anti-balaka, civilians on the barricades, and the general confusion.

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they saw no presence of the approximately 900 national gendarmes in Bangui during the violence.

On October 9, the National Transitional Government reported that at least 77 people had died, based on body counts at morgues. Officials could not distinguish who among the dead were armed attackers or civilians caught in the crossfire between the Muslim self-defense groups and the anti-balaka or whether any civilians were deliberately targeted. Another 414 people were injured, the government said.

This latest round of sectarian violence was set off by the death of a 17-year-old Muslim motorcycle taxi driver, Amin Mahamat, whose body was discovered along a main street early in the morning of September 26, with his throat slit. In revenge, Muslim self-defense groups from Kilomètre 5 began to attack Christian and other neighborhoods near the enclave. A UN police unit, part of MINUSCA, based on the outskirts of Kilomètre 5, was unable to stem the violence.

Ali Fadul, the president of the Muslim self-defense groups in Kilomètre 5, told Human Rights Watch, “After the people saw his [Mahamat’s] body they revolted.… There had been too many cases of Muslims being targeted.” Prior to the violence and chaos that have gripped the Central African Republic since March 2013, 122,000 Muslims lived in the capital. Only an estimated 15,000 remain.

Ancien Ngandra, a 66-year-old retired civil servant, was killed in the Sara neighborhood, just north of Kilomètre 5. A witness told Human Rights Watch, “Muslims came into the house and pulled Ancien outside. He tried to say something, but the attackers said, ‘Shut your mouth, don’t speak.’ When they were in front of his house they shot him in the stomach and in the head. He was not anti-balaka or Seleka. He was just an old man.”

In nearby Yakité neighborhood, a 45-year-old woman said she left her house to hide in a neighbor’s house when she heard nearby gunshots and grenade explosions. As she ran, she saw another neighbor, Abel Yakité, and his wife trying to flee. “As they were leaving the house, four young Muslim men with rifles approached them,” she said. “They shot dead both Yakité and his wife when they were on the veranda.”

As the information about the violence spread, armed men from the largely Christian and animist anti-balaka encouraged and committed violence against international peacekeepers. The anti-balaka and their supporters quickly set up barricades across the city, sometimes encouraging women and children to join them, possibly to deter peacekeepers from trying to take down the barricades. In some instances, the anti-balaka fought with the armed Muslims. Some soldiers from the national army, known as the FACA, helped and supported the anti-balaka fighters.

The anti-balaka also encouraged attacks on foreigners whom they blamed for doing nothing to stop the violence. Text messages circulated encouraging people to stone foreigners’ vehicles. Anti-balaka fighters and others seeking to take advantage of the chaos looted nine aid agencies, most of them a few kilometers from the neighborhoods where the violence occurred.

On September 28, approximately 600 prisoners escaped from the capital’s main Ngaragba prison, a severe setback to fighting impunity in the country. Some prison guards and soldiers from the national army facilitated the escape by opening the main gate, possibly because some of the inmates were soldiers. Rwandan UN peacekeepers stationed near the prison tried to deter the escape by firing into the air, and on at least one occasion at the prisoners, injuring one, but they were unsuccessful.

Re-establishing a functioning prison that meets basic prison conditions should be an urgent priority for the UN and interim government authorities, Human Rights Watch said.

The violence in Bangui came ahead of national elections, which were to start with a referendum on October 4, but have since been delayed.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a new investigation in the Central African Republic in September 2014 following a referral from the interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza. On September 30, the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, warned that those who commit crimes within the court’s jurisdiction “can be held individually accountable.”

“The interim government should ensure that its gendarmes and soldiers help protect all civilians, Christian and Muslim, and don’t contribute to the violence,” Mudge said. “The dreadful cycle of tit-for-tat killings can only be stopped when those responsible are held to account, prison doors are kept closed, and combatants are disarmed.”

The Obama administration officials — with the awareness of the Secretary of State — were involved in violating a ban on arming rebels in Syria in an operation that mirrors the Iran-Contra Scandal during the Reagan Administration. But while the news media initiated a feeding-frenzy on Iran-Contra, they’re either yawning or helping the Obama administration in covering up the Benghazi-to-Syria arms transfers.

During Thursday’s House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing, the news media and the Democratic Party information machine appeared to be creating their desired narrative: the GOP is on a witch hunt to stop Hillary Clinton’s inauguration as President. But the hearings did manage to force the release of documents that were being hidden by the alleged conspirators.

Some of the many documents released by a watchdog group that investigates and exposes corruption and criminal activity by government officials and agencies provides evidence that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials, as well as President Barack Obama, deceived the American people regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi U.S. consulate massacre. The pages released show that top administration officials were handed intelligence reports within hours of the attack that stated the Islamic terrorists’ actions had been planned up to 10 days before the attack and the goal was simply to to assassinate as many Americans as possible.

The documents also confirms the suspicions that U.S. government officials were well aware of weapons being shipped from Benghazi to Syria for use by rebel forces against the Al-Assad regime, according to Judicial Watch. In addition, the document-release contains an August 2012 analysis of intelligence that predicted the meteoric rise of al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists who morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It also the predicted failure of Obama’s foreign policy aimed at regime change in Syria.

In an overly redacted copy of a memorandum dated Sept. 12, 2012 — the day after the Bengahzi slaughter of four Americans including a U.S. ambassador — the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported to Hillary Clinton, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the White House National Security Council and the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff that the Islamic terrorists planned their attack about 10 or more days prior to the slaughter that occurred on the day the U.S. acknowledged the 11th Anniversary of the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania that killed about 3,000 people.

The terrorists intended to attack the sparsely protected U.S. diplomatic mission and to assassinate as many American officials as possible. The motive for the attack appeared to be revenge for U.S. killing of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a high-level Al Qaida terrorist killed by U.S. drone strikes in North Waziristan.

According to Judicial Watch’s analysis of the documents, the Benghazi attack was planned and perpetrated by members of the Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR). BCOAR is also responsible for past attacks on the Red Cross in Benghazi and the attack on the British Ambassador, they have approximately 120 members.” Rahman [a/k/a “The Blind Sheik”] is currently locked up in a federal prison in New York for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center which killed six people in New York. He is serving a life sentence.

The redacted DIA memo identified the leader of BCOAR as being Abdul Baset (AZUZ). The memo reveals that he was sent to Libya to “core” al-Qaida’s replacement for Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawhari, to being creating al-Qaeda bases and training camps in Libya. Baset is described as not being “a charismatic leader, but rather just a violent radical.” The memo also states that the majority of BCOAR’s members are “under the age of 28 with a large number between the ages of 17-21 years of age.”

The DIA reported that BCOAR built their headquarters and a training facility in Libyan city of Derna. “They train in the mountains surrounding Derna where they have large caches of weapons. Some of these weapons are disguised as feeding troughs for livestock. They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS, as well as unidentified missiles over two meters in length,” the memo states.

Judicial Watch, a group that has been successful in breaching the government’s “stonewalls,” obtained the documents after U.S. District Court Judge Katanji Brown Jackson ordered their release after the watchdog group’sFreedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Defense had been denied. Judicial Watch was then forced to file a lawsuit for the requested documents and related material.

The documents totally contradict statements made by Hillary Clinton and other national security and diplomatic officials appointed by President Obama about the Benghazi attack.They claims the murder of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, and the destruction of American property was a result of anger by Muslim civilians who were enraged by obscure YouTube video by an American filmmaker that denigrated the Muslim religion.

“These documents… point to [the] connection between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war – and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists,” stated Tom Fitton.

It wasn’t until faced with overwhelming evidence that President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other members of the administration finally conceded that the attack was perpetrated by a group of Islamic terrorists.

In response to the documents, Judicial Watch’s President Tom Fitton said, “These documents are jaw-dropping. No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them. If the American people had known the truth – that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaida terrorist attack from the get-go – and yet lied and covered this fact up – Mitt Romney might very well be president. And why would the Obama administration continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood even after it knew it was tied to the Benghazi terrorist attack and to al Qaeda?”

“These documents also point to [the] connection between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war – and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists,” stated Tom Fitton. “These documents show that the Benghazi cover-up has continued for years and is only unraveling through our independent lawsuits. The Benghazi scandal just got a whole lot worse for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

Further details of the Vatican’s secret talks with China’s ruling Communist Party have come to light, including that the Holy See delegation visited a Chinese bishop and a seminary in Beijing.

The Vatican delegation, which comprised representatives from the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, touched down in Beijing on Oct. 11. Neither side has made public statements about the talks.

However, Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, a veteran sinologist at the Verbiest Institute of Leuven Catholic University in Belgium, said there are still positive indications to take from the secret meetings.

“In the corridors, the rumor spread that both sides had agreed to leave aside — for the time being — negotiations on the more thorny questions,” Father Heyndrickx wrote in a commentary for ucanews.com.

These issues include the release of imprisoned Bishop James Su Zhimin of Baoding, the status of eight excommunicated bishops, and the situation of Auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin of Shanghai, who is confined at the Sheshan Seminary, according to the Missionhurst priest.

“Both parties did not seem ready to reach an agreement on these issues. They wished to look first for a consensus on the issue of episcopal appointments,” he said.

Father Heyndrickx said the six-member delegation later visited Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing, as well as the National Seminary in Beijing.

The visit to Bishop Li itself was “a positive signal meaning that the negotiations went well,” he said, adding that a visit to the seminary made this even more clear.

The delegation was welcomed by Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin, president of the bishops’ conference and rector of the seminary. The Vatican does not recognize either the government-sanctioned bishops’ conference or Bishop Ma, an illicit bishop who was ordained without papal mandate.

In his commentary, Father Heyndrickx also cited other positive signs earlier this year, including the installation of Bishop Wu Qinjing of Zhouzhi in July, after which the government allowed the secretly ordained bishop to administer his episcopal ministry publicly, and the August ordination of Bishop Zhang Yinlin of Anyang, which was the first in three years with dual approval from the government and the Vatican.

However, Father Heyndrickx cautioned that since no official communication was given about the results of the negotiations, “we may therefore not conclude that an agreement was reached on the appointment of bishops.”

Still, the priest said, there were positive indications that allowed observers inside and outside of the church to remain “very hopeful.”

“Events during the coming months will confirm whether our hope is well-founded,” he said.

Differing views

Cardinal John Tong Hon of Hong Kong was one of these hopefuls. He told ucanews.com in late August that there has been “an improvement and better atmosphere” between both sides. But Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, retired bishop of Hong Kong, said Beijing’s inflexibility rendered the talks meaningless.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, has been quoted as saying that China-Vatican relations are “not yet ripe, but one is working slowly and discretely for an understanding.”

Many Catholics in China, however, do not share the same optimism.

“I doubt if Chinese President Xi Jinping has the courage to treat the Catholic Church sincerely,” an active Catholic blogger in China, who identified himself only as Thomas, told ucanews.com.

“China-Vatican relations will not get heated up just because of the upcoming presidential election in Taiwan, or the passion of Pope Francis on China,” he said.

“It rests entirely on the sincerity, pragmatism, understanding and transformation of Xi’s government for a new turn on China-Vatican relations. Without such changes, we are going to see the same negotiations continue without anything materializing, as in the past three decades.”

The secretive October meetings, which have not been publicly confirmed by Beijing or the Vatican, were the second round of talks since June 2014 discussions.

World history and its scholarly work has been unfairly merciless in maintaining a long silence towards two of the most important treaties that have taken place in the interwar period of the last century. Those are the Treaties of Moscow and Kars.

The Treaties of Moscow (March 16, 1921) and Kars (October 13, 1921) made possible the integration and unification of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (its current official name) within the sovereign territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to the Article III of the Treaty of Moscow, signed by the governments of Turkey and Russia, Nakhchivan was included as an autonomous region under the administrative jurisdiction of the Republic of Azerbaijan and its borders are included on Appendix 1 of the treaty; it also provided that Azerbaijan will never compromise its patronage to another nation, the treaty guaranteed the autonomy of Nakhchivan province under the patronage of the Government of Azerbaijan.

Moscow Treaty , March 16, 1921
Article 3.

Both laterals arriving at a conclusion express their consent that they are agree to establish an autonomous area of Nakhchivan province under the protection of Azerbaijan as stated in the addition of the present treaty 1 (B), provided that, Azerbaijan shall never compromise its right to the third country.

Addition (B).

The Ararat station –the Saraybulag mountain (8071) –the Gomrulu mountain (8839) – (8930) – (3080) –the Sayat mountain (7868) –Gurd gulag (Kurt kulak) village – the Hamasur mountain (8160) – (8022) height – the Kuku mountain (10282) and the Eastern part of the administrative borders of the former Nakhchivan uyezd. 3

According to the article 5 signed on October 13, 1921 with participitation of Russia Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the city of Gars between on the one side Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia but on the other side the Republic of Turkey, the governments of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement about establishment of Nakhchivan Autonomous province under the protection of Azerbaijan as stated within the borders of the 3 addition of the treaty.

Kars Treaty, October 13, 1921
Article 5

The government of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan Soviet powers are agree to establish an autonomous area of the Nakhchivan territory under the protection of Azerbaijan within the borders stated in the addition 3 of the treaty.

Addition 3. Nakhchivan Territory

The village of Urmiya, from there straightly the Arazdayan station (it is given to the Armenia Soviet Socialist Republic), then straightly the mountain of Garbi Dashburun (3142) –from there the mountain of Shargi Dashburun (4108) –crossing the river Jahannamchay reaches the south of the spring (“Rovna”), continuing the mountain of Baghirsag (Yaghirsag) (6607) or along the watershed of 6587 height to the administrative border of the former Iravan uyezd, from there it follows the border line of Sharur-Daralayaz, from 6629 height the mountain of Gomurlu (6839 or 6930) and from there reaches the 3080 height. Sayat mountain (7868) –Gurd gulag (Kurt kulak) village–Hamasur mountain (8160)–8022 height–Kuku mountain (10282) and the Eastern administrative borders of the former Nakhchivan uyezd.”

At the time when Kars Treaty was signed, the territory of Nakhchivan was 6,988 km2, later it was reduced into 5,500 km2 as a result of Moscow’s illegal procedures of handing in, transferring, Nakhchivan’s territory to Autonomous Republic of Armenia. Subsequently, the International treaties were unilaterally violated and breached; as a result the borders of Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were reviewed again.

In 1929, according to a decision taken by the Presidium of the Pre-Caucasian Central Executive Committee, the territories within the Province of Nakhchivan (including Gerchivan, Gurg Gulag, Horadiz, Aghbin, Aghkhach, Danan Almali, Almali, Itgiran, Sultanbey and parts of Kilit village) were given to Armenian SSR. The total territories taken away from Nakhchivan comprised an area of 657 km2. The regional maps printed in 1962, 1965 and 1967 were falsified by Armenia; the border line through the red brick buildings from Urmia to Arazdeyen was gradually set close to Sadarak village of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, thus an area of more than 400 ha were illegitimately united to the Armenian territory. On January 19, 1990, Karki village of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic was occupied by Armenian-Russian Armed Forces. While Moscow and Kars treaties continue to be in effect and valid until today, the illegal annexation of territories of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic conducted by Armenia is against the standards set forth by the International law, the Vienna Convention of 1969 on the Law of International Treaties, Declaration of 1970 on International Law principles, and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975.

According to reliable historical sources, Armenian authorities have always attempted to take under control the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan and eventually separate it from Azerbaijan. On October 28, 1920 according to an agreement signed between the Soviet Russia and Dashnak Armenia without any participation from Azerbaijan government, Zangazur and Nakhchivan provinces were included within the control of Armenia. In November 29, 1920 the Bolshevik authority, established in Armenia, wanted to include Nakhchivan and Zangazur into Armenian territory. Civilian population of Nakhchivan and Zangazur organized massive protests against this decision; they were also joined by the Turkish representatives. At this time, Armenians found it impossible to secure control of the population of Nakhchivan and in December 28, 1920 Yerevan decided to recognize Nakhchivan as an independent Soviet Republic.

At the same time because of imperative political reasons Moscow decided to deal with the legitimate will of Muslim population in Nakhchivan and considered the proposal by the Turkish side; the Bolsheviks were obliged to recognize the right of self-determination of Nakhchivan. On the other hand, Zangazur province which separates Nakhchivan from the rest of Azerbaijan’s mainland, was illegally given to Armenia by the Bolsheviks. After such a fraudulent decision, Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic was necessary, because Nakhchivan had become separated from the mainland of Azerbaijan. However, Armenian regime had always attempted to control and occupy Nakhchcivan. In January 1st, 1921 was held an opinion survey and more than 90 percent of Nakhchivan population voted in favor of autonomy of Nakhchivan within Azerbaijan. Behbud aga Shaxtaxtinski worked very hard for the Autonomy of Nakhchivan within Azerbaijan.

On March 1, 1921 Shaxtaxtinski sent a telegraph to V. I. Lenin and informed him about the national structure of the Muslim population of Nakhchivan, Zengezur, Dagliq Qarabag, Zaqatala, Borchali, Qarayazin, Dagistan and the northern Caucasus provinces. At the same time he informed about the future troubles in Nakhchivan, Zangazur and Mountainous Karabagh territories, he made a reference to the ethnic structure and geography of these territories. Lenin founded his suggestions very interesting and he ordered to discuss these matters at the Political Bureau of Central Committee.

This time Turkish representatives visited Moscow with the purpose to make an agreement with Soviet representatives. They started negotiations in February 26 until March 16, a date when both sides generated the “Moscow Agreement” on friendship. Same day the Political Bureau approved the suggestions of Behbud aga Shaxtaxtinsky and made a decision to create the Nakhchivan Soviet Republic within Azerbaijan. According to Article III of “Moscow Treaty” autonomy is given to Nakhchivan within Azerbaijan. “Moscow Treaty” has a great historic importance; first of all this agreement solved the problematic relations between Turkey and Russia, establishing an alliance between both countries, at the same time it protected Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and clarified forever the status of the territory of Nakhchivan. The Moscow Treaty between Soviet Russia and Turkey also solved disputed problems between Southern Caucasus Republics.

After this agreement, Moscow wanted the Turkish government to sign a bilateral agreement with the other South Caucasian Republics. However Turkey wanted to sign a separate agreement with these nations. After some diplomatic negotiations all parties decided to hold a conference in September 26, 1921, between Turkey and South Caucasian Republics with the participation of the Russian representative and on October 13, 1921 the “Kars Treaty” was signed between Turkey and the three South Caucasian republics. This Treaty consists of 20 articles and three appendixes.

Article V of the treaty defines the fate of Nakhchivan. In this agreement Nakhchivan is an autonomous Republic within the territory of Azerbaijan. Unlike “Moscow Treaty” article V of the Kars Treaty determines the autonomy of Nakhchivan, the signatories are Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

As a result of the Treaties of Moscow and Kars, the status of the territory of Nakhchivan was resolved and recognized by international laws. The Kars Treaty is signed for an infinite period and any of the signatories cannot revoke this agreement unilaterally.

As most of the nations of the world place a special emphasis only in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that is taking place within the sovereign territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan over the last 27 years; their respective leaders forget that the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) is suffering tragic losses of its territory and its people are condemned to go through difficult economic times because of the isolation imposed upon them by the Armenian Regime in Yerevan. We must not forget that Nakhchivan is a cradle of human civilization and deserves a special attention from the world community.

Sources:
“Treaty on friendship and fraternity between Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Turkey.”

[1] Source: “Treaty signed with the participation of Russia, on friendship between Armenia Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic and Georgia.”

[2] The figures are cited from N.A.Sokolski’s book of “Materials on studying Nakhchivan SSR”, page 7, published in Tbilisi (1933)

By Paul B. Symon and Arzan Tarapore

Over the past decade, the U.S. and Australian intelligence communities have evolved rapidly to perform new missions. They have developed new capabilities and adapted their business processes, especially in support of joint and complex military operations. But in the coming decade, their greatest challenge will be to develop new capabilities to manage and exploit big data.1

We use the term big data to mean the exponentially increasing amount of digital information being created by new information technologies (IT)—such as mobile Internet, cloud storage, social networking, and the “Internet of things”—and the advanced analytics used to process that data. Big data yields not simply a quantitative increase in information, but a qualitative change in how we create new knowledge and understand the world. These data-related information technologies have already begun to revolutionize commerce and science, transforming the economy and acting as enablers for other game-changing technology trends, from next-generation genomics to energy exploration.2 In defense intelligence communities, some of these technologies have been adopted for tasks, including technical collection and operational intelligence fusion—but big data’s impact on all-source intelligence analysis has scarcely been examined.

This article offers a view on how these disruptive information technologies could transform defense intelligence analysis and the functions of the all-source enterprise. It is not a comprehensive study on trends in technology or in the intelligence profession, nor is it a deterministic scenario of a high-tech future. Rather, here we seek to identify some opportunities and risks of the disruptive technologies at hand. First, we sketch a background of the most important IT trends that are shaping today’s economy and society. Second, we outline how big data could transform intelligence analysis; it has the potential to unlock enormous productivity gains and effectiveness by automating some currently labor-intensive tasks, enabling new forms of analysis and creating new forms of presentation. Third, we argue big data cannot do it all; its utility in making sense of complex systems and addressing knowledge gaps is limited. Finally, we outline how big data could transform the wider assessment agency enterprise. We argue that the explosion in data supply and demand will incentivize assessment agencies to reposition their roles more toward service-delivery functions and to rebalance their workforces.

None of this is inevitable. In both analytic operations and enterprise management, much of how the scenario actually unfolds will be determined by the vision and agility of our leadership, our partners, and our adversaries. Defense and intelligence community (IC) leaders must play an active but balanced role, exploiting big data’s potential, but understanding its limitations.

Today’s Tech Trends

The big data phenomenon presents defense intelligence with a range of opportunities, from off-the-shelf tools to complex business-process reforms. Some tools can be absorbed wholesale by the IC; for example, social networking tools such as Wikis and Chat are already being used to facilitate better collaboration between analysts. Beyond simple software acquisitions, however, disruptive information technologies have birthed a number of trends in how data are collected, moved, stored, and organized. Four of the most salient prevailing concepts, which are already transforming the economy and society, could reshape all-source intelligence.

Everything Is Social, Mobile, and Local. Much of the explosion of big data has been driven by the fact that information is increasingly social (generated and transmitted by many users, rather than a few big producers), mobile (collected by sensors on ubiquitous Internet-connected mobile devices), and local (geospatially tagged). These trends have irreversibly transformed IT; mobile devices in particular have become the primary means of connecting to the Internet and have thus become the primary market for much IT innovation. This has already created new opportunities not only for collection, but also for intelligence processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED), and analysis.

Data Are Useless Without Data Science. The exponential creation of digital data holds enormous potential for creating insight and knowledge through PED and data analytics. The burgeoning field of data science—at the intersection of statistics, computer science, and other related fields—is increasingly being used by the private sector to realize the commercial potential of big data, often for prosaic tasks such as tracking a person’s consumption patterns to better target advertising campaigns. The IC’s routine work of collection, PED, and analysis is still largely organized on the Cold War model of seeking out sparse and secret information. Now, however, it must cope with the inverse challenge (and exploit the opportunities) of managing and analyzing massive quantities of data and, in the process, compete with the lucrative private sector to attract the highly specialized skills of data scientists.3

IT Solutions Are Customized and Intuitive. The accelerating pace of innovation and the need to best harness big data are both enabling and driving the creation of IT solutions that are customized and intuitive for the user. Gone are the days of hefty user manuals or obscure text-based user interfaces. Specific applications perform specific functions. Even major platforms such as Palantir are delivered with bespoke service support, both in tailoring the product to customer requirements and in providing ongoing software development support. Complex data-driven analysis demands a menu of apps or even dedicated software developers integrated into analyst teams—as they already are in some parts of the IC.

The Internet Is Everywhere. The rate of increase in big data will only grow as more devices join the Internet. These devices not only provide an interface for users, but are also creating a growing “Internet of things”—everything from household appliances to industrial robots—that generate and use more data, in turn creating more potential knowledge and vulnerabilities. At the same time, emerging technologies (such as free-space optical communications, which use lasers to transmit data through the atmosphere) are allowing users to bring the Internet into austere communications environments in order to enable the wider military use of Internet-connected IT and greater resilience to network failures.

These technology trends have been driven by the commercial and scientific sectors, but they also have powerful implications for the IC; they are rapidly challenging long-held conceptions of intelligence collection targets, business processes, required IT tools, and workforce skill sets. But the IC’s capacity to adopt these technologies remains inadequate; fully exploiting these trends would require a deep revision of innovation policy and IT-acquisition business models. To adequately exploit these opportunities, the IC would need to incorporate a “technology push” acquisition model alongside the customary “demand pull” model. In today’s IT environment of faster innovation and more disruptive and unpredictable technologies, where government lacks the speed or vision to lead innovation, the IC’s best option may be to monitor and leverage incipient innovation instead of attempting to drive it. Rather than dictating requirements to firms through a byzantine acquisitions process (as in most defense procurement programs), the IC’s greatest potential for IT adoption may lie in injecting its “use cases” (and resources) in the start-up or development phases of future technologies. And in a data-intensive information environment, assessment agency leaders would need to recognize that adaptive IT is integral to analytic operations and no longer an ancillary support function toiling in the basement. The analysis mission-owner should therefore be responsible for shaping the agency’s IT architecture as never before.

Even if imperfectly realized, today’s technology trends hold enormous potential to transform all-source intelligence.

Transforming Analysis

Across intelligence problems, big data’s greatest promise is its potential to integrate and organize information. New technologies for collecting, moving, storing, and organizing data could give all-source analysts access to vastly more information with more automation and productivity, thereby allowing them to concentrate their finite cognitive capacity on the hardest, highest-priority problems. But rather than simply bolting new technologies onto current processes, assessment agencies now have an opportunity to incorporate new technological trends in ways that fundamentally reshape how data are used for all-source analysis. The new technologies could be usefully applied to a range of defense intelligence problems, including social network analysis, weapons systems modeling, trend analysis for tactical military intelligence or nontraditional warning problems, and nascent analytic constructs such as “object-based production” and “activity-based intelligence.”4 Thus, they not only improve our capacity to execute existing intelligence missions, but they also create entirely new data-intensive types of analysis.

More Information with Less Effort. Big data and data analytics rely heavily on automation. Once the architecture and algorithms are set, the data could be managed—collected, moved, stored, and organized—with relatively little additional effort. Applied to all-source intelligence, the exponential increase in data and analytics would render manual information retrieval impractical and unnecessary; the heavy lifting of data management could be largely automated. Already-existing tools can create an automatic and persistent push of data to analysts, obviating the labor-intensive requirement to manually pull data from various sources. That push of data could be more processed and valuable—for example, collated across different sources or formats—before it even reaches the analyst.

Automated data collation and analytics would both save analyst effort and enable powerful new capabilities. Data analytics could, with varying levels of human supervision, characterize data into meaningful clusters or categories, categorize and file new data into existing clusters, and detect outliers or new data that do not fit into existing clusters.5 For all-source analysis, new methods such as object-based production could enable seamless integration of data from multiple sources and in multiple formats, thereby building comprehensive libraries of data on given targets. Analysts could use that mass of data and associated analytics to more quickly identify intelligence gaps, unexpected correlations and associations, or anomalies or irregular behavior. This range of capabilities could be profitably used, for example, for everything from finding patterns or anomalies in a terrorist target’s pattern of life, to tracking military targets automatically in wide-area surveillance, to tipping and cueing for humanitarian assistance and disaster recovery support. In such cases, human intervention—especially expert analysis of the target—is still critical, but big data could empower those analysts to know more and to know it more quickly and with less effort.

Big data technologies allow intelligence to move quickly, be stored indefinitely, and yield more valuable insights over time. Much of the newly collected data would arrive at or near real-time, compressing the latency of collection, PED, and analysis, and cueing further collection. Vast quantities of data—unprocessed and unseen by any analyst—would be stored, available to be mined later in the context of future data or requirements or to discover or recognize associations or trends. Machine learning would allow this entire process to improve with time. The accumulation of data and the refinement of algorithms would allow for dynamic and progressively more accurate models or more robust and adaptive normalcy patterns, and would enable the detection of finer or more meaningful anomalies accordingly.

There are significant challenges to fielding these new capabilities. Some of these challenges are technical—for example, optimizing ways to ingest and collate data from different sources and in different formats, especially unstructured data from text and media. The thorniest challenges, however, are associated with policy settings and governance frameworks. For example, intelligence agencies will need to set standards for the vetting and quality assurance of data they source from interagency or other partners; establish security and legal compliance protocols for sharing data across organizations; establish robust security measures to protect data from spoofing, cyber exploitation, or insider leaks; and standardize the tagging and coding of data for use in analytics. Once mission-owners set these frameworks to govern the effective and secure use of big data, all-source analysis should yield unprecedented gains in productivity and capability.

Presentation Is Everything. Once collated, managed, and applied to gain new insights, data must be presented effectively to the customer. Here, too, big data carry risks and opportunities. Customers will never lose the temptation to acquire and interpret their own data, and big data, plentiful and apparently authoritative, will exacerbate that problem. The IC faces the risk that these quantities and varieties of data will create the appearance of veracity—and customers’ easy access to raw data streams or intelligence reporting could become even more hazardous. In an environment where data are ubiquitous, customers will expect immediate and authoritative answers and will sideline IC producers that cannot quickly deliver user-friendly products.

Fortunately, big data and data analytics also present opportunities to create compelling and effective outputs for the customer. Data-intensive solutions to intelligence problems demand appropriate forms of presentation; just as in science and commerce, these solutions would be best presented as graphics or visuals, not text-heavy assessments. Assessment agencies could profitably use one or a few main data-agnostic platforms (such as Google Earth), connected to relevant intelligence databases and easily overlaid with various customized data layers, to electronically deliver finished intelligence to the customer. With the concomitant improvement in IT, these outputs could be easily pushed to the customer, just as data are pushed to the analyst. Presented in multimedia, they could incorporate multi–collection platform reporting and data streams and use “recommendation engines” of the type used by Amazon and Netflix to suggest other relevant outputs tailored to the customer’s requirements.

The most effective finished intelligence outputs, exploiting the full potential of data analytics, would incorporate the following features. First, they would use a visualization platform, and for strategic analysis, the most common platforms would most likely be geospatial. Much digital data are already geospatially tagged, and geospatial presentation often yields powerful insights that are not otherwise apparent. Second, they would be dynamic—using automated feeds, the product would be constantly updated with data collated in real time. Outputs would offer more than just a recent snapshot of intelligence, as the IC typically provides now with written assessments, and they would render obsolete terms such as “Latest Date of Intelligence” or “Information Cut-Off Date.” Third, they would be interactive; the customer could interrogate the product, using hyperlinks or some other intuitive interface, to pursue additional layers of data.

These attributes of data-intensive presentation are clearly better suited to some outputs, and some customers, than others. Already, strategic assessments for national policymakers can profit from visual and interactive outputs—even the President’s Daily Brief, the pinnacle of national-level intelligence, has been delivered on an iPad. With time, big data and data analytics could transform all phases of analytic operations, culminating with quicker, more accurate, and more tailored intelligence for customers.

Limits to Transformation

The promises of big data are tantalizing, but they are limited. The greatest impact will be felt in the analysis of who, what, where, and when questions, using single– or multi–collection platform structured data to address discrete, bounded questions. It plays a smaller role in analysis of why or how questions, which are salient not only for strategic intelligence supporting the policymaker, but also for every level down to tactical intelligence supporting subunit commanders.

Analysis Needs More Than Data. Data-intensive forms of analysis promise new efficiencies and insights, but at its heart, all-source analysis needs more than just data. First and foremost, analysis needs expert leadership. Faced with the allure of compelling data, the IC faces a risk that available data will drive the analytic agenda rather than the other way around. The sheer availability of certain types of data could skew the analytic enterprise to prioritize its efforts or distort its assessments by placing undue importance on the most data-intensive activities or by emphasizing the most visible and trackable targets or issues. Instead, expert leadership must still determine which data are collected and in the service of which analytic priorities; these tasks demand judgment and knowledge of customer requirements. The analysis mission-owners must be careful to redouble their emphasis on directing the intelligence cycle and to ensure the enterprise is serving customer requirements—asking the right questions and directing collection and analysis accordingly—rather than being slaves to the data.

Second, analysis needs expert analysts. Data-intensive fusion, PED, and analysis are better suited to some types of intelligence problems than others, but they always require expert analysts to make sense of outputs. Data-intensive analysis can more profitably be applied against “puzzles,” with bounded, empirically discoverable answers, rather than “mysteries” that deal with a contingent, imponderable future.6 Puzzles typically relate to discrete objects—places and things—whereas mysteries are tied to complex phenomena.7 Mysteries or complex phenomena are the product of inscrutably complex human interactions and, like any complex system, are sensitive to countless variables and therefore inherently unpredictable. Defense intelligence must be postured to tackle both.

Even puzzles require expert analysts—to frame the puzzles in the first place, solve them, and then to make them relevant. Analysts need to verify collected data that may be flawed or spoofed by denial and deception, which requires expert analytic tradecraft. They then need to provide the necessary context or value-added interpretation of the data analytics—the “so what?”—which requires not only subject matter expertise but also sensitivity to customer requirements.

Consider the conflicts that flared in Ukraine and Iraq in 2014. In both cases, irregular forces—Russian-backed separatists and Islamic State militants, respectively—made rapid advances against their adversaries, not only deploying effective military force but also documenting their campaigns in social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube. Exploiting the content and metadata of these sources, fused with data from traditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), could yield significant data about those forces’ tactics, social networks, and geolocation at particular times. Those data-intensive streams would allow Western defense intelligence to build a high-fidelity picture of these forces’ composition, materiel, and disposition. They could thus provide useful context and cueing for tactical intelligence support. But they would add little to the customers’ understanding of the militants’ intent—their operational plans and political agenda—or even some elements of their capability, such as their level of unit cohesion. Framing, solving, and interpreting these puzzles, even for tactical military intelligence problems, require analytic judgment, attuned to customer needs.

For mysteries, data may offer valuable piecemeal insights, but expert analysts need to do even more heavy lifting to translate those insights into meaningful assessments for customers. Expertise is critical for inferring a target commander’s intent (as in the Ukraine and Iraq irregular warfare examples above) and even more so for assessments of complex phenomena, such as political unrest. For instance, a more perfect data-intensive coverage of the Arab Spring unrest could have provided better insights into the depth of popular opposition to Arab regimes or tactical warnings of intensifying protests, but simply a better coverage of social-networking or other data-intensive tools would not have prepared Western intelligence agencies to anticipate the revolutions. Twitter feeds alone could not explain why revolutions swiftly consumed regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, or explain the difference in political trajectories in Libya, Bahrain, and Syria. An actionable intelligence response to Arab unrest would have required marrying that data-intensive coverage with subject matter expertise, comprehensive analyses of state stability, and a receptive and agile policy customer; big data without those factors would have provided tactical tipping of protests, not strategic warning of regime collapse or civil war. For complex problems, big data can provide a more granular picture of the target, quickly and with little effort, but the mystery can only be anticipated or managed (if at all) by the enterprise’s expert leaders and analysts, working closely with the customer.

Addressing Knowledge Gaps. Some big data proponents argue that new storage and processing technologies should allow users to collect and manage virtually all relevant data about a given object. By examining the entire population of data rather than a sample (that is, where n = all), users could make direct observations rather than relying on inferences based on partial data. Induction and modeling would be unnecessary, replaced by the volume and fidelity of a virtually complete data set, manipulated by well-tested algorithms. In this view, better understanding only needs better data.

The quest for more data is all too familiar for the Intelligence Community. Built in the Cold War, when clandestine collection was key to uncovering scarce information, and reinforced in the past decade of ballooning technical ISR collection to support warfighters, the community has developed as a collection-centric system geared toward plugging intelligence gaps or arithmetically connecting the dots, and any missteps or intelligence failures are most commonly met with demands for more or better data.8 For some problems, addressing intelligence gaps is vital, and big data will help—with both open source and intelligence collection.

Complex phenomena, on the other hand, are not so easily conquered by data. For these, assessment agencies need to address enduring knowledge gaps. Unlike intelligence gaps, knowledge gaps have no single, durable answer and may not be required to directly support specific decisions or actions. Rather, they are an ongoing requirement, a framework to guide collection and to improve decisionmakers’ understanding as they seek to execute a plan. These gaps would only be satisfied—or, more likely, de-prioritized—when they are no longer essential for decision advantage. More data cannot close a knowledge gap. As a result, knowledge gaps involve an inescapable degree of uncertainty and limit analytic confidence. They remain extremely useful constructs to structure and prioritize intelligence collection and analysis, but they also highlight the limitations of big data’s utility to strategic analysis.

Knowledge gaps may be comprised of multiple intelligence gaps, but critically, they also require analytic interpretation and judgment. For example, cataloging the signatures of China’s new aircraft carrier, charting the performance of its aircraft and weapons systems, or tracking its position on a patrol all represent intelligence gaps with discoverable answers. But understanding how that vessel might be used by Beijing, in concert with other capabilities in a crisis or as part of a coercive strategy, would represent a complex knowledge gap comprised of many constituent intelligence gaps and unknowable future courses of action that are contingent, complex, and unpredictable. Data cannot reveal what does not yet exist, such as adversary decisionmaking in a crisis. For such knowledge gaps, collecting and collating all relevant data would not be sufficient; better data may provide richer evidence for interpretation and anticipation, but it would only be a supplement to subject matter expertise and rigorous tradecraft.

In defense intelligence, creating knowledge requires more analyst effort than closing intelligence gaps, but it is also more important, at least to strategic policy customers. Making sense of complex systems and phenomena—creating knowledge—is central to sound decisionmaking. Some big data optimists suggest that uncovering all relevant data for a problem (or achieving n = all) should allow users to draw reliable empirical correlations without needing to understand causality; indeed, in some fields, that may be sufficient. But in intelligence analysis, understanding causality is indispensible because customers seek to take action to influence outcomes, and actionable intelligence support should accordingly highlight causality, enable the customer to understand their points of leverage, be alert to key decision points, and act effectively against threats or opportunities. Understanding causality in the context of customer requirements—in other words, creating and applying knowledge—is thus central to the IC mission.

Transforming the Enterprise

Simply passing the deluge of data on to customers would be counterproductive; even neatly presented fused data, absent expert assessment and advice, would only decrease the signal-to-noise ratio of useful, actionable intelligence. Big data are exacerbating that problem by sharply increasing both the supply of data available to the IC and the demand for it from senior customers. Caught in the middle, IC leaders will need to adapt not only to the transformation of analytic operations, but also to the functions and staffing of the enterprise.

From Production to Service Delivery. In an environment of ballooning data inputs and expected outputs, the IC cadre of all-source analysts will find it increasingly difficult to remain the original producers of all finished intelligence for their customers. Even with the anticipated productivity dividends, the enterprise in its current form will not be able to cope with the pace or scale of the big data challenge, for at least four reasons.

First, customer expectations are already growing and outstripping the IC capacity to adapt. As their decision cycles continue to be compressed, customers will demand immediate and data-rich answers rather than lengthy deliberations or vague and unverifiable “gut calls.”

Second, in the face of these increasingly unforgiving expectations, the current production process—tasking collectors, collating and analyzing data, and producing finished intelligence reports—is too cumbersome and time-consuming. If the IC rigidly sticks to that process, dissatisfied customers will seek their information elsewhere.

Third, these dissatisfied customers will find data-intensive information support from a proliferating array of competing suppliers, from established and nontraditional media to commercial intelligence services, which can provide quicker and more user-friendly answers—at a tiny fraction of the IC enterprise’s operating budget.

Fourth, the proportion of useful information that is classified, the unique province of the IC, is rapidly declining. Increasingly, decision advantage hinges on speedily integrating multiple streams of data rather than on a well-placed spy—and big data provide a wealth of open source or gray information that can more cheaply and automatically be deployed for intelligence solutions. Classified collection will remain indispensible, but IC leaders will be incentivized to more judiciously deploy those relatively expensive and risky means against their toughest hard targets.

With these clunky production processes, tough competitors, and less unique information, an unchanging IC enterprise will face an urgent threat of irrelevance. This threat sharpens already existing incentives for assessment agencies to reimagine their function, from the current industrial-age model of linear finished intelligence production to an information-age model of integrated and adaptive assessment service delivery. Even without the advent of big data, a growing body of literature on the state of the art of all-source analysis argues that intelligence agencies should cultivate a more intimate relationship with their customers—to better understand their requirements and more effectively deliver influential support—and to reconceptualize their role from sole producers to service providers.9 Much of this literature points to the importance of timely and tailored on-call expertise (as distinct from discrete written products) as a key service for customers. The J2 briefing the commander or the analyst briefing the policymaker is an indispensable face-time moment for both the customer and the intelligence provider. The customers’ abiding preference for agile and responsive in-person expertise will ensure such services remain a prized feature of assessment services.

Another key service the enterprise could deliver is access to a much wider network of expertise from across, and from outside of, the IC. In this view, assessment agencies would retain their core analysis and production mission, but to meet customers’ demand with the best possible intelligence support, they would also leverage networks of other agencies, allied partners, commercial sources, and cleared outside experts. In a world awash in data, assessment agencies’ prime advantage will lie in the privileged access to their customers; while they will not be able to internally produce all the answers, they should be able to tailor and fine-tune intelligence solutions sourced from intelligence collectors and from elsewhere. This service then amounts to enterprise management: using networks of experts and data sources and collaborative mechanisms including social-networking tools to quickly address priority knowledge gaps. Effective enterprise management hinges on robust integration with both those networks and with the customer.

Renewed Importance of Staff Functions. All-source analysts have traditionally been the core skill set of assessment agencies, and as we have argued, big data create powerful reasons to integrate data scientists and software engineers into analytic teams. Additionally, intelligence staff functions—a greatly enabled version of today’s collection managers as distinct from all-source analysts—would be a critical force multiplier by facilitating the agency’s enterprise management roles. In an enterprise transformed to provide assessment services rather than simply production, effective staff work would form the vital connective tissue between the assessment agency and its network of collectors and partners.

The force-multiplying quality of these staff functions will prove particularly valuable as agencies seek to manage both the demands of big data analytics and resource constraints. Assuming the U.S., Australian, and other ICs will continue to face tough budget and staffing pressures, any future investment in data analytics–related functions will likely come at the expense of all-source analyst capacity, as analyst billets are retasked for new data-related missions. Investing more in staff functions would provide a scalable solution for the agency to leverage more external capacity to meet rising customer demands—and a scalable solution to maximize service delivery will become particularly salient in case of future budget or staffing cuts.

Thus, the future assessment agency should have a more diverse ecology of personnel. Rather than treating all-source analysts as the sole core competency and all other functions as ancillary support, an effective assessment agency that has adapted well to big data–related disruptive technologies will rely critically on the interaction of three core job types, none of which can be fully effective without the others: data analytics disciplines, including data scientists and software engineers, to process and manipulate big data inputs; all-source analysts, to provide expert and customized assessment advice; and intelligence staff functions, to manage and enable the assessment agency’s key advantage: its connections to the customer and the rest of the enterprise.

Conclusion

Disruptive technologies carry implications not only for the work of the future analyst, but also for the future assessment agency. In particular, big data and its associated trends should yield enormous productivity and capability gains. But these technologies will also put pressure on the assessment agency as a whole to move away from internally producing all their intelligence and toward a service-provider model in which it tailors intelligence solutions sourced from across the IC and elsewhere. Many of these implications apply particularly to foundational military intelligence, so they will not be felt equally across the IC, and they will also extend to deployed warfighter support and collaboration with other government agencies and allied partners.

Like no change since the end of the Cold War, the advent of big data and data analytics will compel abiding changes in the IC. The risks and opportunities we have outlined are foreseeable in the next 5 to 10 years; other disruptive technologies not yet conceptualized (let alone fielded) will have other, unknowable effects in coming decades. The unknowable nature of future disruptive technologies, however, should not prevent IC leaders from executing a big data strategy immediately to transform both analysis and the enterprise.

None of these changes is inevitable; exploiting big data’s remarkable opportunities and mitigating its risks demand strategic vision. An adaptive and effective defense intelligence enterprise will need new IT tools, new skill sets, and new business processes to embrace innovative technologies, and these will be costly. It will also entail a formidable recruitment and training challenge not only to cultivate a cadre of skilled data scientists but also to train all-source analysts on the uses and limits of data analytics. Meeting the challenge of big data will require investments of money and resources, and some risk-taking on new technologies and protocols—precisely at the moment of tightening budget constraints and post–Edward Snowden security sensitivities. These investments will have to compete with continued investments in the IC’s treasured but exorbitant clandestine collection platforms, and IC leaders will need to make increasingly tough decisions on allocating those resources. As resources for traditional clandestine collection shrink, the obvious solution would be to reduce unnecessary duplication and dedicate those rare collection means to priority hard targets.

Most importantly, meeting the challenge of big data requires disciplined leadership to judge and maintain the right balance between data-intensive analytic functions, such as foundational defense intelligence, and making sense of complex phenomena for strategic intelligence advice. Absent strong direction, big data could easily become fetishized, where the quantity of data collected, collated, and processed becomes the measure of the community’s effectiveness and distorts the analytic agenda. Instead, IC leadership must ensure that expertise and tradecraft are at the center of analytic operations and that knowledge creation and assessment services are at the center of enterprise management—all in the service, ultimately, of decision advantage for the customer. 

Source:
This article was published in the Joint Force Quarterly 79 which is published by the National Defense University.

Notes:

1. Big data is now a hackneyed, almost passé, term, but in the absence of a widely accepted substitute, it remains useful. For a non-scientific introduction to big data and its transformative potential, see Kenneth Neil Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, “The Rise of Big Data: How It’s Changing the Way We Think about the World,” Foreign Affairs (May–June 2013).
2. James Manyika et al., Disruptive Technologies: Advances that Will Transform Life, Business, and the Global Economy (San Francisco: McKinsey Global Institute, May 2013), available at <www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/disruptive_technologies>.
3. On the skills required for data science, see Drew Conway, “Data Science in the U.S. Intelligence Community,” IQT Quarterly 2, no. 4 (Spring 2011), 24–27. McKinsey estimates that by 2018 the demand for data-science talent will exceed its projected supply by about 50–60 percent (see Manyika et al.). The Intelligence Community will need to compete with the more lucrative private sector for those scarce talents.
4. On object-based production and activity-based intelligence, see Catherine Johnston, “Modernizing Defense Intelligence: Object-Based Production and Activity-Based Intelligence,” briefing, Defense Intelligence Agency, June 27, 2013, available at <www.ncsi.com/diaid/2013/presentations/johnston.pdf>.
5. Kirk Borne, “Knowledge Discovery from Mining Big Data,” briefing, March 12, 2013, available at <http://realserver4v.stsci.edu/t/data/2013/03/3194/KborneStsci2013.pdf>.
6. On puzzles and mysteries, see Gregory F. Treverton, “Risks and Riddles,” Smithsonian Magazine (June 2007).
7. We are grateful to Josh Kerbel for coining this distinction between objects and phenomena.
8. Josh Kerbel and Anthony Olcott, “The Intelligence-Policy Nexus: Synthesizing with Clients, Not Analyzing for Customers,” Studies in Intelligence 54, no. 4 (December 2010).
9. See, especially, Kerbell and Olcott; interview with Robert Blackwill, “A Policymaker’s Perspective on Intelligence Analysis,” Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995); and Thomas Fingar, “Intelligence as a Service Industry,” The American Interest 7, no. 4 (March–April 2012).

Russia, Germany and a consortium of Western European companies have re-activated the Gazprom-led Nord Stream Two gas pipeline project. Parallel to the existing Nord Stream One pipeline on the Baltic seabed, Nord Stream Two would double the system’s total capacity to 110 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually, all earmarked for direct delivery to Germany.

Nord Stream is billed as the world’s biggest natural gas transportation project, in terms of pipeline length and throughput capacities. Initially announced in 2011–2012 through non-binding agreements of intent, Nord Stream Two had to be shelved for the duration of Europe’s economic slump. The project agreement signed on September 4, 2015, however, is binding. Gazprom’s management anticipates economic-financial recovery in Western Europe and, consequently, gas demand recovery by 2019, the target date for completing Nord Stream Two. It also expects gas extraction to decline in Norway after having been capped in the Netherlands, thus boosting European import demand (Gazprom.com, accessed September 14).

The project’s other role is to bypass Ukraine’s gas transit system, its continuation through the Slovakian and Czech transit corridors, and potentially Poland’s. Those transit routes are beyond Gazprom’s control. The Kremlin intends to re-direct the lion’s share of its gas exports to the “old” European Union into the Gazprom-controlled Nord Stream route. This would not merely deprive Ukraine and those other countries of transit revenue. Strategically, it would result in Gazprom controlling gas transportation as well as the supply to Western European customers.

Gazprom claims that it would, in due course, deliver “new gas”—i.e., gas sourced from newly developed fields—through Nord Stream. But it has not identified those resources; its barely disguised near-term intent is to switch the flow from Ukrainian pipelines into Nord Stream. For years to come, gas volumes diverted from Ukraine will be Nord Stream’s main resource.

In the short and medium term, Nord Stream Two strengthens Russia’s hand against Ukraine and a number of Central-Eastern European countries. Gazprom will henceforth be able to bypass or cut off these countries—or extort concessions under such threats—before these countries would have made arrangements with non-Russian suppliers.

As a bypass project, Nord Stream Two is potentially more effective compared with South Stream (in its various configurations). Bypassing Ukraine, South Stream would have changed Gazprom’s export route but would have targeted basically the same markets. Nord Stream Two, however, aims to break into new, highly lucrative markets in northwestern and western Europe.

Or in the words of Prof. Anis Bajrektarevic, “This arching pipeline network eliminates any transit barganing premium from Eastern Europeans and poses in effect a joint Russo-German pressure on the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, and even as far as to Azerbaijan and Georgia.”

The European Commission finally blocked South Stream on the legal level at the end of 2014; and the other southern bypass option, Turkish Stream, looks no more convincing in 2015, even to Moscow, than its closely resembling predecessor Blue Stream Two had looked a decade ago. Thus, Moscow has turned to Nord Stream again in the new circumstances and based on its forecasts of medium-term market demand (see above).

If completed as designed, Nord Stream Two could cement the Russo-German special partnership in the energy sector for the long term, with ramifications in the financial sector and foreign policy.

Germany is the exclusive designated recipient of Nord Stream gas. This evolution casts Germany in a new role, on top of Germany’s familiar role as Europe’s leading importer of Russian gas. Nord Stream Two promises the much-coveted status of an “energy hub” for Germany. It opens the prospect for Germany to become the main center for the transit and storage of Russian gas and its onward distribution in Western Europe. This would mean higher sales revenues for German energy companies, as well as a potential windfall from transit fees and taxes accruing to the German federal and state budgets.

Even if Nord Stream One and Two operate (as seems likely) below their combined capacity of 110 bcm per year, the volumes carried into Germany could be staggering in magnitude. The prospects of transit and tax revenue on such a scale must be a significant consideration behind the German government’s support for Nord Stream Two.

Designating Germany as the privileged “hub” country is not an entirely novel idea in Moscow. In 2006, President Vladimir Putin had publicly offered to select Germany as the distribution center for Russian gas in Western Europe. Counting at that time on the development of Russia’s supergiant Shtokman field, Putin proposed to export Shtokman gas through the then-planned Nord Stream One pipeline to Germany, for onward distribution to other EU countries. The Shtokman project, however, turned out to be unfeasible and was abandoned in 2012.

Putin’s stillborn offer to Germany in 2006 would not have affected the Ukrainian transit of Russian gas to the European Union, given that Shtokman gas would have been “new gas,” not diverted from the Ukrainian transit system. Now, however, Russia is at war in Ukraine and is enlisting Germany into this anti-Ukrainian project. It can also be viewed as an anti-EU project, insofar as it enables Gazprom to replace a transportation route beyond its control with a route under its control.

Part Two

Within Germany, Nord Stream has spawned a system of gas transmission pipelines and storage sites, dedicated to handling Gazprom’s gas en route to German and other countries’ markets. That system’s ownership and operation pose serious challenges to the European Union’s energy market and competition norms. Those challenges will mount, if and when Nord Stream Two adds another 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) to Nord Stream One’s 55 bcm in annual capacity. From 2012 to date, Nord Stream One has operated at about half-capacity.

The dedicated infrastructure on German territory includes the OPAL and NEL transmission pipelines and the Rehden and Jemgum storage sites, all intended to operate in conjunction with Nord Stream One and Two. Gazprom and other Nord Stream stakeholders in various combinations also own and operate OPAL, NEL, Rehden and Jemgum. Alongside that dedicated system, Gazprom and Wintershall jointly operate another gas transmission network that can also be fed with gas volumes from Nord Stream One and Two.

The European Commission had, all along, viewed those plans as aiming to create vertically integrated monopolies. The Commission used its authority and legal powers to resist such arrangements (e.g., restricting Gazprom’s use of OPAL to one half of that pipeline’s capacity). For their part, the German government and regulatory agencies allowed Gazprom to expand its pipeline and storage assets in Germany through joint ventures with German companies. A flurry of such takeovers were agreed upon in 2013 and early 2014, linked with the completion of Nord Stream One and the expected agreement to build Nord Stream Two.

Russia’s military intervention against Ukraine in February 2014, however, made it politically impossible for Germany to complete those transactions.

Germany’s time-out is now over. On September 4, Gazprom’s buyout of Wintershall’s gas trading and storage was finalized, and the Nord Stream Two shareholders’ agreement was signed. The agreement has created the New European Pipeline AG project company to build and operate Nord Stream Two.

The companies’ press releases stopped short of identifying the chief executive of the New European Pipeline AG project company. Gazprom’s photo of the signing ceremony, however, shows an uncaptioned Matthias Warnig signing the Nord Stream Two agreement, alongside the presidents/CEOs of the stakeholder companies (Gazprom.com, accessed September 14). As managing director of Nord Stream One since that project’s inception, Warnig will apparently hold the same position in Nord Stream Two. Nord Stream Two’s shareholding largely overlaps with that of Nord Stream One and with the shareholdings of the dedicated onshore pipelines and storages in Germany.

These actions are already accompanied by pressures from the interested companies and the German government to override EU energy market and competition legislation. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble apparently proposes transferring some of the European Commission’s anti-trust competencies to other authorities, not publicly specified as yet. Germany’s own anti-trust and regulatory agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, does not object to Gazprom’s monopolistic use of the OPAL and (in prospect) NEL pipelines (Naturalgaseurope.com, September 3).

According to the European Commission, the offshore Nord Stream One was implemented in line with EU law at that time, but “the Commission will ensure that Nord Stream Two, if implemented, fully complies with the EU’s Third Package of energy legislation.” And “any pipelines, whether northern or southern, on EU member countries’ territories must be fully compliant with EU legislation (Bloomberg, UNIAN, September 11). This official statement alludes, first, to the fact that the Third Package was not yet in force when Nord Stream One was built, but has entered into force since then. It further alludes to the European Commission’s effective use of EU law to block South Stream—that other Gazprom-led project in Europe.

The European Commission’s vice-president for the Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic, has announced “a host” of questions to be raised on Nord Stream; e.g., Does it correspond with the EU’s supply diversification strategy? What does it mean for Central and Eastern Europe? What conclusions should be drawn, if this project aims practically to shut down Ukraine’s transit route? “All projects of this magnitude would have to comply with EU legislation,” he declared (Politico.eu, September 7, 11; UNIAN, September 11; BTA, September 15).

Part Three

According to the European Union’s Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, Ukraine is a “reliable transit country,” while Nord Stream Two does not help diversify supply sources, hence “it is not a priority” in terms of EU policies (Naturalgaseurope.com, September 3). “Not a priority” was also the European Commission’s standard diplomatic phrase when blocking South Stream. The phrase implies (inter alia) no access to EU funding, which is reserved for projects of common interest in the trans-European network-energy (TEN-E) category.

Austrian OMV’s entrance into the Nord Stream Two consortium is noteworthy, both politically and from a business perspective. OMV is the majority owner of the Central Europe Gas Hub (CEGH), at Baumgarten, near Vienna. This was the planned terminus of two major, rival pipeline projects: the EU-backed Nabucco and the Gazprom-led South Stream, both defunct. The CEGH’s remaining role is that of terminus of the Ukraine-Slovakia gas transit corridor to Europe. But the transit volumes have been falling sharply in recent years in that corridor; down to some 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2014. Nord Stream Two threatens to kill that corridor altogether, by switching Russian gas flows from Ukrainian pipelines into Nord Stream.

Hence, OMV has joined Nord Stream Two to keep the CEGH alive, apparently expecting to connect Baumgarten, ultimately, with Nord Stream, via the OPAL and Gazela pipelines in Germany and the Czech Republic. OMV’s new president, Rainer Seele, has indicated at this possibility (Naturalgaseurope.com, August 12). Seele was Wintershall’s president until July 2015 and is closely aligned with Gazprom. Presumably, Seele’s value to OMV is to unlock Gazprom’s doors more widely for the Austrian company, and keep the CEGH alive by connecting it with Nord Stream (Vedomosti, September 4).

If Nord Stream Two kills the Ukrainian transit route—with Slovakia as collateral victim—Hungary could be left up in the air. Ukraine is the sole existing route for Russian (or any) natural gas into Hungary.

Re-routing gas flows from Ukraine into Nord Stream would also affect Poland and the Czech Republic adversely, albeit less dramatically than it would affect Ukraine, Slovakia or Hungary.

Czech dependence on Russian gas stands at about two thirds of the Czech consumption of some 9 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually. In recent years. The Czech Republic also provides transit service for Russian gas to Germany.

The Czech Republic’s pre-existing two trunklines are traditionally sourced with Russian gas from the Ukraine-Slovakia transit corridor. The new pipeline, Gazela, is dedicated to Russian gas to be sourced from Nord Stream, which feeds directly into the OPAL pipeline in Germany, thence to connect with Gazela in the Czech Republic. According to calculations in 2014, Russian natural gas reaching Central Europe via the Baltic sea entails far higher transportation costs—and, thus end prices—compared with the same volumes of Russian gas reaching Central Europe via Ukraine.

Poland, in the last two decades, has provided transit service for Russian gas through the Yamal-Europe pipeline, with an annual capacity of 35 bcm, which runs via Belarus and Poland into Germany. New transport capacity in Nord Stream Two would enable Moscow to either re-direct gas volumes into that offshore pipeline, bypassing Poland, or threaten to do so in order to re-negotiate supply and transit terms with Poland in Russia’s favor under duress. Re-negotiations are due ahead of 2022.

In Europe’s southeast, however, Gazprom has no bypass solution available. Gazprom will have to continue using the Ukrainian transit route in order to supply Moldova, Romania (which has almost stopped importing Russian gas in 2015), Bulgaria, Greece, and western parts of turkey. That would amount to an aggregate volume of up to 10 bcm per year, transiting Ukraine en route to the Balkans.

Whether Gazprom has the gas volumes available to deliver 55 bcm annually through Nord Stream One by 2019, and a total of 110 bcm annually through both lines after that year, seems doubtful, even by switching most of the flow from Ukraine, if Nord Stream Two ultimately materializes.

This article appeared at www.moderndiplomacy.eu

*Vladimir Socor is an independent researcher, analyst on central and Eastern Europe, and former diplomat.

Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena says the new government’s aim is to provide required facilities sufficiently to enhance the quality of police service.

Sirisena added that the police has a vast responsibility in the process of building a better society to protect law and order in this country. “I trust the Police Department will be committed to fulfill that responsibility”, he said.

Sirisena made these remarks at a passing out ceremony of 406 Police Officers, held at Sri Lanka Police College in Kalutara Friday.

President Sirisena stated that the main responsibility of a government is to save the poor people of the country from poverty in the course of building moral society. “The aim of the new government is to save poor people from poverty and empower them economically. Contribution of every field including the police is required in that regard”, the President said.

Sirisena expressed his gratitude to the commitment displayed by the Police Department during the time of war. He also thanked for the contribution of the police in implementing of state policies for good governance, by protecting law and order in the country at present too.

Three Junior Assistant Police Superintendents, 186 of Junior Sub Police Inspectors, 15 of Junior Sub Police Inspectors for State Intelligence Service and 202 of Junior Police Constables passed out at this ceremony.

President Sirisena presented awards to those who demonstrated excellent skills.

Minister of Law and Order and Prisons Reform Mr. Tilak Marapana, Ministers Rajitha Senaratne, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Deputy Minister Priyankara Jayarathne, Member of Parliament Rohitha Abeygunawardena, Secretary to the Ministry of Law and Order and Prisons Reform Mr. Jagath Wijeweera and Inspector General of Police Mr. N. K. Illangakoon participated in this occasion. President’s Media Unit 23. 10. 2015

Pope Francis announced Thursday to the Synod on the Family that he has chosen to establish a new office in the Roman Curia that will deal with issues of laity, family, and life, as part of his reform of the curia.

“I have decided to establish a new Dicastery with competency for Laity, Family and Life, that will replace the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family,” Pope Francis said Oct. 22, according to a communique from the Holy See press office.

“To this end, I have constituted a special commission that will prepare a text delineating canonically the competencies of the new Dicastery. The text will be presented for discussion to the Council of Cardinals at their next meeting in December.”

The Pope added that in addition to the pontifical councils for the laity and the family, the Pontifical Academy for Life will also joined to the new office.

This move is significant because it streamlines three separate offices into one; it is also meant to give greater attention to issues relating to the laity in the Church.

Pope Francis’ decision has been widely anticipated since he established, shortly after his March 2013 election as Bishop of Rome, the Council of Cardinals to advise him on the reform of the Roman Curia.

The cardinals’ council was established in April 2013, and originally included eight cardinals from around the world; its number was later expanded to nine.

The group first met in October of that year; at an Oct. 3, 2013 press briefing, Holy See press officer Fr. Federico Lombardi revealed that “the council also plans to give more specific attention to issues relating to the laity, so that this dimension of the life of the Church is properly and effectively recognized and followed by the governance of the Church.”

“Now there is a Pontifical Council for the Laity, but it is still possible to think of ways of strengthening this aspect,” he added.

Catholic News Agency reported Oct. 30, 2013 that Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, who co-ordinates the Council of Cardinals, had said that curial reform could develop the laity’s role in the Church’s ranks by creating a ‘Congregation for the Laity’, which would include the pontifical councils for the family and the laity, and the Pontifical Academy for Life.

It was noted then that the reform of the Roman Curia was expected to streamline the body by reducing the number of pontifical councils, and subsuming them within an increased number of congregations.

Pope Francis’ announcement called the new office a dicastery – a word which covers both congregations and pontifical councils. While he failed to refer to the new body as a congregation, that can nevertheless be reasonably expected – both given Cardinal Rodríguez’ statements, and the fact that it will include two existing pontifical councils.

There had been in 2014 some speculation that the expected ‘Congregation for the Laity’ would also include the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, but the Pope’s announcement has not borne out that prediction.

The Council of Cardinals last met in September, and it was reported at that time that they had formally submitted to the Pope a proposal for a congregation for laity, family, and life.

By then, it had been decided that the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers would not be included in the ‘laity congregation’, but rather in a second, new, congregation for charity, justice, and peace, which would subsume also the pontifical councils for justice and peace, migrants, and Cor Unum.

While Pope Francis’ recent announcement does not mention a new dicastery for charity, justice, and peace, it may still be reasonably expected in the coming months.

The next meeting of the cardinals’ council is scheduled for December.

Pope Francis reflected on the program of curial reform in February, at the opening of a consistory of cardinals. Speaking Feb. 12, he emphasized that reform “is always that of promoting greater harmony in the work of the various dicasteries and offices, in order to achieve more effective collaboration in that absolute transparency which builds authentic synodality and collegiality.”

“Reform is not an end in itself,” he said, “but a way of giving strong Christian witness; to promote more effective evangelization; to promote a fruitful ecumenical spirit; and to encourage a more constructive dialogue with all.”

Pope Francis’ reform of the Roman Curia has already resulted in the creation of a Secretariat for the Economy and a Secretariat for Communications.

Ultimately, it is expected that assisted by the Council of Cardinals, Pope Francis will promulgate a new apostolic constitution describing the Roman Curia. The curia is currently governed by St. John Paul II’s Pastor bonus, which was issued in 1988.

The Middle East’s biggest economy, Saudi Arabia may run out of financial assets within the next five years if the government maintains its current policies, warns the International Monetary Fund.

Saudi Arabia is expected to run a budget deficit of 21.6 percent in 2015 and 19.4 percent in 2016, according the IMF’s latest regional economic outlook.

The country needs to adjust spending, the IMF urged.

The IMF outlined two key factors shaping the region’s outlook. They are spreading and deepening regional conflicts and slumping oil prices.

The conflicts have given rise to large numbers of displaced people and refugees, on a scale not seen since the early 1990s, according to the report.

“Achieving fiscal sustainability over the medium-term will be especially challenging given the need to create jobs for the more than 10 million people anticipated to be looking for work by 2020 in the region’s oil exporting countries,” IMF Middle East and Central Asia Department Director Masood Ahmed told journalists after the report’s unveiling in Dubai.

According to the research, many experts suggest low oil prices will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

“For the region’s oil exporters, the fall in prices has led to large fall in revenue, amounting to a staggering $360 billion this year alone,” Masood Ahmed said.

OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Algeria and Libya have all seen their revenues drop sharply as a result of a decline in oil prices.

Saudi Arabia is currently facing a budget deficit for the first time since 2009. The crude price decline has strongly influenced the kingdom’s economy since oil sales account for about 80 percent of its revenues. It has prompted the government to cut spending, delay projects and sell bonds.

The country’s net foreign assets fell by about $82 billion from January to August. The government sold state bonds worth $15 billion (55 billion riyals) this year.

“There have been a number of one-off spending proposals this year that have taken place, and those initiatives have added to the spending needs,” Masood Ahmed said.

The budget deficit caused project layoffs in Saudi Arabia. Companies working on infrastructure projects haven’t been paid for six months or more. Payment delays increased lately as the government wants to cut prices on contracts in order to preserve cash.

Despite the perpetual appeals to reduce output and support crude prices, OPEC has been refusing to do so as the cartel is trying to maintain its market share. However, last month the cartel signaled a possible change of stance, saying it might cut output and is ready to talk to other (non-OPEC) producers. But experts say OPEC’s statements are not important without a change of policy by its biggest crude producer Saudi Arabia.

By D.S. Rajan*

Personalities, authorities and the media in the US have of late given indications on the possible dispatch soon under the country’s “freedom of navigation” (FON) operations, of one or more US surface ships to within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands in South China Sea (SCS) created by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). China’s reaction to such indications so far remains mixed; officially it generally looks measured and conciliatory (e.g the latest speech in Beijing of Vice-Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, at the Xiangshan forum, conveying the PRC’s stand against ‘reckless use of force’, more details in the Annexure below). On the other hand, the state controlled media are full of high level rhetoric against the US with stress on Chinese ‘counter measures’. In such conditions, it will be crucial to watch for signs of any naval maneuver on the part of the two sides in the region. Given below in the Annexure, is a chronological compilation of US indicators and the Chinese responses which can help in correctly assessing the developing situation.

US researchers[1]have found that since March 2014, China is building artificial islands atop 7 reefs and atolls in the Spratly archipelago of the SCS, the sovereignty of which is being disputed by Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam. The seven identified by them are – Subi reef, Hughes reef, Garen islands, Jhonson South reef, Cuarteron reef, Fiery Cross reef and Mischief reef. The US analysts have further revealed that the PRC in this way could create about 3,000 acres of new sovereign territory[2] and felt that once these artificial islands become operational, China can assert its sovereignty over the territorial airspace and waters. On its part, China is denying that it is claiming such sovereignty. The PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi said (ASEAN Regional Forum, Kuala Lampur, August 5, 2015) that “China’s construction of the islands, mainly to improve the working and living conditions of personnel there and for public good purposes, has already stopped.” Despite this, recent US satellite images taken on September 3 and 8, 2015, have shown that China is fast completing construction of an air strip each in Subi and Fiery Cross reefs and possibly a naval base in the Mischief reef.[3]

It has to be recognized that the Chinese and US perceptions of the freedom of navigation principle in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, not yet ratified by it, are different. Washington believes that the US ships can sail in both the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the 12-nautical mile territorial seas without obtaining the permission of the coastal states. The PRC’s stand is that foreign navies will have to obey rules of “innocent passage” even in the 200-nautical mile EEZ, and require prior permission to enter the 12-nautical mile territorial sea. This being so, there seems to be no unanimity among the ASEAN nations on the freedom of navigation principle. Malaysia agrees with the Chinese view on the EEZ and Vietnam shares the PRC’s definition of the territorial sea.

Evaluating broadly the likely shape of the current China-US tussle on the artificial islands issue, it can be said, that the final picture may not be pessimistic one. It needs to be admitted at the same time that any misjudgment or miscalculation by the two powers may result in unexpected scenario. US scholars have assessed that President Xi Jumping’s visit to US in September 2015 was not only very smooth, but it also contributed to building by the two countries of a strong strategic framework, and that the two are now embarking on a path of cooperation instead of one of confrontation[4].Their Chinese counter parts seem to think on the same lines. The PRC State media opinions see Xi’s US visit as having contributed to a series of “early harvest” in many aspects, such as the expansion of pragmatic cooperation and effective control of divergences[5]. Thus becoming clear is the keenness of each side to sustain the improvement in bilateral relations; in such atmosphere, there are chances of China and the US agreeing on a face saving formula, in order to deescalate tensions on the islands issue. It may not come as surprise if the two reach an understanding on the ‘innocent passage’ of their naval vessels close to their respective territories; the PRC in particular may stop insisting on its condition that foreign vessels need prior permission to enter its perceived territories.

Looking beyond the current China-US tussle on the artificial islands issue, it can be said that though the region is getting benefits from multilateral efforts towards achieving economic integration , its instability seems certain as there may be no quick end to the territorial contest taking place in the SCS. The implications for the future shape of geopolitics in East Asia can thus be clearly understood.

*The writer, D.S. Rajan is Distinguished Fellow, Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India. Contributing date – October 23, 2015. Email: dsrajan@gmail.com

Annexure

Given below in chronological order are 9 notable indicators to the possible entry of US naval vessels within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands created by China:

• The first was given by Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. He said during congressional testimony (Washington, Sept. 17, 2015) that the U.S. should challenge China’s claim to territory in the South China Sea by patrolling close to the artificial islands[6].
• As second, John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at the Committee’s hearing on September 25, 2015 that “the U.S. needs to go within the 12-mile limit to make it clear that the U.S. does not recognize China’s claim that the islands are its territory. This is a dangerous mistake that grants de facto recognition of China’s man-made sovereignty claims,”
• The third indication was from a top US naval commander Admiral Scott Shift (speech at Pacific 2015 Maritime Conference, Sydney, October 6,2015) who claimed that “some countries appeared to view freedom of the seas as up for grabs in the South China Sea, that they are behaving in a manner inconsistent with international law and that the US Navy is as committed as ever to protect freedom of navigation in the Pacific region”.[7]
• The fourth was in a report of the US journal “Navy Times” (October 7, 2015). It quoted unnamed Pentagon officials of saying that the US Navy may soon receive approval to sail a ship inside the 12-nautical mile (21-kilometer) territorial limit surrounding China’s man-made islands and that action could take place within days but awaits final approval from the Obama administration. If approved, it would be the first time since 2012 that the U.S. Navy has directly challenged China’s claims to the islands’ territorial limits[8].
• The fifth came from US spokesman Josh Earnest said (October 8, 2015) that U.S. warships patrolling close to artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea “should not provoke significant reaction from the Chinese.”
• The sixth were observations made by the US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter (Boston, October 13, 2015) at the end of ministerial talks with Australia. He said that “the US and Australia share an interest in upholding basic international norms such as freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce. Together, our nations favor peaceful resolutions to disputes and oppose coercion and infringement on well-established international norms, especially in the face of rising tensions in the East and South China Sea. The United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows. The South China Sea is not and will not be an exception.[9]”
• The seventh was in a dispatch of the New York Times (October 13,2015) which quoted unnamed U.S. and Asian officials of telling that the US allies were being briefed on plans, which reportedly involve traveling near one or more of China’s recently constructed or expanded outposts.
• The eighth indication (New York Times, October 13, 2015) was given by Daniel Kritenbrink, a senior official of the U.S. National Security Council, who told a closed-door meeting the decision to go ahead was already made.
• The ninth and last indication was from Admiral Gary Roughead, retired US chief of naval operations (Xiangshan Forum, Beijing, October 16,2015), who remarked that “the rapid expansion of land features in the vital sea lanes of the South China Sea heightens suspicion and presents the potential for miscalculation and that the construction raises legitimate questions regarding militarization”. [10]

The following are responses from the PRC, listed chronologically:

• The PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson said (September 18, 2015) that China opposes any country’s challenge in name of freedom of navigation to its sovereignty and security in South China Sea. China will adopt counter measures against the US.
• The spokesperson Hua Chunying again said (October 9, 2015) that “We will never allow any country to violate China’s territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and over flight, We urge the related parties not to take any provocative actions, and genuinely take a responsible stance on regional peace and stability”.
• The Global Times (October 15, 2015) in its editorial entitled “China Says Military Will Stand up and Use Force If US Sends Warships to Islands” blamed the US for “ceaseless provocations” in the South China Sea. It pointed out that “China has not made any statement about the expansion of its sovereignty due to the construction work, and that it has no intention of claiming more sovereignty.
• China mustn’t tolerate rampant US violations of China’s adjacent waters and the skies over these expanding islands. The Chinese military should be ready to launch countermeasures according to Washington’s level of provocation. The US must have known that China’s reclamation work does not contravene international law, so Washington has no sufficient reason to stop China. Despite the legitimacy of China’s construction work and the public good it can provide, if the US adopts an aggressive approach, it will be a breach of China’s bottom line, and China will not sit idly by. China has remained calm with self-restraint even in the face of Washington’s escalating provocations, but if the US encroaches on China’s core interests, the Chinese military will stand up and use force to stop it[11].
• A Xinhua commentary (October 15, 2015) said that the US could shoot itself in the foot if it patrols the islands, risking creating miscalculation and destabilization of the region.
• Rear Admiral Yang Yi (Global Times, October 16,2015) warned the US that the People’s Liberation Army would deliver a “head-on blow” to any foreign forces “violating” China’s sovereignty. Safeguarding maritime rights calls for force and power.”
• At an informal meeting of ASEAN defense ministers , China’s Defence minister Chang Wanquan said (Beijing, October 16,2015) that the aim of the meeting is to “promote strategic trust and pragmatic cooperation China wants stability and good ties with Southeast Asia”. He added that “forces from outside the region are using the internet, social media and other means to carry out incitements against countries in this region, threatening social stability. All needed to work hard to maintain peace and stability against such threats. Chang stressed that the biggest common need is to maintain stability and expressed his country’s willingness to work with ASEAN to boost military cooperation and jointly maintain regional peace and stability[12]. He further stated that at present the regional situation is generally stable, but there are obvious downward economic pressures and non-traditional security challenges are increasing, During the meeting, the Chinese officials submitted a series of proposals, including a joint exercise with ASEAN nations in the South China Sea in 2016. [13]
• A Xinhua (October 17.2015) dispatch entitled “Planned US provocative move in S.China sea risks destabilizing region”, commented that “the US provocations threaten to militarise the South China Sea. China’s sovereignty claims over Nansha (Spratlys) and adjacent waters in the South China Sea are formed over long course of history and has adequate and solid historical legal basis. China’s construction of islands not only serves it, but also the coastal nations in the South China Sea.
• Speaking at the Xiangshan regional defense forum in Beijing, Fan Changlong, Vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, pledged ( October 17,2015) that the country would “never recklessly resort to the use of force, even on issues bearing on sovereignty[14].” He added that the projects were mainly intended for civilian use and “will not affect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Instead, they will enable us to provide better public services to aid navigation and production in the South China Sea.” Fan said that China would accelerate the establishment of an 8,000-member standby force for UN peacekeeping missions as promised by the PRC President Xi Jinping at the United Nations in September 2015 besides expressing China’s commitment to train 2,000 foreign peacekeepers over the next five years.
• Global Times (Chinese, huanqiu shi bao,October 18,2015) in its commentary captioned “China will not submit to threats[15]”, quoted Major General Luo Yuan of the PLA Aademy of Military Science as saying that the US has betrayed China’s faith in a New Type of Major Country relations and violated its promise to the PRC that it will not take a stand on Spratlys; he described as a US military blackmail of China.

Notes:
1. Ashley Roach, “China’s Shifting Sands in the Spratlys”, American Society of International Law, July 15, 2015, http://www.asil.org/insights/volume/19/issue/15/chinas-shifting-sands-spratlys
2. Tyler Durden, “Beijing’s South China Sea Military Buildup Continues: The Dramatic Visual Evidence”, September 16,2015, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-16/beijings-south-china-sea-milita…
3. “Spratly airstrip update Potential New Runway Presents New Headaches”, Gregory B. Poling , September 16,2015,http://amti.csis.org/new-imagery-release/ ; http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-16/china-still-reclaiming…
4. Cheng Li, “Xi’s U.S. visit aims at cooperation”, Interview | September 18, 2015 http://www.brookings.edu/research/interviews/2015/09/18-xi-us-visit-coop…
5. “The time is always right to do the right thing – Building a new model of major-country relationship between China and the United States”, China Daily, September 27 , 2015, (GMW.cn) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2015xivisitus/2015-09/27/content_2199…
6. “ Pentagon set to send U.S. warships to China’s artificial islands”, World Tribune, October 8,2015,
7. Andrew Greene, “ South China Sea: US Admiral Scott Swift takes swipe at China during Sydney speech”, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-06/us-admiral-takes-swipe-at-china-du…
8. David Larter, “Navy will challenge Chinese territorial claims in South China Sea”, October 8,2015, http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/10/07/china-territory-islan…
9. “Carter says U.S. will sail, fly and operate wherever international law allows”, Reuters, October 13,2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/13/us-usa-australia-southchinasea…
10. “US’ logic back to front”, China Daily USA, October 19,2015, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-10/19/content_22220268.htm
11. “Firm reaction for US sea provocation”, Global Times, October 15, 2015 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/947237.shtml, also http://www.infowars.com/china-says-military-will-stand-up-and-use-force-…
12. “China Proposes Joint Exercise in South China Sea with ASEAN Countries”, CRI Online, October 17, 2015, http://en.people.cn/n/2015/1017/c90000-8963262.htm
13. Ibid
14. “ Defense official reveals China’s plans to boost international peace”, China Daily, October 17, 2015, http://english.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/china-military-news/2015-10…
15. http://mil.huanqiu.com/observation/2015-10/7783912.html

On this day, 70 years ago, the Charter of the United Nations came into force – hope, rising from the ashes of World War II. For seven decades the UN has driven multilateralism for peace, security, development and human dignity – in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world. Although far from perfect, no other organisation has done more to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and to promote social progress and better standards of life” for all.

Conflicts have been averted. Human rights have been enshrined in international law. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Primary education has become near-universal. Smallpox and polio have been largely eradicated, and fewer women, men and children die now from preventable causes than at any point in human history.

Many of the greatest impacts of 70 years of UN work remain often unseen, but are at least as important in our daily lives. UN-driven regulations and frameworks facilitate trade and commerce, as well as air and maritime safety. UN-sponsored treaties help ensure the worldwide flow of mail, telecommunications and data. Progress is measured against UN-derived benchmarks. Global energy, food security, and even the acceptable use of our oceans and outer space are all governed by agreements reached under the auspices of the United Nations.

The most important contribution of the UN however has been to prove the power of a single ideal: that no nation can succeed alone. Through its institutional architecture, especially the five UN regional commissions, the organization has fostered regional development and shared prosperity as a way to reinforce multilateralism, demonstrating time and again that cross-border challenges, which continue to grow, require collaboration, integration, coordination and an unwavering commitment to the wider common good.

No region provides better proof of these efforts than Asia and the Pacific. When the UN was created just four of the 51 founding Member States were from this region – China, India, Iran and the Philippines. Much of the continent was under colonial rule. Standards of living were falling, and post-war infrastructure in many countries was nearly non-existent.

To address these challenges, the United Nations created the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) – the forerunner of the present Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Over the next seven decades these institutions, supported by the whole of the UN system, have assisted Member States in creating the most economically dynamic and diverse region on Earth.

This growth has come, however, at great cost to our people and planet – with growing resource constraints and social inequalities, which threaten both our social fabric and environmental health. We are – once again – in a time of great turbulence, transition and opportunity, which is why the United Nations remains more relevant today than it has ever been.

The newly adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – anchored in 17 universal Sustainable Development Goals – embodies this renewed multilateral clarity of purpose. Ending poverty and hunger; ensuring education, equality and inclusive growth; acting on climate change and delivering lasting peace and justice – these are the cornerstones of the regional and global future we want.

Key to success in these new Goals will be mobilizing the resources necessary for implementation – innovative finance mechanisms and new approaches to development driven by science, technology and innovation.

ESCAP is also promoting policies that foster regional economic cooperation and integration through closer trade and financial activities; connections that open transportation corridors, link countries digitally and enable access to affordable and sustainable energy; and the ability to build back better from man-made and natural disasters and shocks.

Through the ESCAP intergovernmental platform, we not only engage our member governments but are also working to better harness the power of partnerships, increasing engagement with the private sector, civil society organizations, and growing citizen movements. Bringing this all together will be a system of follow-up and review that strengthens accountability for the well-being of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific.

Seventy years ago Asian leaders had a vision to shape the future of this region. Their focus was on building nations with the support of the United Nations. That same spirit still resonates today. In the words of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “Alongside despair in many corners, there remains great hope in the power of working together. That is the founding spirit of the United Nations – and in this 70th anniversary year, in the face of grave and global challenges, it is the spirit we must summon today.”

The author is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). She is also the UN’s Sherpa for the G20 and previously served as Governor of the Central Bank of Pakistan and Vice President of the MENA Region of the World Bank.

By Katharina R. Lestari

Church leaders in Indonesia’s Aceh province want a new Islamic criminal code to respect non-Muslims living in the predominantly Muslim region.

The local Shariah-based bylaw, called qanun hukum jinayat, took effect Oct. 23 following a one-year introduction to the public. It stipulates harsh punishments, including caning, for a range of offenses, including same-sex relations, drinking alcohol, gambling, adultery, sexual harassment and rape.

Catholic and other Christian leaders worry how the bylaw will be implemented.

“Shariah law is only for Muslims. For non-Muslims, I don’t think they are obliged to follow the legislation,” Father Hermanus Sahar from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, told ucanews.com.

Authorities say non-Muslim offenders caught violating the law while with a Muslim person will be given the option of being tried in a Shariah court, or in regular court using the national criminal code.

Baron Perison Pendiangan from the province’s Directorate for Catholic Community Guidance, says the new bylaw should not apply to non-Muslims at all.

“We worry about it. Aceh pushes too hard. Be fair. Aceh is a multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious society,” he told ucanews.com.

“If we want to implement Shariah law, it has to be applied to Muslims,” he said, pointing out that Catholicism has its own canon laws that only applies to Catholics.

The Rev. Domidoyo Ratupenu, from the Protestant Church in Western Indonesia, based in Banda Aceh, called the new bylaw unfair.

“There will be injustice if a law is implemented only based on a certain party’s view. The new bylaw is an unfair action by the local government,” he told ucanews.com.

Meanwhile, London-based Amnesty International and the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform have called for an immediate review or repeal of provisions violating human rights.

The rights group said in an Oct. 23 statement that it was concerned that the Aceh Islamic criminal code had expanded the range of offenses for which caning would be imposed.

However, Syahrizal Abbas, who heads Aceh’s provincial Shariah agency, said the new bylaw aimed to prevent Muslims from violating Shariah law and to create justice and welfare for all Acehnese people.

“The nature of the law isn’t to punish people,” he told ucanews.com.

He acknowledged that the new bylaw wasn’t yet perfect. “Yes, it needs to be criticized. We hope there will be a control so that the enforcement of the new bylaw can run smoothly,” he said.

Chinese president Xi Jinping’s four-day state visit to the United Kingdom was met with great pomp and ceremony by his British hosts, which included a royal banquet and having a 41 – gun salute in his honour. By referencing the illustrious history of the UK, Xi is clearly making a statement about how he wants China’s future to be like.

By Benjamin Ho*

With the state flags of the United Kingdom and China lining the Mall towards Buckingham Palace, one could be forgiven for thinking that central London was, for a moment, a street scene outside Tiananmen. By blending the best of traditional pageantry and modern British hospitality, the Cameron administration spared no effort to make President Xi Jinping feel almost at home.

Xi’s visit to the UK, less than a month after his visit to Washington to meet with President Obama, comes at a particularly challenging time for China’s foreign relations, given the recent Chinese economic slowdown as well as increased tensions with its neighbours, especially countries with which it has territorial disputes.

The Xi factor

The personal presence of Xi in the heart of Europe’s financial capital is crucial to assure the outside world that Xi remains firmly in control and that his influence on China’s policy-making remains undiminished. This is particularly important in China’s engagement with the Western world which has traditionally held values different from China’s own.

The image that Xi projects is one that is above bureaucratic politics and he remains his “own man”, who is not subjected to petty factional or even ideological challenges. While British Prime Minister David Cameron was quick to highlight the importance of “trade and investment [ties]” and “people-to-people links” in British-Chinese relations, it would be difficult to imagine other Chinese leaders commanding the level of “pomp and pageantry” (as Time puts it) that Xi received. Indeed, BBC economics editor Robert Peston described Xi as someone who has “put a personal stamp on [China] in terms of economic reform, anti-corruption, political reform and foreign policy”.

Given Xi’s successful (albeit ongoing) consolidation of power at home, his reception would also seem to reflect the British belief that China, under Xi, would continue to thrive economically and that it would be politically stable in years to come. While critics of the Chinese government continue to point out Beijing’s human rights infractions, particularly towards the Dalai Lama (whom Britain historically holds in high esteem), President Xi’s star burns bright. This is not least as a result of a highly choreographed diplomatic itinerary the past month, which included a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of World War II, a state visit to the US and a landmark speech at the UN general assembly.

Why Britain Needs China

Further proof of the high profile implications of Xi’s visit was witnessed by the writer who was given an English version of a 16-page full colour copy of the China Daily at Waterloo Station, with the phrase “Golden Era” stamped in the pages of the paper. The spreadsheet highlighted the contributions of key Chinese individuals such as business tycoon Jack Ma (named as an adviser to a Cameron business aides’ group) and companies like the China Building Technique Group, which was selected as the primary contractor of a new regeneration development in the south London borough of Croydon.

The British car manufacturing industry, which was in the dumps a decade ago, is also witnessing a resurgence of sorts, with some 1.2 million cars exported last year. Not surprisingly, China was the largest single market for British-built cars, with a seven-fold increase since 2009. On the same note, the London Taxi Company which went nearly bankrupt two years ago was being bought over by Zhejiang Geely Holding, with some 250 million pounds invested in the company. Indeed, over the past ten years, China has invested US$24 billion in Britain, more than in any other western European country. A further 30 billion pounds has been committed to Britain over the next three years to further Sino-British ties.

All these numbers suggest that UK – like many other countries – cannot possibly ignore Chinese financial muscle and the extent to which Chinese investments are crucial to their own national development. China’s low cost manufacturing industry represents a challenge to developed countries given higher labour costs (some 1,200 jobs were cut at British Tata Steel due to the collapse in steel prices). It would, however, seem that barring a Chinese economic meltdown, Beijing’s capacity to put its money where its mouth is would continue to attract many takers – particularly among EU members, which are still plagued with the problems of the Eurozone crisis.

Already, but not yet a superpower

What is most striking about President Xi’s visit, however, is not simply the multi-billion deals signed between China and the UK, nor the lavish treatment he received from the hosts, but rather in the manner Xi articulated China’s blueprint towards global leadership. In his speech to the UK parliament, Xi enumerated similarities between the British parliamentary system and ancient Chinese legal tradition, noting that the Chinese people have learnt from the “best practices of other countries.”

Terming the Sino-British ties as a “global partnership”, Xi also expressed the hope that both countries work together to address “pressing international challenges”. Given the UK’s traditionally close ties with the US, it would seem that China, in fostering closer ties with the former, has further strengthened Beijing’s claim to superpower status, and by doing so, undercut US’ dominance and influence in the European theatre. Furthermore, it is a sign that China is able to project its influence beyond its regional periphery and further into regions where there is little historical Chinese presence.

For Xi, however, the mission is far from over. For China to be reckoned as a truly “good” superpower, it would have to rectify a deeper problem, that is, an image deficit. As Professor William Callahan at the London School of Economics explains, China is still viewed as a “vengeful revisionist state” rather than a “generous emerging power”, particularly among its Asia-Pacific neighbours. As the Speaker John Bercow wryly put it in his opening remarks in Parliament, “the world will be watching [China].”

*Benjamin Ho is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics, and previously a Research Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Discussion of the Islamisation of Europe is increasing, but the claim lacks evidence or empirical credibility. What is fuelling this agenda, and how can it be countered?

By Paul Hedges*

Recent discussion about the influx of refugees from Syria into Europe has intensified claims that Christian Europe is surely and inexorably giving way to Islam: the Islamisation thesis. In the United Kingdom some seemingly trivial events have become flashpoints for this in the media. The Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens claimed that the wearing of a hijab by a model in an advertisement for the fashion store H&M was a sign of “a slow but unstoppable adaptation of this country to Islam”. This led to a televised clash and subsequent debate on Twitter.

Again, a BBC television programme the “Great British Bake Off” (GBBO) was won by a hijab- wearing lady. Various newspapers accused the BBC of choreographing a politically correct outcome, and considerable virulence against Islam, the hijab, and a multicultural society was exhibited in online reactions, alongside the fear that an Islamic takeover was occurring. Of course, this is not recent; perhaps the most dramatic indication of such fears were the actions of Anders Breivik gunning down numerous youths in his native Norway for his belief that he needed to defend Christian Europe against Islam.

Identity politics and statistics

There are now more Muslims in Europe that at any time in history, partly driven by new waves of immigration. Alongside this, Christian belonging has declined in many Western European nations. Therefore predictions that the numbers of active Muslims may outnumber active Christians during the 21st century in countries like the UK and France are not inconceivable. It is far from certain though that Islam will replace a mainstream secular culture and Christian heritage.

Indeed, backing for the Islamisation hypothesis often involves massaged statistics. In the UK, many media sources rely on Migration Watch which presents itself as a neutral and impartial source; however, Professor Christian Dustmann of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration has said that their use of a report he co-authored was “simply wrong”.

Their predictions of Islamic growth are challenged on other grounds, for instance, basing predictions for immigrant birth rates on figures relating to home countries, ignoring evidence that immigrant population birth rates deviate to match those of the new country. Islamisation is therefore often based upon a misapprehension of the actual situation, and presents what many term an “alarmist” case for huge and imminent cultural changes, stoking potential fears about loss of cultural identity.

Analysing the GBBO debates, Dr Clara Sandelind argued there was a battle over what characterised British identity. This could be said to be true across much of Europe. One camp welcomes the new influx of migrants, and celebrates the open-mindedness shown by the victory of a hijab-wearing Muslim in such a stereotypically traditional British craft. The other camp argues British identity needs to be defined against multiculturalism, especially Islam.

Many high profile European political leaders in France, the UK, and Germany amongst other places have echoed sentiments like the following: Europe is a Christian continent; multiculturalism has failed. While not all speak of Islamisation, such messages give credence to the latter camp. The message appears that a white Christian identity is becoming swamped by an alien Islamic culture.

Categorising Muslim identities

The Islamisation agenda rests upon a number of assumptions. One of these is that Islam is foreign to Europe. Historically this is demonstrably false: Spain was for many centuries a major Muslim stronghold, while the Balkans has had a Muslim population for centuries, and many countries have almost certainly had Muslim visitors since the Middle Ages, with more settled populations for a century or more. For instance, the UK’s first mosque was built in 1889, Germany had an Islamic cemetery from 1798, and mosques were recorded in Poland from the sixteenth century.

Another assumption is that Islamic values are antithetical to European/Christian ones. Again, this lacks credibility. The history of thought shows that the key ideas of Greek philosophy and science that came to underpin mainstream Christian thought for centuries, as well as enable the Renaissance, and the development of modern science were all mediated to Europe through Islamic societies and advances made by Islamic thinkers.

When Europe sought a model for religious tolerance in the period of the Enlightenment it looked to the treatment of other religions in the Islamic Ottoman Empire, whose tolerance far surpassed anything then found in Christian Europe.

Such assumptions could be multiplied, but always the Islamisation thesis tends to rest on the creation of binary opposites: Christian Europe vs Islamic world; European democracy vs Islamic theocracy; Christian tolerance vs Islamic intolerance; etc. Each of these when examined appears as no more than a stereotype or misrepresentation.

The myth of Islamisation

If Islamisation is a myth, why then is it seemingly growing and becoming more prevalent? Also, what can be done about it? The answer is simple but complicated. Powerful political and personal interests are vested in those promoting it. Islamisation employs powerful media images and binary oppositions that are built into many European perceptions of the world, as examined by Edward Said in his Orientalism thesis.

Further they are fuelled by media (mis)representations of Islam through association with ISIS or other unrepresentative examples; meanwhile potentially positive images of Islam, like a hijab wearing lady who bakes fantastic cakes, are used to show a takeover. Greater education and reliable data and analysis are not always easy to propagate in this context.

Moreover, in the battle of identity politics it is hard for the public and the media to identify which story has greater credibility. The battle requires not just putting the facts out in ways which are compelling and accessible, but also creating a narrative that people can identify with and promoting a positive message about tolerant European values.

*Paul Hedges is Associate Professor in Interreligious Studies for the Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He maintains a blog on Interreligious Studies and related issues at: www.logosdao.wordpress.com.

The tragedy of Benghazi can be attributed to stupidity and bad ideology. The much talked about Hillary Clinton testimony does not challenge the ideology of interventionism. The hearing is merely a challenging of the management of interventionism. So both sides agree on intervening in foreign countries, they merely disagree on how it is to be managed.

I believe that the argument must be ideological and the notion of interventionism itself must be challenged. The problem of Benghazi is not one of management. Both sides endorsed and supported the intervention in Libya. Since that time, there has been an expansion into Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

Ideas have consequences. Good ideas cannot be defeated by armies, or bad politicians in Washington. Right now, I’m seeing progress in the peace movement. We are truly moving in the right direction.

I believe that the end is coming for the U.S. government’s failed foreign policy. We are living in a new era with a lot of room for the correct ideology to move in. Fortunately, the ideas of peace, free markets and non-interventionism are available to people like they’ve never been available before.

Our job is to spread these ideas, and convince as many Americans as possible that liberty provides the answers, not authoritarianism.

Reprinted with permission from RonPaulLibertyReport.com  and the Ron Paul Institute.