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A Japan Ground Self-Defense Force member guides a Cobra anti-tank helicopter onto a forward aircraft refueling point at Yakima Training Center, Wash., Sept. 4. The exercise was part of Operation Rising Thunder, a combined operation between the Army and Japan designed to increase interoperability between the two nations. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Cody Quinn, 28th Public Affairs Detachment)

On July 1, 2014, the Japanese government, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, outlined a reinterpretation of its pacifist constitution. Put in place in the aftermath of World War II, Article 9 of the Japanese constitution has been the centerpiece of its post-war pacifist identity since 1947, and details the unequivocal renunciation of war, except in the case of self-defense, as a means to settle disputes with other states. It reads:

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”

“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

The ghosts of World War II still linger ominously over Japanese society. The dangers of imperial ambition and aggressive military expansion have been ingrained within each new generation. However, as Japan pushes into the 21st century, younger generations have lost the emotional connection to the memories of the war and the political philosophy that developed in its wake. They have become increasingly nationalistic, embracing the proud traditions of Japanese history and culture and in a way aspiring to reach that pinnacle once more. Prime Minister Abe has successfully tapped into this new wave of enthusiasm cascading over Japanese society, and it has become the driving force behind Japan’s march toward rediscovering its power and influence.

In the decades since the end of World War II, the U.S., recognizing the shifting interests within the geopolitical landscape of South East Asia, encouraged Japan to increase its defense posture – working over time to slowly move them toward military normalization.

Historically, Japan has resisted contributing to regional defense initiatives, choosing instead to rely more on the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, between the U.S. and itself (an agreement that guaranteed the U.S. would protect Japan from military aggression); however, this position began to shift in the 1990s following the rise in Chinese military power, and in the recent decade has caused Japan to alter course from its pacifist doctrine. Japan is not only witnessing the emergence of a more assertive China, which is looking to exert its dominance over the region, but also a belligerent and unpredictable North Korea that is experimenting with new and more advanced weapons systems (i.e., nuclear weapons, medium and long range ballistic missile).

Even though Japan’s pacifist constitution restricts its ability to maintain a standing military, its constitution allows for the creation of a self-defense force. While the acquisition of military hardware and the build up of troops began as a humble undertaking, it has since blossomed into a highly advanced and formidable military force.

Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, arguably its most important “military” branch, consists of an amalgam of highly sophisticated naval weapon systems. The Soryu-class submarine is among the worlds most advanced non-nuclear attack submarines, it is able to displace 4,100 tons submerged, allowing it to achieve 20 knots under water and 13 knots on the surface. The Soryu-class is equipped with a full compliment of 20 type 89 high-speed homing torpedoes, as well as American-made anti-ship Harpoon missiles. The Soryu-class is also capable of utilizing advanced cruise missiles, which, should the need arise; will provide Japan a preemptive strike capability.

The Atago-class destroyer, as well as its predecessor the Kongo-class, offers the Japanese a versatile surface combat platform, capable of engaging multiple threat environments. The Atago-class destroyer is outfitted with the MK-45 lightweight artillery gun, two MK-141 missile launchers, that provide up to eight ship-to-ship missiles, and a MK-15 Phalanx Close-In-Weapon-System – capable of defending against anti-ship missiles, aircraft, and littoral warfare threats.

Japan’s naval capabilities have the potential to help stifle an increasingly aggressive Chinese military posture, as well as ensure the protection of its territorial sovereignty. The deployment of these naval weapon systems can profoundly complicate Chinese, or North Korean military calculations in the region, causing them to stop and consider the ramifications of pushing for the establishment of a hegemony in South East Asia, or even, in the case of North Korea, pursuing provocative military action against Japan.

Not to be out done, Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force is at the cutting edge of aviation technology. The “tip of the spear” in Japan’s air combat arsenal is the Mitsubishi F-15J – a homemade redesigned version of the American F-15 Eagle, this veteran fighter jet comes equipped with numerous air-to-air missiles, and has been in a perpetual state of evolution during its 30+ years of deployment – enjoying numerous retrofits and upgrades to its radar and electronic guidance systems.

While the F-15J is an excellent fighter aircraft, combat aviation technology has advanced beyond F-15Js current capabilities – Japan is already beginning to plan for its replacement. The Japanese, at one point, expressed interest in purchasing the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, however, the U.S., for a variety of reasons, were not keen on selling it.

Japan is set to join the American Autonomic Logistics Global Sustainment Program (ALGS), which is an eight nation logistical partnership created to sustain the manufacturing and operation of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, commonly referred to as the Joint Strike Fighter. In joining the ALGS, Japan has said that it is interested in manufacturing components for the F-35, which would mean relaxing its long established ban on the export of military hardware.

The potential inclusion of Japan in the ALGS is a major shift in Japan’s military posture, and represents a watershed moment in the transfer of military technology from the U.S. to Japan. If this agreement goes through, any doubts about the direction of Japan’s military normalization will be laid to rest. Japan possesses the third largest economy in the world, coupled with advanced manufacturing capabilities, and a massive population – Japan has the potential to reemerge as a major player on the global stage. Japanese recognize the threat environment in which it exists, and as Prime Minister Abe moves Japan toward military normalization, he has sent a clear signal to Japan’s neighbors that it will not acquiesce to a Chinese predetermined status quo and it will not tolerate military posturing from North Korea.

Over the years, China has been working toward developing the military capability that would allow it to establish an anti-access/area denial (A2-AD) zone in the western pacific (A2-AD is a strategy that focuses on preventing an enemy from conducting military operations in, near, or within a specific region). In the event that a military confrontation was to occur, the Chinese, utilizing A2-AD stratagem, want to neutralize U.S. power projection in the western pacific. This would limit the ability for the U.S. to respond to, for example, a military annexation of Taiwan, or one of the many territorial disputes currently playing out in the South China Sea. From a U.S. perspective, the emergence of a robust and formidable Japanese military will be indispensible in acting as a countermeasure to the Chinese implementing an effective A2-AD strategy.

There are many factors to consider when discussing Japan’s military normalization, however, none are more important than ensuring Sino-Japanese relations remain on an even keel. Sino-Japanese relations have a long and checkered past, mostly due to the fact that China, as well as the Korean Peninsula suffered tremendous hardship and cruelty under the yoke of Japanese imperialism. Japan’s push toward military normalization has the potential to awaken the deep seeded mistrust that has always plagued Sino-Japanese relations.

Prime Minister Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party are firmly in control of Japanese Parliament, and are unlikely to face any meaningful political challenge for several years. Recognizing this opportunity, Prime Minister Abe has taken the necessary steps to fundamentally alter the geopolitical outlook of Japan – the U.S. will play a critical role in ensuring that this shift in Japan’s military posture does not occur at a pace that would unwittingly escalate Sino-Japanese tensions. There is a delicate balancing act playing out, on the one hand the U.S. wants to bolster Japanese military capabilities, in the hopes of deterring Chinese military ambitions, but at the same time, the U.S. must maintain positive relations with Beijing – needless to say, the coming decades will require some deft diplomatic maneuvering to maintain regional stability.

If the U.S. is able to keep Japan on its course toward military normalization, without exacerbating tensions with Beijing, then the U.S., in Japan, will discover a robust and formidable partnership that can help maintain U.S. influence in the Western Pacific and South East Asia for the foreseeable future.

Mazrak camp in the tough mountainous scrublands of Yemen’s north-west border with Saudi Arabia is now home to more than 10,000 people displaced by the escalating war between the government and rebels from the Huthi clan.
Photo: Annasofie Flamand / IRIN / 201003230854400244

By Ali G. Scotten

As Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) officials meet with President Obama at Camp David, their lobbying efforts are revolving around one question: In the event of a nuclear deal with Iran, what will the U.S. do to counter the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Middle East? The more important question, however — and one that Obama should ask them — is how they plan to stop the spread of sectarian warfare in the region.

The intensification of fighting along the Sunni-Shia divide should be of far greater concern than the challenge posed by Iran’s emergence from isolation. Sectarian hatred is drawing religious extremists from around the world to fight in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The longer that violence continues along religious communal lines, the harder it will be to arrive at political solutions to each conflict, and the more battle training foreign insurgents will receive — experience that can be used to wreak havoc when they return home.

The transnational nature of the current sectarian conflict is largely a result of the way a number of GCC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have attempted to counter Iran’s increasing influence in the region. For over a decade, Arab leaders have been warning Western governments of the Islamic Republic’s nefarious plan to establish a Shia empire across the Middle East — an argument based on the assumption that all Shias are sleeper agents, mindlessly awaiting orders from Iran’s Supreme Leader. The irony is that, in employing sectarian rhetoric to thwart Shia community efforts to address local grievances, these leaders have galvanized Sunni extremists, whose violence often serves to push Shias into Iran’s arms as a last resort.

Iraq and Yemen provide just two examples.

Following the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Saudi Arabia and its allies feared that a new representative government in Baghdad would emerge as a Shia theocracy operating under Tehran’s thumb. This was despite the fact that the majority of Iraqi Shias align with the Najaf school of Shiism, which looks down on ayatollahs engaging in worldly politics, and that most Shias polled at the time didn’t see Iranian involvement in their political affairs as a positive development. However, anti-Shia rhetoric and funding from wealthy individuals in GCC countries — coupled with the U.S. de-Ba’athification program, which exacerbated Sunni fears of marginalization — drew Sunni militants to Iraq harboring the intent to spark a sectarian civil war. When the civil war erupted in 2006, Shia Iraqis had little recourse but to turn to Iranian-allied extremist groups for protection.

In Yemen, the Saudis have been bombarding Houthi rebels, whom they view to be Iranian proxies because of their Zaydi Shia faith. But Zaydis share more in common religiously with their northern Yemeni Sunni neighbors than they do with distant Iranian Shias; in fact, many Zaydis even consider themselves to be a distinct sect. As a result, until the past couple of decades, Yemen experienced relatively little in the way of sectarianism. The more assertive form of Zaydism that the Houthis follow, however, emerged in the early 1990s in response to the encroachment of Saudi Wahabbism—the brand of Sunni Islam that has inspired the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State—into northern Yemen, accompanied by attacks on Zaydi shrines and mosques.

This new tension, combined with the economic deprivations experienced by northern Yemenis, created the Houthi movement. During the past decade, the Houthis became more radicalized following Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh’s six military incursions into northern Yemen, which left thousands dead. The Saudis, who supported the attacks as a means of countering Iran’s supposed influence in the Arabian Peninsula, joined the fight against the Houthis in 2009, prompting emboldened rhetoric from Tehran in support of the rebels.

Ultimately, in attacking the Houthis as Iranian proxies rather than seeking to alleviate the social and economic problems afflicting northern Yemen, Sana’a and Riyadh pushed the rebels to seek Iran’s help. Moreover, Saudi intervention in the name of countering Tehran created an incentive for the Iranians to operate in a region that held minor strategic importance to them, largely in order to prevent the Saudis from claiming that they had dealt the Islamic Republic a blow. Today, multiple flights travel each week between Tehran and the Houthi-held Yemeni capital, with many likely carrying arms (although most analysts see Saleh’s about-face in support of the Houthis, rather than Iranian weaponry, as the key to the rebels’ recent success).

None of this is to say that Iran is blameless in the sectarianism game. The Saudis and Bahrainis, for instance, likely wouldn’t see their sizeable Shia populations as security threats if it weren’t for Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Khomeini’s call in the 1980s to spread the Islamic Revolution — a call that led to the establishment of pro-Iranian revolutionary groups throughout the Persian Gulf. One such group, Hijazi Hezbollah, is widely believed to have been behind the 1996 bombing of the U.S. military barracks in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. And Iran’s failure to rein in previous Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s persecution of Iraqi Sunnis contributed to the widespread alienation that allowed the Islamic State to take over much of the country’s Sunni areas with such ease. The massacres being perpetrated against Sunni civilians by Iranian-backed Shia militias in areas liberated from the Islamic State do nothing to address this problem.

At today’s meeting with Obama, GCC leaders will ask for more military assistance. While Washington is likely to grant them their wish — perhaps providing them with a missile shield — it’s unclear what more weaponry will ultimately accomplish given that most of the fighting is being waged by non-state actors who can’t be defeated through conventional military means. Already possessing the world’s fourth-largest defense budget, the Saudis have been unable to achieve definitive success against the Houthis. Instead, the fighting is spreading into Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic State appears to have used the unrest to gain a foothold in Yemen.

It’s time for the GCC to accept that the years of containing Iran are over; the Bush administration’s decision to overthrow Tehran’s mortal enemy in Baghdad made that all but inevitable. Even in the face of the most crippling sanctions it has ever seen, the Islamic Republic has been able to preserve the Assad regime in Syria and increase its influence in Iraq. Is it possible that, following the lifting of sanctions, Iran could use the billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and increased oil revenue to intensify the fighting? Yes. But it should be painfully clear by now that none of the region’s most serious conflicts can be resolved without having Iran at the table. Ultimately, lasting security will have to involve the establishment of a new regional framework that binds the Islamic Republic and the other Persian Gulf countries into a relationship that elevates economic collaboration over geopolitical confrontation.

This is unlikely to occur, however, without domestic reform in the region. All of the conflicts raging in the Middle East today — with the exception of the U.S.-inspired chaos in Iraq — were sparked by protests against repression. In this regard, it’s important to note that Persian-led Iran has only made substantive inroads into the Arab world in times of instability. This was the case following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which provided the context for Hezbollah’s emergence, and it’s the case in Iraq and Yemen today. Meanwhile, GCC leaders’ policies that marginalize their Shia subjects, rather than integrate them into a pluralistic national project, have created the very susceptibility to Iranian influence that the Sunni monarchs fear.

For these reasons, when President Obama’s visitors ask him how they can best counter Iran, the most honest answer he can give is, “Get your own houses in order.”

Ali G. Scotten is a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and founder of Scotten Consulting, LLC, a company specializing in sociocultural and geopolitical analysis of the Middle East. Views expressed are his own.

via Twitter (World Bank)

Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission’s vice president in charge of energy, has been hitting the old Silk Road in search of new gas supply contracts that would break Gazprom’s hold on the European market. Emerging from a meeting held in the Turkmen capital with representatives from Turkmenistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan, Šefčovič confidently said that the union would start importing Caspian natural gas through its long-touted Southern Gas Corridor network of pipelines by 2019. The fact that the officials also discussed the prospect of building pipeline through Iran “since diplomatic relations with Iran are developing positively” is yet another startling reminder of just how badly Europe wants to break free from Russia’s natural gas supplies.

But can the EU’s gamble pay off?

On paper, Turkmenistan would be a great match for Europe’s energy woes. To begin with, the Central Asian country sits on the world’s fourth largest gas reserve and owns the world’s second largest gas field. Historically, thanks to some perverse pipeline politics that forced the country to export the bulk of its natural gas to Russia, Turkmenistan had been one of Gazprom’s largest suppliers of gas. That is, until 2009, when the Russians unilaterally announced that they will gradually phase out gas imports from Central Asian countries (in 2015, Gazprom will buy only 4 billion cubic meters, down from 45 bcm six years ago). As a result, Ashgabat turned to China and the EU to offset the lost revenues. After Turkmen officials revealed their desire to supply Europe with 10 to 30 bcm per year, Brussels listened and quickly dispatched Šefčovič to Ashgabat.

What’s more, sealing a deal with Turkmenistan to send part of its gas to Europe would be a boon not only for the Union’s energy security but also for Ukraine’s own trials and tribulations with Russia. In late March, Poroshenko signaled his interest in resuming inexpensive gas imports from Turkmenistan, as a way to sidestep Gazprom’s whimsical pricing policy.

Kyiv’s energy policy used to be prescribed by the gas prices demanded by Gazprom, a price curve that ebbed and flowed in lockstep with Ukraine’s falling in and out of Moscow’s grace. Up until 2009, thanks to a contract signed by RosUkrEnergo’s Dmitry Firtash, Kyiv enjoyed the lowest gas prices in its history by relying on a mix of cheaper Turkmen and Russian gas. The agreement, revolutionary at the time because it was the first time Turkmen gas would make its way directly to Europe, was shredded when Firtash’s political opponent and former gas trader, Yulia Tymoshenko cut out RosUkrEnergo from the equation and signed instead a 10-year agreement with Gazprom. Because of its variable pricing technique that saw prices rise four-fold in the span of a few years, the 2009 deal proved to be a complete mess for Kyiv. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk announced that his government is now seeking a hair-raising $16 billion in damages from Gazprom before an arbitration court in Stockholm.

Today, the prospect of importing Turkmen gas to Ukraine is trickier than it is for the EU, mostly because Kyiv needs Gazprom’s pipeline network for its transport. However, Ukraine’s rightfully combative stance with Russia makes the prospect of negotiating a deal with Gazprom a tough sell. Firtash, riding high after being cleared of graft charges by an Austrian court, in what the judge deemed to be a politically motivated trial mounted at Washington’s behest, could however end the deadlock given his long-standing business connection in both Moscow and Ashgabat.

With both Brussels and Kyiv courting Ashgabat, we are now witnessing the birth of a new energy architecture in Europe that will have long lasting impacts on Russia’s capacity to use its energy weapon for political games. Unlike its ho-hum predecessor, Jean Claude Juncker’s Commission has deftly navigated the testy waters laid at its doorstep by Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine. EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager leveled a €10 billion anti-trust case against Gazprom for unfair pricing in several Central and Eastern European countries. The move is part of the Union’s Third Energy Package that wants to bolster competition in EU energy markets through a process of unbundling, or separating pipeline ownership from gas producing companies. A win for the Commission’s litigators would deal a mortal blow to Gazprom’s bottom line and would force the company to rethink its business plan. Even if the company reached an agreement with Ankara on May 7 for the building of a pipeline across the Black Sea to Turkey, the feasibility of the project has been severely questioned.

Against this backdrop, Šefčovič’s and Poroshenko’s forays in Turkmenistan seem to indicate that the tide is turning against Gazprom’s old ways of doing business. The unprecedented fall in oil prices (Gazprom’s gas prices are pegged to the barrel) and the tumble of the ruble have shaved 86 percent off the company’s net profits in 2014, a trend that will continue unless the gas company adapts its European business model in order to respect European laws. In the medium term, the message is clear: Gazprom’s can no longer claim to be indispensable in Europe.

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

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.

German Ambassador to India, Michael Steiner (L) listens to Dr. Hubert Lienhard (R), Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA), speaking during a joint news conference in New Delhi, India, 11 July 2014. MONEY SHARMA—EPA

Charities and citizen advocacy groups are having a tough time these days in some large developing countries. Both Russia and China have increasingly tightened restrictions on their activities, as well as other non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Now it is India’s turn, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced on April 27 the cancellation of registrations for close to 9,000 foreign-funded NGOs, citing the failure of the NGOs to file returns. Tensions between foreign NGOs and the Indian government have long existed, although some fear under Modi’s watch oversight of NGOs is increasing.

Some NGOs have been placed on a “watch list,” rumored to include such well-known NGOs as the Climate Work Foundation, the Danish International Development Agency,  Greenpeace, Hivos, Mercy Corps, and the Sierra Club. Other NGOs have had their bank accounts frozen.  Among those targeted is the Ford Foundation, based in New York, which currently funds programs in India to promote livelihood among the poor, advocacy for economic and social rights, good governance, and women’s reproductive health.  Since starting its operation in 1952 under Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, the foundation has funded some $508 million. These programs are now required to receive permission from India’s home affairs ministry before any money gets transferred to recipients.

Many link the crackdown on Ford’s activities to their support of human rights activist Teesta Setalvad, who has fought for the rights of victims of the 2002 riots in Gujarat — during which Modi acted as chief minister of Gujarat. The riots followed the torching of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, which killed 59 people. Hindu mobs then attacked Muslims, resulting in the death of over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. Given his Hindu nationalist background, Mr. Modi stands accused of failing to quell the violence against Muslims in 2002, and has recently been criticised for his silence on several anti-Muslim incidents taking place since he assumed power.

In March, the Gujarat government condemned the funding by Ford of a trust to support the victims, accusing Ford of interfering in the “internal affairs” of India and “of abetting communal disharmony.” Some analysts attribute the move as an attempt by the Modi government to appease Sangh Parivar, the coalition of right-wing Hindu nationalist groups, started by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), who support Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

Last June, a report by India’s Intelligence Bureau leaked to the media accused Ford, Greenpeace, and Hivos of hindering India’s growth through their active opposition to nuclear, mining and power projects.

While registrations for close to 9,000 NGOs have been cancelled, by some estimates there are 3.2 million NGOs operating in India, of which some 40,000 are registered. An attempt by the Modi government to clean up the registration process is needed, as well as more transparency, but the effort should not turn into a witch hunt to target specific groups, such as those who are trying to protect the environment or fight for human rights. The German Ambassador to India, Micheal Steiner, recently added his concerns at an event in Delhi, stating “NGOs are doing impressive work in India,” adding, “I think the fundamental approach should be to support their work.”  U.S. Ambassador Richard Verma went further, warning of a “potential chilling effect” should the Modi government continue to crackdown on NGOs.

While scrutiny of the activities of NGOs is certainly necessary and justifiable, any perceived bias against those NGOs operating in the environmental or human rights space risks driving many NGOs out and making it difficult for those that remain to operate effectively. Should the Modi government chose to impose new regulations on the operations of all NGOs, this will likely slow the operations of the many NGOs who are having a favorable impact on the quality of life in India.

International NGOs, such as the Danish International Development Agency, the Ford Foundation, Greenpeace, and Mercy Corps, operate across many countries and regions, and with constraints on their funding, must choose among worthy nations.  In making that choice of where to deploy funding and resources, two key factors are local operating conditions and how effective that capital can be deployed to produce real change. Should international NGOs decide India’s operating conditions are too onerous, and efforts to produce real change too distant, it will be up to the Indian government to fill the void with effective programs of its own, lest the Indian populace suffer.

The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — most dramatically since the 1970s. Yet, global warming skeptics and ill-informed elected officials continue to dismiss this broad scientific consensus. As a generational challenge, climate change seems to be victim to a failure of communication. It is badly in need of a framework to help reduce the gap between what is understood by the scientific community, and what the public and policymakers need to know.

Susan Joy Hassol, a climate change communicator, analyst, and author who has been making climate science accessible for 25 years. Director of Climate Communication, Susan helps scientists communicate more effectively and provides information to policymakers, journalists, and others. She has authored and edited numerous reports, written an HBO documentary, and appeared on national media. In her recent talk, ClimateTalk: Science & Solution, given at a TEDx event, Susan discusses how a resolution of the climate communication failure is essential to unleash our ability to solve the climate problem. 

I had a chance to catch up with Susan during her visit to speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) our discussion:

Climate change. Would you say it is the most important challenge we face this century?

Oh, yes. Left unchecked it’s an existential threat to civilization. It’s the mother of all challenges, in that by tackling climate change, we’d also address a range of other challenges like job creation, health issues, social equity, environmental protection and security concerns.

But just because it’s the most important challenge doesn’t mean it’s the most daunting. We have almost everything we need to solve it: the technologies, the policies, and recent polls show that there’s broad public support across political lines for climate action. It won’t be easy, but nothing important ever is. It will be quite cheap, though, compared to the consequences of inaction.

Is the challenge in tackling and generating action on climate change largely a communications failure?

Communications failures are major obstacles to action. They range from language confusion, both inadvertent and deliberate, to the disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about the science, to the way the media handle climate – the minimal coverage, the undue airtime given to contrarian views, and a general failure to connect the dots between what we’re experiencing and the human influence on climate.

But while these failures have been obstacles to action, they’re not insurmountable. There are ways forward.

What do you see as the top hurdles in bridging the gap between science and policy action with regards to climate change?

The top hurdles include the partisan ideological divide – the “toxic tribalism” that has infected the climate issue, and the disinformation campaign that deliberately muddies the waters – and they’re not unrelated. It’s hard to get sufficient policies enacted in the U.S. when the leadership of one political party still largely denies the science. The disinformation campaign fuels that denial. And the scarcity of media coverage is a hurdle because people tend to prioritize what’s “trending,” so climate change just doesn’t reach high priority status for most people.

Ten years from now — and realistically speaking — do you see concrete, substantive action happening on climate change? What is your hope?

It depends on whether we can achieve the political breakthroughs necessary. It’s not primarily a problem of science or technology. It’s primarily a political problem. If we can summon the leadership and political will to bridge the ideological divide and agree on solutions that provide wide-ranging benefits, it’s my hope that in ten years we’ll be well on our way to changing our trajectory and ensuring our future. We can do this.

Are there any angles that the discourse on climate change is not leveraging? Ideology and faith, for instance?

Some people are working diligently in those arenas. For example, Bob Inglis is engaging his fellow conservatives and Katharine Hayhoe is reaching out to her fellow evangelical Christians. And how about Pope Francis! Not only is he engaging the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, he makes a moral case for climate action that reaches many others too.

This is where the critical importance of trusted messengers comes in. People are much more likely to accept an idea when they hear it from someone with whom they connect on values. So there’s an important role for identifying and promoting trusted sources for various audiences.

If you could, how would you solve climate change?

I would implement globally all the policies and technologies we can already see working in various places. These would include properly pricing all energy sources to include all of their real costs to society; instituting strong energy efficiency standards on everything that uses energy, from cars to appliances; removing all subsidies from carbon-based fuels; and instating policies that encourage the use of renewable energy. To do all this, I’d draw on the talents of brilliant people who are making these things happen in cities, states, and countries around the world now.

How can the public — especially the younger generations — effectively engage and drive action around climate change?

I think becoming politically engaged on all levels – your university, city, state, and region – is key to driving action. Each college or town can serve as a laboratory for what works and can be an example for others to follow. You can let your political leaders know that climate change is a top priority issue that will determine your vote. Young people can pursue careers in clean energy and other avenues that use science, technology, and policies to ensure a healthy future. And for all of us, it’s time to raise the profile of climate change – to bring it to the front burner.

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Patan, Nepal (Photo: cpcmollet via Flickr).

Nepal, Before and After the Earthquake
The New York times Magazine
Text by Jon Mooallem/Photographs by Giles Price

With pictures as beautiful and saddening as the text that describes them, The New York times Magazine depicts the beauty of Nepal and its people, and the destruction of their country after a major earthquake last week.

The Right to Blaspheme
The Atlantic
By David Frum

In response to the attempted terror attack in Garland, T.X., David Frum makes the distinction between hate speech and blasphemy, and what freedom of speech entails.

The Aesthetic Failure of ‘Charlie Hebdo’
The New Republic
By Jeet Heer

In the months following the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, a debate has broken out about the satire magazine’s refusal to modernize its message.

What Happens in Atomic City Stays in Atomic City
Medium
By Cassie Benjamin

The Manhattan Project was the secret U.S. initiative to construct an atomic bomb to help end World War II. Keeping it hidden from enemies was obvious, but the extent to which it was hidden from the thousands of employees is surprising.

A League of His Own
Bloomberg Business
By Tariq Panja, Andrew Martin, and Vernon Silver

Bloomberg Business published an in-depth feature on the divisive FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, and the political orchestrating he navigates while controlling the world’s most popular game.

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