Indian Strategic Studies

26 March 2016

Abdeslam’s arrest may have foiled strikes on Belgian n-plants: report

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/abdeslams-arrest-may-have-foiled-strikes-on-belgian-nplants-report/article8393817.ece?homepage=true

PARVATHI MENON

Evidence now emerges that the same terrorist cell that caused the Brussels blasts was behind the Paris attacks of November last year.

As Belgian investigators slowly piece together the elements of a carefully conceived terror plan to cause maximum damage to a city that is in many ways the political nerve-centre of Europe, the degree to which Belgian intelligence and security services missed the signals of a plot that was snowballing just below the surface is also becoming apparent.

Evidence now emerges that the same terrorist cell that caused the Brussels blasts was behind the Paris attacks of November last year. As fresh revelations emerge on how a potentially catastrophic attack was aborted by the arrest of the Paris attacker Salah Andeslam by Belgian security services a few days before the blasts, there is increasing concern at the magnitude of the intelligence void.

According to an exclusive story broken by La Dernier Heure, a French newspaper published from Brussels, the suicide bombers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui were originally planning attacks on Belgian nuclear power stations. Salah Andeslam's arrest put pressure on them to change targets fast.

That it took the Belgian security services four months to arrest Salah Abdeslam, who was hiding in plain sight in Brussels demonstrates what experts have been calling a massive intelligence failure. Why did this happen?

Security experts call for more intel sharing

Annie Machon, an intelligence and security expert, and whistleblower formerly with MI5, believes that dragnet surveillance trawls up so much information that often the focus gets lost. “This point has been made by others as well. There is a huge reliance on electronics, which is being used for police work after the event. The more and more intelligence agencies spread electronic surveillance, the less and less effective they are, because they ignore some of the more traditional aspects of policing, where you identify persons of interest and then investigate them and their networks. After all, the movement and activities of the terrorists involved in the Brussels attack was already known.”

The US military is everywhere, except history books

The US military is everywhere, except history books
Robert Neer is a historian, entrepreneur, and attorney. He has a J.D.-Ph.D. degree from Columbia University and is the author of Napalm: An American Biography (2013). He established businesses in London, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Boston, and is a co-founder and co-editor of BlueMassGroup.com, the most widely read independent political blog in New England.
Edited by Sam Haselby

War defines the United States. Domestically, it is the country’s greatest budgetary priority: $598 billion, 54 per cent of discretionary spending, in fiscal year 2015. Globally, we have more than 800 bases in some 80 countries, and spend more than the next nine nations combined. Yet academic historians, especially those at the nation’s most richly endowed research universities, largely ignore the history of the US military. This year, historians at the Ivy League schools, plus Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – who collectively offered instruction on hundreds of scintillating subjects from Puritan New England to women in the workforce – provided just six that directly examined the US military.

This is a tragedy. Knowledge is power, as Francis Bacon observed. Insofar as we neglect to study our military, we reduce our ability to understand it, and weaken ourselves.
I am not a disinterested observer. Since 2011, when I received my PhD in history from Columbia University, I have taught a course called‘Empire of Liberty: A Global History of the US Military’ on and off at the university during the summers – a survey of ideas and events from King Philip’s War in 1675 to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. It surprised me to discover that this was the first course on the history of the US military in many years at Columbia. It startled me even more to learn that there is little research into the history of military power at elite US universities (themselves key players, ironically, in the story: Columbia and the University of Chicago gave us atomic weapons, Harvard invented napalm, and MIT and others are major military research centres). In fact, academics nationwide often dismiss military history as the home of fetishists of suffering and antiquarians obsessed with swords, muskets and battlefield tours.

by Felix Richter, Statista.com

"Just setting up my twttr" - those were the words that Jack Dorsey, founder and CEO of Twitter, tweeted on this day ten years ago to begin yet another social media success story. Twitter, with its simplicity and unique 140-character limit, hit a nerve and quickly gained a following among the tech- and media-savvy.

In 2011, Twitter passed the 100-million user milestone and in late 2013 the company went public with huge fanfare.

Everything was well in the Twitter universe, but soon after the company's successful IPO, the sentiment turned sour. Twitter's user growth was tapering off quickly and the company continued to lose money. In 2015, Twitter's share price began to tumble and has been on a downward trajectory ever since. It is becoming increasingly clear that, contrary to earlier projections, Twitter is not a second Facebook and probably never will be.

When Facebook celebrated its 10th anniversary a little more than two years ago, the company was much bigger in almost every aspect. Our chart compares 10-year-old Twitter with 10-year-old Facebook with respect to active user base, revenue, profit and market capitalization.

This chart compares 10-year-old Twitter with 10-year-old Facebook with respect to active user base, revenue, profit and market capitalization.

Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) – The Most Ambitious MII Project

http://www.indefcompany.in/indian-afvs-ifvs.html

The Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) for the Indian Army represents the most ambitious Make in India (MII) project so far with complete designing, development, production and life cycle support to be the responsibility of the selected company.

Though planned under the provisions of the Defence Procurement Procedure 2008 the underlying MII component is evident with principle agencies for development to be selected from the ten to whom the Expression of Interest (EOI) has been issued in July 2015. These include some of the premium private sector companies - Larsen & Toubro (L&T); Tata Power (Strategic Engineering Division); Tata Motors; Mahindra & Mahindra; Bharat Forge; Pipavav Defence; Rolta India; Punj Lloyd; Titagarh Wagons and the government owned Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).

The complexity of the project and the criteria laid down in the EOI entails that these companies are now forming consortia to enable participation in the competition. While the OFB has been given a free pass as per the Business Standard, two of the nine private security companies will be finally selected for the project. Business Standard reports that Tata Motors would be bidding along with Bharat Forge with a technology partnership with General Dynamics (GD) maker of the US Army's famous M-1 Abrams tank; and Stryker ICV. Tata Power (SED) will bid on its own whereas L&T and Mahindras are planning a joint bid with technology from UK-based BAE Systems. The OFB is likely to partner with Israeli firms who have developed the Merkava and may be the dark horse given that it does not have to compete in the first stage for selection of the Development Agency.

After experience of the previous EOI in 2012 which did not include the criteria for selection of the DA, Ministry of Defence has now issued details of the same in four categories, Commercial Assessment, Technical Capability Assessment, Critical Technology Assessment and Technical Specification Assessment

Outlining some of the key characteristics the FICV is expected to have advanced operational capabilities with state of the art technologies for operations in plain and desert terrain and will comprise of a family of variants. The trial evaluation will therefore be carried out in the plains and the desert sectors.

The tracked vehicle is expected to have an amphibious Capability with full combat load to be able to carry a crew of three and a stick of minimum eight personnel with combat loads. Transportability for tactical, operational and strategic mobility is anticipated. The principle weapon system is likely to be a fourth generation fire and forget Anti Tank Guided Missile with a range of over 4000 m with Lock on Before Launch (LOBL) or Lock on After Launch (LOAL) capabilities. The selected vendor is likely to be tested in terms of ability to provide technology for the Engine, Armoured protection, Gun and munition, transmission and steering and running gear.

FICV Technology Criteria will be covered in subsequent parts.

Future Combat Systems

The combat systems such as battle tanks, infantry combat vehicles etc, are mobile protected platforms designed to defeat similar systems of the enemy. In future, these combat systems will require all-round protection against various forms of threats namely, enemy tanks, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), armed attack helicopters (AAH) and anti-armour mines etc.

Technological Requirement of Future Combat Systems. The future combat systems including battle tanks and infantry combat vehicles must be highly maneuverable and have enhanced protection against various forms of threats, namely, tanks, anti-tank guided missiles, armed attack helicopters and anti-armour mines. Other technologies which are necessitated so as to enhance the vital ingredients of mobility, lethality and survivability are:-

(a) Mobility. Compact power packs and electro mechanical drives and advanced suspension systems remain the primary concerns. The platform be capable of operating not only on land but also have an amphibious capability.

(b) Lethality. The imperative are:-

(i) Development of electronic guns exceeding muzzle velocities of conventional tubes.

(ii) High velocity Kinetic Energy ammunition along with chemical, High Explosive Anti Tank and thermo-baric munitions/missiles.

(iii) Trajectory Correction munitions systems that would provide enhanced accuracy and lethality.

(iv) Advanced fire control systems.

(c) Survivability. Smaller and more compact armoured vehicles coupled with effective signature management to enhance survivability along with protection and counter-measure systems.

China's Minority Report

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2016-03-23/chinas-minority-report?cid=soc-fb-rdr

DAMIR SAGOLJ / REUTERSA Tibetan woman carries a child, November 18, 2015.

SNAPSHOT March 23, 2016China Race & Ethnicity

When Racial Harmony Means Homogenization

By James Leibold

During his report to the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress last week, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang took the time to comment on China’s social goals. In doing so, he reiterated what has become the cornerstone of ethnic policy under Chinese President Xi Jinping: “the acceleration of interethnic contact, exchange, and mingling”—in other words, the blending of peoples through mixed marriages and other forms of social and cultural exposure.

In China, the nation is fundamentally conceived as a biological union, or what Xi calls “a large family” with a long and rich history of “conjoined bloodlines.” In recent years, Xi has repeatedly stressed the need to speed up the pace of cross-ethnic exchanges—with exogamy, or marriage outside one’s own ethnic group, viewed as an important indicator of success. Interethnic marriage, party officials believe, will reduce ethnocultural differences and strengthen identification with a single, shared Chinese culture and identity.

This policy has attracted widespread controversy and debate, particularly among its Uighur and Tibetan minorities, who feel this top-down push is simply a way for the Chinese government to erase their identities. Pundits and civilians alike have persistently noted concerns about the erosion of minority cultures and languages, which are protected by the Chinese Constitution and are vigorously defended by many minority elites inside China. But for most Han Party officials, ethnic assimilation is a historical inevitability—the endgame of economic and social modernization.

And yet the regime’s obsession with ethnic mixing, especially recently, signals

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*** The Cycle of Terrorism Identifying terrorists requires a shift in intelligence methods.

By George Friedman

Summary The attacks in Belgium will set in motion an old cycle: massive alerts, terrorists going to ground, relaxing the alert, the re-emergence of the terrorist. Identifying terrorists consistently is almost impossible by existing means. The only strategy that might work is human intelligence – spies penetrating terrorist groups – but it is stunningly difficult. The choice is living with terrorism or adopting new strategies, as the old ones stop some attacks but not all.

Another terrorist attack took place in Western Europe yesterday. Security will now be on alert around the world. The terrorists will avoid attacks during this time because the danger of interception and failure are too high. Therefore, there will be no more terror attacks in the coming days, although there will be constant alerts about empty boxes and suspicious people. In due course, the special alert will not end as much as fade away. Terrorists will begin planning for new attacks and as the events of today blur in our memory, a new attack will take place and the cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism will turn its crank once more.

Being constantly on full alert is impossible. A single human being on highest alert on a permanent basis will either self-destruct from adrenaline exhaustion or will decline into a haze. The same can be said for a police or security force. Its ability to endure a constant crisis posture is as limited as for a single person – because the force consists of people. That is what drives this cycle. The surge of adrenaline following an attack is natural. It also takes place at a time when a new attack is most unlikely. Surging the force later, when it has been months since the last attack and the threat is distant, is extremely difficult. You can’t order up the adrenaline – individual or collective – required to go on full alert. The threat must be real, and the terrorist organization understands this, so it works hard to take advantage of the human tendency to regard the rare as an illusion.

Any successful counter to terrorism can’t be carried out by security forces. It must be carried out by intelligence services. Security services respond and create a presence that must be evaded. Intelligence services probe into the intentions of the enemy. Their job is to identify those who wish to carry out terror attacks, trace their network and leave it to the police and security forces to capture them.

The intelligence problem is simple. How do you discern intention? Most intelligence focuses on capabilities, but the capabilities required by a terrorist are readily available and transportable. You cannot track capabilities because virtually anyone could be capable of the attack. The Middle East is awash with explosives. Traffic – legal, illegal and refugees – moves in masses from the Middle East to Turkey and then to Europe. Similarly, explosives are readily available in the former Soviet Union, especially in places like Chechnya. Intercepting the explosives needed for a suicide bomb is possible, but the flow is so massive that all of the explosives flowing cannot be interdicted. And some of the explosives can be made in Europe, from fairly common material by those who know how to do it. And such people are readily available and can’t be identified as bomb-makers just by looking at them.

The intelligence challenge is to identify those with the intent to carry out terror attacks and ability to access the material. Identifying both is critical. The world is filled with loudmouths announcing coming heroic events who have neither the access nor the knowledge to carry them out. The security forces have limited capacity. If they went after everyone claiming to be the Jihad King, their resources would be exhausted. In fact, terrorists would encourage all of their followers to publicly declare their intent to blow up something. That would leave an opening for actual terrorists. Alternatively, if you went after everyone with plastic explosives, you would be chasing shadows. How do you know if they have access to an explosive like C-4? The usual solution is to get an unbelievably expensive piece of portable hardware that will sniff out C-4, which will be available in four years, and produce as many false positives as false negatives. Technology is useful, but relying on it is hard. And taking it to the right place to sniff – well you are back to intelligence.

** Belgium, Turkey and Islamic State's Strategy

Briefing: SPECIAL REPORT

A real-time update on global developments as they happen.

March 22, 2016

By George Friedman

The recent attacks strike at the heart of two potential threats to IS.

Summary

The attacks in Belgium and Turkey must be considered together. They are attacks in the symbolic heartlands of two potential enemies of the Islamic State, Europe and Turkey. The attacks are meant to destabilize each country and recruit potential operatives from each country’s pool of possible jihadists.

There have been two attacks this week, both apparently by the Islamic State, first in Turkey on March 19 and then today in Belgium. The close sequence of the two attacks might simply be a coincidence, but IS tends to be more strategic than other terrorist groups and has the ability to coordinate attacks. Therefore, why would they choose Belgium and Turkey for their attacks?

One answer is that they have operatives in both countries. Turkey is a Muslim country, and IS is able to recruit Turks and move other operatives into Turkey if needed. Belgium has a substantial Muslim population, which IS can target for recruiting and inserting operatives. But of course, that is true of many countries.

It is interesting that these attacks were against countries IS considers strategically significant. Turkey’s significance is obvious. It is a major power in the Middle East. It also had relatively benign relations with IS that have broken down. In striking Turkey, IS demonstrates to its followers that it is able to strike at an enemy. And it also, IS hopes, emboldens potential jihadists inside of Turkey to strike, politically and militarily crippling Turkey’s ability to strike IS in Syria and Iraq. IS is trying to shape Turkey’s behavior. And Turkey is an enormous presence in the region, as well as a symbol of non-Arab views of IS.

Belgium is not only one of the countries of Europe’s core, as is France, but it is also in some sense the capital of Europe. Brussels is the headquarters of the European Union’s secretariat. It is also near the headquarters of NATO. By striking Brussels, IS was striking at Europe’s core. IS has come to see Europe as an enemy, not only because it sees it as Christian, but also because it sees it as hostile.

And this is where we get to the heart of the matter strategically. Turkey and Europe collectively form a potential core for resistance to IS. The only possibility IS has of deterring this action or of crippling their ability to act is to conduct terror operations against them. If the operations are successful they will do two things. First, they will create a faction in each nation opposed to hostilities with IS because of the consequences. Second, they will utilize the significant population that could be recruited to join IS. Even failing that immediately, the inevitable scrutiny and repression of this population could recruit operatives.

IS is under significant pressure from conventional forces, and its boundaries appear to be contracting in Syria and Iraq. It needs to destabilize potential enemies and combine that with symbolism. Attacking tourists near Taksim Square in the heart of Istanbul is one strategy. Attacking Europe’s capital is another. As it comes under pressure in Syria and Iraq, it must consider shifting from a conventional to an insurgency role. An ideal mix is to maintain more conventional operations while intensifying terrorist acts outside of Syria and Iraq.

IS has few options in this regard, but attacking Istanbul and Belgium strikes at the heart of two potential threats, using resources that were in the country and generating responses that might strengthen their position.

Meaning And Message Of Building Fighter Jets In India

http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/meaning-and-message-of-building-fighter-jets-in-india

Swarajya Staff, March 24, 2016,

Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, recently spoke about a plan for the local manufacture of one or two more combat aircraft in the country.

According to Parrikar, the proposal to build fighter jets in India is expected to spur competition among the global aerospace and defence majors to join hands with the Indian companies.

By Radhakrishna Rao

In what has been described as a strategic master stroke aimed at helping India position itself as a well equipped hub for the manufacturing of combat aircraft, featuring cutting edge technologies and advanced fighting systems, Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, recently spoke about a plan for the local manufacture of one or two more combat aircraft in the country.

But much to the chagrin of the state owned aeronautical major, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the responsibility of building the fighter jets would rest solely with the private sector companies in the country. As it is, HAL, which at one time had dominated the Indian aerospace sector, has also been excluded from the competition for the Avro replacement project.

During the previous UPA (United Progressive Alliance) regime, there were allegations that the then Defence Minister, A.K.Antony, favoured public sector defence enterprises much to the disadvantage of the private sector defence and aerospace industrial units in the country. Now the pendulum seems to have swung to the other extreme with the current NDA (National Democratic Alliance) dispensation showing “undue preference” to the private sector.

Of course, the private entities need to be encouraged and supported to build up their capabilities and domain expertise to meet the requirements of the Indian defence forces. But at about the same time, HAL whose domain knowledge and industrial expertise in aerospace and defence is quite substantial, need not be side-lined.

The best option would be to involve both the private and public sector entities in taking up challenging aerospace projects so that there would be a better access to resources, expertise and industrial infrastructure. Indeed, the need of the hour is to harness the existing potentials by looking beyond the public private sector jurisdictional boundaries to realize the goal of defence self reliance speedily, efficiently and in an economically viable manner.

According to Parrikar, the proposal to build fighter jets in India is expected to spur competition among the global aerospace and defence majors to join hands with the Indian companies to initiate the process of creating industrial capacity in the country for the production of advanced fighter jets based on the Make in India flagship programme of the Indian Government.

”Under the Make in India process, we may have one or two more fighter jets produced in India by the private sector,” noted Parrikar. However, this line of approach meant to boost Indian aircraft industry will not have any impact on the ongoing process of discussions between India and France for the finalization of the deal to acquire 36 Rafale fighter aircraft under a government to government deal.

The Rafale combat aircraft along with the home grown, fourth generation supersonic Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) would help Indian Air Force (IAF) reverse the trend of squadron depletion following a programme to phase out obsolete and ageing Mig fighters forming a part of the frontline fighting formations.

Giving details, Parrikar pointed out that several offers are already under consideration and “through proper process we may select them to set up facilities in India under Make in India”.

Stunning NASA image of crop fires in India

http://scroll.in/article/805575/stunning-nasa-image-of-crop-fires-in-india

NASA satellite imagery reveals broad swathes of Indian cropland on fire, as farmers clear fields through “slash and burn” farming

This stunning image of crop fires across India was posted by NASA on March 22, and titled, “First comes fire then comes crops in India”

NASA Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC

Under the image, editor Lynn Jenner noted:

The Suomi NPP satellite instruments detected dozens of fires burning in India on March 22, 2016. The fires are outlined in red. Most of the fires burn in grass or cropland, which is tan in this image. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Places where traditional plots of open land is not available because the vegetation in the area is dense are the places where “slash and burn” agriculture is practiced most often. These regions include parts of Africa, northern South America, and Southeast Asia including India where an abundance of grasslands and rainforests are found.

According to About.com: “Today, between 200 and 500 million people, or up to 7% of the world’s population, uses slash and burn agriculture.”

Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials. All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter or soot and is hazardous to breathe.

NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite collected this natural-color image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument.

This article was originally published on The Third Pole.

Reworking ties with US

Mar 24, 2016, 12:3

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/reworking-ties-with-us/212784.html

G Parthasarathy

Irrespective of who wins, Trump or Hillary, the tilt is towards India

AMERICAN presidential elections get international attention because of worldwide interest in who is going to become the most powerful leader on the international stage. The US presidential elections in 2012 were less exciting than usual, because of the widespread belief that President Obama would be re-elected. We are now witnessing party primary elections, in which a flamboyant billionaire with a mercurial temperament, Donald Trump, has captured worldwide attention. Trump, a property baron, owns a network of hotels, casinos, golf courses and other properties. He has, paradoxically, struck a chord among blue-collared workers, who feel their jobs threatened by immigrants. His populist response has been to advocate building a wall across the US-Mexico border and banning immigration of Muslims, whom he labels collectively as terrorists.

Hillary Clinton’s primary opponent, former Senator Bernie Sanders, has likewise, espoused the cause of ending free trade arrangements and called for tighter control over Wall Street. Sanders alleges that unemployed and blue-collar workers suffer, because of excessive trade liberalisation and the unholy nexus between politicians (including Hillary) and the financial, business and industrial barons of Wall Street. The tactics Trump and Sanders have adopted have won huge support from insecure blue-collar workers, making life difficult and the competition unexpectedly tough, for Clinton. Despite this, Hillary is expected to win the Democratic Party nomination, unless she encounters difficulties, because of alleged misdemeanours during her tenure as Secretary of State. Trump could likewise sail through as the candidate of the Republican Party. A word of caution on the upcoming elections is called for. The Republican Party could land itself in a mess, if its establishment chooses to ignore the political verdict and nominates an eminent party politician to replace Trump as its presidential candidate.

Trump has moved far away from the Republican Party in his views on several foreign policy issues. He has criticised military intervention in Iraq, Syria and Libya and voiced his opposition to such military intervention abroad. He remains ambivalent on his approach to Israel, though he will inevitably fall in line with conventional thinking on the Jewish state. Interestingly, Trump vows to build bridges with President Vladimir Putin, while Hillary remains steadfastly hostile to the Russian leader. Both Hillary and Trump have suspicions and misgivings about China, with Trump repeatedly asserting that China got rich at the cost of American industry and its working class. The two frontrunners hold opposing views on liberalising trade, with Trump claiming that liberalisation damages the livelihood of American workers.

Why Mother Teresa Does Not Deserve To Be A Saint

http://swarajyamag.com/politics/why-mother-teresa-does-not-deserve-to-be-a-saint

Rakesh Krishnan Simha, March 24, 2016

Teresa was no saint. The Vatican is manufacturing her sainthood because she was at the vanguard of the Roman Catholic Church’s aggressive conversion activities in India.

Teresa was no friend of the poor either.

On the contrary, the Albanian nun celebrated poverty and suffering, and refused to give medicines to the inmates under her care, in the process allowing them to die painful deaths.

Teresa has been known to be stingy even during national emergencies.

During numerous floods in India she offered numerous prayers and medallions of the Virgin Mary but no direct or monetary aid, the Canadian researchers say.

You think Mother Teresa was a saint, right? Perhaps you also believe she lifted millions of poor people around the world out of poverty. Think again.

Teresa was no saint. The Vatican is manufacturing her sainthood because she was at the vanguard of the Roman Catholic Church’s aggressive conversion activities in India. It’s also for favours rendered to the church as Teresa’s rigid stance on abortion and contraception aligned with the views of Pope John Paul II.

During his 26-year papacy, the arch conservative pope elevated 483 individuals to sainthood. That’s more saints than any previous pope. The current pope is, therefore, merely completing the process initiated by the Vatican.

Teresa was no friend of the poor either. On the contrary, the Albanian nun celebrated poverty and suffering, and refused to give medicines to the inmates under her care, in the process allowing them to die painful deaths.

A 2013 study by Canadian researchers backs up what rationalists and neutral observers – like Britain’s Christopher Hitchens – have long held: Teresa only cared about poverty and not the poor. Researchers Serge Larivee and Genevieve Chenard from the University of Montreal and Carole Senechal of the University of Ottawa argue that Teresa was a saint of the media, not the gutters.

The Canadians analysed over 500 published writings about Teresa and conclude that her hallowed image, “which does not stand up to analysis of the facts, was constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an effective media campaign”. Over 50 per cent of the books and articles were hagiographies, they say.

The controversial study, published in the journal of studies in religion and sciences called Religieuses, says Teresa actually felt it was beautiful to see the poor suffer. According to the study, the Vatican overlooked the crucial human side of Teresa – her dubious way of caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it.

Most people will find this hard to believe all this because the media has painted this lovely picture of a caring mother who dedicated her life to charity. But where she went wrong was in believing suffering was good for the people. She believed in her cause but she had no idea what effect it had on the poor and sick people under her care. A fawning media, obliging politicians and countless donors have overlooked these aspects. But facts are humbling so let’s look at Teresa’s history – the uncensored bits, that is.

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-molenbeek-myth/

Europe’s jihad crisis is not a problem of its Muslim communities but the outcome of cultural dislocations.

Written by Praveen Swami, Updated: Mar 24, 2016, 9:16

Five years before he volunteered to walk the path that would lead him to Brussels airport, where he would extinguish his life for the glory of his creator, Brahim el-Bakraoui had been trapped behind a car on a highway in Belgium, firing a Kalashnikov at police officers who had blocked his escape. His god, back then, was cash: Just 24 years old when he was arrested in 2010, el-Bakraoui had held up a van carrying money for ATMs, leading to a shootout that claimed the life of a police officer. El-Bakraoui received a nine-year sentence, serving a little over five. He would emerge from prison along with his brother, Khalid el-Bakraoui, who had been sentenced to five years for a series of carjackings and opening fire with an assault rifle to evade arrest.

For the most part, this week’s carnage in Brussels has been read as part of a crisis of Islam in Europe: Jihadism, it is claimed, is being incubated in the decaying urban ghettos home to many of the continent’s Muslims. The idea is widespread: It serves both Europe’s right, seeking to eject immigrants from the polity, and the left, focused on Muslim disenfranchisement as a cause of rage.

The narrative is, at first glance, seductive. The Brussels municipality of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, a one-time textile industry hub where just under 40 per cent of the population is Muslim, was home to many of the Brussels attackers, and to those who targeted Paris last year. Belgians make up, in population-adjusted terms, the highest number of foreign fighters in the Islamic State, even though just 6 per cent of its population is Muslim. Molenbeek is a leading contributor to this cohort.

The el-Bakraouis’ story, though, tells us that a more nuanced answer is needed. The two men radicalised in prison, discovering in jihadism a sense of agency and purpose that their lives as delinquent sons of working-class immigrants had lacked. Their childhood friend, Salah Abdeslam, the architect of last year’s IS attacks on Paris, would help them take the final steps towards becoming suicide bombers.

Figures released by Belgium’s government in January make clear that the notion of the ghetto as a medium in which jihadists breed doesn’t rest on robust empirical grounds. Molenbeek contributed 47 of the 451 identified Belgian jihadists in Syria and Iraq — a number identical to Brussels municipality, and followed in close order by relatively affluent, mixed Schaerbeek, with 31. Indeed, the data shows Brussels municipality produces more jihadists, in population-adjusted terms, than Molenbeek. Antwerp municipality, by no reckoning a Muslim ghetto, produ-ced 93 jihadists — almost twice as many as its notorious counterpart.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/understanding-whats-happening-along-lac.html

Thursday, 24 March 2016 | Claude Arpi |

India’s response to Chinese incursions along the borders has been muted, barring a bit of sabre-rattling. While Beijing is asking its Army to be proactive and innovative, there is little of that from the Indian side

The People’s Liberation Army has done it again. According to PTI, Chinese troops entered a few kilometres inside the Indian territory in the Pangong lake area of Ladakh. A stand-off between the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the PLA followed. “The incident occurred on March 8 when a platoon of at least 11 PLA men led by a colonel-rank officer crossed over the Line of Actual Control at ‘Finger VIII’ Sirijap-I area close to the Pangong lake”, said PTI.

The Chinese soldiers came with four vehicles and reached 5.5km deep inside India’s territory.

Indian sources told the news agency that the Chinese soldiers were “engaged and countered” by an ITBP patrol. The confrontation nevertheless lasted for a few hours “after which the situation got defused and the other side (Chinese) retreated”. Apparently, China has constructed a road up to Finger-IV, also falling under Sirijap area on the banks of the lake.

The Chinese Government was not pleased: They blamed the Indian media which has “repeatedly hyped up similar incidents, citing information from unnamed sources”. While admitting that there were divergences over the border, especially over the LAC, it said “both China and India are well aware of it”. Beijing added that in this case there was “no evidence to prove India’s claim of the latest incident. But Indian media is inclined to make a fuss over such issues, and often use words like ‘transgression’ or ‘incursion’”.

Around the same time, the presence of PLA troops was spotted near a forward post, opposite Nowgam sector, a major route for militants to sneak into Kashmir valley from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Lu Kong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, did not deny it; he stated with a straight face: “I have not heard about the incident you mentioned.”

About Ladakh intrusions, he too blamed the Indian media: “There is no such a thing as border crossing. Some media twisted the fact and hyped up the China-India boundary question.”

A Ministry of Defence source nonetheless told India Today that ‘intrusions’ have lately increased in the vicinity of the Pangong lake and Chumur area in Ladakh. “There were at least 11 incidents of Chinese infiltration last year; in three months this year, there already has been 16 cases of transgression”, it said, and this despite an effective Border Defence Cooperation Agreement and the setting up two more border personnel meeting points in Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh.

To understand what is happening on India’s borders, it is necessary to read the latest speech of President Xi Jinping, who is also the Chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission. During the President’s ritual visit to the PLA delegation during the National People’s Congress, Xi affirmed that the PLA’s future hinges on innovation and reform, but he also told the Generals “to turn cutting-edge military technology into real combat capacity”, and urged it to be “proactive in combat readiness”. What does ‘proactive’ mean? It is a question that India should ask Beijing.

Pakistan has crippled Saarc; time to reassess

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/BfXFiABDT8XqATK4VSGYXK/Pakistan-has-crippled-Saarc-time-to-reassess.html

India has the option of pulling the plug from further investments in Saarc

Since assuming power in New Delhi, Narendra Modi and his administration have consistently focused on a “neighbourhood first” policy as far as external relations are concerned. Giving an early signal of things to come, the heads of state of all Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations were invited to Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. Modi’s first two state visits were, appropriately, to Bhutan and Nepal. Another visit to Nepal for the Saarc summit followed soon.

During this period, Modi has announced a slew of initiatives for the Saarc group of nations, all of which were reiterated by both foreign secretary S. Jaishankar and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj last week at the 42nd Saarc Standing Committee Meeting and the 37th Saarc Council of Ministers’ Meeting, respectively, in Pokhara, Nepal. Some of the Indian government’s prominent initiatives include a Saarc satellite that will have applications in areas such as health, education, disaster response, weather forecasting and communications, a Saarc-wide knowledge network to connect students and academic communities, and a Saarc annual disaster management exercise. The cumulative impact of these developments, many hoped, would resuscitate the Saarc back into action and vitality. But this project has not progressed as hoped. The reason for the lack of progress is also nothing new—Pakistan pursuing its bilateral goals vis-à-vis India has become an obstacle in the path of greater connectivity and interdependence, preventing Saarc from attaining its full potential.

An idea for such a grouping was first mooted by former Bangladeshi president Ziaur Rahman in 1980. Five years later, the first Saarc summit was held in 1985 with seven heads of states (of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives) in attendance. Afghanistan was inducted as the eighth full member in 2007.

Despite the signing of a South Asian Free Trade Agreement in 2004 and the Saarc Agreement on Trade in Services in 2010, the incomplete implementation shows up in crude numbers. As Swaraj stated in her remarks in Pokhara last Thursday, “... our region accounts for merely 2% of world trade and 1.7% of world FDI (foreign direct investment). Our intra-regional trade is less than 6% of our global trade and intra-regional FDI accounts for only 3% of total FDI inflows.”

In contrast, the share of intra-regional trade for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)—to which Saarc is often compared—is close to 25%. Intra-regional FDI accounts for 18% of the net FDI inflows in the Asean region.

As Islamabad awaits the 19th Saarc summit to be held later this year, the 18th version saw another episode of Pakistan’s obstinacy. At the Kathmandu summit in November 2014, Pakistan’s delegation scuttled the Saarc Motor Vehicles Agreement and the Saarc Regional Railways Agreement. Following this, New Delhi took the lead by getting the motor vehicles agreement signed in June 2015 under a sub-regional framework, BBIN, involving the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

The red line for Pakistan—Rawalpindi in particular—has been the connectivity between India and Afghanistan. India has no direct connectivity to Afghanistan thanks to the illegal occupation of a portion of Kashmir by Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s refusal to provide an overland transit route despite repeated exhortations from both New Delhi and Kabul, Indian goods access the land-locked country though Iran.

War Without End: The New Struggle Between the US Military and ISIS in Afghanistan

Wars Within Wars America Avoids

strategypage,com, March 24, 2016

The government believes it has driven ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) out of all the villages it controlled in the east, near the Pakistan border. ISIL was attracting many of the most fanatic Islamic terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan and at its peak in 2015 was believed to have as many as 3,000 members, most of them in Afghanistan. These men are attracted to the ISIL view of the world. For example ISIL insists that the Pakistani military controls the Afghan Taliban as well as Islamic terrorist groups based in Pakistan that mainly operate inside India. These accusations are nothing new but they are the reason ISIL considers Pakistan un-Islamic and worthy of some lethal retribution delivered by ISIL. To underscore that ISIL has been carrying out suicide bomber attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So far there have been few such attacks because ISIL is under attack by Afghan and Pakistani security forces as well as rival Islamic terrorist groups.

For most of 2015 ISIL has been trying to establish a base area in eastern Afghanistan (mainly Nangarhar Province) but that has led to constant skirmishing with Pakistani Taliban hiding out there. The local tribes are also largely hostile to ISIL and all this has provided better intel for the security forces on what ISIL is up to and exactly where they are. Some of the tribes used their own militias to fight ISIL but more often just helped villages set up defenses to keep ISIL out. This cooperation (and information) led to more effective and frequent American air strikes and raids by Afghan troops and American commandos and hundreds of ISIL men have been killed and many more wounded. Many of the wounded desert and there are fewer new volunteers. ISIL is hanging on but is now out of all the 22 villages it occupied at the start of the year. ISIL is not dead in Afghanistan but it isn’t growing much either. There may still be a thousand or more living rough up in the hills and they can survive there until the cold weather returns. These remaining ISIL get little sympathy from the locals, many of whom have bitter stories to tell of harsh ISIL rule that included beheadings of most who resisted and imposition of strict lifestyle rules. This included closing all secular schools as well as religious schools and mosques that did not enthusiastically support ISIL. These lurid (and often true) stories are circulating throughout eastern Afghanistan making the region a no-go zone for ISIL.

The fighting in Nangarhar will continue this year, mainly in an effort to keep ISIL out of any towns or villages. There are some ISIL members operating in Pakistan, which is an even more hostile environment for them because of the same hostility towards ISIL tactics and behavior in general. Since ISIL considers all other Islamic terror groups enemies it is finding enemies everywhere. The Afghan government reported that in the last year security forces had killed nearly 2,000 “terrorists and criminals” in Nangarhar province alone and arrested nearly a thousand. About a third of those arrested were drug smugglers or dealers. Those in the drug business are less likely to fight to the death, as ISIL men are prone to do.

Senior American commanders in Afghanistan and back in the United States agree with their Afghan counterparts that a sharp increase (by 15,000 or more troops) in American combat forces could be essential if brought into Afghanistan this year. While the Taliban is pushing the army out of parts of Helmand province the Islamic terrorists are on the defensive most everywhere else. Part of this is because of a civil war within the Taliban and the continued threat from ISIL.

Can China's Companies Conquer the World

STR / AFP / GETTY IMAGESBut can you make a semiconductor? A factory in Anhui Province, China, May 2015.

March/April 2016 Issue United States China

?https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/can-chinas-companies-conquer-world?cid=nlc-fatoday-20160318&sp_mid=50950404&sp_rid=bXVsbGljay5wa0ByZWRpZmZtYWlsLmNvbQS2&spMailingID=50950404&spUserID=MTUyNTg4ODc4NjczS0&spJobID=882309660&spReportId=ODgyMzA5NjYwS0

The Overlooked Importance of Corporate Power

By Pankaj Ghemawat and Thomas Hout

Despite China’s recent economic struggles, many economists and analysts argue that the country remains on course to overtake the United States and become the world’s leading economic power someday soon. Indeed, this has become a mainstream view—if not quite a consensus belief—on both sides of the Pacific. But proponents of this position often neglect to take into account an important truth: economic power is closely related to business power, an area in which China still lags far behind the United States.

To understand how that might affect China’s future prospects, it’s important to first grasp the reasons why many remain bullish on China—to review the evidence that supports the case for future Chinese dominance. At first glance, the numbers are impressive. China’s GDP is likely to surpass that of the United States—although probably not until at least 2028, which is five to ten years later than most analysts were predicting before China’s current slowdown began in 2014. After all, China is already the world’s largest market for hundreds of products, from cars to power stations to diapers. The Chinese government has over $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, which is easily the world’s largest such holding. And China overshadows the United States in trade volume: of the 180 nations with which the two countries both trade, China is the larger trading partner with 124, including some important U.S. political and military allies. Finally, China has made steady progress toward its goal of

Crouching Tiger: China Acts, America Dithers

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/crouching-tiger-china-acts-america-dithers

Peter Navarro

Will there be war with China? That may well be determined by which presidential candidate wins the White House this year, and what policies the new administration adopts.

The threat of conflict is real. Cambridge University’s Stefan Halper does not wish to “alarm people,” but he soberly notes the “profound differences” that China is “prepared to settle by force.” Harvard’s Graham Allison likewise warns of a “Thucydides Trap,” in which a rising China plays the upstart Athens to America’s Sparta, and fear leads to an arms race and war. Michael Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies hedges this bet: “The US has to contemplate a future with China that will probably be benign but could very well be difficult, intense, and, in the extreme scenario, hostile.”

If a rapidly militarizing China seeks only to protect its homeland and the global trade routes it needs to prosper, the world can probably relax. But if China is also committed to expansionism and seeks to push the US military out of the Asia-Pacific region and take territory and resources from its neighbors, there may be conflict on the horizon.

Beijing’s sense that a rapid military buildup is necessary to defend its homeland is rooted in China’s “Century of Humiliation.” From the 1830s until the end of World War II, foreigners, from the British, the Russians, and the Japanese to the Germans, the French, and the Americans, committed brutal acts—rapes, beheadings, port seizures, land grabs. To Toshi Yoshihara of the US Naval War College, “the historical lesson the Chinese have learned is ‘never again.’ Never will China be weak because this is what invited foreign aggression.”

That China’s military buildup is necessary to defend its trade routes is likewise historically based. Even as Deng Xiaoping began China’s remarkable transformation in the 1970s from a socialist, autarkic, and continental power into the global trading force it is today, his naval commander, Admiral Liu Huaqing, began to build the modern navy Deng’s new mercantilist China would need. In this sense, Liu was what Yoshihara and his coauthor James Holmes from the US Naval War College have called a “Mahanian” figure, an allusion to Alfred Thayer Mahan, the 19th-century American military theorist who pioneered the concept of global naval force projection as critical to economic prosperity.

Liu first articulated the three-step Mahanian strategy China appears to be following today. In step one, China breaks the bonds of the First Island Chain, which runs from the Kuril Islands and Japan through the center point of Taiwan and across the Luzon Strait to the Philippines and down to Malaysian Borneo. As Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation notes: “If the First Island Chain is in the hands of countries antagonistic towards China from Beijing’s perspective, then it is a barrier to China’s ability to reach the open ocean.”

In step two, China breaks through the Second Island Chain, which runs from the Kuril Islands to New Guinea, directly through the anchor of American power in Asia, the island fortress of Guam.

Finally, by 2050, China becomes a global blue-water navy projecting its power around the world.

http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/22/is-isis-a-scam/

22.03.2016 Author: Gordon Duff

Recent revelations inside Iraq have exposed ISIS. They don’t exist, simple as that, not across Iraq, not in Mosul, not in control of any oil regions, not in any way remotely resembling what the world has been told. The real “ISIS,” more recently identified as a Turkish, Israeli, Saudi construct is, at least in Iraq, run out of Erbil, not Mosul or Raqqah, cannot be identified, or explained. It is a ghost. Let our story begin.

In January 2014, I met with Sunni governors to discuss their views on the ISIS threat as it applied to their regional security issues. At that time ISIS was in Ramadi only, seen by a cynical but powerful few as a useful tool to leverage political reforms from the Shiite led government.

The subsequent almost magical rise of ISIS across Iraq was believed by all though it made no sense. The ISIS of January 2014 and the ISIS of September 2014 were unrelated, certainly not the same entity.

The new “ISIS” made militarily impossible simultaneous moves across Anbar, Nineveh, Salahaddin, Tamim, Dyala, Karbala, Babil, Najaf, Qadisiyyah and even Sulaymania provinces and this is in Iraq alone.

This evidenced early on that the tribally interrelated Sunni political groups, all of which had long since formed militia organizations with which I am very familiar, had suddenly become “ISIS” in Iraq but that there were other powers as well acting under the theatrical guise of ISIS or ISIL or the Islamic State.

Thus, we knew from the first, and by “we,” I mean the Iraqi government, Iran, Russia and maybe even the United States, that the ISIS threat was misrepresented.

This has long been an unspoken fact that the insurgency we suspected was nothing more than an Iraqi civil war, not the rise of a mystical cult of “head choppers” with mad internet skills and lots of Hollywood backing.

If the thought has crossed your mind that ISIS isn’t what it seems to be, your suspicions may well have been justified. If you had head of conspiracy theories about ISIS, that intelligence agencies were helping it or that it isn’t quite what it seems, there is reason to believe, reason rooted in facts that you are shooting well short of the mark.

We now have reason to believe that there really is no “ISIS, not as represented by anyone, not even by conspiracy theorists. In fact, the closest anyone has come to what we are now learning about who and what they really are came out in December 2014 during the Damascus Security Conference when the American delegation headed by Colonel James Hanke and I named ISIS as only an “arm” of a global organized crime syndicate.

Deconstructing ISIS

Last week, the regional government in Erbil covering the Kurdish areas of Iraq, received a very strange and inexplicable payment of $200m from Turkey for “oil revenue shortfalls.”

However, records indicate that in accordance with Iraq’s constitution, Erbil had received its requisite 17% of Iraq’s oil revenue with consistency. Also note that the constitution of Iraq expressly prevents the Kurdish Regional Government from directly negotiation oil sales with any nation or corporate entity.

Moreover, Iraq’s massive Kirkuk oil reserves are well outside the borders of the Kurdish Regional Government’s limited control. Then, however, KRG Prime Minister Barzani announced that he was planning to annex Iraq’s major oil fields as part of a ploy to withdraw from Iraq.

ISIS Is Using the Media Against Itself

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/03/isis-using-media-against-itself/126905/?oref=d_brief_nl

MARCH 23, 2016BY CHARLIE WINTER, THE ATLANTIC

It doesn’t matter if the coverage that follows an attack is negative. For ISIS, any coverage is good coverage.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, there was a period in which members of the Western news media were scouring for evidence of who might be behind them. Suspicion primarily fell on ISIS, which managed to pull off a complex, multi-target attack in Paris four months ago. Some speculated that the attackers were seeking revenge for Friday’s arrest in Brussels of Salah Abdeslam, a suspected logistics chief of the Paris attacks, and the last direct participant in those attacks believed to be at large. Others suggested, in my view correctly, that the attacks were not revenge-driven, but the outcome of months of careful planning.

Speculation about the ideological inclination of the perpetrators became certainty when, that afternoon, ISISchannels on Telegram, a social-media platform favored by jihadists, circulated an English-language claim of responsibility. The text, uploaded onto the Wordpress page of Amaq News Agency, ISIS’s “official” news wire, was instantaneously transferred across millions of computer screens and mobile phones by news outlets and commentators around the world.

So it was that ISIS commandeered the narrative space surrounding the attack, in spite of the fact that its statement provided no new information and, indeed, appeared to been an amalgamation of operational details already observed in Western media reports.

In the avalanche of uncertainty that followed the attacks, theISIS propagandists were able to dictate their story—literally word for word—to an international, and specifically Western, audience. Releasing the claim of responsibility first in English was no mistake. Directed, first and foremost, at the Western enemies of ISIS, the statement was a way to capitalize on the international media storm surrounding Brussels that day. Be it through headlines or tweets, the propagandists manipulated a global audience, opponents and sympathizers alike, to disseminate their message of intimidation and enhance the perception of ISIS’s threat.

The technique is not new. Indeed, modern-day terrorists have long embraced “propaganda of the deed,” a tactic that, in the words of the Australian Army information-operations specialist Jason Logue, involves ”planning and executing operations designed purely for their propaganda appeal.” However, ISIS understands the media like no other organization before it. It knows that, while territory and resources are crucial to the overall success of its aggressive insurgency in Syria and Iraq, the media is the arena within which the war of ideas is waged, where the group’s relevance—and, ultimately, its ideational longevity—can best be preserved and perhaps enhanced, even as it experiences territorial losses.