A foreign policy worthy of the Indian dream

Published on The Asian Age (http://www.asianage.com/columnists/foreign-policy-worthy-indian-dream-576)

By editor

Created 17 Jan 2014

K.C. Singh

Who in India would disagree with Saudi Arabia’s ideology being a ‘threat to the world’? While the BJP has little understanding of the Islamic world, Modi perhaps has even less so.

Who in India would disagree with Saudi Arabia’s ideology being a ‘threat to the world’? While the BJP has little understanding of the Islamic world, Modi perhaps has even less so.

The year 2014 has seen the public discourse in India shift to internal political drama, even turning the Devyani Khobragade saga into India, like the proverbial David, catapulting diplomatic pebbles at Goliath-like US. The rise of the Aam Aadmi Party stole television time from a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party under “I-have-a-dream” Narendra Modi and the Congress’ “I-do-not-want-power” Rahul Gandhi.

The AAP now plans to contest national elections, due in less than five months. For the third time in independent India’s history a popular upsurge is propelling new political players onto the national stage. Earlier this happened in 1978, when Indira Gandhi, lifting Emergency, called elections, and again in 1989 when Vishwanath Pratap Singh, resigning from the Union Cabinet over corruption, reaped a storm of popular discontent to oust Rajiv Gandhi. Both experiments ended in disaster, the second even resulting in economic meltdown.

The worry is that, distracted by the domestic drama, the Indian political elite may allow the external environment to shape itself irrespective of its impact on Indian interests. Two elements are significant: the rise of China and the mushrooming of radical Islam. President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea is visiting India from January 15-18. Ten days later Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade. Two important nations on the periphery of China are engaging India seriously. The Republic of Korea will discuss the stalled $12 billion Posco project and cooperation in civil nuclear energy. Japan wants to enlarge its investment footprint in India and move towards closer engagement in the military and security areas. Both these visits impinge on shared concerns about China and a stable future security order in Asia.

The second element to be factored into Indian policy-making is radical Islam. The issue can be trivialised like the former home secretary R.K. Singh throwing cheap punches at his former boss or it can be seriously examined by all political parties and prime ministerial aspirants. The Islamic world has borne the impact of three developments in the last few years: the survival and re-emergence of Al Qaeda; the hope of the Arab Spring as its antidote dissipating with developments in Syria and Egypt; and the Shia-Sunni rivalry complicated by the US-Iran nuclear engagement.

GET OVER WITH NUCLEAR COMPLEX

Friday, 17 January 2014 

JAGMOHAN SINGH

There is no reason as to why India should take part in this rat race to become a nuclear-powered nation. Instead, we should learn from Japan and switch to safer and cleaner energy sources like solar, hydro and thorium

On January 13, Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for one of India’s largest nuclear power plants in Haryana amidst protests from various groups. Had logic and public opinion been something that our Prime Minister or his Government respected, then the Aam Aadmi Party perhaps would not have been there in the first place. But these have not been his forte; as is well known, he neither uses his mouth (the absolute lack of communication from him), nor his ears (the disregard for public opinion). Or perhaps he has sold his soul so massively to Western interests that his skin has become far too thick for anything to affect him, including the imminent end of his official tenure.

I wouldn’t spend time delving into the scary possibilities of a Japan-like natural disaster and its possible effects. But the fact is, nuclear plants can be most fragile and such incidents can have disastrous consequences. Any case of a nuclear meltdown would cause leakage of radiation, which not only can lead to an unimaginably high death toll and permanent physical and mental disorders, but in the long run, can also make the vicinity uninhabitable for tens of decades.

India, which is blindly following a dream of going the nuclear way, is largely ignoring the threats that these reactors bring with themselves. It is not that this is something new for India — in August 2010, the Journal of Contemporary Asia reported that between 1993 and 1995, more than 120 hazardous nuclear accidents took place in India. It is amazing how our Government seems to have forgotten the biggest disaster of all times in Indian history — the Bhopal gas tragedy.

If nuclear leakages can happen in developed nations like Japan, which have a focus on zero defects, then given India’s level of work ethics in general take it as good an assurance that in India a nuclear disaster will happen for certain. Globally, post the Japanese disaster, Germany has suspended contracts and agreements that would have otherwise ensured an extension of their nuclear facilities, while Switzerland has, for the time being, kept aside all files meant for approval of nuclear plants.

In India, it all started with the signing of the 1-2-3 deal with the US in 2008. This deal opened up a $250 billion nuclear reactor market for India; and today we find various companies (mostly American and European) waiting to sign their contracts with India. The biggest contract that we have signed in this area is with Areva for a 9,000 MW plant at Jaitapur in the Konkan region in Maharashtra. Interestingly the Konkan coast is located in the seismic belt of the nation and is categorised as a high damage risk zone. For the record, in the last two decades, this zone has experienced a whopping number of 92 earthquakes, of which three were major, with the highest being measured at 6.3 on the Richter scale in 1993. And on top of this, we are using a very controversial and unapproved nuclear reactor for this plant. As of now, we have more than 20 nuclear reactors dotted along the coastal areas of the nation, and these may be either exposed to quakes or tsunamis.

However, the biggest argument against nuclear power is not the fear of accidents alone. It is basic economics. There is absolutely no economic logic that can support the argument that nuclear energy is needed in India, a nation where the sunlight we receive is far more than sufficient to take care of all our energy requirements, and that too most importantly at one fourth of the cost of nuclear energy.

Indian Army: A national asset

ByCol Jaibans Singh

IssueCourtesy: www.defenceinfo.com

Date : 15 Jan , 2014

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The Indian nation celebrates Army day on January, 15 every year with great fervor. January, 15 has been chosen for this event due to its historical significance. It was on this day in 1949 that the Indian Army divested itself from British control with General (later Field Marshal) K. M. Cariappa taking over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from Sir Francis Butcher.

On the occasion of Army Day it is only befitting to remind the nation about its bounden duty to ensure that the blood spilled by its brave soldiers as also their contribution to the national cause does not go waste.

A number of parades, memorial lectures, equipment displays, investiture ceremonies organised by the Army on this day elicit tremendous response from the general public. The Army Day is also a time to revisit the achievements of the army in the year gone by. The pace for this exercise is set, in no small measure, by the traditional press conference of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). This year the press conference by General Bikram Singh, COAS, was held at the majestic Manekshaw Stadium, New Delhi on 13th January. Many issues of relevance came up during the press conference.

The COAS made a short introductory statement where he spoke of enhancement of combat power and gave out figures of the amounts expended for the purpose through the year. His focus was on the raising of an additional corps in the North-East that has been on the drawing board for some time now. It has got a denomination (17 Corps) and the skeleton is in place. This constitutes good news since its raising has been pushed by defence experts and analysts as imperative to cover strategic gaps in the nations defence in the sensitive area. Other points covered by the COAS were the strides being made by the army in the domain of human resource management where the thrust has been on work culture and maintaining the secular profile of the force. The chief also stressed upon the importance of “jointness” in the evolving strategic thought process globally and the efforts made by the army in this direction.

Major issues came up during the question and answer session. As is usual, it was on the issue of security in Jammu and Kashmir that the maximum questions were fielded. With regard to continued Chinese belligerence along the line of actual control the COAS said that the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement signed by the two countries recently would strengthen existing mechanisms and interface at the theatre level. When asked to elaborate on the crucial aspect of an imbalance in infrastructure between India and China in the border regions the COAS tacitly admitted to the need for more effort in this direction and added that a plan has been submitted to the government whereby development of infrastructure would be outsourced. Efforts are also being made to enhance the capability of the Army’s Border Roads Organisation.

The Looming Narco-State in Afghanistan

Afghan farmers are growing more opium today than at any time in recent memory, according to America’s watchdog in the country.

D.B. GRADY

JAN 15 2014

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Afghan farmers work at a poppy field in Jalalabad province, on May 5, 2012. (Reuters/Parwiz)

Testifying Wednesday before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, offered a grim assessment of the war-torn country—and revealed startling details about America’s hapless reconstruction efforts there.

Few have a job as challenging as Sopko’s. As the inspector general, he must study our actions and spending, and uncover and investigate examples of fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption. Since the U.S. has spent the last 12 years blasting dollars into Afghanistan, “following the money” is a task on the order of investigating grains of sand in the desert. Still, Sopko and his team have proven to be uncompromising, inexhaustible, and enormously effective. His office is independent; he is not beholden to the usual feudal lords in Washington. As Congress has decided to sit this war out, Sopko has proven to be the conflict’s only real oversight mechanism.

Since taking charge in 2012, he’s uncovered everything from $230 million in missing spare parts to spending on diesel running $500 per gallon (when the going rate was around $5 per gallon). Thanks to Sopko, American taxpayers learned that they bought $200,000 thermostats for air conditioners in a small medical clinic that was never completed—and according to the Afghan government, was probably never going to be used. And that’s just in the areas to which he has access. Because of security concerns, by next year his office will be restricted to a mere 21 percent of the country.

And according to Sopko’s congressional testimony, things are bad. Really bad.

Since the fall of the Taliban government at the start of the war, the United States has invested $10 billion to fight the Afghan drug trade, through efforts such as ending poppy cultivation, halting the manufacture of narcotics, establishing drug treatment programs, and building a robust counternarcotics police force and criminal justice system. This might be money well spent, as 90 percent of the world’s opium originates in Afghanistan. No effort to build a stable nation there can succeed amid the hurricane forces of financial and institutional corruption that come with a thriving drug trade.“More land in Afghanistan is under poppy cultivation today than it was when the United States overthrew the Taliban in 2002.”

North East Asia Strategically Notices India

Paper 5635 Dated 16-Jan-2014

By Dr Subhash Kapila

http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/node/1443

North East Asia is a strategically significant region which earlier experienced intense Cold War confrontations and is now witnessing the unfolding of possibly a new more intense Cold War, this time between China and the United States and in both cases Japan and South Korea are significant regional players on this chessboard.

With China looming large as a threat perception in varying shades in North East Asia and in Asia as a whole, India stands strategically noticed by the two prominent regional actors, namely Japan and South Korea, possibly because India’s power differentials with China are not too wide and Japan- India and South Korea-India have enough strategic convergences.

Strategically, it is naïve as some believe in India that there is some concept as ‘strategic non-alignment’ and that it can be pursued as India’s overall strategy in global power-politics. India has to realise that even without entering into military alliances strategic space exists to practise ‘balance of power’ politics. Asian security demands that with the United States obsessed with ‘China Hedging Strategy’, it is the Asian powers themselves which have to formulate ‘balance of power’ strategies as deterrence against any threats to Asian security and stability.

Japan and South Korea in recent times have forged ‘Strategic Partnerships’ with India whose significance and import has not been lost on China This stands evident from two recent newspaper articles by the Chinese Ambassador which indirectly reflect concerns at Japan and South Korea reinforcing strategic partnerships with India and highlighting that India conversely has more to gain strategically from China.

Significantly, the onset of 2014 witnesses India hosting visits of its North East Asia ‘Strategic Partners’ to New Delhi for apex level political discussions and meetings. The South Korean President Park Geun-hye is currently on a state visit to India heading a large delegation for substantive discussions on reinforcing further strategic and defence ties besides economic relations. South Korea is expected to make a bid for construction of nuclear reactors in India in which field it has good experience. South Korea also has figured as an economic power-house and has a thriving defence industry.

China Confirms Hypersonic Missile Test

By Zachary Keck

January 17, 2014

http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/china-confirms-hypersonic-missile-test/

China’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed the ultra-high speed missile test, but said it wasn’t directed at the US.

China has confirmed it conducted a hypersonic missile test last week, but is downplaying its significance and implications.

As my colleague Ankit wrote earlier this week, “Last week, the Chinese military successfully concluded the first test flight of a hypersonic missile vehicle.” The test was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, which quoted U.S. military and defense officials.

On Thursday China Daily reported “The Ministry of National Defense issued a statement on Wednesday dismissing media reports that China’s recent ultra-high speed missile test flight was aimed at delivering warheads through the missile defenses of the United States.”

It went on to quote the Ministry of National Defense as saying: “It is normal for China to conduct scientific experiments within its borders according to its plans. The tests were not aimed at any nation nor any specific target.” The report didn’t specify whether the MND judged the test to be successful or not.

The Washington Free Beacon article said that China had developed the missile in order to get pass U.S. missile defenses. Hypersonic missiles pose immense challenges to current missile defense technologies because of their speed, maneuverability and the fact that they travel at lower altitudes than ballistic missiles.

However, Chinese military analysts offered different reasons for America’s concern. One analyst said that the U.S. was concerned about the test because of a lack of mutual strategic trust between the U.S. and Chinese militaries. He added that these mutual misperceptions could be corrected through talks.

A different Chinese defense analyst dismissed U.S. criticism outright on account of the fact that the U.S. spends more on its military than China. “There is no need for the U.S. or any other country to worry about the development of the Chinese military, given that China’s military expenditure is much lower than that of the U.S.,” said Li Qingkong, deputy secretary-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies.

They didn’t need to convince Admiral Samuel Locklear, the head of U.S. Pacific Command. In characteristic fashion, Admiral Locklear downplayed the significance of the test, saying he was not particularly concernedabout the hypersonic missile, or about China’s growing military capabilities more generally. Instead, he said that the U.S. should encourage China to “come into the security environment as a productive member,” adding “I think we should be more optimistic about the future of China.” He did caution: “It doesn’t mean we should be Pollyannaish either.”

He may be missed

Israel needed—and still needs—a man like Ariel Sharon to bludgeon a path to peace

Jan 18th 2014 

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HOW strange that a man widely reviled for most of his adult life as a warmonger, even by many of his fellow Israelis, might have been the one to bring about a lasting peace between Jews and Arabs—and a proper state for Palestine—had he survived in fair health for another five years or so as prime minister. Ariel Sharon, who died on January 11th after lying in a coma for eight years following a stroke that struck him down at the height of his political powers, was a man of moral as well as physical courage. He was a man of vision, too—an example to the current prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

For many years Mr Sharon saw Israel as a fortress to be defended so ferociously that no Arab could hope to destroy it. When, as prime minister, he dramatically changed tack by deciding to evacuate the Gaza Strip, evicting thousands of Jewish settlers for whom he had previously been the doughtiest champion, he faced down Israel’s hard right. It was an act of courage as well as pragmatism. At the time he sought to persuade the outraged settlers and their influential lobby that he would not then proceed to wrest the West Bank from their grip, handing it back to the Palestinians as the basis of their state. But he might well have changed his mind on this score, too (see article and our obituary).

The dilemma Mr Sharon had the courage to confront in 2005 is the same one that Mr Netanyahu (and too many of Israel’s supporters in America’s Congress) keep on running away from. If Israel is to remain a democracy, it cannot indefinitely occupy the West Bank while also denying the Palestinians full political rights in a Greater Israel. Yet a Palestinian majority—and the demography is heading that way—would mean the end of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state. If Israel wants to remain both Jewish and a democracy, the only workable alternative is to give the Palestinians a state of their own, thereby accepting that Israel must vacate most of that hallowed land on the West Bank. Giving up Gaza was the first step.

Rand Paul on Diplomacy

Rand Paul 

January 16, 2014

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/rand-paul-diplomacy-9714?page=show

When I was about ten years old, I used to play chess with an old Ukrainian named Pete Karpenko. Captain Pete, as we called him, told us stories of fighting the Bolsheviks when he was fourteen years old. He and his family were little more than peasants but they resisted the idea of collective farming. He fought with the White Army against the Bolsheviks, and fled when the communists won. Fifty-five years later, he was still afraid to return to the Soviet Union. So, it's easy to understand that around my house, we had little use for communists or their sympathizers.

Like many conservative middle-class families, our inclination was to resist anything to do with Red China. In that black and white world, you were either for us or against us. Trade with China was thought to be trade with the enemy. A funny thing happened, though, along the way. Many conservatives came to understand a larger truth. As trade began to blossom with China, many conservatives, myself included, came to admit that trade improves our economic well-being AND makes us less likely to fight. The success of trade with China made many conservatives rethink their view of the world.

People sometimes ask me what my worldview is. My response is that even if you've crisscrossed the globe, I'm not sure that the world doesn't change by the time you return to the same spot twice. I really am a believer that foreign policy must be viewed by events as they present themselves, not as we wish them to be.

A few years ago, I read a review of John Gaddis' biography of George Kennan. I laughed when I read that Dr. Gaddis promised Kennan not to publish it until after his death. And that twenty years later Gaddis' students were jokingly wondering who might die first. I loved the book. To me, containment is not a dead letter. I look at the worldwide menace of radical jihad and I think we need a long-term vigilance like containment.

Kennan believed that there is "distinction between vital and peripheral interests." I couldn't agree more. Politicians vaguely understand that they must assert a national-security interest before launching war, but asserting a national-security interest doesn't necessarily make it so.

To me, the assertion of a vital interest is the beginning of the debate, not the end.

When the President came to us to try to convince the Senate to support a military engagement with Syria, he acknowledged that any national-security interest was ambiguous at best. Because of the demand, by many of us, for more debate a diplomatic solution arose that may well do something that no military strike could perform—remove the chemical weapons. The Syrian chemical-weapons solution could be exactly what we need to resolve the standoff in Iran and North Korea. By leveraging our relationship with China, we should be able to influence the behavior of North Korea. Likewise, we should be engaging the Russians to assist us with the Syrians and the Iranians.

The Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

Aiming "Low" or "High"

Author: Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies

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PublisherCouncil on Foreign Relations Press

Release DateJanuary 2014

Policy Innovation Memorandum No. 40

The Obama administration is fostering Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a full and final peace agreement. While the talks last they help calm the regional political situation, but they do nothing to improve Palestinian daily life or help build the institutions of a future Palestinian state. If they fail, as all past efforts have, they may leave behind frustration and bitterness. Even so, negotiations should not be abandoned, but should be buttressed by a simultaneous effort to undertake pragmatic steps that support Palestinian institutions, improve life in the West Bank, and strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) against Hamas. While today's political-level peace negotiations can provide an essential umbrella for such steps, focusing solely on achieving a full "final status agreement" is too risky. Practical "on-the-ground" improvements are beneficial in themselves and can improve chances for an eventual negotiated settlement. Moreover, because such steps do not violate the interests of the Israeli or Palestinian sides, they can be pursued without continuing the top-level U.S. intervention that other and often higher U.S. policy priorities may require.

The Cost of "Aiming High"

At least since the Oslo Accords in 1993, Washington has sought to broker a comprehensive peace agreement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict. Those efforts have failed, and they have damaged the prestige of both U.S. administrations and Palestinian leaders. Had the moderate leadership that emerged under President Mahmoud Abbas and former prime minister Salam Fayyad achieved a peace agreement and created a Palestinian state, it would have been greatly strengthened vis-à-vis Hamas and other terrorist groups. When this failed to occur, the PA's main argument against Hamas—that Hamas could only deliver violence, while they could deliver a state—was weakened.

The United States has contributed to this problem by "aiming high." The cost of Washington's focus on a comprehensive agreement has been that it has rarely pushed hard for immediate, on-the-ground changes that would be meaningful to Palestinians—such as more jobs in Israel or more control over larger areas of the West Bank. Such changes do not reflect a lack of ambition or vision; rather, they can be characterized as "preparing for statehood," and would suggest to Palestinians that their affairs are being competently handled by the current leadership and that they have much to lose from the violent actions and extreme politics of terrorist groups. The United States can, as a matter of policy, seek both a long-term, comprehensive deal and take incremental, preparatory steps. But top officials have limited time and energy, and focusing on the former has crowded out the latter.

America's Secret War in 134 Countries

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January 17, 2014

By Nick Turse

They operate in the green glow of night vision in Southwest Asia and stalk through the jungles of South America. They snatch men from their homes in the Maghreb and shoot it out with heavily armed militants in the Horn of Africa. They feel the salty spray while skimming over the tops of waves from the turquoise Caribbean to the deep blue Pacific. They conduct missions in the oppressive heat of Middle Eastern deserts and the deep freeze of Scandinavia. All over the planet, the Obama administration is waging a secret war whose full extent has never been fully revealed -- until now.

Since September 11, 2001, U.S. Special Operations forces have grown in every conceivable way, from their numbers to their budget. Most telling, however, has been the exponential rise in special ops deployments globally. This presence -- now, in nearly 70% of the world's nations -- provides new evidence of the size and scope of a secret war being waged from Latin America to the backlands of Afghanistan, from training missions with African allies to information operations launched in cyberspace.

In the waning days of the Bush presidency, Special Operations forces were reportedly deployed in about 60 countries around the world. By 2010, that number had swelled to 75, according to Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post. In 2011, Special Operations Command (SOCOM) spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told TomDispatch that the total would reach 120. Today, that figure has risen higher still.

In 2013, elite U.S. forces were deployed in 134 countries around the globe, according to Major Matthew Robert Bockholt of SOCOM Public Affairs. This 123% increase during the Obama years demonstrates how, in addition to conventional wars and a CIA drone campaign, public diplomacy and extensive electronic spying, the U.S. has engaged in still another significant and growing form of overseas power projection. Conducted largely in the shadows by America's most elite troops, the vast majority of these missions take place far from prying eyes, media scrutiny, or any type of outside oversight, increasing the chances of unforeseen blowback and catastrophic consequences.

Growth Industry

Formally established in 1987, Special Operations Command has grown steadily in the post-9/11 era. SOCOM is reportedly on track to reach 72,000 personnel in 2014, up from 33,000 in 2001. Funding for the command has also jumped exponentially as its baseline budget, $2.3 billion in 2001, hit $6.9 billion in 2013 ($10.4 billion, if you add in supplemental funding). Personnel deployments abroad have skyrocketed, too, from 4,900 "man-years" in 2001 to 11,500 in 2013.

A recent investigation by TomDispatch, using open source government documents and news releases as well as press reports, found evidence that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in or involved with the militaries of 106 nations around the world in 2012-2013. For more than a month during the preparation of that article, however, SOCOM failed to provide accurate statistics on the total number of countries to which special operators -- Green Berets and Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force commandos, specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, and civil affairs personnel -- were deployed. "We don't just keep it on hand," SOCOM's Bockholt explained in a telephone interview once the article had been filed. "We have to go searching through stuff. It takes a long time to do that." Hours later, just prior to publication, he provided an answer to a question I first asked in November of last year. "SOF [Special Operations forces] were deployed to 134 countries" during fiscal year 2013, Bockholt explained in an email.

Elections Don't Matter, Institutions Do

By Robert Kaplan

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/01/16/elections_dont_matter_institutions_do.html

Many years ago, I visited Four Corners in the American Southwest. This is a small stone monument on a polished metal platform where four states meet. You can walk around the monument in the space of a few seconds and stand in four states: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. People lined up to do this and have their pictures taken by excited relatives. To walk around the monument is indeed a thrill, because each of these four states has a richly developed tradition and identity that gives these borders real meaning. And yet no passports or customs police are required to go from one state to the other.

Well, of course that's true, they're only states, not countries, you might say. But the fact that my observation is a dull commonplace doesn't make it any less amazing. To be sure, it makes it more amazing. For as the late Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington once remarked, the genius of the American system lies less in its democracy per se than in its institutions. The federal and state system featuring 50 separate identities and bureaucracies, each with definitive land borders -- that nevertheless do not conflict with each other -- is unique in political history. And this is not to mention the thousands of counties and municipalities in America with their own sovereign jurisdictions. Many of the countries I have covered as a reporter in the troubled and war-torn developing world would be envious of such an original institutional arrangement for governing an entire continent.

In fact, Huntington's observation can be expanded further: The genius of Western civilization in general is that of institutions. Sure, democracy is a basis for this; but democracy is, nevertheless, a separate factor. For enlightened dictatorships in Asia have built robust, meritocratic institutions whereas weak democracies in Africa have not.

Institutions are such a mundane element of Western civilization that we tend to take them for granted. But as I've indicated, in many places I have worked and lived, that is not the case. Getting a permit or a simple document is not a matter of waiting in line for a few minutes, but of paying bribes and employing fixers. We take our running water and dependable electric current for granted, but those are amenities missing from many countries and regions because of the lack of competent institutions to manage such infrastructure. Having a friend or a relative working in the IRS is not going to save you from paying taxes, but such a situation is a rarity elsewhere. Successful institutions treat everyone equally and impersonally. This is not the case in Russia orPakistan or Nigeria.

Of course, Americans may complain about poor rail service and deteriorating infrastructure and bureaucracies, especially in inner cities, but it is important to realize that we are, nevertheless, complaining on the basis of a very high standard relative to much of the developing world.

Institutions, or the lack of them, explain much that has happened in the world in recent decades. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Central Europe went on to build functioning democracies and economies. With all of their problems and challenges, the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have not fared badly and in some cases have been rousing success stories. This is because these societies boast high literacy rates among both men and women and have a tradition of modern bourgeois culture prior to World War II and communism. And it is literacy and middle class culture that are the building blocks of successful institutions. Institutions after all require bureaucrats, who must, in turn, be literate and familiar with the impersonal workings of modern organizations.

U.S. Military Begins Testing ‘Smart’ Rifles

by BRENDAN MCGARRY 

on JANUARY 15, 2014

http://defensetech.org/2014/01/15/u-s-military-begins-testing-smart-rifles/

LAS VEGAS — The U.S. military has begun testing several so-called smart rifles made by the applied technology start-up TrackingPoint Inc., company officials said.

The Army is rumored to have acquired six of the precision-guided firearms, which cost as much as $27,000 apiece. Oren Schauble, a marketing official with the Austin, Texas-based company, confirmed the military bought a handful of them in recent months for evaluation. A spokeswoman for the service didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

“The military has purchased several units for testing and evaluation purposes,” Schauble said during an interview with Military​.com Tuesday here at the annual SHOT Show, the country’s largest gun show with some 60,000 attendees. (Military​.com is covering the event all week at the blog, Kit Up.)

It’s not hard to see why more than 30 government and law enforcement agencies have requested demonstrations of the potentially game-changing technology since the company debuted the rifle at last year’s show.

With only a few minutes of instruction on the weapon, this correspondent was able to hit a target almost 1,000 yards away on the first shot. Of the 70 or so reporters and other novice shooters who tested the weapon on Monday at a range in Boulder City, Nev., only one or two missed the target, which was located about 980 yards away, according to Schauble.

“That is a better day than usual,” he said. “I would say we’re at about 70 percent first-shot success probability at 1,000 yards … with inexperienced shooters.”

By comparison, military snipers and sharpshooters have a first-shot success rate of between 20 percent and 30 percent, said Schauble, a relative of the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Jason Schauble. They usually reach about 70 percent on subsequent shots, he said.

“That’s the big value proposition,” he said. “There’s a huge gap between first shot and second shot.”

Rand Paul Rethinks the Art of Diplomacy

Parsing the senator's shrewd, subversive critique of U.S. foreign policy.

PETER BEINART

JAN 16 2014

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Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky gestures at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, March 14, 2013. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Foreign-policy speeches by presidential aspirants are usually deadly dull. The standard formula is to say the world has never been more dangerous and complex, praise America’s noble history of global leadership, reject the false division between “realism” and “idealism,” and then pretend to bridge it with some meaningless phrase like “hard-headed idealism” or “principled realism.” 

By those, admittedly low, standards, Rand Paul’s address to the Center for the National Interest on Tuesday was pretty good.

It was good for two key reasons. First, Paul approvingly quoted the diplomat and scholar George Kennan as distinguishing “between vital and peripheral interests." That may not seem significant, but it is. For most of American history, U.S. foreign policymakers had a rough idea of which chunks of the globe really mattered to American security. They started with the Monroe Doctrine, the belief that no foreign power should make the Americas a base for operations against the United States. In the 20th century that expanded to include the belief that no single power should be allowed to dominate Western Europe or East Asia, since that power might then threaten American access to key overseas markets. That principle was finally extended to the Middle East on the theory that no adversary should be allowed to threaten America’s access to oil.

These rough parameters hardly made decisions simple. In a January 1950 speech, Secretary of State Dean Acheson famously did not include South Korea in America’s “defensive perimeter,” only to see Harry Truman send hundreds of thousands of troops to defend it a few months later. But at least past generations of American policymakers felt comfortable with the concept of national interest—the idea that because American power was limited, America must distinguish between those countries where it was worth expending blood and treasure and those where it was not.

When the Cold War ended, however, the idea of a foreign power dominating Western Europe or East Asia, or creating a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere, suddenly seemed fanciful. As a result, the language of national interest largely disappeared. It has been replaced by a discussion of foreign “threats” and American “values.” But without a definition of interests, it’s impossible to define what constitutes a threat. And without a definition of interests, supporting American “values” is a limitless pursuit. Americans will never reach a consensus on where exactly our interests lie, but just reintroducing the concept suggests an overdue recognition that because America’s power is finite, its interests must be too. Which is what Paul did on Tuesday night.

Failing elites threaten our future

Martin Wolf

January 15, 2014

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/europe/failing-elites-threaten-our-future-1.1656168

In 2014, Europeans commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the first World War. This calamity launched three decades of savagery and stupidity, destroying most of what was good in the European civilisation of the beginning of the 20th century. In the end, as Churchill foretold in June 1940, “the New World, with all its power and might”, had to step “forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old”.

The failures of Europe’s political, economic and intellectual elites created the disaster that befell their peoples between 1914 and 1945. Their ignorance and prejudices allowed catastrophe: false ideas and bad values were at work. These included the atavistic belief, not just that empires were magnificent and profitable, but that war was glorious and controllable. It was as if a will to collective suicide seized the leaders of great nations.

Complex societies rely on their elites to get things, if not right, at least not grotesquely wrong. When elites fail, the political order is likely to collapse, as happened to the defeated powers after first World War. The Russian, German and Austrian empires vanished, bequeathing weak successors succeeded by despotism. The war also destroyed the foundations of the 19th century economy: free trade and the gold standard. Attempts to restore it produced more elite failures, this time of Americans as much as Europeans. The Great Depression did much to create the conditions for the second World War. The cold war, a conflict of democracies with a dictatorship sired by the first World War, followed.

Epic failures

The dire results of elite failures are not surprising. An implicit deal exists between elites and the people: the former obtain the privileges and perquisites of power and property; the latter, in return, obtain security and, in modern times, a measure of prosperity. If elites fail, they risk being replaced. The replacement of failed economic, bureaucratic and intellectual elites is always fraught. But, in a democracy, replacement of political elites at least is swift and clean. In a despotism, it will usually be slow and almost always bloody.

This remains true today. If one looks for direct lessons from the first World War for our world, we see them in the Middle East, on the borders of India and Pakistan and in the vexed relationships between a rising China and its neighbours. The possibilities of lethal miscalculation exist in all these cases, though the ideologies of militarism and imperialism are, happily, far less prevalent than a century ago. Today, powerful states accept the idea that peace is more conducive to prosperity than the illusory spoils of war.

Yet this does not, alas, mean the West is immune to elite failures. On the contrary, it is living with them. But its failures are of mismanaged peace, not war.

We Hacked North Korea With Balloons and USB Drives

An airborne challenge to Kim Jong Un’s information monopoly

THOR HALVORSSEN AND ALEXANDER LLOYD

JAN 15 2014

Source Link

Former North Korean defectors release balloons containing one-dollar banknotes, radios, CDs and leaflets denouncing the North Korean regime near the demilitarized zone in Paju, South Korea, on January 15. (Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji)

PAJU, South Korea — At the base of a mountain almost two miles from the North Korean border, the giant helium balloons slowly float upward, borne by a stiff, cold wind. These are not balloons in the conventional sense—the transparent, cylindrical tubes covered in colorful Korean script are more than 20 feet in length and each carries three large bundles wrapped in plastic. The characters painted on one of the balloons reads, “The regime must fall.”

The launch site is at the confluence of the Imjin and Han Rivers, which form the border with North Korea. From here, it’s possible to see the Potemkin village constructed on the shores across the river. The picturesque agrarian hamlet is really just a series of uninhabited sham structures, which contrast sharply with the bustle and industry of the South Korean side. Using binoculars we can see people “walking” back and forth and pretending to till the land despite below-freezing temperatures.The embargo of information into and out of the country has forced human rights groups to be creative in their methods of reaching North Korean citizens.

We’re here to hack the North Korean government’s monopoly of information above the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula. The North Korean dictatorship continues to be one of the most totalitarian regimes on the planet. While other regimes oppress their dissidents and censor the Internet, North Korea has no dissidents and no connection to the outside world. It has no Internet. The Kim family rules with absolute authority, arbitrarily imprisoning or executing anyone who stands in their way. The regime goes even further; not only is the offender imprisoned, but entire generations of his family are also sent to the gulags. The embargo of information into and out of the country has forced human rights groups to be creative in their methods of reaching North Korean citizens.

The Five Best Submarines of All Time

Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)

Source URL (retrieved on Jan 18, 2014): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-five-best-submarines-all-time-9728

January 18, 2014

Robert Farley

Editor’s Note: Please also see the Top Five Naval Battles of All Time [3] and Top Five Fighter Aircraft of All Time [4].

There have been three great submarine campaigns in history, and one prolonged duel. The First and Second Battles of the Atlantic pitted German U-boats against the escorts and aircraft of the United Kingdom and the United States. The Germans very nearly won World War I with the first campaign, and badly drained Allied resources in the second. In the third great campaign, the submarines of the US Navy destroyed virtually the entire commercial fleet of Japan, bringing the Japanese economy to its knees. US subs also devastated the Imperial Japanese Navy, sinking several of Tokyo’s most important capital ships.

But the period most evocative of our modern sense of submarine warfare was surely the forty year duel between the submarines of the USSR and the boats of the various NATO navies. Over the course of the Cold War, the strategic nature of the submarine changed; it moved from being a cheap, effective killer of capital ships to a capital ship in its own right. This was especially the case with the boomers, submarines that carried enough nuclear weapons to kill millions in a few minutes.

As with previous “5 Greatest” lists [5], the answers depend on the parameters; different sets of metrics will generate different lists. Our metrics concentrate on the strategic utility of specific submarine classes, rather than solely on their technical capabilities.

· Was the submarine a cost-effective solution to a national strategic problem?

· Did the submarine compare favorably with its contemporaries?

· Was the submarine’s design innovative?

And with that, the five best submarines of all time:

U-31:

The eleven boats of the U-31 class were constructed between 1912 and 1915. They operated in both of the periods of heavy action for German U-boats, early in the war before the suspension of unrestricted warfare, and again in 1917 when Germany decided to go for broke and cut the British Empire off at the knees. Four of these eleven boats (U-35, U-39, U-38, and U-34) were the four top killers of World War I; indeed, they were four of the five top submarines of all time in terms of tonnage sunk (the Type VII boat U-48 sneaks in at number 3). U-35, the top killer, sank 224 ships amounting to over half a million tons.

The Benefits of Being Clear on Taiwan

Could making whatever implied understanding exists on Taiwan more explicit reduce tensions in East Asia?

By Amitai Etzioni

January 17, 2014

http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/the-benefits-of-being-clear-on-taiwan/

Making more explicit that which is viewed by many as an implicit understanding between China and the United States regarding the status of Taiwan would constitute a major step in defusing tensions between the two powers. The governments of both China and the United States have already shown considerable restraint in this matter, ignoring demands from Chinese who wish to use force to “reclaim” Taiwan as part of the mainland and from Americans who call for recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation. These measures of self-restraint should be made more explicit, by letting it be known that as long as China does not use force to coerce Taiwan to become part of the People’s Republic of China (as it did with Tibet), the United States will continue to refrain from treating Taiwan as an independent state.

True, the way Taiwan is treated is currently a much less pressing issue than settling the differences about the status of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and other territorial matters concerning the South China Sea and the various re drawings of Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ) in the region. However, if one seeks to resolve simmering conflicts and to draw on such resolutions to build constructive relations between China and the United States based on mutually assured restraint – rather than containment or a Cold War-style arms race – clarifying the status of Taiwan could serve as a major step forward.

I recently asked eight experts on Taiwan whether there was an implicit understanding between China and the U.S. about the ways Taiwan should be treated. Five responded that there was no such understanding; two responded by saying that the answer to my question was not clear; and one held that indeed there was such an understanding. The range of their responses serves to verify that the issue surely could benefit from clarification. Indeed, it turns out that matter is far more complex than it may at first seem.

One scholar wrote, “You are correct that there is an implicit agreement between U.S. and China that China will not use military force to “reclaim” Taiwan. […] There is an implicit understanding between U.S. and Taiwan that should China invade Taiwan, the U.S. may intervene, partly to honor the fact that Taiwan has been an important ally in the Pacific Rim and partly to protect U.S. interests in the region.”

Another scholar, however, wrote, “I am not aware of any such implicit understanding. That is why the Taiwan issue remains such a sensitive issue in U.S.-China relations. Many assume that the U.S. would defend Taiwan if China attacked without provocation, but that it would not if Taiwan declared independence unilaterally. The U.S. [government] has never made clear what its policy actually is, if it indeed has a policy other than encouraging neither side to upset the status quo.” Note that after indicating that he is unaware of such an understanding, this expert outlines a key element of such an understanding. The fact that it is not “clear” and merely “many assume” is what others might view as an implicit understanding.

The Cost of an Army Path in the Pacific

January 16, 2014

Source Link

PACIFIC OCEAN ( Dec 9, 2013) Sailors aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) direct an Army OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade (25th CAB) off the coast of Hawaii during joint training operations. The 25th CAB is expected to participate similarly in other training exercises in 2014. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist John M. Hageman/Released)

The following contribution is submitted by Major David Andersen, US Marine Corps.

Recently, Rajiv Chandrasekaran discussed the Army’s efforts to become more expeditionary and maritime capable. Yet, as Mr. Chandrasekaran points out; the United States already has a maritime expeditionary force: the Marine Corps. 

In business, new initiatives are challenged by various barriers such as cost, equipment design, licensing, and market saturation. If a hardware store wants to expand its business, it’s unlikely to diversify into car tune-ups. Just because a handyman can turn a wrench doesn’t mean he can drop an engine. However similar the Army and Marine Corps may appear to the untrained eye, the same may be said regarding amphibious operations. While the Army did amphibious landings quite well in World War II, they involved a short time at sea as a preamble to the sustained operations ashore that armies are designed for. Today’s amphibious operations are more diverse and require a force designed, trained and equipped to operate at and from the sea over extended periods—as Marines are.

The Army’s current barriers include: 

Cost: Army equipment is not “marinized;” a process where everything from engine intake systems to the metals and paints used are designed to withstand high levels of salt water so that corrosion can be minimized and service life extended. This is why several Army aircraft were scrapped after Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, as Mr. Chandrasekaran pointed out. The Army subsequently explored the price of marinization and concluded it was cost-prohibitive.

Equipment design: The majority of Army helicopters have neither rotor brakes nor folding blades and tail booms. These features are unnecessary for land-based operations but essential for safety, shipboard stowage, and operational tempo reasons in sea-based operations. Without brakes rotor blades continue spinning for extended periods of time, gradually drooping as they slow and endangering crews and equipment on a pitching flight deck. Without folding components most Army helicopters take up an inordinate amount of precious deck space on an amphibious ship. A few do have manually folding blades to permit occasional embarkation in C-17 transport planes, rather than the faster and less manpower intensive automated type found in Marine aircraft. As a result, in the time it takes to tow, spread, spot and start a single Army H-60, a typical Marine squadron can launch two full waves of six aircraft. 

Shale or not, emissions will continue to rise

January 18, 2014

Fiona HarveyTerry Macalister

Global greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise by nearly a third in the next two decades, putting hopes of curtailing dangerous climate change beyond reach, a new report by BP has found. The drastic rise in emissions, despite international efforts to cut carbon, will reportedly come despite the predicted enormous growth in the use of shale gas.

Shale gas, previously inaccessible because the exploitation of these resources requires technology that have only recently been perfected, will account for a rising proportion of the growth in energy in the years approaching 2035, but its use will not cause a decline in greenhouse gases.

The finding deals a blow to proponents of shale gas, who have argued that its use will cut emissions. Burning gas produces much less carbon dioxide than burning coal, but the effect of a huge rise in shale gas exploration will not ameliorate the increases in emissions that scientists say will take the world to dangerous climate change.

Proponents of the fuel have argued that shale gas can counteract dependence on coal. But while shale gas use has increased dramatically, particularly in the United States, where it brought down gas prices from $12 to below $3 at one stage, global emissions have continued to rise as the coal that would otherwise have been used has been exported elsewhere.

BP in its global energy outlook said gas would take a 27-per-cent share of global energy consumption and global emissions would rise 29 per cent by 2035, with a similar share for coal, oil, and an amalgamated low-carbon sector including nuclear, hydro, wind and sun.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that emissions must peak by 2020 to give the world a chance to avoid a further two degrees of warming, beyond which the effects of climate change become catastrophic and irreversible.

Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth energy campaigner, says: “The real answers to the energy challenges we face [are] energy efficiency and renewable power.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2014

Keywords: Global greenhouse gas emissions, shale gas

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