Foreign Policy Blogs

Cheap solar panels are transforming the energy sector in developing countries worldwide

A landmark collaboration between the UK’s Energy Africa initiative and America’s Power Africa campaign has been launched to bring clean electricity to millions of people across the African continent.

The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) Minister Nick Hurd announced the new partnership in December in collaboration with his US counterpart, USAID Associate Administrator Eric Postel.

Hurd commented: “No one can tackle Africa’s energy challenge alone… The U.S. has led the way over the past few years with its Power Africa campaign. Together with our Energy Africa campaign we can boost access to reliable, clean and affordable household energy, helping millions of people to lift themselves out of poverty.”

The two organizations’ combined efforts will aim to leverage private investment to develop power sharing networks between African countries and tap their unused resources, such as geothermal power, to increase locals’ access to electricity.

It is estimated that around 600 million Africans still lack electrical power at home, holding back businesses and development.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two countries at a special event arranged by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and New Climate Economy, at the recent UN climate change conference in Paris.

USAID Associate Administrator Eric Postel said: “In partnership with DFID… We can help accelerate Africa’s path toward economic and environmental sustainability.”

The MoU commits Energy Africa and Power Africa to work together in a number of key policy areas, including expanding off grid energy, boosting investment in clean energy through joint projects, and improving female participation rates in Africa’s energy sector.

The UK’s campaign has historically focused on boosting the household solar market throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with the ultimate goal of creating universal energy access across the region.

Energy Africa claims to have signed up six African countries to cooperate on reducing policy and regulatory barriers to cross-border market expansions in the household solar energy market. This includes regional superpower Nigeria. Discussions with eight more African governments are still ongoing.

Meanwhile America’s Power Africa has sought to create 60 million electrical connections in sub-Saharan states by unlocking local resources of wind, solar, geothermal and natural gas resources. The project also aims to add at least 30,000 megawatts of new, cleaner electrical power capacity to the area.

Together the two organizations believe the new joint initiative will help strengthen donor coordination and stimulate efforts by local governments, foreign donors and private businesses to meet the Global G7 in Africa target of delivering affordable, sustainable clean energy to the continent’s citizens.

It comes as a historic $100 billion package of measures were agreed between Western governments and the leaders of emerging and developing countries to combat climate change and keep global temperatures well below a 2 °C rise.

Green technology is rapidly emerging as a potential challenger to traditional fossil fuels as a cheaper, cleaner means of providing power to developing countries worldwide. With many newly emerging states like China now looking to cut down on pollution in at home, countries which have not yet created a traditional electrical infrastructure may be poised to avoid earlier pitfalls as they seek to join the ranks of economically developed countries.

Via New Middle East Blogspot

In quick succession, the set of ISIS attacks in Paris, Sharm el-Sheikh and Beirut suggest that the group has crossed a threshold for international terrorism. In the case of the Paris attacks, these were “spectacular acts,” planned well in advance, with terrorists waiting for the opportune time to strike.

Less obvious is why now. Kenneth Waltz’s neo-realist “three level analysis” and Robert Jervis’ notion of “perception and misperception” may provide a broader picture of connected issues (Waltz, Kenneth N. 1959, Man, the State and War, New York: Columbia University Press; Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press). First, at Waltz’s “third image” or systems level, there appears to be realignment of terrorist group interests and possibly terrorist groups across several North African countries. After years of estrangement from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leaders, particularly Abdelmalek Droukdel and Mohktar Belmokhtar’s “al-Mourabitoun” carried out the Radisson Blu terrorist assault in Bamako in conjunction with AQIM’s “Sultan Emirate” led by Yaha Abou-Hammam.

This is new. Consistent with North African terrorist group “fence mending” as al-Qaeda and ISIS compete, it bodes ill for security in northern Africa as groups now might achieve “economies of scale” in operations. This environment, where terrorist groups dictate events, echoes U.S. problems with foreign policy in the early 1950s, when the Soviets chose when and where to marshal American military resources in proxy wars. That realignment also puts the spotlight on Ansar Dine and its leader, Iyad Ag Ghali in Mali, because Ansar Dine’s actions (or inaction) influence French foreign policy both in Mali and Algeria.

Another “third image” factor that involves three or more states is Putin’s Syrian strategy. With Putin’s “first mover advantage,” ISIS and the West must probably accept Assad’s continued role in Syria for at least the next few months. The “perception or misperception” is probably that a weaker transitional authority after Assad is vulnerable to an ISIS onslaught. Thus, the Paris attacks might be an act of Thomas Schelling’s  “compellence” to force Assad from power even though as Schelling states, “compellence” is harder to accomplish than deterrence (Schelling, Thomas 1963. The Strategy of Conflict, New York: Oxford University Press). Still, 139 dead in the heart of Paris is very compelling.

At the “second image” level, focus is on Turkey, Iran, and France. Both are what Brian Jenkins and Martha Crenshaw would call “secondary audiences” to the Paris assaults. President Erdogan, fresh from his recent electoral victory, has new political capital to either increase his support for his Turkmen allies, reinforce his stance against the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) in Syria, or shift the burden of ISIS to other NATO members to work with Russia, if he believes, at least in the short-run, that it is inopportune to confront ISIS now. The Russian SU-24 shot down over Hatay province dovetails with that notion. Be that as it may, it is wise for Erdogan to support Russia’s backing of Assad at least tacitly, since Russia and Turkey are significant trade partners.

Another “second image” level is Iranian foreign policy. It seems possible ISIS leaders have “perceived or misperceived” the recent rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran as a gateway for future Iranian-American cooperation against ISIS in Yemen and Syria, and that the time is now for Iran’s President Rouhani to receive a strong message about the consequences of such a partnership. In addition, French policy toward North Africa is deeply flawed—at the domestic level, acculturation and political and economic assistance remain poorly developed. Internationally, French leaders cope with perception they do little or nothing to integrate former colonies into the French economy and the European Union (EU).

At the “first image” or individual level,  explanatory factors and their effects remain harder to decipher outside of broader strains between Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The attack in Paris showcased ISIS’s own French nationals of North African background. That terrorist assault characteristic is consistent with recent terrorist group realignment of the type described against the backdrop of this worldwide competition against al-Qaeda. Much about the Paris attacks timing remains largely unknown, but all or some of those factor effects probably coalesced to produce the critical mass necessary to launch the Paris assaults.

Photo: Arc2020

As the 21st Conference of Parties begins this week in Paris, for the first time in years, the prospect for serious, substantive international progress on climate issues is not bleak.

China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest carbon emitters, are more or less on the same page, looking to reduce emissions, if for very divergent reasons.

In my latest video, I take a look at what’s going on at COP21.

When Putin started to increase Russian military presence in Syria, I was reading Kissinger’s Diplomacy and coincidently its chapter on the Suez Canal Crisis. I couldn’t resist comparing Putin’s move to that of Khrushchev’s, when he provided support and aid to Nasser’s Egypt. 1950s Soviet Union and today’s Russia suffer from the effects of containment imposed by the West. Containment brought on themselves through acts the West views as blatant aggression. The difference between the two contexts is that  Russia is no longer communist and the primary adversary of the West. Yet, in both circumstances the same underlying motivations and logic seem to have convinced Russia to play the Middle East card.

When Khrushchev came to power following Stalin’s death in 1953, the transition was not smooth. It took him until 1957 to cement his strangle hold on the Kremlin. This insecurity in Moscow led him to take a few cocky decisions, even when the West took him to be the best chance for peace. One of these decisions was to throw his support behind the Nasser regime in Egypt and its Pan-Arabic aspirations. The West was stunned by this Soviet diplomatic victory. Containment was intended to keep the Russian maneuvers within its communist sphere. The traditional sphere of influence of the diminishing British and French powers in Middle East now involved a new player. U.S. diplomatic bargaining with Nasser had gone no where. The end result was British and French humiliation and withdrawal from the region after the 1956 Suez Crisis, the creation of the short lived United Arab Republic involving Egypt, Syria and North Yemen and the 1967 Six-Day war.

The important point to note here is that Khrushchev did not squeeze into the Middle East power struggle at a moment of strength for the Soviet Union. It was at a point of great weakness; Stalin’s death led to power struggles and purges, the Korean war had been a stalemate and the U.S. still maintained an edge in the nuclear race. The incursion into Egypt was meant to showcase to his opponents and critics that he was a capable leader, who could take the ailing Soviet Union to heights even Stalin could not.

Putin, in contrast, definitely does not have the issue of being overshadowed by the legacy of his predecessor. He has been in power since 2000. Instead of proving to be an adversary to the West, Putin started as a surprising collaborator, supporting Bush’s War on Terror (obviously to garner support for his own war on terror in Chechnya). Over the last 15 years, he has slowly positioned himself as an adversary. The 2008 war with Georgia was the turning point. The annexation of Crimea and the insurgency in eastern Ukraine has cemented that view. He  supported the Assad regime in rhetoric, vetoes and limited material support, but providing Assad with a Russian air force seemed a bit far off.

Since Soviet times, the naval base at Tartus was Russia’s only permanent naval installation in the Mediterranean Sea. It has managed to hold on to this one last bastion, even when Hafez Assad decided to bomb a Soviet vessel at the base. Thus, it is doubtful that any Russian leader would want to lose the naval base, especially one with an ailing economy and a nationalistic fervor keeping him in power.

Putin had promised much to the Russian people during the commodity boom.  The military modernization project was planned on a $100 oil barrel. But that all went south when the prices plummeted in 2014. The Ukrainian crisis only made things worse as the U.S. and EU slapped on sanctions. Trade with China seems to be the lifeline of the economy. Yet the military continues to be modernized, while  Soviet strategic bombers are seen from the English Channel to Guam. Putin has used displays of military prowess as a means of sustaining the nationalistic fervor at home and distracting the people from the economic woes.

Assad has been losing ground since July and many expected him to start withdrawing to his Alawite homeland in the coastal region. That was until Putin emulated Khrushchev. He announced that Russian fighter jets, stationed in Latakia would be bombing ISIS targets in support of Assad’s troops. NATO forces until then dominating the region’s air space had to suddenly share it . There was suddenly a chance of U.S. and Russian planes facing each other off over enemy territory. The only previous event of similar magnitude was when in 1970. 15,000 Soviet troops were stationed in Egypt to man a comprehensive air defense system against Israeli incursions.

The question is can Russia afford this new active role in the region, something it has not performed since the 1970s ? Khrushchev did not enter Middle Eastern affairs with a clear cut strategic end game in mind. He didn’t achieve anything of much significance other than to commit Soviet resources, when its own people and satellites in Eastern Europe needed them the most. In 1972, Egypt’s Sadat simply evicted the Soviet personnel and its Syrian foothold was what was left.

Today in trying to protect the last Russian chip left in the region, Putin might be pitting the very survival of the Russian Federation. Russia is overextended today, as it once was under the Soviet Union. The A321 flight crash over Sinai and Turkey shooting down the Su-24 jet continuously put Russia on the headlines. Initially, Russia refused to accept the Sinai crash was a terror attack, but as soon as the French attacks occurred and it was obvious that fighting ISIS would allow an “alliance’ with France, Putin declared the truth of the matter. The Turkish action has been labelled a “stab in the back” by Putin. His reaction has been sanctions against Turkey, but obviously the economic impact won’t be merely one way.

The Russian Orthodox church’s declaration that it is a holy war to defend christianity might buoy the impact of those killed to protect the Assad regime. But just like Americans, Russians would also start decrying war when the body bags count begins to increase. It helps that Russian media is under strict state control. RT and massive military parades against Fascism can only sway public opinion for so long. In 1991, Russia survived by shedding away its Soviet empire. If Russia collapses again, the Federation is what is at stake. A nuclear power in chaos is a bad proposition for world peace. So all one can hope is that unlike Khrushchev, Putin has a clear end game in sight and knows when to pull back before over extension passes the point of no return.

Protesters displaying placards during a rally in front of the Chinese consulate in Manila on Aug 31, 2015.  PHOTO: AFP

The unanimous ruling on October 29 by an international arbitral tribunal over its jurisdiction to arbitrate territorial claims claimed by the Philippines in the South China Sea comes as a slap in the face to Beijing, and may lead to further filings by Southeast Asian nations.  Under its notorious nine-dash line, or “cow’s tongue”, Chinese leaders claim over 90 percent of the South China Sea and have argued against any international jurisdiction over sovereignty issues.

The current ruling, the first of its kind, concerns a case filed by the Philippine government at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2013, under the United Nations 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). According to the ruling, the case will now be handled by the Arbitral Tribunal under UNCLOS, and is expected to determine maritime zone entitlements of ten reefs and shoal in the South China Sea: Scarborough Shoal, Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal, Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef, Johnson Reef, Cuarteron Reef, and McKennan Reef.  Some of these reefs are currently being converted into islands.

Beijing bases its claims on the disputed waters and features as “traditional fishing grounds,” despite the presence of fisherman from around the region for centuries. For example, the Scarborough Shoal was referenced in a May 2012 article in the PLA Daily, claiming a Chinese astronomer, Guo Shoujing, first visited the shoal in 1279 as part of a survey of the Chinese empire. China’s formal claim to the shoal was made in 1935, while Manila says its initial claim was in 1937-1938, although it was unable to publicize its claim due to Japanese incursions and invasion. The shoal did not feature on Philippine maps until 1997, when Manila began to press its claim by taking ownership of the shoal as terra nullius, or “no man’s land.”

Beijing has reiterated it will not accept the Tribunal’s resolution, arguing that the only way forward is through bilateral negotiations.  China had previously argued in a position paper that the “2002 China–ASEAN Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea constitutes an agreement to resolve disputes relating to the South China Sea exclusively through negotiation.”

International leaders, however, welcomed the decision over the Court’s jurisdiction.  German chancellor Angela Merkel recently addressed the issue while on a visit to Beijing, “The territorial dispute in the South China Sea is a serious conflict. I am always a bit surprised why in this case multinational courts should not be an option for a solution.”

Merkel’s statement clearly reflects Beijing’s two faces over the rule of law, for despite China ratifying UNCLOS in 1996, Beijing now says it will not accept procedures referring to “binding decisions” and compulsory processes under the law.  While Beijing considers certain UNCLOS rules to be inconsistent with its national policy, it has similarly chosen to invoke UNCLOS law to seek a binding decision for its claim against Japan on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. China is also party to the Declaration on the Conduct for Parties in the South China Sea, which it signed in 2002. Through its dredging efforts to create artificial islands, Beijing has blatantly ignored Article 5 of the DOC, which calls for “self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes in uninhabited islands and reefs.”

So while it is high time for an international referee like the Arbitral Tribunal under UNCLOS to step in, separate the fighters, and issue a ruling concerning the sovereignty of the disputed waters, it is highly unlikely the Court will be able to enforce a ruling against China, which Beijing is likely to ignore.  Any court rulings issued by the tribunal are binding on its member countries, including China, but the tribunal has no powers of enforcement, so some of its rulings have been ignored before.  

The Tribunal’s eventual ruling, expected in 2016, will also be limited in scope to asserting whether or not specific features (rocks and low-tide elevations) can claim EEZs. Some of the reefs being converted into islands by China will fail to be recognized as islands–thereby losing any expanded territorial claims. Under UNCLOS, artificial islands are entitled to the rights enjoyed by the original feature–a 12 nautical mile territorial sea for rocks above water at low tide, and a 500-meter safety zone for elevations below water at low tide.  

Should Beijing refuse to honor a potential ruling against their claims of sovereignty, we can expect China to again attempt to assert its economic muscle to persuade other regional nations to settle the disputes bilaterally.  China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin announced earlier this month Beijing’s offer to Southeast Asian countries of around US$10 billion in infrastructure loans.    

Yet China’s weakening muscularity and an economic pivot by Washington could lead other Southeast Asian nations toward pursuing similar rulings.  This month, some voters in Vietnam put forth a proposal to their National Assembly, calling for the initiation of legal proceedings against China at an international tribunal over its violation of the Southeast Asian country’s sovereignty in the East Vietnam Sea (South China Sea).  How far this request will go is disputed–Hanoi will need to balance the concerns of its nationalistic citizenry while maintaining close ties to its communist brother.  Indonesia has also hinted it may also go to court to assert its sovereignty over disputed territory.

Beijing can still effectively lobby its other neighbors–as it did when it scuttled efforts by Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers to mention the South China Sea in a joint declaration after meetings in Malaysia earlier this month. On the international stage, a negative outcome for Beijing will surely lead to a loss of face for Chinese leaders, and they will face increasing isolation for failing to respect international law–a precondition for their regaining great nation status.

A Russian S-400 air defense missile system makes its way through Red Square during a military parade in Moscow. File photo AP.

The Turkish F-16 that shot down a Russian SU-24 attack plane last week near the Turkish-Syrian border has created an international incident that rivals with the first few chapters of any Tom Clancy novel. Air operations against ISIS and Syrian rebels in Syria has created a situation where Turkey, other NATO countries and Russia are all operating aircrafts in close proximity.

The greatest fear of NATO commanders was realized when Turkish authorities gave the green light for the F-16 to shoot down the SU-24, resulting in one pilot killed and other Russian soldiers possibly killed or injured while rescuing the second member of the two-man crew. Turkey, a NATO member state, would have the right to claim that an attack by Russia on Turkey is an attack on all NATO members, but considering the order to shoot down the SU-24 was ill conceived and the SU-24 was not a real threat to Turkey, NATO members would do well to tamp down the rhetoric against the grieved party who has lost a pilot and soldiers and never threatened Turkish security to any great measure.

The predictable response to the incident by Russian President Putin was to shun Turkish officials in international forums and openly claim that Turkey took aggressive actions against its aircraft in order to protect oil flows from ISIS-controlled territory into Turkey itself. Russia has recently been targeting ISIS oil resources in order to financially starve the terrorist organization that uses this resource to supply its military and resulting in human rights abuses and genocide against minority groups in the region. The lack of attention given to ISIS oil resources by NATO has given way to assumptions by Russia that Turkey took aggressive actions against Russia to protect the oil reserves.

Another theory is that Russia wants to take the lead in the region by targeting resources that keep ISIS afloat. Russia’s aggressive strikes appeal to those communities that want to stop mass murder of ethnic minorities in the region, disregarding the notion that attacking energy resources in Syria and Iraq may cause significant environmental damage. Whatever the reason, the actions by the Turkish F-16 against the Russian aircraft were not morally legitimate, even if legally it can be argued that Turkey may have had the right to take an aggressive stand against a Russian aircraft flying over its territory.

Years of discussions and sanctions blocking the sale of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Iran ended a few months ago when Russia decided to finally sell the advanced missile system to Iran. Despite U.S. officials believing that the nuclear deal would block the sale for many years, Russian officials moved ahead swiftly after the agreement was signed to fulfill the S-300s order. In the aftermath of the incident with Turkey, the next generation of Russian surface-to-air missile that concerned U.S. officials for so many years is now being deployed in Syria. The effectiveness, range and crew of the newer S-400 “Triumph” missile will operate as a Russian air defense network in northern Syria, covering much of Syria and reaching into Turkey, Israel and even as far as Cyprus.

While NATO officials do not believe Russia will target NATO aircrafts, a recent decline in NATO sorties has taken place upon the announcement of the S-400 deployment. Anti-aircraft missile systems have become a major strategic asset ever since the Vietnam War, and allow the party that has control of the system to pick and choose how an air strategy can be applied, or halted in a given territory. With the S-400 radars able to view all air activity in Syria and Turkey, missiles could target and hit Turkish and NATO planes in Turkey itself.

Putin has decided to create an Iron Dome of his own, enveloping Turkish air squadrons and bases within the range of the S-400. Retaliation against Turkey and NATO has not taken place, but with the S-400 Triumph as part of the increased air defense over Russian and Syria aircrafts in the region, NATO will be motivated to ease tensions and perhaps re-consider NATO’s future obligations towards Turkey itself.

The Great Wall of China. Source: Severin, stalder via Wikipedia.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has led one revolution away from capitalism and back again in its sixty-six year rule. Now it might be about to lead another. With the planned Paris conference on climate change due to start on November 30 Beijing has been releasing some significant-sounding statements on moving China’s huge economy towards a greener phase. Xi Jinping has shown himself to be China’s most powerful and energetic leader since Deng Xiaoping, who first brought market reforms to the giant and impoverished communist nation. The move to a green-based economy would require massive restructuring and the tackling of vested interests that profit from the current set up. But it is no more radical than the break-neck development China pursued over the last two decades.

Critics of the CCP have noted that it continues to play statistical games with inconvenient facts, most recently admitting that it has under-reported its coal consumption for many years. The new figures suggest that Chinese emissions have been a significantly larger driver of global warming than previously admitted. This feeds into perceptions of China’s government as an entity that talks the talk but struggles to walk the walk when it comes to facing up to the issues of climate change and public health disasters caused by its environmental policies.

Nonetheless regular public scandals over pollution and the mass protests they spawn show that there is public demand at home for China’s one-party system to take some responsibility in setting and enforcing standards to tackle the issue. The protests unite China’s growing middle classes with its poor migrant laborers, and its more privileged city dwellers with the hard-scrabble rural peasants out in the countryside. Despite China’s extensive censorship and pervasive security forces, protests about social conditions break out across the country with monotonous regularity. The government’s response is often to clamp down on the organizers but also to offer local concessions to appease the demonstrators.

China’s huge internal security budget reveals that the Party is uneasy about the ferment of social changes it has unleashed with its modernization of the country. Protests in China are no longer illegal so long as they do not call for the downfall of the CCP but attending them can be risky. Despite this tens of thousands of single issue protests break out across the country every year according to human rights groups, the vast majority concerned with corruption, development concerns or environmental problems. For all China is a one-party state, the regime of Xi Jinping is keen to stay ahead of the issues that matter to the Chinese public, as shown by his draconian anti-corruption campaign since coming to power. The idea of a nation-wide green movement taking off in the country that could not be assuaged by closing an unpopular chemical plant or sacking a hated local government official is anathema to Beijing.

President Xi Jinping has therefore shown himself to be more inclined to take green issues into account than his predecessors, who focused more closely on economic development. He has committed to capping carbon emissions by 2030 and turning to renewable sources for 20 percent of the country’s energy. By 2013 China had even become the world’s largest producer of wind and solar power. Increasingly the CCP must balancing its mission to lift the many more millions of Chinese who remain in grinding poverty against the costs of climate change and pollution that creating this wealth often entails. With a growing middle class increasingly outspoken about living in smog-ridden cities reminiscent of the early industrial revolution, Beijing is looking at radical changes in how its economy operates.

Some observers think that China has realized it must go green for its own survival, but just as likely is that the CCP has calculated that, as with corruption, the limits of public tolerance for pollution, public health scandals and massive industrial accidents has been tested to dangerous limits. Since 1989 Chinese politics has worked on the operating principle that popular discontent must never be allowed to build up unchecked. The Arab Spring protests of 2010-11 which swept away a clutch of fossilized and underperforming authoritarian regimes in the Middle East with a wave of street protests were seen as a warning in Beijing. As a result it stepped up repression of civil society activists including environmental activists, anticorruption campaigners or defense lawyers, but scrutinized many of their concerns more intently.

Beijing’s monopoly on political power still rests on showing that it can deliver economic growth and rising living standards. But the costs of a rapid industrial development, and the attendant explosion of consumerism among 1.5 billion people have taken their toll. Under Xi Jinping it has become a mature middle-sized economy that is now pondering what kind of society it would like to be by 2050. Affluence is creating more interest in social issues. People power movements are already a well-established phenomenon in local politics in China going back many years, but there has been no national movement since the suppression of pro-democracy protestors in 1989. The CCP fears that allowing any widespread organization on social issues will quickly turn political and lead to the overthrow of the communist system. It cites examples such as the Polish Solidarity trade union movement which led to the eventual democratization of Poland over of the course of the 1980s or the more recent Color Revolutions.

Unlike various secular Arab regimes however, the CCP has long proved adept at anticipating and diffusing popular concerns before they become a mortal threat to the Party’s political survival. The suppression of pro-democracy protests stalled but did not stop a pre-existing economic program to develop the Chinese economy. Once rising living standards had been achieved and official corruption was becoming a pressing issue the Party moved to clean up these Augean stables itself, without subjecting CCP cadres to an independent judiciary. It had already begun to soften its rhetoric on global warming under the previous leadership team around Hu Jintao. There is no reason to suppose that as green issues becomes more important globally and locally that the leadership of the CCP will not move to co-opt and ingratiate itself with the movements that emerge to tackle it. Whether this will help or harm the cause of green politics in China itself will be determined by the CCP’s ability to deliver on its promises. If Beijing cannot, it may find itself facing the very public protests it is currently trying to head off.

(Photo Credit: AP Photo/Getty Images)

With respect to the broader issue of my critics…I think that when you listen to what they actually have to say, what they’re proposing, most of the time, when pressed, they describe things that we’re already doing. Maybe they’re not aware that we’re already doing them. Some of them seem to think that if I were just more bellicose in expressing what we’re doing, that that would make a difference—because that seems to be the only thing that they’re doing, is talking as if they’re tough. But I haven’t seen particular strategies that they would suggest that would make a real difference.

President Obama speaking at a Press Conference in Turkey on November 16, 2015

Last week both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush gave major talks outlining their respective plans for defeating terrorists. Those two presidential candidates’ views will be my focus for this blog. In a recent article in the Washington Post, the author noted that with the exception of both candidates calling for no fly zones, “overall the candidates and the president are talking about doing basically the same three things to fight the Islamic State: airstrikes, bolstering local forces, getting the world on the same page.”

I think that’s too broad a generalization and does not get at the heart of all the issues. As a Veteran and retired intelligence professional, when I sit down and listen to what each candidate has to say on national security issues, I’m looking for the answer to two questions. First, does the candidate really understand the depth of the problem and related issues? Second, what are their proposed solutions and third are they feasible?

Do the candidates understand the scope of the problem?

In 2012, at the request of the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, the Department of Defense published Decade of War Volume I Enduring Lessons from the Past Decade of Operations. The purpose was to ensure we learned the lessons from the previous decade of war. The first lesson learned discussed was “a failure to recognize, acknowledge, and accurately define the operational environment led to a mismatch between forces, capabilities, missions, and goals. The operational environment encompasses not only the threat but also the physical, informational, social, cultural, religious, and economic elements of the environment.” Bottom line is: if you don’t get that right, then the strategy you develop won’t work.

Jeb Bush says “Despite elaborate efforts by the administration to avoid even calling it by name, one of the very gravest threats we face today comes from radical Islamic terrorists.” I don’t dispute that but how do you explain the fact that there have been many reports that former members of Saddam Hussein’s Army now make up a lot of the military leadership and intelligence positions within ISIS? Why is that?

Clinton seems to have a better understanding of the complexity of the issues, pointing out that under former Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s regime the Sunnis tribes were betrayed and forgotten. She feels that if we are going to win on the ground, we need to bring the Sunnis back on board. Bush also stresses the need to bring the Sunnis on board, but says the problem was caused by the premature withdrawal of U.S. Forces leaving a void that ISIS filled. I agree with Bush that the U.S. withdrawal was a mistake but wonder: if Maliki’s regime had been more inclusive, would the end result have been the same?

I participated in a Department of Defense media program that gave me the opportunity to receive briefings and ask questions to many of the senior Generals involved in the training of Iraqi military forces. One question I asked concerned the Iraqi sectarian issues. Using our own history as an example, I said as long as northern military forces occupied the south after the Civil War, African Americans were able to integrate into southern society, holding government offices and positions. As soon as the troops left, white southerners enacted Jim Crow laws which restricted the freedom of the former slaves. It was not till 100 years later that a lot of the problems caused by these laws were addressed and reversed. What were the chances that the sectarian issues in Iraq between different ethnic and religious groups would prevent them from having an effective and inclusive government? I would pose the same question today to the Presidential candidates.

As the recent attack against an hotel in Mali by a group associated with al-Qaeda reminds us, it is not just ISIS nor is the conflict confined to just Iraq and Syria. Addressing the topic in their annual posture statement, United States Africa Command reported:

The network of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents continues to exploit Africa’s under-governed regions and porous borders to train and conduct attacks. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is expanding its presence in North Africa. Terrorists with allegiances to multiple groups are expanding their collaboration in recruitment, financing, training, and operations, both within Africa and transregionally.

In its recently released 2015 Global Terrorism Index, the Institute for Economics and Peace stated that the Nigerian based group Boko Haram, which declared allegiance to ISIS in March of this year, was the most deadly terrorist group. “The country witnessed the largest increase in terrorist deaths ever recorded by any country, increasing by over 300 per cent to 7,512 fatalities.”

The “so what” factor for me is that over two million Nigerians have been displaced internally because of the actions of Boko Harum. Another 175,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Chad, Niger, and Cameron. The UN says they’re critically short of funding needed to provide assistance. Are we witnessing the development of another major refugee crisis? Is it not better to destroy and/or neutralize terrorist groups rather than have another large number of people feel the only solution is to seek refugee status and to move to another country?

In her talk, Hillary Clinton stressed that this was a worldwide fight and required a worldwide solution. Two statements stood out for me:

Now, let’s be clear about what we’re facing. Beyond Paris in recent days, we’ve seen deadly terrorist attacks in Nigeria, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, and a Russian civilian airline destroyed over the Sinai. At the heart of today’s new landscape of terror is ISIS. They persecute religious and ethnic minorities; kidnap and behead civilians; murder children. They systematically enslave, torture and rape women and girls…

But we have learned that we can score victories over terrorist leaders and networks, only to face metastasizing threats down the road, so we also have to play and win the long game. We should pursue a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, one that embeds our mission against ISIS within a broader struggle against radical jihadism that is bigger than any one group, whether it’s Al Qaida or ISIS or some other network.

Looking at Jeb Bush’s views expressed in his talk last week at The Citadel and his recent remarks at the Reagan Presidential Library, he says it’s a worldwide problem yet his proposed solutions only address two problem areas: “My strategy meets the unique circumstances in each of the two countries, Iraq and Syria, in which ISIS now has territory.”

He speaks of the importance of allies but again with the exception of Egypt and Tunisia, he only mentions countries in the Middle East:

In all of this, the United States must engage with friends and allies, and lead again in that vital region. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the most populous Arab country and the wealthiest, are important partners of the United States. Those relationships have been badly mishandled by this administration. Both countries are key to a better-coordinated regional effort against terrorism. We need to restore trust, and work more closely with them against common threats. We have very capable partners, likewise, in the United Arab Emirates, who are willing and able to take the fight to the extremists. We have a moderate and quite formidable leader in King Abdullah of Jordan. We have an ally in the new democratic government in Tunisia, and a fragile democracy in Lebanon—nations that are both under assault by radicals and terrorists. Across the region, responsible governments need no persuading of what the moment requires.

In contrast, Hillary Clinton remarked:

We’ve had a lot of conversation about ISIS in the last week, let’s not forget al-Qaeda. They still have the most sophisticated bombmakers, ambitious plotters and active affiliates in places like Yemen and North Africa, so we can’t just focus on Iraq and Syria, we need to intensify our counter—our counterterrorism efforts on a wider scope.

What are their proposed solutions and are they feasible?

Again Jeb Bush’s strategy solutions focus on Iraq and Syria. For Iraq he is proposing the following actions:
– Support the Iraqi forces
– Consistent air power to support local ground forces
– Give current forces greater range of action
– Provide more support to the Kurds
– Diplomatic strategy for enduring political stability in Iraq

For Syria he proposes:
– A coordinated international effort is required to give Syria’s moderate forces the upper hand
– Expand and improve the recruitment and training of Syrian opposition fighters
– Establish multiple safe zones in Syria
– Along with partners create an expanding no fly zone to prevent more crimes by the regime

For me, he left unanswered how he would fight terrorism in other regions of the world.

Hillary Clinton’s strategy has three main elements:
– Defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and across the Middle East.
– Disrupt and dismantle the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world.
– Harden our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats.

For each of these points, she provides a great deal of detail. At least for now her more thorough and detailed views seem to be winning over support. A Washington Post/ABC news poll indicated voters find her more trusted on handling the terrorism issue than her Republican rivals.

Clinton also stressed the importance of both political parties working together to defeat terrorism:

When New York was attacked on 9/11, we had a Republican president, a Republican governor and a Republican mayor, and I worked with all of them. We pulled together and put partisanship aside to rebuild our city and protect our country.

In his Reagan Library talk Bush stated:

Who can seriously argue that America and our friends are safer today than in 2009, when the President and Secretary Clinton—the storied ‘team of rivals’—took office? So eager to be the history-makers, they failed to be the peacemakers. It was a case of blind haste to get out, and to call the tragic consequences somebody else’s problem. Rushing away from danger can be every bit as unwise as rushing into danger, and the costs have been grievous.

I’m a firm believer in lessons learned but there is a lot of blame to go around. I think many would argue that Congressional gridlock and its bad relationship with the President has had a major negative impact on national security policy. I’ve blogged before about the toll sequestration has taken on our military forces.

Have Presidential Candidates Proposed Anything New In The Fight Against Terrorism?

President Obama has been steadfast in his refusal to put large numbers of U.S. ground forces in the fight. Both Bush and Clinton advocate using ground forces in coordination with Iraqi and moderate Syrian Forces; but Clinton also stresses the need “to move simultaneously toward a political solution to the civil war that paves the way for a new government with new leadership, and to encourage more Syrians to take on ISIS as well”. Both candidates also advocate establishing no fly zones something President Obama has also resisted.

I’m an avid football fan. One of the mantras the experts always say is defense wins championships. During my time in the military, the mantra was: you can’t win a war with out putting troops on the ground. I agree. As to the feasibility of Clinton and Bush’s proposals, I’m not sold on an approach that relies heavily on local forces to fight terrorism. I still believe the best approach is establishment of an organization like NATO but focused on fighting terrorism. It would also have a standing rapid deployment force made up of coalition members that could be called upon when needed. If I were Queen for a day, I would add that concept to both of their strategies.

Again my views are my own. I think I’ll end here.

Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images

In the wake of the Paris attacks, American politicians of all stripes are rushing to burnish their security credentials. In their proposals they are undermining the one measure that might exhibit America’s basic motives in Syria, while adding nothing to U.S. security. House bill 4038, imposing extra screenings on Syrian refugees, and calls by governors, including at least one Democrat, to deny them entry, ignore what refugees are.

Of course we must be vigilant against terrorism. Many measures aimed at border security, some very uncomfortable, may well prove necessary. But the politicians are aiming at exactly the wrong target. They need to recall certain facts.

First, a widely overlooked point: “refugee” has a very specific meaning in law and administrative practice, distinct from other types of migrant. The UN formally defines refugees as persons fleeing persecution, which is the necessary condition even to consider anyone for U..S refugee status. The Paris attackers were not refugees; they already lived in Europe. Several travelled to and from the Middle East, but only one attacker seems even to have moved along current refugee routes.

Second, fear that terrorists could infiltrate the refugee system is understandable for anyone unfamiliar with the U.S. process. But our existing system has multiple layers of monitoring and support, in effective, long-established practices. As noted by Ambassador Ryan Crocker in the Wall Street Journal, multiple agencies, including Homeland Security and the FBI, vet all refugee candidates under consideration. A U.S. diplomat, with experience processing Middle Eastern refugees, corroborates to me that every case undergoes a multi-phased examination before gaining refugee status.

Third, even before embarking for the U.S., refugees are connected to a resettlement organization, from one of several, long-established networks. These organizations, including my friends at the International Institute of Connecticut, work closely with incoming families and individuals. Agency staff implements the rigorous State Department-funded refugee resettlement program. Volunteers mentor each family, visiting regularly to aid in their settlement. It is a service rather than security monitoring, but the relationship keeps citizens of the local community in touch with resettling refugees.

Fourth, America does not have the communities of disaffected Middle Eastern immigrants that a terrorist needs, to build networks to plan, equip, stage, and launch attacks. Europe’s large populations of alienated Muslims are not present here, and our resettlement agencies do not dump new arrivals in any shadow-lands.

The terrorism risk posed by refugees, even specifically from Syria and Iraq, is effectively zero. Yes, rapid expansion could strain a network geared to earlier levels of activity; this would explain in part the small number of Syrian refugees—10,000—that the administration proposed to accept this fall. Large increases should be carefully planned and rigorously monitored. But to worry about radicals posing as Syrian refugees is to ignore the meaning of “refugee.”

Beyond the question of domestic security, Syria itself gives us very few pieces on which to build a palatable U.S. policy. The only real forces are ISIS and the Assad regime —which started a civil war in response to the Arab Spring. Two approaches are raised in our public discourse. The first is to establish a safe haven in Syria for Assad’s non-ISIS opponents. This keeps our hands unsullied, but requires collaboration with countries of many different stripes, and will have little direct effect on either ISIS or Assad. The second is to join pro-Assad Russia in an anti-ISIS coalition; aside from the difficulties highlighted by Turkey’s shoot-down of a Russian plane, the moral compromise here is clear.

If we must choose among such options, we will need somehow to assert a basic moral context around what will be a pragmatic choice. Islamist terrorists voice an anti-Liberal, anti-Western narrative calling us amoral and imperialistic. Choosing an evil that we calculate to be the lesser, without somehow exhibiting our overarching moral values, will help our enemies, “proving” their narrative for them.

Taking in refugees is a long standing sign of America’s best nature. The system is one of the functions in the U.S. government that has been managed, quietly and collaboratively between Congress and State, for years. Through long practice it meets the standard of responsible handling in all respects, including security.

Everyone is entitled to their concerns—fear is a response to danger. Some will still worry about refugees, even if they understand that our process already eliminates the risks. Exactly to the extent that we still carry this fear, taking in Syrians who cannot abide either ISIS or Assad becomes an act of courage, undertaken out of conviction in our values.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

via Flickr’ user mg-muscapix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo from the deleted Weibo posts, via Quartz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

via Sites at Penn State.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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