Venezuela's Desperate Times and Maduro's Desperate Measures

By Carl Meacham

March 3, 2015

On March 1, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced the latest in a series of claims accusing the United States of meddling in Venezuela's affairs: an unspecified number of U.S. citizens, among them an American pilot, arrested in Táchira were, according to Maduro, conducting espionage operations for the U.S. government.

This all comes just one day after his government released four U.S. missionaries arrested earlier in the week.

Over the weekend, Maduro also announced a series of new measures supposedly designed to counter U.S. influence in Venezuela, including visa requirements for U.S. citizens traveling to Venezuela, significantly downsizing the U.S. embassy in Caracas, and banning a number of prominent U.S. officials (some already retired) from entering Venezuela. In recent weeks, Caracas has also accused Vice President Joe Biden of conspiring to overthrow the Maduro administration and alleged that U.S. officials helped to plan an attempted attack on the presidential palace.

All of this bluster and bombast amounts to this: desperate moves from an administration desperate to distract from Venezuela's desperate political and economic straits.

The past two years have been grim (at best) for Venezuela. The country's oil sector, mismanaged under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, can no longer support the government's vast social programs - particularly not in the context of last year's rapid drop in oil prices.

Asia and the 2015 NPT Review Conference

By Francisco Galamas

March 02, 2015

Can the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference help prevent future crises from escalating? 

Since its ratification in 1970, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) has become one of the main pillars of the nuclear nonproliferation mechanisms. In 2015, state parties to the NPT gather in a Review Conference (RevCon) to ensure that both the NPT provisions and the major nuclear proliferation challenges are being properly addressed. Given that seven of the world’s nine nuclear powers are in Asia, it is important to understand the main nuclear proliferation challenges that this continent presents to the 2015 RevCon.

Some of the unavoidable topics surrounding this diplomatic assembly will be the ongoing disputes involving nuclear programs in two countries: Iran and North Korea. Pyongyang acceded to the NPT in 1985, but in 2003, after dismissing the Agreed Framework, it withdrew and resumed its nuclear program. Twelve years, numerous ballistic missile tests, and three nuclear tests later, we are likely to witness a 2015 RevCon making renewed calls for Pyongyang to halt all nuclear and ballistic missile activities.

While such calls are hardly unprecedented, it is important for parties to the NPT to understand that the more evolved the North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile program gets, the more difficult the negotiations become and the less credible the nuclear nonproliferation mechanisms look to the international community. One way to overcome the current impasse could involve the restart of the Six-Party Talks with more flexible preconditions that do not require the complete dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure. It may not be a complete solution, it is certainly better than dealing with a North Korea steadily moving forward on its nuclear weapons program.

Another very important issue for the NPT concerns the Iranian nuclear program. In November 2013, Teheran and the other P5+1 States adopted a Joint Plan of Action to address pending issues surrounding the hypothetical non-civilian traits of this nuclear program. Even though a final agreement would certainly constitute an important triumph for nonproliferation diplomacy, caution is needed to fully understand how the region may react to a final agreement. Not only has Israel publicly stated its opposition to any deal that might see Iran retain any nuclear infrastructure and indigenous uranium enrichment capability, the reaction of other countries in the region – namely Saudi Arabia – remains a question mark. In recent years, Riyadh has made moves to start its own civilian nuclear program, including agreements with the French nuclear companies Areva and EDF.

North Korea Fires 2 Ballistic Missiles Into Sea

By Franz-Stefan Gady

March 03, 2015

It’s Groundhog Day on the Korean Peninsula: North Korea voiced its discontent over military drills in the usual manner. 

Early Monday morning, 6:32 a.m. and 6:41 a.m local time, North Korea fired two short-range Scud ballistic missiles from Nampho, a port south of Pyongyang. The missiles traveled for about 490km (305 miles) before hitting the sea, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites South Korea’s Defense Ministry as a source. A defense ministry spokesperson also noted that North Korea did not designate any no-sail zones prior to the launches, which Seoul took as a provocation.

The missiles were North Korea’s predictable way of voicing their anger over two South Korean-U.S. military exercises that began this Monday and will last until April 24. According to a North Korean People’s Army spokesperson, “The situation on the Korean peninsula is again inching close to the brink of a war. The only means to cope with the aggression and war by the U.S. imperialists and their followers is neither dialogue nor peace. They should be dealt with only by merciless strikes.”

North Korea had offered a moratorium on nuclear testing if this year’s U.S.-ROK joint military exercises were cancelled. However, this proposal was rejected by the United States as an “implicit threat” to carry out further nuclear tests. At the moment, North Korea is also conducting military maneuvers of its own.

The eight-week “Foal Eagle” exercise, involving 200,000 South Korean and 3,700 U.S. troops includes air, ground, and land forces, whereas the joint drill “Key Resolve” is a computer-simulated exercise lasting 12 days. “Exercising our multinational force is an important component of readiness and is fundamental to sustaining … the alliance. The United Nations Command has informed the Korean People’s Army in North Korea … about Foal Eagle exercise dates and the non-provocative nature of this training,” U.S. General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the allies’ Combined Forces Command, emphasized in a statement.

Japan Nixes Plan to Send Troops to Join Ebola Fight

By Mina Pollmann

March 03, 2015

Japan misses a chance to demonstrate the softer side of the SDF. 

On February 23, Japan’s Defense Ministry decided against dispatching a Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) unit to join the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone. The GSDF unit would have assisted international efforts to battle the spread of the Ebola virus by ferrying doctors and medical supplies.

The plan the Defense Ministry submitted to the prime minister’s office on February 18 called for 400 GSDF personnel to begin operations in April, with a possible Maritime SDF contingent to serve as base of operations. The GSDF would not have been involved in transporting Ebola patients. However, concerns about infection remained, and ultimately tabled the plan. There was also concern about scheduling and public opposition to such a deployment. According to Asahi, some members of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s inner circle opposed the plan, “[questioning] whether there was any need for such a mission.”

Since the Ebola outbreak began in West Africa over a year ago, there have been nearly 24,000 cases and more than 9,600 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been hardest hit.

Abe pledged 500,000 sets of protective gear for medical personnel in Africa last September, and Air SDF was used to transport medical supplies to Ghana in December. This was the first overseas dispatch of an SDF team to deal with the Ebola crisis and was conducted under the auspices of the Japan Disaster Team Relief Law.

However, with more than 3,000 deaths from Ebola in just Sierra Leone, the Defense Ministry sought other ways to get involved, as simply providing medical equipment began to appear inadequate. The SDF mission to Sierra Leone was given serious consideration after Britain reached out to Japan as part of its wider effort to seek international support for efforts in Sierra Leone during the British troops’ temporary absence from the country between March and June. London is particularly concerned about the fate of Sierra Leone because Sierra Leone is a member of the British Commonwealth.

NSA Gets Another Rubber Stamp Approval of Its Spying Operations From the FISA Court

Dustin Volz

March 2, 2015

NSA Spying Wins Another Rubber Stamp

A federal court has again renewed an order allowing the National Security Agency to continue its bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, a decision that comes more than a year after President Obama pledged to end the controversial program.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved this week a government request to keep the NSA’s mass surveillance of U.S. phone metadata operating until June 1, coinciding with when the legal authority for the program is set to expire in Congress.

The extension is the fifth of its kind since Obama said he would effectively end the Snowden-exposed program as it currently exists during a major policy speech in January 2014. Obama and senior administration officials have repeatedly insisted that they will not act alone to end the program without Congress.

"While the administration waits for the Congress to act, it has continued to operate the program with … important modifications in place," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement released late Friday. 

More than a year’s worth of efforts to reform the NSA stalled last year, as the Senate came two votes short of advancing the USA Freedom Act in November. The measure failed to overcome a filibuster by Republicans, many of whom warned any limitation imposed on the NSA could bolster terrorist groups like the Islamic State.

It is widely expected that lawmakers will reintroduce versions of the Freedom Act in the new Congress, but no bill has emerged so far. Core parts of the post-9/11 Patriot Act will sunset on June 1, including Section 215, which grants the NSA legal authority to conduct its controversial dragnet surveillance program.

Amid the congressional inaction, the FISA Court has now renewed the NSA’s most controversial spying program five times—in March, June, September, December and now February—since Obama delivered his pledge to end it in its current form.

GCHQ Offering Summer School Courses in Ethical Hacking

Sooraj Shah

March 2, 2015

GCHQ experts to teach university students about ethical hacking, penetration testing and security networks

British spy agency GCHQ is looking to attract the cream of the crop of budding computer scientists to attend a new summer school in which its own experts will teach students about ethical hacking, penetration testing and security networks.

The organisation, which allegedly created ‘Lovely Horse’ to keep track of top hackers’ and security specialists’ blogs and tweets, according to recent documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, says it is launching the “Cyber Insiders Summer School” for computer science students in their first or second year at university.

The students will need to have an interest in cyber “beyond that of their university studies”, and they must be skilled in at least one computer language. They will also need advanced coding skills and the ability and tenacity to solve a variety of complex problems. They should be able to work well in a team and independently.

The students selected will get lessons from GCHQ’s own cyber security experts as well as advice from guest speakers from some of the world’s leading technology companies. They will work with a range of different technologies including both new systems and legacy systems that are still used by organisations today.

At the end of the programme, there will be a practical exercise in which the students will have to showcase the skills that they have learnt during the ten week course.

Students will get paid £2,500 to attend the programme from 6 July to 11 September 2015. GCHQ will provide accommodation in the Cheltenham area, and if students complete the programme they will receive a certificate from GCHQ.

A GCHQ spokesperson said that the school will enable the students to enhance their cyber knowledge which will look good on their CV. The spokesperson suggested it could even set them up for a future at the spy agency.

Asia’s New Way to Find Missing Planes After MH370?

By Prashanth Parameswaran

March 04, 2015

Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia are testing a new aircraft tracking system. 

Earlier this week, Australia said that it was testing a “world first” aircraft tracking system with Malaysia and Indonesia which will allow authorities to react quicker to incidents like the disappearance of MH370.

“In a world first, all three countries will trial a new method of tracking aircraft through the skies over remote oceanic areas,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters.

According to Truss, the system reportedly increases the minimum tracking rate for planes flying over remote oceans from 30 to 40 minutes to 15 minutes, and increases real time monitoring to 5 minutes or less if an “abnormal situation’ arises like major change in the plane’s direction. That would allow air traffic control to respond more quickly should a plane face difficulties or deviate significantly from its flight plan. The system is based on existing technology used on long-haul passenger aircraft.

The news came just shy of a year after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. The plane is still yet to be found, but experts have concluded that the plane traveled for several more hours before crashing somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Malaysia made a controversial decision in late January to officially declare MH370 an accident.

Airservices Australia chairman Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston was quoted as saying that the system was “a big step forward” and would make aircraft monitoring in oceanic areas much more effective.

“We will have a datum close to where the aircraft ran into trouble, which is in marked contrast to MH370 where the last known position was in the Malacca Strait,” said Houston, who helped lead the search for MH370.

However, he also cautioned that the new system would not necessarily have enabled air traffic controllers to monitor MH370 since it could simply have been turned off.

Boris Nemtsov's Murder: Don't Jump to Conclusions

Rajan Menon

March 4, 2015 

There's no evidence yet to support any theory.

Of the many questions raised by the murder of Boris Y. Nemtsov, the fifty-five-year-old opposition figure who served in the 1990s as Nizhniy Novgorod province’s governor and then as Boris Yeltsin’s first deputy prime minister, two are particularly important. First: Who did it and why? Second: How will it affect the already rancorous relationship between Russia and the West?

Western governments have, appropriately, called for a thorough and impartial investigation to bring the killers to justice. Yet many pundits and much of the press, certainly in this country, seem to have reached a verdict already: Vladimir Putin ordered Nemtsov’s assassination in order to cow an opposition that he fears could revive and foment revolution, now that Russians are reeling from the double blow of Western sanctions and plummeting oil prices. By assassinating Nemtsov, it is said, Putin launched a preemptive strike. His intended message to those planning protests: Mess with me, and I’ll have you killed.

Now, anyone who believes that the Kremlin could not have ordered the hit on Nemtsov hasn’t been paying attention to what’s been happening in the Russia that Putin has built. The assassination of the intrepid reporter Anna Politkovskaya, the jailing of ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the poisoning via polonium of the former-KGB-operative-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko—these are just some prominent examples that demonstrate that Putin’s government is not one you want to antagonize. If you do, you put everything at risk. It’s that simple.

What Marco Rubio Doesn't Understand about the Middle East

Robert W. Merry

March 4, 2015 

Rubio may make a fine president one day. But that day is far off.

Back in October 2006, the National Security Editor at Congressional Quarterly, Jeff Stein, took to asking national security officials and members of Congress if they knew the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East. He wasn’t looking for arcane doctrinal disquisitions, merely if they could say who was on which side and what each wanted. He discovered a sump of ignorance in Washington officialdom on the subject, hardly one of only limited significance to the country at the time.

Willie Hulon, chief of the FBI’s National Security Branch, took a wild guess on whether Iran was Shiite or Sunni. With a fifty percent chance of success, he got it wrong. Republican Representatives Terry Everett of Alabama and Jo Ann Davis of Virginia similarly demonstrated they couldn’t give even a vague description of these two fundamental branches of Islam and which dominated different countries or organizations. Stein revealed the results of his informal poll in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, to howls of derision mixed with expressions of concern.

Two months later, Stein asked the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Silvestre Reyes of Texas, if he knew whether al-Qaeda was Shiite or Sunni. He didn’t know but speculated that it might be both. Reyes had the spectacle of Stein’s New York Times piece as perhaps an incentive to educate himself on the basics of his committee’s jurisdictional area, yet he still failed this most fundamental of tests.

An Agreement That Is Good for Israel, Bad for Netanyahu

Paul R. Pillar

March 3, 2015 

One of the strangest aspects of the frantic crying of alarm over Iran's nuclear program—with the crying having reached its most publicized peak in Benjamin Netanyahu's Republican/Likud campaign rally in the House chamber—is that the chief crier is the government of a country that not only has the most advanced nuclear program in the Middle East but has kept that program completely out of the reach and scrutiny of any international control and inspection regime. It is hard to think of a better example in international politics of the pot calling the kettle black, and in this case the pot is much blacker than the kettle—and was so even before Iran put its program under the unprecedented restrictions and intrusive inspections to which it agreed more than a year ago in negotiations with the United States and the rest of the P5+1. As for any military dimensions (the focus, of course, of all that crying when it comes to Iran), although neither Israel nor the United States says publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons, just about everyone else on the planet who says anything on the subject takes it as a given that it does, and that it has a fairly sizable arsenal of such weapons.

The person outside government who has studied the Israeli nuclear program most extensively is Avner Cohen, an Israeli-born scholar currently based in the United States. Cohen has written two books on the subject, Israel and the Bomband The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb. He probably knows more than anyone outside the Israeli government about the Israeli program and the strategic thinking underlying it. It thus is especially interesting to hear what Cohen has to say about the current battle over the Iranian program. In a commentary just published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Cohen writes about how, as I discussed the other day, the actions and lobbying of Benjamin Netanyahu are at odds with his own alarmist rhetoric, and about what this implies concerning Netanyahu's motivations.

Cohen criticizes Netanyahu's drumbeat message that the agreement being negotiated would be very bad for Israel; he notes the “potential advantages” of the agreement, which is from the standpoint of Israel's interests a “reasonable compromise.” He points out that the demand to prevent any Iranian enrichment of uranium will never be realized, and that the demand has no basis in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

The 10 Best Memoirs of the Vietnam War

By James M. Lindsay

March 3, 2015

Recently I posted my picks for the best histories of the Vietnam War. While those books all provide excellent analyses of the war, another way to understand U.S. involvement in Vietnam is through the personal stories of those who lived it, whether on the battlefields or in the halls of power back in Washington. Here are my picks for the ten best memoirs of the Vietnam War:

Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (1977). Caputo was a young U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant who landed on the beach near Da Nang on March 8, 1965 as part of the first U.S. combat unit to serve in South Vietnam. He spent two years in the country, and in A Rumor of War he explains “the things men do in war and the things war does to men.”

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers(2002). Ellsberg explains why he leaked thePentagon Papers, the secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam commissioned at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The publication of the papers led the U.S. Supreme Court to hand down anhistoric ruling on the First Amendmentand provided ample evidence that the Johnson administration had misled the American public on the course of the Vietnam War.

Michael Herr, Dispatches (1977). Herr draws on his experiences covering Vietnam for Esquire to paint a picture of a futile war that left men looking for ways to combat their fear and hopelessness. Time magazine named Dispatches one of the one hundred best non-fiction books of all-time. Herr co-wrote the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket, one of the great movies about the Vietnam War.

US Concludes Special Operations Task Force in the Philippines

By Ankit Panda

March 03, 2015

After 13 years, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) will leave the Philippines. 

After 13 years of providing operational advice and support, the U.S. special operations mission in the Philippines, which was set up to help the Philippine military fight an Islamic militancy in the country’s south, is officially coming to a close. U.S. advisers were in the Philippines to primarily assist in Philippine commandos in fighting Abu Sayyaf militants in the country’s southern islands as past of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P). JSOTF-P advised the Philippines’ Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command.

According to local reports, U.S. JSOTF-P personnel joined their Philippines counterparts in a flag-raising ceremony in Zamboanga City to symbolize the conclusion of the U.S. mission. Zamboanga is the sixth largest city in the Philippines and hosted U.S. JSOTF-P advisers over the course of their 13 year mission in the Philippines. Though the JSOTF-P mission is scheduled to end this year, some members of the current mission will stay on as part of a U.S. special operations liaison to assist in the Philippines’ ongoing counter-terrorism efforts according to a statement made by U.S. Special Operations Command, Pacific spokesperson Army Maj. Kari McEwen to the US Naval Institute. “This represents a shift in focus for U.S. Special Operations Forces from advising and assisting at the small unit level to providing operational advice and assistance at higher levels of command within the Philippine Security Forces for continued counterterrorism progress, humanitarian assistance and civil military cooperation,” she added in the statement.

As per the terms of the Visiting Forces Agreement which governs the United States’ military presence in the Philippines, U.S. troops are not permitted to engage in direct combat operations in the Philippines. JSOTF-P thus focus solely on advising and assisting Philippines security forces “at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.” JSOTF-P comprised personnel from every branch of the U.S. armed forces, including specialized advisers with backgrounds in Army, Air Force, and Navy operations. U.S. Pacific Command will monitor the situation in the southern Philippines, with some remaining JSOTF-P personnel, to “ensure that violent extremist organizations don’t regain a foothold” in the region.

Japan and India's Warming Defense Ties

By Mina Pollmann

March 04, 2015

From defense sales to joint exercises, Tokyo and New Delhi are expanding the scope of military cooperation. 

The assertiveness of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy in the Indian Ocean is forcing the government of Narenda Modi to look to modernize India’s naval forces as quickly as possible. This venture, as would be expected, includes overtures to the U.S. (for example, to share technology for India’s next aircraft carrier), but India is increasingly seeking cooperation with Japan as well. India has asked Japan to consider working with India to build submarines and recently announced its plans to purchase Japanese amphibious search and rescue (SAR) aircraft.

Russian-made SAR flying boats had also been considered, but India chose the Japanese option because the Indian defense ministry valued the US-2’s ability to take off and land on waters with high waves. If the export of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force’s US-2 air-sea SAR aircraft to India is realized, it will be the first export under Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new three principles on defense equipment transfers, declared in April 2014.

Aside from defense equipment deals, Japan and India have been working to improve their bilateral cooperation in the fields of maritime security, counter-terrorism, and anti-piracy operations since January 2014, when then-Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony met with then-Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera.

At the time, the two defense ministers put off the issue of Japanese US-2 sales to India, but it was given added momentum during Modi’s trip to Japan last September. Modi declared during a joint press briefing with Abe, “We intend to give a new thrust and direction to our defense cooperation, including collaboration in defense technology and equipment, given our shared interest in peace and stability and maritime security.” At the same meeting, Abe and Modi agreed to upgrade “two-plus-two” security talks, increase working level talks on defense equipment and technology cooperation, hold regular maritime exercises, and continue Japanese participation in U.S.-India drills.

Two experiments

Written by Pratap Bhanu Mehta 

March 4, 2015 

Developments in Jammu and Kashmir will be seen through this lens: two phlegmatic parties, with uncompromising core ideologies and odd-ball characters in an unlikely coalition.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent gambits, the budget and the alliance with the PDP in Kashmir, can both be subject to a snarky scepticism that comes easily to us. But they are, in their own different ways, a delicate attempt to take Indian politics into uncharted waters. They are fraught with risks. But it is worth thinking about the underlying radicalism of the politics that could potentially be unleashed.

This budget does not fully live up to the bold strokes of the Economic Survey. But think of the context. Modi was politically vulnerable. His early silences in the face of communal baiting, the loss in the Delhi elections and the sense of a little drift in government cost him political capital. He had to restore authority to government and not give the Opposition more openings. His speeches on religious toleration helped. But he also needed a budget that, while being reformist, did not give the Opposition a handle. There are things to take issue with in the budget, but it gives little ground for potent political mobilisation in opposition.

There are three charges against the budget. Purists balk at the postponing of fiscal consolidation. But private sector investment is not picking up for a variety of reasons. The extent of the institutional mess this government inherited will take time to reform. The budget was more candid in its depth of understanding of the institutional mess. It was no accident that large sections of the private sector were clamouring for more public investment as a means of making India competitive. The budget is premised on some self-belief in government, that is far more progressive than those who make the silly assumption that you can build competitiveness and markets without the state. It could have invested more in building the state. But the greatest strength of the budget is that it has a range of institutional reforms — from the much-debated monetary policy committee to a new bankruptcy code.

Why I am a dissenter

Written by Abhijit Sen

March 3, 2015

Despite a sizeable Finance Commission award, panchayats will receive less from Centre.

Most commentators have noted the impact of the 14th Finance Commission (FC) on the budget. While many have hailed it as a historic shift towards greater federalism, others have focused critically on the budgeted reduction in Plan expenditures of the Central government (particularly in social sectors). The Centre’s acceptance of the FC recommendation to raise the states’ share of divisible Central taxes from 32 to 42 per cent has increased the projected receipts of the states by Rs 1.41 lakh crore — that is, by 37 per cent. But this has been matched by a reduction of Rs 1.34 lakh crore in the budgeted Central assistance to state plans (CASP). Even taking into account the grants-in-aid recommended by the FC, the total transfers from the Centre to the states go up from Rs 7.62 lakh crore in 2014-15 (budget estimate) to Rs 7.93 lakh crore in 2015-16, a nominal increase of only 4 per cent. The Central government, which, in its memorandum to the FC, had argued against any increase in tax devolution to the states, has not only accepted an award that veers unprecedentedly towards the demands of states but also managed to deftly shift responsibilities.

As a member of the 14th FC, I see this as a positive outcome. In our meetings with the states, I had repeatedly pointed out that any increase in the share of the states was bound to be met by cut-backs on Centrally funded schemes. To this, almost every state had responded by saying that although they wanted more money from the Centre, they were even more interested in being able to spend whatever they got in a manner of their choice rather than being tied to Centrally designed schemes. This strong preference for untied transfers, its constitutional legitimacy and the fact that the Centre was already transferring to the states about 60 per cent of the divisible pool of taxes is why we all agreed that there was sufficient reason to award a more sizeable share as tax devolution than previous FCs had thought fit. We also agreed to depart from past practice by not awarding specific-purpose grants since, wherever necessary, these are best determined by the Centre and the states acting cooperatively and because small additional grants where large Plan schemes already exist may create confusion rather than add value. The only grants we awarded were those required by our terms of reference and, in doing this, we agreed to steer clear of both the Plan/non-Plan distinction and that between special-category and other states, neither of which were required by our terms of reference.

The great Game Folio: Kashmir gambit

Written by C Raja Mohan

March 4, 2015 

BJP maintained in Delhi on Monday that its coalition with the PDP would be based only on the Agenda of the Alliance.

Although the comments of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the new chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, on Pakistan’s “positive role” in the conduct of the state’s assembly elections late last year have drawn much flak, there is no denying the fact that Rawalpindi has long had leverage in the state through its support to separatism and militancy. All of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s predecessors, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, have had to deal with this external dimension to Kashmir. What is more interesting than the CM’s infelicitous comments is the agreement between the BJP and PDP on a common approach towards Pakistan.

For one, it underlines the importance of engaging Pakistan. It points to the fact that “the Union government has recently initiated several steps to normalise the relationship with Pakistan. The coalition government will seek to support and strengthen the approach and initiatives taken by the government to create a reconciliatory environment and build stakes for all in the peace and development within the subcontinent”.

It is probably entirely accidental that the new understanding between the PDP and BJP on talking to Pakistan came just a couple of days before foreign secretary S. Jaishankar travelled to Islamabad. But Modi’s decision to send the foreign secretary to Pakistan to explore the prospects of reviving the peace process has certainly helped bridge some of the political distance between the BJP and PDP.

In juggling the internal and external dimensions of the Kashmir question, Modi is following the path cut by Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the tenure of the first NDA government and followed by Manmohan Singh. Modi, however, is in a much better position than either Vajpayee or Singh. India is a lot stronger than in the late 1990s, when Vajpayee launched the peace process under trying circumstances. Unlike Singh, Modi has the will and the capacity to make bold moves towards Pakistan. Even more important, Pakistan today is probably more vulnerable to terrorism than it was a decade and a half ago. During his talks in Islamabad, Jaishankar was expected to get a sense, first hand, of what the new political possibilities for a sustained dialogue with Pakistan are.

HURRIYAT TALKS

‘Baba planted seeds of independent thinking in my mind’

By: Avijit Roy

March 4, 2015

Despite my numerous friendships, somehow Baba had become my closest friend. 

I got off the plane and walked out of the airport gate to find Baba waiting for me. Baba, my ever-familiar Baba. I paused before I embraced him. On his face were the lines of time. In these few years, he seemed to have aged a lot. And why not? He crossed 70 a few years ago. His crop of hair has thinned, but the eyes are full of life, as before. “You shouldn’t have bothered to come, I would have taken a taxi,” I said. Baba laughed, but said nothing. Perhaps, to himself he said, “As if I need to listen to what you say!”

Without a thought to what others say, Baba lives by his own credo, his own conscience. From my childhood, this is how I have known him. You could say that’s a bug that affects me too. If I don’t like what others say, I avoid them. Sometimes, I tell them so outright. In some circles, I have earned myself the tag of being unsocial.

My mother never liked this stubborn streak. Avoiding any conflict or disagreements, and moulding herself to others’ wishes and needs, brought her peace. The purpose of her life was confined to the wellbeing of her family and her two sons. And she had few options too.

A university professor, Baba would spend his days in the lab or attending to his students. He might be able to simplify the problems of quantum mechanics and electromagnetism for his students in a thrice, but the everyday business of running a house was beyond him. Perhaps, he never tried to figure it out too. It was left to my mother to make our home and run it with skill. My father, on the other hand, was a Bohemian in the domestic sphere.

My father had two brothers. I didn’t know that for many years. That was because they had left for India long ago. Since the day I learnt of this, the question came up often in my mind: why did Baba stay back in Bangladesh? I asked him once, “Why didn’t you go to India, like Jethu and Kaku?” Baba looked at me and said, “India is not my country. Then why should I go there?” I was bewildered. I had not expected such an answer. I had thought he would say, “Arre, I tried, but just couldn’t manage.” Or, “I was so tied up with this job that I could not go.” But Baba simply said, why should I go to that country.

Lives on the line - Justice for the armed forces is of utmost importance

Brijesh D. Jayal

Faced with a progressively worsening international security environment and in the larger context of our own approach to this emerging threat, two recent events are worth revisiting. In the run-up to the Jammu and Kashmir state elections, four young people travelling in a Maruti car in Budgam district failed to stop at two successive checkpoints. These were set up by the Rashtriya Rifles in response to specific intelligence reports about the movement of terrorists in a Maruti car. When the car attempted to break through the third checkpoint, soldiers opened fire resulting in the death of two occupants and injuries to two others. The police after investigations concluded that these youngsters had no militant links. Almost everyone, from political parties to human rights voices to the media, was quick to condemn the action of the soldiers. Not one voice of reason looked at the incident from the perspective of the soldiers or the army that has for over two decades been compelled to fight a proxy war within our own borders - not of its choosing or making.

The general officer commanding in chief regretted the incident, accepting full responsibility, and did the right thing by tendering an apology for what can only be considered collateral damage in a proxy war environment. No effort was, however, made by the civil authorities to let the public know why the occupants of the car so blatantly ignored authority by jumping two checkposts and then attempting to do the same at the third? Or what motivated them to defy checkpost authority in a secure zone? In the public perception, the soldiers performing their duty were duly damned and life could move on.

Intriguingly, the army then conducted a hurried inquiry and equally quickly announced indictment of one junior commissioned officer and nine soldiers. Investigations to judge the performance of any individual or team in furtherance of duty or tactical operations are routine in the armed forces. These, however, are with a view to professional betterment and accountability. Doing so for extraneous considerations or to mollify sentiment is neither in keeping with the best traditions of the armed forces nor good for the upkeep of morale. The cat was soon out of the bag when, during a subsequent election rally, the ruling party at the Centre took credit for this action of holding the soldiers accountable.

DEFENCE REQUIRES BIG BANG REFORM MEASURES

Ashok K Mehta

04 March 2015

Arun Jaitley has given step-motherly treatment to defence. Security of the motherland and defence readiness are commitments he had made. Also, the NSA has said that India must be prepared for a two-front war

The statement, “Defence of every inch of our motherland comes before everything else”, sounds hollow, given the step-motherly treatment given to defence allocation in the current Budget, especially after Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley had till recently, doubled as Defence Minister. Item 86 of his speech was taken up by the well-meaning but directionless ‘Make in India’ thrust and the claim of being “both transparent and quick in making defence equipment-related purchase decisions, thus keeping our defence forces ready for any eventuality”.

He left out the customary praise of jawans and the promise to provide more money when needed, which traditionally led to thumping of desks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made the pitch for ‘Make in India’ at the air show in Bangalore where both the bags and badges given to the media were made in China. Mr Modi decried the fact that India was the largest importer of arms, and said that by 2020, it would be 70 per cent self-reliant.

The Defence Acquisition Council has apparently cleared buy, make and buy and make projects worth two lakh crore rupees, which certainly is quick decision-making. What will be lacking is implementation compounded by complex procedures. At the air show, Mr Modi said: “We are reforming our defence procurement and procedures with clear preference for equipment manufactured in India.” This would be the nth attempt at revising acquisition procedures; this time, including the roadmap for Make in India. Not a single rupee or dollar has been invested in the flagship project since it was launched nine months ago.

Rather, most of the ‘buy and make’ projects are being converted into ‘make’, which is bound to lead to still more cost and time overruns. A proper understanding and clarity of the fundamental difficulties of the Make in India takeoff is missing. Many long-delayed projects like the artillery gun and helicopters are straddling ‘make and buy’. Our ‘make’ record is dismal and distressing. A project to acquire 197 light helicopters from abroad has been scrapped thrice in the last decade. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is nowhere near the delivery of 187 helicopters it was to make within 60 months from February 2009.

Why We Failed to Win a Decisive Victory in Afghanistan

BY EMILE SIMPSON

MARCH 2, 2015

Shifting political allegiances, not smashing enemies, should have been the goal. And that holds true for the campaign against the Islamic State as well.

There’s been a great debate over on Tom Ricks’s Best Defense blog in response to Jim Gourley’s question in relation to the Afghanistan campaign: “Why did we fail to render our enemies — those people who actively participated in open hostility against our forces — powerless?” Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the responses have taken the view that we have, indeed, lost in Afghanistan.

I take issue, however, with the starting assumption that “rendering our enemies powerless” should be the standard by which we evaluate the success of military action in Afghanistan, or lack thereof. I think the assumption clouds the analysis of both of Afghanistan and the conflict against the so-called Islamic State.

So here’s my answer.

War has two meanings. The first is a descriptive sense, in that war describes a situation above a certain threshold of violence, and therefore includes conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. The second is an instrumental sense, meaning a particular way in which force is used to achieve a political goal. The default understanding in Western militaries of war in the instrumental sense is still Clausewitzian. Consider the opening page of On War: “we mustrender the enemy powerless; and that, in theory, is the true aim of warfare.”

China Debates: Is War with U.S. Inevitable?

Lyle J. Goldstein

March 3, 2015 

China wonders if it can avoid the Thucydides Trap.

It has become quite common to use historical analogies to describe the complex Sino-American relationship. At the centenary of the First World War, the comparison between China’s rise and that of Wilhelmine Germany has been widely made. However, a path-breaking 2012 opinion piece by Harvard University’s Graham Allison reached back to Ancient Greece to describe the strategic dilemmas facing the most important bilateral relationship in the 21st century.

Pointing to what is perhaps the most important sentence in the entire Western cannon on international relations, Allison invited strategists and analysts on both sides of the Pacific to recall that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Moreover, Allison supplied disturbing evidence of the frequency of war between a rising and established power, as observed by Thucydides in the History of the Peloponnesian War. According to Allison, “in 11 of 15 cases since 1500 where a rising power emerged to challenge a ruling power, war occurred.”

While Allison’s reference to the Peloponnesian War seems to have had some impact on the relevant debates in Washington, there has been little exploration of the idea’s impact in Beijing. Yet, the “Thucydides Trap” concept has indeed been discussed by China’s top foreign policy decision-makers. In order to better understand Chinese perspectives related to “Thucydides Trap,” this edition of the Dragon Eye series will explore a forum dedicated to that theme in the official Chinese military journal 军事历史 [Military History] that was published by the prestigious Chinese Academy of Military Sciences (AMS) in 2014.

Chavez's Legacy: Venezuela in Shambles

Alvaro Vargas Llosa

March 3, 2015 

Venezuelans are quickly discovering that Chavez’s promised paradise was really a ticket to hell.

Nobody has lobbied Saudi Arabia to cut its oil output more intensely in recent weeks than Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s successor as Venezuela’s dictator. Maduro already had major fiscal problems with the price of crude when it was at $107 per barrel back in June; it doesn’t take a brilliant mathematician to calculate the effect a 45 percent drop is having on the regime’s finances and popularity.

Maduro’s brand of Latin American populism rests on four legs: government control of the country’s vast oil resources; clientelism (the system by which Maduro maintains the “support” of the public by keeping them dependent on government handouts); a Cuban-designed police state and a geopolitical oil-exchange program in which Venezuelan oil is used to buy support from foreign governments in the region.

Underpinning the entire edifice is the ability to generate sufficient amounts of oil revenue. After all, Venezuela’s proven reserves, almost 300 billion barrels according to the “Oil and Gas Journal,” surpass even those of Saudi Arabia. But in order to generate these revenues, two conditions must be met. One is the ability to actually produce millions of barrels of crude per year; the other is the opportunity to sell the oil at a high price.

Exposed: ISIS’ Somali-American Terrorist Pipeline

March 3, 2015 

To lure Americans to battle, ISIS is taking a page from al-Shabaab's playbook.

On October 29, 2008, an American named Shirwa Ahmed drove a vehicleloaded with explosives into the northern Somali city of Bosaso. When he detonated the bomb, as part of one of five near-simultaneous attacks across northern Somalia, he became the second-known American suicide bomber.

Ahmed was one of dozens of Somali-Americans enticed to fight in Somalia by al-Shabaab, a Somali terrorist organization that controls swathes of the East African country. On February 21, the group called for attacks on several malls in the West, including the Mall of America in Minnesota. The group recruited as many as sixty Americans—nearly all of Somali descent—including one added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list in January. Al-Shabaab’s efforts constitute the most successful terrorist recruiting program in U.S.history, according to the House Homeland Security Committee.

Al-Shabaab’s American recruit pipeline mostly dried up after 2009, but events suggest Middle Eastern terrorist groups, particularly the Islamic State, are reviving the practice of recruiting from the United States. On February 5, the Department of Justice announced charges — and listed three unnamed co-conspirators — against Somali-American Hamza Naj Ahmed for attempting to aid the Islamic State. Reports chronicle other Somali-Americans involved with Middle Eastern terror groups: a Minnesotan killed fighting for the Islamic State; at least four women who disappeared presumably to marry Islamic State fighters; teenage sisters foiledtrying to do the same; two men arrested for attempting to join the Islamic State; and one man fighting for Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

The Right Way to Squeeze Iran

James K. Sebenius

March 3, 2015 

To get across the finish line, the U.S. should offer Iran bigger sticks AND more carrots.

The likelihood that the Tehran leadership will agree to a deal constraining its nuclear program far more tightly than the current interim deal depends on how much it values a “yes” compared with the cost of a “no.” To increase the odds of the “yes” sought by the P5+1, the value to Tehran of the desired agreement should be boosted while an Iranian “no” should prove much more painful to the regime.

Negotiation 101 suggests that, with stronger positive and negative incentives in place, skillful diplomacy has the best chance of making the right deal. Yet, the U.S. team could do better on both the value-enhancing and cost-imposing elements of its negotiation strategy.

Thus far, the Congress has almost exclusively focused on inflicting greater pain if Iran fails to agree to suitable terms. Primarily this has been through the threat of more severe oil and financial sanctions as proposed in various legislative proposals (e.g.,Menendez-Kirk, Boxer-Paul, Corker). The bills differ in some respects and present something of a moving target for analysis. Yet most would trigger tougher “conditional” sanctions if the talks fail to reach an acceptable result sometime after the March 24 deadline for an agreed framework of a final deal or the June 30 limit for agreement on technical details.

In sharp contrast, President Obama has threatened at least three times—most prominently in his January State of the Union message—to veto any new sanctions, even conditional ones, during the ongoing talks. Why? The atmosphere might sour; Iranian hardliners might undercut the negotiators; Iranians might retaliate by walk away, scraping the interim deal limitations, even expanding their nuclear program; the U.S. might be blamed for breaking up the talks; allies might stop cooperating on sanctions; and so on.

Outfoxed: Netanyahu's Shrewd Plan to Derail Iran Talks

Mohammad Ali Shabani

March 3, 2015 

Yeah, Bibi wants to sabotage the Iran nuclear talks, but not how you think.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s impending speech before Congress is part of his long-standing efforts to derail the nuclear negotiations with Iran. The Israeli prime minister may try to sabotage a nuclear deal by pushing U.S. lawmakers to demand a direct say on the terms of the agreement, impose more punitive measures on Tehran and pass trigger-sanctions. He might also call on Congress to make it more difficult for President Obama to lift the sanctions he needs to implement any agreement with Iran. Bibi may even leak details of the talks, to goad Washington and Tehran into doing what they’ve bitterly resisted for the past 18 months: negotiate in public. 

Odds are that Netanyahu will do at least some of the above. But Bibi is no duck. If anything, he is a fox. Looking ahead, the genius in his latest salvo against the nuclear talks may be to make President Obama’s position more reasonable rather than force the administration’s hands. 

Many factors have contributed to the success of the nuclear negotiations since President Hassan Rouhani took office in the fall of 2013. The United States has become more flexible in its demands, Iran has been more engaging, Europe has diligently worked to facilitate dialogue and the Russians have stopped milking tensions to score Western concessions.

The Iranian Sea-Air-Missile Threat to Gulf Shipping

By Anthony H. Cordesman

FEB 27, 2015

The Arabian Gulf is now involved in a massive arms race, triggered largely by the fear that Iran will try to use its military forces to intimidate or dominate its neighbors. Iran has threatened to close the Gulf and carried out a wide range of large military exercises to show its capabilities. And Iran has steadily increased its ability to exploit the threat of conventional and asymmetric warfare to maritime traffic in the Gulf. The buildup of Iran’s naval, air, and missile capabilities poses a wide range of threats to maritime traffic into and outside of the Gulf. One potential target of this threat is the steady increase in bulk cargo shipments into the Gulf, Arabia Sea/Gulf of Oman, and Red Seas—shipments that are of steadily growing strategic importance to each of the other the Gulf states.

Publisher CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield

ISBN 978-1-4422-4076-6 (pb); 978-1-4422-4077-3 (eBook)

Programs

BURKE CHAIR BOOKS AND MAJOR WORKS, BURKE CHAIR IN STRATEGY, BURKE CHAIR ON IRAN

Topics

DEFENSE AND SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, TERRORISM

Regions

GULF STATES, IRAN, MIDDLE EAST

Purchase

Download PDF file of "The Iranian Sea-Air-Missile Threat to Gulf Shipping"