By C. S. Kuppuswamy

The General Elections were held on Sunday the 8^th November 2015.  Elections were held for the lower house, the upper house and the fourteen state/ regional assemblies. For security reasons, elections were not held in some townships in the Shan State and in some areas where the fighting continues in Northern Myanmar.

It was estimated that 33 million people (out of the country’s population of 51 million) were eligible to vote. Though the turnout was considered very high, there is no official notification of the actual turnout.

A total of 1171 seats (330 for the lower house 168 for the upper house and 673 for the regional assemblies) were up for grabs.  A total of 6189 candidates from 92 political parties and 323 independents contested in the election.

This was considered as the first credible election held in the country after 1990 though Aung San Suu Kyi remarked that the elections were “free but not fair”.  This was also the first time when there were more than 10000 observers from both domestic and internal organisations that had monitored the elections.

The Results

Though the main opposition party National League for Democracy (NLD) under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi was the most favourite party and was expected to emerge as the leading party, it had done exceedingly well to gain over 75% in the parliament.  It has also dominated the seven (Bamar majority) regional parliaments though it had not fared so well in the seven ethnics predominant states.

The ruling party, Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which had over 75% of the seats in the current parliament, could only manage to win about 10% of the seats in the parliament and fared poorly in the state assemblies except in the Shan State where they had gained more seats than the NLD.

The plethora of ethnic parties in the various states had fared much below the expectations except for the Arakan National Party which had secured 22 of the 47 seats in the Arakan state.

The Union Election Commission (UEC) took an unduly long time in declaring the results and the final tally was announced only on 20 November 2015.  As per this official declaration the results are as under:

The rest of the parties have secured a total of 5 or less than 5 seats.

Some of the prominent losers in this election were U Thura Shwe Mann, the speaker of the parliament (earlier tipped for the presidency), Htay oo, the Chairman of the USDP, Aung Min, the minister in charge of the peace process and U Hla Shwe of the Myanmar Peace Centre.

The next President

Though the elections were held on November 8, 2015, the new parliament will be convened only in January 2016 and the President will be elected in March 2016 by an electoral college consisting of the newly elected members of the lower house and upper house and the non-elected army representatives to these two houses.  The President then forms the new cabinet.

However this long transition period is going to witness hectic political activity and there is a general apprehension on the likely reaction of the army for this landslide victory of the opposition.

The NLD has secured the required member of seats in both houses to ensure that its candidate becomes the President. Since Aung San Suu Kyi is disqualified to become the President under Section 59 (f) of the 2008 Constitution (as her late husband and two children are British Citizens), she has no option but to nominate a proxy president from her party.  The chances for amending the constitution by the new parliament to enable her to become the President are also remote.

Hence there is a lot of speculation as to who is to going to be the President elect?

Aung San Suu Kyi, has however indicated in a number of press interviews that she is going to be the “leader of that government whether or not I’m the President”.  Her utterings to this effect has triggered a debate as to how and whether it will work out?

Reactions of the Government and the Army

Prior to the elections as well as after the resounding victory of the NLD, President Thein Sein and the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing have repeatedly said that they will honour the results and there will be a smooth transition of power to the next government.

Once it became evident that the NLD has swept the poll, Aung San Suu Kyi called for a meeting with President Thein Sein, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and the parliamentary speaker U Thura Shwe Mann for talks on “national reconciliation”.  Though the speaker met her on 19 November 2015, the President and C-in-C are yet to give her a date for such a meeting.

“Responding to doubts about the current government’s willingness to hand over the reins, outgoing presidential spokesman Ye Htut said President Thein Sein had every intention of setting a “good precedent” for the country’s young democracy, calling a peaceful power transfer his administration’s “last victory”.” (The Irrawaddy 20 Nov. 2015)

The reactions of the army are yet to manifest in any explicit manner. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing had in an earlier interview reiterated that the army’s role in politics would continue irrespective of which party is in power.  However going by past history, people are sceptic as to whether the army will allow a smooth transition of power to NLD.

Reactions of Ethnic Groups

Prior to the elections some of the ethnic groups had hoped for an electoral arrangement with the NLD for seat sharing in the ethnic controlled areas.  The NLD did not opt for any such arrangement and it was felt that the party may not fare well in ethnic dominated areas.  The NLD had still swept the polls in most ethnic controlled areas.

The United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) a coalition of ethnic parties which had also fared well in the 1990 elections had called for a meeting with NLD for political collaboration.

The Ethnic Armed Groups have also expressed hopes that with the NLD at the helm, the peace process will be more meaningful and help in establishing a federal state.

Reactions of the International Community

Congratulatory messages have poured in from most of the nations.  Aung San Suu Kyi had met on 19 November 2015 with the diplomats of more than 40 foreign missions in Myanmar. The Irrawaddy (20 Nov. 2015) reported that there were “a lot of pledges of support from Ambassadors to make the transition and the new government work”.  Japanese PM Shinzo Abe while expressing his congratulations has invited Aung San Suu Kyi to visit Japan at an early date.  Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia while inaugurating the ASEAN Summit on 21 Nov. 2015 had also congratulated Myanmar for the successful conduct of the elections.

Challenges for the new Government

The most formidable challenge is going to be as to how Aung San Suu Kyi is going to administer the country without being the head of the state as authorised by the constitution.

The onus will be on her to carry forward the peace process to end the six decades old civil war.  The so called Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement initiated by Thein Sein has been signed by only 8 Ethnic Armed Groups.  The major armed groups have not signed and all the ethnics are looking up to her to meet their demands and establish a federal union.

Despite the resounding victory, the constitution cannot be amended without some support from the army which is most unlikely.

The establishment of the rule of law for which she was responsible as a committee head in the outgoing government is another major issue which she had taken up in her campaigns.  As of now the judiciary which is controlled by the executive has to be made independent.

With some key ministers appointed by the army, maintaining a harmonious relationship with the Tatmadaw is going to be a tricky and uphill task.

With a host of army backed crony companies having a strong hold on the economy of the nation, implementation of economic reforms, poverty eradication and corruption are also major challenges.

News Analysis

The elections went off peacefully and the people were highly motivated to cast their votes and turned out in large numbers.

The people of Myanmar have unanimously opted for “change” which she had promised throughout her campaign and have conveyed their total faith in her. The vote is more for her than the NLD.  The vote is also against the long military regime in some form or other.

None of the pre-poll predictions indicated a landslide victory for the NLD though most of them predicted that NLD will be the leading party.

The media had often highlighted the odds such as, the Buddhist monk’s campaign against her, her ambivalent attitude towards the peace process and the ethnic groups, her silence on the Rohingya issue and her authoritative style of running the party.  It is an achievement for her to get such a resounding victory against these odds.

The intervening period between now and January 2016 when the new government takes over and March 2016 when the new President will be sworn in is too long and peculiar to this country.  With 1990 in the background there is a lot of uncertainty and suspense as to how the outgoing government and the Army are going to react during this period. Interestingly President Thein Sein at the on-going ASEAN Summit committed that power will be transferred to the victorious party.

The chances of a constitutional amendment prior to March 2016 to help her assume the presidency are remote.

Aung San Suu Kyi seems confident that there cannot be a repeat of 1990 and that her party will be in power in March 2016.

By Dr. S. Chandrasekharan

Bhutan’s fast flowing rivers, deep gradients, huge gorges and sparse population make the country ideal for harnessing hydro power potential at a very low cost with minimum displacement of human settlements and related rehabilitation issues.

It has been pointed out that these very advantages have been major barriers for development of other sectors in Bhutan’s economy. There is also the feeling from prudent economists that there is too much reliance carrying “high risk” associated with a single project and a single buyer.

But to me, going by the current relationship between Bhutan and India and the excellent guidance given both by Gyalpo 4 and the present King, there is no risk at all and as someone had said, the need of the hour for Bhutan is to nurture a sustained national commitment to achieving . . . a national goal of developing hydro power resources as soon as they can, as much as they can and as harmlessly as they can.

It is very interesting to see the ongoing debate in Bhutan on hydro power development and some of the bold and fearless opinions on the question of hydro power development, environmental impact and the overweening dependence of hydro power in the country’s economy.

But there is a lesson for India too. In planning, funding or executing a project, India should take care to see that Bhutan is involved at every stage from the project report to final execution of the project and the mistakes made in Nepal should not be repeated in Bhutan again.

The Chamkerchu Project:

The Chamkerchu project is a run of the river scheme located in upper Kheng in Zhemgang and has been in the pipe line for the last ten years. Surprisingly the project is yet to begin.

It was in this connection that one environmentalist Yeshe Dorji started a campaign against the project on the ground that at least one of the river systems in Bhutan should be left un dammed. This created a public debate on the project’s economic and environmental impact and Yeshey Dorji had already collected over 480 signatures in his petition opposing the dam.

Of the ten most economically viable projects in the country, the Chamkerchu project is one and it is claimed that being a ‘run of the river’ project, the environmental impact will be minimal. Prime Minister Tobgay in rejecting the petition said that the objection came a decade late and also argued that the economic opportunities and benefits outweigh the environmental impact of the project.

As a dutiful citizen, Yeshe Dorji has discontinued his campaign to have at least a minimum of 500 signatures for the petition though he was almost there. But some points he made in respect of hydro power projects in Bhutan are worth considering, particularly by India who perhaps could on account of being the sole buyer and major financier over step its limits and dominate in the agreements that are being signed on these projects.

Yeshey Dorji has flagged three major points and all of them need proper scrutiny.

1. Bhutan should engage professional lawyers to study the agreements prior to signing. He cited the examples of Punatsangchu I and II where he feels that Bhutan could have done better.
2. The clauses in the agreement should protect the interests of Bhutanese community and local manufacturing industries. ( Hydro power itself will not produce jobs, but private industries and other economic pursuits could use the power to generate jobs)
3. In future, detailed project reports (DPRs) should be cross checked professionally.

These points are reasonable and India should not take Bhutan for granted.

Snail’s Pace of Hydro Power Projects:

As pointed out by Kuensel of September 12, 2015 Bhutan’s economic fortune, energy security, national security and hydro power are inextricably linked. Bhutan has to rely on only hydro power where the potential is not only great but also could take advantage of its uniquely advantageous position to develop a sustainable pace of hydro power development.

However, Bhutan’s record in hydro power development has been poor. As their Economic Affairs Minister had pointed out, the “progress rate of hydro power projects is very poor and has been moving at a snail’s pace.”

The reasons could be many- some geological, some funding problems and some administrative- but the overall impression one gets is that the projects are taking too long a time and there are cost over runs on many projects. For example, the delay in the commissioning of the 1200 MW Punatsanchhu I project has come at the cost of slashing the 11th Plan target of augmenting the installed power capacity to 4546 MW.

An ambitious initiative was made to produce over 10,000 Mega Watts by 2020. At present (25 years) Bhutan has managed to produce about 1500 MW of installed hydro power. By 2021, it is expected that total production may not exceed 5000 MW that is half of the projected 10000MW by 2020.

This will include three major projects that are likely to come on stream ( save some last minute glitches)- are 1200 MW Punatsangchhu I to be commissioned by 2019, 720 MW Mangdechhu by 2018 as also, Punatsangchhu II also by 2018.

Four Issues:

There are four issues which are flagged in Kuensel’s report of September 14, 2015 and all the points are relevant and should be taken note of by India too. These are

• If one goes by the economic theory, there is a high risk associated with single product and single buyer. ( Pointed out earlier). What follows is the observation from Kuensel itself is that the situation they are in with long term bilateral relationship that exists between Bhutan and India, that risk is substantially reduced.
• Without the mega projects like Tala that produces 1020MW, ambitious rural electrification schemes would not have happened. Despite geological surprises which are galore in young formations like those obtained in Bhutan, it should be conceded that the country has done fairly well.
• The third concern is whether the accelerated development is too large for Bhutan’s economy that in turn raises questions about the absorptive capacity of the economy. While Kuensel talks about these projecting only 21 percent of the projected GDP by 2019, what is left unsaid is that the power needs of neighbouring India that are rising. Advanced technology now available ensures that there will only be minimum transmission losses.
• The last issue flagged is what is termed as a “Dutch Disease” – the likelihood of stagnation of non power tradable sectors in the economy. With the boom in hydro power export, the non power tradable sectors particularly the Industrial sector are likely to grow and not stagnate as is feared.

Conclusion:

Overall, Bhutan has done reasonably well to the extent it can with all its constraints in developing the only major resource available though more attention will be needed in expediting the projects. Here India could help and help in a big way. Bhutan’s prosperity is India’s also.

If Norway could be a success story where its industrialisation has been driven by hydro power, there is no reason why Bhutan cannot also emulate the Norwegians.

(EurActiv) — Portugal’s president named Socialist leader Antonio Costa as prime minister on Tuesday, ending weeks of political stalemate and paving the way for the first, if potentially unstable, Socialist government reliant on the far left for its survival.

The Socialist Party (PS) has promised to end years of harsh austerity, increase families’ disposable incomes and help the poor, who suffered during Portugal’s debt crisis and a bailout that ended last year, while still cutting the deficit in line with Portugal’s European commitments.

Together with the far-left Communists and Left Bloc, Costa two weeks ago toppled the minority centre-right coalition that had returned to power after winning most votes in an election on 4 October, but losing its overall majority.

The political turmoil of recent weeks has prompted concerns that an economic recovery could be undermined, and has been seen by some analysts as the most critical moment in Portuguese politics since the 1974 Carnation Revolution, when a right-wing dictatorship was overthrown and democracy ushered in.

Still, financial analysts said investors for now preferred to focus on the end of the impasse and on the Socialists’ promises to stick to EU budget rules, despite the euroscepticism of their allies.

“The debt market is not scared of a leftist government because people believe that core European measures will not be at stake,” said Filipe Silva, debt manager at Banco Carregosa.

“This government has nothing to do with the Syriza case (in Greece). PS is a pro-European party, so there is no stress.”

President Anibal Cavaco Silva, who is barred from dissolving parliament in the run-up to a presidential election in January, said that his other option of leaving the centre-right government of Pedro Passos Coelho in office in a caretaker role “does not correspond to the national interest”.

Still, many analysts say that, further down the road, the Socialist government may find it hard to rein in its far-left allies, especially if new belt-tightening measures are required to meet budget goals.

“We think this leftist government experience will prove relatively short-lived,” JPMorgan analyst Marco Protopapa wrote in a research note.

“We would not be surprised if a weaker macro environment required additional austerity measures as soon as early 2016. In turn, that could prove to be a first key pressure point for the stability of the government.”

Costa argues that an expansion in disposable income will boost the economy and help cut the deficit more than austerity does.

Cavaco Silva had requested written assurances from Costa that he and his leftist partners would respect Portugal’s commitments to EU budget rules, something that Costa’s partners had not pledged to do.

The Communists rejected Cavaco Silva’s demands, but Costa’s Socialists, who will form the government alone, responded to the president’s request on Monday.

Cavaco Silva said their response was “duly noted … in terms of the stability and durability of a minority Socialist government through the legislature’s term”.

JPMorgan said Costa’s nomination “implicitly acknowledges that the PS has been able to satisfy these minimum criteria”.

The Socialists’ parliamentary leader, Carlos Cesar, said he expected the government to be sworn in this week. “It’s time to get down to work… the country is in a very difficult, fragile situation,” he said.

By Gustavo Plácido Dos Santos*

China is set to make its first direct infrastructure invest-ment in São Tomé e Príncipe. The memorandum of understanding, signed in October 2015 with Chinese state-company China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), concerns the construction and concession of a deep- water port endowed with world-class infrastructures, so as to serve logistical needs in the Gulf of Guinea. The project, which is expected to be completed in 2019, has an estimated cost of $800 million, with the CHEC contributing $120 million.1

The port has the potential to transform São Tomé e Prínci- pe into a transshipment hub for large vessels, enabling the small archipelago to serve regional economies. This is all the more relevant when considering that neither West Africa nor the Gulf of Guinea have a natural hub. Most vessels use ports in South Africa, Morocco or Spain to serve the region. Notwithstanding, some countries in West Africa have been developing plans toward becoming regional hubs.2 These countries’ potential are, however, limited, since they are located in a region plagued by political instability and maritime insecurity.3 Due to São Tomé e Príncipe’s geographic location, relative small number of pirate attacks within its territorial waters, and political stability, the small country fulfills, at least in theory, the conditions to take on such a role.

A win-win situation

The deep-water port will allow São Tomé e Príncipe to diversify its sources of revenue beyond cocoa and coffee — which make up more than 80% of total exports.4 In fact, Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada has been insisting on the need to reorient the country’s economy toward trade, emulating the Dubai model. In other words, to transform the country into “a platform, offering services to our neighboring countries”.5 On the other hand, this new infrastructure will enable the country’s government to abandon or lessen the focus on the potential of oil exploration, which is the still uncertain.
In addition, the country’s geographical position is also conducive to turn the small archipelago into a monitoring and surveillance advanced post right at the heart of the Gulf of Guinea, hence contributing for maritime security in an area that is key for global trade and energy security, and comprised of countries with high levels of economic growth — the region has been growing at an average annual rate of 7%. Having said this, if the potential benefits for São Tomé e Príncipe are evident, what can China gain from investing in the port?

São Tomé e Príncipe is one of the three African countries, and one of the 22 globally, to diplomatically recognize Taiwan, and in April 2015 both governments deepened cooperation ties.6 Beijing, for its part, regards the Taiwanese government as illegitimate and admits retaking the territory by force if necessary. On the global stage, the Chinese and Taiwanese government have been engaged in a “diplomatic war”, i.e. seeking to isolate one another internationally.

After the establishment of diplomatic relations between São Tomé e Príncipe and Taiwan, in 1997, Beijing immediately cut all ties with the archipelago. It was only in 2014, 16 years later, that those ties were resumed. Thus, considering the historical tensions between China and Taiwan, why did Beijing decide to deepen ties with São Tomé e Príncipe?

As a global power, China acknowledges the need to foment good and friendly relations in the international stage, not only to extract economic benefits, but also to widen its base of politico-diplomatic support, protect strategic interests and project influence. This is a necessary approach, especially when considering that the African continent has been increasingly attracting the attention of major world powers, as exemplified by the EUA-Africa Summit, in 2014, and the third India-Africa Summit, in October 2015. São Tomé e Príncipe’s government officials were present in both events.

Africa and China’s grand plan

The expansion of Chinese interests in São Tomé e Príncipe is also relevant in terms of one of Beijing’s great goals: to establish the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “Maritime Silk Road”, jointly known as the “One Belt, One Road” initiative — introduced in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The initiative envisages the creation of an economic zone connecting China to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, and including Central and East Asia. This area would include many developing countries, a combined population of 4.4 billion and a GPD of $2.2 billion.7 As a matter of fact, China has already been acting toward putting that plan into action, as shown by the multitude of infrastructure development and financing projects across the globe.

Although there are no official signs that the initiative includes the African continent, the vast numbers of Chinese investments in African infrastructures — namely of logistical nature, such as roads, ports, airports and railways — suggest that it is already an integral part of Beijing’s grand plan. This possibility was boosted in January 2015, when a memorandum of understanding was signed between Beijing and the African Union (AU), in which Chinese authorities expressed their commitment to develop logistical and industrial infrastructures across the continent.8

East Africa, and Kenya in particular, has been at the forefront of China’s offensive in the continent. In fact, Kenya’s coastal region is represented in a Maritime Silk Road map designed by Xinhua News Agency,9 and the country is being targeted with massive infrastructure investments by Chinese companies, particularly ports, airports and railway networks, connecting Kenyan ports to neighboring countries.10

Africa’s inclusion in this equation and the levels of infrastructure investment across the continent will open new markets for Chinese exports, secure new contracts for national companies and, through the relocation of industries, work toward countering the effects of rising labor costs. On the other hand, the resulting facilitation of the flow of raw materials will feed the Chinese industry, something that is key to satisfy its economic growth needs. Also worth noting is the abundance of largely untapped lands in Africa and its potential to supply the Chinese market with much needed agricultural goods.

In sum, all of this will boost China’s economic growth and boost job creation, in turn ensuring socioeconomic stability.

Infrastructure investments in Africa’s Atlantic coast also places this region within the context of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Beijing has been actively contributing to the development of ports in the region — such as in Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana and Senegal — and recently concluded the railway connecting the Atlantic coast of Angola — the port of Lobito — to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which will subsequently link with the Angola- Zambia and Tanzania-Zambia railway lines. According to the Chinese company behind the construction of the track section in Angola, this network is part of a wider project aimed at connecting the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.11

São Tomé e Príncipe emerges in this context as a transit point for maritime trade between the Atlantic, Africa and the India Ocean. This transcontinental link is part of Beijing’s plan to direct flows of hydrocarbons, minerals and other African natural resources to transshipment hubs in the Indian Ocean, from where they will be directly shipped to China.

More than economic interests

China’s rising economic power coincided with an increasingly assertive foreign policy, according to which Beijing wants to build a new world order and stand on an equal footing with the United States. This means that China is willing to project power and influence across the globe, something that has gained new impetus with President Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia.

Beijing regards this incursion by the United States in its sphere of influence as unacceptable, thus driving China to project its power in areas of the globe where American influence is traditionally dominant, such as in the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea. Moreover, the Asia Pivot and the end of the United States energy dependency culminated in Washington shifting its attention away from the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea in particular, opening a window of opportunity for Beijing to expand its interests in the region and take another step toward consolidating its global power status. However, to sustain its assertion on the international scene and counter American power, Beijing needs to secure stable sources of supply of large quantities of hydrocarbons and other resources, like minerals and agricultural goods. This implies establishing a strong presence in resource-rich regions, such as the Africa continent. It is not surprising, then, that Beijing’s growing interest in Africa has coincided with large oil discoveries in the continent, particularly in the Gulf of Guinea. China’s offensive in the Gulf of Guinea, however, is not solely driven by the abundance of natural resources. Beijing recognizes the need to ensure security and stability along the maritime trade routes of a region where it has been deepening and expanding its economic and political presence. This presence also brings with it the mobilization of Chinese nationals, forcing Beijing to act toward ensuring their security — the frequency of attacks involving Chinese nationals in the Gulf of Guinea has increased over the last five years.12

That being said, although the Maritime Silk Road has, in its essence, an economic nature, obvious strategic implications arise. The need to secure and protect its interests inevitably embeds a security dimension in the Maritime Silk Road. With this in mind, Beijing has been developing a chain of ports, intelligence centers and observation posts, as well as increasing its participation in anti-piracy operations, and the number and frequency of military exercises in the Indian Ocean.13

The securitization of Beijing’s interests

China has been making use of its economic and financial power to exert influence. One of Beijing’s strategies consists on relaxing loan conditions in exchange for control (or access privileges) over certain foreign ports that were financed or developed by Chinese companies. As a result, Beijing adds a security element to those infrastructures. Such was the case with Sri Lanka’s commercial port. In addition, in November 2014, a Chinese nuclear submarine docked in Colombo’s commercial port and not in the military one, suggesting that ports operated by Chinese companies are likely to have a dual use: civil and military. A similar situation happened with a port in the Maldives.14 Taking into account the Chinese investment and financing surge in Africa, it would not be surprising if Beijing decides to use its economic and financial power in vari- ous ways so as to ensure civil and military access to ports in the African continent.

As a matter of fact, Beijing has already used such an approach in Djibouti, one of the major strategic hubs in Africa and host to military bases from the United States, Japan, France and Germany. China is currently investing $9.8 billion in several infrastructure projects in Djibouti, amounting to six times the national GDP. The deepening of Chinese influence in the country motivated the switch of the Djibouti’s port operating contract from a Dubai-based company to a Chinese one. Moreover, in May 2015, President Ismail Omar Guelleh said he was in talks with Beijing over the installation of a Chinese military base in Obock, Djibouti’s northern port city, something which was not confirmed by Chinese authorities.15 Nonetheless, such a possibility must not be disregarded. In November 2014, The Namibian Times reported that Beijing was considering setting up a naval base in Namibia’s Walvis Bay. The newspaper adds that this would be one of a total of 18 bases to be built in several parts of the world, for replenishment, berthing and maintenance purposes. Apart from Asia and the Middle East, these plans include bases in Africa. Notwithstanding the fact that these allegations were denied by China’s Defense Ministry and Navy, the latter did not rule out the establishment of Overseas Strategic Support Bases. In turn, Namibia’s Ministry of Defense spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Monica Sheya, confirmed to The Namibian Times that talks over the installation of a naval base had taken place.16 Regardless of Beijing’s line of action in the Gulf of Guinea — naval bases or military access — the goal will always be to ensure the expansion of interests, project power and establish a greater presence in the South Atlantic. That is a logical step, warranted by Beijing’s intention to assert itself in the international arena and by the need to protect its expanding interests at the global level, particularly in countries located on the vast Atlantic rim, while taking advantage of the shift of Washington’s strategic considerations away from the region.

With this in mind, China has been expanding its investments in South America, which inevitably places the region within the Chinese sphere of interests. This adds up to the potential of South America-Africa trade, as well as to the fact that maritime trade routes between the region and Asia cross the southern limits of the Gulf of Guinea.17 That being said, a foothold in São Tomé e Príncipe provides Beijing with greater monitoring capabilities and control over a maritime trade route of great and increasing potential, while enabling it to follow closely the evolution of its presence in the South Atlantic.

São Tomé e Príncipe in Beijing’s strategic considerations

São Tomé e Príncipe has limited financial resources and is highly dependent on external financing — 93% of capital expenditure during 2014 was financed through foreign assistance.18 Considering Beijing’s capacity to exert influence and also eventual future investments and financing in the archipelago, will São Tomé e Príncipe be tempted to grant the Chinese navy access to the new port? The above mentioned examples give further strength to such a possibility. Surely that Beijing acknowledges São Tomé e Príncipe’s geostrategic value, as the United States did in the not so distant past. During the 2000s, the United States showed interest in establishing a deep-water naval base in São Tomé e Príncipe, driven, to a large extent, by the county’s geographical position and also by the fact that, by then, around 30% of American oil imports transited through São Tomé e Príncipe’s territorial waters and the Gulf of Guinea. An American official went so far as to describe São Tomé e Príncipe as “another Diego Garcia,” referring to an island strategically positioned in the Indian Ocean and which hosts the Camp Justice air-naval base.19 Given that the United States considered that possibility, why wouldn’t China do the same? In fact, Beijing has developed a strategic line of action similar to that of the United States. In other words, a strategy consisting on the establishment of strategic outposts across the world, providing Beijing with greater capacity to project several types of power, beyond the military one. Those types of power function as political and economic tools that can be used to build and maintain alliances, and secure privileged access to other markers, resources and investment opportunities.

Considering China’s ambitions to become a global power on equal footing with the United States, its growing dependence on energy and other natural resources, as well as the entrenchment of its interests in the Gulf of Guinea and South Atlantic, it would not be surprising if Beijing decides to establish a military presence in those regions, particularly in a country that is so geographically strategic and politically stable as São Tomé e Príncipe.

Inevitably, the increasing Chinese influence and power in those regions will be regarded as a threat and a challenge to American and Western interests. It is crucial that the West acts strategically in line with the Chinese expansion, as it is highly unlikely that Beijing will abandon its aspirations. São Tomé e Príncipe stands, in this context, as a piece of immense strategic value in a constantly changing global chessboard.

About the author:
Gustavo Plácido Dos Santos, is a researcher at Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security (IPRIS)

Source:
This article was published by IPRIS a IPRIS Viewpointes 187 (PDF).

Notes:
1 “Empresa chinesa vai construir porto de águas profundas em São Tomé e Príncipe” (Lusa, 13 October 2015).
2 “Hub heavyweights: West Med vs West Africa” (Drewry Maritime Research, 3 February 2015).
3 “Horn of Africa piracy contained; Gulf of Guinea remains hotspot” (Defence Web, 7 May 2015).
4 “São Tomé e Príncipe” (African Economic Outlook, 2014), p. 12.
5 Cahal Milmo, “São Tomé: How the tiny island plans to become the ‘Dubai of Africa’ after securing Chinese investment” (The Independent, 17 October
2015).
6 “São Tomé e Príncipe e Taiwan assinam programa de cooperação bilateral para 2015” (Lusa, April 2015).
7 Shannon Tiezzi, “China’s ‘New Silk Road’ Vision Revealed” (The Diplomat, 9 May 2014).
8 “AU, China to cooperate on infrastructure, industrialization” (Xinhua, 27 January 2015).
9 Shannon Tiezzi, “China’s ‘New Silk Road’ Vision Revealed” (The Diplomat, 9 May 2014).
10 “China to build new East Africa railway line” (BBC News, 12 May 2014).
11 “Angola rail line, built by China, gets rolling” (China Daily, 16 February 2015).
12 Hang Zhou and Katharina Seibel, “Maritime Insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea: A Greater Role for China?” (The Jamestown Foundation, 9 January 2015).
13 Shannon Tiezzi, “The Maritime Silk Road Vs. The String of Pearls” (The Diplomat, 13 February 2014).
14 Tom Wirth, “China’s Expanding African Military Footprint” (Global Politics, 17 February 2015).
15 “China ‘negotiates military base’ in Djibouti” (Agence France-Presse, 9 May 2015) e, “China military declines to confirm Djibouti base plan” (Reuters, 25 June 2015).
16 David Tweed, “China Mulls Building Naval Base in Namibia, Namibian Times Says” (Bloomberg, 27 November 2014).

By Paulo Gorjão*

The United States ambassador to Lisbon, Robert Sherman, publicly expressed his concern with the possible impact of Socialist Party’s (PS) political alliances with Left Bloc (BE) and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), particularly in the context of Portugal’s international commitments.1

At issue is BE’s and PCP’s anti-NATO political stance, which was clearly expressed in their electoral programs, but was also recently noticed in the public demonstrations against the Atlantic Alliance’s “Trident Juncture 2015”military exercise. Both BE and PCP were very clear in the electoral programs they submitted during the October 2015 parliamentary elections. The former stood for “[Portugal’s] withdrawal from NATO and [subsequent] diplomatic action toward [its] extinction”.2 The latter also argued along the same line, in favor of “NATO’s dissolution”.3

More recently, in a release note issued by Beja’s district coordinator, BE expressed its opposition to Beja hosting the first phase of NATO’s military exercise “Trident Juncture 2015”.4 In addition, a release note issued by PCP’s press office condemned Portugal’s participation in NATO’s military exercises.5

As expected, BE’s and PCP’s political response did not take long. “An intolerable meddling in Portugal’s internal life”, PCP accused. “Maladjusted and inelegant” remarks, said BE.6

Even if Sherman’s public intervention can be questioned, in truth the argument of possible meddling or inelegance has little substance. Evidently, the intervention by the United States ambassador aims at exerting political pressure on António Costa. As a matter of fact, the Portuguese foreign policy has done so in the past, either with the United States or other countries with whom it has diplomatic relations, regardless of their level.7

That being said, is there an underlying rationale for Sherman’s publicly expressed concern?

The answer can be divided into two distinct parts. Firstly, it is hard to imagine that a PS minority government, with parliamentary support from BE and PCP, would contemplate Portugal’s exit from NATO or plead for the dissolution of the Atlantic Alliance, as upheld by BE and PCP. PS, in its electoral program, stated that “Portugal, in its foreign relations, must privilege the participation” in NATO.8 PS’ stance over the last 40 years of democratic regime and An- tónio Costa’s remarks in the follow-up to the parliamentary elections do not allow us to anticipate any sort of change, or revision, in the secretary-general’s line of thinking and attitude in terms of Portugal’s membership in NATO. Secondly, a different matter is Portugal’s degree of commitment within the framework of its collective agreements and, in particular, toward the Atlantic Alliance. Regarding the possible involvement in the grand coalition in Syria, whose ways and means are still to be defined, António Costa ruled out, in his latest televised interview, “the direct involvement of the Portuguese military in combat operations on the ground”, while making it clear that Portugal would be true to its “international commitments”.9 Although the PS secretary-general’s stance can be interpreted as mostly being a sign of prudence — or as a more “pacifist” identity, as he himself put it in a previous interview10 — it doesn’t enable us to anticipate any sort of change in the orientation that arises from BE’s or PCP’s political support.

Certainly that it is better safe than sorry. Therefore, Sherman’s intervention is very much understandable. In any way, Portuguese diplomacy has, for a long time now, attained a maturity level typical of a consolidated democracy and, under normal circumstances, it does not fall victim to radical ruptures, regardless of whatever government may be in power. In fact, Portugal’s past testifies to the fact that over the last 40 years the transatlantic component of Portuguese foreign policy has been a central vector and has retained a line of continuity, irrespective of the government’s composition.

Strictly speaking, it is Portugal that may have reasons to express preoccupation with the apparent disinvestment in the bilateral relationship, and not the United States, due to the excessive amount of time that the re-adaptation of the Lajes Air Base is taking and the lack of political and diplomatic attention given to it. This, in turn, has allowed for a completely unnecessary frustration bubble to grow among Portuguese policy makers and public opinion.

About the author:
*Paulo Gorjão, researcher Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security (IPRIS)

Source:
This article was published by IPRIS as IPRIS Viewpoints 188 (PDF)

Notes:
1 José Pedro Frazão, “Estados Unidos preocupados com alianças do PS” (Rádio Renascença, 19 October 2015).
2 “Manifesto Eleitoral” (Bloco de Esquerda, Legislativas de 2015), p. 47.
3 “Política Patriótica e de Esquerda: Soluções para um Portugal com futuro”
(PCP, Legislativas de 2015), pp. 75 e 82.
4 Liliana Borges, “Bloco de Esquerda rejeita exercício da NATO, Ministério da Defesa critica partido” (Jornal de Negócios online, 15 October 2015).
5 “Não aos exercícios militares da NATO – Defender a Constituição da República” (PCP, 24 October 2015).
6 “‘Intolerável ingerência’. Bloco e PCP criticam entrevista de embaixador dos EUA à Renascença” (Rádio Renascença, 20 October 2015).
7 The Portuguese government has also recently acted in a way which could have been considered as meddling or inelegance: “vehemently” condemned declarations by Guinea-Equatorial President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, stating that, if materialized, would represent a serious violation of human rights. See “Governo português lamenta “veementemente” declarações de Obiang” (Lusa, 19 October 2015).
8 “Programa Eleitoral do Partido Socialista” (PS, Legislativas de 2015), p. 85.
9 “António Costa não quer ‘militares portugueses em combate no terreno’”
(Rádio Renascença, 16 October 2015).
10 “António Costa em entrevista: ‘Não estou disponível para perder a credibilidade por meia dúzia de votos’” (RTP, 10 September 2015).

Abid Naseer, 29, was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the Eastern District of New York for multiple terrorism offenses. The defendant and his accomplices came within days of executing a plot to conduct a bombing at a crowded shopping mall in Manchester, England, as directed by senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, according to the US Justice Department.

The planned attack, which also targeted the New York City subway system and a newspaper office in Copenhagen, had been directed by and coordinated with senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.

Naseer is the eighth defendant to face charges in federal court related to the al-Qaeda plot, which also involved Adis Medunjanin, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, the three members of the cell that targeted New York City. Naseer was convicted in March 2015 after a three-week jury trial of providing material support to al-Qaeda, conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda and conspiring to use a destructive device in relation to a crime of violence.

“Abid Naseer was part of an al Qaeda conspiracy that targeted Western countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, for terrorist attack,” said Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin. “His conviction and sentence reflect our dedication to identifying and holding accountable those who seek to target the United States and its allies. I want to thank the many agents, analysts and prosecutors who are responsible for this successful result.”

“This al-Qaeda plot was intended by the group’s leaders and Naseer to send a message to the United States and its allies,” said U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers. “Today’s sentence sends an even more powerful message in response: terrorists who target the U.S. and its allies will be held accountable for their violent crimes to the full extent of the law.”

“Dispatched by al-Qaeda to the U.K. in 2006, Abid Naseer exploited the educational visa system not to improve his own life, but to take away the lives of many others ‘in large numbers,’” said Assistant Director in Charge Diego G. Rodriguez. “Trained in weapons and explosives, he communicated in code to hide his evil intentions. Found guilty in a court of law, he has been spared the fate of death he wished upon others and will spend considerable time incarcerated in a country he and his co-conspirators failed to take down.”

In approximately September 2008, al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan recruited Medunjanin, Zazi and Ahmedzay, three friends from New York City, to conduct a suicide bombing attack in New York City. Those al-Qaeda leaders, including Adnan El-Shukrijumah and Saleh al-Somali, communicated with Zazi about the plot through an al-Qaeda facilitator named “Ahmad,” who was located in Peshawar, Pakistan. In early September 2009, after Medunjanin, Zazi and Ahmedzay had selected the New York City subway system as their target, Zazi emailed with “Ahmad” in Pakistan about the proper ingredients for the main charge explosive, which included flour and oil. Zazi pleaded guilty to his role in the plot on Feb. 22, 2010; Ahmedzay pleaded guilty on April 23, 2010; and Medunjanin was convicted after trial on May 1, 2012, and was sentenced to life in prison. Zazi and Ahmedzay are awaiting sentencing.

The investigation by authorities in the United States and United Kingdom revealed that “Ahmad” had also been communicating with Naseer earlier in 2009. The evidence at trial established that Naseer and his Pakistani accomplices had been dispatched by al-Qaeda to the United Kingdom in 2006 in order to begin preparations for an attack in that country. The defendant and his co-conspirators entered the United Kingdom on student visas but then immediately dropped out of the university in which they had enrolled. The defendant, like Zazi, returned briefly to Peshawar in November 2008, at the same time Zazi and his co-conspirators were receiving weapons and explosives training from al-Qaeda in that region. After returning to the United Kingdom, the defendant sent messages back and forth to the same email account that “Ahmad” was also using to communicate with the American-based al-Qaeda cell on behalf of Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda’s then-head of external operations. In the messages, the defendant used coded language to refer to different types of explosives. At the culmination of the plot, in early April 2009, Naseer told “Ahmad” that he was planning a large “wedding” for numerous guests during the upcoming Easter weekend and that “Ahmad” – whom he called “Sohaib” – should be ready. Notably, Zazi testified that “Ahmad” had instructed him to use the same code of “marriage” to refer to the planned attack on the New York City subway and that Zazi emailed “Ahmad” that “the marriage is ready” just before he drove to New York in early September 2009 to conduct the attack.

On April 8, 2009, Naseer and several associates were arrested in the United Kingdom. In connection with these arrests, U.K. authorities conducted searches of the plotters’ homes as well as an internet café used by the defendant to send his messages to “Ahmad,” where they seized a large volume of electronic media. As demonstrated at trial, a forensic review of the electronic media revealed that Naseer had downloaded several jihadi nasheeds, or anthems, calling for “death in large numbers.” A document recovered from the raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011 contained a letter from Saleh al-Somali to Bin Laden, written on April 16, 2009, that discussed the defendant and his accomplices’ arrests in the United Kingdom.

“This case demonstrates the importance of a closely coordinated international law enforcement approach to an established terrorist network that knows no borders,” said Commissioner William J. Bratton. “The manner in which these defendants communicated their deadly plans reinforces the need to allow law enforcement the necessary authority and tools to prevent these plots from succeeding in their objectives of mass destruction and death. I commend our local and international partners in preventing these acts and securing convictions of those responsible for plotting them.”

In a sudden and dramatic escalation of the Syria conflict, two Russian aircraft — a SU-24 fighter jet and a rescue helicopter — have been downed in Syria. The fighter was shot down by the Turkish military after it claimed an airspace violation, and the rescue helicopter was reportedly shot down by US-backed rebels with US-made and supplied TOW missiles.

The Turks claim the Russian fighter had ventured over Turkish airspace and that it had been warned ten times in five minutes before it was shot down by two US-made F-16 fighters. For its part, the Russian defense ministry denies any Turkish airspace violation and claims it can prove there was no violation. The Russian fighter crashed in Syrian territory and reports suggest at least one pilot is dead. The other may have been captured or killed by US-backed rebels in the area.

Turkey has released what it claims is radar depiction of the Russian jet’s airspace violation, though as Zero Hedge notes even if accurate it raises the question of how the Russian fighter could have been over Turkish airspace for the five minutes claimed by the Turk side.

Equally serious is the claimed downing of a Russian rescue helicopter by US-backed rebels near the site of the crashed fighter. The US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have radically increased the supply of TOW missiles to Syrian rebels.  According to the Telegraph (via Zero Hedge), the rebels’ use of TOW missiles has increased 800 percent since the Russians began striking ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria.

The US claims it only supplies TOW missiles to the “moderate” Free Syrian Army, but as recently as last week a video surfaced of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front thanking representatives of the Free Syrian Army for providing them TOW missiles. Numerous times over the past year, US-supplied TOW missiles have ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda. Nevertheless the US and its Saudi partner announced just after the Russians began hitting ISIS in Syria that they would send an additional 500 TOWs to the rebels.

Let this sink in: the US is through one degree of separation attacking Russia in Syria. Russia is fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria at the request of the Syrian government while the US is attacking Syrian territory in violation of its sovereignty and international law.

Even if Turkey’s claim of a brief Russian violation of its airspace turns out to be true, we should not forget that Turkey has violated Syrian airspace and territory many times since it decided to participate in the fight to overthrow Syrian president Assad. Turkish fighters have routinely flown over Syria, attacking Syrian territory, against the wishes of the Syrian government. Turkish troops have crossed into Syrian territory on military operations as well. It is also a violation of Syria’s sovereignty for Turkey to actively support armed forces seeking to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government — whether Turkey likes Syria’s current leadership or not.

So the Turkish concern over territorial sovereignty is very selective.

Russian president Putin has called the Turkish attack on its fighter jet a “stab in the back” and promised it would have a serious effect on Russian/Turkish relations.

Warmongers in the United States have repeatedly called for Russian military planes attacking ISIS and al-Qaeda to be shot down and now it appears they have gotten their wish. Presumed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for a “no-fly” zone in the region where the Russian plane was shot down, so had she gotten her wish the plane would have been downed with her approval. A “no-fly” zone would only apply to the Russian and Syrian air force attacking ISIS, as ISIS and al-Qaeda have no aircraft.

Russian success in attacking ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria has significantly dimmed the prospects for the desired overthrow of the Syrian government long pursued by the US and its allies in the region. This dramatic escalation by Turkey may be seen as a “hail mary” pass to head off what looks increasingly like a Syrian government victory against a a five year insurgency.

Or it may launch World War III…

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

In considering the terrifying but also sadly predictable news of a Russian fighter jet being downed by two Turkish fighters, let’s start with one almost certain assumption — an assumption that no doubt is also being made by the Russian government: Turkey’s action, using US-supplied F-16 planes, was taken with the full knowledge and advance support of the US. In fact, given Turkey’s vassal status as a member of US-dominated NATO, it could well be that Ankara was put up to this act of brinksmanship by the US.

What makes the downing of the Russian jet, and the reported death of at least one of its two pilots (the other was reportedly captured alive by pro-turkish Turkmen fighters on the Syrian side of the Syria-Turkish border, and will presumably be returned to Russia) so dangerous is that as a member of NATO, supposedly a “mutual assistance” treaty that binds all members to come to the defense of one that is attacked, if Russia were to retaliate by downing a Turkish military plane, NATO countries including the US would be obligated to come to Turkey’s defense.

Russia knows this, and that is why so far the Russian response to the downing has been muted. Had it been a Jordanian, Saudi or Kuwaiti jet that downed the Russian SU-24, Russia’s response would have been instantaneous. The guilty party would have had some of its planes shot down, or perhaps even bombed on the ground. But President Putin so far has limited himself to demanding a meeting, to warning that Russian-Turkish economic relations would be threatened, etc.

This restraint is good, but clearly, Vladimir Putin will not stop there. Even putting aside domestic considerations (imaging the public clamor for a military response here in the US if some small country shot down a US plane!), he will have to respond or his whole project — so far stunningly successful — of restoring Russia to its pre-USSR-collapse position as a global power, would be a failure.

Putin’s options are actually quite broad, though some carry considerably more risk for everyone, not just for Russia and Turkey. He could have his own air

force in Syria, where Russia is legally acting at the request of the Syrian government to defend it against rebel forces of ISIS and Al Nusra, some of which are backed by both Turkey and the US, calmly wait for a Turkish military jet to cross into Syrian airspace. At that point it could be downed by Russian planes or missiles. No doubt Turkey will be extraordinarily careful going forward to have its pilots keep well away from Syrian air space too avoid that, but it could happen. My guess is that Russian fighter pilots and anti-aircraft batteries in Syria already have their marching orders to take that action, which probably would not activate NATO confrontation with Russia and lead to World War III, as long as there was reasonable evidence that Turkey’s plane was in Syrian airspace.

But should no such opportunity present itself, Russia has plenty of other opportunities to counter Turkey. Remember, Russia is also defending Syria’s coastline, and could sink or capture a Turkish ship that entered Syrian waters (or Russian waters in the Black Sea, which borders both countries).

Russia — knowing that this is really not about Turkey, but about push-back by the US against growing Russian power and influence, both globally and in the Middle East region — could also choose to respond in a venue where it has more of an advantage, for example in Ukraine, where it could amp up its support for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps by downing a Ukrainian military plane, or more broadly, providing air cover to protect those regions. Russia could also, less directly, provide aid to Kurdish rebels in both Syria and in Turkey itself who are fighting against Turkish forces.

I’m sure there are plenty of other options available to Russia also to turn the screws against both Turkey and NATO, without openly pushing buttons that could lead to a direct confrontation with the US and its NATO fiction. Working in Russia’s favor is that the US aside, the European nations of NATO have no desire to be at war with Russia. There are clearly hotheads in the US Congress, the Pentagon, and perhaps even within the neo-con-infested Obama administration, who are pushing for just such a mad showdown. But in Europe, where the actual fighting would mostly occur, and where memories are still strong of the destructive power of war, there is no taste for such insanity. It could, in fact, have been a big error in the long run for the US to push Turkey into such a deadly provocation, if it leads to more anti-American sentiment among the citizens of such key NATO countries as France, Germany, Italy and Britain.

It should be added that Russia and China have become much closer in recent years, economically, politically and militarily. This means there is also the possibility that the two countries could, in concert, step up pressure on the US in the western Pacific, for example by forcing down one of the provocative US flights near China’s new island projects in the South China Sea. That would force an already stretched US military to shift more forces to Asia from Europe and the Middle East.

It is all terribly dangerous and it is hard to predict where things will lead. One thing seems certain, though. This outrageous shootdown of a Russian plane that was in no way posing a threat to Turkey or Turkish forces, will not end here, because Russia and President Putin cannot allow Turkey and NATO to so blatantly act against Russia and its pilots and go unpunished, particularly as it is Russia that is acting legally in Syria, while the US, Turkey and other nations backing rebel forces there are in all acting blatant violation of international law.

Unless saner heads start prevailing in Washington, this could all quickly spiral into the kind of situation in 1914, where a lot of ill-conceived treaties led to a minor incident in the Balkans turning inexorably into World War I.

By Joshua Foust*

On Thursday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined a bold plan to expand the war against ISIS during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We should be honest about the fact that to be successful, airstrikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS,” Clinton said. “If we have learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them, and we should, but we cannot substitute for them.”

There’s one serious problem with this approach: it is utterly baseless.

Contrary Mrs. Clinton’s assertion, our experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan should lead to the opposite conclusion: relying on local proxies, whether formal as an army we train or informal as a militia that we arm, has a deeply troubled history and so far has resulted in catastrophic battle losses against the enemy.

In Afghanistan, the army and militias America has spent years building up barely function. From the scourge of “green-on-blue” attacks (whereby Afghan police and soldiers decide to murder their American trainers), to catastrophic combat losses against the Taliban, our local partners have proven wholly inadequate to the task of defeating the Taliban (and al Qaeda, and now ISIS). Furthermore, the Afghan national army has staggeringly low retention, so low that if the U.S. Army were experiencing the same rate it would be a full-blown crisis and the institution would be facing collapse. Lastly, there is the appalling corruption of both the national army but especially the local militias trained in an attempt to implement a locally-led counterinsurgency policy: not only in terms of money and weapons stolen, but in terms of directly implicating the United States in the systematic sexual abuse of children.

Is it any surprise that such a force is unable to hold its ground against a massive Taliban assault? As more details emerge about the horrific air strike against a hospital in Kunduz province, it seems that the Afghans were the ones falsely claiming that it was a Taliban outpost. In our effort to support our local partners, we may have abetted a war crime.

There is a similar story to tell in Iraq. Training the Iraqi national army, and later the Iraqi militias, was the signature counterinsurgency policy of General David Petraeus. From his command in Mosul in 2004 to his command of the entire war effort, training locals to do the heavy lifting was the key to winning the war. Nevermind that the Iraqi Army cost America more than $25 billion and collapsed at the first sign of ISIS in 2014. Nevermind that some of the Iraqi militias we trained were little more than death squads. And nevermind that we flooded Iraq with so many unaccounted-for weapons and so much equipment that ISIS is currently outfitted about as well as the Iraqi army.

How Mrs. Clinton can look at our record and conclude this is an effective way to combat terror is puzzling. In Libya, American attempts to arm a local proxy would up helping al Qaeda, instead. We lost half a billion dollars-worth of weaponry in Yemen, a humiliating disaster which is no longer the successful example officials use to cite as their model for defeating ISIS. Even in Syria, the train-and-equip mission cost $500 million and resulted in “four or five” men able to fight.

Beyond the practical disasters of relying on local proxies to do our fighting for us is the moral hazard inherent to their use. Relying on local proxies to do our fighting allows us to avoid the risk and responsibility of what happens during the fighting. It is a way for a politician to appear to be doing “something” about a challenge without assuming any political risks in the act of doing so: no “boots on the ground,” no massive deployment, and no dead bodies coming home in flag draped coffins. Proxies allow America to fight wars invisibly, with all of the risk off-loaded onto contractors and anonymous locals.

Proxies also present a serious challenge when their interests are not in exact alignment with ours. In Syria, our proxies care much more about defeating Bashar al-Assad than they do defeating ISIS (this is also why Russia’s assistance mission to Syria has consisted mainly of bombing those proxy groups). It is a logical decision for the Syrians: Assad is responsible for the vast majority of the death and devastation there; the reason ISIS exists in the first place is because of Assad’s brutality. He is the root of all evil in Syria. But toppling Assad is not our immediate goal (even though the President has said it was, at times); defeating ISIS is, and no one is prepared to start a war with Russia and Iran to do so.

Lastly, as Adam Elkus put it, “there is something very unjust and disturbing in the way in which the United States can encourage men to risk their lives under the false hope that Uncle Sam will be with them the whole way.” Because America is never fully committed to our local partners — that is their appeal, after all — the moment it becomes inconvient to do so these proxies are discarded. When America discarded our proxies in Afghanistan, the result was appalling disaster on a scale only now matched by Syria; it created the space for al Qaeda to organize and grow and spread; and it created the horrors that led Afghans to cheer the Taliban’s emergence in 1994. There were seemingly good reasons for using proxies then that mirror the same reasons people find them appealing now: fear of a quagmire, a desire not to directly war against Russia. But that fear does not always result in sound policy, and we’re still left holding the bag in Afghanistan more than 35 years later

This week, the House of Representatives approved a measure, targeted at Iraq and Syria, that will both restrict the resettlement of war refugees here but will also possibly interfere with the visa program meant to help Iraqis who risked their lives and now face death threats for helping us during the war. These terps, who literally save U.S. lives with their work, are being discarded because, like all other proxies, they have become politically inconvenient.

The unpleasant truth is that there is no substitute for American troops on the ground implementing American policy. Our reliance on proxies is not just immoral and unjust; it has been actively counterproductive and harmed our national interests. Sending in American boots on the ground is a political minefield, as it should be — we should never be flippant or casual about risking our people in war. The decision to send in troops should only match a threat so grave we are willing to put our own people at risk to address it. Does ISIS rise to that level of threat? That is the subject of considerable debate at the moment. But as this debate matures, policymakers should not be given a pass when they send unaccountable militias to do our dirty work for us.

About the author:
*Joshua Foust is a Fellow in the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute as well as a freelance writer based in Washington, DC, covering intelligence and national security. From 2010-2013 he was the asymmetric operations fellow at the American Security Project, where he worked on strategic metrics for the war in Afghanistan, meta-analysis of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and reforming the intelligence community. Before that, he was a senior intelligence analyst for the U.S. government focusing on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. In 2010, Joshua published a memoir of his time in Afghanistan as a cultural analyst for the U.S. Army, Afghanistan Journal.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Russia strayed from globalization, and the West can help encourage the nation to return to the fold.

By Ashkhen Kazaryan*

During the past two years, Russia’s image has reverted to one of an exceptionally controlled polity, similar to how the international community once viewed the Soviet Union. Despite opening borders in 1991, Russia gradually became isolated from the international community, a low point arriving with the invasion of Crimea in early 2014.

As the leaders in the West contemplate joining Russia in a strategy to defeat the Islamic State, the world needs to understand the deeper reasons for Russian behavior as much as Russia needs to modify its strategies and reintegrate with the world.

A hard line on Russian foreign policy is mirrored by demolition of domestic legal protections. For purposes at home and abroad, Russian leaders swiftly change laws to suit policies for immediate quiet and control. The effect is to further isolate Russia from global norms.

Most Russians want to be responsible members of the global community. While the country is more interconnected, the benefits of globalization after 1991 were distributed unevenly. A small portion of Russians have ties with the West with salaries depending on outside markets. Few Russians have been exposed to other forms of governance, and problems arising from international business relationships, educational exchanges in some cases contribute to resentment. A poll by the Levada Center released in October shows that 71 percent of Russians see the US role in international affairs as entirely negative.

Most Russians want stability and expect their government to wield influence over neighboring countries, and there is fervent support for interventions in Ukraine.

Ukraine and Russia share more centuries of history as one country than two, and Russian ties with Eastern Ukraine are strong. Those living in Eastern Ukraine speak the Russian language, trade with Russia and self-identify as pro-Russian – all giving the Russian government authority to say that intervention protects its own people. Russians accuse the West of double standards in applying sanctions, asking why the United Sates supports some rebellions but not others. Russians question why sanctions imposed by its government violate World Trade Organization rules, while US and Europe sanctions don’t. The international community condemned Russian soldiers for their role in shooting down Malaysian airline MH17 and killing 298, and Russia responds by pointing out US refusal to apologize for its navy shooting down another civilian plane, civilian Iranian flight 655, taking lives of 290 people. Russia television repeatedly plans George H.W. Bush’s 1988 retort: “I will never apologize for the United States of America, I don’t care what the facts are.”

Military action is not only judged, but punished – what else are sanctions if not a show of West’s authority over a sovereign state? Russian society questions the justification of many military campaigns by the United States, such as by asking if there were chemical weapons in Iraq in 2003.

The list goes on. Most Russians understand that their government has violated international laws. They also question selective outrage by the international community. Such deviations from international norms may not legitimize Russian actions, but they give the government plenty of propaganda material.

Russians’ support for their government’s foreign policy leads to support of other decisions including human rights violations and de facto censorship on anything that might be oppose or critique the power in the country.

Unfortunately, Russia’s legal system provides few protections and little recourse for repairing an abused system. International human rights groups claim Russia now displays among the worst human rights abuses of the post-Soviet era.

The legal system is problematic for a number of reasons.

Government policy can influence the law fast and crucially, and uncertainty has become an instrument for achieving political agenda. Russian courts confronting uncertainty give the benefit of doubt to government agencies and companies and individuals with government connections.

The governmental influence can be legal and direct, with the State Duma and Federal Council of Russia under absolute control of the president, passing any law as needed, as well as indirect pressure on judges and prosecutors. An example of direct pressure is passage of the 2012 federal Dima Yakovlev Law, also known as the Anti-Magnitsky Act, which defines sanctions against US citizens for violating human rights and freedoms of Russian citizens. The law established a list of people banned from entering Russia, allowing the government to freeze their assets and investments; suspends activity of politically active non-profit organizations receiving money from US citizens or organizations; and bans US citizens from adopting Russian children. Procedures for the law’s passage were legal, but disrupted children’s rights, as enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and international treaties. In 2013 four US families in the process of adopting Russian children filed with the European Court of Human Rights, claiming the law violates their right for private and family life and contradicted prohibitions on torture and discrimination.

A lack of clarity in so much legal writing allows authorities to interpret laws as they please. Such misapplication of law can be seen in the Pussy Riot judgment. Five members of the punk-rock band performed a provocative “prayer” in a Moscow Orthodox cathedral in 2012, denouncing Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency. The court decision relied on analogy to convict three band members for “premeditated hooliganism performed by an organized group motivated by religious hatred or hostility” – although Article 3 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code prohibits using analogy in criminal law. Recognizing the violation of law, the Russian Parliament passed a special bill called the “anti-extremist law,” which can be used by courts to prosecute any trying to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of speech.

Another law, prohibiting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender “propaganda” to minors, enacted in 2013, has created an atmosphere in which any LGBT news or mention of support on the internet can be ruled a violation because minors have access to the internet. Surveillance tools allow for easy discovery and conviction of alleged “offenders.”

Fast passage of laws to suit the government and broad, vague language are just two examples of systematic demolition of separation of powers in Russia, an alarming phenomenon.

The demolition unfolds in the midst of financial crisis. Economic sanctions hurt Russia, and anti-sanctions add more pain. For months, the government denied that sanctions had any impact on country’s economy, arguing that both sanctions and anti-sanctions hurt the West more so than Russia. The president urged Russians to endure sanctions for two years, promising that all would be better than before. Most Russians have endured harder times and do not question this course of action.

The nation’s pride is at stake, and Russia’s position in the international arena as a strong opponent to United States is the priority. The United States and the European Union must find diplomatic ways to appeal to Russian pride and not punish citizens for leaders’ decisions.

Dismantling economic sanctions that hurt citizens, instead putting more pressure on power-players and those in Putin’s inner circle is one method. First, this would quell discourse of the “evil-West” guilty of causing Russia’s economic crisis. Second, more conservatives in Russia should be invited to international forums to discuss global challenges and internal problems for Russia. Ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard – not only those who are liberal and “in opposition” to the government – could present a chance of reaching the voter base that supports the current government.

The time is right. Russians would respond. Combining external pressures with a new diplomatic approach, could help Russia move forward before regional and parliamentary elections in September 2016.

*Ashkhen Kazaryan is a 2013-2014 Fox Fellow at Yale University and studying at Yale Law School.

On Tuesday, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that was carrying out military operations against jihadi groups in Northern Syria. The downing of the Su-24 fighter jet is part of a broader plan by the administration of Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan to topple the secular government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and to establish “safe zones” on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border. Erdogan needs the safe zones to provide a sanctuary for the militant extremists who are the footsoldiers in his war against Syria. The downing of the Russian fighter is a desperate attempt by Erdogan to incite a reaction from Russia that will draw either NATO or the United States deeper into a conflict which has dragged on for 4 and a half years and killed 250,000 people.

Unlike the Obama administration, that has been willing to arm and train jihadi groups to conduct its proxy-war against Assad in Syria, Erdogan is a true believer, a committed Islamist who has done everything in his power to roll back democracy in Turkey, to establish one-man rule, to destroy the independent judiciary, to silence the free press, and to establish a conservative and intolerant Islamic state. Erdogan is what many would call a “Koolaid drinker”, a man who believes that his support for disparate and vicious terrorist groups that have decimated Syria, laid its civilian infrastructure to waste, and displaced more than half the population is “God’s work”. Make no mistake, the Turkish government is the modern-day Caliphate. The fact that its government officials dress in nicely-tailored suits rather than black pajamas, is merely a way to divert attention from their extreme fanaticism and their covert support for liver-eating fundamentalist savages.

In the seven weeks since Russia began military operations in Syria, nearly all of the gains of the US-Turkey-Saudi-Qatar jihadi coalition have been wiped out. The decisive battle took place more than a week ago at Kuweris airbase east of Aleppo. This was the tipping point for the war although the imminent fall of Aleppo is bound to attract more notoriety. It’s clear now that the Russian-led coalition is winning the war, has foiled US attempt to remove Assad, and that the bulk of the foreign mercenaries will either be killed or captured. The Obama administration realizes that the current phase of the war is hopeless and has started to implement a fallback plan to control territory in E Syria that is critical for future pipeline corridors. In contrast, the Turkish government is completely unwilling to accept the fact that its plan has failed which is why it has embarked on this risky strategy to draw either NATO or Washington deeper into the fray. Check this out from a Tuesday battlefield report from South Front:

“The Syrian forces backed up by the Russian warplanes, pushed back the militant groups from nearly 200 kilometers of land in the coastal province of Lattakia, military sources said Monday. On Sunday, the Syrian army and popular forces purged the terrorists and advanced to areas near the Turkish borders. The ground reports argue that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of Zahia heights, 2km from the joint borders with Turkey.”

Can you see what’s going on? The Russian-led coalition is closing in on the Syria-Turkish border which will put an end to Erdogan’s dream of toppling Assad or continuing to fuel the war with terrorists that are provided a safe haven on Syrian soil. This is why the Su-24 fighter was shot down on Tuesday. It is a desperate attempt to salvage the failed strategy of toppling a secular government and replacing it with friendly Islamic extremists who hew to Erdogan’s twisted worldview.

By the way, readers should take a minute and review the video of the “moderate” headchoppers that the US supports in Syria paying special attention to their moderate treatment of prisoners. The Russian pilot was captured by these “freedom fighters”, shot twice in the chest and then his clothes were ripped off so he could be moderately photographed. These are the fine fellows that Uncle Sam would like to see in Damascus heading the government because, as we all know, “Assad has lost legitimacy.” (See here.)

For the last three days, I have been following a fast-evolving plan by the Turkish Terrorist Government (TTG) to create a false flag operation that would draw either the US or NATO deeper into the war in Syria reversing Obama’s recent commitment NOT to deploy ground troops to the warzone. On Saturday, Turkish newspapers reported that 1,500 Syrian Turkmen had fled to the Turkish border for safety. The reasons that were given were that the Russian warplanes were bombing areas where ISIS was not located. True, ISIS is not located in these Turkmen villages by the border; rather the barbarians that you see in the video are located there. These men belong to the jihadi groups that that have been funded, armed and trained by Turkey and the US and who are fighting to topple Assad. Reasonable people who would like to see an end to terrorism, should feel supportive of Putin’s efforts to annihilate these monsters. Instead, the Turkish government has been trying to make the case that Russia is bombing innocent civilians. Now check out this story (from Monday) in Turkey’s leading newspaper Hurriyet:

“Turkey has called for a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss attacks on Turkmens in neighboring Syria, according to Prime Ministry sources, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu saying his government will “not hesitate” to take the required measures on Syrian soil to protect the Turkmen people…

Turkey is in discussions with the United States and Russia over the bombing of the villages and has sent a letter to Britain, the current holder of the U.N. Security Council’s presidency, asking for the subject to be taken up, sources from Davutoğlu’s office told Reuters on Nov. 23…

Speaking to reporters late on Nov. 22, Davutoğlu recalled that he was engaged in constant contact with both Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Chief Hakan Fidan over the weekend concerning alleged Russian air raids on Turkmen villages near the Syrian-Turkish border. Sources, meanwhile, told Reuters that Davutoğlu had consulted on the intelligence dimension of the issue with Akar and Fidan.

“Our security forces have been instructed to retaliate against any development that would threaten Turkey’s border security,” the prime minister said. “If there is an attack that would lead to an intense influx of refugees to Turkey, required measures would be taken both inside Syria and Turkey,” he added.

“Looking at background of these attacks, in a region where very clearly there is no element of Deash (ISIS), where there is no terrorist element, first Russian airplanes come and then with support from foreign fighters.

“We will also take the required measures diplomatically for the protection of our brothers and sisters in the place where they are located and for the protection of their human rights in the face of any threat,” he also stated.” (Turkey urges UN to act to protect Turkmens in Syria, Hurriyet)

So is the Turkish PM correct in saying the Russians are bombing the Turkmen civilians forcing them to flee from their homes. Not according to Turkmen leader Ali Türkmani. Here’s what he said:

“There is a perception operation that is being waged over the Turkmens. The regime will of course attempt to maintain its territorial integrity. As such, threats from al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army are being targeted [by Russian air strikes]. It’s not correct to say the Turkmens are being targeted.”

So civilians are not being targeted, but the Turkish government is supplying weapons and ammo to the terrorists as this article in the Turkish Daily Zaman proves:

“Several trucks bound for Syria were stopped at the beginning of last year by Turkish gendarmerie forces upon instructions by a prosecutor. It turned out they contained weapons.
The AK Party government claimed for months that the trucks only included humanitarian aid, but a report published by the Cumhuriyet daily in May last year revealed that the trucks contained weapons.

According to the daily’s report, a truck, which is thought to be one of many, contained 1,000 artillery shells, 50,000 machine gun rounds, 30,000 heavy machine gun rounds and 1,000 mortar shells.

The government was accused of sending the weapons to radical Islamist groups in Syria, but Davutoğlu swore in June that the trucks were bound for Turkmens. In contrast, Turkmens had earlier denied receiving any weapons from Turkey.” (Turkey calls on UN Security Council to convene for Turkmens in Syria, Today’s Zaman)

So what is the game-plan here? What is Turkey really up to?

Well, first of all, they are trying to set up a safe zone on sovereign Syrian territory so they can continue to spread terror across Syria. Check out this clip from the Daily Sabah and you’ll see how these Turkmen radicals who are allies of Ankara are seizing villages to create the safe zone:

“Syrian opposition groups supported by Turkish and US warplanes took control of two Turkmen towns in Northern Syria early Saturday, Anadolu Agency reported….The operation was supported by six Turkish F-16s, four US F-15s and an AC-130 joined the offensive along with three drones.

Security sources added that this success in the fight against DAESH that can be defined as the first step for the creation of a DAESH-free zone in Northern Syria….

Speaking about Turkey’s stance on the recent developments in Northern Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a live broadcast on Wednesday that declaring no-fly and safe zones is crucial to resolve the Syrian Crisis….Erdoğan further stated that Turkey will continue to carry out anti-terror operations until concrete results are achieved and peace is restored.” (First step for the safe zone in N. Syria: opposition groups take two Turkmen towns from DAESH, Daily Sabah)

Whether you call it an ISIS-free zone or not is irrelevant. The fact is, the Turkish government (with US air support) is trying to annex Syrian territory for its own nefarious purposes. That much is clear.

The downing of the Russian Su-24 fighter fits perfectly with the way in which the Turkish government has been ratcheting up tensions on the border, using its jihadi allies to seize Syrian territory, and trying to incite a violent reaction that will force greater NATO or US involvement. I seriously doubt that Putin is gullible enough to take the bait and overreact to this obvious and pathetic provocation in Ankara. He will exact his pound of flesh at some other time, a time of his own choosing.

By Terri Moon Cronk

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter began his meeting at the Pentagon today with the French defense minister by expressing his condolences over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s “horrific” Nov. 13 attacks on Paris, and he reiterated the U.S. commitment to strengthen shared efforts against the terrorists, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters.

Cook said Carter and French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke within hours of the attacks and have been in frequent contact ever since ISIL’s attacks in Paris killed 130 people from 20 nations and wounded more than 350 others.

While the two defense leaders primarily focused their Pentagon meeting on counter-ISIL efforts today, Cook said, their conversations since the attacks already have resulted in several concrete steps.

Nations Share ISIL Information

“France and the United States are now sharing information and details about operational planning against ISIL to the fullest extent allowed by law,” the press secretary said. “Our nations are also contributing to a thickening of the coalition air campaign with sorties now originating from the French carrier the Charles de Gaulle.”

And France was the first to join the United States in strikes against ISIL in Iraq, Cook said.

Expanding U.S., French Cooperation

The two countries now are looking at ways to further expand their cooperation, he said, adding that “France sand the United States share security in other parts of the world.”

“They have shown strong commitment to each facet of the campaign ever since,” Cook said of the French military. “The French are helping to build the capacity of local fighters, training Iraqi peshmerga forces, and have been at the forefront of efforts to stem the flow of financial support and foreign fighters to ISIL,” he said.

In Africa, the United States has supported the French mission to prevent the spillover effects of terrorism and extremism through a “unique lift in aerial refueling capability,” Cook noted.

“In Europe, France has joined the United States by providing our partners reassurance response to Russian aggression,” he said. The French also have volunteered to lead NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force at a future date, he added.

The defense leaders earlier today met at the White House with President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande, who also discussed countering ISIL efforts between the two nations.

“Echoing the president’s words today,” Cook said, “Secretary Carter thanked France for serving as an anchor for security on several continents and for standing as a steadfast ally.”

US President Barack Obama warned the American people against succumbing to the fear that gripped the world after militants rampaged through Paris last week, sparking fierce debate across the country over how to handle an influx of refugees from conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Swiftly after the attacks, which killed 129 and wounded hundreds more, the House of Representatives passed a bill with bipartisan support that would effectively pause the Obama administration’s plan to resettle up to 10,000 asylum seekers. The bill was prompted after one of the Paris attackers was revealed to have entered France under the guise of refuge.

While the White House seeks to resettle only a small fraction of the millions of Syrians now displaced, Obama says the effort is consistent with American values and that rejecting them wholesale is an abdication of the country’s responsibilities.

“I understand that people worry that something similar can happen here,” Obama said, hosting France’s President Francois Hollande at the White House. But the American people cannot allow fear, he said, to divide us, “for that’s how terrorists win.”

“Americans will not be terrorized,” he said. These organizations “will not defeat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us at home.”

“We must uphold our ideals now -– each of us, all of us, must show that America is strengthened by people of every faith of every background,” Obama said. “On the statue of liberty, a gift from the people of France, there are words we know so well: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free. That’s the spirit that makes us America. That’s the spirit that binds us to France. That’s the spirit we need today.”

The president said the US homeland was being protected by the world’s best security professionals, after the State Department on Monday night issued a worldwide travel alert warning US citizens to be vigilant traveling during the holiday season.

In a morning meeting in the Oval Office, Obama and Hollande discussed their strategy against Islamic State (Daesh). Both nations are part of a 65-country coalition that has dropped over 8,000 bombs on the group over the last year.

“France came under attack for what it represents, for what it stands for,” Hollande said at their joint press conference. “But by targeting France, the terrorists -– the murderers -– were targeting the world.”

Hollande said that, militarily, France would continue to strike at Raqqa, Syria, which Islamic State has declared the capital of its nominal caliphate. Paris has sent its aircraft carrier, the Charles De Gaulle, to facilitate the strikes.

Diplomatically, Hollande and Obama expressed hope that the negotiations under way in Vienna between world powers could lead to a realistic political transition away from Bashar Assad, the embattled Syrian president who has presided over the war and who both men feel is its primary belligerent.

“We cannot imagine Syrians getting together, gathering around the leader who is responsible for most of 300,000 dead,” Hollande stated. “It must lead to Assad’s departure.”

By Michael Wilner

Original article

By Matt Hadro

As the U.S. plans to increase its intake of Syrian refugees to 10,000 next year, Americans – including Catholics – are trying to balance national security concerns with compassion for the refugees.

“Americans need to understand that responding to a core tenant of our faith to provide a compassion and care to suffering people like Syrian refugees and maintaining national security are not mutually exclusive – it is not an either or proposition,” said Dr. Susan Weishar, a migration fellow at the Jesuit Social Research Institute who directed immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans for 14 years.

“A rigorous, multi-layered, and lengthy vetting and security clearance procedure is in place to screen refugees,” she said in a statement to CNA. “As the leader of the free world, the wealthiest democracy on the planet – the U.S. must not turn its back on the Syrian refugees.”

However, there are intelligence gaps that could jeopardize the vetting process for refugees, warned Seth G. Jones, who directs the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation.

“I actually think the U.S. needs better intel collection in Syria. So I would actually push more resources to setting up a technical architecture in Syria, and then resources for human collection in Syria,” he told CNA.

An arduous screening process

The Obama administration has announced its plan to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. next year. The U.S. has only accepted around 2,000 Syrian refugees total since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, and 1,682 of those were in fiscal year 2015.

A spokesperson for the State Department acknowledged at a Nov. 23 daily press briefing that “certainly, we’re going to have to ramp up our personnel in order to process these because it’s such a rigorous and long process to get these people processed and placed.”

Many Americans have expressed deep concerns about terrorists and extremists infiltrating the resettlement program, especially after Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris killed 130 and injured several hundred. Several of the attackers are believed to have entered Europe through Greece, though it is not certain if they entered as refugees.

In the wake of the attacks, U.S. Catholic bishops have asked Americans not to scapegoat all Syrian refugees as possible terrorists and to remember their dire humanitarian plight.

“These refugees are fleeing terror themselves – violence like we have witnessed in Paris. They are extremely vulnerable families, women, and children who are fleeing for their lives,” said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, the auxiliary bishop of Seattle who chairs the bishops’ committee on migration, on Nov. 17 at the U.S. Catholic bishops’ fall general assembly.

Over 30 governors have announced their refusal to accept Syrian refugees in their states. The House passed a bill last week to pause the resettlement program for refugees from Iraq and Syria until intelligence agencies could verify their status. Forty-seven Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the bill.

Debate on the policy hinges on whether the resettlement process is itself secure, and whether an increase to 10,000 Syrian refugees in fiscal year 2016 will compromise security standards.

Less than one percent of refugees worldwide are actually resettled. Most remain near their countries of origin, hoping to return home. And of this tiny percentage who are resettled elsewhere, a small portion are sent to the U.S.

For these, priority is given to the most vulnerable persons like victims of torture, female-headed households, or those with severe and pressing medical needs.

There are two ways for a refugee to enter the U.S.: travel to the border and claim asylum upon arrival, or through the refugee resettlement process. The United Nations ultimately determines where refugees will be resettled based on the urgency of their case and where they currently have family.

If they are picked for the U.S., they still must undergo a rigorous security check. It is an arduous 21-step process of interviews and background checks conducted across multiple government agencies that takes 18 to 24 months to complete.

The State Department’s principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Simon Henshaw, called it “the most intensive security screening of any travelers to the United States” in a Nov. 19 special briefing.

The process includes biometric and biographic checks, fingerprinting against FBI databases, and one-on-one interviews with the Department of Homeland Security, which has the discretion to deny admission to refugees on national security grounds. Syrian refugees are also subject to “additional screening,” the State Department has claimed.

Refugees are “accompanied by resettlement agencies every step of the way,” Weishar said, and are assigned a case manager who is “very hands-on, client-centered.”

“Since refugees go through several interviews, they have to be consistent in their answers,” said Kevin Appleby, director of the Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, at a Nov. 23 Capitol Hill briefing on refugee vetting and resettlement.

“If there’s inconsistencies, then it’s a red flag. So if they don’t say the same thing to the same question,” he added, “then they’re knocked out [of the process] until something else can be confirmed.”

“If the U.S. doesn’t have complete confidence in the case,” they won’t take it, Weishar added.

“The resettlement program is probably the last program that someone who wants to commit harm would want to try to use to get to the United States,” said Brittany Vanderhoof, policy counsel for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, at the Nov. 23 Capitol Hill briefing.

The likelihood of someone passing through the program who plans to do harm in the U.S. is “very, very small,” she continued.

And the administration’s planned acceptance of 10,000 Syrian refugees is a “goal, not a requirement,” she said. If refugees have “significant security concerns,” their cases will not be accepted just to meet the goal.

Even with the increase to 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016, the U.S. is “basically hand-picking” the cases, Weishar said, since there have been more than 4 million total Syrian refugees since the beginning of the country’s civil war in 2011. There is even “concern that it [the resettlement process] has been too lengthy,” she noted.

Concerns remain

Still, despite migration experts saying the interview process is secure, others are concerned about the lack of intelligence available from Syria and how that intel gap might affect the refugee vetting process.

Biographical and biometric information on refugees is checked against law enforcement and intelligence databases, the State Department has said, but not everyone is confident in the current databases on Syria.

Jones explained that the intelligence collection in Syria is not as good as it has been in other countries like Iraq, and this problem could definitely affect the refugee resettlement process.

“We’re so much more limited on what we know in Syria because we’re not there,” he said. Thus, there is less available intelligence to confirm or contradict details in a refugee’s interview with U.S. authorities.

“The issue is not that somebody is suspicious and they get sent through,” he said, noting that agents would not allow an obviously suspicious individual entry to the U.S.

“The issue is if there’s no information on someone and they get interviewed, so there’s no disconfirming evidence that they’re anybody other than who they say they are, and their background, you can’t disprove it.”

It is normal for there to be intelligence gaps in the refugees’ countries of origin, he noted, but Syria presents an abnormal case with Salafi jihadist groups there plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland. “That is, in my view, what makes this different,” he explained, that there are national security risks in Syria not present in many other countries.

This risk is balanced against the fact that refugees have historically not been responsible for major terror plots in the U.S. “The terrorism threat for refugees has historically been limited. It’s not been zero. It’s been relatively limited, especially with the major plots,” he noted.

“I would say, based on the threat that refugees have historically posed, and based on the risks, I wouldn’t put them high. I’d put them probably in a more medium category,” he concluded.

He also suggested the possibility of a “limited security assessment” of refugees by the FBI or DHS after they have lived in the U.S. for a short period of time – perhaps six months.

Imperfect solutions

Dr. Rochelle Davis of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, who has worked to resettle Iraqi refugees, admitted that the intelligence is not perfect, but said it rarely is for refugees from war-torn and unstable countries.

“We may not know detailed information” about the last 20 years for each person, she noted, explaining that the plentiful intelligence available on Iraqi refugees from the Ba’ath Party archives and the U.S. military presence there was ultimately a “unique situation” in refugee resettlement

However, she noted, the U.S. accepts tens of thousands of refugees each year from Syria and other countries. “We’re not going to know everything about them, but we do spend a lot of time trying to figure out as much as we can about them,” she said.

“We have entrusted our intelligence agencies to do this process,” she said. Since 2011, the U.S. has let in almost 800,000 refugees and “we really have no cases of domestic terrorism being carried out. So clearly they’ve been doing a good job.”

While the debate continues over the resettlement program for existing refugees, there are many other Syrian Christians and Muslims who fled the violence in Syria but are not classified as refugees.

Why? Because they have not gone to the U.N. refugee camps and applied for refugee status. Thus they are not receiving U.N. aid and cannot be resettled elsewhere.

Many are afraid to go to U.N. camps because of security concerns, said Michael La Civita, chief communications officer of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.

They fear attacks within the camps themselves, “reprisals” from terror groups like ISIS, who “absolutely detests” refugees for fleeing their caliphate, he added.

Others simply don’t have the necessary identification documents and passports for resettlement because they had to leave their homes under threat of sudden death, he said.

As a result, a whole group of persons are living in “limbo” in countries neighboring Syria like Lebanon and Jordan. The men are unemployed and the families are dependent on relatives, friends, or local churches for aid. In Lebanon, some mothers have resorted to prostitution just to feed their families.

“Their world has come to an end,” La Civita said. “These are very, very tight-knit communities that were shattered overnight.” Families are fearful of their own neighbors and of the general security situation where they are living. For many, moving to another country is simply a “pipe dream.”

As American politicians across the bipartisan line are looking for issues to beat one another in debates, the terror attacks in France and Turkey provided the necessary input for in-party discussions in Democratic and Republican parties. Recently Democratic Party presidential hopefuls debated the attacks in Paris.

The Democratic Party presidential candidate with hopes of becoming the custodian of the White House to succeed Obama next year, the former US foreign minister (secretary of state) Hillary Clinton called for distinguishing Muslims from terrorists and sought global unity to crush the Islamic State, as the carnage in Paris took center stage at the Democratic presidential debate on 14th November.

The three candidates, Mrs. Clinton, liberal US Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley began their debate, bringing Friday’s horrific attacks an Paris to the forefront of the 2016 race for presidency as they dominated the first half hour of the political showdown. They united in calling for the destruction of the jihadists accused of massacring at least 129 people in the French capital.

It needs to be mentioned here that the terror attacks on France and turkey took place following the overt recognition of Osama bin Laden as hero by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf who has been a close ally of US Bushdom forces in attacking and occupying neighboring Afghanistan. The NATO-USA fights all so-called fundamentalist extremisms to protect their hidden capitalist-imperialist agenda and considers the praises showered on Osama by General Musharraf as expose of all US secret goals. What Musharraf said in effect reveal the illegal use and assassination of Osama.

The terror attacks in France, as well as Turkey, put the terror gear in reverse, giving prominence to the destructive character of terrorism – almost de-recognizing Osama bin Laden as a hero. Obviously, US-NATO wants to show Osama as a terrorist in action, the most powerful force on earth.

O’Malley said: ‘Let’s not fall into the trap of thinking our Muslim-American neighbors… are the enemy’. Former Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush spoke up from afar during the debate: ‘Yes, we are at war with radical Islamic terrorism.’ Hillary Clinton made it clear: ‘We are not at war with Islam’, choosing her words with care as she warned ordinary Muslims should not be viewed as a threat. ‘We are at war with violent extremism. Hillary called for global resolve to defeat ISIS, ‘a barbaric, ruthless, violent jihadist terrorist group.’

Madam Clinton’s latest “love” for Muslims looks funny because she was the person who along with Obama had planned for terror attack on Libya in order to assassinate its president Col. Qaddafi who ruled the nation by helping the poor as well without taking any IMF loans, and loots its vast energy resources. US forces killed innocent Muslims in order to kill and destabilize North African state Libya.

Relatively hawkish Clinton, self-described democratic socialist Sanders and low-polling O’Malley took the stage in Des Moines, Iowa for their second Democratic showdown in the 2016 primary cycle. With 79 days before the first state-wide vote in Iowa, frontrunner Clinton has reinforced her status as the woman to beat in the race. Her poll numbers have risen steadily since mid September, to more than 54 percent today according to a RealClearPolitics average. Sanders is at 33 percent, while O’Malley is languishing at three percent. Her “concern” for Muslims, however, is important for the oppressed and terrorized Muslims globally.

But Sanders stood his ground, arguing that the Iraq war, which then-senator Clinton voted to authorize in 2002, laid the foundation for the surging jihadist threat that once more sowed carnage on Friday. ‘I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region completely and led to the rise of Al-Qaeda and to ISIS,’ Sanders said. The Iraq war, he repeated, ‘was one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the modern history of the United States.’

Mrs. Clinton also said she had a ‘very aggressive plan’ to rein in Wall Street’s big banks.

But Sanders shot back with a blunt message — ‘Not good enough’ — and essentially challenged Clinton to disavow much of her connections to Wall Street millionaires who back her campaign.

Corporates and arms-oil mafias in USA support both Republican and Democratic campaigns so that whosoever win would be backing them. The establishment candidates like Clinton would be in debt to Wall Street supporters.

Western media lords who shield state crimes being committed by US-NATO forces across the globe wherever they occupy, quickly claimed that the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks on a Paris concert hall, restaurants and bars, and outside France’s national stadium — even calling it retribution for French air strikes in Syria.

US super power with mightiest military forces, obviously with tacit understating with Russia that had occupied the nation of brave Afghans during Cold war caused modern terror era in the world by attacking and invading an Islamizing Afghanistan in 2001 on the pretext of one Osama, who was claimed to have taken off three US planes simultaneously to hit some important locations, including WTC, hiding there with government protection. American lies are truth, they say. With another illegal attack on oil rich Iraq in 2003, Americans and NATO have perfected the art of state terrorism, killing Muslims possibly to reduce Muslim populations, Indian regime keep complaining of false rise Muslim population in the country, through the rate growth of Hindu population has been on the rise for years now, making India catch up with the Chinese population for some political reasons.

All veto members of the discredited UNSC obviously are fully aware of the secret operations to terrorize the humanity.

Western media lords and their subordinates in the Eastern world, however, have refused reveal the truth about the motives of terror attacks and the sources of ISIS acceptance of ‘guilt”. Who by person and why should the ISIS claim responsibility of Paris attack is a puzzle which would never be revealed by the media since intelligences regulating all core media outlets globally do not do thing that their government desire. Generally the NATO and USA do not declare the real cause of their terror attacks but only bluff about some problems in order to achieve their objective of destabilizing Islamic world.

With all the talk of battling the jihadist wave, the Democrats, including Clinton, on stage refused to use the term ‘radical Islam,’ which moderators used in the debate — and Republicans in the presidential race have used throughout the campaign — to describe the France scourge.

France and Turkey where terror attacks took place, killing hundreds, are parts of the dreadful organization called NATO that terrorizes the humanity with its war threats on behalf of its leader – the USA.

It appears, NATO operates on two premises, one as official western state terror organization and two as powerful secret terror organization operating in the guises of strong Islamic terror groups like Taliban, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Many more such so-called “Islamic fundamentalist” organizations are expected to pop up in future too. This means, both France and Turkey – the targets of latest terror experiments – are fully aware of the NATO plans. All such terror attacks are essentially meant for terrorizing the humanity, especially the global Muslims. The only sources that could reveal the facts in due time, the WikiLeaks and its owner Julian Assange are in trouble from Australian and western powers that feel threatened by regular WikiLeaks exposing all secret state plans.

Humanity still hopes to know the whole truth about terrorism one day.

What would Hillary Clinton, if elected to White house, do for Muslims in the country and globally – whether she would continue the Neocons policies of showcasing US military prowess by attacking Muslim nations and killing innocent Muslims as the US rulers have done systematically so far to bully the energy rich Arab and central Asian nations or she would stand to protect them as one of her prime duties as global leader – remains to be seen!

After all, statesmanship is not a propaganda tool or mere rhetoric stuff.

By Sandeep Bamzai*

Every time India has outperformed economically, as it managed to top 8 per cent GDP growth, the real inflection point has come thanks to agricultural growth closing in on 4 per cent. The tipping point for what essentially remains an agrarian economy, even if services and manufacturing have displaced agriculture’s contribution to the GDP basket remains how the rural economy performs in Bharat. For some time now, rural incomes have been down-beat and this is reflected in consumption patterns as well. Every rural household survey thus attains singular importance because it tells us whether there is a pick up in Bharat’s economy. J M Financial is the latest to do a survey, which is actually a follow up to the one that it did in the first quarter of calendar year 2015. Unfortunately, it tells us that the trajectory is still headed southwards. Policy mavens are struggling with two important metrics – consumption which refuses to see an uptick and the investment pipeline which remains on skid row. Till we revive these two obvious metrics, the struggle to lift ourselves will continue. Obviating the farm crisis by providing fresh oxygen has to be a focus area.

JM’s first survey showed a disturbing, yet emerging thread of falling rural incomes and diminishing wealth effect impinging on consumption in rural India. Since then, consumption metrics they track has declined further. To gauge if the thread has developed into a full blown trend, JM’s team of surveyors travelled to states that account for 50%+ of India’s agriculture GDP to meet small and large farmers, business owners, and traders in rural India. The visit highlighted that:

a) farm incomes (c.36% of rural income) and sentiment has continued to decline due to the third consecutive crop failure, weak outlook on the next crop, lower MSP hikes, and global commodity price rout,

(b) non- farm income (2/3rds of rural income) has been, at best flat, given that utilization of man and machine are down though wages and rentals have held up. Even as India awaits a further increase in government led capex, and the 7th pay commission, JM continues to expect rural demand to remain subdued and that from a portfolio perspective, they recommend to be underweight plain vanilla rural stocks and stick to stocks which have “rural/semi-urban optionality” even as near-term stock performance is driven by other factors.

• Farm income declines while non-farm income remains lackluster: Farm income has been under pressure due to a) monsoon deficits (12%-CY14 and 14%-CY15), b) unseasonal rains, c) pests, d) lower MSP growth and e) decline in global agri commodities. On the other hand, a) declining tractor utilization, b) low manpower utilization, c) lower spending by agri ministry (-22%YoY, FYTD) and rural development (7%YoY) have been a drag on the non-farm incomes while rise in infra spending (49%YoY) and resumption of sand mining have been supportive with the overall non-farm incomes being stagnant. Combined, JM expects the overall rural income will continue to decline.
• Rural consumption on the wane: With wage growth spiraling down, small farmers income (60% from wages) has been on a downward trajectory while low crop realization has led to a decline in income of large famers (cultivation 70%+ of income), all leading to weakness in consumption. We observed that rural consumption has been weak across auto, durables and FMCG with pronounced slowdown in tractor volumes (-20%YoY in 1HFY16) and two wheelers (Avg.0.1%YoY-4Qtrs). Even large rural FMCG players such as HUL have reported weak volume growth (Avg.5.5%YoY) and pricing pressure.
• More govt intervention needed to boost rural economy: The govt has announced higher MSP’s (wheat: 5.5%YoY, pulses:~10%YoY). Besides, a) Increased uptake by FCI, b) disintermediation and c) thrust on ware house development are much needed measures. The central govt may have to step up allocation for rural infrastructure spending (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana) to boost employment opportunities. The 7th pay commission and Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) may also have a positive trickledown effect on incomes. State govts have to focus on a) crop insurance (MP model), b) irrigation and c) power availability.
• Other findings: Farm mechanization such as laser leveling of fields (Punjab), mechanized milking (Kar.) are picking pace. Solar powered irrigation systems and electrification are being implemented in some parts. In almost all places we visited, DBT for LPG is prevalent.

Reading this report makes one wonder what the silver bullet is for a slowing rural economy. Rural stress is a reality which cannot be ignored anymore. The government needs a strong dose of truth serum to revitalise the rural economy. A theorem which cannot be overlooked is that rural India’s share of national income and expenditure is above the half mark. The ICE 360 survey (2014) known as the People Research on India’s Consumer Economy reveals that rural India contributes over half of India’s income (55.4%), has a share of 56.1% of consumption expenditure, and its 179.5 million households have a share of 52.3% of the country’s surplus income. These numbers are staggering for what perception tells us is of a bouquet of people who reside at the bottom of the pyramid. Top researcher Rajesh Shukla, director & CEO, People Research on India’s Consumer Economy—ICE 360°, reckons that the way forward for state and central governments is to focus on issues and create a healthy rural economy that offers opportunities in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors while enhancing skill-sets of people employed in both. My contention is that nothing will move till large dollops of investment are made in agriculture to lift the gloom in the rain dependent sector. Unfortunately, it is one of the least priorities of the present government.

*The writer is a Visiting Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

Eleven of the 28 members of what China said was a “terrorist group” killed by police in a recently announced raid in northwestern China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region are believed to have been women and children, according to local sources.

Last week, Chinese official media reported that police killed the 28 people following a two-month manhunt for suspects in a deadly coal mine attack in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture’s Bay (Baicheng) county in September.

On Monday, sources in Bay said they learned many more suspects had been killed in the raid than previously believed after speaking with people from neighboring townships in the county.

“After the raid operation, I heard the total number of suspects was 17—belonging to three families,” a food stall owner at the Bay county bazaar told RFA’s Uyghur Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Later, I heard from my customers who live in [Bay’s] Bulung and Karabagh townships that there were an additional two families from those places among the suspects, and that their indirect relatives and friends were also detained during the manhunt, though I don’t remember their names.”

A second food stall owner at the bazaar, who also declined to be named, said that nearly one-third of those killed in the raid were believed to be women and children traveling with male members of their families.

“There is speculation among the public that 11 of the 28 suspects who were killed at the cave [where they hid] were women and children, but I don’t know the source of the information,” he said.

Turghun Turdi, the deputy chairman of the Bay county Police department, confirmed that 28 people had died in the raid.

“Yes, they consisted of five or six families and there are many details about their relationships with one another,” he said.

“You should contact the group investigating the case or the [manhunt] operation command center. While the operation was underway, I was only in charge of organizing local farmers to support the soldiers.”

Turghun Turdi and other officials from Bay county refused to respond to a report by the official People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily on Monday that authorities had used a flamethrower to flush the suspects out of their cave before killing them.

Other sources RFA spoke to in Bay county said it was likely, though, as official reports suggested the group was “annihilated.”

Earlier report

RFA’s Uyghur Service had previously reported that 17 people—including four women and three children—were being hunted by authorities in connection with the mine attack after speaking with Elniyaz Turdi, the chief of Chokatal village in Bay’s Kanchi township. Sources later confirmed they had been killed in the raid.

On Monday, Elniyaz Turdi acknowledged that he “only knew the number and identity of the suspects who were residents of our Chokatal village.”

“I was never informed by my superiors about whether there were other suspects from other townships [in Bay],” he said.

Attempts by RFA to contact sources in townships other than Kanchi to confirm the number of suspects being sought in the manhunt went unanswered, likely due to a heavy crackdown on the flow of information out of the region amid the operation.

According to last week’s announcement on the Xinjiang regional government’s Tianshan web portal, the slain group of 28 had committed “a violent terrorist attack under the direct command of an overseas extremist organization.”

Repeating a report that appeared briefly on China’s Ministry of Public Security announced on Nov. 14 before it was removed, Tianshan said the 28 were killed and one person surrendered, during a 56-day manhunt.

Call for investigation

On Tuesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese government to allow independent observers and monitors to investigate the raid, saying that “clarifying facts on the ground is essential in order to determine whether excessive force was used.”

“Violence aimed at terrorizing the population is always utterly deplorable, but it does not shield the government’s response from scrutiny,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.

“The death toll in China’s counterterrorism campaigns is deepening skepticism about Beijing’s tactics and goals. If China truly has nothing to hide, then it is past time to allow United Nations experts, independent journalists, diplomats, and other observers free access to the region to examine all such incidents.”

Human Rights Watch noted that China’s central government and Xinjiang authorities also tightly control visits to the region by diplomats and journalists, making verification of the circumstances surrounding violent incidents extremely difficult.

Chinese authorities have a duty to both protect public order and to respect the rights of both suspects and the general population, the group said, adding that the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which reflect customary international law, require law enforcement officials to use intentional lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life.

The principles also require governments to ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is punished as a criminal offense under their law, it said.

“After the Paris attacks Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on the world to end ‘double standards’ and acknowledge China’s terrorism problems,” Richardson said.

“But Beijing undermines its credibility by strangling access to Xinjiang, and the only way to regain it is to allow independent investigations.”

‘Three evils’

China has vowed to crack down on the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism in Xinjiang, but experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from Uyghur “separatists” and that domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012.

Uyghur groups in exile say such attacks are likely expressions of resistance to Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang, where Uyghurs complain of pervasive ethnic discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression by China’s communist government.

Rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Shohret Hoshur. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Security Cooperation as a military concept or doctrine in US strategic thinking must always bear in mind the needs of the US partners if burden-sharing is to be an effective strategy.

By Luke R. Donohue*

How can the United States ensure that its Security Cooperation investments – defined as activities to encourage and enable international partners to work with the US to achieve strategic objectives – will strengthen Indo-Pacific regional security? The 2015 National Military Strategy suggests the US military faces a critical moment of truth: military spending decreasing right at the time it faces increasingly agile and adaptive threats. Further, the strategy argues that the era of both competitors and partners benefiting from decades of US-provided economic and defence security may be coming to a close and it is time for partners to share the burden of security.

However, the means to accomplish a burden-sharing strategy remain finite and the risk for miscalculation continues to rise. Budget challenges, an emergent China, and a belligerent North Korea all shape regional defence posture. The US Department of Defence and Services leadership must consider how best to strike a balance in maintaining military readiness to “fight tonight,” and build partner readiness and resolve.

Avoiding the siren song

As Security Cooperation continues to gain prominence as the strategic solution to find such a balance, it is only with the right leadership, renewed purpose, and unity of effort that Security Cooperation can produce the desired result. Without these, the Security Cooperation enterprise will continue answering the siren song of fix-all authorities hampering the US and its partners in establishing a new architecture that achieves shared security.

Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter, in his comments at the 14th Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2015 in Singapore, stated that to achieve a strong, capable, and connected regional architecture that allows Asia-Pacific peoples and nations to prosper and rise, the architecture must be action-oriented, inclusive and transparent. It is no longer tenable to exclusively prepare the US military to “fight tonight,” and not considering the security needs, interests, and contributions of partner nations. The Defence Department can, and must, strengthen security and ensure stability in the Indo- Pacific region by instituting an agile and inclusive Security Cooperation strategy that supports both the US and partner nations.

The challenge in establishing an inclusive strategy is how to best leverage the patchwork of treaty alliances, regional constructs, and emerging partners to create a viable and long-lasting architecture. It is the very network of nations in this proposed architecture that must shape the application of the Security Cooperation tools. In such a diverse theatre with many historical cleavages, it is essential that the US attentively listen and pragmatically respond to a partner “demand signal” on what capability and capacity it wants, understanding what it can absorb, and the leverage areas of mutual interest.

In order to do so effectively, the US must articulate the plan of action by country, region, domain, and function to ensure the best application of resources towards building employable partner capability.

Guiding principles

As the US moves to establish an architecture comprising enabled security providers, the enterprise must remember this is not solely about arms sales and agreements, rather the proper application of Security Cooperation tools and authorities to shape a viable security architecture. At Shangri-La, Secretary Carter laid out the guiding principles framing the direction and providing guidance to plan and execute Security Cooperation in support of a regional architecture.

The architecture must “Reaffirm the guiding principles and rules,” that have maintained peace and stability since the end of WWII. The Security Cooperation enterprise must understand these principles and rules as they drive our national level policy decisions. If the Security Cooperation enterprise fails to do so, this challenges US credibility and reduces Security Cooperation efficacy.

Firstly, regional institutions, such as ASEAN, merit additional US focus and resources to support multilateral approaches to security. The US recognises the centrality of regional institutions in contributing to stability and security in the region and the more it invests in their efficacy in being a security provider, the more effective the strategy becomes.

Former US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel commented that as political, economic and security trends across Southeast Asia evolved, “the Obama administration is responding to the strong interests from leaders and publics for increased security cooperation, economic engagement, and support of ASEAN efforts to adhere to rules and norms in support of regional security and prosperity”.

Secondly, the treaty alliances remain the cornerstone of any architecture going forward. Japan, South Korea, and Australia are forging ahead in exporting security in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, Peacekeeping, Counter Piracy and Maritime Security capacity building. Here in lies the opportunity to partner with them to further export security in other areas as well – from arms export to cyber security. The US must embrace partners who demonstrate a willingness to share in the security burden, and together lay the groundwork for a burden-sharing architecture. “Strengthening relationships” to “enhancing the capacities of the regional security architecture,” fall flat if the US strategy lacks the cohesion necessary to apply and sequence resources effectively on balance with partner interests.

Thirdly, the US must consider how to employ the range of Security Cooperation resources on properly shaping militaries and building specific capabilities to share in our security commitments in region. In Asia, achieving this is even more challenging as there is not a NATO-like security alliance, or a unifying threat, yet. Focusing efforts on building partner employable capability will build partner nation confidence, and work to establish partner resolve to contribute within the desired architecture.

Standing shoulder to shoulder

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey wrote in Foreign Policy: “In Asia, states are rapidly expanding their militaries while territorial disputes heighten the risk of miscalculation…Traditional power-on-power relationships will shape Asia’s future and ultimately determine whether it becomes the economic engine of the 21st century or a zone of interstate conflict.”

In Asia today, there is never a more important time to establish unity of effort within our enterprise and with our partners. Resources are finite; ensuring we build the right capabilities requires investment in building partner capabilities on balance to our own in order to reduce risk. Achieving this will resolutely reaffirm our alliances, solidify emerging relationships, and be seen as a US standing shoulder to shoulder with the region.

*Lieutenant Colonel Luke R. Donohue is the United States Army War College Visiting Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army War College, the United States Army, the Department of Defence, or the United States Government.

The World Bank Group on Tuesday launched  a new plan that calls for $16 billion in funding to help African people and countries adapt to climate change and build up the continent’s resilience to climate shocks.

Titled Accelerating Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Development, the Africa Climate Business Plan will be presented at COP21, the global climate talks in Paris, on November 30. It lays out measures to boost the resilience of the continent’s assets – its people, land, water, and cities – as well as other moves including boosting renewable energy and strengthening early warning systems.

“Sub-Saharan Africa is highly vulnerable to climate shocks, and our research shows that could have far-ranging impact — on everything from child stunting and malaria to food price increases and droughts,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “This plan identifies concrete steps that African governments can take to ensure that their countries will not lose hard-won gains in economic growth and poverty reduction, and they can offer some protection from climate change.”

Per current estimates, the plan says that the region requires $5-10 billion per year to adapt to global warming of 2°C.

The World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme estimate that the cost of managing climate resilience will continue to rise to $20-50 billion by mid-century, and closer to $100 billion in the event of a 4°C warming.

Of the $16.1 billion that the ambitious plan proposes for fast-tracking climate adaptation, some $5.7 billion is expected from the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank Group that supports the poorest countries. About $2.2 billion is expected from various climate finance instruments, $2.0 billion from others in the development community, $3.5 billion from the private sector, and $0.7 billion from domestic sources, with an additional $2.0 billion needed to deliver on the plan.

“The Africa Climate Business Plan spells out a clear path to invest in the continent’s urgent climate needs and to fast-track the required climate finance to ensure millions of people are protected from sliding into extreme poverty,” explains Makhtar Diop, World Bank Group Vice President for Africa. “While adapting to climate change and mobilizing the necessary resources remain an enormous challenge, the plan represents a critical opportunity to support a priority set of climate-resilient initiatives in Africa.”

The plan will boost the region’s ability to adapt to a changing climate while reducing greenhouse emissions, focusing on a number of concrete actions. It identifies a dozen priority areas for action that will enhance Africa’s capacity to adapt to the adverse consequences of climate variation and change.

The first area for action aims to boost the resilience of the continent’s assets. These comprise natural capital (landscapes, forests, agricultural land, inland water bodies, oceans); physical capital (cities, transport infrastructure, physical assets in coastal areas); and human and social capital (where efforts should include improving social protection for the people most vulnerable to climate shocks, and addressing climate-related drivers of migration).

The second area for action focuses on powering resilience, including opportunities for scaling up low-carbon energy sources. In addition to helping mitigate climate change, these activities offer considerable resilience benefits, as societies with inadequate access to energy are also more vulnerable to climate shocks.

And the third area for action will enable resilience by providing essential data, information and decision-making tools for climate-resilient development across sectors. This includes strengthening hydro-met systems at the regional and country levels, and building capacity to plan and design climate-resilient investments.

“The plan is a ‘win-win’ for all especially the people in Africa who have to adapt to climate change and work to mitigate its impacts,” said Jamal Saghir, the World Bank’s Senior Regional Adviser for Africa. “We look forward to working with African governments and development partners, including the private sector, to move this plan forward and deliver climate smart development.”

The Africa Climate Business Plan reflects contributions and inputs from a wide variety of partners with whom the Bank is already collaborating on the ground, in a coordinated effort to increase Africa’s resilience to climate variability and change. The plan aims to help raise awareness and accelerate resource mobilization for the region’s critical climate-resilience and low-carbon initiatives.

The plan warns that unless decisive action is taken, climate variability and change could seriously jeopardize the region’s hard-won development gains and its aspirations for further growth and poverty reduction. And it comes in the wake of Bank analysis which indicates climate change could push up to 43 million more Africans into poverty by 2030.

Judicial and law enforcement authorities from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany and the UK, supported by Europol and Eurojust, took action early Tuesday against a Europe-wide organized crime group (OCG), composed primarily of Czech and Albanian nationals. The OCG is suspected of arranging for mainly Albanian nationals to be brought into the European Union in breach of immigration law. The OCG is also suspected of money laundering.

The OCG, operating since late 2013, transported irregular migrants to the UK via two routes: either from Turkey or Greece to Belgium and then on to the UK in vehicles driven by Czech and Slovak drivers, or from Bulgaria or Serbia to the Czech Republic, and then via Germany to the UK via ferry or train. Over 100 irregular migrants were brought into the European Union over this period.

Europol supported the action day by providing dedicated analysts to the operation and the deployment of its mobile office in the UK. Information gathered during the operation was analysed and exchanged in real time and immediately cross-matched. A coordination centre was held at Eurojust, with support from Eurojust’s Case Analysis Unit.

A joint investigation team (JIT) was established between the involved Member States, with the participation of Europol and Eurojust.