Why Ukraine Doesn't Get a Say on NATO

James Carden

February 20, 2015 

It may be called the "Ukraine crisis," but it's really all about NATO.

As we approach February 21, the first anniversary of the start of the Ukraine crisis, a question that still seems to vex many observers is: what, exactly, does Mr. Putin want?

Answers vary and usually depend on the ideological predisposition of the respondent. Last week, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul told PBS’s Gwen Ifill, “I still think Putin gains very concretely to his ultimate objective, which is to weaken and ultimately destroy the government in Kiev. That’s what he really wants to do.”

Neoconservatives and liberal interventionists (by now, surely, a distinction without a difference) also generally believe that Mr. Putin wants to at the very least dominate (economically, culturally, militarily) Ukraine—if not resurrect the Soviet Union—and then move on to reclaim the Baltic states for Russia. After that, with the help of the Kremlin’s vast propaganda apparatus and its nefarious far-right clients in Europe, he will begin to tighten his grip over Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and, should the Le Pen and Farage insurgencies continue to gain momentum, France and the UK.

If this is what Mr. Putin wants—a kind of malign hegemony over large swathes of Eastern, Central and Western Europe—then the West would be well-advised to fight Putin in Ukraine, so it won't have to confront him down the road in, say, Riga or Manchester. The argument is eerily similar to the one (or one of the ones) trotted out by the second Bush administration in the lead-up to Iraq: fight 'em over there, so we don't have to fight ‘em over here. It also is an echo of the ‘60s-era domino theory which led to (among other niceties) our decade-long engagement in Vietnam. An intuitively and viscerally appealing idea, it is also completely and utterly discredited. Yet, it persists. Last week, theEconomist’s lede article included this old chestnut:

NSA and GCHQ Stole Codes of World’s Largest Manufacturer of Cell Phone Encryption Devices

By Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley

February 20, 2015

AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.

The company targeted by the intelligence agencies, Gemalto, is a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands that makes the chips used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards. Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world. The company operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. One of its three global headquarters is in Austin, Texas and it has a large factory in Pennsylvania.

In all, Gemalto produces some 2 billion SIM cards a year. Its motto is “Security to be Free.”

With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider’s network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

As part of the covert operations against Gemalto, spies from GCHQ — with support from the NSA — mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries.

Gemalto was totally oblivious to the penetration of its systems — and the spying on its employees. “I’m disturbed, quite concerned that this has happened,” Paul Beverly, a Gemalto executive vice president, told The Intercept. “The most important thing for me is to understand exactly how this was done, so we can take every measure to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, and also to make sure that there’s no impact on the telecom operators that we have served in a very trusted manner for many years. What I want to understand is what sort of ramifications it has, or could have, on any of our customers.” He added that “the most important thing for us now is to understand the degree” of the breach.

NSA Used Software Analysis to Trace Sony Data Breach to North Korea

February 20, 2015

NSA chief says Sony attack traced to N.Korea after software analysis

(Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) identified North Korea as the source of the recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment (6758.T) after analyzing the software used in the intrusion, NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers said on Thursday.

Speaking to a Canadian security conference, Rogers explained that the discovery was part of the agency’s efforts to develop software to counter cyberattacks.

"We ultimately ended up generating the signatures to recognize the activity … used against Sony," Rogers said. "From the time the malware left North Korea to the time it got to Sony’s headquarters in California, it crossed four different commanders’ lines or areas in the U.S. construct."

Sony’s network was attacked by hackers in November as the company prepared to release “The Interview,” a comedy about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The attack was followed by online leaks of unreleased movies and emails that caused embarrassment to executives and Hollywood personalities.

North Korea has described the accusation as “groundless slander.”

Rogers said that cyberthreats are different from physical threats since they travel beyond geographical boundaries. He said the cyberthreats are also blurring the line between the public and private sectors, sometimes prompting new and unexpected partnerships.

"If you had told me (in the past) that I was going to be spending time working on an offensive act against a motion picture company, I would have thought: ‘What? What does that have to do with me?’ And yet that’s the world we find ourselves in."

Malaysia Wants an ASEAN Peacekeeping Force

By Prashanth Parameswaran

February 21, 2015

The country has made the initiative a priority for its ASEAN chairmanship in 2015. 

Earlier this week, Malaysian defense minister Hishammuddin Hussein reiterated his country’s desire to establish an ASEAN peacekeeping force asthe chair of the grouping this year.

According to the Malaysian newspaper The Star, in an address to the defense ministry before beginning his visits to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, Hishammuddin said that he is in the process of visiting every one of the nine other ASEAN countries and that one of the things he would discuss would be the formation of an ASEAN peacekeeping force.

Seasoned ASEAN observers know that the idea of an ASEAN peacekeeping force is nothing new and has been around for years. Nor is it a purely Malaysian idea – other Southeast Asian countries and ASEAN bigwigs have also supported it the past. As I have noted in an earlier piece, Malaysia is merely reviving an old initiative now when it has the rare privilege of holding both the ASEAN chair as well as a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

The case for establishing an ASEAN peacekeeping force today is clear. Southeast Asia is home to several internal conflicts and some fellow ASEAN members have already been involved in observing peacebuilding initiatives in hotspots like Aceh and Mindanao or participating in peacekeeping operations as in East Timor. Today, most ASEAN members have participated to varying degrees in UN peacekeeping operations and have already set up national peacekeeping training centers. ASEAN has already begun setting up a network among these centers – known as the ASEAN Peacekeeping Centers Network (APCN) – and it has held APCN meetings on the subject (with the first being held in 2012 in Malaysia).

Stubborn obstacles remain, however, to setting up a full ASEAN peacekeeping force, even though the voices opposing the initiative may not be as loud today as they were in the past. Resource constraints, inexperience in interoperability, and a general discomfort with ASEAN becoming too securitized too quickly are often cited as concerns. But the real issue is the unwillingness by some ASEAN members to move beyond a strict adherence to the grouping’s principles of noninterference and respect for state sovereignty, even though these have been interpreted flexibly in the past to justify other policy shifts in the absence of full consensus.

Post-Cold War Order Is Breaking Down

By Fyodor Lukyanov

Feb. 19 2015 

The withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Debaltseve removes a major obstacle to the full implementation of the recent Minsk agreement. However, that development also has a different meaning. It was not the Ukrainian side, but their opponents — who are working to dismantle the current Ukrainian state — that determined when the fighting would end.

That is highly symbolic, and not only with regard to this particular conflict. The world has entered a strange phase when the assumptions underlying the recent historical eras are now in question. This includes the idea of the sovereign state, an understanding that emerged from the European Enlightenment and the outcome of the formation of European states after the Peace of Westphalia, a series of peace treaties signed in 1648, which ended a number of European wars.

The bitter feud in Ukraine is only one manifestation of how the world order is falling apart. The Islamic State is an even more striking example. It is not only challenging the established order in the Middle East by erasing borders, but is also exhibiting an increasingly savage cruelty, frightening its opponents with horrific public executions.

In general, a medieval spirit reigns, with its internecine wars and in which the only great strategy, if one exists at all, is to indulge the passion for blood. This desire to repay the enemy a hundredfold — even if he is yesterday's neighbor or friend — is often mixed with religious fanaticism or blind nationalism.

A little more than 20 years ago, American political scientist Samuel Huntington suggested that a clash of civilizations would inevitably follow the end of the Cold War. Many rejected that grim warning amid the euphoria that prevailed in the West. And although his theory was somewhat overly simplified, it did not succumb to the illusion that mankind had resolved all of its fundamental challenges with the collapse of communism.

Centuries ago, "good Christians" took great pleasure in publicly burning people alive or massacring an entire town in order to eliminate their enemies, just as the Islamic State is doing now. Conflicts motivated by the principle of "an eye for an eye" have almost never stopped during any historical period, regardless of which "civilization" was involved. It is just that, over time, social and political progress created regulations restricting those manifestations of ancestral barbarity.

Why did Huntington and other pessimists of the early 1990s turn out to be right? After all, it was assumed that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc removed the systemic barriers to extending the most advanced humanitarian and social thinking, the product of the European Enlightenment, to the entire world.

The Philippine Military Wants US Drones

By Prashanth Parameswaran

February 20, 2015

The country mulls acquiring drones following the easing of US restrictions. 

The Philippines is eying U.S. drones following the recent policy shift by the Obama administration to ease restrictions on their export and sale, local media reported February 18.

According to ABS-CBN News, military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla said that the while Philippines did not want armed drones, it would be interested in drones that could be used for intelligence and surveillance operations.

Meanwhile, BusinessWorld, a leading Philippine business newspaper, reported that Harold M. Cabunoc, a spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said that while the drones would indeed give the military “an edge in information gathering and in armed confrontations,” the country’s interest is primarily in their potential for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR).

National Defense Public Affairs Service Chief Arsenio R. Andalong also confirmed to BusinessWorld that the military’s primary interest in acquiring drones would be for HADR operations.

“In general, drones will certainly enhance any country’s defense posture. In our case, however, their potential contribution to HADR is probably more important,” Andolong said.

“Our planners would first have to assess the technology’s efficiency and the effectiveness vis-à-vis our capabilities,” he added.

Last week, The Diplomat reported that the Obama administration had established a policy for the export of commercial and military drones – including armed ones – following a lengthy review. The move opens up the possibility of Washington equipping its allies such as the Philippines, even though this would still be done under strict conditions and recipient nations need to agree to certain “end-use assurances.”

New Boko Haram videos hint at ties with ISIS

Rukmini Callimachi

Feb 22, 2015

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaks at an unknown location in this still image taken from an undated video released by Nigerian Islamist rebel group Boko Haram.

WASHINGTON: Until recently, the propaganda videos released by Boko Haram, one of the most feared extremist groups in Africa, were an amateur affair. The videos were grainy, shot on hand-held cameras. They tended to feature the group's wild-eyed leader screaming or shaking his finger at the viewer, as he delivered an incoherent tirade. 

That all changed in January, when Boko Haram announced that it had created its own media outlet, with its own logo, and unveiled an associated Twitter account. What followed was a barrage of videos and photographs, mirroring the releases of the Islamic State terrorist group thousands of miles away in Iraq and Syria. The videos were suddenly more polished, shot by what analysts say was a professional cameraman, and branded with the flag of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, as well as the group's battle anthem. 

Since then, each clip has surfaced first on the Nigerian group's Twitter account and is then promulgated on accounts known to belong to Islamic State operatives, according to three experts who track jihadist activity online. 

This evolution comes months after the Islamic State announced in its official magazine, Dabiq, that it had received an oath of allegiance from a group in Nigeria. Though the Islamic State did not name Boko Haram, the combined sequence of events has caused several experts to question whether Boko Haram is on its way to becoming the official branch in Nigeria, creating an alliance between two of the world's most murderous groups. 

"The media, the optics, the graphics, the style of these videos, as well as who is pushing this content out amounts to a lot of smoke," said Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who maintains a database of jihadist statements and videos. "I'm uncertain if there is a fire yet, but there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to a link between Boko Haram and ISIS." 

It remains too early to draw conclusions, and intelligence analysts in the United States remain unconvinced. 

Iran sends high-level negotiators to Geneva nuclear talks

Feb 22, 2015

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has dispatched his brother and atomic chief to Geneva to try to overcome hurdles in high-profile nuclear talks.

DUBAI: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has dispatched his brother and atomic chief to Geneva to try to overcome hurdles in high-profile nuclear talks with the United States and five other major powers, official Iranian media reported on Saturday. 

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on his way to meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif that Washington wanted an agreement by the deadline of June 30. 

US and Iranian officials began a new round of talks in Geneva on Friday, seeking to end a 12-year standoff over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme, suspected by the West of harbouring military aims - a charge Tehran consistently denies. 

The bilateral Tehran-Washington discussions, to culminate in a foreign ministers' summit on Sunday, are part of wider bargaining between Iran and six major powers - "P5+1" - aimed at restricting Iran's nuclear activities in return for relief from global economic sanctions. 

Iran's negotiations with "P5+1" - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - have already missed a November 2014 target date, and in the run-up to the June 30 deadline, wide gaps apparently remain, mainly over Iranian uranium enrichment and the pace of removing sanctions. 

Iranian media said nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and President Rouhani's brother and close aide, Hossein Fereydoon, would make their first formal appearance in the marathon talks, now entering a sensitive stage involving fine technical details. 

"Fereydoon's presence is prompted by the need to engage in consultations and make necessary coordinations throughout the present round of talks in Geneva," foreign ministry official Mohammad Ali Hosseini said. 

"Today Geneva is the epicentre of US-Iranian diplomacy over the remaining nuclear issues," he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. 

Also taking part in the talks is the US Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, who held technical discussions with Salehi in Geneva on Saturday, IRNA said. 

The semi-official Tabnak newspaper said Moniz and Salehi had known one another since the early 1970s, when Iran's now nuclear chief studied nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where Moniz was teaching. 

"Now they meet again after more than 40 years. Moniz is joining the Geneva talks to make sure the highly technical diplomacy proceeds with precision," said Tabnak, quoting a nuclear official. 

What ISIS Really Wants ***

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The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it

What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been its leader since May 2010, but until last summer, his most recent known appearance on film was a grainy mug shot from a stay in U.S. captivity at Camp Bucca during the occupation of Iraq. Then, on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations—upgrading his resolution from grainy to high-definition, and his position from hunted guerrilla to commander of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing.

Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

The Economics of Global Population Decline***

By George Friedman

February 18, 2015

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In recent weeks, we have been focusing on Greece, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. All are still burning issues. But in every case, readers have called my attention to what they see as an underlying and even defining dimension of all these issues - if not right now, then soon. That dimension is declining population and the impact it will have on all of these countries. The argument was made that declining populations will generate crises in these and other countries, undermining their economies and national power. Sometimes we need to pause and move away from immediate crises to broader issues. Let me start with some thoughts from my book The Next 100 Years.

Reasons for the Population Decline

There is no question but that the populations of most European countries will decline in the next generation, and in the cases of Germany and Russia, the decline will be dramatic. In fact, the entire global population explosion is ending. In virtually all societies, from the poorest to the wealthiest, the birthrate among women has been declining. In order to maintain population stability, the birthrate must remain at 2.1 births per woman. Above that, and the population rises; below that, it falls. In the advanced industrial world, the birthrate is already substantially below 2.1. In middle-tier countries such as Mexico or Turkey, the birthrate is falling but will not reach 2.1 until between 2040 and 2050. In the poorest countries, such as Bangladesh or Bolivia, the birthrate is also falling, but it will take most of this century to reach 2.1.

The process is essentially irreversible. It is primarily a matter of urbanization. In agricultural and low-level industrial societies, children are a productive asset. Children can be put to work at the age of 6 doing agricultural work or simple workshop labor. Children become a source of income, and the more you have the better. Just as important, since there is no retirement plan other than family in such societies, a large family can more easily support parents in old age.

In a mature urban society, the economic value of children declines. In fact, children turn from instruments of production into objects of massive consumption. In urban industrial society, not only are the opportunities for employment at an early age diminished, but the educational requirements also expand dramatically. Children need to be supported much longer, sometimes into their mid-20s. Children cost a tremendous amount of money with limited return, if any, for parents. Thus, people have fewer children. Birth control merely provided the means for what was an economic necessity. For most people, a family of eight children would be a financial catastrophe. Therefore, women have two children or fewer, on average. As a result, the population contracts. Of course, there are other reasons for this decline, but urban industrialism is at the heart of it.

Private equity in India: Once overestimated, now underserved

by Vivek Pandit 

February 2015

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General partners can use lessons from the past decade to build a new and better future.

In the early years of this century, private-equity (PE) firms and their investors were enthusiastic about India’s potential. Fifty percent of the country’s 1.1 billion people were younger than 30. From 2003 to 2007, GDP grew by 7.5 percent annually, 88 million middle-class households were formed (more than twice the number in Brazil), urban dwellers grew by 35 million to 330 million, and 60 percent of the population was in the labor force. Banks’ nonperforming-asset ratios fell from 9.5 percent to 2.6 percent. Further, the PE-to-GDP ratio stood at 1.8 percent, reassuring investors that India had plenty of headroom when compared with developed markets such as the United Kingdom (4.2 percent) and the United States (4.4 percent).

Private investors poured about $93 billion into India between 2001 and 2013 (Exhibit 1). At first, returns were strong: 25 percent gross returns at exit for investments made from 1998 to 2005, considerably better than the 18 percent average return of public equity. But returns fell sharply in following vintages; funds that invested between 2006 and 2009 yielded 7 percent returns at exit, below public markets’ average returns of 12 percent. In fact, India’s PE funds in recent years have come up well short of benchmarks: with a 9 percent risk-free rate and a 9.5 percent equity risk premium (accounting for currency risk, country risk, and volatility), the climb for Indian PE investors is undisputedly steep. To be sure, returns are based on a small number of exits, but that in itself is a problem. Only $16 billion of the $51 billion of principal capital deployed between 2000 and 2008 has been exited and returned to investors.

This article will explore the reasons why expectations may have been overly rosy, the headwinds that few investors escaped, and the behaviors that firms fell into. As the industry matures and resets its sights more realistically, a new wave of growth seems within reach. Five factors can tilt the balance: an increase in a bias in favor of control investments, appreciation of the complexity of family-owned businesses, new supplies of mezzanine financing, greater scrutiny from limited partners over general-partner strategies and capabilities, and encouragement from regulators.

Understanding what went wrong

Watch Out, China: India Is Building 6 Nuclear Attack Submarines

Akhilesh Pillalamarri

February 18, 2015 

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The Indian government will be launching a major naval expansion soon that will include the indigenous construction of seven stealth frigates and six nuclear powered attack submarines. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet approved plans to build the 13 new ships at about a cost of one trillion rupees or about $16 billion on Tuesday.

The expansion would triple the size of India’s nuclear submarine fleet and comes on the heels of Narendra Modi’s pitch to increase the proportion of indigenous defense production in India. In a recent speech, Modi said that he would like thepercentage of domestic procurement in India to increase to 70 percent. According to The Times of India, this decision comes at a time when India has a “critical necessity” to boost its “overall deterrence capability” in the Indian Ocean, especially the region stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca.

India’s move is widely understood to be aimed at countering China and its alleged “String of Pearls” strategy as well as increasing Chinese naval forays into the Indian Ocean. India was spooked last year when two Chinese submarines docked in Sri Lanka.

India’s plans to procure six nuclear powered attack submarines (SSN) are also in line with regional trends where many nations are building up their undersea fleets as a way to counter Beijing’s growing naval might. Many see China’s lack of anti-submarine warfare capabilities as its Achilles’ heel. India already operates one Russian-built nuclear submarine and it is currently building an indigenous one. The latter is likely to be a ballistic missile nuclear submarine (SSBN) rather than a SSN.

Pakistan’s New Plutonium Separation Plant Possibly Now Operational

David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini

February 20, 2015

Pakistan’s Chashma Plutonium Separation Plant: Possibly Operational

Pakistan has built four reactors at Khushab to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons. However, to use this plutonium in nuclear weapons, Pakistan must chemically separate it from the irradiated reactor fuel, a difficult process done in special buildings called plutonium separation or “reprocessing” plants. Faced with a lack of technical capability, Pakistan sought to buy a reprocessing plant from France in the mid-1970s. Because of concerns about the plant’s potential use to make nuclear weapons, France cancelled its contract to provide a reprocessing plant to Pakistan. 

Several years later, Pakistan finished a small one near Rawalpindi on its own. This small plant became the location for separating plutonium for nuclear weapons after Pakistan brought into operation its first Khushab reactor in 1998. During the last several years, it has started three more Khushab reactors and the Rawalpindi separation plant may not be large enough to process all the irradiated fuel.

As a result, Pakistan is believed to have secretly finished the Chashma plutonium separation plant in order to separate the relatively large amount of plutonium produced in all four reactors. The original reprocessing site is believed to be adjacent to the Chashma Nuclear Power Complex, located 270 kilometers south-west of Islamabad. The operational status of this reprocessing plant is unknown, although satellite imagery signatures suggest it may have recently become operational. Bringing into operation this reprocessing facility would significantly increase Pakistan’s plutonium separation capability and ability to make nuclear weapons.

Pakistan’s Intelligence Chief in Kabul to Meet His Afghan Counterparts

Reuters

February 18, 2015

(Reuters) - Four suicide attackers stormed a provincial police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 22 police in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

The attack in Logar province outside the capital, Kabul, was the latest to target Afghan security forces following the withdrawal of most foreign combat troops last year after 13 years of war.

In neighbouring Pakistan, a Taliban suicide attack on a provincial police headquarters killed at least six other people in the eastern city of Lahore, in what militants called a revenge strike for the hangings of their comrades.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are separate groups that share the goal of establishing hardline Islamic rule. Tuesday’s attacks did not appear to be coordinated. 

Pakistan’s intelligence chief and army chief of staff visited Kabul on Tuesday for meetings with Afghan leaders on cooperating to fight militants on both sides of the border.

In the Afghan assault, the four attackers rushed the police compound in early afternoon, with one detonating his explosives-filled vest at the main gate and killing one policeman.

Two of the attackers were shot dead in the ensuing battle, said Logar’s governor, Niaz Mohammad Amiri.

"Unfortunately, the other attacker managed to detonate his explosives inside the dining hall" where policemen were gathered, Amiri said.

At least 21 police died and seven were wounded in the dining hall blast, said Abdul Wali Toofan, Logar’s deputy police chief.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility on his official Twitter feed.

Nonsense about terrorism's 'root causes'

By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

February 19, 2015

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/19/opinion/bergen-terrorism-root-causes/index.html

Syrian Kurds wait near a border crossing in Suruc as they wait to return to their homes in Kobani on Sunday, September 28.

Tomahawk missiles, intended for ISIS targets in Syria, fly above the Persian Gulf after being fired by the USS Philippine Sea in this image released by the U.S. Navy on Tuesday, September 23.

Turkish Kurds clash with Turkish security forces during a protest near Suruc on Monday, September 22. According to Time magazine, the protests were over Turkey's temporary decision to close the border with Syria.

Syrian Kurds fleeing ISIS militants wait behind a fence in Suruc on Sunday, September 21.

A elderly man is carried after crossing the Syria-Turkey border near Suruc on Saturday, September 20.

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter launches mortar shells toward ISIS militants in Zumar, Iraq, on Monday, September 15.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire at ISIS militant positions from their position on the top of Mount Zardak, east of Mosul, Iraq, on Tuesday, September 9.

Iraqi volunteer fighters celebrate breaking the Amerli siege on Monday, September 1. ISIS militants had surrounded Amerli, 70 miles north of Baquba, Iraq, since mid-June.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces stand guard at their position in the Omar Khaled village west of Mosul on Sunday, August 24.

Kurdish Peshmergas fight to regain control of the town of Celavle, in Iraq's Diyala province, on August 24.

Peshmerga fighters stand guard at Mosul Dam in northern Iraq on Thursday, August 21. With the help of U.S. military airstrikes, Kurdish and Iraqi forces retook the dam from ISIS militants on August 18. A breach of the dam would have been catastrophic for millions of Iraqis who live downstream from it.

For Army General, Military Risks Self-Delusion If It Ignores Past Wars’ Lessons

BY KATE BRANNEN

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

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For someone tasked with thinking about the future, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster is obsessed with the past.

In the hour he spent talking with reporters on Thursday morning, the historical lessons came fast and furious, as McMaster discussed Napoleon, the 2006 Lebanon War, Vietnam, the Korean War, the bombardment of London during World War II, and why combat vehicles were first designed during World War I to restore mobility on the Western Front.

But for McMaster, who leads the Army Capabilities Integration Center at its Training and Doctrine Command, the most relevant lessons for preparing the Army for the future come from the wars just fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. And forget 2025, the year McMaster is supposed to be planning for: Many of these lessons have direct implications for conflicts the United States is engaged in today, from Ukraine to Syria to Iraq.

“I think in many ways what we learn from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could in the future be as important as the outcomes of those wars,” McMaster said at a breakfast Thursday. “If we learn the wrong lessons, we’ll engage in the kind of self-delusion that we engaged in in the 1990s, which set us up for many of the difficulties that we encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The “Revolution in Military Affairs,” a concept popular inside defense policy circles in the 1990s, predicted that the U.S. military, armed with superior technology, would be able to easily defeat its enemies. The lingo of the time included terms like “full-spectrum dominance” and “rapid, decisive operations.”

Global INTSUM on ISIS

February 19, 2015

ISIS Global INTSUM: January 7 - February 18, 2015

The purpose of this intelligence summary is to document and assess the significance of open source reports regarding ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) activity outside of Iraq and Syria. This estimate will organize ISIS abroad activity into concentric rings, including the ISIS “Near Abroad” comprised of Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon as well as Iraq and Syria; the “Near Abroad Ring” comprised of former Arab Caliphate lands; and the “Far Abroad Ring” comprised of Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, and the Cyber domain.

Read this update online

For the First Time, Americans Support Ground Troops Against ISIS

ADAM CHANDLER

FEB 19 2015

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The Islamic State's brutality has dramatically shifted public opinion in the United States.

ReutersBarack Obama's closing remarks at the summit on Countering Violent Extremism on Wednesday were notable not only for the president's avoidance of words like "Islamic" and Muslim," but also for their emphasis on ISIS. The terrorist group merited a dozen mentions, more than double that of its rival, al Qaeda. "ISIL is terrorizing the people of Syria and Iraq, beheads and burns human beings in unfathomable acts of cruelty," Obama said. "We’ve seen deadly attacks in Ottawa and Sydney and, Paris, and now Copenhagen."

The group's confounding brutality (see The Atlantic's March cover story for more about that) has also made a profound impression on the American public,gradually turning a seemingly war-weary country in favor not only of airstrikesagainst the group, but also, according to a new CBS News poll, the deployment of ground troops. "For the first time, a majority of Americans (57 percent) favor the U.S. sending ground troops into Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS," CBS reported.

The results track with the general sentiment that ISIS is "a major threat" to the United States, which rose from 58 percent in October to 65 percent earlier this week.

How ISIS Has Expanded Beyond Its Syrian Stronghold

ARI SHAPIRO, LEILA FADEL AND PHILIP REEVES

FEBRUARY 18, 2015

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Demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State slogans as they carry the extremist group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, in June 2014.

The self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS, first became a powerhouse in Syria, but it has rapidly spread throughout the broader region.

The most recent example came in a video that surfaced Sunday in Libya, purportedly showing 21 men, mostly Egyptian Coptic Christians, being decapitated on a beach.

ISIS now appears to be active in several countries. NPR reporters in Iraq, Egypt and Afghanistan discuss the group's growing clout.

Iraq: NPR's Ari Shapiro reports from Irbil, northern Iraq

What happened last summer, when ISIS was growing in strength?

ISIS swept from Syria into northern Iraq, the Kurdish area. ... It all came to a head as the group approached the city of Irbil ... the regional capital in northern Iraq.

Meanwhile ... [members of the] Yazidi ethnic religious minority were stranded on top of Mount Sinjar; they were starving. And [in August] President Obama announced airstrikes and a humanitarian mission to rescue those people, and that was when the West became involved in what had until then been more or less a regional crisis.

What's the situation now?

The Specter of Japan-Like Stagnation

By Dhruva Jaishankar

Feb. 19, 2015 

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Europe should treat Japan's economic malaise as a cautionary tale.

Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe is trying to turn things around. 

The economist Simon Kuznets used to tell his students that there were four types of countries: developed countries, undeveloped countries, Argentina and Japan. His aphorism pithily captured Japan as the positive outlier, the non-Western country that industrialized in one generation in the 19th century, and rebounded even more quickly after the devastation of World War II. By the 1980s, Japan was a global economic powerhouse, giving us Sony, Toyota and Nintendo, pioneering the bullet train and buying up American real estate. Business leaders the world over scrambled to learn the secrets behind the country’s success.

But Japan has since lost its luster. Today it may be the first major economy feeling the full effects of post-industrialization. It has experienced two decades of little or no real economic growth. With a median age of 45, its shrinking working-age population struggles to support a growing number of elderly. Low-cost imports and robotics have slashed the demand for wage labor. And Japan now suffers from a discernible lack of economic dynamism as a homogenous society with a rigid work culture that continues to be hostile to immigration. Ironically, the very characteristics that once made Japan so successful are now among its biggest liabilities.

The Winners and Losers From Falling Asian Gas Prices

BY KEITH JOHNSON

FEBRUARY 19, 2015 

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Plunging natural gas prices in Asia are a boon for some countries -- but a massive headache from Vladivostok to Vancouver. 

The swoon in oil prices is driving another big change in global energy markets — a collapse in the price of liquefied natural gas in Asia. That promises big implications for producers and consumers alike and could even have knock-on effects on Russia’s plans to shift more of its energy business to the east.

For years, Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea have been the biggest importers of tankers full of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and as a result, the region has always paid more than other parts of the world. That so-called “Asian premium” grew so big early last year, thanks to rising oil prices and steadily growing demand for gas, that countries such as Japan paid five times as much as the United States did for the clean-burning fuel.

Now that premium is evaporating, making gas cheaper for big Asian buyers — and making the future a whole lot darker for gas exporters like the United States and Australia. Delivery prices for LNG in Japan reached $20 per million British thermal units in March 2014, twice as high as prices in Europe. One year later, LNG prices in Asia have plummeted to about $7 — slightly lower than what Europeans now pay.

Part of that plunge is due to lower oil prices, which have fallen about 50 percent since last summer. Most gas contracts in Asia are linked to the price of oil, so when crude gets more expensive, so does gas — and vice versa.

And part of the sharp decline is also due to the same sorts of supply and demand fundamentals that have roiled oil markets. Asian economies like Japan and China are slowing down, which depresses their demand for gas even as more and more of it floods into the market.

As a result, loaded LNG tankers have been piling up around big Asian trading hubs, hoarding cargoes that are only one-third as valuable as they would have been last year. Other tankers slow-foot it on their way to the Pacific, hoping the market improves by the time they arrive. One-tenth of the global LNG tanker fleet is currently idled, waiting out the doldrums.

Freeze Terrorists’ Assets. Promote Prosperity. Encourage Moderate Values.

BY FUMIO KISHIDA

FEBRUARY 19, 2015 

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Japan’s foreign minister on how his country will fight Islamist terrorism in the Middle East. 

The world has been left shocked by the inhumane and despicable murders of two Japanese nationals, as well as those victims from other countries at the hands of ISIL. Words simply cannot express the unbearable pain and sorrow that we feel for their loved ones, nor the strength of our condemnation for these impermissible and outrageous acts.

I would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our friends in the international community for the strong solidarity they have shown toward Japan in the fight against these deplorable acts of terrorism and the cooperation extended toward seeking the release of our hostages.

However, we must be careful that the focus of our pain and anger is not misdirected. Japan will continue to work in the spirit of solidarity with the Muslim community in the Middle East and elsewhere to eradicate violence and prejudice.

In the face of such vicious and inhuman acts, our message to the international community is unequivocal: Japan will never give in to terrorism. We must hold individuals responsible for these acts and stand resolutely to fight the spread of terrorism. It is through international cooperation that Japan aims to make a proactive contribution to peace and stability. We will continue our efforts to deepen relations with the Middle East, building on coexistence, co-prosperity and collaboration.

In response to recent events, I am committed to thoroughly revamping and expanding Japan’s diplomatic efforts in several core areas.

Greece Should Not Give In to Germany’s Bullying

BY PHILIPPE LEGRAIN

FEBRUARY 19, 2015 

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It’s not just a question of being morally right -- it’s sound economics. And Athens has a lot more leverage than anyone thinks. 

Ever since the initial bargain in the 1950s between post-Nazi West Germany and its wartime victims, European integration has been built on compromise. So there is huge pressure on Greece’s new Syriza government to be “good Europeans” and compromise on their demands for debt justice from their European partners — also known as creditors. But sometimes compromise is the wrong course of action. Sometimes you need to take a stand.

Let’s face it: no advanced economies in living memory have been as catastrophically mismanaged as the eurozone has been in recent years, as I document at length in my book, European Spring. Seven years into the crisis, the eurozone economy is doing much worse than the United States, worse than Japan during its lost decade in the 1990s and worse even than Europe in the 1930s: GDP is still 2 percent lower than seven years ago and the unemployment rate is in double digits. The policy stance set by Angela Merkel’s government in Berlin, implemented by the European Commission in Brussels, and sometimes tempered — but more often enforced — by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, remains disastrous. Continuing with current policies — austerity and wage cuts, forbearance for banks, no debt restructuring or adjustment to Germany’s mercantilism — is leading Europe into the ditch; the launch of quantitative easing is unlikely to change that. So settling for a “compromise” that shifts Merkel’s line by a millimeter would be a mistake; it must be challenged and dismantled.

While Greece alone may not be able to change the entire monetary union, it could act as a catalyst for the growing political backlash against the eurozone’s stagnation policies. 

Is Cyberwar Really War? Thomas Wagner-Nagy

February 19, 2015 

http://www.monitor.upeace.org/innerpg.cfm?id_article=1079

Is cyberwar inevitable? Is it even war? What about cyberpeace? Thomas Wagner-Nagy reviews the ongoing cyber debate among security analysts. 

While US-President Barack Obama was giving a lecture on nuclear threats during his June 2013 visit to Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel made a remarkable comment on a different kind of peril to democracy and peace:

"The internet is virgin territory ("Neuland") for us all. And, of course, it also provides enemies and opponents of our democratic basic order with new tools and opportunities to threaten our way of life."The surprising part of her statement was not that she finally acknowledged the potential threat behind cyber operations in the light of the 2013 global surveillance disclosures but rather the fact that she referred to the internet as virgin territory in the year of its 30th anniversary.

The inhabitants of this virgin territory, especially those of the social networks, were quick to respond with an online mockery campaign. As the hashtag #Neuland went viral and the ridicule spread to the mainstream press, Merkel's spokesman, tried to clarify her comment stating "[...] that the internet is new legal and political territory, as we sense daily in political dealings".The incident not only exposed the scale of confusion, uncertainty, and lack of expertise on cyberspace at the highest government levels, it also sparked a public debate on how to deal with the internet as a medium many are using, yet very few are understand.

Cyberspace - or rather control over it - has become an important aspect of international relations. But just how dangerous is our ever intensifying dependence on the digital and virtual world? Some scholars argue that cyberwar is one of the new major threats to international peace. Others state that the harmful potential of cyber operations is being overestimated, and still others hold that they can be beneficial in preventing physical violence in conflict situations. The purpose of this paper is therefore to assess the scale of threats that a so-called cyber warfare with its various subcategories can pose to national and international security.

The quest for hidden information

Evolving Threats Demand An Evolving National Security Strategy

Paul J. Pena 

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Mr. Pena, a retired one-star Brigadier General in the US Army, formerly served as Deputy Adjutant General for the New Mexico National Guard.

The Cold War and its simple Risk board game strategy is history. The threats facing our nation have evolved: State sponsored hackers from North Korea and Iran have been stealing our nation’s military secrets—and seeking to upend our economy by targeting corporate interests (like Sony). These rogue nations also continue developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology. The recent Ebola outbreak revealed serious gaps in our response to biological threats, like the anthrax and ricin attacks we have already seen. And terror networks from ISIS to al-Shabbab grow ever more brutal, turning our own decency against us with made-for-TV acts of unspeakable horror.

Our military needs a 21st century defense strategy—that means beefing up cyber security, nuclear missile defense, bio-weapons defense, and sustained investment in our Special Forces. Our new Congress has to make this a top priority; this is one area where gridlock simply isn’t good enough.

Cyberweapons are the first truly global weapon ever invented, immune to borders and impervious to any of our physical defenses. The past few years have seen an exponential increase in cyber attacks on government and private computer networks that run nuclear power plants, dams, and other critical infrastructure. Last year alone the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team responded to 228,700 incidents and intrusions. Intelligence officials have been “alarmed by how quickly Iran has managed to develop its cyber warfare capabilities.” North Korea employs as many as 6,000 hackers that experts describe as “remarkably committed” to cyber warfare. With this cyber tsunami already breaking on our shores, Congress must fund new cyber defense initiatives and update our laws on intelligence sharing and integrated public-private cybersecurity.

These rogue nations aren’t just focused on cyber attacks; they continue developing nuclear weapons and missiles that threaten our cities. North Korea has recently succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead that fits atop its Taepodong-II ballistic missile. Iran could be less than a year away from fielding an ICBM. And it is only a matter of time before terrorists gain control of a loose nuclear weapon from the former Soviet arsenal or elsewhere.