2014, learn from 1914

Sreeram Chaulia

Feb 11, 2014

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If the assassination of an Archduke of Austria was the spark that set off World War I, a collision between Chinese and Japanese vessels in the East China Sea could be the immediate cause of World War III

We are in the centenary year of World War I. A torrent of commemorations and commentaries is pouring out in the news media on international security in 1914 and 2014.

The central thought overhanging this surge of opinions about the Great War is whether lessons from that tragic conflict, which cost over 37 million lives, have been learnt or forgotten. Are we wiser with hindsight to avert arms races and strategic brinkmanship that plunged humanity in 1914 into what H.G. Wells ironically called “the war that will end all wars”?

Far from remaining a fanciful academic exercise, policymakers have jumped into the fray of drawing historical analogies between the international conditions on the eve of World War I and the current state of play. Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, set off a firestorm last month by warning against “military expansion” in Asia and comparing contemporary relations between China and Japan with those between Germany and Britain before the breakout of World War I.

The parallel was striking because China and Japan are presently engaged in a tense standoff over historical wrongs and contested territories. They are building up their military muscle with a wary eye on each other’s capabilities and intentions. Narrow nationalism, which has stoked anti-Japanese sentiment in China and fear of Chinese hegemony in Japan, is also on the rise and hardening stereotypes on both sides.

Like Germany and Britain one hundred years ago, China and Japan are two of the most powerful economies of our times. They are heavyweights wielding enormous material resources and surpluses, capable of enlisting influential foreign allies from their respective camps if their cold face-off escalates into a hot war. A Sino-Japanese war today will be far more global and devastating than the first Sino-Japanese war of 1894 over Korea, which did not spiral into a wider planetary conflict.

The insecurity experienced by British elites at the turn of the 20th Century vis-à-vis Germany’s expanding naval fleet and Kaiser Wilhelm’s challenge to the former’s colonial possessions has eerie parallels to Chinese anxieties about Prime Minister Abe’s “normalisation” of Japan as a military power. Should Japan continue shedding its pacifist constitution and bolstering its fighting capacities, the already alarming increase in Chinese defence expenditure will skyrocket in order to sustain Beijing’s vast lead in conventional and nuclear superiority over its Asian neighbours.

All it takes in such a trigger-ready ambience is one incident that can set off a mad frenzy. If the assassination of an Archduke of Austria was the spark that set off World War I, a collision between Chinese and Japanese vessels in the East China Sea or of Chinese and Japanese fighter jets in China’s provocative Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) could be the immediate cause of World War III.

Why the United Nations Is Kept Weak

Is the West underestimating the value of the trust that the UN enjoys in the hearts and minds of the rest of the world’s population? By Kishore Mahbubani, February 9, 2013



UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Credit: Rick Bajornas-UN)

Takeaways

The West needs to rethink its long-held policy that it serves Western interests to keep institutions of global governance weak.

If the West can control an international institution, it allows that institution to become strong and occasionally effective.

If the West cannot control an international institution, it deliberately debilitates that institution.
The West should not underestimate the value of the trust that the UN enjoys in the hearts and minds of the rest of the world's population.


A dirty little secret is that institutions of global governance are weak today by design, rather than by default. This has long been an open secret, as I know from having lived in New York City, the home of the United Nations, where I served for more than ten years.

It was most revealing to encounter many senior members of the U.S. political establishment and hear them lament about the poor state the United Nations was in.

These people regularly assumed that it was a result of either the UN being dominated by the poor and weak states of Africa and Asia, or by the poor quality of its bureaucrats. They would assure me that they wished that the UN could act in a more muscular fashion and perform as well as Western organizations did.

To the best of my knowledge, not one of these senior figures ever acknowledged that it has been a long-standing Western strategy, led primarily by Washington, to keep the UN weak.

Even during the Cold War, when Moscow and Washington disagreed on pretty much everything, both nations were united in one regard. They actively conspired to keep the UN weak.

The United States and the Soviet Union did so through a variety of means. They selected all too pliable secretaries-general, such as Kurt Waldheim. They bullied whoever was secretary-general at a given time into dismissing or sidelining competent or conscientious UN civil servants who had shown any backbone.

5 Statistics That Explained the World This Week

IAN BREMMER 

February 10, 2014

The right statistic is often worth a thousand words—and sometimes much more than that. These five weekly data points, put together by Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the risk consultancy Eurasia Group, provide a glimpse into global trends, political dangers and international power dynamics. Some are counterintuitive facts. Others are small stats that tell a big story. This week, Ian looks at figures from the enormity of Samsung to the flight of Chinese millionaires—and what they mean for everybody else.

The cost of Russian corruption

While Americans complain about the “one percent,” everyday Russians complain about the 0.00007 percent—the 110 oligarchs who own 35 percent of the country’s total wealth. Save a few small billionaire-boarding Caribbean nations, Russia has the highest level of wealth inequality in the world, according to Credit Suisse. And the country’s rampant corruption (note Sochi’s $50 billion-plus price tag) certainly doesn’t bode well for a change in the ranking.

Russian Poverty and Inequality vs. OECD Average 

© OECD 

(The Economist, Credit Suisse via Daily Mail)

The Chinese millionaire migration

Amid a government crackdown on corruption, 64 percent of all wealthy Chinese (those worth $1.6 million or more) have either left China or plan to emigrate—and countries around the world are waiting with open arms. In Australia’s new visa program aimed at the “significant investor,” Chinese nationals account for over 90 percent of applications. In the United States, the number of Chinese receiving “investor” green cards rose eightfold between 2010 and 2012.

Countries With Lowest Net Migration, 2012 

What China's New Aircraft Carrier Means for Asia

By Harry White

February 10, 2014

The apparent confirmation that China is building its second (and first indigenous) aircraft carrier has caused quiet alarm. But it's worth taking a ‘first principles' look at this development, examining what China will be able to do with its new aircraft carriers. There are important limits on what Beijing would be likely to achieve with carrier-based projection of air power. But the move will provide Beijing with the ability to be more assertive, and tells us a lot about China's sense of its role in the region.

To first get a sense of what this means for China's future, the way the US has used their carriers in recent decades is a good place to start. Since WWII, American carriers have supported operations in larger regional wars, including Korea and Vietnam, where there was significant enemy opposition to air operations although not a huge threat to the carriers themselves. They formed an important part of the ability of the US to project hard power into heavily contested spaces. More recently they've been used to project air power against countries that don't possess much in the way of either air defence and or an A2AD capability to pose a significant risk to the carriers.

They're also been used as symbols (for domestic and international audiences) of US military power, including for intimidation. The deployment of the USS Independence and USS Nimitz in the Third Taiwan Straits Crisis is a good example. Part of the value of carriers for the United States has been the control they give Washington over escalation in these kinds of situations; the idea is that anyone who attacks as valuable an asset as a US carrier should expect a significant response.

China won't be much different. Their carriers will be symbols of power, and will give China coercive ability against weaker states, but not much leverage against a peer competitor. Operating against major naval powers such as the US or Japan will come with a serious risk to the carrier itself-an important consideration because of the high cost and small numbers of carriers. The most likely state of affairs for Asia's near future is that both the US and China will possess sufficient anti-ship capabilities to make carrier operations a dicey proposition for the other.

Five Futuristic Weapons That Could Change Warfare

J. Michael Cole [2]|

February 12, 2014

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Predicting which five weapons will have the greatest impact on the future of combat is a problematic endeavor, as the nature of warfare itself is fluid and constantly changing. A system that could be a game-changer in a major confrontation between two conventional forces—say, China and the United States—could be of little utility in an asymmetrical scenario pitting forces in an urban theater (e.g., Israeli forces confronting Palestinian guerrillas in Gaza or Lebanese Hezbollah in the suburbs of Beirut).

The world’s best fifth-generation stealth combat aircraft [3] might be a game-changer in some contexts, but its tremendous speed and inability to linger makes it unsuitable to detect and target small units of freedom fighters operating in a city, not to mention that using such platforms to kill a few irregular soldiers carrying AK-47s is hardly cost effective. Special forces equipped with hyperstealth armor and light assault rifles firing “intelligent” small-caliber ammunition would be much more effective, and presumably much cheaper.

Another challenging aspect is choosing how we define revolution in the context of weapons development. Do we quantify impact using the yardstick of destructiveness and casualty rates alone? Or conversely, by a weapon’s ability to achieve a belligerent’s objectives while minimizing the cost in human lives? What of a “weapon” that obviates kinetic warfare altogether, perhaps by preemptively disabling an opponent’s ability to conduct military operations?

Keeping in mind the scenario-contingent nature of warfare, we can nevertheless try to establish a list of weapons systems, most of which are already in the development stage, that will, if only for a brief instant, change the nature of warfare. By trying to strike a balance between conventional warfare and irregular operations, our list is inherently incomplete but shows trends in the forms of warfare that are likely to affect our world for decades to come.

Pivot on the Rocks

Michael Auslin | @michaelauslin

02.11.2014 

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Max’s questions about why John Kerry is paying far less attention to helping tamp down the tension in Asia are echoed throughout the region. On Thursday, Kerry is leaving for his fifth visit to Asia since taking office last year. The State Department claims this is proof of his commitment to the administration’s pivot. Yet the White House continues to believe that merely showing up is 90 percent of success. This Woody Allen approach has worn thin with countries looking at Washington’s continuing refusal to confront China head-on over its increasingly coercive behavior. Nor were our partners in Asia appeased by once-regular statements that D.C. budget battles would not reduce the American presence in the Pacific.

Now they read comments by the commander of Pacific Air Forces, Gen. Hawk Carlisle, that “resources have not followed the … rebalance.” They see that U.S. Pacific Command has cut back on travel throughout the region and joint exercises, and that the U.S. Navy is planning on dropping down to just two carriers deployed globally. Far better than most in Washington, our friends and allies in Asia understand the immense distances separating the U.S. homeland from the areas in which it has rather daunting commitments.

The problem the administration faces is that Kerry, and President Obama for that matter, come to Asia bearing no gifts. There was a brief flurry a few years ago, after the announcement that we would rotate U.S. Marines through Darwin, Australia as well as a few other minor adjustments. All these were good moves, but they certainly did not add up to a major shift in American resources. Worse, the administration never explained just what the pivot was for: containing China, promoting democracy, forging a regional coalition of the willing?

Now, Washington is getting worried enough about the heated rhetoric in the region that it is telling our allies Japan and the Philippines to cool it and not provoke China over the territorial disputes each has with Beijing. The problem, of course, is that both Tokyo and Manila have been urging Washington for years to get more involved. They see little evidence that the Obama team is willing to stand up to China, except for more rhetoric, like that of NSC Asia head Evan Medieros last week, in which he said that another Chinese air defense identification zone would result in a change in U.S. posture in Asia. Such bravado is increasingly discounted, if not dismissed, in Asia.

A General in a Classroom Takes On the Ethics of War

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN 

FEB. 7, 2014 

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Robert H. Latiff teaching a course, “The Ethics of Emerging Weapons Technologies,” at the University of Notre Dame. Armando L. Sanchez for The New York Times 

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Three years after Robert H. Latiff received his star as a brigadier general in the Air Force, the United States prepared to invade Iraq. A military man since 1974, General Latiff was hardly an innocent in matters of warfare, including the one being declared by President George W. Bush against global terror.

General Latiff, after all, had lost one of his neighbors on Sept. 11, 2001, as a passenger in the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. He had supported sending troops into Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda.

Yet General Latiff harbored enough doubts about the wisdom and logic of assaulting Iraq that he considered retiring in protest. His mentor, a four-star general, told him not to bother. Nobody would notice the act of conscience of a mere brigadier.

So General Latiff stayed in the active military until 2006, earning the rank of major general and the Distinguished Service Medal. Meanwhile, he winced at the photographs of atrocities at Abu Ghraib and reluctantly signed stop-loss orders extending soldiers’ deployments. “I didn’t act on my deeply held disgust,” he recalled recently. “And that still claws at me.”

That acute sense of self-criticism also helps explain why Dr. Latiff, 63, now wearing the blue blazer and oxford shirt of a professor with a Ph.D., strolled into a classroom at the University of Notre Dame one afternoon last month for the opening session of Philosophy 20628. The course is called “The Ethics of Emerging Weapons Technologies,” and it is a forum for both Dr. Latiff and his students to grapple with the moral meaning of arms.

The syllabus, as Dr. Latiff explained to his 35 or so undergrads, centers on the arsenal of the high-tech era: drones, cyberwarfare, robotics, data mining, soldier enhancement by prostheses or drugs. Just because we have these weapons, he asked the class, should we use them? If we use them, how can we stop others from using them? The search for answers to such questions will occupy the semester.

Has the nature of "war" changed since the days of Clausewitz?

BY Rosa Brooks 

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

Rosa Brooks is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. From April 2009 to July 2011, she served as Counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy at the U.S. Department of Defense. 

 

In a 1942 case called Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court held that there is no First Amendment right to utter "insulting or 'fighting' words -- those which, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." 

Needless to say, this is a doctrine of surpassing vagueness (and it has been substantially narrowed since 1942), since if you don't know the norms of a particular community, you have no way of knowing what might constitute "fighting words." Language capable of causing riots in Des Moines might be merely yawn-inducing in Manhattan, and vice versa. 

So it is here in the (virtual) pages of Foreign Policy, where last week, Tom Ricks fecklessly posted excerpts from a preliminary concept paper developed by the New America Foundation's "Future of War" project team (of which I am fortunate to be a member, together with Tom, Peter Bergen, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Sascha Meinrath, and a bunch of other smart and interesting people). In the concept paper, we outlined the importance of looking at "the changing nature of war." 

Innocuous, you say? Not so! 

To the Clausewitzian strategy community, dem's fightin' words. We might as well have insulted David Ortiz's mother in Fenway Park, or informed a die-hard Marxist that there's no such thing as the proletariat. 

Within days, I received several kind notes from friends and acquaintances, informing me that to the classically-trained Clausewitzian there can be no such thing as the "changing nature of war," and urging the Future of War team to delete this phrase before anyone else noticed our terminological muddleheaded-ness. 

But it was too late. The initial Future of War posts had already generated a blogospheric Clausewitzian rebuttal, posted by Christopher Mewett in War on the Rocks and soon reposted on the Small Wars Journal's blog. Mewett takes the Future of War team to task for our lack of "careful attention to semantics": 

According to the Prussian, war's nature does not change -- only its character.... The nature of war describes its unchanging essence: that is, those things that differentiate war (as a type of phenomenon) from other things. War's nature is violent, interactive, and fundamentally political. Absent any of these elements, what you're talking about is not war but something else. The character of war describes the changing way that war as a phenomenon manifests in the real world. Further confusion in this case stems from the Future of War team's formulation: "changes in the nature of warfare." 

The enduring idea of India

Lieut-Gen (retd) Baljit Singh

Twelve generations of Independent India have witnessed, may be without a conscious thought, what is perhaps among the world's few very sombre and yet flamboyant performances, namely "Beating Retreat" by the massed bands, pipes and drums of the armed forces, which brings to end the Republic Day celebrations. The audience of several thousand Indians drawn from the lowly aam aadmi, right up the scale to the heads of the country's legislature, the executive, the judiciary and the diplomatic missions is usually seated, twenty minutes before the commencement and it is therefore natural that the specially created, vast open amphitheatre centred on the Vijay Chowk, would hum like the beehive.

That was the setting a few days ago, when President Pranab Mukherjee alighted in the six-horse-drawn state coach, in itself a work of art and antiquity of over ninety years! In clock-work precision, two posses of eight trumpeters sounded the fanfare and intuitively, the spectators fell silent and searched for the source of the music score, "Herald The Chief"! The trumpeters played their hearts out, from beneath the domes surmounting the two towers of the North and South Blocks, directly above Vijay Chowk, bringing the spectators on the edges of their seats as they watched the President take his seat.

Further enhancing this ceremonial ambience was a troop from the President's Mounted Body Guard, attired in scarlet tunics with intricate gold lace-work and white mole-skin breeches, astride well groomed and manicured horses, a heritage stretching to the Madras Governor General's Guard, raised way back in 1778. The guard salutes, and the massed bands strike the national anthem exuberantly as the national flag is hoisted, at the venue. The audience bursts in vigorous clapping, every face having misted eyes and wreathed in a smile! Now, that indeed is symbolic of the enduring spirit of India and let no one tamper with it.

Over the next 45 minutes the spectators cannot avoid tapping their feet to the rhythm of martial music. The under lying theme of every tune is focused on patriotism and glory of the Republic, such as "Kadam kadam budhaye chall, khooshi kay geet gaey chaall, yeh zindgi hay kaumn ki too kaumn par lootaye chall….!" As though to fortify this resolve, they next play out the rousing "Dhawaj Kay Rakshak", leaving nothing to chance that the fortress is under trustworthy and unfaltering vigil. The "Drums Roll" which follows, creates the auditory crescendo of the thunder and volley on the battle field.

The "Last Post" played by massed buglers, the national flag lowered and some 400 battle-inoculated, soldier-bandsmen wearing immaculate ceremonial uniforms, symbolising time-tested loyalty to the country and heritage of valour, march up the Raj Path playing to perfection "Sare jahaan say achha…!" As though to underline that resolve, Rashtrapati Bhavan, the North and South Blocks, and Parliament are flood-lit, signifying the eternal light even amidst darkness. And the lotus fountains of Vijay Chowk cascade water in the colours of the national flag. That too is the enduring idea of India and let every Indian mount vigil against those who may dare to mess with it, ever.

The Operation Blue Star Papers

By Harpreet Bajwa
09th Feb 2014


It was a turning point in contemporary Indian history that rewrote political and social equations in lines of blood. It claimed the life of a Prime Minister and subsequently the lives of over 8,000 Sikhs at the hands of vengeful mobs in 1984. It spawned terrorism for the first time in India on a large scale, in which hundreds—ordinary people, militants, policemen and journalists—perished. Just after noon on June 3, 1984, Indian security forces started the first phase of Operation Bluestar that ended on June 8, 1984, to flush out militants occupying the Golden Temple, the most sacred of Sikh shrines. By the time the seige ended, the Army calculated that 492 terrorists and 142 soldiers were killed. What was little known was that the Indian government had asked the British government then headed by Margaret Thatcher for military advice on how to take the temple. Knowledge about this caused major uproar in both India and Britain, after declassified documents on Operation Bluestar were shown by Labour Party MP Tom Watson, who asked Prime Minister David Cameron for a review into events in Amritsar in 1984. A series of letters (reproduced here) suggest that the Indian Government kept Sikh sentiments in mind while deciding to execute the siege of the shrine. It was concerned about civilian casualties. Hence, advice given by the Special Air Services (SAS) agent sent by the United Kingdom on how to go about flushing out extremists from the Golden Temple was eventually ignored, resulting in a high number of casualties. The SAS officer who visited India between February 8 and 17 went to Amritsar on February 10, 1984. On February 13 he recommended a surprise attack (airdropping troops from helicopter), and that armed intervention should be the last resort. On February 10 he made a ground reconnaissance of the Golden Temple. The SAS agents plan was approved by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “It was clear to the officer that the Indians had not given much thought to how they should root out the extremists, beyond applying the ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’ principle.

On March 7, 1985 the UK High Commissioner in Delhi Sir W Harding stated, “Although some of the recommendations were used, the main concept changed once the Indian Army took over.”

The communications also reveal that the British felt that if the visit becomes public knowledge, it would provoke a Sikh backlash at home. Meanwhile, the controversy has ignited a political war in Punjab. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal sought an unconditional apology from the British government. “Both the national governments were equally guilty for this unpardonable act and the Sikhs would never forgive them for this sin against humanity.” The Akali Dal was in power when Operation Bluestar occurred. Accusing Badal of trying to make political capital out of a sensitive situation and blaming him for various acts of omission and commission before and after the operation, former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh said Badal was raking up the issue again for partisan gains. But it is far from dead.

When netas are around, the babus are at play

Monday, 10 February 2014 | 

Joginder Singh | 

The issue is of the over-protection given to bureaucracy. Once you join Government service, there is no fear of loss of job. Even if you are caught red-handed extorting bribes, it takes decades to get rid of you

In a landmark ruling in May 2013, the Madras High Court had said that the Central Bureau of Investigation does not need the Union Government’s nod to probe IAS and IPS officers. This would have affected nearly 300 senior officers, of Joint Secretary or above rank in the IAS, IPS and other services, facing corruption cases across the country.

As per Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, corruption cases against Joint Secretary-level officers and above cannot be commenced without prior permission from the Union Government. But the court ruled that, “An overall reading of entire Section 6A would only show the legislative intent that the approval contemplated therein can at the best be only directory and not mandatory.”

The apex court observed on February 5, during the hearing of the above case, that, “If the policymaker in the top bureaucracy gets protection from inquiry, who should face the rigour of law — the lower bureaucracy which implements the policy decisions? How is this class of bureaucrats separate from others? All bureaucrats and government servants have protection under the PC Act, which requires a probe agency to seek sanction from concerned authority prior to prosecution. Why this special protection for a small band? On what classification can you deprive other public servants of this benefit…” The court said all accused were a class in themselves. “If that is so, then how could the Government create a privileged class of accused among the top bureaucrats by according them this protection?” the Bench asked.

The Bench added that by providing “blanket” protection to a small band of bureaucrats, the clause is seemingly contrary to the object of the Prevention of Corruption Act. It added, “The legislature appears to have not done a responsible job as in this process, it has protected the entire top layer of bureaucracy.”

At present, nearly 300 requests from investigating agencies are pending with the Government and prosecution against the accused is stuck. It seems like the Union Government has become the greatest supporter of those who indulge in malfeasance, illegal conduct and even corruption. It even went against the orders of the Madras High Court and told the Supreme Court on February 4 that bureaucrats of Joint Secretary-level and above “take all policy decisions” and must be protected from frivolous inquiry.

Few will disagree with the Government on this count. But the Government has not produced any facts and figures about the people against whom any frivolous inquiry has been started by an investigating agency. In fact, there is almost no evidence of any such cases.

There is no doubt that many senior officers are reasonably honest. But honest officers are of no use if they cannot stop corruption under their charge. It is equally so with some politicians, whose USP is their honesty. No Government can be run by mere exhortations of honesty. The real problem in the Government is that it is not clear as to what it should be doing and in what order, and who should be doing what. The Government wants only pliant civil servants who do its bidding, whether legal or illegal. It does not believe in sorting the grain from the chaff, standardising procedures, introducing checks and balances in the system and maintaining them.

Life on the razor’s edge

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AP FEAR AND HATRED: Abuse of the blasphemy law continues to take a heavy toll in terms of human lives and harassment of citizens. Picture shows a mob attacking a Christian neighbourhood in Lahore protesting alleged blasphemy by the community. File photo


Speaking up against the blasphemy law in Pakistan often has fatal consequences as the few who do speak up face death threats

When 69-year-old British Pakistani, Mohammad Asghar came to Rawalpindi in 2010, he was shocked to find that one of the two properties he owned there was occupied by a notorious land grabber. He filed a complaint against him before leaving for the Haj pilgrimage but it was Asghar who was arrested on his return. His crime was that he claimed to be the Holy Prophet and wrote letters in his name and even printed visiting cards, for which he was charged with blasphemy, a criminal offence punishable with death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

While awarding the death sentence on January 23, 2014, the sessions court which conducted the trial in Adiala jail disregarded his extensive medical records from Scotland in which it is evident he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. An affidavit in June 2011 submitted to the court by Dr. Jane McLennan, a consultant psychiatrist of Royal Victoria Hospital in Edinburgh, where Asghar lived with his family, says that he was her patient in February and March 2010. Records showed that in 1993, he was first referred to psychiatric services and treated for depression. In 2000 he suffered a cerebrovascular stroke and as a result walked with a limp, needing the support of a walking stick. He also suffered from psychiatric symptoms after the stroke which included depression and delusionary beliefs of a paranoid and grandiose nature. He had auditory hallucinations and persecutory delusions, believing that his home was bugged by the Pakistani and international media and that he was being persecuted for having written to Prime Minister Blair and President Bush, telling them the Iraq war was wrong, the affidavit said.

THE STRATEGIST

By Vijay Shankar

Former Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Forces Command of India

10 February 2014

India-Pakistan: Nuclear Risk Reduction Measures

The Problem

The problem with nuclear weapons is the complexity of convincing decision-makers that no conceivable advantage can be achieved from a nuclear exchange. As long as one side believes that there is some value to be had through the deployment and use of nuclear weapons, uncertainties and imponderables creep in that sets into motion a chain reaction that provokes and raises the degree of risk.

Military planners are familiar with the fact that risk assessment is an imperative in the development of a strategic plan. The process is marked by persistent motivation to not only eliminate uncertainties and bring about balance in the ‘Political Objectives-Resources-Means’ equation but also to ensure that probability of success and benefits outweigh the hazards of failure. In the nuclear arena, it is noted that strategic imbalance is intrinsic to the relationship. From the start, the equation is irrevocably in a state of unstable equilibrium caused by the fact that when nuclear means are used the impact will invariably be to obliterate the very objectives that were sought to be achieved. This is the reality of nuclear weapons. Its value lies in non-usage; its aim is nuclear war avoidance; its futility is in attempting to use it to attain political goals.

Strategic collaboration with a potential enemy is not a concept that comes naturally to the military planner. Tradition is against it and the very idea of sovereignty rejects the thought of it. Nonetheless it can be no nation’s case to destroy the very purpose that polity sets out to attain and therefore strategic empathy lies at the heart nuclear risk reduction.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNW)

Planners in Pakistan suggest that nuclear weapons have an inalienable place in their military strategy and therefore a flexible response of the conventional, tactical nuclear weapons and strategic weapons is in the order of things. Also, that ambiguity and the threat of first use are central to the absence of a declared doctrine. The direction in which arsenals are headed with the induction of the Nasr, Babur and the Raad into the Pakistani armoury is a grim reminder of the upshot of ambiguity and opacity. 

Added to this is the actuality of an enfeebled civilian leadership incapable of action to remove the military finger from the nuclear trigger, the active involvement of non-state actors in military strategy, and an alarming posture of an intention-to-use - all of which have the makings of a nuclear nightmare. 

Principles Governing Risk Reduction

The cardinal principles that govern nuclear risk reduction are five-fold: an abiding belief in nuclear war avoidance; clarity in strategic underpinnings and rejection of ambiguities; stability of the deterrent relationship where incentives to use and expansion of arsenal are abhorred; transparency in policy, technology intrusions, intent and alerts; renouncing tactical nuclear weapons; and centralised command and control with clear demarcation between Custodian and Controller.

NUKE STREET

By Sheel Kant Sharma

Former Permanent Representative to UN Office in Vienna & IAEA

10 February 2014

Nuclear Security Summit 2014 and the NTI Index

President Obama’s major initiative launched in Washington in 2010 will enter its next stage with the convening of the third Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague. The fourth one is set for Washington in 2016. This process of Nuclear Security Summits is unique in many ways. It has brought together Heads of States/Governments from over fifty nations to discuss, define and put in action a concerted global campaign to deal with the challenges posed by nuclear terrorism by addressing threats to nuclear enterprises from theft, sabotage, unauthorised access with malevolent intent, subversion of personnel and terrorism in general. 

The heightened concern about certain aspects of security of nuclear enterprises, that is, of nuclear material including uranium and plutonium and radioactive substances involved in various nuclear facilities, reactors and nuclear fuel cycle, has been there since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The US took the lead in 1994 in getting the IAEA to commence a whole spectrum of activities to prevent and combat illicit nuclear trafficking and to enhance physical protection of nuclear material and facilities. In parallel, the hugely successful Nunn-Lugar programme was also launched bilaterally with Russia to salvage nuclear material in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

Initially the effort was driven by fear of proliferation but it assumed a magnified threat perception after 9/11 since it was felt that suicide-bands of non-State actors could lay hands on nuclear material or dangerous radioactive substances to create mass panic or attack nuclear reactors to release radioactivity. While the responsibility to comprehensively enhance protection of nuclear enterprises to avert, prevent and combat such menace lay squarely on the governments concerned, support has steadily grown for international response through cooperation and assistance including through provision of equipment and advisor services, sharing of best practices and broad awareness raising about danger of nuclear terrorism. 

The IAEA has completed several five-year action plans to help its member states, on request, in diverse aspects of nuclear security in the same way as it has put in place a systematic programme for assisting countries regarding nuclear safety. While safety-concerned public health implications of the phenomenon of radiation is inherent to peaceful uses of nuclear energy and has received funding from the regular budget, the security-related programme has generally been funded by extra-budgetary contributions led by generous US funding.

The Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) process raised the level of international action and concern to the highest and gave a significant political profile to all related programmes in nuclear security, whether bilateral or multilateral. Participating governments have been sensitised and spurred to act owing to a high level interest in the Summit process, preceded by preparatory ‘sherpa’ meetings and careful drafting of declarations and recommendations for action. The impact of these summits is comprehensive in that all facets of the menace are addressed, such as reducing nuclear materials (usable for bomb-making) in reactors by converting them to fuelling with lower levels of enriched uranium, eliminating surplus stocks ofsuch material as was the case with several successor states of the former Soviet Union, adopting measures for greater security and control such as on-site physical protection, better accounting and control, prevention of threats from insiders and capability for effective response to any security-related event. 

Artillery Modernisation: A Reality Check

By Lt Gen BS Pawar

09 Feb , 2014

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BAE's M777 ultra-light field howitzer

With changes in policy clearly stating that in all future acquisitions of defence equipment, the first priority would be given to Indian companies both private and public, a number of private companies such as L&T, Bharat Forge, Mahindra Defence Systems, Tata Powers and Punj Lloyd have taken the plunge and are forging JVs with renowned global defence equipment manufacturing companies especially those related to manufacture of 155mm/52 caliber artillery Howitzers of all types. There is also an urgent need to quickly revise the present blacklisting policy of the government which is retrograde in its application and is doing more harm than good to the procurement process. Imposing of severe financial penalties on the company rather than banning, would yield better results and ensure that the acquisition of major/critical weapon systems does not suffer – an existing practice in many countries. The Naresh Chandra Committee on defence reforms has addressed this issue and the Government must act on it.

Presently, the artillery inventory is grossly inadequate both in quantity and quality…

Both Napoleon and Stalin, in their respective time in history, have extolled the decisive role of artillery in war fighting. This fact remains relevant even today as firepower especially artillery continues to play a significant battle winning role in modern warfare. In the Indian context, this fact was amply demonstrated during the Kargil conflict. But despite the lessons of history and the imperatives to transform well recognised, the Regiment of Artillery’s modernisation plans continue to stagnate.

In the last 26 years, India has not bought even a single gun after the then Government of Rajiv Gandhi was hit by a pay-off scandal over the procurement of Bofors guns. The major reason has been the numerous defence related scams, leading the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to display an extreme risk-averse behavior, resulting in the blacklisting of some of the major players in the world market, producing state-of-the-art modern artillery gun systems. The latest in this sordid saga is the uncertainty in the acquisition of the 145 BAE Systems M777 Ultra Light Howitzers (ULH), being acquired through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route with the United States. While the trials were completed almost a year and a half ago, the process for finalisation of the project seems totally stagnant with the MOD maintaining a stoic silence. This despite the fact that the Maintainability Evaluation trials were carried out at its behest in January 2013 – this in actuality constitutes the final round of trials in the procurement process of any military equipment.

Rheinmetall wheeled Self Propelled guns RW G-52

In the absence of any communication from the MOD and with no other orders in the pipeline, the BAE Systems has been forced to shut down its M777 facility located in England in October last year. This facility catered to 30 per cent of the gun’s manufacture mechanism. As per reports, BAE Systems is also seriously looking at the option of closing down its main facility in the US by March 2014, in case no further progress is made. This is a major setback to the artillery modernisation process as this was the Army’s priority project, keeping in mind the raising of the new Mountain Strike Corps and the long outstanding inadequacy of artillery on our Eastern and Northern borders. This development has followed closely on the heels of the scrapping of another important project involving the acquisition of 180x155mm/52 caliber wheeled Self Propelled (SP) guns after completion of trials.

Defence Industry: Reach for the Sky!

ByBharat Verma

09 Feb , 2014

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Nearly sixty-seven years of Independence and not a single combat aircraft has been produced by India! Despite the word ‘indigenisation’ featuring repeatedly in political rhetoric, one of the reasons is because of the vested interests within the government of the huge kickbacks associated with imports of military hardware. The perception that in every armament deal massive amounts of taxpayers’ money is siphoned off is largely correct. Blacklisting vendors is merely theatrics to divert public attention from this crass truth. The long, convoluted and tedious process of procurement of military hardware has been created deliberately by the politico-bureaucratic red-tape to extract larger kickbacks which eventually is the taxpayers’ liability!

Worse, it appears that the primary national objective is not to add military capabilities to ensure the nation’s security but to find ways to guarantee maximum kickbacks.

Worse, it appears that the primary national objective is not to add military capabilities to ensure the nation’s security but to find ways to guarantee maximum kickbacks. Frankly, nobody involved in the decision-making process is really concerned about the MMRCA being inducted on time to shore up the rapidly declining firepower of the Indian Air Force; or about the Indian Navy receiving submarines in time; or with the tremendous collateral damage the nation suffers on its borders with Pakistan because the infantry is ill-equipped. Despite similar levels of corruption, China never overlooks the primary objective of building military muscle. Frankly, no other country does except India!

It is amazing that the Indian genius that has successfully launched technologically advanced and sophisticated spacecraft to Mars or has finally mastered ‘cryogenic’ engine technology is unable to produce small arms such as a modern rifle, carbine or a pistol.

India’s increasing dependence on import of arms up to almost 80 per cent is attributable to multiple reasons. Instead of creating competition between the Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs) and the private sector, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the entrenched vested political interests continue to ignore colossal wastage of resources in the public sector. Elements in the government appear to have huge personal stakes in resources being funneled from the meagre defence budget under the guise of secrecy. The case of the Tatra trucks being re-invoiced at higher price by the Indian public sector unit clearly revealed the modus operandi of siphoning public funds.

The truth, however, is that substantial foreign assistance by way of technology was obtained in developing spacecraft, cryogenic engine, Light Combat Aircraft, the Arjun tank or missile systems. While one may take pride in naming the indigenous tank as ‘Arjun’, the fact is that the tank boasts of foreign components up to 55 per cent. In all fairness, even critics will agree there is nothing to be ashamed of in using imported technology till the capability for indigenous design is developed in-house. All modern hospitals in India today rely largely on imported equipment but at the same time, they earn millions in foreign exchange through medical tourism.

India and China: The End of Cold Peace?

By Jeff M. Smith

February 10, 2014

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In recent years China’s attempts to alter the status quo in its territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam have seized global headlines. The games of brinksmanship being played by Chinese naval forces in the Western Pacific have put the region on edge, propelling Asia into becoming “the most militarized region in the world [3].” Yet while the world’s attention has been focused on the maritime arena, it is China’s neighbor to the south, India, that has quietly become the world’s largest importer of arms. [4]

The China-India rivalry has not garnered the same attention as the China-Japan rivalry because their disputed Himalayan border—the longest disputed border in the world—has been virtually free of violence since the first major conflict in their history, the 1962 border war. Compared with the volatile confrontations playing out in the East and South China Seas, the de facto China-India border, the Line of Actual Control (LAC), has been relatively tame. It’s also because since the 1980s, Beijing and Delhi have crafted a durable framework to manage their border dispute and cooperate in areas of mutual interest within the confines of a cold peace.

Today China and India are more politically and economically engaged than at any time in recent history. Bilateral trade expanded sixty-seven-fold from 1998 to 2012, and the Chinese and Indian armies held their first-ever joint military exercise in 2007, followed by two more in 2008 and 2013. They have periodically found common agendas on global issues of mutual interest like world trade talks, climate-change negotiations, the primacy of state sovereignty, and the need to reform global-governance institutions.

Most important, both capitals have shown a commitment to mitigating recurring tensions in the relationship. When crises do arise—as was the case when a Chinese border patrol intruded across the LAC for three weeks in April 2013—they’ve responded with calm and patience to dissolve the crisis diplomatically. At the government-to-government level relations are, in a word, civil.

However, cooperation and competition coexist in this relationship, advancing in tandem on parallel tracks. And while the cooperative track has been accelerating since the turn of the century, the strategic competition has kept pace, and in some arenas advanced faster. The phenomenon should be familiar to Washington. U.S.-Chinese relations operate in a similar framework: deeper integration in the diplomatic and economic sphere accompanied by growing strategic mistrust in the security arena.

Perhaps the key feature of the China-India rivalry is that while it is felt and sustained by both parties, it is in many ways one-sided. China’s “comprehensive national power” exceeds India’s by such a wide margin. China’s economy was over four times the size of India’s in 2012, and over eight times the size when adjusting for purchasing-power parity (PPP). China’s official military budget of $119 billion in 2013 was over three times larger than India’s $38 billion defense budget. India more than twice China’s poverty rate (29.8 percent vs. 13.4 percent) and only two-thirds its literacy rate (62 percent vs. 95 percent).

India’s Rising Regional Military Engagement

By Nitin Gokhale

February 10, 2014

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New Delhi has been strengthening defense ties with countries across the region.

Sometime in the latter half of 2013, the top brass of the Indian military had a short but effective brainstorming session with other stakeholders in the national security architecture. The participants were drawn from the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) which functions directly under National Security Adviser (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon, senior officials from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the Research and Analysis Wing or RAW, India’s external intelligence agency and of course the Ministry of Defence. The main agenda: how to further India’s interests in the immediate and strategic neighborhood through effective use of India’s military.

For the past decade, India has been receiving increasing requests for joint exercises and training slots from what are described as “Friendly Foreign Countries” in the bureaucratic parlance of South Block, the colonial style building that houses both the defense ministry and the external affairs ministry. Considering these requests, a review was called for. At the end of the high-level meeting, a six-point formula for stepping up the nation’s military diplomacy was finalized.

Specifically, the officials decided to: leverage the military element of national power towards the furtherance of the national interest; contribute to the national security environment by developing a shared confidence amongst the armed forces; strengthen defense relations to promote India’s influence in the region; establish a presence commensurate with India’s strategic interests and the comfort level of the host nation; assist friendly foreign countries in developing defense capabilities consistent with India’s security needs; exploit India’s presence in UN Missions to further the national interest.

Many of the elements in the policy are part of India’s ongoing engagement with its friends and neighbors, but the fact that a reiteration was considered necessary signifies renewed interest in making full use of Indian military’s standing across the world.

One of the first decisions flowing out of the new thinking was to post defense attachés in the Central Asian Republics. Accordingly, three new attachés have been placed in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the past three months. These three countries are of particular immediate interest because of their proximity to Afghanistan, currently in the middle of an uncertain transition. By posting defense attachés, India wants to make sure it remains engaged with the military leadership there as it has done for years with Tajikistan, another country that borders Afghanistan. In fact, after initial difficulties, India has helped Tajikistan build an air base at Ayni, besides intermittently basing some of its own Russian-sourced helicopters there. A 60-bed, state-of-the-art hospital built by India is manned by military doctors and paramedics at Ayni, and is seen as a major Indian contribution in Tajikistan. The new Indian defense attachés are expected to offer similar, if smaller projects to the other Central Asian Republics.

India must help Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban

ROOTS OF POWER

By MADHAV NALAPAT

www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/madhav-nalapat

India’s bonsai-sized nuclear programme is testimony to the way in which the timidity of its officialdom has prevented the exploitation of its geopolitical potential.

Afghan soldiers secure a site where a suicide bomber attacked an Afghan army bus in Kabul on 26 January. The attack was claimed by the Taliban. REUTERS

ndia's rickety nuclear deterrent illustrates the "smoke but don't inhale" approach of our timid policymakers. Given their pre-occupation with making money for themselves and friends and family, our politicians leave less consequential activities such as national and foreign policy to officials. In a system where there is zero retribution for omission but a high risk of punishment for commission, it is small wonder that timidity has marked foreign and domestic policies, if bombastic verbiage is ignored. In Homi Jehangir Bhabha, India had a scientist with vision and drive, who would have made the country a nuclear weapon state had he been given the political go ahead. However, Jawaharlal Nehru placed more reliance on his international stature than on military prowess in assuring the safety of the country from outside intervention, and Bhabha was never given all that he needed in order to propel this country towards parity at least with France and the UK in matters nuclear. As a consequence of Nehru's incomprehension of the necessity for a nuclear deterrent, it was China that exploded a device before India, despite the fact that this country's nuclear establishment was at that point in time far more advanced than Beijing's.

The putting in place of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ought to have been when India set off its first nuclear explosives. However, it was only in 1974 that Pokhran I took place. The "peaceful nuclear explosion" (so named presumably because no human lives were lost in the operation) resulted in a volley of sanctions against India, soon viciously led by US President Jimmy Carter, who was clear in his conviction that a country such as India was too barbaric to have a weapon that (in his view) should be the monopoly of the "civilised world". The best response to such pressure would have been to press ahead with more explosions, so as to perfect the technology and train more personnel in its manufacture and use. Once it was clear that India could not be pushed back into a box, negotiations would have taken place that would have brought this country into the NPT as a nuclear weapons state. Instead, the fact that fear of international reaction prevented India's leaders from a second explosion for 24 years gave confidence to the "civilised world" that it could succeed in arm-twisting India into giving up nuclear weapons altogether. In 1998, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did what Prime Minister Rao was persuaded by his Finance Minister not to do in 1995, explode the Pokhran II nuclear devices. Subsequently, the PM unilaterally announced an end to further testing and thereby refused to sanction the additional tests then needed to ensure a workable set of devices.

How a triple murder in Karachi left the Taliban not just making headlines, but writing them, too.

BY Beenish Ahmed Beenish

FEBRUARY 7, 2014 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — On Jan. 17, gunmen on motorbikes fired 17 shots into the back of a TV van in Karachi, killing three employees of the Express News, one of Pakistan's most popular media outlets. At first glance, the event might seem unremarkable in Pakistan's increasingly violent political environment. Viewed against the backdrop of the Pakistani Taliban's (TTP) reinvigorated campaign against the media, however, it could mark a watershed moment for independent journalism in the country. Those who were killed -- a guard, a driver, and a technician -- were caught in a clash of public opinion, one that's pitted Pakistan's burgeoning independent media against extremist militants vying for control of the country. 

Pakistan has long been one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, and the sixth most dangerous in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. But attacks on the media have generally been aimed at silencing particular individuals -- like leading investigative journalist Saleem Shahzad, whose brutalized body was found in a canal in 2011 after he reported on connections between Pakistan's infamous Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the country's navy, and al Qaeda militants. But the attacks on the Express, which preceded a detailed fatwa spelling out what kind of reportage the TTP would tolerate, could mark the beginning of something else entirely: a wholesale targeting of the press as part of the organization's propaganda war against the Pakistani state. 

"The way that Express News is being picked out and targeted, makes absolutely clear that we are being given some sort of message," Fahd Husain, director of news at Express TV, said as the network shifted into live coverage of its murdered employees. 

Not long after, while the bodies of the slain still lay under white sheets, TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan called in to the channel to take responsibility for the shooting: "Express TV, like a lot of other Pakistani media outlets, is acting as propagandists against the Pakistani Taliban," he said in an attempt to justify the attack on live TV. 

What happened next was even more astonishing: Express anchor Javed Chaudhry began to negotiate a sort of informal peace settlement with the TTP, offering coverage on demand in exchange for security. 

"I will guarantee to you that in the future, if there are any instances of terrorism, or instances that the state considers to be 'terrorism' or an attack, and the Taliban accepts responsibility for it, we'll give you proper space to give your point of view that will be broadcast on TV or detailed in newspapers without any slant," Chaudhry said on air. "But for this, I'd like a guarantee from you that you won't attack anyone in the media."