Joseph Stiglitz on Brexit, Europe’s long cycle of crisis, and why German economics is different

http://qz.com/744854/joseph-stiglitz-euro-future-of-europe-book/

WRITTEN BYMatt Phillips

August 16, 2016

Globalization seems to have a lot more discontents lately.

From Britain’s vote to extricate itself from the European Union to Donald Trump’s anti-trade and immigration rhetoric, the conventional wisdom about economic advantages conferred by free-flowing goods and capital—and to a certain extent, people—that dominated economic policymaking in the 1990s now faces increasingly stiff opposition in the world’s advanced economies.

Columbia University economics professor Joseph Stiglitz says this shouldn’t be a surprise. The recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize for economics has long been a critic of the neoliberal conventional wisdom—he calls it “market fundamentalism”—that long dominated at global financial policy-making institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. His best-selling 2002 book, Globalization and its Discontents, chastised the IMF among others for bailout programs conditioned on cutting government debts and deficits. Such austerity programs tended to sink recipient nations into deep recessions, as relatively straightforward Keynesian economics would have predicted.

The book set off an unusually raw debate in the typically rarified world of economic policy-making. Ken Rogoff, the IMF’s chief economist at the time, called Stiglitz’s ideas “at best highly controversial, at worst snake oil.”

In his new book, The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe, Stiglitz, the former head of the Clinton administration’s White House Council of Economic Advisors, analyzes another transnational economic policy push for austerity that seems to have gone throughly wrong.

From its conception, Stiglitz argues, the euro zone was a project carrying a staggering amount of ideological luggage that effectively blinded its creators to deep flaws in the system. For instance, by adopting a single currency, countries that underwent economic shocks could no longer take advantage of a weaker currency to boost exports and domestic demand.

And in addition to such structural problems, the response of eurozone officials to the debt crisis that erupted in Greece in 2010 has effectively doomed large parts of the monetary bloc to perennial depression. The mechanism is a punishing system of drip-by-drip bailouts, accompanied by demands for steep cuts on spending and disruptive “structural reforms” that only worsen the economic malaise and make it more difficult for a country return to economic expansion. Economic downturns worsen the fiscal position of the country, necessitating more bailouts and deeper spending cuts, and pushing the economy deeper into depression. Rinse and repeat, seemingly ad infinitum.

We visited Stiglitz’s offices at Columbia University recently to talk about his book. In the discussion that followed, he expounded on the depressing state of Europe’s economy, how ideology masquerades as economics, and why Germany has different economics from everyone else in the world. Here’s an edited excerpt of our conversation.

China's Plan to Keep Enemies at Bay.

For many watchers of the Asia-Pacific, anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) is the most serious challenge the U.S. faces in shaping its forces for the region.

By Anthony H. Cordesman and Joseph Kendall, for The National Interest

For many watchers of the Asia-Pacific, anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) is the most serious challenge the U.S. faces in shaping its forces for the region. Anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) is a Chinese strategy based around restricting enemy access to a certain strategic location, while it exerts forceful control over a territorial asset like Taiwan or a disputed maritime claim. It is designed to “deter, dissuade or defeat [4]” the involvement of a third party in a confrontation or conflict over such issues, and is targeted at the United States or any of its Pacific allies that might intervene.

At the same time, the actual implementation of A2/AD is immensely complicated. Both China and the United States need to be careful in assessing what China can and cannot do, and what its strategic impact is in both the competition and risk of conflict between them.

A2/AD requires advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), as well as advanced targeting, communications, naval, air, missile defense, and cyber capabilities. China has spent a “generation [5]” attempting to develop the technological capabilities necessary, and it still remains debatable if they are capable of A2/AD implementation. If China is to successfully develop A2/AD capability, it will owe much credit to its rapidly advancing space capability and satellite infrastructure. 

At its simplest, A2/AD is centered on conventional counterforce targeting. In order to deny access, China must be able to execute a kill-chain [5] starting with, “target detection and including munition delivery, weapon guidance, damage assessment, and potential restrike” of its opponent’s battleships, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, submarines, information hubs, and missile positions at long distances.

Chinese military to step up 'training, humanitarian aid' to Syria

http://www.janes.com/article/63100/chinese-military-to-step-up-training-humanitarian-aid-to-syria

Gabriel Dominguez, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly

19 August 2016

The Chinese military is to step up personnel training and humanitarian assistance to Syria, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, in a public display of support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The agreement was reached during a 14 August meeting in Damascus between Rear Admiral Guan Youfei, director of China's Office for International Military Co-operation at the Central Military Commission, and Syria's Defence Minister, Lieutenant General Fahd Jasim Al-Furayj.

"They reached [a] consensus on improving personnel training, and the Chinese military offering humanitarian aid to Syria," Xinhua reported on 16 August without elaborating.

Rear Adm Guan, who also headed the Chinese military delegation to Syria, was quoted as saying that "the Chinese and Syrian militaries traditionally have a friendly relationship, and the Chinese military is willing to keep strengthening exchanges and cooperation with the Syrian military".

Bracing for a Long Road in the South China Sea Dispute

SWJ Blog Post | August 19, 2016 

Steve Miller, Voice of America

This week Chinese state media reported that Beijing is hoping to finalize next year a long-stalled code of conduct for the South China Sea, which could lessen territorial tensions among countries in the region. The official China Daily reported that diplomats representing China and member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) approved a new hotline for maritime emergencies and vowed to complete a draft of the code of conduct by the middle of next year.

Completing the legally-binding code of conduct would mark a major breakthrough after more than a decade of largely fruitless negotiations. Outside observers are skeptical about the chances for a deal, in part because of China's more aggressive posture in the region following the ruling by the U.N.-backed arbitral tribunal that largely dismissed many of Beijing's maritime claims.

Chinese officials have sent aircraft on "combat patrols" near contested islands in the South China Sea, and satellite images reviewed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies show new aircraft hangars capable of housing their fighters.

Beijing Defiant After UN Ruling

"I think what [China is] trying to achieve is basically is just to share their anger with the recent ruling that was in the Court of arbitration in The Hague," said Harry Kazianis, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest, on VOA’s Asia Weekly podcast.

“I think we have to break this down into two sets of reactions,” Kaszianis noted. “The first set of reactions is basically what’s happened from July and basically what’s going to happen until early September,” because that’s when China is going to host the G20 Summit. Kazianis also says Beijing will continue pushing ahead with current tactics.

Greg Poling, Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says it has been China’s long term strategy to exert de facto control over the area. Given the competing claims in the region by other ASEAN members and the recent ruling from The Hague, did the international community wait too long to push back on Beijing’s claims by carrying out freedom of navigation exercises, which are sometimes called FoN ops?

“You can argue with certain tactical decisions. Did the US wait too long to [conduct] FoN Ops? Maybe. Should they have reacted more strongly to the Scarborough Shoal seizure in 2012? Maybe. But I think the long term strategy has been sound.”

The Greatest Divorce in the Jihadi World

The Greatest Divorce in the Jihadi World

Al Qaeda wasn’t about to take ISIS’s defection from its ranks lying down. In Part III of an exclusive series, an Islamic State insider describes the events that led to civil war within the anti-Assad ranks.

BY HARALD DOORNBOS, JENAN MOUSSA

Uhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/18/the-greatest-divorce-in-the-jihadi-world/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=Flashpoints#

AUGUST 18, 2016

Since its creation, we have learned about the Islamic State from its enemies. Its story has largely been told by those fighting the group in Iraq and Syria, traumatized civilians who have escaped its brutal rule, and the occasional defector. That is about to change. This is the story of Abu Ahmad, a Syrian operative for the Islamic State who witnessed the group’s lightning expansion firsthand and spent months among its most notorious foreign fighters.

In this series of three articles, he provides unique insight into how Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s political scheming paved the way for its expansion into Syria, al Qaeda’s efforts to stem the group’s rise, and the terrifying weapons in the arsenal of the self-proclaimed “caliphate.” Some names and details have been omitted to protect Abu Ahmad. Read part one here and two here.

PART ONE:

It was May 2013, and the newly formed Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant was intent on cementing its status as the world’s most fearsome jihadi force. But before it could do so — or use the new cache of chemical weapons it had obtained — it would have to contend with a new challenge from senior al Qaeda figures.

Al Qaeda’s senior leadership was not about to accept Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s claim to authority — particularly in light of his brazen lie that he had been instructed to do so by al Qaeda leader Ayman-al Zawahiri. One month after the historic meeting between the ISIS chief and other jihadi leaders in Kafr Hamra, a small group of men, including a few armed guards, secretly traveled in a couple of vehicles through Syria. Fearing that they might be discovered by Baghdadi’s loyalists or targeted by the Syrian regime, they moved quietly and carefully.

This group was called Lajnat Khorasan, or the “Khorasan Committee.” Its members had emerged from their underground lairs in Afghanistan and Pakistan and come to Syria on behalf of Zawahiri, who remained in hiding.

One of the Khorasan Committee members, a Syrian by the name of Abu Osama al-Shahabi, told his associates to be extremely cautious during their travels. “I have information [Baghdadi] was planning to assassinate [Nusra] emir Abu Mariya al-Qahtani,” Shahabi said to the others, according to Abu Ahmad. “So we too should be careful.”

The mission of the Khorasan Committee was to investigate Baghdadi’s expansion into Syria. Their findings were to be given to Zawahiri, who would then decide al Qaeda’s response to the situation in Iraq and Syria, where the rivalry between ISIS and the al Qaeda-affiliate Nusra Front clearly had gotten out of control.

The price of powerlessness

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-price-of-powerlessness/2016/08/18/f61d2c34-6575-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html?utm_term=.41bb99549687

This photo, grabbed from Russian Defense Ministry video footage issued Aug. 16, is said to show a Tu-22M3 long-range bomber releasing its payload above Syria after it took off from an air base in Iran. (Russian Defense Ministry / Handout/European Pressphoto Agency)

By Charles Krauthammer Opinion writer August 18 

This week Russian bombers flew out of Iranian air bases to attack rebel positions in Syria. The State Department pretended not to be surprised. It should be. It should be alarmed. Iran’s intensely nationalistic revolutionary regime had never permitted foreign forces to operate from its soil. Until now.

The reordering of the Middle East is proceeding apace. Where for 40 years the U.S.-Egypt alliance anchored the region, a Russia-Iran condominium is now dictating events. That’s what you get after eight years of U.S. retrenchment and withdrawal. That’s what results from the nuclear deal with Iran, the evacuation of Iraq and utter U.S. immobility on Syria. Consider:

● Iran

The nuclear deal was supposed to begin a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. Instead, it has solidified a strategic-military alliance between Moscow and Tehran. With the lifting of sanctions and the normalizing of Iran’s international relations, Russia rushed in with major deals, including the shipment of S-300 ground-to-air missiles. Russian use of Iranian bases now marks a new level of cooperation and joint power projection.

● Iraq

These bombing runs cross Iraqi airspace. Before President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq, that could not have happened. The resulting vacuum has not only created a corridor for Russian bombing, it has gradually allowed a hard-won post-Saddam Iraq to slip into Iran’s orbit. According to a Baghdad-based U.S. military spokesman, there are 100,000 Shiite militiafighters operating inside Iraq, 80 percent of them Iranian-backed.

● Syria

When Russia dramatically intervened last year, establishing air bases and launching a savage bombing campaign, Obama did nothing. Indeed, he smugly predicted that Vladimir Putin had entered a quagmire. Some quagmire. Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not only saved. It encircled Aleppo and has seized the upper hand in the civil war. Meanwhile, our hapless secretary of state is running around trying to sue for peace, offering to share intelligence and legitimize Russian intervention if only Putin will promise to conquer gently.

Consider what Putin has achieved. Dealt a very weak hand — a rump Russian state, shorn of empire and saddled with a backward economy and a rusting military — he has restored Russia to great-power status. Reduced to irrelevance in the 1990s, it is now a force to be reckoned with.

In Europe, Putin has unilaterally redrawn the map. His annexation of Crimea will not be reversed. The Europeans are eager to throw off the few sanctions they grudgingly imposed on Russia. And the rape of eastern Ukraine continues.

Europe in the Crosshairs: Political Implications of Terror

https://www.csis.org/analysis/europe-crosshairs-political-implications-terror

August 18, 2016

After weeks of seemingly unrelenting terror attacks carried out within the European Union and elsewhere, European leaders struggle with a political balancing act of responding to asymmetric threats while offering a sense of security to their citizens without overstepping core EU values and fundamental freedoms. The political reactions in light of this crisis have varied, characterized by both short-sighted and xenophobic populism voiced by some leaders and measured attempts to address what appears to be a long-term challenge to public safety by others. One thing is clear: public emotions are running high, and with critical elections in France (Spring 2017) and Germany (Fall 2017) fast approaching, these twin engines of Europe are struggling to fend off mounting pressure from increasingly popular far-right parties that are demanding stricter migration policies and harsher enforcement of law and order.

Given these rising tensions, European leaders must stay firm on constitutional principles and fight back against opportunistic attempts to consolidate a false nexus between refugee resettlement and countering violent extremism. Attempting to appease public anger by delivering policies derived from highly emotional reactions rather than developing a comprehensive policy grounded in facts will make Europe less safe.

In France, the latest string of attacks has galvanized critique from both the center-right opposition party, vocalized by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and the far right party Front National, led by Marine Le Pen. Despite prolonging France’s state of emergency, ordering an unprecedented number of its military and law enforcement officers to patrol the streets, and formally advocating for the formation of a new National Guard (not having been used since 1872), the increasingly unpopular President François Hollande’s policies have been heavily attacked and labeled as naive. Mr. Sarkozy recently proclaimed that “I cannot accept dealing with today’s realities by applying intellectual schemes from the past.” Sarkozy’s calls for solitary confinement of prisoners convicted of terror-related crimes, expedient deportations of convicted foreigners (regardless of how prisoners are treated in the recipient country), criminalization of behavior that indicates radicalization, and the use of controversial de-radicalization camps seem to resonate well among certain segments of the electorate. Although it remains unclear whether such harsh policies would offer an efficient response to the attacks or even be legal.

** Russia’s Soft Power Development in the 21st Century

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/russia%E2%80%99s-soft-power-development-in-the-21st-century

by Ryan Bauer

Journal Article | August 13, 2016 

In a speech earlier this year at the Russian Academy of Military Science, Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, discussed the changing environment of modern warfare. Noting the rise of hybrid conflicts such as color revolutions, General Gerasimov highlighted the importance of, “leading military theorists and specialists as well as the defense industry and the government to jointly develop a “soft power” strategy to counter the potential threat from ‘color revolutions.’” The importance of this speech is two-fold. First, it demonstrates that while some have come to believe that Russia has developed a unique and profound soft power strategy, this is not the case. Second, this speech may indicate a trend towards a greater reliance on the use of soft power, though its use is framed as a defensive measure. Rather than using soft power to project values and appear more attractive as countries such as the United States attempts to do, this speech highlights the importance of countering foreign efforts directed against the Russian Federation. Though Russia traditionally relies on hard power to ensure state security and project power, the country may begin a revitalized effort of utilizing soft power to help achieve this, an effort not seen since the Cold War era.

During the Cold War, there were two major battles for power occurring. The most notable was a battle of hard power, comprised of conventional forces and rising nuclear forces between the United States and the Soviet Union. The other was a competition of soft power, including the battle for ideology, norms and influence between liberal and communist values. In the post-Cold War era, the West has sought to further expand its norms and influence throughout the international system through a variety of measures including soft power. Examples of these soft power elements range from liberal ideals such as freedom of press and speech to Western culture. These ideals and norms are spread in effect through Western media, the entertainment industry and U.S. foreign policy, to name a few. The United States is not alone in these efforts. To a certain extent Russia has also sought to further expand its ideology and influence outside of its borders through the use of soft power. Examples of these efforts include organizations like the Russian World Foundation and Rossotrudnichestvo, which promote Russian language and culture abroad and media efforts like Russia Today (RT), which according to the website, broadcasts in over 100 countries. But over the past few years, the discussion of soft power has notably increased.

One reason for the increased discussion around soft power, as Russia argues, is the decline of Western norms and influence globally. As Putin noted in his 2007 Munich speech, “the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.” As the appeal of American values decreases, which is true to some extent, its ability to conduct soft power decreases as a result. Another reason for the heightened discussion is the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s actions as a result. Since 2014, there has been an increased shift in Russia’s efforts to create an alternative message to Western norms and practices. Russia’s ability to produce these messages at a rapid rate in comparison to the United States has led some to believe that Russia has begun to develop a unique and profound soft power strategy.

If the NSA can be hacked, is anything safe?

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article96471952.html

Our dependence on technology may be growing faster than our ability to provide security on the internet, says Joshua Corman, head of a cybersecurity initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank. Tim Johnson / McClatchy 

BY TIM JOHNSON 

Slowly but surely, the internet is becoming a hostile place. 

As wondrous as the internet is – with its three billion global users – increasingly, danger lurks. Armies of hackers maraud for personal data. Unknown forces invade privacy, installing hidden bugs. Nations engage in low-grade versions of cyber warfare. 

Those who believe that some sort of disaster may be in the offing have coined the phrases “Cyber 9/11” and “Digital Pearl Harbor” to suggest a surprise attack that might change our world. Maybe it’ll be terrorists threatening to bring down the power grid. Or hackers monkeying with November election results. 

Are the fears warranted? Some experts say they’re overblown. Yet the issue reflects how the internet has become the world’s superstructure, knitting the citizenry together. The “internet of things” is swiftly evolving: the thermostat, the smart TV, the toaster, the locks on doors, all interconnected. Then there are cars. An estimated 70 percent of automobiles will be connected to the internet by the end of the decade. 

If cyber security is not fortified, experts say, aggression and hostility could steadily overtake the web. The “internet of things” may morph, as one recent study forecasts, into the “weaponization of everything.” Imagine elevators going haywire, or pacemakers under the control of extortionists. 

Other scenarios are possible, of course. The internet is in its infancy. Like other technologies, simple but firm steps may make it safer. 

The development of the automotive industry, in fact, could provide a map forward. 

“People were driving cars on the road for 100 years before the first seat-belt law was introduced in 1968. After that law, the number of crashes that ended in fatalities dropped sharply,” said Jeremy N. Galloway, a cyber security expert with Atlassian, an Australian software firm. “The internet is very similar.” 

Can’t turn your computer on or off? Is it acting up, running slow, opening pages you didn't click, or displaying pop-ups constantly? There's a good chance your computer's been hacked or infected with a virus. Here’s what to do.Federal Trade Commission / www.consumer.ftc.gov 

We haven't invented the cyber version of the seat belt yet, so we have many more painful accidents to come. We are progressing incrementally, getting better security every day, but fundamentally, the internet is a place where you need to be cautious, careful, and skeptical.” 

For many users, the risks appear remote when weighed with the benefits. 

The Human Side of Cyber Conflict Organizing, Training, and Equipping the Air Force Cyber Workforce Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos and John P. Geis II

016 , 260 pages

ISBN: 978-1-58566-259-3

Cost: $23, AU Press Code: B-143 

Download:

In response to a tasking from the Air Force chief of staff, the Air Force Research Institute conducted a review of how the service organizes, educates/trains, and equips its cyber workforce. The resulting findings were used to develop recommendations for how the Air Force should recruit, educate, train, and develop cyber operators from the time they are potential accessions until they become senior leaders in the enlisted and officer corps. This study’s discoveries, analyses, and recommendations are aimed at guiding staff officers and senior leaders alike as they consider how to develop a future cyber workforce that supports both Ar Force and US Cyber Command missions across the range of military operations.

** Turn Off That iPhone, Commandant Tells Marines

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/08/turn-off-that-iphone-commandant-tells-marines/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=32732561&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_OxM-sYeDSnm-_fplXroZ44MSE6c2vDiw5xxKbISoRXgsZyn2DkeXeUwax34Km8Du4_BofDiRb8pp6F1aAdsD3A0pt1Q&_hsmi=32732561

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on August 09, 2016

WASHINGTON: Marines, turn off your iPhone and dig yourself a foxhole. That’s the Commandant’s message to young troops, based on embarrassing experiences in recent exercises. As cheap drones and other surveillance technologies spread worldwide, saidGen. Robert Neller, US forces must re-learn how to hide — both physically and electronically — from increasingly tech-savvy adversaries. 

“We’ve got to change the way we’re thinking….An adversary can see us just as we see them,” said Gen. Neller. “If you can be seen, you will be attacked.” 

In particular, US field HQs have grown into notoriously large targets. In one exercise, Neller said, a Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters did almost everything right. They covered everything in camouflage netting — a largely lost art since 9/11 — and set up their radio antennas at a distance so a strike homing in on them wouldn’t hit the HQ itself. But old counterinsurgency habits die hard, and the Marines also put concertina wire around a key location. Seen from the air, the barbed wire glinted in the sun and made a shining circle, like a bull’s eye, around what it was supposed to protect. 

“That was where the intel people where,” Neller said to laughter. 

Some times, the giveaway won’t be visual; it’ll be electronic and it’s not necessarily military electronics. In the same exercise, the biggest, most glaring source of electromagnetic transmissions wasn’t from the HQ’s radios: It came from the billeting area, where young Marines were using their personal devices. “So we had to take everybody’s phone away,” Neller said. “I know that sounds silly, but it’s not.” 

The enemy can take away your electronics too, Neller noted, so Marines are increasingly training to operate when their GPS mapping, digital radios, and other 21st century standbys have been jammed or hacked. The simulated Opposing Force (OPFOR) at 29 Palms now uses off-the-shelf quadcopter UAVs to spy on the US side in wargames. 

“I have no doubt in my mind that our force will figure it out,” Neller said. “Being young is an advantage, (and) we have to take advantage of their youth, their enthusiasm, their fitness, and then get them to grow up really fast….They’ve grown up in this (digital world) and they’ll adjust, but we have to put them in situations where they have to deal with it.” 

Rethinking Profit Policy In Defense Acquisition

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/rethinking-profit-policy-defense-acquisition-17331?page=show

Scott E. Chandler

August 12, 2016

“The first responsibility of the acquisition workforce is to think.”

– Better Buying Power 2.0 Implementation Directive

Despite persistent myth, the average profit margin for defense companies is half the margin for S&P 500 companies. Whether that bargain is good for warfighters and citizens depends on DoD acquisition goals and what that policy actually achieves in security, cost effectiveness, and innovation. But defense acquisition has performed poorly for decades and has been under constant reform during all of that time. Lack of progress in acquisition reform suggests underlying assumptions in policy and reform to date are flawed, and that if any progress is expected in the future, then these assumptions and policies must be reexamined. Otherwise, future progress is equally unlikely however comprehensive and well intentioned. 

DoD profit policy continues to operate under the assumption that profit is merely wasted expense, or worse. 

According to a Defense Acquisition University training presentation, “Many in Government see profit as ‘evil’ and unfair to the government vs. a required component of the acquisition process”. DoD leadership consistently denies there is a “war on profit”, but in 2013 HASC testimony, Pierre Chao showed something is clearly wrong with DoD profit policy: “Culturally we have evolved to a point where the system would rather pay $1 billion and 5% profit for a defense good, than $500 million and 20% profit.” The Defense Business Board agrees: “Profit is misunderstood by the government, [It is] seen as something to be minimized” and more comprehensively that “DoD lacks sufficient understanding of business operating models and drivers of innovation.”

The Public View of Defense Industry Profit

Clearly, both the American public and media views of the defense industry and especially defense industry profit are aligned with DoD policy. Neither are generally friendly to the defense industry. A Brookings study noted, “We are accustomed in the American public debate to praising men and women in uniform, and yet we often ignore or even pillory those who equip and support them.” 

Stories of $800 hammers and $1000 toilet seats are not lessons of industry greed. Such prices are instead monuments to a broken acquisition system mired in regulation, process, oversight, and unique and changing requirements – all of which add to the cost of delivering what DoD acquires. They have nothing to say about industry overcharging or profit.

Media and various watch organizations are especially responsible for feeding the public myth of a greedy defense industry. This 2015 Washington Post headlineDefense contractors hunker down, then report blistering earnings is at best misleading. At the close of 2015, defense industry profits were again half of the S&P, and far less than profits for Dow 30 producers of hamburgers, diapers, and Coca-Cola, not to mention the truly prosperous producers of our iPhones and favorite apps. Such stories needlessly inflame the ire of the public and Congress and result in ever more expensive and time-consuming legislation, policy, bureaucracy, and process. Although responsible oversite is necessary for productive, accountable administration, in defense acquisition it has been driven to an extreme “accretion of laws, regulations, reporting requirements, and mandated procedures that are choking the system … Fully a third of our procurement dollars are going to ‘overhead’, much of it dictated by the choking layers of redundant and competitive overseers.” (John Hamre, “An Honest Look at the "Military-Industrial" Complex”)

Examining Defense Industry Profit

*** This Is Why The Best NCOs Self-Develop

http://taskandpurpose.com/best-ncos-self-develop/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tp-today

By HARLAN KEFALAS on August 9, 2016

Self-development is the key to enduring success as an NCO, and it begins where official military training stops.

In early 2015, I was reading up on military leadership and came across an interesting article by Joe Byerly, a U.S. Army armor officer, on his personal blog, From the Green Notebook, about self-development in the military.

“Imagine if someone told you that a year from today, you would be required to take a test in which every wrong answer resulted in the loss of a human life,” Byerly wrote. “How would you approach studying for the test? Would you study for 20-30 minutes every night or would you wait until a week before the test and start cramming?”

As a senior non-commissioned officer with two deployments and countless schools and field exercises under my belt, I had assumed my military training and experience was sufficient. But Byerly’s article challenged that assumption. Even with all his training and professional development, he still felt the need to self-develop. And that made me realize that I should, too. I cannot rely on my previous deployment experiences as a predictor of future success. My next deployment will be different. I must continue to develop as a leader, because my soldiers deserve nothing less.

I’m now convinced that NCOs should not rely solely on the military for their professional development. Soldiers have little or no control over most of their training, like that which they receive in the school house or in the field, so it’s rarely tailored to individual needs. Self-development, on the other hand, is completely on the individual. According to Army Regulation 350-1, the only options for personal self-development are “college education, [and] advanced degrees.” However, self-development requires so much more than classroom instruction.

If the Army won’t provide real direction for self-development, aside from pushing civilian education, where will today’s leaders self-develop? Well, today self-development options are more plentiful than ever. Anybody can publish a blog, video, or podcast. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. With so many possibilities, it can be difficult to know which ones are worthwhile. To save you some time, or at least to help get the gears turning, here’s a short list of advice and useful resources from my own self-development journey.

Seriously, Let’s Inject Humor Into Leadership

https://www.ausa.org/articles/seriously-let%E2%80%99s-inject-humor-leadership?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Defense+EBB+07-26-16&utm_term=Editorial+-+Early+Bird+Brief 

Col. Eric E. Zimmerman

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

If you happen to be a professional academic, a stoic or just generally cantankerous, please promise you won’t stop reading after the next sentence.

This article is about humor as an element of Army leadership.

That’s right, humor. It’s a uniquely human quality that increases resilience, creativity and trust while decreasing stress, fear and power distance—attributes that are arguably the very antithesis of toxic leadership. Despite these well-documented benefits coupled with the seemingly ubiquitous senior leader guidance that having fun or a sense of humor ranks among the most important aspects of leading and serving in the Army, isn’t it curious that humor doesn’t get even an honorable mention in the more than 300 pages of current Army leadership doctrine?

Some dismiss any serious consideration of humor as a leadership or management tool as incompatible with organizational culture, a distraction from organizational purpose and productivity, and even blatantly irresponsible. Others dismiss its value on the grounds that good leaders have an innate understanding of the value of positive humor and intuitively incorporate it into their leadership style and day-to-day activities.

Humor isn’t something that can or should be taught. And I am certainly not suggesting that the artful use of humor will usher in a revolution in leadership affairs. However, we should consider whether the Army is missing a small but powerful tool in leader development.

That gets us to the primary purpose of this article: the value of a leader’s deliberate use of positive forms of humor, also known as adaptive humor. (Yes, that’s really a thing—and how could the Army not embrace that moniker?) Adaptive humor provides tangible social, emotional and cognitive benefits that positively impact individuals and organizations and the overall performance of both.

Finding the Funny Bone

Because of the enigmatic nature of humor, there is little agreement on an academic definition of it. However, leading humor researcher John Morreall offers a useful perspective. He contends that humor is not merely something that makes us laugh; rather, it “is liking the mental jolt we get when something surprises us.” He further characterizes the sensation as simply “enjoying incongruity.”

We should also consider the four different styles of humor, which are based largely on the research of Rod Martin, author of one of the few collegiate-level texts on the subject, The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. They are:

Self-enhancing: the ability to laugh at oneself or circumstances.

Affiliative: enhancing relationships in a benevolent and positive manner.

Self-defeating: making oneself the butt of a joke.

Aggressive: using sarcasm, teasing, criticism and ridicule.

Self-enhancing and self-defeating are inwardly focused types of humor, while affiliative and aggressive are outwardly focused. Self-enhancing and affiliative are adaptive, or positive; self-defeating and aggressive are maladaptive, or negative.

It Loks Like the NSA Was Hacked. Edward Snowden Thinks It Was Russia.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/08/16/it_looks_like_the_nsa_was_hacked_and_edward_snowden_thinks_it_was_russia.html
By Jeremy Stahl

In what is either an incredibly elaborate hoax or a historic public breach of national security, hackers claim to have gained access to a set of files from a hacking group that is thought to be an offshoot of the National Security Agency.
If the hack is real, experts believe a foreign government must have helped the group in order for it to have exploited NSA resources in this way. On Tuesday, Edward Snowden speculated on Twitter that the Russians were responsible for the attack—and that it was connected to speculation about the country’s involvement with the recent breach and leak of Democratic National Committee emails.
Russia is widely believed to have been behind the July release of hacked DNC emails, and last week it was reported that the top lawmakers in the country had been briefed a year ago that Russia had infiltrated the DNC’s servers.

On Saturday, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers sent notices to media outlets about its purported hack of the Equation Group, an organization that was exposed last year by Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab as likely one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking collectives. As Foreign Policy wrote, Kaspersky Lab called Equation Group “a threat actor that surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques.” Without directly calling Equation Group an NSA organization, Kaspersky linked the group to the intelligence agency and pointed to involvement with the Stuxnet malware software that was widely believed to be a U.S.–Israeli cyberattack against Iran’s nuclear program.
Then on Monday, the Shadow Brokers released on Tumblr a series of files it claimed had been taken from the Equation Group. In a bizarre post written in broken English, the hackers said they had released 60 percent of the material they had and would release the additional 40 percent if they were paid 1 million bitcoin (currently worth more than $500 million). Forbes reported that its sources were saying the bitcoin auction was likely just an attempt to gain media attention.

Here is what the hacking group said in its release of the files:
Q: Why I want auction files, why send bitcoin? A: If you like free files (proof), you send bitcoin. If you want know your networks hacked, you send bitcoin. If you want hack networks as like equation group, you send bitcoin. If you want reverse, write many words, make big name for self, get many customers, you send bitcoin. If want to know what we take, you send btcoin.

Q: What if bid and no win, get bitcoins back? A: Sorry lose bidding war lose bitcoin and files. Lose Lose. Bid to win! But maybe not total loss. Instead to losers we give consolation prize. If our auction raises 1,000,000 (million) btc total, then we dump more Equation Group files, same quality, unencrypted, for free, to everyone.

*** The art of war We need to think creatively about the proposed defence university

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-art-of-war-indian-national-defence-university-2983818/

We need to think creatively about the proposed defence university 

Written by Harsh V. Pant | Published:August 19, 2016 

With the draft bill for the proposed Indian National Defence University (INDU) now in public domain, this is perhaps the right time for Indian defence intellectuals to start thinking creatively about the proposed institution. It was in 2013 that then prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had laid the foundation for the nation’s first defence university at Binola in Gurgaon with the hope that when completed, INDU “will become [a] world class institution of higher defence studies in which we will be able to take justifiable pride”. Given the dismal state of other institutions of higher learning in India, this might be a tall order but at least a first step has been taken towards establishing INDU, a project that has been part of the national discourse for decades now. Though various committees had recommended the setting up of a national defence university, the government had been dragging its feet on the project. Things are finally moving now. 

The nature of the challenges facing defence in the 21st century emphasises the vital requirement of education in a military officer’s career. While a key strength of the military organisation is its cohesiveness, it is also true that the challenges posed by the use of military force in the world today require officers who can think and act independently of formulaic guidelines. These challenges flow from changes in the strategic environment driven by social, economic and political factors which in turn affect the character of warfare and security as a whole. As a consequence, there is a need to focus on enhancing the level of professional military education (PME) in India. 

The aims of modern PME should be to develop the military officers’ understanding of defence in the modern world; demand critical engagement with current research on defence and its relationship with the fields of international relations, security studies, military history, war studies and operational experience; encourage a systematic and reflective understanding of contemporary conflicts; promote initiative, creativity and independence of thought in identifying, researching, judging and solving fundamental intellectual problems and develop relevant, transferable skills, especially communication, use of information technology and organisation and management of the learning process. Indian PME lacks every single one of these dimensions. 

A key point to note about the development and application of knowledge in the military context is it is generally considered an “art” rather than a “science” because warfare is essentially a human and social activity. Some debate on the issue notwithstanding, the overwhelming consensus is that the analytical tools and assumptions for theory-building in the military setting should be derived from the social rather than the natural sciences. As a military professional, the quality of abstract and theoretical analysis will increasingly underpin the utility and value of the armed forces to its clients (government and society). And here PME in India continues to lag behind. This needs to be rectified if India wants to produce officers who are capable of operating in a complex security environment. 

*** The Evolving Scourge of Global Terrorism: Avoiding a Multi-City Mumbai

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-evolving-scourge-global-terrorism-avoiding-multi-city-17369?page=show

Jeff Becker

August 16, 2016 

The global terrorist threat, already dangerous, is on the cusp of a rapid evolution. A recent report by the Joint Staff, describes a future featuring sharp, global, and violent ideological competition with transnational terrorist groups. Moreover, it describes a United States threatened by a range of violent ideological groups and even state sponsored Special Forces capable of both conducting sustained, coercive terrorist operations and actually building relatively advanced lethal weapons within the territory of the United States or its allies and partners.

Security measures after the September 11, 2001 attacks encouraged terrorist groups to develop a highly decentralized model of operating. This approach relies on social media activation of small cells and even “lone wolf” disaffected individuals. It relies on surprise, makeshift bombings like the Boston Marathon attack, vehicular attacks, or mass shootings by individual gunmen.

The Mumbai attacks of 2008 revealed how a small group of determined individuals could bring a megacity to a standstill. More recently, attacks in France, Turkey, Germany and the U.S. all show that even very low-tech attacks can kill dozens of people and, through press and social media, amplify the coercive power of committed, murderous ideological groups.

Just as we begin to understand and adapt to a particular threat, terrorists innovate. These operations will soon mutate and evolve in new and troubling directions – but in several very specific and foreseeable ways. This imminent – and rapid – evolution of terrorist tactics and operational approaches demands our attention.

The future terrorist threat – armed and operating within the U.S. itself may be capable of conducting operations to not only challenge U.S. power through disruption and violence, but also win as time goes on. More troubling, these technologies may improve the ability of very small groups to sustain lethal attacks over time without significant local popular support.

These new terrorist operations will be built on several rapidly evolving and proliferating technologies. Each increases the potential for the successful planning and execution of ongoing, multi-city terrorist campaigns – not unlike an urban insurgency by allowing them to communicate securely and build and use lethal force within the U.S. homeland.

Global Encrypted Battle Networks

The first of these important emerging technologies is the widespread commercial introduction of end-to-end encryption in messaging applications such as Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp. In an environment featuring vastly improved and widely available encryption techniques, adversaries may have a far greater ability to build private, hard to find, and secure communications networks. Moreover, these encryption technologies will enable a wide array of untraceable peer-to-peer financial transactions to allow these groups to move money where and when it is needed by its agents.

Contest on two fronts Balochistan and Kashmir have become key strategic points in Sino-Pak ties, upsetting India’s traditional engagement with the two countries.

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-balochistan-india-china-pakistan-policy-kashmir-2983747/ 

Written by C. Raja Mohan | Published:August 19, 2016

What’s up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies towards Pakistan and China? The initial hopes for a significant transformation in India’s two most difficult relationships, under Modi, have soured badly. Two years ago, Modi reached out to Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif and China’s Xi Jinping. He had invited Sharif to the inauguration of his administration in May 2014. And, in an effort to regenerate momentum in the bilateral relationship, when it had stalled over Kashmir and terrorism, Modi landed at Sharif’s residence near Lahore at short notice, last December. In September 2014, Modi walked with Xi on the banks of the Sabarmati and pushed hard against Delhi’s reluctant bureaucracy to promote economic relations with Beijing. 

Yet, Pakistan seems unwilling to reciprocate the PM’s goodwill and China is reluctant to accommodate India’s core interests. If Modi took political risks to advance ties with Pakistan and China, two years ago, he may now be moving the other way to secure India’s interests. Modi’s call to expose Pakistan’s atrocities in Balochistan, his public arguments with China on India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and and Delhi’s opposition to China’s economic corridor in Pakistan appear to be part of a shifting strategy towards Islamabad and Beijing. This change is rooted in the recognition that you can’t clap with one hand. Modi’s bet on a positive transformation of ties with Pakistan and China had inevitably run into the structural problems that beset India’s engagement with both the countries. These problems come together in Kashmir and Balochistan. 

China, which occupies swathes of territory in Jammu and Kashmir that India claims, has ended its past neutrality in Delhi’s disputes with Islamabad over the province. The China-Pakistan Economic corridor runs through Gilgit Baltistan and connects with the sea in Balochistan. The prospect of a Chinese military base in Balochistan links India’s problems with Beijing in the Himalayas with the challenge of PLA’s rising maritime profile in the Indian Ocean. Throw in a fresh bout of turmoil in Srinagar into the mix, you have the explosive cocktail that is blowing up the traditional frameworks of India’s engagement with Pakistan and China. 

*** India draws clear red lines for Pakistan, 5-point agenda for talks

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/pm-narendra-modi-balochistan-india-pakistan-talks-kashmir-masood-azhar-hafiz-saeed-dawood-ibrahim-2984215/ 

End incitement in J&K, stop sheltering Dawood Ibrahim, prosecute Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed, discuss vacation of PoK, said Foreign Secy. 

Written by Shubhajit Roy | New Delhi | Published:August 19, 2016

hese red lines form part of Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar’s letter to his Pakistan counterpart Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhary. 

Hardening its stance on resuming dialogue with Pakistan, India Thursday announced it had set a five-point agenda for talks on terrorism in a letter submitted a day earlier by Indian envoy Gautam Bambawale to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry. 

New Delhi asked Islamabad to end incitement to violence and terrorism from Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, stop cross-border terrorism, detain and prosecute terrorists like Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed, deny a safe haven to fugitives like Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and close terror camps where terrorists like Bahadur Ali have been trained. 

India also proposed discussing “vacation of Pakistan’s illegal occupation of J&K” — a reference to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir — and sought a briefing from the Pakistan Foreign Secretary on the progress in the 26/11 trial in Pakistan and its probe into the Pathankot airbase attack. 

These red lines form part of Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar’s letter to his Pakistan counterpart Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhary. 

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry, which did not offer any comment on the letter, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi crossed the “red line” by talking about Balochistan and said it will “forcefully” raise the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly session next month. 

According to a PTI report from Islamabad, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria, referring to Modi’s remarks on Balochistan and PoK in his Independence Day speech, said: “It is the violation of the UN Charter… He (Modi) crossed the red line by talking about Balochistan.” 

In his letter, Jaishankar recalled “Pakistan’s long history of violence and terrorism against India” — from 1947 to the 1965 war and the Kargil war. He reminded Pakistan of the past commitments of its leaders and of not allowing Pakistani soil to be used for anti-India activities by terrorists. 

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said Jaishankar had conveyed he was accepting his counterpart’s invitation to visit Islamabad but discussions should focus first on the “more pressing aspects” of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. 

Which is the most profitable retail chain in India?

http://www.rediff.com/business/report/which-is-the-most-profitable-retail-chain-in-india/20160817.htm

August 17, 2016 

CSD was created to provide easy access to quality products of daily use, at prices less than market rates to the soldiers, ex-servicemen and their families

Is it D'Mart, Kishore Biyani promoted the Future Retail or Mukesh Ambani promoted Reliance Retail? The answer is a resounding no.

According to a report published in The Economic Times, the Canteen Stores Department, a not-for-profit organisation under the defence ministry, earned Rs 236 crore (Rs 2.36 billion) during FY14-15, which is far more than D'Mart's Rs 211 crore (Rs 2.11 billion), Future Retail's Rs 153 crore (Rs 1.53 billion) and Reliance Retail's Rs 159 crore (Rs 1.59 billion).

The ET report further adds that in terms of sales, too, CSD fared well. With a revenue of Rs 13,709 crore (Rs 137.09 billion) it trailed only Future Group and Reliance Retail.

The defence canteen stores sell more than 5,000 items ranging from toiletries to liquor to food and medicinal items to cars and two-wheelers.

Started in 1948, CSD boasts of over 12 million customers comprising personnel of the army, navy and air force, ex-servicemen and their families.

The report further points out that it is the biggest customer across South Asia for Hindustan Unilever, India's largest FMCG company, and United Spirits Ltd.

*** Crimea: Russia's Little Pawn

 AUGUST 16, 2016 |  

Unmarked Russian military equipment and troops moved into Crimea as the peninsula's leaders sought to join Russia in early 2014. After annexation, Russia continued to move its forces into the region. (VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty Images)

Summary

The escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine has apparently abated for now. The situation was fraught after Russia claimed that on Aug. 6 Ukrainian saboteurs made an incursion into Crimea. But on Aug. 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for calm in the region, and Ukrainian security officials have acknowledged a decline in Russian troop movements in Crimea in recent days. Nevertheless, taking stock of the political, economic and security evolution of Crimea is important to gauge the likelihood of another spike in tensions.

Analysis

Since the Euromaidan uprising in February 2014, Crimea has played an important role in the standoff between Moscow and the West over Ukraine. The peninsula, populated largely by ethnic Russians and long home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, was the site of the initial Russian reaction to the events in Kiev. Shortly after the ouster of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, unmarked Russian soldiers known as "little green men" took over key air and road facilities in Crimea. Crimean officials expressed a desire to join Russia, and a referendum on the question was organized the next month. After a vote of more than 95 percent in favor (a result disputed by Western observers), Russia formally annexed Crimea on March 18, 2014.

An Equal and Opposite Reaction

Ukraine and its Western backers still hotly contest the annexation, but it went virtually unchallenged by the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian troops who were on the peninsula before the annexation either defected to the Russian military or returned to Ukraine. And though the near-unanimous results of the referendum raised suspicions in the West, the reality is that most of Crimea's inhabitants wanted to become part of Russia. Crimea has traditionally been the most pro-Russian part of Ukraine, and many on the peninsula viewed Yanukovich's ouster as a coup orchestrated and supported by Western powers.

Crimea's turn toward Russia could therefore be seen as a logical counterpoint to Ukraine's turn to the West. Although the Anti-Maidan rebellion quickly spread from Crimea to the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine that have historically been oriented toward Russia, the movement gained a real foothold only in the breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, where pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian security forces are still battling. And though the conflict in eastern Ukraine has been the subject of regular negotiations in Minsk among Moscow, Kiev and the West, Russia has made it clear that Crimea's political and security status is not up for discussion.

*** A New Plan: Using Complexity In the Modern World

 

http://www.thestrategybridge.com/the-bridge/2016/8/16/a-new-plan-using-complexity-in-the-modern-world

Craig Beutel

August 16, 2016

Eisenhower’s sentiment that “in preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”[1] is remarkably similar to that of Von Moltke the Elder that “no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.”[2] If this was true in the 19th and 20th centuries, surely it is worth reflecting on in contemporary times, especially when we consider the importance placed on planning processes within our defense institutions.

In an earlier article, I argued that due to the fissures within the strategic environment Australia and other western democracies needed to adopt a political warfare approach to achieve their desired political objectives. My remedies focused on implementing institutional, structural, and cultural proposals at the so-called strategic level. I called for a “strategy of long term sustainable warfare through integrating government’s capabilities into a wider strategy rather than focusing on war itself.”

But if we need to incorporate other elements of national power into our strategic approach, we might need to review how we design military plans. Or at least, we need to redesign planning tools and processes for integrating military operations into broader national efforts. Few tools exist for coordinating elements of national power; in fact, it is usually the military who has the only complex planning capacity within government. This makes it more appealing for governments to look at military processes with some level of confidence. Militaries prepare for operations through the application of operational art, "linking resources (means) and tactical actions (ways) to the attainment of national and military strategic end states and objectives (ends), while taking into account possible costs (risk)."[3]

The modern way of applying this art is through operational design—a schematic that represents the commander’s method of prosecuting a campaign. "Operational design must help the commander provide enough structure to an ill-structured problem so that planning can lead to effective action toward strategic objectives."[4]

Australian doctrine notes that military operations have always been structurally complex, made up of a system of many parts interacting in a predictable and usually linear way.[5] But contemporary military operations are also interactively complex, made up of many parts interacting with the environment in many possible ways and changing their form significantly over time. Often called complex adaptive systems, they are difficult to predict, and effects of actions cannot be taken for granted. But the 'directing staff' solution to resolving the interactive complexity is to deal with these as a traditional structural problem.

How Kautilya’s Arthashastra Shaped The Telling Of Ancient Indian History

http://swarajyamag.com/culture/how-kautilyas-arthashastra-shaped-the-telling-of-ancient-indian-historySumedha Verma Ojha - August 19, 2016, 

The Arthashastra gave in-depth examinations on matters such as history, economics, politics, management, among many other subjects.

It has often been cited as an important source for understanding Mauryan times.

Beyond the controversy of the date and time of the Arthashastra, it can be read simply for its sheer brilliance in the area of statecraft and economics.

The Arthashastra is so much a part of modern Indian vocabulary on politics, economics and society that it is hard to imagine that this was a book unknown to the English-speaking world until an old manuscript was discovered in 1904. It was translated and presented to the world by R. Shamasastry of the Mysore Oriental Research Institute in Sanskrit, in 1909, and in English in 1915.

It created a storm for all the wrong orientalist reasons— similar to the upheaval caused by the discovery of remains in Harappa and Mohenjodaro. In that case, history was known to have begun with Alexander’s arrival in India. So what was to be made of the spectacular ruins on the banks of the Indus and lost Saraswati, dating to millennia before 323 BCE? Similarly, to find an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft and economics upset the ideas of the rulers about the uncivilised and unsophisticated nature of the colonised Hindus.

Since then, the Arthashastra has enjoyed a revival of sorts with its precepts being used and quoted in books on history, economics, politics, management, religion, spirituality and any other subject on which books are written in English. A cursory search of the internet will throw up pages of purported quotes from Chanakya, many of them being untrustworthy.

What Exactly Is The Arthashastra?

It is a treatise on artha written about 2,300 years ago and attributed to a person named Kautilya. It consists of 15 adhikaranas or books, mainly in prose, with 380 shlokasoccurring at the end of the various chapters. The first sutra contains the statement that the Arthashastra was composed by bringing together all treatises on this subject written by earlier authors. It is, therefore, a compilation.

It can be thought of as an encyclopaedia of information on the ancient Indian world, the subjects ranging from kings to spies and ministers, from cotton to spices and pearls, from inheritance to divorce and municipal law, foreign relations to forts and cities, magic incantations to justice and political administration.

It has most immediately been associated with the Mauryas. Lengend has it that Kautilya or Chanakya, a pundit, was humiliated by the Nandas and took an oath to extirpate them. He sees the qualities of kingship in a young goatherd, adopts and brings him up to be a warrior and a statesman and then, when the young boy reaches adulthood, the two of them together establish Mauryan rule over Jambudwipa. The young boy was, of course, Chandragupta Maurya.

Legend also has it that he explored the science of the Arthashastra to make it a weapon against the Nandas and wrote it during the long years before he finally overthrew the Nandas with Chandragupta, and the nucleus of an army collected from Swat. Interestingly, the Sanskrit play Mudrarakshasa by Vishakhadatta (fourth century CE), which tells the story of Chandragupta’s accession to the throne, describes events which could be straight out of the Arthashastra playbook of defeating enemies— if we indeed accept it as a historical play based on Mauryan times.

Along with the Indika and the inscriptions of Ashoka, the Arthashastra has often been cited as an important source for understanding Mauryan times. As is often the case with ancient Indian history, which is a battleground for different ideologies and persuasions, the date and authorship of the Arthashastra is also the subject of many controversies. Who was it written by and when? Does it describe Mauryan times or not? What kind of society is it set in?

Answers for these questions range across a spectrum with the date of the Arthashastra being posited from as early as 600 BCE to as late as the fourth century CE, and the book being attributed to a person named Kautilya, or someone else, or to multiple others. A useful way to look at this is in the words of the 17th century German Indologist, H. Jacobi:

Without weighty grounds, one must not push aside the unanimous Indian tradition; else one practises scepticism not criticism.

Government Interventions Will Turn Smart Cities Into A Rozgar Yojana For Urban Planners

http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/government-interventions-will-turn-smart-cities-into-a-rozgar-yojana-for-urban-planners

Shreyas Bharadwaj - August 18, 2016,

Developing infrastructure isn’t enough to attract talented people to a city and, thus, make it smart. 

The presence of talented people is necessary and that takes time, economic freedom and the existence of social institutions.

A few years ago, the United Arab Emirates started building a new city from scratch— Masdar City. A few readers might have even seen a documentary about it on the television, extolling its fantastic infrastructure and superb planning. It ticks all the right boxes too— “great vision”, “sustainable”, “well-planned”, “smart city”, “impressive use of technology” and more.

One might start thinking about Prime Minister Modi’s “Smart City Mission” in India, possibly giving you people an “out” from the city they currently live in. It turns out that Masdar City is on the verge of becoming a ghost city with only about 300 inhabitants— students will be paid to live there. 

Masdar City and many similar smart city failures reveal something very fascinating. Despite all our cribbing about pathetic urban infrastructure, there is something about cities which we value even more. That something is “other people”. Urban infrastructure has only one major purpose— to increase the ease and safety with which we can interact with other people. 

Developing infrastructure isn’t enough to attract talented people to a city and, thus, make it smart. The presence of talented people is necessary and that takes time, economic freedom and the existence of social institutions. 

Coming back to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s focus on Urban India is a remarkable departure from the previous government’s agrarian povertarianism. A few months ago, while launching many projects in cities all over India from Pune, the Prime Minister remarked that the days when urbanisation was seen as a problem are over, and it is now seen as an opportunity. He also spoke about how cities are not only growth centres but also centres for mitigating poverty. This is good news. The better news is the fact that the mission does not aim at building brand new cities.