Military Courts: Pakistan’s Counter Terrorism Intervention

Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch

21 Jan , 2015

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On 6 January 2015, the National Assembly of Pakistan approved the 21st Constitutional Amendment and Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill 2015. The President of Pakistan, Mr Mamnoon Hussain, gave assent to the Bill a day later, making it into a law [i]. With this, law makers in Pakistan gave constitutional validity to trial of offences relating to terrorism by military courts and amendment to the Pakistan Army Act, 1952 extended the jurisdiction of military courts to try terror suspects. The Bill, to be in force for two years, was unanimously approved by all 247 members present in the House, with just two groups, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F (JUI-F) abstaining from the vote.

Repeated terror attacks across Pakistan have induced a sense of hopelessness in the country…

The Bill provides for entering the Pakistan Army Act 1952, the Pakistan Army Act 1953, the Pakistan Navy Act 1961 and the Protection of Pakistan Act, 2014 in the First Schedule of the Constitution. The First Schedule contains laws which are exempt from the operation of Article 8 (1) and (2) of the Constitution which relate to fundamental rights. As per the provisions of the 21st Amendment, the judgements delivered by the Special Courts are not open to review by either the nations High Courts or the Supreme Court. An amendment to the Pakistan Army Act 1952 also provides the federal government the power to transfer cases related to terrorism, pending in civil courts, to a military court. In such cases, it is not necessary to record evidence which has already been recorded. Activities which can be tried under the Military courts are vast and varied, including trial of those belonging to any terrorist group or organisation, waging war against the state, attacks on civil and military installations, kidnappings for ransom, possession, storage and transportation of explosives, suicide jackets and the like within or outside Pakistan. As per the statement of the objects and reasons, ‘an extraordinary situation and circumstances exist which demand special measures for speedy trial of offences relating to terrorism, waging war or insurrection against Pakistan and prevention of acts threatening the security of Pakistan’.[ii]

China and Internet Sovereignty Revisited

By Franz-Stefan Gady

January 22, 2015

How can China more effectively cooperate on cybersecurity issues with the rest of the world? 

Back in December 2014, China’s cyber czar, Lu Wei, director of the State Internet Information Office, succinctly summarized Beijing’s position on sovereignty in cyberspace in the title of an article published by the Huffington Post: “Cyber Sovereignty Must Rule Global Internet.” Time and again, China has repeated the mantra that states have to respect China’s “information borders,” emphasizing that a focus on national sovereignty and a state-centric approach will guarantee stability in cyberspace. The People’s Republic is especially keen to discredit the Western propagated multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, which it sees as intrinsically dangerous and undermining China’s national security interests.

In the Huffington Post article, Lu Wei, posits,

“For example, with regard to the cyberspace governance, the U.S. advocates ‘multi-stakeholders’ while China believes in ‘multilateral.’ [‘Multi-stakeholder’ refers to all Internet participants on an equal footing making the rules and is considered more ‘people-centered’ while ‘multilateral’ refers to the state making the rules based on the idea of the sovereignty of the nation-state representing its citizens.] These two alternatives are not intrinsically contradictory. Without ‘multilateral,’ there would be no ‘multi-stakeholders.’ Exaggerating our disagreements due to difference in concepts is neither helpful to the China-U.S. Internet relations nor beneficial to global governance and the development of the Internet.”

Partially to accommodate Chinese fears about the United States’ control over Internet structure, Washington announced back in March 2014 that it will give up oversight of web domain managers at ICANN — a non-profit organization that manages worldwide domain names and the assignment of IP addresses, among other things. Yet, unsurprisingly, China so far has not been prepared to yield an inch in turn on its stance on Internet sovereignty. It is hard to find common ground with the United States and its allies, since to Western countries Chinese ideas on Internet sovereignty are tantamount to Internet censorship, the restriction of free speech, and the online prosecution of political dissidents.

Yet, as an article in the Strategic Studies Quarterly already argued in 2011, the Chinese are not unique in their quest. In one way or another every country is attempting to control what comes through its borders:

China's Quest for Global Influence - Through Think Tanks

By Shannon Tiezzi

January 22, 2015

A new policy document outlines China’s strategy for creating “think tanks with Chinese characteristics.” 

China is seeking to boost its soft power by developing “a new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics,” Xinhua reported on Tuesday, citing new guidelines from the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council (China Copyright and Media has an English translation of the entire Party document). The main goal is to have “several think tanks wielding major global influence” by 2020.

How do China’s think tanks rank so far? The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) at the University of Pennsylvania provides an annual ranking of over 6,500 think tanks worldwide. According to their 2013 report, the U.S. accounted for three of the top five think tanks worldwide (with the other two being located in the U.K. and Sweden) and six of the top ten. China, meanwhile, has its top-ranked think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, ranked 20th in the world.

Overall, China has only three think tanks in the top 50 worldwide (in addition to CASS, the Chinese Institute of International Studies comes in at 36 and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations ranks 44th). Again, that’s the same number the U.S. has in the top five. Even when the category is restricted to “think tanks in China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea,” China’s CIIS and CASS lose out to the Korea Development Institute and the Japan Institute of International Affairs.

Small wonder, then, that Beijing is seeking to boost the international prestige of its think tanks. China has long sought soft power commensurate with its growing economic and political clout. Think tanks are important both as a measure of soft power and as a channel for increasing global influence. As the newly released CCP guidelines state, “Think tanks are an important carrier of national soft power; they are becoming an increasingly important factor in international competition and have an irreplaceable role in international relations.” Yet in China, the guidelines continue, “There are no high-end think tanks with major influence and global prestige; research results are limited; resources are not appropriately allocated and there are few prominent leading figures.”

Why We Should Study China's Machiavelli

By Franz-Stefan Gady

January 22, 2015

The similarities and differences between Niccolo Machiavelli and Han Feizi are illuminating. 

Ryan Mitchell wrote a fascinating piece for The Diplomat entitled “Is ‘China’s Machiavelli’ Now its Most Important Philosopher?,” outlining the role the ancient philosopher Han Feizi plays in shaping President Xi Jinping’s political agenda. For example, Xi Jinping quoted Han Feizi’s dictum “when those who uphold the law are strong, the state is strong. When they are weak, the state is weak” to justify his tough anti-corruption campaign and his allegedly more authoritarian style of government. Xi Jinping’s quote of Han Feizi was subsequently reprinted thousands of times in state-owned and party-controlled media outlets.

Xi’s citation of Han Feizi is an instance of ruling political men relying on and defending their actions per the authority of recognized political thinkers. It is curious to me the way in which public figures use philosophical elites to empower and elevate, or at least attempt to justify, controversial praxis and principle. It provides them with a mantle of legitimacy by continuing an apparent tradition already established a long time ago. Mitchell also seems to indicate that Han Feizi’s ambiguous reputation is analogous to the controversial rap on Machiavelli in the West.

What I found interesting to ponder over is the public reaction if a European or American president cited Machiavelli in a speech (e.g., “Politics have no relations to morals,” or “Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.”). Of course, there are ontological and philosophical differences between Machiavelli and Han Feizi and their respective philosophies, and any quote, by definition, is taken out of context, which is especially problematic for philosophical texts.

However, what makes the comparison to Machiavelli more interesting is not so much the obvious similarities in the authoritarian streak of both philosophers and their amoral counsel on how rulers ought to run their affairs (by the way, I strongly suspect that Machiavelli’s core political philosophy is buried in his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy rather than the Prince), but in how the fundamentals underlying their political thought have evidently much more in common than the Italian thinker has with other great European philosophers. This makes Han Feizi’s work more “European,” and Machiavelli’s philosophy more “Chinese.”

Plato, for example, argues in his Republic that the best regime happens by chance, the unlikely coming together of political philosophy and political power. This is based on the ancient Greek understanding of human nature and in a sense cautions against social engineering or the attempt to make utopia, the ideal state, a reality. However, Machiavelli broke with this tradition publicly by pronouncing that chance (fortuna) can be influenced: “For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly.”

The Real Military Threat from China: Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles

Lyle J. Goldstein

January 22, 2015 

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"Air-Sea Battle” with Chinese Characteristics: a large fleet of land-based aircraft armed with some of the world’s most advanced anti-ship cruise missiles. 

During the 1982 Falklands War, Argentina possessed a measly total of fiveExocet anti-ship cruise missiles with which to face down the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic. Had that number been more like 50 or 100, that conflict might well have had a very different ending. This important lesson has not been lost on China’s military chiefs. Indeed, China has placed great emphasis on anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) development over the last three decades and is now set to reap the strategic benefits of this singular focus.

Western defense analysts have taken up the habit of fixating on the “whiz-bang” aspects of Chinese military modernization, such as the anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), or threats that are largely hypothetical, such as Beijing’s supposedly fearsome cyber arsenal. However, it will be unwise to ignore certain more mundane threats of proven lethality. These concern, at least in part, China’s emergent naval air arm and not the carrier-based part of that air-arm – which continues to be the red herring of Chinese naval development, at least for now. Flying from bases in the Mainland out to longer ranges with more sophisticated search radars and electronic countermeasures, the large fleet of land-based aircraft will now deploy some of the world’s most advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to boot. This rather mature capability might be described as “air-sea battle” with Chinese characteristics.

This edition of Dragon Eye probes a survey from the October 2014 issue of Mandarin-language defense magazine舰载武器 [Shipborne Weapons] of “中国海军空基对海打击力量” [The Chinese Navy’s Air-Based Maritime Strike Force]. The magazine is published by a Zhengzhou institute of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), a primary actor in China’s ongoing naval modernization process.

Hardly Satisfied

Chinese Wild Claims in Arunachal

ByClaude Arpi

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McMahon Line signed by Lochen Shatra and Sir Henry McMahon

The Chinese are not happy at all. Why?

Because the Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida dared to speak about what Beijing calls “a Chinese territorial area adjacent to India as Indian territory.”

McMahon Line is very much legal: it was signed by the Prime Minister of Tibet (Lochen Shatra) and India’s Foreign Secretary (Sir Henry McMahon) in March 1914.

According to The China Daily, the Japanese diplomat was referring to Arunachal Pradesh.

Beijing immediately lodged a strong protest: “We hope Japan fully understands the sensitivity of the China-India boundary question,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei.

He added that in a speech in New Delhi, “Kishida attracted media attention after referring to a southern area of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region as Indian territory. …Beijing has taken notice of the report, expressed serious concerns, demanded Japan make a clarification and immediately manage damage control.”

US using India as pawn, says Chinese daily

India Today 

January 20, 2015

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The US is only treating India as a pawn in its rebalancing strategy to the Asia-Pacific region, a Chinese daily said Tuesday. 

The US is only treating India as a pawn in its rebalancing strategy to the Asia-Pacific region, a Chinese daily said Tuesday.

The daily, Global Times, said that developing a good relationship with India will help Washington seek more support in international affairs and reduce the influence of emerging powers such as China in Asia.

The two countries are undoubtedly getting closer, but, it might be not as wonderful as it appears, because they both build their ties by taking advantage of each other, the Global Times said Tuesday in an op-ed page article "Pakistan, trade, emissions issues could frustrate closer Indian-US ties".

The daily said the US has never treated India as an equal friend and the global strategic background at present is the reason it values India so much.

It said that cultivating India as a partner will enhance the US influence in international affairs as well as the global economy.

For example, the US has nearly been dragged into a new Cold War with Russia due to the Ukraine crisis, while competition between the US and an emerging China also seems to be escalating.

Information Warfare: China Preps For Cybergeddon

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January 21, 2015: An American government official, Xiafen Chen, was arrested in October and charged with supplying China with classified data about American dams. This is part of a Chinese effort to collect detailed data on American infrastructure and other economic targets to support preparations for Internet based attacks on these facilities in wartime, or anytime. Xiafen Chen and her husband moved to the U.S. from China in 1992 and later became American citizens. The FBI found emails in which Xiafen Chen discusses the data she took from U.S. government databases and passed to senior Chinese officials.

The U.S. government has been aware of this Internet threat for over a decade and has been trying to develop a way to respond to a serious Cyber War attack, one in which the attacker does not reveal who they are. The data the Chinese received from Xiafen Chen could be used for such an attack.

Back in 2010 American officials created lists of the types of kind of attacks that would qualify as an "act of war", and thus deserving of a violent response. That was easy enough if there was substantial physical damage from the attack. This was the case in Iran during 2010 after the Stuxnet worm got finished with their uranium enrichment centrifuges. Similar damage could be done to electrical power systems, water and sanitation utilities and some kinds of industrial facilities (steel making, chemical, refineries, and so on.)

Are the Chinese Capable of Mounting a “Cybergeddon” Attack on the US?

January 21, 2015

An American government official, Xiafen Chen, was arrested in October and charged with supplying China with classified data about American dams. This is part of a Chinese effort to collect detailed data on American infrastructure and other economic targets to support preparations for Internet based attacks on these facilities in wartime, or anytime. Xiafen Chen and her husband moved to the U.S. from China in 1992 and later became American citizens. The FBI found emails in which Xiafen Chen discusses the data she took from U.S. government databases and passed to senior Chinese officials.

The U.S. government has been aware of this Internet threat for over a decade and has been trying to develop a way to respond to a serious Cyber War attack, one in which the attacker does not reveal who they are. The data the Chinese received from Xiafen Chen could be used for such an attack.

Back in 2010 American officials created lists of the types of kind of attacks that would qualify as an “act of war”, and thus deserving of a violent response. That was easy enough if there was substantial physical damage from the attack. This was the case in Iran during 2010 after the Stuxnet worm got finished with their uranium enrichment centrifuges. Similar damage could be done to electrical power systems, water and sanitation utilities and some kinds of industrial facilities (steel making, chemical, refineries, and so on.)

Why China’s premier is making a rare showing in Davos

Ansuya Harjani

19 Jan 2015

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102348034

In a rarity for Chinese leaders, Premier Li Keqiang will attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos later this week, joining 40 other heads of state and government including François Hollande and Angela Merkel.

This is the first time a Chinese leader is attending WEF Davos in five years, according to state-run Xinhua news agency. Li last attended the annual meeting as a vice premier in 2010.

"The [Chinese] new president is sufficiently well-established now, so it's appropriate for the prime minister to attend a gathering that sets the agenda for the business year – a year in which the fall in oil prices and the slowing of growth create great uncertainties," Colin Chapman, founder and editor-in-chief of think-tank Australian and ASEAN Strategies, told CNBC.

Also, with China hosting its own "Summer Davos" held in September, top level contact is essential in order to ensure attendance by political and business leaders. The Summer Davos is held annually in either Tianjin or Dalian.

NEW CHARLIE HEBDO ISSUE: FINDING BALANCE BETWEEN RIGHTS AND MORALS IN MEDIA – ANALYSIS

By Penza News

JANUARY 22, 2015

The worldwide community has split over the Charlie Hebdo issue No. 1178, originally printed at 3 million copies. However, the increased demand caused the journal to increase the print run 5 million, later – 7 million copies. The “survivors’ issue” released on January 14, 2015, featured a cover cartoon that depicted the Prophet Mohammad holding a “Je Suis Charlie” sign, titled “Tout est pardonné” (All is forgiven).

This was the first issue of the French magazine since the brutal January 7 attack. Only a few hours after the release of the previous issue that featured the drawing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State radical group, two armed men burst into the Charlie Hebdo headquarters. 12 people, including two policemen and editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier, were killed in the attack.

Over 2 million people condemned the act of terrorism and shown their solidarity with Charlie Hebdo during Republican marches that took place on January 11. At the same time, leaders and representatives of Muslim communities in France, Britain, Canada, US, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries stated the attack completely violates the Islamic ideals.

America’s Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing

David Sedney

Jan. 21, 2015

http://time.com/3676321/americas-counter-terrorism-policy-is-failing/ 

David Sedney was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009-2013 and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia from 2007-2009. 

Our tactics produce more dangerous, more committed extremists 

The U.S. approach to countering violent extremism is failing badly. Our current “light footprint,” counter-terrorism approach, posits that a combination of precisely targeted drone strikes, U.S. special forces raids, and training small, elite units of local forces can kill enough of the extremists’ “core” leadership to render those groups incapable. But, there has never been a strategy behind this hope, never an articulated theory of the case to explain where we were headed. 

These methods have, for limited periods, degraded extremists’ capabilities. But, today it is clear they are fundamentally flawed and severely counter-productive. Rather than reducing threats, our tactics produce more dangerous, more committed extremists. The crucible of the pressures we have created has not destroyed the extremists, instead it has evolved them into more virulent forms. Our singular focus on killing, without any serious attempt to ameliorate basic societal problems — and the absence of a moral core for our actions — have led huge swathes of the world to see us as the evil doers. Extremists today seek revenge for those we have killed, to punish us for abuses they suffer, and to end our support for abusive, corrupt rulers. 

The shape of the new world we are creating can be seen in theCharlie Hebdo attack, the growing Islamic State, the rampaging Boko Haram, the fractured, chaotic Yemen that features two radical groups that both hate the U.S., and the Taliban who massacre school children. 

Rather than a safer international environment with decreasing terrorism, terror attacks are at an all-time high and increasing. Two organizations — Al Qaeda and the Islamic State — are competing for adherents through escalating public brutality. And it is working: New believers are flocking to their banners; they control serious chunks of territory in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, and Yemen; they aim for a caliphate that rules from Myanmar to the Mediterranean; and they are quite clear that they will use violence to control us and our societies. The attacks in France, plots in Belgium, and threats to Japan of the past two weeks are only a harbinger of what is coming. 

Ukrainian and Russian Soldiers Battle Along Border in Eastern Ukraine

Rick Lyman and Andrew E Kramer

January 21, 2015

Ukrainian soldiers during fighting with pro-Russian separatists on Wednesday in the village of Pesky, near Donetsk. Credit Oleksandr Klymenko/Reuters

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Shelling from both Ukrainian military and rebel separatist positions continued Wednesday over a remote border checkpoint northwest of Luhansk that Ukraine said was seized Monday by Russian troops, a chief spokesman for the Ukrainian military said.

With President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine claiming that thousands of additional Russian troops had crossed into Ukraine and engaged directly with Ukrainian forces, attention has shifted from the battle over the battered airport at Donetsk to this fresh front on the main road to the city of Luhansk, 90 miles northeast of Donetsk.

Lt. Col. Roman Turovets, a Ukrainian military spokesman at the base here, the main one in the conflict area, said that Ukraine believed the soldiers it was engaging near the small town of Krymske, northwest of Luhansk, were highly trained Russian regulars, based on their tactics, their weaponry and on intelligence.

State of the Union: Where's South Asia?

By Akhilesh Pillalamarri

January 22, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/state-of-the-union-wheres-south-asia/

What does U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union speech tell us about his views on South Asia? 

What does U.S. President Barrack Obama’s State of the Union Address this year tell us about his administration’s plans with respect to South Asia? South Asia did not feature prominently in President Obama’s speech, indicating the relatively low level of priority that the United States gives that vital region compared to East Asia, the Middle East, and Russia. President Obama spoke at length on China’s challenge to the international system, U.S. policy towards Russian actions in Ukraine, and American negotiations with Iran. As Shannon points out, the State of the Union Address is usually a speech “that will likely have little to no relationship to actual government policy,” but this year’s speech featured some exceptions. For example, President Obama very adamantly held that American diplomatic efforts with Iran proceed without Congressional interference, even promising to veto any new sanctions bill that would undo the progress of U.S. negotiations with Iran. However, there was hardly this level of detail on U.S. policy in South Asia.

For starters, President Obama did not once mention India, South Asia’s largest and most important country; one that both Democrats and Republicans have been cultivating stronger ties with. It is surprising that President Obama did not find the room to mention India even once, especially since he is visiting India later this week. This is no ordinary visit, as Obama’s trip marks the first time an American President will serve as the chief guest for India’s Republic Day Parade, held from January 26-28. The parade is one of India’s biggest political events, celebrating India’s transition from a Commonwealth state to a republic in 1950. President Obama even moved the State of the Union Address from January 28 to January 20 in order to attend this event. Thus, his omission of India in his speech is notable.

An Aging World, a Dying Economy?

Milton Ezrati

January 22, 2015 

Will demographic trends in many countries around the globe mean a lower standard of living? A TNI video interview with Milton Ezrati. 

Milton Ezrati, a partner and global strategist at the investment firm Lord Abbett Co., is a regular contributor to the National Interest. He writes about economic trends, and his most recent book was Thirty Tomorrows, a study about the next three decades of globalization and demographics. He brings a keen and insightful mind to some of the most pressing issues facing the United States, Europe and Asia, including technological change and the strength of the dollar. Contrary to many analysts, he does not believe that the Western world is doomed to see lower standards of living. Adaptation can and must take place.

In his interview with National Interest editor Jacob Heilbrunn (taped on January 20, 2015), Ezrati ranges across a wide variety of topics—from the quantitative easing of the Federal Reserve to President Obama's proposed tax plans—to explain how America can continue to prosper. He laments what he sees as Obama's failure to propose a serious program of tax reform and endorses the Simpson-Bowles Commission's earlier calls for a dose of fiscal austerity. When it comes to the surprising strength of the dollar, Ezrati believes that it is more of a sign of the weakness of America's competitors than any current great prowess of the economy. Probing and skeptical, Ezrati shows why anyone interested in the future of global economic trends would do well to listen to his counsel.

5 U.S. Weapons of War Iran Should Fear

Zachary Keck

January 22, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/5-us-weapons-war-iran-should-fear-12087?page=show

If relations with Tehran were to turn sour, what means would be at Washington's disposal? 

The Islamic State of Iran was born in enmity toward the United States. Led by the fiery cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, revolutionary leaders animated crows in Iran by lambasting “Great Satan” for any number of crimes, both real and imagined.

It didn’t take long for this animosity to turn kinetic. As the Iran-Iraq War intensified throughout 1984, the two combatants began targeting each other’s oil shipments as a way to gain military advantage. According to Global Security, “Seventy-one merchant ships were attacked in 1984 alone, compared with forty-eight in the first three years of the [Iran-Iraq] war.”

This drew the ire of global powers, none more so than the United States, who sent in a naval task force to escort oil tankers and merchant ships through the Persian Gulf. This led the U.S. and Iran to exchange fire on a number of occasions. Not surprisingly, the U.S. came out on top in most of these exchanges.

This helped cement the United States as public enemy number one in the minds of many Iranian leaders, including those in the military. Since that time, Iran has sought to develop asymmetric military capabilities to offset America’s insurmountable conventional superiority. Five U.S. weapons should be foremost in their minds.

F-22 Raptor:

The Real Problem with Obama's State of the Union Address

David Boaz

January 21, 2015 

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From a Libertarian perspective Obama's SOTU presented many problems. He explained, "We need to do more than just do no harm.” Please, just do no harm. Americans would be better off if government simply did not intervene. 

“Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.” Al Smith’s jibe at FDR came to mind as I listened to President Obama’s laundry list of free stuff in the State of the Union speech.

The laundry list could have been worse. Cato Institute researchers counted 104 separate proposals in President Clinton’s 2000 address. I didn’t have the patience to count last night, but I’m sure there were fewer. There were some big tickets there, though, from tax hikes to free college.

As a libertarian, of course, I’d like to hear something like, oh, “the era of big government is over.” And maybe a program of economic freedom, civil liberties and peace.

Instead, we got a sweeping vision of a federal government that takes care of us from childhood to retirement, a verbal counterpart to the Obama campaign’s internet ad about “Julia,” the cartoon character who has no family, friends, church or community and depends on government help throughout her life. The president chronicled a government that provides us with student loans, healthcare, oil and the Internet.

The spirit of American independence, of free people pursuing their dreams in a free economy, was entirely absent. Indeed, the word “freedom” appeared only once in the speech.

An Important Anniversary: Rembering the Twenty-One Demands

Yanzhong Huang

January 21, 2015 

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Compared with the high-profile national Memorial Day for the Nanjing Massacre last month, the date January 18 passed uneventfully. Chinese media appeared to have forgotten that one hundred years ago, on exactly that day, Japan presented Chinese President Yuan Shikai (Yuan Shih-Kai) with requests that would have turned China into a de facto Japanese protectorate.

The Japanese requests included five groups of secret demands that became known as the Twenty-One Demands. Groups One and Two were designed to confirm Japan’s dominant position in Shandong, southern Manchuria, and eastern Inner Mongolia. Group Three would acknowledge Japan’s special interests in an industrial complex in central China. Group Four forbade China from giving any further coastal or island concessions to foreign powers except for Japan. The most outrageous was Group Five. Group Five required China to install Japanese advisors who could take effective control of Chinese government, economy, and military. These demands would have had a similar impact to that of what the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty had on Korea in 1910.

These notorious demands were issued at a time of shifting balance of power in East Asia. With the Qing dynasty’s humiliating defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), regional dominance for the first time had moved from China to Japan. Japan’s ambitions in China were further emboldened by its decisive victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), which affirmed the Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea. The 1911 Revolution brought an end to the Qing dynasty and ushered in the Republican era in China, but China remained a pushover in the face of pressure from Western powers. Furthermore, Yuan’s ruling status itself was shaky due to threats from competing local warlords. World War I granted Japan a perfect opportunity to push the envelope even more with China. As the war was underway in Europe, the Japanese hoped that other major powers would show little interest in countering Japanese expansion in China. For these reasons, Japanese Foreign Minister Kato Takaaki was convinced that the filing of an ultimatum buttressed by the war threat would cause China to accept all the demands.

Russia's Nuclear Forces Conduct Surprise Drill

Zachary Keck

January 21, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-nuclear-forces-conduct-surprise-drill-12082

Russia’s Nuclear Forces performed a surprise readiness drill on Tuesday, according to state-run Russian media outlets.

The Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), which control Russia’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), began a snap drill on January 20, the reports said,citing a press release from the RVSN. The drills, which are taking place in Western Siberia, will include 1,200 RVSN troops who will perform over 20 different tasks. Emergencies Ministry's troops, as well as Internal Ministry and Federal Security Service forces, were expected to participate in aspects of the drills.

“During the unannounced exercises of the missile forces, a committee will study the current condition in organizing activities by the commanders in completing drills of fighting terrorism as a command unit, missile force regiments and a number of other subdivision units," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Igor Egorov was quoted as saying of the drills.

RVSN said that “no less” than four such drills will be held in 2015. Earlier this month, Egorov had announced that in 2015, the Strategic Missile Forces “will conduct over 100 command and staff, tactical and specialized drills. The drills will be conducted in complex and tense conditions.” In December, RVSN Commander Colonel General Sergei Karakayev had told reporters that “A total of 14 launches are planned for 2015 - for the flight tests of advanced weapons samples and controlling technical readiness of missile systems adopted for service.” As of last summer, Russia had planned on conducting 16 ICBM test launches in 2014.

The European Union, Nationalism and the Crisis of Europe

By George Friedman

JANUARY 20, 2015

Last week, I wrote about the crisis of Islamic radicalism and the problem of European nationalism. This week's events give me the opportunity to address the question of European nationalism again, this time from the standpoint of the European Union and the European Central Bank, using a term that only an economist could invent: "quantitative easing."

European media has been flooded for the past week with leaks about the European Central Bank's forthcoming plan to stimulate the faltering European economy by implementing quantitative easing. First carried by Der Spiegel and then picked up by other media, the story has not been denied by anyone at the bank nor any senior European official. We can therefore call this an official leak, because it lets everyone know what is coming before an official announcement is made later in the week.

The plan is an attempt to spur economic activity in Europe by increasing the amount of money available. It calls for governments to increase their borrowing for various projects designed to increase growth and decrease unemployment. Rather than selling the bonds on the open market, a move that would trigger a rise in interest rates, the bonds are sold to the central banks of eurozone member states, which have the ability to print new money. The money is then sent to the treasury. With more money flowing through the system, recessions driven by a lack of capital are relieved. This is why the measure is called quantitative easing.

Russia, India ready to fight terrorism together – Russian Defence Minister

RIA Novosti
January 21, 2015
Source Link

Russian-Indian relations for many decades have had a strategic partnership nature, being based on a solid foundation of mutual trust, mutual understanding, and closeness between the two nations, Sergey Shoigu stated.

Russia and India are ready to increase their cooperation on fighting terrorism, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on Wednesday during talks with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar.

“Our countries strongly condemn all acts of terror and oppose the policy of double standards in the fight against this evil,” he underlined.

India to lease second Russian nuclear submarine

The Head of the Russian Defence Ministry praised the current state of military-technical cooperation between the two countries, noting that Russia and India have reached a level of tight industrial cooperation.

“In the long term – there will be the creation of a multipurpose transport aircraft, a fifth generation fighter, and a number of projects in the naval field,” said Mr. Shoigu.

North Korea’s Cyber Capability- A “Magic Weapon”

By Suparna Banerjee 

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The paper attempts to highlight the depth of the North Korean cyber strategy in light of the recent attack on the SONY Entertainments. It also puts into perspective the manner in which the country has consistently used this instrument to torment its adversaries.

Background

It all began with a movie named “The Interview” which revolves around a plot to assassinate the supreme leader of North Korea (officially known as Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK), Kim Jong Un. United States, more particularly the SONY Entertainment the distributor of the movie, found itself at the receiving end of one of the biggest hacking attempt allegedly committed by DPRK. While the war of words flung across the Pacific with allegations and its rebuttal by both sides. DPRK outrightly rejected its involvement but praised it as the righteous deed of its supporters and sympathisers. In retaliation North Korea went off the internet on 22nd December which was restored only nine and half hours later. While SONY overturned its earlier decision to postpone the release of the movie after severe criticisms from the US President, DPRK reacted stating that “Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest.” The allegation against North Korea, though, was based on circumstantial evidence linking the similarity in the attack by the North against South Korean companies and banks in 2013. The recent attack is claimed to have been done by a group called “Guardians of Peace” which is quite similar to taking unknown names like the Dark Seoul gang responsible for the Seoul cyber attack.

Japan Scrambling Jets at Cold War Levels

By Prashanth Parameswaran

January 22, 2015

Tokyo reportedly scrambling its fighter jets at record pace in the face of growing incursions. 

Government statistics suggest Japanese air force jets are scrambling at levels not seen since the Cold War, with Chinese fighters testing its airspace in the southwest and Russian aircraft probing Tokyo in the north, according to Reuters.

According to Japan’s defense ministry, in the nine months ending December 31, fighter jets from Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) scrambled 744 times, about a third more than during the same period the previous year. If scrambles continue at their current numbers up until March 31, they would exceed the 944 mark registered in 1984, in the midst of the Cold War.

The ministry’s statistics show that encounters with Chinese aircraft accounted for about half of the nine month total, surging to 164 in the final quarter of 2014, which was the most ever since such records started to be kept in 1958.

Chinese flights have especially increased in and around the East China Sea, where Beijing and Tokyo are locked in a dispute over islands that Japan calls the Senkaku and China calls the Diaoyu islands.

In their bid to respond to possible territorial incursions by Chinese flights in the southwest, Japan has reportedly thinned out its forces to the country’s north, close to four islands contested by Japan and Russia which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories and Moscow calls the Kuril Islands. But the unexpected resurgence of flights from Russia in the north in response to this has left Tokyo with a dilemma as it is increasingly sandwiched in a two-front struggle. In the last three quarters, Japan’s jets scrambled 369 times to meet Russian planes, four times the number just a decade ago.

The Changing Face of War and the Importance of Cybersecurity

by BIG THINK EDITORS

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For the longest time we've heard tell that the major battles to determine the outcomes of future wars won't be fought on physical battlefields but rather by hacker combatants in cyberspace. And whilethe future Ferris Bueller learned first hand the dangers associated with computer war, the broader, non-Matthew Broderick public has yet to come into contact with full scale cyberwarfare. Now that's not to say these cyberwars haven't already been happening -- there's compelling evidence to support that they have -- but it's important to note that this is not war as we know it.

It's also likely not the kind of war we were expecting.

BBC technology reporter Dave Lee does a fantastic job exploring this issue in a terrific piece that went up yesterday. The crux of his article revolves around the innate challenges of reporting a conflict you can't see. It's this concept of invisibility -- that cyberwar exists not in the public eye but in the shadows -- that's imperative to grapple and understand.

Think about how traditional war is conducted, promoted, and sold. Goosestepping Nazis, caricature-laden propaganda posters, showy tests of shiny new weapons: war is as much about optics as it is about tactics. Every conflict needs to be sold to an audience. This is usually done with visuals, examples being war bond posters, editorials with rhetorical images, and well-orchestrated photo-ops. Each of these visualizes war -- makes it palpable, not just an abstraction. More importantly, they visualize war to suit the whims of those who employ the images. As Umberto Eco once said, "today a country belongs to the person who controls communications."

Interview with Eugene Kaspersky II: On war, espionage and the mafia in cyberspace

By Rahul Joshi

2015-01-21

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Eugene Kaspersky's rise from a whiz-kid in high school solving advanced mathematical problems to the leader of a gobal cyber-security empire has been meteoric. His company, Kaspersky Lab, is today one of the pre-eminent Anti-Virus and cyber security companies in the world, with a cutting-edge database of 1.3 million records.

Enterprise Innovation sat down with Kaspersky late last year for an exclusive interview on how he sees the cybersecurity space evolve in the future, the difference between Asian and Western security spaces, and looking ahead to designing anti-malware products for technologies that are still on the cusp of public adoption.

Could you talk about your day to day role at Kaspersky?

From the very beginning, we were very focused on two things.

First of all, on the technologies, on being the very best in security technologies for computers, then for mobile devices, and work in industrial security as well. And the second focus was on our global presence - to build our partner network everywhere around the world and every nation.

NSA’s Metadata SIGINT Program has Proved Ineffective in Foiling Terrorist Attacks, Report

Mattathias Schwartz

January , 2015 

Almost every major terrorist attack on Western soil in the past fifteen years has been committed by people who were already known to law enforcement. One of the gunmen in the attack on Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, had been sent to prison for recruiting jihadist fighters. The other had reportedly studied in Yemen with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, who was arrested and interrogated by the F.B.I. in 2009. The leader of the 7/7 London suicide bombings, in 2005, had been observed by British intelligence meeting with a suspected terrorist, though MI5 later said that the bombers were “not on our radar.” The men who planned the Mumbai attacks, in 2008, were under electronic surveillance by the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, and one had been an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. One of the brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon was the subject of an F.B.I. threat assessment and a warning from Russian intelligence.

In each of these cases, the authorities were not wanting for data. What they failed to do was appreciate the significance of the data they already had. Nevertheless, since 9/11, the National Security Agency has sought to acquire every possible scrap of digital information—what General Keith Alexander, the agency’s former head, has called “the whole haystack.” The size of the haystack was revealed in June, 2013, by Edward Snowden. The N.S.A. vacuums up Internet searches, social-media content, and, most controversially, the records (known as metadata) of United States phone calls—who called whom, for how long, and from where. The agency stores the metadata for five years, possibly longer.

Gen. Martin Dempsey won’t deny White House is micromanaging Pentagon

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By Ben Wolfgang

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said Sunday that he believes President Obama heeds his advice on military and national security matters, but he wouldn’t deny that the White House micromanages the Pentagon.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Gen. Dempsey first answered questions about micromanagement with a tongue-in-cheek response.

“If you’re asking me if I’m being micromanaged, I don’t know. I better go check with the White House before I answer that question,” he said, adding that he believes the Pentagon’s relationship with theWhite House should be measured on whether he has access to the president and whether top administration officials listen to what he has to say.

“The metric we should be focused on is access and whether my advice influences decisions,” Gen. Dempsey said. “Whether someone wants to characterize the desire, the almost insatiable appetite for information about complex issues as micromanaging, they can have at it. But for me, the metric is access and advice.”

Former Defense Department officials, including outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, reportedly have taken serious issue with the White House’s frequent micromanagement of matters inside thePentagon.

‘Concrete Hell': Urban Warfare in the 20th Century

Peter Storey

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January 18, 2015 

 

It is difficult to deny that the threat of urban warfare en masse is starker than ever in the twenty-first century. Cities are strategically important locations due to their positions as economic, political and cultural centers and so are highly valuable military targets. There is also the crude argument that warfare is a human phenomenon and it is clear that people are increasingly to be found in cities and so war will naturally follow them there.

The most recent UN report on the subject estimated 54 percent of the world’s population reside in urban areas and that this will rise to 66 percent by 2050, adding 2.5 billion to the world’s urban population. A related and more sophisticated argument – prominently made in David Kilcullen’s Out of the Mountains – is that due to this urbanization, cities are placed under increasing strain to deliver municipal services, leading to a breakdown of law and order as insurgent or criminal entities step into the ensuing power vacuum. As a result of these trends and realities, militaries can expect to find themselves engaged in wrestling a city from the hands of another conventional military or, more likely in this century, insurgents and must be prepared from the struggles they are likely to face in this environment.

The Golden Age of Black Ops

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20/01/2015 20:09

In the dead of night, they swept in aboard V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Landing in a remote region of one of the most volatile countries on the planet, they raided a village and soon found themselves in a life-or-death firefight. It was the second time in two weeks that elite U.S. Navy SEALs had attempted to rescue American photojournalist Luke Somers. And it was the second time they failed.

On December 6, 2014, approximately 36 of America’s top commandos, heavily armed,operating with intelligence from satellites, drones, and high-tech eavesdropping, outfitted with night vision goggles, and backed up by elite Yemeni troops, went toe-to-toe with about six militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. When it was over, Somers was dead, along with Pierre Korkie, a South African teacher due to be set free the next day. Eight civilians were also killed by the commandos, according to local reports. Most of the militants escaped.