THE MYTH OF A FRIENDLESS CHINA

David Wise

September 1, 2014

http://warontherocks.com/2014/09/the-myth-of-a-friendless-china/

An article of faith that pervades many policy briefings on the growing tensions in the South and East China Seas is that “China has no friends.” China, we keep hearing, is a bully, constantly seeking out nasty confrontations over various shoals and rocks in the seas it shares with its neighbors. A common corollary position is that the United States has lots of friends. Of course, the United States has every right to take pride in its history of alliances, particularly NATO. ASEAN and other Western Pacific nations have also encouraged the U.S. Navy to engage more vigorously against China’s increasingly expansive claims, independently affirming its claim to be “a global force for good.” The idea of a friendless China has some validity, to a point, but the notion will prove dangerous if it fosters complacency among American strategic thinkers. Indeed, a number of recent developments call this comfortable myth into question.

In August the six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a multinational organization that is increasingly viewed as China-centric, announced that it would be admitting four nations to full membership status: Mongolia, Pakistan, Iran and, most significantly, India, at a forthcoming meeting to be held in Tajikistan in September. Although the four states all already have observer status in the SCO, the decision was as dramatic as it was unexpected. Iran’s membership had been barred by the fact that the SCO rules forbid a country under UN sanctions from membership. The longstanding tensions between Pakistan and India, as well as China’s coolness to Indian membership (in part due to territorial disputes between the two), have always been viewed as insurmountable hurdles to full membership for both countries for the foreseeable future. The decision to admit the four at this time was the result of vigorous behind-the-scenes Russian advocacy– Russia being another country that American orthodoxy tells us is friendless. In commenting that the decision “constitutes a major setback for America’s regional strategies,” oneanalyst said

It does not need much ingenuity to figure out that the SCO is taking the decision to admit India at a defining moment in Post-Cold War era politics.

Well, of course, through the SCO both “friendless” Russia and China obviously have one another and their other SCO partners, which is of great interest to those who find value in the writings of classical geopolitical theorists such asHalford Mackinder. Mackinder, a British academic in vogue prior to the First World War, postulated that whoever controlled the Eurasian “Heartland” (an area of considerable overlap with the member states of the SCO) could control the world. Notably, these two major traditional land powers also happen to operate the world’s second and third most powerful navies. India’s admission into the SCO therefore diminishes somewhat the hopes of many in Washington who viewed India’s growing naval forces as a means of providing balance against China’s growing blue water navy. In this regard, readers of tea leaves are paying particular attention to the fact that newly-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have met multiple times with Chinese President Xi Jinping before having a single meeting with either President Obama or Japan’s Prime Minster Shinzo Abe. (Mr. Modi’s predecessor, by contrast, had several far-reaching meetings with Mr. Abe. The decision of the U.S. Congress to deny Mr. Modi the honor of addressing a Joint Session of Congress certainly did not help.)

There are numerous ways to interpret the newfound accommodation between India and China. Perhaps the impending withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan is causing anxiety about the spread of terrorism, particularly since it comes at the same time as an unusual rash of violence in China’s Xinjiang province. Another interpretation is that Russia seeks to balance out its increasingly junior position vis-à-vis China with another large member state — one with which it has strong historic ties. Many see India’s motivation as primarily economic, both to foster ties with the energy-rich nations of Central Asia, but also to expand trade and investment with the economic juggernaut that is China. On the other side, Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly interested in Modi’s support for China gaining full membership in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)— an eight member economic development organization in which China has long sought membership. President Xi has set the stage for this quid pro quo by extending India its first invitation to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which this year is hosted by Beijing.

MARITIME SILK ROAD: CAN INDIA LEVERAGE IT? – ANALYSIS

By Vijay Sakhuja

SEPTEMBER 1, 2014 

It was the Maldives’s turn to receive a sermon on the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) from China. Chinese President Xi Jinping invited Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen to participate in the 21st Century MSR, expand cooperation in tourism, trade and infrastructure, and enhance maritime cooperation. Apparently Yameen assured Xi that his country would “respond to the Chinese initiative.” Ali Hameed, former vice foreign minister of the Maldives, too had stated that the MSR was of interest to the Maldives. Earlier, Xi had approached Sri Lanka to consider the MSR, and Colombo indicated that it would actively examine the proposal. The MSR was also raised during Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari’s visit to China a few months ago.

Unlike in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the MSR has sent the Indian strategic community into a tizzy. A number of articles, commentaries, Op Eds, discussions and sound bites have concluded that the MSR is nothing but a Chinese ploy to get a naval ‘foothold’ in the Indian Ocean and reflects China’s creeping influence in the region. These reactions are quite natural given that China has aggressively pursued the agenda of building maritime infrastructure in friendly countries such as Pakistan (Gwadar), Sri Lanka (Hambantota) and now the Maldives – that are seen as bases/facilities to support People’s Liberation Army Navy’s future operations in the Indian Ocean and also the Chinese attempt to ‘encircle’ India.

However, it will be useful to examine the MSR through the prism of maritime infrastructure development and explore if India can leverage the MSR to its advantage. China has developed a sophisticated concept of marine economy that has been facilitated by its long coastline. Nearly 40 per cent of the Chinese population, 5 per cent of cities, 70 per cent of GDP, 84 per cent of direct foreign investment and export products are generated within 200 km of coast. In 1998, the Chinese government published a White Paper on marine economy which identified twenty different sectors for the development of the national economy. The China Ocean Information Center announced that the marine output in 2013 grew 7.6 per cent year on year to 5.43 trillion Yuan ($ 876 billion) accounting for 9.5 per cent of the national economy. In essence, the coastal provinces have contributed substantially to the overall national strength in terms of economic growth and play an important role in developing an export-oriented economy.

Today, China figures among the top countries in shipbuilding, ports (particularly container cargo), shipping, development of offshore resources, inland waterways, marine leisure tourism, and not to forget it is one of the top suppliers of human resources who are employed by international shipping companies.

China’s shipbuilding capacity is notable and is supported by plentiful of cheap labour and domestic ancillary industry which is endowed with exceptional engineering skills. Seven of the top ten global container ports are in China and the Chinese shipping fleet of 6,427 vessels ranks second behind Japan with 8,357 ships. Similar successes are seen in China’s fisheries production which is projected to reach about 69 metric tonnes by 2022 and it will continue to be top world exporter with 10 metric tonnes by 2022. Likewise, China ranked third as a tourist destination in 2012. The coastal regions are dotted with marinas, water sport parks and beach resorts and Sanya, Qingdao and Xiamen are home to the growing yacht and luxury boating industry.

China's Strategy Toward South and Central Asia

by Andrew Scobell, Ely Ratner, Michael Beckley

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Research Questions 

What is driving the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) Central Asia and South Asia policies, especially its policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan? 

What is China's overarching strategy in Central and South Asia? 

What economic, diplomatic, and military activities has China engaged in in these regions? 

What are the implications for the United States? 

Abstract

This study analyzes what is driving China's Central Asia and Afghanistan-Pakistan policies, identifies China's overarching strategy, examines the extent of Chinese activities in the region, and assesses their implications for the United States. The authors contend that China's response to the complex challenges on its western borders during the past two decades has been to adopt an "Empty Fortress" strategy, whereby China boldly projects an image of considerable strength in Central and South Asia to mask serious frailty. They conclude that China is not a major threat to U.S. interests in Central Asia, Afghanistan, or Pakistan and is unlikely to pose one in the near future.

Key Findings

Four Drivers of China's Central Asia Policy 

Beijing is consumed by insecurity and the goals of ensuring domestic stability and protecting national unity. China is especially preoccupied with suppressing internal unrest among ethnic minorities in its western regions. 

Beijing is driven to maintain peace, predictability, and secular governments in the countries of Central Asia, as it fears linkups between internal challenges and external threats, notably the Uighur Diaspora that spills across national borders. 

China seeks to increase influence in Central Asia and thereby limit the influence of other powers. 

China seeks to promote its economic interests in Central Asia and enhance energy security. 

China's Relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan 

China has friendly relations with Afghanistan and has become the largest investor in the country, but it has been a bystander to Western military activities in the country. 

Pakistan is probably China's closest and most enduring ally of the past half-century, but its strategic importance to China has decreased since the end of the Cold War. 

The future of Chinese influence in both these countries is uncertain. 

China's Empty Fortress Strategy and Its Implications for the United States 

China's westernmost regions are poorly defended and vulnerable to internal dissent and external threats. China has boldly projected an image of considerable strength in in these regions to mask serious frailty — known as an "Empty Fortress" stratagem in the annals of Chinese history. 

China's Empty Fortress strategy is exemplified by its promotion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO gives the outward appearance of potency and activism but is in fact a loose collection of states incapable of resolute collective action. 

Currently, China is not a major threat to U.S. interests in Central Asia, Afghanistan, or Pakistan and is unlikely to pose one in the near future. 

A MASTER PLAN TO COUNTER CHINA’S GROWING MILITARY MIGHT?

Harry Kazianis

September 1, 2014

http://warontherocks.com/2014/09/a-master-plan-to-counter-chinas-growing-military-might/

Robert Haddick, Fire on the Water: China, America and the Future of the Pacific (Naval Institute Press, 2014)

The Islamic State is on a tear, Russia has launched an invasion “incursion” into Eastern Ukraine, Syria is in crisis, a war in Gaza just ended in a bloody stalemate with tensions still running high, Ebola is on the loose, Libya is falling apart, and Afghanistan is still a complete mess. To put it bluntly, the challenges the United States faces seem to be multiplying like cockroaches. And yet, Washington will soon face an even bigger challenge: a rapidly evolving Chinese military that is focused on defeating Washington if war ever comes.

The challenge presented by China is formidable and is a present-day problem, not something Washington won’t have to worry about for another couple of decades. Soon, formal commitments to defend old partners such as Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines will become worthless — all thanks to twenty years of advances in Chinese military technology focusing on “counter-intervention operations” or anti-access/area-denial weapons (A2/AD). In fact, if trends continue, I would argue that by 2020 — some would say maybe even today — the United States will not be able to credibly deploy high-impact military assets like aircraft carriers in and around China’s coast all the way out to the first island chain in a time of crisis. (Well, it could, however, the risks would be so great, the possible losses so dire, that no commander-in-chief would want to take such a risk.) With over $5 trillion dollars of sea-borne trade transiting through just the South China Sea alone the cost of failing to deter Chinese actions and then not being able to quickly resolve and stabilize a crisis is just too high.

There could be no better time than the present for a new book that not only explores issues surrounding China’s A2/AD weapons and strategy and its overall military modernization, but also digs into the deeper dynamics of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship and what Washington must do going forward. On balance, in his first ever book, titled Fire on the Water: China, America and the Future of the Pacific, Robert Haddick produces a strong volume that lays out not only the historic challenge presented by the rise of China, its growing military and A2/AD strategy, but the history involved when it comes to Beijing rising armed forces.* Haddick even boldly offers his own strategy for managing the strategic dynamic of the U.S.-China relationship and what Washington should do with regards to its own force posture in Asia — something he pulls off reasonably well considering troubling trends in America’s foreign policy decision making. (Sorry, no spoilers here, buy the book!)

But why should we care about another volume on China’s armed forces, overall rise, and what America should do about it? Considering the vast amount of literature on the subject and the tremendous amount of books,peer-reviewed journal articles, and edited volumes one can turn to for guidance, surely Haddick’s work has already been covered, right? I would argue that this is, in fact, not the case.

China Developing New Nuclear Weapons Systems

Erik Slavin

August 26, 2014

On land and sea, China’s nuclear capability growing

Earlier this month, a minor Chinese environmental office broke some of the biggest news in nuclear missile technology since the end of the Cold War.

The Shaanxi Province Environmental Monitoring Center posted a work summary of its projects, which included site monitoring for research into the Dong Feng-41 missile. The Department of Defense told Congress earlier this year that China was developing the DF-41, a road-mobile, next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads.

The missile had been conceptualized for years, well before China’s military modernization of the past decade began. However, no Chinese governmental agency was willing to confirm its development until the provincial environmental office’s website did so. The post was quickly taken down, but only after it had been reported by the China Communist Party-affiliated Global Times.

The DF-41 news comes amid reports that China also conducted tests this month of its current land-based missile standard, the DF-31A.

U.S. officials also expect China to have operational nuclear missile-equipped submarines this year. The HK-6 bomber, a nuclear-capable aircraft with a range of about 2,000 miles, became part of the Chinese arsenal last year.

Collectively, it represents a nuclear triad, the decades-old standard that the United States still counts on for surviving a global nuclear war.

The Chinese triad remains heavily imbalanced in favor of land-based missiles, since its aircraft can’t fly very far and its submarines may not be all that reliable, according to analysts.

However, the bigger question remains: Why is China, a country with a “no first-use” policy, upgrading its nuclear arsenal at a time when the United States and Russia are reducing their stockpiles?

No one in power in the United States, China or any other nation seen as a rational actor is advocating a nuclear strike in today’s global environment. That said, military planners get paid to consider worst-case scenarios and keep open their options.

Chinese military leaders have contended they are so far behind the United States that their current nuclear posture isn’t an effective deterrent to being attacked. Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu, China’s director of the Center of America-China Defense Relations for the Academy of Military Science, explained that position in a letter last year to the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

“The Ballistic Missile Defense systems that the United States and its allies have deployed, or are planning to deploy, are capable of intercepting residue Chinese nuclear weapons launched for retaliation after it has already been attacked, thus potentially negating the deterrence effect of the Chinese nuclear arsenal,” Yun wrote.

Furthermore, U.S. conventional missile strike systems in development could strike China’s nuclear arsenal, “which, if adopted as an official doctrine, would discredit China’s No First Use policy,” Yun wrote.

China’s nuclear arsenal is thought to total about 250 warheads, compared with 2,104 operational U.S. warheads and thousands in reserve, according to Federation of American Scientists figures.

That sinking feeling (again)

Aug 30th 2014

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If Germany, France and Italy cannot find a way to refloat Europe’s economy, the euro may yet be doomed  

JUST a few months ago the euro zone’s leaders believed that, having weathered the storm, they were set fair at last. Buoyed by the promise of Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, to do “whatever it takes” to support the currency, confidence had seeped back into the continent. Growth seemed to be returning, albeit at a slow pace. Troubled peripheral countries were recovering, after bail-outs and painful measures to cut budget deficits and improve competitiveness. Unemployment, especially among the young, was still desperately high, but at least in most countries it was falling. And bond spreads had narrowed sharply, as financial markets stopped betting that the euro would fall apart.

It was an illusion. In recent weeks the countries of the euro zone have begun to take in water once again. Their collective GDP stagnated in the second quarter: Italy fell back into outright recession, French GDP was flat and even mighty Germany saw an unexpectedly large fall in output (see article). The third quarter looks pretty unhealthy, partly because the euro zone will suffer an extra drag from Western sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, inflation has fallen perilously low, to around 0.4%, far below the near-2% target of the European Central Bank, raising fears that the zone as a whole could fall prey to entrenched deflation. German bond yields are hovering below 1%, another harbinger of falling prices. The euro zone stands (or wobbles) in stark contrast with America and Britain, whose economies are enjoying sustained growth.

What started more than four years ago as a banking and sovereign-debt crisis has decayed into a growth crisis that is now enveloping the three biggest economies. Germany is teetering on the edge of recession. France is mired in stagnation. Italy’s GDP is barely above its level when the single currency came in 15 years ago. Since these three countries account for two-thirds of euro-zone GDP, growth in places like Spain and the Netherlands cannot make up for their torpor.

Turkey’s Imperial Fantasy

By BEHLUL OZKAN

AUG. 28, 2014

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Istanbul — In the late 1990s, as Turkey was reeling from various political and economic crises, there was a nationwide debate over European Union membership and whether Turkish accession to the union would solve the country’s problems.

Back then, I was a graduate student in International Relations at Marmara University. Among the professors in my department, there was only one who opposed Turkey’s integration with the West. He was a distinguished scholar of Islamic and Western political philosophy, and a genial figure who enjoyed spending hours conversing with his students. In his lectures, this professor argued that Turkey would soon emerge as the leader of the Islamic world by taking advantage of its proud heritage and geographical potential.

Now, 14 years later, that professor, Ahmet Davutoglu, has been named Turkey’s new prime minister.

Mr. Davutoglu’s classroom pronouncements often sounded more like fairy tales than political analysis. He cited the historical precedents of Britain, which created a global empire in the aftermath of its 17th-century civil war, and Germany, a fragmented nation which became a global power following its 19th-century unification. Mr. Davutoglu was confident that his vision could transform what was then an inflation-battered nation, nearly torn apart by a war with Kurdish separatists, into a global power.

He crystallized these ideas in the book “Strategic Depth,” in 2001, a year before the Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., came to power. In the book, he defined Turkey as a nation that does not study history, but writes it — a nation that is not at the periphery of the West, but at the center of Islamic civilization.

The book was like a prophecy of Turkey’s future. Mr. Davutoglu saw himself as a grand theorist at the helm of his country as it navigated what he called the “river of history.” He and his country were not mere pawns in world politics, but the players who moved the pieces.

These days, pro-government media is giddily casting him in that role. A new online video, viewed by hundreds of thousands, portrays him as a powerful leader following in the footsteps of Ottoman sultans. “My century-old dreams are coming true,” goes the accompanying jingle. “The spiritual heir of Abdulhamid II.”

But Mr. Davutoglu is not a “neo-Ottomanist” — a label often applied to him. He is a pan-Islamist. The movement known as Ottomanism emerged in the 1830s as the empire’s elites decided to replace existing Islamic institutions with modern European-style ones, in fields from education to politics. By contrast, Mr. Davutoglu believes that Turkey should look to the past and embrace Islamic values and institutions.

But, ironically, he bases his pan-Islamist vision on the political theories that were used to legitimize Western imperial expansion prior to 1945. While purporting to offer Turkey a new foreign policy for the 21st century, his magnum opus draws on the outdated concepts of geopolitical thinkers like the American Alfred Thayer Mahan, the Briton Halford Mackinder and the German Karl Haushofer, who popularized the term “Lebensraum,” or living space, a phrase most famously employed by Germany during the 1920s and 1930s to emphasize the need to expand its borders.

The Fall of France

AUG. 28, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/opinion/paul-krugman-the-fall-of-france.html?ref=opinion

Paul Krugman

François Hollande, the president of France since 2012, coulda been a contender. He was elected on a promise to turn away from the austerity policies that killed Europe’s brief, inadequate economic recovery. Since the intellectual justification for these policies was weak and would soon collapse, he could have led a bloc of nations demanding a change of course. But it was not to be. Once in office, Mr. Hollande promptly folded, giving in completely to demands for even more austerity.

Let it not be said, however, that he is entirely spineless. Earlier this week, he took decisive action, but not, alas, on economic policy, although the disastrous consequences of European austerity grow more obvious with each passing month, and even Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, is calling for a change of course. No, all Mr. Hollande’s forcewas focused on purging members of his government daring to question his subservience to Berlin and Brussels.

It’s a remarkable spectacle. To fully appreciate it, however, you need to understand two things. First, Europe, as a whole, is in deep trouble. Second, however, within that overall pattern of disaster, France’s performance is much better than you would guess from news reports. France isn’t Greece; it isn’t even Italy. But it is letting itself be bullied as if it were a basket case.

On Europe: Like the United States, the euro area — the 18 countries that use the euro as a common currency — started to recover from the 2008 financial crisis midway through 2009. But after a debt crisis erupted in 2010, some European nations were forced, as a condition for loans, to make harsh spending cuts and raise taxes on working families. Meanwhile, Germany and other creditor countries did nothing to offset the downward pressure, and the European Central Bank, unlike the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, didn’t take extraordinary measures to boost private spending. As a result, the European recovery stalled in 2011, and has never really resumed.

At this point, Europe is doing worse than it did at a comparable stage of the Great Depression. And even more bad news may lie ahead, as Europe shows every sign of sliding into a Japanese-style deflationary trap.

How does France fit into this picture? News reports consistently portray the French economy as a dysfunctional mess, crippled by high taxes and government regulation. So it comes as something of a shock when you look at the actual numbers, which don’t match that story at all. France hasn’t done well since 2008 — in particular, it has lagged Germany — but its overall G.D.P. growth has been much better than the European average, beating not only the troubled economies of southern Europe but creditor nations like the Netherlands. French job performance isn’t too bad. In fact, prime-aged adults are a lot more likely to be employed in France than in the United States.

Putin's Goal for Ukraine

Nikolas K. Gvosdev

September 1, 2014 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/putins-goal-ukraine-11170?page=show

"We have a tendency to be puzzled by Russian actions and can attribute it to an inscrutable Kremlin mindset, when, in actuality, Moscow is aligning its strategic compass to a different set of goals."

The initial optimism that the first face-to-face meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine last week in Minsk represented the long-awaited start to the de-escalation of Europe’s worst security crisis in a generation was dashed when, contrary to expectations, the fighting in East Ukraine accelerated—and Moscow began to more openly assist the separatist forces. This begs the question: when a very promising off-ramp to defusing tensions presented itself, why would Vladimir Putin seemingly reject it?

Pundits have come up with all sorts of explanations—from irrationality to megalomania to outright duplicity—and the overall impression many are left with is that Putin is hell-bent on war.

Yet one can detect a very clear purpose and design behind Russian actions—particularly in simultaneously starting dialogue and encouraging an increase in the tempo of military operations in southeastern Ukraine, following a template that has already been used vis-à-vis Georgia six years ago. We have a tendency to be puzzled by Russian actions and can attribute it to an inscrutable Kremlin mindset, when, in actuality, Moscow is aligning its strategic compass to a different set of goals.

Going forward, there are three objectives to be obtained—first, to weaken the bargaining position of the Ukrainian government and to move it towards acceptance of Russian proposals; the second, to destroy or degrade its military and economic capabilities, and the third, and perhaps most important, is to discredit Western promises of aid and support and, if possible, induce a feeling of betrayal and abandonment among Ukraine’s leaders.

By agreeing to come to Minsk at all—and accepting the need for trilateral Russia-Ukraine-EU “working groups” to clarify the terms of the association agreement Ukraine signed with the EU and to restart talks on resolving the gas dispute with Russia—actions seen very skeptically by a number of the elements in the Maidan movement—Petro Poroshenko was already opening the bargaining process with Moscow. Yet he traveled to Belarus with several cards in his favor. Against the expectations of many in the Russian government, the European Union had, in the aftermath of the shootdown of MH-17, agreed to much tougher “sectoral” sanctions against Russia, which, while not strong enough to force a change in Russian policy, are nonetheless a growing inconvenience. Moreover, the Ukrainian “anti-terrorist operation” was beginning to wear down separatist resistance and steadily reduce the amount of territory under their control.

Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine

Gordon G. Chang

08.31.14 

Raising the spectre of nuclear war over Ukraine, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is playing a new, and dangerous, game. 

On Friday, as Russian Federation tanks and troops poured across the border into eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin talked about his country’s most destructive weaponry. “I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations,” he said. “This is a reality, not just words.” Russia, he told listeners, is “strengthening our nuclear deterrence forces.” 

That same day, Putin used a term for eastern Ukraine meaning “New Russia.” So when he refers to repelling “any aggression against Russia” and speaks of “nuclear deterrence,” as he did on Friday, the Russian president is really warning us he will use nukes to protect his grab of Ukrainian territory. 

For more than a generation, nuclear weapons were considered defensive only. In a few short sentences on Friday, however, Putin made these devices offensive in nature, just another tool to be employed by an aggressor. And to highlight his threat, on Aug. 14 at Yalta, the Crimean city he had seized this year, Putin mentioned “surprising the West with our new developments in offensive nuclear weapons about which we do not talk yet.” 

Also in Yalta, where the Duma was meeting, the Russian leader spoke about renouncing the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty outlaws ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles and is a foundation of the post-Cold War peace. 

“I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations. This is a reality, not just words. 

It is one thing to talk about withdrawing from the pact—Putin has been doing that since 2007—it is another to violate it, which Putin has apparently been doing since 2008, when Russia began testing cruise missiles again. And when the State Department’s Rose Gottemoeller raised the concern in May of last year, Russian officials tried to shut down the dialogue. According to The New York Times, they “said that they had looked into the matter and consider the issue to be closed.” 

“Administration officials said the upheaval in Ukraine pushed the issue to the back burner,” the paper reported of the INF violation. Putin, with his comments Friday, just moved it to the front of the stove. 

And not just in the European kitchen. If Putin manages to intimidate the West with his not-so-veiled promises to incinerate Ukraine’s defenders, other aggressors may think they too can employ his threatening tactics. For instance, both North Korea and China have recently talked about unleashing Armageddon. 

Perhaps we can ignore the ranting of the Kim regime, but Chinese nuclear threats are particularly worrisome. China’s flag officers have, for two decades, been issuing belligerent warnings about Beijing’s willingness to use nukes to seize Japan’s outlying islands or Taiwan, but the threats took on an especially belligerent tone last October. 

With no apparent provocation, the main outlets of Chinese state media—People’s Daily, China Central Television, and PLA Daily, among others—ran identical articles that month about how Chinese submarines launching ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads could kill tens of millions of Americans in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland in Maine, and the Navy towns of Annapolis and Norfolk. Those Chinese reports also talked about radiation deaths in Chicago. 

On Thursday, a nuclear exchange was, at least for most people, inconceivable. Yet now that a reckless Putin has raised the stakes on Friday by making nukes just another appliance of aggression, an incident of mass slaughter looks dangerously real and perilously close.

The scene in eastern Ukraine: A pressing rebel front, demoralized Ukrainian troops

By Tim Lister, CNN

September 1, 2014

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/31/world/europe/ukraine-scene/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

With rebel forces on offensive in eastern Ukraine, evidence of a military presence is scarce 

Ukrainian troops encountered by CNN appear demoralized 

CNN crew asked to stop filming in one rebel-held town south of Donetsk 

Donetsk, Ukraine (CNN) -- A few miles south of the town of Starobeshevo in eastern Ukraine, a group of men in uniform is slumped under a tree.

They are dejected and exhausted, their eyes red with fatigue.

They do not want to be filmed but tell us of the horror they endured a day earlier. As medics with the Ukrainian army, they had transported the bodies of some 70 soldiers away from a combat zone and many more who were seriously wounded.

They scarcely raise their heads when a Ukrainian air force jet streaks across the sky, releasing its payload on a rebel-held area to the east. It's the only action by the air force that we've witnessed against a rebel force that's suddenly gone on the offensive across a wide area of eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainians brace for rebel attack

'Point of no return' in Ukraine?

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned Saturday that the crisis with Russia has worsened in recent days and is inching closer to a "full-scale war."

Border guard bases and checkpoints deserted

Everyone Who Wants To Destroy ISIS Needs To Know One Hard Truth

MICHAEL B KELLEY,MIKE NUDELMAN

AUG 21, 2014

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U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, during his vacation August 20, 2014.

Defense Contractor Stocks Are SurgingWhy Defense Stocks Soared Through The Sequester

Just about everyone agrees that the world would be a better place without the brutal terrorist group known as ISIS or Islamic State or ISIL.

On Wednesday, Barack Obamacompared the group to a "cancer" whose spread must be contained and that the group "has no place in the 21st century." And Secretary of State John Kerrytweeted that "ISIL must be destroyed/will be crushed."

But there is one thing everyone must realize in the anti-ISIS crusade: Given the momentum that ISIS has built over the past two years in Syria and Iraq, it will be very difficult to dislodge them from the region. To actually do it will require a full-scale war.

The Troubled Past of Foreign Relations with the Kurds

27 AUGUST 2014

http://kingsofwar.org.uk/ 

Eugenio Lilli, PhD Candidate, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London and Chair of the KCL US foreign policy research group. Twitter @EugenioLilli

A few weeks ago, fighters of the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as ISIS, seized control of significant swaths of territory in northern Iraq. Ostensibly to stop the IS offensive toward the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil and to provide indispensable humanitarian relief to thousands of displaced civilians, the international community soon mobilized.

US President Barack Obama ordered targeted airstrikes against IS forces and humanitarian air drops in northern Iraq. The US administration also began to send hundreds of military advisors and weapons to help the Kurdish peshmerga in their effort to fight the Islamists back.

French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron said their countries were also ready to supply arms and other forms of aid to Iraq’s Kurds. Similarly, in a meeting in Brussels, the foreign ministries of EU countries agreed to arm the Kurdish forces.

There have been speculations that the current international support for Iraqi Kurds could translate in the near future into international support for a Kurdish breakaway from Iraq and the formation of an independent Kurdish homeland.

What does the 20th century history of Kurdish relations with foreign powers tell us about such a possibility?

After the end of World War I, the victorious Allied powers met to dismember the vast territories of a defeated Ottoman Empire. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres proposed the creation of an autonomous homeland for the Kurdish people. Noticeably, this proposed Kurdistan would not include the Kurdish communities of Iran, French-controlled Syria, and British-controlled Iraq but would grant the Kurds control of an area on what is now Turkish territory. The Allies also made quite clear that they would not provide military or financial assistance to the fledging Kurdish state. As a consequence, it did not take long before Kemal Ataturk’s Turkish nationalist forces, who strongly opposed the recognition of autonomy to ethnic or cultural minorities within Turkey, violently dashed Kurdish hopes for an autonomous homeland.

In 1946, when Soviet troops were still occupying northern Iran, the Soviet Union encouraged Iran’s Kurds to form an autonomous state entity. In doing so, Soviet leaders were reaffirming the longstanding Czarist Russia’s objective of exerting influence on Iranian territory. The resulting Kurdish Mahabad Republic was short-lived though. Under increasing US and British pressure, in fact, the Soviet Union was eventually compelled to withdraw its troops from Iran. Abandoned by their foreign patron, the Kurds were left defenseless against the subsequent offensive mounted by Iranian government forces.

During 1974-75, Iran, with US and Israeli blessing, supported a Kurdish uprising against Iraq’s central government. Iranian leaders were only too willing to seize any opportunity of weakening their rivals in Baghdad. However, in a sudden about-face, Iran concluded a treaty with Iraq, known as the Algiers Agreement, where Teheran pledged to cease assisting the Kurds’ rebellion in Iraq. The agreement resulted in the quick end of the uprising and the forced relocation of more than 250,000 Kurds from northern Iraq to other areas of the country. 

In the 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union played Iran and Iraq against each other as part of their cold-war struggle for global dominance. Iraq’s Kurds rose up again in a renewed effort to gain independence. The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein responded by using chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels. In one particularly infamous case, the use of poison gas by Iraqi armed forces led to the death of at least 5,000 civilians in the Kurdish city of Halabja. Confronted with such a blatant violation of international law, the international community stayed silent.

Again, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the United States instigated Iraqi Kurds to take arms against the regime of Saddam Hussein. However, by the end of February of that year, US President George H.W. Bush abruptly halted Operation Desert Storm thus providing the opportunity to the Iraqi military to regroup and crash the Kurdish upheaval in the north. Fearing a repetition of the terrible events of the 1980s, two million Kurds escaped toward the Turkish and Iranian borders; at least 20,000 of them died in trying to do so.

Even today, while the international community has declared its willingness to provide military and humanitarian assistance to Iraq’s Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State, important international actors, including the United States, are contributing to a problem that is weakening the Kurds at their most vulnerable moment: the Kurds, in fact, are running out of money. The Iraqi central government is required to share oil revenues with the Kurdish regional government in Erbil, but Kurdish authorities have stated that authorities in Baghdad have failed to do so recently. At the same time, the US administration and others have stopped Kurds’ attempts to sell oil of their own. Tellingly, a tanker carrying about $100 million worth of Kurdish oil is currently sitting off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico unable to unload its valuable cargo. For the Kurds, reaching economic self-sufficiency would undoubtedly represent an essential step toward achieving political independence.

This all but complete historical overview clearly shows that the relations between the Kurds and foreign powers have been characterized by a pattern of cynical exploitation and cold abandonment. If I were a Kurd, I would be extremely skeptical about the possibility that the current international mobilization will translate into genuine future support for the creation of an independent Kurdish homeland.

How Obama Should Counter the Islamic State

Daniel R. DePetris

August 29, 2014 

Source Link

The Obama administration should look at these recommendations, if they aren’t already pursuing them.

When asked by a reporter during an August 21 news conference whether the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (now simply referred to as the Islamic State) is an imminent threat to the national security of the United States, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke in the very clear and blunt thelanguage that he was once known for when he was a senator representing the great state of Nebraska.

“[A]s to the comment about an imminent threat, I think the evidence is pretty clear. When we look at what they did to Mr. Foley, what they threatened to do to all Americans and Europeans, what they are doing now, the—I don't know any other way to describe it other than barbaric. They have no standard of decency, of responsible human behavior, and I think the record's pretty clear on that. So, yes, they are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else.”

That’s a pretty strong indictment on the Islamic State and the horrendously bankrupt ideology that it represents. But it also happens to be a far more dire assessment than the White House has indicated in its own remarks.

This, of course, is not to suggest that President Barack Obama or his advisers in the National Security Council don’t take the threat of the Islamic State seriously. This is certainly not the case; if it were, the president would not have authorized a selected campaign of U.S. airstrikes on ISIL targets in northern Iraq. Rather, the stark difference in language that the White House and the Pentagon have used to describe the Islamic State suggests that the whole-of-government counterterrorism strategy that Washington is trying to create is still very much in the sausage-making process.

What should that whole-of-government counterterrorism strategy look like? Former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad put forth a series of proposals based on his extensive diplomatic experience in an August 22 article for The National Interest. Think-tankers, columnists, ex-officials, and politicians all have their own opinions, with more aggressive action against ISIL bases in Syria often leading the pack of ideas. Many of the recommendations that have been put on the table, however, tend to be military-centric. The U.S. military certainly has a vital role to play in any anti-ISIL campaign, but as the Obama administration has rightly observed on a number of occasions, there needs to be something beyond the military realm to full grasp the horrific scourge that the Islamic State represents. Politics, economics, and the difficult work of regional and international diplomacy must all be incorporated into any policy if the long-term objective is to track, contain, and eventually degrade the military prowess and capability of the Islamic State. Fortunately, the White House is advocating for precisely that.

At the risk of being called naïve, inexperienced to the intricacies of Arab politics, or an armchair strategizer bloviating from the safety of his own coach, here are a few bullet points that the Obama administration, the U.S. military, the U.S. Foreign Service, and the Treasury Department should at the very least consider during their deliberations. I assume that officials across the U.S. Government are already contemplating some—if not all—of these policy proposals, and would in no way be surprised to learn that the administration is already in the middle of rolling them out to the public. But in any case, here they are:

Iraq, Obama and the Future of War Powers

Robert Golan-Vilella

August 27, 2014 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/iraq-obama-the-future-war-powers-11153?page=show

Why Congress should vote on any continued—or expanded—military offensive against the Islamic State.

Editor’s note: The following is a postscript to the article “A Tale of Two AUMFs,” which appears in the September/October 2014 issue of The National Interest.

In early August, the United States began conducting a renewed set of military operations in Iraq. In response to the advances of the Islamic State, Washington started launching air strikes against the group, which have continued over the past several weeks.

The rationale for this action, as President Obama described it, was twofold: first, to “prevent a potential act of genocide” against the Yazidis, and second, to protect American personnel deployed in Iraq, particularly in Erbil. The domestic-law justification for these measures was the president’s power as commander in chief under Article II of the Constitution.

However, last week the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung reported that the Obama administration was weighing a “range of options” to provide the legal basis for an expanded military campaign against the Islamic State. DeYoung wrote that the administration was grappling “with whether and how to try to militarily defeat the Islamic State” rather than simply blunt its advance. A senior administration official told the Post that one of the options that the White House was considering would be to seek congressional approval for an authorization to use force against the Islamic State.

If the White House judges that the threat presented by the Islamic State is sufficiently great, and that a sustained military assault against the group is both necessary and wise, then asking Congress for a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) is the best way to proceed. None of the three alternatives are good ones. The 2001 AUMF, understood to allow force against Al Qaeda and its “associated forces,” would be inappropriate primarily because of the dramatic and well-known split between the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s central leadership earlier this year. (For more on this subject, see this post by Ryan Goodman at Just Security, which has a roundup of pieces that illustrates what he calls the “remarkable consensus of opinion . . . that ISIS is not covered by the 2001 AUMF.”)

Fareed Zakaria: A second Sunni Awakening?

By Fareed Zakaria Opinion writer 

August 28

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Tribal fighters carrying their weapons pose for photographs during an intensive security deployment to fight against militants of the Islamic State. (Stringer/Iraq/Reuters)

ISTANBUL 

What are the strengths of the Islamic State? I posed this question to two deeply knowledgeable observers — a European diplomat and an American former official — and the picture they painted is worrying, although not hopeless. Defeating the group would require a large and sustained strategic effort from the Obama administration, but it could be done without significant numbers of U.S. ground troops. 

The European diplomat, stationed in the Middle East, travels in and out of Syria and has access to regime and opposition forces. (Both sources agreed to speak only if their identities were not revealed.) He agrees with the consensus that the Islamic State has gained considerable economic and military strength in recent months. He estimates that it is making $1 million a day each in Syria and Iraq by selling oil and gas, although U.S. experts believe this number is too high in Iraq. 

The Islamic State’s military strategy is brutal but also smart. The group’s annual reports — it has issued them since 2012 — detail its military methods and successes to try to impress its backers. The videos posted online of executions are barbaric but also strategic. They are designed to sow terror in the minds of opponents who, when facing Islamic State fighters on the battlefield, now reportedly flee rather than fight. 

But the most dangerous aspect of the Islamic State, this diplomat believes, is its ideological appeal. It has recruited marginalized, disaffected Sunni youths in Syria and Iraq who believe they are being ruled by apostate regimes. This appeal to Sunni pride has worked largely because of the sectarian policies of the Baghdad and Damascus governments. But the Islamic State has also grown because of the larger collapse of moderate, secular and even Islamist institutions and groups — such as the Muslim Brotherhood — throughout the Middle East. 

How to handle this challenge? The American, a former senior administration figure, counsels against pessimism. The Islamic State “is not nearly as strong as al-Qaeda in Iraq was in its heyday,” he noted, playing down recent reports that the militant forces contain within themfearsome elements of Saddam Hussein’s disbanded army. “We fought that army. It was not very impressive,” he noted. The Islamic State could be defeated, he said, but it would take a comprehensive and sustained strategy, much like the one that undergirded the surge in Iraq. 

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html 

BEIRUT -- The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?"

It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan -- please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.

Many Saudis are deeply disturbed by the radical doctrines of Da'ish (ISIS) -- and are beginning to question some aspects of Saudi Arabia's direction and discourse.

THE SAUDI DUALITY

Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins.

One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader -- amongst many -- of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.)

The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz's subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s: his curbing of Ikhwani violence (in order to have diplomatic standing as a nation-state with Britain and America); his institutionalization of the original Wahhabist impulse -- and the subsequent seizing of the opportunely surging petrodollar spigot in the 1970s, to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home towards export -- by diffusing a cultural revolution, rather than violent revolution throughout the Muslim world.

But this "cultural revolution" was no docile reformism. It was a revolution based on Abd al-Wahhab's Jacobin-like hatred for the putrescence and deviationism that he perceived all about him -- hence his call to purge Islam of all its heresies and idolatries.

MUSLIM IMPOSTORS

The American author and journalist, Steven Coll, has written how this austere and censorious disciple of the 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab, despised "the decorous, arty, tobacco smoking, hashish imbibing, drum pounding Egyptian and Ottoman nobility who travelled across Arabia to pray at Mecca."

In Abd al-Wahhab's view, these were not Muslims; they were imposters masquerading as Muslims. Nor, indeed, did he find the behavior of local Bedouin Arabs much better. They aggravated Abd al-Wahhab by their honoring of saints, by their erecting of tombstones, and their "superstition" (e.g. revering graves or places that were deemed particularly imbued with the divine).

All this behavior, Abd al-Wahhab denounced as bida -- forbidden by God.