New Tragedies

TALMIZ AHMAD

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/New-Tragedies/292982

In West Asia today, the tunnel is long and dark: the only sign of light is news that the US is perhaps encouraging Saudi Arabia to normalise ties with Iran.

As we survey the West Asian scenario at the end of 2014, it is difficult to recall those heady days four years ago when the Arab Spring had revealed its first promise of freedom and dignity, and opened for the Arab people a season of hope and infinite possibility. Over the years, those expectations have died a painful death, and the region has returned to its all-too-familiar expressions of animosity, intolerance, and violence, amidst scenes of individuals and communities murdered on social media, and millions condemned to refugee camps with no expectation of ever going back to the homes they knew.

Over all these developments is the looming presence of the Islamic State (IS) that has set up a Sunni caliphate, straddling the borders of Iraq and Syria, re-opening old sectarian and doctrinal faultlines, and overturning the regional geopolitical order.

The three principal nations in the region—Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey—rich in history and contemporary influence—are themselves deeply divided and mutually suspicious. They make vain attempts to grapple with the deteriorating situation, but achieve little since they have competing interests and cannot unite their efforts to confront the common scourge.

The regional situation is further complicated by the dramatic and unexpected fall in oil prices, to the extent of nearly 40 percent in six months, denying the countries of the region billions of dollars they desperately need for national development and to appease their restive populations lest they clamour for political change that would give them a voice in determining their own and their nations’ destiny.

In this confusing situation, it is important to go back to the first causes of this malaise. The Arab Spring posed a significant challenge to the political status quo that had characterised the region for several decades. The fact that this challenge came from Islamist groups made it even more daunting since their values and agenda were anchored in both Islam and modernity, proposing a fusion of Islamic principles and modern western political theory consisting of constitutionalism, political parties, elections, parliaments, and above all acceptance of universal human rights.

They thus resonated most effectively with the Arab populations and constituted a threat to the pre-modern patron-client political order and the attendant authoritarianism of the Arab polities. The latter struck back, taking advantage of the errors and ineptitude of the Islamist rulers in Egypt, and then demonising Iran for the promotion of its sectarian and hegemonic interests in the Arab world. The battle lines were thus drawn in Syria, whose leadership was now seen as an Alawi/Shia regime and therefore a sectarian enemy.

Rethinking Our Strategy in Iraq and Syria

by Gary Anderson

December 22, 2014 

Rethinking Our Strategy in Iraq and Syria

The war against the self-styled Islamic State is beginning to look more and more like the late, unlamented war in Vietnam. The Obama administration has placed self-imposed limitations on the use of ground forces, thereby creating the kind of sanctuary that North Viet Nam represented from 1963-75. Like President Johnson, Barak Obama had pledged no ground troops, but eventually sent in “advisors” and “defensive forces” to protect the advisors bases as well as the aircraft that were supporting the host nation government’s forces who were supposed to be doing the actual fighting; albeit poorly. This looks exactly like the Vietnam War in 1964-65 that I remember watching on TV and reading about in high school.

Since the Ivy League schools that produced the Obama Administration’s brain trust no longer require the serious study of history, the people who are planning the war effort don’t see the irony. It will take local political solutions to stabilize Syria and Iraq, but those political solutions will not happen until the conventional military power of the Islamic State is destroyed; that can be done in 3-4 months if we apply US-led western military forces in an overwhelming punitive campaign, to include ground forces, to crush the Islamic State’s army.

There are also two unexamined assumptions driving the current strategy. Both of these are rooted in Vietnam, a war that few in the administration seem to have seriously studied. The first is that there are no military solutions. The reality is that the Vietnam War ended with a tank-led conventional invasion of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese. The end in Vietnam was a purely military solution; it was not a guerilla triumph. The unification of Vietnam under Communist rule was a strategy that Ho Chi Minh pursued relentlessly from 1945 to 1975; he vowed to use both military and political means, and he did so brilliantly. The romantic guerilla myth was perpetuated by aging American liberals, most of whom worked hard in their youth to stay as far away from Vietnam as possible; most of these arm chair revolutionaries learned to worship Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara , and Chairman Mao in college as somehow being morally superior to American the American military as they saw it.

The second myth is that foreign ground intervention is always bad. In Vietnam, American intervention stymied North Vietnamese ambitions for a decade and built a South Vietnamese counterinsurgency capability that virtually annihilated the Viet Cong. By the early seventies, the only Viet Cong fighting formations were those that were effective manned by North Vietnamese regulars who traded their uniforms for Viet Cong black pajamas. The North Vietnamese felt comfortable with a conventional invasion in 1975 because they knew that the 1974 class of Democrats, who dominated the Congress, would not allow the United States to intervene; the war in Vietnam was settled by the use of naked conventional force made possible by the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Iranian Army affiliated twitter account: Our soldiers are on Israel's borders

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"IRGC soldiers of the Islamic Republic are at the border of occupied Palestine," said the tweet.

A twitter account affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) tweeted photos of IRGC soldiers with blurred faces supposedly on the border of Israel.

"IRGC soldiers of the Islamic Republic are at the border of occupied Palestine," said the tweet, according to MEMRI, which was published on Dec. 25th.

The same photos were previously posted on December 17, 2014 on a blog affiliated with the Iranian Army (newss.blog.ir) with the soldiers' faces visible. According to MEMRI, the blog claimed the photos were taken in southern Lebanon in the Beqaa and Baalbeq region, and that the blog post was titled, "We are arriving... near the Mother of Corruption, the accursed Israel;soon we will pass over their bodies, Allah willing."

The date "October 24, 2014" can clearly be seen in the photos uploaded on the blog with a caption that reads "Uploaded @ Military.ir."

In early October, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah took responsibility for detonating two bombs in the Mount Dov region along the border with Lebanon, wounding two IDF soldiers.

Inside Isis: The first Western journalist ever to be given access to the 'Islamic State' has just returned – and this is what he discovered

ADAM WITHNALL 

21 December 2014

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Jürgen Todenhöfer, 74, spent 10 days in Isis-controlled territory. He says the reality on the ground is different from what anyone in the West realises 

The first Western journalist in the world to be allowed extensive access to Isis territories in Syria and Iraq has returned from the region with a warning: the group is “much stronger and much more dangerous” than anyone in the West realises. 

Jürgen Todenhöfer, 74, is a renowned German journalist and publicist who travelled through Turkey to Mosul, the largest city occupied by Isis, after months of negotiations with the group’s leaders.

He plans to publish a summary of his “10 days in the Islamic State” on Monday, but in interviews with German-language media outlets has revealed his first impressions of what life is like under Isis.

Speaking to the website Der tz, Todenhöfer revealed that he actually stayed in the same hotel in Benghazi as James Foley, the US journalist who was beheaded on camera by Isis in August.

“Of course, I’ve seen the terrible, brutal video and it was one of my main concerns during the negotiations as to how I can avoid [the same fate],” he said.

Once within Isis territory, Todenhöfer said his strongest impression was “that Isis is much stronger than we think here”. He said it now has “dimensions larger than the UK”, and is supported by “an almost ecstatic enthusiasm that I have never encountered in any other warzone”.

“Each day, hundreds of willing fighters arrive from all over the world,” he told tz. “For me it is incomprehensible.”

Putin Could Become Even More Dangerous In 2015

JOHN SCHINDLER

DEC. 23, 2014

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REUTERS/Maxim ZmeyevRussian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow December 18, 2014.

Russia's financial crisis will get worse before it gets better. 

Western sanctions probably aren't going to convince Putin to cease his aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere because Putin and most Russians seem to enjoy being despised by the West. 

Economic sanctions from the West might actually encourage more aggression from Russia. 

December 2014 is the month Putin’s Russia was plunged into undeniable crisis.

With the dramatic drop in oil prices, the collapse of the ruble, and Western sanctions pressure, Russians are going into the new year in a dramatically different, and lessened, economic situation than the one they enjoyed at the beginning of the year.

This will bring myriad hardships to Russians, particularly because even Moscow is admitting that low oil prices may be the “new normal” until the 2030’s.

Caveats abound here. The vast majority of Russians don’t travel abroad, much less have vacation properties in Europe, nor do they have hard-currency mortgages (the ruble now having returned to its Soviet-era pariah status).

Moreover, the average Russian has a physical and mental toughness about getting by in tough times — it is an unmistakable point of national pride — that Westerners cannot really fathom.

In no case now does Russia face the sort of complete economic collapse that it endured in the 1990s, when the Soviet implosion pushed poor Russians to the edge of survival. Life in Yeltsin’s Russia, particularly beyond the bright lights of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where few Westerners visit, was harsh and frankly dismal.

Nevertheless, the economic undoing of Putinism over the last weeks, brought about by Western sanctions in response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine which began in early 2014, heralds major changes for the Kremlin, and not just in its domestic affairs.

While Russia has far deeper hard currency reserves than it possessed the last time the ruble’s bottom fell out in 1998, and it’s clear that Moscow will try to prevent banks from failing, there should be little optimism among Putin’s inner circle.

The Power Of Sanctions

Four EU countries in top 10 world economies

BY BENJAMIN FOX

26.12.14 

http://euobserver.com/news/127046

BRUSSELS - Four European countries are in the world’s 10 largest economies, according to research by the Centre for Economic and Business Research.

The annual World Economic League Table 2015 published on Friday (26 December) by the London-based think tank puts the US as the world’s main economic powerhouse, followed by China and Japan.

Germany, the UK and France take the fourth, fifth and sixth spots, respectively, with Italy, in the eighth place, the only other EU country in the top 10.

The UK has edged ahead of France into fifth place in this year's rankings, although the Cebr comments that the $1 billion (€850 million) gap in output between the two countries is “well within the margin of error” and would likely be extinguished if France's markets in drugs and prostitution, which “may prove to be 'larger than their British counterparts”, were included.

In June, the UK economy received a statistical boost of £65 billion (€80 billion) following the introduction of new EU accounting rules allowing the so-called ‘grey economy’, which includes proceeds from drug trafficking and prostitution, to be recorded.

Meanwhile, Russia is the main loser in the new list, dropping from eighth place to tenth in the rankings, with Cebr chief executive Douglas McWilliams suggesting that Moscow’s role in the ongoing Ukraine conflict was a factor in the country’s economic decline.

“The fun of the world economic league table is that it brings things back to hard figures,” said McWilliams.

He added that “countries like Russia and Argentina, who have invaded neighbouring countries and whose leaders spout aggressively nationalistic rhetoric, are brought down to earth by their falls in the league table as their economies collapse".

The Russian economy is poised to endure a 4.5 percent recession in 2015 as a result of falling oil prices and the effects of western sanctions.

Last week the country’s central bank was forced to spent around €3 billion of its foreign currency reserves to prevent a run on the rouble currency.

But the next 15 years are likely to be about the continuing rise of some of the 'Bric' countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

China is projected to overtake the US by 2025 as the world’s largest economy, the Cebr forecasts, while the "unstoppable" rise of India will see it become the world’s third-largest economy by 2024.

In Europe, meanwhile, Cebr predicts that Germany’s ageing and declining population, coupled with the weakness of the euro, will allow the UK to overtake it by 2030.

Is Putin to blame for the plunging rouble?

Ben Judah

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30539355

Vladimir Putin accused the US and EU of conspiring to weaken Russia at his end-of-year news conference on Thursday, but as the country's economy tanks he has nobody to blame but himself, argues Russia analyst Ben Judah.

Russia blames the West. Not only for the war in Ukraine - the result, it says, of a revolution orchestrated by Western powers - but for the slump in the oil price, and the collapse of the rouble. There is talk in the Kremlin of an American-Saudi conspiracy and Nato economic warfare.

But in reality the war and the rouble crisis could have been avoided, and nowhere is this more evident than in relation to the oil-dependent economy.

The Kremlin has known, ever since the oil boom took off 10 years ago, that a political system was being built on the basis of the one thing in Russia that Vladimir Putin could not control - the price of oil. The Kremlin's own accounts estimate that sales of oil and gas accounted for 50% of Russia's federal budget revenue in 2013. And ominously, roughly half the Russian population lives off the state budget - either as state employees, pensioners or as benefit claimants.

Ben Judah is the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In And Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin.

He is now writing a book about London as a global city.

This means that a collapse in the oil price threatens the fragile foundations of the current system, in which the Kremlin buys the loyalty of the majority with state handouts. The Kremlin needs the price of oil to remain high, and even to rise if it is to continue to deliver rising living standards.

Instead Russians may now have to face austerity.

We have not done much of what we were planning to do and saying we would do to diversify our economy for the past 20 years”

Vladimir Putin

"If the situation continues to develop unfavourably like this, we will have to adjust our plans, and it is certain that cuts in some areas will have to be made," Putin said at his news conference.

Russia's 2015 spending plans had assumed that oil would remain over $100. The country can only balance its budget with the oil price around that mark. The Kremlin may soon no longer have the cash to buy Russians' enthusiastic patriotism with television extravaganzas like the Sochi Olympics (price tag $50bn), or the sudden invasion and annexation of Crimea ($75bn, according to one estimate).

For the masses, the association between Vladimir Putin and rising living standards may soon be broken, while for the elite the Russian president no longer looks like a guarantor of economic stability. Within government there is talk of significant cutbacks and even mass lay-offs at state corporations like Gazprom. There is also a risk that to escape the currency crisis Russia may face a period of inflation, inflicting further wounds on ordinary people's living standards. Russia's middle classes are already facing onerous mortgage repayments, and the imported goods and foreign holidays they enjoy may become unaffordable.

Major oil spill in world's largest mangrove forest threatens area's rare wildlife

JACK SIMPSON

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Local fishermen have taken to the water with sponges and sacks to try and stop the slick from spreading 

Authorities in Bangladesh are assessing the level of damage to the world’s largest mangrove forest, following a major oil spill in the Sundarbans conservation area in the south of the country. 

There are fears that the area’s wildlife could be under threat after an oil tanker carrying 350,000 litres of oil sunk just outside of the Unesco World Heritage site on Tuesday.

The ship was salvaged by a rescue vessel on Thursday, nearly 30 hours after it first got into trouble.

Within that time, thousands of gallons of oil had escaped two of the damaged containers on the ship, polluting two of the main rivers that run through the Sundarbans, as well as a number of interlinked canals that cover the area.

In total, it is believed that the new slick has already covered 80km and is predicted to spread further.

Environmental agencies in Bangladesh are still in the dark as to the impact this has had on the wildlife in the area and have not yet come up with a plan on how to deal with the spill.

Tapan Kumer Dey, Chief Conservator of Forest Wildlife, said that wildlife agencies had noticed restricted movement throughout the Sundurban’s crocodile population and unusual behaviour had been observed in the extremely rare Irrawaddy dolphins that live in the mangroves.

ISIS Forces in Iraq and Syria Hit by New Wave of U.S. Air Strikes

December 27, 2014

Islamic State Targeted in 39 Strikes by U.S., Allies-Task Force

WASHINGTON — U.S. forces and their allies staged 39 air strikes on Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria over the past two days, the Combined Joint Task Force said on Friday.

Fighters, bombers and remotely controlled aircraft hit 19 targets in Syria while 20 strikes were carried out in Iraq, a task force statement said.

In Syria, 17 strikes were concentrated on an area near the city of Kobani and destroyed several Islamic State buildings, vehicles and fighting positions.

Two air strikes near Hasakah and one near Raqqa also caused damage.

In Iraq, the strikes hit near Al Asad, Sinjar, Mosul, Al Qaim, Baiji, Kirkuk, Falluja and Tal Afar, the statement said.

(Combined Joint Task Force corrects the number of strikes to 39 from 31 and time element to Thursday and Friday from just Friday)

The electronic equivalent of war

December 24, 2014 

http://www.times-herald.com/opinion/20141225-Guest-Glassman 

North Korea’s state-run news agency claims that suggestions Pyongyang was behind the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures are “wild rumor.” But, according to the New York Times and other media sources, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded otherwise. The attack, those officials say, “was both state-sponsored and far more destructive than any seen before on American soil.”

Now the question is: What is the United States going to do about it?

The cyber-attack will cost Sony an estimated $100 million, not including the losses that will result after threats of violence by hackers caused the withdrawal of its movie “The Interview,” a Seth Rogen comedy featuring an assassination plot against North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Imagine a team of North Korean saboteurs planting explosives under Sony’s sound stages and information technology equipment – then blowing them all up in the dead of night. This cyber-attack is a precise analogue. A company has been attacked on U.S. soil; our sovereignty has been violated.

At a White House briefing Thursday, spokesman Josh Earnest said that U.S. officials were considering an “appropriate response.” He said that the hacking was the work of a “sophisticated actor,” but, so far, the U.S. government has not directly accused the North Korean government.

It’s not always easy to determine a return address on a cyber-attack, and, if a specific government is accused with details to back up the charge, U.S. officials worry about revealing too much evidence of how they drew that conclusion. In this case, for example, officials say off the record that the attacks were launched from outside North Korea but “were sanctioned by North Korean leaders.”

But, the Sony attack is a watershed event. The pretending is over. There is a real cyber-war going on, and we should admit it and develop serious, transparent policies in response. The New York Times reported Thursday that some “administration officials said a direct confrontation with the North would provide North Korea with the kind of dispute it covets.”

Maybe, but that’s a minor issue. Far more important is to make it clear that the United States sees no difference between an attack using electronic weapons and one using gunpowder or plastic explosives. These attacks – sanctioned or committed by state actors or their surrogates or by non-state terrorists – should be treated not as crimes, like theft or fraud, but as what they are: military interventions, or, to paraphrase George Orwell, the electronic equivalent of war.

More severe attacks have been escalating. In the past several months, we’ve seen invasions of White House and State Department computers – with Russia under suspicion. Hackers are believed to have the power to throw our financial system and power grid into chaos and to disable some of our most powerful weapons, such as nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Beyond Phishing: Experts Predict The Cybercrime Of 2015

STUART DREDGE

DEC. 24, 2014

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Will 2015 be a happy new year for internet users? Not if cybercriminals have their way.

Online security companies have been making their predictions for 2015, from the malware that will be trying to weasel its way onto our computers and smartphones to the prospect of cyberwar involving state-sponsored hackers.

Here’s a summary of what you should be watching out for online in 2015, based on the predictions of companies including BitDefender, KPMG, AdaptiveMobile, Trend Micro, BAE Systems, WebSense, InfoSec Institute, Symantec, Kaspersky, Proofpoint and Sophos. The links lead to their full predictions.

Targeted attacks and sophisticated spam

The more we do and share online, the more vulnerable we may be to “targeted” attacks to steal our passwords and data. “It is possible that our willingness to share and shop online will let criminals become more selective about who they target,” suggests Stephen Bonner of KPMG.

“They won’t need to maintain the current ‘hit and hope’ approach of spear phishing, instead only attacking specific users and computers based on the data these give away about their owners.”

Meanwhile, you may see more spam emails in your inbox in 2015, as the technology used to send them becomes more sophisticated.

“Cybercriminals upping their game are perfecting their campaign abilities previously associated only with advanced, targeted attacks. These advanced tactics designed to evade most modern email security solutions are quickly becoming the new norm as more sophisticated email threats increase,” suggests WebSense.

“As a result, although spam volumes are decreasing, most users will begin to witness an increase in the amount of spam they receive in their inbox, because most email security measures will be incapable of detecting them in the Cloud scrubbing prior to passing to a user’s inbox.”

Banking and healthcare companies at risk

Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik on 2014 IT trends

December 22, 2014

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Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said India is on the path to becoming a digitally empowered knowledge economy and the landscape in India is evolving at a rapid pace.

Reinventing productivity

Triggered by new leadership, both India and Microsoft saw exciting developments in 2014. As part of Microsoft’s transformation journey, we focused on helping people and companies all over the world thrive in this mobile-first, cloud-first world by reinventing productivity and providing platforms to work from.

When we talk about productivity, we are not just referring to being more productive at work. We see productivity as the engine of human progress, and helping people get more out of their time, whether it be for work, family time or to conquer their own pursuits. It’s not just a software category, and it’s not about simply producing more technology, but rather having the right tools and platforms to help anyone make the most of any moment.

The ambitious goals set by the new Indian Government, including the focus on technology to promote economic growth, are heartening. India is on the path to becoming a digitally empowered knowledge economy and the landscape in India is evolving at a rapid pace. The mindset of users across the board has undergone a significant shift. This demands innovation at every step, and that is our driving force.

Strong performance

So what made it such a successful year for us? Backed by strong performance across commercial and consumer segments, we delivered global revenue of $23.20 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. With 47 percent growth in global devices and consumer business, and 10 percent growth in global commercial business, we ended the year as the second most valuable company in the world.

Cloud for everyone

Back to Basics 2: Returning to the “Poor Game” of Modern US Warfare

by Scott Faith

December 25, 2014  

Editor’s Note: One of the first posts I ever wrote for Havok Journal was an analysis of modern US warfare, titled “Back to Basics: The Poor Game of the Modern US Way of War.” In it, I covered everything from the writings of Emmanuel Kant to a critique of the Democratic Peace Theory. WIth even more troops heading back to Iraq (despite assurances by President Obama of “no boots on the ground”), I thought it might be time to update that article and share it again. Here it is.

It’s time to face the facts: we are never going to win another war. Not the way we’re thinking and acting these days.

The modern US military is obsessed with non-issues and distracted by non-military missions, and is hobbled by debilitating conditions inflicted on the military from the outside, chief among them the following: risk aversion, casualty avoidance, political pandering, and over-indulgence in the discredited theory of democratic peace.

Inhibiting the flexibility and effectiveness of the US military are politically-driven conditions which foist upon the military the expectation it needs to be “good,” but not “too good” at killing the enemy, and that avoiding casualties, either US or foreign, civilian or military, is far more important than actually achieving victory. This leads to a system in which calculated risk-taking, a key component of strategic military success throughout recorded history, has been abandoned in favor of a system of zero tolerance and calculated risk-avoidance, which paradoxically leads to longer wars and greater loss of life.

How’s all that “democratic peace” working out for us in Palestine?

Then there is the national obsession with the democratic peace theory, which holds that mature democracies do not fight wars against each other. So if this is true, then the solution for world peace is simply to establish democracy everywhere. The problem with this theory is, of course, it completely overlooks human nature. Some peoples in the world aren’t ready for Western-style liberal democracy. Other peoples don’t want it. Then there is the problem that the democratic process sometimes produces results that are fundamentally at odds with America’s values. And what is a “democracy,” really?

The elections giving rise to Hezbollah’s pre-eminence within the Palestinian Authority and the ascension of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are prime examples of the flaws inherent in Democratic Peace Theory. Palestine has long had governments elected through democratic processes, but they continue to viciously attack Israel. Simultaneously, Putin is called the “president” of Russia, but he had no problem biting off large chunks of Ukraine, a neighboring democracy. Democratic Peace Theory wilts in the bright light of international realism, yet we in the West cling to it, because it makes us feel good to think that there is hope for humanity… if we can only make them be just like us.

Russia promotes conventional forces in new doctrine

26 December 2014 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30604866

Russian soldiers deployed across Crimea during the crisis in March

President Vladimir Putin of Russia has signed a revised version of the country's military doctrine, which identifies major threats to security.

The new document promotes the use of Russia's conventional, non-nuclear forces as a deterrent.

Chief among new threats identified by planners are the armed conflict in neighbouring Ukraine as well as events in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Russian forces are believed to be operating covertly in eastern Ukraine.

Their reported intervention on the rebel side, as well as the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March after a disputed referendum, has been met with economic sanctions by Western states.

Russia's air force has also stepped up patrolling in international airspace close to Nato states while the Russian navy has raised its international profile to a lesser extent.

'Indirect action'

Nato expansion into eastern Europe remains the main military threat identified in the new planning document, published (in Russian) on the Kremlin website, which replaces the 2010 doctrine.

Ukraine's parliament voted this week to drop the country's non-aligned status and work towards Nato membership. However, its prospect of actually joining the alliance is questionable, given its territorial dispute with Russia over Crimea and the continuing conflict in its eastern regions.

Creativity…Operationalized

https://medium.com/@FrontLineLeader/creativity-operationalized-f70a4abce1c5

In the post titled “Unleashing The Creative Mind” , the writer states “The challenge to most leaders comes in recognizing the outward signs of a creative mind, seeing the spirit of innovation for what it is rather than what it isn’t.” I agree. We need to operationalize creativity by identifying leaders who are creative, visionary thinkers and team them up with leaders that are critical and efficient. Together these leader teams will be designed to be more creative and innovative and put their ideas into action.

Using assessments like the Neethling Brain Instrument ( NBI), we can assess thinking preferences and determine what a person’s thinking preferences are. In general, right-brain people can be described as “creative and strategic” thinkers and left-brain people as more “detailed and analytical” thinkers. Neuroscience research shows that given a choice of left-brain vs. right-brain as well as high vs. low-road types of thinking tasks, there tends to be a correlation between what one prefers doing and those things with which one is skilled at. People tend to develop skills in the areas they prefer; which is not to say that they can’t develop skills in areas not aligned with their thinking preferences. It is like writing with your non-dominant hand. You can do it, and with practice you will be able to use that hand as well as your dominant hand but it will generally always feel awkward. Same thing goes for thinking preferences.

Below is a diagram with words used to describe the type of thinking that happens in each quadrant of the brain. I happen to be a very high R2, high R1, and average L1.

 

If you are a total left-brainer then you probably do not measure high in empathy or strategic thinking and if you are strictly right-brain you most likely are not a details-oriented or highly systematic person. As mentioned, people can develop skills in areas not aligned with their thinking preferences.

Tools of the Trade A Lieutenant’s Life Lessons in Leadership, Part II

https://medium.com/@Doctrine_Man/tools-of-the-trade-d766e0a3207c

“There I was, no shit… “

There’s an old adage that all good war stories begin with those five words. This story is no different. It begins on a summer day in 1989, in a maintenance shop on the far side of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where I was busy combing through a deadline report when a line of warrant officers filed by the shop counter, bound for the exit.

“Where are you guys headed?” I asked.

“WOLT,” the CW4 leading the group responded, moving on by as if this was an everyday occurrence.

As they passed through the exit and down the stairs into the hot morning sun, I looked over to my maintenance control sergeant, a newly-promoted master sergeant who until recently had been my platoon sergeant.

“WOLT?” I asked. “What the hell is ‘WOLT’?”

“Warrant Officer Lunch Time,” he replied flatly.

“It’s only 1100,” I answered. “Isn't that a little early?”

“They're warrant officers, L-T, what do you expect?” Good point.

In the months that followed, I learned about WOLT – and its nefarious cousin, EWOLT (Early Warrant Officer Lunch Time) – as I matured into my job and grew closer to the maintenance technicians in my charge. Long before books like Coffee Lunch Coffee became popular and social media was the norm, WOLT and EWOLT were the networking tools of choice. During lengthy lunches of ice tea and jaeger schnitzel at the old Rod and Gun Club, we devised detailed maintenance plans, strategized with Logistics Assistance Representatives, and synchronized a steady flow of repair parts that secured readiness across much of the division. For a young lieutenant, however, the education extended beyond the “shop talk” that dominated our meals.

Irascible on the surface, underneath the gruff exterior was a seasoned mentor with a lifetime of lessons to impart on those willing to listen.

The most senior of the warrants was a decorated Vietnam veteran at the twilight of a distinguished career. Chuck Hunley was old enough to be my father, and wise enough to deftly mold a young officer in his formative years. A man who could master any job on the shop floor with a rubber sledge hammer and 18” Crescent wrench, Chief Hunley was the stereotypical “crusty old warrant.” Irascible on the surface, underneath the gruff exterior was a seasoned mentor with a lifetime of lessons to impart on those willing to listen. Where others would ignore an old Soldier whose best years were behind him, I listened. Closely.

The Big Problem Faced By Military Spouses Around The Country

Michelle Villarreal Zook

December 22, 2014

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Employers can't seem to look beyond the "military spouse" title.

From the outside looking in, the military lifestyle has a halcyon, Mayberry-type glow about it. Spouses, generally wives, stay home in their identical homes that military housing provides and keep house through deployment after temporary duty after deployment, watching the children who pause to render customs and courtesies during Retreat. Peter Van Buren even went so far as to claim that military communities, such as Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, recreate “the America of the glory days as accurately as a Hollywood movie.”

But if there’s one small flaw in this rendering it is this: Military spouses want to find employment, yet are struggling to work outside the home. As Congress increasingly eyes axing pay and benefits for military service members, this probably shouldn’t be all that surprising that more and more military spouses seek careers of their own to provide additional financial stability to their families (and maybe some personal career satisfaction). However, the Military Spouse Employment Report released by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families in February 2014 demonstrates that even though military spouses are generally better educated than civilian females in the workforce, they are more likely to be unemployed. For 18- to 24-year-old military spouses, the unemployment rate is as high as 30% — three times higher than their civilian equivalents — while 25- to 44-year-old spouses face an unemployment rate approaching 15%. For many, unemployment is not by choice. According to the report, “over 55% of respondents indicated they ‘need’ to work, while 90% indicated they ‘want’ to work.”

It would be easy to dismiss unemployment as a geographic anomaly, except that the report explicitly accounts for this, demonstrating the unemployment rate among military spouses can range from 29% in metropolitan areas all the way up to 40% in rural areas. Education, normally the pathway to employment in America, doesn’t even begin to bridge the divide between civilian and military spouses, with nearly 31% of unemployed military spouses holding a graduate degree. And should a military spouse be lucky enough to get a job, she or he is likely to face being underemployed according to education and skill level.

A noticeably large income gap between military spouses and civilian spouses continues to exist, with military spouses earning close to $15,000 less in 2012. Even something as innocuous as listing a residential address on a military installation can cost a female military spouse nearly $10,000 a year in gross income. Understandably, many spouses are reluctant to even admit that they are married to service members when searching for employment, with over 40% saying that they would not tell a prospective employer.

The Five Most-Powerful Navies on the Planet

Kyle Mizokami

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-five-most-powerful-navies-the-planet-10610?page=show

It’s a universal truth handed down since antiquity: a country with a coastline has a navy. Big or small, navies worldwide have the same basic mission—to project military might into neighboring waters and beyond.

The peacetime role of navies has been more or less the same for thousands of years. Navies protect the homeland, keep shipping routes and lines of communication open, show the flag and deter adversaries. In wartime, a navy projects naval power in order to deny the enemy the ability to do the same. This is achieved by attacking enemy naval forces, conducting amphibious landings, and seizing control of strategic bodies of water and landmasses.

The role of navies worldwide has expanded in the past several decades to include new missions and challenges. Navies are now responsible for a nation’s strategic nuclear deterrent, defense against ballistic missiles, space operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. With that in mind, here are the five most powerful navies in the world.

United States

First place on the list is no surprise: the United States Navy. The U.S. Navy has the most ships by far of any navy worldwide. It also has the greatest diversity of missions and the largest area of responsibility.

No other navy has the global reach of the U.S. Navy, which regularly operates in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa. The U.S. Navy also forward deploys ships to Japan, Europe and the Persian Gulf.

Armed forces: They defend us but there’s no one to defend their rights

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/karanthapar/they-defend-us-but-there-s-no-one-to-defend-their-rights/article1-1300954.aspx

Karan Thapar

December 27, 2014

Fifteen months after Mr Modi demanded One Rank One Pension, 10 months after the UPA granted it, five months after Arun Jaitley reconfirmed it and two months after the PM boasted in Siachen that “One Rank One Pension has been fulfilled,” why is this promise still not implemented? And why are ex-servicemen still in doubt about when and even whether it will happen?

The truth is this is a promise Mr Modi’s government intends to break. It’s already late in fulfilling it but now it’s indicated it will also renege.

At a recent Aaj Tak conclave, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said ex-servicemen would get 80% of OROP and then added “100% satisfaction to everyone is never given in real life”. Why then did Messrs Modi and Jaitley promise the full whack and on what basis did the former claim it had been fulfilled?

Were they misleading the armed forces with pre-election promises that were beguiling and likely to win support, but which they had not thought through? Today, doesn’t it seem like that? And if approximately two million ex-servicemen and 400,000 widows feel cheated aren’t they justified?

I’m told it’s the cost of OROP that’s made the government reconsider. The Comptroller of Defence Accounts has estimated it could be Rs. 9,300 crore. But three years ago the Cabinet Secretary estimated the cost at Rs. 8,000-9,000 crore. So if it’s gone up to Rs. 9,300 crore, surely inflation accounts for the increase?

More importantly, did Mr Chidambaram in February, when he made the commitment, and Mr Jaitley in July, when he reconfirmed it, not take this into account? If they didn’t it would amount to more than negligence; it would be rank irresponsibility.

Now consider what Mr Parrikar’s reduction of OROP to 80% would save. A paltry Rs. 1,860 crore. As Defence Minister is he seriously saying this is too much to give the armed forces, who are prepared to lay down their lives for our security?

There are good reasons why the armed forces deserve OROP. First, the majority of officers retire at 54 whilst 85% of jawans before they are 40. Civil servants continue till they are 60. Politicians, frequently, into their 80s.

Under jihadi rule, people don't even have water, medicine

Dec 28, 2014

Videos filmed in secret by an activist group show desperate women and children clamouring for handouts of food, while photographs posted on the internet portray foreign jihadis eating lavish spreads, a disparity that is starting to stir resentment.

ISIS's vaunted exercise in state-building appears to be crumbling, as living conditions deteriorate across the territories under its control, exposing shortcomings of a group that devotes most of its energies to fighting battles and enforcing strict rules. 

Residents say services are collapsing, prices are soaring and medicines are scarce in towns and cities across the "caliphate" that ISIS proclaimed in Iraq and Syria, belying the group's boasts that it is delivering a model form of governance for Muslims. 

Slick videos depicting functioning governing offices and the distribution of aid fail to match the reality of growing deprivation and disorganized, erratic leadership, the residents say. A trumpeted ISIS currency has not materialized, nor have the passports the group promised. Schools barely function, doctors are few and disease is on the rise. 

Water has become undrinkable in the Iraqi city of Mosul because supplies of chlorine have dried up, according to a journalist living there, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Hepatitis was spreading and flour for bread was becoming increasingly scarce, he said. "Life in the city is nearly dead, and it is as though we are living in a giant prison," he said. In the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group's self-styled capital, water and electricity are available for no more than three or four hours a day, rubbish piles up uncollected and the city's poor scavenge for scraps on streets crowded with people hawking anything they can find to sell, residents say. 

Videos filmed in secret by an activist group show desperate women and children clamouring for handouts of food, while photographs posted on the internet portray foreign jihadis eating lavish spreads, a disparity that is starting to stir resentment. 

Much of the assistance that is being provided comes from Western aid agencies, who discreetly continue to help areas of Syria under ISIS control. The US funds healthcare clinics and provides blankets, plastic sheeting to enable the neediest citizens to weather the winter, according to US officials. 

The government workers who help sustain what is left of the crumbling infrastructure, in Syrian as well as Iraqi cities, continue to be paid by the Syrian government, travelling each month to collect their pay from offices in government-controlled areas. 

"ISIS doesn't know how to do this stuff," the US official said. "When stuff breaks down they get desperate. It doesn't have a whole lot of engineers and staff to run the cities, so things are breaking down." There are also signs of falling morale among at least some of the fighters whose expectations of quick and easy victories have been squashed by US-led air strikes. A notice distributed in Raqqa this month called on fighters who were shirking their duties to report to the front lines, and a new police force was created to go house-to-house to root them out. 

A template for teacher education

ROHIT DHANKAR

December 27, 2014 

None of our Teacher Education programmes has ever seriously tried to achieve a clear and convincing enough understanding of what one tries to achieve through education. It always has been a rhetoric of larger aims and working for myopically understood parental and market aspirations

All curricula are situated in contexts and are simultaneously guided by ideals. Therefore, an understanding of and a balance between the two is essential.

We have succeeded in creating an education system that discourages good education in every possible way. It is largely apathetic to the quality of education and the fate of children. The mindset that governs thinking and the actions of the functionaries of education in the government are to somehow manage the naukari and to reap the benefits of the job on the basis of seniority. The thought of doing a good job rarely comes to mind if it ever does. The idea of reform and improvement remain at the level of rhetoric. In this system, any teacher who wants to work for good education has to work on his or her own and without much support. He or she also has to overcome varied forms of resistance.

Obstacles before the teacher

In schools, the quality of education revolves around issues such as a school uniform, heavy school bags, mark sheets and some semblance of having the English language and infrastructure in place. Parents are conscious of the need for quality education, with upward mobility in the form of well-paying jobs being uppermost in their minds. This is a legitimate expectation, but parents and schools see the path to well-paying jobs through so-called English medium and high-fee charging schools. From there it moves on to children studying in private universities, now a dime a dozen, and which all proclaim to produce leaders.

Children’s lives, even in the rural areas, now revolve around television and in various activities on the mobile phone. Hence, the motivation to ensure that a child has a worthwhile education enabled by a wholesome learning experience has to be created by the teacher. Even if the child is a natural and enthusiastic ‘learner’, that all learning is equally worthwhile is an unexamined assumption. Therefore, the teacher has to direct the efforts of the child towards this goal. This is a difficult job.

Let’s focus on the teacher. In the general atmosphere of economic competition and consumerism, a teacher legitimately desires leading a good economic and social life. The teacher has to constantly fight with her visibly low status in society, which saps her enthusiasm for good teaching.

Education is increasingly becoming centric to the government’s thinking in order to realise the desire for India’s economic competitiveness in a globalised world. Thus, the purpose of education can be well served by having a layered education system. One part of that system can take the responsibility of mass producing “narrowly skilled” people with a limited vision of life and completely sold out on shining promises of consumerist hedonism. Another part could produce a limited number of people who can think relatively better regarding skills and theoretical knowledge, but still remain wedded to promises of economic growth.

Obviously, in each point mentioned in the system, namely the parent, the child, a teacher’s ambitions and the government, there exists many alternative ideas and serious efforts as well. I have painted this grim picture in order to claim that this is the dominant mood and in spite of there being many people who want to do something better. The purpose of citing these instances is not to deny the positive aspect, but to make the point that a teacher has to work in an adverse scenario and be on the lookout to identify genuine elements in the system to collaborate and work with.

The ideals

The Top Ten Stories in South Asia, 2014

By Alyssa Ayres

December 27, 2014

A look at the events in 2014 likely to have the most lasting impact on the region and beyond.

It was a busy news year in South Asia, with events that will have far-reaching consequences for the region. Between India’s historic election, a hard-won unity government in Afghanistan, and ongoing political turmoil in Pakistan combined with shocking terrorist attacks, South Asia made the front pages around the world for many different reasons. Like last year, I’ve tried to sift through the year’s developments and assess which will have lasting effects on the countries in the region and beyond. Herewith my personal selection of 2014’s most consequential stories in South Asia:

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins single-party majority in India, Narendra Modi becomes prime minister: Every general election in India is the world’s largest, and the 2014 elections to India’s Lok Sabha (House of the People) broke previous records. More than 550 million citizens turned out to vote in a nine-phase election stretching across six weeks. Narendra Modi took campaigning to a new level, criss-crossing the country to campaign, even appearing as a hologram before crowds he could not reach in person to stump for economic growth and good governance. And the BJP triumphed, coming out of a decade in opposition to secure a single-party majority, a feat not seen in India in thirty years. Markets responded positively to the news of a clear political mandate, with the Bombay Stock Exchange index reaching a then-record high the day the results were announced. 

While Modi placed great emphasis on economic growth during the campaign, his government’s reform efforts once in office have been less dramatic than expected; observers are now looking to his first full-year budget, due in February.

Following protracted disputes, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah agree on power-sharing unity government in Afghanistan: The 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan unfolded over a lengthy five months, with an April first round, a June runoff, and ongoing accusations of election tampering thereafter. Intensive U.S. diplomacy through September helped achieve a power-sharing agreement for a “unity government,” allowing the country to move forward at a delicate time with international forces in the process of drawing down—and questions about regional stability increasingly voiced.

With major high-level visits, China further cements development, economic, and strategic ties with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka: 2014 was the year that the People’s Republic of China unveiled its Silk Route and Maritime Silk Route connectivity strategies for the larger Asia region, complete with maps and major bilateral visits with South Asian countries. India has long worried about Chinese “encirclement” through what some analysts have termed a “string of pearls” presence throughout South Asia; in 2014 senior official bilateral visits at the head of government/head of state level took place between China and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,Maldives, and Bangladesh, plus a foreign minister-level visit to Nepal (a 2014 visit of Nepal’s prime minister to China for an expo did not involve a Beijing stop).