After 5 Years, Japan, South Korea Hold Security Dialogue

By Ankit Panda

April 15, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/after-5-years-japan-south-korea-hold-security-dialogue/

The defense and foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan met for a “two-plus-two” dialogue for the first time in five years. 

On Tuesday, the two top defense and security officials from South Korea and Japan met for the first high-level “two-plus-two” security talks in over five years.

The meeting heralds a thaw in relations between the two Northeast Asian neighbors, both U.S. allies, that remain divided over contentious historical issues, primarily over South Korean perceptions that Japan is inadequately remorseful for atrocities committed on the Korean peninsula during the Second World War.

Specifically, South Korea remains unconvinced of Japanese atonement over wartime brutality including the use of Korean sex slaves, euphemistically known as “comfort women.”

Japan and South Korea are additionally mired in a territorial dispute over the sovereignty of the Liancourt Rocks, otherwise known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

Recently, in its 2015 diplomatic “bluebook,” Tokyo renewed its claim to the islets in the Sea of Japan, drawing protest from the South Korean foreign ministry.

The last time the two sides held such a meeting was in 2009 when they discussed regional security issues, their defense policies, and areas for bilateral cooperation.

Can the US and China Save the World?

By Shannon Tiezzi

April 14, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/can-the-us-and-china-save-the-world/

Beijing and Washington are seeking increased clean energy cooperation in a bid to fight climate change. 

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker is leading a group of 24 U.S. businesses to China seeking increased cooperation on clean energy. The group is the first “presidential designated” trade mission to visit China since Barack Obama took office. Companies represented in the delegation include Alcoa, GE, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and Qualcomm Technologies.

In a statement on the delegation, the U.S. Department of Commerce noted that “China offers vast opportunities for U.S. businesses with deep expertise in clean and energy efficient technology.” The purpose of the trip, the statement said, is to connect U.S. companies with “opportunities in the green infrastructure and energy efficiency industries” in China while also helping “introduce Chinese investors, entrepreneurs and innovators to the [United States’] clean energy technology market.”

China's Soft Power Obsession

By Xie Tao

April 14, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/chinas-soft-power-obsession/

China needs to rethink its quest for soft power. 

“Power, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure,” Joseph Nye once wrote. That’s even more true when it comes to soft power, defined by Nye as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.”

Such attraction, according to Nye, derives from a country’s cultural heritage, political values, economic prosperity, technological innovation, smart diplomacy, etc. Attraction could be temporary, but it also could be internalized and become one’s sincere preference. In the real world, this could mean that if a foreigner has internalized democracy and freedom as championed by the United States, he/she will probably support U.S. policies to spread — or even impose — these values in other countries, even if such policies may be detrimental to this person’s interests (e.g., bringing domestic instability in his or her own country).

If that’s the case, who wouldn’t want soft power? Instead of military coercion or economic payments, a country can achieve its foreign policy goals through willing support and cooperation from others. Such a soft approach to foreign policy not only adds to one’s legitimacy, but also avoids conflicts. To be able to achieve foreign policy goals in such a fashion is to be softly powerful. Or to borrow from the famous ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without a war.”

Australia Caught in Middle of US-China Power Tussle

By Nick Derewlany

April 14, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/australia-caught-in-middle-of-us-china-power-tussle/

Canberra could struggle to balance its interests as tensions rise over the AIIB and TPP. 

Tensions between the United States and China over the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are the next embodiment of a hard and soft power battle for economic and political dominance in the Asia-Pacific, and come amid concerns arising from the stalled negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). For Australia, a key focus of its foreign policy should be how to balance its economic ties with China and its cultural ties with the United States; appeasing both without getting in the middle of an ugly tug-o-war that forces Canberra to take sides.

Officially, both the U.S. and China have attempted to downplay the gravity of the tussle. Hugo Llorens, U.S. Consul General, in a guest lecture given at the University of Sydney, reassured students that “Australia does not have to choose between the United States and China.” But while it is true that Australia is not at a point where it needs to make such a choice, the reassurance misrepresents the dynamic of Australia being caught in the middle of a power struggle between the worlds two largest economies.

The TPP, drafted in 2005, is a by-product of the U.S. rebalance to Asia. Its intent is to eradicate preferential trade agreements (PTA) in the Asia-Pacific and construct in their place a multilateral trade platform, thus connecting a plethora of geographically incongruent countries at varied levels of development.

Unfortunately, divergent interests and innate agendas have inhibited progress with the deal. Australia’s vision for the TPP lies in developing the regional architecture that will provide a viable gateway to the entire Asia-Pacific; in short, an unrestricted multilateral agreement. In contrast, the U.S. envisions the TPP as an extension of its established bilateral arrangements in the region, with a focus on developing further PTAs with countries it hasn’t already partnered with. The U.S. opposes an unrestricted multilateral agreement because it would lay waste to established protectionist measures – such as long implementation periods and product specific rules of origins – that are a feature of sensitive U.S. domestic industries such as sugar and dairy. A proliferation of PTAs in the region would be counterproductive for Australia because it would close off certain markets, and make others harder to utilize.

Nations Line up to Join China-Led Infrastructure Bank

Will Hickey

9 April 2015

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/nations-line-join-china-led-infrastructure-bank

The world’s most populous nation has a sizable sovereign fund and is on track to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy. “The Chinese development model of technology transfer and infrastructure development, including highways, ports, railways, has brought millions out of poverty and into a middle class existence,” writes Will Hickey, of the School of Government and Public Policy in Indonesia. “Exporting this model, and not just labor-intensive manufactured products to western nations, could prove the next leg up in China’s ascent as a credible emerging superpower.” Asia needs about $800 billion in annual infrastructure funding. China organized the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank partly because Asian nations’ stature in global finance institutions has not kept pace with their rapid growth. China’s voting share for the International Monetary Fund is about one quarter that of the United States and less than shares held by Germany, France and England. Despite criticisms aired by the United States, many of its allies have signed on for an anticipated building boom in Asia. The official membership roster will be released April 15. – YaleGlobal

Iraqi Army Opting for Small Steps in Al-Anbar Province Before Making Big Push to Recapture Mosul

Lara Jakes

April 14, 2015

Iraq Eyes Small Steps for Big Gains Against Islamic State

In Iraqi parlance, the battle to liberate Anbar is proceeding shway-shway. Slowly, slowly. Little by little. That’s not just how Iraqi security forces are mounting a new assault against key Islamic State strongholds — but also how the Obama administration seeks to wean government security forces from Iran’s influence.

Baghdad’s revamped focus on the country’s sprawling western Anbar province — parts of which have been occupied for 16 months — will play out in a series of small but deliberate steps to turn its overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim communities against the Islamic extremists. Doing so will delay a massive military operation in the northern city of Mosul, which serves as the headquarters of the Islamic State in Iraq.

So far, the new campaign has not gone well: Islamic State fighters repelled Iraqi security forces and tribal fighters in Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, late last week and kept firm control over the nearby city of Fallujah. Over the weekend, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered more troops to surrounding areas to stave off retreat.

But the shift to Anbar gives Iraqi forces an opportunity to win over suspicious Sunnis who fear their communities will be overrun by Shiite militias — some of which are linked to Iran — after the fight is over.

What Saudi Arabia wants in Yemen

By Ali AlAhmed

April 12, 2015

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/11/opinions/alahmed-saudi-strikes-against-yemen/

Supporters of the separatist Southern Movement perform prayers during a demonstration in Aden on Friday, February 13.

Houthi fighters guard the gate of the presidential palace where a bomb went off and wounded three people in Sanaa on Saturday, February 7.

Members of the Houthi movement and their allies attend a meeting in the Yemeni capital on Sunday, February 1.

Supporters of the separatist Southern Movement flash the victory sign after they seized police security checkpoints on Saturday, January 24, in Ataq, the capital of the Shabwa province in Yemen. Policemen were told to give up their weapons and return to their bases before the militiamen raised flags of the formerly independent South Yemen at the checkpoints.

Will the Iran Deal Destroy Iraq?

Lauren Williams

April 13, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/will-the-iran-deal-destroy-iraq-12617

Once again in the Middle East, short term gains are trumping long term interests. As the ink dries on the Iran nuclear deal, the bodies are piling up in neighboring Iraq. Many of them are the bodies of Sunni civilians, killed by Shiite militias backed by Iran and allied to the Iraqi Government in the battle against ISIS.

Reports of reprisal attacks against Sunnis by Shiite militias are mounting. Human Rights Watch issued a report in February claiming 'Residents have been forced from their homes, kidnapped, and in some cases summarily executed'. HRW is investigating allegations of a massacre of some 72 civilians in the town of Barwana by militias and SWAT forces. Disturbing videos have circulated on social media of what appear to be Shiite militia members brutalizing and torturing apparently Sunni adversaries in response to ISIS attacks.In the battle against ISIS, Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, and Shiite militias including the Badr Organization and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq are provided US air cover and billions of dollars in military hardware via the Iraqi Government. That puts the US in de facto alliance with Iran and its proxies, who are accused of war crimes rivaling those of ISIS.

In the predominantly Sunni city of Tikrit, Shiite militias, along with Iranian advisers and even religious imams, led the fight to win back the city earlier this month. The US largely sat that one out, providing air cover to the militias at the end of the battle. Tikrit was previously the scene of the single worst massacre in the current Iraq war, when ISIS militants summarily executed around 1000 Shiites last year. Now in the hands of government forces, it is the scene of renewed accusations of war crimes and executions by mostly Shiite members of the Popular Mobilization Forces against those they accuse of backing ISIS.

Why Is Central Asia Excited About the Iran Deal?

By Catherine Putz

April 15, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/why-is-central-asia-excited-about-the-iran-deal/

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in particular are keen to see progress in the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. 

Central Asia’s leaders are excited by the progress in negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. Hemmed in by sanctions-hit Russia to the north, an energy-hungry but distant China to the east, war-torn Afghanistan to the south, the region looks forward to the economic opportunities presented by an opening of Iran.

The framework agreement announced on April 2 included the promise of sanctions relief, which would make Iran a much more attractive partner for the states of Central Asia which already have relations of varying degrees with Iran. Iran, for its part, recognized the region as vital. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif commented that Iran considers “no ceiling for the expansion of relations with regional countries whether in the Caucasus or in Central Asia,” in a joint press conference with his Kazakh counterpart, Yerlan Idrisov.

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in his own press statement after meeting with Zarif, noted that “the two countries have great potential for cooperation” and that “much work is conducted as part of the revival of the Silk Road.”

He went on to mention the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran Railway which opened late last year and the ongoing cooperation among the Caspian littoral states, which are still working to determine the status and borders of the energy-rich sea.

Time for a 'Lousy' Peace in Ukraine

Brian Milakovsky

April 14, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/time-lousy-peace-ukraine-12622

The Donbas War has deepened and intensified divisions in Ukraine. The longer it drags on, the less likely a political reconciliation becomes.

President Obama should deny Congress’s appeal to send deadly force arms to Ukraine. Such an action would be neither in the national interests of the United States, nor of Ukraine itself.

Ukrainians and Russians often use the old saying that a lousy peace is better than the best of wars. If the geopolitical considerations of this conflict are weighted with its real human costs for Ukraine, the truth of this becomes clear.

The costs in lost lives and social strife of a military victory over the separatists are too high for Ukraine to bear. The war has claimed the lives of 6,000 citizens at a bare minimum, and displaced more than a million peoplewithin Ukraine and possibly as many without. It has torn open ideological and social divisions that have plagued the country since independence, and which after 10 months of brutal fighting are beginning to look unsurmountable.

Selling American Energy Abroad

James Jay Carafano

April 14, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/time-american-energy-export-agenda-12625

"The next president should lead the campaign for an American energy export agenda."

Increasing American production and export of energy is a win-win-win proposition. It would enhance our national security, make international energy markets more free, and address environmental issues realistically. The next president should lead the campaign for an American energy export agenda. In the meantime, the present Congress can do much to prepare for the march.

The acme of presidential leadership is crafting policies that make the nation safe, free, and prosperous. Satisfying all three priorities is often the Oval Office's greatest challenge. It is like single-handedly trying to get squabbling triplets into their car seats. Yet, the confluence of geopolitics, America's energy abundance, and economic and environmental realities offers an almost unprecedented opportunity to do this successfully. 

Energy is a vital global commodity. When it becomes a widely used, diverse resource rather than a scarcity to be rationed, the flow of commerce eases the friction of global competition. Energy, for example, becomes one less coercive tool of economic warfare, such as has been employed by the Russians since the 1990s to intimidate neighboring countries.

Hillary Clinton Could Save America's Asia Pivot

Natalie SambhiDavid Lang

April 13, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/hillary-clinton-could-save-americas-asia-pivot-12619

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to announce that she’s in the race to become president of the United States in 2016. In her time as Secretary of State from 2008 to 2013, Clinton amassed a heft of international experience and focused a sizable chunk of her efforts on the Asia–Pacific.

Indeed, her long-read for Foreign Policy in 2011 set out a vision for the United States in the region that has come to be known as the rebalance (née pivot).

But that was then and this is now. Should Clinton succeed in wrangling the Democratic Party nomination and blaze a trail to the Oval Office, she’ll face an international environment that’s familiar in thematic terms only. The international stage will come with a set of strategic challenges more acute than they are both today and when she left the Obama administration just over two years ago.

2016 isn’t that far away; the strategic rivalry between the United States and China will be a defining feature of the Asia–Pacific just as much then as it is now. Some in the Asia–Pacific claim that the rebalance ran out of steam as both Clinton and Kurt Campbell finished up at State and Middle East policy took center stage under John Kerry. Indeed, the rebalance has struggled to keep the attention of many in Washington, DC as the United States has juggled a host of issues including Russian chauvinism, instability in the Middle East, the Iran nuclear agreement, the Ebola virus, and prioritizing the needs of a war-weary populace still feeling the effects of a global economic downturn.

How will Bibi meddle in next US presidential race?

Author Ben Caspit

April 13, 2015

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Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a news conference at the United Nations in New York, March 10, 2015. 

There wasn’t very much nervous anticipation in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem while waiting to see whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would announce that she was a candidate for president of the United States on April 12. Everyone there had known for a long time that Clinton would toss her hat into the ring en route to the US presidential race. So much so, in fact, that the prime minister’s closest advisers had included her candidacy in their assessments of the situation. Every step that Clinton took had been recorded and filed in Jerusalem over the past year, with Clinton perceived as an inevitable fate, a bitter pill anticipated in advance, and an obstacle that must be traversed.

Summary⎙ Print Associates of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimate that casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and subsequently Netanyahu, will soon decide whom to back in the US presidential race.

“Netanyahu has been prime minister for nine years already,” sighed one of Netanyahu’s people this week, “and he has yet to be lucky enough to serve for even 15 minutes with a Republican president in the White House. He keeps getting Democrats like [Bill] Clinton and [Barack] Obama, and now maybe another Clinton. Do people really say that Netanyahu is lucky? Well, as far as American presidents go, he’s been remarkably unlucky.”

'Timebomb' UK economy will explode after election, says Albert Edwards

Katie Allen

14 April 2015

Source Link

Bearish City strategist says coalition has left economy ‘up to its eyeballs in macro manure’ by failing to cut deficit, and that sterling will suffer

Albert Edwards called the chancellor’s plan to boost the housing market ‘one of the most stupid economic ideas’ of the past 30 years. 

The UK economy is a ticking time bomb set to explode after the general election, according to a leading City commentator who has warned of a fresh crisis for the pound.

Albert Edwards, who heads the global strategy team at investment bank Société Générale and is well known for downbeat views, chides the coalition for a legacy of “grotesquely wide deficits” in both the public sector finances and on the UK’s current account – its overall trading position with the rest of the world.

The Challenge of Russia’s Decline

Joseph S. Nye Follow @Joe_Nye

APR 14, 2015

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Joseph S. Nye, Jr. a former US assistant secretary of defense and chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, is University Professor at Harvard University and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government. He is the author, most recently, of Is the Ame… read more

CAMBRIDGE – As Europe debates whether to maintain its sanctions regime against Russia, the Kremlin’s policy of aggression toward Ukraine continues unabated. Russia is in long-term decline, but it still poses a very real threat to the international order in Europe and beyond. Indeed, Russia’s decline may make it even more dangerous.

Make no mistake: what is happening in Ukraine is Russian aggression. President Vladimir Putin’s pretense that Russian troops were not participating in the fighting was all but shattered recently, when a Russian fighter in Donetsk confirmed to the BBC Russian service that they are playing a decisive role in rebel advances. Russian officers, he reported, directly command large military operations in eastern Ukraine, including the siege and capture of the important transport center of Debaltseve in February.

Tom Cotton: Obama's Iran Deal May Lead to Nuclear War

JEFFREY GOLDBERG

APR 13 2015

Source Link

The hawkish junior senator from Arkansas discusses the president's motivations—and his own.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/APTom Cotton strikes me as the most interesting Senate freshman for any number of reasons, not least of which is his uncanny ability to draw attention to himself, most notably when he convinced 46 of his Republican colleagues to sign an open letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. In the letter, Cotton, the extremely junior senator from Arkansas—he's the youngest member of the Senate, at 37—and his co-signers warned Khamenei that Congress might use its power to overturn or, at the very least, modify whatever agreement the Iranian regime eventually chooses to sign with President Obama and his great-power allies.

The letter made Cotton a hero among those who believe, as he told me in an interview last week, that Obama's deal is not a deal at all, but instead simply a "list of concessions." To his critics, Cotton's decision to argue publicly to a longstanding American adversary that the U.S. president's word is not binding was semi-mutinous or, at a minimum, despicable.

US Navy to Deploy Underwater Drones by the End of 2015

By Franz-Stefan Gady

April 15, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/us-navy-to-deploy-underwater-drones-by-the-end-of-2015/

Will this be a game changer for undersea warfare? 

The U.S. Navy will for the first time deploy Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) from Virginia-class attack submarines by the end of this year reportsmilitary.com.

According to the U.S. Navy’s director for undersea warfare, Rear Admiral Joseph Tofalo, the soon-to-be deployed underwater drones will be commercially available UUVs such as the REMUS 600 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.

Designed through funding from the Office of Naval Research, the REMUS 600 is modeled after the REMUS 100 UUV, built by the Norwegian-based Kongsberg Maritime defense contractor, and can be deployed for a wide range of missions including mine counter measure, harbor security, and search and salvage operations.

Obama’s NSA Reform Efforts Are Not Trivial

Timothy H. Edgar

April 14, 2015

The Good News About Spying: Obama, the NSA, and the Future of Intelligence

In 2013, the world was outraged to learn that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been spying on private communications on a mass scale. Since then, a global movement to end mass surveillance has pressed U.S. President Barack Obama to tighten privacy laws and restore civil liberties that had been diminished since 9/11. To observers’ chagrin, however, dramatic revelations of NSA spying have kept coming. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that, as Americans have heard more about the NSA, 61 percent have become less confident that surveillance programs are serving the public interest. The lack of confidence is expressed by members of both political parties, but Republicans are especially likely to say that they are losing confidence.

Although rising public anger is welcome, it is misdirected. A fair examination of the Obama administration’s record over the last 18 months shows real accomplishments on surveillance reform. In sharp contrast to the inaction of Congress and U.S. courts, Obama has taken several meaningful steps to limit government surveillance and make surveillance policies more transparent.

Despite high hopes for a fresh start on civil liberties, during his first term in office, Obama ratified and even expanded the surveillance programs that began under former President George W. Bush. After NSA contractor Edward Snowden began revealing the agency’s spying programs to The Guardian in 2013, however, Obama responded with a clear change of direction. Without great fanfare, his administration has made changes that open up the practices of the United States intelligence community and protect privacy in the United States and beyond. The last year and a half has been the most significant period of reform for national security surveillance since Senator Frank Church led the charge against domestic spying in the late 1970s.

NSA’s New “Snowden-Proof” Computer System

Frank Konkel

April 12, 2015

NSA’s Grand Plan to Snowden-Proof Its Data Using the Cloud

Almost two years ago, the National Security Agency forever lost its “No Such Agency” nickname at the hands of one of its contractors – a once-trusted insider by the name of Edward Snowden.

Snowden’s stream of leaked NSA secrets about classified surveillance programs shined the public spotlight on the clandestine government organization. Though the stream has now dissipated to a trickle, the impact to the intelligence community continues.

To privacy activists, Snowden’s leaks were a godsend. They forced a national discussion on government surveillance and even coaxing the likes of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to admit the intelligence community needs to be more transparent.

Yet, the leaks have “had a material impact” on NSA’s ability to generate intelligence around the world, NSA Director Michael Rogers said back in February.

Within NSA’s Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, no one wants to face another Snowden. With NSA’s widespread adoption of cloud computing, the spy agency may not have to.

Could the Cloud Have Stopped Snowden?

NSA bet big on cloud computing as the solution to its data problem several years ago.

The Diplomat Seeks Writer for Southeast Asia/ASEAN Affairs

April 15, 2015

The Diplomat, a leading publication on the Asia-Pacific, seeks a regular, paid writer to cover Southeast Asia/ASEAN affairs for its ASEAN Beat section.

The writer will be responsible for writing two short articles a week for The Diplomat, around 500-800 words in length, on developments in individual Southeast Asian countries as well as the region as a whole, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Candidates who are based in the region are strongly preferred.

Desired qualities: 

Previous experience either writing for online or print publications on Southeast Asia and/or Asian affairs or covering the region 

Extensive, demonstrable knowledge of Southeast Asia 

A strong command of the English language (Southeast Asian languages a plus). 

To apply, please send a resume and a 500-1,000 word writing sample on Southeast Asia to The Diplomat’sAssociate Editor Prashanth Parameswaran at prashanth (at) thediplomat.com. Applications should be submitted by Thursday, April 30. The position is for an immediate start.

WHY AN “ECONOMIC” APPROACH TO FOREIGN POLICY FAILS

Adam Elkus

April 14, 2015

http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/why-an-economic-approach-to-foreign-policy-fails/

New York University business professor Daniel Altman has abeef with U.S. foreign policy. It’s wasteful, inefficient, and haphazard. But in rushing to find an optimal solution to Washington’s foreign policy woes without properly framing the problem, Altman ignores the time-honored role of other state and non-state actors’ choices as inputs to Washington statecraft. Altman’s column is not as much an example of how economic thinking can help foreign policy as it is a case in point in how economists often find foreign policy and national security resistant to the simplifying assumptions that they take for granted.

Altman, surveying foreign policy circa 2015, thinks that existing schools of foreign policy thought have it all wrong. Rather, an unemotional economist looking at it from a mathematical modeling framework called “constrained optimization” could do better. Given a set of constraints and a desired quality to be maximized or minimized, how should a decisionmaker make optimal decisions? Altman’s complaint harkens back to a long tradition of mathematical decision models in business, economics, industrial operations, computer algorithms, and the military called optimization problems. For readers that struggle at supply and demand curves, a simple demonstration follows.

Officer Expectations The Foundation of the Professional Officer

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Note: This was written when I was taking command. It has since been refined by a handful of officers, with valuable additions from Mike Opbroek and Alexandra Kilgore.

The Lieutenant Paradox: The expectations of new lieutenants in the Army vary wildly. At one end of the spectrum, a lieutenant is responsible for everything his platoon does or fails to do. At the other end of the spectrum, a lieutenant can be viewed with suspicion and treated like a child — a man or a woman that retains lingering habits from his/her college years and has not yet realized the responsibilities of leading men and women into combat.

A new lieutenant, through his actions, can choose to meet one of those expectations, but not both. He or she can rise to meet positive expectations and become a leader that men and women can rely on, or be a burden on subordinate NCO leadership and the chain of command.

As a Company/Battery level Commander, I’ve spent a significant amount of time counseling lieutenants (inside and outside of my organization) on what is expected of a professional officer. Many young officers are shocked to discover the negative impacts of actions they believed to be insignificant. The vast majority of these behavior points will appear to be common sense. Sadly, many lieutenants still retain habits from their years as college students, or they may have developed bad habits through their time in the Army. I will explain the “So What?” in bold for each section to emphasize the significance of simple actions and behaviors.

This discussion isn’t meant to be all inclusive. These are just topics that I’ve discussed with many officers in the past year. I apologize for the length, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

FOCUSING LIKE A LASER BEAM ON DIRECTED ENERGY

Jason Ellis

April 14, 2015 

http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/focusing-like-a-laser-beam-on-directed-energy/

Advocates have long argued that directed energy weapons — including high energy lasers, high power microwaves, and other radiofrequency technologies — may carry substantial operational advantages for U.S. forces. None other thanDeputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work has called high energy lasers an example of the “fantastic, potentially game changing new technologies that we can more quickly get into the force,” and one candidate for the new“offset” strategy pursued by the Department of Defense. In principle, directed energy weapons can provide offensive and defensive non-kinetic attack options, serve as cost-effective force multipliers, and provide operational flexibility to the warfighter.

In parallel, skeptics point to a lengthy track record of overhyped promises and system underperformance. They note that the large-scale, high-profile developments of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s — programs such as theairborne, ground-based, or space-based lasers — were not only costly but ultimately failed to transition into the U.S. arsenal. They often argue that technically credible, operationally usable, and policy friendly directed energy weapons have been more the province of science fiction than reality.

RETHINKING RISK IN DEFENSE

Michael J. Mazarr

April 13, 2015

http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/rethinking-risk-in-defense/

Admiral William Gortney, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Northern Command, was recently discussing the threat posed by advanced Russian long-range conventional cruise missiles. These weapons, Gortney testified, provided Russia with deterrent options “short of the nuclear threshold.” As a result, “NORAD will face increased risk in our ability to defend North America against Russian air, maritime and cruise missile threats.”

That term—“risk”—is cropping up more and more frequently in national security assessments. Senior military and civilian leaders constantly refer to the importance of dealing with risk. Just about every piece of testimonynow employs the term. Dozens of risk management frameworks crowd the national security enterprise. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)introduced a framework for assessing risk in the national security enterprise that has since become a standard approach throughout various parts of Department of Defense.

How the Ottomans Ruined the 20th Century

James A. Warren

04.14.15

Source Link

World War I was only a global conflict when the Ottoman Empire joined the fray. Those consequences—from genocide to new borders—are still felt today. 

After reading the fascinating initial chapter of Eugene Rogan’s new history of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, I was struck with a recurring thought: The wonder is not so much that this sprawling 600-year-old Muslim empire fell victim to the convulsions of world conflict in 1918, but that it somehow managed to survive at all as a world power up to the war’s opening salvos. Founded by Central Asian Muslim tribes in 1299, at its height in the late 17th century the empire spanned three continents, taking in the Balkans in southern Europe, Arab lands from Mesopotamia to Morocco, and much of Asia Minor. Since the beginning of the 18th century Istanbul found itself almost continually at war with Europe’s imperial powers. Invariably, it came out on the losing end. Egypt and most of North Africa were lost to Britain and France by 1882, while Russia gobbled up one province of eastern Anatolia after another.