Why This Is The Right Time For India To Restore Close Ties With Nepal

by Jaideep Mazumdar

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Nepal’s new Prime Minister Khagda Prasad Sharma Oli, who assumed office for the second time in mid-February, is on a very strong wicket this time. Having won the mandatory motion of confidence by a three-fourth majority in the new House of Representatives after taking over as Prime Minister, Oli is sure-footed and confident this time, unlike the last when he headed an unstable coalition and was voted out after 10 months in office. In fact, Oli’s is the first stable government in Nepal after 60 long years – the last was B P Koirala-led Nepali Congress government that won the elections decisively in 1959. Since then, Nepal has seen 40 governments in 60 years.

India and Pakistan: Inching Toward Their Final War?

Mohammed Ayoob

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Both India and Pakistan have between 120 and 140 nuclear warheads, according to estimates provided by the Arms Control Association. However a report produced in 2015 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center asserts that Pakistan may be outpacing India in terms of its nuclear stockpile, and may possess 350 nuclear warheads in the next five to ten years. A 2016 SIPRI report confirmed the assessment that Pakistan has more nuclear warheads than India.

CENTCOM Confirms That Pakistan Is Still Covertly Supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan

Bill Gertz

Gen. Joseph L. Votel, commander of the Central Command, disclosed in congressional testimony this week that despite a new U.S. policy of pressuring Pakistan, the Islamabad government is still supporting the Taliban terrorist group in the border region with Afghanistan. Asked during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday if Pakistan is continuing to back terrorist activity in Afghanistan, Gen. Votel said the U.S. pressure campaign has produced some “positive indicators” of a shift. However, on the question of continued Pakistani support, Gen. Votel noted: “I cannot tell you that we have seen decisive changes in the areas in which we’re working, but I remain very well-engaged with my partner to ensure that we are moving forward on this.”

The War in Afghanistan Is Now Being Fought on the Streets of Previously Safe Kabul

US focusing anti-Taliban effort inside Kabul

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan capital is now the main focus of the anti-Taliban fight, with U.S. special forces conducting raids in the sprawling city and additional American military advisers arriving to help beleaguered local police, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday. “We’ve increased the number of special operations we’re doing in and around the city to target the networks that are attacking the city,” Gen. John Nicholson said in an interview with a small group of reporters. “So Kabul is our main effort right now.” He said the Afghan government has replaced the top five police officials in each district inside Kabul as part of a plan to more effectively counter the militants.

Eight countries in danger of falling into China’s “debt trap”

Tim Fernholz

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Last year, with more than $1 billion in debt to China, Sri Lanka handed over a port to companies owned by the Chinese government. Now Djibouti, home to the US military’s main base in Africa, looks about tocede control of another key port to a Beijing-linked company, and the US is not happy about it. Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. “Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added.

Is China Reverting To A Mao-Style Dictatorship?

By William Hongsong Wang*

News that the Chinese government was preparing to remove constitutional term limits on President Xi Jinping shocked most Chinese. Many worry that an unlimited term of office will lead to unlimited power and increased restrictions on individual liberty. Will President Xi become a Chinese version of Russia’s President Putin? Will Xi become another Mao Zedong-style dictator? Or is it even possible that Xi would proclaim himself emperor?

Eight countries in danger of falling into China’s “debt trap”

Tim Fernholz

Last year, with more than $1 billion in debt to China, Sri Lanka handed over a port to companies owned by the Chinese government. Now Djibouti, home to the US military’s main base in Africa, looks about tocede control of another key port to a Beijing-linked company, and the US is not happy about it. Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. “Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added.

Is China Reverting To A Mao-Style Dictatorship? – OpEd

By William Hongsong Wang*

News that the Chinese government was preparing to remove constitutional term limits on President Xi Jinping shocked most Chinese. Many worry that an unlimited term of office will lead to unlimited power and increased restrictions on individual liberty. Will President Xi become a Chinese version of Russia’s President Putin? Will Xi become another Mao Zedong-style dictator? Or is it even possible that Xi would proclaim himself emperor? Due to internet censorship in China, people cannot express their opposition publicly so they still use insinuations and sarcasm to voice their opinions. Some of them even use the story of the failed monarchy restoration of the first President of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai, in 1916.

The Chinese Communist Party

by Eleanor Albert and Beina Xu

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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the founding and ruling political party of modern China, boasting nearly ninety million members. In 2017, the CCP exalted President Xi Jinping and elevated new officials to support Xi in setting the agenda for the second-largest economy in the world. The party has maintained a political monopoly since its founding, despite the effects of China’s rapid economic growth, increasing social unrest, and political destabilization that challenge the country’s rise as a global power. A spate of political and corruption scandals has also exposed deep power struggles inside the infamously opaque organization. Nevertheless, through the course of Xi’s first term in power, he has taken drastic action to not only consolidate his hold on power via party levers, but experts say he has also positioned himself to become the most influential Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

Origins and Power Structure

More than 200 nabbed in Malaysia on suspicion of recruiting terrorists via social media

KUALA LUMPUR (BERNAMA) - Malaysia has arrested a total of 249 local and foreign individuals suspected of recruiting members for terrorism through social media so far, Deputy Home Minister Masir Kujat said on Tuesday (March 13).  Datuk Masir said 240 of them carried out their modus operandi through Facebook, eight through Twitter and another one through Instagram. “The arrests were made as a result of police intelligence and monitoring by the Counter Messaging Centre,” he told Parliament during a sitting on Tuesday. Mr Masir was responding to a question from a Barisan Nasional lawmaker on the government’s efforts to curb the spread of terrorism on social media.

How the U.S. Can Help End the Syrian Civil War

by James Stavridis

Eastern Ghouta is burning. In the region just east of Damascus, thousands of civilians are dying as Syrian government forces crush the remaining rebels. The U.N. Security Council ceasefire passed on March 3rd was dead on arrival. With no enforcement mechanism or means to hold Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accountable, pro-Assad forces continue to shell the area with impunity. A ground offensive has ramped up, and a monitoring group has reported chemical attack in East Ghouta. Russia, which is the Syrian regime’s principal backer and arms supplier, proposed a humanitarian “pause” from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily, with a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to flee the besieged areas. But the fighting simply rages on.

Putin Says Russia’s New Weapons Can’t Be Beat. With AI and Robotics,

BY AUGUST COLE, AMIR HUSAINFOUNDER, SPARKCOGNITION

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Russia’s next generation of strategic weaponry may be a bit more distant and a bit less fearsome than Vladimir Putin recently claimed. But his March 1 speech about titanic ballistic missiles and nuclear-powered undersea drones should spur American defense and technology communities to move faster — indeed, uncomfortably so — to embrace similarly disruptive ideas such as artificial intelligence and robotics.

William Astore, The Fog of War in America

by William Astore

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[Note for TomDispatch Readers: This is your last chance to get your own signed, personalized copy of James Carroll's moving new novel, The Cloister, his vivid retelling of the medieval love story of Abelard and Héloïse, set against the grim backdrop of the Crusades. The offer will end on Monday. In the meantime, donate $100 to this website ($125 if you live outside the United States) and the book is yours. Check out Carroll's recent TD piece on our modern version of the Crusades, then think about receiving a genuinely rivetting novel and, while you're at it, giving TD a helping hand in tough times. Go to our donation page for the details. Tom]

Tillerson’s Ouster Could Kill the Iran Nuclear Deal

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

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The secretary of state’s would-be replacement, Mike Pompeo, is an ardent hawk who says the agreement is ‘disastrous.’ That, at least, is one potential upshot of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s ouster and likely replacement by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Friends and foes alike of the nuclear deal say the switch might clear the path for President Donald Trump to act on his oft-expressed desire to abandon the July 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, a signature achievement of President Barack Obama that Trump has called “the worst deal ever.” When Trump spoke about Tillerson at the White House on Tuesday, he mentioned only one specific point of contention with his deposed diplomat. “We disagreed on things,” Trump said. “When you look at the Iran deal—I think it’s terrible; I guess he thought it was OK. I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently. So we were not really thinking the same.”

The Geopolitics of Britain

By George Friedman

The fundamental problem for Britain has always been continental Europe. The danger to Britain was that a single, powerful entity would arise that could do two things. First, it could ally with the Scottish elite to wage war against England on land. Second, it could build a naval force that could defeat the British navy and land an invading force along the English shore of the Channel. The Romans did this, as did the Normans. Successive powers arose in Europe that saw an opportunity to defeat England and later Britain. The Spaniards attempted an invasion in the 16th century; the French in the 19th century; the Germans in the 20th century. Each was defeated by treacherous waters and the Royal Navy.

After a year of gripes, Trump’s hands now free to reshape CIA, NSA

Tim Johnson

Fourteen months into his term, President Donald Trump is reshaping America’s two largest intelligence agencies, both of them facing internal troubles and a cascade of global threats. Trump on Tuesday tapped CIA Director Mike Pompeo to become secretary of state, and elevated Pompeo’s deputy, Gina Haspel, to become the agency’s first-ever female director. Later this spring, the top-secret National Security Agency will also get a new director. Both agencies have been, at times, vilified by Trump, and faced a series of leaks and disclosures in recent years that have battered morale. Yet for all of Trump’s complaints, he has chosen insiders rather than bomb-throwers to take their helms, signaling a muscular — but not disruptive — approach to intelligence gathering.

State Department employees have one main reaction to Rex Tillerson’s ouster as secretary of state: “Good riddance.”

Nahal Toosi

President Donald Trump’s decision to fire the top U.S. diplomat sent a wave of hope through a department battered by low morale under Tillerson, who dismissed the expertise of career diplomats and sought to downsize the department. “There is strong sense of relief at State. The last year has been traumatic to put it mildly. It was as though ‘T-Rex’ stomped through Foggy Bottom devouring staff and structures,” said Brett Bruen, a former State Department official. Several current State officials said they also hope to bid farewell to Tillerson’s top aides, including chief of staff Margaret Peterlin and policy chief Brian Hook, whom they criticize for forming a protective and secretive clique around the secretary during his nearly 14-month tenure.

Who do I call if I want to call the US?

By NATHALIE TOCCI

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ROME — Henry Kissinger, the quintessential realist, once provocatively asked “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” Last week, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, reassured the world that Europe’s number — hers — is up and running. Then, she threw the question back across the Atlantic: “Who do I call if I want to talk to the U.S.?” Mogherini posed the question with a touch of irony, but it acquired a sober taste on Tuesday, as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired and replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo in what is starting look like an incessant game of musical chairs in the chaotic Trump administration.

Donald Trump’s Diplomatic Turn to N Korea Deserves Acclaim

Nicholas Burns

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Donald Trump is right about North Korea, of course. It never made sense for the US to launch a “bloody nose” military strike against Kim Jong Un’s isolated country without having tried diplomacy first. America and North Korea were on a collision course to war. A unilateral US attack, which had been considered seriously in Washington for months, would have brought with it incalculable risks. The powerful North Korean military would probably have struck back. China might have intervened to defend its border, producing a potential stand-off between Beijing and Washington. US military leaders predicted such a clash would cause tens of thousands of casualties in both South and North Korea. It could have been catastrophic for Mr Trump to choose war before talks on a bitterly divided Korean peninsula.

Russia Has a Long History of Eliminating 'Enemies of the State'

Calder Walton

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British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced it was "highly likely" Russia was behind a nerve agent attack that left a Russian double agent and his daughter fighting for their lives. Sergei Skripal, a retired Russian military intelligence officer living in Britain, collapsed March 4 on a Salisbury park bench, along with his daughter. For about a decade, Skripal spied for Britain's foreign intelligence service, MI6, while working inside Russian intelligence....

Cyberthreats: The Vexing New Front in Modern Warfare

By Carl M. Cannon

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In this series of articles running from mid-March to July, RealClearPolitics and RealClearDefense take an in-depth look at the intersection of cybersecurity, technology, and warfare in the 21st century. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Leon Panetta was testifying to a House committee about the health of Earth’s oceans when he was handed a note informing him about the attack on the World Trade Center. The session ended abruptly as people instinctively scrambled for safety, not knowing that passengers on United Airlines flight 93 were taking brave actions that may have saved the U.S. Capitol from becoming a second Ground Zero.

Marines’ Love Affair With 3D Printing: Small Is Cheap, & Beautiful

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

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WASHINGTON: Why are the Marines in love with 3D printing? Like most romances, it starts with the small things, things too small for the conventional supply system to manage, like a two-cent plastic button that preempts a $11,000 repair. Big defense contractors, take notice. “There’s an intercom in most helicopters,” said Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps. Ground-pounders like him tend to hit the buttons too hard and break them. But the Pentagon supply system doesn’t deal in replacing individual buttons. “You’ve got to buy the whole faceplate of the intercom,” Neller said. “It costs $11,000.”

The Army’s next question: should battlefield commanders have cyber capabilities?

By: Mark Pomerleau 

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The Department of Defense has complicated relationship when it comes to authorities and cyberspace operations.  Traditionally, the authority to conduct offensive and defensive remote cyber operations abroad has triggered an approval process that rests with the president and can be delegated to lower levels. However, despite the fact the military is maturing its cadre of cyber warriors within U.S. Cyber Command, Army leaders say tactical commanders want to control cyber capabilities on the battlefield given the nature of the trajectory of future wars.

The science of fake news

David M. J. Lazer, 

The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed. Below, we discuss extant social and computer science research regarding belief in fake news and the mechanisms by which it spreads. Fake news has a long history, but we focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of its most recent, politically oriented incarnation. Beyond selected references in the text, suggested further reading can be found in the supplementary materials.

Batteries, Bullets, & Drones: Commandant’s Wishlist For Infantry Task Force

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

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What's the one technology the Marine Corps Commandant wants more than any other for his riflemen? It wasn't an amphibious vehicle, more JLTVs, a new rifle or friggin' lasers. It is "a smart way to recharge batteries," Gen. Robert Neller told reporters. Neller had a long wishlist for the contractors assembled here for a National Defense Industrial Associationluncheon. “One of the top three,” he said, is MUX, a large scout/attack drone that can fly off an amphibious warship — i.e. not needing an aircraft carrier — to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance (ISR), Electronic Warfare (EW), and precision strike. Some critics have worried about the size and cost of what will be, in Pentagon terms, a Group 4 or Group 5 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, but Neller seemed willing to consider a big drone if that’s what it took to get long range: The V-22 Osprey tiltrotors taking Marine infantry ashore can fly 500 miles without refueling, he told reporters afterwards, and he wants MUX to match that.