Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Calls for Greater Transparency at NSA

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January 22, 2014

Yahoo’s Mayer Calls for Greater NSA Transparency

Rebecca Blumenstein

DAVOS, Switzerland—Marissa Mayer, Yahoo Inc.’s chief executive, called on the Obama administration to provide greater transparency on the data collected by the U.S. National Security Agency. “We need to be able to rebuild trust with our users, not only in the U.S. but internationally,” said Ms. Mayer, who was on a panel with other tech CEOs at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos. She said that greater “transparency” would allow Yahoo to let users know which data the NSA is collecting. More from Davos 2014 List of Attendees Latest Updates Two-Track Future Imperils Global Growth Get Ready For a Bumpy Ride Mission Accomplished? Not Yet Davos 2014: The Party People Share Your Photos “People don’t know what data is being collected and how it is being used,” said Ms. Mayer. John Chambers, the chief executive of Cisco Systems Inc., called on governments to develop a common set of rules on privacy around the world. “We need some rules of the road that everyone can work with,” said Mr. Chambers. “It’s been the ‘Wild West’ out there. ” Mr. Chambers called on government leaders around the world to come together to develop rules to guide companies and consumers. Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive of AT&T Inc., said customers should have the ultimate call on their privacy. “I don’t think we as a society want 100% privacy. But I think the debate is right,” Mr. Stephenson said

America’s Real Manufacturing Advantage

Published: January 20, 2014 

/ Spring 2014 / Issue 74

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00240?pg=all

A new wave of software innovation is about to transform industry—and give the United States the chance for a lasting edge. See also America’s Manufacturing Advantage—In Pictures.

by Helmuth Ludwig and Eric Spiegel

All images courtesy of Siemens unless otherwise noted.

The industrial sector in the United States is rebounding. Manufacturers are boosting output, building new plants, increasing exports, and creating better-paying jobs that require precise skills—and in the process are helping lead the U.S. out of the long, stubborn slump that followed the market disruptions of 2007. A growing number of political and business leaders, economists, and commentators are taking notice, and talking about a domestic “manufacturing renaissance.” Some are saying it could add millions of new and well-paid jobs, unwind the U.S.’s long-standing trade deficit, and usher in a new era of growth and prosperity. This is a welcome point of view—much more beneficial than the idea, formerly in vogue, that the country could survive on services and finance, without much of a manufacturing industry. But it is, nonetheless, an incomplete point of view. Many of these manufacturing optimists are basing their forecasts mainly on transitory changes in energy supply and relative labor costs that are not likely to provide the kind of long-term improvements they envision.

We are hopeful about the future of manufacturing in the U.S. for a more fundamental reason. It is the economy best positioned to seize on deeper changes that can lead to a real, sustainable manufacturing renaissance, one based on software technology and its profound effect on the entire manufacturing value chain.

The pace of change in global manufacturing is faster right now than at any time in recent history. The technology and practice of large-scale manufacturing are moving into a new era of proficiency—not just typified by improvements in established processes, but taking the form of a software-powered series of new production systems that are qualitatively different from those of previous years. All aspects of manufacturing will be affected, including the way companies address customer needs and wants, research and development, the product development and production process, and the platforms and footprints employed in execution, testing, and servicing (see sidebar).

Opinion: Navy Needs Intellectual Diversity

By: Lt. Alexander P. Smith, USN

Published: January 20, 2014

http://news.usni.org/2014/01/20/opinion-navy-needs-intellectual-diversity 

Former Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON) Terry Scott addresses new sailors in 2006. US Navy Photo

This past May, the George Washington University Naval ROTC class of 2013 took the oath of commissioning in front of the historic Marine Corps Memorial.

It was a humid day in Arlington, Va., as the midmorning sun rose over the Iwo Jima statue, reflecting off the graduates’ brass on their new choker whites. Hundreds of proud parents and friends were in the audience, taking photographs and cheering when their ensign or second lieutenant received their commission.

As I departed the memorial that day, I couldn’t help but wonder if the 2013 graduates would be the last diverse class to enter the fleet.

To me, diversity is more than gender, race, religion and sexual orientation; it also includes the intellectual background each officer brings to the force. Starting in 2014, however, the vast majority of all NROTC graduates will be STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors with minimal studies in humanities. Our Navy is about to go through unprecedented compartmentalization, but not many officers seem to realize it.

The tier system was developed in 2009 as a result of fewer NROTC and Naval Academy graduates entering the nuclear-reactor community. Guidance in the Regulations for Officer Development and the Navy’s Academic Major Selection Policy directs a minimum of 65 percent of NROTC Navy Option Scholarship midshipmen complete a technical degree program before receiving their commission.

A technical degree refers to Tier 1 and Tier 2 majors, which are science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors. All other academic majors constitute a nontechnical academic major, or Tier 3.

As a result of the new academic tier policy, Naval Service Training Command offers scholarships first to Tier 1, then Tier 2, and lastly to Tier 3 majors.

A high school senior’s best chance of obtaining a Navy scholarship is to apply for a Tier 1 and 2 academic majors, since Chief of Naval Operations guidance states that not less than 85 percent of incoming scholarship offers will come from this restricted pool. In fact, an algorithm decides the fate of hopeful midshipmen, weighed in large part to their proposed major selection annotated in their respective application.

George Washington University, like many other small private universities, boasts an exemplary course of instruction in the arts and international affairs. Most applicants decide on GW because it offers a renowned education in what would be considered a Tier 3 field. U.S. News and World Report ranked GW as No. 94 in “Best Engineering Schools” as opposed to No. 16 for “American Politics.”

State of American Energy

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API’s 2014 State of American Energy report provides the oil and natural gas industry’s perspective on policies and issues impacting America’s energy future. The right public policies can fuel America’s economic revival and improve our energy security for future generations. We are committed to working with communities and policymakers to make these wise choices.

READ & DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

New Report Confirms that NSA Is Not the Only Spy Agency Engaged in Cyber Espionage

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January 22, 2014

New Security Report Confirms Everyone Is Spying on Everyone

Nicole Perlroth

New York Times

January 22, 2014

Lest we forget, the National Security Agency is in good company.

A new security report confirms that Chinese hackers spied on The New York Times in 2012, as well as attendees of the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg last fall. Iranian hackers spied on dissidents in the lead up to state elections last May. The Syrian Electronic Army is only getting better, and North Korean hackers were behind a destructive cyberattack that wiped data from South Korean banks last year.

These were just some of the findings of CrowdStrike, the hot Laguna Niguel, Calif., security start-up which tracked more than 50 hacking groups last year. The company, started by George Kurtz, the antivirus company McAfee’s former chief technology officer, and Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s former vice president of threat research, produced its findings in an annual report Wednesday.

The report buttresses previous findings by The New York Times, Google and a number of other security firms, including FireEye, the Milpitas, Calif.-based security software firm that acquired Mandiant last year.

It also offered a number of interesting new discoveries. Among them: 

• A Russian hacking group that Crowdstrike calls “Energetic Bear” was behind a range of cyberattacks in 23 countries that predominantly affected Western energy companies and a broad range of other targets. Among them: European governments and defense contractors; American, European and Asian universities; American health providers; manufacturing and construction companies in the Middle East, Europe and the United States, and research institutes. 
• As security software becomes more prolific, hackers continue to make their way down the food chain to computer hardware where it is much more difficult to identify and remove. 
• Regional conflicts such as Syria’s civil war and protests in the Middle East continue to spill over into cyber conflict. 
• Hackers in the Middle East and North Africa are ramping up their hacking capabilities. 
• High-profile world events such as the upcoming Sochi Olympics and World Cup and upcoming elections in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia and Turkey may coincide with cyberattacks as was the case with the G20 Summit last fall. 

Needless to say, this won’t be a slow year for the $67 billion cybersecurity industry.

The Cyber Security Challenge

Featured Research

MARCH 5, 2011

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By Michael Nacht

It is increasingly apparent that cybersecurity is becoming a central feature of the U.S. national security policy debate. The popular and specialized literature is replete with articles analyzing the problem and advocating responses to this challenge. Congress is mobilizing committees and sub-committees to address the myriad of issues that cyber technology has raised. The National Academies have already conducted several major studies looking at the appropriateness of offensive operations, cyber deterrence, and other issues. This is taking place as the executive branch conducts an intensive effort to sort out areas of authority and responsibility so that there is a coherent governmental approach to the challenge.

Simultaneously, however, there is a growing chorus of concern that the threat is being “hyped” because huge budgetary support is at stake. This is especially important at a time of extreme budgetary austerity, where some see cyber security as one of the few growth areas for the national security budget, at least for the next several years.

What are the core elements of the issue and what are the needs that must be satisfied if we are to proceed with a sensible, cost-effective approach?

Core elements

When the internet was developed, first by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the 1970s for military purposes but ultimately commercialized for everyone to use by the 1990s, it was heralded as a purely positive technological advance that would transform society. In many respects, this expectation has been realized. Virtually every aspect of modern society — health care, transportation, communication, finance — has been affected if not transformed by this development. Most recently, we have all witnessed the impact of social network technology — especially Facebook and Twitter — in mobilizing communities against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. 

But the introduction of this technology has not altered the fundamental structure of world politics which remains an anarchical system of sovereign states marked by complex patterns of competition and cooperation. Not only are there deep animosities between and among states, but there are powerful terrorist groups and criminal elements that exert their influence across national boundaries. With the ease of use of new technologies, there are individual “hackers” who can cause significant mischief as well as politically motivated “hacksters” who conduct cyber operations in the service of larger political aims.

So the overall challenge is to facilitate the continued use of these technologies for the good of all while protecting against their malevolent application. The growing significance of cyber technology as a tool of national security policy was illustrated in 2007 when the Russian Federation — allegedly a combination of government organizations and individuals — responded to the removal of a Russian statue in Estonia by disabling the Estonian internet. Then, more significantly, just before Russian forces entered Georgia in August 2008, the Georgian governmental cyber communications system was completely disabled, hampering Georgian abilities to meet the attacking forces. Some now claim that in modern warfare, the initial action taken will be a cyber, rather than physical, attack against the defenses and command and control systems of the attacked state.

There are three major elements of the U.S. internet system: the “.mil” network; the “.gov” network; and the “.com” network. The first permits the national security community to communicate with itself. It is the job of the Department of Defense (DoD) to protect this network and to ensure its proper functioning. In 2010 a new military organization, Cybercommand (“Cybercom”), was established to shoulder much of this responsibility. The current director is a four-star U.S. Army General, a career intelligence specialist, and the concurrent director of the National Security Agency, the primary signals intelligence arm of the U.S. intelligence community. The “.gov” network is to be protected by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But this is a vast undertaking.

Three Myths About Global Poverty

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January 21, 2014

By Bill & Melinda Gates

By almost any measure the world is better off now than ever before, in part thanks to foreign aid. By 2035, they predict there will be almost no poor countries.

So why do so many people seem to think things are getting worse?

Much of the reason is that all too many people are in the grip of three deeply damaging myths about global poverty and development.

Don't get taken in by them.

MYTH ONE: Poor countries are doomed to stay poor.

They're really not. Incomes and other measures of human welfare are rising almost everywhere - including Africa.

Take Mexico City, for instance. In 1987, when we first visited, most homes lacked running water, and we often saw people trekking on foot to fill up water jugs. It reminded us of rural Africa. The guy who ran Microsoft's Mexico City office would send his kids back to the US for check-ups to make sure the smog wasn't making them sick.

Today, Mexico City is mind-blowingly different, boasting high-rise buildings, cleaner air, new roads and modern bridges. You still find pockets of poverty, but when we visit now, we think, "Wow - most people here are middle-class. What a miracle". You can see a similar transformation in Nairobi, New Delhi, Shanghai and many more cities around the world.

In our lifetime, the global picture of poverty has been completely redrawn. Per-person incomes in Turkey and Chile are where the US was in 1960. Malaysia is nearly there. So is Gabon. Since 1960, China's real income per person has gone up eightfold. India's has quadrupled, Brazil's has almost quintupled, and tiny Botswana, with shrewd management of its mineral resources, has seen a 30-fold increase. A new class of middle-income nations that barely existed 50 years ago now includes more than half the world's population.

This holds true even in Africa. Income per person in Africa has climbed by two-thirds since 1998 from just over $1300 to nearly $2200 today. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies of the past half-decade are in Africa.

Here's our prediction: by 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. A few unhappy countries will be held back by war, political realities (such as North Korea) or geography (such as landlocked states in central Africa). But every country in South America, Asia and Central America (except perhaps Haiti) and most in coastal Africa will have become middle-income nations. More than 70 per cent of countries will have a higher per-person income than China does today.

MYTH TWO: Foreign aid is a big waste.

Actually, it is a phenomenal investment. Foreign aid doesn't just save lives; it also lays the groundwork for lasting, long-term economic progress.

Many people think that foreign aid is a large part of the budgets of rich countries. In fact, it is less than 1 per cent. (Even Norway, the most generous nation in the world, spends less than 3 per cent.)

Understanding War’s Enduring Nature Alongside its Changing Character

UNDERSTANDING WAR’S ENDURING NATURE ALONGSIDE ITS CHANGING CHARACTER

Christopher Mewett

January 21, 2014

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Technological advances are driving “changes in the nature of warfare”, according to the New America Foundation’s Future of War program. Few would argue that the tools and methods used to wage war change with the times, but students of Clausewitz are skeptical about supposed changes in what we believe to be war’s enduring nature. According to the Prussian, war’s nature does not change—only its character. The way we use these words today can seem to render such a distinction meaningless, but careful attention to semantics can reveal real problems in how we think about war, society, and the future.

The nature of war describes its unchanging essence: that is, those things that differentiate war (as a type of phenomenon) from other things. War’s nature is violent, interactive, and fundamentally political. Absent any of these elements, what you’re talking about is not war but something else.

The character of war describes the changing way that war as a phenomenon manifests in the real world. As war is a political act that takes place in and among societies, its specific character will be shaped by those politics and those societies—by what Clausewitz called the “spirit of the age.” War’s conduct is undoubtedly influenced by technology, law, ethics, culture, methods of social, political, and military organization, and other factors that change across time and place.

Even more fundamentally for Clausewitzians, the character of a specific war is defined by the variable relationship between the three elements of the trinity: passion and primordial violence, chance and uncertainty, and purpose (or the controlling hand of policy).

Further confusion in this case stems from the Future of War team’s formulation: “changes in the nature of warfare.” War and warfare are different words with a different meaning, and we should be careful about their use. Warfare, of course, doesn’t have an enduring, unchanging phenomenological “nature,” as it is merely the way war is made.

In their discussion of changes in warfare, the Future of War team puts forward an argument that is both interesting and contentious. Do changes in warfare – the way war is waged – really “profoundly shape both the manner in which the state is organized and the law itself”? This is probably a fair statement. But it’s almost certainly more true that the manner in which the state is organized shapes the character of its wars.

There is something of a feedback cycle in play: social, political, and technological change impact the way wars are fought, and those wars often influence the way society and politics are organized. But war is a subset of politics, of human society—something that the Future of War team seems to have just as backwards as the technologists andRevolution in Military Affairs advocates who preceded them. The examples they give—gunpowder, small standing armies, and levée en masse—are a perfect illustration of this, as the way each is explained tends to misrepresent the relationship between military change and social and political transformation.

Is Precision the Future of CAS?

Jan. 21, 2014
By AARON MEHTA
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Close-air Battle: An F-15E Strike Eagle drops a GBU-28. Service officials and analysts debate whether precision weapons can replace close-air support platforms such as the A-10. (US Air Force)

WASHINGTON — With budgets slashed due to sequestration, the US Air Force is eyeing vertical cuts — the removal from service of single-mission aircraft to save money that can be invested toward readiness and modernization.

One target is the A-10, a decades-old plane designed for close-air support (CAS) missions. But supporters of the plane have rallied against the service, and Congress inserted language into last month’s National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting the Air Force from cutting the platform.

While the fate of the A-10 is unclear, the battle has created discussion about the future of CAS and how best to perform the mission. Proponents of using other platforms for CAS point to precision weaponry.

“Precision-guided munitions have changed the way we have traditionally thought about CAS,” said Mark Gunzinger, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who served in a number of Pentagon roles. “Increasingly, what really matters is the munitions and other weapons systems that can be carried by an aircraft, not the platform itself.”

Gunzinger noted that sensors, data links and targeting pods have as much of an impact as weapons like the GBU-38 used for CAS missions on the B-1 bomber.

“So you can see why it would make sense in the future to emphasize designing weapons packages for multimission aircraft, rather than developing platforms specialized for single missions,” he said.

Those multimission aircraft include the B-1 and F-15E. Pilots who have flown those planes into CAS situations argue that, with the technology now available, including precision weapons, dedicated close-air support platforms are no longer needed.

“The A-10 was designed for when you need to do visual map-to-ground, and that’s not our primary, or preferred, way of delivering CAS anymore,” said one B-1 pilot with extensive CAS experience.

“It’s about communication, command and precision,” added an F-15E pilot who has flown numerous CAS missions. “With helmet-mounted data, you can cue up targets, see much more than you were able to before. You always know where the target is.

“A-10s are fantastic CAS platforms, but our other multirole aircraft are pretty darn good, too,” the F-15E pilot said.

The disagreements over precision weapons run parallel to the arguments around the continued use of the A-10.

Welcome to the New Age of Military Intervention in Africa

A whole generation of leaders who fought their way into power now deploy troops to quash rebels

Peter Dörrie in War is Boring

Last week, Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni acknowledged that thousands of Ugandan soldiers are fighting on the side of the government in South Sudan’s civil war.

Ugandan soldiers are also fighting in Somalia against the extremist group Al Shabab, alongside troops from Kenya, Ethiopia and Burundi. The U.S. Air Force recently airlifted Burundian and Rwandan soldiers to take part in peacekeeping efforts in the Central African Republic.

Other African peacekeepers and expeditionary forces are engaged in combat missions in Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among other war zones.

It’s a new age of military intervention by Africans in Africa. And the implications are huge for the entire world.

In some ways, the situation is reminiscent of the 1990s and early years of this millennium, when civil wars across the African continent drew in African powers and countries from all over the world. The difference today is that African countries intervene on behalf of embattled neighboring governments, not against them.

Supporting rebel groups is out. Only pariah governments like Sudan and Eritrea still engage in the practice.Soldiers serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia in the town of Buur-Hakba. United Nations/Stuart Price photo

Changes of government

One of the most striking developments of Africa’s continental diplomacy over recent years is the new consensus on unconstitutional changes of power. From Mali to South Sudan, military takeover attempts draw universal condemnation.

When Capt. Amadou Sanogo and his comrades chased Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré out of power in 2012, the regional organization Economic Community of West African States quickly closed ranks and threatened to embargo the land-locked country—or even stage an invasion to reinstate the government.

A mismatch of nuclear doctrines

January 22, 2014 

Raja Menon

Special ArrangementVITAL QUESTIONS: The ‘massive’ retaliation promised in the Indian nuclear doctrine is being increasingly questioned by scholars and analysts. This handout photograph released by the Defence Research and Development Organisation shows the launch of Agni V intercontinental ballistic missile at Wheeler Island, Odisha, on September 15, 2013.

India intends to deter nuclear use by Pakistan while Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are meant to compensate for conventional arms asymmetry.

Manufacturing a nuclear weapon does not, as a senior Indian Minister in 1998 claimed, create credible deterrence. Deterrence is entirely a matter of perceptions, a mental effect that is created on the adversary that nuclear use will entail assured retaliatory holocaust. The possibility of nuclear use is thereby pre-empted. The Indian nuclear doctrine, in that sense, is well articulated — on paper. Since 1998, more than 15 years have passed and in the Indian sub-continent, nuclear arsenals have grown far beyond the small nuclear ambitions that were articulated then. Yet there is an increasing fund of world literature being published, pointing to structural and operational weaknesses in the Indian nuclear arsenal. The question is not whether India has built enough nuclear bombs. Hardly anyone questions this basic fact, but the ideational systems that will ensure the ‘massive’ retaliation promised in the doctrine are being increasingly questioned by scholars and analysts worldwide. Pakistani observers cannot help but be swayed and dangerously influenced by such literature, thereby inducing them to think the unthinkable. What does not help in encouraging sober thinking is the fact that since the end of the Second World War, South Asia has seen the largest number of shooting wars in the world. So the questions of nuclear use will not arise in the quiet peace of neighbourly relations, but in the stress of combat over the Line of Control or the international border.The 1998 test

Critics of the credibility of India’s nuclear arsenal begin with their doubts on the success of the thermo-nuclear test of 1998, which they claim was a ‘fizzle.’ There has been much toing-and-froing in technical journals, of the veracity, accuracy and interpretation of seismic readings. There has also been an occasional closed door briefing by select bomb makers — but surprisingly there has not been, to date, a clear unambiguous public statement from the right source about the country’s thermo-nuclear capacity being fielded in India’s nuclear arsenal. This is a matter of some negligence, considering that the only members of the scientific community who have spoken on this issue are deeply sceptical of the success of the thermo-nuclear test.

The command and control of nuclear forces are another area of criticism, and not surprisingly so, since India is the only nuclear weapon country without a Chief of Defence Staff to act as the interface between the Prime Minister, the National Command Authority and the military who ‘own’ the weapons — at least most of it. In the guise of safety, India’s nuclear weapons are not only ‘de-mated’ and the core and ignition device separated from the warhead, but the separate components are under different departmental control. The actual reason for this bizarre arrangement is quite obvious. There is a petty turf war, and neither the Department of Atomic Energy nor the DRDO is willing to let go of the controlling part of the bomb, even if it means a cumbersome and unnecessary loss of control. Needless to say, between the military, the DAE and the DRDO, none of them has any hierarchical control over the other two.

DREAMS AND REALITIES ALONG DURAND LINE

Wednesday, 22 January 2014 | Ashok K Mehta |

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/dreams-and-realities-along-durand-line.html

Officially, Pakistan supports the idea of non-interference in Afghanistan. But it has also made clear that it is unable to cooperate with Kabul till its concerns are met, such as downsizing the Indian presence there

Don’t try it: Getting to Islamabad 900km from New Delhi by air via Dubai, as it takes a tortuous 16 hours, leave alone the immigration hassles and check-in at the thrice-bombed JW Marriott hotel. JWM has now a foolproof security procedure, second only to Hotel Serena Kabul. Islamabad and Rawalpindi are called twin cities, but you need a separate visa for the latter and if you are lucky, one sans police reporting.

Returning last week to Pakistan after 1996 was a useful experience. In 1996, former Chief of Army Staff, General VN Sharma, led a delegation of Rimcollians (graduates of the Rashtriya Indian Military College in Dehradun), at the invitation of Interior Minister Nasirullah Khan Babar, whose numerous claims to fame include fathering the Taliban and possessing a replica of the Fasting Buddha. Pakistani newspapers described the Rimcollian arrival as ‘land invasion of Pakistan, led by former Indian Army Chief’. This time around, The News (January 14) carried this headline: Indian Army chief admits killing 10 Pakistani soldiers...” , invoking the 19th century French proverb that the more the world changes, the more it stays the same.

That nothing has changed at the basic level in Pakistan was confirmed during and after the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung facilitated Track II launch of the Regional Declaration on Afghanistan. The declaration is a well-reasoned and sober document urging Pakistan to remove the root causes of trust deficit between Afghanistan and Pakistan (read: removing sanctuaries for Afghan Taliban and helping push the peace and reconciliation processes).

There were several lessons emerging from the discussion. Lesson Number One: The divergent but dominant Rawalpindi-Punjabi versus Peshawar-Pashtun mindset. Lesson Number Two: Most Pakistanis continue to live in denial. Afghans and other interlocutors were told that non-state actors, created and nurtured by the military establishment, have gone ballistic and are no longer under state control. The message: Pakistan may be unwilling and unable to cooperate with Afghanistan unless some of its concerns are met — these include downsizing Indian presence, accommodating the Afghan Taliban in Government and the border question involving the Durand Line. Reining in the Haqqanis and Mullah Omar’s Shura involves a grand bargain.

Abe in Delhi

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/col

umns/abe-in-delhi/0/

C. Raja Mohan | January 22, 2014 

In inviting Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan, to be the chief guest of this year’s Republic Day celebrations, Delhi has underlined the special importance it attaches to East Asia. (PTI)

SUMMARY

Abe is the fourth East Asian leader to be part of the annual event in the last five years.

A fortnightly column on the high politics of the Af-Pak region, the fulcrum of global power play in India’s neighbourhood.

In inviting Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan, to be the chief guest of this year’s Republic Day celebrations, Delhi has underlined the special importance it attaches to East Asia. Abe is the fourth East Asian leader to be part of the annual event in the last five years. The Thai prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was the chief guest in 2012, and her predecessors were Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2011) and Korean President Lee Myung-bak (2010).

In the 60 years before 2010, only four Southeast Asian leaders were serenaded in the celebrations to mark the founding of the republic — Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (1994), the general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nguyen Van Linh (1989), Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia (1963) and President Sukarno of Indonesia (1950). January 1958 saw an interesting chief guest: China’s defence minister, Marshal Ye Jianying. That was just before Sino-Indian relations took a turn for the worse and ended up in the 1962 war.

The frequent presence of East Asian leaders at Republic Day events is a reflection of the region’s growing weight in India’s economic and strategic calculus. After an intense focus on Asia in the 1950s and early 1960s, India turned its back on the region and was more preoccupied with the agenda of the non-aligned movement. It is with the Look East policy of the early 1990s that Asia returned to the centrestage of Indian foreign policy. For all the new importance of East Asia for India, a Japanese prime minister witnessing the military parade on Rajpath will draw considerable attention in the region. That it is Abe, whose military policies are being watched with much anger in Beijing and some wariness in Washington, might make this Republic Day somewhat special.

Grandpa Kishi Abe has made political history in Japan by returning to power after he resigned from the top job in 2007. Abe will also be the first Japanese prime minister to visit India twice. Few Japanese leaders in the modern era have shown the kind of commitment that Abe has towards building a strategic partnership with India.

Terrorism is now global and local

Shyam Saran

Last updated on: January 20, 2014 

http://www.rediff.com/news/column/terrorism-is-now-global-and-local/20140120.htm

A disparate global network of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups threatens India's eastern flank as much as the north and west with a real possibility of these spilling over into our borders, says Shyam Saran.

News that the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and al Shams and its affiliates, have occupied key cities in the country's Anbar province, is only the latest in a series of advances made by violent and extremist Islamist groups in a wide arc stretching across, West Asia and Africa, particularly during the past year.

The Arab Spring, which began with a successful popular movement against a corrupt and despotic regime in Tunisia in December 2010, soon engulfed Egypt, Libya and Syria but the original democratic and liberal impulse behind the movement soon yielded place to better organised, often armed and violent sectarian forces.

The United States and its Western allies not only ignored this unfolding though uncomfortable reality, but instead sought to ride the fundamentalist Sunni wave to isolate Shia Iran and to destabilise its regional ally, Syria. The Gulf monarchies, in particular Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were actively encouraged to provide funds and weapons to the most fundamentalist and violent opposition groups in these target countries. Turkey, under Recep Erdogan, was also drawn into this cynical game. The results were predictable and were analysed in my column ‘Arab Spring turns searing summer’ where I had warning, in particular, of the danger to India's plural and secular dispensation from these forces being unleashed in our neighbourhood.

What needs to be understood is that the danger does not emanate from a monolithic and coherent entity called Al Qaeda, but rather from an increasingly exclusionary, fanatical and violent ideology, which is shared by a loosely constituted international network of local Al Qaeda branches, their numerous affiliates and associated fundamentalist groups. These may be powered by local grievances or causes anchored in different national narratives. However, one should not make the mistake of identifying such groups as being ‘nationalist’ or ‘conservative’ and hence allow them to escape the scrutiny they deserve as real or potential sources of international terrorism. We see such tendencies in the US and some other Western countries, that now appear willing to accept the Afghan Taliban as a local and nationalist group not necessarily targeted against Western interests as is, avowedly, the Al Qaeda.

*** The Geopolitics of the Syrian Civil War

Geopolitical Weekly
JANUARY 21, 2014

Stratfor

By Reva Bhalla

International diplomats will gather Jan. 22 in the Swiss town of Montreux to hammer out a settlement designed to end Syria's three-year civil war. The conference, however, will be far removed from the reality on the Syrian battleground. Only days before the conference was scheduled to begin, a controversy threatened to engulf the proceedings after the United Nations invited Iran to participate, and Syrian rebel representatives successfully pushed for the offer to be rescinded. The inability to agree upon even who would be attending the negotiations is an inauspicious sign for a diplomatic effort that was never likely to prove very fruitful.

There are good reasons for deep skepticism. As Syrian President Bashar al Assad's forces continue their fight to recover ground against the increasingly fratricidal rebel forces, there is little incentive for the regime, heavily backed by Iran and Russia, to concede power to its sectarian rivals at the behest of Washington, especially whenthe United States is already negotiating with Iran. Ali Haidar, an old classmate of al Assad's from ophthalmology school and a long-standing member of Syria's loyal opposition, now serving somewhat fittingly as Syria's National Reconciliation Minister, captured the mood of the days leading up to the conference in saying "Don't expect anything from Geneva II. Neither Geneva II, not Geneva III nor Geneva X will solve the Syrian crisis. The solution has begun and will continue through the military triumph of the state."

Widespread pessimism over a functional power-sharing agreement to end the fighting has led to dramatic speculation that Syria is doomed either to break into sectarian statelets or, as Haidar articulated, revert to the status quo, with the Alawites regaining full control and the Sunnis forced back into submission. Both scenarios are flawed. Just as international mediators will fail to produce a power-sharing agreement at this stage of the crisis, and just as Syria's ruling Alawite minority will face extraordinary difficulty in gluing the state back together, there is also no easy way to carve up Syria along sectarian lines. A closer inspection of the land reveals why.

The Geopolitics of Syria

Before the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement traced out an awkward assortment of nation-states in the Middle East, the name Syria was used by merchants, politicians and warriors alike to describe a stretch of land enclosed by the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Mediterranean to the west, the Sinai Peninsula to the south and the desert to the east. If you were sitting in 18th-century Paris contemplating the abundance of cotton and spices on the other side of the Mediterranean, you would know this region as the Levant -- its Latin root "levare" meaning "to raise," from where the sun would rise in the east. If you were an Arab merchant traveling the ancient caravan routes northward from the Hejaz, or modern-day Saudi Arabia, you would have referred to this territory in Arabic as Bilad al-Sham, or the "land to the left" of Islam's holy sites on the Arabian Peninsula.

Murphy's Law: Why Good Works Produce Bad Results

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20140120.aspx

January 20, 2014: The UN, Red Cross and thousands of other foreign aid organizations are having a harder time raising money, in large part because they are having an even harder time dealing with the growing revelations about the extent to which foreign aid is stolen after arriving in the countries where it is needed. The plundering has gone on for so long that the thieves have gotten greedy and sloppy. For example, the refugees from the 1960s-70s war in southern Morocco (West Sahara) decades ago are still sitting in Algeria supported by foreign aid. But it’s become increasingly obvious that, while the aid organizations are regularly providing aid for 120,000 refugees there are only about 40,000 real refugees in the camps. The rest of the aid goes to make a few Polisario (the rebel group that runs the camp) leaders and Algerian officials millionaires and many more underlings wealthier. For years people who lived in the camp have casually told outsiders, including reporters, details of how aid is stolen and resold and deals made with air officials to keep the loot coming. 

The Palestinian aid scams are increasingly being documented, in part because Palestinian leadership has been split since 2007 between Fatah and Hamas and partisans for both groups are willing to offer up details of the misbehavior of their rivals. Israel has been complaining about this aid abuse for decades and now Palestinians are corroborating, in detail, many of the Israeli charges. This puts increasing pressure on donor nations to push Palestinian leadership. Some donors are not bothering with that and have simply stopped giving. 

Now there are over three million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan and the plundering is already underway despite the obvious suffering of so many of those in the camps. Moreover cell phones make it easier to document and expose the theft. No wonder the UN is having a hard time raising the $6.5 billion is says is needed to keep the camps going. 

Don't leave diplomacy to diplomats

Nitin Pai

January 20, 2014 

http://www.rediff.com/news/column/dont-leave-diplomacy-to-diplomats/20140120.htm

The perfunctory management of external affairs has left India's foreign policy establishment largely unprepared to manage the consequences of dramatic international developments, says 

The geopolitical upheaval around the world over the last two years has been matched with lukewarm political stewardship of foreign policy in New Delhi. Revolutions and civil wars have begun in West Asia, East Asian powers are in a state of sharp reaction to Chinese assertiveness in the oceans to our east, creeping political realignments are ongoing in Afghanistan-Pakistan and American troops are preparing to leave the region.

Each of these developments can have profound consequences for India’s security and economic interests -- yet India's approach towards each of these has been characterised by a lack of political direction, resulting in a foreign policy that is at best on autopilot, and at worst in abdication. Foreign policy -- and, by extension, India's geopolitical position -- has been an unlamented casualty of the United Progressive Alliance government's unhappy political predicament.

The perfunctory management of external affairs has left the foreign policy establishment largely unprepared to manage the consequences of dramatic international developments. There's only so far you can go with a holding brief. We could neither anticipate nor even play a bit role in shaping the trajectory of US-Iran relations, despite being one of the best-placed countries to do so. India is now a distant observer of events that have the potential to upturn long-standing calculations.

If playing international statesman is tall order, what explains the bizarre manner in which the Khobragade affair played out, souring a relationship that took three governments a decade and a half to build? Yes, the episode occurred at an inopportune time -- during a change of guard both at the Indian embassy in Washington and at the US State Department officialdom concerned with India, amid the end-of-the-year holiday season. A matter that might have been resolved more quickly and with less controversy instead rocked the boat even more than when the Central Intelligence Agency spirited its mole out of New Delhi 10 years ago.

Yes, there was ample reason for India to retaliate against the violation of diplomatic norms by US authorities. There is a strategic logic for a policy of tit for tat. There is also logic -- though seldom employed by New Delhi -- in being deliberately irrational. However, in this case, our establishment overdid it to such a point that its actions were more in the nature of lashing out at US diplomats than a calibrated strategy to arrive at a desired outcome. This continued even after Devyani Khobragade arrived in India and after an American official was expelled in return.

Murphy's Law: Top Ten Bad Decisions of the 20th Century

January 21, 2014: War brings out the worst in people, especially when it comes to making really bad decisions that have horrendous consequences. Below are the ten worst wartime decisions of the 20th century. 

1-Germany gives Austria-Hungary free hand in 1914. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was falling apart in 1914. The assassination of the Austrian crown prince in 1914 by a Serb nationalist gave Austrian hard-liners an opportunity to crack down on Slav dissidents in the Balkans. But this meant threatening war in the Balkans. That could bring in the Russians. Cooler heads suggested that Germany be consulted. The Germans told the Austrians to do what they thought best, and that Germany would back them up. This was a popular decision in Germany, where there was sympathy for the Austrians (who, while Germanic, were a minority in their own empire). The Austrian bluff didn't work, the Serbs fought, and the Russians came to the aid of the Serbs. The French honored their treaty with Russia and went to war as well. What began as an assassination turned into World War I. That, in turn, led to World War II. All because Germany would not say "no" to Austria's desire to start a war over an assassination. 

2-Germany declares unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917. Once in the war, Germany slowly, but irresistibly, began to win. One minor problem was its submarine war against British shipping from North America. The United States was neutral in the war, and American popular opinion was very much against getting involved. Germany, aware of American public opinion tried to avoid torpedoing ships carrying Americans. This was difficult so in 1917 Germany decided to make things a little easier for German submarine captains by allowing them to sink anything they came across. This led to German subs sinking ships with a lot of Americans on board. That was enough to get America into the war, and prevented Germany from winning World War I. 

3-The victorious allies impose harsh terms on Germany after World War I. This created the economic and political atmosphere that enabled the Nazis to come to power. It was the same kind of harsh treatment of the French by the Germans after the 1870 war that helped cause World War I. This pattern finally was noted after World War II and a more practical approach adopted. In the 1920s German politicians allowed petty feuds and a desire for political revenge to make it possible for Adolf Hitler to take power in 1933. None of the mighty politicians, generals and business leaders thought a petty operator like Hitler could hold onto power even after he got it. They were wrong. 

United States Should Include Pakistan in its Rebalance Policy Toward Asia, Argues CFR Special Report

http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/united-states-should-include-pakistan-its-rebalance-policy-toward-asia-argues-cfr-special-report/p32242

January 21, 2014 

Reorienting U.S. Pakistan Strategy by Daniel S. Markey January 2014 

As U.S. and coalition forces prepare to draw down troops in Afghanistan, a new report urges Washington to view Pakistan not solely or even principally in the context of U.S.-Afghanistan policy, but rather to reorient the relationship toward Asia. "A U.S. strategy for Asia that does not contemplate Pakistan's role is incomplete, and a U.S. strategy for Pakistan that primarily considers its role in the context of Afghanistan is shortsighted," writes the report's author, Daniel S. Markey, CFR senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia. 

The report, Reorienting U.S. Pakistan Strategy: From Af-Pak to Asia, outlines a two-pronged approach to future U.S. policy for Pakistan: defend against security threats, and support Pakistan's economic growth and normalized relations with its neighbors. Markey recommends that the United States: 

launch a new diplomatic dialogue with China, India, and Pakistan to reduce prospects for regional tension and violence; 

sign a trade deal that also encourages trade between India and Pakistan; 

reallocate assistance in Pakistan to improve trade and transit infrastructure; and 

integrate Pakistan into East and South Asia policymaking across the State Department, National Security Council, and Department of Defense, and deemphasize the Af-Pak connection. 

Markey is the author of No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad , which explains how Washington can prepare for the worst, aim for the best, and avoid past mistakes in U.S.-Pakistan relations.

The Musharraf Trial & Beyond

20 January 2014

DATELINE ISLAMABAD

Salma Malik

Assistant Professor, Department of Defence & Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad

On January 2, General Musharraf ended up at the Armed forces institute of cardiology in Rawalpindi, a rather long detour from his residence to the court, which had made a third unsuccessful attempt to summon the ex-president on charges of treason. 

With speculations ranging from whether there was a deliberateeffort afoot to prevent the general from reaching the court to how smartly once gain a court appearance had been avoided, the General remains hospitalized. After the initial hoopla about the whys and whats of the event, it is just another news item, till the next big audience. However, one wonders what if instead of the quiet yet highly professional new chief justice Jillani, it was the media’s darling Justice Chaudhry still holding the office, could these deferments be possible? Every word uttered by the Chief Justice would make proverbial breaking news across the television channels, and for many the trial appeared more on the personal grid than its merit. 

An unfortunate situation, as very often public weds itself to popular sentiments and opinions about what the truth should be, than what it actually is. Should Musharaf be handed out the guilty verdict on high treason? For some, the answer is in affirmative, as it would prove a deterrent for future khaki interventions and perhaps cosmetically redress the civil-military imbalance. Yet a review of the state of affairs, indicates problems where the military appears least zealous given the circumstances than civilian administers, who need to do their necessary bit. 

While the media remains preoccupied on providing situational updates on Musharaf, the most urgent and pressing concern in the first two weeks of the new year has been the rising number of terrorist bombings. Not less than fifty people, including civilians and law enforcement officials have perished as a result. Yet again, there has been a divided house when it comes to dealing with the non-state terrorist elements. Where the KPK provincial government under the PTI prefers dialogue with the “disillusioned brethren” over direct military action, the federal government appears totally ambivalent about how to tackle this critical and most pressing issue. 

Both the provincial and federal governments seem to disregard the drawdown of foreign troops from Afghanistan and a different politico-military arrangement, which appears nightmarish for Pakistani security forces. The forces have been preoccupied domestically for more than a decade, and the non-state elements, have a bigger playfield and target practicing to carryout. 

The social and traditional media cannot get enough out of the deaths of Aitzaz Ahmed a young school boy, who bravely lost his life by thwarting a suicide attack on his school mates and that of Chaudhry Aslam, a daredevil policeman, who for long led a charmed life and stood out as a symbol of defiance and destruction for terrorist elements in the troubled port city of Karachi. These two brave sons of the soil are not the only one lost in this brutal war against terrorism and militancy. There have been many who precede them and unfortunately many who would gladly follow their footsteps, but is this a fair price to pay. 

Reorienting U.S. Pakistan Strategy

From Af-Pak to Asia

Author: Daniel S. Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia

Download Now 

Publisher Council on Foreign Relations Press 

Release Date January 2014 

50 pages

ISBN 978-0-87609-579-9

Council Special Report No. 68

Overview 

For more than a decade, U.S. strategy toward Pakistan has been dominated by the struggle against terrorism. The war launched in 2001 in neighboring Afghanistan and waged, in part, in Pakistan's tribal regions has overshadowed America's other interests in South Asia, not least nuclear issues, regional stability, and economic growth. Today, as the United States "rebalances" its foreign policy focus toward Asia, and as the U.S. military draws down its presence in Afghanistan, the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is poised for reassessment. The outcome, however, is anything but clear. A clean break between Pakistan and the United States seems unlikely, despite simmering disagreements over a number of issues. Also unlikely is a full rapprochement. That said, if it chose to do so, Pakistan could contribute to the advancement of U.S. priorities in Asia, Afghanistan, and the war on terror, but the country's weak governance, slow economic growth, and growing nuclear arsenal combine to cast serious doubt on whether it will so choose. 

In this Council Special Report, Daniel S. Markey examines Pakistan's complex role in U.S. foreign policy. Markey advocates a two-pronged U.S. approach to Pakistan that works to confront and quarantine the immediate threats it poses to regional security and stability while simultaneously attempting to integrate it into the broader U.S. agenda in Asia. 

Regional security is with good reason the first prong of Markey's strategy. The destructive potential of a weakened, isolated, and/or hostile Pakistan is, he writes, significant. An armed conflict between India and Pakistan, or a major Pakistan-based terror attack on India, would not only disrupt India's booming economy but also affect wider regional stability. Pakistan's internal security threats, Markey notes, are no less serious, and the possibility that it will continue to offer safe haven to terrorist organizations, imperil Afghanistan's reconstruction, or disrupt U.S. negotiations with the Taliban is a source of real concern.

Myanmar: Running From The Past

January 21, 2014:

 A second peace conference between the government and 17 tribal rebel groups has begun. Not all the rebel groups are attending and not all those who are believe that the discussions will succeed. But with the military government gone there is more optimism that last peace deals can be made. The pessimists point out that the most corrupt institution in Burma is still the military and the new constitution that returned democracy in 2010 explicitly granted military leaders (including all the retired officers) immunity from prosecution for past crimes. The military was also given control of the defense ministry and a fixed number (25 percent) of seats in parliament. In effect, the military leaders who once ran the country are still in charge of the defense budget and immune from prosecution for all the stealing they did in the past. Real reform will be very much an uphill slog and the military is ready to push back and win. The new government is actually trying to not be a tool of the former military junta. Reforms are slowly being made. However the 2010 elections replaced the military dictatorship with many of the same people, out of uniform and trying to hide the fact that they rigged the vote. In response to this the rural tribes in the north revolted (again) but most were persuaded to make peace deals by 2013. These deals may not last and not everyone up there made peace. Decades of low level fighting against ethnic separatists in the north has resulted, during the last decade, in major victories for the government. There is not a lot of fighting, but major movements by Burmese troops into separatist areas that were long outside the control of the government. Temporary peace deals were made but the tribal rebels are producing major quantities of methamphetamine, and increasing amounts of heroin, to support continued fighting. China is not happy with many of these drugs (particularly heroin and meth) coming into China. That is difficult to change because the tribes are poor and the drug money is very attractive. China is also concerned with the popular opposition to major Chinese economic projects (dams and pipeline) in the north but the fundamentals remain the same. Tribal separatists continue to flee into Thailand. The government has done little to suppress a 2013 outbreak in anti-Moslem violence. Overall, economic and political progress is slow. 

China’s generosity with aid and large investments in Burma make Burma one of the few reliable Chinese allies in the region. Otherwise China is much disliked by its neighbors, mainly because to border disputes and Chinese claims over the South China Sea. This is a 3.5 million square kilometer (1.4 million square mile) area south of China and Taiwan, west of the Philippines and north of Indonesia. China claims all of it and this has aroused the ire of the neighbors and caused them to unite against China. This is often done via ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nation), which has taken a lead role in trying to arbitrate the disputes between ASEAN members and China over ownership of island in the South China Sea. This move is meant to persuade China to behave. Burma is an ASEAN member and is the only member that defends China. That has proved very useful in limiting the diplomatic damage ASEAN can do to China. ASEAN was established in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, and later expanded to include Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. All the ASEAN nations have some disputes with China. China agreed, in 2002, to cooperate with ASEAN over the Spratly Islands dispute but that was apparently all for show.