Why Republicans Resist Small Government

Pratik Chougule

November 22, 2016

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The Republican plan to transform the government presents the most significant opportunity in two decades to return the party to the traditions of small-government conservatism.

In recent years, even as the case for limited government became increasingly obvious, small-government Republicans have been on the defensive. A succession of failed military interventions did little to turn Republicans against a $600 billion defense budget. And entitlement reform and VA cuts remain “third rails” in the face of a $20 trillion U.S. deficit.

Why?

It was only two decades ago that small-government Republicans were on the offensive. The country was ready for a post–Cold War peace dividend and a bipartisan coalition managed to reduce defense spending from six percent of GDP to three percent. In 1994, the Contract with America delivered Congress to a Republican Party promising rollbacks in federal power. The following year, the House passed a budget plan calling for the elimination of three cabinet agencies—Commerce, Education and Energy—along with over 200 government programs. By fiscal year 1997, welfare reform was signed into law and close to 200 government programs were eliminated.

The small-government push of the early 1990s, however, proved short-lived. During Clinton’s second term, congressional Republicans tired of government downsizing. Between 1997 and 2000, the Republican-controlled Congress abandoned Medicare reform and approved an increase in discretionary spending $30 billion more than the Clinton administration’s request. The 95 programs slated for elimination in the Contract for America actually grew by thirteen percent. And these budget hikes were a mere harbinger of things to come. By the end of the George W. Bush administration, the federal budgetgrew by 53 percent—an increase that exceeded the Lyndon Johnson years.

Pentagon Ramps Up Cybersecurity Measures With New Initiatives

By Terri Moon
NOVEMBER 22, 2016

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Hawaii Air National Guardsmen evaluate network vulnerabilities during the Po’oihe 2015 Cyber Security Exercise at the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus Center Ballroom, June 4, 2015. Po’oihe is part of the hurricane preparedness exercise Vigilant Guard/Makani Pahili 2015 hosted by U.S. Northern Command, the National Guard Bureau and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. Hawaii Air National Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Robert Cabuco

Two initiatives were rolled out Monday to strengthen the cyber security environment in the Defense Department and the Army, DoD officials announced.

The first initiative is part of the “Hack the Pentagon” program that debuted last spring, officials said. Called the Vulnerability Disclosure Policy, it provides a legal avenue for digital security researchers who find and disclose vulnerabilities in DoD’s public websites.

The policy gives researchers clear guidance for testing and disclosing vulnerabilities, and also commits DoD to work openly and in good faith with outside researchers, officials said.

“The Vulnerability Disclosure Policy is like ‘see something, say something’ for the digital domain, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

“We want to encourage computer security researchers to help us improve our defenses. This policy gives them a legal pathway to bolster the department’s cybersecurity and ultimately the nation’s security,” the secretary said.

DoD Effort Aligns With Private Sector

Opinion: LCS Ready Today to Support Tomorrow’s Automated Warfare Systems

By: Steven Wills

November 21, 2016 

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Sailors assigned to Surface Warfare Mission Package Detachment 2 prepare to be hoisted out of the water by the littoral combat ship USS Coronado’s (LCS 4) twin-boom-extensible crane following a visit, board, search and seizure training exercise on Aug. 15, 2015. US Navy photo.

The path to a 350-ship fleet supported by President-elect Donald Trump will not be any easy one in the face of continued sequestration.

Part of that effort will need to come from completion or increased orders of ship classes already under construction. A proposed 350-ship Navy must also support emerging unmanned systems that will form an integral part of future naval combat operations. Completion of the full LCS program is one positive step in the direction of that larger and more capable fleet.

The littoral combat ship (LCS) is the first ship designed and built from the keel up to support multiple, unmanned systems. The LCS’s modularity interfaces allow for the inclusion of the latest technology aboard as systems evolve. Unmanned systems are also the key to success in the LCS mine warfare (MiW) and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) mission modules. Departement of Defense scientists seem to agree. TheJune 2016 Defense Science Board (DSB) summer study on autonomy agreed and recommended that the Navy Program Executive Office Littoral Combat Ships (PEO-LCS) should conduct a user operational evaluation system (UOES) program run by PEO-LCS in partnership with the Office of Naval Research (ONR.) DSB specifically suggested evaluation of existing unmanned underwater vehicles for both ASW and MiW applications. The PEO LCS/ONR partnership is the first step toward a much wider application of unmanned systems aboard littoral combat ships. Unlike other warships, LCS is the ideal platform for the employment of a number of automated ASW and MiW systems.

Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle. Textron photo.

How Much Does a Cyber Weapon Cost? Nobody Knows

BY MAX SMEETSRESEARCH AFFILIATE, CYBER STUDIES PROGRAMME, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONSREAD BIO

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Until we can develop a clearer understanding, policymakers won’t be able to know what groups like ISIS can do in the online realm. 

Can a non-state actor take down critical infrastructure with a cyberattack? If it is not possible today, will it be possible in the future? Experts disagree about the capabilities of non-state actors in cyberspace, let alone agree on their future capability.

There is debate within cybersecurity community and academia whether cyber weapons are getting cheaper and thus within the reach of the self-proclaimed Islamic State or other non-state groups. Although there is some general consensus that offensive cyber operations will be less expensive in the future, there is very little understanding of what influences the cost of a cyber weapon. Making sense of the inputs and defensive environment that drive the cost of a cyber weapon is essential to understanding what actors—whether state, non-state, or criminal—will attain what kinds of cyber capability in the future.

There are four processes that make cyber weapons cheaper. First, labor becomes more efficient; attackers become more dexterous in that they spend less time learning, experimenting, and making mistakes in writing code. The observation has been made that Iranian cyber activities are not necessarily the most sophisticated. Yet, since the Shamoon virus wiped the hard drives of 30,000 workstations at Saudi Aramco in 2012, there have been significant improvements in their coding. Whereas Shamoon contained at least four significant coding errors, newer malware seems to be more carefully designed.

Hack Us, Please: DoD Opens Websites To ‘White Hat’ Hackers

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

November 21, 2016 

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PENTAGON: Excited by the success of April’s Hack The Pentagon contest, the Defense Department will allow so-called white hat hackers to test all its unclassified public websites.

First, a new policy released today encourages anyone to look for weaknesses in any public DoD site, as long as they report what they find. Then, for a select subset of hackers and sites, “bug bounty” programs go further by offering cash rewards to registered hackers for finding problems in selected sites. The bigger the problem, the bigger the payout, with Hack The Pentagon going as high as $15,000 and the forthcoming Hack The Army likely to go higher.

Bug bounties for white hats are old hat for tech companies, but they’re still a new idea for much of the wider commercial sector, let alone the staid Defense Department. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has pushed hard to bridge the gap between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley. He created a special contracting outpost in Palo Alto, DIUx (Defense Innovation Unit, Experimental), and set up a Defense Digital Service to bring IT experts into the Pentagon on roughly one-year tours to shake things up.

Secretary Carter and Defense Digital Service director Chris Lynch (on Carter’s left) talk to potential recruits at TechCrunch in San Francisco.

Drones: A Challenge to the Law of Armed Conflict

RACHEL STOHL

NOVEMBER 22, 2016 

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Over the last eight years, President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism policy has in large part been defined by drone strikes against a number of terrorist targets around the world. Indeed, the U.S. drone program is a global enterprise, with bases in at least 10 countries, lethal operations in at least seven countries, and coordination of drone operations with numerous partners and allies.

But even as the U.S. drone program has become a cornerstone of counterterrorism policy, its implementation has raised a number of questions, particularly with regard to the use of drones outside active combat zones or in countries not engaged in war with the United States. Central to these questions has been the ongoing secrecy surrounding the U.S. lethal drone program, including limited details on casualty figures, a lack of information on the legal framework supporting the program, little insight into policy guidance, and next to no information on how targeted drone strikes fit in with broader strategic objectives.

One of the main challenges with the U.S. drone program is that it has been relatively difficult to assess the basis for and impact of the program itself. Over the last eight years, the administration has released very few documents relating to the legal justification for the lethal drone program, and those that have been released have been primarily only under court order. It wasn’t until the summer of 2016 that the Obama Administration released the first government-provided data on casualties of U.S. “counterterrorism strikes,” as well as a heavily redacted version of the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) that governs the use of force and armed drone strikes outside of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, countries that are considered “areas of active hostilities.”

PHASES OF WAR AND THE IRAQ EXPERIENCE

KEVIN SHI AND PAUL SCHARRE

NOVEMBER 22, 2016

http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/phases-of-war-and-the-iraq-experience/

Editor’s Note: This article is the fourth in a series from thinkers at the Center for a New American Security that explores the U.S. military’s phasing construct and the line between war and peace. Read the first, second, and third articles at War on the Rocks.

The difficulties of applying the U.S. military’s phasing construct to the realities of conflict are rarely more evident than when examining the American experience in Iraq. Though U.S. involvement in Iraq has traditionally been divided into two distinct periods of conflict, the 1990–1991 Gulf War and the 2003–2011 Iraq War, the reality is that the U.S. military has been nearly continuously engaged in Iraq for the past 26 years. The United States has conducted special operations raids into, launched cruise missiles at, imposed no-fly zones over, and outright invaded Iraq. The United States also provided humanitarian aid, financially supported local actors, and even governed the country. The six-phase planning construct does a poor job of accurately representing the range of activities over a quarter-century of U.S. foreign policy and military strategy in Iraq.

The phasing construct is optimized for traditional conflict, and the continuous conflict in Iraq has been anything but. Operation Desert Storm is straightforward: Phase II (Seize Initiative) closely followed by Phase III (Dominate). The same was the case for the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, when the United States toppled Saddam’s regime in just 21 days. Unsurprisingly, a phasing construct conceptually designed for sharp periods of conventional state-on-state conflict easily mapped onto those scenarios. It is much more difficult, however, to categorize other periods of the Iraq experience.

***** Modi’s Strategic Choice: How to Respond to Terrorism from Pakistan

by George Perkovich and Toby Dalton

May 01, 2016

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Indian decision makers face a strategic conundrum: how to deter and/ or respond to future terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The dilemmas are manifold: punitive action may assuage the desire of an angry public for revenge, but too heavy a response may motivate actors in Pakistan to escalate attacks in India; while a weak riposte is unlikely to convince Pakistan's civilian and military leaders to alter their long-standing embrace of conflict against India by proxy. Both the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Manmohan Singh governments faced this conundrum in January 2002 and November 2008, respectively, following the attacks by Pakistan-based militants in Delhi and Mumbai. Both chose to exercise restraint rather than strike back.

The groups that conducted the Delhi and Mumbai terror attacks in those years continue to operate in Pakistan. It is reasonable to assume that the Narendra Modi government, like its predecessors, will face a major attack on Indian soil attributed to such groups. Modi's self-styled reputation as a tough man and strong leader— borne out by his decision to disproportionately retaliate to Pakistani shelling across the Line of Control in Kashmir in fall 2014 —increases the perception that, this time, the Indian government will choose a military response.

By now, Prime Minister Modi should have been briefed on the military options, if there is another major terrorist attack on India attributed to militants operating in Pakistan. The Indian Army chief will have described a ground campaign, perhaps characterized by a sharp armored and infantry thrust into Pakistani Punjab, intended to punish the Pakistan military and hold territory as leverage until Pakistan verifiably prosecutes Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and like groups. The Naval chief would offer a maritime exclusion of Pakistan's major port at Karachi to pressure Pakistan's economy. And the Air chief presumably briefed limited air strikes against terrorist-linked facilities and perhaps also Pakistani military or intelligence targets believed to support terrorist operations. These are, essentially, the available punitive options involving military force.1 Which might Modi select? The odds-on favorite among defense analysts in Delhi is air power. For instance, retired Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur stated that as a matter of doctrine, air power will maintain “prima donna” status in India because of its “reach, flexibility, fire-power, and quick response capability in the complete spectrum of conflict.”2

** Demonetisation and Beyond: Addressing the Finance of Terrorism

By Vivek Chadha

22 Nov , 2016

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The impact of the demonetisation policy as related to curbing the finance of terrorism announced on November 08, 2016, is gradually emerging from the shadow of its surprise announcement. It is becoming abundantly clear that this is unlikely to remain a one off decision taken in isolation and will in all probability be accompanied by additional measures against the financing of terrorism and corruption. Even as the rollout takes place, it provides an opportunity to assess its potential fallout in the mid and long term, as also possible future options available to the government to further build upon the ongoing initiative.

Nature of Threat

Prior to attempting this analysis, it is important to outline the nature of threat faced by India as part of the ongoing fight against the finance of terrorism and its linkage with other internal challenges. It is also relevant to determine its implications, as this becomes the basis of future policy options.

The finance of terrorism in India follows a hybrid model, which includes terror funding from within and beyond the country’s borders. An assessment of past cases that have come to light suggests that terrorists have employed a variety of formal and informal channels to fund their activities. Amongst formal channels, money has been moved through the banking channels, as was witnessed prior to the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.1 It can also involve the use of money transfer service scheme (MTSS), as has been resorted to repeatedly by the Indian Mujahideen (IM) to finance their operations in India.2 Benefactors in Pakistan transferred money to innocuous middlemen not previously suspected of terrorist linkages in India. This money was later withdrawn and handed over to IM cadres to fund their activities. There have also been attempts to exploit the barter trade between India and Pakistan through over or undervaluing the invoice, thereby creating a surplus value, which was then diverted for funding terrorism.3

** 1962: The Nehruvian Blunder

By Bharat Verma

21 Nov , 2016

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/1962-the-nehruvian-blunder/

In any future conflict, New Delhi’s political will and the capabilities of the Indian military should be such that China and Pakistan are hard-pressed to defend Tibet and Lahore respectively instead of threatening Arunachal and Kashmir.

This is the foremost lesson of the humiliating defeat in 1962.

The oft-repeated rhetoric that ‘We will not allow 1962 to repeat itself,’ is a defeatist refrain revealing a sense of acute anxiety. Indian history is witness to the fact that defensive warfare is a loser’s game. We continue to hide behind the fortress mentality of the past. And therefore, in the event of conflict in the future, despite the rhetoric, India is doomed to face another humiliating debacle.

…if we generate offensive capabilities and flaunt it with an aim-plus to liberate large areas of Tibet, China will stand deterred.

In the last fifty years, the government did not build infrastructure in the Northeast or alternatively provide aerial wherewithal to enhance the mobility of the troops. Chinese, therefore will score goals by over running a fair amount of Indian Territory, simply bypassing major Indian defenses. However, if we generate offensive capabilities and flaunt it with an aim-plus to liberate large areas of Tibet, China will stand deterred. In the Indian Ocean, the message by the Indian Navy should be similar on transit.

To win, one must always take the war to the enemy on multiple fronts by military, economic and diplomatic means. Also, the threat can be minimised by creation of alliances based on the Principle of ‘an enemy’s enemy is a friend’. Exploit the opportunity as the national interests of India and the USA in this respect coincide – both need to contain China. The Western Alliance, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and countries such as Vietnam boast of similar synergy of purpose.

** Pakistan’s tenuous relationship with violent non-state actors in Afghanistan

by Pranay Kotasthane 

September 4, 2015

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Understanding this dynamic is critical to a path to peace in Afghanistan.

Following the news confirming Mullah Omar’s death, analysts have evaluated that internal rifts in the Taliban would derail the on-going peace negotiations. However, little has been said about Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban factions or with militias outside the Taliban fold in Afghanistan. Also missing is an understanding of the direction each of the Taliban factions is likely to take in the changed environment.

It is important to make sense of Pakistan’s tenuous relationship with the various non-state actors in Afghanistan, by overlaying Pakistan’s influence on these groups. A simplified diagram depicting this relationship is given below.

The violent non-state actors in Afghanistan can largely be divided into two groups — those under the Taliban fold and those outside of it. A subset of actors in both the groups is under Pakistan’s influence, represented as the inner rectangle in the figure. Even those within Pakistan’s coterie are of two types: one, who are publicly acknowledged by Pakistan and two, who fall under the realm of plausible deniability for Pakistan’s military—jihadi complex.

It is important to categorise these groups in the current scenario as the strategies for engaging each of them is different. Let us now go under the hood of each of these sections to understand their terms of engagement with Pakistan.

Black Money And Terror

Vappala Balachandran

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Quality of counter-terrorism, not currency crackdown, will prevent terrorism.

Global research has now found that terrorists seldom use tax dodgers or Hawala agents of target countries as they are known to local agencies.

On November 10 our prime minister said that demonetisation of high value currency notes was “a decisive war against the menace of corruption, black money and terrorism”. Social media claimed that the “PM had nuked terror funding”. Subsequent discourses saw official assertions that a “cashless economy” would end “black money” to make us “terror-free”.

But a “cashless economy” need not be “terror-free”. In November 2014, CNBC conducted a survey of the 10 top “cashless” societies. It found Belgium to be the world’s top cashless society with 93 per cent non-cash consumer payments and 83 per cent debit card use. France was second, then Canada, the UK, Sweden, Australia, Holland, the US, Germany and South Korea.

Hoping for the best - What the presidency of Donald Trump could mean for India

S.L. Rao

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Many in the United States of America are worried about the future of the country after Donald Trump assumes charge as the president in January. In India, we should try to forecast the direction that the US will take as a world power, in terms of its economy, society and immigration.

Starting with President Ronald Reagan, the US has spent massively on defence and foreign aid. Reagan stimulated the breakup of the Soviet Union with competitive military spending. That did nothing to stop Saudi Arabia (the principal supplier of oil and gas and the major buyer of American arms) from exporting Islamic fundamentalism. It allegedly inspired and supported the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Subsequent American presidents fighting Osama bin Laden and al Qaida have unsettled stable but ruthless governments in Iraq, Libya and now Syria. They used sanctions to squeeze Iran. They engaged in a lasting war in Afghanistan. The US gave large financial and military aid to Pakistan so that there was an easy entry into Afghanistan. The American government establishment is tied to these policies.

* Pakistan's Delicate Democratic Balance

Abdul Basit

November 21, 2016

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/pakistans-fragile-democratic-balance-18470?page=show

The year 2008 marked the beginning of Pakistan’s third democratic transition. Next year, it will enter its tenth year, as the second civilian government, of this transition, limps toward completing of its five-year term in mid-2018. It will be a symbolic milestone for Pakistan’s evolving democratic process and its checkered constitutional history.

In retrospect, the first democratic transition (1973–77, the era of socialist-populist democracy) took place when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became Pakistan’s prime minister, after the dismemberment of the former East Pakistan (present Bangladesh). In 1977, the military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto’s government in a military coup; later Bhutto was given a death sentence in a murder case.

The 1990s, the era of electoral democracy, marked Pakistan’s second democratic transition when four civilian governments (two each from the leading parties, PPP and PML-N) ruled the country consecutively. However, their stints were cut short on one pretext or the other, until then army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf imposed martial law in October 1999.

Like the first two democratic transitions, the third—the era of democratic consolidation—has also been turbulent and prone to crisis. According to Samuel P. Huntington, a budding democracy goes through two stages to become a mature democracy: the power transition and a consolidation phase. Pakistani democracy in its current form can be categorized somewhere between transitioning and substantive democracy. The power transition in Pakistan has been smooth; however, the consolidation phase has been bumpy. The democratic consolidation requires functional civilian institutions, competent bureaucracy, strong and robust opposition, political choice, a vibrant civil society, and better socioeconomic conditions.

* General Raheel Sharif: Self Serving, Unscrupulous and Un-Gentlemanly

By Col Jaibans Singh

22 Nov , 2016

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How the mighty fall!! General Raheel Sharif, the larger than life chief of the Pakistan Army, has reduced himself to a mere Public Relations Officer (PRO) in his desperation to do something that would build on his post-retirement plans.

On Wednesday, 16 November, he gave a statement to the media that 11 Indian soldiers were killed on November, 14, after Pakistan Army responded to unprovoked firing along the Line of Control (LOC). “India should “show courage” and own the deaths of its security personnel,” He added while also rendering the statutory warning that Pakistan would deliver a “befitting response” to any hostile enemy action.

Hiding of casualties regularly happen in Pakistan under the watch of dishonourable senior officers. General Musharraf hid the Kargil casualties and Gen. Sharif, has not made public the casualties that his army has suffered…

It is silly on the part of the Pakistan Army Chief to insinuate that India would hide such a fact. Firstly, India has no policy of keeping the martyrdom of her brave soldiers a secret. Secondly, even if the government or the Indian Army does try to do something like this, the proactive and free media of the country would not allow the same. India has, very rightly, denied such casualties having taken place.

Hiding of casualties, however, regularly happen in Pakistan under the watch of dishonourable senior officers. General Musharraf hid the Kargil casualties and Gen. Sharif, has not made public the casualties that his army has suffered in the ill fated Operation Zarb-e-Azb, against the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) in the North West Frontier Province of the country.

India Commissions New Stealth Warship

By Franz-Stefan Gady

November 22, 2016

http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/india-commissions-new-stealth-warship/

The Indian Navy commissioned its latest warship, the stealth guided missile destroyer INS Chennai, at a ceremony held at the Mazagon naval dockyards in Mumbai on November 21, according to an Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD) press release.

India’s Minister of Defense Manohar Parrikar presided over the ceremony. “The ship represents a significant ‘coming of age’ of our warship building capability and defense preparedness,” Parrikar stated in his remarks.

“With the induction of INS Chennai, a new benchmark has been achieved for our warship design and construction endeavors, with the sophistication of systems and equipment, and utilization of advanced ship building techniques,” he added. According to the Indian MoD, the ship “can rightfully be regarded as one of the most potent warships to have been constructed in India.”Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

The INS Chennai is the third and final 7,500-ton Kolkata-class (Project 15A) guided-missile destroyer constructed for the Indian Navy. The new destroyers are multi-mission ships capable of engaging in anti-submarine/anti-ship warfare, land attacks, and air defense and can be deployed to defend surface strike groups.

The new warship has a crew of 45 officers and 395 non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel. It is powered by four gas turbines and can reach a top speed in excess of 30 knots. The Chennai has an estimated range of approximately 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 kilometers, 9,200 miles). As I reported elsewhere (See:“India Commissions Largest Warship to Date”), Kolkata-class (Project 15A) guided-missile destroyers feature some of the Indian Navy’s most advanced weapons systems:

What Demonetisation Says About And Does For Modi – Analysis

By Ashok Malik
NOVEMBER 21, 2016

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Close to two weeks into the demonetisation exercise, how does one assess it? Frankly, there are several aspects to the episode: the execution, the aspiration, and the medium to long term political impact. It is important to see all of these separately, and not let perceptions of one aspect cloud assessments of another. After all, despite the noise in social media, the alarmism in sections of the media, and the rhetoric of the judiciary — which has used this as one more battleground for its entirely unrelated turf war with the government — demonetisation is being seen very differently by different stakeholder groups.

Let us start then with the execution. No doubt many questions can be asked of the government. For a start, why weren’t ATM machines recalibrated to dispense Rs. 2,000 notes well in advance, without those new notes being issued or the existing Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes being demonetised or even a hint being offered of that happening? Why did the government have a sub-par communication plan and fail to anticipate everyday situations — weddings, medical emergencies — that have subsequently led to partial exemptions?

The crowds outside the banks comprise both genuinely affected citizens as well as people hired by well-heeled individuals to exchange their cash reserves piecemeal. This too should have been accounted for. That some opposition politicians and even chief ministers are fuelling paranoia, for their own reasons, should have been expected. This could have allowed all efforts to be directed at those who were actually inconvenienced — a significant number — but making little noise, as against those who are less inconvenienced but making the most noise.

Trump’s Election A Critical Moment For India-China Ties – Analysis

By Arun Mohan Sukumar 
NOVEMBER 22, 2016

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A week into the election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States, the world has seen the remarkable spectacle of China publicly endorsing the core values of the liberal, international order. In his congratulatory call to Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly suggested his country is ready to fight climate change “whatever the circumstances.” In Marrakesh, at the first conference of the parties after the Paris accord came into effect, Beijing’s chief climate negotiator underlined the “global responsibility” to work under the UN framework to tackle greenhouse gasemissions. In Latin America, where Xi is on state visits to Ecuador, Peru and Chile ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community summit, the Chinese president has dusted off a decades-old trade proposal and sought renewed discussions on it. The Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) proposal, Xi said, is key to building an “institutional mechanism” that ensures an “open economy” in the region. On the sidelines of an APEC ministerial meeting, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen spoke out against trade protectionism and the need to remove trade barriers for the flow of goods and services.

Meanwhile, at the World Internet Conference hosted here in the Chinese town of Wuzhen, the country’s leading entrepreneurs invited immigrants to work and innovate for China’s tech giants. “I read that an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump complained that three-quarters of engineers in Silicon Valley aren’t Americans,” said Baidu’s CEO Robin Li in his speech. “So I myself hope that many of these engineers will come to China to work for us.”

Sensing the virtues of the liberal order

One more Airport on the Plateau

By Claude Arpi

22 Nov , 2016

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/one-more-airport-on-the-plateau/

Karze (or Garzi or Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is situated in Western Sichuan, in the historical Kham province of Tibet.

Today, the so-called autonomous prefecture covers an area of 151,078 square kilometres with a population of approximately 880,000 (according to Chinese census). The Tibetans are said to represent some 78% of the total population. The capital city of prefecture is Kangding (traditionally known as Dartsedo or Tachienlu).

In the fall of 1950, the People’s Liberation Army took over area. It was one of the bases chosen by Mao for the Battle of Chamdo (October 1950).

It has always been one of the most restive areas of the plateau inhabited by the Khampa tribes; Karze still has large monasteries such as Dzogchen, Dzongsar, Palpung, Sershul and more recently the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute, which has recently been in the news.

For Beijing, the best way to pacify the area is probably to bring millions of tourists.

The ‘restive’ Khampas will be then be used as tourist guides.

The immediate solution is to make Karze accessible by air.

Karze (Garzi) Gesar Airport

The new Karze (Garzi) Gesar Airport is located at the border of Laima Township of Karze County and Cuo’a Township of Derge County.

Parrikar Is Right In Keeping India’s Nuclear Policy Ambiguous; In Fact, He Is Duty-Bound To Do So

Swarajya Staff

21 Nov, 2016

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Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Dread is at the heart of successful nuclear deterrence,” wrote Bharat Karnad, a professor at the Centre for Policy Research, in his 21 November column, ‘More, Mr Parrikar’, for the Indian Express. Karnad made a strong case for more opacity, more ambiguity and more unpredictability in the sphere of discussing India’s nuclear capabilities and philosophy.

...pronouncements emanating from official quarters that obfuscate matters and generate unease, especially about India’s nuclear weapons-use initiation and nuclear response calculi, enhance the sense of dread in the minds of adversary governments.

Clarifying India’s nuclear issues, Karnad argued, will make it easy for its adversaries – “as much the obvious ones — China and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan — as the “friendly” countries, such as the US” – to measure out the country’s political will and read its strategic intentions.

If we tread back briefly to a recent time, we see that the country’s defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, has been doing exactly as Karnad argues. Speaking at the launch of Brigadier (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal’s book The New Arthashastra, Parrikar said over a week ago:

Why a lot of people say that India has No First Use policy. Why should I bind myself to a… I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly. This is my thinking... As an individual, I get a feeling sometime, why do I say that I am not going to use it first. I am not saying that you have to use it first just because you don’t decide that you don’t use it first. The hoax can be called off.

India’s Nuclear-Armed Submarines: Deterrence or Danger?

by Diana Wueger

October 05, 2016

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The INS Arihant is India’s first nuclear ballistic missile submarine, aiming to help provide a secure, assured second-strike capability. But contrary to prevailing wisdom, sea-based deterrence in South Asia is unlikely to contribute significantly to strategic stability, and may even increase crisis instability and fuel the regional conventional and nuclear arms races already underway.

Pakistan: More Smoke And Mirrors – Analysis

By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty*
NOVEMBER 21, 2016

http://www.eurasiareview.com/21112016-pakistan-more-smoke-and-mirrors-analysis/

Three Shia students at Karachi University (KU) came under sectarian attack on November 11, 2016, when unidentified assailants opened fire on them in Block 4 of the Gulistan-e-Jauhar area in Gulshan Town, Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. One student, identified as Murtaza, died instantly while his colleagues Shahid and Ehsan were critically injured. Gulistan-e-Johar Police Station officials confirmed the sectarian nature of attack.

On November 4, 2016, three cadres of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a front organization of the erstwhile Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), were shot dead while returning from a rally organised by the outfit in the Shafiq Mor area of North Karachi. Elsewhere on the same day, two persons were shot dead near Fatima Bai Hospital in Patel Para area under the Jamshed Quarters Police Station in Jamshed Town. An unnamed ASWJ spokesman claimed that all the five victims were associated with their group. Further, a prayer leader, Shafiq Rehman (30), was shot dead in North Nazimabad. The victim was a Pesh Imam (prayer leader) of a mosque.

These sectarian killings came in the aftermath of the October 30 attack on a Shia woman’s mourning Majlis (gathering) in Nazimabad Town, in which five persons were killed when motorcycle borne unidentified assailants opened fire. Pakistani British national Naiyyar Mehdi Zaidi (60) from London and two of his brothers were shot dead, along with another man and a woman, while another six people sustained injuries. Senior Police official Tayyab Muqaddas Haider disclosed, “Two attackers on a motorbike opened indiscriminate fire on the participants coming for the gathering.” Al-Alami (international) group of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Unveils VLF Submarine Communications Facility

By: Usman Ansari, 

November 16, 2016 

Source Link

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Tuesday unveiled a very low frequency (VLF) communication facility that will enable it to communicate with deployed submarines.

Mansoor Ahmed, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center and expert on Pakistan’s nuclear program and delivery systems, said the facility is vital for command and control of submarines carrying a nuclear deterrent patrol, and the announcement essentially confirms Pakistan has established a preliminary, sea-based arm of its nuclear deterrent.

"The Naval Strategic Force Command inaugurated in 2012 is now closer to being the custodian of the country's second-strike capability," he said.

According to an official news release by the military’s Inter Services Public Relations media branch, the VLF facility is at a new base, PNS Hameed, near Pakistan’s main port of Karachi, and is the first of its

kind in the country.

“The secure military communication link in the VLF spectrum will add new dimensions by enhancing the flexibility and reach of submarine operations," the news release said.

China Missteps Disrupt Coal Supplies – Analysis

By Michael Lelyveld
NOVEMBER 22, 2016

http://www.eurasiareview.com/22112016-china-missteps-disrupt-coal-supplies-analysis/

After a series of miscalculations, China’s government has called on mining companies to supply more coal and sell it for less as the threat of shortages takes precedence over pollution concerns.

For much of 2016, the government has been pressing coal companies to move faster on cutting their huge surplus of production capacity, which has been blamed for slumping prices over the past four years.

In February, the cabinet-level State Council ordered the industry to slash 500 million metric tons of annual production capacity in three to five years and consolidate an additional 500 million tons under more efficient operators.

China’s top planning agency warned for months that the mines were cutting too slowly to meet their reduction targets for 2016.

At mid-year, the industry had achieved only 29 percent of its goal. By the end of August, the closures had reached 60 percent of the target, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said.

That was when officials started worrying about the opposite problem. China, which accounts for about half the world’s coal output, might have too little on hand rather than too much.

Inventories sank at China’s coal-fired power plants to less than 20 days’ supply before the winter heating season started and prices began to climb.

“Efforts initially aimed at reversing a four-year collapse and help miners repay debts have pushed coal higher and faster than anyone anticipated,” Bloomberg News reported after prices at China’s main coal port jumped to 672 yuan (U.S. $97.40) per ton on Oct. 31, the highest since 2012.

Implications Of Emerging Chinese Surveillance And Strike Complexes – Analysis

By Austin Hale and Frank G. Hoffman*
NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Source Link

(FPRI) — China appears determined to assert itself throughout the Asia Pacific region and undercut United States’ alliances with potentially destabilizing effects on regional security.[1] Its increasingly aggressive actions in the Western Pacific, coupled with rising defense spending—an increase of 7.6 percent in 2016—have elevated the possibility of conflict between the United States and China.[2] Thus, U.S. analysts and defense scholars have been trying to identify the potential form a future conflict between the two powers may take. In the available literature, this potential conflict is characterized and operationalized as a competition between the U.S. AirSea Battle (ASB) operational concept—now referred to as the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons—and China’s Anti-access/Area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities.[3]

In their recent article, “Future Warfare in the Western Pacific,” in International Security, defense scholars Stephen Biddle and Ivan Oerlich argue that while advancements in reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) have allowed China to field more advanced sensor, guidance, and communication technologies, the Chinese A2/AD approach is not a decisive, long-term threat to the United States or its allies in the region.[4] This conclusion would suggest that the U.S. Defense establishment need not concern itself with this challenge, undercutting its emphasis in recent Pentagon publications, such as the Quadrennial Defense Reviews and the Pentagon’s emerging Offset Strategies narrative.[5]

We contend that Chinese A2/AD capabilities are more asymmetric than Biddle and Oerlich presented and can be a decisive long-term threat to the interests of the U.S. and its allies in the region. Furthermore, a mature A2/AD system would allow China to project power throughout the region largely unchecked. Underestimating developments to extend and diversify Chinese intelligence and targeting assets could lead to erroneous conclusions and strategic failure.

One more airport on the plateau

November 20, 2016

Karze (or Garzi or Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is situated in Western Sichuan, in the historical Kham province of Tibet.

Today, the so-called autonomous prefecture covers an area of 151,078 square kilometres with a population of approximately 880,000 (according to Chinese census). The Tibetans are said to represent some 78% of the total population. The capital city of prefecture is Kangding (traditionally known as Dartsedo or Tachienlu).

In the fall of 1950, the People's Liberation Army took over area. It was one of the bases chosen by Mao for the Battle of Chamdo (October 1950).

It has always been one of the most restive areas of the plateau inhabited by the Khampa tribes; Karze still has large monasteries such as Dzogchen, Dzongsar, Palpung, Sershul and more recently the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute, which has recently been in the news.

For Beijing, the best way to pacify the area is probably to bring millions of tourists.

The ‘restive’ Khampas will be then be used as tourist guides.

The immediate solution is to make Karze accessible by air.

Hot' visit in Ulaanbaatar

http://claudearpi.blogspot.in/

'Hot' visit in Ulaanbaatar 

China is again upset.

Why?

Simply because the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader, has been invited for a four-day visit to Mongolia.

According to China Radio International (CRI), Beijing has strongly urged Mongolia “to stick to its commitment to Tibet-related issues for maintaining the sound development of bilateral ties.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang too sees red: “the Dalai Lama is a political refugee who has long been engaged in activities to split China and alienate Tibet from China in the name of religion.”

Geng added:

China resolutely opposes the Dalai Lama visiting any country to carry out anti-China separatist activities in any name or in any capacity. We also stand firmly against all forms of contacts between officials from any country and the Dalai Lama. We strongly demand that Mongolia, for the purpose of maintaining the general picture of a sound and steady development of bilateral ties, earnestly stick to its commitment on Tibet-related issues, do not allow the visit by the Dalai Lama and do not provide any form of support and convenience to the group of the Dalai Lama.

It usually works: it is enough to persuade leaders of Buddhist countries to desist inviting Tibet’s popular religious leader.

No visit takes place.

Not this time.

Associated Press quoted Davaapurev, a monk from the Gandan monastery in Ulaanbaatar, saying that Dalai Lama was on a four-day visit “with purely religious purposes.”