IRAQ CRISIS AND REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS – ANALYSIS

http://www.eurasiareview.com/05072014-iraq-crisis-regional-implications-analysis/ 

By Observer Research Foundation

By Ravi Joshi

Iraq has been in a state of crisis for over a decade now. To specify an exact date in its recent history as the commencement of its crises is indeed hard. But what has been happening in Iraq in the last few weeks is particularly horrifying. They seem worse than the Taliban, the Al-Qaeda, the Boko Haram and the Al-Shabab, all put together. This outfit, the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams — the Arabic word for the Levant) has already established a ‘Caliphate of Islam’ under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a state that is more primitive and savage than the one established by the one-eyed Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. If the ‘Caliphate of Islam’ is to be established by killing Muslims other than Sunnis, then the region is in for a genocide, the kind of which has not been seen ever before.

What is inexplicable, particularly for a lay reader of the western media, is the question about how do certain extremist groups in the Islamic world get so much funding and arms as to become a danger to established States, particularly those states that do not have Sunni leadership. The answer is obvious, but the western media is loath to admit it. They dare not mention the Gulf monarchies, especially those that have been in the forefront of the war against the Alawite rulers of Syria, and now the Shia rulers in Iraq. The ‘Economist’ which looked into the question of ISIS’s many parents found Turkey to be one of them, but does not mention the many private individuals and charities in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that have propped up the ISIS (a fact that has been obliquely referred to by the New York Times). It is a moot point whether the so-called private citizens in these kingdoms, who get to know what’s happening within and outside the country only from the State controlled media or the State- subservient Mullahs have so much surplus cash as to fund and arm mercenary forces to take on neighbouring States.

Let us get some facts straight. One, there is no escaping the reality that the two U.S. wars against Iraq have contributed substantially to the present crisis. The first was about saving Kuwait from Saddam Hussain’s invasion and the second was to liberate Iraqis from Saddam Hussain. Now Washington wishes to save one group of Iraqis from the others. But the problem is who is to be defended against whom, particularly when the US has no clear enemy in sight. Second, America’s War on Terror has clearly sputtered. After more than 13 years, America is still waging the war and the enemy has neither been defeated nor destroyed, despite the killing of Osama bin Laden. More offshoots of Al-Qaeda have sprung up in the Middle East and Western Africa and have endangered states that were not only ungoverned and failing but also those that were stable and effectively governed.

Have The Islamist Militants Overreached In Iraq And Syria?

by DEBORAH AMOS

July 05, 2014 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/05/328145985/have-the-islamist-militants-overreached-in-iraq-and-syria

Fighters from the Islamic State hold a parade in Raqqa, in northeastern Syria, displaying equipment captured from the Iraqi army. The group has declared a caliphate, or a single Islamic state, in the parts of Syria and Iraq it controls. This undated image was posted by the Raqqa Media Center, a Syrian opposition group, on Monday.

Raqqa Media Center/AP

The Islamist radicals who have declared an Islamic caliphate on land they control straddling Iraq and Syria are waging an audacious publicity stunt, according to some analysts.

While it may bring them even greater attention, it's also likely to be an overreach that will open riffs with its current partners, the Sunni Muslims in Iraq who welcomed the militant group in early June. They all share the goal of overthrowing Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his sectarian rule, but the more secular parts of the Sunni coalition didn't sign up for an Islamic state.

"By announcing the caliphate, they are picking a fight with everybody," says David Kilcullen, a guerrilla warfare expert and former chief counter-terrorism strategist for the U.S. State Department.

The militants were known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. But in announcing a caliphate, which is a single, unified Islamic state, they are now simply calling themselves the Islamic State.

The group has been taking territory since last year, first in Syria and now in Iraq. They grabbed international attention last month when they seized the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, one of the largest and most important population centers in Iraq.

But so far, at least, the Islamic State has not tried to make the city the centerpiece of the declared caliphate.

"No, no, there is nothing like that in Mosul," insists a former Iraqi military officer when reached by phone. He dismisses the caliphate with a snort, because, he says, "the other groups object."

The former officer says he fears retribution from the Maliki government and didn't want his name published. He says he is part of the Sunni alliance in Mosul that originally welcomed the Islamic State. Now, he has some doubts.

People walk through the market area in Erbil, Iraq. Tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis and Syrians have converged on the ancient city after fleeing fighting in their hometowns.

"We will soon name one of our people to be the boss in Mosul," he says. "There is no caliphate here."

A Sunni Alliance Of Convenience

The Islamic State declared the caliphate on June 30, three weeks after a successful sweep across northern and western Iraq in a land grab that includes strategic border posts.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s New Security Challenges

June 26, 2014

By: Wladimir van Wilgenburg

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and President of the Kurdistan Regional Government Masoud Barzani on June 24 (Source: U.S. Department of State)

Executive Summary

Source Link

The recent advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and collapse of a quarter the Iraqi Army has created both opportunities and threats for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). With Baghdad occupied by the crisis, the KRG has been able to consolidate control of disputed oil-rich areas. With the Iraqi government in desperate need of Kurdish support, the KRG has an opportunity to extract concessions on both territory and the distribution of oil revenue, and has become a priority for the United States. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region on June 24 in order to request Kurdish support for Baghdad.

While the crisis gives Kurdish leaders leverage over the national government, it has also created a 1,000 kilometer-long border between the KRG and territory controlled by the aggressive and violent ISIS. Kurdish leaders must worry about attacks from the militant group, as well as infiltration or attacks by sympathizers who have likely entered the region among 300,000 Sunni refugees.

On balance, Kurdish leaders believe that they will benefit. They remain optimistic about their territorial and political gains, and believe that the Kurdish security forces will be able to prevent ISIS attacks. Their efforts to navigate the situation will have a major impact on both the struggle in Iraq and the regional strategic situation.

Introduction

The withdrawal of most Iraqi Army units from the Sunni areas of Iraq in early June, solidified Kurdish control over the disputed areas that the Kurds historically consider part of Kurdistan. The Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has tried to push the Kurds back from these provinces since August 2008, but now the Kurds are in full control after securing the deserted Iraqi Army positions.

The blitzkrieg assault led by ISIS has handed most of the oil-rich disputed territories to the Iraqi Kurds, which could serve as the basis of an independent Kurdish state in the future. Furthermore, the KRG has secured most of the Iraqi-Syrian border areas where Kurds live and are now able to defend Kurdish minorities who were under attack in formerly Iraqi-controlled areas. These gains also increase security risks to the Kurds, however.

The United States and Iran have put pressure on the KRG to side with Baghdad against ISIS, but the Kurds would benefit more if they stayed neutral and did not become part of the sectarian conflict. Shiite parties have already made threats against the KRG for allegedly supporting the Sunnis, while ISIS could target the Kurds in case they cooperate with Shiite-dominated government against the militant group (Rudaw, June 20).

The internal divisions among the Kurds might threaten the neutrality of the Kurds, but they speak with a united Kurdish voice to Baghdad over oil and security issues. This is because the two main Kurdish parties are allied with different countries: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is closer to Iran, while the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is closer to Turkey. Both parties operate their own security forces and this could lead to different approaches in the fight against ISIS (Basnews, June 18).

Ukrainian Forces Retake Key Rebel Stronghold In East

by SCOTT NEUMAN

July 05, 2014

A woman cries near her burning house after shelling in the city of Slovyansk, Donetsk Region, eastern Ukraine, last month. The city of 100,000 has now been retaken from pro-Russian separatists.

Dmitry Lovetsky/AP

Ukrainian troops have retaken the key stronghold of Slovyansk from pro-Russian forces in a sign that Kiev may be regaining control over the country's east, months after insurgents swept through the region establishing a self-proclaimed independent republic.

The country's president, Petro Poroshenko, and a spokesman for the rebels confirmed that the city of 100,000 was back in government hands after a night of fighting. Poroshenko ordered his troops to hoist the Ukrainian flag over Slovyansk's city council building.

The offensive follows the collapse of a 10-day ceasefire that may have allowed Kiev's forces to regroup. Even so, Poroshenko said Friday he was ready to conduct another round of talks between representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the rebels, according to The Associated Press.

The AP quotes a spokesman for the separatists' self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic as saying that rebel forces were leaving the city after a Ukrainian army offensive that left the town "in ruins."

The BBC quotes witnesses as saying there was bombing overnight and that in the morning, rebel-manned checkpoints were found abandoned.

According to the BBC:

"Interior Minister Arsen Avakov earlier said on Facebook that a large number of insurgents had left Sloviansk.

He said the rebels were "suffering losses and surrendering" after being met by Ukrainian forces.

"Mr Avakov said 'some intelligence suggests' that the military commander of the self-declared Donetsk Peoples' Republic (DPR), Igor Strelkov, was among those leaving, but this has not been confirmed.

"The commander, whose real name is Igor Girkin, is accused by Ukraine's government and the European Union of being a Russian military intelligence officer."

A rebel commander who would only give his nom de guerre as Pinochet told The Associated Press that rebels had fallen back to the nearby town of Kramatorsk, 12 miles south of Slovyansk.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/05/328795840/ukraine-forces-retake-key-rebel-stronghold-in-east

Ukraine President Hails ‘Turning Point’ in Battle

http://time.com/2958861/ukraine-president-hails-turning-point-in-battle/ 

Associated Press

Ukrainian soldiers check a destroyed armoured vehicle at a Ukrainian Army checkpoint in the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Slaviansk July 5, 2014.Maxim Zmeyev—Reuters

by Taboola

(SLOVYANSK, Ukraine) — Ukrainian troops forced pro-Russian insurgents out of a key stronghold in the country’s embattled east on Saturday, a significant success that suggested the government may finally be making gains in a months-long battle against a spreading separatist insurgency. 

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As rebels fled from Slovyansk, vowing to regroup elsewhere and fight on, President Petro Poroshenko hailed the recapture of the city as “the start of a turning point” in a battle that has claimed more than 400 lives since April. 

After a night of heavy fighting that saw heavy artillery fire from Ukraine’s troops, government soldiers were in full control of rebel headquarters in Slovyansk, a city of about 100,000 that has been a center of the fighting between Kiev’s troops and the pro-Russian insurgents. 

Soldiers raised the Ukrainian flag over the city council building, while troops carried stockpiles of weapons out of the city’s administrative and police buildings, which have been under rebel control since early April. 

“It’s not a total victory. But the purging of Slovyansk of these bands, made up of people armed to the teeth, has incredible symbolic importance,” Poroshenko said in a statement posted on his official website. 

Artillery fire on rebel forces began late on Friday and lasted into the night. On Saturday, fighting could still be heard on the northern outskirts of the city. 

Ukraine’s newly appointed Minister of Defense, Valery Heletey, was milling around with troops in the city center. He said that three planes with food and other supplies will soon arrive in Slovyansk. 

A spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council said earlier that mopping-up operations were continuing. 

Putin: Ukraine is a Battlefield for the New World Order

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 11 Issue: 121

July 3, 2014 

By: Pavel Felgenhauer

Source Link

Putin addresses Russian diplomats (Credit: Kremlin.ru)

This week in Moscow President Vladimir Putin made a major foreign policy statement, while speaking to a worldwide gathering of Russian ambassadors and permanent diplomatic representatives. According to Putin, the West did not give Moscow a choice, but to move to annex Crimea last March to defend Russians and Russian-speakers “that consider themselves part of the wider Russian world” (“Ruskiy Mir”). Putin insisted that NATO planned to swiftly move its forces into Sevastopol and radically change the balance of power in the region, depriving Russia of everything it had been fighting for since the times of Tsar Peter the Great.

According to Putin, the present crisis in Ukraine is a manifestation of the core Western policy of “deterring Russia” that continued despite the end of the Cold war. Putin announced Moscow would continue to defend the rights of Russian “compatriots” living abroad “using political, economic and self-defense humanitarian operations.” He declared that the time of U.S. world domination has ended and Russia will be reintegrating the Eurasian landmass [former USSR], while promoting better relations with Europe, “which is our natural partner.” The Russian foreign ministry was ordered to work on preparing “a joint space of economic and humanitarian cooperation from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” based on absolute noninterference in internal political matters and excluding the U.S. Putin accused Washington of blackmailing Paris to stop the delivery of the French-built Mistral helicopter-carrying assault ships to the Russian Navy (kremlin.ru, July 1). The first Mistral is planned for delivery this year and it could be stationed in Sevastopol (Rossyskaya Gazeta, June 25).

Putin’s speech was controversial: while accusing the West of ignoring international law and interfering in others’ affairs by promoting so called “democracy,” Putin strongly asserted Russia’s right to intervene in other nations internal affairs “to defend Russian compatriots abroad.” The Kremlin rejects the West ideologically, politically and militarily, but Putin’s speech did not spell out fully the practical part of the Russian foreign policy agenda (gazeta.ru, July1).

After Putin’s foreign policy statement, the deputy secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, Eugenie Lukyanov, Putin’s appointee from St. Petersburg, told RIA Novosti that “the time of U.S. world hegemony is over,” but Washington is not ready to accept this fact. According to Lukyanov, new international rules must be written together by major world powers that would take into account the interests of all key players. Possibly, a global conference to rewrite international law must be called, because today “there are no agreed rules and the world may become an increasingly unruly place” plagued with constant conflicts. Lukyanov accused Washington of directly promoting conflict and bloodshed in Ukraine and using the conflict to rally European nations against Russia. Russia, according to Lukyanov, could reply by cutting supplies of titanium to Boeing that could seriously hamper the production of passenger aircraft in America. Lukyanov ridiculed President Barack Obama’s administration: “They spent $5 billion to prepare and organize the Maidan protests in Kyiv, but the end result was that Crimea became part of Russia and Putin’s approval ratings are more than 80 percent. It turns out Obama’s advisers are our prime helpers.” Lukyanov accused Poland of harboring training centers of Ukrainian radical nationalists on its territory and expressed hope that attempts to use the Ukrainian crisis to consolidate the West and NATO shall fail eventually (RIA Novosti, July 2).

Crimea: Russia is harvesting the seeds sown in the 1990s And what it means for strategists

https://medium.com/the-bridge/crimea-russia-is-harvesting-the-seeds-sown-in-the-1990s-54892d22ccbb

This post was provided by Jeremy Kotkin, a US Army strategist and professional devil’s advocate. The views expressed in this piece are his alone and do not represent the US Army or the Department of Defense.

This week the Russian Federation, for all intents and purposes, invaded a sovereign country. As difficult as interpretations of the Budapest Memorandum, OSCE convention, and other aspects of international law and norm can be to define, there can be no mistake; Ukraine’s territorial integrity was unilaterally violated and there must be a response. Figuring out the suitable, feasible, and acceptable response must occur and it must occur quickly if it is to have the intended effect. But the decision making process in Washington, Brussels, Kiev, and Strasbourg must be tempered and not reactionary. It must not give in to the calls to conflate, unknowingly or intently, the Budapest Memorandum with NATO’s Article 5. It must not, as ADM(ret) Stavridis or current sitting members of the Obama administration would have it, lash out with punitive and largely unproductive measures or worse yet, counterproductive to longer term strategic interests. Primarily however, rational strategy, both diplomatic and military if need be, must understand history, both recent and older. We must understand what has brought us to the precipice again in Europe and what we can yet still do about it.

The hopefully not-pending Ukrainian-Russian war would be a quick, one-sided show of force ostensibly conceived and responded to by both belligerents in order to protect their own immediate national and regional interests. It would look a lot like the Georgia conflict of 2008. The reality however goes beyond the propaganda (heavy, on both sides) and mainstream media reporting and uncovers issues beyond the tactical and operational context. The causes for the conflict go far beyond early March 2014 and in fact have more to do with a Russia-US context than a Ukrainian one.

Unidentified armed men patrol outside of Simferopol airport, on February 28, 2014. 

Moscow’s Ukrainian intervention did not happen in a Russian foreign policy vacuum, unaffected by events in Washington or Brussels. It also did not happen because the Russians are trying to regain the glory of the Soviet Union and making sinister and confrontational actions on a zero-sum grand chessboard. The truth, as it usually is, falls somewhere in between. They, as they would superficially have us believe, were not simply forced into dealing with Ukrainian instability. On the other hand, we are not seeing a resurgent Russia knocking over the second domino (after Georgia, 2008) towards a domination of Mackinder’s heartland. Yet without understanding Russian psyche and perceptions, the stream of history both recent and further afield, and finally, how the system of geopolitics is never linear and unitary, we will automatically be drawn into handling the situation poorly. We are being dragged into seeing the context as if it were the case of the former: that Russia has put back on its Soviet lens and is calculating how far they can push the West into a new ideological proxy war where, all things being equal, a territorial win for them equates to rolling back democracy and Western values for their benefit.

This complex and nuanced understanding must first come through the simplest of human emotions which sets us apart from the animal kingdom, yet which is critically important for the Strategist: empathy — the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective. Without this perspective, any possible Western response to Russia will be equally as heavy-handed, blunt, and inappropriate as we superficially view their current actions. Without empathy, there is no possible way the Strategist or Diplomat can begin to see the entirety of the problem. Without seeing the entirety of the problem, how can we understand what Russia holds as important in this situation? If we don’t know what the other actor views as important, how then can we begin to develop flexible response options or even Center of Gravity analyses should it come to that? Without knowing why Russia is doing what she is doing we simply cannot formulate an appropriate response. The first step to gaining empathy for the current situation is to see the system as a whole, not a discrete set of actions and reactions. And of course we must open our aperture wider than simply Kiev and Moscow. There is more to the story as there always is. Doing so will enable us to productively deal with it in a manner that primarily protects our interests yet makes room for issues of equally vital national importance to Russia. Not doing so is simply bad diplomacy and bad strategy. 

Ukraine and Russia War by any other name

Russia has, in effect, already invaded eastern Ukraine. The question is how the West will respond Jul 5th 2014 | MOSCOW | From the print edition

A “NON-LINEAR” war, explains Natan Dubovitsky, a writer, is how states are likely to fight each other in future—if they do not already. Individual regions or cities will form temporary coalitions, only to split apart in mid-fighting and find new allies. Each force has its own aims, and these too can be fluid. The war has many components, of which battle is only one element. “Most understood the war to be part of a process,” writes Mr Dubovitsky, and “not necessarily its most important part.”

Mr Dubovitsky’s idea was featured in a short story published in March, as Russian forces were seizing control of Crimea. Its most telling detail is the author’s real identity: Vladislav Surkov, a long-standing ideological adviser to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Surkov’s tale is a fanciful exercise, but it is also as good a blueprint as any for the Kremlin’s efforts to direct the war in eastern Ukraine.

After a ten-day ceasefire that was widely ignored, fierce fighting resumed in eastern Ukraine on July 1st. Both sides have suffered heavy losses. Pro-Kiev forces have resumed shelling with heavy artillery, including of civilian areas. The Ukrainian army claims to have recaptured a border post with Russia—a necessary step if it is to encircle and gradually wear down the pro-Russian rebels.

In recent days Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, has come under intense pressure not to extend the temporary ceasefire that Mr Putin persistently and disingenuously calls for. A growing nationalist lobby in Kiev is pushing to continue the fight instead. With anti-government militias observing the ceasefire either fitfully or not at all, Mr Poroshenko may have reasoned that only the rebels were benefiting from breaks in the conflict.

For his part, Mr Putin appears, at least for now, to have ruled out a full-frontal invasion. On June 24th he theatrically instructed the ever-loyal upper house of parliament to cancel the authorisation for military force in Ukraine that he had ordered up in early March. The move was largely an empty fob to Mr Poroshenko and another way to ward off more Western sanctions. Yet even if a tanks-and-soldiers invasion seems unlikely, a Russian invasion of another sort began long ago: one that resembles the slippery, post-modern war described by Mr Surkov.

Putin’s Balancing Act

http://www.cfr.org/ukraine/putins-balancing-act/p33206

Interviewee: Kimberly M. Marten, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science, Barnard College; Columbia University

Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

July 3, 2014

President Vladimir Putin is in many ways a "great balancer," trying to maintain the support of various factions in Russia, explains long-time Russia expert Kimberly Marten. On the one hand, he cannot risk a "major Ukrainian war" that would draw new international sanctions and further dent Russia's economy. On the other, "he has to deal with Russian ethnic nationalists who are begging for blood" in Ukraine, she says. Marten points out that both Putin and President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine are skilled negotiators who have worked together in the past, and she holds out hope that they might be able to work out something "that satisfies everybody sufficiently so that there can be some kind of an end to the fighting and some kind of economic deal." 

Russian president Vladimir Putin approaches a rostrum to deliver a speech at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Moscow, July 1, 2014.(Photo: Maxim Zmeyev/Courtesy Reuters) 

After the newly-elected president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, called on his forces to end a week-long cease-fire and attack pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin of Russia compared himself with a great figure from the past in a speech to Russian diplomats in Moscow. What's going on with President Putin? 

In many ways, Putin has to appeal to different audiences. He's had a history of being the great balancer, of trying to keep all the various factions that surround the Kremlin behind him so that he maintains his authority and the ability to give out resources to his supporters; and he maintains popular support. Part of the reason his speeches are getting more and more complex is that he's trying to balance various audiences who are demanding things from him. 

Does he want a Ukrainian war? 

On the one hand, he doesn't really want to commit more economic resources to a major Ukrainian war. He knows that it would not be successful and would be extraordinarily costly. It's already clear that the annexation of Crimea is going to put a big dent in the Russian budget at a time when the economy is already in decline. So that's one audience that he has to please and show that he's not actually going to take aggressive actions that would put Russian resources at risk. 

Five Russian Weapons of War NATO Should Fear

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/five-russian-weapons-war-nato-should-fear-10816?page=show

Russia's armed forces are no pushover. 

Robert Farley

July 6, 2014 

Editor’s Note: Please see previous works by Robert Farley including Will the F-35 Dominate the Skies?, Five Best Bombers of All Time, Top Five Fighter Aircraft of All Time, Five Worst Fighter Aircraft of All Time , the Five Best Submarines of All Time, Five Revolutionary American Weapons of War that Never Happened and Five Revolutionary Soviet Weapons of War that Never Happened.

The technologies of war developed since the end of the Cold War (and indeed, in the last decade of the Cold War) remain untested in high intensity combat against sophisticated, resourceful opponents. The NATO alliance (and its most powerful members, in non-alliance conflicts) have soundly beaten foes with aging air defense systems, non-existent air forces, and trivial offensive capabilities.

It remains to be seen, however, how effectively NATO would fight against a determined, well-trained opponent with relatively modern technology. Recent events in Ukraine have, for the first time since the Cold War, raised the spectre of direct conflict with Russia. If diplomacy fails and politics push the alliance into war, these are the weapons NATO will need to worry about the most.

Iskander Ballistic Missile

In the final years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed short-range conventional ballistic missiles capable of striking, with great precision, airbases and staging areas well behind NATO lines. The American answer to this was theater missile defense, which (as experience in the Gulf War demonstrated), would not have stopped the opening Soviet volleys.

Anti-ballistic missile systems have improved since the 1980s, but so have Russian missiles. The Iskander-M has a range of 400km, can carry a 700kg warhead of several varieties, and has a circular error probability of around five meters. This makes it deadly to airfields, logistics points, and other stationary infrastructure along a broad front of conflict. Especially given the irregular and broken nature of Russia’s border with NATO, the Iskander gives the Russian military the opportunity to threaten targets deep in Europe.

The Iskander has the capability to retarget in flight, making it possible to engage mobile targets (including ships). It also has a set of built-in evasive maneuver techniques designed to make targeting from missile defenses difficult. In short, the Iskander can threaten to do to NATO forces what NATO forces typically do to everyone else.

The Iskander can put pressure on NATO missile defenses, but also on NATO air forces. Jets operating from forward bases will immediately come under threat of attack, or at least immobilization. If positioned in Kaliningrad, Iskander launchers could threaten a wide array of military and political targets across NATO.

The End of American World Order

The End of American World Order

Amitav Acharya

Polity, Cambridge UK , 2014

ISBN: 0745672485

Pages 101 to 105

The Rerun of Hegemonic Regionalism?

One of the more important issues concerning the role of regional security arrangements in the emerging world order is whether they would remain under hegemonic control. In Europe, the principal multilateral security arrangement, NATO, has been the pre-eminent form of “hegemonic regionalism” in the sense that it existed, and continues to exist, within the purview of American hegemony.

Regional security arrangements geared toward collective defense, and operating under the security umbrella of a great power, were never very popular in the developing world, as attested by the experience of the SEATO and CENTO. Even collective security and defense frameworks envisaged under the auspices of large multipurpose regional bodies such as the Arab League and OAS, or the OAU/ AU, were hardly credible for the security of their members.

In the third world, the term “regional security arrangements” invariably meant mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes rather than collective defense. The end of the cold war has diminished the appeal of a NATO-style of hegemonic regionalism. After the quick death of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has survived predictions of its early demise in the post-cold war era. But to ensure its continued relevance, it has had to embrace roles that had more in common with cooperative security organizations than collective defense in its classical sense. If NATO did not exist, it is doubtful that anyone would invent it today. Despite concerns over the growth of Chinese military power, the likelihood of there being an Asian NATO is slim for the foreseeable future.

This leads to another question about the future of regionalism: whether the end of unipolarity will open a space for the emergence of regional hegemonies, such as in East Asia under China, South Asia under India, the Caucasus and Baltics under Russia, southern Africa under South Africa, West Africa under Nigeria, and South America under Brazil. Mearsheimer argues that all aspiring great powers seek to achieve regional hegemony, a goal more necessary and attainable than global hegemony.(38) To Mearsheimer, China is the obvious candidate for such regional hegemony in the post-cold war period.(39) But Mearsheimer, who once warned that the post-cold war multipolar Europe would go “back to the future,” was wrong about Europe, and may yet be so about China.

There is little sign of such regional hegemonies emerging today. Instead, one of the key challenges facing the emerging powers is the gap between their global status aspirations and regional legitimacy. All BRICS and many G-20 members are regional power centers. Some (e.g., India in South Asia, China in East Asia, Russia in the Caucasus) have problematic relations with their neighbors over territorial disputes, unequal economic relations, and suspicions of hegemonism. These regional problems can embroil them or pull them down sufficiently to undermine their quest for global status and influence.

Escalation, Not Deterrence On NATO Article 5 and Cyber Attack

https://medium.com/the-machinist/escalation-not-deterrence-f0ddf055d4c7

NATO, we hear, is updating its cyber defence policy. A very serious cyber attack, some people in the Atlantic Alliance seem to suggest, should be treated like an invasion. “For the first time we state explicitly that the cyber realm is covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the collective defence clause,” Jamie Shea told ZDNet. He’s NATO’s deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges.

The goal? “It’s certainly meant as a deterrent,” Shea said, “It’s not meant to be escalatory.” Defence ministers apparently already agreed on a formula. NATO is set to endorse the changes in Wales in September.

But will it work? — Probably not, I’m afraid.

We haven’t seen the document yet. But the new policy is likely to produce exactly the opposite of the intended effect: it may contribute more to escalation than to deterrence. For at least four reasons.

First, deterrence needs to backed up by a clear and credible threat of punishment. So far, NATO is doing the reverse: “We don’t say in exactly which circumstances or what the threshold of the attack has to be to trigger a collective NATO response,” Shea said, “and we don’t say what that collective NATO response should be.” Right. If you don’t know what that means, you’re not alone. Potential aggressors also will have no idea. And that means they will probably test out, inch by inch, where the red line actually is, again and again.

Second, deterrence needs to be practiced, not just announced. Cold War-style deterrence is out, criminal deterrence is in — I mean that as a conceptual guide. Deterring criminal offenses means the deterring party needs to use force regularly and predictably in order to enforce the law and keep the authority of the law intact. That means that the use of force isn’t a breakdown of deterrence (think H-Bomb) but necessary to maintain deterrence (think arresting armed robbers). You have to practice what you preach, reliably and regularly. That’s how we deter crime. It’s also how Israel has learned to deter political violence. Deterring cyber attacks is more like deterring crime, not nuclear war. Does NATO have the capabilities — and the will — to draw such line through practice against cyber attacks? That leads to another point.

The vast majority of all cyber attacks are forms of espionage — commercial or state-on-state — or they are forms of criminal behaviour. And here’s the problem. NATO isn’t in the business of SIGINT and counter-intelligence and it isn’t in the business of crime prevention and law enforcement. Sabotage is very rare, so far. We have only seen one single externally induced act of sabotage-by-cyber attack against industrial control systems that actually had a kinetic effect: Stuxnet. And this remarkable operation, ironically, was executed partly by a NATO member country. All others either didn’t have a kinetic effect or they were insider attacks. So what exactly is NATO trying to deter? A type of attack that hasn’t happened before? Oh, right, they didn’t want to answer that question.

Finally: NATO encourages probing for preparation of attacks. The new policy may not deter very well, but it certainly is sending a message in the subtext: we’re really scared, and this stuff is serious. If you see yourself as a major contender against us, NATO seems to be saying, you better invest in some hard-hitting cyber capabilities. Just this morning news of Dragonfly broke, an attack of unclear origin that seems to probe critical infrastructure in new and worrying ways to prepare capabilities for some later use. Counterintuitively, NATO’s new policy could encourage more such behaviour — especially when coupled with a still offensive mindset on cyber security in Washington.

So NATO seems to be escalating, not deterring.

Deterrence, even during the Cold War, wasn’t as easy as many a veteran seem to remember. The view that deterrence prevented nuclear war is highly controversial. Chatham House recently reminded those with a sense history that luck played a distressingly big role in keeping the Cold War cold.

The new policy, staff at SHAPE explained, is meant as “a signal that NATO is not defending itself only in 20th century terms.” At closer examination, sadly, it very much seems to be a signal that NATO is thinking about defence in 20th century terms.

The Forgotten Polish Codebreakers Who Solved the German ENIGMA Cipher Machine

July 5, 2014

Poland’s overlooked Enigma codebreakers

Gordon Corera

BBC News

The first breakthrough in the battle to crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma code was made not in Bletchley Park but in Warsaw. The debt owed by British wartime codebreakers to their Polish colleagues was acknowledged this week at a quiet gathering of spy chiefs.

On the outskirts of Warsaw, some of the most senior spy bosses from Poland, France and Britain gathered this week in a nondescript but well-guarded building used by the Polish secret services. Their coming together was a way of marking the anniversary of a moment three-quarters of a century earlier when their predecessors held a meeting in Warsaw that played a crucial role in the victory over Hitler in World War Two.

Seventy-five years ago, two British intelligence officers - Alastair Denniston and Dilly Knox - had got off a train at Warsaw’s central station. The two Britons were veterans of the Government Code and Cypher School, which would move to Bletchley Park as the war began.

Europe was on the eve of war. Denniston had decided he wanted to see Germany for one last time before the conflict began and so they had made their way via Berlin. If the Germans had known who he was, and the reasons for his trip, they may not have been so forthcoming with their visa. He was travelling to Poland to try to discover the secret of how to break the Enigma machine that Germany used to encode military communications.

The Enigma machine

Rotors at top left could be rotated to different settings, to generate different codes - more rotors made the code more difficult to crack 

The message was typed into the machine using typewriter keys at the front 

Each time a letter was typed a lamp lit up one of the letters in the middle of the machine - this illuminated letter then formed part of the cipher text 

Later models, such as the German military machine on the right, had a plugboard at the front (under the operator’s hand), which added an additional level of complexity 

THE BAYONET TRUMPS THE BALLOT IN THAILAND – ANALYSIS

JULY 6, 2014 IDN 

Source Link

By IDN

By Jayantha Dhanapala

On May 22 this year the military in Thailand announced that it had taken over the country, suspended the Constitution and ousted the democratically-elected but controversial Government of Yingluck Shinawatra – sister of the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thus ended a period of political gridlock as the supporters and opponents of Yingluck conducted their months long struggle for supremacy on the streets of Bangkok imperiling the economic stability of the country and its reputation as a booming tourist capital of the world.

For some this came as a welcome relief. For others it is viewed cynically as more of the same in Thailand’s chequered history after 1932 when a constitutional monarchy was established, leading to a fragile democracy with a vibrant “Tiger” economy enjoying Newly Industrialized Country (NIC) status within the pro-US ASEAN regional group. That is because military dictatorships rather than elected democratic governance has been the predominant pattern in this country – approximately eight times the size of Sri Lanka and a 65 million population – with its centuries old Theravada Buddhist tradition and enjoying the unique advantage of never having been under colonial rule.

Or is it that we are witnessing a different concept of democracy beyond the basic one-person one vote electoral mandate? In Egypt when elections resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood being elected, a backlash enthroned the Army once again in an ironic reversal of events which began in Tahrir Square. Now in Thailand popular elections are not enough as a mandate to rule when the Bangkok elite thinks otherwise and while profound social and political transformations are taking place with the “Red Shirts” clashing with the “Yellow Shirts”.

Samuel Huntington wrote of three waves of democracy – the first around the early 19th century; the second post World War II and the current period as the third. Perhaps we are seeing an ebb of that wave beginning with various distortions and threats to democracy taking place throughout the world – including the US with its gerrymandering and Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission – a landmark case in 2010, when, in the words of Obama “the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.” Add to that the threat from Boko Haram in Nigeria and ISIS in Iraq and the weaknesses of Sri Lanka’s Executive Presidency, we need to focus on how democracies can be reinforced.”

The source of the current political problems may be traced to the January 2001 general election, widely regarded as free and fair, when the Thai Rak Thai Party, led by Thaksin Shinawatra, won defeating the incumbent Democrats. After a four-year term the Thaksin government was re-elected with an absolute majority in the 2005 elections which had the highest voter turnout in Thai history. However the Government was soon overthrown in a coup in 2006 and the military took power. Under military rule the Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved. A new constitution was approved by referendum and a democratic general election was held on 23 December 2007.

Islam – Up for Grabs

Source Link

Islam has no centralized controls; any power-hungry despot can use religion as an excuse

Ooi Kee Beng

YaleGlobal, 26 June 2014

Owning the faith: Nigeria’s Boko Haram kidnap schoolgirls to prevent un-Islamic education (top); Hollywood celebrities outside a hotel to protest corporal punishment in Brunei as proposed by ruler, the Sultan of Brunei 

SINGAPORE: The world is wrestling with a variety of events, all classed under the name of Islam. A storm of social media criticism against the shocking kidnapping by the militant Boko Haram of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, eventually prompted countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel and Canada to offer military and intelligence aid to Nigeria. At the same time, a spontaneous and celebrity-led boycott of top hotels in Hollywood owned by the Sultan of Brunei, though not expected to be effective, is underway after the little Southeast Asian kingdom initiated a staggered implementation ofhudud punishments, which would eventually include stoning adulterers to death.

While the two events are not connected, both help fuel a perception of a deep polarization between ways regarded as “Islamic” and those that are not.

Two related dynamics are involved, which if left undiscussed may inflame international relations for decades to come. The first has to do with the excessive use of “Islam” in denoting as many aspects of daily life as possible. With Islam being a holistic religion, modern leaders of Muslim-majority societies tend to encourage the description of as many aspects as possible of modern life under a restrictive Islamic paradigm. Regrettably, this tendency mirrors and sustains the simultaneous propensity of non-Muslims to regard Muslim societies as being steered by a rigid religious ideology.

Historically, resistance to excessive Islamization in Muslim-majority countries was often headed by the military. 

Second, the sense of besiegement felt in Muslim societies since the fall of the Ottoman Empire has discouraged public criticism among Muslims of any aspect of culture their society has already labeled Islamic. This is avoided especially in contexts involving non-Muslims. Again, matters are exacerbated by a growing propensity of non-Muslims to vex unfavorably on Islamic culture.

Typically, the international assistance being given to Nigeria in the search for the schoolgirls does not include Muslim countries. This is a pity and is symptomatic of the treacherous Islam-versus-the-rest paradigm the world has created and of the two dynamics mentioned above

INDIA, CHINA AND THE MOU ON BRAHMAPUTRA – ANALYSIS

Evening on the Brahmaputra River by Vikramjit Kakati, Wikipedia Commons.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/05072014-india-china-mou-brahmaputra-analysis/

JULY 5, 2014 

By IPCS

By Wasbir Hussain

India and China signed three Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) during the Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari’s recent five-day visit to Beijing from 26 June– 1 July. One of them was on the ‘flood data’ of the Brahmaputra River – also called the Yarlung Tsangpo in China. In the past, we have heard of similar MoUs between the two neighbours on the Brahmaputra, and it is all about the sharing of the hydrological data of Brahmaputra River during monsoons. In the latest MoU on the subject that was signed on 30 June – in presence of Indian Vice President Ansari and his Chinese counterpart Li Yuanchao – Beijing agreed to provide 15 days’ additional hydrological data—from 15 May 15 to 15 October each year.

Bluntly put, the latest MoU on the Brahmaputra flood data means nothing as an additional 15 days worth of hydrological information will not enable India to deal with the problem any differently. What India needs is input from the Chinese side on dams and other projects Beijing is pursuing or intends to pursue based on the waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo. The 510 MW Zangmu dam built at the Gyaca County in the Shannan Prefecture of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region is expected to be commissioned next year. What must be noted is that Beijing has given clearance for the construction of 27 other dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo River that flows 1625 kilometres across China, and 918 kilometres through India in its downstream course.

Moreover, China actually plans to divert water at the Great Bend, located just before where the river enters India, also known as the Shoumatan Point; and also intends to build hydroelectric power projects that could generate 40,000 MWs of power. The plan to divert the Brahmaputra is a reality because China wants to solve the water scarcity in its arid northern areas. The diversion of the water is part of a larger hydro-engineering project, the South-North water diversion scheme, which involves three man-made rivers carrying water to its northern parts. If the water is diverted, the water levels of the Brahmaputra will drop significantly, affecting India’s Northeastern region, and Bangladesh. Estimates suggest that the total water flow will fall by roughly 60 per cent if China successfully diverts the Brahmaputra. Besides, it will severely impact agriculture and fishing as the salinity of water will increase, as will silting in the downstream area.

With an unprecedented mandate and a demonstrated policy to improve ties with its neighbours, the new Narendra Modi government in New Delhi can initiate setting up of something like a South Asia Shared Rivers Commission or Authority by bringing Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal on board. The Commission can begin by formulating a framework agreement among the states that share rivers for their use, development, protection, conservation and management of the water and related resources, and establish an institutional mechanism for cooperation among these states. Once such a commission emerges and a cooperative framework on the shared rivers is agreed upon by the concerned states, it can engage with China and try to bring Beijing on board. After all, eleven major rivers flow out of China to countries in its neighbourhood and there is enough commonality of interest.

Cooperation on the Brahmaputra with China is of utmost importance to India and Bangladesh. The principle of cooperation between China, India and Bangladesh—the Brahmaputra basin states—can be on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith in order to attain optimal utilisation and adequate protection; conservation of the Brahmaputra River Basin; and to promote joint efforts to achieve social and economic development. These actually are the guiding principles of an effective and successful Nile River Valley Cooperative Framework (NRVCF) involving Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as Eritrea as an observer. The NRVCF has enough flexibility in the sense that two of the nations who are part of the Framework can have certain specific bilateral understanding or arrangements. What is significant is that every member nation must maintain total transparency on its plans about utilising the resources of the shared river and inform the states concerned of any project at hand.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has already demonstrated India’s big power ambitions by his proactive foreign policy push, will be well advised to come up with a comprehensive shared river water policy, keeping China’s plans and/or intents in mind. Delay may cost India dearly and we may have a case of non-utilisation of waters of shared rivers such as the Brahmaputra – one that has neither being tapped for hydro-power or navigation, 26 years after it was declared National Waterways Number Two.

Wasbir Hussain

Executive Director, Centre for Development & Peace Studies, Guwahati, and Visiting Fellow, IPCS, New Delhi

Power Struggles in Middle East Exploit Islam’s Ancient Sectarian Rift

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/world/middleeast/power-struggles-in-middle-east-exploit-islams-ancient-sectarian-rift.html?ref=world&_r=0

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

JULY 5, 2014

A Bahraini protester during clashes with police in Sanabis, west of Manama, on Thursday. Bahrain’s Sunni allies have helped quell the Shiite-dominated uprising.CreditMohammed Al-Shaikh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

RIFFA, Bahrain — Black and yellow concrete barricades block the roads entering this wealthy Sunni enclave, where foreign-born Sunni soldiers in armored personnel carriers guard the mansions of the ruling family and the business elite.

Beyond the enclave are impoverished villages of Shiites, about 70 percent of Bahrain’s more than 650,000 citizens, where the police skirmish nightly with young men wielding rocks and, increasingly, improvised weapons like homemade guns that use fire extinguishers to shoot rebar.

Their battles are an extension of sectarian hostilities nearly as old as Islam. But they are also a manifestation of a radically new scramble for power playing out across the region in the aftermath of the United States invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring revolts.

This island nation off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia was the first place where Arab Spring demands for equal citizenship and democratic governance degenerated into a sectarian feud, and at first it seemed to be an anomaly. But Bahrain’s experience now appears to have been a harbinger of what was to come as centuries old but newly inflamed rivalries between Sunni and Shiite Muslims tear apart much of the region — threatening to erase the borders of states like Syria and Iraq, destabilizing Bahrain and Lebanon, and accelerating a regional contest for power and influence between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Scholars and activists say that the sectarian violence gripping the Middle East is not simply the unleashing of religious rivalries once suppressed by the secular autocrats who ruled the region. Instead, they say, the religious resentments have been revived and exploited in a very earthly power struggle.

“There are forces that keep the tension alive in order to get a bigger piece of the cake,” said Sheikh Maytham al-Salman, a Shiite Muslim scholar who was detained for nine months and tortured by the Bahraini police in 2011 because of his support for the uprising.

Pearl Square, where demonstrators staged a weekslong sit-in three years ago, has now been turned into a permanent military camp, its namesake statue demolished, in a grim memorial of the day in March 2011 when vehicles and troops from the neighboring Sunni monarchies rolled across the causeway from Saudi Arabia to crush the Shiite-dominated movement for democracy.