To Strike or Not To Strike, That is the Question

June 26, 2014

http://www.the-american-interest.com/garfinkle/2014/06/26/to-strike-or-not-to-strike-that-is-the-question/

With Iraq coming apart at the seams, there are not a lot of reasons for America to use airpower in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some limited cases where airstrikes could serve a strategic interest. 

Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq (and maybe Syria) would be “irresponsible” at this point. He argued that a political solution within Iraq is a prerequisite for any application of American power on Iraq’s behalf; as things stand now, he said, “There’s no government, there’s no backup, there’s no military, there’s nothing there that provides the capacity for success.”

As I suggested in this space last week, I agree. I don’t see the point of killing hundreds or even thousands of Sunnis, many of them liable to be tribesmen fragilely allied with ISIS rather than dyed-in-the-wool ISIS fanatics themselves, unless there is some defined and attainable political objective to be served by it. If the situation in Iraq is as dire in institutional terms as the Secretary claims—“no government… no military”—then it’s hard to see what a U.S. political objective could stick to. And I agree again: It is that dire, and it was made even worse yesterday by Prime Minister Maliki’s defiant rejection of all advice, U.S. and Iraqi, to broaden the base of his government.

Note please that I do not demur from using force because of ISIS threats of retaliation and revenge against the United States, which have been voluble. I do not dismiss those threats. But no American should be daunted by such chesty talk: Our flag does not dip, for anyone. On the other hand, Mr. al-Baghdadi and associates have to this point neither attacked directly nor harmed any Americans, whether in the region or beyond. It is not a forgone conclusion that a new Islamist emirate set up in the Sunni territories of Iraq and Syria would focus in on what al-Qaeda used to call “the far enemy” when there are so many closer ones in their faces—any more than it is a foregone conclusion that a Taliban 2.0 regime in Afghanistan would be as dangerous to the United States as its pre-9/11 predecessor proved to be. One has to plan for the worst, and one may be more than forgiven for taking preemptive action insofar as it is instrumental to U.S. security. But to overdo it or to do it prematurely can exacerbate rather than ameliorate a problem. It’s a tricky call, always.

Of course, it is not a foregone conclusion either that such an emirate will ever be set up at all. Fanatics are not so good at governance, as al-Qaeda in Iraq proved some years ago, and they are not much better at holding together ideologically heterogeneous coalitions. Already reports are surfacing of opposition within the Sunni heartland to ISIS. One of the most intriguing is Michael Knights’ WINEP report that a rival insurgent group, Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshbandi, perhaps led by Saddam Hussein’s old friend Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the King of Clubs from the infamous deck of cards of most-wanted Iraqis, engaged in a deadly firefight with ISIS west of Kirkuk this past weekend. That is a hopeful development.

Backgrounder on the History and Increasing Lethality of the Boko Haram Terror Group in Nigeria

June 28, 2014

Analysis: Boko Haram’s history of violence provides clues to group’s next moves

Matthew Henman

IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre

June 27, 2014

Number of attacks and civilian fatalities attributed to Boko Haram in Nigeria Jan 2013 - May 2014. Credit: IHS Jane’s

Although militant Islamist group Boko Haram is likely to launch more frequent and increasingly deadly attacks in Nigeria, an analysis of the organization’s past activities suggests it will limit most of its guerilla activities to its stronghold home region, according to IHS Jane’s Terrorism & Insurgency Centre.

The abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Nigeria’s Borno State on April 15 focused international attention on the growing threat posed by Boko Haram. However, although shocking, the attack was only the latest instance of an established trend in aggression by the group targeting Nigeria’s civilian population.

IHS first highlighted this trend in the months following the May 2013 imposition of a state of emergency in the north-eastern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa—Boko Haram’s heartland. At that time, the IHS database of terrorism and non-state armed group events revealed a shift in the group’s operational patterns, a two-part change that continues to define its activities today.

First, Boko Haram increasingly is directing attacks against ordinary civilians, and its attacks are becoming progressively more lethal. Between January 2010 and March 2013 an average of 2.9 people were killed per attack, while between April 2013 and May 2014 this figure rose to 17.7 fatalities per attack, according to IHS data. In the months prior to the Chibok abductions this trend became even more pronounced, with attacks to date in 2014 resulting in an average of 27.9 fatalities.

Second, the group’s area of operations has contracted significantly during the past year and a half, with the majority of attacks across 2013 and early 2014 concentrated in Borno State, where the group originated, and where Boko Haram forces operate under the direct command of the group’s overall leader, Abubakar Shekau. Periodic attacks have continued elsewhere, including in central Nigeria, with recent notable attacks in the capital Abuja in April, and in Jos in May.

However, IHS data indicates such attacks are almost exclusively bombings, suggesting that while Boko Haram is capable of projecting force throughout the country, its ability to mount ambushes, assaults, and other guerrilla operations remains largely confined to its established heartland in the northeast, and this tactical pattern is likely to remain evident over the remainder of the year.

The roots of evil

Attacks on secular schools have been a signature feature of Boko Haram’s shift toward targeting the civilian population. Such attacks, in fact, are not so much a product of ideological opposition to Western education—schools were not targeted until 2012, eight years after the group’s first attack—but a response to the population’s cooperation with the state of emergency, and specifically to the increasing participation of local youths in government-backed anti-Boko Haram vigilante groups.

U.S. should take lead on setting global norms for drone strikes

BY JOHN P. ABIZAID AND ROSA BROOKS

June 26

John P. Abizaid, a retired Army general, was head of U.S. Central Command from 2003 to 2007. Rosa Brooks was counselor to the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2011. They are co-chairs of the Stimson Center’s Task Force on U.S. Drone Policy.

To understand why U.S. drone strikes outside traditional battlefields make so many people so uneasy, look to the past and look to the future.

Start with the past. In 1976, exiled Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier was driving to work in Washington when a car bomb planted by Chilean agents ripped through his vehicle, killing Letelier and his young, American assistant. From the viewpoint of Chile’s ruling military junta, the killing was justifiable: Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s regime considered itself at war with leftist insurgents and viewed Letelier as a security threat.

U.S. authorities saw things differently, of course: They condemned the bombing as an assassination. The FBI opened a murder investigation, and the Senate intelligence committee launched an inquiry into illegal foreign intelligence activities on U.S. soil.

Now, imagine the future: Suppose Russian President Vladimir Putin decided that a few drone strikes in eastern Ukraine would be just the thing to eliminate some particularly irritating critic of Russian policy.

FILE - In this June 13, 2010, file photo a U.S. Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport in Afghanistan. (MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AP)

If this happened, U.S. authorities would surely denounce the strikes, just as they denounced Letelier’s killing. But Putin would surely respond by parroting the U.S. government’s justifications for drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. “First,” he might say, “I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such Russian strikes. Second, I assure you that all Russian decisions to use lethal force comply fully with applicable law. Russia targets only terrorist combatants who pose an imminent threat to Russia, and it uses force inside other sovereign states only when those states are themselves unwilling or unable to address the threat.”

Surface Warfare Must Take the Offensive

U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Fidel C. Hart

In an A2/AD world, Surface Warfare must “go on the offensive” to enable future power projection.

By RADM Thomas S. Rowden

June 28, 2014

The single most important warfighting advantage that the U.S. Navy brings to the joint force is the ability to project significant amounts of combat power from the sea, thousands of miles from our own shores on relatively short notice and with few geopolitical restraints. No one else can do this, and for the better part of two decades, our ability to do so was unchallenged. Without this challenge, our mastery of the fundamentals of sea control—searching for and killing submarines, over the horizon engagement of enemy fleets, and long range air and missile defense—diminished, even as the world figured out that the best way to neutralize this power projection advantage was to deny us the very seas in which we operate.

Surface Warfare must “go on the offensive” in order to enable future power projection operations. I call this “offensive sea control” and it takes into consideration that in future conflict, we may have to fight to get forward, fight through our own lines, and then fight to stay forward. Pieces of ocean, will come to be seen as strategic, like islands and ports, and we will offensively “seize” these maritime operating areas to enable further offensive operations. Put another way, no one viewed the amphibious landings in the Pacific in WWII as “defensive;” there was broad understanding that their seizure was offensive and tied to further offensive objectives. It is now so with the manner in which we will exercise sea control.

What does this mean to fleet Sailors? It means that we have to hit the books, dust off old TACMEMOS and begin to think deeply again about what it means to own the inner screen against submarines, to hunt down and destroy adversary surface vessels over the horizon, and to tightly control the outer air battle. We need to study the new threats and devise innovative tactics to counter them. We need to master the technology that is coming to the fleet—Navy Integrated Fire Control (Counter Air), or NIFC-CA; the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR); the SQQ-89 A(V)15 Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Combat System; the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) ASW Mission Module; the introduction of the Griffin missile in the PC class; new classes of Standard Missiles; Rail Gun; and Directed Energy. We will need to learn these systems and then do what Sailors always do—figure out ways to employ them that the designers never considered.

Going on the offensive is a mind-set, a way of thinking about naval warfare. It means thinking a good deal more about how to destroy that than how to defend this. Don’t get me wrong—we will still need to be able to defend high value units, amphibious forces, convoys, and logistics—but we will increasingly defend them by reaching out and destroying threats before those threats are able to target what we are defending.

We are moving to a concept of dispersed lethality in the Surface Force, one that presents an adversary with a considerably more complex operational problem. It will not be sufficient to simply try to neutralize our power projection forces. While these will be vigorously defended, other elements of the surface force will act as hunter/killer groups taking the fight to the enemy through the networked power of surface forces exercising high levels of Operational Security (OPSEC) and wielding both lethal over-the-horizon weapons to destroy adversary capabilities, and sophisticated electronic warfare suites to confound adversary targeting. Especially in the Pacific, vast expanses of ocean will separate the carrier air wing from dispersed surface operations, so the paradigm of the past few decades that suggested the carrier would provide strike assets to supplement the Surface Force is no longer valid. We will leverage air wing capability, but we will not be dependent upon it.

US Army Takes 'Unvarnished' Look At Its Problems - and Its Future

Oct. 20, 2013


The US Army's Strategic Studies Group was created last year to work through problems the service may face as it prepares for conflicts post-Afghanistan. (US Army)

WASHINGTON — Within US Army leadership, there are more questions than answers.

The service seeks to project an image of itself as having learned the right lessons from the past decade, while remaining agile enough to meet whatever threats lurk in the future.

It’s a tough sell, particularly at a time when the thought of American boots on the ground anywhere — aside from marching out of Afghanistan — is a political non-starter. Case in point: The debate over potential US military involvement in Syria.

To help work through the tough business of identifying a path forward, Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, in 2012 quietly established a Strategic Studies Group staffed by a few dozen hand-picked officers and civilians from all four service branches who serve the chief on yearlong fellowships to work through “problems” he tasks them with.

Working out of one of the cookie-cutter office buildings near the Pentagon in Crystal City, Va., the group is led by David Johnson, a retired Army colonel who spent 14 years as a researcher with RAND Corp. before being asked by Odierno to run the shop.

During a recent interview in his office, Johnson declined to offer any details of the classified 500-page report he and his researchers submitted to the chief this past summer.

But he did say the group’s function is to “give the boss an unvarnished perspective” that can only be provided by people who have the time to study issues without other priorities getting in the way.

“We’re independent from anything in the Army,” he said.

The first group of fellows has moved on to other assignments after serving for a year beginning in July 2012, and a new crop has settled into their cubicles, awaiting the chief’s next guidance to kick off a new research project.

They’re thinking big, Johnson said, and looking beyond the traditional issues that have consumed the ground combat community.

“Is the character of what’s happening changing?” Johnson said. “Ten years ago, no one could have imagined a Snowden — no one person could actually have pulled that much information. Is he an anomaly, or are Snowden and [Bradley] Manning precursors of things to come?”

Hail to the Deep: A Strategy for Submarines

The grandmasters of naval strategy died before the sub came into its own. Can their insights be salvaged for a new era?
James Holmes

June 25, 2014

IT’S EASY to forget the virtues of submarines, which lurk beneath not only the waters but also the consciousness of most Americans. They aren’t as iconic as fighter jets or as visceral as tanks. But they can deny a stronger enemy navy control of important waters. Afterward they can exercise command of the sea, blockading or projecting power onto enemy shores with impunity. These elusive warships, in other words, pack an outsized punch.

Just ask Eugene Fluckey. Nicknamed “Lucky Fluckey,” the World War II submarine commander sent the most enemy tonnage to the ocean’s bottom of any skipper in the Pacific. Sinking Japanese tankers, freighters and other merchantmen dismembered a Japanese Empire reliant on sea transport. And raiding shipping was an option of first resort for Washington. U.S. Pacific Fleet submarines were able to start attacking Japanese shipping while American battleships were still burning in Pearl Harbor—long before the U.S. Navy surface fleet penetrated western Pacific waters. That’s what naval specialists call “sea denial.” It’s a strategy for hindering or preventing stronger adversaries from using certain nautical expanses.

Submarine operations spread progressively westward as the navy seized Pacific islands where forward bases could be built. Nearby bases let U.S. submariners establish a near-constant presence in Asian seas, sinking even more merchant shipping while pummeling the Imperial Japanese Navy from below. As the tide turned in the Pacific, undersea warfare made an indispensable contribution to American “command of the sea,” meaning near-total control of important sea areas.

And late in the war, Fluckey’s boat USS Barb took the fight directly to Japan, engaging in gun duels against Japanese shore sites. A landing party even went ashore to blow up a train. Such theatrics aside, Harvard professor Stephen Rosen maintains that a submarine blockade of Japan could have compelled Tokyo to surrender—even had President Harry Truman declined to order the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s high praise for these humble-looking ships of war.

Sea denial, sea command, the exploitation of command: submarine operations span the range of naval missions. Yet despite a century’s proof of submarines’ efficacy, from World War I in the Atlantic to the competition with China today, the classics of sea-power theory—the closest thing seafarers have to a how-to manual of naval combat—are puzzlingly silent on how to employ them in wartime or peacetime. The classics concentrate overwhelmingly on surface warfare, scanting undersea combat. It is high time to bring submarines into the canon.

Submarines: The Twenty Year Itch Gets Scratched

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20140627.aspx

June 27, 2014 

On June 17 th , after two decades of construction effort and nearly six months of acceptance trials the Russian Navy finally put the first of seven Graney (Yasen) SSGNs (nuclear powered cruise missile sub) into service. This boat, the Severodvinsk, set some of the wrong kind of records on its way to join the fleet. For one thing construction of the Severodvinsk began in 1993. Then there were the sea trials, which took two years during which the Severodvinsk was at sea 30 percent of the time (222 days) and submerged over a hundred times. There were at least five live firings of its cruise missiles. Sea trials are not supposed to go on for that long, but these SSGNs were special in so many ways. 

Putting the Severodvinsk into service was delayed twice in 2013. Early on the sea trials revealed that the nuclear reactor did not produce the required power and that the ability of the boat to remain quiet while under water was not what it should be. An underpowered and noisy sub was not acceptable, and the navy demanded that the builder make it all better before 2014. This proved hard to do because in the 1990s lack of work and money meant that most of the best people left the companies that produced the nuclear subs and their complex components. Those left behind have produced a growing list of embarrassing failures. Earlier, undisclosed problems with the first Graney postponed it from entering service for at least a year. These problems are not restricted to the Graney, as other new subs are also encountering numerous construction and design problems. 

In early 2011, the crew of the first Graney took their boat to sea, or at least around the harbor, for the first time. Sea trials were to begin three months later but first the sub took baby steps to ensure that everything worked. These harbor trials were seen as a major progress. Things went downhill again after that, with a growing number of delays as more and more problems were encountered. 

Russian submarine building has been on life support since the Cold War ended in 1991. Many subs under construction at the end of the Cold War were cancelled, and the few that avoided that spent a decade or more waiting for enough money to resume construction. The first Graney crew was put together in 2007 and then spent years training, and waiting. The crew now has their new boat in service, but only after record delays and time spent in the shipyard getting tweaked. 

The 9,500 ton Graneys are armed with 24 cruise missiles, as well as eight 650mm (25.6 inch) torpedo tubes. Some of the cruise missiles can have a range of over 3,000 kilometers, while others are designed as "carrier killers." The larger torpedo tubes also make it possible to launch missiles from them, as well as larger and more powerful torpedoes. The Graneys are having new "smart" (target seeking) torpedoes designed and built for them. But even these new torpedoes are having development problems and may be cancelled. 

The Graneys are highly automated, which is why there is a crew of 90 that is a third less than the 134 needed to run the new U.S. Virginia class boats. The Graney design is based on the earlier Akula and Alfa class SSNs. Russia had originally planned to build 30 Graneys, but now eight seems the most optimistic goal. In response to this Russia has gone ahead with a program for refurbishing Cold War era boats just to obtain a respectable number of subs in the future. 

Russia considers the Graney their answer to the American Virginia class. But the Virginias are a more recent design while the Graney is a late Cold War effort that had some tech upgrades in the two decades it took to build the first one. The first Virginia began construction in 1999 and entered service in 2004. So far ten are in service, five are under construction and a total of 30 are to eventually enter service. 

AWAITING A PROFESSIONAL CULTURE

Subir Bhaumik

During his May 27 meeting with Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, raised the issue of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and insisted that the perpetrators be brought to book without delay. India’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has thus made it sufficiently clear that Pakistan’s soil must not be used for the export of terror to India and attacks on its assets in the neighbourhood must stop if a dialogue is to take place. Reference to the Mumbai attack has also brought the focus back to India’s worst intelligence failure in recent memory. The Modi government has a special reason to thank its stars — and the Afghan self-defence forces — for averting a major embarrassment even as it was being sworn in. The Afghans have ‘credible intelligence’ to suggest that the attack on India’s Herat consulate was a Laskhar-e-Toiba operation and was aimed at creating a hostage situation a la Kandahar just before Modi’s swearing-in with all South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation leaders in tow. That should make revamping of India’s intelligence a huge priority for Modi.

From the Kargil intrusions to the Kandahar hijack, from the attack on Parliament to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the list of intelligence failures is long and embarrassing. And it cuts across regimes to indicate serious systemic malaise. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government set up the Subrahmanyam committee after Kargil, the Manmohan Singh government restricted itself to replacing the home minister, Shivraj Patil, and the national security advisor, M.K. Narayanan, after the 26/11 attacks. But neither went in for any structural reforms to improve the functioning of intelligence.

It is in the fitness of things that a prime minister with as clear a mandate and as strong a resolve as Modi must take firm and concrete — if necessary some out-of-the-box — steps to modernize India’s intelligence machinery and make it worth the taxpayers’ money spent on it.

The task of getting Indian intelligence to deliver will fall on Modi’s NSA, Ajit Doval. The former chief of the Intelligence Bureau is a highly decorated officer with an enviable track record. One of India’s greatest spymasters , B.B. Nandi, once narrated how one of his immediate subordinates (who later went to become the Research and Analysis Wing chief) asked him once after having completed two foreign postings about how a source can be enticed with money. Unlike such over-rated czars, Doval is a hands-on operative, not someone who would spend a whole career without having ever run a single effective source in their target region or organization. And though an IB officer with focus on domestic intelligence (and counter-intelligence), Doval has also served in foreign postings including Pakistan. One would expect him to be free of the ‘agency bias’ that afflicted some of his predecessors and created serious problems in functioning.

There are five challenges for Doval.

Unbelievably, There Are Now Refugees Fleeing to Afghanistan

http://time.com/2931289/pakistan-north-waziristan-taliban-offensive-refugees/?xid=newsletter-brief

David Stout 

The Pakistani military’s offensive against insurgents in North Waziristan has sparked a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of Pakistanis concluding that Afghanistan is just a far safer place to be right now.

The Pakistani military has begun operations against Islamic insurgents in the North Waziristan region, delivering the offensive that Washington has been requesting for a decade, and sparking a massive exodus of refugees — some of whom are fleeing to neighboring Afghanistan to escape the fighting.

Militants, who have long inhabited the mountainous tribal area, have found themselves the target of heavy artillery bombardment and airstrikes for the past fortnight, in what the military’s PR chief Major-General Asim Bajwa termed “the beginning of the end of terrorism in Pakistan.”

Reports began to surface on Thursday in the Pakistani press that ground troops had started moving into North Waziristan to clear out the insurgent forces.

Washington says militants have been using North Waziristan for years as a base from which to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan and to wage a terrorist insurgency against the Pakistani state.

Senior members of the Pakistani Taliban (the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan), the Haqqani Network and Al Qaeda’s central command — along with a smattering of militants from as far away as western China’s Xinjiang province and Chechnya — are believed to be holed up in the area. All are on Islamabad’s kill list.

“For the military, there’ll be no discrimination among Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Haqqani network or any other militant group,” Major-General Bajwa told reporters during a press conference in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Changing rules of the game of thrones

Published: June 28, 2014 

Praveen Swami

For the first time since it emerged as the world’s pre-eminent power, the United States is walking away from the global battlefields. This makes it vital for regional powers like India to hammer out new rules for the geostrategic order — and the tools to enforce them

Minerva and Apollo, the ancient gods of wisdom and knowledge, stand watch on the marble arch off al-Hara al-Kabir street in Tripoli, their two-wheeled chariot of war drawn by fabulous griffons and sphinxes. Built in 166CE, the arch celebrates the triumph of Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus over the Parthians. The statue of Marcus Aurelius that once stood at the top of the arch, toppled over sometime during the last millennia. It lay buried under the sand until it was recovered by 19th century archaeologists.

Marcus Aurelius — celebrated as a warrior, philosopher and the last of the Five Good Emperors — might have considered this indignity with dispassion. “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell,” he wrote in his masterwork, The Meditations, “and you can foresee the future too.”

For much of his reign, the emperor was at constant war, stamping out rebellions by barbarian tribes and rival powers in a perpetual struggle to secure trade and imperial order. His aim was modest: “Do not hope for Plato’s utopia, but be content to make a very small step forward and reflect that the result even of this is no trifle.”

The retreating empire

United States President Barack Obama’s recent decision not to commit combat troops or air power in Iraq will likely be remembered as a critical moment in an epoch-shaping imperial retreat. For five decades, hegemony in oil-rich West Asia was a keystone of U.S. foreign policy. Now, it has shown it is willing to live with defeat. Elsewhere, too, the U.S. is showing diminishing interest in enforcing the global order it built after the Second World War.

The reasons have something to do with the bruising long wars it fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, but more with the rapidly-transforming nature of its global interests. Put simply, the world’s greatest power no longer needs the world in quite the same way it used to.

Switzerland's Role in India’s Fight Against Tax Evasion

By Ram Mashru

June 26, 2014

http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/switzerlands-role-in-indias-fight-against-tax-evasion/

Narendra Modi’s government is fighting tax evasion in India with the cooperation of Swiss officials. 

In a major coup in India’s efforts to recover untaxed wealth, Switzerland recently promised to share the details of Indian nationals “holding black money” in Swiss bank accounts. The offer to share information came after India’s Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, wrote to the Swiss authorities requesting their cooperation.

Given the highly secretive methods used to make international financial transfers reliable estimates are difficult, but the most widely reported figures place the amount of untaxed wealth stowed away by Indians in overseas havens at $500 billion.

India’s newly elected right-wing government, voted into power with a landmark majority on May 16, has taken on the country’s long fight against corruption with great zeal. Among the government’s first announcements was the establishment of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to locate so-called “black money,” a move that was widely celebrated.

In the run up to this year’s elections Narendra Modi, now India’s prime minister, repeatedly referred to the polls as a referendum on the previous government’s shocking record on corruption. The determination with which India’s new administration has pursued illicit funds has further gilded Modi’s image as an honest and incorruptible leader.

Indeed, repatriating un-taxed money is a hot-ticket pursuit. For many in India, the issue represents the worst sort of corruption: unscrupulous elites squirreling away public funds beyond the reach of the state. Tax evasion also raises questions of moral obligations: why should the poor, those that can least afford it, pay taxes when the rich refuse to do so?

Switzerland’s active cooperation with India on the matter was welcomed by Arijit Pasayat, the SIT’s vice-chairman, as a “breakthrough development,” and the list is set to be delivered on August 1.

Scores dead as Taliban wages offensive in southern Afghanistan

CAROL J. WILLIAMS contact the reporter 

AfghanistanWars and InterventionsTalibanNATOAl-QaedaU.S. Military

Afghan police officers search commuters at a checkpoint in Helmand province on June 25. A Taliban offensive in its fourth day in the southeastern region has killed scores of civilians and fighters. (Abdul Malik / AFP/ Getty Images) 

Taliban offensive in 4th day in region once heralded as model for Afghanistan after foreign troops leave

Afghan media report nearly 200 dead in Taliban summer offensive along southeast border with Pakistan

Taliban claims responsibility for attacks in five southeastern regions of Afghanistan that killed scores 

Taliban fighters have attacked Afghan government troops and civilians across five southeastern districts in a days-long offensive heralding the start of the summer fighting season in the mountainous areas along the border with Pakistan.

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, left, has withdrawn cooperation with the election commission, accusing authorities of fraud in the ongoing vote for a successor to President Hamid Karzai. (Wakil Kohsar / AFP/Getty Images) 

Afghan Forces Fight Taliban Onslaught in South

by Taboola

June 25, 2014

http://time.com/2928419/us-advances-world-cup-2nd-round-despite-loss/ 

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Afghan security forces fought back against a fierce Taliban onslaught by about 800 militants in a key southern province Wednesday as clashes that have killed dozens of people, including at least 35 civilians, stretched into a fourth day. 

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The Taliban attacks targeting checkpoints and government buildings in Helmand province — which was touted as a showcase of a major U.S. military offensive to drive out the militants in 2009 — show the stark challenges facing government troops trying to defend the country against the resilient Islamic militants with diminishing help from the international community. 

Afghanistan’s security situation has been complicated by a political crisis stemming from allegations of massive fraud in the recent election to replace President Hamid Karzai, the only leader the country has known since the Taliban regime was ousted nearly 13 years ago. Abdullah Abdullah, one of two candidates who competed a runoff vote on June 14 suspended his relations with the Independent Election Commission after he accused electoral officials of engineering extensive vote rigging, allegations they have denied. 

His rival, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, called on Abdullah to rejoin the process and demanded that the commission stick to the official timetable for releasing preliminary results next week. 

“We believe that the only way forward is full adherence to the constitution, to the election law and to the regulations. We therefore are dismayed that our esteemed colleague Dr. Abdullah has withdrawn from the process. Our request to him is simple — join back to the process. Respect the will of the people,” Ahmadzai, a former finance minister and World Bank official, told supporters at a rally. 

U.S. Finally Imposes Sanctions on Pakistani Terrorist Group LeT!

June 26, 2014

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Pakistani Militants

Declan Walsh

New York Times

LONDON — The United States imposed economic sanctions on Wednesday against two senior members of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and designated its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, as a “front organization.”

The designation comes after years of conspicuous relief activities by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, whose nationwide network of schools and hospitals and aid programs for the victims of floods and earthquakes have helped it gain favor with Pakistan’s most vulnerable citizens.

The United States already offers a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the charity’s leader, Hafiz Saeed, in relation to Lashkar’s most notorious act: the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which at least 163 people, including several Americans, were killed.

But his prosecution has never looked likely because he lives openly in the eastern city of Lahore under Pakistani state protection, addressing rallies and appearing on television, while Lashkar has stepped up attacks in Afghanistan, most recently against the Indian Consulate in the western city of Herat.

Given that the group has been under Western scrutiny for years and obtains financing from private donors in the Persian Gulf, American sanctions have a largely symbolic value. On Wednesday, the Treasury Department named Mr. Saeed’s close aide, Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry, and the group’s finance chief, Muhammad Hussein Gill, as “specially designed global terrorists,” which freezes any assets the two men may hold in the United States and bars Americans from any transactions with them.

The action was part of continuing American efforts to hit Lashkar’s finances and “disrupt and impede its violent activities,” David S. Cohen, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

Since the State Department designated Lashkar as a terrorist group in 2001, the American government has imposed sanctions on 22 people and four associated bodies. As well as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, on Wednesday it announced measures against the Al-Anfal Trust, a front body that Lashkar had used to “procure goods from the Persian Gulf,” the State Department said.

A spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Lahore said the group was “carefully studying” the American statement and would issue a response on Thursday.

Hamid Karzai: 'I Didn't See a War in Afghanistan—I Saw a Conspiracy'

MUJIB MASHAL

JUN 23 2014

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/an-exit-interview-with-afghan-president-hamid-karzai/373199/

An exit interview with the Afghan president

In April—two weeks after the election to replace him and usher in the first democratic transfer of power in Afghanistan’s history—Hamid Karzai sat down with Mujib Mashal for Mashal's “After Karzai” story in the July/August issue ofThe Atlantic. In his office at the presidential palace in Kabul, the Afghan leader reflected on how his vision of democracy conflicts with the West’s, what it’s like to be the pacifist president of a country at war, and whether power has changed him over the past 12 years.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

When was the moment you felt most vulnerable physically? That your life was seriously in danger?

Mmm … seriously in danger physically. I cannot think of such a moment.

I ask that because when I speak to people who have worked closely with you, they say you have been a tremendous tactician—political tactician—but not a visionary. And I ask a two-pronged question: If a leader is not confident of physical survival, or political survival, can he afford to be a visionary and think long-term?

Well, I had a vision for this country—of unity. That Afghanistan becomes the country for all Afghans—that, we have achieved. Afghans of all colors, all political thinking, of all parts of this country feel absolutely free in this country. I had a vision for a democratic Afghanistan, for human rights, and for the freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Those were visions, and the last elections a few days ago proved that was achievable and we achieved it. A vision of Afghanistan that had its presence around the world—that has been achieved. Of an Afghanistan that would not be under the thumb of a foreign power, that has been achieved. We showed our independence, which was one of my strongest desires—ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan this was my desire…. Today, we have independent foreign policy—with Iran we have great relations, with America we have, with China we have, with Russia we have.

Operation Waziristan: Can Pakistan’s Military Root out Taliban Sanctuaries?

BY HASSAN ABBAS

JUNE 24, 2014

Source Link

The bane of Pakistan's counterterrorism policy has been denial, delay, and as some would argue, deception. This approach not only earned widespread insecurity; the country also paid heavily in terms of tens of thousands of innocent lives Thousands of soldiers and policemen courageously laid down their lives fighting terrorist outfits, but the confused state policy -- partly a product of directionless public opinion-- did little to protect their sacrifices. The latest military campaign, named Zarb e Azb (meaning sharp and cutting strike), geared towards targeting all and sundry among the terrorists in the North Waziristan tribal agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) promises a new beginning. Indeed, it is better late than never.

Even though mistakes committed in the conflict in the tribal belt can haunt Pakistan for a while, the real question now is whether Pakistani public opinion can sustain support of the new campaign in the long haul and if the apparent civil-military cooperation in the matter can also survive. In the face of the almost certain Pakistani Taliban backlash in urban areas, national resilience will be critical.

I spent the last few days in Iraq and, while shuttling between the cities of Najaf and Baghdad, I observed many military convoys heading north. Civilians traveling on the highway showed tremendous support for them. In Najaf, I was staying in near the residence of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Seestani, the most influential Shia cleric in Iraq. There was a constant flow of large groups of Iraqi tribes visiting him (and other 3 grand Ayatollahs) to complain that Iraqi army was not registering them for fighting against ISIS terrorists. Seestani had encouraged his followers to join the Iraqi military in a major fatwa earlier. While witnessing this history unfold in Iraq, I could only pray for similar leadership from Pakistan's religious parties. Unfortunately, it turned out to be only Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam -- the two leading religious political parties in the country -- who refused to support the military campaign.

A comprehensive military action in North Waziristan was seen as unlikely for many years because the so-called ‘good Taliban,' like the Haqqani network, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, and the Maulvi Nazir group (and lately the Khan Said Sajna) were also operating in this specific zone. None of these factions were believed to be involved in terrorist activity in Pakistan. Only recently, Pakistan's security ‘wizards' have started realizing that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) (the really ‘bad Taliban') benefits in many ways from logistics, infrastructure and even funding sources of ‘good Taliban.'

Attitudes to Water in South Asia

Dr Gareth Price Senior Research Fellow, Asia Programme

27 June 2014

Source Link

Discussion about water in South Asia – in particular the shared rivers of the region – is vociferous, antagonistic and increasingly associated with national security. 

Suikhet, Gandaki, Nepal. Photo by Richard I’Anson/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images.

Renewable water resources in the region have fallen dramatically on a per capita basis since the 1960s. India hit the ‘water stress’ mark around a decade ago, Pakistan slightly earlier. Groundwater is fast depleting in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and there are few feasible options for increasing supply. Management and governance of water have not adapted to the escalating pressures of demography. With the population of South Asia projected to rise by 32 per cent in three decades – from 1.68 billion in 2010 to 2.22 billion in 2040 – the outlook under current trends is for greater competition over water between agriculture, urban centres and industry, and between countries which share rivers.

Renewable water resources in the region have fallen dramatically on a per capita basis since the 1960s. India hit the ‘water stress’ mark around a decade ago, Pakistan slightly earlier. Groundwater is fast depleting in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and there are few feasible options for increasing supply. Management and governance of water have not adapted to the escalating pressures of demography. With the population of South Asia projected to rise by 32 per cent in three decades – from 1.68 billion in 2010 to 2.22 billion in 2040 – the outlook under current trends is for greater competition over water between agriculture, urban centres and industry, and between countries which share rivers.

Recommendations

1. Improve domestic water management. 

Poor access to water within countries raises regional tensions. Improving water management is imperative both in itself and as a means of easing these tensions. 

Enhance coordination between relevant ministries connected to water, such as those for agriculture or mining, and ensure that policy on water is coordinated with agriculture and energy policies. 

Create domestic ‘visions’ for water usage to enable transboundary negotiations to be driven by demand as well as supply. 

Enhance understanding of the nexus between food, energy and water to enable pricing of electricity, and ideally water, to better reflect social and environmental costs. 

Disseminate examples of best practice to facilitate broader understanding of what can be achieved and, importantly, how it was achieved. 

Shift management of water at the local level to the communities themselves. Current top-down approaches frequently fail to meet communities’ actual needs. This approach would enable a more holistic understanding of cross-regional commonalities, encouraging a focus on sustainability, as well as shared cultural and social approaches towards water. 

Ensure that water-related policy documents, examples of best practice and so forth, are translated into local languages. 

At the 'End of History' Still Stands Democracy

By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA

June 2014

http://online.wsj.com/articles/at-the-end-of-history-still-stands-democracy-1402080661

Twenty-five years after Tiananmen Square and the Berlin Wall's fall, liberal democracy still has no real competitors 

A crowd tries to climb the Berlin Wall on Nov. 10, 1989, the morning after it was first breached Getty Images 

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote the essay "The End of History?" for a small journal called the National Interest. It was the spring of 1989, and for those of us who had been caught up in the big political and ideological debates of the Cold War, it was an incredible moment. The piece appeared a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, right about the time that pro-democracy protests were taking place in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and in the midst of a wave of democratic transitions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. 

I argued that History (in the grand philosophical sense) was turning out very differently from what thinkers on the left had imagined. The process of economic and political modernization was leading not to communism, as the Marxists had asserted and the Soviet Union had avowed, but to some form of liberal democracy and a market economy. History, I wrote, appeared to culminate in liberty: elected governments, individual rights, an economic system in which capital and labor circulated with relatively modest state oversight. 

Hybrid Cars Are Niche No More

NEW ENERGY ECONOMY 

06.06.14

Hybrid Cars Are Niche No More 

Just a decade ago, your only option for a gas-electric vehicle was the Prius. Now the demand is so large that everyone from Hyundai to Lincoln is diving in. 

Henry Ford used to say that customers could get the Model T in any color, so long as it was black. The lack of choice didn’t stop the cheap vehicle—the first car to really put Americans on wheels—from becoming popular. But in the 1920s, when rivals offered vehicles with more options (and more colors), Ford’s rigidity forced the Model T to lose market share. 

Not too long ago, the market hybrid cars seemed similarly monotone. Customers could have hybrids in any variety they liked, so long as it was a Prius. 

That may be only a slight exaggeration. For the last several years,Hybridcars.com has been tallying the number of hybrid vehicles sold every month. Back in May 2008, consumers had 15 models to choose from, the Toyota Prius, which came in a single model, accounted for about 42 percent of total hybrid sales. 

Sales of hybrids dipped sharply in 2009, but they have come back strongly. This week, figures for May 2014 were reported. Total sales of hybrids (including plug-in hybrids) were over 59,000, more than double the May 2009 low of about 25,000. And the Prius is still a major player—with a significant change. In May 2014, there were four different versions of the Prius on the market—the traditional liftback, the Prius C, the Prius V, and the Prius Plug-in. Combined they sold about 27,000 units, accounting for about 45 percent of the total hybrid market. 

Reflecting on China's Five Principles, 60 Years Later

By Ankit Panda

June 26, 2014

http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/reflecting-on-chinas-five-principles-60-years-later/

Sixty years later, what are China’s “five principles” worth? 

On Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping will host Myanmar’s President Thein Sein and India’s Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari for a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” or Panchsheel. The Five Principles, a major pillar in China’s foreign policy even today, were originally conceived by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and China’s first premier, Zhou Enlai, in 1954. The principles rose to fame at the Bandung Conference in 1955, which set the stage for the Non-Aligned Movement. The Chinese government will hold the event commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of its cherished foreign policy principles at the Great Hall of the People, The Hindu reports.

The fact that Beijing chose to celebrate this anniversary with the pomp and circumstance of a state visit with two international leaders underscores the importance it continues to ascribe to the Five Principles. The Five Principles, as stated by the Panchsheel Treaty, signed on April 29, 1954, are: 

Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. 

Mutual non-aggression. 

Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. 

Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit. 

Peaceful co-existence. 

The principles originally represented a vision of international relations that was highly principled and not based on realism necessarily. After Mao Zedong declared that China had “stood up” after a century of humiliation in 1949, the country needed to base its foreign policy around a set of principles that would embody its principled independence in world affairs. The Five Principles were borne of post-colonial solidarity and Chinese leaders embraced them for both their moral weight and strategic flexibility.

In recent years, China continues to make reference to its principles when it comes to justifying its voting record at the United Nations Security Council, or justifying its condemnation of interventionist Western powers. For China, the Five Principles’ emphasis on non-intervention and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations are particularly important as it struggles with internal separatism in Tibet and Xinjiang. By taking a principled stand on non-intervention in all conflicts, China is able to repudiate outside criticism of its government’s handling of internal affairs.

Xinhua, in an article announcing this weekend’s upcoming celebrations, refers to the Five Principles as “peace principles.” The Chinese government sees these celebrations as an acknowledgment of China’s positive contributions to international affairs. “Over the past six decades, the principles have withstood tests, been accepted by an increasing number of countries, become the tenets governing international relations and played an important role in safeguarding world peace and development,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying noted, highlighting that their relevance extends far beyond China’s borders.

At the recent Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit, Xi Jinping appealed to the Five Principles in outlining his vision for a future Asian security order. “The five principles that China initiated together with India and Myanmar have become a basic norm governing state-to-state relations,” he declared. “China’s peaceful development begins here in Asia, finds its support in Asia, and delivers tangible benefits to Asia,” Xi added in an attempt to sell his vision of an Asian security architecture made by Asians, for Asians.

For Xi Jinping — who is most interested in helping China acquire some normative weight in international affairs — the Five Principles embody China’s best contribution to heterodox international relations with a unique Asian flavor. In particular, if China is to offer a compelling model of regional leadership, different from that of the United States in Asia, it can begin with these principles. Unfortunately, the Five Principles fall somewhat short in actually explaining recent Chinese adventurism in the East and South China Seas where China is engaged in disputes with several countries. Even Zhou and Nehru would come to learn of the hollowness of these principles when their two countries fought a war eight years after boldly pledging “peaceful coexistence.”

The focus on the anniversary of the Five Principles is also being used by Beijing to bolster its “reset” in foreign policy with India. As Ananath Krishnan reports in The Hindu, China’s government and media are rather keen on maintaining good relations with India with the right-wing Hindu nationalist government in power there. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s trip to New Delhi was described as a visit of “great significance” by China’s Foreign Ministry. By inviting India’s vice president to Beijing to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Five Principles, Xi sends a message of pan-Asian solidarity to New Delhi. Indeed, during Wang’s visit, some of the official rhetoric used by the Chinese foreign minister hearkened back to the post-colonial solidarity that existed between Indian and Chinese leaders in the 1950s, prior to their 1962 war. Vice President Ansari’s upcoming visit marks the first trip to China by a senior Indian official following this year’s general elections.

China needs to find its way to regional and global leadership without raising fears of hegemonic intentions. While it might not be doing so well given its generally provocative posture along the East Asian rimland, it sees some value in highlighting the pan-Asian nature of the Five Principles that stand at the center of its foreign policy. China’s principles may have weathered their first 60 years with relatively little issue, but as China rises to global prominence, it may find that the principles it enshrines as the pillars of its foreign policy are incompatible with its preferred means of pursuing its national interest.