Foreign Policy Blogs

The headquarters of the DGSE, one of France’s numerous intelligence agencies, is known as “the swimming pool.” Intelligence will play a central role in efforts to combat terrorism. (Photo: franceculture.fr)

Whenever something unexpected happens, the airwaves immediately fill with the sound of pundits calling for the President to scrap whatever it is the government has been doing that is tangentially related, and start over again with something else. Thus, the recent terrorist attacks in Paris were met with assertions that Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was not working and had to be changed. This, however, is not the right way to look at it. I think it is more accurate to say that the president’s strategy has been working in Iraq and Syria, but ISIS is now reacting to the setbacks in innovative ways.

In 2014 ISIS spread across eastern Syria and western Iraq in a rapid, sudden, and unexpected way. The advance left such a strong impression that some people seem to think that it is continuing. Yet, at this point, ISIS has largely been brought to a halt. Moreover, it has been losing territory.

According to the Pentagon, as of April 2015, ISIS “can no longer operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.” (This calculation, presumably, leaves out the extensive empty desert areas that fall within ISIS’s borders.) The road between Raqqa and Mosul has been cut. Thousands of fighters have been killed. The Iraqi army has not been vigorous in its attempts to retake the most recent ISIS acquisition, the city of Ramadi (and in some cases may actually be happy to see the Sunnis kept outside of Baghdad’s jurisdiction and elections), but even there ISIS is physically surrounded and isolated.

War, however, is a highly interactive enterprise. Rather than simply taking its hits on the ground, ISIS has responded by shifting part of the fight to a different theater—one that features a different balance of advantages and disadvantages. As I have noted before, ISIS does not have a tradition of terrorist attacks against distant targets. This was a point of dispute between al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and the founder of ISIS’ predecessor organizations, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Both sought ultimately to depose the (un-Islamic or insufficiently Islamic) regimes of the Middle East (the near enemy). Bin Laden, however, saw these regimes as sustained by the West (the far enemy) and therefore directed his attacks at the West to induce Western countries to drop their support. Al-Zarqawi attacked Middle Eastern regimes directly or sought to incite civil conflicts within these countries as a way to increase local support for his cause. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, by bringing the far enemy near, led to a temporary alignment between the two, and to Zarqawi’s founding of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In recent weeks, however, ISIS and its affiliates have engaged in an unprecedented series of attacks at distant targets.* Although some of the details have yet to be confirmed, these acts include suicide bombings at a Kurdish peace rally in Ankara, Turkey; the destruction of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; suicide bombings in a Shiite neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon; and most recently, the  attacks against random civilians by three coordinated teams of gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris. Unable to prevail against technically advanced forces on the battlefield, ISIS is shifting the battle to a place where it is in a better position to inflict costs directly on those countries that have taken up arms against it.

It is highly unlikely that the leaders of ISIS have ever read the works of Thomas Schelling, but these actions can be interpreted in terms of his notion of coercive threats, which include both deterrence and compellence.** Schelling, who played a large role in the development of deterrence theory, was the originator of the notion of compellence. The basic concept, deterrence, uses threats of retaliation to induce an adversary not to engage in some behavior that you want to prevent (e.g., Don’t attack me!). The derivative concept, compellence, is the use of threats or actual violence to compel an adversary to stop or change some behavior that is already under way (e.g., Stop attacking me!). Schelling reasoned that compellence would be the more difficult of the two inasmuch as it required a change in the status quo rather than the maintenance of the status quo. Both, however, entailed the manipulation of the adversary’s perceived costs and benefits so as to convince the adversary of the wisdom of avoiding, or ceasing, the undesired behavior.

Thus the recent attacks most likely represent a further round in the “natural” escalation of the sectarian war in Iraq and Syria—one carried out in the spirit of compellence. The expanding war on the ground has drawn in a number of outside powers who are concerned about the balance of power in the Middle East and eager to prevent an ISIS victory. These interventionists supply their preferred local factions, directly participate in ground combat, or in the case of the Western powers, bomb ISIS positions from the air.

Unable to defeat modern air forces, ISIS is raising the costs of intervention by attacking their homelands and killing their citizens, hoping to undermine their willingness to remain engaged in a distant fight in a foreign land. In the Vietnam War, the United States similarly used bombing in an attempt to raise the costs of war to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, in the hope that they would recalculate their relative costs and benefits, pack their bags, and go home. Unfortunately for the strategy in that instance, the Vietnamese were already home and it was the United States that packed its bags. Compared with that, ISIS’s use of compellence is far more logical.

ISIS runs the risk, of course, of eliciting a backlash in the form of even more intense bombing. Deterrence theory suggests an additional response. The Western powers should strive for “escalation dominance.”*** ISIS is seeking to fight on a battlefield of its choosing, one where the circumstances favor it over its adversaries. Its adversaries will have to make sure that no such battlefield exists. That does not necessarily mean changing strategy in Iraq and Syria (although one may choose to adjust it for other reasons). It means creating the capacity to defeat ISIS at other levels—thus removing the incentive to escalate—while the fight in Iraq and Syria continues.

Since the nature of the fight differs, the means will have to differ as well. Stealthy terrorist attacks against soft civilian targets in home cities cannot be combatted with battalions or fighter jets. It calls for police action, surveillance of suspected terrorists, cutting communications and travel links between ISIS headquarters and its operatives abroad, countering ISIS ideology and recruitment efforts, and improving relations between Muslim communities in the West and their host societies.

This approach will not satisfy those seeking a quick and easy answer. Unfortunately, quick and easy answers have a tendency to make things worse.

*For this argument’s sake, we shall assume that these actions have been directed by a central ISIS command and are not simply the products of inspiration or loosely networked organizations.

**The noun normally associated with the verb “compel” is compulsion, but Schelling was not happy with all of that word’s existing connotations, so he invented a new word.

***Herman Kahn developed this notion with reference to escalation among finely measured gradations of nuclear war. In my opinion, the expectation of controlling nuclear war with such precision is unrealistic. In the present context, however, the idea might be more useful.

via Flickr’ user mg-muscapix

While the U.S. is inching closer to pre-crisis unemployment and GDP growth figures, the picture across the pond is much, much darker. The Eurozone, once the darling of economists and businessmen everywhere, is unable to wiggle its way out of a quagmire of depressed investments, contracting exports, low employment and external shocks. The third-quarter growth figures, released on November 13, were underwhelming and fell beneath the expectations of analysts, further dispelling the hopeful notion that 2015 will be the year the Euro will boom. Instead of a predicted 0.4% growth, the 19 members of the currency bloc clocked in at 0.3% as Germany slowed, Portugal caved and Finland out-shrank even debt-laden Greece.

While a full, sector-by-sector breakdown of the economic contributions of every member state will be released in December, Barclays estimates that “domestic demand, and in particular private consumption, was once again the main contributor to GDP growth”. However, saying that consumption was responsible for keeping the Euro area in the green isn’t an epiphany—what is, however, is the extent to which exports slowed and imports rose. If historically net trade served as the engine of growth for the Euro economy as a whole (especially for export-dependent Germany), pundits, faced with a slump in emerging markets, anticipate consumption to become the dominant force in European growth. Indeed, consumption can be held responsible for the strong performance of the Euro area’s industrial production, which rose by 1.9% in the three months to September.

With unemployment refusing to budge downwards from its 11% summit, inflation barely registering at 0.1%, the onus is now on the ECB to accelerate its stimulus program ahead of a key meeting in December.

However, it’s not just global market trends that are responsible for the Eurozone’s flagging exports. In certain sectors, it is European policy itself that is to blame. Take the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector, seen as the backbone of the European economy. Unlike their American counterparts, EU SMEs are ill-fitted to secure financing, partly because the EU lacks a capital markets union, but also because EU funds are slowly trickling down and not across all sectors. For example, even if the European start-up economy benefits from a talented pool of STEM graduates that surpasses the U.S.’, the lack of collaboration between tech hubs and dependency on outside funding has meant that almost no innovative products have come from Europe. While the U.S. raised financing totaling some $39 billion in the first three quarters of 2015, the EU lagged far behind with $7.43 billion. Venture capital is so fragmented and caught up in red tape that European startups have to turn to the U.S. to secure funding, leading a CEO to exclaim: “How come we can’t get funding right in Europe?”

And it’s not just access to financing: sometimes competing European interests collide, dealing blows to European competitiveness and growth. Even if more than 600,000 EU SMEs are part of the export ecosystem, generating over a third of EU exports and employing more than six million people throughout the continent, their capacity to grow has in some respects been curtailed by poorly tailored policies. According to industry sources, adapting to regulations is a topic of growing concern, consistently ranking in the three most pressing problems faced by SMEs across the European Union.

A vivid example concerns the lowly aluminum foil sector, where an over-eager trade policy has led to significant job losses that eventually put at risk the viability of the entire sector. The European Commission placed anti-dumping tariffs upon aluminum foil imported from China, Brazil and Armenia back in 2009, ostensibly in a bid to protect businesses in the EU from the typically unfair trade practice of selling goods or commodities at a rate far below the ordinary market value. A similar action is now on the table for Russian exports. But with 80% of the production costs for the European SMEs rewinding foil into supermarket rolls, cutting off the source of raw materials can only bode ill on the industry as a whole. In safeguarding this principle, thousands of workers spread across several dozen EU SMEs involved in the chopping down of the so-called “jumbo rolls” into the household items used in kitchens everywhere are now at risk of losing their jobs, posing a threat to the European aluminum rewinder industry as a whole.

Therefore, the European economy is sputtering not just because the Chinese economy is in for a rough landing, nor because of growing political uncertainties attributable to rising Eurosceptic feelings—that would be an over simplistic analysis of the structural risks underpinning the much-expected and twice delayed European recovery. The truth is that the European economy is getting harder and harder to manage and understand by Brussels. The sad cliché that makes EU specialists chuckle is still relevant—there is no such thing as a silver bullet that can restart EU growth, what is needed is a coordinated institutional response.

Presidents Milosevic, Tudjman, and Izetbegovic formalize in Paris the Dayton Accords initialed weeks earlier, Wikimedia, http://bit.ly/1NZD6TG

The 20th anniversary of the Dayton Accords (November 21, 1995) is much in the news. A conference this week at the University of Dayton includes President Bill Clinton and several principles from the negotiations. HBO’s documentary, The Diplomat, explores Dayton’s chief negotiator, Richard Holbrooke. Continuing trouble in divided societies like Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere illustrates how significant was the Dayton agreement that ended the war in Yugoslavia. But many questions remain.

A wide range of analysts are reassessing Dayton. The U.S. Institute of Peace was ahead of the curve, with a conference in 2014. More recently, Stratfor described the risk of declining EU influence in Bosnia, and the risk of renewed violence. The Weekly Standard offered a withering analysis of the agreement, cementing ethnic divisions as political divisions (three presidents, three police forces, etc.), discriminating against other minorities, and creating an EU colonial master—all of which resulted in a stagnant and unreformed economy. Two scholars in The Washington Post described Dayton as a terrible model for understanding Syria—misunderstanding (as they said Dayton did) the causes of the war and the solutions. An article in Foreign Policy asked straight out: Is war about to break out in the Balkans?

Based on my recent travels in Serbia and Bosnia, it seems clear that the relationships inside Bosnia and between Bosnia and Serbia remain strained, at best. Competing narratives over history, that now includes the 1990s and the subsequent peace, continue. And the role of Islam itself remains a seemingly minor, but not fully understood, factor.

Young Serbs feel judged, and misjudged, as the perpetrators of genocide rather than as one side of a complicated story, or even as victims. This summer’s commemorations of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica were a continuation of a Western narrative, they say, that forgets or deliberately obscures atrocities on all sides, and that overstates an admittedly terrible war crime as genocide. They recognize that their path to Europe, that is, membership in the EU, has been delayed for a variety of reasons but not least of all because of these prejudices against them.

In Bosnia, meanwhile, the divided government contributes to an anemic economy, with an unemployment rate of 60% for young people. Bosnian Serbs have special access to Serbia, including Serbian passports, and therefore a possible future route into the EU economy. Bosnian Croats can get Croatian passports, making them essentially already members of the EU. Bosniaks, whom we called in the 1990s Bosnian Muslims, are being pulled in competing directions by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The number of Bosniaks attracted to ISIS or other jihadi groups remains limited, but not zero.

A farmer in Bugojno, Bosnia, http://govt396.com/2014/10/19/back-to-bosnia-gallery-1/

A critical difference, however, seems to be the view of the future. The many young Serbs I met were embarrassed and frustrated by the indignities that their country still bears for its role in the war of the 1990s. And it has not forgotten the NATO bombing of their country in 1999—indeed, it leaves the partially-destroyed former Ministry of Defense building “as is” on a major thoroughfare. But the young Serbs were at least hopeful that membership in the EU, that golden ticket, was a possibility and indeed was nearing, however slowly.

The young people I met in Sarajevo—equally smart and ambitious and hardworking as their Belgrade peers—had no such hope. They knew that the political divisions within their country, many of which were driven by the same divisions that led to war in the 1990s and that were made permanent by the Dayton Accords, prevent any reasonable path to the EU, and even any reasonable working governance in their own country.  Two young women I talked with said they wanted to rebuild a multi-ethnic country, but that the economy, health care, and corruption compelled many of their friends to emigrate.  Bosnia’s most recent elections were decently run, but seemed to offer few solutions.

The danger for Bosnia, Europe, and all of us, is that this hopelessness will allow violence—ethnic or jihadi—to re-emerge. The task for the EU, for Bosnia’s benefit and for its own, is to help Bosnia find a new path forward.

Photo from the deleted Weibo posts, via Quartz

The coordinated series of bombings and shootings by the Islamic State (IS) on Friday the 13th which killed 129 people in Paris and 43 people in Beirut the day before, will have long-reaching repercussions on the domestic and foreign policies of many nations. Already, talk is growing of closing borders across Europe and 19 U.S. governors have indicated they will refuse any Syrians planning to seek refuge in their states. France reacted militarily by launching punitive airstrikes against IS in Syria on Sunday night, and the U.S. conducted airstrikes against IS and its oil smuggling network. Numerous raids on suspected Islamic terrorists were conducted across France and are also underway in Brussels.  

Over in China’s far western autonomous province of Xinjiang, the attacks in Paris and Beirut will probably result in a green light from Beijing for local officials to step up their crackdown against the Islamic militant threat.  Following the attacks, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly called for Xinjiang to become an “important part” of the world’s war on terror, calling for a “united front to combat terrorism.” Minister Wang was also reported saying, “China is also a victim of terrorism. The fight against the ‘East Turkestan Islamic Movement’… should become an important part of the international fight against terrorism.”

The momentum for increased counterinsurgency efforts in China is clearly building, and efforts to get the Chinese public on board, using propaganda, in the fight against terrorism will increase.  On the day following the Paris attacks, the state-owned People’s Daily ran an article (since removed) covering a counterinsurgency effort to combat terrorist militants in Xinjiang. The article was accompanied by several pictures of armed police in mountainous areas, some preparing to raid a rural home (as shown above).  

Xinjiang is the Chinese province which has witnessed the greatest number of terrorist actions, with hundreds killed, although recent attacks have spread across China to include Beijing, Kunming and Guangzhou. Beijing blames these attacks on Islamic terrorists, often pointing the finger at the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group it claims has links with al Qaeda.  

Beijing claims ETIM is fighting for an independent state called “East Turkestan,” or “Uyghuristan” modeled after neighboring Central Asian nations. Two “Eastern Turkestan Republics” survived between 1931-1934 and 1944-1949 before Mao Zedong took control and eventually conceded the title “Xinjiang Autonomous Region” in 1955, partly to win over Turkic speakers in the territory.  Beijing also asserts some 300 of Xinjiang’s ethnic Uighur population have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside IS.

Despite ETIM having been placed by the U.N. and Washington on a list of terror organizations in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, many foreign experts doubt the portrayal by Beijing of ETIM as a formidable force.  Rather, human rights organizations and the exile community argue the violence can be traced to the widespread resentment among Uighurs to strict controls on the practice of their religion and efforts to eradicate their culture.

These efforts have included the banning of veils for women, imposing restrictions on Uighur travel rights, banning students from fasting during Ramadan, restricting religious teaching for children, and putting limits on Uighur-language education. Analysts also point to widespread discrimination against Uighurs in hiring and other economic opportunities.  

Back in September 2014, China’s highest court, highest prosecution office and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued detailed instructions on dealing with terrorism and religious extremism.  The instructions urged court officials, prosecutors and police to distinguish between the illegal acts of religious extremists and ordinary religious activities, urging officials to avoid discriminating against any religion or ethnic minority, and to avoid interfering with citizens’ freedom to practice their religion.

In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, government officials in Xinjiang will be tempted to put aside these restraints on their policing, and any excessive actions against the Uighur population will likely be overlooked by Beijing.  The rhetoric coming from China’s top police chief, Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun, “to smash violent terrorism before it occurs,” sets a dangerous precedent.  Beijing is certainly justified in stepping up efforts to counter any real terrorist threats in the aftermath of the Paris and Beirut attacks, as many nations are doing.  Yet greater efforts will need to be undertaken to promote smarter policing in Xinjiang, as also advocated by Guo, lest the rights of the innocent be further infringed upon in the name of expediency.

Photos from The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq – CYCI has now made insulated warm jackets for men, women, and children after several of our liberations and spending time on the ground, our team realized that these individuals were not equipped for the cold temperatures.

A heated debate has emerged regarding the Syrian refugee crisis and security in Europe and the rest of the Western world. It was found that at least one of the Paris attackers was found to have come with a wave of refugees from Syria or another country outside of the EU in October 2015. With the mass migration of Syrians and other refugees to Europe, the monitoring and identifying of refugee claimants has been overwhelmed or simply ignored. The security risk was always present even before direct threats from terrorist groups, but with the latest attacks in Paris, there has to be accountability by governments to monitor who they allow into their countries.

After the recent attack, the two month old policy put forth by the new Canadian government to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees before Christmas 2015 was said to continue, despite new security concerns. Critics of the plan cite security reasons, referring to the incident in France as a realistic scenario. Additional concerns are the short time frame to monitor and register the refugees. Despite the fact that all the refugees to be taken are already located in safe countries, the commitment seems to give little benefit with many costs. Despite the new minister of Public Safety assuring Canadians that there will be no major security concerns, the approach the new government has taken seems to neglect some appropriate criticisms of the plan.

The acceptance of refugees should account for some factors that may have been ignored in the European example. Most, if not all of the refugees that are being accepted by European countries as well as the Canada 25,000 are already located in safe countries. While they are legally defined as refugees in those countries, the obligation for 3rd party countries to take in refugees from the host countries is not a matter of direct urgency. It would help Syria’s refugees if Western nations would take those directly from Syria who are in immediate danger. This does not mean that relieving Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon of the overwhelming amount of refugees is not a priority, but help should be given to those who are in immediate danger first.

Such groups inside or outside of Syria should be considered as those at greatest risk of threat, notably children, women, disabled and elderly people. Ethnic and religious minorities in the region that are the subject of repression by both sides of the conflict should be given special consideration as host countries may not treat them equally due to historical prejudices. Ethnic and religious minorities have their problems compounded as they may not have a safe place to go even if they are able to get out of Syria and Iraq. They are the ones who are directly affected by ISIS, and should be focused on if the refugee policy claimed by the EU and Western nations is one that claims to directly protect those refugees fleeing ISIS.

I have discussed the issue of the refugee crisis with friends from Syria, and tackling any issues there must consider the reality that there are thousands of different interest groups fighting to take over the government in Syria. Many of the refugees in Jordan came from escaping conflict with the government, and were in Jordan before ISIS became a major player in the conflict. The assumption that all refugees from Syria were created by fleeing from ISIS ignores the reality and factionalism that has fueled the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015.

As a touchstone of experience in the matter, I used to work defending the rights of refugee claimants in Canada directly, including many Syrians and Iraqis. During a normal period of refugee re-settlement, our efforts in Toronto, Canada with a normal level of staff found it difficult to keep up with the number of claimants at the time. To bring in 25,000 in a period of a month and a half in the middle of a Canadian winter is simply irresponsible. We also would never have an individual inserted into Canadian society without ensuring their identity. Rarely we would fail in this objective, as even in countries with conflicts taking place, there are always ways to find identity documents for individuals. In the event we could not prove their identity for release, they would remain in a detention facility until their identity documents were obtained, or they were sent to a hearing where the merits of their case and situation in their country of origin were measured.

It was well known that identifying someone was the only way to have them gain access to the general society, and it was a fair and responsible process that took time, skill and trained individuals to accomplish. This was, and should be the bare minimum a government owes to the people who elected them. While it is not a guarantee that such a process did not take place in France, nor could have stopped an attack, assuming responsibility for safety and security is an obligation no government should be allowed to disengage themselves from at any point for any reason. This is to the benefit of the general public, refugee claimants and those vulnerable groups that find they no longer have a place for a peaceful life in their traditional lands.

via Sites at Penn State.

Over a quarter of a century since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scars of central and eastern Europe’s post-communist legacy are still visible.

Lacking the institutional infrastructure and regulatory oversight, the collapse of communism in the USSR created a void across the former Soviet bloc. This void offered fertile ground for wealthy individuals and institutions to exploit the absence of effective regulatory oversight and plunder the countries’ resources.

This “rise of the oligarchs” in Russia itself is well documented, with the likes of oil-tycoon turned Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, and media tycoon Boris Berezovsky etched into the public’s minds. Less well known, however, is the similar exploitation that took place in central and eastern Europe and other former Soviet states, such as Romania and Bulgaria.

The lure of European Union membership and the introduction of reforms to ensure effective free-market oversight has done much to mitigate the rise and influence of oligarchs in Eastern Europe, but the media, unlike other sectors, has survived relatively unscathed from the reform agenda. The absence of effective media pluralism is still indicative across a number of central & eastern European countries.

In 2013, the European Parliament earmarked a budget for a pilot program to assess the risks to media pluralism in various member states. Responsibility for carrying out the ‘Media Pluralism Monitor’ (MPM) was subsequently awarded to the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF), which selected Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy and the UK as test cases for the pilot study.

The study explored a range of different aspects of the media, including the pluralism of media ownership and control and the level of political interference in the media market.When assessing regulatory safeguards for fair, balanced and impartial political reporting in television broadcast media, Bulgaria and Hungary were both deemed to be “high-risk.”When examining regulatory safeguards against high concentration of ownership or control in the media, Hungary was the only country to be deemed to be high-risk.Most concerning was the study’s assessment of editorial independence, where both Hungary and Italy were deemed to be at high risk of editorial interference.

A separate study by the Centre for Media Transparency (CMT), titled: “the men who bit the (watch) dogs”, looks specifically at media ownership in Romania. More detailed than the CMPF study, the CMT report explores some of the key individuals involved in shaping Romania’s media industry in the wake of the country’s independence from Russia.

Ronald Lauder, former US ambassador to Austria and son of the cosmetics tycoon Estée Lauder, is particularly notable. Quick to identify the significant opportunities presented by the nascent media industry in eastern Europe, in 1994 Lauder founded the Central Media Enterprise (CME). By 1997, the news and entertainment company owned TV stations in Slovenia, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine.

Today, CME has operations in six central and eastern European markets with 34 television channels broadcasting to approximately 50 million people. Often, to gain access to domestic markets, CME was required to engage with local representatives. Access to the Romanian market came via Adrian Sârbu, a former media affairs minister in Romania’s first post-communist government.

Both Lauder and Sârbu have subsequently become subject to intense criticism. Likened to eastern Europe’s answer to Rupert Murdoch, Lauder was associated with nefarious local business partners in Ukraine, whom the FBI and European law enforcement agencies suspected of having ties to Russian organized crime. These connections culminated with Lauder facing a lawsuit seeking $750 million in damages filed by rival broadcaster Perekhid Media Enterprises Ltd. Then, in February 2014, Sârbu was charged with tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement. Mired in scandal, Lauder resigned from the CME board in March 2014, while Sârbu sold his stake in the company later the same year. Time Warner subsequently bought pro TV.

In February this year, Sârbu was detained for 30 days after being charged with tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement. He has since been released while awaiting trial. Sârbu’s arrest has elevated him to the esteemed ranks of Romania’s other leading media tycoons: Dan Voiculescu, Sorin Ovidiu Vântu and Dinu Patriciu—all of whom are currently under criminal investigation.

Unfortunately, the story of the Romanian media industry’s development is not unique. Instead, it is indicative of a broader trend of both domestic and foreign capital exploiting the regulatory and institutional vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Alarmingly though, the European Union appears to be waking up only now to the implications this threat poses to the stability of the democratic process in these countries.

Despite the majority of the former eastern bloc joining the EU in 2004 (with Romania and Bulgaria joining three years later), it wasn’t until 2013 that the EU began allocating funding for the establishment of the Media Pluralism Monitor, which has yet to fully document and assess the degree of media plurality in the majority of former Eastern bloc members.

A free press is a core component to the effective functioning of any democratic country. If the EU is to continue to act as an institution committed to promoting democracy and freedom of expression throughout its member states then it must be more rigorous in assessing threats and challenges to these core values.

Supporters of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi brave the rain as they celebrate after hearing the first official results of the elections (AFP PHOTO / Nicolas ASFOURI).

Hello, FPA! This will be my first post here on the FPA blogs, and I am happy to make it on a topic of some importance: the elections in Myanmar. In what must stand out as one of the most astonishing political transformations of recent times, Myanmar has gone from being and isolated, semi-autarkic autocratic dictatorship to a rapidly democratizing society in less than five years. And Sunday’s elections, featuring former political prisoner and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, are the greatest testament yet to that transformation.

In this quick video, I take a look at some of the background, and the process of the election itself, within the context of the broader “Global Narratives” framework I apply to my ongoing global coverage.

I look forward to bringing more of my distinct brand of international analysis to the FPA! Comments and questions of course welcome!

NB – This video was shot and edited before the results of the election were formally announced. Another video soon will discuss the results.

If you are interested in more of my analysis, please check out my YouTube channel, Globalogues

Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (right) wave as they leave the Presidential Palace for the Headquarters of the Vietnam Communist Party for official talks in Hanoi on November 5, 2015. Photo: Hoang Dinh Nam/Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Vietnam this week, the first by a Chinese president in ten years, drew mixed reaction among the Vietnamese.  Beijing has come under criticism in recent months by Hanoi for its dredging of sand to create approximately 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) of land on submerged reefs in the South China Sea over the last 18 months.  China’s island building and other efforts to assert its control over the disputed South China Sea—in the face of competing claims from Vietnam, as well as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan—have resulted in Beijing coming under fire for perceived violations of international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and a declaration of conduct reached in 2002 by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations not only challenge China’s claims of sovereignty, they fear the militarization of these islands, as Chinese companies busy themselves constructing airstrips, radar systems and other potential military facilities on the reclaimed islands.  The Chinese now control two airstrips on Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef and are reportedly constructing a third airstrip on Mischief Reef, all of which belong to the Spratly island chain of the South China Sea.

While the international press focus on the paranoia of the U.S. and many Southeast Asian countries over China’s island-building and aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea, here in Vietnam the paranoia runs deeper. Prior to Xi’s visit, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang stated, “as Mr. Xi Jinping claims that the islands have belonged to China since ancient times, we would like to counter-argue that statement.  The Spratlys and Paracels have always belonged to Vietnam, and we have all historical and legal evidence to support our sovereignty.

Hanoi reacted angrily last month to news of a Chinese ceremony held to mark the completion of lighthouses constructed on Cuateron Reef and Johnson South Reef in the Spratly islands. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said the construction of lighthouses “seriously violates Vietnam’s sovereignty … complicates the situation and escalates tensions.” Beijing claims the lighthouses were constructed to assist all seafaring nations with navigation while Hanoi believes the construction of lighthouses is merely an attempt to assert sovereignty.

Hanoi has also disputed Beijing’s adoption of a national marine zoning plan, as reported by Chinese media on August 21.  The 380,000 square kilometers zone includes the disputed maritime territories of the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, and sets aside maritime zones for exploitation and development, while leaving aside some wholly-protected areas.  The prioritized zone for exploitation and development includes waters adjacent to the China’s Hainan Province and the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam.

Similarly, the paranoia over China’s claims of sovereignty have extended to the Vietnamese mainland.  According to recent issues of two English-language newspapers, Thanh Nien and Tuoi Tre, Chinese buyers are suspected of using locals to purchase prime waterfront properties in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang.  According to the municipal authorities in Da Nang, 13 coastal land plots appear to have been sold to local Vietnamese-run businesses—with mostly Chinese suspected of providing the cash. A new Vietnamese housing law came into effect July 1, prohibiting the purchase of land by foreigners, and allowing only the lease of apartments or houses for a 50-year period.

While some of the land apparently has been used to build seaside hotels and restaurants catering to Chinese tourists, others fear an alternative agenda. At a recent meeting among the city’s leaders, department director Nguyen Dieu warned that the purchase of land by foreigners, mostly Chinese, “poses huge risks” while the secretary of the city’s Party Committee, Tran Tho, called the land purchases “very dangerous.” Le Cao, a local attorney, warned “we have to remain cautious as foreign ownership of coastal land plots can affect the national defense and security.” Authorities in Da Nang are now looking into the purchases in an effort to trace the origin of the cash.

The central coastal city of Da Nang is particularly sensitive to Chinese investment—last December two construction projects were suspended, and yet another has been refused to be licensed as their locations were deemed sensitive areas in terms of national defense. One of the suspended projects in Da Nang was for the cultivation of vegetables, another project was to offer tours of coral reefs in glass-bottomed submarines, while a third project involved the construction of a wharf complex for cruise boats and paragliding. In each case, Vietnam’s Command of Military Zone 5 rejected the investments, citing potential threats to national defense and security.

Vietnamese authorities certainly have the right to uphold their own sovereignty on the undisputed mainland, although these hidden purchases probably have more to do with economic and monetary considerations rather than covert military planning. Rather, the rejection of Chinese investment can be better understood as a reflection upon the deeply-ingrained paranoia the Vietnamese feel when it comes to the Chinese.  Vietnamese paranoia has grown and morphed in the wake of centuries of living under the suzerainty of Chinese dynasties, the 1974 clash over the Paracel Islands, the brief and bloody invasion of 1979 (Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said he wanted to teach the Vietnamese “a lesson”), and finally, reflected in the angry protests of May 2014—triggered by the deployment of a Chinese oil rig into Vietnam’s economic exclusive zone.

While Chinese President Xi was welcomed to Hanoi on Thursday with a rare 21-gun salute and warm handshakes, outside the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi about 30 people protested briefly and a larger anti-China protest took place on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Despite the warm rhetoric between politicians, and the pledges of cooperation between Communist brothers, fear, paranoia and anger still linger.

A Libyan rebel in April 2011 with a complete SA-7 shoulder-fired missile system. Thousands of the antiaircraft missiles, an older Eastern Bloc model, are believed to be missing. Credit Chris Chivers/The New York Times

This week, A Russian Metrojet airliner Airbus A321 crashed after departing from Sharm El Sheikh on route to St. Petersburg. The Egyptian resort is a well-travelled destination in the Sinai Peninsula, but also has had occasional issues with terror attacks. The Sinai has been the source of much conflict between the Egyptian army and various radical groups. Victims of the crash were mostly Russian citizens, with victims also coming from Ukraine as well as Belarus.

The cause of the crash is not yet known, but witnesses claim that the airliner looked to have fire coming from one of the engines and saw the plane break up midair. It is unclear how reliable this information is, but on November 2nd officials made suggestions that it did not occur from technical or pilot error. Claims from some ISIS-affiliated groups that they brought down the airliner were refuted by the Russian and Egyptian governments, and the case has not been resolved with the cause of the accident remaining unknown. It was suggested that the airliner had been struck by an external object, but the information is not yet conclusive on what that object may have been.

Without a technical issue nor pilot error being the cause of the crash, attention has turned toward a possible external object hitting the plane. The object may have fallen off the plane itself or be a possible missile strike on the plane. Sabotage or an internal attack within the fuselage of the A321 may also have been possible, but to date no theory has proven to be conclusive.

If the fire on the engine did occur, it is unlikely that an internal combustion caused a fire outside of the fuselage of the airplane. Sabotage may be a possibility, but with ground crew claiming that the plane was ready to fly with no issues, further investigation would be needed to qualify that type of action. A bird may also have caused some damage, but it is unlikely it would cause an engine fire and the plane to break up, as engines are designed to process birds and other obstructions.

With Russia’s new role in Syria and terror activities taking place in Sinai, theories on how and why an airliner could have been brought down by a possible attack has become the front page story for many media outlets. There are claims by some experts that while anti-aircraft missiles may have played a role in a possible external strike, the type of missiles needed to hit the airliner over 20,000ft were not present in the Sinai or possessed by radical groups in the area. Systems like the Buk or Tor, or even older systems like the Kub were not present in the area nor their large missiles spotted on radar in the area.

Suggestions that the groups in the area may possess the shoulder launched SA-7 series of missiles or a Chinese variant of the missile may validate the claim of an attack, but the upgraded SA-18 MANPAD that are possibly in the area can only reach targets under 17,000ft, and the airliner was at around 26,000ft to 31,000ft at the time of the accident. The aircraft being hit by missiles, shells or bullets at lower altitude after take-off may be possible, but unlikely.

The dissolution of the security structure in Libya and Syria may have lead to many shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles like the SA-7, SA-14, SA-16, SA-18 and American Stinger coming into the hands of groups that may use such weapons against civilian targets. The effect of an anti-aircraft missile on the Malaysian airliners flight over Ukraine was horrific, but such advanced larger systems and missiles like the Buk-M1 are not easily hidden or transported. Small, portable missiles like the SA-18 are a danger to mostly lower flying aircraft, but could be used to bring down airliners in Egypt and other regions of the world. A concerted effort to collect and control such weapons should become a paramount issue for the international community.

Gearing up for the COP 21 via Flickr (user greensefa)

Former Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver is reported to have said something along the lines of—if you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem. Well, unbelievable as it may seem, a group of corporations, apparently at President Barack Obama’s behest, have taken upon themselves to be part of the solution to a problem they are widely seen as being very much a part of.  By signing on to the American Business Act of Climate pledge, they are agreeing to variety of green measures designed to slow climate change. Just in time for the Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris next month.

In the U.S., any discussion involving climate change tends to deteriorate into an argument between two factions—those who feel that climate change is a very real threat to the planet, and those who say it is nothing but a scare tactic. History shows that the former are labeled tree huggers and bleeding heart liberals, and the latter tend to be what’s generically called Big Business. However, both sides do agree on one thing—climate change conferences are, more often than not, a colossal waste of time.

With the announcement of the commitment of American business to fight climate change, the COP21 may just prove to be something more than an exercise in futility—if the participants are serious about this undertaking. So far, governments, keen to avoid a repeat of the disastrous Copenhagen conference, have largely toed the line of pledging to decrease CO2 emissions. Even China and Russia pitched in. On the private sector side however, Exxon Mobil and Chevron , two of the most controversial corporations, were conspicuously absent from the list of companies pledging to act. In fact, 63% of all carbon emissions between 1850 and 2010 were produced by just 90 companies involved in fossil fuels and cement—Exxon has single-handedly emitted 3.2% of historical carbon emissions.

Exxon has stated, in effect, that technology alone can handle the problem. A curious statement from a company that historically has denied that there was a problem of any sort, and worked hard to prove it. Evidently Exxon Mobil has known about the dangers of carbon emissions from the product they were producing since 1977, but has done nothing about it—except to deny, and work in conjunction with tobacco industry warriors in an attempt to cast doubt on the issue. Exxon’s reason for not signing the pledge? According to their CEO, they are not going to take the pledge because they don’t want to “fake it”. He may have a point. If this is to be nothing more than image building, why do it? However, as John Kerry pointed out, the onus rests on the oil and gas sector to encourage governments to adopt carbon limits and voluntarily curb emissions. But why would he single out specifically the O&G sector, when agriculture is just as polluting? Simple, because most economic activity depends on the way electricity is produced. It’s pointless to buy a Tesla if the electricity powering it comes from coal burning.

Consider aluminum production. Ubiquitous aluminum—from beverage containers to the vehicles we drive, it is a large part of our everyday life. Regarded as more eco-friendly than steel, the problem arises when we note that production requires substantially more electricity. However, depending on where in the world it is being produced, this can be a non-issue. According to a recent AluWatch study, producing one ton of aluminum emits 16,5 tons of greenhouse gases. However, those numbers are set to drop if the private and public sector join hands to invest in building renewable energy sources. China, the world’s number one producer of aluminum relies almost entirely on coal to fire up its smelters, while Norway, Iceland and Russia use hydroelectricity, a much greener way of generating power.

Energy companies would do well to study the supply chain behind aluminum production, and develop a similar strategy—in concert with government—working to find a means to shift a good portion of production of oil to the much cleaner natural gas or by  ‘going green’, meaning investing in solar, wind or biomass. Should Obama’s newfound corporate friends start a trend, legislators and consumers could very well compel other companies to follow suit.  Something for COP21 attendees to consider.

Is the pledge the beginning of something of substance? It is far too early to say, but in order to force industry to toe the line it may be necessary to hit them where it hurts – their bottom lines. Carbon taxes and measurable yardsticks with punitive penalties for failure to meet targets should stay on the table. Admittedly, it is difficult to impose anything resembling a punitive financial penalty on a corporation that can easily buy its way out of any problem. Obama’s pledge falls short of this by allowing participants to set their own benchmarks on their own timetable. It is simply a promise to do better in the future. But it is a start.

Or rather, another start – we have witnessed a multitude of efforts in the past – and we would like to think that COP21 will deliver the best possible agreement.

 The USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer. Photograph: John Hageman/U.S. navy via The New York Times

Tuesday’s voyage of the guided-missile naval destroyer USS Lassen through waters claimed by China in the South China Sea had the potential to escalate an already tense situation.  Despite being perfectly legal— international maritime law allows “innocent passage” of warships through territorial seas without notification—Beijing responded with the deployment of its own guided-missile destroyer, the Lanzhou, and its naval patrol ship Taizhou to issue warnings and shadow the U.S. destroyer.  Fortunately, cool heads prevailed, and the American destroyer sailed without incident within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit China has declared surrounding one of its artificial islands.  

The artificial islands, located in the hotly disputed Spratly island chain, were previously submerged reefs during high tide, and turned into islands after significant dredging efforts by the Chinese.  Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed by China, nations have no claim to 12-nautical mile limits around man-made islands built on previously submerged reefs.  The Spratly island territory is disputed among Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam—all of which, except Brunei, occupy some of the maritime features.  

Tuesday’s mission by the U.S. Navy was ostensibly a routine exercise in freedom of navigation.  White House spokesman Josh Earnest referred to “billions of dollars of commerce that float through that region of the world,” adding, “Ensuring that free flow of commerce … is critical to the global economy.”

Yet while the naval maneuver was an exercise in freedom of navigation, it was also understood in many quarters to be a direct challenge to Beijing’s claims of sovereignty, following last month’s declaration by Beijing that it would “never allow any country” to violate its territorial waters and airspace in the Spratlys.  The U.S. mission had been expected, following Washington’s discussion of its proposal with other claimants to the waters.  

Not only was Tuesday’s mission widely foreshadowed, but it followed similar actions by the U.S. to counter Beijing’s claims to the waters and air of the East and South China Seas.  Back in May, a U.S. P8-A Poseidon surveillance aircraft flew near the artificial islands (but outside the 12-mile limit) with a television crew aboard from CNN.  And in 2013, two U.S. B-52 bombers flew through an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea—newly-established by China to cement its claims over territory contested with Japan.  The last time the U.S. challenged a 12-mile limit claimed by China was in 2012, also in the Spratlys.

As in the past, the reaction by Beijing to the latest challenge to its claims of sovereignty  was swift and pronounced, but largely targeted to a domestic audience. Lu Kang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the U.S. destroyer had “illegally entered” the waters near the islands “without receiving permission from the Chinese government.”  The state news agency, Xinhua, issued a warning, “Decision-makers in Washington need to be reminded that China has little room for compromise when it comes to matters regarding its sovereignty, and it will take whatever means at whatever cost to safeguard its sovereign interests.” The Chinese Embassy in Washington had earlier warned the United States should “refrain from saying or doing anything provocative and act responsibly in maintaining regional peace and stability,” arguing, “Freedom of navigation and overflight should not be used as excuse to flex muscle and undermine other countries’ sovereignty and security.”  

These comments and others, along with the shadowing of the U.S. destroyer, have clearly illuminated Beijing’s stance concerning the artificial islands. Beijing considers these new islands as Chinese territory de facto and will oppose all efforts to challenge that authority.  So far that opposition has been one of rhetoric to please the home crowd, and given the inefficiencies of the Chinese navy, should remain so as long as the U.S. maintains its strategic pivot to Asia, where 60% of the U.S. Navy’s assets are expected to be deployed by 2020.

Besides, any military action by China would be premature, given that its own military experts reckon their navy has another 30 years to go before being able to match the efficiency of the U.S. Navy.  And although the Pentagon figures China has more than 300 warships, submarines, amphibious ships and patrol boats compared to 200 among Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, the combined forces of the U.S. and its regional allies could easily neutralize any and all of its military bases in the South China Sea should push come to shove.

This past week’s freedom of navigation exercise went a long way in reassuring Washington’s allies in the region, and did not escalate due to Beijing being fully cognizant of the risks of a military response.  The sail-by exercise by the U.S. should be thought of as tantamount to a neighborhood foot patrol by police—not as a SWAT team crackdown like some Chinese netizens would seem to think.  Should the exercises continue, as expected in the coming weeks, Washington will again need careful planning and timing, coalition-building and advanced warnings (while maintaining a low-key approach), for its actions not to raise any geopolitical alarms.

Perhaps over time, these freedom of navigation exercises will become as newsworthy as the barely mentioned news of five Chinese naval vessels penetrating the 12-mile limit of the U.S.-owned Aleutian Islands off Alaska last month, during a visit by President Barack Obama.

via Wall Street Daily

In the last fifteen years, the United States has spent a total of between $4–6 trillion on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the while running up its national debt, and damaging its international prestige. The root cause of these foreign entanglements, and America’s costly position as Middle Eastern hegemon, stems directly from the perceived need, since the 20th century, for any great power to control oil-rich areas of the planet. Meanwhile China may be on its way to being a hybrid leader that can avoid this type of overseas adventurism as it tries to rapidly abandon fossil fuels and modernize its unstable neighbors’ economies.

Internally, despite the serious drawbacks of corruption, massive pollution and uneven social benefits, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) strategy of buying off political discontent at home with economic development has broadly worked since the first pro-market reforms were initiated back in 1978. By any reasonable measure of human timeframes it has succeeded. GDP per capita in China stood at approximately $12,000 per person in 2015, when adjusted by purchasing power parity. While this conceals big disparities between provinces—and China’s growth has slowed significantly recently, to ‘only’ 7.4% in 2014—the CCP is still China’s undisputed ruling party. While rates of growth may be the lowest since 1990, personal incomes in China’s nine coastal provinces and cities have now roughly caught up with developed countries.

But to achieve all this economic growth, and to satisfy the consumer demand that has come with it, the CCP has overseen a huge increase China’s energy consumption. Coal consumption from domestic and foreign sources like Mongolia used to generate electricity skyrocketed from 1,500 million tons in 2000 to 4,500 million in 2014. Meanwhile oil imports for its booming transportation sector turned China into a net importer of fossil fuels by the early 1990s. In 2009, the country became the world’s second largest importer of petroleum products. It became the largest global energy consumer in 2011, and then passed the United States as the largest net importer of petroleum at the end of 2013.

The major danger for China is that as its thirst for energy grows it risks getting dragged into the same poisonous political conflicts that have dogged America since it allowed itself to be drawn into the Middle East under the Carter doctrine, and later Central Asia. Already over half of China’s total oil imports came from the Middle East and the country is finding its firms responding to the same market incentives as previous customers did before them. The Chinese market’s central importance to competing Middle Eastern producers will also incentivize them to maintain or expand their current export levels to the People’s Republic. China’s oil consumption growth accounted for about 43% of the world’s oil consumption growth in 2014 and was projected to account for more than one-fourth of the global oil consumption growth in 2015.

Even as the various threats to that supply attract the worried gaze of Chinese diplomats and security chiefs, finding the energy supplies to meet consumer and industrial demand has forced the wary CCP to raise its profile overseas as Chinese oil companies have ventured into countries where the Chinese state has been compelled to follow. Admirers have noted its grand strategy as well as plans to invest in developing troubled states like Pakistan. The latest example of this has been China’s contribution of peacekeeping troops to South Sudan, a template for a foreign policy in service to a business-driven diplomatic strategy. China has also been active in seeking to calm tensions in Central Asia, where pipelines crossing the region linking China to local suppliers, as well as Russia’s Siberian gas fields, are being mooted.

However the Chinese are also arriving as a superpower when efforts to wean consumers and industry off fossil fuels are bearing some potentially interesting fruit. When America was becoming a superpower, oil was the strategic resource par excellence. China’s rise coincides with a much wider array of energy resources and power generating options, if her leaders choose to take advantage of them. Wary of entanglements abroad, and watching with increasing concern the price tag that fossil fuel economic development has brought with it at home, there is reason to believe that Beijing is hedging its bets with its future energy polices.

China has already elaborated on targets it struck with the U.S. in November 2014 to cut its greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65% from 2005 levels under a plan submitted to the United Nations ahead of the Paris climate change. China also said it would increase the share of non-fossil fuels as part of its primary energy consumption to about 20% by 2030. According to estimates by E3G, an environmental NGO, if successful this plan will see China install as much low-carbon energy as the whole of America’s electricity system capacity to date. A key test of its ability to meet these ambitious targets will be how effective its introduction of a national cap-and-trade system by 2017 is. Trials since 2013 have produced mixed results and even China’s authoritarian one party-state may struggle with the scale and complexity of the challenge.

While critics may be justified in voicing some skepticism towards a country with a track record for producing woefully inaccurate data, Beijing’s announcement stands in stark contrast to the political gridlock in the U.S. at the federal level over producing a national program for pricing carbon. There, fracking has driven a revival of the domestic U.S. oil industry and subsequently a lowering of the international market price as America’s Middle Eastern allies cut prices in response. Yet the U.S. remains militarily embedded in an unstable region, whose oil supplies it may no longer need to rely upon so heavily, and whose fossil fuel resources may be gradually on their way out in the coming decades. As rapidly developing renewable technologies provide the power to new devices designed to run off electric battery power, China seems to be the country with one eye on the future.

Economic modernization can go hand in hand with security—if Beijing moves away from a carbon-heavy model of energy generation and moves as far as possible towards meeting its energy needs from solar, wind and nuclear sources. Solar energy in particular is becoming a real affordable alternative for many (still) developing countries like China. Switching away from coal burning power plants to greener ways to generate power has long been a Chinese aim, as well as a stumbling block (with the Chinese version of the oil lobby leading the opposition). If it invests in green electricity now it can also be a key early beneficiary of a global move towards electric powered vehicles, which are already beginning to appear on the market. A decade or more long term project to map out and build a network of charging stations for electric cars and trucks would do a lot more good to boost China’s flagging economy then building more empty apartment blocks. It would also give China a valuable industry to export around the world.

By some measures China has already achieved the world’s largest economy and overtaken the U.S. as the world’s economic engine. Politically, it is far better placed to concentrate its resources and attention in the countries along its periphery whilst America spreads itself thinly, trying to pivot to Asia, contain Russia, and support its allies in Europe and the Middle East all at the same time. But the process of moving to a Sino-centric world order will take many decades and is not based on economic progress alone. A rising China still faces many internal and external challenges it must overcome before it can supplant the U.S. as the pre-eminent global power. Modern China’s leaders would continue to profit today if they managed to refrain from the type of aggressive foreign interventions that powers like France and Russia have lately joined the U.S. in making and spent more time thinking about how to charge and power their planes, ships, trains, cars and trucks with clean energy.

An earlier version of this article appeared here at Juan Cole’s Informed Comment website.

via flickr kakhunwart

French television viewers were treated to high drama last Thursday night, as National Front leader Marine Le Pen bailed on France 2’s Des paroles et des actes (“Words and Deeds”) only a few hours before airing. The political debate show, which has already hosted her six times over the past four years, became a lightning rod for criticism from France’s mainstream parties before the broadcast. Resurgent Republicans leader Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Party head Jean-Christophe Cambadélis joined forces to protest the “excessive” airtime being allotted to Le Pen on French television. An impressive show of solidarity, given that not even the Charlie Hebdo attacks had been enough for Sarkozy to take Cambadélis’ calls in January.

While the France 2 fiasco capped a week of headlines for Marine Le Pen, whose trial for racist remarks in 2010 had been front-page news just two days prior, her National Front continues to gain ground in December’s regional elections (and in the 2017 presidential elections, where a third of French voters plan to vote for her). Marine, who herself leads the National Front’s candidates in the région of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, rejected the primetime invitation after her regional rivals (representing Sarkozy’s Republicans and François Hollande’s Socialist Party) were tacked onto the program. The concession to strict rules on equal airtime prompted Le Pen to rebuff France 2 and presenter David Pujadas with her trademark acerbic flair, asking on Twitter: “Do they take me for their dog?”

Given her “slightly Stalinesque” role within the National Front and the dearth of other high-profile leaders, Marine Le Pen’s steady stream of controversies (and the resulting media coverage she uses to great effect) masks surprising strides made by her lieutenants across France. One standout example, watched closely by the French political elite but little noted by outside observers, is the race currently being run by Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Marine’s niece and the youngest member of the National Assembly since the French Revolution. As head of the National Front candidates in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (known as PACA and including Marseille and Nice), the youngest Le Pen is projected to come first in the first round of voting in December, a disconcerting setback for Republicans candidate and Nice mayor Christian Estrosi.

The PACA race is making waves that reach as far as Paris. Estrosi, hard-pressed to generate momentum in the campaign, is a titan in the region and a fixture on the national political scene. A textbook example of “accumulating mandates,” he is not only the long-serving mayor of Nice but also a sitting member of the National Assembly and a Sarkozy-era minister. Ironically, the long resume has proven a stumbling block in the 60-year-old’s efforts to keep up with his young challenger. Even after he qualified the National Front as an “operation to ‘recycle’ local neo-Nazis,” Maréchal-Le Pen’s campaign has preserved its first-round lead. Throwing his multiple mandates back at him, she forced him to admit he would remain leader of Nice in a televised debate last week: “You are going to remain a Niçois, which the people of Marseille will certainly appreciate.”

In many ways, the race has become a microcosm for political battles to be waged in 2017 and beyond. When François Hollande’s term ends, France’s mainstream parties will face intense scrutiny from voters angry with economic stagnation. They will do so with leaders tainted by scandals and unpopularity. Hollande’s historically low approval ratings have gotten no better, standing at only 19% in September. Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, has managed to regain the leadership of France’s center-right while battling allegations of corruption and illegal fundraising. Just last year, the former head of state found himself answering questions in police custody. In PACA, Estrosi has portrayed himself as the candidate “best positioned to keep the National Front out of power,” but he will need the help of the Socialists to do so. With Marine Le Pen projected to outdo both Hollande and Sarkozy in the first round of presidential voting, the two parties may well have to repeat their joint effort against her father in 2002. A turn of events that may, ironically, reinforce Le Pen’s message that the Socialist Party and the Republicans are two sides of the same coin.

A strong performance in December would prove an important milestone in the Front’s quest for “de-demonization“, but neither French voters nor the rest of Europe should take electoral success as a sign of moderation. Marine Le Pen is a savvier speaker than her firebrand father, but the National Front still embodies a xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic movement that seeks to lead France out of Europe and back down the road of narrow-minded populism. Behind Marine’s theatrics at the European Parliament (referring to President Hollande as “vice-chancellor of the province France“), the National Front still earns its keep by playing on fears of Islam, immigrants, joblessness, and multiculturalism. Like Donald Trump and Ben Carson in the U.S. and Viktor Orban in Hungary, the siege mentality France’s far right actively perpetuates offers no substantial solutions to the country’s real economic struggles. Unfortunately, as Messieurs Estrosi, Sarkozy, and Hollande well know, France’s political elite has failed to come up with any breakthroughs either. Keeping Marine Le Pen off television can only work for so long.

A group of Uighurs in Urumqi. Picture: AP

When will the unrest in Xinjiang cease?  The latest attack in a long series of aggressions was recently reported by Radio Free Asia, when at least 17 assailants, armed with knives, set upon innocent Han Chinese coal miners sleeping in their dormitory beds in Baicheng on September 18.  Before the morning came, more than 50 people had been killed and dozens wounded.  The attackers, which Xinjiang authorities suspect to be ethnic Uighurs, all escaped into Tianshan Mountains near the borders of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Radio Free Asia cited a Baicheng official as suggesting the attackers were seeking vengeance for their families having been punished for violating strict regulations on the practice of Islam.  The regulations, such as barring women from veiling their faces or barring men from sporting long beards, were implemented by local authorities in an effort to combat religious extremism in a region with a significant Muslim population.

The Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighur population, which at one point represented 85% of Xinjiang’s population some 65 years ago to less than 50% today, have been blamed for recent violence throughout the region and in other areas of China. Beijing argues the attacks by Uighurs are being orchestrated by foreigners who seek to establish an independent state in Xinjiang called “East Turkestan,” or a replica of “Uyghuristan” (932–1450) modeled after neighboring Central Asian nations.  Previously, two “Eastern Turkestan Republics” survived between 1931–34 and 1944–49, and Chairman Mao Zedong at one point promised “self-determination” and the right to secede from the Communist state, before eventually withdrawing the full offer of independence and instead conceding the title “Xinjiang Autonomous Region” in 1955.

Despite living in a so-called “autonomous region”, the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang have long been persecuted.  Back in May, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan U.S. federal government body, reported “unprecedented violations” against Muslims in China—urging the U.S. Department of State to re-designate China’s government as a top-tier violator, along with 16 other countries, including Myanmar, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

China denies the allegations, maintaining it guarantees religious freedom while recognizing five official religions—Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism and Protestantism.  Yet those who worship must do so under the watchful eye of patriotic religious associations, who impose strict government controls on the practice of their faith, to include the removal of crosses and the crackdown on underground churches.  It is these strict government controls on Islam, along with dwindling economic opportunities for Uighurs, which are put forth by analysts, exiles and activists for the increase in social unrest and violence.  

While other factors are certainly in play, the strict regulation of Islam is only exacerbating social unrest and contributing to more violence and is contrary to Beijing’s edicts on religious freedom.  In a speech in May 2014, President Xi Jinping stated that while teachings by religious leaders need to be grounded in patriotism, “law-abiding” worshippers must be protected as the ruling Communist Party cracks down on extremists. But these law-abiding worshipers deserve not only protection, but freedom to practice their religion, including the right as Muslims to wear veils, head scarves, jilbabs, clothing with the crescent moon and star, and to wear long beards.

Following Xi’s speech in May, China’s highest court, highest prosecution office and the Ministry of Public Security issued instructions in September 2014 urging court officials, prosecutors and police to distinguish between the illegal acts of religious extremists and ordinary religious activities.  According to the instructions, officials should avoid discriminating against any religion or ethnic minority, and should not interfere with citizens’ freedom to practice their religion.

Yet with reporting out of Xinjiang restricted and shoddy,outside observers have difficulty ascertaining the scope and scale of discrimination taking place.  We may also never know whether or not these latest terrorists were radicalized by inhumane treatment, trained abroad or motivated by economic factors.  If Beijing really wants to garnish international support for its crackdown on Islamic extremism (and truly has nothing to hide), allowing foreign journalists to operate freely in the region would go along way toward courting international condemnation and support for its efforts.  The alternative course of further restrictions will only result in more attacks, greater radicalization, and further criticism by international human rights groups.  With this latest failure, a new approach is clearly needed.

Palestinian protesters hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers during clashes in Betunia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah October 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

The growing insecurity in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel proper and the occupied territories are simply the symptoms of a more complex political issue that has been neglected and exploited.

The real historical context of the Israel-Palestine conflict is routinely muffled; only that all too familiar distorted narrative gets a pass, especially in the U.S. commercial media. Throughout history, countering the dominant narrative has never proven easy.

Make no mistake—with this latest violent uprising and draconian policies imposed to crush it—at stake is not only peace in Israel and Palestine or Middle East, but peace around the world.

Lost Opportunity

As soon as Barack Obama was elected  president of the United States, a bipartisan group of ten former senior government officials that included the likes of Chuck Hagel, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and chaired by Brent Scowcroft, approached him with a document entitled The Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement. Their main concern was that “unless the president tackles this problem early it is unlikely to be done at all.  Political capital will erode; domestic obstacles will grow; other issues will dominate; and the warring parties will play for time and run the clock.” The old “peace process” model has resulted in  nothing more than a 22 years of spiraling apartheid-like repression, brutal violence, and systematic oppression.  Among other things, the group recommended the city of “Jerusalem as home to both capitals.”  That, needless to say fell onto deaf ears.

Today, the Palestinians demand the cancellation of the Oslo Accords that proved nothing more than “an endless process which has delivered neither an end to hostilities nor a coherent framework for peace.” The latter was impossible to achieve since Israel has been and continues to swallow the 1967 occupied territory—where the Palestinian state was to be founded—one settlement expansion at a time.

Anatomy of a Violent Intifada

Before readers delve into the argument made in this article, he or she must ask oneself:

Would 67 years of systematic oppression that includes mass expulsion, arbitrary arrests, brutal military incursions, checkpoint involving psychological subjugation, denial of basic human rights, and economic strangulation be long enough to motivate anyone to defend him or herself by any means or snap and transgress beyond self-defense?

How long would it take the average person under similar circumstances to consider the violent option for self-preservation, and when he or she cannot find a suicide belt, a hand grenade, or an automatic weapon, take up on a slingshot or a kitchen knife to randomly stab those whom he or she considers the sustainers of his misery? Especially when settler extremists protected by the Israeli Special Forces periodically invade one’s holy site chanting this provocative chant “the mosque will burn and the temple rebuilt.”

 Demonization Run Amok

In an attempt to sustain the old anti-Palestinian narrative and deflect the role of his policies in inciting this latest outburst of violence, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to dumbing down history by making an outlandish public claim that is on par with Colonel Gaddafi’s “al-Qaida drugged up the Libyan people’s coffee”.

Speaking to the World Zionist Congress before his trip to Germany, Netanyahu makes this bizarre assertion that in 1941: “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews…And mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’” It gets eerily comical when he quotes Hitler meekly consulting the mufti “So what should I do with them?” and the mufti promptly responding with this holocaust epiphany “Burn them.”

There was a worldwide diplomatic censure, ridicule, and condemnation. “All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust… We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman.

The harshest criticism of Netanyahu’s remarks came from the Jewish scholars, historians and politicians in Israel. Dina Porat, chief historian of Yad Vashem, called his wild remarks “completely erroneous, on all counts.”

Could This Turn Into a Religious War?

The simple answer is absolutely, yes; if it hasn’t already. That said, it is time to reassess the Palestine-Israel issue through the faith prism. Jerusalem and the entire Holy Land is a sacred geographical area for all the Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yet, there has never been a single interfaith conference lead by high profile clerics from all these three religious groups to deescalate religious tensions and have serious dialogue on how to share these sites.

Traditionally, the round tables of peace were always crowded by secularist politicians from both sides who often use religion for political expedience.

Now that the two-state solution is out of the question; that leaves only two plausible scenarios: The one-state solution or self-annihilation. Contrary to the naysayers, the one-state solution is a viable alternative for coexistence and sustainable peace.

If such option could work between blacks and Afrikaners of Apartheid South Africa, why could it not between two Semitic ethnic peoples of Abrahamic roots? All that is needed is objective political will and broad-minded religious vision. We have no choice but to give it our collective best shot. It is our only hope.

Map: Council on Foreign Relations

Waters are heating up again in the South China Sea, as Vietnamese authorities this week accused a Chinese vessel of sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel (Xisha in Chinese, Hoang Sa in Vietnamese) islands on September 29.  Vietnam, Taiwan and China all claim the Paracel islands, which consist of some 130 small coral islands and reefs, which were occupied and are now controlled by China after defeating the South Vietnamese navy in 1974.

The sinking of the Vietnamese boat, according to Phan Huy Hoang, an official in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Ngai, occurred as a result of a Chinese ship slammed into the boat.  Five Chinese men then boarded and proceeded to steal navigation devices, fishing equipment and their 2-ton catch of fish.  The boat eventually sank some 12 hours later and the fishermen resorted to floating in their life vests for another four hours before being rescued.  

According to Hoang,  more than 20 Vietnamese fishing boats have been attacked by Chinese vessels this year.  On June 19, a Vietnamese fishing boat operating off the Hoang Sa archipelago was boarded by a Chinese crew, which destroyed its fishing gear and confiscated an ICOM walkie-talkie, a positioning system, and about five metric tons five metric tons of catch worth US$13,780.  And on June 10, four ships surrounded a Vietnamese fishing boat and then forcefully boarded the fishing boat, forcing the 11 Vietnamese fishermen to transfer all of their catch – about six metric tons – to the other vessels.  As a result of these attacks on Vietnamese fishermen, the Vietnamese government now plans to allow its coast guard forces to employ weapons to help chase away foreign vessels which have illegally entered Vietnam’s waters, starting October 20.

While the Chinese naval vessel has yet to be identified as belonging to the Chinese government, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying defended the action as one taking place in waters China claims, stating, “Chinese authorities have the rights to take law enforcement measures in accordance with the law on boats that have illegally entered.”

Should the Chinese vessel be identified as a state-owned ship, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Hai Binh warned of a potential response: “If there is such a case that foreign law enforcement commits acts that hinder the normal and legitimate operations of Vietnamese fishermen in this area, we will have formal and appropriate response.”

Hanoi’s authorization of the use of force and a plan to augment its coast guard patrol capabilities signals Vietnam may be taking the threat more seriously, and not just catering to nationalistic sentiment at home.  The U.S. has already provided Vietnam with five patrol vessels and has pledged to contribute more in the future.

Should Hanoi decide not to respond, the U.S. may nonetheless stir up tensions in the water in their own effort to challenge the sovereignty of China, as they have threatened to do in recent months following China’s reclaiming of land on submerged reefs.  China has been using the reclaimed land to build airstrips and other potential military infrastructure on three of the Spratly (Truong Sa in Vietnamese, Nansha in Chinese) islands.  The Spratlys consist of more than 750 reefs, islets, atolls, cays and islands and are variously claimed and controlled by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Washington does not recognize Beijing’s claim to the 12-nautical-mile zone around the islands in the Spratlys (the U.S. argues international law prohibits claiming territory around artificial islands built on previously submerged reefs), and some geopolitical analysts believe the U.S. military will soon assert freedom of navigation in the waters by sailing or flying within the zone claimed by China.  U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter warned on Tuesday the U.S. military would sail or fly wherever international law allowed, while John Richardson, the U.S. chief of naval operations, told reporters in Tokyo this week, “It should not come as a surprise to anybody that we will exercise freedom of navigation wherever international law allows.”

Clearly, the waters in the South China Sea are again heating up with rhetoric from all sides, and this may be behind Beijing’s attempt on Friday toward reconciliation.  On the microblog of China’s Defense Ministry, Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan issued a statement saying all sides should try to limit their disputes, with Beijing offering to hold joint exercises with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries next year in the South China Sea.  The joint exercises propose to cover search and rescue and disaster relief efforts, as well as rules about accidental encounters at sea.  Given the encounters at sea this week and over the last several months, and the propensity of fishermen from all countries to follow the catch (paying little attention to maritime boundaries), Beijing’s offer holds little water and is unlikely to stop a more serious and deadly confrontation from taking place.

BUK-M1 Missile System

Dutch investigators took to analyzing the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 after it was shot down over Ukraine by what was suspected to be a BUK anti-aircraft missile. The Netherlands took the lead in the investigation and collection of wreckage from the contested region in Eastern Ukraine as many of the victims were Dutch nationals, the plane departing from Amsterdam that day. Dutch analysts came to the conclusion that the plane indeed was struck by a missile from a BUK anti-aircraft system that showered the  left side t of the airplane with distinct bowtie-shaped shrapnel. Fragments pierced the skin of the aircraft as well as the left windscreen, directly injuring part of the crew from the blast. Criticisms were made over not taking appropriate precautions such as warning airliners to avoid flying over that region of Ukraine. While the investigation concluded that the plane was hit by an older version of the BUK missile, it only specified that the missile was of Russian design, but not that the shooters were part of Russian, Ukrainian or rebel forces.

Some of the initial impressions of the shoot down of MH17 concluded that a BUK missile likely did hit the plane, but suspicions of a Ukrainian SU-25 type ground attack aircraft bringing down the airline were also raised by critics. However, the maximum altitude of the SU-25 is restrictive and it often carries few air-to-air missiles. The investigation concluded that an older BUK missile, a type 9M38 or 9M38M1 was the missile used to bring down the Boeing airliner, and that other air-to-air missile types present in the region would not have matched the forensic patterns found on the wreckage of MH17. Another criticism was raised that perhaps the BUK system was used by Ukraine itself, since much of the Ukrainian army uses older Russian and Soviet weapons systems.  Russia claims to have withdrawn the older BUK system years ago from its own armed forces, and while there is suspicion on both sides of the conflict, the location of the BUK at the time of impact places the onus on rebel forces according to most investigations.

While the technical aspects of the BUK attack shed some light on how the aircraft was shot down, it does not give a clear answer as to who shot it down or the motivation for firing on a civilian airliner. Neither Ukraine, Russia nor the rebel forces have much to gain by shooting down an airliner full of Dutch, Malaysian and other international citizens, and claims by either side of a conspiracy to create such a tragedy on purpose holds little weight. It is most likely the case that the airliner was shot down due to ignorance, negligence and a radar system on the BUK that could not distinguish what kind of aircraft MH17 was. It would be logical for the leaders of the country that ordered the BUK into the region to make the crew and commanders liable for the attack in court, as prolonging the absence of justice for the victims of MH17 does nothing to improve the reputation of the parties involved in the shooting. Unanswered crimes will simply maintain a rift in European-Russian relations for generations and create the catalyst for more victims of senseless crimes between nations.

The Indian Air Force recently agreed to purchase Apache, pictured, and Chinook helicopters from Boeing. The deal, valued at around $3 billion, is the largest defense contract closed by the government of Indian Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: thehindu.com

Good relations between the United States and India, the world’s largest democracy, are crucial to stability in South Asia. The two countries took significant steps toward a stronger defense partnership in recent weeks, but major challenges still lie ahead.

At the end of Sept. 2015 the Indian Air Force finalized the purchase of 37 helicopters from U.S.-based Boeing, in a deal worth $2.5 billion (Foreign Policy reports the price at $3 billion). This deal was 2 years in the making, and is the largest defense contract reached by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government; it is believed to have an option to add 15 additional helicopters at a later date.

In 2012, while a deputy in the Defense Department, current Defense Secretary Ashton Carter developed the U.S.-India Defense Technology Trade Initiative, a broad-ranging series of joint defense projects. But development stalled for three years. Now, thanks to renewed emphasis from Modi’s government, things seem to be moving forward. Four short-term projects are underway, and discussions were arranged to explore longer-term efforts related to aircraft carrier and jet engine technology cooperation.

What’s more, on a visit to India earlier this year Carter signed a 10-year defense framework agreement to renew bilateral commitments. According to Sylvia Mishtra of the India-based Observer Research Foundation, “Defence ties are one of the brightest spots in the tapestry of cooperation between India and the U.S.”

Yet, as with many large-scale defense arrangements, there is some discord. One of the short-term Defense Technology Trade Initiative projects, concerning design and delivery of drones, has been delayed amid reports the units failed to meet Indian military specifications.

Looking at U.S.-India defense relations from a strategic perspective, there may be a larger-scale problem, which Foreign Policy‘s Akriti Vasudeva writes is “something historically emblematic of U.S.-India relations: mismatched expectations.” Vasudeva goes on to say that while with Defense Technology Trade Initiative represents a statement of commitment to strategic closeness by the U.S., India may not see it that way. Given the volatility of its relations with Pakistan–furthered by Pakistan’s recent defense ties to China–India may be hesitant to appear too closely linked to the U.S. (it also has defense relationships with Russia, Israel, and France).

The U.S. and India should have common strategic goals for keeping the peace in the region. What role India will play, or wants to play, in doing so is unclear. But coming to an understanding on this issue may help both nations better manage expectations and help get the defense projects back on track.

At a maritime conference in Sydney held on Tuesday, U.S. Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, in an apparent reference to Chinese actions in the South China Sea, commented:

“Some nations continue to impose superfluous warnings and restrictions on freedom of the seas in their exclusive economic zones and claim territorial water rights that are inconsistent with (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). This trend is particularly egregious in contested waters.”

Earlier, at a gathering of Asia-Pacific defense officials in Hawaii last week, Chinese Admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, reiterated Beijing’s hope for mutual cooperation in the South China Sea, telling his counterpart, U.S. Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command:

“(We) hope the U.S. side can pay great attention to China’s concerns, earnestly respect our core interests, avoid words and actions that harm bilateral ties, and reduce activities which cause misunderstandings or misjudgments.”

The pair of comments follow a series of dangerous maneuvers both in the air and on the sea in recent months, including last year’s barrel roll by a Chinese warplane over a U.S. Navy patrol jet.  Adding to Beijing’s concern, a top U.S. commander suggested last month that U.S. ships and aircraft should patrol close to artificial islands which China has built in the South China Sea.  And last week, one of the U.S. Navy’s most advanced aircraft carriers docked in Japan, as part of a deployment to strengthen defense ties between Japan and the U.S.

Concern over potential misunderstandings and a possible escalation of tensions over territorial claims have led both nations to set up a military hotline along with rules of airborne engagement, which were announced last week.

Some analysts have downplayed the fears, however, arguing miscalculation concerns over incidents in the maritime realm are exaggerated and can artificially increase tensions, raise threat perceptions, and justify arms build-ups.  Last month’s attack by Thai coast guard vessels on Vietnamese fishing boats certainly had the potential to escalate, yet was handled diplomatically.  While threats may indeed be exaggerated for a domestic audience for political gains, the potential for escalation is real should diplomacy fail.  Many geopolitical analysts and diplomats failed to predict the nationalist outburst and rioting in Vietnam that followed the movement of a Chinese offshore oil drilling rig into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in May of last year.  Rioters attacked Chinese and other Asian factories in an industrial zone outside of Ho Chi Minh City, Chinese workers were attacked and at least two were killed at a Taiwanese steel plant in central Vietnam, and some 3,000 Chinese workers were hastily evacuated from Vietnam.

Despite a long history over rules of engagement and efforts at diplomacy, miscalculations have occurred in the past –  the Gulf of Tonkin incident leading to greater American involvement in the Vietnam War is still being debated to this day.  In his book In Retrospect, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, describes how the U.S. destroyer Maddox “was attacked by torpedoes and automatic weapons fire” in international waters.  While U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declined to retaliate, he did send a second destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, to the region.  Just two days later, low clouds and thunderstorms added to the confusion over whether the Maddox and Turner Joy were under another attack, both ships reporting “more than twenty torpedo attacks, sighting of torpedo wakes, enemy cockpit lights, searchlight illumination, automatic weapons fire and radar and sonar contacts”.  A patrol commander aboard the Maddox later that day communicated to Washington:

Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful.  Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonar men may have accounted for many reports.  No actual sightings by Maddox.  Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken.

Despite the message and amongst the confusion, President Johnson authorized that day the launch of naval aircraft, which flew 64 sorties against the Vietnamese patrol boat bases and a supporting oil complex, and submitted a resolution to Congress requesting their support for U.S. combat operations in Southeast Asia.  The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave Johnson great leeway in exacerbating America’s involvement in Vietnam and led to the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. military forces after their failure to defeat the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong.

One would think with the advanced technologies and greater communication available to today’s diplomats, the same set of events has little chance of happening.  Yet surely that was the same consensus held back then, and despite the plethora of information available today, how one interprets the actions and intent of the enemy will always be subject to debate.  The fog of war has not gone away.  

Netanyahu glowers at the UN (Photo: CNN)

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu recently spoke at the UN General Assembly meeting on behalf of the Jewish state. He spoke at length about Iran (67 mentions by my count), the peace process and PA President Abbas’s comments the previous day before the international body, Syria, ISIS and generally about Israel’s courage and fortitude in the face of a hostile world.

Read the full text of the speech here.

Peace with the Palestinians
On the subject of peace, Bibi expressed his frustration with Abbas for refusing to return to the negotiating table without preconditions. He stated,

“I am prepared to immediately—immediately—resume direct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions whatsoever. Unfortunately, President Abbas said yesterday that he is not prepared to do this.”

He continued,

“Well, I hope he changes his mind, because I remain committed to a vision of two states for two peoples, in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state” [emphasis mine].

For such an articulate speaker, Netanyahu has a strange blindspot to his own preconditions. The italicized clause above, immediately following his bemoaning Abbas’s unwillingness to negotiate without preconditions, actually lays out two preconditions of its own!

1) That a future Palestinian state will be demilitarized and
2) That it will recognize a Jewish state.

The first point is generally understood (although certainly not universally accepted) to be a starting point for an eventual peace plan. The second point however is extremely controversial, seen by many as a roadblock created by Netanyahu specifically to tie Abbas’s hands and prevent the Palestinian leadership from sitting down at the table in the first place.

Global opinion of these points aside, Netanyahu is literally laying out two preconditions to peace talks, in the same breath that he is scolding Abbas for refusing to set aside his own preconditions.

“I’m prepared to resume peace negotiations without any preconditions. Abbas said he is not prepared to do this. I hope he changes his mind.”

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) October 1, 2015

Dealings with Iran
Speaking to Iran, Netanyahu invoked the awe-inspiring story of survival that is the Jewish people, enduring through millennia versus all odds and against countless enemies. He invoked the Babylonians, the Romans and the Nazis. He then cautioned:

“[The Iranian] regime would be wise to consider this: I stand here today representing Israel, a country 67 years young, but the nation-state of a people nearly 4,000 years old. Yet the empires of Babylon and Rome are not represented in this hall of nations. Neither is the Thousand Year Reich. Those seemingly invincible empires are long gone.”

This is amazing and worth reflection. But the reason I mention it is: the Iranian (Persian) people have been around even longer than the Jews. Does it mean they (or anyone!) will last forever? Of course not. But survival through the ages is a strange point to rub in the noses of a people that are arguably even older.

Resolution Overkill
Later, Netanyahu stated,

“In four years of horrific violence in Syria, more than a quarter of a million people have lost their lives. That’s more than ten times—more than ten times—the number of Israelis and Palestinians combined who have lost their lives in a century of conflict between us. Yet last year, this Assembly adopted 20 resolutions against Israel and just one resolution about the savage slaughter in Syria.”

On this point, I couldn’t agree with him more. In my opinion, one of the gravest sins that the international community has made regarding Israel is attempting to hold the Jewish state to standards which no other nation is held.

It is bad for Israel — it paints them a pariah. It’s bad for the UN — it undermines their role as a just, deliberative body. And perhaps most relevantly, it’s bad for the Palestinians and the peace process — it is easy for Israel to dismiss all judgement when they are so obviously and unfairly being held to unattainable standards. Due to this over-scrutiny, bordering on the absurd, Israel can casually bat away all criticism. Though not every critique is unfair, when seen through the lens of such hypocrisy, Israel can simply say: It’s not us. It’s you. And when reflecting on the overbearing burden of attention paid it, they are right. It isn’t them.

Israel is not perfect, but can anyone really claim them worthy of 21—out of a total of 25!—UN resolutions in a year? With all the atrocities happening in the world, anyone who believes that 85% were perpetrated by Israel is either lying or ill-informed.

Down the Hall, a Deputy Speaks Out
On the same day that Netanyahu addressed his colleagues at the UN, his deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely gave her own address. At a UN meeting of countries who donate to the PA, she took the floor and equated all Palestinians to terrorists. As reported by Haaretz, after speaking about the Jewish right to ascend to the Temple Mount (something that is currently causing riots in the region):

“Hotovely continued with criticism of the Palestinians, saying that while an Israeli child dreams of being an engineer so he can be part of the start-up nation, a Palestinian child dreams of being an engineer so he can prepare explosive devices and perpetrate terror attacks.”

The following speaker was Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. He informed the body that he had “written [an] address but I don’t plan to give it because I can’t not respond to what we’ve heard from the Israeli representative.”

According to Haaretz:

“The incident became particularly embarrassing when Hotovely interrupted Judeh several times to argue with him. This was contrary to protocol for the meeting, which was not an open discussion but a series of short speeches. One person in the room said that the meeting’s chairman, Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, had to call Hotovely to order twice.”

For those who are less familiar with the role of a foreign minister in Israel, it is equatable with an American Secretary of State. Currently, the position is being handled by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Hotovely is his deputy.

While I stand by my argument that Israel is vastly, and unfairly, over-scrutinized at the UN, it probably wouldn’t hurt if they rounded up an actual diplomat to represent them before the international body. I’m just saying.

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