A Tale of Two Chinas

By Zachary Keck

September 17, 2014

A new survey underscores the relative deprivation of China’s rural population. 

A new survey released this week emphasizes that the biggest divide between Chinese citizens continues to be among rural and urban residents.

This week Gallup and Healthways released their annual Global Well-Being Index, “a global barometer of individuals’ perceptions of their well-being.” The survey explores the notion of well-being from a holistic perspective. Besides financial and physical well-being, the index also measures factors like social well-being (“having supportive relationships and love in your life”), community well-being (“liking where you live, feeling safe, and having pride in your community”), and purpose well-being (“liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals”).

Overall, China ranks poorly on many of these indicators. Just 9 percent of Chinese are thriving in purpose compared to 13 percent in the Asia-Pacific and 18 percent worldwide. Similarly, with regard to community well-being, just 16 percent of Chinese citizens are thriving compared to 25 percent in the region and 26 percent globally. China is also slightly below the regional and far below the global average on social well-being, and the 25 percent of Chinese who are thriving financially is the same as the regional and global averages. Only on physical well-being is China above average both regionally and globally.

However, a closer look at the data reveal that there is a clear divide among rural and urban Chinese on most metrics of well-being. For example, rural Chinese are nearly twice as likely to be suffering financially as urban Chinese (29 percent and 16 percent respectively). In other words, urban Chinese are slightly more likely to be thriving financially than the regional and global average, but rural Chinese are nearly 40 percent less likely to be thriving financially than Asians and the world writ large.

The Long Game in Eastern Europe

By Robert Kaplan

September 17, 2014

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Two weeks ago commentators were hyperventilating about a return to the 1930s in Europe, following a Russian invasion-of-sorts into eastern Ukraine. Then President Barack Obama announced that the United States was on a war footing against the Islamic State. Ukraine - and the Russian threat to Europe, for that matter - was promptly if temporarily sidelined. So much for the half-life of stories in an incoherent media age.

Because of that very incoherence, the latest media obsession, if it lasts, will be good news for Russia and China. A renewed American involvement with the Middle East can only ease China's path to dominance in the Western Pacific and Russia's path to increasing influence in Central and Eastern Europe. The decade following 9/11 is instructive in this regard. While the United States was preoccupied with Afghanistan and Iraq, Chinese naval forces emerged as a major geopolitical factor in East Asia, threatening American allies from Japan to the Philippines: 9/11 was literally a godsend to Chinese military planners. Will the videos of the beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker be of continued benefit to the Chinese, and a godsend now to the Russians?

That depends upon how much discipline the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon can muster. Power is partially defined by the amount of attention the executive branch can devote to a given problem, and if the executive branch is permanently distracted by one problem to the detriment of other important ones, that constitutes a diminution of American power. For the reality of geopolitics in the early 21st century is simultaneity: many different conflicts occurring in various theaters that all, to greater and lesser extents, have to be dealt with. And Russian aggression in Europe as well as China's military rise in Asia may be in the long run of comparable importance to the Islamic State in the Middle East.

So back to the so-called 1930s in Europe, as the current decade was characterized two weeks ago. Actually, the assertion contains a measure of truth. Russian President Vladimir Putin may not be comparable to Adolf Hitler, but he will, nevertheless, keep pushing westwards until he is stopped. Putin's goal, as has been said, is not the recreation of the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact, because it was both too time consuming and too expensive for Moscow to maintain, did not work. No, Putin desires instead a more traditional and softer zone of influence in Europe, given that Russia over the course of the centuries has been invaded from the west not only by the French and Germans, but also by the Swedes, Lithuanians and Poles.

For years already, Stratfor has written and argued that the Russians, taking advantage of Europe's fiscal woes, were attempting to buy banks and electricity grids, oil refineries, and natural gas transportation networks, in addition to other infrastructure, even as they extended their energy pipeline network throughout the former satellite states. Meanwhile, a financially weakened Europe has had less political capital to draw countries like Moldova, Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine closer into its fold, in exchange for social and economic reforms. This is how Russian influence had been gaining ground in Central and Eastern Europe prior to the 2014 Ukrainian crisis, which was when the Western media finally started paying attention.

Alternative History - NATO Never Expands

http://www.nucleardiner.com/archive/item/nato-never-expands

A number of foreign policy realists (Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, Henry Kissinger) have accused NATO of provoking Russia’s attack on Ukraine by expanding into former Soviet satellites and republics. It’s fair enough to ask what might have happened had NATO not expanded.

A realist dictum is that power vacuums will be filled. Had NATO not expanded, there would have been a power vacuum along the swath of countries from the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea. In the real world, NATO filled that vacuum, as those countries recovered from Soviet domination. Here’s a possible scenario, the alternative parts italicized.

In 1989, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev removed Russia from the governance of what were called the Soviet satellites: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and East Germany. By November of that year, the Berlin Wall dividing West Berlin from East Berlin had fallen.

Germans on both sides of the wall had wanted reunification, but the rest of Europe and the USSR were wary of a reunified Germany, with good reason. West Germany joined NATO in 1955. East Germany had been part of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union’s buffer against Europe, its sphere of influence made explicit.

NATO and the United States were very aware of the damage the Treaty of Versailles had done to Germany and motivated it toward another war, so they tried not to humiliate the Soviet Union as Germany reunified in 1990. Conferences were held with Russia and others on the question of NATO participation in a reunified Germany. Germany’s status in NATO would be inactive, a vague description to be reviewed in five years. NATO’s membership would be frozen at its 1990 status: the US, UK, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and Spain.

After the loss of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet republics began to pull away. The Baltic states, which had been independent between the World Wars, had mounted their Baltic Way demonstration in 1989. They continued legislative steps toward independence, asserting the sovereignty of their laws on their territory, legalizing their pre-WWII flags, and reorganizing their supreme soviets as parliaments.

When the Soviet military attempted a coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, several republics took the opportunity to declare independence. The Union was declared dissolved into fifteen new nations on December 25, 1991: The Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Great Game South Asia - dangerous portends

ByLt Gen Prakash Katoch

17 Sep , 2014

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/great-game-south-asia-dangerous-portends/0/

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the US this month. It is but natural that in his two-day summit with President Obama many issues will be discussed, like: taking the Indo-US strategic partnership to the next level; US investment in India; joint ventures in defence; developments and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific; the cancer of ISIS; Afghanistan, Pakistan, China; situation in Iraq and Syria; the economic and energy scene; Al Qaeda refocusing to South Asia; Xinjiang; Tibet and many more. Issues that will however remain ambiguous or may not evoke response from Obama if asked, will likely be: why the American administration continues to chaperon the Pakistani military despite bulk of US-NATO casualties in Afghanistan through Pakistani proxies; what are the long-term plans of the US with respect to Pakistan, and; what are western plans to thwart the rapidly increasing Chinese influence, particularly in South Asia and the IOR.

Terrorism continues as state policy with sham democracy and military’s total hold on Pakistan. Periodic statements that democracy is getting stronger in Pakistan are misnomer…

Radicalism in Pakistan, as per their own media has been institutionalized not only through some 32,000 madrassas and seminaries but also in schools in urban areas. Nasir Abbas Mirza in his article ‘A Monstrous Experiment’ wrote in the Daily Times of Pakistan on 11 May, 2009, “There are thousands of madrasas spread all over Pakistan’s urban centres that are producing millions of neo-drones ……Take a little boy and incarcerate him in a remote madrasa. Indoctrinate him with a distorted version of a religion and tell him that he does not belong to this world. Teach him about the fanciful world that awaits him in the heaven, and that in order to attain that he has to destroy everything that stands in his way, including his own body …… At full steam ahead in Pakistan, this is a monstrous experiment in brainwashing and it is on a par with, if not worse than, Nazi Germany’s eugenics. They did it in the name of science; here, it is being done in the name of God and religion. On a very large scale, this is a hugely successful experiment in which nurture triumphs and nature takes a beating.”

Terrorism continues as state policy with sham democracy and military’s total hold on Pakistan. Periodic statements that democracy is getting stronger in Pakistan are misnomer, as democracy is captive by the military. Stephen P Cohen wrote in his book ‘The Future of Pakistan’ published in 2012, “Pakistan is stuck between being an outright military dictatorship and a stable democracy. Neither are likely, and an even less likely future would be a radical transformation and the rise of Islamists or a breakaway movement led by the Baloch or other separatist groups. … the negative aspects of Islamist globalisation have hit Pakistan hard. Some of the weirdest ideas in the Islamic world have found rich soil in Pakistan, and the country is regarded as an epicentre of terrorism. Pakistan, which was once held up as the most moderate of the Islamic states, seems to be embracing extremists and their dysfunctional violent ideas”.

Military & strategy links: BrahMos, NATO counterfactuals, cracks in the BRICs, and more

16 September 2014 4:30PM

Judy Dempsey argues that the West continues to be outmaneuvered by Russia's aggressive push for influence in Eastern Europe. 

Some commentators see NATO's eastward expansion as having provoked Russia's bellicose policies towards its neighbours. But what's the counterfactual? 

An interesting data point on the tensions between emerging powers: to China's likely chagrin, Russia and India are in an 'advanced stage' of talks to export the BrahMos hypersonic cruise missile to Vietnam. 

Is the only thing that can kill ISIS... ISIS itself? 

Nick Prime critically analyses the claim by HR McMaster that US strategic discussions are dominated by a cluster of myths regarding the future of warfare. 

The CIA has revealed six of its oldest classified documents, throwing light on espionage tradecraft from 1914. 

Amid all the furore surrounding Scottish independence, here's a geopolitical question that cuts close to Australia's interests: could Scotland seek a territorial claim in Antarctica?

Finally, War Is Boring reviews Iran's hyper-nationalist Top Gun knock-off.

Russian Security Trying to Prevent Media Coverage of Deaths of Russian Soldiers in the Ukraine

Ukraine crisis: Forgotten death of Russian soldier

Steven Rosenberg

BBC News, September 18, 2014

Konstantin Kuzmin died aged 29 after joining Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine

A thousand miles from Moscow, on a wooden bench in the yard of her parents’ house, Oksana shares memories of her brother Konstantin.

She shows me the medal he’d been awarded for military service in the North Caucasus; some of his army photos, too, including a portrait on a military pendant.

"This is the image we’re going to use on his gravestone," Oksana explains.

Three weeks before Konstantin Kuzmin was killed, he was sitting in this yard enjoying a summer holiday.

"He got a telephone call. He said it was from the commander of his army unit, who told him there was going to be an inspection and that everyone had to be back on base," Oksana recalls.

"He left on 23 July. Three days later my brother called to say he was on the move again. It sounded as if he was frightened of something. ‘I’m off to the south west! South-west Ukraine!’ he said. I thought, perhaps, he meant the border area … " she added.

"On 8 August we spoke again on the phone. But he was in a rush. He said to our parents ‘Mama, Papa, I love you. Hi to everyone! Kiss my daughter for me…’ Then, when he went to the border, or wherever it was he went, he told us not to call him. He would call us."

Oksana says she last saw her brother Konstantin in late July

Konstantin was a “kontraktnik”, a professional soldier.

In denial

Where and how he was killed remains a mystery.

Oksana continued: “On 17 August the military commissar came to my parents and told them my brother had been killed.”

"He said a shell fired from Ukrainian territory had landed on Konstantin’s vehicle. That’s all we knew, until the coffin arrived. The official said my brother had been killed in military exercises on the border with Ukraine," she said.

The U.S. Can’t Destroy ISIS, Only ISIS Can Destroy ISIS – The Unfortunate Merits of the “Let Them Rot” Strategy

by Clint Watts

Source Link

During the early 1990s the Algerian government fought one of the nastiest civil wars in recent history against a broad-based Islamist insurgency. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) conducted a brutal insurgent campaign employing vicious terrorist tactics on par with today’s modern menace the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known by the acronyms ISIS, ISIL or IS for Islamic State – you pick the one you like). GIA attacks were often indiscriminate and violent; involving large civilian massacres – quite ISIS like. While I always reserve extreme caution in endorsing any counterinsurgency or counterterrorism tactic utilized by the Algerian government, there may be one instructive lesson from Algeria’s strategy that we in the West and particularly the U.S. might examine for designing a plan to counter ISIS.

The Algerian government, having already tried extreme brutality and overwhelming force, recognized the need to employ smarter tactics. Rather than tracking every GIA member to ground and in so doing causing harm to locals and further bolstering GIA’s popular support, the Algerians selectively employed what Luis Martinez, author of The Algerian Civil War 1990-1998, describes as the “Let Them Rot” strategy. The Algerian government, Martinez explains,“sought to avoid human losses for non-strategic zones, but also to lessen the demoralizing effects of the ‘dirty job’ on the troops.” (See pg. 150.) Algerian security services isolated districts with Islamist sympathies leaving the GIA emirs to govern via Islamist law and principles.

Contained by the Algerian security services, GIA emirs employed their extreme practices and quickly alienated the local populace as the district, walled off from the rest of society, crumbled economically. Over time, the districts and the GIA emirs that ruled them, slowly "rotted" creating conditions favorable for the development of local militias to combat the GIA. Local businessmen and disillusioned Islamists were re-engaged over time by the Algerian government who offered employment through security positions and opportunities through economic development plans. In the end, the Algerian government didn’t destroy the GIA in these selected districts, they instead let the GIA defeat itself. 

How to make Isis fall on its own sword

Chelsea E Manning in Fort Leavenworth 

16 September 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/chelsea-manning-isis-strategy

Degrade and destroy? The west should try to disrupt the canny militants into self-destruction, because bombs will only backfire 

If properly contained, Isis will not be able to sustain itself on rapid growth alone, and will begin to fracture internally. Photograph: via AP

The Islamic State (Isis) is without question a very brutal extremist group with origins in the insurgency of the United States occupation of Iraq. It has rapidly ascended to global attention by taking control of swaths of territory in western and northern Iraq, including Mosul and other major cities.

Based on my experience as an all-source analyst in Iraq during the organization’s relative infancy, Isis cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets – even as the fight is taken to Syria, even if it is conducted by non-Western forces with air support.

I believe that Isis is fueled precisely by the operational and tactical successes of European and American military force that would be – and have been – used to defeat them. I believe that Isis strategically feeds off the mistakes and vulnerabilities of the very democratic western states they decry. The Islamic State’s center of gravity is, in many ways, the United States, the United Kingdom and those aligned with them in the region.

When it comes to regional insurgency with global implications, Isis leaders are canny strategists. It’s clear to me that they have a solid and complete understanding of the strengths and, more importantly, the weaknesses of the west. They know how we tick in America and Europe – and they know what pushes us toward intervention and overreach. This understanding is particularly clear considering the Islamic State’s astonishing success in recruiting numbers of Americans, Britons, Belgians, Danes and other Europeans in their call to arms.

Attacking Isis directly, by air strikes or special operations forces, is a very tempting option available to policymakers, with immediate (but not always good) results. Unfortunately, when the west fights fire with fire, we feed into a cycle of outrage, recruitment, organizing and even more fighting that goes back decades. This is exactly what happened in Iraq during the height of a civil war in 2006 and 2007, and it can only be expected to occur again.

Stop the ISIS War Before It Gets Worse!

 BYJeffrey SachsMichael Shank

09.17.14 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/17/stop-the-isis-war-before-it-gets-worse.html

Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs and the Quakers’ Michael Shank call on Obama to stop the airstrikes—and stop supporting anti-Assad rebels. 

Too many times in recent history the United States has responded militarily to provocations and threats in ways that have resulted in spiraling war and violence at great long-term cost to the American people. We believe that the latest escalation of U.S. attacks on ISIL (also known as Islamic State or ISIS) threatens such an open-ended, costly and ultimately unsuccessful path. We do not doubt the dangers of ISIL in the region, but we believe that U.S.-led bombing is most likely to create further instability, spiraling violence, and new recruits for radical military groups. 

The right strategy, we believe, is for regional powers including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and others to lead the response to ISIL under the umbrella of the U.N. Security Council. In this way, the U.S. would avoid the trap of being viewed, once again, as the leader of an anti-Islamic crusade. Anti-American hate, and hence the vulnerability of U.S. individuals and property to terrorist attacks, is already running very high. A U.S. escalation of bombing in Iraq and Syria would send it soaring. 

We note that ISIL is vastly outnumbered by the regional powers. ISIL’s advances reflect political disarray, the Syrian civil war, and pockets of local support in Sunni regions. They do not reflect any intrinsic or insurmountable military advantage. 

The spiral of war risks the spark that ignites World War III. 

The problems are much deeper than military. They are fundamentally social, political, and economic. Moreover, the spiraling wars in the region, including the recent U.S. bombing, take us farther from real solutions, not closer. We believe that the U.S. backing for the anti-Assad insurgency in Syria has greatly and unnecessarily contributed to the current disarray, weakening the Assad regime and thereby opening up the space for ISIL to insert itself on the ground. We strongly urge the U.S. to stop its efforts to overthrow the Assad regime and rather to seek a political solution in the U.N. Security Council context that does not count on Assad’s removal as a precondition (hence bringing Russia and China on board in a cooperative UNSC mandate). 

Going forward, we call on Congress and the Obama administration to halt the U.S. bombing and instead to call on the Middle East regional powers, under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, to forge the necessary regional cooperation to halt ISIL and to return the region to long-term peace. In the meantime, the U.S. should refrain from further actions to support the armed insurgency to overthrow the Syrian government and refrain from undertaking operations outside of U.N. Security Council approval. The spiral of war risks the spark that ignites World War III, which is why the Security Council should take urgent steps to starve the conflict zones of any further arms inflows. 

As the Middle East addresses and leads the solutions to its own problems, with its own political leadership and with international support in the context of the U.N. Charter, the U.S. should stand ready to promote humanitarian actions for peace, public health, expanded education, safe water, and other vital actions for sustainable development in the Middle East. Such interventions, though often of little interest in Washington, are far less expensive than military approaches, and far more reliable and durable in promoting U.S. interests.

Obama needs Iraqi Kurds to fight Islamic State. But they have their own troubles.

By Greg Jaffe 

September 17 

Source Link

Financial woes roil a part of Iraq accustomed to stability

Oil-rich Kurdistan region is shaken by Islamic State threat and an economic crisis fueled by budget disputes and corruption.

Hemin Dizayee, a Kurd from Gainesville, Va., modeled his new “American Village” housing development in Irbil, Iraq, on the suburbs he had left behind in Northern Virginia. Ali Arkady VII/For The Washington Post

IRBIL, Iraq — When Islamic State insurgents were advancing toward the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, Sherzad Sadraden was supposed to be fighting on the front lines. 

There was just one problem: The soldier with the storied Kurdish pesh merga didn’t have a rifle. He had sold it a year earlier, when all seemed peaceful, to pay for a new house. 

So Sadraden’s brother Rasho, a construction executive, did what he considered his patriotic duty. He rushed out to the local weapons bazaar, paid $1,250 for a Cuban-made AK-47 and four magazines of bullets, and gave them to his brother. “He’s using the gun right now to fight,” Sadraden said. 

Washington has long looked to Kurdistan, a tolerant pro-American region of Iraq with a thriving oil economy, as representative of its grandest hopes for the country. Even as Baghdad burned in 2006 and 2007, the semiautonomous Kurdish region remained a sanctuary. These days, the Obama administration is counting on the Kurds to be the leading edge of a ground offensive to take back cities throughout northern Iraq from ruthless, well-financed and heavily armed Sunni insurgents. 

The past few months, though, have exposed some deep cracks in the Kurdish success story and raised questions about the viability of an Obama administration strategy that leans heavily on the Kurds. 

In August, the legendary Kurdish pesh merga soldiers ceded frontline positions to Islamic State fighters who advanced within 25 miles of Irbil, setting off a panic in the regional capital. The Kurdish troops lacked arms, ammunition and, in some cases, even fuel for their vehicles. Some complained that they had not been paid in months. It took a hurried decision by President Obama to launch airstrikes to halt the insurgents’ advance. 

The pesh merga’s struggles are just one in a series of problems that have hit Iraqi Kurdistan, a proud region of Kurdish-speaking people who suffered badly under Saddam Hussein’s rule and aspire to break free of Arab-majority Iraq. 

These days, the Kurdistan Regional Government is laboring through a financial collapse, spurred by budget disputes with Baghdad but made worse by the government’s mismanagement, corruption and bloated payrolls. 

The crises have affected virtually every Kurd, including Sadra­den, whose company last month stopped working on a college dormitory it was building for the Ministry of Higher Education. In the glove compartment of his car, the construction executive has a check from the ministry for 699 million Iraqi dinar, or about $600,000. For now, it is un-cashable. “They told me it will be more than two months before they have the money,” he said of the ministry. 

Kurdish officials blame the economic crisis on the Iraqi government, which this year stopped paying the region its share of the budget after a feud over the Kurds’ right to sign independent oil deals and the distribution of the revenue. 

“The cause of the financial crisis comes back to a fundamental decision made by Baghdad to cut the budget of Kurdistan,” said Qubad Talabani, the deputy prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan. “They’ve been threatening us since 2003. For them to actually do it has created irreparable damage to the trust between us and them.” 

Iran Prepares for a Leadership Transition

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 

Source Link

Summary

Though Iran has been broadcasting pictures and videos of top state officials and noted foreign dignitaries visiting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the hospital, the health of the man who has held the most powerful post in the Islamic Republic remains unclear. The unusual public relations management of what has been described as a prostate surgery suggests Tehran may be preparing the nation and the world for a transition to a third supreme leader. Iranian efforts to project an atmosphere of normalcy conceal concerns among players in the Iranian political system that a power vacuum will emerge just as the Islamic republic has reached a geopolitical crossroads. 

Analysis

Any transition comes at the most crucial time in the 35-year history of the Islamic Republic due to unprecedented domestic political shifts underway and, more importantly, due to international events.

Pragmatic conservative President Hassan Rouhani's election in June 2013 elections led to a social, political and economic reform program facing considerable resistance from within the hard-right factions within the clerical and security establishments. The biggest issue between the presidential camp and its opponents is the ongoing process of negotiations with the United States over the Iranian nuclear program. 

Nuclear Talks and Syria

After an unprecedented breakthrough in November 2013 that saw an interim agreement, the negotiation process has hit a major snag, with a final agreement not reached by a July 20, 2014, deadline, though the deadline for negotiations was extended to Nov. 24, 2014. Some form of partial agreement had been expected, with talks kicking into high gear ahead of the opening session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on Sept. 18.

A mood of pessimism in Tehran has since been reported, however, with senior Foreign Ministry officials prepping the media for the eventuality that the talks might fail. The risk of failure comes from the fact that Rouhani can only go so far in accepting caps on Iran's ability to pursue a civilian nuclear program before his hawkish opponents will gain the upper hand in Iran's domestic political struggle. Stratfor sources say Rouhani did not want to attend this year's General Assembly, but Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif reportedly convinced the president that his visit might help the negotiating process.

As if the negotiation itself was not enough of a problem for Rouhani, the U.S. move to support rebel forces in Syria that would fight both the Islamic State and Iran's ally, the Assad regime, is a major problem for Tehran. U.S. and Iranian interests overlapped with regard to the IS threat in Iraq. But in Syria, the United States must rely on anti-Iranian actors to fight IS and the Obama administration seeks to topple the Assad regime. Accordingly, less than a year after the two sides embarked upon a rapprochement, tensions seem to be returning.

A New Supreme Leader

On top of this stressor, uncertainties surrounding Khamenei's health have shifted Iran's priorities to the search for a new supreme leader. The unusual manner in which Tehran continues to telegraph Khamenei's hospitalization to show that all is well -- while at the same time psychologically preparing the country and the outside world for the inevitable change -- coupled with the (albeit unverified) 2010 release by WikiLeaks of a U.S. diplomatic cable reporting that the supreme leader was suffering from terminal cancer suggests the political establishment in Tehran is preparing for a succession. Khamenei himself would want to prepare a succession before he can no longer carry out his official responsibilities.

THE UK’S ATTEMPTS TO CREATE A “MODERATE ISLAM” JUST FAILED; WHAT NOW?

James Brandon

September 18, 2014

Source Link

Almost ten years ago, in the wake of the 2005 London transport bombings, the UK government under Tony Blair launched its ambitious “Prevent” strategy “to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism both in the UK and overseas.”

Its aim was to “increase the resilience of communities to violent extremism,” “address grievances, whether real or perceived,” and thereby “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” through a range of measures to support Muslim moderates. In military terms, Prevent was the “hearts and minds” element of a domestic counter-terrorism strategy. “We need to reach out and give greater support to the overwhelming majority [of Muslims] who are disgusted by terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam,” said one minister at the time. Tony Blair meanwhile spoke of the broader need to show that “religious faith is not inconsistent with reason, or progress”.

Fast forward seven years and the mood is darker. The current prime minister, David Cameron, has starkly described the war on Islamist extremism as a “generational struggle” which “we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime”. Meanwhile, the Prevent strategy, formerly the centrepiece of the UK’s ideological push-back against domestic jihadism, lies discredited and moribund. Nationwide spending on core Prevent work, namely grassroots community-based projects delivered through local councils, is a mere £ 1.7m for 2013/4, a 90 percent reduction from 2012/3 when £17m was spent, and a fraction of the 2008/9 high of £140m. The human cost of the failure of Prevent’s bold ambitions was further illustrated last month by a British jihadist’s involvement in the execution of the U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria. This was followed by the similar murder of David Haines, a British aid worker, on 14 September. The killer was one of over 500 British jihadists in Iraq and Syria. Pointedly, on 29 August, the UK’s domestic terror threat rating was raised from “Substantial” to “Severe”, indicating that an attack on the UK was “highly likely.”

Significantly, the causes of Prevent’s failure share much in common with other Western attempts to strengthen liberal and democratic Muslim forces in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere over the past decade. These include: 

Choosing the wrong partners: Many of the government’s key Muslim partners had a limited interest in countering extremism. They saw Prevent as a money-making tool or as a means to advance their own profile. The “Active Change Foundation (ACF),” one of the most prominent “de-radicalization” providers, run by Hanif Qadir, a British Pakistani who had once fought for the Taliban and whose “counter-radicalization” work has been featured by CNN, is a case in point. One convicted extremist, Mizanur Rahman who was “de-radicalized” by Qadir after his release from prison later described his experiences: 

Hanif Qadir actually attended one of my meetings with Waltham Forest probation. I met him every fortnight. He did nothing. I used to go to his office, sign my name in and go home. That was the extent of my de-radicalisation with Hanif … it’s just a face for the media, a money-making scheme.

Hanif denied these claims, but funding for ACF has since been sharply curtailed. 

Islamist subversion of new organizations: In several instances, new Muslim organizations seed-funded by the government were quickly co-opted by the very extremists they were supposed to tackle. For instance, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), an “independent” organization founded by the government in 2006 to address radicalization in British mosques and funded with £174,000 ($290,000) of taxpayers’ money quickly fell under the control of Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood activists. MINAB’s output accordingly became a stream of alarmist statements on anti-Muslim attacks (a “slow-burning anti-Muslim pogrom”) and complaints about media coverage of extremism (its blanket dismissal of one BBC investigation of informal Sharia courts as “one-sided and unbalanced” was typical). MINAB, instead of tackling the very “grievances, whether real or perceived” that Prevent was meant to be tackling, was recklessly stoking them; in August, ostensibly in protest over events in Gaza, the group severed ties with the government that had created and funded it. 

Losing the Cyber War: How to Get Out of the Box and Win

By Stephen Bryen,

September 17, 2014

Source Link

The United States is losing the cyber war. Despite hugely increased expenditures on cyber security, every day the situation worsens and we continue to fall behind. As I write there is no government or military website that has not been hacked and vital information stolen. It is not just the government –banks, health care systems, financial transactions, credit card data, identity theft, social security numbers, legal briefs, strategy documents, corporate secrets, intellectual property –the list is nearly endless.

When you are in a war you look for metrics to understand just how well you are doing and what the conflict outcome will be. An Army general surveys the battlefield, estimates his resources, evaluates his technology, and decides on his strategy. If the general believes he will lose the war, he tells his political leaders and waits for guidance.

There are four possible outcomes in a war: fight to win; fight to a stalemate of some kind; negotiate with the enemy; surrender.

Looking at the current state of affairs in the ongoing cyber war, we can reach some conclusions.

Firstly, right now we cannot fight to win because we do not have either the troops or the technology to win. No one has figured out a satisfactory offensive strategy other than to convert cyber war into a traditional war. This is impractical and no one is really willing to go down this path (other than to threaten some sort of offensive cyber warfare).

Secondly, there is no stalemate in cyber warfare available to the United States. One of the most serious potential threats, China, is too important economically and politically to be seriously challenged. Beyond China there are plenty of other cyber war makers, as in Russia, Iran, Syria and even hackers embedded in countries around the world. While the US and some of our friends have tried to prosecute some hackers, the triumphs are few and far between. None of the threats are under sufficient pressure to stop hacking; in fact they are more emboldened than ever.

Thirdly, there is no one to negotiate with today. Attempts have been made to talk to the Chinese; they deny everything and blame the US for spying on them.

This leaves the surrender option, but unlike territorial war, there is no one to surrender to so we face the prospect of going on losing. Our critical infrastructure is exposed, our government is losing control of its systems, and our military is watching as its command and control and its vital technology spills out through the back end of its networked systems or through its industrial partners.

Throwing more money at “the problem” is not a panacea. Our government, military, and critical infrastructure cannot continue running around like chickens with their heads cut off. That is the sum of what is happening today.

The entire infrastructure of information technology is based on mostly an open architecture approach to computer systems and network infrastructure. That is conducive to a fairly rapid spiral development of new commercial technology. Unfortunately, the commercial approach downside is that security plays second or third fiddle to the push for bagging commercial dollars from investors and customers alike.

It is very well known that spending money on security does not “produce” anything, so putting money and resources into security systems is resented by investors and corporations, even by individual users who often chafe under security restrictions and operational limitations.

Military Intelligence collects tens of millions of pieces of information a day

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Military intel' has its own Google and Facebook network, has released 'hordes' of Trojan horses that can evade defenses and self destruct if detected, says senior military source.

IDF soldiers patrol in Nablus [file]. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Every day, tens of millions of pieces of information flow into the various divisions of Military Intelligence, including phone calls, electronic messages, photographs and other forms of data, a senior military source who is authorized to discuss the matter said Wednesday.

The officer described how, over the past 18 months, Military Intelligence revolutionized its technological capabilities, creating its own internal and heavily secured portal, which leads members to various “applications.”

These include MI’s own version of Facebook, allowing personnel from different units, who in the past had never been in direct communication, to speak to one another, sharing and debating the latest intelligence developments and thereby creating a common language.

MI has its own news website, called “i net,” which places the latest classified intelligence data on the website, and its own version of Google, allowing personnel to search for millions of entries on any topic. For example, one can type in the name of a second-generation Iranian centrifuge and get back all available intelligence as separate entries. This, the source said, allows MI to function in a less regimented and more integrated fashion, which better suits the chaotic nature of the Middle East.

“Today, the head of the Syria Arena knows about Hezbollah forces in his area of coverage.

Once, Hezbollah was only monitored by the head of the Lebanon Arena,” the source said.

“We had to create a whole unit to organize and format tens of millions of data entries.”

Security and Defense: Israel's Cyber Ambiguity

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Reaction to "Flame" virus suggests that on cyber warfare, J'lem has adopted its wink-and-smile nuclear policy.

Engineer checks equipment at Tehran internet service 370. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Nuclear ambiguity has played a critical role in Israeli national defense strategy for over 50 years.

Israel neither admits to nor denies having nuclear weapons. Instead, Israeli leaders wink, smile, give a pat on the back and say something about how Israel knows how to protect itself whenever they are asked about these purported capabilities.

This week we were witness to a new element of the country’s defense doctrine, called “cyber ambiguity.”

On Tuesday, a day after a Moscow-based security company revealed that a new cyber weapon called “Flame” had struck Iran, Vice Premier and Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon fueled speculation of Israeli involvement by praising Israeli technological prowess in response to a radio interview on the issue.

Israel, he said, was blessed with superior technology. “These achievements of ours open all kinds of possibilities for us,” he said.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said when he spoke that evening that when it comes to cyberspace, the size of a country is insignificant – but that there is great significance to a country’s “scientific strength, and with that Israel is blessed.”

While no Israeli official came out and took responsibility for the virus attack, the ambiguity was too loud to ignore.

The purpose of this ambiguity is that it does not really make a difference whether Israel, the United States or Russia was behind the sophisticated virus that effectively turns every computer it infects into the ultimate spy.

By detecting the infection of its computers, Iran understands that it is vulnerable and will continue to be as long as it defies the international community with its nuclear program.

Kaspersky Lab, which discovered the virus, assessed that it was created by a state – a conclusion reached by analysts who studied the code of the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz two years ago.

There are a limited number of Israeli agencies that could have been involved in writing code for such malware.

The first is Military Intelligence’s Unit 8200, the equivalent of the US National Security Agency, which is responsible for signal intelligence, eavesdropping on the enemy and code decryption and was entrusted in 2009 with the IDF’s offensive cyber capabilities.

Another possibility is the Mossad, which also has strong technological capabilities but is slightly inferior to Unit 8200, the largest unit within the IDF.

The Mossad has, however, received a major boost in its budget in recent years to help it acquire the resources needed to effectively combat Iran’s nuclear program. Its focus has reportedly been on covert operations such as acts of sabotage and assassinations but likely includes cyberwarfare as well.

The Botched PREDATOR Drone Mission That Failed to Kill Taliban Leader Mullah Omar in 2001

How We Missed Mullah Omar: An inside account of America’s botched first Predator mission

Richard Whittle

Politico

September 16, 2014

By the time President Bush announced the beginning of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the United States’ new secret weapon, the Predator 3034, was already en route to the outskirts of Kandahar. It was 9:30 p.m. in Afghanistan, a clear, starry night, and U.S. intelligence officials had already tracked their target to his home. Controlled by satellite link from 7,000 miles away by an Air Force captain and sergeant at the CIA campus in Northern Virginia, the Predator quickly entered camera range of a compound that was known to house the Taliban’s enigmatic leader and Osama Bin Laden’s key strategic ally, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

This was the Predator’s first big test. The military had long had an interest in unmanned aircraft, but before the Predator, drones were at best a niche technology. Introduced in 1994 under a new type of rapid Pentagon procurement program, the Predator could linger in the air well beyond 24 hours, pointing cameras at the earth and transmitting live video images back to its operators. The little aircraft owed its phenomenal endurance to its unique configuration, a design informed by the childhood hobby of its inventor, an Iraqi Jew named Abraham Kerem, whose family had immigrated to Israel in 1951. Like a weekend hobbyist’s glider, the Predator had thin, tapered wings stretching 49 feet from tip to tip and a slender fuselage just under half that long, eight feet shorter than a Piper Cub’s. Powered by a four- cylinder engine and propeller in the rear, it had a sluggish top speed of just over 80 miles an hour.

Perhaps that’s why the Predator was widely ignored inside the military at first, until a series of iconoclastic visionaries began transforming it from a simple eye in the sky into an exotic new weapon. Once the Predator became capable of firing laser-guided missiles at enemies half a world away, military and industry attitudes toward such unmanned aerial vehicles changed nearly overnight. The drone revolution began.

This is the story of the first armed drone ever to be flown by intercontinental remote control and used to kill human beings on the other side of the globe, a major coup for military futurists that has come to shape American foreign policy ever since. But it is also the story of how confusion over the technology’s first deployment effectively ruined the U.S. military’s clearest opportunity to kill the elusive Mullah Omar.

***

Predator 3034 hovered above Omar’s compound for two hours, but U.S. planners decided against bombing for fear of killing innocents. And so the drone operators watched as people exited the building and climbed into a convoy of three vehicles, heading southeast toward Kandahar. The Predator followed, for those in command were sure one of those vehicles had the Taliban leader inside.

Takeaways from the 2014 Floods in J&K

Vivek Chadha

September 17, 2014

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The unprecedented floods in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), have wrecked havoc and led to widespread loss of life and damage to property. While the focus of efforts is rightly on the human element of the disaster, there is a simultaneous need to look at two critical issues, which have come to define the events.

The first is the efficacy and efficiency of disaster management in the country, with specific reference to the situation in J&K. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is responsible for helping build a “safer and disaster resilient India” through proactive measures that ensure prevention, preparedness and mitigation of disasters. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) provides specialised response to national and man-made disasters, with a present strength of 10 battalions. The force is also equipped with a wide variety of stores, which give it specialised capability for disaster relief efforts. This force can support relief efforts during calamities where time and distance provides an opportunity to respond in an acceptable time frame and the scale of disaster relief is within its capability. However, as the Uttarakhand disaster in 2013 and the recent floods in J&K proved, the force is likely to be constrained due to a number of factors.

First, it is unlikely that the NDRF will be the first responder in case of a disaster, given the proximity of other uniformed forces in close vicinity. Second, the scale of disaster, as seen in the case of J&K, has time and again proved that disaster relief cannot be undertaken only by a force like the NDRF. Third, even though the NDRF is equipped with stores which are better suited for relief effort, large scale mobility and evacuation can be carried out by the armed forces, which have a much larger fleet of vehicles, boats, helicopters and aircrafts at their disposal. Fourth, the capability of the armed forces in terms of manpower is not only colossal, this is further augmented by a very efficient command and control system, which increases the efficiency of its efforts manifold. Fifth, the armed forces bring along with the strength of its manpower, very high levels of motivation, imbibed through a sense of regimentation and nationalistic zeal, which has been carefully nurtured for decades by leaders at all levels of command.

These factors have not been highlighted to underestimate or undermine the importance or efficacy of the NDRF. It only reinforces strengths of each organisation, in order to best utilise the resources at hand. It is evident that unless there is a major accretion in terms of the force level and equipment profile of the NDRF, the armed forces are likely to remain the first and largest responders in case of natural disasters. This raises the need to better define their role and charter to improve efficiency and effectiveness of response during disasters.

It is quite evident that the NDRF cannot substitute the armed forces and attempts at developing an alternative force will remain constrained due to resources. It is also clear that a much smaller force with similar capabilities as the larger one, will add little value, despite generous budgets. The NDRF must therefore fill the voids that the army or airforce finds difficult to handle. It must function as the core team, which is trained and equipped to deal with disaster relief. This core should be infused with world class capacity, both in terms of procedural and technical elements. They should be able to provide specialised support, which cannot be undertaken by the uniformed forces. This includes skills like iron and concrete cutting techniques in case of earthquakes, setting up an alternative satellite based command and control hub, which facilitates better organisation of relief efforts, establishment of relief camps in conjunction with the civil administration, release of specialist equipment to augment existing resources etc.

ISIL: DOES THE US UNDERSTAND THE KIND OF WAR IT IS FIGHTING?

Jonathan Lord

September 18, 2014 

Does the United States understand what kind of war it is getting into? Maybe not. When it comes to the type of war this is and the reasons America has for fighting it (and, for some,whether or not this constitutes a war) the administration’s confusing message bodes ominous consequences.

In his much-analyzed speech outlining his Administration’s strategy to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the President used the term “counterterrorism” four times. He did not mention “counterinsurgency” once. That’s a bigger problem than you might think. ISIL is a para-military organization that has seized portions of Syria and Iraq. It has subjugated the local population through traumatizing acts of violence like public executions of political officials, religious minorities as well as the mass murder of any opposition forces unlucky enough to be taken alive. ISIL funds its horrific misadventures though donations, extortion and black market oil sales from the rich oil fields it has seized. It has evolved from an underground, clandestine organization to one that can mass forces to seize and then hold and govern territory. This is not terrorism; this is textbook insurgency.

The President knows this. More so, the plan he has described is boiler-plate counter-insurgency. So why is he calling it counterterrorism? Because the President’s authority to attack ISIL is derived from a thirteen-year-old congressional authorization to use military force against the terrorists responsible for the September 11th attacks. This is why his speech overwhelmingly focused on the potential future threat posed by this group rather than the regional threat the group poses now to American interests. Unfortunately for President Obama, these are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the same people that directed the 9/11 attacks. And the argument that they one day could be as dangerous is fallacious because it describes anyone. That could be France one day. If having the potential means and opportunity to launch a major terrorist attack on the United States at some undefinable point in the future is casus belli, we need to steel ourselves for a lifetime of conflict. But the President knows this too and the real reason we are once again at war in the Middle East is because ISIL represents a direct threat to America’s partners and allies in the Middle East. It has destabilized Iraq and further complicated the conflagration that once was Syria. It also threatens other key regional allies like Jordan, which is already struggling with the influx of over 600,000 Syrian refugees.

A majority of Americans believe we need to confront ISIL with military force, especially in the wake of the executions of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. While the videos of those heinous acts are gut-wrenching, they do not lend ISIL the credentials of a terrorist threat like Al Qaeda, circa 2001. While Al Qaeda actively sought for years to attack American targets, ISIL has thrust its men and materiel into a broad insurgent campaign against the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad and competing rebel groups. It is a mistake to act on the consensus of a fearful and misinformed public. The President may be seeking to destroy ISIL for the right reasons, but he has claimed the authority to do so from Congress and the American people for the wrong ones. It is crucial that the administration do the hard work of making Americans understand what ISIL is and why we have chosen to destroy it. President George W. Bush also had broad popular support when he attacked Iraq, because many Americans wrongly believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11th Attacks. Acting on the popular and specious presumption that ISIL is basically the same as Al Qaeda may be expedient for the President now, but when the reality and objective of this conflict becomes irreparably divorced from the popular perception of why we are fighting, it could severely constrain America’s ability to complete the mission. Terrorism is a real and persistent threat but its spirit should not be summoned to rally the support needed to address every threat to America’s global strategic interests. First and foremost, ISIL is an insurgency that threatens the region and our regional partners. This is why we must destroy it and to do so under any other pretense is a grave mistake.

Jonathan Lord is a private sector research analyst in security matters and a graduate of Vassar College and the Georgetown University Security Studies Program.