Foreign Policy

President Obama is convening delegations from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations at Camp David today to discuss pressing security issues across the Middle East. The summit is foremost an opportunity for the president to make assurances to the Gulf about their security if a nuclear agreement is reached with Iran, but will also include discussions about the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, the continuing Syrian civil war, and the fight against the Islamic State.

President Obama met with Saudi delegates yesterday, including Interior Minister Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Defense Minister Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa are skipping the summit in what has largely been perceived as a snub of the Obama Administration. President Obama is expected to offer the Gulf states a large package of defense systems to ensure the GCC’s security but has already quashed the idea of a NATO-like defense pact advocated by some Gulf diplomats.

Islamic State Deputy Reportedly Killed

The Iraqi Defence Ministry reported yesterday that Abu Alaa al-Afri, the Islamic State’s top deputy to the organization’s self-appointed caliph, has been killed in an airstrike in the city of Tal Afar. They also released video of a strike and photos of his body. The U.S. government has cast doubt on the Iraqi government’s report, saying it did not conduct a strike on the mosque in Tal Afar, where Afri was reportedly killed, and some have noted that the video released by the Iraqi government may be the same as one released by the United States depicting a May 4 strike in Mosul.

Headlines

• The Vatican announced it is preparing to sign its first treaty with the Palestinian leadership, days before a visit from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; the Vatican has recognized Palestine as a state since 2013.

• Iranian parliamentarians are backing away from a bill that would halt nuclear negotiations with the United States until Washington apologizes for perceived threats; some said that they were not aware of plans to fast-track the legislation, while others said they were duped into signing what they didn’t even realize was a bill.

• The Yemeni government warned Iran yesterday that it “bears complete responsibility for any incident that arises from their attempt to enter Yemeni waters” if it does not allow the search of a cargo ship purportedly carrying humanitarian aid; the United States has urged Iran to direct aid through the U.N. hub in Djibouti.

• Syrian opposition groups have declined to meet with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura for preliminary peace talks, citing his comments supporting a role for Assad in a potential political transition.

• The British government said it would opt-out of any quota system approved by the European Union for a burden-sharing redistribution of migrants fleeing to Europe from Libyan ports.

-J. Dana Stuster

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

In the absence of a major announcement on a security pact or missile defense shield, this week’s summit between the United States and six Persian Gulf countries is likely to fall back on a time-honored tradition: a series of expedited arms transfers from Washington to the oil-rich Arab states and a joint-statement highlighting America’s “renewed commitment” to the Gulf.

In the past, such weapons transfers have prompted major concern in Israel and Capitol Hill about Jerusalem losing its military edge over its Arab neighbors. But this time is different.

According to an official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S. — the group is not trying to lobby Congress to block arms deals with the Gulf. The Israeli government has also refrained from weighing in, according to Hill staffers who maintain routine contacts with the Israelis.

“Israelis have been silent,” said a congressional aide familiar with the issue. “AIPAC was asking a lot of questions, but I wouldn’t characterize our interactions on this as lobbying.”

One reason, according to State Department and congressional sources, is that the Obama administration is carefully assessing how it can help Gulf allies deter a threat from Iran without overstepping Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME), a calculus the executive branch is required by law to take into account as it licenses the transfer of weapons to Middle East governments.

Another reason for Israel’s relaxed temperament is its newfound kinship with Arab countries who share its concerns about Iran’s rise in the region. “The Israelis have cared less about the deals happening this week because there’s a feeling in Israel that they now have an undeclared ally in the GCC against Iran,” said David Ottaway, a Gulf expert at the Wilson Center, using an acronym for the six countries that makeup the Gulf Cooperation Council.

But satisfying all sides equally is easier said than done — and at least some of the top weapons systems on the GCC wish list are not expected to be supplied due to QME considerations, including the F-35 Lightning II, a “fifth-generation” fighter jet designed to be virtually invisible to enemy radar, and BU-28 bunker buster bombs, which Washington has only provided to Israel. Instead, the Gulf countries are likely to walk away with promises to expedite the transfers of long-sought munitions and radar equipment.

“The Emiratis and to a certain extent the Saudis had wanted to build this session into a much more robust agreement on both security guarantees and specific arms transfers,” said a congressional staffer familiar with the issue. “The U.S. side had to manage those inflated expectations back down to something more realistic.”

The summit itself, a gathering of senior officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, isn’t likely to produce a statement that details a laundry list of weapons deals. However, leaders are expected to discuss ways the U.S. can expedite long-desired equipment that will help Gulf countries deter Iran and replenish arms used in the Saudi-led bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Those items are likely to include new avionics equipment for F-15 and F-16 aircraft, upgraded radar systems that reach greater distances and identify smaller objects, and an increased flow of ordnance to Gulf militaries, such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAMs, which are one of Saudi Arabia’s main weapons in that air war. Upgraded radar equipment, in particular, is seen as important for spotting incoming Iranian small boats or surveillance and armed drones.

Obama invited the GCC countries to Camp David in April with the goal of easing Arab concerns about the emerging nuclear deal with Iran and five world powers. Ahead of the summit, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been pushing for the U.S. to agree to a mutual defense treaty, a proposal Washington now says is not in the cards.

In an interview with al Jazeera Wednesday, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that a formal defense “treaty is not what we’re looking for.”

“It took decades to build NATO and the Asian allies but we can provide clear assurances that we will come to their defense,” he said.

Some have attributed the decision by Saudi Arabia’s monarch, King Salman, not to attend this week’s summit to Washington’s refusal to commit to a defense treaty.

For its part, Washington wants to avoid making ironclad security guarantees in a region marred by perpetual instability.

As an alternative, Obama is expected to push for a regional defense shield aimed at guarding against the Iranian missile threat, but while Saudi Arabia is supportive of the project, other GCC countries, such as the UAE, have raised doubts about the feasibility of the effort. An easy fallback is additional arms sales.

Any new weapons deals would accelerate Riyadh’s ongoing push to grow and modernize its armed forces. Last year, Saudi Arabia passed India and became the world’s top importer of weapons, aircraft, and other military equipment, according to IHS’ annual Global Defense Trade Report. Riyadh’s imports jumped 54 percent between 2013 and 2014, and IHS projected a further 52 percent increase this year.

In the last 20 years, Saudi Arabia has invested nearly $500 billion into its military, according to Jean-Francois Seznec of Johns Hopkins University. With nearly three-quarters of that cash going to the United States, Riyadh is one of the most lucrative sources of income for U.S. defence companies.

Riyadh isn’t the only Gulf power opening its wallet wide: the IHS report noted that Saudi Arabia and the UAE spent $8.6 billion on defense imports in 2014, an amount bigger than that spent by all of Western Europe put together.

The UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are already in the process of upgrading existing Raytheon Co Patriot missile defense systems to utilize new PAC-3 missiles. The UAE is also buying another missile defense system from Lockheed Martin: a longer-range Terminal HIgh Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

By next year, Qatar could close a $6.5 billion deal for a THAAD system, which could be followed by a similar purchase by Saudi Arabia.

Over the years, the massive flow of arms to Gulf allies has caused a number of flare ups in the U.S.-Israel relationship. A particularly heated battle surrounded the Reagan administration’s $8.5 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia in 1981, the largest foreign arms sale in U.S. history at the time.

The sale, which included the transfer of AWACS reconnaissance planes to Riyadh, was loudly protested by Israel and its allies in Congress. Though President Ronald Reagan ultimately cleared the sale, he denounced the meddling of Israel in U.S. politics in ways unfathomable in the current political context. ”It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy,” Reagan said at a news conference that year.

Ottaway, the Gulf expert, said much has changed since that historic dispute. “Almost all these more sophisticated American arms going to the Gulf are pre-negotiated with Israel,” he said. “If AIPAC doesn’t like the deal, you can be sure that nobody’s seriously thinking about providing it.”

For its part, the State Department insists it has no problem managing the interests and concerns of all parties involved, despite the groundswell of mutual distrust that is synonymous with the Middle East. “Our close engagement with GCC member states is not incompatible with our unwavering commitment to Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge, as evidenced by our substantial military cooperation with both Israel and the GCC,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told Foreign Policy.

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), positioning himself for a run at the GOP presidential nomination, appears to have flip-flopped on the Iraq war.

For years, Rubio maintained he would have still gone to war knowing what we know today: that Iraq didn’t actually possess the purported weapons of mass program that George W. Bush used to justify the invasion. In a question-and-answer session after a speech outlining his foreign policy vision at the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday, he reversed course.

“Not only would I not have been in favor of it, President [George W.] Bush wouldn’t have been in favor of it and he said so,” Rubio told journalist Charlie Rose, who was leading the session.

Rubio’s reversal adds him to the growing list of GOP contenders trying to come to terms with how to talk about the Iraq War, which sharp majorities of Americans from both parties regard as a mistake. In recent days, Jeb Bush said he would still go to war in Iraq. Under fire, he changed his answer and insisted he wouldn’t.

Rubio’s comments are at odds with at least two of his previous statements. In March, he said on Fox he would have gone to war and that the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein. This is a claim he repeated in 2010 during an interview with CNN.

He took a different stance Wednesday.

“Ultimately though, I do not believe that if the intelligence had said Iraq does not have a weapon of mass destruction capability, I don’t believe President Bush would have authorized to move forward,” Rubio said.

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The House just passed a White House-backed National Security Agency reform bill Wednesday, but it faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where lawmakers say the legislation would make America less safe, and an key electronic privacy group is pulling its long-time support for the proposal.

The issue for both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Electronic Freedom Foundation is Section 215 of the Patriot Act, a provision that allows for the bulk collection of American phone records by the NSA. A federal court ruled the program illegal last week, but left the door open for Congress to allow it with new legislation. The House bill removes Section 215, while the legislation being considered by the Senate contains it.

McConnell’s problem with the House version of the disingenuously-named USA Freedom Act is that it doesn’t give the government the authority to continue mass collection of American data. He maintains eliminating the program would make the United States less safe, despite little evidence that the data collected by the government has stopped terror attacks.

Wednesday’s House vote is the latest episode in a two-year struggle to pass intelligence reform in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA’s broad surveillance operations. Tech companies, Obama, civil liberty groups, and many lawmakers support reform efforts, but getting a bill Congress and the White House can agree on has so far proven elusive. The House vote approving the measure by an overwhelming 338 to 88 margin also comes as intelligence and defense officials debate the ground rules of cyberwar.

Still, the bill could die a quick death in the Senate, where a similar measure failed to garner enough support to even make it to the floor for a vote. McConnell, along with other Republican hawks like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), are promising to fight the bill once it arrives in the upper chamber.

The EFF, a group that has been advocating for electronic privacy since 1990, supported the bill as recently as last week. Now, though, it’s singing a different tune, saying the court ruling finding the surveillance program illegal changed their position. In a blog post Monday, EFF’s civil liberty director, David Greene, and its legislative analyst, Mark Jaycox, argued the ruling should compel Congress to revert to a 2013 version that contained stronger provisions outlawing mass surveillance.

Other privacy advocates are also opposed to the bill. Daniel Schuman, policy director of the progressive group Demand Progress, said the legislation does not address the controversial Section 706 provision allowing the government to collect email and internet traffic information

“Taking a bite of a poisoned apple is not going to address the underlying issues,” he said. “You don’t ask for the bare minimum.”

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Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor was one of the few bright spots on the United States’ much-maligned rail system. Connecting Boston to Washington via major cities including New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, the route was both profitable and enjoying a steady rise in ridership numbers. The deadly Amtrak accident Tuesday night, which killed at least seven people and injured dozens more when it derailed in Philadelphia, will change that, at least in the short term. Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter called the accident “an absolute disastrous mess,” adding: “Never seen anything like this in my life.” And in an ironic case of timing, on Wednesday the House Appropriations voted to cut Amtrak’s public funding in 2016, from $1.4 billion to roughly $1.1 billion.

How do you solve a problem like Amtrak, which has bled money practically since it began operating in 1971? Tokyo thinks it has a solution, at least for the Northeast Corridor: a high speed rail, built with Japanese technology and funded, at least in part, by Japanese money. In September, an investor group told Maryland state regulators it had lined up more than $5 billion from Tokyo, “which hopes to showcase the technology behind superconducting magnetic levitation or ‘maglev’ trains to an American audience,” according to The Washington Post. And in October, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that if Tokyo built the train, “you could travel from Washington to Baltimore in 15 minutes, and to New York within less than an hour.”

It would also help solve Amtrak’s problem of reliability. That’s what people want from Amtrak and especially its high-speed Acela line, according to R. Richard Geddes, director of Cornell’s infrastructure policy program: for a train scheduled to arrive at 10:30 a.m., for example, to actually arrive at 10:30 a.m. Amtrak’s express Acela line, which takes just under 3 hours to travel from Washington to New York City, was on time 69 percent of the time over the past year, compared with near 100 percent for Japan’s high speed rail the Shinkansen, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Safety-wise, Tokyo’s train system certainly is not any worse than Amtrak — though it might not be much better, either. “Amtrak is certainly not a notoriously dangerous mode of transportation,” said Clifford Winston, a transportation expert at the Brookings Institution think-tank. “We’re not behind the curve here.” And Tokyo has had its share of rail accidents, most notoriously in April 2005, when a commuter train derailed and crashed into an apartment building, killing 107 people on the train and injuring hundreds more.

Tokyo’s proposal is not out of the blue. Besides potential developments in the Washington-to-New York City route, there’s also a company trying to develop a high speed rail between Dallas and Houston. And in January, the state of California broke ground on a high-speed rail connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco – though it’s not expected to be operating until 2028. While emphasizing that the cause of Tuesday’s accident is still unknown, Geddes said “there’s consensus that Amtrak needs to be upgraded and modernized.”

So is high-speed rail the way to go? Probably not – because of the cost. Even if Tokyo does pay for more than $5 billion of the D.C.-to-Baltimore route, the entire project would reportedly cost at least $10 billion. And citizens of Baltimore and Washington aren’t exactly clamoring for the ability to travel quicker between the two cities. The tens of billions of dollars needed to build a maglev line between Washington and New York, the only connection that would make sense for the system, is so huge that the project won’t get built, Andy Kunz, president and CEO of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, told The Washington Post late last year.

Why don’t we spend the tens of billions of dollars to upgrade our rail system? As New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pointed out in a recent interview, China spends 9 percent of its GDP on infrastructure, while the United States spends only 1.7 percent. In March, Beijing announced that it will be spending roughly $128 billion on domestic rail construction in 2015, whereas the United States typically only spends $50 billion annually on road and transit projects.

Winston said the U.S. doesn’t spend tens of billions of dollars on rail projects because it would be a huge waste of money. China and Japan, with their extensive network of high-speed rail, “are making huge sacrifices for the systems they have – the billions and trillions they’re spending on these systems are costing them elsewhere.” High-speed rail, he said, doesn’t make sense in a country with a population as spread out, and as dependent on planes, and automobiles, as is the United States.

Rather, instead of relying on foreign government money, bring in the private sector. Upgrading the Northeast Corridor, Geddes said, can be done with a public-private partnership. This allows for more innovation and accountability – two qualities Amtrak sorely lacks. “The best practices come from the private sector,” said Winston. Trying to find government best practices – including with Tokyo — “is a race of the bottom.” Amtrak’s history “is a long and sad one,” said Winston. Its future doesn’t have to be.

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Ten years ago, Uzbekistan’s security forces shot dead hundreds of unarmed people demonstrating for greater economic and political freedom in the eastern city of Andijan. Initial international condemnation came quickly, but as is too often the case, world interest has evaporated like drops of water in the Central Asian sun. Repression in Uzbekistan has only intensified since then.

The Andijan massacre of May 13, 2005, belongs to a shameful global list of missed opportunities for justice and accountability. World leaders by and large did little to censure the government of President Islam Karimov. Tashkent’s dictator stared them all down — and the world blinked.

The course of events not only reveals a great deal about Karimov, whose iron-fisted rule has lasted since the Kremlin installed him as Communist Party boss in 1989. It also shows the consequences of the world’s failure to insist that justice be done — or anyone be held accountable — for such a shocking abuse of power. And 10 years later, the human rights violations perpetrated by the regime remain a blot on the world’s conscience.

The massacre began on the night of May 12, 2005, following weeks of protests in connection with the trial of 23 local businessmen for “religious extremism” — a charge regularly used by authorities to neutralize dissent. Arrested in June of 2004 on these trumped up charges, their trial, which was punctuated by protests, had for many come to embody the key injustices of life in Karimov’s Uzbekistan: grinding poverty, corruption, widespread rights abuses, and a campaign of persecution against religious Muslims. When the verdict was finally read on May 11, the long-simmering tensions in Andijan that had permeated the trial boiled over into open violence. A group of 50 to 100 men, mainly supporters of the jailed businessmen, attacked several government buildings and broke into the city prison to release them, along with hundreds of other prisoners.

Following the prison break, in the early hours of May 13, thousands of residents began to gather in Andijan’s central Bobur Square to protest what they saw as an unfair trial and the wider economic and political injustices in the country. Many expected that Uzbek government officials, including even President Karimov himself, might come to address the throng.

But in the morning on May 13, Uzbek security forces fired machine guns into the crowd from armored personnel carriers (APCs) and sniper positions above the square without warning. Surrounded, protesters were unable to escape. Troops blocked off the square and opened fire, killing and wounding unarmed civilians en masse. Security forces later swept through the area and executed some of the wounded where they lay. The massacre lasted hours.

As U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time, I first called for an independent investigation into the Andijan events on May 18, five days after the killings took place. The report by my office in the immediate aftermath concluded that “consistent, credible eyewitness testimony strongly suggests that military and security forces committed grave human rights violations in Andijan,” even a “mass killing.” The report was based on interviews with eyewitnesses in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, where some of the survivors had fled immediately after the violence.

The events in Andijan initially attracted widespread international condemnation. In addition to my office, other U.N. bodies — as well as the European Union, the United States, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the NATO Council — condemned the response by Uzbek security forces and called for an independent international investigation into the events, demanding unhindered access.

After the Uzbek government adamantly rejected these calls and refused to cooperate with the international community, the EU imposed sanctions on Uzbekistan, including an EU-wide visa ban for high-ranking officials “directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force in Andijan,” and an embargo on arms exports to the country. The United States didn’t go that far, but it did further tighten restrictions it had placed on military assistance.

But the pressure wasn’t enough — and Karimov didn’t budge.

In the years that followed, condemnation subsided and the outside world seemed as anxious to move on and forget the massacre as the regime did. Within a couple years — without giving the sanctions any chance to have serious impact — the EU eased and then dropped its economic restrictions. Germany was a key actor in the phasing out of sanctions, seeking to hold on to its military base in the town of Termez. The United States didn’t stand firm either. In 2012, keen to maintain good relations with Karimov in order to receive his assistance in transiting supplies in and out of neighboring Afghanistan, the Obama administration waived all restrictions on military assistance even as Uzbekistan’s rights record continued to worsen: Ever more political prisoners were hauled into jails and labor camps, where torture is systematic.

In short, the Uzbek government got away with mass murder because, as is often the case, interests prevailed over principles, and the world was willing to forget the victims in order to work with the killers. It’s the worst lesson possible for aspiring tyrants.

Still, it’s never too late to change that message and start sending the right signal to Karimov and other murderous autocrats. Those responsible for these kinds of atrocities should be forever afraid that the time for reckoning will come. Given the appalling human rights situation that remains in the country — no media freedom, political opposition is forbidden, thousands of political prisoners are imprisoned, the security services use systematic torture, and slave labor is used in the cotton fields — a coordinated international response remains urgent.

Members of the U.N. Human Rights Council should mark the 10th anniversary of the Andijan massacre by establishing a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Uzbekistan to hold the government accountable for ongoing, egregious abuses and to ensure sustained scrutiny. It’s role would be similar to the one for North Korea.

It may seem a small measure in the overall scheme of things, but for a country so averse to independent scrutiny, such a mechanism would place consistent and public pressure on Tashkent to account for its abuses. It would also be a modest corrective to the injustice done to the victims of Andijan and send a crucial message of support to the millions of other Uzbeks whose human rights have been denied these past 10 years.

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Since assuming power in 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has presided over a brutal consolidation of power, executing his perceived enemies with incredible frequency and morbid creativity. At least 70 officials have been executed during this time, and the latest victim was his defense chief, Hyon Yong Chol, who was executed using an anti-aircraft gun, according to South Korean spies. His crime: insubordination and allegedly falling asleep during an event attended by Kim.

North Korea typically executes traitors, spies, and other disloyal subjects by firing squad, but Kim’s brief reign has been replete with reports of grisly execution methods. The use of anti-aircraft guns to carry out executions hints at the use of public brutality as a means of repression in North Korea. (Incredibly, one such execution — perhaps even Chol’s — may have been captured on publicly available satellite imagery.) High-caliber anti-aircraft guns of the variety used in the latest execution are enormously powerful machine guns capable of slinging what are the equivalent of U.S. 50-caliber rounds miles into the sky. When directed at the human body at close range, the destruction would be devastating and a human body likely pulverized.

Why use such a weapon? South Korean spies say that a large crowd had gathered for Chol’s execution. Presumably the spectacle of a human body being destroyed by high-caliber machine gun fire is one the crowd will not forget anytime soon.

And Hyon’s execution isn’t the first time that North Korea has used anti-aircraft guns as a method of execution. Before executing his powerful uncle, Jang Song Thaek, in 2013, Kim Jong Un had the man’s two top lieutenants killed with the weapons. Jang was later executed by firing squad, though some spurious reports described him being killed by a pack of hungry dogs.

This kind of brutality appears to be becoming more commonplace under Kim’s rule. In 2012, the North Korean leader executed a deputy defense minister using mortar rounds after the military official allegedly broke a prohibition on drinking alcohol during the mourning period for Kim’s father.

There’s reason to believe Kim learned from his father’s own creativity in executions. After North Korea’s 6th Army Corps rose up against him in 1995, Kim Jong Il reportedly tied up the officers responsible for the attempted coup in their headquarters, and then burned down the building, according to one account of uprising. Another description of the event claims the soldiers responsible were executed by machine-gun brandishing firing squads.

Today, the threats arrayed against Kim appear far less serious than the 6th Corps uprising. Rather, Kim’s reign of terror has appeared geared toward amassing power and eliminating perceived rivals to the throne. There have been no credible reports during his reign of a coup being attempted, though it’s certainly likely that North Korea would not publicize such a plot if one had been launched and subsequently crushed. This year alone, Kim executed a senior official who dared complain about his forestry policy. Another official charged with economic planning was killed after complaining about the design of a roof on a building being built in the North Korean capital. Separately, four members of the Unhasu Orchestra were killed on espionage charges.

For Kim, apparently, even orchestra pits become snake pits that must be tamed — sometimes with anti-aircraft guns.

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The Pentagon has plucked two brainy candidates out of relatively new assignments to lead the Army and Navy for the next four years, tapping Gen. Mark Milley as Army chief of staff and Adm. John Richardson as chief of Naval operations.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the nominations Wednesday, and neither Milley nor Richardson spoke during the Pentagon chief’s brief remarks to reporters. Richardson’s nomination was already widely reported, but Milley’s came as something of a surprise to many in the Army until just hours before the announcement.

Carter called Richardson “a bold thinker, a tremendous leader and the go-to officer for many of the Navy’s tough issues in recent years.” He also said he had to wrestle Richardson “away from the Secretary of Energy” — a nod to the admiral’s relatively short tenure at Naval Reactors, where for the past three years he was focused on nuclear issues in a joint Defense-Energy program.

That job specifically sought to keep Richardson from rotating into a new position for at least eight years. But his work on the Ohio-class nuclear submarine — which is a key component of the service’s modernization plan — likely won over Carter and other top managers searching for a new Navy leader. Carter has made upgrading the U.S. military’s nuclear arsenal a key priority.

Carter also knew Milley from time the two spent together in Afghanistan in 2013, when the Army general was the second-in-command of the war. Carter recounted flying with Milley to Afghanistan’s western Herat province the day after the U.S. Consulate there was targeted in a September 2013 truck bombing, where he “saw Mark take command of the scene, and stand with our people there.”

At the time, Milley was serving under Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, whom the White House recently tapped as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Milley currently heads the Army’s Forces Command at Ft. Bragg, N.C., which tasks and manages missions for soldiers based in the U.S. He has served there for less than a year, and took over for Gen. John Allyn, who is now the Army’s vice chief.

More recently, Milley oversaw the Army’s investigation of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and has since been charged with desertion.

He has been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and was the commanding general of Ft. Hood, Texas, in March 2014 when a soldier opened fire, killing four — including himself — and wounding 16 others.

As a lieutenant in the early 1980s, Milley spent two years in the 5th Special Forces Group, which now works on special operations in the Mideast, but no information about his time there is publicly available. Earlier versions of his official biography says he commanded special forces units.

The Association of the U.S. Army called for a quick confirmation for Milley, “knowing that the Army faces many challenges, and will benefit from what we know will be his proven skill as a leader,” the group’s president, retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan said in a statement.

With Ivy League degrees from Princeton and Columbia University, Milley was commissioned as an armor officer in 1980 and has served with infantry and Special Forces units, deploying to Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Richardson is rooted in science. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1982 with a degree in physics and earned Master’s degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He also commanded the nuclear submarine USS Honolulu.

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In 1980, Pakistan reached a demographic milestone; adults constituted 52 percent of the total population. Since then, a demographic transition has taken place. Now 110 million of Pakistan’s 180 million citizens are 29 years old or younger, and 50 million are between the ages of 15 and 29.  This “demographic dividend” is expected to last until 2045, after which the average age will increase rapidly. Before this demographic transition comes to pass, it is critical that Pakistani youth are mobilized in productive ways, gainfully employed, and politically enfranchised. Otherwise, the future of Pakistan may well be defined by political, economic, and social tumult.

Thankfully, the current demographic landscape could portend a brighter future for Pakistan. One recent study stated that a substantial majority of Pakistani youth believe that they will have a role in changing the country for the better. (They are also better educated than their parents; the same study cited statistics that showed the most educated person in 50 percent of all Pakistani households is now below the age of 30.)  In fact, the significant rate of youth participation — 63 percent — in the 2013 national elections demonstrates that young Pakistanis channel their concerns for Pakistan’s future in a democratic way and seek to participate in the country’s political discourse.

However, concerns for the future of Pakistani democracy persist. The country’s largest demographic is disillusioned and pessimistic — 94 percent of Pakistani youth thought the nation was on the wrong path — and only a small proportion of them have confidence in national or local governments, the courts, or the police. A survey of Pakistan’s 18-29 year olds conducted before the May 2013 elections revealed that only 29 percent saw democracy as a model system of governance; 32 percent favored military rule; and 38 percent believed the best option was a system of Islamic Sharia.

This disillusionment could be the result of various elements, such as the government’s inability to ensure universal civil liberties and provide basic services. Pakistan was rated 5 on the Freedom House Civil Liberties Index in 2015, on a scale of 1 to 7, where 7 is considered the worst. Basic services are also lacking; 40 percent of Pakistan’s population suffers from malnutrition, energy shortages prevail throughout the country and violence against minorities has witnessed an alarming increase. The lack of a seasoned democratic political process has added to this disillusionment, since until the 2013 elections, no civilian government had been able to transfer power to another civilian government successfully. However, it is the weakness of the country’s educational system that is the greatest threat to the survival of Pakistani democracy.

For the 71 percent of youth who have obtained some sort of formal education, there has been little reinforcement of democratic ideals. Arshed Bhatti, a noted development practitioner, put it succinctly: “Our educational system is actually anti-democratic and does not promote the democratic system.” In his view, instead of creating class harmony, the educational system reinforces class divisions and biases through Pakistan’s conflicting methods of education (i.e., private, public, and madrassa). Moreover, journalist Zubeida Mustafa believes that “the other very important role of education is to develop the capacity to think on a collective level, which unfortunately is lacking [in Pakistan].”

A 2010 study conducted by educator Muhammad Nazir, explored the potential for democratic changes in Pakistan’s educational practices by surveying public and private school teachers from urban and rural areas of Baluchistan and Sindh provinces. He found that educational practices in Pakistan are authoritarian and bureaucratic in action and that collaboration and reflection do not play a part in the teacher’s decision-making processes across schools. In fact, he noted that teachers across both public and private schools were not comfortable with the idea of educational change through participatory or democratic approaches.

These perspectives demonstrate the lack of forums in schools and universities for the promotion of democratic ideals, values, or frameworks, which are critical if the demographic distribution is to pay a dividend and not incur a deficit.

Many writers have written about what a school with democratic values should look like, and according to international education professor Lynn Davies, “basic political education for students is not enough; democratizing the actual forms and organization of schooling itself is required.” Davies rightly proposed that individual schools should also look within their own environments to ensure that cultural and local factors are incorporated while creating management systems based on democratic principles.

Coupling the current state of the education system with the youth’s pessimism regarding Pakistan’s trajectory, there is a clear need to provide a platform for students to organize and learn about the democratic process within their educational institutions. The establishment of Student Government Associations (SGA) within schools and universities is one way to achieve this.

By providing students with a form of representation and a pluralistic environment for leadership development, SGAs will encourage civic engagement and participation in democratic processes. To ensure that these associations accord with local and cultural factors, as Davies suggested, SGAs can be designed to emulate the structure of the National Central Government, consisting of executive, legislative and judicial branches. Just like the actual electoral process, the SGAs can also have election committees that facilitate fair and legitimate polls, remind students about their civic duties, such as voting, and provide information on student candidates.

The provision of a platform for students to become involved in an apolitical and mock democratic process will not only improve their educational experiences but will also give them an opportunity to learn first-hand about the importance of pluralistic and democratic organizational systems. The creation of SGAs can be the first step in achieving a grassroots solution that mitigates youth disillusionment and supports democratic processes. Over a longer horizon, SGAs will provide leadership development and organizational training, fostering a future generation of selfless leaders — a political class that Pakistan sorely needs, supported by an electorate that the world cannot afford to ignore.

In an historic first, Chinese authorities have designated September 3 a day of nationwide remembrance — and vacation. It will mark the 70th anniversary China’s own V-J day, or what authorities are calling “The 70th Anniversary of Victories in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Against Fascism.” Despite the breathless name, online reaction has evinced scant nationalism. Most are simply complaining the break isn’t longer.

On Weibo, China’s pre-eminent public-facing social media platform, the news came via state-run China Central Television, which posted cheerily, “The entire country will have vacation on September 3!” The time off, the announcement read, will “make it more convenient for citizens to participate in memorial activities.” The break period will span three days, from Thursday, Sept. 3 through Saturday, Sept. 5. It appears some of this will be a diao jia — not a vacation, but a re-adjustment of off days. This means it’s possible workers will be asked to work on the weekends before and after, legerdemain Chinese authorities frequently use to reduce the true number of effective idle days.

Chinese social media often serves as China’s proverbial id, where nationalists congregate to vent their spleen. But the response to the latest announcement is less celebratory than cantankerous. The CCTV announcement has already garnered over 103,000 shares and 16,500 comments; a related hashtag has 130,000 mentions. The most popular posts seemed less interested in excoriating Japan than in pushing for more days off, complaining about make-up days, and kvetching about how the holiday will be useless to students still on summer vacation. The most up-voted reads, perhaps humorously, “One day is not enough to commemorate — because we truly hate Fascism!” Other popular posts made a similar joke, one calling for eight days of vacation, one for each year of war against Japan. Some made more earnest patriotic appeals to “remember history keenly” or “never forget our national humiliation,” but they were, as of this writing, far between.

That does not mean the threat of violence is non-existent. One popular comment asked presciently whether Japanese businesses in China will be given the day off. Another wrote, “I’m guessing our hospitals won’t have a vacation.” Last year’s anniversary passed without major incident, but September 2012 saw widespread anti-Japanese demonstrations after Japanese authorities had nationalized ownership of what they call the Senkakus and Chinese call the Diaoyu, a collection of small, barren islands in the East China Sea. Chinese protesters, some bussed in with government assistance, threw debris at the Chinese embassy in Beijing, vandalized Japanese cars (regardless of the nationality of their owners), and attacked Japanese businesses and even Japanese nationals. Most Chinese did not support the violence, but that did not stop those determined to inflict it.

The upcoming commemoration will mark only the second time that China has treated the anniversary as a national holiday. Last year’s memorial activities included silent tribute by the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful policy-making body, at a flower-laying ceremony in Beijing’s Museum of the War of the Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression as well as an address by Chinese President Xi Jinping at a Beijing symposium to mark the occasion. According to Hong Kong-based Phoenix media, the upcoming holiday will mark the first time since 1949, the actual victory day, that the entire country has been given that day off. (State media has also announced that the governments of Chinese territories Hong Kong and Macau have also announced a “one-time special holiday” for September 3.)

In the short term, the declaration is unlikely to make the already-frosty relationship between China and Japan any warmer. Chinese resentment over Japanese World War II-era atrocities still lingers; more recently, in November 2013, China thumbed its nose at Japan when it declared de facto control over air space in the East China Sea. Behind the scenes, the two governments lack robust communication, although Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Xi shared an awkward November 2014 handshake, then met bilaterally in April during the Asian African Summit in Jakarta. That last meeting was significant because it happened at all, but it was otherwise uneventful. Many around the world are surely hoping the first Thursday in September unfolds similarly.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian contributed research. 

Weibo/fair use

I admit freely that I have an unusual way of winding down at night. Often I do so by watching either the first or last 10 minutes of the film Top Gun. As a firm advocate of trade with a keen understanding of how it underpins America’s global standing, Senate Democrats’ defeat of President Barack Obama’s effort to pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) was an evening that required serious wind-down time.

Tuesday I chose the last ten minutes of the film. The pilot protagonist, “Maverick,” had experienced serious loss. His radar intercept officer “Goose” had perished in a training mission. As fellow pilot “Iceman” faces six Soviet MiGs and is in serious trouble as he tries to protect a wounded U.S. Navy ship, he calls Maverick in to help. As he sits above of the mad scramble of jets below, Maverick hesitates. The anxiety over the loss of Goose makes him pause. His new partner “Merlin” implores him to maneuver their plane into the fight. He still wavers, but in the end moves past his loss, engages, and does what needs to be done to protect America’s ship.

That is the perfect metaphor for what happened on Tuesday. Many in America are anxious over the economic losses we have experienced as technology has automated many tasks and increased global competition has lowered prices. Both of these trends have put pressure on wages, particularly for those jobs requiring less technical skills. We are indeed in a mad scramble with many other nations to determine who will fulfill the wants and desires of emerging markets’ growing middle classes.

Our economic ship of state is dead in the water in a supposed recovery that few feel, and President Obama called in the U.S. Congress to help.

He understands the potential that free trade has to restart the engine of America’s economic ship. The U.S. Senate hesitated. Many joined Merlin in imploring them to engage, rather than cower in fear-induced protectionism. Yet, rather than engage, the U.S. Senate abandoned the field, leaving Iceman and the struggling ship to perish.

There are many issues that crowd this debate. Most are chimeras camouflaging protectionist intents. From the 20,000 foot level this debate comes down to whether or not America will continue to lead or not.

America’s ultimate soft power is commerce, especially its post-World War II tradition of marshaling global support to reduce trade barriers. As the country with some of the lowest market hurdles, no one benefits more from tearing down barriers than American workers. Obstructing the effort to reduce impediments hurts America’s middle class.

Nothing reduces the likelihood that America will need to use its hard power than the advance of trade. As the French economist and politician Frederic Bastiat once said, “If goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.” Former senior defense officials on the military and civilian side understand this. That is why they have implored Congress to act on TPA.

There is perhaps nothing more vital to the economic future of America’s children than whether trade in the region is governed by an Asian agreement led by China (that excludes America) or a Pacific agreement led by America.

As I bring a group of students to China to study in the weeks ahead, I dread all the chiding I will hear from the Chinese noting how President Obama’s snub from his own party is proof positive that democracy does not work and how their form of government is superior. I will of course rebut those jibes. What will be harder to refute is the corrosive impact of thinly veiled protectionist efforts on America’s global standing.

Luckily in politics one can push the pause button and prevent the MiGs from annihilating Iceman and the ship.

As we get to the next effort to revitalize America’s economic future and leadership status, I hope that the end of Top Gun will be foretelling. When Top Gun instructor “Charlie” asks Maverick how it is going, his reply was “On the first one, I crashed and burned,” but on the second try, “It’s looking good so far.” For the sake of American workers and those who view American leadership as a positive force of good, let us hope for a happy ending to this story.

Paramount Pictures/Archive Photos

With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process all but dead and buried, a growing chorus of countries and international bodies are moving toward recognizing Palestinian sovereignty in an attempt to push the Israeli government to make concessions toward their Palestinian rivals. On Wednesday, that effort received a powerful boost when Pope Francis announced that the Vatican has concluded a treaty recognizing the state of Palestine.

The move, a Vatican spokesman told the Associated Press, indicates a “recognition that the state exists.”

Following the collapse of U.S.-brokered talks to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestine has begun circumventing Washington by applying for membership at several U.N. bodies. It recently joined the International Criminal Court, where it’s lodged complaints over what it says are Israeli war crimes. The United Nations upgraded Palestine to a “non-member observer” in 2012, perturbing Israel, which faces increasing international isolation because of its continued occupation of Palestinian lands. Repeated fighting in the Gaza strip between Hamas militants and Israeli forces has further galvanized world opinion against Israel.

While many argue that the Vatican’s statement Wednesday has no legal significance, it does have important symbolic weight. The Vatican’s move can be seen as part of a growing movement to apply pressure on Israel to facilitate progress in the peace process. Following the re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the United States signaled that it will re-evaluate the diplomatic protection it has offered Israel in the international fora where Palestine is now pursuing its claims to statehood. There is a growing movement at the United Nations Security to pass a resolution outlining a roadmap for future peace talks.

The Vatican statement is also the latest major diplomatic move by Francis, who since assuming the papacy in 2013, has emerged as an enormously popular champion of the global poor and other progressive causes. He has become a major diplomatic player, helping to broker the recent rapprochement between the United States and Cuba.

Wednesday’s announcement is not Francis’s first foray into Israeli-Palestinian politics. Francis expressed support for recent U.S.-backed talks and hosted then-Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Vatican last year for a prayer meeting for peace in the Middle East. When he visited last year the Israeli-built wall that separates Israeli- and Palestinian-dominated territories, he lamented the “tragic consequences of the protracted conflict.”

Franco Origlia/Getty Images

With a litany of unproved claims, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revived discussion about the circumstances in which al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was discovered and killed in May 2011 in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad.

Some of Hersh’s assertions in a 10,000-word London Review of Books article border on fantasy. He claims that bin Laden lived under the protection of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was given up for reward money by one of the agency’s officers, and was eventually eliminated in a U.S. raid covertly backed by Pakistan’s army commander and ISI chief.

According to Hersh, the Americans “blackmailed” Pakistan’s generals into helping them kill bin Laden but then stabbed them in the back for political reasons by denying them any credit for assisting in the raid by Navy SEALs. Instead of blaming ISI for sheltering bin Laden in Pakistan (which Hersh claims it did), he points the finger at the Obama administration for not acknowledging ISI’s role in the U.S. operation that killed the terrorist mastermind.

With the exception of the possibility of a Pakistani “walk in” selling information about bin Laden’s location, the other details of Hersh’s story simply do not add up. Hersh may have his unnamed sources, but he clearly does not know how Pakistan works. If the ISI had hidden bin Laden for five years, it would not have cooperated in the U.S. operation to kill him without demanding a serious quid pro quo.

Hersh explains the Obama administration’s eagerness to claim sole credit for finding and killing bin Laden in terms of domestic U.S. politics. But he offers no explanation as to why, after covertly helping the Americans, Pakistan’s generals would keep quiet about their role. The veteran reporter alludes to the idea that this might have been because of bin Laden’s popularity among the Pakistani public. But by 2011, bin Laden was no longer that popular — and in any case Pakistan’s military leaders have consistently ignored public opinion to ensure the flow of American aid. Hersh’s suggestion that Pakistan’s generals covertly helped Americans eliminate bin Laden simply to maintain the flow of U.S. dollars to the country — but kept it secret so as not to incur the wrath of the Pakistani street — does not hold water.

For several years before the bin Laden raid, Pakistan’s military and the ISI had been criticized in the U.S. media and Congress for double-dealing in the fight against terrorism. If the ISI had protected bin Laden (or held him prisoner) for five years before being found out by the Americans, the United States would have increased its leverage by going public with accusations of hiding bin Laden. But there’s no evidence that Washington held Islamabad’s feet to the fire.

If, however, a backroom deal had been negotiated to secure Pakistani cooperation in the raid on Abbottabad in return for U.S. silence, the ISI would have demanded some glory for its cooperation. Facilitating the raid, as narrated by Hersh, would have provided Pakistan’s military and ISI an opportunity to redeem themselves in American eyes. Hersh wants us to believe an entirely improbably scenario. According to him, Obama’s political requirements denied Pakistanis any credit and senior generals in Islamabad simply accepted that without pushing back.

Was the “walk-in” real?

To this day, there is no solid evidence of Pakistanis at the highest level of government knowing about bin Laden being in Pakistan — though there have been widespread suspicions. If, after being tipped off by a rogue Pakistani intelligence officer looking for personal reward, the United States planned a raid with covert help from Pakistani intelligence, why didn’t the cooperating Pakistani officials demand credit for assisting in targeting bin Laden in order to mitigate the bad press for previously protecting him? And what prevented the U.S. government from publicly acknowledging that they knew bin Laden had been officially protected? Was the need to keep the relationship with Islamabad on solid footing so important that the Obama administration would risk telling a lie this massive?

Hersh’s story is based on the fundamental premise that the U.S. government had bad intentions, including in their interactions with the Pakistan Army and the ISI. In an interview with the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Hersh defends Pakistan’s generals. “Pakistan has a good army, not a bad army,” he declared, adding that the Obama administration’s cover story made the Pakistan army look incompetent because it didn’t know that bin Laden was residing in a garrison town just two miles from the country’s main military academy. But he still does not offer an explanation for why the Pakistan Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and ISI head, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, went along with the cover story.

The only point in Hersh’s story that seems plausible relates to the Pakistani officer who tipped off the Americans about bin Laden’s location. Further reporting by AFP and a story by NBC affirm the role of a Pakistani defector — though NBC later amended its story to clarify that while the defector provided information, it didn’t lead to finding bin Laden. The rumor that the CIA learned about bin Laden’s location through an ISI officer has been around since the Abbottabad raid. But I’ve also heard another version of the same story from Pakistani officials.

According to this version, the ISI officer only facilitated the CIA’s on-ground operation in Abbottabad after the U.S. spy agency started planning an operation based on intelligence obtained through other means. The CIA relocated the Pakistani officer — not because he was the man who tipped them off on bin Laden’s location — but because he acted without authority from his superiors in enabling the CIA to conduct an operation on Pakistani soil.

The NBC story also repeats the suspicion of U.S. officials — about Pakistani complicity in hiding bin Laden — though, obviously, there isn’t enough evidence for the U.S. government to formally and publicly make that charge. As a witness to Pakistan’s response after the bin Laden raid I find it difficult to believe Hersh’s conspiracy theory about so many people in both the U.S. and Pakistani governments and militaries telling a big coordinated lie.

In the middle of a diplomatic dance

I was serving as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the SEAL raid in Abbottabad. I was on my way to Islamabad via London and Dubai when the operation took place; I first found out about it upon landing at Heathrow airport in the early morning of May 2, 2011. My superiors in Islamabad instructed me to turn around immediately. I was back in Washington by around 5 p.m. local time.

My instructions were clear: to ensure that the U.S. government, Congress, and the media did not blame Pakistan’s government, armed forces, or intelligence services for allowing Osama bin Laden’s presence in the country, as that would have been a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1373. My bosses, both civilian and military, were obviously concerned that Pakistan would be taken to task. But nothing in the conduct of Generals Kayani and Pasha (both of whom later forced me to resign as ambassador) hinted at their collusion with the U.S. in the Abbottabad raid.

The generals were embarrassed, both over bin Laden having being found in Pakistan and the U.S. taking place raid without knowledge or approval. They attributed their lack of response to the incursion by U.S. helicopters from Afghanistan to the absence of adequate radar coverage on the western border — a symptom of Pakistan’s view of India as the only threat to its national security. Kayani and Pasha also wanted to ensure that there would be no reprisals against Pakistan over allegations of official complicity in hiding bin Laden.

A bevy of damage diplomacy followed. A few days after the Abbottabad raid, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry visited Islamabad. Gen. Kayani was eager during that visit for a statement by the U.S. senator emphasizing Pakistan’s position as an American ally in the war against terrorism. Kerry agreed to the reassuring language proposed by Kayani. The Kerry visit was followed by a visit by Pasha to Washington during which he was keen to convince the CIA that the ISI had no knowledge of bin Laden being in Pakistan. In a meeting with CIA Director Leon Panetta, Pasha listed the CIA’s own failures over the years to advance his argument that intelligence gathering is often imperfect and that the enemy can hide within plain sight.

Notwithstanding my own disagreements with Kayani and Pasha, I found no reason to believe that either general was feigning ignorance or outrage while being secretly in league with the Americans. The Foreign Office also asked me to protest the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by U.S. forces in conducting the operation and to point out how it violated the norms of international conduct between two sovereign countries that were, at least officially, allies. I didn’t make much headway.

The U.S. officials I interacted with were not only unwilling to apologize for violating Pakistani sovereignty but demanded that Islamabad cooperate in giving Americans access to data and persons found at the house in Abbottabad where the raid was conducted. They also demanded the return of the wreckage of the stealth helicopter that had been damaged and left behind during the operation. Pakistan handed over the wreckage a few days later, though not without prodding by the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen.

Security Council cover

Immediately after the raid, the U.S. government persuaded the president of the U.N. Security Council to issue a statement, “welcoming [the] end of Osama bin Laden’s ability to perpetrate terrorist acts.” Obama administration officials I spoke with pointed to UNSC resolutions and this statement by the Security Council president to justify their unilateral action in Abbottabad in disregard of Pakistani sovereignty.

Pakistan’s protests about violation of its sovereignty and against the U.N. Security Council president’s statement came within hours of the Abbottabad raid. Our side was stunned because it had not been kept in the loop. At the United Nations, the Security Council president was busy listing justifications under international law for the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. But none of these responses would have occurred if, as Hersh says, the cover story about the unilateral raid had been “manufactured” in the White House just two hours after the raid, in a cynical ploy to help Obama’s re-election bid.

On the evening of May 2, I was interviewed on CNN. There I made what remains a valid point: I said that it was obvious someone in Pakistan protected Osama bin Laden. The question was to determine whether bin Laden’s support system lay “within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan.” I had asked for “a full inquiry into finding out why our intelligence services were not able to track him earlier.”

I never got an answer to my question. Pakistan created a commission that conducted its hearings in a non-transparent manner and declined to publish its findings. The Obama administration went back to business-as-usual with Pakistan — without insisting or pushing Islamabad for answers on the tough questions about bin Laden’s stay in Pakistan from 2006 to 2011. I understand how the failure of both Washington and Islamabad to disclose a more complete understanding of what transpired in the years leading up to the raid feeds conspiracy theories and the presumption that something is fishy.

But it is this failure — explaining bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, not the elaborate conspiracies Hersh alleges on the say-so of a single retired U.S. counterterrorism official — which has been a major disservice to truth.

Both the people of Pakistan and the people of the United States would benefit from detailed answers to questions about bin Laden’s support network in Pakistan. But don’t hold your breath. It might not be in either Islamabad’s or Washington’s interest to wake sleeping dogs.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

The Obama administration’s decision to let Shell back into Alaskan waters opens the door to eventual full-scale Arctic oil exploration. But it also opens up the White House to howls of anger from green groups concerned that Obama’s move poses serious potential risks to the environment despite the president’s repeated promises to mount a serious fight against climate change.

The decision Monday to authorize Shell to search for oil in the Chukchi Sea, off the northwestern tip of Alaska, marks a return to icy waters for a company whose last polar foray in 2012 ended in fiasco. If it can overcome a host of economic, technical, and logistical challenges, Shell could find huge rewards in the oil-rich Arctic — with potentially big implications for other companies and countries, such as Russia, who are banking on offshore Arctic production to offset declining output at onshore fields.

Though Arctic exploration makes little economic sense today, with oil prices languishing around $65 a barrel, it is the kind of frontier play that could be crucial to meeting future global energy needs. That helps explain why Shell, which is busy working to digest its $70 billion dollar acquisition of BG Group, a British energy firm, and which is trimming back capital expenditure, will open its wallet for another tricky season drilling exploratory wells in the shallow waters off Wainwright, Alaska.

“The Arctic is obviously a very long term play, so the oil price now or next year has relatively little impact on projects that are unlikely to start producing oil before the 2020s,” said Duncan Milligan, an Arctic expert at oil consultants Wood Mackenzie. “You’re looking at a long-term view of fundamentals, so the companies that can fund that kind of exploration are continuing to do so.”

For international oil companies like Shell, lining up future production prospects is their corporate lifeblood and lifeline: Market valuations are determined, in part, by how much potential oil reserves companies lock up for future use. But most of the world’s promising areas for exploration are off-limits to private firms like Shell, Exxon, and Chevron. That makes Alaska tempting despite all its obstacles.

“There aren’t that many huge conventional basins, and Chukchi is one of them. It’s really about the size of the prize; they think there’s something there that’s worth it,” Milligan said. The U.S. government estimates that the Chukchi Sea could hold 15 billion barrels of oil.

But the challenges are daunting. The Arctic, covered in sea ice much of the year, is a much tougher environment than places like the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore production is concentrated. It requires specialized equipment, including drilling rigs that can withstand rough seas and winds. (That’s a lesson that Shell says it has learned after a series of mishaps in 2012.) Proof of how tough a nut the Arctic can be is found in the massive Shtokman gas field north of Russia. First discovered in 1988, it still hasn’t been developed.

And trickier logistics, with a much shorter summer drilling season with operations far away from local ports and airfields, make drilling more expensive. In general, Wood Mackenzie says, fields like those in the Chukchi Sea require oil at about $100 a barrel to be economical.

Finally, Arctic operations present a potentially much bigger environmental risk than other offshore oil and gas plays. That’s in part because of the harsh environment, and because the paucity of local infrastructure makes it harder to respond to accidents and spills. In 2010, when BP suffered a fatal explosion on a Gulf of Mexico rig, it took months to shut off the flow of oil, even though the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon was surrounded by nearby U.S. Coast Guard vessels and aircraft. For the Chukchi Sea, the nearest Coast Guard station is about 1,000 miles away.

That’s one reason environmental groups lambasted the Obama administration’s decision to greenlight Shell’s Arctic adventure: They worry about the risk of a bad accident in a pristine setting; memories linger of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill that fouled Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The Greenpeace campaign to stop Shell, for instance, features a countdown until the summer drilling season starts superimposed on a group of polar bears.

Green groups are also upset that Obama, who has made fighting climate change a centerpoint of his second term, would authorize additional offshore oil production. Environmental campaigner Bill McKibben assailed what he called Obama’s “climate-change denial” for authorizing Shell’s Arctic operations even while talking up the need to tackle emissions. In contrast, for almost seven years, the Obama administration has withheld approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast, in large part because of worries the pipe will accelerate the production of dirty Canadian tar sands and cause more greenhouse-gas emissions.

However, the U.S. State Department concluded that the emissions impact from Keystone would be minimal. And energy experts cautioned against conflating legitimate environmental concerns over Arctic drilling with the vanishingly small contribution that such oil production would make to global emissions.

In any event, Monday’s authorization for Shell hardly represents a sudden about-face for the administration. Days before the BP accident, Obama had planned to open up parts of the Atlantic coast to drilling for the first time; this year, he did. In the same offshore drilling plan, the administration opened the door to a small number of lease sales off the coast of Alaska, seeking to balance energy needs and environmental considerations.

Ultimately, though, environmentalists won’t be the only ones keeping a close eye on Shell’s return to Alaska. Russia’s Rosneft and Exxon were working together to start Arctic offshore oil production in the Kara Sea this year, before Western sanctions kneecapped Exxon’s ability to work alongside the Russian firm. Boosting Arctic production is the Russian energy sector’s great hope to reverse long-term decline at old Soviet fields onshore. Lessons learned from Shell’s return to the Chukchi Sea could help smooth the way for Russia to finally tap its own ice-covered riches.

Photo credit: U.S. Dept. of Defense/Flickr

Not since the end of the Cold War have U.S-German relations loomed so large in international affairs. Ongoing Russian intervention in Ukraine has been met with U.S. and European economic sanctions against Moscow. But Germany’s geographic proximity and commercial ties to Russia give Berlin and Washington different stakes in the confrontation. With NATO warning of a new Russian buildup in Ukraine and the approaching European Union decision in July on whether to continue its sanctions, there is an ever-present specter of a split in NATO over the long-term trajectory of the alliance’s dealings with Russia.

The centrality of the U.S.-German relationship in dealing with Russia was underscored by the back-to-back meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 10 followed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on May 12.

So far, the Ukraine crisis has yet to drive a wedge between Washington and Berlin. Roughly seven-in-ten (72 percent) Americans see Germany as a reliable ally and about six-in-ten (62 percent) of Germans see the United States in a similar light, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted in association with the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Despite some evidence in 2014 that Germans might have preferred to keep their distance from both Moscow and Washington, today a majority of Germans (57 percent) believe it is more important for their country to have strong ties with the United States than with Russia. Just 15 percent of Germans prefer strong ties with Russia and only 21 percent volunteer that it is best to have an equally close relationship with both.

But there’s some interesting internal geography at play. East and West Germans differ in their views: While 61 percent of Germans living in the West favor a strong affiliation with America, just 44 percent of people living in the East agree. And while 23 percent of people in the East voice support for strong ties with Russia, only 12 percent of those in the West agree. Old habits die hard.

On the issue of Ukraine, when asked if it is more important to be tough with Russia or maintain a strong economic relationship, half of Germans voice the view it is more important to be tough. In spite of Germany’s long-standing trade, investment, and energy ties with Russia, only about a third (35 percent) of Germans express the opinion that it is better to have a strong economic relationship with Moscow. Notably, younger Germans, ages 18 to 29, are much more supportive (53 percent) of standing up to Russia over Ukraine than are older Germans 65 years of age or older (36 percent).

But that doesn’t mean there is a willingness to ratchet up sanctions in the future. Americans and Germans disagree about the nature of the current U.S. and EU posture toward Russia over Ukraine.

Americans want to up the pressure on Moscow, while most Germans do not support a tougher stance. More than half of Americans (54 percent) believe that U.S. policy toward Russia is not tough enough. And 59 percent say the EU is not being strong enough.

At the same time, roughly six-in-ten Germans (62 percent) think the U.S. position with regard to Russia is too tough (27 percent) or about right (35 percent). Similarly, 62 percent of Germans believe that EU actions against Russia are too strong (18 percent) or about right (44 percent). At the same time, only 23 percent of Germans think Washington is not tough enough, the third option offered respondents. And 26 percent believe the European Union is not aggressive enough.

Such disagreements about what to do regarding Russia are rooted in deeper differences over the use of military force. Surveys have consistently shown that Germans are far less supportive than Americans regarding the use of military force to maintain order in the world: in 2011 75 percent of Americans voiced the view that force is sometimes necessary compared with only 50 percent of Germans. More than 80 percent of Germans supported Berlin’s decision to not use military force in Iraq, according to Pew Research surveys at the time. In Afghanistan, where Germany had troops, by 2010 and 2011, majorities of Germans wanted NATO and U.S. troops withdrawn. And Germany abstained in the United Nations vote on intervention in Libya. Indeed, the latest Pew Research survey finds a distinct German reticence about taking on more of the global security burden. Asked if Berlin should play a more active military role in helping to maintain peace and stability in the world, only 25 percent of Germans agree. Just over two-thirds (69 percent) believe that, given its history, Germany should limit its military role in world affairs.

Americans, however, have little of this historical baggage: a majority would welcome Germany taking on more strategic responsibilities. More than half (54 percent) think Berlin should play a more active military role, while only 37 percent say it should limit its security activities. The book-end meetings with Putin by Merkel and Kerry are clearly no accident. They are intended to send Putin a message that Germany and the United States are united in their opposition to his actions in Ukraine. But the new Pew survey indicates the two allies’ publics may be sending a different message.

The German-American disagreement about how tough to be with Russia, coupled with differences over the use of force in general and specifically Germany’s future military role in the region, suggest that the mutual trust in each other as allies and Germans’ preference for closer ties with the United States could be put to a test in any new confrontation with Russia. What may be at stake is not just the sanctions regime drawing a noose around the Kremlin, but rather the alliance between Berlin and Washington.

 Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The timing of Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s first visit to Pakistan may have come as a surprise to many South Asia analysts, as she was the first senior foreign dignitary to visit Pakistan after the much-discussed Chinese president’s visit last month which saw $46 billion in agreements between China and Pakistan. Upon her arrival, Bishop indicated that Australia wanted to follow a similar path, saying: “My visit and meeting with Pakistani leaders is aimed at discussing the growing strength of our bilateral partnership and important regional and international issues.”

This has not been the only high level visit by an Australian dignitary. Just a few months back, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, the chief of defense forces of Australia, also visited Pakistan to enhance and deepen security and defense ties between the two countries.

Given how foreign state visits and bilateral talks work, it is interesting to observe Australia’s two well-timed, high-powered visits to Pakistan — a country that is, otherwise, not on Australia’s priority list. If anything, Australia’s overwhelming focus on Southeast Asia and India has precluded it from being an active presence in Pakistan.

Is that changing? The window of opportunity is now open; the United States is reducing its role in Afghanistan, China is expanding its presence in the region, and stability in Pakistan is re-emerging. The two back-to-back visits by senior Australian officials to Pakistan are evidence of Australia’s new tilt in Asia, a strategy that makes sense for numerous reasons.

For one, looking at geopolitical and economic dynamics, Australia and Pakistan share a similar environment. Australia, like Pakistan, maintains a very balanced relationship between China and the United States. Both Pakistan and Australia are economically integrated with China, but in terms of security and defense, share close ties with the United States.

In what many are suggesting as the rise of a bipolar world, countries like Pakistan and Australia may hold the key to international peace and stability in a divided yet interdependent world — a third wheel between the two superpowers. Pakistan already played a similar role in 1970 when it facilitated Kissinger’s secret visit to China, changing the dynamics of the Cold War.

Second, with China investing over $46 billion in Pakistan’s economy and international investors following suit, Australia with its edge in the mining industry has the opportunity to bandwagon on the Chinese investment and develop strong links with Pakistan — one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world — to make the most out of the economic opportunity in the region.

Third, given Australia’s aging population issues, investing in relations with Pakistan at the moment can allow Australia to recruit top professionals from Pakistan to become a driver of economic growth in Australia. Pakistan has a massive and impressively-educated youth bulge that is fluent in English and possesses technical skills that can energize Australia’s work force and inject needed money into its economy.

Finally, and most importantly, is the India pivot. While Australia has excellent ties with India, especially with the 2014 nuclear deal between the two countries, the fact remains that India’s foreign policy is based on traditional power players, looking more towards Russia or the United States to contain China.

At this point, Pakistan, who is also close to both China and the United States, can be a good regional partner for Australia. The two countries share an extensive history of security partnerships and cooperation in agriculture, education, and health. This history was renewed with Bishop’s meetings with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Raheel Sharif, and several ministers including the Minister of Planning, Development & Reforms.

The bilateral talks covered all major areas including trade and investment, security and defense, education, agriculture, and energy. In fact, Bishop also announced a $24 million aid package for rehabilitation in conflict-affected areas — a token to demonstrate Australia’s growing interest and seriousness in Pakistan.

The content of the meeting with Ahsan Iqbal, the minister of Planning, Development & Reforms, is most crucial because of the significance of the issues discussed that included education and research, civil services reform and governance, and energy sectors — areas that are top on the priority list of Pakistan as it struggles to recover its economic stability.

But more than just words, it is important that the two countries take practical steps to develop people-to-people links — something pointed out by Bishop in a meeting with her Pakistani counterpart, Sartaj Aziz.

At a time when Pakistan appears to be on the verge of transformation, it’s pragmatic for Australia to invest and build a partnership in a long-term strategic relation that can go beyond security and defense. As it’s famously said: “Follow the money.” Perhaps Australia should simply follow the Chinese as they venture into Pakistan. With two senior level Australian visits to Pakistan, the understanding, it appears, may already be prevalent in the foreign policy circles of Australia.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

Sometime in the early 1980s, my husband’s uncle Nick began to dream. His language school in Corfu was bustling with students eager to learn English or French or German before Greece joined the European Union. So Nick expanded the school. Then, buoyed by his success and the ready availability of drachma-based loans, he borrowed money to build a sleek grocery store; a motorbike rental agency followed. In 1992, on the eve of the EU’s creation, Nick was a wealthy man basking, like most Greeks, in the presumed prosperity of an economically united Europe.

Today, both Nick and Greece are bankrupt. Between 2008 and 2013, Greeks saw median incomes plummet 22 percent. More than 25 percent of the labor force is now unemployed, including Nick, his ex-wife, and their only son. Between October 2014 and March 2015, Greece experienced capital outflows of almost 28 billion euros, and its newly elected leadership has had little luck in gaining any debt relief from European creditors.

It is easy, in retrospect, to blame Nick and his compatriots for borrowing and spending too much (which they did) and for skirting their fiscal responsibilities and believing too glibly in the glories of union. But the source of Greece’s demise goes far beyond its own bad behavior and the harsh austerity that other Europeans have thrust upon the country. To put it bluntly, Greece never should have joined the EU in the first place—and it shouldn’t be trapped there now.

In the early 1990s, Greece fell far afield of the economic criteria laid out by the Maastricht Treaty, the EU’s founding document. Greece’s 1991 inflation rate, for instance, was 20 percent against a Maastricht target of 3.9 percent, while its government deficit was 11.4 percent compared with a target of 3 percent. In 1999, when the European monetary union was launched, Greece failed to meet the criteria again, but managed to squeeze into the body two years later. A decade on, when the financial crisis hit, Greece was running double-digit fiscal deficits and had accumulated debts worth nearly 130 percent of the country’s GDP. It had not addressed underlying structural problems, including spotty tax collection, business-choking regulations, and a vast, inefficient state bureaucracy. Since then, the country still has not summoned the political will to redress these issues.

To understand why Greece’s entry into the EU was so problematic and yet so preordained, one must go back to the political dream, hatched in the immediate post-World War II period, of a continent free, at last, of war. Originally, the EU was seen not as a seamless financial market or even a free trade zone, but as a space for political and social cooperation. As Jean Monnet, the EU’s original architect, expressed it: “What we must seek is a fusion of interests among the European peoples.” Greece, with strategic links to the United States and NATO and with an iconic status as the birthplace of democracy, was an integral slice of this political vision.

Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, a new generation of European leaders moved away from their predecessors’ political pronouncements, focusing instead on economic and financial motives that might bring nations together. This tack worked: Corporations based in smaller countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands jumped on the European bandwagon, lured by the prospect of larger markets and lower continental costs. Financiers embraced the idea of cross-border mergers and simpler tax regimes. And ordinary citizens like Nick broke from their customary nationalism to embrace a vision of free-flowing trade and widespread wealth. (Of course, the Greek government—along with administrations in Portugal, Spain, and Italy—was also eager to receive funds from wealthier European partners.)

On its surface, the EU thus looked like a great success. But once the financial tide turned, the monetary union’s rocky foundations became perilously evident. As Greece, among other countries, has stumbled since 2009 under a burgeoning debt load, growth has slowed across Europe and anxiety has spread.

Economically, Greece is of little import to Europe. Even if the country were to default entirely on its debt, the total sum would be minimal (320 billion euros, or around $350 billion), and the creditors would be primarily EU funding entities, which would not be affected severely by the loss. Politically, though, the country remains key to the EU—not only because the rise of its deeply socialist Syriza party threatens the continent’s prevailing neoliberal consensus, but also, and more importantly, because its lack of exit options is Europe’s as well. Or to put it more bluntly, if there’s no way out for Greece, then there’s no way out for anyone.

In what could be called an act of political genius, the EU’s creators compelled nations to cede chunks of their sovereignty—printing money, patrolling borders, regulating economic exchange—to a supranational body. If the terms of that great bargain were constantly up for renegotiation, the EU never would have worked. So the founders explicitly concocted a no-way-out scheme. It’s not that the rules for retreating from the EU are complicated, harsh, or expensive. There simply aren’t any. To even begin contemplating leaving the eurozone, at a bare minimum Greece would have to start printing drachmas again, recalculate all prices and assets denominated in euros, and hope to raise funds through bonds that could only be issued at astronomically high rates. Undertaking these tasks during a period of prosperity would be exceedingly difficult; doing them under duress would likely prove catastrophic.

Therefore, the fight between Syriza and the European troika, and between Germany’s Angela Merkel and Greece’s Alexis Tsipras, isn’t really about these entities and leaders at all. It is about a political decision made decades ago to execute a vision of a unified Europe that would never be subject to the vagaries of member states—and about the long-term consequences of trying to pretend that Greece was ever something it is not.

Illustration by Matthew Hollister

After weeks of protests against Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid for a third term in office, a Burundian general announced on Monday that he had overthrown him in a coup. Now, rival claims are being broadcast over both traditional and social media as to who is actually in control of the country’s government.

Nkurunziza, who is currently in Tanzania for meeting with other East African leaders to discuss Burundi’s recent violence, used what appears to be his official Twitter account to claim the claims of a coup were false. Tweeting in French, Nkurunziza said there had been a coup attempt but that it was “under control” and that there “was no coup d’etat in #Burundi.”

La situation est maitrisée, il n'y a pas de coup d'Etat au #Burundi

— Burundi | Présidence (@BdiPresidence) May 13, 2015

He then then said an attempted coup had failed, and tagged the Twitter handles for Radio France Internationale, BBC’s Africa division, one RFI reporter, and a reporter for a Burundian publication.

Tentative de coup d'Etat échouée au #Burundi @soniarolley @bbcafrique @RFI @abakunzi

— Burundi | Présidence (@BdiPresidence) May 13, 2015

His latest tweet called the coup a “fantasy” and linked to a Facebook post on the official Burundian presidential account that once again dismissed allegations of the coup.

Communiqué de Presse : Coup d’Etat fantaisiste C’est avec regret que nous avons appris qu’un groupe de… http://t.co/vvd2uEnDCK

— Burundi | Présidence (@BdiPresidence) May 13, 2015

Meanwhile in Burundi, the military official purportedly behind the coup, Major General Godefroid Niyombareh, reportedly read a statement to reporters at a military base and broadcast an announcement confirming the coup on a private radio station in Burundi. He said he has put in place a “national salvation committee” comprised of police officers and military officials and that “President Pierre Nkurunziza has been relieved of his duties.”

According to the BBC he used the radio broadcast to say that “the masses have decided to take into their own hands the destiny of the nation to remedy this unconstitutional environment into which Burundi has been plunged.”

“The masses vigorously and tenaciously reject President Nkurunziza’s third-term mandate,” he continued. “The government is overthrown.”

Peaceful demonstrations Wednesday quickly erupted into cheerful celebrations, according to reports from those on the ground in Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital.

According to Burundi’s constitution, a president can only be elected to office twice, and protests erupted on April 26 after Nkurunziza, who has completed two terms, announced that he would run for reelection. First appointed to the presidency by an act of parliament in 2005, Nkurunziza argues he has only run for election once and therefore qualifies for a third term.

Many Burundians disagree and see his attempt to secure a third term in office as a violation of the constitution. Within 24 hours of his April announcement, five had died in the subsequent violence, with dozens injured. Amid the turmoil, the government shut down or restricted the use of radio stations.

The protests continued amid increasing international pressure on Nkurunziza to renounce his bid for a third term. Protesters opposed to Nkurunziza’s reelection effort have in some instances become violent: A grenade attack on May 1 killed two police officers and wounded 17 people. Police officers have reportedly also opened fire on peaceful protestors. Thousands of Burundians have fled to neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, raising fears of a looming humanitarian crisis in poorly resourced refugee camps there.

Presidential elections are scheduled for June 26, and the European Union and the United States have urged Burundi to consider postponing them. But Nkurunziza has stood his ground, and maintains that even amid a coup attempt, he is still in control of the country.

“It is with regret that we learned a group of soldiers rebelled this morning and made a fantastical declaration about a coup d’etat,” his Facebook post read. “The Burundian president asks the Burundian population and outsiders living in Burundi to keep calm and peace.”

LANDRY NSHIMIYE/AFP/Getty Images

The single largest owner of wealth in nearly every country is not a private company; nor is it an individual like Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, or Warren Buffet. The largest owner of wealth is all of us collectively, otherwise known as “taxpayers.” And we all have our own personal wealth manager — whom we usually call “the government.” According to data from the International Monetary Fund and other sources collected in our new book, The Public Wealth of Nations, governments own a larger stock of assets than all very wealthy individuals put together, and even more than all pension funds, or all private equity funds.

What’s more, most governments — including the many nations caught in the grip of debt crises — have more wealth than they are aware of. Many of these troubled countries own thousands of firms, land titles, and other assets that they have not bothered to value, let alone manage for the common good. Public wealth is like an iceberg, with only the tip visible above the surface.

For decades, a phony war has raged between those in favor of public ownership and those who see privatization as the only solution. We argue that this polarized debate is partly to blame for neglect of a more important issue: the quality of public asset governance. Only through proper management can public wealth yield proper value to its owners, the citizens. Even public assets that are privatized can achieve widely differing outcomes depending on the quality of government regulation, the privatization process, and the competence of private owners. The costs of the phony war between privatizers and statists have been enormous: lack of transparency, financial waste, and underperformance in the public sector. The only winners are vested interests on both sides of the debate.

The most visible public assets are government-owned corporations, often called state-owned enterprises (SOEs). According to one study, over 10 percent of the world’s top firms are SOEs — and their combined sales are equivalent to 6 percent of the world’s GDP.

Beyond the corporations owned by governments at different levels lie vast stretches of productive real estate — by far the largest component in public wealth portfolios. More than two-thirds of all public wealth ownership remains opaque. Many assets are owned by local and regional governments or quasi-governmental organizations that, while formally independent, actually work at the behest of the politicians who sit on their boards.

We argue that the professional management of public commercial wealth among central governments around the world could easily raise returns by as much as 3.5 percent, to generate an extra $2.7 trillion worldwide. This is more than the total current global spending on national infrastructure — the combined amount we spend on transport, power, water, and communications, according to a study by McKinsey Global Institute.

Many cities and states in rich countries have similarly mismanaged land holdings that could be an integral part of public finance and used to lower taxes or pay for vital infrastructure. In many cities managing public commercial assets more professionally could help close the housing gap.

Mismanagement of public assets often has severe consequences. For example, many regions in India suffer from both droughts and monsoons, but most of all poor management of state-owned water utilities. India is estimated to lose the equivalent of two-thirds of new dams and other water storage it builds to siltation. The main culprits are India’s corrupt, underfunded, and overmanned state irrigation departments that often carry out no maintenance at all. Just one of them, in Utter Pradesh, has over 100,000 employees. Inter-state rivalries and bad planning add to the malaise.

Better management is not just about financial returns, but other important social gains as well. An Italian economist, Vittorio Tanzi, and his co-author, Tej Prakash, illustrated the misuse of public assets with two examples of schools located in prime locations — one in Rio de Janeiro, squeezed in between large hotels on a splendid avenue next to the famous Copacabana beach, and another in the heart of Bethesda, Maryland, established in 1789 when the area was agricultural and the land inexpensive. A relocation of the schools only a few blocks away would bless students with a quieter, healthier, and more peaceful environment. The sale of the more expensive property could be used to hire more teachers. On top of that, new real estate investment on the current school site would raise national income and tax revenue.

The location of a school might seem to be a minor issue. But it becomes a major one when such mismanagement of public real estate is the rule rather than the exception. In Brazil, pervasive abuse of public wealth is illustrated by the never-ending scandals in the huge state-owned oil conglomerate, Petrobras. Dozens of politicians are under investigation for receiving kickbacks on inflated contracts that Petrobras signed with 23 other large firms, many of them also state-owned.

As things stand, the vast bulk of public wealth in many countries is in the hands of civil servants inside the government bureaucracy. They manage state-owned firms, real estate, and other holdings with minimal public oversight. This is, at best, a bureaucratic system designed for handling the allocation of tax money. At worst it is an arena for political meddling and, occasionally, downright profiteering. Public commercial assets could also constitute a significant fiscal risk, as well as an outright cost for the government. The cost could sometimes be in the double digits of GDP, as is probably the case in many former Soviet states.

These examples help illustrate how public wealth within easy reach of governments creates incentives for abuse, such as buying political support from unions and interest groups. In a clientelist state, governments have little interest in making the management of state assets more transparent. It is hardly an accident that Greece had no consolidated accounts of its considerable state assets — not even a well-functioning land registry. As long as state ownership stays murky, it is easier for government institutions to distribute favors without scrutiny.

Those who profit from shady accounting will always argue that revealing the monetary value of public assets places economic agendas over social aims. We show the opposite to be true. When the value of public assets is revealed and managers are told to focus on value creation, a government can make informed, transparent choices about how much to pay SOEs for achieving social aims. Without such transparency, interest groups with selfish agendas will all too often succeed in interfering with sound management by exaggerating the social benefits of their demands.

As long as politicians are directly responsible for governing SOEs, they will be hesitant to demand better performance on behalf of consumers, because such demands would call their own management into question. Freeing governments from having to run public firms changes politicians’ mission and focus. This goes to the heart of a well-functioning democracy: accountability, transparency, and disclosure.

In our view, the best way to foster good management and democracy is to consolidate public assets under a single institution, removed from direct government influence. This requires setting up an independent body at arm’s length from daily political influence and enabling transparent, commercial governance. Examples include Austria’s state holding company ÖIAG (now undergoing reforms), Singapore’s Temasek, and Finland’s Solidium.

A similar international trend has been to outsource monetary and financial stability to independent central banks. This was initially very controversial in many countries. Over time, however, experience with independent central banks has been positive and has been widely copied.

Similarly, independent governance of public wealth can bestow significant economic and democratic benefits. We use the term National Wealth Fund (NWF) for these institutions, which independently govern public commercial assets. As with independent central banks, such organizations do not offer a watertight guarantee of better governance in countries with kleptocratic leadership. Vietnam set up its NWF, the SCIC, in 2005 as a holding company for some 400 SOEs — but it still has some way to go to reach private sector levels of returns. Nevertheless, setting up NWFs would help most countries that are trying to make their democratic institutions more robust.

Despite the successful examples, only a small percentage of global public commercial assets are managed in these independent and more transparent NWFs – that is, at arm’s length from daily politics. In particular, the vast real estate portfolios held by governments around the world would benefit from a more professional approach removed from short term political influence. Just as large corporations separated their real estate from their operations starting in the 70s and 80s to improve transparency and the value of their shares, governments are now discovering the importance of managing their assets for value. After the financial crisis of the 90s, Sweden created several real estate holding companies under corresponding ministries, such as Vaskronan, Vasallen and Akademiska Hus, while Finland established Senate Properties and Austria established BIG as consolidated real estate holding companies.

Our proposals extend beyond the governance of just commercial assets. An NWF with sufficient independence from government control could be allowed to rebalance its portfolio and not only help finance infrastructure investments, but also act as the professional steward and anchor investor in newly formed infrastructure consortia. Managed in this way, NWFs can encourage investment in much-needed infrastructure.

When a financial crisis hit parts of the world in the early 90s, many governments had limited knowledge of the scale and value of the debts they had incurred. Today, it is self-evident for countries to have a centralized debt management administration. Capital markets and policymakers thoroughly analyze sovereign debt, and the general public keeps a careful eye on the level of public indebtedness. In the wake of the more recent financial crisis of 2008, many countries remain heavily indebted and fettered by fiscal austerity, attempting to restore budgetary balance and thereby economic growth.

At the same time countries own huge portfolios of commercial assets. Even heavily indebted countries like Greece and Ukraine are often asset-rich. This is why we should start looking at the other side of the public sector balance sheet and ask: “What can public wealth do for our economy and for democracy?”

In the photo, workers from a company under contract for the Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras demand payment of three months of wages in arrears in February 2015.
Photo Credit: VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images

— Italian police were found guilty of torture in their brutal handling of protestors at the 2001 G-8 meeting in Genoa. Those beaten and detained were subjected to a variety of cruel treatments. Some police reportedly sang old fascisti songs while misbehaving.

— Speaking of Italy, I didn’t know that Ezra Pound is from the same town in Italy as Bowe Bergdahl—Hailey, Idaho. The great thing about Idaho is that it keeps Texas from being the craziest state in the country, and I speak as someone related to the founder of Rexburg. Checking just now on Bergdahl, I didn’t know he was discharged from Coast Guard boot camp.

— The fine writer Phil Klay is writing a movie with Judd Apatow. I’ve read all of Klay’s book, but I’ve never finished watching a movie by Apatow, so Klay looms larger in my world than Apatow.

— There are now nine members of the House of Commons of Pakistani origin, including one who is from Scottish Nationalist Party.

— Things I still don’t know: How long before someone whacks L’il Kim.

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