China’s Water Pollution Mire

Pacific Money

http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/chinas-water-pollution-mire/

Despite all the focus on air pollution, the contamination of China’s water is at least as serious.

By Sara Hsu

May 28, 2014

Much has been said about China’s air pollution dilemma, with smog so thick in many urban areas that simply getting to and from work can pose a health hazard. Less has been written about the pollution of China’s water. In fact, water pollution in China is at least as bad – so severe that it has been proven to cause gastrointestinal and other types of cancer in some villages. Although these “cancer villages” have been around since the nineties, the government only recently recognized their presence. Many times in these cases, the pollution is caused by chemical dumping from nearby factories.

Dumping of industrial chemicals, agricultural waste, and urban wastewater has contaminated China’s water resources such that over half of all rivers in the country are unsafe for human contact. About 70 percent of the water pollution nationwide comes from agriculture, particularly runoff from fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste. The presence of heavy metals in seafood and rice has become increasingly common, passing on water contamination to the food supply. At the same time, while most water use comes from the agricultural industry in rural areas, poor households in the same areas find themselves increasingly disadvantaged when it comes to securing clean water. For these households, clean water has become progressively scarcer.

The main problem with China’s environmental control system has been one of enforcement. Water resource management involves many government institutions and insufficient coordination among them. What is more, local officials, who have been required to support local enterprises, have also had to uphold environmental laws. Because of the emphasis on generating GDP, the environment has been seriously neglected. Decentralization has led to taking into account the economic needs of the local area or province only. Decentralization of the coastal zone has also led to inattention to environmental needs. China’s coastline is extensive, divided into twelve units that are administered by separate bodies. Because of a lack of coordination and a beggar-thy-neighbor attitude, residents of these provinces have suffered as the environment has grown steadily worse.

Terrorism in China: Seeing the Threat Clearly

https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C53394FCDD0B99/#.U4TprijA34Y

RUSI Analysis, 28 Mar 2014 By Edward Schwarck, Research Fellow, Asia Studies 

Recent Western and Chinese media focus on terrorism in Xinjiang has diverted attention away from the greater threat that Beijing faces from its ethnic Uighur population: namely a repeat of the large-scale rioting that hit the regional capital of Urumqi in 2009. 

There is something innately attention-grabbing about the recent convergence between two of the most important global trends of this century – the spread of Islamic extremism and the rise of China. If we are to believe the account of the Chinese government, both trends collided in Kunming in early March, as a group of alleged Islamist Uighur militants stabbed a mass of innocent civilians in the city’s railway station, killing twenty-nine.

A video released on 19 March by the leader of the rebel Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), Abdullah Mansour, praised the Kunming attack and described it as an ‘expensive offer’ to China to reconsider its Xinjiang policy. While Mansour did not claim responsibility for the attack, his statement is sure to add to the ongoing debate between Western and Chinese commentators on whether China faces a genuine terrorist threat, and whether Uighur militants in China maintain links to overseas groups such as the TIP – which is thought to operate from northern Pakistan.

The attack in Kunming is worrying as it demonstrates a level of organisation and willingness by militant groups to perpetrate atrocities rarely seen outside Xinjiang. Beginning in November 2013 with a Uighur-led attack in Tiananmen Square, China appears to face an escalating threat that is no longer confined to its troubled far-west. Yet media focus on terrorism is obscuring a more important threat that the Chinese government faces: namely a recurrence of the deadly inter-ethnic violence that hit the regional capital of Urumqi in July 2009. The circumstances of that incident are worth bearing in mind, as they almost certainly preoccupy the thoughts of China’s leaders in Beijing.

Official statements on the Kunming incident have predictably focused on the need for swift retribution and punishment of the perpetrators. Yet interestingly, China’s leaders have also shown awareness of the divisive effect that this rhetoric has on ethnic relations. In a speech delivered in mid-March, Yu Zhengsheng, the official in charge of China’s Xinjiang policy, reportedly criticised certain local governments for harassing ordinary Uighurs during the nationwide crackdown that has followed the Kunming incident. According to Mr Yu, such behaviour is ‘contrary to policy, foolish and plays into the hands of terrorists’.

China Cracks Down on Instant Messaging Services for Spreading Anti-State Messages

May 28, 2014

China Cracks Down on Instant Messaging Services

Associated Press

BEIJING — China is targeting popular smartphone-based instant messaging services in a monthlong campaign to crack down on the spreading of rumors and what it calls infiltration of hostile forces, in the latest move restricting online freedom of expression.

Such services incorporate social media functions that allow users to post photos and updates to their friends, or follow the feeds of companies, social groups or celebrities, and — more worryingly for the government — intellectuals, journalists and activists who comment on politics, law and society. They also post news reports shunned by mainstream media.

Some accounts attract hundreds of thousands of followers.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the crackdown on people spreading rumors and information related to violence, terrorism and pornography started Tuesday and would target public accounts on services including WeChat, run by Tencent Holdings Ltd, which has surged in popularity in the last two years.

People can subscribe to feeds from public accounts without first exchanging greeting messages, as must be done with private ones, which typically link friends and acquaintances.

Tencent and other companies did not answer calls or immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

Earlier this year, the ruling Communist Party announced the creation of an Internet security group led by President Xi Jinping. Observers say authorities are wary of millions of Chinese with Internet access getting ideas that might threaten the Communist Party system.

Noting that such services had become popular online communication channels, Xinhua said: “Some people have used them to distribute illegal and harmful information, seriously undermining public interests and order in cyberspace.”

"We will firmly fight against infiltration from hostile forces at home and abroad," Xinhua quoted a statement from the Cabinet’s Internet Information Office as saying.

This is China’s first major campaign covering mobile phone messaging platforms, said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a Beijing-based internet and mobile research company.

The timing of the crackdown suggests it may be a response to discussions about recent deadly attacks in China’s western region of Xinjiang, the U.S. indictment of five Chinese military officers for cyberspying, or the continuing government campaign against corruption.

"Anytime we see a tenser environment on fronts like those, there tends to be a corresponding clampdown on various communications tools," he said.

The communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but operates an extensive monitoring system. Operators of social media are required to enforce censorship rules against material deemed subversive or obscene.

In March, WeChat removed at least 40 accounts with content about political, economic and legal issues.

Web-based microblogs, known in Chinese as “weibo,” once enjoyed explosive growth in China but have come under increasing pressure. A new legal interpretation allows the government to jail microbloggers who post false information that has been reposted 500 times or viewed 5,000 times.

Details Emerge on China’s Anti-Terror Crackdown

http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/details-emerge-on-chinas-anti-terror-crackdown/

Chinese media reports have new details on China’s plan for a year-long anti-terrorism crackdown. 

By Shannon Tiezzi

May 28, 2014

After a string of deadly terror attacks, Chinese media outlets are full of news regarding the next steps in the war on terror with Chinese characteristics.

The centerpiece is a Jinghua Times piece on the recently announced year-long crackdown on terrorism, an effort that will be centered in Xinjiang. According to China Digital Times, China’s censors have demanded that articles on this topic be “prominently displayed” on the homepages of online news sites. The article summarizes a recent videoconference held by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on the topic of China’s ongoing crackdown on terrorism. According to MPS, since the beginning of May, China has broken up 23 gangs involved with terrorism or religious extremism, and has detained 200 suspects. Xinhua, in a separate article, highlighted one particular “lightning strike” in Hotan, Xinjiang. That raid, according to Xinhua captured five suspects and 1.8 tons of explosives, which had been purchased in Urumqi.

The Ministry promised to build on these results, seeking to root out terrorist groups before they plan strikes and to deter them through increased armed patrols and an increased security presence at crowded public areas. The MSP specified four types of people that will be targeted in its crackdown: those who use the internet to disseminate terrorist videos or materials calling for holy war; key figures involved in terrorism and religious extremism; those who have been charged multiple times with lighter crimes relating to public security or violence; and those who join terrorist or religious extremist groups beginning this year.

Other Chinese media also covered different angles of China’s crackdown on terrorism. China Daily published a story on the special training Chinese police officers are receiving so that they can begin carrying guns on their patrols. The article pointed out that first responders to the Kunming stabbing attack were unarmed and so unable to subdue the attackers. Global Times carried an article focusing on some of the details of the anti-terrorism crackdown. The article notes that the crackdown “will focus on terrorists and religious extremist groups, gun and explosive manufacturing dens and terrorist training camps.” The possession or trading of weapons (including guns and explosive materials) is banned, and possessing or distributing terrorist or extremist propaganda is outlawed.

Full Text of Chinese Report on NSA Spying on China

May 27, 2014

For those of you who are curious what the Chinese know, or think they know, about NSA cyber spying on their country, the full text of today’s Xinhua report entitled “The United States’ Global Surveillance Record” can be read here.

FTC’s Data Broker Report

By Wells Bennett

May 27, 2014

The 110-page document was released today, and entitled “Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability.” If you care about Big Data, then you will want to read the report.

Time for Intense India-Japan-Vietnam Strategic Partnership

http://www.vifindia.org/article/2014/may/27/time-for-intense-india-japan-vietnam-strategic-partnership

Maj Gen (Retd.) P K Chakravorty

Introduction

The 24th ASEAN Summit was held for the first time in Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar. At the commencement of the summit on May 10, there were serious concerns raised by Vietnam on the recent drilling of an oil rig at the disputed Paracel Islands. ASEAN as a group deals primarily with political and economic issues. Despite the terms of reference, Vietnam brought out the issue and China responded by stating that it would be resolved bilaterally. The Vietnamese Prime Minister has stated that this affected Vietnamese sovereignty as the drilling was taking place 120 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast which as per the Law of Seas forms a part of the Exclusive Economic Zone of their country. The US State Department as per the Bangkok Post has called Beijing’s move to introduce an oil rig in the Paracel Islands as provocative. Further on 06 May, Philippines arrested 11 fishermen and seized a boat for poaching more than 500 endangered sea turtles at the disputed Half Moon South China Sea shoal. The Chinese call the shoal as Banuye Reef and claim it to be a part of the Nansha Islands. China has called for the release of the fishermen, but Philippines is currently proceeding legally with the case.

Analysis

Paracel Islands were occupied by Chinese from the erstwhile South Vietnamese in 1974. Ever since, China has been gradually spreading its influence over other islands in the South China Sea. It has built a small garrison town Sansha in the Woody Island of the Paracel Group. Sansha has an airport and a runway of 2700 metres which enable Chinese Air Force to operate in the area.

The China National Offshore Oil Company’s decision to move oil rig HD-981 was a pre meditated move which has hurt Vietnam and other claimants of islands in the South China Sea. The oil rig was escorted by about 80 ships of Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as also the Chinese Coast Guard and moved into its current location on 02 May 2014. The rig is going to remain in location for three months and drilling operations would continue during this period. The commencement of drilling was formally opposed by the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh who telephoned China’s State Councillor Yang Jiechi indicating violation of the Law of Seas. China listened to the Minister but continued the drilling process. Vietnam sent 35 ships out of which 29 were armed. On 04 May, Chinese ships rammed two Vietnamese Sea Guard vessels injuring seven Vietnamese. Chinese ships with air support were also used to intimidate six more Vietnamese ships. Further, water cannons were also used to threaten the Vietnamese. As of now not a single round has been fired.

Barack Obama Misfires at West Point

"Obama has made clear what he is against. But he has not explained what he is for."

Jacob Heilbrunn

May 29, 2014 

President Obama’s speech today at West Point could hardly contrast more starkly with George W. Bush’s at West Point on June 1, 2002. After 9/11 Bush announced that America needed to go on the offensive. Containment was passé, old school, ready to be put out to pasture. He was offering the headier brew of preemptive action. Bush announced, “Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations, means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.”

Bush’s claims were bogus and set the course for the Iraq War, a conflict that has inflicted severe damage upon American national security, both by the sheer human and financial cost of the war as well as by the inadvertent fomenting of terrorism across the Middle East. The upheaval in Syria, where jihadist groups are vying with each other for supremacy, is a direct result of the conflict in Iraq.

Now, over a decade later, Obama announced a very different stance, one that has incurred the ire of GOP Senators such as John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Lindsey Graham who jointly declared that Obama's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by 2016 is a "monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over strategy." Obama, by contrast, said in his commence speech at West Point: "A strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naïve and unsustainable." The blowtorch approach of the Bush administration is out. A more discriminating approach is in in. Wars of choice are not something Washington should promiscuously choose. One reason is that the U.S. does not need to adopt a siege mentality: claims that America is headed for the skids, he said, are bunk. The threats that the U.S. faces are manageable, not overwhelming:

The Russia-China Gas Deal: A $400 Billion Mirage?

The devil just might be in the details.

Nikos Tsafos

May 29, 2014 

No business agreement in recent times has generated as much excitement, and as much hyperbole, as the announced deal that Russia would supply China with 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually for a thirty-year period. The $400-billion deal has been called a victory for Russia, a victory for China and even evidence of a shift in either energy markets, or geopolitics or both. Sadly, the deal is none of these things.

First, let’s talk about the commercial elements of the deal. The reality is that China has always had the upper hand because East Siberian gas can only be developed with China as a customer. For years, pundits have said that China was not willing to pay “European” prices to Russia. This is hardly true: China is paying “European” prices to Central Asia, and it pays more than that to Qatar and other suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The difference is that China had to compete for those supplies; absent competition in East Siberia, China had the upper hand.

We do not know the full details of the deal yet, nor do we know whether all the issues have been resolved—after all, the two sides have long stressed progress while downplaying their outstanding points. Even so, the rumored value ($400 billion over thirty years) equates to a gas price of around $10 per million British thermal units. Given the costs announced so far, this project will yield a subpar return for Gazprom under today’s assumptions—maybe high single digits or low double digits. This will not be Gazprom’s most profitable endeavor.

It does, however, score it a major political point. Gazprom’s inability to close this deal has frustrated the Kremlin. Together with Gazprom’s marketing strategy in Europe, which many criticized, the company’s privileged position has come under attack. The most visible crack was the decision last year to allow other Russian companies to export LNG. Still, the Kremlin is keen to avoid competition that could lower gas prices overseas. Until last year, this meant Europe. With this pipeline, Gazprom’s writ is enlarged, as are the complications from a liberalized approach to gas exports.

America's Nuclear Nightmares: Russia, China, and Soon Iran?

"American allies fear the Obama Administration will similarly let Iran go nuclear due to a lack of certainty. Not once has the American intelligence community accurately predicted when hostile states have gone nuclear..."

Gabriel Scheinmann

May 29, 2014 

Fifty years ago, the CIA produced a Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) on China’s nuclear weapons program for President Lyndon Johnson. Overhead photography taken three weeks earlier revealed that a Chinese installation in Lop Nor was definitively a nuclear test site and would come online in two months. However, the CIA estimated, China would not have the necessary amount of fissionable material, which the United States assumed would come from a small plutonium reactor at Baotou, until mid-1965.

Seeking to make sense of the conflicting timelines, the CIA began to speculate: perhaps the Soviets had transferred additional fissionable material, perhaps the CIA was unaware of other enrichment sites, or, perhaps, as is often the case in large undertakings, progress among the different elements of China’s nuclear program had merely become uneven. In conclusion, the SNIE reads, the available facts “do not permit a very confident estimate of the chances of a Chinese Communist nuclear detonation in the next few months. Clearly the possibility of such a detonation before the end of the year cannot be ruled out—the test may occur during this period. On balance, however, we believe that it will not occur until sometime after the end of 1964.” Seven weeks later, China tested its first nuclear bomb on October 16, 1964, a highly enriched uranium implosion device.

Fifty year later, it is this assessment that could land on President Obama’s desk with regards to Iran’s nuclear program and it is this assessment that strikes fear in America’s Middle Eastern allies. Israelis and Arabs alike worry that by the time America is certain that Iran is within reach of possessing a nuclear weapon, Washington’s ability or willingness to stop it will be out of reach. Despite clear evidence of a Chinese test site in its final stages, the CIA did not believe Beijing had enough weapons-grade plutonium and, therefore, still assessed that any test was close to a year away. The SNIE, in the words of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had too many “known unknowns” in its nuclear picture and the Johnson Administration did what it thought was reasonable and responsible: nothing.

Russia and the “Color Revolution”

A Russian Military View of a World Destabilized by the US and the West 

By Anthony H. Cordesman

MAY 28, 2014 

Download PDF file of Russia and the “Color Revolution” Summary

Download PDF file of Russia and the “Color Revolution” Full Report

The British strategist, Liddell Hart, stressed the need understand the perspective behind rival views of grand strategy and military developments: “The other side of the hill.” A range of Russian and Belorussian military and civil experts presented a very different view of global security and the forces behind it at the Russian Ministry of Defense’s third Moscow Conference on International Security on May 23, 2014.

The first session of the Conference presented an overview of the security situation, focusing on what Russian experts called the “Color Revolution.” Russian analysts have used this term since the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia in 2012, in discussing the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and the Tulip Revolution that took place in Kyrgyzstan in 2005.

Russian military officers now tied the term “Color Revolution” to the crisis in the Ukraine and to what they saw as a new US and European approach to warfare that focuses on creating destabilizing revolutions in other states as a means of serving their security interests at low cost and with minimal casualties. It was seen as posing a potential threat to Russian in the near abroad, to China and Asia states not aligned with the US, and as a means of destabilizing states in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia.

The second session repeated these themes, focusing on the instability in the Middle East, and the final session addressed the war in Afghanistan and South Asia.

FATAL ATTRACTION? RUSSIA’S SOFT POWER IN ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD – ANALYSIS

MAY 29, 2014

By FRIDE

By Eleonora Tafuro

Much current analysis of Russian influence in its neighbourhood focuses on its use of ‘hard power’ tools. However, analysing Russia’s soft power efforts is no less important for understanding the full nature of Moscow’s power strategy in its neighbourhood. When Harvard scholar Joseph Nye developed the concept of ‘smart power’, he described it as the ability to combine the tools of hard and soft power, that is, to use both sticks and carrots (coercion and payment) and the power of attraction (making others want what you want).

To date, Russia appears to be more confident using hard power measures to pursue its neighbourhood interests, in particular trying to dissuade neighbours from a closer relationship with the European Union (EU). Ukraine is the most glaring example. First the Kremlin tried ‘carrots’ (such as large loans with few strings attached, gas price discounts etc.), then moved onto ‘sticks’ (trade embargoes, gas price hikes, and eventually the annexation of Crimea and further destabilisation of the East). Most of the other five countries in the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova – have also experienced Russian hard power in recent years. Plus, Russia has plenty of leverage to do so in many of the five Central Asian republics. For example, Russia is the main destination for their migrant workers, and according to the World Bank, remittances account for 48 per cent of Tajikistan’s GDP and 31 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s.

Even so, Russia is not neglecting the use of soft power. The Putin regime perceives Russia as an alternative geopolitical pole with an anti-liberal social outlook, a type of ‘Conservative International’ in opposition to the West. It offers its neighbours a path for regional integration through the Customs Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the envisaged Eurasian Union, in competition with that of the EU and NATO. Plus, Moscow funds cultural programmes based on the idea of a common identity, language and history in the post-Soviet space, and tries to spread its messages through well-resourced Kremlin-linked media outlets.

CULTURE, VALUES AND THE EURASIAN UNION

Russia has a number of advantages for implementing a soft power strategy in its neighbourhood: the presence of large Russian minorities; a shared history; cultural and linguistic proximity; a larger economy and energy resources. The Kremlin’s soft power tools include cultural and linguistic programmes, scholarships for foreign students, well-equipped media outlets, Christian Orthodoxy, and a visa-free regime with many neighbours that makes Russia’s labour market relatively accessible. The power of international attraction is based on political values, and the Kremlin tries to offer an alternative narrative to the West. This vision is not only based on multi-polarity, but also as a defender of conservative (anti-liberal) values – a world view that appeals to many in the neighbours.

During his presidential address to the Russian Federal Assembly in December 2013, Putin outlined his conservative vision, presenting the EU and the West more generally as decadent places where traditions and values are ‘eroding’, accepting ‘without question the equality of good and evil’.

Barack Obama Misfires at West Point

"Obama has made clear what he is against. But he has not explained what he is for."

Jacob Heilbrunn

May 29, 2014 

President Obama’s speech today at West Point could hardly contrast more starkly with George W. Bush’s at West Point on June 1, 2002. After 9/11 Bush announced that America needed to go on the offensive. Containment was passé, old school, ready to be put out to pasture. He was offering the headier brew of preemptive action. Bush announced, “Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations, means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.”

Bush’s claims were bogus and set the course for the Iraq War, a conflict that has inflicted severe damage upon American national security, both by the sheer human and financial cost of the war as well as by the inadvertent fomenting of terrorism across the Middle East. The upheaval in Syria, where jihadist groups are vying with each other for supremacy, is a direct result of the conflict in Iraq.

Now, over a decade later, Obama announced a very different stance, one that has incurred the ire of GOP Senators such as John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Lindsey Graham who jointly declared that Obama's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by 2016 is a "monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over strategy." Obama, by contrast, said in his commence speech at West Point: "A strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naïve and unsustainable." The blowtorch approach of the Bush administration is out. A more discriminating approach is in in. Wars of choice are not something Washington should promiscuously choose. One reason is that the U.S. does not need to adopt a siege mentality: claims that America is headed for the skids, he said, are bunk. The threats that the U.S. faces are manageable, not overwhelming:

America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise – who suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away – are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics. Think about it. Our military has no peer. The odds of a direct threat against us by any nation are low, and do not come close to the dangers we faced during the Cold War.

But what to do with all that power? A summit meeting with Russian president to settle differences over Ukraine? A Camp David meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas? Or should America simply husband its might?

Obama’s Nixon Doctrine

President Obama’s speech in West Point reaffirmed his commitment to adopting the Guam Doctrine. 

By Zachary Keck

May 29, 2014

As my colleague Shannon has noted, President Barack Obama gave a commencement address at West Point today as part of the White House’s “we still care about national security” week. Shannon analyzed the speech from an Asia-Pacific standpoint, or lack thereof.

I was struck primarily by two aspects of the speech. The first was the lack of novelty in it. The White House had been marketing the speech as an effort to better explain President Obama’s broader vision of U.S. foreign policy, which many pundits have rightly criticized this administration for lacking. As Politico reported earlier this week: “President Barack Obama will use his speech at the West Point commencement Wednesday to lay out a broad vision of American foreign policy.”

In one sense, the speech succeeded in articulating a vision for foreign policy and, in particular, national security. However, if the speech was meant to better explain the Obama doctrine, it almost certainly failed. Nothing in this speech differed substantially from countless foreign policy-oriented speeches Obama gave earlier in his presidency. For example, his rationale for when America will use force—unilaterally when the U.S. is directly threatened, and multilaterally when indirectly threatened—was taken from the speech he gave justifying the intervention in Libya in 2011. If critics did not understand what Obama’s vision for foreign policy was before the speech, it’s hard to see how they would better comprehend it from this speech.

The second part of the speech I was struck by was how much Obama continues to be committed to implementing a Nixon Doctrine, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism and other types of instability in places like the Middle East in Africa. The Guam or Nixon Doctrine, of course, was based on the notion that while the U.S. would meet its treaty obligations, in general it would expect states facing aggression to take the lead in defending themselves. This more or less amounted to an expectation that the local nation would provide the bulk of the ground forces to fight the aggression, with the U.S. aiding them through arms sales, training and advising.

New Details About NSA’s Biggest Cable Tapping Operation: DANCINGOASIS

May 27, 2014

NSA’s largest cable tapping program: DANCINGOASIS

Peter Koop

electrospaces.blogspot.com

On May 13, Glenn Greenwald published his book ‘No Place To Hide' about the Snowden-disclosures. It doesn't contain substantial new revelations, but from one of the original documents in it we can determine that NSA's largest cable tapping program is codenamed DANCINGOASIS, something which was not reported on earlier.

Here we will combine information from a number of other documents and sources to create a somewhat more complete picture of the DANCINGOASIS program.

Special Source Operations

In Greenwald’s book and on his website, the following chart from NSA’s BOUNDLESSINFORMANT tool was published. Although these charts are not always easy to interpret, we can rather safely assume that this one gives the overview for NSA’s Special Source Operations (SSO) division, which is responsible for collecting data from major telephony and internet cables and switches.

During the one month period between December 10, 2012 and January 8, 2013, a total of more than 160 billion metadata records were counted, divided into 93 billion DNI (internet) data and 67 billion DNR (telephony) data:

In the “Most Volume” section we see that the program which collects most data is identified by the SIGINT Activity Designator (SIGAD) US-3171, a facility that is also known under the codename DANCINGOASIS, which is sometimes abbreviated as DGO.

During the one month period covered by the chart, this program collected 57.7 billion data records, which is more than twice as much as the program that is second: US-3180, which is codenamed SPINNERET. Third is US-3145 or MOONLIGHTPATH and fourth DS-300 or INCENSER. This chart will be analysed in general in a separate article.

Tipping the Scales: How to Combat Cyberthreats to the U.S. Defense Industrial Base

May 09, 2014 georgeu3 GSSR Forum, Military & Defense

By Jason Rivera

The United States desperately needs a strategy to deter intellectual property thieves from exploiting the U.S. defense industrial base – and it needs it sooner rather than later.

A recent illustration of the threat is the cyber espionage attempts against the U.S. F-35 development project. From 2006 onward, the U.S. military has heavily invested in the capabilities of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program.[1] The F-35 represents the future of joint U.S. air operations and is slated to be a primary instrument of U.S. air power for years to come. The alleged series of Chinese computer network operations that compromised the F-35 program have cost the U.S. government an estimated $285 billion.[2] Not only do these intrusions make U.S. systems more vulnerable to the development of military countermeasures, but they also enable duplication, shifting the strategic balance of power toward U.S. competitors.

Companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and others are part of America’s defense industrial base, a critical component of the U.S. economy responsible for the development of weapons, the provision of critical intelligence assets, and the logistical support of U.S. military operations around the world.[3] The defense industrial base is under constant threat from computer network exploitation, or “cyber-espionage,” a practice that in 2012 cost U.S. corporations $338 billion as a result of down time, intellectual property theft, and cumbersome cybersecurity measures.[4]

In order to meet this challenge, the Department of Defense (DoD) must work with the nation’s largest and most critical corporations to facilitate an active cyber defense framework designed to proactively engage non-physical threats within the virtual domain and change the cost-benefit calculation of the potential cyber intruder.

U.S. government entities must work with the private sector to create deterrent mechanisms. There are four key factors in the cybercriminal’s decision making apparatus: level of expected effort, value of cybercrime, risk of cybercrime, and net reward. The level of expected effort includes the initial capital investment for computing tools and intrusion applications and the continuous level of operational investment. The overall value of committing a cybercrime is most easily understood in terms of composite financial gain. A cybercriminal’s risk calculus, on the other hand, is a function of three factors: effectiveness of preventative measures, quality of detection capabilities, and the harshness of judicial policies for prosecuting cybercrime.[5] The level of net reward equals the level of expected value minus the levels of risk and expected effort. Over the last decade, the expected returns from intellectual property theft, direct financial theft, online banking vulnerabilities, and network-based market manipulations have increased substantially because of the world’s increased reliance on the Internet.[6]

Figure 1 graphically illustrates the cybercrime decision making apparatus.

For the defense industrial base, the most important computer network resource is intellectual property related to defense technology. Given the critical national security value of these corporate secrets, the U.S. government must do more to create public-private partnerships that will help to increase the security of the networks at critical defense corporations.

Great Pics of Swedish SIGINT Sites on Gotland Island

May 28, 2014

If you think NSA is secretive, the Boys at Fort Meade have nothing on the much more secretive the Swedish SIGINT agency, the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA). But the Swedes are beginning to loosen up a little bit.

This website has some great picture of two of FRA’s SIGINT collection stations on the island of Gotland at Folhammar and Faludden. These two sites, which have been around for more than 60 years, spy on Russian military targets in the Baltic Sea area 24/7.

National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) on Gotland 

Nato drill underlines growing cyber-security concerns

http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2014/may/nato-cyber-drill.cfm

28 May 2014

By Tereza Pultarova

Nato is investing heavily into its cyber-defence capabilities

Nato has run the largest international cyber manoeuvre in the history, underlining the growing importance of cyber warfare in modern-day security.

With more than 300 participants and teams from 17 nations, the exercise, named Locked Shields, took place in late March but has only been revealed this week.

In a fake cyber-attack scenario, teams from Estonia, Finland, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, Turkey, Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Austria and Lithuania together with Nato’s international cyber-response unit had to ward off unknown attackers defacing websites and spreading infected emails.

The participants, simulated cyber-defenders of a fictional nation called Berylia, were facing a 50-strong team of computer experts simulating a heavy and sophisticated cyber-attack. 

As the situation worsened, the teams had to abandon some networks - including a major public facing website - to protect the networks that kept vital data and industrial systems running in the research centre they were defending.

"It was very challenging," said Ragnar Rattas, who runs the critical infrastructure protection team at the Estonian Information System Authority. "They were very sophisticated attacks. There were times when you just wanted to close the computer and walk away."

The goal was for the defenders to uncover the identity of the attackers – in this case, the attack was launched by a rival fictional country Crimsonia.

The game was a part of a wider initiative of Nato to test and boost its cyber-defence capabilities.

In the last years, the number of cyber-attacks launched by various criminal groups or sponsored by states has risen exponentially. Private companies and their intellectual property are a frequent target as well as critical infrastructure, political opponents or defence capabilities of rival states.

DARPA’s Four Big Things

http://science.dodlive.mil/2014/05/28/darpas-four-big-things/

Posted on May 28, 2014 by jtozer

When it comes to cyber security, the Defense Department has their work cut out for them. Hackers, adversaries, network security breaches, information obfuscation and confiscation – these are just a few of the constant threats to our military and government networks. In defense against these dangers, DARPA is doing their part to ensure network protection and information security.

And they’re using FOUR BIG THINGS to do it.

(DoD graphic illustration by Jessica L. Tozer/Released)

These four revolutionary programs will teach computers to think and learn. They will stop hackers in their digital tracks. They’re going to make the future more exciting, and more innovative, than ever before.

“I really think there are two wars that are happening,” says Dan Kaufman, DARPA’s Information Innovation Office director. “The one war, which we’re sort of familiar with [is] the kinetic war. On the network warfare, I think it’s sort of a new war. It’s this crossover between criminal organizations and terrorists organizations.”

So let’s talk cyber warfare.

When you hear about cyber stuff, most people tend to think about their PC, or their home computer system. That’s obviously important, but it’s not even the half of it. In fact, about 98% of microprocessors are embedded, Dan says.

“Think about it: everything in the world today has a computer. Your phone, your TV, your insulin pumps, all our weapons systems. These are all computerized and DARPA sees huge promise in it. We get these wonderful benefits from network technology.”

But how are they going to protect these systems? So glad you asked…

The FIRST BIG THING is called HACMS (pronounced like “Hack ’ems”). It stands for High-assurance Cyber Military Systems.

“Think about computers,” Dan says. “A computer is the only thing that we buy today where the day you buy it, it’s fundamentally broken.”

What he means by that is this:

When you buy your computer, one of the first things they tell you is to “go home and patch it.”

“Well okay,” you might say, “but didn’t I just pay you three-thousand dollars?”

So you patch it, and you say, “Now it’s fixed.”

And they say “No, next Tuesday there will be more patches.”

You say, “Will it ever be fixed?”

They say “No.”

That’s a little bit crazy, don’t you think? DARPA does, too.

“If you think about this even broader,” Dan continues, “how are we going to apply that type of a security model to anything? The 7th fleet. 10th mountain. You know, ‘Can you all come home for Patch Tuesday’? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

To this, DARPA has an idea. What if they could actually make a computer that’s safe from the get-go? Designed with security in mind. One that hackers would actually notbe able to get into? Novel idea, sure, but not possible, right?

Navies of the World: The Royal Navy in the Pacific

James Holmes

http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/navies-of-the-world-the-royal-navy-in-the-pacific/

The Naval Diplomat begins his series on middle power navies in the Indo-Pacific with the United Kingdom

By James R. Holmes

May 28, 2014

RESOLVED: that this column shall undertake an occasional series on Asia-Pacific Indo-Pacific Indo-Asia-Pacific sea powers not named China, Japan, or the United States. Starting forthwith.

And why not start with the Royal Navy? The 2013-2014 academic year is drawing to a close, and by happenstance it’s been my year of the British Empire. I served on a panel with the current First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir George Zambellas, last fall in Australia, and on another alongside his predecessor, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, last week in Singapore. Throw in a quick Canadian trip, and that’s a decent grand tour of the erstwhile imperium on which the sun never set.

But, you protest, isn’t today’s Royal Navy the merest shadow of the hegemon that once ruled the waves? Didn’t London throw in the towel on the Indian and Pacific oceans decades ago, withdrawing from east of Suez when it could no longer afford a fleet big enough to concentrate meaningful power along the Eurasian rimlands? Isn’t it starving the surface fleet of shipbuilding funds to bankroll nuclear submarines and a couple of flattops? Hasn’t the gulf separating ends from means — and mismatched priorities within those means — reduced the Royal Navy to a boutique navy composed of a handful of sexy platforms and not much else — a force with little punch outside Europe? All true, arguably. Britain looks like a post-Mahanian sea power.

And yet. Just last week the U.K. government published a National Strategy for Maritime Security worthy of a nation with Great Britain’s seafaring past. Give it a read. Then let’s probe the document to see how a middle power like the United Kingdom means to wring maximum value from sparse assets and manpower. For fun, we might also juxtapose it against the U.S. Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. Maybe our Global Force for Good can learn a thing or two about how to make and execute strategy on a shoestring.

Now, in case you haven’t noticed, the Naval Diplomat is a patriot, glad that Washington, Greene & the Boys gave those Redcoats a good thrashing awhile back. (For a scrupulously accurate retelling, look here. But one passage in particular from the National Strategy for Maritime Security should warm the heart of any ‘Mercan sailor. Our European friends are forever clamoring to know how they can support the U.S. pivot to Asia. David Cameron’s government supplies a welcome answer: by “developing the maritime governance capacity and capabilities of allies and partners in areas of political, military, or economic importance, including South-East Asia, the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Guinea.” And, potentially, by taking more direct measures to safeguard shipping passing through those waterways.

FYSA: For Your Situational Awareness l Issue 7

The ISP Newsletter l May 2014 

By Sharon Squassoni, Zack Cooper, Becca S. Smith, Rob Wise 

MAY 22, 2014 

This month's edition of the International Security Program's electronic publication includes:

Nuclear Security: The Road to 2016

By Sharon Squassoni

Responding to Chinese Assertiveness

By Zack Cooper

Maintaining U.S. Presence in Afghanistan without a Bilateral Security Agreement

By Becca Smith

Biometrics: A Useful Tool for Homeland Security?

By Rob Wise

Links of Interest

You can also find links to select upcoming and recent events, publications, media quotes, congressional testimony, and multimedia produced by our scholars and staff. 

Download PDF file of "For Your Situational Awareness, May 2014"

Violence, Non-Violence and Gandhi

Violence, Non-Violence and Gandhi -

 M N Majumdar

http://www.frontierweekly.com/archive/vol-number/vol/vol-44-2011-12/vol-44-9/violence-44-9.pdf

This Graphic Shows Everything You Need To Know About Modern Warfare

ARMIN ROSEN

MAY 29, 2014

The Air University

This graphic, which David J Kilcullin, then the Chief Strategist for the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, included in a2006 presentation at the U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Conference, isn't one of the all-time great visual depictions of war. Francisco Goya has little to worry about here.

But his rendering of "the conflict ecosystem" perfectly captures the complexities of contemporary conflict - where the combatants are far from the only factors contributing to the outcome.

Made at a time when American politicians and policymakers were contemplating a major shift in strategy in Iraq, this graphic reflects the changing nature of conflict, as well as official attitudes towards war. According to the infographic, war isn't fought on a battlefield, but within an ecosystem that encapsulates everyone from the enemy to traditional leaders to local and international media.

For Kilcullin, this chart emphasizes that a conventional army is just one component of this environment, a fact that he believes should inspire humility in military strategists and policymakers. He writes,

It is critically important to realize that we, the intervening counter insurgent, are not outside this ecosystem, looking in at a Petrie dish of unsavory microbes. Rather, we are inside the system. The theater of operations is not a supine, inert medium on which we practise our operational art. Rather it is a dynamic, living system that changes in response to our actions and requires continuous balancing between competing requirements.

This changing view of warfare was reflected in the Army's landmark 2006update to its Counterinsurgency Handbook, and would be put into practice over the next 8 years of American combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.