The Only Thing Scarier Than Iran's Nukes

James S. Robbins

February 12, 2015

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Denying Iran nuclear-weapons capability is not only a means of limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It is also part of a broader ideological struggle that Tehran is taking much more seriously than is the United States.

This month, Iran celebrates the 36th anniversary of the return of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from exile in 1979 and the advent of the Islamic Revolution. In speeches, rallies and state-sponsored television shows, Tehran is reaffirming the messages of the heady days of the downfall of the Shah, the supremacy of Shi’a Islam and the destruction of Iran’s enemies, particularly Israel and the United States. The celebration reminds us that Iran is not just a Middle Eastern adversary state with dreams of regional hegemony. It is a revolutionary regime seeking to reshape the map of the region, and the belief system of the world.

Tehran remains committed to its revolutionary agenda. Today, Iran is active in promoting its ideology in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran supports the largest international terrorist network in the world, including backing Hezbollah and Hamas. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have captured vast swathes of territory and disrupted the established government. This is a revolution in action, and it illustrates that Tehran is not simply seeking to extend its influence in the region. Rather, it is working to impose Khomeini’s Shi’ite Islamist agenda beyond its borders.

Yet the White House is loathe to wage a war of ideas with Iran. Given President Obama’s well-documented sensitivities regarding Islam, his administration prefers to focus on other aspects of the effort to achieve global stability. Jihadist terror groups such as the Sunni-aligned ISIS or pro-Tehran Houthis are termed “violent extremists.” The Western rivalry with Iran is reduced to the language of power politics, ignoring the ideological dimension.

The Indispensable Superpartner: How America Should Lead

Alex Ward

February 12, 2015

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President Obama’s second and final National Security Strategy was released on Friday, setting the course for the administration’s last two years. Where itlacked in prescribing remedies for the world’s ills, it was strong in describing the current state of the global order. In essence, the strategy document outlined a world where power is diffusing from states to individuals and other non-state actors; where change is outpacing the ability to plan comprehensively; and where transitions in leadership within regions and among them is always altering.

But then the analysis breaks down into the usual, old-school ways of strategic thinking, looking for ways to improve our “security,” “prosperity,” “values,” and “international order.” While these are important, this is not the way twenty-first century America should be thinking about twenty-first century problems. And since the NSS aims to define “how” we lead instead of “if” we should lead, there’s an urgent need to chart a new course to deal with the new world as effectively and efficiently as possible.

To deal with the global security context of the still-new century, the United States should shift its strategic focus from being the “superpower” to instead becoming the “superpartner.” Doing so would allow the United States to better seek three “grand” goals over the coming years: 1) the maintenance of American centrality in global affairs; 2) the promotion of stakeholders in global stability; and 3) the mitigation of global risk. Let me explain each in full.

RIC crafts a new integrated system for Eurasia

Boris Volkhonsky

February 11, 2015

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The recent meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) in Beijing has imparted a fresh momentum to expanding trilateral cooperation in the Eurasia region. The decision by Russia and China to endorse India’s inclusion in the SCO will spur this process of regional integration, says Boris Volkhonsky.

 

The meeting which took place in Beijing in February between the heads of foreign ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) cannot be called a summit in the full sense of the word. However, the decisions that were reached there, in terms of significance, outweigh the decisions of many summits. In essence, the ministers agreed on a plan to create a new, integrated system for the region, covering a large part of Eurasia, thereby defining the system architecture for global politics and security.

The idea itself of developing a three-way pivot between Moscow, Beijing and Delhi was put forward at the end of the 90s by Russia’s then prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. For many years it was discussed as a purely intellectual and theoretical construct.

There were many reasons for this: the problems in relations between the two “points” of the triangle – China and India, and purely geographical factors, hindering the creation of common infrastructure. But the main issue was the lack of any real mechanisms for integration which would enable discussion about a general economic basis for such a union. But following the formation of BRICS, the notion of RIC was included in this broader format and appeared to have lost its relevance.

In fact, India’s geographic isolation (adding to political factors linked with the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan) from the rest of Eurasia has remained. The problems with Sino-Indian relations have not been fully resolved.

In addition, within the framework of the RIC trilateral format there are no significant economic cooperation mechanisms. Bilateral cooperation between each pair of members of the RIC countries is developing successfully, but major trilateral projects are still out of the question.

NOT THE MAP YOU’RE LOOKING FOR: NATIONS AND BORDERS ARE ALWAYS MESSY

Nick Danforth

February 11, 2015

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As long as we all remain obsessively focused on the drawing and re-drawing of borders in the Middle East, it is easy to conclude that indeed, the region’s problems come from artificial states mapped out by careless imperialists with little regard for the inhabitants’ ethnic and religious affinities.

But I would argue this view becomes much harder to maintain when looking at the history and cartography of the Balkans and Central Asia, both of which exemplify different approaches to the problem of national delimitation. In Central Asia, the Soviet Regime drew up a new set of borders with cynically excruciating attention to the inhabitants’ ethnic and religious affinities, leading to the impossibly convoluted borders in the region today. And in the Balkans, locals were largely left to draw their own borders, leading to vicious fighting in the First Balkan War, Second Balkan War, First World War, Second World War, and whatever you want to call the conflict that tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s. Set against these alternatives, blaming borders for the Middle East’s problems seems a more complicated proposition.

The Balkans: Conflicting Claims and Conflicting Categories

Another formerly Ottoman region that achieved its independence only slightly earlier than the Middle East, the Balkans provide a striking counter-example to the idea that the alternative to externally imposed “artificial” borders are locally-drawn authentic and stable ones.

Inset of map showing conflicting national claims to the Balkans following the Second Balkan War titled “Konigreich Bulgarien und die zentralen Balkanlander (Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Central Balkan Countries), Edited by Dr. Karl Peucker, printed Anst v. Th.Bannwarth, Wien, February 1913. 

Between the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and the conclusion of the Second Balkan War in 1913, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, and Romania all became independent states, often with Russian support. The problem, of course, was that none of these new countries could agree where their new borders should be. The image above comes from a German map showing the conflicting claims of the Balkan States in the region around Macedonia. This mess of intersecting lines proved more than anyone could resolve at the negotiating table. Almost as soon as a Greek-Serbian-Bulgarian alliance had finished driving the Ottomans out of Europe as allies in the First Balkan War, they turned against each other to resolve their conflicting territorial claims by force.

The Oil Price Is not a Very Good Strategic Weapon

By Lee Lane

February 11, 2015

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The sudden surge of U.S. onshore light tight oil (LTO) production has not only been a spark plug for U.S. economic growth. It has also somewhat dimmed worries about American dependence on oil imports. LTO producers have shown that when oil prices are high, they can swiftly scale up production, while when prices fall, as they have recently, the producers quickly decrease investment levels. This nimbleness allows U.S. onshore drillers to shield the country from some or even most of the harm from supply disruptions.

To some observers, the U.S. LTO boom also represents a new weapon of economic warfare. Adherents of this view correctly note that at present, Iran and Russia are U.S. foes. Increased U.S. oil output tends to lower world oil prices, which in turn undermines Iran and Russia's oil wealth. They also bolster the effect of sanctions against those countries.

However, America also has dangerous rivals that are not oil exporters, and cheap oil may not be an unalloyed strategic gain for Washington. Take the People's Republic of China: Beijing engages in cyber warfare against the United States. Its growing anti-access/area denial arsenal threatens the U.S. Navy. It harasses U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines at sea, bullies Taiwan, and supports anti-U.S. rogue states seemingly wherever it finds them.

Yet China imports 57 percent of its oil - the United States imports just 32 percent. Hence, as oil prices fall, China may well gain relative to America. China poses a long-term, global threat to U.S. primacy. Indeed, the stakes in the U.S.-PRC rivalry greatly exceed those posed by the worrisome, but still largely regional, goals of Moscow and Tehran.

Beyond the ambiguous strategic value of low oil prices, the concept of oil prices as a weapon presumes that the world oil price is subject to more control than it is. Low prices tend to trigger negative feedback. For instance, they could disrupt already fragile exporters such as Nigeria and Iraq - Venezuela is in still more parlous straits. Should the output from any one of these countries fall substantially, oil prices could soar.

Game Change: U.S. Oil Revolution Has Torn Up the Rule Book

BY KEITH JOHNSON

FEBRUARY 10, 2015

In a radically different oil market, says the International Energy Agency, the United States looks like the winner and Russia and other ailing petrostates the losers.

Game Change: U.S. Oil Revolution Has Torn Up the Rule Book

This, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, is most definitely not your father’s oil market.

In its annual five-year oil market outlook, the IEA, which is the energy agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said that the rise of the United States as a heavyweight crude producer, OPEC’s abdication of its historical role as the arbiter of world oil supply, and sluggish oil demand growth worldwide will have big implications for oil producing and consuming countries alike.

The upshot: generally smooth sailing for the United States, a few years of discomfort for cash-rich oil giants in the Persian Gulf, and years of turmoil, crippled finances, and political instability in petrostates like Venezuela. Russia will be hit hardest, the IEA said.

In contrast to the continued increase in U.S. production over the next five years, the IEA expects Russian oil output to shrink by half a million barrels a day, thanks to lower crude prices, devastating Western sanctions, and a withering currency. All those factors make it hard for Russia to invest in capacity to maintain oil production at old fields, let alone tap exotic new projects in the Arctic or offshore.

“Russia, facing a perfect storm of collapsing prices, international sanctions, and currency depreciation, will likely emerge as the industry’s top loser,” the IEA said. Russia’s oil production could fall by 560,000 barrels a day by 2020, the agency said; today, Russia pumps about 10.5 million barrels a day. That, in turn, would likely cause a broader economic slowdown that could represent the most serious challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the strongman began his reign more than a decade ago.

Game Change: U.S. Oil Revolution Has Torn Up the Rule Book

BY KEITH JOHNSON

FEBRUARY 10, 2015

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This, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, is most definitely not your father’s oil market.

In its annual five-year oil market outlook, the IEA, which is the energy agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said that the rise of the United States as a heavyweight crude producer, OPEC’s abdication of its historical role as the arbiter of world oil supply, and sluggish oil demand growth worldwide will have big implications for oil producing and consuming countries alike.

The upshot: generally smooth sailing for the United States, a few years of discomfort for cash-rich oil giants in the Persian Gulf, and years of turmoil, crippled finances, and political instability in petrostates like Venezuela. Russia will be hit hardest, the IEA said.

In contrast to the continued increase in U.S. production over the next five years, the IEA expects Russian oil output to shrink by half a million barrels a day, thanks to lower crude prices, devastating Western sanctions, and a withering currency. All those factors make it hard for Russia to invest in capacity to maintain oil production at old fields, let alone tap exotic new projects in the Arctic or offshore.

“Russia, facing a perfect storm of collapsing prices, international sanctions, and currency depreciation, will likely emerge as the industry’s top loser,” the IEA said. Russia’s oil production could fall by 560,000 barrels a day by 2020, the agency said; today, Russia pumps about 10.5 million barrels a day. That, in turn, would likely cause a broader economic slowdown that could represent the most serious challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the strongman began his reign more than a decade ago.

Beyond Russia, the oil market has one big, immediate question: Is the rout over? Prices fell more than 50 percent from summertime highs, which in turn scared the industry into slashing investment, which in turn has spooked oil traders and sent prices back up in recent days. With the price per barrel in the mid-$40s, American drivers got a jolt of nostalgia as gas prices plummeted at the pump to less than $2.50 per gallon in many parts of the country. That’s changed a bit in recent days, with U.S. oil prices rebounding to about $50 a barrel. (That also nudged prices at the pump back up.)

Is New U.S. Counter-Cyberwar Center Just Another Layer of Bureaucracy and Unnecessary Redundancy?

Bill Gertz

February 12, 2015

The White House national security adviser for counterterrorism announced this week that the Obama administration is setting up a cyberintelligence center aimed at providing better information and coordinated responses after cyberattacks that she said are growing more diverse and dangerous.

However, Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, failed to mention in a speech Tuesday that the United States already has a premier cyberthreat intelligence center: The National Security Agency, the supersecret electronic spying and code-breaking service that for years has been conducting cyberspying and cyberattacks.

Ms. Monaco told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that the cyberintelligence center will be under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an intelligence “czar” bureaucracy created after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Critics say intelligence professionals widely view the office as duplicative and stifling for the country’s overall intelligence mission involving 16 agencies and departments.

The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center will be an analysis group made up of officials from all agencies, including the NSA, the FBI and others.

Ms. Monaco said “no single government entity is responsible for producing coordinated cyberthreat assessments, ensuring that information is shared rapidly among existing cybercenters and other elements within our government, and supporting the work of operators and policymakers with timely intelligence about the latest cyberthreats and threat actors.”

"The CTIIC is intended to fill these gaps," she said.

The center is expected to be set up in the near future, but no date has been given.

Zen and the Art of PowerPoint

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love PowerPoint

Do you hate PowerPoint? I mean really hate PowerPoint? Get over it. It’s not going away anytime soon.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, your time will come. And, if the odds remain consistent, your weapon of choice won’t be pithy remarks on 3x5 cards, a snappy information paper, or a brilliant “elevator speech.” It’s going to be a stack of PowerPoint slides.

From industry boardrooms to the hallowed halls of the E-Ring, PowerPoint (or a close derivative) is the medium of choice for communicating key ideas between groups of people. On any given day, someone somewhere announces the death of PowerPoint, yet when the sun rises with another day, it’s still there. Laughing at you, mocking you, dragging you down into the depths of PowerPoint Hell.

The reality is that PowerPoint really isn’t the problem. It’s just a tool, after all. The problem is the tool behind the tool. The major who seems to forget the “brief” in “briefing.” That clown in the G-2 who insists that the weather makes every slide classified. The half-illiterate buffoon whose slides would make Webster roll over in his grave. You know who I’m talking about. And you’ve endured the misery of their meager attempts to communicate.

But this isn’t about them, it’s about you. It’s about making you a better briefer. A better communicator. Someone able to convey ideas concisely and clearly. Someone who doesn’t make people cringe when they see you walking into a conference room. This is about finding your Zen. In a PowerPoint slide.

So, how can you attain Zen? How can you find your PowerPoint happy place?

Karaoke. This is the most common trap for briefers, the tendency to read back the slides. Every. Last. Word. Assume your audience can read. When you brief a slide, highlight what’s important, emphasize the key points. Give them time to read the slide and don’t linger in the silence like a bad fart in church.

Don’t Bring Back the Powell Doctrine

Colonel (Ret.) Philip Lisagor

February 11, 2015

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If you ever served in the military or elsewhere in America’s security establishment, you will, like me, have experienced many of the same conversations on foreign or military affairs as if they are running in a time loop. They are often variations on themes.

“Thanks for your service,” an elder male says to me after our brief introduction. “I never served, but today, in today’s world, I tell you, Colin Powell had it right. We need to go in with overwhelming force and end this now and forever.”

“You mean nukes?” I ask. He swirls the remaining wine in his glass and I do the same. This time it happens to be in a wine bar in downtown Truckee, California.

“Not nukes,” he fires back. We disengage and float away—sailing around the room.

The Real Powell Doctrine

The Powell Doctrine is continuously suggested to me by nonmilitary types as a solution to many of America’s national security problems. Usually these people are just angry and often non-militarist. I believe their support or belief in the rectitude of the full application of America’s war machine to the latest conflict, no matter how small or large would surely wane if it ever became more than just idle talk in a bar. They believe in an imagined Powell Doctrine.

Retired general: 'Probable' Pakistan knew of Bin Laden's whereabouts

By ADAM B. LERNER

2/10/15

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A retired Pakistani general who previously led the country’s top intelligence agency is suggesting publicly that his country knew about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts before the U.S. raid that killed him in May 2011.

The former spy chief, Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani, said it was “more probable” than not that his country’s government knew of the late Al Qaeda leader’s location, speculating that “the idea was that at the right time, his location would be revealed. And the right time would have been when you can get the necessary quid pro quo.”

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The comments came during an interview taped in Doha for Al Jazeera’s program “Head to Head.” The full interview is set to air this April.

Duranni also speculated that bin Laden’s whereabouts were revealed to U.S. intelligence agents in exchange for an accord on “how to bring the Afghan problem to an end.” It’s not clear what such an agreement might have contained.

The interviewer asked Durrani whether the Abbottabad complex where bin Laden lived and was ultimately killed was a safe house run by Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani spy agency.

He responded, “If ISI was doing that, then I would say they were doing a good job. And if they revealed his location, they again probably did what was required to be done.”

Durrani served as director-general of ISI from 1990-92 and then as Pakistan’s ambassador in Germany and Saudi Arabia, finishing his diplomatic work in 2002.

To date, the Pakistani government has maintained that it played no role in harboring bin Laden. The government commissioned an investigation after the May 2011 raid and concluded that “gross incompetence” and “collective failures” led to bin Laden’s safe harbor in Abbottabad, a city that contains one of Pakistan’s most prestigious military academies.

U.S. Stealth Fighters Escorted Jordanian Revenge Strikes

by DAVID AXE

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F-22 pilots shepherded allies through dangerous air space

When Jordan’s air force launched a campaign of revenge air raids on Islamic State in Syria in early February, U.S. Air Force fighter jets helped protect the Jordanian F-16s as they flew over enemy territory.

The American escorts included F-16CJs specially equipped to find and destroy surface-to-air radars—and also F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, which flew their first ever combat missions in the opening hours of the U.S.-led air campaign targeting Islamic State militants Syria beginning in September.

A small number of F-22s—likely six or a dozen—has been active over Syria ever since, steadily honing a new specialty as escorts for older, less stealthy planes.

The twin-engine Raptors, apparently flying from Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates, are now part of the “standard strike package” for coalition air raids hitting Syria, Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren, a U.S. Army colonel, told Air Force Times.

Jordan sent F-16s to join American, Saudi, Emirati, British, French, Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Canadian and Australian warplanes striking Islamic State forces in Iraq starting in August—and later in Syria.

As of Feb. 5, the coalition had flown 1,259 raids in Iraq and 1,035 in Syria. The Pentagon waited to commit the F-22s until the aerial campaign expanded into Syria on Sept. 23.

The Pentagon fretted over air defenses—radars, guns and missiles—that the militants had captured from the Syrian army. And the American planners also worried that the regime in Damascus, while an enemy of Islamic State, might respond to U.S.-led air incursions by activating its own radars and missiles, and possibly even its air force.

So for the raids into Syria, the Americans provided a heavy escort force—U.S. Navy EA-6B jamming jets and Air Force F-16CJs packing anti-radar missiles as well as the F-22s which, besides being stealthy, boast sophisticated sensors for locating enemy radars … and are also the world’s best air-to-air dogfighters.

Russia Just Strapped Bombs to a Cargo Plane

by MATTHEW GAULT

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Moscow plans to base the strike aircraft near the Baltic

On Jan. 30, the Russian aviation manufacturer Ilyushin announced a very strange test. According to the company, the Russian military strapped bombs to an Il-76MD—a cargo plane—to test its capabilities … as a bomber.

In all, the Russian air force plans to station 10 crews trained in rigging bombs to the lumbering transports in the Tver, Orenburg, Pskov and Taganrog areas of Russia. Which is telling—it’s all part of the Kremlin’s growing military build-up along its periphery.

Orenburg is in the interior of the country, near the border of Kazakhstan. Tver, Pskov and Taganrog are all near the Baltic. Taganrog sits on the Sea of Azov, just two hours south of Donetsk. Pskov is only an hour’s drive from Estonia and Latvia.

The idea is to fly the Il-76s into unfamiliar territories, inspect the ground using flares, drop bombs to clear a path, then land and unload troops. The planes would fly at 300 miles per hour at an altitude between 1,500 and 3,000 feet.

“The task of the pilots is to carry out autonomous landing in an unprepared and unfamiliar area in the rear of the simulated enemy,” Russian air force colonel Igor Klimov told the Interfax news agency.

The plan is strange, that Moscow would use this plane to enact it is not.

The Il-76MD is large and heavy, weighing in at more than 100 tons when empty, and upwards of 200 tons when full. It can carry a lot of troops. Depending on the arrangement, the airlifter can fit 225 soldiers inside.

Russia has used the Il-76 to move troops since the 1970s, and still relies on the plane to rush airborne troops into conflicts, including during the 2014 invasion of Crimea.

#Disrupt the Pentagon

BY KATE BRANNEN 

FEBRUARY 10

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Can Ash Carter bring Silicon Valley's culture of innovation to a bloated Defense Department?

There was a time, not that long ago, when the Pentagon’s budget for research and development drove technology investment in the United States. No longer. Today, the county’s cradle of innovation resides in Silicon Valley, and the Defense Department is struggling to keep up.

Peter Newell learned that truth a few years ago, when he was the director of an Army task force charged with getting new equipment to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan without going through the Pentagon’s normal bureaucracy. In 2012, Newell, then an Army colonel, was sitting with a Google executive in Mountain View, California, discussing an energy problem that Newell was desperately trying to solve.

“We had a great discussion, with great ideas, and eventually I said to him, ‘How much would it cost you to do X, Y, and Z?’” Newell said in a recent interview. “And the guy laughed.”

The Google exec drew a little dot on a dry-erase board and then drew a big circle around it.

He pointed to the dot, and said to Newell, “This is your budget. The big circle? It’s mine. I don’t want your money. I want your problem.”

This was an epiphany to Newell, who realized that many in Silicon Valley were attracted to the challenge of fixing a specific thorny problem — not just to the money they could earn doing so.

In Silicon Valley, Newell said, “problems are currency.” The challenge, he added, is that the Pentagon does a “crappy job” explaining those challenges to the bright minds likely to be most energized about trying to solve them.

A ‘breakthrough’ that is no big deal

Suhasini Haidar

February 12, 2015 

While the government may continue to say that the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act remains untouched, it’s the government’s reading of that law which is problematic, especially as it is around an issue which concerns every Indian: as an energy consumer, a taxpayer, and a potential victim of a nuclear accident

In an unusual move this week, the government sought to clear the air over the India-U.S. nuclear “breakthrough understanding” announced by U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with a detailed press release on the subject. The move was prompted by several questions being asked over how the two leaders had been able to announce a breakthrough in issues that have held up nuclear trade for five years. The bottom line, the government said, was that the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (CLND) Act of 2010 remained untouched. However, it is the government’s reading of that law that is problematic, especially as it concerns an issue which touches the life of every Indian: as an energy consumer, a taxpayer, and a potential victim of any untoward nuclear accident.

The energy basket

Let’s be clear. The problem is not with the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal. After all, nuclear energy is something India has made a conscious move towards since 2000 in a bipartisan manner, with both the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance governments pushing ahead with it. By 2035, India’s projected energy demand is expected to grow by 132 per cent and India will surpass China as the world’s highest energy consumer according to the latest BP energy outlook report. Given India’s projected population growth, and the worldwide push for clean energy, it is clear that nuclear energy, with its low carbon content, and centralised land requirement, will form a key component of our energy mix. As a result, just last month, the government has tripled its target to 63,000 MW of nuclear energy by 2032, more than 14 times what is produced today.

The problem is also not about making special concessions to the United States. If it hadn’t been for the American administration led by President Bush, India would have had few options to build its nuclear energy programme, and access fuel and nuclear supplies from other countries. After the U.S. did the “heavy lifting” in getting India a legitimate place in the international nuclear regime, it would seem churlish to suggest that India should cut out U.S. businesses like GE and Westinghouse from the market simply because they demand more favourable terms than Russian or French ones do.

World's growth chart: No Indian city in Top 10

Chidanand Rajghatta

Feb 12, 2015

WASHINGTON: The hurly-burly is done; the electoral battle is lost and won. As the poll dust settles over Delhi, the two men who matter most in the city may want to mull - when they meet later today - over the dismal rating of India's capital and premier metropolis in the world's growth chart, a scroll in which no Indian city makes the Top 10 or even Top 15.

The Brookings Institution's 2014 Global Metro Monitor Map that measures and compares growth patterns in the world's 300 largest metro economies puts Delhi at 18th place, followed by Kolkata (among Indian cities) at 32nd. Mumbai (52) Chennai (57) Hyderabad (76) and Bengaluru (87), round up the Indian cities in the Top 100, which expectedly is dominated by Chinese cities.

China has 11 cities in the Top 20, and four in the Top 10. Surprisingly, Turkey has four in the Top 10, including Izmir, Istanbul, and Bursa at two, three and four. Macau is at top spot.

The report compares growth patterns in the world's 300 largest metro economies on two key economic indicators - annualized growth rate of real GDP per capita and annualized growth rate of employment.

These indicators, which are combined into an economic performance index on which metro areas are ranked, matter because they reflect the importance that people and policymakers attach to achieving rising incomes and standards of living and generating widespread labor market opportunity, the report says.

Why India was more unsafe than Syria in 2014

Deeptiman Tiwary

Feb 12, 2015

NEW DELHI: Far away from the virtual war zones of Syria and Afghanistan, it's in India where more bombs are exploding. In 2014, India witnessed 190 IED explosions, putting it just behind Pakistan and Iraq in the list of countries worst affected by bomb blasts.

And while VIPs continue to clamour for security, they make only 3% of the target as compared to the general public which accounts for 54% of blast targets. Maoists continue to remain the biggest enemy of the state executing more than 50% of the blasts followed by Northeast insurgents accounting for 30% of the explosions.

According to latest data released by National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC), Pakistan witnessed the maximum number of blasts in the world with 313 explosions followed by Iraq which suffered 246 blasts. Afghanistan with 129 blasts is far behind India. Syria, which has seen pitched battles between ISIS, Kurdish Peshmargas and Nato forces, has seen only 32 blasts.

These five countries have together account for almost 85% of the 1,127 blasts across the world.

India, however, has been able to reduce the number of explosions and casualties in 2014. While 2013 witnessed 99 casualties in 212 explosions, 75 people lost their lives in 2014. This is in keeping with the trend across the world.

What's worrying is that in 92% of explosions in India, high explosives were used recording an increase of four percentage points over 2013. This indicates the ease with which anti-national elements are able to lay their hands on explosives and electronic detonators.

NSG chief JN Choudhury blamed it on 'less-than-satisfactory' control over sale and stocking of explosives and detonators. "All 190 blasts in India used electronic detonators. We see a ban on the sale of detonators desirable, but that's not possible. There needs to be some control on sale and secure storage and use of detonators," Choudhry said.

He said, "It seems when licence for use of detonators is given out by district magistrates, it is done in a very routine manner with no monitoring of its end use."

Internally too, India is witnessing a geographical shift in pattern of blasts. Jammu and Kashmir which has witnessed a 30% drop in explosions is no more among the top danger areas. Ditto for Manipur which has seen a 45% drop from 66 blasts in 2013 to just 36 in 2014. Conversely, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand witnessed an increase of 33% and 50% respectively in number of explosions.

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Concern combined with realism

G Parthasarathy

Feb 12 2015 

China unsettled by the readiness of the US and India to expand their military ties

The year 2015 began with clear indications of how the Narendra Modi Government intends to position itself in global affairs. The Prime Minister’s invitation to the Heads of SAARC Governments for his swearing-in was followed by intensive interaction in Yangon and Brisbane with regional and global leaders, during the East Asia and G-20 Summits. The focus was very clearly on sending out the message that India was determined to return to a high-growth path economically. It would play a proactive role not only in regional economic integration with its ASEAN neighbours and major economies like Japan and South Korea, but also in fashioning new security dynamics across the Indo-Pacific region. India’s security perimeter was no lager confined to the Indian Ocean rim, but extended across the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

While the Xi Jinping visit to India was marred by the Chinese military intrusion in Chumar, the message to Beijing was that while India would resist territorial incursions, it was ready for dialogue to end tensions, expand economic cooperation and widen interaction in forums like BRICS and G 20. But the event that received widespread global attention was the visit of President Obama on India's Republic Day. That visit clearly signalled that India was opening its doors to foreign investment, expanding the scope of bilateral cooperation in defence and seeking solutions constructively to issues of environment, energy, intellectual property rights and climate change. New Delhi recognises the reality that the US is going to remain the pre-eminent global power for at least the next two decades. At the same time, one has to recognise that differences in areas like Intellectual Property Rights, especially in pharmaceuticals and in climate change, posed difficult challenges. Moreover, the road ahead in nuclear power cooperation with the US is going to be bumpy. Legal challenges on issues of compensation appear inevitable. It also remains to be seen if American reactors can supply power at reasonable and competitive rates.

The tyranny of hurt sentiment

By: Dilip Simeon

February 12, 2015

Shirin Dalvi, the editor of the Mumbai edition of Urdu newspaper Avadhnama, has become the latest victim of the running saga over cartoons. Since mid-January, when she unwittingly published a Charlie Hebdo cover, she has been slapped with criminal charges, her newspaper shut down, its employees rendered jobless, and she herself forced underground. Vicious threats are sent to her via social media. All this is happening despite her printed apology. The police have opposed anticipatory bail on the ground that it would cause a law and order problem (aren’t they paid to deal with such matters?).

The man who filed the complaint heads an Urdu journalists’ body. He is cited as saying, “I filed a case against her and I am happy that she was arrested. If she was in an Islamic state, she would have been beheaded as per law.”

That the freedom of speech could be so flagrantly attacked in the name of religion is by now a common experience. Self-appointed guardians of faith have attacked our minds with relentless aggression for years. But that someone could wish a horrible death to another human being is itself highly offensive to many of us — and this person thinks it earns him merit in the eyes of Allah. I have no access to the mind of the Almighty, but I can venture to suggest that Allah is more considerate than some of his followers.(Illustration by: C R Sasikumar)

Hurt sentiment has become the cutting edge of tyranny. It is the perpetually available political tool for preparing “spontaneous” mob violence, violating the law, mobilising illiberal movements and intimidating everyone — especially within the preferred community — who disagrees with communal politics. It becomes worse when responsible individuals glamorise this fake and vicious form of piety.

Sentiment appeared in the law in the aftermath of the Rangila Rasul case of 1929, when the publisher Rajpal was murdered in Lahore by a 19-year-old youth named Ilm-ud-din. The boy pleaded guilty, against his lawyer M.A. Jinnah’s advice — this is reported as the only case Jinnah ever lost. The philosopher Allama Iqbal led the funeral ceremony, at which he reportedly declared: “This uneducated young man has surpassed us, the educated ones.” One of pre-Independence India’s outstanding thinkers had no qualms in glorifying murder in the name of hurt sentiment. Ilm-ud-Din is now revered as a ghazi in Pakistan. This is akin to the reverence accorded to V.D. Savarkar, a prime accused in the M.K. Gandhi murder case, not to mention the glorification of men like Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and Nathuram Godse.

Children of a Lesser God

By Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi

11 Feb , 2015

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No one will ever reach even bit of dedication of a SOLDIER ..!!

The Indian soldiers, on account of their faith in the officers who lead them, their innate goodness and the discipline that has been ingrained in them have a great capacity to accept and absorb wrongs but if these continue to happen on a sustained and regular basis, as is happening, then it would be foolish to expect them to keep accepting policies that are patently discriminatory! The aspirations of the military may continue to be ignored but at the risk of a revolt, or even a coup!

There are huge deficiencies of officers in the military, massive stagnation and extremely short tenures at senior levels of the armed forces…

Government employees are of two broad categories – civilian and military. The former comprise administrators, diplomats, police, customs, auditors, technocrats and so on. However, it is the generalist administrators that fall in the category of bureaucrats. In most countries, the spheres of the two categories are well-defined and both are considered important organs of all types of governments.

Most countries also ensure that military personnel have an edge over their civilian colleagues on account of their extremely difficult conditions of service such as ever-present danger to life and limb, retirement at young ages and 24×7 duty; all this because security is considered to be of the highest importance without which, no progress in other spheres is possible. This is manifested in better status, better emoluments and pride of place for the military.

This was the situation in India too in 1947. Thereafter, this has been turned on its head, as our political leaders have been absolutely blasé about the military. Since they had also abrogated their powers and responsibilities to the bureaucracy, it is the latter that has been ruling the roost and steadily downgrading the military in every facet.

We now have a new government, which most soldiers believe will bring back the old days. I am a big sceptic, as the bureaucracy has so entrenched itself that even a bold, pragmatic, highly aware and no-nonsense political leader like Prime Minister Modi is likely to find it tough to bring about change to the desirable extent.

Pakistan May Face a Water Shortage

By Ankit Panda

February 11, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/pakistan-may-face-a-water-shortage/

Following a blackout that left 80 percent of the country in total darkness and an attack by Baloch rebels, Pakistan now could face a major water shortage. Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif has said that a water shortage is imminent in Pakistan. Asif delivered his remarks to a seminar in Lahore.

If the minister’s predictions prove true, criticism of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government would likely intensify. Prior to January’s blackout, the Sharif government deal with a major fuel shortage in Pakistan despite plummeting global oil prices. The crisis forced Sharif to cancel planned international travel to deal with the domestic fallout of the fuel shortage.

In addition to his warnings about an impending water crisis, Asif issued reassurances that the government would successfully address the country’s current power shortage issues. Currently, major cities including Rawalpindi and Lahore face major power outages daily. In some cases, these outages last over 12 hours a day. Asif, however, seemed to shift part of the blame to energy use patterns in the country: ”As citizens of Pakistan, we are in a habit of wasting energy,” Asif told the seminar.

A water shortage is probably the last thing the Sharif government needs at this point. The recent fuel shortage and power blackout, though caused by different factors, have put Pakistan’s infrastructure capacity gaps on display. As I noted in the wake of January’s historic blackout, energy and utility-related fumbles could intensify public criticism against the Pakistani government. Over at War On the Rocks, Michael Kugelman makes a similar argument, highlighting the dangerous challenge energy and utility issues pose for the government:

Pakistan’s energy insecurity is deeply destabilizing—and not just because militants prey on fragile infrastructure. Streets often swell with angry protestors railing against power outages. They have blocked roads, and attacked the homes and offices of members of Pakistan’s major political parties.

The China-Pakistan Alliance: The Key to Afghan Stability?

By Shannon Tiezzi

February 11, 2015

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On February 9, China’s assistant foreign minister, Liu Jianchao, joined his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in Kabul for the first round of a new trilateral strategic dialogue. The dialogue, attended by Liu, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, and Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai provided a tantalizing glimpse of what trilateral cooperation between these neighbors could mean for Afghan stability.

As Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying noted in her press conference today, Afghanistan’s security situation was “a major topic” at the trilateral dialogue. All three countries “reaffirmed their commitment to [the] peace and stability of Afghanistan and the region” and China and Pakistan emphasized their support for a peace process “led and owned by the Afghans.”

Though the emphasis was on security, most of the deliverables from the meeting were actually in the economic realm, where China is most comfortable. China committed to helping build a hydro-electric dam on the Kunar River and to constructing new road and railroad connections between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Kunar dam, to be constructed within Afghanistan but close to the Pakistan border, is expected to provide electricity for both countries.

Indeed, the whole theme of the meeting seems to have been greater Afghan-Pakistani cooperation, facilitated by China. Afghanistan’s representatives at the talks specifically asked China to “play a constructive role in promoting bilateral interactions between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” according to Hua. China has a close relationship with Pakistan, often described as an “all-weather friendship.” Kabul hopes that China can use its unique ties with Islamabad to pressure Pakistan into playing a constructive role in Afghan security. Afghanistan in particular wants Pakistan to nudge the Afghan Taliban into negotiations over a true unity government – rather than supporting the group’s more militant ambitions.

Growing Number of Armed Clashes Between Pakistani Taliban and Defectors Who Have Joined ISIS

February 10, 2015

Another new enemy for the Pakistani Taliban are members who have defected to ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and gone to war with a Taliban they see as sell-outs and reactionary Islamic radical pretenders. There have already been some fatal clashes between ISIL and Taliban in northwest Pakistan. ISIL has also attracted recruits from the Afghan Taliban and released a video showing a former leaders of a Pakistan Islamic terrorist faction now becoming a leader of the Pakistani branch of ISIL. 

Pakistan and Afghanistan are trying to get a better idea of how many Islamic terrorists and their families have fled from Pakistan to Afghanistan since June 2014. What has been discovered so far is that not all of these Islamic terrorists fled to eastern Afghanistan. Some are showing up in Taliban controlled areas in the south (Helmand). Most of these recent Islamic terrorist refugees from Pakistan are al Qaeda or groups from Central Asia (especially Uzbekistan). In December American, Afghan and Pakistani military leaders met in Pakistan and agreed to coordinate operations against Taliban operating on both sides of the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan. Many Islamic terrorists, including leaders have fled the Pakistani offensive in North Waziristan and headed for neighboring Afghanistan. These terrorists believed they would be safer but that proved to be untrue. Another problem these displaced Pakistani Islamic terrorists have had is growing armed resistance by local Afghan tribesmen. The Pakistani Taliban have always tried to get along with their fellow Pushtun tribesmen just across the border but over the years the constant violence (including the American bomb and missile attacks and thousands of rockets and mortar shells fired from Pakistan by the army and police there into these border areas) turned the tribes against the Pakistani Islamic terrorists and that is reflected in increased sniping, ambushes and armed confrontations on roads. The tribes are also supplying the Americans and Afghan security forces with more information, which often leads to precise UAV missile attacks or helicopter raids by commandos on Pakistani Taliban hideouts. This is causing heavy losses among key people in the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamic terrorists in the area. This has led to discussions about moving to a safer area. The options are not good. Going back to Pakistan is dangerous and given the feuding between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, moving to other parts of Afghanistan (except the south) is not a good idea. Meanwhile the Islamic terrorists in eastern Afghanistan are getting hammered as the Pakistani offensive against North Waziristan that began in June grinds on. 

Meanwhile the fighting in Pakistani North Waziristan continues as it has since June 2014. So far over 2,200 Islamic terrorists and at least 200 security personnel have been killed. Many of the Islamic terrorists who long had sanctuary in North Waziristan have fled to adjacent areas and especially across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has pursued those who fled to other parts of the country and is cooperating with Afghanistan to deal with those who are trying to hide out in eastern Afghanistan. Unfortunately most of the 210,000 Pakistanis who fled to Afghanistan from North Waziristan are civilians, While many are families of Islamic terrorists most are not but all are vulnerable to injury from the increasing counter-terrorist activity in eastern Afghanistan. For once the Pakistanis are really cooperating with the Afghans on this issue, although the December terror attack on a school that led to the deaths of 132 children (many of them from military families) has a lot of do with this new attitude. The Afghans do note that the Pakistanis are still not enthusiastic about attacking Haqqani Network members. This is a group that dates back to the 1980s and has never carried out attacks in Pakistan but only in Afghanistan and has often carried out specific missions for ISI in Afghanistan. Haqqani is much hated in Afghanistan but apparently still has some support in Pakistan. 

COULD PAKISTAN’S ENERGY CRISIS BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT?

Michael Kugelman

February 10, 2015

Sometime around midnight on January 25, separatist fighters in the insurgency-riven Pakistani province of Baluchistan attacked a power transmission line.

They probably didn’t anticipate the immense ripple effects this single strike would have across the country.

The assault, which blew up two key towers near a major power station, tripped the national grid. Eighty percent of the country—including most major cities—plunged into darkness. Many in Pakistan described the outage as the worst in the nation’s history. In some cities, hours went by before power was restored.

This wasn’t the first time militants attacked Pakistan’s electricity infrastructure. Baluch separatists targeted more than 100 gas lines over the last four years, including a February 1 assault that reduced gas supplies to Punjab and Khyber-Pakthunkhwa provinces by 25 million cubic feet. In April 2013, the Pakistani Taliban blew up the largest power station in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Half of Peshawar, the provincial capital with a population nearly as large as that of Los Angeles, lost power.

The fact that one isolated attack can inflict such widespread damage underscores the severity of Pakistan’s national energy crisis. Even in an era of cheap oil, Pakistan is experiencing a power shortfall of roughly 5,000 megawatts (in recent years, energy deficits have soared to 8,500 megawatts—more than 40 percent of national demand). In parts of rural Pakistan, residents are lucky to have four hours of electricity a day. The crisis’s economic costs are stark; shortages have cost the country 4 percent of gross domestic product. Some Western companies, citing electricity deficits, are suspending operations in Pakistan. On January 26, the Moody’s ratings group warned that energy shortages will damage Pakistan’s credit worthiness.

5 Predictions for Xi Jinping's US State Visit

By Ankit Panda

February 10, 2015

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As The Diplomat reported earlier this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first official state visit (Sunnylands 2013 doesn’t count here) to the United States sometime this year. What should interested observers of U.S.-China relations keep an eye on leading up to this visit and what should we expect out of the visit itself? Well, gather around dear readers, as I attempt to peer into The Diplomat‘s crystal ball and try my hand at the perilous task of predicting the future of U.S.-China ties.

First things first: when will the visit occur? Most prognosticators currently predict September as a likely date for this state visit given that Xi will already be in New York then for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. What’s interesting about that timing is that it will allow plenty of time for other major bilateral visits to occur — as my China-focused colleague Shannon points out, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Xi, Xi will meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin and possibly even Kim Jong-un, and Obama will meet Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Additionally, a fall state visit would allow U.S. and Chinese diplomats to iron out the details of ongoing bilateral initiatives including the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), a likely subject on the agenda of any impending U.S.-China state visit.

The agenda will likely focus on positive areas of mutual benefit and sideline points of contention. In general, the United States and China prefer to address positive areas for mutual benefit in grand state visits. When Hu Jintao visited the United States, bilateral joint statements focused mostly on economic cooperation, building “strategic trust,” expanding military-to-military ties, and addressing fairly uncontroversial “global challenges.” When the two sides do address areas of disagreement, they tend to evade issues affecting China’s core national interests. For example, last November, U.S. President Barack Obama managed to leave Beijing with a guarantee that China would cut greenhouse gas emissions and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption – a development that was heralded as a diplomatic coup for the United States. However, the issue of climate change wasn’t a sensitive issue in the same way that cybersecurity and South China Sea issues are today. If Obama and Xi do discuss the United States government’s indictment of five PLA officers for cyber espionage last year or China’s most recent legal position paper on the South China Sea, expect it to be done entirely out of the public eye. In a best-case scenario, we could see both sides acknowledging a divergence of opinion on these matters in a joint statement (similar to how previous statements have handled the issue of human rights). Remember, it’s legacy-building time for Obama — meaning his administration will seek to use this visit to showcase the progress they have made on U.S.-China relations.