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A subsidiary of the Russian state technologies corporation Rostec is developing a universal tracked robotic platform that could be used in both combat and rescue operations, the company's deputy CEO said Tuesday.

The picture of President George W. Bush leading an aged Saudi King Abdullah by the hand through the gardens of his Texas ranch in 2005 has become both iconic and symbolic of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. For over 40 years, the United States has walked hand-in-hand with Saudi Arabia through the thicket of Middle Eastern crises.

On May 14, at Camp David, another bucolic presidential setting, President Barack Obama is convening a special summit with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners to begin a new phase in their relationship. But, for the first time, it appears there will be less hand-holding and more tough talk. The United States will use the summit to hear the GCC’s concerns about Iran, but will likely explain frankly to the Arab monarchies that there will be no new U.S.-GCC defense pact or blanket security assurances from the United States. If the president delivers the right messages to whomever shows up at the summit, the U.S.-GCC relationship has the potential to become more productive than ever before.

The Saudis are clearly angry about this approach. On Sunday, they announced that King Salman, the new Saudi king who took power in January, will remain in Riyadh, sending the crown prince to Camp David in his stead. (In the end, only two GCC heads of state — from Kuwait and Qatar — will attend.) Such petulance is a common negotiating tactic in these circumstances. It often produces the desired ripples in the American media to the effect that U.S. influence in the region is waning and the Saudi-American relationship is in trouble.

In part, the media’s focus is warranted. President Obama has implied that the purpose of this summit is to assuage the concerns of those countries most worried about the Iranian nuclear deal. Reassuring partners under such circumstances is a natural and normal reaction. It is certainly the traditional U.S. response to placating irritated and frightened allies. There is pressure within the government to cook up “deliverables” for the summit that might make the Saudis and their GCC partners feel loved by the United States.

But as the decision of most GCC leaders not to attend indicates, there is not much on the table that will reassure them. And that’s fine. It would be wrong to make reassurance the centerpiece of this summit — for three fundamental reasons.

First, Saudi Arabia and its GCC partners are not formal treaty allies of the United States and, moreover, they often do not act as friends. The United States is a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional democracy committed to universal human rights. Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian monarchy committed to maintaining a society based on harsh political repression, religious intolerance, and a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam at odds with universally recognized human rights. Some GCC countries are in fact often the source of both the ideology and the money that supports Islamist terrorism around the world. And GCC interests and U.S. interests increasingly diverge over issues such as Iran, Syria, the need for internal reforms in the Gulf states, and how to deal with the regional threat of political Islam. The United States, Saudi Arabia, and its GCC partners can and do cooperate on a selective basis, but their relationship with the United States will necessarily remain transactional — more a long series of one-night stands than a committed relationship.

Second, America’s commitment to Saudi and GCC security is not and should not be absolute. Since the mid-1970s, the United States and the Gulf Arab countries have been allies on a variety of security issues. But this has been based on a hard-nosed bargain: “The United States will protect you against external threats to your security and you will support America’s goals and interests in the region and help stabilize global energy markets.” Over time, this bargain has allowed the Arab states to foist their regional security responsibilities onto the United States — and then blame America when things go wrong. Regardless of the rhetoric from both sides, the Arab states get the better end of the bargain. And they need it more than the United States does. This is particularly true now that the global energy market has diversified and is less subject to volatile price spikes. Yet paradoxically, even though Gulf states’ dependence on the U.S. security guarantee and changes in energy markets should increase Washington’s leverage, American officials often convince themselves that they need to change U.S. policy more than Persian Gulf partners need to change theirs. To paraphrase former President Bill Clinton, every now and then we have to remind ourselves who the superpower is in the relationship.

Third, Washington’s never-ending reassurances over the years have created an unhealthy dependence on the United States, instead of encouraging the Gulf countries to become more independent, capable, and to stand up on their own feet when it comes to providing for their own security from external aggression. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the United States government. The collective weakness of the GCC states has created a security deficit in the region. It is long past time for the GCC states to produce more security than they consume. As Obama has noted, “the biggest threats that [Sunni Arab States] face may not be coming from Iran invading. It’s going to be from dissatisfaction inside their own countries.” U.S. reassurances to protect these countries against external attack distract from their problems at home that include a growing population of disaffected youth, chronically high levels of unemployment, and poor human rights records. Instead, the United States should be leaning on them more heavily to enact domestic reforms.

As the GCC states become more independent, the United States will not always like the solutions they come up with to deal with regional security issues, such as the ongoing civil war in Yemen or whatever crisis might arise next. At times, U.S. officials will need to seek difficult compromises. But in most circumstances Gulf state ownership of their problems — and the solutions — will lead to better outcomes than American-led efforts, particularly military intervention.

Iran will continue to harbor ambitions for regional domination and pursue policies that pose a serious threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East. The Iran nuclear deal, if successful, will nonetheless allow the United States to begin to recast its bargain with the GCC countries, because it will remove the principal direct threat to U.S. interests from Iran. The United States will be able to insist that the GCC states assume greater responsibility for their own security — and that means the United States will be able to avoid direct military interventions in messy Middle Eastern civil wars. The willingness of Saudi Arabia to seek its own solution to instability in Yemen and the Arab League’s decision to form a joint Arab military force are positive signs of increased burden-sharing from the Gulf.

The long-term goal is not to get into bed with Iran. Rather, it is to use the relationship with Iran to get out of bed with Saudi Arabia. The United States will increase its diplomatic leverage with the GCC states if they know that Washington is playing the field. The GCC needs to understand that the U.S. goal in the Persian Gulf is to maintain a regional balance, not to allow them to emerge victorious in their struggle with Iran.

This week’s GCC summit is the perfect venue to deliver these messages. It is an opportunity for the president to demand more responsible behavior and greater cooperation from Gulf leaders instead of again reassuring them of an undying American commitment to their security. In the end, this will make for a scratchier summit, but a much more realistic, and therefore more productive, relationship between the United States and the GCC states. Hand-holding is nice, but in international relations at least, promiscuity also has its advantages.

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

L’hélicoptère d’Eulex (un Puma) de la compagnie Starlite aviation en 2014 (Archives B2 / Crédit : EULEX)

(BRUXELLES2) Un hélicoptère de la mission européenne « Etat de droit au Kosovo (EULEX Kosovo) a eu un accident, lors d’un « atterrissage d’urgence », sur l’aéroport de Pristina, ce mardi (12 mai) dans l’après-midi (15h). Accident confirmé officiellement par la mission.

Un blessé

Un seul blessé est à déplorer, selon EULEX Kosovo (et non deux comme précédemment annoncé). Celui-ci a été « immédiatement transporté à l’hôpital universitaire de Pristina ». Les autres personnes sont sorties toutes seules de l’appareil. Il y avait 4 personnes à bord : pilote, copilote et deux membres de l’équipe médicale d’urgence héliportée (HEMS) – un médecin et un infirmer. C’est un des membres de cette équipe qui a été blessé. « Aucun (autre) membre du personnel d’EULEX n’a été blessé » précise le communiqué de la mission (*) Si on se fie aux premiers éléments connus, on ne peut pas parler de crash au sens propre mais plutôt d’un atterrissage (bien) brutal).

Cet hélicoptère (privé) est normalement dédié aux opérations de secours (Medevac). Il est fourni par une société privée (actuellement Starlite aviation) qui a passé contrat avec l’Union européenne.

(NGV)

(*) Fidèle à la politique B2, nous considérons comme « membres » d’une mission européenne de la PSDC, tous les personnels, quel que soit leur statut (contracté, détaché, membre d’une société extérieure) du moment qu’il participe à l’opération et est sous l’autorité hiérarchique du chef de mission/opération ou du Haut représentant de l’UE. Lire memoriam

Általános : Az internetnek köszönhetően ma már könnyedén megszervezzük utazásainkat online és sokszor nem vesszük igénybe az utazási irodák által kínált csomagokat. A Parlament és a Tanács május 5-én fogadta el a szervezett utazásokra vonatkozó jogszabály módosító szövegét, amely a jövőben ugyanolyan védelmet biztosít az online vásárlóknak, mint az utazási irodán keresztül foglalóknak. Birgit Collin-Langen néppárti, német képviselőt kérdeztük az új szabályokról.

Forrás : © Európai Unió, 2015 - EP

An improper separation of the Progress M-27M space freighter from a carrier rocket following leaks in fuel tanks on the booster caused the failure of the Progress cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in April, Russia's space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday.

Former baseball player (and eminent public intellectual) Yogi Berra famously warned, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Yet trying to anticipate the future is a big part of foreign policymaking: leaders (and pundits) must try to interpret trends and anticipate events, so that they can devise policies that will avert disaster and maybe even make things better.

But Berra is still right: predicting the future ain’t easy. In a recent class at the Kennedy School, I reminded my first year students about some key features of the world of 1978, which was my first year in grad school. In 1978, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were still intact and formidable. The white apartheid government ruled South Africa and the Shah of Iran still sat on the Peacock Throne. People could smoke on airplanes, in restaurants, and in most public places. There was no Euro, no worldwide web, no email, no cellphones, no digital streaming services, and even the compact disc was still unknown. Japan’s economy was going like gangbusters, and China’s per capita income was a mere $165 per annum. How many of us could have foreseen that each of these conditions — and many others — would be dramatically transformed over the next few decades?

But to say that predicting the future is hard is not to say it is impossible. In fact, we can anticipate some features of the future with a high degree of confidence.

If asked to describe the world of 2050, for example, I’d argue that there are some important elements that are easy to forecast — with a suitable margin for error — and other areas where it is nearly impossible.

At the “more certain” end of the spectrum is population. Although fertility and death rates do fluctuate over time (and not always predictably), demographic models can take these shifts into account and we can be pretty confident about the size of world’s population in 2050 and the populations of individual countries. Barring unlikely “black swan” events (a huge pandemic, large-scale nuclear war, etc.), we know that China and India will have at least a billion people apiece, and we know the U.S. population will be around 400 million. We also know the populations in Germany, Russia, and Japan are going to be smaller, and that the median ages of these populations will rise significantly. Pronatalist policies could alter these numbers a bit, but population growth is hard to change quickly and this is one area where our beliefs about 2050 are likely to be pretty accurate.

What else can we know with high confidence? Well, in 2050 the world will still be divided into territorial states and the number of states will be higher than it is today. We’ve gone from roughly 50 states in 1945 to nearly 200 today, and pressures for self-determination show little sign of decreasing. By contrast, there doesn’t seem to be much pressure for merging or combining states or constructing new multi-national empires, and occasional steps in that direction (such as the union of North and South Yemen) haven’t fared well in recent years. The EU is probably the most important example of a nascent political union, but it is still largely an association of proud national states and is experiencing serious centrifugal forces these days.

To say that states will remain central and that their number is likely to rise is not to say that every one of these states will be around in 2050. It’s easy to imagine a different set of states emerging from the current turmoil in the Middle East, for example, my point is simply that we aren’t likely to see a significant reduction in the overall number.

The economic weight of different countries is pretty predictable too, at least over a span of a few decades. China’s dramatic rise is a partial exception to this rule, but most of the major economic powers in today’s world are the same countries that have been major economic players for a long time. GNP is not as easy to predict as demography, because some states do take off and others run into trouble, but we still know an awful lot about the international economic landscape of 2050.

To be specific, it is highly likely (if not quite certain) that the United States, China, Japan, India, Brazil, Russia, and the EU will be major economic players in 2050, and the states that have high per capita incomes at present will almost certainly have high per capita incomes 35 years from now. Similarly, although a few emerging economies will do well in the decades ahead, most of today’s poorer countries will still be relatively poor in 2050 (even if they are a lot better off than they are today). We know that Outer Mongolia or Burundi are going to become Singapore by 2050, and Singapore isn’t going to turn into Somalia. States whose wealth is based entirely on natural resources such as oil and gas are something of a special case (i.e., their fortunes could decline rapidly if their particular commodity falls in price), but we still know a lot about who the key economic players are likely to be in the middle of this century. Short answer: the same states that are key players today.

Other features of 2050 are much harder to forecast, however, because they reflect explicit policy decisions and could shift quickly in response to events. For example, the alliances forged during the long Cold War have been around a long time and have proven to be remarkably durable, but can we really be confident NATO or America’s Asian alliances will still be around and still be meaningful thirty-five years down the road? If Russian power continues to decline and the United States focuses more and more attention on Asia, NATO will be increasingly irrelevant. And I’ve suggested before, it’s hard to imagine NATO playing an active role in a future U.S. effort to balance China.

Alliance dynamics in Asia will be increasingly complicated and hard to predict, so one can hardly rule out some pretty dramatic shifts there too. I’d bet on a balancing coalition to address China’s rising power, but its emergence and cohesion are far from certain. And if Chinese power continues to rise, can one entirely rule out the formation of closer security ties between Beijing and some countries in the — dare we say it? — Western hemisphere? I don’t think so. Nor is hard to imagine significant realignments in the Middle East, especially if Iran eventually gets out of the penalty box and becomes a more active and accepted player. I’m not saying that any or all of these things will occur, of course; my point is that international alignments are subject to change and it is harder to know what diplomatic constellations will exist in 2050 than it is to predict either population or economic clout.

What about the level of violence? Global violence has been declining since World War II, leading scholars such as Steven Pinker, John Mueller, and Joshua Goldstein to describe war as increasingly rare and even “obsolescent.” It would be nice if that trend continued until 2050, but the past few years have seen a sharp uptick in the number and virulence of global conflicts and a future Sino-American security competition might fuel any number of other tensions. I’d keep my fingers crossed hoping Pinker and Co. are right, but I’d keep my powder dry too.

Another area we cannot easily forecast is the normative and ideological environment that will exist 35 years hence. Thirty-five years ago, Marxism-Leninism still commanded loyalty and respect among millions of people. Twenty-plus years ago, the “Washington Consensus” was supposedly sweeping the globe. Since then, various forms of Islamic extremism have become powerful currents within a number of societies. Global norms on privacy, human rights, corporate social responsibility, the role of women, assassination, the death penalty, and a number of other topics are all in flux as well, and it is hard to predict which side will win these debates or to anticipate what new movements may unexpectedly emerge. I mean: who would have predicted the gay marriage movement 30 years ago?

What is least certain about the world of 2050? As we cast our gaze forward, the greatest uncertainties lie in the realm of science and technology. The advance of scientific and technical knowledge has accelerated steadily over the past several centuries, and we simply have no idea exactly what sorts of things we will be able to do just a few decades from now. Driverless cars? Customized fetal DNA? Gene therapy to eliminate disease? Digital devices enabled not by moving a mouse or a touch screen but simply by thinking? Growing new organs in a lab and then transplanting them? We can predict some technological developments with a degree of confidence (e.g., computers will be faster and cheaper, energy usage will be more efficient, some diseases will be cured, etc.) but future discoveries (or serendipitous combinations of them) will create possibilities no one is even imagining today. At the same time, some developments predicted decades ago never materialized (like everyone else, I’ve given up hoping for my flying car). If one is trying to envision the world of 2050, it is the technological frontier where our crystal ball is cloudiest.

And let’s not forget the “black swans”: those seemingly random natural or man-made events that could shift the course of world politics in unexpected directions. A mass pandemic, a nuclear terrorist incident, an even bigger financial panic, or a catastrophic drought might have profound effects in many places, alter global discourse in key ways, and make many of our other forecasts look silly. And by their very nature, such events are hard to anticipate even if we know what their baseline probabilities might be.

The bottom line is that there’s a lot we do know about the world of 2050, and a lot that we don’t. Unfortunately, one other thing we know is that the human beings that will have to grapple with that world will still be deeply flawed and the political and social institutions that will be wrestling with these changes will still fall rather short of perfection. Our descendants will have plenty to do, and they may even look back on the current troubled state of world affairs with a certain degree of nostalgia, thinking that their forebears had it pretty good, even if we didn’t have flying cars.

GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images

UN soldiers provide water at a refugee camp in South Sudan. Photograph: Yna/EPA

Why it’s Time for the West to Lead a Rewrite of the International Security Playbook

Is a re-think of the Western-led international security enterprise needed to respond to a set of interrelated trends that have little to do with conflict between great states and far more to do with dysfunction within fragile states? The candid observer of global security trends might be inclined to respond in the affirmative given the mounting evidence that the West’s responses to vexing security challenges, especially those affecting fragile states, have yielded little positive results. In fact, in many instances, they have made matters worse.

Off-focus in an Age of Persistent Disruption

National security is the practice of protecting the state and its citizens against an assortment of threats through mixed-response statecraft, specifically, using the tools of diplomacy, defense and foreign aid. Conventional wisdom holds that the dominant and potentially most consequential threats to North America and Europe are bellicose nuclear armed rogue states like North Korea and Russia under Vladimir Putin, and of course, nuclear weapons aspirants like Iran. However, a national security orthodoxy centered on “rogues” and expressed in a grand strategy based on cold war logic is well off the mark given that today’s security landscape continues to be shaped to a far greater degree by the drivers of trends like mass migration, terrorism, and climate change than by great powers neo-colonialism.

Further, the West’s well-resourced military enterprise – led by the United States – cannot begin to mitigate, much less resolve, the root causes of the most consequential drivers of 21st century insecurity. In an era where great states conflict is most likely to be fought using the mechanism of finance and trade (e.g., sanctions) vs with destroyer squadrons and Army divisions, the convergence of political dysfunction, underdevelopment, and extremist ideologies, most now be recognized as the premier threat to international peace and stability.

An obsession with readily definable, deterable and trackable “rogues” is counter-productive in an era that is increasingly being defined by trends that have little to do with Putin and Khatami and everything to do with imploding states across the across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The toxic forces circulating within, and emanating from, failing states like Somalia, Sudan Yemen, Eritrea, Syria, Iraq, et al., continues to spill across regional borders, and increasingly into the West’s own bowls of prosperity in the forms of terror and mass migration, spiking angst, or at the very least, deep concern, from Albania to Sweden.

Fragile States Spillage – A New Normal

The up until recently under-reported exodus of Western, Northern and Eastern African youth from their tumultuous homelands into Libya (itself a failed state), and across the Mediterranean sea, is an example of fragile states spillage that has the potential to cause chronic social and economic pain across Western Europe. Many Southern European nations with their already sky-high unemployment rates, dismal growth numbers and stressed welfare systems are not prepared to absorb hundreds of thousands of young, low-skilled migrants. Given the worsening conditions across the MENA — to include the deepening desperation — the waves of migrants will be persistent and perhaps even more intense in the years to come.

There is even concern that violent extremist individuals might be mixed in with legitimate African refugees on any of the numerous illegally-operated ferries making the crossing.  The specter of stowaway terrorists amid persistent waves of unskilled foreigners landing penniless and hungry at Europe’s doorway is a stiff wind in the sails of European xenophobia generally, but islamophobia more specifically. One British columnist, in response to the migration crisis, called for “gunboats” to be used on refugees – and referred to the migrants as a “plague of feral humans.” Though this is hardly a representative sentiment of the vast majority of Europeans it does underscore the potential for a nationalistic backlash that could lead to minor or major political reordering across some of the most affected nations.

Fragile states spillage has precipitated a revolution in geo-security affairs that has come as a surprise to national security practitioners. Here, many now find that they are increasingly planning more foreign humanitarian assistance operations than war-fighting operations. But although each of the human insecurity-linked trends are by themselves problematic, some are more concerning than others due to the sheer scope of the problems and their exceedingly long resolution timelines. But perhaps the trend of most concern – one that is the most underappreciated and underreported – is one that should be the easiest to understand and most important to mitigate.

Young boys are usually recruited from within the locality, lured by money and a sense of purpose in fighting for the community [Al Jazeera Media Network & Reuters]

The Raw Materials of Terror

The youth bulge is a stage of development where a country reduces infant mortality but birthrates stay the same or increase. It is a trend that is compounding instability over large swathes of the MENA. In Sub-Saharan and North Africa about 40 percent of the population is under the age of fifteen, and almost 70 percent is under thirty years old. It’s not surprising, then, that there exists a tremendous imbalance between young men in need of meaningful employment and available jobs. Frustrated youth don’t have productive options to choose from, so many are compelled to leave their home countries, join a local illicit network (e.g., gangs), pledge to a terror group or resort to petty crime (the gateway to not-so-petty crime) to satisfy their unmet needs. The net outcome is that before age twenty, many young men become national liabilities versus national assets.

Boys with unmet psychological, spiritual and physical needs across the MENA are ripe for recruitment into violent religio-political groups like Al-Shabab, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But this is not the narrative that the architects of the counterterrorism fight want to hear. It causes no small amount of dissonance to learn that the foot soldiers of terror (really, at-risk youth whose communities and countries have failed them) are not innately evil and that most are even be redeemable. However, the itch to be seen as doing something (normally that “something” is lethal) must be scratched in order to appease a fearful public which is largely not aware of the key ingredients of which the transnational “terrorism” concoction is composed.

The youth bulge and other drivers of national instability and insecurity cannot be responded to with the West’s security apparatus. There’s no denying that a robust set of traditional military and intelligence capabilities is needed to deter great states aggression as well as to eliminate bad guys who are imminent threats, however, hard power should be the lesser applied compound in the prescription designed to cure terrorism. Developmental and national capacity building goods and processes  (often referred to as soft power) aimed at improving affected population’s human security represent a way forward that is likely to achieve the best security results over the long term.

President Obama in his 2015 National Security Strategy (NSS) stated, “The use of force is not, however, the only tool at our disposal, and it is not the principal means of U.S. engagement abroad, nor always the most effective for the challenges we face.” Though the administration persistently promises that hard power is not the “principal means of U.S. engagement abroad,” one could be forgiven for being skeptical of this pronouncement after even a cursory review of the national security balance sheet.

Uncle Sam’s military expenditures come in at over twelve times the spending of diplomacy and foreign humanitarian and development programs (more precisely, $610 billion to $50 billion). Surely, the U.S. administration and Congress can do a better job of adjusting spending priorities so that there is a more reasonable balance between hard power spending and the soft power tools that can effectively address the drivers of expanding insecurity in key parts of the world.

A Smarter Approach

Smart Power is a concept first introduced by Joseph Nye (former Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton) and centers on investing in alliances and institution building as a means to enhance stability and achieve sustainable security outcomes. When practiced wisely, it is inspired by American core values and informed by scholarly analysis of observable trends versus biases towards a familiar set of threats and trends. Nye shared in a Huffington Post article in 2007 that, “Though the Pentagon is the best trained and best resourced arm of the government, there are limits to what hard power can achieve on its own. Promoting democracy, human rights and development of civil society are not best handled with the barrel of a gun.”

For smart power to gain traction, conventional notions of national security must yield to a far broader, nuanced and fact-fueled understanding of threats to international security. New goals, doctrines and strategies together would form the basis of a new international security orthodoxy, which brings closer to its center human security concerns. The premise that international security can be preserved principally with conventional war prowess must be discredited and more balanced and sensible framework for understanding (and responding to) security threats be brought to the fore. A policy of strategic patience which resists reflexive kinetic responses and is expressed principally through conflict resolution and development efforts must be sold to the American public as the most prudent way forward.

Lastly, President Obama’s NSS states that the solution to the fragile states challenge “rests in bolstering the capacity of regional organizations, and the United Nation system, to help resolve disputes, build resilience to crises and shocks, strengthen governance, end extreme poverty.” Such an approach (clearly not yet fully implemented) is smart power manifest, where victories are harder to quantify, take a long time to achieve, but are ultimately more effective than costly and controversial approaches like the target lists centric counterterrorism program. It’s time for the international security playbook to be revamped so that a human security centered smart power approach becomes America’s grand strategy for leading the world into an increasingly tumultuous 21st century.

Le 30 avril, le 1er régiment étranger de cavalerie (1er REC) a célébré le 152e anniversaire de la bataille de Camerone, sur le front de mer de Cassis (13). 

Jorge Domecq, EDA Chief Executive, today met with Jan Selstrand, Swedish State Secretary to the Minister of Defence to exchange views on the preparation of the European Council in June 2015 and Sweden’s participation in EDA projects. 

“It has been a very fruitful meeting with Jorge Domecq. It is of great importance that we not only exchange views ahead of the European Council in June 2015, but that we also discuss how we can further deepen our participation and cooperation in EDA projects”, said Swedish State Secretary Jan Salestrand. 

“Sweden is an active member of the European Defence Agency. It is for example involved in the Agency’s work on maritime capabilities where the EDA runs projects focussing on unmanned maritime systems, maritime surveillance, as well as maritime mine counter measures. Sweden is also the lead nation of the MIDCAS project developing a mid-air collision avoidance system which will contribute to the safe integration of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems into normal airspace. This project reached an important milestone end of April with the successful completion of a series of flight tests”, Jorge Domecq said after the meetings. 

The visit in Sweden is part of a series of visits by Mr. Domecq to all EDA Member States following his appointment as EDA Chief Executive and ahead of the Ministerial Steering Board on 18 May 2015. So far, Mr. Domecq visited Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland, France, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Poland, Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus and Finland. He will next travel to Italy.

 

More information:

• News "Jorge Domecq in Luxembourg to discuss cooperation" (5 May 2015)
• News "Defence cooperation talks in Cyprus" (23 April 2015)
• News "Chief Executive meets Hungarian Minister of Defence" (23 April 2015)
• News "EDA Chief Executive visits Athens" (22 April 2015)
• News "Jorge Domecq in Poland for defence discussions"(20 April 2015)
• News "Jorge Domecq meets Estonian Minister of Defence" (20 April 2015)
• News "Meeting with Croatian Defence Minister in Zagreb" (17 April 2015)
• News "Slovenia welcomes Jorge Domecq" (15 April 2015)
• News "EDA Chief Executive visits Czech Republic" (13 April 2015)
• News "Jorge Domecq in Bulgaria to discuss defence cooperation" (8 April 2015)
• News "EDA Chief Executive travels to Romania" (8 April 2015)
• News "EDA Chief Executive meets French Minister of Defence" (30 March 2015)
• News "Jorge Domecq exchanges views with Irish Minister of Defence Simon Coveney T.D." (25 March 2015)
• News "EDA Chief Executive visits The Netherlands" (23 March 2015)
• News "Discussions on European defence in Portugal" (19 March 2015)
• News "Jorge Domecq meets German Secretary of State" (19 March 2015)
• News "Belgium and EDA discuss future defence cooperation" (18 March 2015)
• News "Jorge Domecq in the UK for cooperation talks" (25 Feb 2015)
• News "Latvia and EDA discuss cooperation opportunities" (19 Feb 2015)
• News "EDA Chief Executive visits Lithuania" (17 Feb 2015) 

 

By Maj. Gen. David Fastabend, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Best Defense book reviewer

A book release with a more promising premise is hard to imagine: the inside story on the military’s elite Joint Special Operations Task Force adaptation in the War on Terror, reversing the outcome from failure to success. Moreover, the lessons learned from that experience can be applied to the leadership and management of any organization struggling to address the dynamic, complex environments of our globalized lives.

Up front, Stan McChrystal offers a vital caveat that all readers ignore at their peril: Team of Teams is not a war story. This is a leadership story and a management story, masterfully crafted and compellingly delivered by McChrystal with the assistance of two former Navy SEALs — David Silverman and Chris Fussell — and Tantum Collins, a Yale graduate currently studying at Cambridge.

The text is a tour de force of management theory over the past century. Beginning with Taylor’s work on efficiency and the foundation of scientific management, the authors establish the underpinnings of most legacy military and business organizations. Next there is a thorough treatment of complexity, carefully distinguishing it from mere complication, and how this phenomenon defeats most adherents to scientific management. The next transition is to resilience thinking, adaptability, and the important distinctions between team thinking and command thinking. Finally, there are key observations on how modern technology enables shared consciousness, greater transparency of decision-making and devolution of decision-making authority to lower levels. Anecdotes and vignettes mined from the authors’ military experiences and management studies weave through and connect the argument.

Team of Teams offers explicit and substantive prescriptions for what ails modern organizations. The argument is that the benefits of small, effective teams can be scaled up significantly through a network approach built on transparent decision-making and an “eyes-on / hands-off” devolution of decision authority to the lowest practical levels. The recommendations include the physical co-location of key stakeholder representatives and robust attention to liaison representation where that is not possible. Technology can be leveraged for large scale communication of context and intent to the “team of teams.” Most importantly, there is a unifying emphasis throughout on the human dimension of organizational behavior and culture.

GEN McChrystal argues compellingly that this is no “zero-defects” approach, and that leaders in a complex environment must be content with a 70% solution. I suspect Stan was significantly “hands-off” in his authorship role here, because 70% is how I would score the military perspective of Team of Teams. Granted — it is not a war story — but most military officers picking up this text will utter a short prayer: “Please God, don’t let this be about how SOF won the war. And if SOF has to win the war, please don’t let it be about how only the SEALs did it.”

Alas, such prayers go largely unanswered. There is no mention of the 160,000 non-SOF military members that shared the Iraqi battle space with JSOTF, or their complementary role as the admittedly non-cool, non-special team in the team of teams. Although there is grudging acknowledgement that there are non-Navy SOF elements, the SEALs overwhelm the narrative with extensive accounts of BUDS training, etc. In a world where the SEALs are painfully over-exposed, this will generate some anti-bodies in more experienced military readers. Such readers will also not find co-location of the joint and inter-governmental battle-staff, attention to LNO assignments, or extensive televideo conferencing of daily O&I meetings as ground-breaking innovations, as these have been standard practice in the conventional forces at least back to Army operations in Bosnia in the mid-90s.

In spite of the scope of this text as a management treatise, intriguing questions go unanswered. The enemy is portrayed as being superiorly adaptive and resilient, with scant explanation of how they achieved that. The role of their ideology as a substitute for directive command and control is unexplored. Although decision authority can be decentralized in an “eyes on / hands off” environment, accountability can not be decentralized — is this risk always acceptable? How does one navigate the treacherous tensions between authority and accountability?

Finally, the elephant in the room is that for all this adaptation and innovation the enemy they defeated has forced the evacuation of the old JSOTF base of operations at Balad, Iraq. Strategy still eats organization and process for breakfast. This omission of context particularly frustrates me because I witnessed GEN McChrystal’s personal and vital role in recognizing the Sunni revolt in Anbar Province and setting the strategic conditions in place that enabled a temporary window of stability in Iraq. The book would be improved if this exemplary, self-effacing leader was more hands-on in explaining the role of effective strategy — in the absence of which even teams of teams will flounder.

Notwithstanding these quibbles, Team of Teams slashes useful trails through the jungle of complexity that bewilders most modern organizations. It is a story worthy of a careful read and even more careful reflection.

David Fastabend is a retired Army officer who served as Multinational Forces Iraq C3 in 2006-2007 and Director of Strategy, Plans and Policy for the Army Staff 2007-2009.

Les commémorations du 70e anniversaire de la capitulation de l’Allemagne nazie se sont déroulées, vendredi 8 mai 2015 dans toute la France.

Die EU-Kommission will Flüchtlinge in Europa künftig per Quote verteilen. Einen entsprechenden Vorschlag will die Behörde in Brüssel an diesem…

By Gautam Mukunda
Best Defense book reviewer

Team of Teams, by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell, is essentially two books.

One is a Gladwell-esque attempt to relate a variety of stories, most familiar but some new, that are meant to illuminate different aspects of both the history of management thought and of the authors’ solution to the problem of how to make large bureaucratic organizations flexible and adaptive enough to succeed in the modern world.

The other is a description of how McChrystal and his team radically improved the performance of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Iraq by transforming it from a rigid hierarchic structure to, in their term, a “team of teams.” JSOC’s new structure and method of operating allowed it to integrate intelligence more effectively and plan and launch operations much more quickly than it ever could have before, resulting in a series of (temporary) triumphs, culminating in the killing of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Team of Teams has some significant weaknesses, but its description of how a remarkably gifted leader transformed an organization in the most challenging of circumstances both adds to our understanding of the Iraq War and is likely to be helpful and occasionally inspiring for executives. It may be particularly useful for business leaders who are unlikely to read the academic research that has come to very similar conclusions, but who might instead be drawn to a story of organizational transformation under literal, not metaphoric, fire.

Many large organizations today struggle with exactly the problem McChrystal and his co-authors identify: the need to be far more agile, adaptable, responsive to information from the environment, and able to learn and innovate quickly in response to new, unanticipated, and rapidly-evolving threats than they would have had to be a generation ago. The solutions they identify, of breaking down organizational silos, building personal ties between members of different units within the organization to enable information flow and cooperation, and minimizing or eliminating leaders’ tendency to micromanage subordinates in favor of empowering people to make their own decisions whenever possible, are familiar, but also useful, powerful, and likely to be implementable by business leaders.

Team of Teams’ strongest effect is that it leaves me enormously impressed by McChrystal’s abilities. Few leaders could have stepped back from the war effort in Iraq and rethought some of the most basic assumptions about how the military should operate. Even fewer could have countered the tendency to throw more resources at the problem or optimize current processes instead of reinventing the organization wholesale. Even more impressive, of course, is that after McChrystal and his team diagnosed the problem they faced, they were able to successfully implement this radically new approach in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

Teams of Teams’ most useful aspects for executives are likely its concrete examples of how McChrystal and his team reformed JSOC, with analogues of many of those approaches available to business leaders. Their solutions may not be new, but few people can claim to have implemented such ideas so successfully or in such adverse conditions. Team of Teams’ suggestions are far from complete but they are, without question, useful, interesting, and often thought-provoking.

Team of Teams is far from flawless. It does not explain, for example, which circumstances that make its preferred organizational form preferable to traditional ones, or describe the advantages of the old form over the new one. It could have been strengthened by engaging more deeply with the management literature on the organizational forms it describes, particularly the work of Michael Tushman on ambidextrous organizations and Ranjay Gulati on disrupting organizational silos. It does not engage with the differences between militaries and businesses, nor does it offer advice to leaders with authority less absolute than McChrystal’s was on how to win over opponents.

The book also stumbles when its attention shifts from the military in general and Iraq in particular. Its stories of Frederick Taylor pioneering scientific management, for example, may be interesting to readers unfamiliar with them, but they are likely to be old for many, and they tend to distract from the book’s primary goal of explaining a different model of management. In some cases the authors’ relative unfamiliarity with business shows — their attribution of the financial crisis to a lack of supervision of junior employees in Wall Street firms by senior managers, for example, shallowly (and arguably mistakenly) analyzes a complex event of surpassing importance.

It also has a small number of factual and editorial errors. But these should not impede anyone from reading Team of Teams or taking its ideas about management seriously.

Despite its weaknesses, Team of Teams is valuable. Its most important advice for leaders, however, is likely to be the hardest for them to take. Information technology enables leaders to monitor their organization with unprecedented immediacy and fidelity. McChrystal and his co-authors acutely observe that this is a double-edged sword. Such transparency can be a huge asset when it allows leaders to learn about what their followers are doing, and when it allows followers to observe leaders and get general guidance from them. When it is used to enable leaders to micro-manage their followers instead, this transparency is an organizational bane. McChrystal’s description of his personal struggle with his controlling instincts (instincts shared by most leaders) is therefore likely to be particularly valuable to other leaders struggling to make the same organizational transformation.

Gautam Mukunda is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter. He has published on leadership, military innovation, and the security and economic implications of advances in synthetic biology.

Amazon

BELGRADE, 12 May 2015 – Cross-border co-operation in water governance can significantly contribute to security and safety of citizens, concluded the participants of a two-day discussion on water management in the OSCE area, which closed in Belgrade today.

Over 200 officials and key stakeholders from non-governmental organizations, academia and international organizations representing the OSCE’s 57 participating States, discussed water governance in the OSCE context at the second Preparatory Meeting of the 2015 OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum on 11 to 13 May 2015. 

“Water governance is not just one more environmental issue but one of the most important challenges we are currently facing,” said Serbian State Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Aleksandar Nikolić. “Regional co-ordination and operational co-operation in joint monitoring, information exchange and training, with neighbouring and other countries, is crucial if we are to succeed.”

Last year’s devastating floods in the Western Balkans showed the importance of trans-boundary co-operation in case of natural disasters. “The risk of flooding is one of our main threats,” said the President of the International Commission for Protection of Danube River, Croatian Ministry of Agriculture, Dražen Kurečić. “With joint efforts and the development of forecasting systems, we can overcome this threat and give our citizens the security they need.”

The Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, Halil Yurdakul Yigitguden, stressed that the involvement of stakeholders and collaborative decision-making processes can ensure responsiveness to local needs and contributes to increasing transparency. “Good water governance is key to meeting water demands and preventing conflict.”

The Director of the Environment Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Marco Keiner, said: “Participatory and accountable water governance is necessary for well-informed choices and can help prevent or reduce negative effects of investments on development and on water resources.” He also stressed the importance of co-operation in the management of natural resources, tackling environmental threats and increasing security and stability.

On 13 May, some 100 participants will visit the areas most affected by the May 2014 floods, namely Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Šabac and Obrenovac in Serbia. These field trips are supported by the OSCE Missions to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

The findings from the meeting will complement conclusions from January’s 1st Preparatory Meeting, and pave the way to the Forum’s Concluding Meeting in Prague on 14-16 September 2015.

Related Stories

• OSCE meeting on water governance to take place in Serbia
• Spanish Foreign Minister calls on participating States to reaffirm their commitment to fundamental OSCE principles
• Chairperson Dačić condemns violence in Kumanovo, announces visit by OSCE officials to Skopje

 

I liked the book more than either of these guys. I think it is one of the best things I have read about how the military needs to change to move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age.

I‘ve written a review that I am told is going to run in Marine Corps Gazette’ s June issue. When it does, I shall endeavor to run an excerpt and if possible a link to the whole thing.

New America/Thomas E. Ricks

Russia will reportedly spend some 7 billion rubles ($140 million) to build a new high-speed helicopter.

The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), invited on Tuesday May 5th to the seminar: ‘Network Neutrality: Challenges and Responses in the EU and in the US’. “ Given the fact that “in Europe, key aspects of net neutrality regulation remain controversial and general opinion still differs on all aspects of net neutrality, even on its definition”, the seminar, chaired by Colin Blackman (Director, Digital Forum Unit, CEPS), aimed to “compare the approach adopted in the US with the current debate in Europe.”

 Scott Marcus (Independent Consultant):

 How should we define Net Neutrality?

There is a bunch of different definitions and actually it is very hard to find a ‘one size fit all’ definition for net neutrality:

     -. Is it the ability of all Internet end-users to access and distribute information or run applications exercising their choices?

     -. Is it the absence of unreasonable discrimination on the part of network operators in transmitting Internet traffic?

     -. Is it the assurance that all traffic on the Internet is threaten equally, whatever its source, content or destination?

 Network neutrality could be said to be at the heart of a web of crucial issues that appropriately concern European citizens. Indeed, net neutrality is the heart of a web of public concerns:

We distinguish between Direct and Indirect linkages:

Direct linkages to anti-competitive behaviour: innovation and investment, privacy and data protection, consumer awareness, empowerment, and protection, and freedom of expression.

Indirect linkages to network and information security: broadband policy, Internet governance, and more.

 What matters when speaking about net-neutrality?

Technical Aspects: Quality of Experience (QoE)

The Quality of service (QoS) parameters and mechanisms are important to enable network operators to design, build and manage their networks, but they are not directly visible to end-users.

Crucial for the end-users, however is the quality that they personally experience during their use of a service.

These Quality of Experience (QoE) requirements are strongly dependent on the application. Some are sensitive to delay.

E-Mail has little sensitivity to packet loss and delay.

Real-time two way Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) tends to be highly sensitive- delays greater than some 150 msec cause problems.

Real-time two-way videoconferencing is similarly sensitive, and with greater bandwidth consumption.

One-way video may or may not be sensitive, depending on user expectations for how quickly the stream starts (zapping time).

Economic background of network neutrality

At least three distinctions:

Quality differentiation and price differentiation are well-understood practices. In the absence of anticompetitive discrimination, it generally benefits both, producers and consumers.

Another view: a two-sided market:

Internet can be thought as a two-sided platform, with network operators serving d a platform connecting providers of content with consumers. Disputes are only on how costs and profits should be divided between the network operators and the two or more sides of the market

Economic foreclosure: Foreclosure occurs when a firm that has market power in one segment attempts to project that market power into vertically related market segments where competition would otherwise lead to efficient outcomes.

 What do the stakeholder think of this?

The European Commission conducted a public consultation on net neutrality at the end of 2012, with an eye to a legislative initiative in 2013.

 

The public consultation (2012-2013):

• In the consultation citizens were troubled by most forms of traffic management but more by some forms than others.
• A one page summary of the consultation appears in the Impact Assessment for the Telecommunication Single Market (TSM), but the Commission never published a comprehensive analysis of the results.
• The 131 non-confidential textual stakeholders responses were publicly available, and generally thoughtful and of high quality, thus enabling me to complete the public consultation in abbreviated form based on a sample of responses
• We gratefully acknowledge the Commission’s assistance in tabulating more than 400 multiple-choice (citizen) responses to the public consultation.

 

What did the consultation dealt with?

 

1)Current management practices in Europe.

2)   Appropriate versus inappropriate forms of traffic management.

3)   Opportunities and risks associated with new services.

4)   Deep packet inspection and its implications for pricacu and data protection.

5)   The risk of divergent policy interventions among the Member States.

6)   The path to be taken going forward.

 Consultation results:

• Most NRAs, ISPs, content providers and consumer’s advocates considered traffic management to be appropriate under suitable preconditions.
• Consumer advocates and other civil society organisations appear deeply troubled by limitations on Voice over IP; but network operators view this differently
• There was widespread agreement that for a network operator to prioritise its own traffic ahead of traffic for applications that compete with its own services is problematic.

 European regulatory views:

The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is committed to the open Internet and believes that the existing regulatory tools, when fully implemented, should enable NRSAs to address net-neutrality related concerns.

Berec in his annual report 2013 stated that very few NRAs have reported specific relevant net neutrality incidents. The prevailing approach among Nras is that possible deviations from net neutrality are dealt with on a case by case basis. There is a wide agreement among national regulators that the existing tools enable NRAs to address competition concerns related to net neutrality for the time being.

In the year 2012 instead on his consultation report, Berec stated that regulation should not be unnecessarily intrusive, since flexibility appears indispensable in such a fast-changing environment.

 Regulation: EU

In the European framework, market power is a key concern. Regulation addresses last mile market power in the fixed network, both for the PSTN (public switched telephone network) and for the Internet, thus fostering competition.

Internet interconnection is generally unregulated to the extend that market power does not seem to be a concern.

During the year 2009, the regulatory framework was revisioned:

 The ability of end users to access content, applications or services of their choice is now an explicit goal of European policy.

Providers of electronic communication services must inform end users of their practices in regard to traffic, management and provide end users with the right to change providers without penalty if they are dissatisfied with a change in these practices.

 Differences btw the US and the EU

• The US regulatory approach to network neutrality responds to different circumstances than those relevant to Europe.
• The Overall US regulatory approach is partly a cause and partly a response to a very different marketplace.
• Real consumer choice of an alternative broadband supplier in the US is limited to the point where the threat of consumers switching is no longer felt to constrain the behaviour of network operators.
• The radical US deregulation of 2002-2005 left the US-FCC with the minimal ability to regulate broadband services; as a result, the US debate has been dominated by issues of legal sustainability rather than by policy goals.
• The US regulatory approach to network neutrality responds to different circumstances than those relevant to Europe.
• The overall US regulatory approach is partly a cause and partly a response to a very different marketplace.
• Real consumer choice of an alternative broadband supplier in the US is limited to the point where the threat of consumers switching is no longer felt to constrain the behaviour of network operators.
• The radical US deregulation of 2002-2005 left the US FCC with minimal ability to regulate broadband services; as a result, the US debate has been dominated by issues of legal sustainability rather than by policy goals

 Regulation US:

Telecommunication services are subject to numerous regulatory obligations; information services are subject to few explicit obligations.

Information services were felt not to be subject to market power, so long as basic services were available on a non-discriminatory basis. It was this distinction that historically enabled the FCC to avoid regulating the Internet core.

During the George W. Bush years, the FCC classified broadband access when bundled with Internet service to be an information service (ignoring last mile market power concerns).

Weakened of lifted precompetitive remedies, thus reversing the growth of retail competition for DSL lines.

Lifted non-discrimination obligations.

 The FCC’s Report and Order of March 12th 2015, goes somewhat further than the 2010 Order (the one which had been overturned by the courts).

NO Blocking: (ISPs) shall not block lawful content applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

No throttling: (ISPs) shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or just use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.

 Europe: The Telecoms Single Market Regulation

A messy discussion of the Telecom Single Market (TSM) in Europe was kicked off by a weakly conceptualised European Commission proposal in September 2013.

In April 2014 instead, the European Parliament, just before elections, passed a stripped down version.

Network neutrality was small but important part of the original legislative proposal, but together with mobile roaming is the only portion that appears to have survived the subsequent legislative process.

Commission’s net neutrality concerns focused on inconsistent legislation in the Member States (Netherland, Slovenia), not necessarily on any need for different or stricter legislation.

 Aspects to consider:

1)   Does the legislative or regulatory instrument used strike the right balance in preventing harmful divergence, while providing appropriate flexibility?

2)   Does it strike the right balance in preventing harmful differentiation, while permitting non-harmful differentiation?

3)   Does it enable prioritisation of services that legitimately need it, potentially including real time voice and videoconferencing over the public Internet, mission critical services (including public protection and disaster relief (PPDR), and transport, and health?

 Andrea Renda Senior Research Fellow:

 There is no need to state that the devil is in the detail.

Recently, EU policymakers seem to have become obsessed by the concept of ‘neutrality’ when discussing future digital policy. I see a mounting debate in Europe concerning the extension of neutrality; whatever the neutrality is understood to be (cloud, or other services).

The situation we are facing nowadays at the European level is a situation of pure fragmentation. After 12 years of debate we are still struggling on many points and the progress made was very slow. The first proposed Telecom Packages in the years 2007 and 2009 could be seen as the first steps towards a harmonization of the internal market, and the creation of a Single Digital Market, but they were never implemented. 

Member states in the meanwhile took the lead on this manner, imposing national regulations concerning net neutrality.

Concerning the EU-US debate on net neutrality, it is not clear what is emerging.

The only thing they have at the US level and we don’t have at the EU level is a decision. Indeed there is something strange at the EU level but also at the transatlantic level. We need to be carefully and not rushing, the higher risk is that we end up with totally different regulations on both the sides.

 One thing that emerges clearly from the FCC rule is the urgency to try to establish a bright line view. The ultimate outcome, indeed, is most importantly depended by the other rules that are already there.

 Why did we want neutrality in the first place?

 Anonymity of the users: nobody wants it anymore today. Only Anonymous is still in this position. The anonymity of the end users is not a fee on the table anymore.

• Competition and fair business practices: there might be a problem as market power can emerge at all layers of the internet protection, and thus potentially a large IT giant could exploit superior bargaining strength vis-à-vis ISPs.
• Innovation: Is innovation slowing down? Are new ideas, products facing more barriers to entry the market?
• User choice and Openness: End users are not protected against restrictions to content availability and application discrimination applied by platforms located at higher layers.
  Openness is thought to be intended as a means, not an end. It would be a mistake to believe that once net neutrality is mandated, the internet would become open, let alone neutral
• Freedom of expression/Pluralism: Very discussed over the past five/six years. Neutrality at all layers is the wrong answer to this problem, which though is very important. Just try to consider if a neutral search engine foster media pluralism? Personally I don’t think this could work. We need a specific media policy to ensure pluralism, advocating neutrality rules!

 If we are looking for Net neutrality because of the reasons listed above, we are on the wrong track. In my opinion the reason why we might consider Net Neutrality, as the best option is because it minimizes the implementation cost and regulatory errors.

Moreover when dealing with the next attempt of regulation, we should probably look more at the things from a consumer perspective, what this means is that consumers don’t always want 100% neutrality everywhere, there are other areas that are more important for end users. I’m convinced that we have to look at the whole net neutrality issues also from a more social point of view.

 Concluding let me state that:

– Yes! there is a way to implement these rules.

– The European Commission should take courage and give a hint to the implementation of these rules.

– We need to think a lot before translating our considerations, into actions. 

Network Neutrality: Challenge and responses in the EU and in the US

The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), invited on Tuesday May 5th to the seminar: ‘Network Neutrality: Challenges and Responses in the EU and in the US’. “ Given the fact that “in Europe, key aspects of net neutrality regulation remain controversial and general opinion still differs on all aspects of net neutrality, even on its definition”, the seminar, chaired by Colin Blackman (Director, Digital Forum Unit, CEPS), aimed to “compare the approach adopted in the US with the current debate in Europe.”

 

1. Scott Marcus (Independent Consultant):

 

How should we define Net Neutrality?

There is a bunch of different definitions and actually it is very hard to find a ‘one size fit all’ definition for net neutrality:

Is it the ability of all Internet end-users to access and distribute information or run applications exercising their choices?

Is it the absence of unreasonable discrimination on the part of network operators in transmitting Internet traffic?

Is it the assurance that all traffic on the Internet is threaten equally, whatever its source, content or destination?

 

Network neutrality could be said to be at the heart of a web of crucial issues that appropriately concern European citizens. Indeed, net neutrality is the heart of a web of public concerns:

We distinguish between Direct and Indirect linkages:

Direct linkages to anti-competitive behaviour: innovation and investment, privacy and data protection, consumer awareness, empowerment, and protection, and freedom of expression.

Indirect linkages to network and information security: broadband policy, Internet governance, and more.

 

What matters when speaking about net-neutrality?

Technical Aspects: Quality of Experience (QoE)

The Quality of service (QoS) parameters and mechanisms are important to enable network operators to design, build and manage their networks, but they are not directly visible to end-users.

Crucial for the end-users, however is the quality that they personally experience during their use of a service.

These Quality of Experience (QoE) requirements are strongly dependent on the application. Some are sensitive to delay.

E-Mail has little sensitivity to packet loss and delay.

Real-time two way Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) tends to be highly sensitive- delays greater than some 150 msec cause problems.

Real-time two-way videoconferencing is similarly sensitive, and with greater bandwidth consumption.

One-way video may or may not be sensitive, depending on user expectations for how quickly the stream starts (zapping time).

Economic background of network neutrality

At least three distinctions:

Quality differentiation and price differentiation are well-understood practices. In the absence of anticompetitive discrimination, it generally benefits both, producers and consumers.

Another view: a two-sided market:

Internet can be thought as a two-sided platform, with network operators serving d a platform connecting providers of content with consumers. Disputes are only on how costs and profits should be divided between the network operators and the two or more sides of the market

Economic foreclosure: Foreclosure occurs when a firm that has market power in one segment attempts to project that market power into vertically related market segments where competition would otherwise lead to efficient outcomes.

 

What do the stakeholder think of this?

The European Commission conducted a public consultation on net neutrality at the end of 2012, with an eye to a legislative initiative in 2013.

 

The public consultation (2012-2013):

• In the consultation citizens were troubled by most forms of traffic management but more by some forms than others.
• A one page summary of the consultation appears in the Impact Assessment for the Telecommunication Single Market (TSM), but the Commission never published a comprehensive analysis of the results.
• The 131 non-confidential textual stakeholders responses were publicly available, and generally thoughtful and of high quality, thus enabling me to complete the public consultation in abbreviated form based on a sample of responses
• We gratefully acknowledge the Commission’s assistance in tabulating more than 400 multiple-choice (citizen) responses to the public consultation.

 

What did the consultation dealt with?

1)   Current management practices in Europe.

2)   Appropriate versus inappropriate forms of traffic management.

3)   Opportunities and risks associated with new services.

4)   Deep packet inspection and its implications for pricacu and data protection.

5)   The risk of divergent policy interventions among the Member States.

6)   The path to be taken going forward.

 

 

Consultation results:

Most NRAs, ISPs, content providers and consumer’s advocates considered traffic management to be appropriate under suitable preconditions.

Consumer advocates and other civil society organisations appear deeply troubled by limitations on Voice over IP; but network operators view this differently

There was widespread agreement that for a network operator to prioritise its own traffic ahead of traffic for applications that compete with its own services is problematic.

 

European regulatory views:

The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is committed to the open Internet and believes that the existing regulatory tools, when fully implemented, should enable NRSAs to address net-neutrality related concerns.

Berec in his annual report 2013 stated that very few NRAs have reported specific relevant net neutrality incidents. The prevailing approach among Nras is that possible deviations from net neutrality are dealt with on a case by case basis. There is a wide agreement among national regulators that the existing tools enable NRAs to address competition concerns related to net neutrality for the time being.

In the year 2012 instead on his consultation report, Berec stated that regulation should not be unnecessarily intrusive, since flexibility appears indispensable in such a fast-changing environment.

 

Regulation: EU

In the European framework, market power is a key concern. Regulation addresses last mile market power in the fixed network, both for the PSTN (public switched telephone network) and for the Internet, thus fostering competition.

Internet interconnection is generally unregulated to the extend that market power does not seem to be a concern.

During the year 2009, the regulatory framework was revisioned:

<!–[if !supportLists]–>o   <!–[endif]–>The ability of end users to access content, applications or services of their choice is now an explicit goal of European policy.

<!–[if !supportLists]–>o   <!–[endif]–>Providers of electronic communication services must inform end users of their practices in regard to traffic, management and provide end users with the right to change providers without penalty if they are dissatisfied with a change in these practices.

 

Differences btw the US and the EU

• The US regulatory approach to network neutrality responds to different circumstances than those relevant to Europe.
• The Overall US regulatory approach is partly a cause and partly a response to a very different marketplace.
• Real consumer choice of an alternative broadband supplier in the US is limited to the point where the threat of consumers switching is no longer felt to constrain the behaviour of network operators.
• The radical US deregulation of 2002-2005 left the US-FCC with the minimal ability to regulate broadband services; as a result, the US debate has been dominated by issues of legal sustainability rather than by policy goals.
• The US regulatory approach to network neutrality responds to different circumstances than those relevant to Europe.
• The overall US regulatory approach is partly a cause and partly a response to a very different marketplace.
• Real consumer choice of an alternative broadband supplier in the US is limited to the point where the threat of consumers switching is no longer felt to constrain the behaviour of network operators.
• The radical US deregulation of 2002-2005 left the US FCC with minimal ability to regulate broadband services; as a result, the US debate has been dominated by issues of legal sustainability rather than by policy goals

 

Regulation US:

Telecommunication services are subject to numerous regulatory obligations; information services are subject to few explicit obligations.

Information services were felt not to be subject to market power, so long as basic services were available on a non-discriminatory basis. It was this distinction that historically enabled the FCC to avoid regulating the Internet core.

During the George W. Bush years, the FCC classified broadband access when bundled with Internet service to be an information service (ignoring last mile market power concerns).

 

Weakened of lifted precompetitive remedies, thus reversing the growth of retail competition for DSL lines.

Lifted non-discrimination obligations.

 

The FCC’s Report and Order of March 12th 2015, goes somewhat further than the 2010 Order (the one which had been overturned by the courts).

NO Blocking: (ISPs) shall not block lawful content applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

No throttling: (ISPs) shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or just use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.

 

Europe: The Telecoms Single Market Regulation

A messy discussion of the Telecom Single Market (TSM) in Europe was kicked off by a weakly conceptualised European Commission proposal in September 2013.

In April 2014 instead, the European Parliament, just before elections, passed a stripped down version.

Network neutrality was small but important part of the original legislative proposal, but together with mobile roaming is the only portion that appears to have survived the subsequent legislative process.

Commission’s net neutrality concerns focused on inconsistent legislation in the Member States (Netherland, Slovenia), not necessarily on any need for different or stricter legislation.

 

Aspects to consider:

1)   Does the legislative or regulatory instrument used strike the right balance in preventing harmful divergence, while providing appropriate flexibility?

2)   Does it strike the right balance in preventing harmful differentiation, while permitting non-harmful differentiation?

3)   Does it enable prioritisation of services that legitimately need it, potentially including real time voice and videoconferencing over the public Internet, mission critical services (including public protection and disaster relief (PPDR), and transport, and health?

 

Andrea Renda Senior Research Fellow:

 

There is no need to state that the devil is in the detail.

Recently, EU policymakers seem to have become obsessed by the concept of ‘neutrality’ when discussing future digital policy. I see a mounting debate in Europe concerning the extension of neutrality; whatever the neutrality is understood to be (cloud, or other services).

The situation we are facing nowadays at the European level is a situation of pure fragmentation. After 12 years of debate we are still struggling on many points and the progress made was very slow. The first proposed Telecom Packages in the years 2007 and 2009 could be seen as the first steps towards a harmonization of the internal market, and the creation of a Single Digital Market, but they were never implemented. 

Member states in the meanwhile took the lead on this manner, imposing national regulations concerning net neutrality.

Concerning the EU-US debate on net neutrality, it is not clear what is emerging.

The only thing they have at the US level and we don’t have at the EU level is a decision. Indeed there is something strange at the EU level but also at the transatlantic level. We need to be carefully and not rushing, the higher risk is that we end up with totally different regulations on both the sides.

 

One thing that emerges clearly from the FCC rule is the urgency to try to establish a bright line view. The ultimate outcome, indeed, is most importantly depended by the other rules that are already there.

 

Why did we want neutrality in the first place?

 

• Anonymity of the users: nobody wants it anymore today. Only Anonymous is still in this position. The anonymity of the end users is not a fee on the table anymore.
• Competition and fair business practices: there might be a problem as market power can emerge at all layers of the internet protection, and thus potentially a large IT giant could exploit superior bargaining strength vis-à-vis ISPs.
• Innovation: Is innovation slowing down? Are new ideas, products facing more barriers to entry the market?
• User choice and Openness: End users are not protected against restrictions to content availability and application discrimination applied by platforms located at higher layers.
  Openness is thought to be intended as a means, not an end. It would be a mistake to believe that once net neutrality is mandated, the internet would become open, let alone neutral
• Freedom of expression/Pluralism: Very discussed over the past five/six years. Neutrality at all layers is the wrong answer to this problem, which though is very important. Just try to consider if a neutral search engine foster media pluralism? Personally I don’t think this could work. We need a specific media policy to ensure pluralism, advocating neutrality rules!

 

If we are looking for Net neutrality because of the reasons listed above, we are on the wrong track. In my opinion the reason why we might consider Net Neutrality, as the best option is because it minimizes the implementation cost and regulatory errors.

Moreover when dealing with the next attempt of regulation, we should probably look more at the things from a consumer perspective, what this means is that consumers don’t always want 100% neutrality everywhere, there are other areas that are more important for end users. I’m convinced that we have to look at the whole net neutrality issues also from a more social point of view.

 

Concluding let me state that:

– Yes! there is a way to implement these rules.

– The European Commission should take courage and give a hint to the implementation of these rules.

– We need to think a lot before translating our considerations, into actions. 

 

Patrick Zingerle

 

 

 

Classé dans:Actualités, BREVES

MEXICO CITY — Carmen Aristegui is a likable hero for Mexico’s perennially embattled media. Given to little makeup or hairstyling, the 51-year-old radio personality has gained a reputation for her lack of pretension. A few weeks ago, I met her at the offices of her online newspaper, Aristegui Noticias, located in a run-down building in the unassuming Anzures district of Mexico City. The setting is more reminiscent of a basement start-up than the bureau of a celebrity broadcaster, whose radio show once regularly drew an average of 15 million listeners.

“I like to use the stairs, it’s the only exercise I get these days,” she explains by way of an apology for the sluggish elevator. After warmly greeting her news team, Aristegui leads the way to a closet-like back office.

There, over the buzz of a worn-out electric fan, she recounts the story of her dismissal in March from MVS Comunicaciones, the Mexican radio and satellite television provider. In Aristegui’s telling, it is a tale of government collusion. MVS, on the other hand, claims that it fired Aristegui and cancelled her popular morning radio program because she refused to accept the station’s new editorial guidelines. But she links her dismissal to her reporting on a major conflict-of-interest scandal with the president at its center.

Last November, Aristegui revealed that Grupo Higa, a major public contractor that won millions of dollars in state business, built a lavish home for the wife of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The investigation into the $7 million luxury mansion, dubbed the “White House” owing to its white interior and color-changing lighting system, sparked subsequent revelations about additional properties owned by Higa and used by the presidency’s inner circles.

“There was no business rationale to cancel the newscast except that MVS was under very strong political pressure, especially after the White House investigation,” says Aristegui from across the table. “It is obvious that the company used a pretext, and that this decision was very probably made by the government.”

She is now taking her fight to the courts. A Mexico City judge has ordered a hearing scheduled for May 12 to determine whether MVS violated its contract with the radio host, and if she should be reinstated. “When MVS refused to negotiate, it left me with no choice but to go to the courts,” she says. “This is not only about my journalistic work or my job. It is about freedom of expression and defending audiences’ right to information.”

The case has whipped up public opinion, turning Aristegui into Mexico’s latest martyr for press freedom. Her supporters across the country have joined six rights organizations to file so-called “amparos,” a Mexican legal procedure intended to protect human rights, in protest of her dismissal.

Her firing has also unleashed a wave of intrigue and conspiracy that would make House of Cards creator Beau Willimon proud. Some people assert that MVS let go of Aristegui to curry favor with the government ahead of an auction for broadcasters’ airwaves next year. Others suggest that the president demanded her dismissal out of fear that her promotion of MéxicoLeaks, a small whistle-blowing website, would give its investigations a higher profile, allowing revelations of more government scandals to reach national audiences. And there is even talk that MVS had lost an important ally against the government — the powerful telecoms mogul Carlos Slim — making the station more vulnerable to political pressure.

Critics say that a pervasive culture of self-censorship in Mexico’s broadcast media contributes to a lack of watchdog journalism in the country. The politically connected Televisa controls almost 70 percent of the broadcast television business, and media owners depend on concessions granted by a regulator that has historically been influenced by special interests. “The level of tolerance for journalism critical of the government is extremely low in Mexico because we don’t have a sufficiently developed democratic system,” Aristegui argues.

But a number of her former superiors and colleagues have criticized the beloved yet battle-prone journalist for her lack of regard for authority. Moreover, there is no proof implicating the government in Aristegui’s banishment from the airwaves. (As Salvador Camarena, Aristegui’s trusted former MVS colleague, admitted to me: “we have no smoking gun.”)

The commotion around Aristegui’s case highlights the government’s sinking credibility. Her no-frills style strikes a sharp contrast to the nattily-dressed, aloof Peña Nieto, whose perfectly coiffed hair was as much a talking point in his December 2012 election victory as his lofty reform promises. Almost three years later, he has made important economic strides. But he has yet to implement tough measures to crack down on corruption or assure Mexicans that the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) — once synonymous with greed and a lust for power — has changed its stripes.

Aristegui, meanwhile, has won huge admiration among anti-corruption crusaders and free speech advocates for her unflinching attacks against Mexico’s political elite. Over her 25-year career, she has uncovered a prostitution ring run by a party chief, a pedophile priest protected by a powerful Roman Catholic cardinal, and the alleged involvement of Televisa in a Central American drug-smuggling ring.

When Aristegui blew the lid off the “White House” story last November, the Peña Nieto government was already reeling from accusations of incompetence and corruption. The previous month, 43 students from the Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa in rural Mexico were allegedly murdered by a corrupt mayor in cahoots with criminal gangs. The scandal sparked an international outcry, not to mention massive protests against the government, whose gaffe-prone communication strategy made matters worse. “Carmen became the pebble in Peña Nieto’s shoe,” said Denise Dresser, a long-time collaborator of Aristegui’s and a former MVS pundit.

But the government isn’t the only institution Aristegui has antagonized, according to numerous interviews with her colleagues and former employers. In 2002, Aristegui hosted a radio show for the broadcasting company Grupo Imagen. But her boss at the time, Pedro Ferriz de Con, fired her over disagreements about the company’s editorial line: “She said terrible things about Imagen on-air during her time there. Imagine how the audience took it?” he said.

In another incident in 2008, W Radio, a joint-venture between Spain’s Grupo Prisa and Televisa, decided not to renew her contract. According to Daniel Moreno, her boss at the time, she arrived at the office late and refused to take commercial breaks, depriving the station of a vital source of revenue. As the bottom line suffered, the company presented her with new rules, Moreno said. But after months of negotiations, she backed out, claiming the station wanted to censor her.

In many of her spats with employers Aristegui has cried foul, turning up the political heat by implying that the powers that be have called for her head. According to Aristegui, Ferriz and businessman Alfonso Romo, a stakeholder in Imagen, had a personal vendetta against her because she exposed a sex scandal involving a highly respected and powerful religious order in Mexico. She also claims that she was dismissed from W Radio due to her criticism of the derisively named “Televisa Law” – a measure passed in 2006 that was widely interpreted as giving the powerful station privileges in gaining new broadcast concessions and expanding its market dominance. “On the program we had months of debate about this law, and it infuriated Televisa,” she said.

Perhaps all this should have sounded the alarm for MVS owner Joaquín Vargas Gómez when he hired her. But the tycoon was seduced by Aristegui’s massive viewership, and loaded her contract with deal sweeteners. This included an ethics code spelling out her editorial control over her show, an MVS ombudsman to safeguard audiences’ rights, and an independent arbitrator to intercede in editorial disputes between her and the company.

Yet Aristegui has a habit of repeating herself. In 2011, the firebrand journalist was let go after Felipe Calderón, the president at the time, called Vargas demanding that Aristegui apologize or be fired for reporting rumors he had a drinking problem. According to Aristegui, Vargas allegedly begged her to yield to the president’s request, saying that he was in the middle of negotiating with the government to hang onto a multi-million dollar broadcast concession. But Aristegui refused, choosing instead to publicize what happened. “Why should I have to equivocate and apologize, and accept the temper tantrum of a president?” she said at her office. Vargas later reinstated her after her huge fan base protested.

Aristegui claimed that the incident did not damage her relationship with Vargas, but that problems resurfaced with the White House investigation. She says he asked her not to air the report on her radio show (requesting her “understanding”). So she broke the story on her own website. MVS has not responded to the allegations.

In the months that followed the White House revelations, her reporting grew relentless, sparking an on-air showdown with her employer that led to her dismissal in March. “There was a loss of confidence in Carmen,” said Ezra Shabot, another journalist at MVS. “The owners felt that they were losing their space on the radio, that she was the owner of it.”

Tensions reached a climax when Aristegui announced on March 10 that her team of investigative journalists at MVS would help promote Méxicoleaks, a new digital tool founded by eight Mexican media outlets and civil society groups courting would-be whistleblowers to help expose state corruption.

Infuriated, MVS issued a series of news bulletins that appeared in the middle of Aristegui’s show, accusing her team of using the MVS brand name to endorse Méxicoleaks deceptively and illegally. It then fired two leading journalists on her investigative team, Daniel Lizárraga and Irving Huerta, both of whom were involved in the Méxicoleaks story.

Aristegui refused to accept their dismissal and picked a fight with the company on-air. “Instead of punishing them we should be rewarding them!” she said on her March 13 broadcast. MVS retaliated, declaring to its audiences it would not accept her “ultimatum,” and published new editorial guidelines on its website imposing restrictions on content.

On March 15, MVS said it would reinstate Lizárraga and Huerta if Aristegui accepted the new editorial rules. But she refused, and that evening received notification from MVS that her show had been cancelled. The next day, news of her firing and that of her 17-member team made headlines, sparking a public uproar.

Aristegui still has a column in the Mexican magazine Reforma and a show on CNN’s Spanish-language program version. But her supporters say that her exile from the airwaves has left a critical gap in the coverage of Mexican politics ahead of important mid-term congressional elections on June 7. The story has also been swept up into wider criticisms of Mexico’s shaky human rights record.

In the same breath that media reports have referenced Aristegui’s firing, they point out that attacks on reporters in Mexico are ticking upward. According to a March investigation by the British rights group Article 19, violence against members of the press rose 80 percent in the first two years of the Peña Nieto administration, relative to the six-year average of his predecessor. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also ranks Mexico among the world’s top 10 countries for journalist killings, and impunity in such cases is as high as 90 percent.

But the crux of the issues in the case of Carmen Aristegui appears to be less about the human rights tale than the slow — and often sporadic — slog toward political reform.

New legislation enacted last July has sought to bring fresh competition into Mexico’s stiflingly uncompetitive broadcast market. It has also created specialized tribunals for media and antitrust matters, helping to fast-track legal procedures. Aristegui’s supporters have utilized the newly formed telecommunications and broadcast courts to file complaints against MVS, claiming that the company’s actions breached the public’s right of access to information. Still, critics argue that these procedures could be bogged down in red tape and that the courts remain over-stretched, lacking both human and financial resources.

“These new legal tools are here to guarantee the rights of journalists and the Mexican people, but it is a big challenge for Mexico’s justice system,” says Aristegui, looking tired for the first time in our interview. Yet the crack in her armor is only momentary. Leaning forward to be heard over the raspy fan, she adds with characteristic zeal: “But it mustn’t drag on, every minute wasted is a minute that the Mexican people lose their right to critical information.”

YURI CORTEZ/AFP/GettyImages