Posts by QamarSyed:

    Syrian refugees’ resettlement in the West?

    December 29th, 2015

     

    By Syed Qamar Rizvi.

     

    Syrian refugees' resettlement in the West?

    In the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, many assumed, almost automatically, that Syrian refugees and/or ISIS recruits posing as Syrian refugees were behind the attacks. From a security perspective, critics are correct in their assessment that there is a theoretical possibility that ISIS and other terrorist groups might use the refugee resettlement process as a conduit for terror attacks in the host countries.

    As far as the Paris attacks are concerned, there has been some premature speculation about Syrian passports being found at the site of attacks, implying ill-intention on the part of refugees and that ISIS effectively uses the refugee crisis to its advantage. So far, no evidence has been found to support these speculations; authorities recovered one Syrian passport, which was later found to be fake. Moreover, all of the identified terrorists thus far are “citizens of European Union countries,” further undermining the idea that refugees offer recruiting opportunities for ISIS.

    The European policy challenge

    Throughout  the past month, the refugee crisis has dominated discussions across the EU. European leaders have been under immense pressure to respond to the horrific suffering of refugees fleeing war and seeking asylum in the EU. One of the most controversial initiatives has been a provisional EU relocation system, aimed at the distribution of 120,000 asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy. This ‘refugee quota plan’ has been strongly criticised by several EU member states, in particular by Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, ever since the Juncker Commission first proposed it last May. Still, the EU member states’ Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs found the necessary majority to give the initiative the green light on September 22nd. Why has the EU relocation system been so controversial? Its new distribution of responsibility model constitutes a temporary derogation of the current sacrosanct rule of the EU Dublin system, which designates the first state of entry as the responsible authority for assessing an asylum-seeker’s application.

    The new relocation model will mean the application of new distribution criteria, to include: the population, the GDP, the average number of past asylum applications and unemployment rates of the destination country. Personal and family links as well as the ‘integration potential’ of the applicants will also be considered in the new model. On a purely practical level, it is difficult to understand why countries like Slovakia and the Czech Republic could not receive approximately 800 and 1,600 asylum-seekers, respectively. The numbers are far from disproportionate in light of their populations. The personal scope will also be limited. Beneficiaries of the new programme will only include nationals from countries in which the proportion of positive decisions has been 75% or more, according to Eurostat data.

    The possible options to counter the challenges

    First, the quiet diplomatic drudge work of exploring possibilities with all parties – those who are fighting on the ground and the governments who are supporting them – has to plough on. If there is to be a political settlement in the end, it will be prepared by patient effort.

    Second, the EU has to prepare actively for more refugees. Some argue that preparing for refugees only encourages them – but there are enough reasons for people to flee that the effect would be marginal at most. The response will be better, cheaper and less disruptive if it is properly prepared and not made up on the hoof. There, however, the EU’s internal divisions remain an obstacle.

    A third option is to establish safe zones in Syria itself. It is surprising that this is not already on the policy agenda. It carries distinct risks, especially because as war in Bosnia-Herzegovina showed, it is much easier to declare a zone is safe than it is actually to make it safe. But if force were to be used, it would be well to use it to protect people rather than fire air and missile attacks that will only create martyrs to inspire more militants. The option of establishing safe zones is at least worth exploring.

    The US policy challenge

    Most importantly, the recent shift against refugee resettlement is fundamentally counterproductive to U.S. interests. Although politically convenient on the eve of critical elections, manipulation of the refugee resettlement issue is likely to undermine U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Specifically, it unnecessarily stigmatizes refugees and, more broadly, immigrant communities. Refugees who are already dealing with serious trauma, distress, and adaptation to a new environment also face societal, political, and economic marginalization and disenfranchisement.

    Why an anti-refugee sentiment is not justified

    Strategically, anti-refugee policies are likely to aggravate social and political polarization on this front. In the short term, anti-refugee policies and polarization result in two interrelated outcomes. Ideologically, it reinforces the narrative by ISIS and likeminded radical groups in how the West is perpetually “hostile” to Islam and Muslims, rejecting them in the direst of conditions. It helps ISIS and similar groups invoke religious and civilizational conflict. Politically, the halting of Syrian refugees and the concomitant anti-Western propaganda offers a fertile recruiting tool for radical groups. In the words of U.S. Representative Luis Gutiérrez, “ISIS could not have written a better script.” ISIS, by contrast, views refugees and the idea of seeking refuge in countries beyond its borders as actions that undercut its ideology and legitimacy.

    The Syrian refugee resettlement issue carries implications beyond its moral and normative dimensions. Both the short- and long-term strategic significance of the issue requires immediate action; failure to do so will result in losing an edge in effectively addressing ISIS terror in Syria and beyond and failing to introduce a measure of stability to a region of the world that contains vital U.S. interests.

    Rejecting refugees in the face of pernicious violence, partly motivated by religious fervor, is simply at odds with universal human rights; this is particularly the case for the United States, a country that takes pride in the fact that it is built by immigrants who fled from religious persecution. Serious problems exist with screening individuals, but rather than shut down the refugee system because of the potential risk, these requirements should be followed to keep Americans safe:

    -Making intelligence-based risk assessments.

    -Consulting with Congress on how to alleviate those risks.

    -Dealing with the chaos in Syria that is causing this problem.

    -Following the law without executive overreach.

    -Focusing refugee efforts on individuals on whom we have intelligence and information or can acquire it relatively easily.

    These steps do not stem from irrational fears, but are legitimate concerns with vetting individuals from areas like Syria.

    Indeed, there are individuals whom the U.S. knows little or nothing about, and whom the U.S. should not be looking to accept without a reasonable vetting system. There are other refugee applicants, however, where the U.S. already has some information and/or can gather more information. In other words, some refugee applicants are more ideal candidates than others because we have better information with which to vet them.

    These individuals should be the focus of our refugee efforts. This effort also speaks to the importance of providing U.S. officials with adequate intelligence tools and resources.

    More than half the nation’s governors say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states, although the final say on this contentious immigration issue will fall to the federal government.

    The points to be considered by the US government

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday, “Defeating ISIS involves projecting American ideals to the world. Governors who reject those fleeing war and persecution abandon our ideals and instead project our fears to the world.”

    In a letter to President Barack Obama, Abbott said “American humanitarian compassion could be exploited to expose Americans to similar deadly danger,” referring to Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris.

    In a statement from Georgia’s governor, Republican Nathan Deal, he said Georgia will not accept Syrian refugees “until the federal government and Congress conducts a thorough review of current screening procedures and background checks.”

    The history of the U.S. refugee program demonstrates that the lengthy and extensive vetting that all refugees must undergo is an effective deterrent for terrorists. Since 1980, the U.S. has invited in millions of refugees, including hundreds of thousands from the Middle East. Not one has committed an act of terrorism in the U.S. Traditional law enforcement and security screening processes have a proven record of handling the threat from refugees.

    According to ISIS, Syrian Muslim refugees are traitors to the radical Islamic cause. “It is correct for Muslims to leave the lands of the infidel for the lands of Islam, but not vice versa,” one ISIS video said in September. Here are several other examples of similar condemnation from this year.

    Callous disregard for the fate of refugees–our potential allies in the war against ISIS–will drive them back into the hands of the person they are fleeing: Bashar al-Assad, the hated Syrian dictator. This will lead some refugees to see ISIS as their only remaining ally and safeguard against Assad.

    The Boston bombers were not refugees. They came over as the very young children of an asylee, which is a completely different vetting process.

    Conversely, what we should not do is believe that simply taking refugees is a solution to the problem.

    Refugee programs are an emergency measure to protect those “persecuted or have a credible fear of persecution based on their religion, race, political beliefs, or membership in a social group.”

    They are not a substitute for a policy that deals with the source of instability. Part of the great dissatisfaction with the Obama administration is the general belief that it has no plan on how to deal with the root causes of the conflict.

    What  is required for the US national leaders isThe to take a deep breath and start acting responsibly. It is important that the U.S. system remain different from the open door Europe is extending to the current surge of migrants and refugees. The U.S. can and should improve the refugee vetting process by undertaking the appropriate risk assessments and consulting with Congress on the strategies for managing those risks.

    The administration ought be moving in partnership with Congress and governors about meeting both humanitarian and national security responsibilities.The US policy makers must take cognizance of the fact that US’s exceptionalism is positively sealed in its unity of cultural and communal diversity.

    Conclusion

    Regrettably, it is a missed opportunity that anti-refugee sentiment and polarizing immigration politics in both the European Union and the United States will make it extremely difficult to enact what amounts to the best available response, both morally and financially, to Syria’s war and its resulting refugee crisis. Concerns about the purported national-security threat posed by refugees make little sense in the absence of evidence that refugees have ever presented such a threat on a large scale. Most importantly, an open-door resettlement policy would save thousands of lives and improve the life prospects of millions more.

    The declared goals of Western intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have included the freedom and well-being of the people in those countries. Sadly, military campaigns by the United States and U.S.-led coalitions in such places have failed to provide any such thing.

    An open-door policy would finally provide concrete benefits to these people, and represent a morally superior alternative to forcing refugees to remain in dangerous camps or sending them back to deadly conflict zones. Moreover, though resettlement would cost real money, it would likely cost far less than deeper military intervention and would pale in comparison to the price that the United States has already paid for its failed Middle East occupations.Both the US and Europe must also positively learn from the Aussies’ approach.

    The Australian government estimates that its plan to permanently resettle 12,000 Syrians will cost roughly $15,000 per refugee per year over four years—a figure that’s remarkably similar to the $15,700 per refugee that the United States spent to bring in 70,000 refugees in 2014. Extrapolating from these numbers yields a very rough estimated cost of about $60 billion per year to resettle 4 million refugees. In the most simplistic scenario, if the 30 countries that have already promised to take in at least some Syrians split the burden evenly, each country would be responsible for 133,000 refugees at a very reasonable price of $2 billion a year.

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    UK’s exit strategy from ‘ever closer union’

    December 21st, 2015

    Introduction

    British Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to hold referendum before  the end of 2017,while renegating the terms of Britain’s EU membership.The critics of the Uk’s euroscecptic policies say that the British want to take advantage of the benefits of EU membership –in particular the large market–but to do so without having to relinquish any sovereignty or to allow other EU countries to benefit from Britain in the same way Britain benefits from them.

    Background

    The Treaty of Rome was the founding treaty of the European Economic Community (EEC), which later became the EU. Also known as the Treaty of the European Community (TEC), all the subsequent European treaties have built upon or amended the Treaty of Rome and its provisions still form the majority of EU treaty law. The treaty focused overwhelmingly on economic co-operation, but it also set out a wider political vision for ‘an ever closer union’ to ‘eliminate the barriers which divide Europe’.

    The idea of a United States of Europe had been posed by Sir Winston Churchill in 1946 and was driven forward by Jean Monnet during the 1950s. However, the Treaty of Rome, which set up the intergovernmental Council of Ministers, stopped far short of creating Jean Monnet’s vision of a federal Europe.The proponents of the idea of ever closer union advocate that the the progress– regarding EU’s ‘economic and political communities– does lie in the very notion of ever closer union.

    Britain joined the European Economic Community because joining the European project was perceived to be a way to stop its relative economic decline. In 1950, UK’s per capita GDP was almost a third larger than the EU6 average; in 1973, it was about 10% below; it has been comparatively stable ever since. On this basis, joining the EU worked – it helped to halt Britain’s relative economic decline vis-à-vis the EU6.

    Euroscepticism: UK’s politics and policies

    Euroscepticism is much more fluid and can move between sub-categories that include ‘Eurorejectionism’, ‘Europhobia’ and ‘Europragmatism’. Whereas some parties specialise in hard Euroscepticism, either as a single issue or as part of a wider nationalist or anti-capitalist response, sometimes choosing Euroscepticism as a means to differentiate themselves from the mainstream, elsewhere Euroscepticism is expressed through factions or currents in larger political parties that are pro-system.

    As for Britain, a worrying influence is increasingly entering British political discourse: europhobia, the irrational hatred of the EU. This goes beyond mere scepticism, as sceptics typically require evidence to support any assertion, whereas so-called ‘eurosceptics’ appear to be in complete denial of facts about the EU and the benefits it brings us.

    Growing europhobia has led to growing support for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, as clearly demonstrated by the recent suggestion of a Conservative electoral pact with UK’s independent party (UKIP) on condition of holding a referendum. This is extremely worrying due to the potential damage that leaving the EU could cause Britain.

    With the coming of 2014 and the expiration of work restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, the U.K. has become even more vocal about its national sovereignty, with the Conservatives promising an ‘in-out’ referendum before 2017 if their party was to win the next general elections.

    Roughly one-third of Conservative MPs favor an EU exit, and even Cameron sees this as a plausible scenario. The prime minister has announced that he will clarify his stance on Europe in a long-awaited address this month, but he provided a foretaste in a television interview on Sunday.

    While it would not be ‘right for Britain’ to leave the EU entirely, the country is ‘perfectly entitled’ to ask for changes to this relationship, particularly in light of the fact that the EU is ”changing the nature of the organization to which we belong,” he said on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show.”

    Cameron’s philosophy

    In exchange for greater European integration, Cameron said that Britain should be allowed to take back some powers from the EU. Among his suggestions were a review of tighter EU immigration controls to limit the possibility for “people to come and live in Britain and claim benefits,” and getting rid of the EU’s Working Time Directive, which he said “should never have been introduced.”

    Like many small right-wing parties in Europe,UKIP is a movement of radical opportunists who claim that they speak for a large proportion of white lower-middle-class voters.

    They are fighting to ease the current ban on smoking in pubs and to stop the construction of wind turbines. It is a British version of the American Tea Party movement.

    The long-awaited letter from David Cameron to president of the European Council Donald Tusk, detailing the areas in which the UK wants to secure a new settlement in its relationship with the EU, places considerable emphasis on the importance of respecting the differences ‘of its many member states’. It stresses that he wants the euro to succeed and will not stand in the way of the deeper integration that all sides agree are vital for its success.

    UK and the ‘Eurozone’

    Equally, the UK case for a new deal for those outside the Eurozone emphasises that changes must ‘respect the integrity of the single market, and the legitimate interests of non-euro members’. The rationale behind Cameron’s position is that some of the actions that the Eurozone might take to enhance the functioning of the euro could have an adverse effect on the single market.

    The latter is about ensuring the free movement of goods, services, labour and capital. The UK concern is that actions to shore-up the ‘monetary’ in economic and monetary union (EMU) could lead to conflicts if they erect new barriers to these four freedoms. However, this analysis neglects the fact that the ‘economic’ in EMU is about much more than the single market.

    David Cameron and the Conservative eurosceptics set great store by obtaining an declaration that the phrase in the preamble of the EU Treaties referring to an ‘ever closer union’ should not apply to Britain.

    The full sub-clause in the preamble in the EU Treaty sets out in typical oratorical phrases typical of many international treaties what the ‘high contracting parties” – diplomatic terminology to describe the governments signing the Treaty – seek to achieve.

    So in the last of these general ambition the signatories, including the United Kingdom, declare themselves: ”

    There are 65 declarations and protocols appended to Treaties at the demand of member states seeking an opt-out or a non-applicability statement for minor parts of EU Treaties.  These reflect specific national political needs and the EU has always been flexible and sought to accommodate member states provided the overall obligations of the Treaty are not compromised.

    It should not be impossible for EU lawyers to find words together with Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) experts that can be added to the next Treaty whenever that is negotiated. There are forthcoming Treaties on possible enlargement and a potentially a big one to put on a full Treaty basis some of the supervisory mechanisms that have been created in the Eurozone.

    The opt out urge or the exit strategy

    FOR months David Cameron has refused to set out exactly what he wants from his renegotiation with the European Union before his in/out referendum. That is because whatever he asks for will instantly be denounced as inadequate by the prime minister’s own eurosceptic backbenchers.

    Yet at the European summit on October 15th-16th he was forced by irritated fellow leaders to promise to put his demands in writing early next month. And, as he repeated this week, high up his wishlist is a determination to exempt Britain from the treaty commitment to “ever closer union”.

    The full formulation is an “ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”, a subtle but important addition. This phrase occurs in the preamble to the 1957 Treaty of Rome and in most later treaties. Yet until recently even eurosceptics did not object to what is merely an aspiration. Some other governments have expressed scepticism about the goal.

    In 2013 the Dutch government declared that “the time of ‘ever closer union’ in every possible policy area is behind us”. And in June 2014 the European Council formally said that the concept embraced different paths of integration for different countries, “allowing those that want to deepen integration to move ahead, while respecting the wish of those who do not want to deepen any further.” So why is Mr Cameron using scarce negotiating capital to scrap the provision for Britain?

    The short answer is that he needs a gesture to appease his Eurosceptics, who have not had a good week. On October 20th the Confederation of British Industry, the main business lobby, claimed that “the majority of British firms believe that the pros of EU membership outweigh the cons”. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, also called it “completely unrealistic” to seek an individual national veto.

    The divided Europe on EU’s policies

    What Europe has instead witnessed in recent years is the rebirth of the nation state in contrast to the years between the treaty of Rome and the Single European Act.

    As for Britons, far from an ever-closer union, it may be argued that it would be more accurate to talk of ‘ever more nation-states’ as the chief product of the EU in recent times.

    On foreign policy, there certainly is no ever-closer union. Europe is divided over whether or not to intervene in Syria and its member governments habitually take different positions on such key international questions as recognition of the Palestinian authority as a UN state. Europe’s military strength is diluted by remaining parcelled out between different armies with different defence procurement policies.

    On energy policy, there is equally little sense of an ever-closer union – Germany opts out of nuclear, Poland sticks to brown coal, Britain keeps dashing for gas, and prices paid by industry vary widely.

    Despite this, co-operation and the search for agreement on common policy is worthwhile and necessary. Political agreement, if not political union, is needed to transfer authority to the European Commission in areas like trade and competition – and financial supervision and control. Political union in the sense of supranational agreement to transfer sovereignty to the European Court of Justice in key areas has been a good thing from an economic point of view. The single market, although still not complete, is the product of ever-closer political union.

    Conclusion

    Unsurprisingly, in light of the ongoing Eurozone crisis, Britain’s relationship with Europe is again at the top of the foreign policy agenda. It is yet difficult to say that Cameron’s veto marks a turning point in the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe – the implications will in any case rest on continuing efforts to resolve the crisis and the longer-term consequences of this for the EU itself. European Commissioner for Refugees Frans Timmermans, said,

    “The concept of ever closer union allows for different paths of integration for different countries, allowing those that want to deepen integration to move ahead, while respecting the wish of those who do not want to deepen any further.”

    The government’s current approach, the different context accepted, is certainly distinct from the bridging strategy of the Blair years. Cameron’s firm stance is underpinned by a belief that Europe should act ‘with the flexibility of a network, not the rigidity of a bloc’, while ‘valu[ing] national identity and see[ing] the diversity of Europe’s nations as [a] source of strength’. The protracted crisis has undoubtedly highlighted the disconnect between the concerns of European citizens, the efforts of governments to forge collective – and decisive – action, and the more immediate judgement of the financial markets.

    If the referendum is to be won for the remain camp, the prime minister Cameron will have to win an argument about Britain’s long-term interests being best served by partnership with continental neighbours. Increasingly, his credibility in making that case depends on his ability to show not just British voters but other European leaders that he really means it.The British  eurosceptics now faces the challenge to accommodate or accept Cameron’s ideology of  ‘europragmatism’.

    The ever closer union’s Europhiles seem justified in their belief that in terms of foreign policy, the British policies have been much gravitating towards its transatlantic pole than moving towards Brussels, thereby also distancing gradually from the core of the European projected and fostered doctrine of regional integration-cum-institutional approfondissement-the credo of EU’s transnationalist approach.

    Seen factually,the UK’s seemingly exit strategy from the EU’s club may equally cast a ‘boomerang effect’ upon both Britain and the EU in that it will decline the European Union’s global clout while posing new challenges for the British citizenry to redefine or rebuild its political and regional identity beyond the EU’s defined personification.Therefore,both the sides,the Eurocrats in Brussels and the British political leadership must discover a workable modus operandi that may provide a balance between UK’s economic expediencies and the EU’s perceived political exigencies.

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    Moving South Asia from acrimony to peace and trust building

    December 14th, 2015

     

    By Syed Qamar Rizvi.

     

    Moving South Asia from acrimony to peace and trust building

    Introduction

    Recently,some positive developments have rekindled the beam of hopes to the peace optimists in South Asia: first, the meeting between the premiers of India and Pakistan on the side lines of the Climate Change Summit in Paris;second, the meeting of Pakistan National Security Adviser with that of India’s in Bangkok; and third the participation of Indian External Relations Minister Sushma Swaraj in the 5th Heart of Asia Conference held in Islamabad,this weak;and finally the meeting of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf PTI leader Imran Khan’s meeting with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on the eve of a seminar regarding Indo-Pak relations,held in New Delhi on Dec 11.

    And of course , the most significant development has been that both India and Pakistan have agreed to restart the suspended peace dialogue– in January next year, at the Foreign Secretaries level– via comprehensive bilateral negotiations primarily including the Kashmir issue.

    Background and theme

    As for India-Pakistan relationship, it seems an undeniable truth that building a South Asian peace grid, is the order of the day.But the core of a sustainable peace future in South Asia revolves around a meaningful conflict resolution on Kashmir.

    While the Pakistan-India relationship marked by mutual acrimony and hostility is stuck in a rut, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that dialogue is the only way forward for resolving differences and improving bilateral ties between the two hyphenated neighbours.

    “I’m convinced that dialogue is the only way forward for improving relations between Pakistan and India,” he told the Press Trust of India news agency on Sunday in the United Nations. “I’ve urged leaders of both the countries to resolve all differences through talks and have offered my good offices towards that end.”

    Fortunately India and Pakistan have stepped back from the brink of war and nuclear holocaust, for the time being. But the danger remains, and both countries remain at the mercy of events that they cannot fully control. Fundamentalist elements in  Pakistan, bent on violence directed at India and matched likewise by extremist right wing groups in India, both of whom aim to provoke war between the two countries, hold the future of the region in their hands. Though the resumption of the peace dialogue via bilateral comprehensive negotiations primarily including Kashmir–opens new window of peace,transforming an antagonist conflict approach into a peace protagonist approach, remains the biggest South Asian challenge before the two sides,Islamabad and New Delhi.

    Searching a via media media between Geopolitics and Geoeconomics

    The political, economic and strategic importance of South Asia is increasing with every passing day.

    South Asia is facing multi-dimensional security challenges both traditional and non-traditional. Notwithstanding these challenges, there exists an enormous untapped regional economic potential. Most of the challenges faced by the region are based on deep rooted historic differences.

    Consequently political issues and conflicts have not allowed economic and strategic interests to take precedence in matters of policy and development. Some other threats of common concern to most of the South Asian nations are non-traditional security threats such as, drug trafficking, terrorism, environment, climate change, food security, intra region migration, infrastructure energy and water crisis.

    Building a peace and trust grid

    Many analysts argue that the scope of grooming South Asia via geoeconomics has been hibernated because of regional geopolitics. Yet factually seen,Pakistan seems highly justified to see India as a real trouble creator in Pakistan’s ‘eastern and western borders’.Therefore, to exorcise the region from the negative myths and  politically motivated evils such as the Indian policy of religious extremism, political hedonism,  utilitarian hydroeconomics in the Indian held Kashmir, regional hegemony, diplomatic unilteralism or realpolitik, arm race both nuclear and conventional weapons—is the striking need. In order to promote regional harmony and a climate of mutual understanding between New Delhi and Islamabad, the following objectives are interlinked and need to be achieved :

    To make a check on both sides terrorist infiltration across the LOC

    To stop all forms of human rights violations by militants and security forces alike.

    To resolve the Kashmir issue peacefully, keeping in mind the legacy of partition and the significance of UN’s resolutions

    To identify a process for ascertaining the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir regarding their future.

    To defuse nuclear tensions and eliminate the risk of nuclear war

    To open up the two countries to normal movement of people and trade and create a climate, socially and politically that would promote good relations especially between the peoples of India and Pakistan, and South Asia at large.

    To change the policy paradigm: Peace, humanity, nature, and economic growth as South Asia acquires a leadership position in the global economy over the next two decades, a change is required in the policy paradigm of nation  states: from conflict to cooperation, from the production of new weapons as the emblem of state power to the nurturing of a new sensibility that can sustain life on earth.

    If sustainable development is to take place in the global economy—indeed, if life itself is to survive on this planet—a new relationship will have to be sought between human beings, nature, and economic growth. South Asia with its living folk tradition of pursuing human needs, within the framework of human solidarity and harmony with nature, may be uniquely equipped to face this challenge.But this argument of globalizing economy has to be organically linked with the political truth that rightly argues that without achieving political move forward on the regional disputes between India and Pakistan,to predict a hopeful economic scenario in the region, yet seems a mirage.

    The Kashmir resolution-the core of South Asian peace

    Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi said that the longstanding dispute had to be addressed boldly and decisively if enduring peace and stability was to be established in the area.

    She pointed out during a debate that for over half a century UN resolutions pledging a plebiscite to allow the Kashmiri people to exercise their right to self- determination had not been implemented.

    “Instead the people of Kashmir have suffered brutal oppression,” she said, adding that the urgency of peacefully settling the dispute was even more compelling today.Before a final or formal dialogue starts between the two governments on resolving the Kashmir issue,the following parameters need to be immediately adopted:

    1. Ask both sides to shun competitive aggressive statements on the LoC and maintain the sanctity of the ceasefire agreement of 2003 by formalising it
    2. Forbid the use of heavy artillery in the populated areas, and ensure de-mining on the LoC in keeping with international standards to prevent human casualties on both sides
    3. Ensure regular meetings between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two sides and increase frequency of local command level meetings
    4. Follow the existing 48-hour moratorium on retaliation
    5. Ask the security forces to handle all inadvertent crossings on either side of the LoC carefully and sensitively

    The Afghanistan factor

    “It is a crucial conference [Heart of Asia] that I have come to attend,” Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj said, adding she hoped for improved relations between the two countries and that was the message she brought with her.

    The dynamics of the trilateral relationship between Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are complex and over-lap other geopolitical rivalries and tensions. Initially the United States was concerned about Indian involvement in Afghanistan, largely reflecting Pakistani concerns. Now it wants more active Indian involvement, although with the caveat that the US recognizes Pakistan’s likely concern at an Indian military presence in Afghanistan. India is highly unlikely to commit troops to a security role following the withdrawal of most Western troops in 2017, and does not wish to take a unilateral security role in Afghanistan. At the 2012 Kabul ‘Heart of Asia’ conference, India offered to lead two confidence-building measures, intended to support Afghanistan and integrate it into the regional economy.But this apparent Indian notion, practically negates its intent.

    Within India there is confidence that it can ‘take a lead in facilitating trade and commercial opportunities for Afghanistan and the region’.  The ‘New Silk Road’ narrative, whereby Afghanistan will ‘regain its historical role as a land-bridge between South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and Eurasia’  has some traction in India (although there is also widespread scepticism of its feasibility regarding the routes).

    Indian hostility towards the Taliban has created widespread doubt about the existence of any ‘moderate’ Taliban and scepticism of the extent to which the Taliban can be separated from Al Qaeda. Pakistan claims that India via an unfair role of its NGOs and the consulates in Afghanistan, has been mischievously trying to disconnect Pakistan with Afghans.

    This has led India to be dubious about Western suggestions of reconciliation or political settlement with the Taliban. While major doubts remain, some Indian opinion-formers have argued in favour of the decentralization of Afghanistan’s system of government – were any process of reconciliation to be successful, it would be likely to involve some form of devolved government.But India has its devious links with the Northern Alliance and Fazul ullah group in Afghanistan,who  have been posing much difficulties for propelling the Afghan peace dialogue that Pakistan has been trying to move forward.

    And yet Pakistan  invited the Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj to participate in the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Conference held in Islamabad on Dec 8-9.Pakistan rightly believes that only India’s positively taken approach towards Afghanistan, can lead to the boulevard of peace.The Indian government must play its positive role in Afghanistan.

    The Balochistan issue

    India has been promoting Balochistan insurgency movement to counter or pressurize Pakistan regarding its Kashmir policy. The involvement of India’ Raw in Balochistan is no more a secret.

    India established nine training camps along the Balochistan Afghan border to provide military training to the members of the Baloch Liberation Army. India is  also alleged for providing armed and economic assistance to Baloch rebels. The aim is to create hurdles in the construction of the Gwadar port. The former Governor of Balochistan, Owais Ahmed Ghani stated “India is not only helping annoyed people with weapons, but is training them as well, India is financing the insurgency and Afghan warlords and drug barons of arming the militants’’.

    India has many interests as a major regional and hence forth future growing world power cannot ignore Balochistan as she is the door to the central Asia countries and apart from being major energy source is the gate way for central Asian and Iranian energy and trade corridor. India seems to use the Baloch factor as a balance in her turbulence relations with Pakistan in many fronts most notable factor is J&K.This Indian negative trajectory, needs to be stopped.

    Challenges before India and Pakistan

    Consider. India, if it is to sustain its high growth rate, will require sharply increased imports of oil, gas, and industrial raw materials from West and Central Asia, for which Pakistan is the most feasible conduit. Similarly, India’s economic growth, which has so far been based on the domestic market, will, in the foreseeable future, require rapidly increasing exports for which Pakistan and other South Asian countries are an appropriate market.

    Thus, the sustainability of India’s economic growth requires cooperation with Pakistan. Conversely, peace and cooperation with India is essential for Pakistan if it is to achieve and sustain a GDP growth rate of about 8 percent, overcome poverty, and build a democracy based on a tolerant and pluralistic society.

    It is clear that governments in India and Pakistan will need to move out of the old mind-set of a zero-sum game, in which gains by one side are made at the expense of the other. Now the welfare of both countries can be maximized through joint gains within a framework of ‘cooperation rather than conflict’.

    South Asia today stands suspended between the hope of a better life and fear of cataclysmic destruction. The hope emanates from its tremendous human and natural resource potential: the rich diversity of its cultures that flourish within the unifying humanity of its civilization. The fear arises from the fact that South Asia is not only the poorest region in the world but also one whose citizens live in constant danger of a ‘nuclear holocaust’.

    At the same time, the structures of state and the fabric of society are threatened by armed extremist groups who use hate and violence to achieve their political goals. It can be argued therefore that interstate peace in the region rather than enhanced military capability is the key to national security, indeed, to human survival. We will propose in this chapter that peace between India and Pakistan not only is necessary for sustaining economic growth but also is vital for building pluralistic democracies and thereby sustaining the integrity of both states and societies in the region.

    States in South Asia have primarily pursued “national security” through the building of the military capability for mass annihilation of each other’s citizens. It is not surprising that South Asia is the poorest and yet the most militarized region in the world.  It contains almost half the world’s poor and has the capability, even in a limited nuclear exchange, to kill more than 100 million people immediately, with many hundreds of million more dying subsequently from radiation-related illnesses. The arms race between India and Pakistan (two countries that account for 93 percent of the total military expenditure in South Asia) is responsible for this cruel irony.

    In order to facilitate the emergence of Peace in the region as early as possible, the following process could be considered pivotal by all parties concerned: All these issues can serve as building blocks for strengthened political and security cooperation in the future.

    India needs to be serious about taking its responsibilities in the region as an emergent global power, both by working toward ensuring a stable and secure backyard and by recognizing that a strong and growing South Asia can accelerate India’s own ascendancy as an emerging global power.

    Difficult points of contention on long-standing traditional security disputes of course remain big challenges. Yet as long as these countries are willing and able to compartmentalize those issues and move forward on areas where cooperation is desirable and achievable—and there do appear to be positive trends in that direction—the prospect of building a viable security architecture for South Asia need not remain a pipe dream, however “nontraditional” its building blocks may be.

    The Indian establishment’s desire of establishing a trade route in Afghanistan via Pakistan is tantamount to putting cart before the horse.Without seeking a peaceful conflict resolution on Kashmir between the Kashmiris, India and Pakistan, such an Indian objective seems unthinkable and unsustainable.

    Justifications for India-Pakistan improved bilateralism

    South Asia is facing multi-dimensional security challenges both traditional and non-traditional. Notwithstanding these political challenges, there exists an enormous untapped regional economic potential.

    Political will and political action will certainly play their part in breaking the vicious circle of conflict, insecurity and underdevelopment in South Asia. Economic policies should be geared not just to maximise growth, but also to address the distributional or political factors that lead to conflict. Regional states have an opportunity, through regional integration, to work together to manage their numerous common regional issues.

    Domestic as well as external factors have played their role in influencing the process of policy formulation in South Asia. With the stakes of catastrophic destruction as high as they are in the region, any nonzero probability of nuclear war should be unacceptable. Yet, the defining features of the nuclear environment in South Asia make the probability of an intentional or accidental nuclear war perhaps higher than in any other region of the world.

    In contrast to the preoccupation of governments to achieve “national security” within a paradigm of conflict, the citizens of even adversarial states share a common concern for human security:

    They seek security from the threats of war, religious extremism, economic deprivation, social injustice, and environmental degradation. Bridging this gap between the preoccupations of state and civil society is necessary to maintain the social contract that underlies the writ of the state and sustains national integrity. Thus, establishing a new framework of lasting peace for the provision of human security to civil society is essential for the stability of states in South Asia. Never before in history was the choice between life and comprehensive destruction as stark as it is today. The question is, can we grasp this moment and together devise a new path toward peace, freedom from hunger, sustainable development, and regional cooperation?

    There is no secret that the past Indian governments have been engaged in utilising the track-2 diplomacy as regard the issue of Kashmir.This exercise must,once again ,be continued on this inevitable subject, without losing the progress made in the past.

    Conclusion

    South Asia is one of the most important regions of the world. It has one fifth population of the world, covers an area of 5.22 million square kilometres and is home to two nuclear weapon states: India and Pakistan. Other important South Asian countries include: Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives. The region’s economic growth has made it a big global market. Growth in South Asia rose to an estimated 5.5 percent in 2014 from a 10-year low of 4.9 percent in 2013. Regional growth is projected to rise to 6.8 percent by 2017.But unfortunately,the whole future of South Asian prosperity has been eclipsed by the Indo-Pak rivalry on certain issues that require to be addressed.And unfortunately, owing to the tensed relations between India and Pakistan, the Saarc forum could not flourish to a progress that was anticipated from it.

    The South Asian leaderships must learn the fact that if they would delay in changing the fate of the region,they would make a serious delay in changing the fate of its citizenry who thinks that we, India and Pakistan have arrived at the end of the epoch when we could hope to conduct our social, economic and political life on the basis of emerging needs of this region.

    The third para of the joint statement– issued at the end of Indian External Relations Minister Sushmsa swaraj meeting with the prime minister of Pakistan Mohammad Nawaz Sharif and foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz on Dec 9 says both sides, accordingly, agreed to a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue and directed the Foreign Secretaries to work out the modalities and schedule of the meetings under the Dialogue including Peace and Security, CBMs, Jammu & Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project, Economic and Commercial Cooperation, Counter-Terrorism, Narcotics Control, Humanitarian Issues, People to People exchanges and religious tourism–builds  hopes that this time,the resumption of a comprehensive bilateral dialogue  will not succumb to suspension, as has been experienced in Past .

    The virtual likelihood of Narendra Modi’s coming– to attend the Saarc summit to be held in Islamabad, next year– shows sign of positively changing mind set and understanding  between India and Pakistan.

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    Containing Daesh?

    December 7th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Rizvi.

     

     

    Introduction

    Intermittently, after the Paris terrorist attacks, now comes the incident of California mass shooting– apparently a terrorist-driven crime, killing 14 and injuring 21 ,whose linkage is being established with IS and its supporters –draws the global attention.”The investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers and of a potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations,” James Comey,the FBI director said.

    Background and substance

    The ongoing global war against Daesh/ISIS/ISIL is not an easy fight. Combating terrorism or containing the Daesh forces transregionally requires a comprehensive work strategy which may address our both short term and long term goals against this devious war against terrorist groups and their ideologues. Notably,the pitch grounds of these terrorist organisations are both the western and Islamic lands. Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, appears especially depressed. He said, “This is long term. My children’s generation and my grandchildren’s generation will still be fighting this fight.”The war against Islamic State is as much an ideological conflict as it is a ground war. The United States can kill Islamic State fighters all day long, but unless it destroys Islamic State’s apocalyptic ideology it won’t achieve victory.

    The emerging regional and transregional challenges

    Despite 14 years of the war on terrorism, there are more terrorists than ever before. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. told Congress that the trend lines were worse “than at any other point in history,” although we probably should discount that statement a bit given that Clapper doesn’t have the most spectacular record when it comes to telling the truth to Congress when he’s under oath.

    Everyone now recognizes that Daesh is the main enemy, be it Russians, French, Iranians, the Gulf countries, Egypt, Jordan and the Turks. However, there is a secondary calendar that comes prevent the agreement to be implemented. There is consensus on the diagnosis of the disease but there are none on the development of a cure for this disease. For the Turks, the Kurdish issue is central. They favor the fact to contain the Kurds, to avoid a risk of secession; it is in their eyes a more important issue that victory over Daesh.

    The Saudis, for their part, fear of the rising power of Iran in the region, considered expansionist and they fear that the agreement on the nuclear program gives it the means to be more ambitious in terms regional. The Iranians, themselves, want to continue to control Iraq, to exert influence on Syria and especially access to Lebanon because Hezbollah is the only export success of their revolution. They do not plead for the reintegration of Sunnis into the Iraqi political game.Now this is what Daech weaken. The Russians, for their part, want to maintain Bashar Assad, while the French want to defeat Daech but get rid of Assad.

    The French position towards Bashar al-Assad is not a moral position (refuse to deal with someone who has blood on his hands) but a position realpolitik. They think like Americans that Syrian President rather the recruiting sergeant of Daesh and that as long as he is in power, Daesh continue to be considered an appeal against it by a part of the Syrian people. We must therefore accelerate diplomatic consultations to put those differences aside. If all countries concerned fail to agree on the fact that the Islamic state is the main enemy that deserves that we forget at least for other points of disagreement, a victory was possible.

    Presumably, the Islamic State committed a major mistake by attacking both Russia, France, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Mali, and threatening every other country because it has strengthened the will to destroy. If the purpose of Daesh was to establish a caliphate on horseback between Syria and Iran, perhaps could he find the term modus vivendi with other countries. He would have remained a manageable threat to the Gulf States, given their military superiority. Western states, even rolled back by the barbarity of Daesh, would have to resign themselves to what this organization actually manages a territory.

    US géopolitologues began to argue that, in the past, the Western democracies had dealt with the regimes of Stalin and Mao who had a lot more deaths on my conscience

    After all, the Americans were well accommodated of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks … But by tackling head on several countries, the Islamic State became an unacceptable threat. The calculation of Daesh was that the countries in question had too many differences to form a coalition? That the galvanizing effect by candidates for jihad was such that the new advantage in mobilizing exceed the losses associated with the intensification of strikes? This bet is likely to be lost. For now, the States concerned do not fall into the traps.

    The drivers of terrorism

    Terrorism, by no means is synchronous with Islam. It will be not unfair or unjust to say that real cause of this barbaric behaviour of terrorism largely seat in the policies of imperialism, intervention and repression.

    In terms of fundamentals, both war and peace are consequences of certain ideas and aims, which, when sufficiently accepted as true or good by the people of a given society, give rise to corresponding norms and policies that, in turn, either lead to war or enable peace.

    Understanding these causes is essential to fighting successfully for a future of less war and more peace, and seeing each cause in contrast to its opposite can foster greater understanding.

    when we look closely at the context in which suicide attacks take place, there are always particular grievances or perceived grievances in play that also explain the decision to use the tactic. when thinking about the possible relationship of religion to suicide terrorism, it is useful to distinguish between the group and individual suicide bombers. As Robert Pape, who has comprehensively studied patterns in suicide terrorism, points out, individual attackers may be motivated by religion, but groups have strategic military goals.

    The turns and twists of diplomacy in ME

    The moves have been small, but symbolic: an accused Saudi terrorist was picked up in Beirut, then flown to Riyadh after hiding out with Iran’s help for 20 years;Russia agreed to a UN probe to ascertain responsibility for the sarin massacre in Damascus; the Russians went to Riyadh, then the Saudis reciprocated with a trip to Moscow; low-level summits in Oman and Doha; the first Qatari ambassador to Baghdad in 25 years. The trust-building measures are gaining impetus, but they haven’t yet got Russia, Turkey, the US, Saudi Arabia or Iran anywhere near the grand bargaining table. The overriding issue is now bigger than Syria, with the very future of Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey’s southern border, the Kurds and minorities across the region now at stake. Now western states are once again actively debating the wisdom of more robust intervention.

    The Challenge for the US policy

    American foreign policy, according to the State Department’s website, is designed “to shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere.” Specifically regarding the current chaotic situation in Iraq and Syria with the Islamic State (ISIL), the White House says that the United States seeks to “degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” These are certainly worthy goals. In a perfect world the United States would have the power and ability make these concepts a reality. But a perfect world doesn’t exist.

    For far too many years now, American foreign policy has largely been made according to our preferences, independent of the realities governing given situations. The results are as predictable as they are painful: we are frequently the author of ‘ineffective policies’ that not only don’t succeed, but harm our own interests. If we don’t want to see the situation in the Middle East deteriorate even further, major changes are required.

    Washington is deploying more soldiers to fight Islamic State. On December 1,Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced the Pentagon would send a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” of two-hundred U.S. commandos to Iraq.

    According to Carter, the soldiers will “conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture ISIL leaders” and “conduct unilateral operations into Syria.”Can two-hundred commandos change the tide of the war? According to Malcolm Nance, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer and counter-terrorism expert, those soldiers could make all the difference.

    The new proposed combat strategy

    Under Nance’s plan, combinations of American, Iraqi and Syrian commandos begin conducting masked raids at night. “Don’t fight the enemy that’s sitting right in front of your face,” he explains. “Go twenty-thirty miles behind his lines and destroy his entire line of logistics at night.”

    “Stop every truck, destroy outposts, knock down communications,” he explains. “Get ISIS to believe that when the night falls, they don’t own their borders anymore. They only own the cities.”Nance says cutting off Islamic State’s logistical infrastructure will force it to conduct more nighttime patrols. When that happens, “air power can finally start dominating . . . you have to break ISIS out of its state-like shell and force them into a mobile battle. The best way to do that is through these raids.”

    The U.S. should show robust leadership by first seeking to contain the fighting where it is and stop its spread. We would accomplish this objective by employing the full weight of American diplomatic and political influence to geographically isolate the Islamic State, squeezing them economically and doing all we can to provide humanitarian aid to the civilians suffering under ISIL domination.

    Creating an alliance with regional armed forces, the U.S. military would set up ground patrols in strategically significant locations and use air power to enact a version of a “no-go zone” where mobile ISIL forces could be quickly and easily destroyed whenever they attempt to move in large numbers. Once we’ve effectively isolated and boxed in ISIL, we would employ regional diplomatic measures against the Islamic State’s leaders, slowly strangling them.

    President Obama is calling for a re-evaluation of the nation’s gun laws

    “We know that the killers in San Bernardino used military-style assault weapons — weapons of war — to kill as many people as they could,” the president said in a video released Saturday. “It’s another tragic reminder that here in America it’s way too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun.”

    The GOP has advocated for reviewing the US visa waiver programme.Republicans, for their part, floated another possible solution to combat terror threats: strengthen the security of the U.S. visa waiver program.

    “We have a major weakness in our visa-waiver program — a glaring hole that we have to close,” Rep. Candice Miller, R-Michigan, said in a video released Saturday.

    The program allows foreign citizens of 38 partner countries — including Belgium, France and the United Kingdom — to travel to the U.S. without a visa. Each year, up to 20 million people enter the country in this manner.

    Exorcising the cult of radicalism

    Our choice is simple and stark: stop doing what routinely fails, or change course and employ new political and military tactics that might actually succeed. One must  know what course of action current American civilian and military leaders will choose. There has not been a surge of ‘Islamophobia in Europe’ and hoped the Islamic state. There was no – and there will be no – Western land military intervention.

    It remains to establish a broad political and military coalition to defeat Daesh, member countries agreeing to put their differences aside because the terrorist organization is their most urgent threat to face. Knowing that the military instrument to be effective, must be put at the service of a political solution. Why is it so important to call Islamic radicalism by its proper name? Because it’s not just a word game.

    There is a crisis within Islam, an ideological struggle caused by the rise of Wahhabi-style ‘fundamentalism’ over the past century. If we acknowledge the true nature of this battle, it becomes easier for us to identify our friends and enemies, especially the latter. Our enemies are those who have funded and promulgated -Wahhabi-style Islam through radical madrasahs in the Islamic world. It starts with Saudi Arabia, whose tottering monarchy made a devil’s bargain with local Wahhabi clerics decades ago.

    The Saudis seem far more concerned with Shi‘ite Iran than with the Sunni extremists of Daesh. In recent weeks, they and their Gulf allies have turned their attention away from Daesh and focused on the Shi‘ite rebels in Yemen, who represent a far less potent threat to global stability. And yet neither Saudi Arabia nor its radical, proselytizing strand of Islam was mentioned by the Democrats in the Iowa debate. The demon of radicalism comes from 3% of total Muslim community world wide.

    The ideology of extremism/radicalism is not the true representative of the Muslim community or Islam ,as rightly pointed out by president Obama.Though after France both Britain and Germany have also announced to become the part of the coalition against Daesh,there requires much to utilize the means of soft-power strategy to win this war against a ‘tactical doctrine’

    .Al-Qaeda’s tactical doctrine for insurgency, like its strategic doctrine, is the product of more than a quarter-century of adapting U.S. and British doctrine—mostly from each country’s Marines and Special Forces—to Muslim culture, and a dedication to learning-from-fighting in guerrilla wars across the Islamic world.

    Understanding the complexities and articulating the strategies

    But then nothing much was—other than a general belief that America should lead the fight against ISIS in consultation with its allies within and outside the region. Which is what the Obama administration has been doing, to some effect, but not enough. The strategy proposed here focuses on ‘de-escalating’ the Syrian war through a strategic pause, allowing for the concentration of force on ISIS, and the ‘reconstruction of the Iraq state’ along more inclusive and effective lines. Where the Arab regimes can play a key role is in influencing their clients on the ground, and winning internal support for the de-escalation strategy. Neither will be accomplished easily or quickly, of course, but both are essential for achieving any sustainable regional order, derailing the ISIS threat, and addressing the almost inconceivable humanitarian crisis.

    In Iraq, the United States should prioritize a reversal of ISIS gains through military actions based on consistent ‘political conditionalities’. Military deployments should be kept as limited as possible, with clearly defined missions and an eye toward avoiding the kind of civilian casualties and sectarian atrocities that drive Sunnis and Shia alike toward extremist militias.

    In Syria, the United States and its allies with the assistance of Russia, Iran and other Gulf powers should prioritize a strategic pause and ‘regional tourniquet’ designed to cut off the drivers of the civil war, including both external support for Sunni jihadist groups (including al-Nusra as well as ISIS) and Iranian support for Shia militias and the Asad regime. Air power should be used to pressure ISIS and to enforce a defensive posture by the regime and the non-jihadist opposition, while development, governance and humanitarian aid should be channeled toward the rebel-controlled areas.

    For this plan to succeed over the longer term, it must be paired with a firm commitment to political reforms across the region. The ‘sectarianism and extremism’ that nurtured ISIS have their roots in the repressive regime survival strategies of states that make up core parts of the current coalition.

    It will likely be seen as expedient to turn a blind eye to their abuses in the name of securing cooperation. But this would be a mistake. A counter-terrorist campaign based on ‘repression’ will only have short-term success, and will over the longer-term actually strengthen the extremist trends in the region. A regional war that lacks domestic or ‘international legality’ will only undermine the international norms that need to be built.

    Conclusion

    As is the case of any agreement between two or more nations, each party must be prepared to fairly contribute something—be it an issue of regional rivalry, supremacy, oversight, vested interests or control—actions that only multiply by orders of magnitude as the number of nations involved increases,this is what the seemingly truth about the strategy of a ‘grand alliance’ against this ISIS. The experience in this war against terror, shows the inference that only military strategy can’t prove to be a ‘prudent strategy’ unless it is combined with collective actions of cooperation, social and political justice, and a durable resolve to stand against the ideology of ‘extremism and radicalism’.There is an absolute need of mutual cooperation in terms of intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism strategies between the Muslim and the western governments.

    Pakistan, as in the US case, has been fighting this war for the last fourteen years.And it has faced worst consequences of fighting this war. Islamabad’s resolve to terminate the terrorist networks from its land ,seems absolutely unflinching and poised.

    Therefore, a ‘tourniquet or a multifaceted strategy’, a gamut of religious, political, and cultural harmony combining or advocating dynamics of military, diplomacy, development and liberal ideology, have to be positively involved or utilized to the hilt, thereby getting a full support from  ‘transregional or global alliance’ against Daesh.

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    Turkey- Russia rift and Nato’s strategy

    December 3rd, 2015
     

    By Qamar Syed.

     

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    CSTO’s growing role in Central Asia

    November 28th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.

     

    CSTO's growing role in Central Asia

    Introduction

    The Russian president Putin has currently hinted that Moscow can not rule out its role in Central Asia, particularly in Afghanistan . As outlined in Russia’s NSS, Moscow regards the Collective Security Treaty Organization as a key instrument to counter regional challenges as well as political and military threats. Some in the West believe that Moscow is deliberately stirring up regional fears with regard to ISIS, a trend that has continued.  Moscow aims at revitalizing the scope of Collective Security Treaty Organisation.

    The role of geopolitics 

    Russia has signaled its willingness to boost its involvement in Afghan security in a power play that could help President Vladimir Putin burnish perceptions of Moscow’s global significance while dealing a fresh blow to Western influence.

    There’s a peculiar belief currently coursing through intellectual circles in Moscow. Combining the bubbling traits of nativism and fear of Islamic terrorism, and playing squarely into the hands of those seeking to amp up the region’s security structures, certain circles have begun pumping up the terror and tenor of the threat posed by the Islamic State.

    Putin described the situation in Afghanistan as “genuinely close to critical” in an address to fellow Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders at a summit in Kazakhstan on October 16. The Russian president warned of “terrorists of different stripes…gaining more influence and not hiding their plans for further expansion” and urged neighbors to “be ready to react in concert.”

    The CSTO summit ends just as the 70th United Nations General Assembly kicks off in New York, and provided the CSTO members a chance to discuss their collective agenda for the general debate at the end of the month. TASS, according to Asia-Plus, reported that the CSTO members plan to make several joint statements on “space weapons and countering international terrorism.”

    Russia is guided by the logic that a strengthening of the terrorist underground in Afghanistan poses new security risks in Central Asia, which the Kremlin is anxious to avoid. In this regard, Moscow and Beijing could potentially sponsor the fight against IS inside Afghanistan, even if it means involving the Taliban. In May, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russian-led military bloc, put its forces on display along the Afghan-Tajik border.

    In drills involving 2,500 troops, 500 of which were Russian, the operation simulated an armed incursion of 700 Taliban fighters entering allied territory. Following the exercise, CSTO chief Nikolai Bordyuzha reiterated the bloc’s readiness to push back any force coming from the southern frontier. The move is seen as reinforcing Moscow’s role as the main guarantor of the fragile region’s security once U.S. troops depart Afghanistan.

    The Islamic State provides “an additional lever of pressure to convince regional governments to join Russia-led multilateral organizations and ensure that the region stays solidly within Russia’s sphere of influence,” said Noah Tucker, editor of the Central Asia blog.

    The CSTO’s organisational structure

    The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a regional mutual defense alliance that consists of seven member states: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Originally formed in 1992 under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Collective Security Treaty (CST), the purpose of the CSTO is to promote peace, strengthen international and regional security and stability, and ensure the collective defense of the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the member states. Led by the Russian Federation, the CSTO has a Collective Security Council, a Council of Defense Ministers, a Council of Foreign Ministers, a Secretariat, and a small rapid deployment force consisting of 4,000 troops.

    Since its inception, alliance building within the CSTO has progressed at a glacial rate often running into road blocks as a result of diverging national interests among member states. Following the 11 September 2001 attacks and the subsequent introduction of U.S. forces into Afghanistan and Central Asia, Russian-led efforts to revitalize the security alliance have gained momentum with many Central Asian nations questioning U.S. long-term intentions in the region.

    The 2003 Iraq War served as another catalyst for change when CSTO Secretary General Nikolayevich Bordyuzha stated “…the Iraqi developments…had forced many political leaders [in Eurasia], whether they liked it or not, to ponder over the security of their states.”2 Perhaps one of the most pivotal events to solidify Russia’s resolve to transform CSTO into a strong military alliance was the 2008 Georgian War. From Russia’s perspective, continued U.S. military and political support for Georgia likely played a critical role in Tbilisi’s decision to conduct military operations in the restive provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

    When taken in concert with Georgia’s longstanding desire to become a NATO member, Kremlin leaders have given renewed priority to establish a legitimate defensive alliance to deal with a wide array of security challenges along the country’s vast periphery. While none of the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s forces are permanently deployed, each member nation has designated specific units within their militaries to stand on call for deployments. CSTO forces are largely stationed in Central Asian bases but answerable to a Moscow-based command structure.

    The members — Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — do not contribute equal numbers of troops.

    The command structure

    While the alliance has never deployed units, under Article 4 of the CSTO charter they would conceivably see action if one of the group’s members was attacked by a foreign military — much like NATO’s famous Article 5.

    There are two key combat forces organized by the CSTO: the Central Asian Regional Collective Rapid Deployment Force (KSBR- TSAR) and the Collective Fast Deployment Force (KSOR).

    Central Asia Regional Collective Rapid Deployment Force

    The KSBR- TSAR force was established in 2001 by agreement of the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The force has about 5,000 troops on permanent combat readiness, supported by 300 tanks and armored vehicles, with close air support provided by 10 Su-25 fighter jets and 13 Mi-8MTV-1 helicopters. According to Moscow Defense Brief, a magazine published by the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a private Moscow-based think tank, the Central Asia force is an equivalent of NATO’s Response Force and can be deployed in under five days.

    The KSBR TsAR holds a comprehensive joint-exercise annually and is comprised of:

    • Russia: Three motor rifle battalions based at the 201st Military Base in Tajikistan, Russia’s biggest foreign military deployment; and an air group based at the 999th Air Base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan.
    • Kazakhstan: Two airborne assault battalions.
    • Kyrgyzstan: Two alpine rifle battalions.
    • Tajikistan: One motorized rifle battalion and two airborne assault battalions.

    The NATO Response Force (NRF), in comparison, has 25,000 troops on six-of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The force has about 5,000 troops on permanent combat readiness, supported by 300 tanks and armored vehicles, with close air support provided by 10 Su-25 fighter jets and 13 Mi-8MTV-1 helicopters. According to Moscow Defense Brief, a magazine published by the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a private Moscow-based think tank, the Central Asia force is an equivalent of NATO’s Response Force and can be deployed in under five days.

    The KSBR TsAR holds a comprehensive joint-exercise annually and is comprised of:

    • Russia: Three motor rifle battalions based at the 201st Military Base in Tajikistan, Russia’s biggest foreign military deployment; and an air group based at the 999th Air Base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan.
    • Kazakhstan: Two airborne assault battalions.
    • Kyrgyzstan: Two alpine rifle battalions.
    • Tajikistan: One motorized rifle battalion and two airborne assault battalions.

    The NATO Response Force (NRF), in comparison, has 25,000 troops on six-month dedicated NATO deployments.

    CSTO forces, meanwhile, maintain a constant state of battle-readiness within their national militaries so that they can be tapped for CSTO action at any time. But they are not permanently stationed under CSTO duty.

    Collective Fast Deployment Force

    CSTO’s more powerful force is the newer interregional Collective Fast Deployment Force (KSOR), created in 2009.

    The KSOR’s strength is about 20,000 troops. Of these, 17,000 are permanently stationed combat-ready troops, and 3,000 are special operations troops supplied by the security services of CSTO member states, according to Moscow Defense Brief.

    The KSOR goes on exercises at least once a year, and holds two special exercises every two or three years, focusing on special forces and counter-narcotics operations.

    There are three smaller forces operating under the CSTO as well. Two of them are essentially bilateral defense arrangements of Russia-Belarus and Russia-Armenia, rather than forces united under a central command, and the third is a peacekeeping force of a few thousand drawn from national security services — police forces, rather than professional soldiers.

    CSTO and Central Asia

    The establishment of a CSTO RRF and a larger Central Asian military grouping support Russia’s goal to create such a force. According to the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev , “as far as fighting potential is concerned, it [the CSTO RRF] needs the same sort of training as the troops of the North Atlantic Alliance,”12 reinforcing the belief that Russia intends to recreate an alliance similar to the former Warsaw Pact to counterbalance NATO and Western influence in the region.

    Second, the Kremlin is concerned over growing instability resulting from the activities of Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which threatens to spread to Russia and other Central Asian states. Since 2006 the overall security situation in Afghanistan has significantly deteriorated following the reconstitution and reorganization of the Taliban, Al Qaida, and other extremist groups operating throughout the country. Although the United States and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force have stepped-up efforts to quell the violence, Russian security officials likely view the short-term security outlook in Afghanistan as bleak since militant groups and criminal elements continue to escalate their attacks against Afghan civilians and coalition forces.

    Equally troubling to Russian leaders is the unstable security situation in the terrain of Afghanistan- Pakistan closely affiliated with borders, CSTO members are becoming increasingly concerned that Islamic militants fleeing from northwest Pakistan will relocate to safe zones inside Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

    Of the three Central Asian states that share borders with Afghanistan, only Tajikistan is a member of the CSTO. Uzbekistan withdrew from the group in 2012. Russia maintains three military installations in Tajikistan — near Kulob, Qurghonteppa, and Dushanbe — all part of the 201st Motor Rifle Division.

    The leader of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for example, has been in effective control of politics in that country since he was Prime Minister of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic back in the mid-1980s, and many of the leaders of the other nations in the region can similarly trace their political careers back to the days of the Soviet Union. At the same time, though, several of these nations have charted off on their own in recent years, especially in response to the war on terror.

    For several years, for example, the United States leased at least one airbase in Uzbekistan that had been used for missions in support of the war in Afghanistan and there have been rumors that other Central Asian nations were used for CIA operations in connection with the War on terror. For the most part, though, with obvious exceptions such as the situation in Georgia and the conflicts involving Chechnya and Nagorno-Karabach, these nations have either stayed within the Russian sphere of influence.

    Given the extent to which ISIS has expanded from Iraq and Syria and into Libya, Yemen, and, according to some reports, Afghanistan, the possibility of ISIS causing problems in Central Asia or even Russia itself is arguably a very real one. The fact that Putin is using that possibility to consolidate his power is perhaps just inevitable. It is worth noting that China has taken a keen interest in the Afghan settlement, sending signals to official Kabul that only peace in the country can stimulate Chinese financing of various energy and infrastructure projects.   Given this, it’s not entirely surprising that Moscow would be using an opportunity like the rise of ISIS to strengthen its influence over the area.

    Russia and its Central Asian allies hold a domino theory regarding Afghanistan: they fear that if it fails—which they expect—then the Islamic State, the Taliban or homegrown terrorists could take the opportunity to launch an insurrection northward into Central Asia. Recent bloody violence in Tajikistan, in September 2015, which involved a shootout with government security forces and armed men linked to a jilted former deputy defense minister with purported ties to Islamist forces (see EDM, September 23), has only reanimated the fears that were openly voiced earlier.

    Both Vladimir Putin and Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev publicly expressed concerns about Tajikistan’s stability at the recent summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in Astana, on October 17. Putin also warned that the situation in Central Asia had become critical and that terrorists were seeking to break through to the region. In response, ostensibly within the framework of the CIS, Russia has launched a new military agreement with Central Asian states until 2020, and called again for coordinated action against terrorism while depicting the US strategy in Afghanistan as a failure (Kremlin.ru, October 17).

    The Afghanistan factor: US versus Russia

    It is important to emphasize that these Russian and Central Asian anxieties about potential threats from Afghanistan and the likelihood of allied failure are long standing and precede the fighting at Kunduz. In other words they are not merely tactical expressions of the current anti-American mood of the Kremlin. In September, i.e. before the seizure of Kunduz but after the violence in Tajikistan, Putin warned that the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating. He not only called for an international coalition there—as he has in his diplomacy regarding Syria—but also for stepped-up activity by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

    The Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Kugelman says that while Washington may not like that its geostrategic rival is taking on a bigger role in Afghanistan, their interests are largely convergent there and a larger Russian involvement might prove helpful for Washington. “The uncomfortable truth is that Moscow and Washington share very similar interests in Afghanistan,” Kugelman says. “They both want more stability, they both support a peace process with the Taliban, and they both seek a credible and effective Afghan government. Moscow can end up helping Washington out in Afghanistan in a big way, even if indirectly.”

    In response to the Russian strategy of penetrating its influence in Central Asia, US Secretary of State John Kerry, on a swing through the Central Asian states, is seeking to boost trade and security ties with countries at risk of falling further under the sway of the Kremlin.

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    The Paris carnage: Rethinking the strategy of ‘global security’

    November 16th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Azfal.

    The Paris carnage of November 13,a European 9/11 , killing 132 and causing 352 injured, has made us bound to think that the war on terror against Al Qaeda is not over simply because the resurrected Al- Qaeda’s networks of Daesh/ISIS are yet great threat to humanity as they were one decade ago. After making its evilful entry into the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Daesh/ISIS now ruthlessly enters into the European boundaries while posing a new threat to America. But the irrefutable truth is that ISIS is eminently a global threat. To counter this threat requires revision in our strategy against combating terrorism/extremism by adopting a global strategy of ‘mutual responsibility’ of all nations from East and West.

    ISIS and its agenda

    ISIS is a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist extremist militant group and self-proclaimed Islamic state and caliphate, which is led by and mainly composed of Sunni Arabs from Iraq and Syria. As of March 2015, it has control over territory occupied by ten million people in Iraq and Syria, and through loyal local groups, has control over small areas of Libya, Nigeria and Afghanistan. The group also operates or has affiliates in other parts of the world, including North Africa and South Asia.  As a caliphate, it claims religious, political and military authority over all Muslims worldwide, and that ”the legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organisations, becomes null by the expansion of the khilāfah’s [caliphate’s] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas”.

    Until February 2014, ISIS was a formal affiliate of al-Qaeda’s central command. However, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri cut ties with ISIS due to the group’s repeated attempts to subsume al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, under its command.

    Despite losing its formal alliance with al-Qaeda, ISIS has the same ideology and goals and uses the same brutal tactics as its former mother organization. In an attempt to defeat rival opposition groups, ISIS has conducted suicide-bombing attacks against rebel bases and has beheaded members of other fighting battalions. For example, according to a report from Al Jazeera English in January 2014, after ISIS prevailed in a battle with the rebel group Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade in Jarabulus, ISIS led more than 100 men to the main square to be executed. While Ankara has attempted to crack down on ISIS’s oil smuggling, numerous Turkish individuals have fostered ISIS’s illegal activity by continued importation.

    It has been claimed that the military airstrikes and increased surveillance on the group’s activities have also helped to significantly curtail ISIS profits in the oil industry, according to the United States.

    While ISIS’s destruction of antiquities has grabbed worldwide attention, the group does not wantonly destroy everything it finds. Authorities are uncertain to whom ISIS is selling antiquities but they believe ISIS earns as much as $100 million a month from the illegal sale of antiquities looted from captured territories, predominantly in northern Iraq. The United Nations has condemned ISIS’s antiquities looting as “a form of violent extremism that seeks to destroy the present, past and future of human civilization.”

    The death cult stands unassailable with the possession of sophisticated assault and defense artillery, supplied by the NATO to fight the Syrian Dictator Bashar Assad’s regime. Horrendously, it is spreading its wings across the Arab world like wildfire, and has designs to invade Iran in the near future. The group has been following the Al-Qaeda adopted tactics of ‘projecting terrorism’ as its vital tool.

    The international community must not forget that on 16 December 2014, seven gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public Schoo in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The militants, all of whom were foreign nationals, included one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans. They entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children, killing 141 people, including 132 schoolchildren, ranging between eight and eighteen years of age.It was Pakistan’s 9/11.In a period of one month, this is ISIS’s second attack on the European soil.On October 10,two explosions at a road junction in the centre of the Turkish capital Ankara killed at least 95 people and injured nearly 200 others.Factually speaking,Pakistan’s military has sacrificed a lot in this war against terrorism.The ongoing Zarba-e azab against terrorists’ networks in Pakistan, is the most glaring example.

    Terrorism and the West waged war against it

    Unsurprisingly, because of the politicised nature of the term ‘terrorism’, there are dozens of definitions of what it is. For our purposes, it is worth noting four elements that are present in most definitions: (1) Terrorism is politically motivated violence. (2) It is conducted by non-state actors. (3) It intentionally targets non-combatants. (4) It achieves its aims by creating fear within societies.

    ‘The terrorist’, an anonymous writer wrote, ‘represents a new breed of man which takes humanity back to prehistoric times, to the times when morality was not yet born.’ James Turner Johnson insisted that: terrorism by its nature aims to undermine and erode these goods [of political communities] and thus attacks all people who benefit from them . . . the kind of violence we today call terrorism is evil in its very nature, because it attacks the foundations of political community itself . . . There is no justice in terrorism, only injustice. We cannot, however, simply assume that a war on all terrorism is justified by the horrific actions of one particular terrorist organisation unless we have a common understanding of what terrorism actually is.

    Launching a ‘war against terror’ poses two problems. First, are we certain that all forms of ‘terrorism’ are manifestly unjust and by their very existence and modus operandi provide grounds for a just cause for war? Classical Just War theorists differed considerably on what they considered to be just causes for war. Just causes may entail (1) the avenging of a wrong previously committed, (2) the restoration of goods unjustly seized, (3) responding to the violation of natural law, (4) the punishment of wrongdoers, (5) the defence of the polity and the people within it and (6) the prevention of injustice. To claim that a war on terror is justified, then, we should first of all be sure that there is a just cause by balancing the contemporary context with these six moral ideas.

    The second problem that announcing a global war against terrorism creates is one of proportionality. We must ask whether a war against terrorism is a proportionate response to the 11 September attacks. In other words, will the expected good produced by the war outweigh the probable evil caused by it? The answer to this question is linked to our answer to the question of whether all terrorism provides cause for justified war. If our answer is in the affirmative, waging an endless war against terrorism may be a proportionate response. If, however, we believe that we can only answer the first question by reference to specific groups and campaigns, then a war against terrorism cannot be proportionate.

    Islam and France

    France rejects any conflation between Daesh and Islam.

    Islam, in all its diversity (in terms of its schools, rituals, and practices), is an integral part of French society like all other beliefs in our country. France’s principle of laïcité (secularism) is based on tolerance. It guarantees all citizens, regardless of their philosophical or religious beliefs, the right to live together while respecting the freedom of conscience, the freedom to practice a religion or no religion at all.

    In general, France remains fundamentally attached to respect for the diversity of cultures and the freedom of conscience. There are more than 500,000 African Muslims living in France.The apparent cause of the Paris terrorist incident is the French direct involvement in the war in Syria.

    Rethinking the global strategy against war on terror

    A few hours before the catastrophic attack in Paris, President Obama had announced that ISIS was now “contained,” a recalibration of his earlier assessments of “on the run” and “Jayvees” from a few years back. In the hours following the attack of jihadist suicide bombers and mass murderers in Paris, the Western press talked of the “scourge of terrorism” and “extremist violence”. Who were these terrorists and generic extremists who slaughtered the innocent in Paris — anti-abortionists, Klansmen, Tea-party zealots?.

    Newsmen compete to warn us not of more jihadists to come or the nature of the Islamist hatred that fuels these murderers, but instead fret about Western “backlash” on the horizon, about how nativists and right-wingers may now “scapegoat” immigrants. Being blown apart may be one thing, but appearing illiberal over the flying body parts is quite another. This western attitude must be changed.A complete examination is required to revise the global security policy.If the West, after waging a years war against terrorism,still stands unsafe  as it was fourteen years ago,there arises the exigency of revising the strategy to combat terrorism.

    Many realists hold that the defence of the state and its vital national interests are reason enough to go to war and that when the state’s vital interest or very survival is at stake, the only constraints should be prudential considerations. Thus, classical realists tend to be conservative about supporting the use of force. Clausewitz’s famous dictum that ‘war is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means’ does not so much give governments a free hand to wage war as implore them to calibrate their use of the military tool with precise policy objectives.

    The politics of prudence calls for the application of traditional jus ad bellum criteria such as proportionality of ends, last resort (because waging war is usually more costly than other measures) and the likelihood of success. However, the key difference between realists and Just War theorists is that, for a realist, a military action is legitimate if it enhances the state’s vital national interest or contributes to its survival. For the realist, all other questions are secondary.

    In many respects, the US response to September 11 was guided by this realist logic of war. Since then the US has argued that legitimate states must be free to make their own decisions about the best way to defend themselves from terrorism.  The Bush junior ‘s invasion of Iraq, its doctrine of the axis of evil and Washingon’s doctrine of exporting democracies in the Middle east via regime change, all have fueled the fire of terrorism in the Middle east.
    Terrorism, the pragmatists and pacifists argue, is a criminal problem, not one that can be addressed by war.

    A further argument is that terrorism can only be addressed through policies designed to tackle its root causes. In the case of the ‘causes’ of al-Qaeda, such writers point to the need to resolve the Palestinian problem, the perceived anti-Islamism of the West, and the grave inequalities of wealth that characterise the global economy. Unlike deontological pacifists, these writers do not argue that force is always unjustifiable. Instead, they significantly raise the threshold at which Just War criteria are considered met and conclude that the war against terror is imprudent and doomed to fail.

    The most sophisticated writer in this genre is Richard Holmes, who attempts to blend deontological and consequentialist forms of pacifism. Holmes rejects the deontological position that killing is wrong per se, but argues instead that killing the innocent is wrong. He points out that, although the Just War tradition prohibits the intentional killing of non-combatants, in practice non-combatants are always killed in war and are likely to be so in the foreseeable future. Thus, Holmes combines the deontological prescription, accepted by most military ethicists, that non-combatants may not be justly targeted with the observation that non-combatants are always killed in war. There are a number of problems with both deontological and consequentialist forms of pacifism. Both call upon governments to abrogate their moral responsibilities by denying that the use of force can ever be justified.

    Conclusion

    The Paris carnage has caused a great concern for international community ,the global powers in the west and East, the Nato, the European Union,the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe(OSCE) the Organisation of Islamic Conference(OIC), including the Arab league, the Sunni Gulf States(GCC), Iran and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO),an alliance working under the Russian auspices—to work comprehensively on a ‘coherent global security strategy’ to counter the security threats posed by Daesh or ISIS-a strategy that must address the root causes that promote terrorism.A true ‘smart power doctrine’–a two pronged combination of ‘hard and soft power’– must be the future strategy to tackle the menace of terrorism.Those states who have been funding ISIS, must stop this evil economic support.The international community with the assistance of global powers, must advance the progress for seeking meaningful ‘conflict resolutions of Palestine and Kashmir’.

    The mission against Daesh/ISIS and its proxies can only be accomplished if we are united against it. Finally, few would argue with the merit of some of the alternative policies put forward by those who oppose the war and it would be fair to say that some policy proposals – such as strengthening the powers of the International Criminal Court to deal with international terrorists – would make an important contribution to promoting global cooperation against terrorism. Whilst such policies may contribute to ridding the world of terrorism in the long term, it is doubtful whether they would succeed in removing the threat posed by ISIS in the immediate term. This provides a useful introduction to understand the ethics of the war against terror: utilising the Just War tradition as an ethics of political responsibility. It’s indispensable decision for the world community to take some proactive and pragmatic measures against this expanding threat of global terrorism.

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    The global warming treaty, globalists and global powers

    November 7th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Rizvi.

     

    The global warming treaty,globalists and global powers

    World leaders head to Paris at the end of November seeking a deal on cutting carbon emissions around the globe. In a statement between the countries, posted by The Guardian, China and France said countries’ greenhouse gas emissions should be reviewed every five years in order to make sure they are progressing toward their individual carbon reduction goals. It goes without saying the world by and large, is faced with gigantic challenge of countering the scowling dangers posed by global warming. This mammoth task can only be managed if the global powers make a joint action on curbing global warming.

    First agreed in 1997, it took eight years for participating countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.The deal was fairly simple. Industrialised countries would be legally obliged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions 5% on 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

    Developing countries – including China, India, Brazil and South Africa – would face no restriction on their emissions but were encouraged to adopt policies to promote greener growth.

    To help countries meet targets, Kyoto also offered a range of market mechanisms that could help rich countries offset emissions by investing in low carbon projects in poorer parts of the world.

    The globalists are operating around both the clock and the globe to poison us under the benignly false pretense that they are simply moderating our weather patterns to allegedly decrease unhealthy effects of the buildup of greenhouse gases that the scientific dogma of political correctness would have us believe caused exclusively by the earth’s rising CO2 levels, never mind the far more lethal methane gas levels leaking as Arctic glacier ice melts. But the globalist agenda is far more sinister than this propaganda spin of selective deception. Measurements of these toxic metals in various geographic locations have been collected and publicly disclosed.

    Heavy toxic metals intentionally spewing out above us from both military and civilian contractor planes are interfering with the plant kingdom’s natural photosynthesis process and killing off vast amounts of forests and trees all over the earth as well as ensuring the slow death kill of humans and wildlife. It’s also causing extreme weather events. According to the leading scientific activist Dane Wigington, the recent record heat in the West and record cold in the East can be attributed to this pink elephant called geoengineering.

    Of course industrial pollution has been playing an ongoing critical role in shortening the lives and killing humans particularly in urban environments for a very long time now. The global air, soil and water pollution compounded and accelerated by the likes of Monsanto chemicals and Fukushima radiation is killing off at unprecedented rates over200 animal species each and every day, not to mention eliminating crucial pollinators like butterflies and bees that are vital for producing a third of our dietary food sources. Due to overuse of Monsanto’s herbicide glyphosate, an MIT research scientist predicts that half our children will be autistic by 2025.

    Fracking has even been found to inject nuclear wastes underground contaminating freshwater basins and aquifers. Of course over the years the accumulating toxicity levels from these long term sources of industrial wastes seeping into our soil, air and water supply have also been devastatingly detrimental to our physical and mental health as well. In the US big corporation profits are far more important than the public’s health and well-being, punctuated two years ago by President Obama signing Congressional legislation protecting Monsanto from litigation.

    Other soft kill methods range from toxic levels of fluoride diabolically mixed in to our municipal water supply as well as a standard ingredient in most toothpaste products. It’s illegal to dump fluoride into lakes and rivers but apparently okay to dump it in most municipal water treatment systems in America. Even a chloramine ammonia mixture used to disinfect water is showing up now in our public tap water. These known poisons have been demonstrated to cause increased levels of autism, dementia and brain damage as well as cancer and cardiovascular disease. But then they’re all simply part of the elitists’ dumbing down/eugenics plan.

    Another alarming global weapon being used to dumb down and kill us are the poisonous vaccines wreaking havoc and destruction by the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the most defenseless human population – children. India courts are seeking legal justice for Gates’ vaccines there.

    As a prime political example, the three biggest planetary polluters – the United States and China, sabotaged (in US under George Bush) the Kyoto Protocol from ever going into effect by refusing to sign on. Meanwhile, the toxic air pollution is becoming so extreme in China’s major cities like Beijing that they may eventually be uninhabitable. But through the Jetstream currents their poisonous particulates are eventually scattered and dispersed to join already localized regional pollutants in the atmosphere all around the globe creating a more toxic effect for all of us earthlings.

    Green investments are surging, up 16% in 2014 on 2013 levels say Bloomberg, but it’s hard to make a direct link between that and Kyoto, especially as the biggest rises have come in the US and China.

    Equally – while emissions among those countries under Kyoto have generally fallen, the rate of carbon pollution growth has soared.

    Data from the Dutch PBL Environment Agency, released in late 2014, indicates CO2 releases hit a new record of 35.3 billion gigatonnes (GT) last year, 0.7 GT higher than 2013.

    This year analysts say emissions could rise 2.5%, 65% above 1990 levels, driven by growth in China and India.

    In 2011, Canada’s environment minister Peter Kent cited the lack of wider participation as Ottawa’s rationale to abandon the treaty – a move that was later followed by Russia and Japan.

    There are signs of progress on this front, as countries work towards a new climate deal in Paris this December.The Kyoto Protocol will still run until 2020, an extension targeting 18% carbon cuts on 1990 levels.

    It’s not a target that will tax those who sign up (although many haven’t so far), and the main value will be to keep reporting and accounting practices, along with the CDM, ticking over until a Paris deal comes into effect.

    Its biggest legacy – one it shares with the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit – is likely to be its abject failure to address the causes of climate change.

    Any deal struck in the French capital, may not resemble Kyoto, but the way it is constructed will be, in no small part, a result of lessons learnt by policymakers since 2005.

    A negotiating text for the 2015 agreement was agreed in Geneva in February 2015. Before the Paris conference, negotiations seem to have continued at inter-sessional UN meetings in June, September and October in Bonn.

    There appears a well-courted argument that while the world’s superpowers will not accept legally binding carbon caps, they can be convinced of the need to implement greener policies and the long-term benefits these will offer their own countries.

    “We cannot link all these emissions reductions directly to the Kyoto Protocol, but it clearly played an important role in catalyzing this promising trend which has led to a collective and very welcome ‘over-achievement’,” says Figueres, a UN expert on climate change.

    “Paris will not solve climate change at a pen stroke. But similarly it must trigger a world-wide over-achievement and a clear sense of direction that can restore the natural balance of emissions on planet Earth.”

    America’s commitment to reducing its dependency on fossil fuels is setting the tone on the issue globally, Obama added.

    “This is how America is leading on the environment,” Obama said. “And because America is leading by example, 150 countries, representing over 85 percent of global emissions, have now laid out plans to reduce their levels of the harmful carbon pollution that warms out planet.” “As we look at this major conference that we’re going to be having in Paris in just a few months, where we’ve already mobilized the international community, including China, to participate, I just want everybody to understand that American businesses want this to happen as well,” Obama said after meeting with five major CEOs, saying that they need a level playing field to thrive.

    “If we’re able to establish those kinds of rules and that’s the goal that we’re setting forth in Paris, I have no doubt that these companies are going to excel,” he said. “And that’s going to mean jobs, businesses, and opportunity alongside cleaner air and a better environment.”

    The European Commission has set out the EU’s vision for a new agreement that will, through collective commitments based on scientific evidence, put the world on track to reduce global emissions by at least 60% below 2010 levels by 2050.

    The EU wants Paris to deliver a robust international agreement that fulfils the following key criteria. It must:

    create a common legal framework that applies to all countries

    include clear, fair and ambitious targets for all countries based on evolving global economic and national circumstances

    regularly review and strengthen countries’ targets in light of the below 2 degrees goal

    hold all countries accountable – to each other and to the public – for meeting their targets

    The EU’s contribution to the new agreement will be a binding, economy-wide, domestic greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of at least 40% by 2030.

    Nevertheless the world’s two largest emitters, the United States and China reached a landmark agreement to take significant action to reduce carbon pollution. The substantial contribution the two sides have pledged to the Green Climate Fund will help the most vulnerable developing nations deal with climate change, reduce their carbon pollution, and invest in clean energy. More than 100 countries have also joined with the United States to reduce greenhouse gases under the Montreal Protocol—the same agreement the world used successfully to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.

    America is partnering with African entrepreneurs to launch clean energy projects and helping farmers practice climate-smart agriculture and plant more durable crops. Americans– being positively moved and influenced by former vice president Al Gore’s agenda of climate change,now a part of US’s national security strategy– are also driving collective action to reduce methane emissions from pipelines and to launch a free trade agreement for environmental goods.

    This is an undeniable fact that both the United States and China have been justifiably criticized by the developing nations of not signing the Kyoto protocol.And this is also an irrefutable truth that there have been certain differences between Brussels and Washington over the climate change issue.And yet,not surprisingly the group of industrialized nations(G8) is seen by the developing nations as the major source of accelerating carbon emission.The world’s Greenpeace community eyes on the Paris Summit on Climate  Change, and the role of global powers to practically share their concerns.

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    US-China naval rivalry over South China Sea

    November 1st, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Azfal.

    US-China naval rivalry over South China Sea

    China´s navy chief warned his US counterpart encounters between their forces could spiral into conflict, state media reported, two days after a US destroyer sailed close to Beijing´s artificial South China Sea islands. “If the US continues to carry out these kinds of dangerous, provocative acts, there could be a serious situation between frontline forces from both sides on the sea and in the air, or even a minor incident that could spark conflict,” Xinhua  Wu said.

    Beijing insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which about a third of all the world´s traded oil passes.The disputed waters — also claimed in part or in whole by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei — have also become the stage for a tussle for regional dominance between Beijing and Washington, the world´s two largest economic and military powers.

    For decades, the United States has dominated Asian waters, with its colossal navy roaming vital waterways with impunity. The US navy has been both domineering and benign for its allies, supporting armed interventions and maintaining access to military bases across continents, as well as protecting maritime arteries of trade against state and no-state predators.

    With as much as 90 percent of global trade conducted through maritime routes, all countries have an interest in ensuring freedom of navigation across international waters. And for a long time, the US and its allies have served as the de facto guarantor of unimpeded access to global sea lines of communications.

    The Soviet Union’s earlier efforts to challenge American naval supremacy ended up bankrupting its fragile economic base, paving the way for its eventual collapse in the late 20th century.

    After criticizing the U.S. patrol earlier in the week for taking a “reckless action,” China’s Foreign Ministry said the tribunal’s ruling “is null and void, and has no binding effect on China.”

    “With regard to the issues of territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, China will not accept any solution imposed on it or any unilateral resort to a third-party dispute settlement,” the ministry said. The strategies by the two close allies, the U.S. and the Philippines, pressures China to define its vague claims to most of the South China Sea more clearly under international law, some analysts say.

    “The U.S. and the Philippines have been effectively acting as a tag team,” said Richard Javad Heydarian, an academic who specializes in regional security at De La Salle University in Manila. “The Philippines has overcome a very difficult hurdle by clearing the jurisdiction issue.”

    China claims by far the largest portion of territory – an area defined by the “nine-dash line” which stretches hundreds of miles south and east from its most southerly province of Hainan. With as much as 90 percent of global trade conducted through maritime routes, all countries have an interest in ensuring freedom of navigation across international waters. And for a long time, the US and its allies have served as the de facto guarantor of unimpeded access to global sea lines of communications.

    Beijing says its right to the area goes back centuries to when the Paracel and Spratly island chains were regarded as integral parts of the Chinese nation, and in 1947 it issued a map detailing its claims. It showed the two island groups falling entirely within its territory. Those claims are mirrored by Taiwan.

    The defining characteristic of the South China Sea and a significant source of tensions in the region are the competing legal claims of territorial sovereignty over its islands. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was concluded in 1982 and came into force in 1994, was meant to establish a series of legal measures and laws on the economic rights of nations based on their territorial waters and continental baselines. This is encompassed in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a 200 nautical mile area that extends from the baseline of the coastal nation and gives the nation sole natural resource exploitation rights within the zone.

    Vietnam hotly disputes China’s historical account, saying China had never claimed sovereignty over the islands before the 1940s. Vietnam says it has actively ruled over both the Paracels and the Spratlys since the 17th Century – and has the documents to prove it.

    The other major claimant in the area is the Philippines, which invokes its geographical proximity to the Spratly Islands as the main basis of its claim for part of the grouping.

    Both the Philippines and China lay claim to the Scarborough Shoal (known as Huangyan Island in China) – a little more than 100 miles (160km) from the Philippines and 500 miles from China.

     President Obama has been under increasing pressure from, for example, Arizona Senator John McCain to be more assertive in the South China Sea.

    The United States is preparing to maneuver naval warships and aircraft close to China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea, in what would be the Obama Administration’s toughest response yet to Beijing.

    Reportedly, the White House is readying plans to send warships within twelve nautical miles of several of the islands—a move that China claims would be an illegal violation of its sovereignty. Citing a U.N. treaty, the United States argues that man-made outposts cannot be construed as legitimate territory.

    China has also said it had every right to set up an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea but that current conditions did not warrant one.

    ADIZs are used by some nations to extend control beyond national borders, requiring civilian and military aircraft to identify themselves or face possible military interception.

    During the P8-A mission, the pilot of a Delta Air Line flight in the area spoke on the same frequency after hearing the Chinese challenges, and identified himself as commercial. The Chinese voice reassured the pilot and the Delta flight went on its way, CNN said. US defence secretary Ash Carter warned that further “freedom of navigation” operations in the region were planned. “We will fly, sail and operate wherever international law permits,” he told a congressional hearing. China’s military buildup in the South China Sea – including the construction of a 3km runway capable of supporting fighter jets and transport planes – has become a major source of tension between Beijing and Washington.

    China claims most of the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes, although Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Beijing says the islands will have mainly civilian uses as well as undefined defence purposes.

    The Permanent Court of Arbitration – which is more than a century old and based in The Hague – ruled that it did have jurisdiction on the issue.

    Manila insists the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the Philippines and China have both ratified, should be used to resolve the bitter territorial row over isolated reefs and islets, which has triggered growing international alarm.

    US researchers have found that since March 2014, China is building artificial islands atop 7 reefs and atolls in the Spratly archipelago of the SCS, the sovereignty of which is being disputed by   Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam. The seven identified by them are – Subi reef, Hughes reef, Garen islands, Jhonson South reef, Cuarteron reef, Fiery Cross reef and Mischief reef. The US analysts have further revealed that the PRC in this way could create about 3,000 acres of new sovereign territory. and felt that once these artificial islands become operational, China can assert its sovereignty over the territorial airspace and waters.

    On its part, China is denying that it is claiming such sovereignty. The PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi said (ASEAN Regional Forum, Kuala Lampur, August 5, 2015) that “China’s construction of the islands, mainly to improve the working and living conditions of personnel there and for public good purposes, has already stopped.” Despite this, recent US satellite images taken on September  3 and 8, 2015, have shown that China is fast completing construction of an  air strip each in Subi and  Fiery Cross reefs and possibly a naval base in the Mischief reef.

    It has to be recognized that the Chinese and US perceptions of the freedom of navigation principle in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, not yet ratified by it, are different.  Washington believes that the US ships can sail in both the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the 12-nautical mile territorial seas without obtaining the permission of the coastal states. The PRC’s stand is that foreign navies will have to obey rules of “innocent passage” even in the 200-nautical mile EEZ, and require prior permission to enter the 12-nautical mile territorial sea. This being so, there seems to be no unanimity among the ASEAN nations on the freedom of navigation principle.  Malaysia agrees with the Chinese view on the EEZ and Vietnam   shares the PRC’s definition of the territorial sea.

    Evaluating broadly the likely shape of the current China-US tussle on the artificial islands issue, it can be said, that the final picture may not be pessimistic one. It needs to be admitted at the same time that any misjudgment or miscalculation by the two powers may result in unexpected scenario.

    US scholars have assessed that President Xi Jumping’s visit to US in September 2015 was not only very smooth, but it also contributed to building by the two countries of   a strong strategic framework, and that the two are now embarking on a path of cooperation instead of one of confrontation.

    Their Chinese counter parts seem to think on the same lines. The PRC State media opinions see Xi’s US visit as having contributed to a series of “early harvest” in many aspects, such as the expansion of pragmatic cooperation and effective control of divergences. Thus becoming clear is the keenness of each side to sustain the improvement in bilateral relations; in such atmosphere, there are chances of China and the US agreeing on a face saving formula, in order to deescalate tensions on the islands issue.

    It may not come as surprise if the two reach an understanding on the ‘innocent passage’ of their naval vessels close to their respective territories; the PRC in particular may stop insisting on its condition that foreign vessels need prior permission to enter its perceived territories.

     “We are not neutral when it comes to adherence to international law. We will come down forcefully on the side of the rules,” Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, asserted during a speech delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

     Washington has also repeatedly urged all nations to stop land reclamation efforts but the US is especially critical of China, claiming that Beijing’s endeavors on the Spratly Islands could lead to the militarization of the area and would hence undermine regional stability and security. Looking beyond the current China-US tussle on the artificial islands issue, it can be said that though the region is getting benefits from multilateral efforts towards achieving  economic integration  , its instability seems certain as there may be no quick end to the territorial contest taking place in the SCS.  The implications for the future shape of geopolitics in East Asia can thus be clearly understood.

    Beijing has insisted that it is the US’ meddling in the Asia-Pacific, including its deepening military ties with Japan, that could jeopardize regional security. When it comes to rules, the United States is notably one of the few countries in the United Nations that has not signed onto the UN Law of the Sea convention.

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    Will Russia use its ground forces in Syria?

    October 29th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Afzal.

     

    Will Russia use its ground forces in Syria?

    Russian President Vladimir Putin recently confirmed that the time frame of the Russian military operation in Syria would be limited by the Syrian army’s offensive.

    Konstantin Kalachev, head of Moscow’s Political Experts Group, says that “’a second Afghanistan’ is possible if Russian forces are used in ground operations,” something no officials are yet talking about but that will be necessary because airpower alone will not break ISIS whatever anyone thinks.

    Moreover, he continues, “it is obvious that the Islamic State is not struggling so much with the Asad regime as with various Sunni groups.” A Russian military presence can serve as “a restraining factor” but a real military presence would be something else: it would convert “the pluses” of the situation into “minuses” almost instantly

    “We cannot take on extra responsibilities and have never taken any. I have said from the very beginning that the active phase of our job in Syria will be limited to the time frame of the Syrian army’s offensive,” Putin said.

    Here’s Putin just a week ago telling “60 Minutes” that he doesn’t anticipate using Russian ground troops in Syria. Good thing those volunteers are around to fight the battle for him instead. Note also what he says about how it’s better to fight jihadis who threaten Russia in Syria instead of waiting for them to show up in Moscow. That may sound familiar; the same argument, colloquially knows as the “flypaper theory,” was offered by U.S. hawks in defense of the Iraq war. Whether Putin’s borrowing that argument because he finds it useful or just to tweak his American critics, who knows. Re-read the second excerpt above, though, and ask yourself how much sense it makes — especially given that Russia’s targets in Syria so far aren’t the hardcore expansionist jihadis like ISIS but other Sunni groups.

    The American bases in Iraq and those of Russia in Syria “in fact fulfill the role of so call ‘interventionists;’ that is, they demonstrate a presence and provide military-technical help, but ISIS will not be defeated by these groupings. NATO understands this and has no desire to conduct such operations,” Kuznetsov says.

    “If then such a [ground] operation will not take place then the only thing we can count on is the stabilization of the Alawite portion of Syria and in the end the cutting out of a Sunni state on the territories of Iraq and Syria.” To achieve more would take enormous numbers of ground forces and involve enormous losses, he continues.

    The Russians have been coming for a long time. In fact, they have been there for more than three years. While September 2015 marks the first time that Russian military armour has been operated by Russian troops, its officers have been on the ground since 2012, helping transfer thousands of tonnes of weapons to the Syrian army and direct the air war against the opposition. Iran has been much busier, with large numbers of senior officers giving tactical and strategic direction to beleaguered Syrian forces, marshalling Shia militiamen, who have been flown in from the Iranian city of Qom, and working alongside Hezbollah, who have shouldered the load of the fighting west of Damascus and on the northern outskirts of Aleppo. Now western states are once again actively debating the wisdom of more robust intervention.

    Despite occasional rhetoric, there remains no appetite in Washington, London, Ankara or Paris for a western intervention to topple Assad amid the chaos. The United States in particular remains very wary about being drawn back into a region that it had vowed to leave less than four years ago and, in the face of repeated failings, is sticking to its model of trying to act in support of states such as Iraq, rather than leading the fight on its behalf.

    US jets have been flying in Syrian skies to bomb Isis for more than a year. Turkey has sent its own jets in the past month, but they have primarily targeted the Kurds, instead of the jihadis. Isis is, for now, the quarry, and this is unlikely to change unless there is substantial progress on the diplomatic front. Only then would the appetite for military muscle – in support of diplomatic aims – possibly increase.

    The Kremlin has acknowledged that military specialists are in Syria to train local troops in how to use Russian weapons, and a Russian battalion is believed to be there to protect the airbase in Latakia. But President Vladimir Putin has said he will not deploy ground troops to Syria.

    However, reports have alleged that Russians who had previously fought in eastern Ukraine have been spotted among Syrian government forces.

    Fighting as a mercenary is illegal under Russian law, but Komoyedov’s statement to Interfax has prompted speculation that the Kremlin could encourage irregular forces to fight in Syria, much as it reportedly did in eastern Ukraine. More than 40 Syrian insurgent groups have vowed to attack Russian forces in retaliation for Moscow’s air campaign, in a show of unity among the usually fragmented rebels against what they called the “occupiers” of Syria.

    The 41 Syrian rebel groups, which included powerful factions such as Ahrar al-Sham, Islam Army and the Levant Front, said Russia had joined the war in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were on the verge “of a crushing defeat”.

    The insurgents’ warning came as the chairman of Russia’s parliamentary defense committee suggested that Russian “volunteer” units could join with forces fighting for Assad. Some analysts have drawn comparisons to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. But the Soviet Union had cash to spare when it sent its army into Afghanistan in 1979. Oil prices were high, and plentiful export revenues from crude could be funneled into the conflict.

    Russia’s intervention in Syria comes at the opposite end of the cycle. The price of oil is at its lowest in more than a decade, and the country is in a fiscal crisis.

    The move also comes amid a wider increase in Russian deployments abroad. Moscow is expanding its bases in Syria, the Arctic and former Soviet republics, particularly in Central Asia, where it warns of a rising threat of terrorism spilling over from Afghanistan.

    The Kremlin has said the money for the Syria campaign is coming out of the existing defense budget — one of the few departments to escape sweeping cuts this year — but the real source of funding is opaque, said Pyotr Topychkanov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.

    It is a paradox, he said: Russia has mimicked U.S.-style publicity for its Syrian offensive, blitzing the press with glossy images and film of missile launches and bomb strikes and posting daily updates on Facebook and Twitter in multiple languages. But on the money issue, officials have been silent.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin recently confirmed that the time frame of the Russian military operation in Syria would be limited by the Syrian army’s offensive.

    “We cannot take on extra responsibilities and have never taken any. I have said from the very beginning that the active phase of our job in Syria will be limited to the time frame of the Syrian army’s offensive,” Putin said.

    The threat of terrorism exists in many states but Islamic countries and Russia can be the victims in the first place, Vladimir Putin said.

    “Terrorist threat looms over many countries in the region… it is us, the countries of the region, the Islamic countries, are the first victims of terrorism, and we want, and are willing to fight them,” the president said. Winston Churchill’s famous description of Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” still holds true today. But most people forget the possible solution to this vexing problem that Churchill proposed: “… but perhaps there is a key. The key is Russian national interest.”

    In view of some western strategists,the official state seal of the Russian Federation features a double-headed eagle. One head faces east while the other faces west, indicating Russia is a country with a split identity, both European and Asian. This ancient symbol is also an apt descriptor of recent Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria. After decades decrying U.S. military modernization and intervention overseas, Russian President Vladimir Putin is embarking duplicitously on his own modernization efforts during multiple foreign interventions.

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    The scourged face of ‘Indian secularism’

    October 24th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Afzal.

     

     

    The  true face of Indian secularism has been unraveled or well-exposed by the ongoing incidents of violence against Muslims, demonstrated and caused by the far- right  utranationalists and the Shiv Sena’s operated elements of Hindu Taliban, who seem to have been supported, nurtured and motivated by Narendra Modi-led BJP’s government in India.

    This BJP’s sponsored or orchestrated faus pas– of casting life threats and violence against the Muslims residing in India and the Indian held Kashmir, including the Pakistan based writers, academicians, sports persons,actors,politicians,social thinkers and diplomats—is tantamount to providing the ample evidence that Modi’s government has become totally failed in maintaining the norms of secularism that the so-called largest democracy India apparently seems to be proclaiming for.

    Dozens of thugs belonging to the Hindu extremist Shiv Sena stormed the Mumbai offices of India’s cricket board on Monday to disrupt planned talks on resuming matches against Pakistan, the latest protest by hardline Hindu activists in the city. The Shiv Sena, a junior partner in a ruling coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Maharashtra state government, opposes any dealings with Pakistan.

    An uneasy calm prevails in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh(U.P.) where a Hindu mob lynched a Muslim man late last month following rumors of cow slaughter and beef eating. The killing sent shock waves across the country and demands are growing for swift and stern action against those involved.

    What is more disturbing is the openness with which these radicals operate in India. An activist belonging to the Bajrang Dal, a radical Hindu group sharing deep ideological affinities with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), issued an open threat to other such free-thinkers on Twitter, saying “Then it was UR Ananthamoorty and now its MM Kalburgi. Mock Hinduism and die a dog’s death.”

    For his secular and liberal views, Ananthamoorty remained on the firing line of the extremist forces until his death last year.

    Commenting on the incident, The Hindu, in an editorial, wrote that “there is no denying the fact that fringe right wing groups have created an atmosphere of intolerance to outspoken writers and academics who question religious practices and myths, thereby putting pressure on freedom of speech and expression.” The editorial asks the government not to go soft on Hindu fundamentalism and to “crack down” on these fringe elements in the same way it would deal with other “religion and ideology based extremist groups.”

    Hindu extremist groups are also targeting those who question Hinduism and want India to be a strong secular democracy.

    India’s gradual descent into ‘majoritarian fundamentalism’ is alarming. The growth of anti-secular violence is a warning signal to all the right-thinking citizens of India to resist the growing clout of these medieval forces.

    India’s ‘hypernationalist religious extremists’ has become the number one story in Pakistan as the ink attack against Sudheendra Kulkarni has proven to be only the opening act of the Hindu extremists against Muslims and other religious minorities. Social media is now over taken by trends like #ExtremistIndia and #ModiBehindShivSena and #BoycottBCCI among others. Punjab Assembly even tabled a resolution against Shiv Sena’s religious extremism.

    The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has since 1998 formed the national government of India at the head of a coalition of centrist parties, is tied to the RSS( Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh), VHP(the Vishu Hindu Parishad), a right wing Hindu extremist Organisation, and Bajrang Dal, and functions as the Sangh Parivar’s political wing.  Other senior BJP officials, such as the late Home Affairs Minister L. K. Advani, have been the RSS associates.Yet Atal Behari Vajpayee ,the former Indian premier seems to have been remembered as a moderate voice in the BJP’s club,who tried to enhance the course of  ‘normalisation of India’s relations with Pakistan.

    At the national level the BJP advances the ideology of ‘Hindutva’ through propaganda, the manipulation of cultural institutions, undercutting laws that protect religious minorities, and minimizing or excusing Hindu extremist violence. At the state level its functionaries have abetted and even participated in such violence.

    The BJP appoints school officials who alter textbooks and curricula to emphasize Hinduism; they also require that Hindu texts be taught in all schools. Moreover, it has appointed Sangh Parivar adherents to key positions in autonomous bodies such as the Prasar Bharati, which controls the official media, the National Film Development Corporation, the Indian Council of Historical Research, and the National Book Trust.

    BJP lawmakers have also attempted to restrict minority religious groups’ international contacts and to reduce their rights to build places of worship. It works to pass anti-conversion laws and to alter the personal laws that govern marriages, adoptions, and inheritance. It practices legal discrimination against Dalits (“untouchables”) who are Christian and Muslim, but not against those who are Hindu.

    Three liberal writers have been killed and human rights groups and activists are increasingly intimidated and harassed. The brutal violence visited on Muslims in Gujarat in February 2002 also brought the dangers of Hindu extremism to world attention. Between one and two thousand Muslims were massacred after Muslims reportedly set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists, killing several dozen people.This happened during the tenure of Narendra Modi’s  as the chief minister of Gujarat.

    These attacks were not inchoate mob violence, triggered by real or rumored insult; rather, they involved careful planning by organized Hindu extremists with an explicit program and a developed religious-nationalist ideology. Like the ideology of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamists, this ideology began to take shape in the 1920s as a response to European colonialism. It rejected the usually secular outlook of other independence movements; in place of ‘secularism’, it synthesized a reactionary form of religion with elements of European millenarian political thought, especially ‘fascism’.

    Modi won a landslide victory in the previous Indian general elections as the nominee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Though the party was established in 1980, it is the creature of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which was formed by K B Hedgewar in 1925.The speculations– that by becoming the premier of India, Modi will be tied to his hard-core fascist lobbying against Pakistan–have become true.The present course of Modi’s governmental actions against Pakistan endorses the truth that BJP’s agenda is to provoke anti-Pakistan feelings in India.

    The founding fathers of India, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, wanted to model India as a ‘secular country’. Nehru, a self-proclaimed agnostic, stood for secularism, democracy and scientific temperament. The three goals were enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Though Dr Ambedkar is regarded the prime architect of the Indian Constitution, however, Prime Minister Nehru wielded considerable influence in its framing. The provision of the Constitution, which mainly postulates secularism, is its Article 25. It grants citizens of India of all religious persuasions to profess and propagate their faith “in a way that does not disrupt public order and does not affect morality adversely”. These words are construed to act as a constraint to the anti-conversion laws. Many states in India have already passed anti-conversion laws. Some of them are Orissa (in 1967), Arunachal Pradesh (in 1978), Gujarat (in 2003), etc. Secularism, according to the Constitution, does not mean separation of religion and state like it does in the West.

    To maintain the political coalition that enables it to rule at the national level, the BJP downplays its specifically religious goals and portrays itself as a moderate party. But it also allies with the Sangh Parivar to appeal to its base. In its 2004 recommendations, the U.S. Commission on ‘International Religious Freedom’ proposed that India be included on the State Department’s official shortlist of the worst religious persecutors for its “egregious, systematic, and ongoing” violations of religious fights.

    Many believe Hindu extremist groups are behind all these incidents and enjoy the tacit approval of the current Narendra Modi-led BJP government-a pioneer of the movement of ‘Hindu radicalism’.The future of minorities,Muslims,Sikhs and Christians in India,seems at a stake.

    Social activist Shabnam Hashmi’s NGO Anhad is documenting the events. She says the figures point to an alarming trend: “The way these cases are happening, in quick succession and the manner in which the atmosphere is being vitiated – particularly with the help of non-state actors who appear to have been let loose to do whatever they wish and wherever, is extremely worrying. It’s not only about minorities it’s an assault on the country’s diversity and pluralism’’.

    It’s a multi-faceted attack targeting communities on the one hand by polarizing them and spreading hate and the intellectuals and institutions on the other. Everyone who disagrees with them is under attack.”

    If religious extremism continues to grow, it will drag India’s democracy, economy, and foreign policy down with it.

    The goal of secularism, set by the Indian Constitution, has been under threat since the death of Nehru. The change, however, was slow, almost imperceptible. But since the 1990s, it has accelerated. The demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 is but one example. However, since the advent of the Modi government, the change has acquired gargantuan proportions.

    In response to a question, Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesman (FO) said, “the cancellation of the meeting of Chairman, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), with his counterpart in Mumbai, due to the protests by an extremist organisation, is the latest in a series of such incidents that have taken place in the recent past.”FO spokesman said, “Effective measures are required to prevent continuous recurrence of such incidents in India.

    Given India-Pakistan governmental tensions, the ongoing uncivilized tactics/ policies of the Indian government if not controlled or resisted, will result in brewing ‘communal riots’ in India and Pakistan- a development that a conflict and strife-ridden ‘South Asia on the brink of war, cannot afford.Meanwhile, Pakistan took a serious notice of the increasing number of violent protests, which were aimed at disrupting scheduled events in India involving Pakistani nationals and called for steps to stop such happenings.

    By any measure,the resurgence of Hindu extremism in India is a ‘dangerous trend’ that must be immediately addressed by India’s government, and the international community should seriously take notice of it. Both the UN and the EU should pressurize Modi to crack down on the extremists’networks before any more innocent lives are lost and what has started as a national shame grows into a ‘humanitarian crisis’.

    A fora– led by the leaders of the Indian National Congress,  India’s liberal NGOs, the unbiased members of the Indian print and electronic media, accompanied by the moral support of the  humanists– must come forward and  wage an ‘ideological crusade’ against this heinous trend of ‘communal hatred and political extremism’, lashed out by the Hindu right- wing organisations in India.What India needs today, is the call right back to follow the teachings and precepts of  Sri Sankaracharya, a great social humanitarian thinker of India.

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    Washington’s unfair concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities

    October 17th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Afzal.

     

    Washington's unfair concerns about Pakistan's nuclear capabilities:Pakistan can not accept a nuclear quid pro quo

    Reading a column by David E Sanger in yesterday’s New York Times, one gets a confirmed idea that the US administration is exploring deal to limit Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent capabilities by curbing the production of fissile material.In response to such a measure, Pakistan may be offered a civil nuclear energy deal, that of a quasi India’s type. The veritable point here, is to understand that given its warranted security concerns regarding scowling threats from India,  neither Pakistan’s civilian leadership nor its military establishment can ever accept a nuclear quid pro quo as proposed by the US officials simply because accepting such a deal, will mean to compromise on Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence — the end-all and be -all of its security doctrine against foreign aggression– and a bedrock of its national policy and ideology.Thinking of a deal,is not a viable alternative.Pakistan holds prompt justification or reasoning to turn down such American proposal on the grounds that Pakistan can not afford to revise its policy of a full spectrum-nuclear deterrence vis-a-vis India.

    Earlier,in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post, US journalist David Ignatius claimed that Washington is exploring possible new limits and controls on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Such an accord, he wrote, may eventually open a path toward a Pakistani version of the civil nuclear deal that was launched with India in 2015.

    “If Pakistan would take the actions requested by the United States, it would essentially amount to recognition of rehabilitation and would essentially amount to parole,” said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has maintained contacts with the Pakistani nuclear establishment.“I think it’s worth a try,” Mr. Perkovich said. “But I have my doubts that the Pakistanis are capable of doing this.”

    The discussions are being led by Peter R. Lavoy, a longtime intelligence expert on the Pakistani program who is now on the staff of the National Security Council. White House officials declined to comment on the talks ahead of Mr. Sharif’s visit.

    But the central element of the proposal, according to other officials and outside experts, would be a relaxation of the strict controls imposed on Pakistan by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a loose affiliation of nations that try to control the proliferation of weapons.

    Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson said Pakistan’s nuclear policy was shaped by evolving security dynamics of South Asia, growing conventional asymmetry, provocative doctrines and aggressive posturing by India.

    This situation, the spokesperson said, obliges Pakistan to take all necessary measures to maintain a full spectrum deterrence capability in order to safeguard our national security, maintain strategic stability and deter any kind of aggression from India. “Pakistan seeks peace and strategic stability in South Asia as a cornerstone of its policy and considers conflict resolution as a means to achieve this end. This policy has been reiterated by Pakistan’s highest decision-making body, the National Command Authority (NCA), chaired by the Prime Minister , in its meeting on September 9, 2015,” he said.

    From the very start of the Indian indoctrination of the Cold Start, Pakistan took the doctrine seriously, because it had a direct bearing on our security, as well as to prevent destabilization in an environment of ‘conventional asymmetry’. We were the affect party. The doctrine was meant to be unleashed against Pakistan. Pakistan could not ignore the effects being generated by the ‘offensive doctrine’. Therefore in order to deter the unfolding of operations under the doctrine Pakistan opted to develop a variety of short range, low yield nuclear weapons, also dubbed tactical nuclear weapons. This was a ‘Pakistani defensive’, deterrence response to an offensive doctrine.

    But, in an attempt to do one better on the escalatory run, some people responded via massive retaliation bluster, without thinking through the consequences in a nuclear parity situation. Pakistan thinks it’s time to get real. Even-handed and non-discriminatory approach to South Asia alone will contribute towards peace and stability. ‘Discriminatory approach’ on issues like NSG (nuclear supplier group) ‘exemption, and NSG membership’ is already proving to be ‘counterproductive’. It will never be acceptable to Pakistan. And will, in no way, contribute towards peace and stability. Therefore it is a must to desist from taking shortsighted measures today that will be regretted later.

    Given operationalization, Pakistan’s nuclear capability in a manner that it today possesses a variety of nuclear weapons, in different categories. At the strategic level, at the operational level, and the tactical level. And the total comprehensiveness of the program is the effects that it is generating of deterrence, and keeping war away.Factually, the development of the entire capability has ensured peace in South Asia.

    The analysis of the command and control, custodial and export control systems shows that it is, indeed, second to none in the world. It is also not fully appreciated that unlike some of the other nuclear states, apart from technical controls and safeguards, despite being a developing country and perhaps for that reason, Pakistan can and does afford maximizing specialized personnel and troops dedicated for safeguarding its assets against internal and external threats.

    Therefore, the threat of any terrorist attack on nuclear facilities to try to seize any of the assets or fissile material, in reality, does not exist. Multiple physical and personnel reliability systems, as well as inventory controls and checks, rule out any insider-outsider threats.

    Pakistan has also interacted with other countries, including Japan, UK, US and the EU. While it is true that Pakistan does not need a security clearance from any quarter, it is prudent to meet international concerns, and this is the policy of every nuclear state. It is for this reason that when ‘media hype’ was at its high water mark, those foreign officials and academics who were best informed, including for that matter the official spokesman of the U.S government, expressed full confidence on the ‘safety and security’ of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

    Those quarters which raise concern about Pakistan in the nuclear field, do not make comparisons with the security of nuclear weapons, fissile material and ‘nuclear facilities in other nuclear weapons states’, including Russia and India, while incidents have also taken place in the United States of America.

    In Russia, the threat has been much greater. It necessitated the American, Nunn-Lugar legislation for assistance for safeguarding Russian facilities and fissile material after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Russian nuclear and other WMD production facilities deteriorated and some Russian scientists went abroad. There has been some leakage of fissile material. One of Russia’s leading military commanders stated that some of Russia’s suitcase nuclear bombs, designed for their Special Forces operations, had gone missing. While this was refuted by the Russian government, there are causes of concern across the spectrum. However, international attention is muted on it.

    In the context of India, fissile material and nuclear weapons are arguably in greater danger. Unlike as in Pakistan, many Indian facilities are under the supervision of civilian security. There are seventeen ongoing insurgencies, which are potential terrorist threats. India has also displayed an unwillingness to engage with other countries on ‘security practices’.

    Furthermore, most of the Indian power reactors were  ‘outside IAEA safeguards’. Even after the US-India nuclear deal, eight of the existing reactors remain outside safeguards, with India having the discretion of placing future reactors within or without IAEA safeguards. Since the majority of the Indian reactors have been outside safeguards, it is difficult for the international community to assess the status of past and present safety of the spent fuel generated by these reactors. India’s ambitious ‘thirteen breeder reactors’ program also remains outside safeguards.

    DG of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary met on the sidelines of the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, discussed matters related to mutual cooperation between Pakistan and the UN nuclear watchdog in the peaceful application of nuclear technologies. Yukiya Amano praised Pakistan’s impressive nuclear security record spanning over four decades of nuclear power plant operation and expressed satisfaction at the implementation of ‘IAEA safeguards measures’ by Pakistan.

    In the United States, 63,000 tons of nuclear waste, the sum total of all the waste generated by decades of nuclear power, sits right where it was created,  at the power plants themselves.

    Often, these power plants are very close to major population centers — Washington, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago havereactors within the 50-mile fallout zoneIf the waste catches fire, a situation Japanese officials are racing to prevent at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, critics say it could effectively render an area the size of half of New Jersey permanently uninhabitable. “It’s probably the single greatest security vulnerability in the United States,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a watchdog group.

    India produces plutonium for weapons at two military production reactors and is estimated to have about 700 kilograms of separated plutonium, which is enough for about 140 bombs. It produces new plutonium at a rate of about 30 kilograms per year.

    Pakistan has about 2 metric tons of HEU for its nuclear weapons and about 100 kilograms of weapons plutonium, which is enough for about 100 bombs. Pakistan has one plutonium-production reactor,  and is increasing its reliance on plutonium weapons. The reactor can produce about 10 kilograms of plutonium per year.

    Although Pakistan and its nuclear-armed rival India each have more than enough nuclear firepower to deter a nuclear attack by the other, Pakistani leaders consider the proposed FMCT a ‘clear and present’ danger because it would prevent Pakistan from matching India’s fissile stockpile and production potential. Pakistan insists that other nations agree to discuss limits on existing fissile material stocks before talks can begin.

    However, India has entered into ‘no legal bindings’ regarding its nuclear activities and has not even signed the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT), and is ‘free to expand and trade’ its nuclear programme. The option– to begin open-ended talks involving only Pakistan with facilities capable of producing fissile material for weapons—seems highly unjustifiable and partial.

    None of these options is easy or simple. States that are truly serious about reducing the nuclear threat now must provide the leadership needed to build a more effective fissile material control system. Though in a post ‘South Asian conflict resolution’ phase, Pakistan may possibly agree on a proposal of envisaging a bilateral India- Pakistan initial focus to increase transparency and confidence regarding fissile production and fissile stocks and begin technical work via IAEA.

    From the above discussion, it would be fair to conclude that either the global concerns are due to unrealistic fears of what can happen in Pakistan, or due to a deliberate campaign. Whatever the rationale, these concerns have generated suspicion that such a campaign is part of a plan to try to destabilize Pakistan and to try to neutralize Pakistan’s strategic assets and nuclear ‘deterrent capability’. While the notion of South Asian strategic stability is organically related to Pakistan full-spectrum nuclear deterrence,  the US administration’s attempt to curb Pakistan nuclear capability is tantamount to unjustly dealing with Pakistan. The US’s proposal of ‘nuclear civil deal’ must be positively entailed by considering Pakistan’s ‘security imperatives and its ideological expediencies’ .

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    Russia’s military action in Syria

    October 14th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar Afzal.

     

    Russia's military action in Syria:western skepticism vis-a-vis emerging risks, advantages and Obama's restraint strategy

    Much is being commented in both print and electronic global media about Russia’s military action in Syria. The western skeptics intrinsically doubt Putin’s initiative with no fair intention of Moscow’s intervention in Syria. The critics of the action feel alarmed by Russia’s intervention since they possibly envisage the resurgence of a la bipolarity phenomenon or proxy wars ushered in an era of the Cold War period in the Middle east . They think that Russia may ploy with the Syrian problem or the Middle east crisis management, in order to gain its realist agenda.

    As for Russia, the current aggressive notion in Syria, seems an exigent and justifiable measure in that it is based on terminating the IS and the Daesh networks. Because of the expanding waves of Islamic radicalism in the Middle east, Russians feel highly apprehensive.Amid these western negative propositions,there seems a new shift accompanied by the exigency in the international system, promising a ‘collective role’ against the rising challenge of global terrorism.Initially the Russian policy in Syria, seems a mixture of opposites, albeit subsequently it may pave the way for playing an instrumental role in combating the centrifugal forces in the region.

    On 30 September 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin requested permission from Federation Council, the upper house of the Russia parliament, to deploy the country’s military in Syria. On the same day, Federation Council approved the use of Russian military in Syria to fight terrorist groups, the Islamic State in particular. On 1 October, the Russian Defence Ministry stated it had deployed over 50 planes (including also Su-34) and helicopters to Syria: “The air group was deployed on very short notice. It was possible because we had most of the materiel and ammunition ready at our depot in Tartus. We only had to move our aircraft and deliver some extra equipment.”

    Moscow’s  launched airstrikes against Syria’s rebels have already been called Russia’s boldest military intervention outside the former Soviet Union since Afghanistan in the 1980s. Like that decade-long entanglement, Russia’s entry into the Syrian conflict — in which as viewed by the western thinkers,  Putin appears to be taking aim at ISIL’s rival rebel factions more than ISIL itself, in order to bolster the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — carries significant strategic risks. As Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, put it: ‘Russia has gotten itself into the tar pit.’

    From Putin’s point of view, the greatest threat is the spread of Islamic radicalism on the southern borders of the Russian Federation. He’s fought two wars in Chechnya, and there’s a radical Islamist movement in Dagestan. He looks at Syria as a potential source of radicalism in his own country. Moscow claims that at least two thousand Russians of various ethnic groups have been recruited by the Islamic State to Iraq and Syria. They can pose an internal terrorist threat within the Russian Federation itself.

    The Russians also have a strong interest in maintaining access to the naval facility in [the Syrian coastal city of] Tartus, [Russia’s] only warm-water port in the Mediterranean. It represents the perception of the Russian navy projecting power beyond the Russian Federation’s borders. A change of regime in Damascus could jeopardize Russia’s military and naval presence in Syria.

    Early on the Obama administration stated that Assad has to go [because] he is part of the problem, [so he could] not be part of the solution. The administration pointed out that he fired on his own people. In the intervening years, [Assad] has used the air force for really destructive operations against the rebels in the opposition, as well as against a large part of the civilian population.

    Putin has a very clear position on Assad and his regime. He thinks that anything to weaken the regime would open the door for ISIS and other radical groups to take over the country. The Russians want to build an anti-ISIS coalition and leave the Assad regime alone. They are seeking U.S. cooperation.

    But there is a serious ambiguity in Russia’s tactics and policy. Russia joining an international anti-ISIS coalition is one thing, but if its military actions also target rebel groups, it will be seen primarily as bolstering the weakening Assad regime. This can lead to serious political and even military issues with the United States and the anti-ISIS coalition as a whole.

    While geo-strategic factors have led Russian Syria policy, regional and domestic factors have also been a concern. Putin has risked the ire of Assad’s Gulf and Turkish enemies, with repeated UN vetoes in support of Syria and a constant supply of arms, even causing his ambassador to Qatar to be assaulted in Doha in 2012. Yet he has not been insensitive to regional concerns.

    Vitaly Naumkin, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at Moscow State University, notes how Israeli objections deterred Moscow from supplying Syria with S-300 missiles, while bridges have been rebuilt with the Gulf since the 2012 low. Indeed, as one British diplomat recently noted to me, Moscow has earned a grudging respect in the Gulf for consistency, contrasted with the perceived unreliability of the West.

    Moreover, Russia has been careful to maintain its thriving trade with Turkey despite differences over Syria. For nearly four years, Russia’s Syria policy has not been too costly for Moscow. It has successfully prevented what it saw as Western-led regime change in Damascus, while weathering any damage to its regional reputation.

    In 2015, a weaker economy and the domestic threat of IS may limit some of the tools available, but are unlikely to alter Moscow’s overall view and strategy in Syria. In that sense, the latest developments simply mean that Russia is finally joining the other states involved in the Syria crisis: pursuing a costly policy, yet still unwilling to compromise.

    The question is whether a Russian operation against the Islamic State is a good thing or not. Could it be that Russia is doing the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons?

    The initial reactions from Western and Middle Eastern representatives to possible Russian air strikes are all negative. The Saudi foreign minister has warned of an escalation. But for Saudis, any support for Assad, one of Iran’s closest allies, is a bad thing, no matter where it comes from.Russia-Turkey relations may get strained because of Turkish government grave reservations over its air space issue.At the same time , Russia’s ties with the GCC member states may also get estranged on its entry into Syria. But Egypt seems supporting the  cause of the Russian action in Syria.Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukr said, “Russia’s entrance, given its potential and capabilities, is something we see is going to have an effect on limiting terrorism in Syria and eradicating it.”

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has also cautioned against a Russian combat mission, fearing an escalation. But the American (and Western) position remains built around the demand that Assad must leave office. Only that this is not going to happen .Russia will not abandon its old ally, Syrian opposition forces are too weak to defeat him, and his voluntary departure from power is extremely unlikely.

    In reality, therefore, the options in Syria are all bad. In cases like that, preventing the worst is better than hoping for the best. Perhaps the negative side effects of a Russian intervention in Syria—namely, the stabilization of Assad in power and the increased role of Russia in the region—are acceptable when assessed against the potential takeover of the country’s capital and other large swaths of territory by the Islamic State.Yes,the right thing Russia could be doing via this possibly a wrong intervention is to weaken and defeat the IS, Daesh and Al-Qaeda networks in the region.

    Some American hawks think that with the launch of airstrikes in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated a proxy war with the U.S., putting those nation’s powerful militaries in support of opposing sides of the multipolar conflict. And it’s a huge gamble for Moscow, experts say. “This is really quite difficult for them. It’s logistically complex. The Russians don’t have much in the way of long-range power projection capability,” said Mark Galeotti, a Russian security expert at New York University.

    Thierry Meyssan,the French journalist in Syria reports the possible deployment of MiG-31s to Syria.  The problem with this is that the MiG-31 is a pure interceptor designed to protect a huge volume of Russian airspace from a US Air Force attack involving low flying cruise missiles and strategic bombers.

    As a counter-insurgency weapon the MiG-31 is simply useless.  True, the six MiG-31s rumored to be sent to Syria would provide a formidable deterrent against any US, NATO, Turkish or Israeli aircraft entering the Syrian air space, but this is also why I would expect these countries to protest such a delivery with utmost outrage and determination rather than ‘more or less’ coordinate it or ‘remain silent’.  It would be much more logical to send SU-24s and SU-25s to Syria if the goal is to support Syrian army operations against Daesh.  But these rumors do not mention these aircraft.

    Moscow’s military campaign in Syria is relying on supply lines that require air corridors through both Iranian and Iraqi air space. The only alternatives are ‘naval supply lines’ running from Crimea, requiring a passage of up to 10 days round-trip. How long that can be sustained is unclear.

    That and other questions about Russian military capabilities and objectives are taking center stage as Putin shows a relentless willingness to use military force in a heavy-handed foreign policy aimed at restoring his nation’s stature as a world power. In that quest, he has raised the specter of ‘resurgent Russian military might’ — from Ukraine to the Baltics, from Syria to the broader Middle East. No, the primary foreign policy objection with Putin’s actions in Syria is about optics, because it makes Russia look ‘proactive’; and while the United States look ‘reactive’.

    The optics on Syria look disastrous. But frustration at the status quo is not a good enough reason to pursue a riskier, more interventionist policy. There has to be persuasive evidence that this administration could successfully execute such a policy. And one can see zero evidence for that. If Russian military uses.

    Nonetheless a neutral and reasonable mind finds no warranted western justification for brewing apprehension regarding Russia’s military action in Syria subject to the enlightenment of the fact: for decades, the Russians seem to have been pursuing a strategy of keeping enemies at a distance by using its openness to the oceans to project its naval(and latterly air and nuclear) power to the rim of every other continent, and to cultivate friendships and alliances with countries on the further side of America’s oceanic glacis. It reasonably appears that Putin would not attempt at expanding its war zone beyond Syria.

    The problem about this western ‘skepticism and the feelings of  discomfiture’ regarding Russia’s Syrian role stems from the fact that the western thinkers view Russia’s Syrian action through the ‘Ukrainian picturesque’.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said  that Russia was ready to coordinate its strikes against the Islamic State with the U.S.

    US Defence Secretary Ash Carter also said that the U.S. would keep the door open for cooperation with Russia if Moscow chose to change course in Syria, and warned that if a policy change is not forthcoming that “this will have consequences for Russia itself, and I suspect in the coming days Russia will suffer casualties in Syria.”

    In a briefing at NATO headquarters, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute expressed concern that Russia’s role in the Syrian conflict might intensify — a claim that officials in Moscow have continuously downplayed.

    Lute said that Russia had deployed its most advanced weapons platforms to the Syrian airbase in Latakia, a move the ambassador remarked was ‘quite impressive’ given the speed with which the force was deployed.

    By all sane realistic calculations, Putin’s Syria policy seems a ‘multitasking display’ of Moscow’s initiative of driving peace via military muscling and diplomatic understanding with both Iran and Iraq in Syria, its demonstration of military might, its tactic to deepen Russian role in the future politics of the Middle east, and most significantly its quest for making new allies and its lasting desire of gaining a ‘global strategic clout’.

    As one can be assured that Moscow seems determined to play an increasingly decisive role in the Middle East and Europe, to the detriment of the destabilizing politic and expansionist of the Zionist elites and their counterparts Atlanticists. The fate of Russia is well mapped out; as to that of Western Europe, if it appears closed, however, could well be opened in case of a major crisis on real political and societal upheaval.

    Objectively seen, the ongoing Russian military action in Syria may cause a great damage to the IS and Daesh forces in the region, thereby providing a force of unity to the coalition forces against these terrorist organisations. Yet there is rich possibility that the negatively-propelled western criticism against the Russian initiative may politically Jeopardize the cause of Russian action in Syria.

    The thinking in Brussels that Europe needs good relations with Russia seems highly pragmatic and realistic. This is the time of collective show of unity- semblance against Daesh and IS.

    The  October 10th  terrorist attack– in Ankara, Turkey- causing many casualties –is highly indicative of the fact that the threat of terrorism has reached from Syria, Iraq to Turkey.Therefore, both the US and Nato must also morally support and think constructively about Russia’s Syrian action.

    Obama’s policy of ‘strategic restraint’, regrading both the Syrian crisis and the Russian involvement into the Syrian affairs is rightly based on ‘healthy pragmatism’.

    The Obama administration appears to have absorbed the lesson that the great powers that endure are those that learn to adapt. The administration at least speaks of rebalancing American power and purpose in the world through a range of efforts including: restoring U.S. economic health, political legitimacy and human capital; revitalizing America’s civilian power institutions, especially its diplomatic and development organs, to catalyze others into action; applying non-military means and whole-of-government approaches to end or prevent security threats and solve emerging global challenges; exercising strategic restraint to avoid getting stuck in unwinnable insurgencies and averting unnecessary and dangerous military competition; and building the capacity of partners so that they may better support local, regional, or global security and stability.

    The Obama administration is moving forward on all these avenues, with diplomatic engagement becoming the centerpiece of its foreign policy approach . This is what the crux of the philosophy of ‘military restraint’ working behind Obama’s Syria Policy.

    The Syrian crisis offers a crucial test for both the leaderships in Washington and Moscow to adopt such policies that may deescalate the tension.Defeating and failing the IS and the Daesh terrorists in the region, must be the unified objective of the US and Russia. As for the international community,nothing  may seem more significantly satisfactory than the seemingly ‘ Nato -Russia joint venture against ‘international terrorism’.

    Put positively yet dismaying to the neoliberals’ thinking, with Russia’s entry into the Syrian stalemate, an opportunity arises creating a new ‘synthesis of collaboration’ that may involve replacing the new world order,an order based on the strategy of ‘global rapprochements and partnerships’ – characterizing a Moscow-Washington ‘resolve of reconstructing the international relations’.

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    US needs to reorient Pakistan policy to counter its South Asian challenges

    October 8th, 2015

    Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.

     

    US needs to reorient Pakistan policy to counter its South Asian challenges

    Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will visit the United States of America on state tour, in the month of October .It is the right occasion that by utilizing this opportunity both the US and Pakistan should redraw the lines of  durable engagement with each other. The purpose of this article is to reveal the growing imperatives of a long term-strategic partnership between Washington and Islamabad beyond the present status of cosmetic relationship.

    Bracketing Pakistan within the fixture of ‘US’s Af-Pak policy narrative’ but not keeping it within the ‘broad based strategic spectrum of America’s South Asia policy’, the US policy thinkers or managers seem to have been committing a big mistake. This US’s policy notion to keep exclusively India in its South Asian policy reference, gives the impression that Washington is just rhetorically interested in keeping its ties with Islamabad without genuinely seeking a  ‘Pak-US strategic partnership’.

    Many in Pakistan do share the opinion that It has been a US policy of ‘using Pakistan at many occasions and subsequently giving it a nonchalance gesture or disassociating it’. This version of argument can be verified by seeing the dejavu through the Cold War period, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Afghan War, the US’s training of the then called Mujhaideen (now the Taliban) under the CIA banner and sponsorship, and most significantly the US-Pak scenario since the very inception of the 9/11 era, ushered in the war on terrorism.

    A majority of the Pakistani community also registers a feeling that it has been because of the ‘policy paradox’ of the United states that Pakistan is facing the worst crises in its history while fighting against the US-waged war on terrorism as they think that the US administration, by waging the war on terrorism on the pretext of securing America, has made the security of Pakistan more vulnerable via ‘ blowing the winds or sowing the seeds of Jehadi extremism/elements in Pakistan’. They hold the argument: had the US authorities not trained the Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, there would have been no genesis of the ‘cult of Talibanization’ in Pakistan.Yes,truly the ongoing phenomenon of Talibanzation must be seen as a logical backlash of the ‘Mujahideen ideological legacy’.

    Since Obama’s visit to India,the US Congress has been arguing against treating Pakistan as a strategic partner until the country agrees to sever its alleged ties with ‘terrorist outfits’.

    In a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel said the US should pursue a different approach with the Pakistani government, the BBC reported.

    The letter said the government of Pakistan has taken some steps to dismantle the infrastructure of al Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), but has not done enough to combat other ‘designated foreign terrorist groups’ such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Muhammad. This selective approach appears to stem from a misguided Indian belief that some terrorist groups serve Pakistan’s foreign policy goals in India and Afghanistan. Therefore, this partial and jaundiced approach needs to be changed by not believing the Indian version of the story,India is itself engaged in expanding the ‘octopus of terrorism’ in Pakistan via Indian-sponsored proxies evidence of which has been positively submitted by the Government of Pakistan to the United Nations.

    This US framed strategy– at the time when Pakistan is hemmed in by manifold challenges from within and from outside; Washington’s policy of lobbying with New Delhi–by no means seems ‘pragmatic and  justifiable’ towards Pakistan. It is in this backdrop, US must reorient its policy from Af-Pak to South Asian perspectives, in order to meet its brewing South Asian challenges.

    The strategy of ‘containment’ against China has been coupled with a distinct diplomatic “tilt” toward India. With New Delhi serving as Washington’s main strategic and counterterror partner in the region, US seeks a long term economic involvement with India. President Obama and Prime Minister Modi have announced (in Jan-2015) their intention to increase U.S-India trade five-fold, to $500 billion. For their part, India’s recently-released foreign trade policy lays out a vision to double exports of goods and services to $900 billion by 2020.

    But the U.S. government has consistently failed to see South Asia for what it is: a region with a shared environment, a shared cultural system, and its own strategic logic. Ignoring it or parceling it out conceptually and organizationally might have been an adequate response in the Cold War era, but its rise in importance demands a rethink of both American strategy and how the U.S. government is organized to deal with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

    This region, including the Indian Ocean, is too important now to be left to segmented and uncoordinated policy-making. To correct this, and to take advantage of new opportunities in South Asia, the U.S. must revise the obsolete civilian and military framework with which it approaches the region.

    It took forty-five years to create a freestanding South Asia bureau—and even then only at Congressional prompting, and it was subsequently relegated to further insignificance by the addition of Central Asia to its portfolio.

    Currently:

    – In the NSC: The South Asia director does not handle Afghanistan-Pakistan, which is in the hands of Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, and whatever cooperation there is between the operational directors for India and Pakistan is informal and not via common reporting channels.

    – In the State Department: “SRAP” commands all things Af-Pak, leaving India and the rest of South Asia to an assistant secretary, who, while an expert, does not make policy for his entire region.

    – In the Department of Defense: There are different Deputy Assistant Secretaries for India (DASD South and Southeast Asia) and Pakistan (DASD Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia)

    – In the Combat Commands: CENTCOM deals with Pakistan, and PACOM with India the Indian Ocean is divided between them and Africa command, and perhaps other entities. There is haphazard coordination between these giant commands. They are rivals for resources and policy turf, and the cooperation between them “at a higher level” that was envisioned by the team that drew the “cut line” along the India-Pakistan border never materialized.

    The result is that the South Asia policy is characterized by a lack of strategic thinking, coordination, and integration: No one wants to fail, but embassies and commands tend to adopt the view of the people with whom they work, which leads to a persistent bias that can only be corrected at the secondary/analytical levels in Washington D.C. There is remarkably little coordination or long-range regional strategizing.

    – On the Civilian Side: The State Department and other agencies can no longer afford to see South Asia as a stepchild of their interests in the Near East and other regions. Pakistan, India and Afghanistan should be part of one executive bureau across the U.S. government. There should not be a special Afghanistan-Pakistan section at State or the NSC. In this case reducing bureaucracy is a good idea.

    – Military and Defense Reorganization: There is an urgent need to correct a framework that was not even viable during the Cold War. It makes no sense to look at India from Hawaii (PACOM) and at Pakistan from Florida (CENTCOM). Pakistan and India need to be put under the same commander in chief of a South Asia Command (SACOM), this would help improve strategic thinking about South Asia enormously.

    Keeping in view the exigencies and imperatives of the above mentioned scenario and giving the impetus to the changing South Asian picturesque, Washington needs to adopt its new policy- orientations towards Islamabad based on the following recommendations:

    -The US diplomacy should keep a rebalancing strategy towards Pakistan vis-a-vis India

    -US must try to extend its defence -cum-security cooperation with Pakistan -US must seek new venues of economic investment in Pakistan

    -US must extend its cooperation for providing Pakistan the ‘nuclear civil energy deal– with no caveats or preconditions that can compromise Pakistan security doctrine’– in the manner the US has dealt with India in 2005

    -US must also share the energy crisis in Pakistan by building new energy projects -US must try to establish good public diplomacy with the Pakistani community at home and abroad

    -US must try to doctor the sick confidence of the people of Pakistan regarding the US policies by adopting a bipartisan approach towards Pakistan

    These recommendations must be synchronized with Washington ‘s initiative of  taking some important steps.

    First, the United States should reconsider its plans for a full troop ‘withdrawal’ from neighbouring Afghanistan. A smaller US military footprint that can be supplied without dependence on Pakistan’s overland routes offers the only way to maintain serious US counterterror operations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, especially if relations with Pakistan begin to falter. Moreover, although a continued US commitment to Afghanistan’s security cannot guarantee success, a hasty departure – more than any other factor under US control – undoubtedly encourages the region’s adversaries and spoilers, especially within Pakistan.

    Second, in the spirit of cooperating in areas where US and Pakistani interests overlap while avoiding unnecessary provocation, the Obama administration should revise one of its signature strategic initiatives: the so-called ‘rebalance’ to Asia. Pakistanis, currently excluded from all US statements about the rebalance, view the strategy with suspicion. They tend to interpret it as Washington’s plan to ’tilt toward India, contain China, and abandon Pakistan’.

    To address these concerns, the Obama administration should include Pakistan in the rebalance, at least in the context of US efforts to promote Asia’s regional economic integration. Not only would this reduce some anxiety in Islamabad, but linking Pakistan with the fast-growing economies to its east offers the only realistic means to grow Pakistan’s own economy, create opportunities for its enormous youth population, and encourage peaceful relations with its neighbours.

    Third, even as US diplomats seek ways to keep relations with Pakistan on an even keel, US military planners will need to invest in technologies, platforms, and basing arrangements that enable counterterror and other missions in Pakistan over the long run. Washington needs an answer, for instance, to the question of how it plans to strike Pakistan-based terrorists if drones are denied airspace, or if an increasingly weak or hostile Pakistani government cedes greater territory to groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS in its vast urban centres,as has been rightly pointed out by Gen Raheel Sharif that Pakistan and region’s greater challenge is to counter the Daesh terrorists .

    Addressing a meeting at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and House of Commons in London, General Raheel Sharif said the operation Zarb-e-Azb s success had discernible effect and it will continue pursuing sleeper cells of terrorists across the country.

    He stressed that our environment and context needs to be understood that we want to finish terrorists and their nurseries.
    The Army Chief said we expect from the international community to play its part for the regional peace.

    He said, while we are fighting various terrorist groups, no new entities can be allowed to emerge. He said terrorism is a global issue and warrants global response.

    These sorts of US policies would help both sides avoid a near-term crisis. At the same time, they would prop the door open for greater and more consequential cooperation with Pakistan in the  event that leaders in Islamabad begin governing in ways that ‘warrant expanded US attention and support’.

    Not applying or fostering the ‘doctrine of isolation’ but a policy of multilateral cooperation and ‘integration’, should be the US new strategy towards Pakistan. For the last 68 years, Pakistan has been the US regional partner. And what Pakistan has rendered a ‘remarkable service’ for the US during the last six decades remains no secret story. At the critical junctures,Islamabad has not left the US unattended.Therefore, time of test is now for Washington  to rebound back with true spirit of bilateralism towards Pakistan. And yet this test or that ‘success’ would still leave an extraordinarily difficult set of challenges in the lap of the next American president, and the laps of all who follow, until the distant day that the United States and Pakistan come to share a broader set of overlapping interests and a common perspective on how to pursue them.

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    Russia’s indignation over Nato’s ‘eastward expansion’ and the geopolitical roots of the Ukraine conflict

    September 23rd, 2015

    By Syed Qamar.

    The geopolitical roots of the present crisis in Ukraine are deeply connected with Nato’s eastward expansion. Since the very inception of Nato’s eastward expansion project, fostered by the US and its European allies, the Russian governments in Moscow have been viewing the expansion as West’s aggressive design against Russia, threatening the geographical or the  geopolitical boundaries of Russia. The Russian policy makers also blame that the West , by expanding the Transatlantic Alliance, has orchestrated a volte face against what was promised , decided or understood– at the eve of the German unification, after the fall of curtain,  the end of the Cold War in 1989– between the then superpowers or the Cold War rivals- the US and the USSR.

    And yet not surprisingly,it has been because of a prescience- lacking western political and military initiative of Nato’s eastward enlargement, that a new Cold War started to brew between the West and Russia.

    NATO,  ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization’ is presently an intergovernmental military alliance of 28 Western nations. Member states in this alliance agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. In short, it means that any military aggression against one member state constitutes an immediate declaration of war against the entire NATO. This alliance was formed in 1949 in order to counter any possible threat from the then mighty Soviet Union.

    When the Soviet Union neared collapse in 1989, NATO struck a deal with former President Mikhail Gorbachev. In exchange for allowing a peaceful reunification of Germany, President Mikhail Gorbachev was rumored to have been promised that NATO would not expand ‘one inch to the east’.

    With the advantage of hindsight, it is obvious that the West has not kept its end of the bargain.  NATO has steadily expanded eastward over the past decades, with three large expansions( that took plane in 1999,2004,2009) since the German reunification. As of the last expansion in 2009, NATO encompasses most of Eastern Europe, with countries such as Poland, Czech Republic and the Baltic now being members.

    Washington viewed NATO’s expansion into the former Warsaw Pact region as a means of advancing its strategic interests, taking advantage of the liquidation of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the opening up of whole new areas to ‘capitalism’.

    NATO’s eastward expansion has been a source of tension between Western Europe and Washington since it began.

    In 2003, faced with European opposition to the US war against Iraq, one of the war’s chief architects, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, dismissed Germany and France as ‘old Europe’ and insisted that the ‘center of gravity’ was shifting eastward, where former eastern bloc countries were closely aligned with US policy. With the European Union, and Germany in particular, emerging as the preeminent economic power in the region, the US has sought to advance its own interests by asserting its military power and dominance over the NATO alliance, into which these former eastern bloc countries were recruited.

    Some leading Western politicians were under the impression that the Kremlin leader and his foreign minister were ignoring reality and, as  James Baker,the former US secretary of state said, were ‘in denial’ about the demise of the Soviet Union as a major power.

    On the other hand, the Baltic countries were still part of the Soviet Union, and NATO membership seemed light years away. And in some parts of Eastern Europe, peace-oriented dissidents were now in power, men like then-Czech President Vaclav Havel who, if he had had his way, would not only have dissolved the Warsaw Pact, but NATO along with it.

    No Eastern European government was striving to join NATO in that early phase, and the Western alliance had absolutely no interest in taking on new members. It was too expensive, an unnecessary provocation of Moscow and, if worse came to worst, did the Western governments truly expect French, Italian or German soldiers to risk their lives for Poland and Hungary?

    Then, in 1991, came the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the war in Bosnia, with its hundred thousand dead, raised fears of a Balkanization of Eastern Europe. And in the United States President Bill Clinton, following his inauguration in 1993, was searching for a new mission for the Western alliance. Suddenly everyone wanted to join NATO, and soon NATO wanted to accept everyone.

    The dispute over history was about to begin.

    When the NATO enlargement debate started in earnest around 1993, due to mounting pressure from countries in Central and Eastern Europe, it did so with considerable controversy. Some academic observers in particular opposed admitting new members into NATO, as this would inevitably antagonise Russia and risk undermining the positive achievements since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, ever since the beginning of NATO’s post-Cold War enlargement process, the prime concern of the West was how to reconcile this process with Russian interests. Hence, NATO sought early on to create a cooperative environment that was conducive for enlargement while at the same time building special relations with Russia.

    In 1994 the ‘Partnership for Peace’ programme established military cooperation with virtually all countries in the Euro-Atlantic area. The need to avoid antagonising Russia was also evident in the way NATO enlargement took place in the military realm. As early as 1996, Allies declared that in the current circumstances they had “no intention, no plan, and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members”. These statements were incorporated into the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, together with similar references regarding substantial combat forces and infrastructure. The NATO-Russia Founding Act established the ‘Permanent Joint Council’ as a dedicated framework for consultation and cooperation.In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were welcomed into the alliance.

    In 2002, as Allies were preparing the next major round of NATO enlargement, the NATO-Russia Council was established, giving the relationship more focus and structure. These steps were in line with other attempts by the international community to grant Russia its rightful place: Russia was admitted to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the G7 and the World Trade Organisation.

    This ‘soft’ military approach to the enlargement process was supposed to signal to Russia that the goal of NATO enlargement was not Russia’s military ‘encirclement’, but the integration of Central and Eastern Europe into an Atlantic security space. In other words, the method was the message.

    On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m.,Hans-Dietrich Genscher,the German foreign minister spoke with Eduard Shevardnadze,the Russian foreign minister. According to the German record of the conversation, which was only recently declassified, Genscher said: “We are aware that NATO membership for a unified Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.” And because the conversion revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: “As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.”

    Shevardnadze replied that he believed “everything the minister (Genscher) said.”

    “The Warsaw Pact still existed at the beginning of 1990,” Gorbachev said, “Merely the notion that NATO might expand to include the countries in this alliance sounded completely absurd at the time.”

    In May 2008, the EU concurred, thus knowingly crossing Russia’s ‘red line’. By August of that year, there was war between Georgia and Russia. Obama failed to reset relations with Russia and the US continued to pursue its policy of pulling Ukraine from the Russian orbit and integrating it into the West.

    Contrary to the verbal promise to Gorbachev, NATO expanded to the east.

    James Bissett is a former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. He wrote in the Ottawa Citizen , “The current crisis in Ukraine threatens global security and at worst has the potential for nuclear catastrophe. At best, it signals a continuation of the Cold War. Sadly, the crisis is completely unnecessary and the responsibility lies entirely in the hands of the United States-led NATO powers. The almost virulent propaganda onslaught blaming Russia for the instability and violence in Ukraine simply ignores reality and the facts.”

    Stephen Cohen, emeritus professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University says that simply blaming Vladimir Putin and Russia for the present stand-off in relations means “no negotiation” and that no negotiation leads to war. He toldDemocracy Now , “The false statement [Obama] made, and the premise on which American policy is being made, is that Putin attacked Ukraine and began this whole mess. Whatever you think about what the outcome should be, that is just factually untrue. All of this began when the United States and Europe asked Ukraine back last November to make a decision between Russia and the European Union.”

    Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State under Clinton, has strongly criticized NATO expansion. “Russia’s resentment toward the United States and the crisis that erupted in March 2014 with Russia’s occupation of Crimea were not unrelated to the Clinton administration’s insistence in the 1990s that NATO be expanded to Russia’s borders….It seemed like virtually everyone I knew from the world of academe, journalism, and foreign policy think-tanks was against enlargement’’.

    George Kennan termed NATO enlargement a “strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions”. “[E]xpanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era,” he wrote.

    “Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

    Russians note the double standard comparing Kosovo and Crimea. Kosovo, backed by NATO, seceded from Serbia in 2008 without any referendum and was recognized immediately by the United Nations. But when a large proportion of Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and re-join Russia, the UN strongly condemned Russia’s so-called aggression. Subsequent, reliable polls of Crimeans show a high rate of approval of absorption into Russia.

    “Any political game concerning NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine is filled with the most serious, most profound geopolitical consequences for all of Europe,” Russia’s permanent representative to NATO, Alexander Grushko, told Life News television channel.

    Understandably, Russia has felt increasingly threatened and boxed-in by NATO’s eastward trajectory. Currently, Ukraine is the last buffer between Russia and NATO and is therefore of vital importance to Moscow. If the Ukraine where to officially join the NATO alliance, it would be horrifying nightmare for the Kremlin. Firstly, it means that NATO would be in Moscow’s backyard. Russia would effectively be completely boxed in by NATO, which would effectively destroy the last shred of Russia’s strategic military influence in Eastern Europe. Secondly, Russia sees such a scenario as a threat to its very existence, as it would allow NATO to place military personnel and build strategic bases right across the border.

    With this in mind, Russia is willing to go through great lengths to ensure that Ukraine does not become a member of the NATO alliance. With the ousting of the Pro-Russia Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych this year, Russia realized that, if they would not do anything, it would only be a matter of time before Ukraine becomes a NATO member. This, partly explains why Putin is so committed to retaining his influence in Ukraine- Russia’s geoeconomic, geopolitical, and geostrategic hub.

    The geometry of this conflict  or the cause of the Russian reservations over the eastward expansion,can further be understood by viewing the geopolitical fact that people in the west with their maritime view of the world, perceive Russia’s neighbours as being formely the Soviet-dominated countries of eastern Europe, immobile secondary powers in Central Asia, an ambivalent communist China.

    But this is not how the world looks from Moscow. To the east and over the north pole, the hostile USA itself is Russia ‘s contiguous neighbor. To the south-east of their periphery the men of Moscow see beyond a nuclear-armed China a US-oriented Japan. To the south they see a theatre of historical collusion between European and Russian influence, and a NATO member, Turkey. In the West, they see as their neighbor Russia’s historic foe and invader, Germany. To them, Eastern Europe has been a defensive ‘glacis against a hostile West’.

    To maintain a glacis in front of fortress Russia, and to bring border areas under Russian control  has been the natural policy of the Kremlin on ‘geo political grounds’.

    For the West, it is long past the point where it can argue that NATO expansion is no threat to Russia.

    In the past decade—as NATO has been enlarged by adding Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia,Romania, Latvia,Lithuania,Estonia,Croatia and Albania, and has discussed admitting more Eastern European countries, including Georgia and Ukraine—Putin has repeatedly used the fear of encirclement to whip up nationalist passions inside Russia. Indeed, recent events bring to mind Warren Christopher’s 1994 warning that “swift expansion of NATO eastward could make a neo-imperialist Russia a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

    Recently, a seasoned political thinker and US former secretary of state Henry Kissinger accused the West of failing to recognize the historical context in which the fallout occurred between Moscow and Kiev.

    “The relationship between Ukraine and Russia will always have a special character in the Russian mind. It can never be limited to a relationship of two traditional sovereign states, not from the Russian point of view, maybe not even from Ukraine’s. So, what happens in Ukraine cannot be put into a simple formula of applying principles that worked in Western Europe.”

    From the Russian point of view, the other important reason for Russia’s commitment towards retaining influence in Ukraine is of ‘geopolitical nature’.

    Ukraine’s security can only be guaranteed by the ‘cooperation of the West and Russia’. Accomplishing this will be difficult, but necessary. In geopolitics, as in the world of finance, the solution to a crisis so deep and so long in the making cannot be easy. As for Russia, the eastward expansion,a lese majeste, has had transformed the basic concept of Nato’s ‘partnership for peace’ insofar as the enlargement towards east has largely compromised Russia’s geopolitical and geostrategic clout. And yet for the west , the eastward expansion, as viewed extrinsically, it may be a ‘cordon sanitaire’; yet seen intrinsically the expansion project seems to have been nothing but  a western ‘trojan horse’ stationed at the eastern shelf of Europe-the ‘New Europe’.

    West’s big problem to this point has been its proclivity to ‘substitute’ the reading of the threats to Russians’ national security. West presumed NATO expansion could be no threat to Russia because it knew that was not a threat to Russia. West presumed that Russia would perceive NATO expansion as it did, not as the Poles or the Baltic States did. Russia, however, viewed NATO expansion exactly as the Poles did, as a bulwark against them.

    Given the fundamentally conflicting perceptions over NATO expansion, a prudent policy would have used EU expansion to obtain the benefits for the new democratic states, without causing the Russians to feel threatened.

    Nonetheless,giving a pragmatic thought to Henry Kissinger’s concept of the New World Order-hemmed in by two big challenges, ‘legitimacy and balance of power’ system in the world, it becomes glaringly clear that Nato’s eastward expansion has disturbed the ‘status quo’ of  ‘balance of power’ between the West and Russia.

    To deter the security challenges posed to Russia by the west, the Putin’s administration has orchestrated a new security  doctrine. It reflects Russia’s views on the changing geo-political order. It perceives key military risks as emanating primarily from the ‘West’ and dwells on measures to counter them. The document’s underlying tone suggests that Moscow expects this confrontation to intensify in the near future.

    The new US National Security Strategy, which Russians believe is virulently anti-Kremlin, would have further strengthened this perception. Therefore, one is likely to see a renewed purpose in Russia attempting to build ties with countries that follow an ‘independent’ foreign policy. But at the same time, the doctrine stands out for its comparatively defensive posture by identifying military action only as the last resort. It also leaves the door open for joint missile defence development and collaboration with EU and NATO on European security – but on equal terms.

    But the Russian proposal of a joint missile defence system has been rejected by both the EU and the US.To counter the Russian aggression in Europe, Nato’s  Response Force(NRF) or the First German-Netherlands Corps has been revitalized and geared up with a new ‘spearhead rapid reaction force’, Very High Readiness Joint Task Force(VJTF).

    The Ukraine crisis,which seems to have been more complex because of the ongoing US’s agenda of breaking Russia via ‘corporate politics’ and centrifugal designs, offers no military solution to the conflict.It only offers to have a political or diplomatic solution,a truth or reality that Angela Merkel of Germany has truly realised.  Mr Kissinger is right when he suggests that ‘not breaking, but integrating Russia’ ,must be the strategy of the West.

    The German-Russian led spirit of ‘diplomatic discourse’ initiated by the Minsk-II agreement( signed in Belarus, Feb-2015), has been positively endorsed by the currently signed agreement in East Ukraine — among the four Foreign ministers: Russia Sergey Lavrov; Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin; Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and France, Laurent Fabius–  giving new steps to appease eastern Ukraine with a commitment to advance the ‘removal of weapons and mines of the separatist regions’.

    The West should pragmatically avoid to sign Nato’s ‘Stoltenberg doctrine’ with Ukraine since the draft psyche of the doctrine reflects that Russia is an aggressor and consequently,in present circumstances, this western initiative will wane the hopes of ‘confidence building measures’ between the West and Russia.

    Some pacifist thinkers argue that to save the present and future generations from the risks and miseries of war, the M.V.  Molotov’s doctrine– of European collective security, once proposed by the former Russian Foreign minister in 1954– must be a given a rethought with new orientations,  by both Angela Merkel and Putin to end the half century old conflict between Europe and Russia. The proponents of this argument say that the Europeans should not forget the historic role that Russian forces rendered in saving the lives of many many Europeans during WWII.

    Yet any western or the Russian path– to strike militarily–will lead to a suicidal end.  Some strategists are of the view that the Ukraine conflict reserves the potential of a nuclear war, which may cause a lasting human catastrophe, as Harvard academic Elaine Scarry writes, “Current scientific research shows that even a smaller nuclear arsenal, if used in a major exchange, will still produce nuclear winter, causing a drop in the average temperature across earth larger than what occurred in the Ice Age 18,000 years ago, reducing rainfall by 45 percent’’.

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    A transatlantic insight into the strategically and tactically growing US-German relations

    September 15th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar.

     

    Transatlanticism has been the cornerstone of the US external relations.Political decisions in Washington often have direct effects on Germany. The transatlantic relationship is the central context for German and European foreign policy. Economically and geopolitically, the U.S.-German alliance has become the linchpin of the trans-Atlantic relationship in the 21stcentury. Despite their disagreements at the time over the Iraq War,Nato’s eastward expansion and U.S. National Security Agency spying, Americans and Germans view each other as reliable allies.

    But Germans are slightly more circumspect than Americans about the alliance.

    Americans are divided over Obama’s handling of ties with Germany: 40% approve of the job he is doing, 36% disapprove. But nearly a quarter (23%) of Americans have no opinion about his stewardship of the relationship, a sign that Germany is not on the radar of many Americans. As might be expected, Democrats (67%) say Obama is doing a good job, while only 16% of Republicans agree, suggesting much of the American public’s lack of faith in Obama’s dealings with Germany may reflect a broader partisan criticism of his overall.

    Nevertheless, a majority of Germans (57%) believe it is more important for Germany to have strong ties with the United States than with Russia. Just 15% prefer strong ties with Russia, and another 21% volunteer that it is best to have an equally close relationship with both. However, East and West Germans differ on ties with the U.S. While 61% of Germans living in the West prefer a strong affiliation with America, just 44% of people living in the East agree. And while 23% of people in the East voice support for strong ties with Russia, only 12% of those in the West agree.

    The geometry of military, economic and political cooperation between Washington and Brussels largely influence the scope of  tactically and strategically growing relations between Berlin and Washington.

    Together, the United States and Germany stand up for democracy in Europe and beyond – and will continue to do so. As one of the world’s most unwavering supporters of human rights and democracy, Germany is at the center of European politics. Germany is not only an economic powerhouse within the European Union; it is also one of America’s largest investment, trade and financial partners. The transatlantic economy accounts for more than half of world trade, and the numbers are even higher when it comes to investment. In terms of innovation, the United States and Germany lead the world. Our two countries have the best research institutions and universities and the most inventive companies.

    The Next Generation strategy project regarding the US-German relations focuses on the objective that the strategic landscape is  changing.Organizations like the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) are starting down this path with a youth exchange program that encourages the participation of Hispanic Americans and Germans of Turkish descent.

    Another foundation of the US-German relationship is exchange programs. For more than half a century, exchange programs between the United States and Germany have helped to strengthen the bilateral relationship. By experiencing each other’s countries and cultures in person, exchange program participants gain new understanding and become ambassadors for the host country and for the transatlantic cause.

    Both US and Germany are working to ensure global economic growth and to build the institutional capacities in developing countries that will have the largest effect in attaining the peace and prosperity that all people desire.

    In the 21st century, trade and investment drive jobs and innovation. Investment is the foundation of dynamic German-American economic ties. The United States has long been the largest foreign investor in Germany. Germany today is the third largest source of new direct investment and owns the fifth largest stock of foreign direct investment in the United States.

    Foreign direct investment between our two markets continues to grow rapidly. Within the last two decades, U.S. direct investment in Germany more than quadrupled and German investment in the U.S. grew sevenfold. At the end of 2009, the aggregate stock of U.S. direct investment in Germany climbed to $117 billion in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, IT, biotech, auto parts and services, and renewable energy. German businesses have invested more than $218 billion in the U.S. market. During the recent recession, foreign direct investment flows into the U.S. from most countries fell; but not German investment – it grew by more than 60% from 2007 to 2009.

    The positive trend continued in 2010 and highlights how deeply intertwined our markets are – and also that the United States is the most important destination for German investment. Today, the United States, Germany and the other leading economies work through the G20 to develop a better set of incentives to promote sustainability and reduce the risk of the re-emergence of large trade and current account imbalances.  We are establishing stronger norms for exchange rate policies to help accommodate changes in the global economy.

    The U.S. and Germany are close partners in promoting innovative approaches to climate change and enhancing energy security. As two of the most open places in the world to do business, the pioneer efforts of the U.S. and Germany in renewable energy technology have a multiplier effect.

    The United States joined the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) – an international organization dedicated to facilitating the rapid development and deployment of renewable energy worldwide – on March 4, 2011. The U.S. looks forward to working closely with the IRENA Innovation Center that has been openen in Bonn in 2011 to jumpstart the development of clean technologies. Engaging with green technology companies in the U.S. and Germany is a particularly effective way to gain momentum for the transition to a low carbon economy.The Transatlantic Climate Bridge (TCB) is a German government initiative to foster cooperation and build industry and government partnerships on climate and energy issues at the local, state and federal levels.

    But Germany’s geographic proximity and economic ties to Russia give Berlin and Washington different stakes in the current and in any future confrontation with Moscow.

    Significantly, the American policymakers seem to have recognized the fact:  that the epicenter of power in Europe has shifted from London to Berlin.  Key to achieving an effective sanctions framework, and to securing Russia’s European neighbors, is a stronger role for Germany in shaping European policy. Indeed, a stronger U.S.-Germany partnership is critical not only to providing an effective counterbalance to Russia’s increasingly belligerent foreign policy but also to defeating malignant terror cells operating in Europe and beyond.

    Americans and Germans disagree, however, about whether the current U.S. and EU posture toward Russia over Ukraine is too tough, not tough enough or about right. Americans want to ratchet up the pressure, while most Germans do not support a tougher stance. Germany and the United States of America are bound together by historical ties of friendship. The two countries share common experiences, values and interests, though controversial issues repeatedly arise in bilateral relations. An important pillar of bilateral relations is the transatlantic security community NATO.

    The end of the Cold War started a new hope for lasting peace in Europe. But the world has been stubborn and uncooperative, and international security challenges persist in nearly every region of the world. European security, largely underwritten by the United States since the inception of NATO, is also changing. Burden sharing within NATO continues to be a contentious issue, and there is worry that the Alliance could fracture as a result of differing threat perceptions regarding Russia.

    Typically, both German and American policy makers share different views regarding Nato’s eastward expansion.For Germans, Nato’s eastward expansion has not been a US ‘initiative par excellence’ and for them,the expansion would have or might have caused some reversal affects on Germany-sponsored doctrine of ‘new ostpolitik’ in Eastern Europe.For Americans, the expansion was strategically significant to ‘contain’ Russia.

    The German strategists pragmatically view to liberate the security governance of the European Union from Nato’s dependency- trajectory.Retrospectively,the German policy makers has had shown their tactical and ideological reservations over Junior Bush’s plan of installing Nato’s defense missile system in Eastern Europe that was subsequently jettisoned by president Obama in 2009.The policy experts from both sides, have mutually and profoundly worked on the subject of the future of Nato’s ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ in Europe vis-a-vis Russia.

    Cooperation between Germany and the U.S. on security policy remains intensive and comprehensive but priorities in this area have repeatedly been subject to change. Today, one of the focuses is combating international terrorism.

    Together with other allies, Germany is assisting in crisis and conflict management worldwide, for instance in Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Middle East, through diplomatic and in some cases military engagement as well as by providing support in building up police forces and development assistance.

    Military relations between Germany and the U.S. are built on a broad foundation, the historical roots of which go back well into the 18th century. Today, German and American troops stand shoulder to shoulder in missions across the globe, making a joint contribution to peace and stability in the world. Military relations between Germany and the U.S. are built on a broad foundation, the historical roots of which go back well into the 18th century President Obama’s decision to award Chancellor Angela Merkel the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that any civilian can receive in the United States, is a testament to the Chancellor’s extraordinary life story.

    The United States and Germany have profoundly different views over where the balance between liberty and security is to be struck, but it matters greatly whether Germany makes this only a question within the bilateral relationship with Washington. Much larger questions are at stake.

    Make no mistake, the aspirations of the American national-security establishment do pose a profound threat to human rights throughout the world. The National Security Agency( NSA), notes the New York Times, is “an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, all the while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on friends as well as foes.”

    In Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, we learn that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence. . . .” The concern vouchsafed in the Fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution—“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”—shows that concern with privacy and with the protected autonomy of the individual were hardly new principles in 1948, but rather an old American (and English) principle making a plea to be considered as central to international law.

    But  it has been unfortunate that the US’s surveillance mission under the National Security Agency( NSA), has compromised the norms set in the US constitution and the international law.Therefore the German reservations over the US’s spying issue carry much moral, legal and ethical leverage.

    Opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been particularly high in Germany, in part due to rising anti-American sentiment linked to revelations of U.S. spying and fears of digital domination by firms like Google.It is presumed that if the ongoing TTIP’s negotiations between Brussels and Washington are positively concluded,it may rightly enrich and widen the economic scope between Berlin and Washington.

    “We are in Europe what Americans are in the world: the unloved leading power,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said to a group of advisers.

    Merkel’s quip neatly sums up a key dynamic shaping the current US-German relationship. For the United States, being the somewhat unloved leading power is nothing new; some even consider it the price of leadership. For Germany, however, the notion of economic leadership was not meant to be synonymous with shaping world events, which underlines the perceived German reluctance to assume the role of ‘leader’ absent a qualifying descriptor before such a weighty title.

    The twentieth century forged iron ties between the US and Germany; the twenty-first century needs to transform them. This starts with developing a more realistic and less nostalgic view of each other by becoming more informed and accepting of the differences that divide the two strategic-cum-tactical partners partners,the US and Germany , instead of assuming that those countries or their people will be united by default.

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    South Asia: Geopolitics, ‘strategic stability-instability’, and the collective conflict management

    September 9th, 2015

    By Syed Qamar.

     

    India is targeting Pakistan’s civilian population along the Working Boundary and the Line of Control.New Delhi’s hostile posture towards Islamabad is much reflective of its policy of offensive  ‘arreire pensee’.In the given atmosphere of hostility,mistrust and belligerence between the two nuclear South Asian states,an alarming and scowling situation for regional peace and security,the purpose of this article is to examine the role played by the dynamics of geopolitics,strategic stability-instability between two countries vis-a-vis the concept of the collective conflict management that the two states, India and Pakistan can positively adopt to mend their fences.

    “If the enemy ever resorts to any misadventure, regardless of its size and scale, it will have to pay an unbearable cost,” Gen Raheel,the Pak army chief said while addressing a special ceremony to celebrate the 50th Defence of Pakistan Day at GHQ in Rawalpindi on Sunday.

    The Pak army chief said Kashmir was an unfinished agenda of Partition and that peace in the region hinges on the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

    “Without resolving Kashmir issue according to aspirations of Kashmiris, peace in region is not possible,” he said.

    In the post Cold War era, new geopolitical dynamics have been reshaping and re-emerging  in the South Asian region.Despite the fact that the security doctrines– led by the burning quest for armament– orchestrated by the establishments in both India and Pakistan– do have an inevitable role in defining the concept of the strategic stability-instability,the Indian government’s inability to foster a meaningful comprehensive negotiation policy regarding the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan,has developed the impression to both the government and the people of Kashmir, that India has had no serious intent of resolving the festering Kashmir issue.

    Ideologically, the hawkish Indian mind set advocates the Utopian thesis: Pakistan cannot win a war against it, Pakistan cannot compare its internal political instability with India’s political stability, Pakistan cannot hope to compete economically with India what is a booming economy well on its way to becoming a global economic power, and Pakistan certainly cannot compare the conservativeness of its society to the open pluralism of India.This euphorically adopted Indian notion is the root cause of growing skepticism and misuderstanding between the two governments.

    Pakistan’s governments both past and present,have been under acute pressure because of the ongoing war against terrorism waged inside Pakistan.Instead of sharing this grave challenge,the Indian side has been exploiting the situation to the best of their vested generally ‘negative interests’.

    The  war against terrorism–Pakistan has been fighting in Fata,north-south Waziristan—is not an easy task yet.Pakistan military forces under the gallant command of Gen Raheel,  are exercising their best ‘professional endowments and strategies’ to win that war- a fact that is admitted globally. Afghanistan has a government and it has fragile institutions. It is dependent on external financial and economic support. It has the Taliban networks who have been engineering the terrorist operations inside both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    So, yes,both Kashmir and Afghanistan ‘truly matter ’ as for the regional stability is concerned.  So does a stable sovereign Pakistan. South Asians know these realities and it is in their interest to work together to confront the regional challenges . Pakistan has also learnt through hard experience that allies can sometimes be ‘hidden enemies’ and that is why Pakistan’s focusing  on ‘governance and internal stability’ and it is now orchestrating all its institutions to achieve these goals.

    In Balochistan,the present civil and military governments are trying to counterpoise the insurgency move and better results are being cultivated and seen.The illiteracy and poverty-stricken Balochistan province is getting much attention under the auspices of General Raheel. The Aggrieved Baloch are now ready to talk with the federal government by restoring their prompt faith in the ‘federation of Pakistan’.

    The image of India in the region, has been largely tarnished because of its border disputes with its neighbours.  The Indian involved designs in supporting the non-state actors via proxy trajectories in both Afghanistan and Baluchistan are now no hidden facts. The Indian design to create a mess in Sindh via its Raw’s network is a well-known gambit that India has had been playing against Pakistan. Pakistan claims it has strong evidence that India has been using Afghanistan as a ‘strategic backyard’ to encircle Pakistan from both its eastern and western borders and to use Afghanistan as a hub aimed to destabilize Pakistan by fueling the role of non-state actors in Baluchistan and to destabilize its tribal areas.  Further more,China-US-Pakistan are duly engaged in propelling the ‘AfPak peace process’ via systematic negotiations with  the Afghan Taliban.

    India has no real say in the search for an Afghan settlement; it has been reduced to a marginal player in Central Asia; and the China-Pakistan relationship is assuming global significance. India is and has been trying to reinvent ‘new corridors’ of partnership with the Gulf states,thereby also trying to improve its ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    And yet Pakistan and India have always been dependent on bigger powers as far as their security and survival are concerned. The Indian solicitation for the US’s mediation in the Kargil crisis between India and Pakistan,  is no more  a shrouded mystery.The third world countries seek survival and are constantly in competition. Therefore, internal and external factors both act as ‘catalysts’ in influencing the behaviour and decisions of these states.

    At the systematic level, Pakistan and India have faced conflict of interests at the geo-strategic(geo-economic) and geo-political levels. Whether it was the conflict of disputed territories between the two or of being a part of different alliances, these two countries have always found themselves to be on the opposite sides. Pakistan and India have historically suffered from a ‘security dilemma’ regarding each other’s ‘military strength’. That can be related to the alliance-formation of these states in time of need due to their dependence on developed countries. For example, Pakistan allied with the U.S. during and after the Cold War; while India, despite declaring itself as part of the Non-Aligned Movement, was being assisted by the former Soviet Union, especially in the military sector.But presently these dynamics have been and are being changed.

    Domestic politics have deeply impacted relations between the two countries. Domestically, the ultra-right and the hard-line factions in both countries have maintained a constant pressure on the governments of both sides and on occasion have forced the countries to behave or adopt a certain policy which the governments in ordinary circumstances might not have taken. This appeasement to the right wing has been witnessed numerous times and has more times than not resulted in stagnation of the peace and dialogue process. In recent times, the 2002-2003 stand-off between Pakistan and India and the Mumbai attacks of 2008 bear witness to this  fact.And unfortunately, the most most driving threat posed to ‘secularism’ comes under the Modi’s government, where its future is waning day by day.

    On the regional level, the relations between Pakistan and India directly have an impact on ‘regional security and stability’; this relationship is considered to be one of the most important ones in the world. The world views the relationship between the two countries of a highly volatile nature, mainly because of the traumatic ideological and political history shared by the two. This shared history between Pakistan and India comes with a baggage. The legacy of ‘unjust partition’ resulted in territorial disputes and constant state of insecurity and tension on borders. The conflicts between the two countries have weighed down on the future of the two countries.

    Both states’ inability to solve these conflicts has raised much concern, not only within these two countries but in the world as well. One of the most important points of concern between the two countries is Kashmir. Kashmir has been and still is a constant source of tension and a potential recipe of disaster between the two countries. That is why many have termed it as a ‘nuclear flashpoint’; just waiting to go off.

    Robert Kaplan in his article ‘Rearranging the Sub-continent’ (published in Forbes on Dec 24,2014), rightly argues:”In fact in the case of India and Pakistan the partition remains incomplete because India refuses to resolve Kashmir and other border issues so the only change possible is a completion of the process of partition in the interest of regional harmony and peace”.

    As for Kashmir, India seeks to engage Pakistan to legitimize the territorial status quo by finding some means to ‘formalize the LOC’ as the ‘legal international border’. Thus for India, the status quo is a basis for a solution to the ongoing dispute over the disposition of Kashmir.  Whereas Pakistan seeks to engage India to find some means of altering, in various ways, the status quo and publicly rejects the possibility of transforming the LOC into the international border as a viable means of dispute resolution. For Pakistan the status quo is the problem, not the solution to the problem.

    These diametrically ‘opposed objectives’ are typically reflected in the ways in which both states engage each other. For example, Pakistan historically has sought to place the Kashmir issue at the top of the bilateral agenda.

    For India, the Simla agreement supplanted the UN resolutions as a point of ‘reference’ for the resolution of Kashmir. For Pakistan, however, the Simla agreement became just ‘another means’ of resolving the Kashmir dispute, it did not replace the UN resolutions.

    Durable peace in Afghanistan can never be achieved without a resolution to the Kashmir dispute. World powers and the United Nations will have to seek an amicable solution to the Kashmir conflict through legal and moral mechanisms instead of political rhetoric and commercial interests. Several solutions to the problems facing Afghanistan pass through the valleys of Kashmir where the Indian armed forces indulge in serious human rights violations.

    The international community can continue to encourage and facilitate an uninterrupted peace dialogue between India and Pakistan. India has always been scornful of foreign mediation between them and prefers bilateral engagement, where it can bring its greater weight to bear. This continues despite the fact that the US involvement during the Kargil crisis went entirely in India’s favour.

    Since the genesis of the two countries, there has been a huge third party interference. At times, this interference was for the sake of maintaining peace and stability in the region, while at the others it was not. Whereas some of the observers in both countries have referred to this third party interference as meddling, while others see it as a way of moving the dialogue process forward.

    These international actors like the United States have time and again helped propel the dialogue process forward and repeatedly urged the two countries to reach a point of detente in their relations. It should be noted that over the last decade or so, this third party interference seems to have been decreased considerably. Much of it has to do with the two countries’ resolve to solve the underlying disputes and also because of the changing geo-strategic conditions of not only the region but the world at large.

    While changing dynamics in India and U.S. partnership regarding strategic balancing after civil nuclear deal (in 2008), Pakistan and China both have also strengthened their 60-years old strategic relationship. As a result, the strategic quadrangle – the U.S.-India-China-Pakistan is getting eminent as a new dynamic of the South Asian balance-of-power politics-also endorsed by the growing nexus or’ trilateralism’ between China, Pakistan and Russia.

    The Russia-Pakistan-China ‘triumvirate’ is a seemingly reality and has a far greater convergence of security objectives in Asia than a similar Russia-China-India grouping (also subsumed within BRICS). The ongoing work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC),paves the way  towards the goal of forming a new ‘geo-strategic tapestry’in the region where ‘geoeconomics’ gets a lead over geopolitics. While in its attempt to counterbalance this strategy, India is trying to get its ‘strategic access’  to Iran’s Chabahar port.

    Moreover, it should be noted that India has always considered itself to be the ‘sole regional power’  of South Asia, whereas Pakistan has always refused to accept India’s hegemony.

    The defiance of Pakistan and its refusal to yield to India’s hegemony in the region and its demand to be treated on the same level globally has never been accepted by the Indian establishment and policy-makers. Hence, that has led to ‘regional destabilisation and tensions’.

    These tensions not only put a stop to the on-going peace process between the two countries but also held off any advances that might have accrued if the talks had continued. It would not be wrong to assume, perhaps, that the reason that Pakistan and India have not been able to achieve a breakthrough on a single core issue has been because of the internal domestic pressures.

    ‘Ideological polarization’ can be considered as one of the factors which have impacted, rather severely, relations of the two countries by giving a negation to the realization of the fact that Pakistan and India are neighbouring countries whose future– is ‘entwined and dependent’ upon each other– but unfortunately seems ‘locked in animosities’.

    As for the core doctrine of ‘strategic stability’, the ongoing military developments in India, that include the introduction of ‘ABM(Anti Ballistic Missile) systems’ in the region and developing a second strike capability in the form of submarine launched ballistic missiles, could once again lead to ‘deterrence instability’. The ABM system in the South Asian regional environment does not offer protection from the incoming missiles due to short ‘flight trajectories’. Instead, this could possibly lead to ‘false sense of security’ by the possessor thus providing incentive to launch pre-emptive or disarming strikes.

    Notwithstanding the lesser value of ABM systems, the introduction of this capability would add compulsion on Pakistan to take possible remedial measures to re-restore ‘strategic stability’ in the region. One such option could be to simply increase the number of its ‘delivery systems’ rendering ABM systems ineffective. Likewise, India‟s acquisition of submarine launched ballistic missile capability could also adversely affect the strategic stability in the region. While in the long run, Pakistan may have to develop its own version of submarine capability to restore strategic stability, however, in the short term it could consider increasing the ranges of its missile systems that could offer greater reach within India, while offering more options for ‘dispersion and concealment’ against possible disarming strikes by India.

    Unlike the emerging global trends, ‘nuclear deterrence’ continues to remain relevant and active in South Asia due to the existence of long outstanding disputes that had been a source of several wars and military crises between the two South Asian nuclear neighbours. Introduction of nuclear weapons may have brought stability to the region by preventing an ‘all out war’, but at the same time, it could be a source of instability at the lower end of the conflict, that may have led India to contemplate new war fighting doctrines such as the ‘Cold Start and Proactive Operations’.

    In response, Pakistan has developed conventional and nuclear responses to deter all forms of aggression; however, if new technologies like the ABM systems and submarine launched ballistic missiles are introduced into the region, it would further destabilize the region as ‘stability-instability’ paradox could turn into ‘instability-instability’paradox, i.e. instability at full spectrum of the ‘conflict’.

    Pakistan’s strategic weaponry is believed to be deployed in de-mated condition routinely in peacetime. Whether that posture will apply to the newer tactical systems is unclear. Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, unlike India’s, is centered fundamentally on first use, and it is oriented primarily towards defeating India’s conventional superiority in the event of conflict. Although Pakistan’s nuclear forces are intended, strictly speaking, for deterrence and not war fighting, Islamabad’s emerging tactical capabilities could inadvertently push Pakistan towards the latter. if India decides to retaliate against Pakistan through the large scale use of military force for punitive purposes.

    Any significant employment of Indian military force obviously carries the risk of a Pakistani nuclear response, which is why Indian leaders have shied away from exercising major conventional war options that require especially the large scale use of land forces. Should India contemplate major military operations, however, it is likely that the United States would intervene, but mainly through energetic diplomacy as it did in 2001-02 and again in 2008.

    Pakistan recently test-fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, Shaheen III– capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, the missile is estimated to have a maximum range of 2750 km. It is believed that Shaheen III is a major step towards strengthening Pakistan’s deterrence capability” vis-à-vis India.

    In the India-Pakistan strategic context a ‘balance of terror’ through ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ (MAD) came into operation. This transformation in effect negated the advantage of conventional weapons numerical superiority acquired by India over Pakistan. Consequently, an effective and credible situation of nuclear deterrence was established. The implication of this reality was that resort to war or use of force no longer remained an option for either side.

    Yet the fact of the matter is that in case of ‘advertently/inadvertently waged- nuclear war’ between the two sides, the application of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD)seems irrefutable.The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center currently reported that Pakistan, out of its fear of India, was far outpacing its rival neighbour in the development of ‘nuclear warheads’ and may be building 20 nuclear warheads annually.And in this scenario, it is reasonably assumed that within the next 10-15 years, Pakistan may become the ‘third largest nuclear state’ ,after USA and Russia.

    Apparently, Modi’s establishment boasts the ‘aggressive posture’ towards Pakistan and seeking a strategic space to start a limited war with Pakistan, yet realistically, Indian military capacity to conduct a major attack against Pakistan is debatable.

    Any raid by Indian forces inside Pakistan would risk a nuclear war in South Asia as Pakistan nuclear policies are crafted exclusively to ‘counter any aggression’ from one neighboring state, unlike India who has to balance its conventional and nuclear capabilities for two nuclear neighbors. Over the past, in the aftermath of the Mumbai Attack, India’s inclination to launch a quick strike against Pakistan was called off viewing the “poor state of armory, both ammunition and artillery”.

    Yet again in 2012, the Indian Army Chief painted a ‘grim and indeed alarming’ picture of their operational capabilities in his letter to PM. The critical shortfall in ammunition reserves repetitively revealed in 2014 that India does not have enough ammunition to launch a full-blown war for even 20 days. Lately, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India reported that country continues to face the severe ammunition shortage which is adversely impacting the operational readiness.

    In the wake of all these realities, India’s belligerent statements serve more the purpose of verbal strokes than a ‘valid schema’. The stern response by Pakistani establishment to each statement substantiates the lack or true Indian conventional and nuclear threats to deter Pakistan. Nonetheless, by avoiding such futile confrontational statements in the future, India should recognize the danger of nuclear ‘escalation in a limited conflict between the two nuclear armed states, which will take the lives of  millions and millions people and make the South Asian land ‘barren’ for years to come.

    In the present state of deadlock between India and Pakistan, the imperative of engagement–  that the two governments apparently seem to avoid yet intrinsically seem to register–involves the real test of Narendra Modi’s ‘statesmanship’ or a test of Indian premier’s ‘savoir faire’, how to break the ice and take the initiative of applying the notion of ‘collective conflict management'(a post Cold War period-based  peace concept, objectively practiced in international relations) via a sustainable ‘South Asian conflict resolution’ by engaging Pakistan on all bilateral issues, most significantly including Kashmir.As Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj put it during her recent press conference: “In diplomacy, there’s never a full stop, only commas or semi-colons.”

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    Expanding the UNSC, why the logic of maintaining the ‘Status quo’, is viably advocable

    August 31st, 2015

     

    By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.

     

    Much has been negotiated and is being debated about reforming the United Nations Security Council. And many reforms proposals have been tabled and discussed by different quarters inside the UN. But forming a unified consensus on the reforms proposals, yet remains a gigantic challenge for the reformists.

    Council reform is a process for the long haul, not a quick fix. It must be based on ideas for a more democratic global future, not outworn concepts from the past like permanency and great power oligarchies. In the midst of the present diplomatic furor, it is time to take a more calm and long-term view. What kind of world do we want and how can we patiently find the way there?

    In a new gallop, recently organised by The Debate Organisation indicates that 56% voters say no to the expansion- strategy while 44% voters say yes to it. In sum, there appears to be genuine problems with further expanding the UNSC.

    A multitude of proposals have been put forward since 1993, when the General Assembly authorized an ‘Open Ended Working Group’ to study expansion of the Security Council. Yet the debate regarding its expansion has remianed much active since the Kofi Annan proposal of its expansion in 2005. They are mainly the three groups that have have been projecting the reforms proposals: the group of four( G4); the uniting for consensus (UFC); and the third group of accountability, coherence and transparency (ACT), urging for the working methods of reforms in the UN’s system and its allied institutions.

    Recent claims for greater representation and power in the Security Council are based on geographical/regional representation and monetary contribution to the UN. Although these claims for greater participation and representation in the Security Council seem to have a logical justification, they do not necessarily guarantee the improvement of an already flawed system.

    There are broadly ‘divergent positions’ on various key issues, which mainly include 1) key criterion for UNSC expansion, 2) size and structure of the reformed council, 3) possible processes towards reform and modalities, 4) question of categories of membership and their clout, 5) issue of veto power and so forth and so on.

    It has also been suggested that the UNSC, ‘a transnational body with supranational powers’, may be expanded without vesting the veto power in the new members. Thus the Council will have three types of members: permanent members with veto power, permanent members without veto power, and non-permanent member. However, if the UNSC is to be expanded, then it is better to have more non-permanent, elected members Enlargement of permanent membership will give rise to questions as to its basis. Should it be contribution to UN budget? Should it be contribution to UN peace keeping operations? Should the new permanent members be picked on the basis of their economic and commercial strength — present or potential — or because of their pre-eminent regional position?

    While all these considerations are important, what is more important is that no permanent member (with or without veto) can be admitted to the club without the consent of P-5 or H-5, ‘the hereditary five’, each of which will consider its own interest while giving a green signal to the admission. Hence, in the end the interest of the P-5, rather than the ‘collective will’ of the international community, will define the enlargement of the UNSC. Au contraire, expansion of non-permanent membership will be more in accord with principle of democracy as well as give a larger number of countries the opportunity to serve on the UNSC. Changes to the ‘constitutional charter'(a heritage of Winston Churchill’s political legacy) would require the support of two thirds of the General Assembly and ratification from two-thirds of all member states including, crucially, the P-5.

    The G4 group (Brazil, India, Germany and Japan) has specified that the contribution a state makes to peacekeeping operations should play a determining role in P5 membership. Yet if economic power is to be a determinant of membership, financial imperatives could drive the organisational agenda—meaning richer nations would benefit. It would also sideline states whose balance sheets are unhealthy but whose need for help with security is desperate and it would put them at the mercy of more powerful, wealthy nations.

    Nominally though, the major advantage of the G4 candidates’ case rests on its trajectory towards a fairer representation of regional interests. Adding its proposal of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan would bring the totals on the UNSC to Asia three, Europe (including Russia) four, South America one and North America one.

    But the veto– so strategically and centripetally guarded by the P5– may not be granted to ‘new members’. So although permanent seats for them would be an improvement on the present state of affairs—the longer term would enhance the collective institutional memory—it does not appear to be materially different from having a seat on the current ‘rotating Security Council membership’.The pro P-5 thinkers view the concept of veto acts as the ‘safety valve’ to keep balance of power in the UNSC.

    Since the establishment of the Security Council, permanent members have used their power of ‘veto’ in accordance with their national interests. The use of that power rapidly distanced from the initial reason for which it was included in the UN Charter’s articles-27,108-109, namely preventing the UN from taking direct action against any of its principal founding members. One can argue that after the end of the Cold War and because of the elimination of ideological divisions among the superpowers, the veto has been cast more sparingly. However, a look at the use of veto in the last two decades reveals that although being cast less often, the veto is still exercised for self-interest or the interests of allies. Over the last 20 years out of a total of 24 vetos, 15 have been used by the USA to protect Israel.

    Moreover, on many occasions permanent members managed to keep an issue off the Council agenda or soften the language of a resolution without actually casting a veto by mere threats of using that power via’ pocket veto’.Some critics view that the P-5 is a club within the club since three members of the Security Council,USA,UK and France are the members of Nato-mostly influencing the decisions taken by the UNSC.

    However, it is not merely the P5’s veto- idee fixe that obstructs reform. Efforts at expansion are further complicated by regional rivalries. Japan and Germany quickly realised that in order to gain broad support for their bids they would need to back other permanent seats in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Yet each call for a new permanent seat incites a chain of rivalries that makes reform even less attainable.

    The argument regarding giving Germany a permanent seat seems hardly a step forward in an endeavour for a more ‘equitable distribution’ of seats in the Council. The UK and France hold a ‘veto power’ over any amendments and aren’t willing to give up their seats, so adding Germany would mean that the EU would have three permanent seats in the Council. That wouldn’t be a ‘fair geographical distribution’.

    Neither Germany or Japan is as ‘deserving’ as has been suggested; although both are rich they have been struggling economically for a decade while other countries (including the UK and France) have continued to grow. Compared to other nations, both Germany and Japan are military insignificant. This is important as the Permanent 5’s status currently reflects great power realities – they are the states(en block), most able to project power abroad and so have the ability to implement or block UN’s security decisions.

    As for India’s bid, there are sufficient indications to prove that India’s reputation– regarding its human rights record as the ‘occupying power in the Indian held Kashmir’ and its devious role in maintaining ‘regional peace’ and most significantly India’s indifference to signing the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of the Nuclear Weapon(NPT) –creates a big question mark in the eye of the international community.

    There has also been a pleading urge regarding the much needed representation from the developing world. Yet there is a lack of consensus among developing countries themselves on who should get permanent seats. Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa all claim their right to an African one. The most desirous candidate for an Asian seat – India – is logically opposed by the Muslim world who wants a permanent seat for themselves. Spanish speaking neighbours oppose Brazil’s candidacy because it speaks Portuguese. The Small Five Group (S5)– consisting of Costa Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland, presented a draft resolution(in May-2011) for ‘Improving the Working Methods of the Security Council– whose efforts crumbled in 2012 under the joint pressure exercised by the permanent five (P-5) members of the UN Security Council.

    ACT –a group of 22 states formed in 2013, arguing for the reforms regarding the working methods of the UNSC — views that expansion is not the ‘right way’ to increase transparency, as the number of informal consultations of smaller groups (such as permanent members or only industrialised permanent members) would probably rise.

    Reforms to enhance transparency and improve working methods are already taking place. As the bulk of operations approved by the Security Council is financed by industrialised nations, they should have the main role in deciding on action; the developing countries already have a voice in the Council but should not have a veto power over decisions that they do not finance. Simultaneously, the African Group started to demand ‘two permanent seats’ for themselves, on the basis of historical injustices and the fact that a large part of the Council’s agenda is concentrated on the continent. Those two seats would be permanent African seats that rotate between African countries chosen by the African group

    On the otherhand, the Western Europe and Other Group (WEOG) now accounts for three of the five permanent members (France, the United Kingdom, and the US). That leaves only one permanent position for the Eastern European Group (Russia), one for the Asia-Pacific Group (China), and none for Africa or Latin America.

    UK and France have also supported G-4, but interestingly are conflicting to extension of veto to ‘new permanent members’. Pakistan, Italy and other like-minded countries of the Uniting for Consensus support a comprehensive and democratic reform corresponding to the interests of all the states and regional groups, but cannot support an idea of any addition of new individual permanent member not because India is aspiring but on principles of its legitimacy and difficulties of consensus.

    As for Pakistan, being a leading and proactive member of the UfC, Islamabad has always been enduring positive efforts towards forging a coherent, sound and credible strategy to reform UNSC against Indian desires to coerce and exploit it.Pakistan has played an instrumental role in UN’s peacekeeping missions abroad.Pakistan is reasonably of the view that the agenda of the UNSC’s reform must be based on the motive of a ‘viable betterment’.It rightly and gravely espouses the view that there must be no haste in concluding the ‘agenda of change’.

    In a recent move of the ‘Intergovernmental Negotiations’ initiated by the General Assembly’s president Sam Kutesa, the P-5 block of the UNSC has shown its ‘intrinsic reservations’ about the negotiations on expanding the Council (a setback to India’s bid). The US, along with Russia and China, has opposed negotiations to reform the powerful UN body, refusing to contribute to a text that will form the basis for the long-drawn reform process.

    US is ‘open in principle’ to a ‘modest’ expansion of both permanent and non-permanent members but the condition that “any consideration of an expansion of permanent members must take into account the ability and willingness of countries to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the United Nations”.

    Russia, which has apparently supported India’s candidacy as permanent member, said in its letter to Mr Kutesa that the “prerogatives of the current Permanent Members of the Security Council, including the use of the veto, should remain intact under any variant of the Council reform”.

    China said UNSC reform is ‘multifaceted’, covering not only issues such as enlarging the Council’s membership and strengthening representation, but also increasing efficiency and improving working methods. It added that Member States are still seriously divided on the Security Council reform and no general agreement has been reached on any solution so far. India has received support from France and the UK, the two remaining permanent members of Security Council. The two nations along with Kazakhstan and Romania have specifically named in the negotiating text Brazil, Germany, India, Japan and an African representation to be included among the permanent members of a reformed UNSC.

    Member states often argue that added members will make the Council ‘more representative.’ But this is only marginally the case. Adding members adds more states, with their own state interests. Such members only weakly ‘represent’ their region or state-type (poor, island, small, etc.), since there is no system of accountability. Instead, they act primarily on the basis of their own national interest. If they are large regional hegemons, they may seek to increase ‘their hegemony’ at the expense of other regional states. Five or six new permanent members would exclude many more matters.

    Indeed, eleven permanents might exclude virtually all topics from the Council’s agenda, making effective Council action all but impossible. The aspirants claim that they are ready to agree not to use their veto for fifteen years and presumably this would reduce the problem of blockage – but only partially. Since their votes would be important in Council deal-making, they could still exercise powerful blocking action and impose their national interests in a manner not altogether different from their veto-wielding colleagues. Changes in the UN Charter, like all constitutional changes, must command a very high degree of support in the international community.

    Proponents of any Charter-based reform plan will face great difficulty in winning the necessary two-thirds vote in the General Assembly and still more difficulty obtaining ratifications from two-thirds of all member states, including the mandatory endorsement of the five permanent members. Assent and ratification by the P-5 will be the most difficult (and unlikely) of all.

    The ‘head-on’ tactics of reform (shown by the two prominent members of the G4, Germany and India ) in the form of ‘expansion’ will prove fruitless if consensus is not reached with a motive- ‘faude mieux’ .Even if consensus is reached, proposals need to focus more on attainable solutions that are acceptable to the P-5 club, since Article 108 of the United Nations Charter stipulates any amendment to the charter must have their concurrent vote. The pragmatists are of the view that pragmatically only a ‘quasi-permanent status of membership’, without a veto power, can only be a logical beginning to ‘negotiate’ the reform process. They also argue that the yardstick of the ‘geographical representation’ in the UNSC, must be given a justifiable consideration,thereby giving the quasi membership status for those deserving countries that belong to ‘African ,Australian and the Latin American regions’.

    Despite reformists’ logical urge for reshaping the UNSC in accordance with today’s geopolitical realities, many reform critics and analysts view that any future move of changing the ‘present configuration’ of the UNSC (disturbing the present balance of power) may pave the way for brewing a ‘vertical and horizontal polarization’ in the UN’s body politic.

    While current ‘chances for Security Council reform are unrealistic keeping in view the ongoing rift between UNSC’s adopted doctrine of ‘realist utilitarianism’ backed by its ‘supranationalist’ or transnationalist forces and the GA’s advocated approach of ‘democratic egalitarianism’ espoused by its ‘intergovernmental dynamics’ ’, member states can only exert ‘moral pressure’ to reform the old institutions in a new world. Essentially, the idea of Security Council reform is nice in principle, but in practice, it does not work.Therefore the argument for maintaining the ‘status quo’, gets a more ‘viable conviction’ than the idea of change.

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    Modi’s Hedonist Agenda and the Kashmir Issue

    August 23rd, 2015

     

     

    By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.

     

    Modi's Hedonist Agenda and the Kashmir Issue

     

    The issue of Kashmir remains a decisive factor in deciding the fate of relations between the two nuclear states, India and Pakistan. But unfortunately, realization of this truth, is being deliberately avoided by Narendra Modi’s government in India.

    In response to Pakistan’s stand of meeting India and holding the NSA-level talks without any pre-conditions,  the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a press conference in New Delhi, told that India is ready to start the scheduled talks with Pakistan with the assurance that Pakistan would not meet the leaders of the Kashmir Hurriyat Conference and that the talks would be fixed around the issue of terrorism.But this message– from India to the Pakistani government– is much enough to understand or conclude that there is no likelihood of resumption of talks scheduled on August 23-24 between the two sides.

    True to its past practice of running away from talks with Pakistan on flimsy grounds, New Delhi on Friday conveyed to Pakistan through its Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh that the national security adviser-level talks stand cancelled over the intended meeting of National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz with the Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi on August 23.There is no second opinion in this perception that the present state of deadlock,has been deliberately created by Narendra Modi’s government.

    “This is the second time that India has chosen to go back on a decision mutually agreed upon between the two prime ministers, to engage in a comprehensive dialogue, by coming up with frivolous pretexts,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman said after the Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh informed the government. On Friday, India said it would not be appropriate for Aziz to meet with separatist leaders from the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

    Pakistan’s high commissioner to New Delhi had invited the leaders for a meeting with Aziz. “Pakistani leadership has always interacted with the Kashmir/Hurriyat leadership, during their visits to India. Pakistan sees no reason to depart from this established past practice. The Hurriyat leaders are true representatives of the Kashmiri people of the Indian-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan regards them as ‘genuine stakeholders’ in the efforts to find a lasting solution of the Kashmir dispute,” spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said in the statement.

    ” The US has described the cancellation of talks as “unfortunate”. A State Department spokesman said it was “important that both sides still continue take steps to improve relations”.

    Pakistan says these men must be consulted before India and Pakistan hold discussions concerning Kashmir. India resists the involvement of groups that have clashed with the Indian establishment for decades, boycotting elections and stoking tensions in the Kashmir Valley. Security officials in New Delhi accuse them of facilitating militancy in the region and colluding with Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Pakistan has said the dispute over Kashmir will figure on the agenda when the countries’ top security officials get together. India says the meetings will focus only on terrorism.

    The Modi government’s policy—of showing its ‘political and diplomatic escapism’ from any ‘official engagement’ that may address the Kashmir issue- an international hot spot of dispute between India and Pakistan—is indicative of the fact that New Delhi yet tries to suppress the cause of Kashmir’s freedom by means of its ‘undemocratic and coercive’ attitude and policy. The Indian ‘blatant violations’ on the Line of Control is also reflective of the Indian policy to provoke Pakistan. During the past two month, more than 100 ceasefire violations along the LoC, have been committed by India.The Modi’s government has been ingraining the element of’ religious extremism’ in its internal politics.The Indian government’s present policy– influenced by the ‘Cold Start Doctrine’ ,without any confusion,seems to– intricate the challenge of the South Asian peace-an inevitable policy measure to be bilaterally taken by the two nuclear neighbours.

    During BJP’s previous term in power, former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Kashmir policy was hailed as an effective approach toward dealing with the problems of the region..

    Vajpayee approached the Kashmir issue from multiple dimensions, seeking to engage both Pakistan as well as with Kashmiri separatists simultaneously. His approach was guided by the three principles:humanism,democracy,and Kashmir’s age old legacy of amity.  Though Modi echoed his government’s commitment to the ‘Vajpayee approach,’ many feel his tactics reflect an extricating of the ‘external dimension’ of the Kashmir issue from the ‘internal’.

    Seen from the policy of new ‘twists and turns’ that New Delhi adopts towards Pakistan, it appears that the Indian mindset under the Modi’s government is to orchestrate a strategy of a ‘limited war’ against Pakistan, without analyzing  the ‘harrowing degree of its magnitude’ that a limited war can be converted into a ‘nuclear war’. But some sane and liberal elements in the Indian National Congress and the Indian media have been resisting this kind of notion.The Modi government’s policy is to deflect or divert the attention of the international community  from the issue of Kashmir via its strategy of trumpeting the issue of Mumbai terrorism;and paradoxically, New Delhi is not yet ready to address the concerns of the Pakistani government regarding RAW’s involvement of making terrorism inside Pakistan.

    Briefing the media, State Department Spokesman John Kirby said, “Certainly, there – we know there continue to be tensions, and our position about that has not changed. These are matters for both India and Pakistan to work out.”

    Kirby said, US has strong bilateral relationships with both Pakistan and India and the United States have, as Secretary Kerry has said himself, have strong interest in seeing peaceful resolution to the tensions there.

    And yet there are some tacit indications that some members of the Indian establishment having been clandestinely thinking on the lines of ‘sharing responsibility’- a proposal once initiated by Asia society, an American think-tank based in New York. This framework suggests that India should give special status to Kashmir, as a step to build trust between the populations of ‘both parts of Kashmir’ (India and Pakistan), as well as to stop external support to the Kashmiri militants. The Line of Control would then be converted into an international boundary between India and Pakistan. Building upon this framework in a rather optimistic fashion, it has proposed a ‘South Asia House’ – a scheme of comprehensive cooperation between the countries of the subcontinent, perhaps leading to a ‘confederation’ that would include Kashmir.

    The society envisages a role for the international community. In particular, the U.S. and Russia could individually or jointly make efforts to bring India and Pakistan closer in resolving the issue. Through seminars, conferences, and by tabling resolutions in the United Nations, the international community can sensitise populations the world over to the need to seek solutions of the problem in Kashmir. Although the Kashmir issue is bilateral, the international salience of the issue can no longer be ignored.

    The Kashmir-American Council, a Washington-based organisation comprising largely of Kashmiri-Americans with pro-Pakistan leanings, has proposed an active U.S. mediation role in Kashmir. It suggests a dialogue among 4 parties: the U.S., Pakistan, India, and the ‘Kashmiri People.’ As a first step, the area must be demilitarised. Indian and Pakistani troops must revert to their respective positions ‘on the borders outside Kashmir.’ A small police force must remain, but only in order to supervise the cease-fire line under UN observers. The proposal also advocates that, given India’s violation of human rights in Kashmir, the U.S. should use its effective veto to stop the inflow of IMF and 17 World Bank consortium funds to India.

    There is no ‘dearth of ideas’ on how to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Based either on analogical reasoning or historical experience of conflict resolution attempts involving other situations, most of these proposals emphasise the need for transforming the dynamics of India-Pakistan conflict from a zero-sum competition over Kashmir to a positive sum situation in which both sides would gain from a settlement of the dispute. Some of these proposals offer a clear template and a road map for this transformation while others only provide broad guidelines.

    Needless to say that none of these ideas can be pursued in earnest without a sustained and institutionalised India Pakistan dialogue process centred on Kashmir and no outcome of this process will yield an enduring peace dividends unless it enjoys the support and the backing of the ‘people of Jammu and Kashmir’-an irrefutable truth that Modi’s government denies to accept.

    India has consistently rebuffed the offers of mediation, whether by the United Nations or any other third party, arguing that solutions must arise bilaterally. And even in a bilateral format, very little progress has been made because of India’s refusal to come to grips with the ‘core’ issue of Kashmir. But enough is enough! The days for India,to colonize Kashmir, are over.The more the Modi’s ‘ultranationalist government’ tries to avoid to talk on the Kashmir issue with Pakistan,the more the government in Islamabad seems ‘affirmed’ on this issue.

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    The Controversial Drone Strikes Pose New Challenges to ‘IL’

    August 17th, 2015

     

     

     

    By Syed Qamar.

     

    The Controversial Drone Strikes Pose New Challenges to 'IL'

     

    The junior Bush administration’s applied fashion– of techno warfare via military/armed drones– has been unquestionably followed  and accelerated by Obama’s administration. For the most part, the U.S. government does not comment on or acknowledge reported drone strikes that take place outside of ‘hot’ battlefields or the zone of active hostilities/combats, and it does not release lists of those targeted or killed. Senior Obama administration officials have offered oblique accounts of the drone strike program, but these have been at an extremely high level of generality, with few factual details or details relating to the administration’s legal analysis.

    Even President Obama’s speech on drones, delivered at the National Defense University on May 23, 2013, did not serve to shed much light on the subject.

    Despite the US military strategists’  ‘indoctrinated justification of precision theory’, the U.S. drone strikes represent a significant challenge to the international rule of law. This is not because recent U.S. drone strikes ‘violate’ international law; ironically, they might be less destabilizing, from a rule-of-law perspective, if they could be easily categorized as blatant instances of rule-breaking. Rather, U.S. drone strikes challenge the international rule of law precisely because they defy straightforward legal ‘categorization’. In fact, drone strikes—or, more accurately, the post-9/11 legal theories underlying such strikes—constitute a serious, sustained, and visible assault on the generally accepted meaning of certain core legal concepts, including ‘self-defense,’ ‘armed attack,’ ‘imminence’, ‘necessity,’ ‘proportionality,’ ‘combatant’, ’civilian’, ‘armed conflict’, and ‘hostilities’.

    Yet  the correct legal categorization of the conflict (keeping in view, the Law of Armed Conflict) with al Qaeda is not obvious. It is plainly not a civil war or other ‘internal’ armed conflict, such as the conflicts to which Additional Protocol II paradigmatically applies. It is also not an ‘international’ armed conflict in the sense of Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions, nor is it a ‘war of national liberation’ in the sense of Additional Protocol I. Nonetheless, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ‘ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld’, it is an armed conflict ‘not of an international character’ to which at least some elements of the LOAC apply. It is assumed, then, that the conflict is best described as a ‘transnational’ one between a ‘nation state’ (the United States) and its allies, and a ‘transnational terrorist group'(al-Qaeda/Daesh/ISIS) and its non-state affiliates.

    International law’s consideration of targeted killings was, not long ago, something of an arcane topic if only because of the sheer rarity of accomplishing the deed. But armed drones take targeted killings from the exception to the weekly (at least) reality. So viewed, armed drones are not just another type of missile delivery system. They are designed to search for and kill individuals, which they do effectively, cheaply, and without significant risk to the attacker. Moreover, armed drones augur an imminent future when technological advances will enable individuals to be killed with remarkable precision virtually anywhere on Earth.

    Ben Emmerson United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter- terrorism,and an expert on international law acknowledges that: “If used in strict compliance with the principles of international humanitarian law, remotely piloted aircraft are capable of reducing the risk of civilian casualties in armed conflict by significantly improving the situational awareness of military commanders.” But, he cautions, there is “no clear international consensus” on the laws controlling the deployment of drone strikes.

    The special rapporteur concludes by urging: “the United States to further clarify its position on the legal and factual issues … to declassify, to the maximum extent possible, information relevant to its lethal extraterritorial counter-terrorism operations; and to release its own data on the level of civilian casualties inflicted through the use of remotely piloted aircraft, together with information on the evaluation methodology used.”

    Literally, without knowing what hit them and entirely without due process. The prospect of flotillas of aerial missile launchers selectively targeting individuals with lethal force—even those who might deserve such fate—poses a big controversy regarding the use of armed force and, accordingly, in international law. Georgetown University professor Gary D. Solis asserts that since the drone operators at the CIA are civilians directly engaged in armed conflict, this makes them ‘unlawful combatants’ and possibly subject to ‘prosecution’.

    The rule -of-law conundrums do not end there. Under international law (customary as well as treaty-based), the use of force in ‘self-defense’ must also be consistent with the principles of ‘necessity and proportionality’. The principle of necessity tracks the ‘just war’ requirement that force should be used only as a last resort, and when measures short of force have proved ineffective; the principle of proportionality relates to the amount and nature of the force used. Given the lack of transparency around U.S. drone strikes, it is impossible to say whether any given strike (or the totality of strikes) satisfies these legal and ethical principles. Are all drone strikes ‘necessary’? Could nonlethal means of combating terrorism—such as efforts to disrupt terrorist financing and communications—be sufficient to prevent future attacks? Might particular terror suspects be captured rather than killed?

    Do drone strikes inspire more terrorists than they kill? Also, to what degree does U.S. drone policy distinguish between terrorist threats of varying gravity? If drone strikes against a dozen targets prevented another attack on the scale of 9/11, few would dispute their appropriateness or legality—but we might judge differently a drone strike against someone unlikely to cause serious harm to the United States. Unfortunately, if U.S. decision-makers generally lack specific knowledge about the nature and timing of future attacks—which the White Paper acknowledges—judgments of ‘necessity and proportionality’ literally become impossible. How can one decide if lethal force is necessary to prevent a possible future attack about which one knows nothing? How can proportionality be determined? Here again, the U.S. legal theory underlying targeted killing makes it impossible to apply key principles-‘necessity and proportionality’ in a meaningful way.As for the international law community,the US operated drone strikes are eminently based on justification of ‘unilateral and selective interpretation’.

    The argument that the U.S. administration has been trying to make is that members of Al Qaeda are known to be plotting to attack the United States so killing them wherever they are is an act of preemptive self-defense. This argument is completely ‘antithetical’ of the law of self-defense. The law of ‘self-defense’ does not permit states to attack before they possess evidence of an armed attack occurring—evidence of plots does not suffice. Moreover, this law does not permit attacks on individuals and small groups lacking state sponsorship even if they are carrying out actual attacks. In the view of much of the international law community, a targeted killing can only be something other than an extrajudicial execution—that is, a murder—if • It takes place in an armed conflict; • The armed conflict is an act of self-defense within the meaning of the UN Charter, and • It is also an armed conflict within the meaning of IHL; and finally, • Even if it is an armed conflict under IHL, the circumstances must not permit application of international human rights law, which would require an attempt to arrest rather than targeting to kill.

    The leading decision on the legality of ‘targeted killing’ is the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision in (2006) Public Committee Against Torture in Israel v. The Government of Israeli, which held that while targeted killing of terrorists may be legal under the law of armed conflict, the discretionary use of force is not unlimited. It is within the judiciary’s purview to address questions as to whether a program of targeted killings satisfies international legal constraints on the use of force. The court’s lady president Beinisch’s concurrence elaborated three important criteria: (1) the information about the target ‘must be well based, strong, and convincing regarding the risk the terrorist poses to human life’; (2) the damage to innocent civilians must not be disproportionate to the military benefit; and (3) ‘targeted killing’ is not to be carried out when it is possible to arrest a terrorist.’

    The concept of signature strikes is not a legal term of art and risks creating confusion by suggesting the possible introduction of a new (legal) notion. The way in which this concept is used – i.e., in distinction to ‘personality’ strikes  – also erroneously implies that targeting under IHL will only be lawful if the identity of the person targeted is known. This requirement is not an element of the principle of distinction and would for the most part not be possible to fulfill in the reality of armed conflict. If targeting on this basis has been or is taking place, it would be contrary to the principle of distinction as the vicinity of a person to a particular area, coupled with his age, cannot make him a military objective.The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has documented 415 strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The organization’s most recent estimates put the total number killed between 2,449 and 3,949. Of those, between 423 and 962 are believed to have been civilians.

    The U.S. use of drones is failing the relevant tests of the lawful use of force. It is failing under Article 51 of the UN’s charter; failing under the principle of necessity and failing under the principle of proportionality. The U.S.’s use of drones in many cases does not meet these criteria. Professor Kenneth Anderson an expert on international humanitarian law correctly concludes: “[A] strategic centerpiece of U.S. counterterrorism policy rests upon legal grounds regarded as deeply illegal…by large and influential parts of the international community”.

    The U.S. State Department recently announced a new policy for exports of military drones (unmanned aerial vehicles).The State Department also included within the new policy four criteria that apply to how exported military drones will be used. They must be:(1) operated “in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law,”(2) used only “when there is a lawful basis for use of force under international law,”(3) not used “to conduct unlawful surveillance or use unlawful force against domestic populations,” and(4) used only by technically and doctrinally trained operators so as “to reduce the risk of unintended injury or damage.”

    While these criteria clearly raise many questions for case-by-case application, they signal a sensitivity to the fact that drones, especially armed drones, are controversial in international law and that there is ‘no firm legal doctrine’ to govern use of these new weapons.

    Indeed, the State Department, recognizing the ambiguity of legal standards, announced that its new policy is part of a broader review which “includes plans to work with other countries to shape international standards” for the use of military drones.

    When one or more powerful states challenge the generally accepted meaning of core legal concepts, other states face a choice. They can accept the ‘new’ interpretations, in which case (if a sufficient number of states will go along with it) international law will quietly change. Alternatively, they can take the opposite tack, directly confronting those states seeking to reinterpret the law and demanding fidelity to previously shared interpretations. This route is risky: if it succeeds, legal stability is restored, but if it fails, legal disputes can escalate into open conflict. Finally, states dismayed by new interpretations of once-fixed legal concepts can take a middle ground, quietly questioning new interpretations of the law while reaffirming their own interpretations. This route reduces the likelihood of conflict, but by enabling disparate legal interpretations to coexist without any obvious means of reconciling them, it can also prolong or increase legal uncertainty.

    The fact of the matter is that Obama administration’s strategy– of launching the drone strikes (without addressing the issue of legality)  in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia—seems to have intrinsically transformed the ‘concepts’ of the doctrines of ‘self defence ,preemption and humanitarian intervention’ as shadowy,controversial and divisive .This poses great threat to the gravity, universality and ‘efficacy’ of international law, particularly with reference to the Law of Armed Conflict(‘jus ad bellum’and’jus in bello’),the International Humanitarian Law(IHL) and the International Human Rights Law(IHRL). This paradox of setting a double standard in ‘theory and practice’, has paved the way for ‘legal apartheid or legal schism on this issue of the use of drone technology’, thereby dividing the world community into the categories of ‘powerful states and those of weak or trying nations’.

    Without or before concluding an ‘international consensus’ regarding the use of drones, the ongoing drone operations– by the CIA and the US State Department’s current move of trying to export the military drones– are by no means prudent and justifiable acts.

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