The Soviet-Afghanistan War: Direct and Indirect Intervention

by Alexander Liffiton

August 1, 2016

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The Soviet-Afghanistan War: Direct and Indirect Intervention

The Soviet (USSR) Intervention in Afghanistan from 1979-1989 was a long drawn out conflict that bled supposedly unending Soviet resources, and ultimately helped lead to a global shift in power. The Soviet defeat changed the course of world politics. To understand how the Soviet intervention came to take place one must look at the Regional Security Complex (RSC). Afghanistan straddles the border between the Middle Eastern complex and the South Asian complex; it acts as an insulator state with little influence over either region, although the regions themselves influence it. It is also helpful to note that the RSC’s in the Cold War were heavily influenced by the Cold War policies of the Superpowers; the USSR did not want to lose influence within the two regions and see the United States (US) begin to dominate them. The most substantial question when looking at the Soviet Afghanistan War is why did the two superpowers of the Cold War era decide, as in the case of the Soviet Union to intervene directly in Afghanistan, and in the case of the United States and her allies ‘delegate’ or use the Mujahedin to fight the Soviet Union. Regan (1998) hypothesizes that governments were more likely to intervene during the Cold War, in a limited time frame, and when certain domestic and international conditions are met. Idean Salehyan’s 2010 article is particularly helpful when studying the American response and why the U.S. and its allies ‘delegated’ responsibility to foreign Afghan nationals, hypothesizing that the reasons include cost-effectiveness, Cold War tensions, and lack of local knowledge. This article will show why the USSR and the US decided to intervene directly and indirectly and how the RSC’s influenced their decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to discern why the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, and why the United States and its allies delegated to the Mujahedin. However a brief historical context is needed to understand the Soviet-Afghanistan War. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan began in December of 1979. The USSR invaded in order to put down mutinies within the army and to ensure that the pro-Soviet Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) stayed in power. Within the next year the USSR was drawn into increasingly hostile engagements throughout Afghanistan. By 1980 the US and other nations had begun to supply the rebel group known as the Mujahedin. Over the next decade fighting would take its toll on the Afghani population but also the USSR itself, which became war weary. In 1986 the US supplied surface-to-air missiles to even the playing field between the Mujahedin and the USSR airpower. A year later the USSR started a withdrawal of troops, the last Soviet troops were withdrawn in 1989. The primary actors in this conflict were the USSR and the Afghan proxy government that it propped up and the Mujahedin rebels that fought against the Soviets. Secondary actors include the United States, Pakistan, China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all of which supplied the rebels in their fight against the USSR. In keeping with the aforementioned focus, details of the war are kept to a minimum unless they directly relate to one of the theories that are posited here.

Unravelling China’s state sponsored cyber war with Project CameraShy

Julian Turner

1 August 2016 

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A new intelligence report claims to have uncovered Chinese state-sponsored cyber attacks against military, diplomatic and economic targets across South-East Asia. Julian Turner talks to Rich Barger of ThreatConnect about Project CameraShy and the fight for supremacy in the South China Sea.

Located at the crux of where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet, the South China Sea is one of the most hotly-contested geopolitical regions on Earth. A critical thoroughfare for the global economy, five trillion dollars in bilateral trade and nearly a third of all global oil transit the territory every year.

Concerns that the South China Sea could become a military flashpoint have now escalated as China's increasingly aggressive policy strains relationships with the US and its South-East Asian neighbours.

Beijing has drawn a so-called "nine-dash line" over the South China Sea, a huge territorial claim that stretches 200 miles south and east from the province of Hainan, backed by island-building and naval patrols. In October, the US challenged Chinese hegemony by sailing a destroyer within 12-nautical miles of the artificial islands, the first in a series of actions planned to assert freedom of navigation.

The battle for political and tactical primacy in the South China Sea is also being fought in cyberspace; and the publication of Project CameraShy has brought the scale of that espionage into sharp relief.

U.S. Focus on South China Sea Risks Ceding Ground to China in Africa

By James D. Durso

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International tensions continue to mount in the wake of The Hague ruling on July 12 that China’s claims to the South China Sea have no legal basis. Considering what’s at stake, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. U.S. trade accounts for $1.2 trillion of the $5.3 trillion of trade that passes through the South China Sea each year. As the Council on Foreign Relations recently noted, a crisis in the South China Sea would seriously impact both regional economies, as well as our own, increasing insurance rates and necessitating longer transits from port to port. That the South China Sea may, by Chinese estimates, yield 130 billion barrels of oil (more than any area of the globe except Saudi Arabia), only compounds the importance of a peaceful resolution. However, as U.S. focus intensifies in one area of the globe, it wanes in another. It means that, even if we get our way in the South China Sea, we risk losing big in the game of globalization. While the U.S. is busy leading complicated diplomatic processes in Asia, China continues expanding its influence elsewhere, specifically, in the very regions that have moved down the list of U.S. foreign policy priorities.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more prevalent than in Djibouti, a country situated on the northeast coast of Africa described by U.S. Ambassador Tom Kelly as “at the forefront of [U.S.] national security policy” but one that few Americans understand in terms of strategic value. Though small in size, Djibouti plays a vital role in U.S. national security. It houses our only permanent military base on the African continent and positions us within striking distance of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQIP) and al-Shabaab, in Somalia.

Uber’s Exit Shows China’s Mercantilist Leaning; We Should Follow Suit

R Jagannathan 

August 2, 2016

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The simple point to underscore is this: with fair traders we play fair, and with mercantilist players we turn mercantilist and protectionist.

The impending exit of Uber, the app-based taxi services provider, from China shows the difference between how China supports its local entrepreneurs and how India doesn’t. China follows a mercantilist policy when it comes to encouraging investment, with the dice loaded heavily in favour of the local incumbent while in India there is no such indulgence.

Whether it is Amazon or Facebook or Google or Apple or Uber, local champs have used their better knowledge of culture and strong state support to see off their international rivals.‎ China is a huge violator of World Trade Organisation (WTO) fair trade rules - and has benefited hugely from it.

Contrast that with India. Here Flipkart and Snapdeal are losing local market share to Amazon - with Alibaba of China coming next to challenge both Amazon and the local biggies. Now, Uber will come to India with big bucks and a superior platform to challenge Ola.

While we should see this as India’s greater fairness in dealing with global competitors, it is also a testimony to our lackadaisical attitude to supporting our own businesses, where we have been erecting barriers to ease of doing business - as the various state-level roadblocks to taxi aggregators shows. While India may be rising in rank on the ease of doing business, the real improvement will happen when the corrupt bureaucracy is tamed and regulations seen not as another way to make money, but as vehicles to ensure a level playing field between competitors.

CHINA SIGNALS RESOLVE WITH BOMBER FLIGHTS OVER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

NATHAN BEAUCHAMP-MUSTAFAGA, CRISTINA GARAFOLA, ASTRID CEVALLOS AND ARTHUR CHAN

AUGUST 2, 2016

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An unprecedented display of Chinese strategic systems over disputed territories in the South China Sea reflects China’s efforts to signal its resolve following a diplomatic defeat.

After the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal ruled July 12 in favor of the Philippines’ case, invalidating many of China’s territorial and other claims in the South China Sea, Beijing has sought to demonstrate its military strength in the region. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) long-range strategic bomber, the H-6K, has played a key role in projecting Chinese military power via publicized flights over the South China Sea. Since early May, state-run media have released photos and videos of H-6Ks flying over Fiery Cross Reef, Scarborough Shoal, Mischief Reef and Livock Reef in the southern Spratly Islands, as well as Woody Island in the northern Paracel Islands. “Combat readiness patrols” by H-6Ks and other PLAAF aircraft “will continue on regularized basis,” a PLAAF spokesman said July 18.

The release of the H-6K footage follows an expanding array of PLA Navy aircraft and systems that have been deployed to land features controlled by China in the South China Sea. In May of last year, The Wall Street Journalreported that China had deployed artillery to one reclaimed island in the Paracels. By February of this year, the PLA had deployed surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) on Woody Island, although a recent report suggests the SAMs were removed just before the July 12 ruling. In March, the PLA fired an anti-ship cruise missile from a system deployed to Woody Island. PLA Naval Aviation J-11 and JH-7 fighters were also deployed on Woody Island last October as well as in February and April of this year. And in May of this year, J-11 fighters conducted an intercept of U.S. aircraft above the South China Sea that the Department of Defense characterized as “unsafe.”

Ukraine’s Deadly Profession: Three Journalists Attacked in July

BY MELINDA HARING

JULY 27, 2016

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People stand near the coffin containing the body of journalist Pavel Sheremet who was killed by a car bomb, during a memorial service in Kyiv, Ukraine, July 22, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

On July 20, investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet was assassinated in Kyiv. Sheremet hosted a morning show at Radio Vesti and was a top reporter atUkrainska Pravda. A crusading journalist and native of Minsk, Belarus, he had already been expelled from both Belarus and Russia. He was killed by a car bomb.

It would be easy to dismiss Sheremet’s murder as an outlier. Unfortunately, it’s anything but. His death is merely the most drastic example of the steady deterioration of press freedom in Ukraine in recent months.

One day before Sheremet’s murder, Maria Rydvan, the editor of Forbes Ukraine, was stabbed three times in Kyiv; she had been walking in the park of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Fortunately her injuries were only minor.

On July 25, the head of Business Censor, Sergei Golovnyova, was beaten in the well-to-do Podil section of Kyiv by two men who took nothing from him.

Kristina Berdynskykh, a reporter for the New Time magazine who often writes about Ukraine’s oligarchs, said she has received multiple death threats in recent months. No charges have been brought against any suspects.

Training Ukraine: Turning a Soviet Army Into a Modern Force

By Paul D. Shinkman | Senior National Security Writer

Aug. 2, 2016

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YAVORIV, Ukraine – The AK-47 bullets a Ukrainian infantry platoon is using for live fire exercises on this refurbished army base were boxed in 1983. Encased in cumbersome but durable layers of plastic, cardboard and metal wrapping, they still function suitably well

That the Ukrainian military must rely on 33-year-old Soviet-era rifle rounds says a lot about how these forces fight. In many ways, they themselves are also products of a prior era that has found a new purpose in battle.

"We weren't ready for this war," says Danilo, the infantry platoon's assistant commander who asked his last name be withheld. He speaks flatly while taking a break between iterations of this exercise, the chin strap undone on the helmet he wears in his armored command vehicle. He makes exaggerated air quotes as he stresses whom he's here to learn how to kill more effectively: "We were not expecting that from our 'brothers.'"

Danilo has family from Russia, which has made the resurgent power's activities along its border with Ukraine in the last two years that much more troubling for him. His frustration is compounded by his own military's shortcomings.

In the years after the collapse of the Soviet empire, the need diminished in Ukraine and elsewhere for a state-of-the-art army following Western promises it would protect these new allies in exchange for giving up their nuclear weapons, through a set of agreements known as the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Ukraine's military atrophied and fractured into a series of disparate brigades that the central government in Kiev is desperately trying to stitch back together, now with the help of American and NATO support.

WHAT TURKEY CAN LEARN FROM RUSSIA ABOUT COUP-PROOFING THE MILITARY

MARK GALEOTTI

AUGUST 2, 2016

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When news of the attempted coup in Turkey broke, Russian social media had fun with posts such as a shot of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu grinning, captioned “defense minster learns army can change government.” Of course, thecoup failed, Shoigu is no dictator-in-waiting, and arguably the attempt was a godsend to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now using it as an excuse for a far-reaching purge. Nonetheless, the comparison between the Turkish and Russian situations offers some timely insights into when armies become aspirant and plausible kingmakers and kingbreakers — and how they can be tamed and caged.

Keep Them Apolitical

A happy military is a supportive military. However, one cannot draw a neat connection between material goodies and quiescence. The Russian armed forces are adequately well-paid now, but back in the 1990s and early 2000s, when they were paid a pittance and frequently in arrears, there were still no serious stirrings. In 1993, Russian military units either sat out a brutal brief clash between President Boris Yeltsin and his parliament or else actively backed the Kremlin’s unconstitutional coup against an anachronistic and unpleasant legislature. Conversely, professionals within the Turkish military are pretty well paid (although most are still conscripts), even if conditions are tough. Yet the critical issue for the coup-makers was not material well-being, but political dissatisfaction.

US Army War College Quarterly Parameters (Autumn Vol. 45, No. 3) Now Online

Special Commentary

Soldiers Fighting Alone: The Wars of the Market-Security State by Patrick Porter

Strategic Leadership

Civil-Military Relations: The Role of Military Leaders in Strategy Making by William E. Rapp

The Centurion Mindset and the Army's Strategic Leader Paradigm by Jason W. Warren

Countering Gray-Zone Wars

Arming Our Allies: The Case for Offensive Capabilities by Jakub Grygiel

Understanding Coercive Gradualism by William G. Pierce, Douglas G. Douds, and Michael A. Marra

Thinking Strategically

Dealing with Uncertainty in Strategic Decision-making by Yakov Ben-Haim

Understanding Groupthink: The Case of Operation Market Garden by David Patrick Houghton

Cyberwarfare a Double-edged Sword for Authoritarian States

By Robert Potter

The recent and rather public hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton Campaign has been widely attributed to Russia. While Moscow has denied responsibility, the Clinton campaign has blamed Russian intelligence. One of the more concerning elements of the breach is that while being warned of the intrusion in April by the security consulting firm CrowdStrike, the hackers had been inside of the DNC’s servers for a year. While this inevitably raises questions around the cyber maturity of the DNC it also points to the reality that the networks operated by other political and diplomatic actors have also likely been breached. The people who depend on these networks for the carriage of their private communications will now need to develop new capability to detect and mitigate against these sorts of targeted intrusions.

Political parties, diplomats and businesses have all been on the receiving end of targeted and likely state sponsored efforts to compromise communications. This reality, will undoubtedly impact on political, diplomatic and economic events within the countries where these attacks are targeted. North Korea, in one particularly interesting hack, probably impacted the level of free speech within the entertainment industry. Regardless the origin the hack, it has had an identifiable effect seen during the decisions of organizations to pull the release of the movie ‘The Interview’ after the hack. Subsequent to this, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York cancelled the release of the documentary ‘Under The Sun’ due to fear of potential retribution by North Korea. As such, even without direct confirmation of a state sponsored attach, the impact is undeniable.

Securing The Third Offset Strategy: Priorities For Next US Secretary Of Defense – Analysis

By Timothy A. Walton

July 27, 2016

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Following a process of examining strategy, scenarios, and assessments, this article identifies for the next Secretary of Defense eight capability statements that merit attention as the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) top new investment priorities as part of the Third Offset Strategy in the fiscal year 2018 budget and beyond. Additionally, this article recommends that reforms to the analytical processes informing force planning decisions in general and the Third Offset Strategy in particular be guided by increased selectivity, transparency, and commonality.

Setting the Course

In November 2014, then–Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced a new Defense Innovation Initiative, which included the Third Offset Strategy. The initiative seeks to maintain U.S. military superiority over capable adversaries through the development of novel capabilities and concepts. Secretary Hagel modeled his approach on the First Offset Strategy of the 1950s, in which President Dwight D. Eisenhower countered the Soviet Union’s conventional numerical superiority through the buildup of America’s nuclear deterrent, and on the Second Offset Strategy of the 1970s, in which Secretary of Defense Harold Brown shepherded the development of precision-guided munitions, stealth, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems to counter the numerical superiority and improving technical capability of Warsaw Pact forces along the Central Front in Europe.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has built on Hagel’s vision of the Third Offset Strategy, and the proposed fiscal year 2017 budget is the first major public manifestation of the strategy: approximately $3.6 billion in research and development funding dedicated to Third Offset Strategy pursuits.1 As explained by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, the budget seeks to conduct numerous small bets on advanced capability research and demonstrations, and to work with Congress and the Services to craft new operational concepts so that the next administration can determine “what are the key bets we’re going to make.”2

Directed Energy Weapons Gaining Acceptance Across U.S. Military

By Yasmin Tadjdeh 

August 2016 

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No longer the stuff of science fiction, laser technology is progressing rapidly. Throughout the services, officials are banking on new directed energy weapon systems, which promise to offer the military precision strike at a low cost for both defensive and offensive missions.

At Special Operations Command, its program executive office for rotary wing is working alongside the Army’s program manager for Apache attack helicopters to test a directed energy weapon on an Apache this summer.

“There is absolutely a niche I believe for use of directed energy weapons,” said Col. John Vannoy, SOCOM’s program manager for rotary wing. “The lens we are looking at this through right now is: ‘Is it feasible to do this?’ We’re not at the point where we’ve laid out a business case to advance it.”

The command envisions using a laser weapon to destroy vehicles or generators versus sending in a missile that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said during an industry conference hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association in Tampa, Florida.

Vannoy’s office and the Army’s Apache office have entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with Raytheon to put a podded laser on the aircraft, he said.

Government Officials Conflicted About Encryption

By Yasmin Tadjdeh 

August 2016 

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Encryption — which prevents unauthorized users from accessing devices and data — is a double-edged sword, experts have said. While U.S. citizens use the technology to protect personal information, bad actors such as terrorists are employing it to hide illicit activity.

Encryption services are also vitally important to the government, said a panel of department heads in May.

“We know we need it,” said Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter during a joint press conference at Intel’s corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, California. “We know that strong encryption is part of the solution for the future.”

Carter called on companies around the country, including those in Silicon Valley, to keep investing in such technology.

“I think it’s fair to say that … globally the market for cybersecurity that should exist doesn’t yet exist,” he said. “But what that says is that there will be a big market for those innovators that get here first.”

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said encryption is critical to protecting the nation’s digital infrastructure.

“Today our entire economy rests on the back of the digital infrastructure,” she said. “It’s extremely important that we have strong encryption.”

But such technology can make it harder for law enforcement to detect criminal activity, said Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.

Profile of the Russian Hacking Machine

Andrei Soldatov

August 1, 2016

Cyber Showdown: How Russian Hacking Works

When Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked about Russia’s potential involvement in the recent hack of Democratic National Committee emails, he appeared genuinely surprised, just stopping short of giving a four-letter word in response. Indeed, the most amazing thing in this rapidly escalating showdown between Russia and the United States is that Lavrov was probably not acting. Apparently, he had not been consulted.

Since the annexation of Crimea, something strange has happened in the Russian government’s handling of sensitive issues, both inside and outside of the country. Many Western diplomats noted that the Russian Foreign Ministry is no longer in charge of defining policy for Ukraine or Syria. Inside of the country, meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has replaced politicians in key government offices with his own bodyguards. Regional governors are so stupefied by the purges the Kremlin started last September (there are already three governors under arrest) that they refrain from doing anything in the regions they are supposed to be in charge of.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton looks at a computer screen during a campaign stop at Atomic Object company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. March 7, 2016.

The Future Operating Environment 2050: Chaos, Complexity and Competition

by Kimberly Amerson and Spencer B. Meredith III

July 31, 2016

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The Future Operating Environment 2050: Chaos, Complexity and Competition

The end of the Cold War brought the expectation that the world would cease teetering on the brink of existential annihilation, and the optimistic hope of a better world was cautiously balanced by precarious uncertainty. However, the emerging world proved to be a combination of international rivalries, non-state actors leveraging power asymmetrically, and challenges to traditional politics. In addition, advances in science and technology impacted the shifting political landscape in significant ways. Technologies that allowed people to connect globally, migrate more easily, compete for resources, led to the diffusion of centralized power and shifting traditional identities. These significant shifts make it worthwhile to reflect on the character of warfare and the expected changes that currently evolving trends will have on the future battlefield. Foremost, is the question: how should the world be understood when viewed through the lens of the U.S. Army’s 241-year history of planning for combatting peer competitors, like Russia and China?

On the one hand, great power competition defined the 20th Century, which reinforced a posture and readiness to fight a conventional war. This readiness is still esteemed as quintessential to American power projection, the guarantee of security for U.S. partners and interests abroad, and protection of the homeland. While the scenario of a large scale conventional war remains a potential threat, the nature of U.S. involvement in conflict over the past 25 years has involved more ambiguity and less clarity in terms of geographic lines of control, or clear, singular enemies with equally clearly defined objectives. The realized threats and conflicts have involved unconventional, asymmetric warfare waged by enterprising individuals and groups in shifting alliances. This environment is characterized by complexity, chaos and competition.

Leadership: Asking the Right Questions

By Gary M. Klein

August 1, 2016

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The future operating environment, with its complex threats and increased tempo, will demand that future Army professionals be comfortable with uncertainty, be able to adapt quickly to fast-paced events, and possess emotional maturity and professional judgment in decisionmaking.[1]

Since the Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World was published in 2014, military leaders have been inundated with the idea of complexity. But how should we prepare to overcome complexity? How can leaders improve their ability to understand, visualize, and describe this environment to enable decision making? How should we adjust our planning to account for this complexity? In the past, the military has largely focused on new or improved processes and technology to account for historic lessons learned, but will this be successful in the future? There are many ways to prepare for a complex world, but improving cognition through inquisitiveness should be chief among them.

When discussing leadership today, few people would put inquisitiveness on the list of leadership skills necessary to be successful. A military leader is expected to be an expert at leading his unit in combat, epitomized by the age old fundamentals—shoot, move, and communicate. These fundamentals are undoubtedly required for tactical success, but veterans of recent conflicts are equally aware that tactical victories do not always translate into strategic success.

THE MILITARY’S UNEASY RELATIONSHIP WITH QUESTIONS IS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMS.

Warriors & Citizens American Views of our Military

By Kori Schake, Jim Mattis

August 2, 2016

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/08/02/warriors__citizens_109655.html

Below is an excerpt from the book Warriors & Citizens: American Views of our Military

We undertook this project to better understand attitudes of the American public about their military forty years into having an all-volunteer force and after fifteen years of being continuously at war. The project’s goal was to produce data to inform both scholarship on civil-military relations and policy debates about a wide range of defense issues. One of the most important gaps evident in the survey data collected for this project is public disaffection with their elected leaders on issues of war strategy (both the data and crosstabs are available athttp://www.hoover.org/research/warriors-and-citizens).

The YouGov data show that Americans understand fundamental responsibility for war strategy lies with elected political leaders. It also shows that the public is dissatisfied with their leaders’ performance in developing coherent strategy. The public sees policy elites incapable of winning our ill-defined wars, implausibly expecting military force to produce sophisticated political, economic, and cultural outcomes.

Strategy divorced from politics is unsustainable. As Colin Gray instructs us in The Future of Strategy, “the core challenge of strategy is the attempt to control action so that it has the politically desired effect.” There is no abstract purpose, or practice, of strategy from which politics can be effectively leeched. It is inherently a political undertaking. In free societies, politicians must choose the political ends. They must also determine what price—in blood, treasure, and national credibility—to pay for those ends. 

** The Threat to America’s Electrical Grid Is Much Bigger Than You Can Possibly Imagine

BY @CYBERSQUIRREL1

JULY 31, 2016 

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But it’s not Russian hackers you should be worried about. 

Greetings from the front. The cyberwar continues. Our operatives continue to hit infrastructure targets around the globe. In June alone we conducted 44 ops, hitting targets in 26 U.S. states and six countries total. Each operation impacted as many 15,000 people and lasted for up to four and half hours. Of course that’s just our unclassified operations; the actual number of power outages our operatives have caused is 10 times that number.

As we continue to wreak havoc on your electric infrastructure, your policymakers and cyberwar hawks are rattling sabers, worried about online attacks from nation-states, completely ignoring the threats that successfully target your power grid every day. The Washington Post, Forbes, USA Today, and even the esteemed Ted Koppel talk about “cybergeddon,” trillion-dollar risks, and when — not if — a massive cyberattack on the U.S. electric power grid will occur. Even President Obama is worried. In the meantime, we quietly go about our work, disrupting power generation and transmission across the globe.

To date there has been exactly one, just one, power outage that can be attributed to some sort of cyberattack by a nation-state. Last December, someone (many people say directed by the Russian government, but there really isn’t enough evidence to support that accusation) hit up to six different power companies in Ukraine with a coordinated malware and DDoS attack. This definitely wasn’t a random lone hacker in a basement; this took months of planning and coordinated effort. It sounds scary but the outages only lasted a few hours and affected around 80,000 residences. We have caused far bigger and longer outages all by ourselves.

** Is the Indian IT services dream coming to an end?

By Rajiv Rao

July 27, 2016

http://www.zdnet.com/article/is-the-indian-it-services-dream-coming-to-an-end/ 

As their world is becoming increasingly disrupted by the cloud and artificial intelligence, Indian outfits will have to evolve into something higher up the value chain to survive. 

Technology, or ways to implement it, was once transformed by labour due to Indian firms, but now labour is largely and rapidly being made irrelevant by new technology. (Image: Infosys) 

In a few decades, the world witnessed the beginning of a large disruption in the arena of IT services pioneered by Indian companies, such as Infosys and TCS, where cheap but skilled technology labour in India was relied upon to fashion technology solutions for US and European companies.

These users are taking SaaS to a new level, improving the business of delivering IT services -- and in moving IT support and change management from a cost center to a proactive IT knowledge asset. 

Modi’s 4-Nation African Visit: India-South Africa Defence Cooperation

By Monish Gulati

02 Aug , 2016

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During his visit to South Africa (SA), Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw potential in ramping up cooperation in trade and investment, especially in areas of minerals, mining, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and information technology. He was, however, more enthusiastic about partnering SA in the field of defence and security – “both, at the level of industry and for our strategic and security needs”. He indicated that the Indian defence sector which is witnessing a complete transformation and offers exciting opportunities for collaboration, recently had its norms relaxed to allow 100 per cent FDI. 

Modi felt that Indian and SA defence companies could also “pool their capacities to jointly develop or manufacture defence equipment and platforms”. A move, not just to meet mutual defence requirements, but also to respond to regional and global demand, Modi had suggested. However, given the historical cooperation, the Indian prime minister remarks actually called upon Indian and South African companies to ‘step-up and scale-up’ their cooperation in the defence sector.

SA Defence Industry

The SA defence industry dates back to the apartheid regime when its rapid development was propelled by two important factors: battling a domestic insurgency and circumventing the mandatory arms embargo imposed by the UN in 1977. The industry shaped up in the 1980s to reach a stage where its technical, design and production abilities are today considered one of the most advanced in the non-Western world.

While the SA defence industry has become increasingly a part of the global arms industry, including acting as subcontractors and supplying military components for foreign systems, it also holds its ground in a few niche areas such as, light armoured vehicles and anti-tank missiles. SA currently supplies weapons and other military equipment to several countries across the world; from the US to China to Sweden and Zambia. The Middle East is a large customer of SA military hardware, ordering missiles, artillery and armoured vehicles many of which are being fielded in the on-going Yemen conflict. In India, the armed forces and the armed police forces would recall their association with the SA supplied mine protected vehicle (MPV), Casspir.

India-SA Collaboration

How IAF Firepower Severely Dented Pakistan’s Psyche During The Kargil War

By Rakesh Krishnan Simha

02 Aug , 2016

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On 12 June 1999, Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz hastily arrived in New Delhi, ostensibly to discuss ways of ending the Kargil War. Aziz, who deeply resents India, had landed with a single agenda – he implored India to “stop its airstrikes”.

Here was a conservative hawk, who is known to attack India in the most vicious manner, begging New Delhi to call off the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) round-the-clock barrage on Pakistani positions. You don’t get more desperate than that.

Aziz’s desperation was a result of the incredible display of firepower that the IAF – in tandem with the Indian Army’s 24/7 artillery barrage – had brought to bear on the Pakistanis. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16s had been repeatedly buzzed by India’s MiG-29s, and the PAF pilots had simply refused to offer combat. This had allowed the Indian Army and the IAF’s ground attack jets to blast away with impunity.

Aziz hadn’t come to buy peace; he had come to buy time, and Pakistan Army lives. It wasn’t ‘international’ (read American) pressure that made him dash to New Delhi but the desire to save the Pakistani military establishment from a humiliating 1971 war-like defeat. Had Aziz known that India was hours away from bombing Pakistan, he would have probably offered Baluchistan in exchange.

The IAF over Kargil

China-India-Myanmar: The Forgotten Frontier

By Air Cmdr PC Chopra

02 Aug , 2016

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/china-india-myanmar-the-forgotten-frontier/

The large porous and underdeveloped border could also be turned into a border of peace and progress. The pro-democracy movement and Myanmar’s integration with Western economies, would give a much needed push towards studying Western concepts and learning English. As such, India needs to open, near the Indo-Myanmar border, a large number of schools, colleges and a university specialising in teaching English and democratic concepts and shared cultures. Students with special passes should be able to just walk over and attend classes in India. The area is especially suited for Myanmar’s citizens near and around the capital Naypyidaw in Northern Myanmar, where the need is greatest. This matter needs to be pursued with the present government on priority. This would enhance India’s soft power status as also protect her interests.

The history of this region is a saga of independence movements, military dictatorships, insurgencies, externally sponsored low intensity armed conflicts and tribal uprisings…

Very few officials in the corridors of power in New Delhi know anything about Walong, the Easternmost town of India on the tri-junction of the China-India-Myanmar border. It was the scene of fierce fighting during the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. Lesser still, the powers that be in Delhi do not know that the distance from New Delhi to Walong is greater than the distance from Walong to Bangkok and Hanoi. New and exciting developments, opportunities missed and made, are taking place in this region. A new network of roads, railway lines, airstrips and air-corridors are being planned, developed and strengthened. This will have a profound effect on the future of India and its ‘Look East’ policy. These developments will also have far reaching consequences on the defence of these far flung borders, bring us face to face with China and Myanmar and herald a defence and economic transformation in the region. The author has flown more than a thousand hours in the area and landed at all the helipads, airstrips, airfields, Indian Air Force stations, army formations and knows the area like the palm of his hand.

India Is On Its Way To Establishing An Unaccountable Higher Judiciary

R Jagannathan 

August 1, 2016

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We are nowhere near an agreement between the executive and judiciary on how to appoint or remove judges in future.

The bone of contention is essentially this: whether the government should have any say at all in rejecting some choices of the court collegium, on grounds of national security or corruption. 

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) and the members of the collegium want to not only decide who should be appointed, but who should not be appointed.

It is nearly 10 months since the Supreme Court struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), a law passed by overwhelming majorities in both the Parliament and over half the state assemblies. But, we are nowhere near an agreement between the executive and judiciary on how to appoint or remove judges in future.

It is easy to dismiss this as another instance of the usual tensions between elected representatives and judges, who are there to interpret the constitution, but we would be wrong. It may be an ego tussle, but it is also a case of judicial unaccountability.

Conscious of the fact that it had effectively overruled the people of India in a case (i.e., NJAC) in which it was itself an interested party, the five-judge Constitutional Bench—headed by Justice J.S. Khehar— offered a minor sop to the executive to prepare the “memorandum of procedure” on judicial appointments. In other words, judges will still hold all the high cards and decide who they will appoint as fellow judges, but the government can decide the procedure. Surprisingly, the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) is going back and forth between the law ministry and the judiciary, and still not finding consensus.

'Headley can teach us a lot about terrorism'

August 01, 2016 

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'India simply wasn't prepared for the fact that a natural-born American could be organising a major terror plot in their country. And they didn't look for people like him.'

'Headley is one of the most complex and interesting terrorists of the last many years.'

Danish investigative journalist Kaare Sørensen has covered international affairs, Islamic terrorism, surveillance, intelligence agencies and subsequently the foiled Copenhagen/Aarhus 2009-2010 attack.

The journalist journeyed to Pakistan, Yemen, Iran and Egypt, spent more than 1,000 hours over a little less than four years working on his book, The Mind of A Terrorist: David Headley, the Mumbai Massacre, and His European Revenge, which traces the crimes and life of the diabolic Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley.

In the concluding part of his interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel, Sørensen explains why David Headley is one of his dangerous kind. 

IMAGE: The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, November 26, 2008. Photograph: Reuters

Beyond Cartographic Assertion: A Roadmap on Pakistan Occupied Kashmir

Priyanka Singh

August 01, 2016

Most of India’s geopolitical vexations stem from a contested northern periphery, entailing disputes born either in the aftermath of independence or inherited from British rule. Principal among these is the region of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Soon after independence, a huge portion of J&K’s territory was bifurcated from the rest of the princely state as a result of the Pakistan-aided assault conducted in these regions during 1947-48. Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) refers to those parts of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) that continue to be under Pakistan’s control. It comprises the so-called ‘Azad’ Jammu and Kashmir (‘AJK’), and Gilgit Baltistan, which latter was referred to as the Northern Areas by the government of Pakistan until 2009. India stakes a claim on these territories by virtue of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26 October 1947. 

In consonance with India’s official position on J&K, the Survey of India map, considered the official and by far the most authentic source of determining India’s geographical extent, shows PoK (as it existed during British rule) as part of the Indian state of J&K and thus as an integral part of India. Apart from PoK, the Survey of India map also shows as Indian territory the Trans-Karakoram Tract (previously part of PoK) and Aksai Chin, both of which are currently under China’s control. 

The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill 2016 

Elections in PoK and Protests in Kashmir Valley: The Linkage

Prabha Rao

July 28, 2016

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Burhan Wani’s death on July 8 occurred just before the elections in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Expectedly, election rhetoric from all concerned political parties, including the ruling Pakistan Muslim League ­Nawaz (PML­N), and the opposition, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and others, contained passionate eulogies for the ‘martyr’ Burhan Wani, and re­runs of the usual Pakistani litany of Indian atrocities and human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired a cabinet meeting on July 15 in which he declared Pakistan’s unstinting support for the Kashmiris’ “just struggle for self-determination.”1 Interestingly, he announced Islamabad’s intention to observe July 19 as a “Black Day”, which was swiftly postponed to July 21, to coincide with elections in PoK. In a campaign speech in Islamabad, he asserted that Pakistan was and will continue to be a stakeholder in Kashmir, which could not be considered India’s internal matter. Nawaz Sharif was echoed by the Pakistani establishment. Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary requested the Islamabad-based Ambassadors of the member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir, which comprises Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Niger, to raise their voice against “the blatant human rights violations” of Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley.2 Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaz Aziz stated on July 25, in reply to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement that Burhan Wani was considered to be a terrorist by India, thus: “Let us not forget, that not long ago the British labelled Indian freedom fighters as traitors and terrorists because at that time India was considered an integral part of the British Empire.”3 While the intention to rile India, especially in international fora, is always an objective with Pakistan, the political mileage that Nawaz Sharif and the PML­N has extracted from this situation in the past two weeks needs to be evaluated and factored. 

South China Sea: It's Not Just About the Rocks, It's Also About the Fish

Wallace C. Gregson

August 1, 2016

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The South China Sea remains politically roiled. It has been almost a month since the UN Tribunal’s announcement. Chinese rhetoric attacks both court and verdict, military demonstrations continue and ASEAN’s foreign ministersissued a decidedly equivocal statement following their meeting. Secretary of State John Kerry’s request for a reference to the decision of the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration failed. China’s diplomatic efforts to moot the verdict, and by extension moot the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), achieved an early success. This dispute now enters a new—and not especially encouraging—phase.

China’s nationalist ambitions mandate the recovery of lost territory, specifically including islands, rocks and low-tide elevations deemed—by China—to be Chinese from ancient times. The July 12 judgment by the UN Tribunal was a stunning rebuke to this goal.

All nations on the East and South China Sea littoral and the United States are directly affected. But the stakes of the affected nations vary widely, as do capabilities and vulnerabilities. Standing alone there is little hope that the nations of the region can come to an acceptable, viable and enduring solution. The gaps among various national interests, stakes and capabilities must somehow be bridged.

Can China Really Ignore International Law?

Richard Javad Heydarian

August 1, 2016

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In a recent essay, eminent political scientist Graham Allison downplays international criticism of China’s blatant rejection of an unfavorable legal verdict at The Hague. By pointing out the unlawful behavior of status quo powers, his article gives the misleading impression that China’s noncompliance to the international court’s decision is essentially normal.

“[N]one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have ever accepted any international court’s ruling when (in their view) it infringed their sovereignty or national security interests,” Allison argues. “Thus, when China rejects the Court’s decision in this case, it will be doing just what the other great powers have repeatedly done for decades.”

Allison also fell short of mentioning some key facts as far as great powers’ compliance with international arbitration is concerned. For instance, it was not the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) that decided on the Philippines’ complaint against China,but an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Article 287, Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The PCA only serves as a registry.

Such seemingly minute legal facts inform the nature and implications of the Philippines’ landmark lawfare against China. Crucially, Allison didn’t mention that there have been encouraging instances whereby major powers rejected arbitration, and subsequently an unfavorable verdict, but still ended up complying with it anyway. After all, even for great powers, which aspire to leadership and seek respect and predictability in the international system, ignoring international arbitration carries immense costs.

More Than Meets the Eye