Political Risk Review

Arab Spring's diversity; Syria's factions; Hungary's discontents; Al Shabaab's fractures

2012-02-04T11:53:00.000-05:00

Michael J. Totten at World Affairs underscores the unique characteristics of countries in turmoil as a result of the Arab Spring:

These nations differed dramatically from each other before the region-wide upheaval began, so it logically follows that the revolutions themselves, not to mention their conclusions and aftermaths, should also differ dramatically. The Arab Spring isn’t one thing, as the post-Communist revolutions in 1989 more or less were, with local variations in only a couple of places like Romania and Yugoslavia. Here each country and revolution is its own Romania or Yugoslavia, differing significantly from each of the others .... But it would be rash to suggest that a Middle East dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood is the only possible outcome. It is only one possible outcome. The Muslim Brotherhood has controlled a grand total of zero Arab countries in its entire existence, and it was founded in 1928. Yet even this grimmest of grim viewpoints is more reality-based than that of the starry-eyed in the West who liken the current turmoil to Europe’s anti-Communist revolutions in 1989. Cairo is not Warsaw, and Tripoli is not Prague.

Andrew Spath at the Foreign Policy Research Institute examines the varied agendas fueling Syria's uprising:

Much of the commentary on the situation in Syria – as was the case in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, and elsewhere – pits the government and its supporters against “the opposition.” United in the desire to see traditional Ba‘ath Party dictatorship give way to some form of pluralism in “the Syria of tomorrow,” opposition groups otherwise diverge on crucial issues pertaining to both the short-term strategies of resistance and long-term political and ideological commitments. Identifying and discussing “the opposition” in monolithic terms reifies the notion that there is a single voice to which opposition positions and statements can be attributed, ignoring clear and consequential differences among its diffuse parts.

Keno Verseck at Spiegel Online notes that those attracted to Hungary's right-wing Jobbik party can defy stereotype:

Many political scientists initially viewed Jobbik as a party of "losers." But new studies provide a different picture, finding that the typical Jobbik voter is male, under 35, rarely unemployed and the holder of either a trade or secondary-school degree. Early last week, the British think tank Demos and the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute released a study based on the results of a survey of over 2,200 Facebook fans of the Jobbik party. The survey found that the typical respondent has "very low levels of trust in all major social and political institutions" and is "more likely to think that violence is justified if it leads to the right outcome." Likewise, the Internet-based service index.hu, Hungary's best-read online news website, summed up the average Jobbik voter as: "Very young, very Hungarian, very ill-tempered."

Bronwyn Bruton and J. Peter Pham at Foreign Affairs say disputes within Somalia's al Shabaab could send some of its members packing -- a potentially dangerous situation for East Africa:

The question then becomes whether al Shabaab's radicals would be able to re-implant themselves among the radicalized and disenfranchised youths in Kenya or the many frustrated opposition movements in East Africa -- for example, Uganda's militant Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Addis Ababa, Kampala, and Nairobi all present attractive targets, but the entire eastern seaboard of Africa, and even Johannesburg, would theoretically be vulnerable to attack. It would be a strange twist of counterterrorist fate: the successful battle against Islamist militants would catalyze al Shabaab's evolution into a regional terrorist organization.

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Syria's options; Cuba's oil curse; Egypt's external risks

2012-01-28T12:50:00.000-05:00

Rami G. Khouri lays out scenarios for Syria at The Daily Star, noting that

The most terrible scenario sees the deterioration in Syria leading the Assad regime to implement the Sampson Option. It would seek to instigate strife and chaos across the region, in order to plunge the Levant into a regional conflagration. This option would be based on the Assads’ assumption that if they cannot rule over a unified Syria, then nobody in the neighborhood should be able to live in peace and security either. Such a scenario would involve attacking or fomenting strife in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, perhaps resulting in the desperate use of chemical or even nuclear weapons.

The possibility that Cuba may have offshore oil resources points to the potential for the "oil curse" spreading, Jaime Daremblum says at PJ Media:

Indeed, Cuba is exactly the type of country that we would expect to suffer from the notorious “oil curse.” Across the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa, oil wealth has enabled thuggish autocrats to reject serious economic reforms, fortify their political control, and effectively bribe their citizens with generous social programs. (Norway is one of the few oil-rich nations to have avoided the curse, for reasons explained by NPR correspondent Alex Blumberg in this September 2011 piece.) Cuba already has a totalitarian government that dominates the economy, squashes dissent, and locks up human-rights activists. An oil windfall would merely make it easier for the regime to maintain its iron grip on political control and delay the introduction of free-market reforms.

Benny Morris at The National Interest says Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood may need to respond to external factors that undermine its plans to focus on internal problems:

Palestinian militants have recently renewed their low-key rocketing of Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which may lead to a new bout of major Israeli-Palestinian violence. A Brotherhood-led Egypt may find it difficult to stay aloof from such a conflict. And above all looms the Iranian nuclear crisis, which may yet lead to an Israeli-Iranian confrontation. At Iran's bidding, that would probably suck in Hezbollah of Lebanon and Hamas of Gaza. In such an event, the newly configured Egypt wouldn’t likely stay on the sidelines.

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Maplecroft's political risk outlook for 2012

2012-01-22T12:05:00.000-05:00

Risk analysis firm Maplecroft identifies the following investment risks in its Political Risk Atlas 2012:

Continuing instability in Arab Spring countries driven by the same risk factors that sparked political unrest among populations during 2011.
Elevated risk of political violence affecting oil and gas companies in the MENA region, including heightened terrorist activity and / or sabotage risks, especially in Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Morocco.
Potential risk of forced regime change in Bangladesh, Belarus, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Iran, Madagascar, Turkmenistan and Viet Nam deriving from a combination of political, social and economic conditions that reflect those seen in the Arab Spring countries.
Reduced long and short-term risk profiles for BRIC and N11 countries, including: Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines, signalling good investment potential.
A rising global trend for resource nationalism in hydrocarbon and mineral rich nations including Venezuela, Guinea, DR Congo, Russia, Bolivia and Nigeria.

Maplecroft says in a statement that:

Of the ten states with the fastest increasing risk trends in Maplecroft’s Dynamic (short-term) Political Risk Index, nine are located in the Arab world, reflecting the political upheaval and unrest taking place in the region. These countries are: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Syria and Tunisia .... investors also need to be aware of other countries with characteristics that indicate a susceptibility to political instability. These include Bangladesh, Belarus, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Iran, Madagascar, Turkmenistan and Viet Nam. This assessment reflects that these countries face a combination of risk factors which echo some risk features found in the Arab Spring countries and may potentially make them vulnerable to forced regime change.

Maplecroft will host a webinar on its Political Risk Atlast 2012 on Feb 29 at 3pm GMT, 10am EST. Professor Alyson Warhurst, Founding CEO of Maplecroft will present the findings, analysis, methodology and outlook for business and investors in growth economies. Register at info@maplecroft.com. Places are limited.

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Today's review: Drug cartels descend on Central America; Australia's liabilities; Greece's entitlement mentality

2012-01-07T00:01:00.002-05:00

Drug cartels are expanding into Central America, which makes Mexico look like a "bastion of political stability" by comparison, Ted Galen Carpenter says at The National Interest:

With the exception of Costa Rica, those countries have been buffeted by decades of turmoil, including violent peasant rebellions, military coups, bloody civil wars and ideologically driven societal upheavals. Mexico’s weaknesses, especially the pervasively corrupt police forces and prison system, as well as the dysfunctional court system, are not only replicated but also greatly magnified in most Central American countries.

Australia's economy could be in store for a bumpy ride, Philip Bowring says at The Wall Street Journal:

It is often assumed that current-account deficits are normal as Australia is a young nation that can put foreign capital to good use. But Australia is not a developing economy anymore. It is an aging developed country. Its accumulated foreign liabilities now total $848 billion, or 60% of GDP, of which $740 billion is net debt. Its bank loans are 40% funded by borrowings of around $300 billion from overseas—not a comfortable position when global interbank markets are so nervous.

Greece is in dire need of self-reflection, Fouad Ajami says at Defining Ideas:

From the day Lord Byron and the Philhellenes flattered the pride of Greece to the present, the country has lived with the sense that it is exempt from the demands of political and economic discipline. It won’t matter how much relief is thrown at the Greeks, for that sense of entitlement will overwhelm all good intentions. The technocrats now go where the politicians had failed, but the anger displayed in the face of the harsh economic realities provides no solace that Greece is done with deadly dreams—and expectations. While the countries of Europe are troubled each in its own way, the Greek predicament is deeper and more acute than the rest.

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Today's review: The U.S.-Iran economic war; mapping supply chain risk from child labour

2012-01-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

Expect the United States and Iran to trade more economic blows, says Yochi Dreazen at The Atlantic:

Hard-hitting U.S. sanctions on Iran's central bank and new Iranian threats to attack U.S. vessels in a vital oil-shipping route underscore a little-noticed aspect of the growing tensions between Washington and Tehran: Armed conflict may not break out anytime soon, but Iran and the U.S. are already fighting a low-level economic war that seems likely to escalate in the months ahead.

A study by Maplecroft finds 76 countries posing extreme child labour complicity risks for companies that operate worldwide this year, up from 68 ‘extreme risk’ countries last year. The risk analysis firm says that its Child Labour Index 2012 evaluates the frequency and severity of reported child labour incidents in 197 countries and that

Worryingly, nearly 40% of all countries have been classified as ‘extreme risk’ in the index, with conflict torn and authoritarian states topping the ranking. Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan are ranked joint first, while DR Congo (5), Zimbabwe (6), Afghanistan (7), Burundi (8), Pakistan (9) and Ethiopia (10) round off the worst performers .... Maplecroft highlights the supply chains of companies as being particularly exposed to the risk of child labour in some of the largest growth economies, including the Philippines (25), India (27), China (36), Viet Nam (37) Indonesia (46) and Brazil (54), all of which are classified as ‘extreme risk.’

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Today's review: China's security and economy in 2012

2012-01-03T23:22:00.000-05:00

Ian Bremmer and David Gordon provide their security and economic risk outlook for China this year at the Eurasia Group:

There is already high risk that Beijing will produce unpleasant foreign policy surprises this year, given rising nationalism in the country, its ongoing political transition, and the leadership’s unwillingness, and perhaps inability, to resolve internal debates about China’s role in the world. Beijing will therefore be more apt to meet provocation with provocation in months to come, using both its naval and its economic power. A harsh Chinese response to an incident at sea involving an American ally would provide a significant test for the Obama administration, which would then face election-year pressures to project toughness, adding to already significant tensions on other issues .... There are signs of overheated growth in China — in urban real estate in Beijing and along the coast, especially. And infrastructure has been overbuilt compared to growth in consumption. But there’s no chance that the government will fail to pull out every stop to prevent a meltdown — or even a serious bump — especially in the middle of a major political transition. The Chinese banking and financial system is a mess, but it’s also a fundamentally closed system. In a closed system, preventing such a crisis becomes a matter of fiscal capacity and political will. There will be no shortage of either in 2012. In short, China has more of what it needs to kick the can down the road than any other country out there, and in a challenging 2012 environment, look for Beijing to use it.

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Today's review: India's urban terror targets; two-decade slump; instability in the Maghreb

2012-01-02T15:13:00.000-05:00

India's Naxalites are looking to take up urban operations, according to Neeta Lal at Asia Sentinel:

India’s Naxalite rebels, for years bottled up in the poverty-stricken middle and eastern regions of the country, have forged a new strategy to infiltrate into India’s premier industrial hubs, intelligence officials say .... Security agencies suggest that the Naxalites, formally known as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) are likely to further expand their turf through what they call a ‘Golden Corridor Committee.” The rebels’ urban unit, they say, is recruiting cadres in different cities of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The underlying message is ominous -- that western India, which was hitherto considered relatively safe from the group’s terror activities -- will now be one of the eight strategic areas for their operations. Already 221 Maoist violence-related deaths have been recorded in Maharashtra between 2008 and November 2011. The state has reported 51 deaths this year, a rise from 45 in 2010.

The global economy may suffer a two-decade slump, according to Matthew Lynn at National Review:

The euro will take several years to restructure, and if it falls apart chaotically, it will plunge the world into a deep depression. Any replacement for the dollar will take a decade to establish itself. We don’t even have much idea what it might be yet: Historically, the reserve currency has always been either gold or the currency of the world’s dominant economy, but China is not ready to assume that role yet, and the shiny yellow metal has a long way to go to reclaim its place as the ultimate store of value, even if it is taking a far larger share of anxious investors’ portfolios. Only once those things are achieved will we be able to start reducing our debt to manageable levels.

Instability across the Maghreb will be ongoing challenge for the broader Arab world, Bruce Maddy-Weitzman says at the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

Gulf Arab states, with Qatar in the lead and Saudi Arabia in the background, provided crucial political support for the anti-Qaddafi uprising in Libya, and can be expected to continue to promote their interests in the new Libya. GCC states also sought to strengthen the Moroccan monarchy, inviting it, and Jordan as well, to join the GCC, and extending promises of generous monetary aid. In that regard, the visit by Qatar’s Crown Prince to Morocco just one day prior to nation-wide parliamentary elections in late November was a clear signal of support for King Muhammad VI. Obviously, the destabilization of either Morocco or Algeria would have repercussions throughout the Maghreb and beyond; so would the failure of the victorious Libyan revolutionaries to establish an orderly government. Already, there is great concern with the proliferation of weapons which had been in Qaddafi’s warehouses, and have leaked to a variety of radical Islamist groups, in the Sinai Peninsula, for example.

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Today's review: Iran's naval assets, Pakistan's Lashker-e-Taiba rising, India's governance lagging

2011-12-28T15:05:00.000-05:00

Anthony H. Cordesman on Iran's naval capabilities at The Iran Primer:

The navy and IRGC cannot close the Gulf for an extended period, but they could severely restrict shipping through the Gulf for five to 10 days. IRGC naval forces can operate from bases along the Gulf coast, bases near Strait of Hormuz shipping channels, Gulf islands and in the Gulf of Oman. Its anti-ship missile vessels include 13 Kaman-class and 38-meter Thondor (Hudong)-class vessels with C-802 anti-ship missiles, and 9 C-14 and 10 Mk-13 smaller patrol boats with short range Chinese anti-ship missiles. Iran has made and deployed at least 25 Peykapp II-class missile boats and 15 of its own Peykaap I-class coastal patrol craft. The IRGC also has some 100 other, smaller patrol boats, many of which are small enough to be difficult to detect reliably by radar. A number of Iran’s patrol boats are armed with torpedoes and short-range or man-portable anti-air missiles .... U.S. Navy intelligence estimates that Iran has the Chinese EM52, a rocket-propelled anti-ship mine, and that the Iranian purchase of three Russian KILO-class submarines probably included modern magnetic, acoustic and pressure-sensitive mines. Iran also produces its own mines, although these may still be limited to less advanced designs. U.S. experts estimate that Iran had at least 2,000 mines by 2004. This is a key threat. The United States normally deploys limited mine warfare capabilities in the Gulf. And Gulf naval capabilities include only five Saudi mine layers and some helicopters with uncertain readiness and training.

Neil Padukone on Pakistan's (and the world's) Lashkar-e-Taiba at World Affairs Journal:

Globally, Lashkar trainees have fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, and elsewhere in Central Asia, while fighters from Bosnia, the Philippines, Somalia, numerous Arab countries, and even the United States and Europe have trained in LeT camps. LeT itself has cells in countries around the world—including India, Spain, Bangladesh, and Australia—and liaises with groups from North Africa to Southeast Asia. Even “homegrown” threats in the West like David Headley, Faisal Shahzad, the Falls Church “Virginia jihad network,” and UK terror cells bore a Lashkar stamp .... In an age of globalization, the ability to connect micro-level activities to macro-level trends is a key source of power. It is this ability that gave al-Qaeda its strength in 2001, and it is this potential that is empowering Lashkar today.

Ashok Malik on India at the back of the emerging markets pack at YaleGlobal Online:

To optimize the advantages of an interlinked economic system, a country needs to keep its eyes not just on globalization, but another “g” word – governance. This is where India has faltered. Complacent about the inevitability of rapid growth, the Congress-led government has an internal dilemma as to the necessity and political legitimacy of deregulation, decontrol and market-friendly reform. While Prime Minister Singh is clearly a believer, his party president and political boss, Sonia Gandhi, does not see growth as an overriding priority – and the mounting bill of a range of welfare and dole programs she favors have combined to leave a devastating impact. Paradoxically, the rural constituency she is keen to protect would have benefited the most from the now botched reform. One Indian economist warns that India could easily become another Brazil: “We’ve been hearing about Brazil as the next great power since the 1960s. Every few years it offers hope, but never does take off.”

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Today's review: China's growth and aircraft carrier ambitions, Egypt's Christians, Russia's discontents

2011-12-26T14:32:00.000-05:00

Gordon G. Chang at Forbes on China:

Because China will not be able to ramp up exports or eliminate the “triple imbalances,” it is sure to be snared in what economists call “the middle-income trap,” where growth stalls before a moderately well-off population becomes rich. China has already reaped all the easy growth that comes with starting from a low base, and now it needs to, among other things, encourage consumption, allow the renminbi to float, flatten the social structure, promote democratization, remove restrictions on labor, adopt the rule of law, and strengthen the social safety net. The Party will not make substantial progress toward any of these goals — with the possible exception of the last one — until it adopts fundamentally different political and economic models.

Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest on Egypt:

As political and economic conditions in Egypt deteriorate, a new kind of refugee is beginning to appear, one that will test America’s character. Violence against Christians is growing; bad economic times, the inability or unwillingness of security forces and police to keep order, and the growing tide of Islamist political and religious mobilizations is making life increasingly insecure for Egypt’s eight million Christians.

Julia Ioffe at Foreign Policy on Russia:

But, if the people who have been coming out despite the cold this month -- 100,000, for Putin's Russia, is still an unimaginable amount (most protests in the last decade drew no more than a brave few hundred) -- don't fall asleep on March 5 when their slim hopes are dashed by Putin's victory, if these small victories make them hungrier rather than nauseous, if the surprise at discovering that one's political opinions are not at all singular or marginal does not sour when the number at these protests inevitably plateaus, then Putin's system, come 2012, will already be a very different one. It will find itself dealing with a new constituency whose wizened, suspicious regard for his maneuvers will make them harder and harder to trick, which will therefore make it more and more necessary for the system to actually deal with them, and take their concerns seriously.

Global Torchlight on China's aircraft carrier development:

That China seeks to develop fully functioning carrier capability is now taken as a given, but it is important to note that a very substantial distinction exists between intentions and capabilities in the world of military technology. For the time being, even though the PLAN may have started sea trials with a working vessel, it really remains an “aircraft carrier” in name only. Moreover, most naval analysts agree that a navy needs to possess at least two carriers if it wants to have the ability to deploy aircraft at sea at any given time due to the substantial time such vessels spend in port for replenishment and refit purposes.

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Today's review

2011-12-23T00:35:00.002-05:00

From Assad's Lebanese Invasion at Foreign Policy:

As President Bashar al-Assad looks to squelch an astonishingly persistent nine-month revolt, Lebanon is fast becoming another battleground between supporters and opponents of his rule.

From Why Canada Kissed Kyoto Good-bye at The National Interest:

Canada’s withdrawal signals a shift underway across developed nations: in an era of fiscal retrenchment, or worse, full-on financial crisis, paying for climate change does not appeal to voters. There surely was opposition when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien ratified Kyoto in 2002, but it remained a very popular initiative, ensuring Canada would be a “good citizen” of the world, as Chrétien put it. Fast forward ten years. The liberal party Chrétien headed has imploded electorally, and the conservative government of Stephen Harper, newly emboldened by a landslide electoral win in 2011, has promised a pro-growth strategy. Even the Canadian Left, once extremely green, is now too focused on various “occupy” movements and the “1 percent” to think about climate policy.

From China's Real Estate Bubble May Have Just Popped at Foreign Affairs:

In a telling scene two months ago, Shanghai property developers started slashing prices on their latest luxury condos by up to one-third. Crowds of owners who had recently bought apartments at full price converged on sales offices throughout the city, demanding refunds. Some angry investors went on a rampage, breaking windows and smashing showrooms.

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Europe finding the good life has its limits

2011-10-26T22:58:00.000-04:00

Europe has grown dangerously self-absorbed, Walter Laqueur says at The National Interest:

It would be unfair to conclude that Europe has become lazy, but it certainly has become inward looking and lethargic, lacking curiosity and enterprise. There is nothing wrong with the desire to enjoy life, but it is disconcerting if this is accompanied by a dearth of interest in the future .... There is an almost unlimited number of possibilities for the failure of the European Union, but it would appear that the decisive issues are not the technical decisions that will be taken concerning the economy and the finances of the Continent but the deeper political and psychological factors -- nationalism or postnationalism, whether dynamism or exhaustion will prove stronger.

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Al-Qaeda loses key bridge builder

2011-10-26T22:43:00.000-04:00

The death of Anwar al-Awlaki marks a serious setback for al-Qaeda and its affiliates as it deprives them of a key thought-leader and builder of bridges between two worlds, Rohan Gunaratna says at RSIS Commentaries:

Having worked both in the West and in Yemen, Awlaki knew how to operate in the Middle East and in the English-speaking world. He knew the mindset of both Middle Eastern and Western Muslims. Although his understanding of Islam was superficial and he was not a trained cleric, he was a master communicator. He tweaked his speeches, writings and exchanges to lure, convince, trap and control his followers.They were willing to kill and die for him. The rise in homegrown terrorism is attributable in part to Awlaki.

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Turkey turns its back to the West

2011-10-14T00:01:00.001-04:00

Turkey's prime minister offers analysts a dangerous combination, a history of opportunism and Islamist ambitions that include breaking with the West, Michael Rubin says at National Review:

While Erdogan now speaks out against Assad and Qaddafi, Arabs know that Erdogan was for the region’s worst dictators before he was against them. As recently as November 2010, Erdogan even traveled to Tripoli to collect the Moammar Qaddafi human-rights prize — and its $250,000 purse — from the mercurial and murderous dictator. He used his acceptance speech to pledge his dedication to the “truth” and promised to spare no effort in holding Israel to account .... Turkey has changed irreversibly. While it once emulated Europe and even elected a female prime minister, under Erdogan’s rule, women are relegated to minor ministries and make up less than 3 percent of senior management in the state bureaucracy. As he imposes more radical Islamist laws, justice-ministry statistics show that the murder rate of women has increased by 1,400 percent. No longer is Turkey a secular pillar in the Islamic world, nor does Turkish society reflect European liberalism.

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Arab World's sectarian divides opening wide

2011-10-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

Violence against Copts in Egypt shows the Arab Spring has opened the door to settling scores along sectarian lines, Lee Smith says at The Weekly Standard:

This most recent expression of violence against the Copts will resonate for some time to come — not least because it appears that some local Muslim bystanders cheered on the army while others took an active role in the violence .... What we’ve seen revealed over the last eight months are the numerous sectarian tensions that are usually obscured by the world's focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But now the banner of Arab resistance under which for instance all Syrians once rallied is no longer relevant in a state where the ruling Alawite minority slaughters the majority Sunni opposition — with the support of Syrian minorities, including the Christians. In Bahrain, the Sunni government targets its Shia population, and in Lebanon and Iraq, the Shiites and the Sunnis are only for the time being deterred from going at each other’s throats, again. The Arabs may have no peace with Israel; but neither do the various sects and ethnicities (Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, etc.) commonly rolled into one and described by the blanket term “Arab” have peace with each other.

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Looks as if Iran's leadership not all there

2011-10-13T01:14:00.000-04:00

Iran's alleged assassination plot leaves the impression the country's leadership is unable to appreciate, or doesn't care about, the consequences of its actions, which may make conflict inevitable, Jacob Heilbrunn says at The National Interest:

For Saudi Arabia, the plot is a wake-up call as well. That Iranians, with apparent sanction from elements within the Iranian government, would go to the lengths of establishing contact with the Mexican Zetas drug cartel in order to assassinate a Saudi official serving in America suggests that new pressure must be exerted on the Tehran mullahs. The Saudis will be even less disposed to object to an Israeli assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. This action has opened the door another crack to such an action, which suggests further that the Tehran regime may not be entirely rational.

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Egypt's fraying social fabric a long time coming

2011-10-13T00:54:00.000-04:00

Sectarian violence in Egypt underscores how deep social divisions are in the country and the history of their exploitation, Steven A. Cook says at The Atlantic:

Egypt is a society that is increasingly polarized -- a stunning turn from the apparent national unity of late January and the first eleven days of February. The violence of the 9th and the lingering mistrust make a mockery of the billboards declaring "We are all Egyptians" that now dot Egypt's roadways and buildings .... Finally, the ghosts of the past regime have come back to haunt Egyptians. Mubarak and his henchmen did not create sectarian tension, but they accentuated it for their own ends. Mubarak and Habib al Adly did not invent the Salafist current, but they gave it succor. Mubarak and his associates did not invent manipulation, but they made it a high art form. The former president perniciously manipulated Egyptian society, slicing and dicing it through three decades of power all in the service of perpetuating Mubarakism. Egyptians are now paying the price for this cynicism.

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Yemen near starvation on 'biblical scale'

2011-10-13T00:37:00.000-04:00

Yemen's faces a humanitarian crisis amid its political turmoil, Jennifer Steil says at World Policy Journal:

The problem is about to get much worse — reaching famine proportions on a biblical scale. Just across the Gulf of Aden, the famine in Somalia has captured the world’s attention with the likes of Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and Madonna all campaigning for relief. Meanwhile, the looming humanitarian disaster in Yemen, a country with more than twice the population, has been largely ignored. The political upheaval that began with anti-government protests around the country in January, combined with violent conflicts in many parts of the country, are driving tens of thousands from their homes .... Internal displacement is just one of the myriad crises facing a Yemen teetering on the brink of catastrophe that could result in widespread starvation, the collapse of the economy, runaway disease epidemics, and massive internal displacement of the most vulnerable Yemenis — a recipe for instability and further conflict.

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Pakistan readies militants to counter India in Afghanistan

2011-10-11T00:03:00.001-04:00

Pakistan is tolerating militants who can serve as an insurance policy against Indian influence in Afghanistan, Huma Yusuf says at The New Republic:

As the withdrawal deadline for U.S. troops from Afghanistan approaches, Pakistan is again demonstrating the India-centricity of its foreign policy. While the U.S. seeks an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, Pakistan is more concerned about ensuring that a post-withdrawal Afghanistan is not dominated by India. Pakistan believes that this traditional concern is best addressed through recourse to militant groups — such as the headline-grabbing Haqqani network — that could serve as Pakistan’s proxies in Kabul, and counter Indian influence. Pakistan’s continued dependence on these ‘strategic assets’ is testing the limits of its diplomatic relationship with the U.S., which perceives Pakistan-based militant groups as a major obstacle to military gains in Afghanistan. More importantly, Pakistan’s continued reliance on militant groups as a tool of foreign policy could prove dangerous for its own security, and that of the region, in the long run.

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Quiet confidence needed against China's sea power

2011-10-11T00:02:00.011-04:00

The United States should adopt a "speak softly and carry a big stick" approach to addressing China's maritime ambitions, Walter A. McDougall says at the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

The implication is that to imagine a Chinese sphere of influence out to the first island chain (and therefore inevitably half way to the second island chain) is to consign South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines (with the Spratly Islands), perhaps even Okinawa to some kind of Finlandization. But the question of just how much American maritime dominance is enough and therefore just where to draw a new “Dean Acheson defense perimeter” line through the seas of China’s oceanic “near abroad” will be addressed, like it or not, sooner or later. The challenge for Sino-American diplomacy is to figure out how to raise those questions voluntarily, in an atmosphere of conciliation rather than crisis, and in a regional rather than bilateral forum. Would accommodation of any sort feed the appetite of the authoritarian, nationalistic Beijing regime such that it grabs for control over more blue water in East and South China seas? The historical record strongly suggests that Chinese dynasties, even when strong, tend not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. But we need not trust in history, culture, or economic ties to keep the peace in the Pacific so long as the (still far superior) U.S. Navy and its friends beyond the first island chain, plus the Indian navy and its friends beyond the Straits of Malacca, are on station to keep China honest.

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Egypt short on food, cash and stability

2011-10-11T00:01:00.001-04:00

Social chaos in Egypt appears likely to intensify as the country runs out of food and funds, according to David P. Goldman at Pajamas Media:

Egypt literally will run out of food. It imports half its caloric consumption, mainly wheat (although Egyptians eat less wheat than Iranians, Moroccans, Canadians, Turks and Russians). Egypt spends $5.5 billion a year on food subsidies. Its social solidarity minister wants to change the system (which subsidizes some people who can afford to pay more than the penny a loaf the government charges), but seems deeply confused. “‘We need to change consumer habits so that we are not consuming so much bread. In Mexico, for example, they rely more on potatoes. Why can’t we start shifting toward that?’said Saad Nassar, adviser to the agriculture minister.” Mr. Nassar seems unaware that Mexicans eat more corn than wheat or potatoes. This discussion would be comical if not for the fact that Egypt is about to run out of money to pay for any sort of food.

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China's 'princelings' to press patronage

2011-10-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

China's leadership is in a regressive state of mind, Gordon G. Chang says at Forbes:

Hu Jintao has been busy shutting out foreign competitors as he has embraced a new economic paradigm of closing the country down. The Chinese government has actively tried to cripple foreign competitors, for instance .... Hu’s designated successor is bound to continue regressive trends. Xi Jinping is a “princeling,” a descendent of one of the early leaders of the People’s Republic, communist royalty. In Beijing these days there is a sense he will bring in other princelings into positions of political power. The princeling faction will then use its new clout to consolidate its grip on the economy. Senior leaders with their patronage groups and circle of supporters will milk even more wealth from business.

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Europe's dangerous entitlement mentality on defense

2011-10-10T00:00:00.002-04:00

Europe needs to share the freight on defense with the United States or risk losing its standing with its ally, Jan Techau says at The National Interest:

While cooperation on issues such as the Middle East, Iran and terrorism was and is constructive, one of the most crucial items on the Euro-American agenda remains untouched by the improved atmosphere: transatlantic burden sharing in the field of security and defense. Here, Europeans have for the last sixty years been in a position of utter dependence on the Washington’s willingness and ability to guarantee their security. And even though the global strategic framework has drastically changed since the beginning of this transatlantic bargain in the 1950s, Europeans still conduct their defense planning as if American generosity were the most naturally abundant and easily accessible political commodity. By doing so, they increase their reliance on U.S. guarantees, and they become less and less interesting as an ally for their American counterparts. All attempts to wake Europeans up and make them rethink their priorities have died away without much impact.

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Egypt won't make Middle East's power list

2011-10-08T00:41:00.000-04:00

Egypt is unlikely to join the Middle East's power list with Turkey, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia over the next five years, Martin Kramer says at the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

They are already operating beyond their borders, with flotillas to Gaza, and rockets to Lebanon, and secret bombings of Syria, and troops into Bahrain. By 2016, the middle powers will have developed more capabilities to do these sorts of things, from long-range missiles to surveillance satellites, and nuclear weapons will be next. And their competition will have intensified. In this respect, the Middle East in 2011 bears a certain resemblance to Europe in 1911. Looking five years out, that´s not an analogy we would want to see fulfilled ... There has been much talk of Egypt returning to its Arab vocation, to its past role as a regional leader. It’s unlikely. Egypt is going to have to recover from the revolution, which will depress the economy as long as uncertainty lasts. Is Egypt too big to fail? That’s going to be the Egyptian question in Washington between now and 2016. Egypt desperately needs to raise the rent others pay for its good will, so while we´ll hear the sound of the rattling sabre, more insistent will be the sound of the rattling cup.

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Stagnation a threat to and from Putin presidency

2011-10-08T00:16:00.000-04:00

Economic modernization in Russia may hit the wall after Vladimir Putin returns as the country's president, Vladislav Inozemtsev says at Foreign Affairs:

The role of state-controlled companies will grow, most industries will experience stagnation, and production costs will increase, driven up by rising tariffs and taxes. As these costs rise, the inflow of capital into the country will fall because it will become too expensive to produce anything from domestic raw materials. The economic system Putin created is designed to operate in an environment when oil prices are not only high but rising; among other benefits to the corrupt, such an atmosphere makes it easier for bureaucrats to pocket some money, a key incentive for many state officials in the Putin era. But today many prices and tariffs in Russia have already reached Western levels: for example, Russians pay even more for gasoline and electricity than do Americans. If such trends continue, any industrial activity in Russia may become unprofitable and imports will dominate.

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China's 'political discipline' finds fans in South Africa

2011-10-08T00:02:00.000-04:00

Money alone does not explain why South Africa is cozying up to China, Eve Fairbanks says at Foreign Policy:

China, rather, represents a country that developed aggressively "on its own terms," as I've heard several South Africans put it, not on terms dictated by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. The South African government is increasingly embarrassed by the levels of poverty that persist so long after the end of white-minority rule, and last year, on a trip to Beijing, Zuma praised China's "political discipline" as a potential "recipe" for his country's heretofore elusive "economic success."

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Insurgents in Philippines breaking into factions

2011-10-06T00:42:00.000-04:00

Insurgents in the Philippines appeared primed for a free-for-all fight, Luke Hunt says at The Diplomat:

A showdown is looming among rebels in the southern Philippines as insurgents factionalize and splinter amid infighting over government sponsored peace talks, threatening the fragile ceasefire and forcing an unlikely alliance between the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

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Egypt election gains may be strategic reversal for Islamists

2011-10-06T00:25:00.000-04:00

It may not be such a bad thing for Egypt's government to be led by Islamists, who then would unable to evade responsibility for repairing a rotten economy, Amr Bargisi says at Hudson New York:

Aside from a military coup, the occurrence and outcome of which are unpredictable, Egypt is facing one of two scenarios: a) The Islamists, whether the Muslim Brotherhood [MB] or others, take over completely through a smashing victory in the upcoming parliamentary, and perhaps presidential, elections; or b) The Islamists win a less-than-absolute majority and proceed to govern as part of a larger coalition, or else sit opposition to a coalition of all other forces. The first scenario is both more likely and much better than the second .... If the Islamists do not take full responsibility for the government, however, they -- like Hezbollah in Lebanon -- would be able to push through, by means of popular pressure, all of their policies without ever having to take responsibility for them.

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Russia's political rot may undermine Putin

2011-10-05T00:02:00.001-04:00

Vladimir Putin's return to power may not last long if Russia's government grows "increasingly criminalized," Lilia Shevtsova says at Foreign Affairs:

Above all, Putin's return to the Kremlin demonstrates the undisguised desire of members of the ruling clique to run the country for life, gradually transferring control of assets and power to their children and relatives. (In just one example of how this process operates, Sergei Ivanov, Jr., the son of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, was appointed head of the board of one of the country's most powerful banks, Rosselchoz, which is chaired by Dmitry Patrushev, the son of Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Russian Security Council.) What is emerging in Russia today is a unique kind of neo-monarchy of Janissaries eager to find a way to perpetuate their power and their families' positions .... The security clans in the shadows will proceed to privatize the state and battle for assets, and the state as a whole will become increasingly criminalized. This rot could quickly corrode the Putin regime's foundations, ultimately paralyzing the federal government and hindering its ability to address society's most elementary problems.

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Pakistan going dark

2011-10-05T00:01:00.001-04:00

Pakistan's latest trigger for unrest? Its spotty power system and the prospect of increased fees to pay for it, says Huma Imtiaz at Foreign Policy's The AfPak Channel:

Power cuts of up to 14 hours a day have become the norm in Pakistan. In Karachi, four patients admitted in the largest public hospital died when the hospital's backup generator failed after prolonged cuts. Riots have engulfed Punjab, and other major cities across the country, as the government wrings its hands and tries to get the situation under control .... Additionally, in the face of all of these problems, if Pakistan raises power tariffs on those that have been suffering for the last many years, the law and order situation could become even more perilous.

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Greed for land a trigger for unrest across China

2011-10-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Corrupt officials in China are sowing the seeds of blowback with their land grabs as villagers in Wukan in southern Guangdong Province recently demonstrated, Gordon G. Chang says at World Affairs:

For years, illegal land seizures have been the root cause of tens of thousands of protests across China. The Communist Party knows the issues, and it even knows what it can do to prevent the disputes. Yet it has not been able to take steps to actually address grievances, either in Wukan or elsewhere, because of the weaknesses inherent in its form of one-party rule. There is too much economic incentive for local cadres to conspire with developers and too little institutional accountability, so officials continue to seize land until peasants rebel, as they did last week in Guangdong.

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Next China leader may be 'narrow nationalist'

2011-10-04T00:58:00.001-04:00

Xi Jinping may seek a more robust course of action for China at home and abroad, Bruce Gilley says at The National Interest:

As his time in office nears, Xi is evincing signs of being a narrow nationalist on foreign policy and of having a penchant for police actions in dealing with domestic frictions. Hence, his rise could signify that the long struggle between Maoists and reformers that characterized China’s “reform era” is now ending. That era’s replacement could be something more like the struggle that characterized the early years of the People’s Republic, when social progressives who believed in Marxist theories of social emancipation struggled against anti-Japanese (and anti-American) nationalists who were more taken with Lenin’s theories of political control. Xi is clearly in the latter camp, siding with order and power over social progress, and he may lead China in a very unpleasant direction.

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Thai insurgency turns to retaliatory attacks

2011-10-04T00:47:00.000-04:00

The Malay-Muslim insurgency in southernmost Thailand is in its eighth year and has "settled into a low-level stalemate," Zachary Abuza says at the Institute for National Strategic Studies:

The insurgency is now characterized by less indiscriminate violence and more retaliatory attacks. Insurgents continue to target security forces, government officials, and Muslim moderates who seek accommodation with the Thai state as part of efforts to make the region ungovernable by limiting provision of social services and driving Buddhists from the south. The overall level of violence may be influenced more by insurgent calculations about the optimum amount of violence needed to advance their political goals than by improved capabilities of the security forces.

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Drug traffickers burrow into Colombia intel ops

2011-10-03T07:30:00.010-04:00

Colombian intelligence has been compromised by drug traffickers, a situation U.S. officials monitoring the U.S-Mexico border should closely study, Robert Bunker says at Small Wars Journal:

The government of Colombia is considered very sophisticated in responding to these threats given its initial experiences with the Medellin and Cali cartels dating back to the 1980s. This incident represents a severe blow to Colombian intelligence gathering and covert operations capabilities. Further, well known linkages exist between the narcotics traffickers and criminal groups in Mexico and Colombia and their sharing of intelligence gathering tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Similar threat potentials directed at Mexican and American intelligence organizations focused on the Mexican cartels and the criminal insurgencies taking place in their own respective territories must be considered. These potentials exist for all areas of Mexico and increasingly throughout the US with major threat concentrations in Texas and within the border zones of California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

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Frustration building as Russia's election nears

2011-10-03T07:00:00.001-04:00

Vladimir Putin's planned campaign next year for Russia's presidency may trigger unrest on the country's streets, Vladimir Kara-Murza says at World Affairs:

Popular discontent is rising: the August surveys by the independent Levada polling agency showed that 54 percent of Russians disapprove of the current government, while 64 percent would like to see the composition of the United Russia–dominated Parliament change “significantly” or “totally.” According to the same polling data, most Russians also believe that the upcoming parliamentary elections on December 4 will be a farce. With nine political parties across the spectrum — from the left-wing United Labor Front to the center-right Popular Freedom Party — denied registration and barred from the ballot, and a strict de facto censorship operating on national television, it is difficult to disagree with them. The 2012 presidential vote, meanwhile, is expected to be as predetermined as the “elections” in 2000, 2004, and 2008. With change through the ballot box made all but impossible, Russians’ growing impatience with the regime will likely be manifested in other ways. Recent street protests in Kaliningrad, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok may be an early sign of things to come.

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Demographics add to Europe's fiscal woes

2011-10-02T20:06:00.000-04:00

Germany is "leading Europe into retirement centers, assisted living facilities and nursing homes," raising questions about how Europe's economic powerhouse will be able to afford to pay for its growing elderly population and bail out less responsible European states, Patrick J. Buchanan says at The American Conservative:

There is not a single year between 1970 and 2050 where Germany’s birth rate even approaches the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. By mid-century, Germany will have been below zero population growth for 80 years. This is a nation slowly taking its leave of this world .... Across Europe, not one nation has a birth rate sufficient to replace its native-born population. The share that is of working age is shriveling, while the share that is eligible for state-funded pensions, social security and health care is growing.

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No democratic imperative for U.S. in Arab Spring

2011-10-02T19:50:00.000-04:00

Many in the Middle East have urged a more robust U.S. approach to supporting the Arab Spring, but the United States appears have embraced notions of its own decline so forcefully that it now defaults to feeble efforts for promoting democracy, Shadi Hamid says at The New Republic:

The fact that so many activists, secular and Islamist alike, believe — or want to believe — in America’s better angels undermines the oft-repeated claim that aggressive support for democracy will taint indigenous reformers. But this latter view is one that the Obama administration appears to have maintained during, first, the Green Revolution in Iran and, now, the Arab revolts. Indeed, this “kiss of death” argument is particularly appealing to many liberals because it subsumes arguments for inaction under the guise of helping reformers on the ground. In effect, it argues for doing nothing at the precise moment that doing something would be most effective.

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Iran is dazed and confused

2011-10-02T19:35:00.000-04:00

Iran's government is suffering from "disorientation" triggered by the Arab Spring and has "lost its strategic sense of direction," Trita Parsi says at the Los Angeles Times:

The Arab Spring has diminished Iran's ability to wield soft power in the region. Instead, the momentum has shifted to Turkey, which has not been shy about stealing pages from the Iranian playbook for appealing to the Arab street .... In Iran, political cannibalism within the Iranian elite has reached new heights. While this has not necessarily given birth to a new Iranian adventurism (beyond the harsh rhetoric), it has paralyzed the state and weakened its ability to maneuver in a changing strategic environment. This is particularly the case when it comes to crucial issues such as its relations with the United States.

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Shades of the bad old days in Algeria

2011-09-30T00:01:00.000-04:00

Attacks in Algeria by an emboldened al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are reviving painful memories in the country and raising concerns beyond its borders, Andrew Lebovich says at the Combating Terrorism Center:

For many in the north, the surge in bloodshed has brought back bad memories not just of the last decade, but also the civil war. Indeed, the violence and the outspoken positions against Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s security policies by some former officers brought whispers about the possible return of the “éradicateurs,” members of the security services who argued against any type of amnesty or reconciliation agreement with terrorists. This nervousness is compounded by the tenuous and limited reform process being pursued by Algeria’s aging (and rumored to be ailing) leader at a time when Algeria’s nascent protest movement has been suppressed by a number of factors, including a lingering memory of the instability of the civil war .... Regardless of what emerges from the infighting and tension in Algeria’s ruling classes, it seems likely that AQIM’s violence will continue to increase in the north. While the organization’s new activity does not approach its influence during its prime years, this new push may nonetheless force the Algerian government to reconsider how it confronts the group, and cause the wider community of observers to rethink how they view an organization long thought to be on the ropes in Algeria’s mountainous north.

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Sarkozy looking into electoral abyss

2011-09-30T00:00:00.001-04:00

Nicolas Sarkozy must contend with declining support, an electorate drifting to the left and high anxiety about the state of affairs in France ahead of its 2012 presidential election, Eric Pape says at Foreign Policy:

The latest sign of his electoral fragility came in senatorial elections on Sept. 25, when the Socialist opposition seized control of the French Senate for the first time in more than a half-century. Sarkozy's advocates note that it wasn't a direct election; a sort of Electoral College chooses the French Senate. So, they argue, the vote does not foreshadow an electoral catastrophe for the French right next year. But the election may highlight something more grievous: a multiyear leftward trend in local elections, which signals even more troubling ground-level weakness for Monsieur le Président .... The French electorate is notoriously mercurial and pessimistic, but this moment is especially bad. Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, endured lengthy periods of disapproval, but the French are far more troubled now than they were at any time during his 12-year presidency. Nearly nine voters in 10 are worried about the state of the country, and more than three in four are concerned about their own economic situation. Two in three fear for their own job or that of someone close to them. Such sentiments are significantly direr than they were at the peak of the 2008 financial crisis or prior to the country's overwhelming take-this-European-Constitution-and-shove-it vote in 2005.

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Portugal's grim situation sending many abroad

2011-09-29T00:31:00.000-04:00

Portugal's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has maintained political support for austerity measures but one has to wonder how much longer it will hold given the country's dire situation, detailed by Joshua E. Keating at Foreign Policy:

All the same, unemployment is at its highest rate since 1983, and the economy is expected to remain in recession for at least two more years. The country's credit rating was downgraded to junk status in July. More people are also leaving Portugal than at any time since the end of dictatorship in 1974, mostly to the former Portuguese colonies of Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique. In a striking role reversal, Angola's state oil company and the family of its president have invested heavily in Portugal. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also toured Portugal, urging Brazilian companies to invest in their former colonial master.

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Egypt not on track to meet liberal expectations

2011-09-29T00:06:00.000-04:00

It's looking increasingly likely the political trend in Egypt will disappoint many in the West who celebrated the Arab Spring, according to James Kirchick at The Weekly Standard:

Even if there is broad agreement in Egypt that the Camp David treaty should be amended, Egypt’s liberals and Islamists have competing visions for the future of their country, which will determine the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. But much of the groundwork for the post-Mubarak order has already been set, and the emerging picture is not reassuring to those wishing to see a secular, democratic, liberal Egypt at peace with its neighbors and itself. On a whole host of issues — from containing Iran to the advancement of liberal values in the Arab world, as well as peace with Israel — the situation in Egypt today is a far cry from the high expectations so many had invested in it after the revolution.

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Violence, food shortage in store for Sudan

2011-09-28T00:25:00.000-04:00

Sudan is poised for conflict and famine, Eric Reeves says at The New Republic:

In a matter of days, or hours, the northern Sudanese state of Blue Nile seems likely to be the scene of the most violent military confrontation in Sudan for almost a decade. The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) released a highly alarming report on September 23, based on substantial satellite photography, indicating that armed forces of Khartoum’s National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime are mobilizing in a massive formation of armor, troops, and military aircraft: “heavily camouflaged, mechanized units comprising at least a brigade — 3,000 troops or more. These forces appear to be equipped with heavy armor and artillery, supported by helicopter gunships” .... In addition, although military violence will likely capture whatever news attention the crises in Abyei, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile receive, the real story is in the dying that will come this fall. Normally, people in these regions would be looking forward to an October first harvest with the end of the rains. But this year vast tracts of land were too dangerous to cultivate in the Nuba Mountains, and starvation will begin soon without humanitarian access. In Blue Nile the UN’s World Food Program is desperate to get food supplies in to hundreds of thousands of people either displaced or food insecure. Khartoum’s denial has been adamant. Human mortality will soon skyrocket.

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Yemen's troubles extend beyond Sanaa

2011-09-28T00:02:00.000-04:00

Yemen's government is being squeezed from the north and south, compounding the country's political turmoil, J. Dana Stuster says at The Atlantic:

With all the focus on the unrest in Sanaa, Yemen has been fragmenting at its periphery. Saleh's government was never particularly effective at controlling the entire country. Wide swaths of the interior were subject to tribal law and custom, and Saleh relied heavily on a network of patronage and allegiance among Yemeni sheikhs. Beyond the limits of the government's reach, northern Houthi tribesmen and southern secessionists organized rebellions, and al-Qaeda's Gulf franchise found shelter in the mountainous regions of several provinces. Now perhaps more than ever before, the Saleh regime is turned inward, leaving non-state actors to consolidate power for themselves. This includes Ansar al Sharia, an Islamist militia that may have ties to al-Qaeda. Ansar forces have battled government forces and defected military forces since late May, when they seized the southern town of Zinjibar.

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India in need of plan on tax evasion

2011-09-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

India needs to push harder against tax evasion, which is holding back the country's development,Tanuj Khosla says at The Diplomat:

Indian tax evaders have clearly piled up substantial assets in Swiss banks. The general consensus is that between $1 trillion and $1.4 trillion — or around 40 percent of India’s GDP — is held in black money. This is at a time when the nation’s attention is focused as much as ever on the issue of corruption following the activities of civil society leader Anna Hazare .... Of course, with such vast amounts of money at stake, the issue is an emotional one in India, and the repatriation of the funds is easier said than done. But we don’t need another fast by Hazare to make progress. What we do need is public pressure on the government to come up with a plan of action that provides strict timelines for procedures that will bring the tax evaders and money launderers to book. An independent committee representing civil society will be needed to monitor progress.

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Inflation a political frustration for China

2011-09-27T01:33:00.000-04:00

China's fight with inflation may cause trouble for the country's transition of power next year, Barry Naughton says at China Leadership Monitor:

Inflation is very unpopular in China, and when price increases are this evident, it provokes frustration and anger, particularly among middle-class urban dwellers. Indeed, immediately after the inflation figures for March were published, Shanghai truck drivers staged a three-day strike over soaring fuel prices and port charges. Although the protest was defused with concessions on port charges, it seemed to initiate a season of discontent .... This type of economic environment is precisely what policy-makers would have preferred to avoid on the eve of a leadership handover. Inevitably, widely perceived economic failures discredit policy-makers and make their succession choices seem less inspired and less inevitable.

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Only Putin can man Russia's helm

2011-09-27T00:58:00.000-04:00

Vladimir Putin's return to Russia's presidency would underscore he is the country's indispensable man, Nikolas K. Gvosdev says at The National Interest:

First and foremost, it is a frank admission that there is no such thing as Putinism without Putin — that the system Putin created of balancing competing sectoral and clan interests within the Kremlin establishment cannot be run by any other person. Keeping in perspective that Putin has been president and prime minister already for twelve years, it does not bode well that Putin must still remain personally involved and at the helm for his system to function.

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AQIM swings back into action in Algeria

2011-09-27T00:46:00.000-04:00

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is staging a comeback in Algeria, notably with recent suicide attacks, says Dario Cristiani at The Jamestown Foundation:

These latest attacks could also have external and internal symbolic meanings. The external meaning encompasses the international dimension as well as a national one. Internationally, the attacks aim at showing that the group is alive even though its leader, Osama Bin Laden, has been killed. In the national dimension, they show that AQIM still has the capability to attack the most visible elements of state control -- the military installations. The internal meaning of the attacks could be a response to allegations of a decline in influence of the Algerian-based leadership over other factions of the group. Carrying out successful attacks against Algerian military installations could represent a means for AQIM Amir Abdelmalek Droukdel to boost his weakened leadership after the “Sahelization” of the movement entailed a shift in the group’s internal balance of power.

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A diminished role for Hezbollah if Assad falls

2011-09-24T00:43:00.001-04:00

If the Assad regime falls in Syria, Hezbollah will need a new ally to help it bring arms into Lebanon, Thanassis Cambanis says at The Atlantic, adding that

A Syria led in part by the Muslim Brotherhood, or by a confederation of anti-Assad forces, would probably continue to support resistance movements that fight Israel, and would likely continue relations with Iran (and, possibly, pursue warmer relations with Iraq). But it might be less vested in the ideological absolutism of the existing "Axis of Resistance," led by Hezbollah and Iran, and more interested in a new Arab nationalist front, which could unite Egypt, the Palestinians, and other post-dictatorial Arab states in an alliance that opposes Israel and some American projects from a less bellicose footing.

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NATO's hollow victory in Libya

2011-09-24T00:30:00.000-04:00

NATO's intervention in Libya's civil war casts doubt on its ability to press its resources beyond Europe, Rajan Menon says at The National Interest, noting that

Though NATO is celebrating its triumph, the world’s most powerful military alliance revealed itself to be divided over the Libyan campaign: apart from the United States, only seven of its twenty-eight members participated in air strikes. Britain and France carried most of that burden once the United States stepped back, and two important allies, Germany and Poland, opposed the military intervention. The states in the alliance that launched air and missile attacks were dependent on the United States for everything from the replenishment of bomb and missile stocks and target acquisition to refueling and electronic warfare. NATO has expanded, but it has gained in neither strength nor cohesion. Indeed, the Libyan venture casts doubt on whether NATO can achieve its goal of making out-of-area operations central to its post-Cold War raison d’etre, not least because Europe’s economic crisis rules out substantial increases in military spending by European states. The alliance took over six months to defeat a third-rate military that was plagued by defections and run by a reviled regime facing an increasingly effective armed opposition. It prevailed by resorting to a tortured interpretation of Resolution 1973, which was designed to stop atrocities against civilians, not to determine who would win a civil war, and China and Russia are unlikely to lend the Security Council’s imprimatur to such enterprises again. Seen thus, the Libyan campaign may be a swan song for NATO’s extra-European ambitions, not a harbinger.

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Security troubles for Sudan and South Sudan

2011-09-24T00:19:00.000-04:00

Sudan and South Sudan appear to be ripe for conflict, Simon Tisdall says at The Guardian, noting that

escalating fighting, including numerous reported attacks on civilians, along the length of the much-disputed, 1,250-mile north-south border is threatening a security emergency that could wreck nation-building plans .... The instability is catching. Renewed clashes have broken out in Darfur in the west, where government opponents have returned home after having been forced out of their safe havens in Libya following the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. East Sudan, including the country's main oil export terminal, is also witnessing unrest.

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Iran's interest in piracy part of its naval strategy

2011-09-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

Iran has seized on piracy to flex its muscle on the high seas, which is a challenge to more than just U.S. naval primacy, Yoel Guzansky, Jonathan Schachter and Gallia Lindenstrauss say at the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

The Hormuz Straits are not the only point of maritime friction with Iran. The Red Sea is becoming an increasingly important Iranian-Israeli arena. Iran reportedly transports and even manufactures weapons in the Sudan to supply terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East. According to U.S. sources, Israel, in turn, has dispatched its air force to attack Iranian weapons convoys headed for Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel is increasingly concerned that Iran has invested significant efforts in developing its relationships with several East African countries, including Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Tanzania, and the Comoro Islands. For Israel, this is reminiscent of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s initiatives in the 1960s that were intended to provide Egypt with greater ability to block Israeli shipping along the length of the Red Sea. In addition, as part of Iran’s high profile, regional muscle flexing, in 2011, it dispatched ships to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, and reportedly for the first time, sent submarines to the Red Sea.

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Nothing to cheer in Libya's election legacy

2011-09-22T01:01:00.000-04:00

A multiparty election in Libya has been a long time in coming because the last one did not go off so well, Alex Warren says at Foreign Policy:

Some Libyans might just about remember their country's most recent multiparty elections, held in 1952 soon after the U.N.-led unification of the country from three provinces. Widely believed to have been manipulated by the Benghazi-based monarchical government, the polls triggered unrest that led to the dissolution of the main opposition force in Tripolitania, the country's western region, and the subsequent banning of all political parties. The crackdown squashed hopes that a functioning democracy might take root and left tribal, regional, and financial influences with the most power in shaping how Libya was run.

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U.S. follows Europe's demographic example

2011-09-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

The United States appears to have contracted Europe's demographic decline, Joel Kotkin says at Forbes:

In the past, it seemed likely America would be spared the worst of this mass aging. But there are worrisome signs that our demographic exceptionalism could be threatened. One cause for concern is rapid decline in immigration, both legal and illegal. Although few nativist firebrands have noticed, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. has decreased by 1 million from 2007. Legal immigration is also down. Meanwhile, the number of Mexicans annually leaving Mexico for the U.S. declined from more than 1 million in 2006 to 404,000 in 2010 — a 60% reduction .... What does this suggest for the American future? History has much to tell us about the relationship between demographics and national destiny. The declines of states — from Ancient Rome to Renaissance Italy and early modern Holland — coincided with drops in birthrates and population.

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Venezuela snubs arbitration on investment disputes

2011-09-20T09:30:00.000-04:00

Venezuela's government has been busy of late worrying investors, Roger F. Noriega says at The Washington Times, noting that

The recent decision to abrogate agreements with the World Bank's International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is another troubling sign. Eighteen claims against Venezuela totaling $40 billion are outstanding, having been brought before ICSID by foreign companies cheated out of their investments during Mr. Chavez’s tenure. Although Venezuela cannot jump bail on these pending claims, the decision to abrogate the ICSID process suggests what the regime has in mind for current or future foreign investments. Without some recourse to the sort of independent arbitration offered by ICSID, all bets are off for anyone looking to put capital in Venezuela.

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Turkey's shrill diplomacy a sign of country's stress

2011-09-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

Turkey's recent diplomatic fits point to a deeper problem within the country's leadership, David P. Goldman says at Pajamas Media:

Now that Turkey has threatened Europe with a “freeze in relations” if Cyprus (as planned) assumes the presidency of the European Union in 2012, it must seem to Erdogan that everyone is driving in the wrong direction. Earlier this month Turkey declared “null and void” the United Nations’ Palmer Commission report, which supported Israel’s right to enforce a blockade against Gaza. That was a minor gaffe, because United Nations dicta have the authority of revelation to the liberal media, except, of course, when they support Israel. It’s one thing for Turkey to freeze relations with Israel — we take it for granted these days that everybody hates Israel — but the Europeans? Everybody likes the Europeans, who have replaced their defense ministries with an answering machine that says, “We surrender.” And over Cyprus? Even Russia, Turkey’s key trading partner and the host for millions of Turkish guest workers, is aghast at Erdogan’s tantrum.

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And then there's China's debt to worry about

2011-09-20T00:05:00.001-04:00

A debt default wave may be forming in China, Gordon G. Chang says at Forbes, noting that:

China’s debt-fueled growth is slowing fast, probably faster than official GDP figures indicate. Electricity usage, perhaps the best barometer of economic activity, was essentially flat this summer on a month-to-month basis. Moreover, export and shipbuilding orders are down. The closely watched HSBC purchasing managers’ index, at its record lowest point, is close to negative territory and headed south.

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Untapped potential in U.S.-India relations

2011-09-20T00:03:00.000-04:00

Relations between India and the United States have been growing stronger but there is the potential for even deeper ties, Stewart M. Patrick says at the Council on Foreign Relations:

Washington and New Delhi view each other as indispensable partners in stabilizing the balance of power in Asia. The U.S. military now conducts regular maneuvers with India’s expanding armed forces, which now boasts the world’s third largest army, fourth largest air force, and fifth largest navy. Washington has also encouraged India’s “look east” policy towards Southeast Asia, its membership in the East Asia Summit, and its growing links with fellow democracies Japan, South Korea, and Australia. In short, India is emerging as a U.S. military ally in all but name. It should be treated accordingly, starting with the elimination of outdated export control restrictions ....The U.S.-India strategic partnership is also driven by economic imperatives. India’s recent economic performance has been impressive, averaging 7.6 percent annual growth over the past decade. After weathering the global economic crisis, India grew by an astonishing 10.4 percent in 2010. India’s booming economy, led by an English-speaking elite and middle class, offers huge opportunities for U.S. trade and investment. Bilateral trade has quadrupled in the past decade but remains lower than it could be, due to remaining commercial barriers.

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Grim outlook for Egypt sticking to peace deal with Israel

2011-09-19T00:01:00.005-04:00

An official peace between Egypt and Israel does not appear sustainable without a dramatic U.S. initiative to maintain it, Robert Satloff says at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

No matter which path the Egyptian revolution takes, Egypt-Israel peace, in any tangible sense of the term, is almost surely a victim. While the Egyptian authorities recognize that a formal break with Israel runs against their interests, peace has already been denuded of virtually all its content. Even before Mubarak fell, peace had only four real elements left: the gas pipeline to Israel, the operation of several qualifying industrial zones, severely limited diplomatic relations, and well-defined counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation vis-a-vis Islamist extremists. And, already, much of that is gone or transformed beyond recognition. Al-Ahram reported yesterday, for example, that prior to the attack on the Israeli embassy, Egypt asked Israel to keep its ambassador to Cairo on an extended holiday in Tel Aviv, fearful that his presence would be a lightning rod for protests. (The Israelis sent him back to Cairo nonetheless.) On the current glidepath, Egypt-Israel relations are headed toward a situation of "no war, no peace." Some Egyptians may believe this is politically optimal, but in practice it is a high-wire act almost impossible to sustain.

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Guatemala lacks firepower to combat drug trade

2011-09-19T00:01:00.002-04:00

Guatemala's next president will find his administration is ougunned by drug traffickers, Shannon K. O'Neil says at the Council on Foreign Relations:

Guatemala's military today doesn't have the capacity to ramp up its public safety functions. As a part of the 1996 peace agreements (ending 36 years of civil war) the military agreed to downsize. The current force stands at 17,000 troops (roughly 60 percent less than 1990 levels). Earlier this year, when the government called a state of siege in the northern province of Alta Verapaz taken hostage by traffickers, the military could only send 600 soldiers in to patrol the area -- less than one tenth the size of the Mexican military force sent to fight the La Familia cartel in Michoacán in 2006. After the operation, President Colom himself admitted that the military could not match the drug traffickers' vast resources, noting "just the weapons seized in Alta Verapaz are more than those of some army brigades." .... If the army is not the right choice for improving security, the only alternative is the National Civil Police (PNC). Unfortunately, the PNC faces many of these same challenges: a lack of manpower, resources, and public trust. Furthermore, the U.S. and the Guatemalan government have tried a number of times, and on the whole failed to reinvent the PNC in the past.

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Libya revolt may trigger ripple of instability to its south

2011-09-18T00:03:00.001-04:00

With fighting winding down in Libya, the future of the Sahel region may be in the hands of Tuareg troops fleeing the country, Andrew McGregor says at The Jamestown Foundation:

Though small in numbers, Tuareg mastery of the terrain of the Sahara/Sahel region, ability to survive in forbidding conditions and skills on the battlefield make them a formidable part of any security equation in the region. Historically, the Tuareg have been divided into a number of confederations and have rarely achieved a consensus on anything, including support for the Libyan regime or the ambitions of those seeking to establish a Tuareg homeland. However, the collapse of the Saharan tourist industry due to the depredations of AQIM and a worsening drought in the Sahel that is threatening the pastoral lifestyle of the Tuareg will only enhance the appeal of a well-rewarded life under arms. The direction of Tuareg military commanders and their followers, whether in support of the Qaddafi regime in Libya or in renewed rebellion in Mali and Niger, will play an essential role in determining the security future of the region, as well as the ability of foreign commercial interests to extract the region’s lucrative oil and uranium resources.

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Turkey still struggling with its Kurds

2011-09-18T00:02:00.001-04:00

Turkey's troubles with its Kurdish minority are flaring and migrating, Ömer Taşpınar says at The National Interest:

Last month alone, rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed a total of forty Turkish soldiers. In retaliation, Turkish F-16 jets have bombed Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and launched a new military campaign in Turkey’s southeast. All the dynamics for a vicious cycle of PKK attack leading to Turkish retaliation and a low-intensity war seem to be in place .... Half of Turkey’s Kurds now live in western Turkey, where they constitute an underclass. They are often blamed by the Turkish majority for supporting the PKK. Under such circumstances, the nightmare scenario is Turkish-Kurdish ethnic violence in western urban centers such as Istanbul, Izmir, Mersin and Adana. It certainly does not help that the Kurdish youth of Turkey feels particularly close to the PKK and its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who still exerts considerable political influence over the movement.

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The high cost of helping save Somalia from itself

2011-09-18T00:01:00.001-04:00

Somalia isn't just a failed state and haven for pirates and home to al-Shabab militants, it's a money pit, John Norris says at the Center for American Progress:

In what is a conservative estimate the international community, including the Somali diaspora, has collectively spent just over $55 billion responding to Somalia since 1991. These costs have grown far higher and manifested themselves in ways that few would have imagined when the crisis truly began to unravel in 1991 and 1992 .... Helping a country emerge from its status as a failed state is incredibly laborious and can take years of patient and hard-nosed diplomacy. This also means that the most successful efforts to turn around a situation like Somalia will be built upon effective international coordination, the constructive involvement of the private sector, and a willingness to make hard long-term choices.

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Future terrorism may have retro look and intent

2011-09-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

Old terrorism may be made new, Philip Jenkins says at The American Conservative:

European groups could also revive, especially if the continent descends into economic anarchy. Imagine poorer nations like Ireland and Greece driven to ruin by what they see as exploitation by Europe’s financial elite. Given the long experience of the Irish with direct militant action, do we think they will do nothing? Diehard IRA elements have for years threatened to renew their attacks on England, but their impact would be massively greater if they targeted European financial or political centers like Frankfurt or Strasbourg. Across the continent, economic collapse could reawaken ethnic hatreds we thought had perished with the Habsburg Empire .... Some countries have even used the tactic as barefaced extortion. Through the 1980s, you could tell when an Arab Gulf state had fallen behind on money it owed Saddam Hussein because the mysterious “Abu Nidal Organization” would leap into action with an assassination or airliner bombing. When Mideast countries engaged in actual war — as Iran and Iraq did through the 1980s — they used their overseas proxies to promote clandestine goals. In retrospect, many of the terror attacks on European soil in the mid-1980s seem intended to persuade Western nations to supply arms to one or the other of the combatants in the Iran-Iraq conflict.

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Afghanistan's military may step in to avert breakdown

2011-09-15T00:01:00.001-04:00

A military takeover of Afghanistan's government is one potential scenario for the country and so too is a multi-sided civil war, Vanda Felbab-Brown says at the Brookings Institution, noting that

If the current political order in Afghanistan indeed collapses, what are the likely outcomes? One likely scenario is a civil war that will resemble less the 1990s when the Taliban line of control progressively moved north past the Shomali plain, and more a highly fractured, highly localized fighting among a variety of groupings and powerbrokers, only one of which will be the Taliban insurgencies. Outside actors, including Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and India, will find it irresistible to once again cultivate their favored proxies to prosecute at least their minimal objectives in Afghanistan and the region. Their rivalries in Afghanistan will spill beyond that country and intensify their competition in other domains as well.

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Taking hammer to Boko Haram may hurt more than help

2011-09-14T00:01:00.001-04:00

Taking on Nigeria's Boko Haram too aggressively risks alienating the country's 75 million Muslims, John Campbell says at Foreign Affairs, noting that

Since his election to the Nigerian presidency in April 2011, Goodluck Jonathan has undertaken an exclusively security-driven strategy for dealing with Boko Haram, stationing large numbers of military and police in the north, especially in Maiduguri, a city on the edge of the Sahara near the border with Chad, and the states of Bauchi and Borno. Although the military and police are made up of various ethnic, religious, and regional groups, few are native to the areas in which they serve and can be hostile to the local populations. For example, following a bombing in Maiduguri, Amnesty International reported that the Nigerian military "responded by shooting and killing a number of people, apparently at random, before burning down the market." That significant numbers of people have fled the area adds credibility to such accusations, as does the fact that some local leaders are calling for a reduction of the military and police presence in their communities.

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Peace treaty between Israel and Egypt on death watch

2011-09-13T00:26:00.000-04:00

The days may be numbered for the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Benny Morris says at The National Interest:

For months, captivated by the spectacle of falling dictators and English-proficient spokesmen avowing democracy,Westerners deluded themselves into believing that the popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world were presaging a new birth of freedom. And over the span of a century or two, who knows? maybe democracy will evolve in Cairo and Sana and Damascus (though I wouldn't bet on it). But in the short and medium terms, in our lifetimes, what this tumult is certainly delivering is the ruination of responsible government, chaos — as in the streets of Cairo on Friday night, when the mobs, apart from destroying the Israeli Embassy, ransacked the interior ministry and assorted police stations — and a surge in, and possibly, finally, a takeover by, radical Islamism. And, at the end of the tunnel, possibly a resumption of war .... The Israeli ambassador may yet return to Cairo and the embassy may yet resume normal operations — after all, Washington will exert pressure, and the Egyptian military is dependent on American grants and spare parts. But in a few months' time the army is due to step aside and the Egyptian populace — educated on the knees of Islam and, since 1948, on unremitting hatred of Israel — will go to the polls and elect a civilian government. The likely result will be the installation of an Islamist government or, at the the least, a coalition government with a major Islamist component. The peace treaty with Israel will then undergo a slow or abrupt death, and my guess is that much of Egypt's secular middle class will run for the hills (meaning will try to emigrate to North America and Europe). But Israel cannot emigrate, and it will have no choice but to hunker down and fortify its formerly peaceful border with Egypt.

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No end for the 9/11 'twilight war'

2011-09-12T00:01:00.001-04:00

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, the 'twilight war' goes on and on, Fouad Ajami says at Defining Ideas:

A decade later, it is hard to be certain as to what remains of the burdens thrust upon our country by 9/11. America is a blissfully forgetful country. In this land of great changes, a decade is eternity itself. We don’t nurse feuds here in the manner of old societies. We have hunted down Osama bin Laden, and our officials tell us that Al Qaeda is on the run, that it is without money or new recruits, that its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, lacks the charisma of his predecessor. And that the Arab Spring has given hope that the lure of the anti-American jihad has died among the Arabs themselves. We want to give credence to all that, and yet, still, we worry and wonder. After all, it had been at a time of our certainty and repose that the conspirators were at work, divining the ways they could bring us down to earth. There are people beyond our shores we barely know, and we are their demons in a drawn-out, twilight war.

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Potential for Lashkar-e-Taiba to go rogue

2011-09-10T13:16:00.000-04:00

The Pakistan-based militant Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT, has the means to attack beyond the country's borders on its own or in partnerships and, more worrisome, without regard to the interests of its state sponsors, Stephen Tankel says at YaleGlobal Online:

Considerable concern also exists regarding the capacity of nodes within these transnational networks to engage in unsanctioned activities against the West. The greater concern is that LeT will launch another major terrorist attack against India, leading to an escalation with Pakistan. With networks in Bangladesh, Nepal and the Gulf, as well as India, the group has multiple locations from which to support Indian militants engaged in homegrown terrorism. If Pakistan were to crack down on Lashkar's domestic infrastructure, these networks could be unleashed in many countries or in Pakistan itself.

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The U.S. ignores its strengths

2011-09-10T13:01:00.000-04:00

Americans need to learn how to distinguish between gloom and doom, Irwin Stelzer says at The Weekly Standard, noting that despite their economic woes

The American economy still produces more goods and services than the next three largest economies (Japan, China and Germany) combined. And is likely to hold that position as successive Japanese governments wrestle with decades of stagnation, China attempts to cope with the problems created by its centralized economic management and currency manipulation, and Germany wallows in a eurozone financial crisis that seems to worsen by the day. America’s per capita GDP exceeds that of emerging rivals such as China and India, by more than ten and almost fifty times, countries that declinists say will soon overtake us economically and in other ways.

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No break in old bonds in Libya

2011-09-10T00:44:00.000-04:00

Like old habits, old loyalties die hard in Libya, Barak Barfi says at The New Republic:

Qaddafi meticulously cultivated certain tribes and regions throughout his forty-two years in power: though his regime has collapsed, the loyalty he engendered was strong enough to live on .... Pictures of the rebels celebrating in Tripoli have deceived the world into believing that the six month revolution has come to an end. But with Qaddafi still retaining the loyalty of the regions he favored for four decades, the war will continue for a while to come.

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Brazil hopes that if it builds, sports fans will come

2011-09-07T09:14:00.000-04:00

Brazil is delusional about its ability to build for, and its potential to benefit from, the World Cup and Olympic Games, Andrew Zimbalist says at Americas Quarterly:

If Brazil’s dreams for these games became reality, here’s what would have to happen: Brazil’s post-1994 economic boom would have to accelerate, and the country would grow from an emerging market into a developed economy. That would enable Brazil to afford the estimated $1 trillion in public works spending to pay for renovation and construction of 12 stadiums and a massive overhaul of the national transportation infrastructure. The projected work includes: building new roads; creating a rapid-transit train between São Paulo and Rio, new subway lines in São Paulo (especially Line 4 from the airport to downtown), and new ports; and expanding 12 airports — not to mention building new hydroelectric plants and transmission lines to power it all. The investment and construction would generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs and investment opportunities would multiply .... To cap off this fantasy scenario, worldwide media attention would enable Brazil to brand itself once and for all on the global stage as a vibrant, rich, diverse, and sophisticated country — equal to any in the industrial north.

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Alarming turn for security in Dagestan

2011-09-07T00:02:00.001-04:00

Recent events in Dagestan's Kizlyar district point to a deteriorating security environment, Valery Dzutsev says at The Jamestown Foundation:

The plans to boost the military presence in Dagestan’s Kizlyar district mean the situation in this area is very unstable, even in comparison to many other hot spots in this volatile republic. In particular, it appears a very well-trained armed group in Kizlyar that managed to withstand an onslaught by Russian troops for several days this past June still operates in the area. During the three days of heavy fighting in June, law enforcement officially admitted losing five people, while unofficial sources said 13 servicemen were killed. Still other Russian media sources said seven servicemen were killed and 16 were badly wounded. Several casualties among the rebels were also reported, but were not subsequently substantiated by officials .... Fighting between government and rebel forces has taken an alarming turn as family members of both government officials and rebels appear to be increasingly targeted. Several cases of female rebel suspects being killed during police operations have been reported in 2011. Whether the Russian security services are deliberately targeting family members of insurgents or female fighters are more actively participating in the fighting, this change indicates a shift in the character of instability in Dagestan.

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China can't avoid historical pattern of slowing growth

2011-09-06T09:55:00.001-04:00

China's future may be one of rising consumption and less investment, weakening its international ambitions, Andrew Erickson says at The Diplomat. He notes that

despite its astute policy navigation, efforts to guide national development, and claims of exceptionalism, China isn’t immune to larger patterns of economics and history. And those patterns tell us that China faces costly internal and external challenges that will hinder its ability to avoid the S-Curve-shaped growth slowdown that so many previous great powers have experienced, and that so many observers believe the United States is undergoing today .... All this means that China’s rise could be slowed, complicated, or even threatened in critical aspects by a failure to deal with the political, economic, demographic and security challenges it faces. Potential challenges include water and resources shortages, environmental devastation, ethnic and religious discord, income and urban-rural inequality, enduring corruption, social unrest and political transition.

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Libya not free of potential for sectarian conflict

2011-09-05T11:02:00.000-04:00

Libya is unlikely to see an Iraq-like insurgency after the toppling of the Qaddafi regime, but it is far from free of the risk of internal conflict, Max Fisher says at The Atlantic:

Libya, like any nation torn by war and lacking in strong civil society, is vulnerable. The flood of small arms has toppled stronger nations, and its destabilizing effects can last for generations or longer -- if late-model Kalashnikovs can age beyond usability, it hasn't happened often. And though Libya lacks Iraq's tinderbox of Sunni-Shia tension, it does have severely at-risk minorities. Ethnic Tuaregs -- a small but highly visible minority of whom have done terrible things as pro-Qaddafi mercenaries -- are already being mistreated terribly by the rebels poised to take over Tripoli's government. There are increasingly common reports of the country's black-skinned minority, many of whom are migrant workers, being attacked in misguided reprisals, forced into refugee camps, and forced into shanty towns where rape is common. This ethnic violence is terrible enough in its own right, but it could also risk sparking sectarian fighting similar to that in Iraq, albeit on an almost certainly smaller scale. There are only about 100,000 Tuaregs in Libya, but if the attacks continue it is likely only a matter of time until some Tuareg communities consider fighting back. There's also no telling how detained loyalists fighters (and suspected loyalist fighters) are being treated -- not well, fragmentary reporting suggests -- and what sort of antagonisms and anti-rebel sentiment could fester as a result.

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Culture matters to outcome of Arab Spring

2011-09-05T10:24:00.000-04:00

Culture may triumph over enthusiasm, blocking the Arab Spring from creating fundamental political change and leaving Arab countries no better than they were before, Lawrence E. Harrison says at The American Interest:

It is noteworthy that not one Arab country has achieved democratic stability. Moreover, only two — Indonesia and Mali — of the 47 Muslim majority countries are ranked “Free” by Freedom House as of its 2011 rankings. And those two barely make the “Free” category, with a total of five points for Political Rights and Civil Liberties. The most advanced Muslim country, Turkey, is ranked “Partly Free”, with a total of six points. Most First World countries have a total of two points. In its 2010 edition, Freedom House rated Egypt and Iraq “Not Free”, with a total of 11 points. Non-Arab Afghanistan received 12 points.

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EU's future appears less ambitious

2011-09-04T00:01:00.000-04:00

Amitai Etzioni says at The National Interest that the European Union is likely to be less ambitious about integration and become a "glorified trade union" because it has overreached -- to its detriment:

The EU has been trying to act increasingly as if it were one nation — the United States of Europe — without developing the kind of loyalties and commitments only nations can elicit from their citizens .... The trouble with the EU is that, although it started like a free-trade zone, it is increasingly seeking to make EU-wide decisions on many economic and social policies — policies that benefit some members and cause much pain to others — without first building a strong community. This is essential in order for people to be willing to make significant sacrifices for “others.”

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Egypt and Israel find ties that bind fraying

2011-09-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

Egypt's relationship with Israel will fuel more demonstrations in Cairo, creating a political challenge for Egypt's military, Yasmine El Rashidi says at The New York Review of Books:

The tension between the two states is playing out above all against the reality of rapidly declining security in the Sinai: the Egyptian military is asking for more troop allowances to contain rising extremism by militant groups; while Israel expresses alarm at the threat of those militants using the security void to infiltrate its territory .... The Israeli blockade of Gaza continues to be a key point of contention -- including Egypt’s own continued part in that blockade. These grievances may become increasingly critical, as the military struggles to maintain its carefully tended security relationship with Israel amid growing tensions in Gaza, and as Egypt attempts to affect a rapprochement with Hamas even as it tries to control militancy in Sinai.

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India's middle-class mobilizes

2011-09-02T01:38:00.000-04:00

Indian's middle class is fed up and heating up the country's politics, Nitin Pai says at The Atlantic:

India's political churning this year probably heralds a new phase in Indian politics, with the urban middle-class joining the political process. For a long time, this group has seen politics as a spectator sport, to be watched on television in between cricket and Bollywood. Repulsed by the choices on offer in the political menu, unenthused by the anachronistic agenda of mainstream parties and therefore unwilling to spend the time to go out and vote, the middle class Indian has, in terms of political involvement, practically seceded from the Indian republic. Meanwhile, economic growth has propelled ever-greater numbers of people into the middle class, inflating its numbers and amplifying its expectations from the Indian state .... There are many uncertainties in the short-term. But, to the extent that India's political and social churning was led by Middle India and its changing expectations, its politicians will have to re-craft their agenda, which currently has little to offer them. It may happen slower than we wish, but in the coming years political parties will seek to differentiate themselves on how they will deliver what the predominantly urban middle class wants.

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China quick to act on geopolitical opportunities

2011-09-02T01:14:00.000-04:00

China is seizing on geopolitical opportunities to assert itself, which also serves to sideline its domestic critics, says Zachary Keck at The Diplomat:

The more assertive Chinese posture is likely the product of both a permissive regional environment that presents Beijing with the opportunity to assert itself, and its own domestic turmoil, which provides Chinese policymakers a reason to foment distracting confrontation abroad .... The onset of the Arab Spring, meanwhile, forced yet another US administration to turn its attention to the Middle East at the expense of the Asia-Pacific, a trend exacerbated by the decision to intervene militarily in Libya. Another consequence of the Arab Spring was that the Obama administration became more dependent on China’s cooperation in exerting pressure on Arab strongmen through multilateral forums like the UN Security Council. All this has meant the United States has been in too weak a position diplomatically to mount a challenge to China’s assertiveness.

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Algeria snubs the West on Libya

2011-09-01T00:30:00.001-04:00

Robert Fisk says at The Independent that Algeria's sheltering the Gaddafi family is no surprise:

Indeed, it was typical of the Algerian foreign ministry to announce the presence of the Gaddafi family on Algerian soil. Algerians like to show the West -- especially the French -- their freedom, the sacred trust of Algerian nationhood, damaged in the Islamist 1990-98 uprising, is not going to be traded for Western favours .... But there are darker, bloodier contacts between the two countries' security services, which have used torture, political killing and massacre to assert their will over their people; the Algerians many times passed on the fruit of their "anti-terrorist" experience to Gaddafi's mukhabarat. The Algerian tale contained more bloodbaths -- 150,000 deaths, mostly civilians, scarcely measures up to the fewer tortures and murders in Gaddafi's Libya -- but both governments knew that to retain power meant wielding terrible power.

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Nigeria needs to address Muslim discontent

2011-08-30T00:14:00.000-04:00

G. Pascal Zachary says at The Atlantic that overtures by Nigeria's government to its Muslim subjects could go a long way politically and perhaps help combat Boko Haram, noting that

Muslim-Christian relations are not rosy anywhere, but in Nigeria the barometer of ecumenical health is critical to the fate of the nation ... Muslim grievances, while often exaggerated here, are not imagined. Nigeria's oil sits entirely in the Christian-dominated south. Southerners also dominate the civil service, partly because of their relatively higher levels of education. Even the Nigerian Diaspora -- at least one million Nigerian-born people, including many of the country's best trained doctors, scientists, accountants, and teachers live in the U.S., Britain and Canada -- is largely Christian. The best-known Nigerian writers tend to be Christian: Chimamanda Adiche, Chinua Achebe, the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Nobel laureate Wole Soynika. Nigeria's burgeoning "Nollywood" movie industry is also dominated by Southerners, notably the traditionally Catholic Igbo ethnic group.

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Egypt's unsettling trajectory

2011-08-30T00:04:00.000-04:00

Malou Innocent says at The National Interest that Egypt is taking on shades of Pakistan:

The soft transfer of power from Mubarak to the armed forces seems to have signaled Egypt’s drift into a dictatorless tyranny, with the military continuing to crackdown on protesters and subjecting them to military tribunals. Meanwhile, the religious extremists who recently killed over half a dozen Israelis had entered Gaza via Sinai. These developments are extremely worrisome. And yet, there is also a danger that the West will continue to back a deeply entrenched and well-organized military that over the past several months has been making overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood. Like Pakistan, another U.S. “ally,” Egypt — and its many less conservative factions — appears stuck between the mosque and the military.

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China investing in integrating military networks

2011-08-30T00:01:00.001-04:00

Richard Weitz says at The Diplomat that the inner workings of China's military are growing more and more sophisticated as the tasks that the country's political leadership assigns its troops increase:

In terms of aggregate operational capabilities, not only have the Chinese armed forces increased the quantity of many of its major weapons systems, but the PLA is acquiring more advanced systems and improving its capacity to integrate the key elements of Chinese military power. The Chinese military has been strengthening its logistics and other support networks for all its individual services. Chinese strategists have placed special importance on making their C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) systems more reliable, survivable, interoperable, and integrated.

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Qatar emerging as Arab Spring's winner

2011-08-29T01:29:00.000-04:00

Lee Smith says at The Weekly Standard that Qatar is shaping the Middle East's emerging order:

No one has enjoyed the fruits of the Arab Spring more than Qatar. The competing outside powers — the United States and its Iranian adversary — both sport mixed records over the last half a year: Washington lost two allies, Tunisia and most significantly Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, while on the other side of the ledger Iran’s client Syria may well succumb to an opposition movement that shows no sign of tiring. But Doha, balancing relationships with both Washington and Tehran, has gone from strength to strength.

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Security improves in Cote d'Ivoire

2011-08-29T00:14:00.000-04:00

Ashley Elliot says at African Arguments that Cote d'Ivoire may see political stability:

Despite rumours of a coup plot, exiled figures such as Charles Blé Goudé – formerly leader of Gbagbo’s Young Patriots paramilitary group -- lack the financing, popular support and motivation to unseat Ouattara. The disincentives to confronting the new government by unconstitutional means are strong: French and UNOCI troops remain in country and the FRCI’s treatment of residual loyalist forces after Gbagbo’s arrest in April -- those 60 bodies found in Yopougun -- signals that open resistance will be met with force. Hence, rather than plotting to regain power, members of Gbagbo’s inner circle are likely to concentrate on the more prosaic task of evading their domestic and international arrest warrants.

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Ripple effect from growing menace of Boko Haram

2011-08-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

Alex Thurston says at Foreign Policy that Boko Haram's targeting the United Nations in a suicide attack underscores the group is a growing threat and that its violence could trigger conflict across Nigeria:

The attack confirms that Boko Haram has entered a new phase, one in which its activities are a truly national problem. The effects, in a country of 150 million with a roughly even split between Muslims and Christians, could spread well beyond the zone of Boko Haram's activities. Since the bombing in June, fear of the movement has been increasing among southerners. Christian hard-liners have threatened retaliatory violence against northern Muslims who live in the south. Incidents of local Muslim-Christian violence, which occur cyclically in some parts of the country's Middle Belt (where the Muslim and Christian zones meet), could become a national interreligious conflict. Boko Haram's activities could also strain the state's capacity to respond to other problems, particularly if violence and political unrest flare up in the Niger Delta once more.

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Dangerous assumptions about al Qaeda's new leader

2011-08-28T00:26:00.000-04:00

Michael Scheuer says at The National Interest that it would be a serious mistake to underestimate al Qaeda's new top man:

The chattering classes run strongly to the opinion that al-Zawahiri will fail and preside over al-Qaeda’s decline-to-destruction because he is too abrasive, too dictatorial, too Egypt-centric, too vicious and bloodthirsty, too focused on the Arab world and too pedestrian to fill bin Laden’s shoes. There is a good deal of truth in this analysis, but most of the evidence supporting it was acquired before he joined al-Qaeda in 1998 .... It would be reckless to assume al-Zawahiri has learned little and changed nothing since the mid-1990s. He does succeed bin Laden with potentially debilitating personality traits and leadership quirks, but he would have to ignore the advice and experience of his lieutenants as well as the guidance of al-Qaeda’s top decision-making body, the Shura Council, and then deploy and intensify his negative traits and idiosyncrasies with an eye toward deliberately destroying al-Qaeda and throwing away his own life’s work to undermine the promising opportunities he inherited from bin Laden. It may well be that al-Zawahiri will never be bin Laden, but there is also zero evidence that he is a reckless, supremely egotistical fool bent on self- and organizational immolation.

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As goes Qaddafi so go allies and causes he funded

2011-08-28T00:12:00.000-04:00

Joshua Kurlantzick says at The New Republic that the result of Libya's civil war will be felt around the world, noting that

with Qaddafi gone, the insurgencies he backed will either have to find new patrons, or face the prospect of dying out. Some are already on their last legs. The southern Philippines’ insurgent groups are now engaged in serious peace talks with the government (talks that Qaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam had originally attempted to broker). In Burkina Faso, Compaore’s rule is increasingly threatened by army defections and street protestors attempting to convert the Arab spring into an African fall. Unable to rely upon assistance and rhetorical support from Libya, Compaore seems likely to face the same fate as Qaddafi himself. Robert Mugabe, who seems to be gearing up at nearly 90 years of age for another national election, will also be weakened by not being able to rely upon Qaddafi: African reformers, such as Botswana’s democratic government, will undoubtedly be emboldened in renewing their calls for Mugabe to go.

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Material needs matter as Arab Spring evolves

2011-08-28T00:04:00.000-04:00

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross says at National Review to keep an eye on the basics of everyday life in the Middle East as the Arab Spring rolls on to gauge the potential for extremists to advance:

We haven’t seen Islamic law implemented or a caliphate established as a result of the Arab Spring, of course, but al-Qaeda probably foresees a more fertile recruiting environment. The Arab Spring is not just about the desire for democracy. It is also about unemployment and skyrocketing food prices. Will material needs be met? Unemployment in Egypt has increased rather than decreased since Mubarak was overthrown. Historically when sky-high expectations (as you’ve had with the Arab Spring) go unfulfilled, extreme ideologies can take hold.

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Libya's rebels need a leader and to bridge divisions

2011-08-25T01:12:00.000-04:00

Anthony Skinner says at Maplecroft that if Libya's rebels do not solve their differences, autocratic and authoritarian leaders could emerge, and that they sorely need a leader to unite them:

A large-scale fallout between different groups followed by sustained or escalating violence could also precipitate the eventual breakup of Libya. At a local level, the lack of stability and failure to put in place effective law-enforcement measures may encourage looting and damage to private and public property. The NTC has acknowledged this risk and urged Libyans to respect property rights .... The absence of a central figure from the NTC who enjoys the unreserved support of all tribes, factions and groups nonetheless remains a chief source of concern. NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil was formerly Gaddafi’s justice minister, although he was the first member of the cabinet to resign in February 2011 due to the state’s use of excessive force against unarmed protesters. Jalil was considered to be one of the least beholden to the regime when serving as minister and commands the respect of many rebels and non-combatants. Yet, his former position in Gaddafi’s inner circle means that he will continue to be mistrusted by other members of the rebel movement. The lack of a central figure around which different tribes, clans and ethnic groups can gather in solidarity remains an ongoing concern.

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Libya war hurt U.S. credibility long term

2011-08-24T01:28:00.000-04:00

Paul Pillar at The National Interest says that U.S. diplomacy aimed at getting rogue states to change on their own was a casualty of the NATO mini-war on Libya, noting that

there will still be the longer-term damage to U.S. credibility, and to the hope of getting other states off paths of terrorism and weapons proliferation, resulting from the United States effectively renouncing an earlier understanding with the Libyan government of the day. There also will be the memory of the embarrassingly chaotic and hypocritical (in the sense of pretending that regime change was not the objective) western decision making that led to the military intervention. Those ineradicable parts of the Libya story will provide reasons to worry, but in the shorter term there will be more than enough reasons to worry within Libya itself.

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Karachi gripped by ethnic, political violence

2011-08-24T01:11:00.000-04:00

Amir Mir at Asia Times Online says Karachi may be on course for the dark days of Beirut:

The law and order situation in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi has taken a turn for the worse, amid growing apprehensions that the violence-stricken largest port city of Pakistan may eventually turn into another Beirut of the 1970s and 1980s, when rampant terrorism, target killings, gang wars and sectarian and religious fundamentalism was the order of the day .... Security officials say the nexus between politics and crime is an old one in Karachi as hired assassins, extortionists, kidnappers, drug-peddlers, land-grabbers, gunrunners and even petty criminals have successfully managed to find their niche in one political party or another. All of them are heavily armed and most of them have the connections needed to escape arrest and prosecution.

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Why jihad could come to Syria

2011-08-24T00:48:00.000-04:00

Nibras Kazimi says at Defining Ideas that Syria's Alawites could attract the wrath of Sunni jihadists:

In a speech produced four months before his death, Abu Musa’ab al-Zarqawi -- the leader of the jihad in Iraq since 2003 who introduced revolutionary changes in jihadist tactics and ideology up to his death by a U.S. airstrike in June 2006 -- married traditional Wahhabi-inspired anti-Shi’ism to the strategic goals of worldwide jihad. Al-Zarqawi concluded that one of the goals of jihad should be the whole-sale annihilation of Shi’as in theaters of war in which the jihadists are engaged, as a precursor to fighting the West and Israel. Al-Zarqawi argued that the Shi’as constituted the internal enemy within Islam, tantamount to a 'fifth column,' forever enabling the faith’s enemies from without. Few have pondered the grave implications of al-Zarqawi’s strategic vision for long-term stability in Syria, a country where a hated minority heterodox Shi’a sect rules, and that may become a natural outlet for the hateful, pent-up sectarian energies released by al-Zarqawi .... For jihadist purposes, the Nusayri-‘Alawites constitute a 'perfect enemy' in ideological and strategic aspects, or at least one that is most convenient. Two factors are of particular importance: first, earlier generations of jihadists, spawned by the extremist wing of the Syrian Muslim Brethren, had tried to confront the Syrian regime; and second, Syria has great symbolic and strategic value for Sunni Islam. Therefore, it is conceivable that the Zarqawists who have been active in Iraq and elsewhere may direct their talents and resources toward fomenting an anti-Nusayri-‘Alawite jihad in Syria.

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U.S. in position to increase pressure on Syria and Iran

2011-08-24T00:29:00.000-04:00

Michael Ledeen says at Pajamas Media that Washington may have given up on wishful thinking with regard to the Middle East and that

Whatever Obama’s intentions, he has certainly laid the groundwork for more vigorous action against Syria and Iran, whose bonds are so intimate they constitute a single strategic enemy of the United States. The Iranian regime is fighting feverishly to save Assad: committing billion of dollars, sending Damascus weapons and technology to censor and monitor internet and cellular communications, dispatching Quds Force killers (some of whom are Syrian Kurds, so that if they’re captured Assad and Khamenei can blame Kurdish 'terrorists'), and even publicly warning the Turks to butt out. If Tehran has to choose between Syria and Turkey, the mullahs will choose Syria .... When Obama says that the future of Iran and Syria will be determined by the people of those countries, he never says what we all know to be true: those people have already decided what they want, and we should help them achieve it. Our successful support of dissident democratic groups in the Soviet Empire provides many of the guidelines: build strike funds for Syrian and Iranian workers; find ways to help the dissidents communicate with one another to organize more effective protests and confrontations; make their cause a daily talking point for all our national security officials, civilian and military, both in their statements to media reporters and via our national radio and tv stations from VOA to Farda.

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Order and infrastructure top priorities for Libya's rebels

2011-08-23T00:03:00.001-04:00

Daniel Serwer says at The Atlantic that Libya's rebels will need to bring a sense of order to the country as soon as possible, adding that

It is critical that regime loyalists and rebels alike do not grab and 'privatize' state assets, as often happens in chaotic moments and takes years to reverse. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, the government has been trying for years to recover valuable mines from those who took possession of them during the civil war. The liberty Libyans have fought for will require massive rebuilding of the country's infrastructure and economy, which is in miserable condition. Early efforts to ensure transparency and accountability could help Libya avoid the kind of corruption that has plagued Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Mounting governance issues for China

2011-08-23T00:02:00.000-04:00

Jacques deLisle says at the Foreign Policy Research Institute that China faces a number of challenges in terms of governance:

The crucial political question for contemporary China is whether its authoritarian political order can remain resilient amid new and daunting challenges -- ones that are in many ways products of the economic success of the first waves of reform policies .... The number of 'mass incidents' -- a term with no clear or official meaning but that is generally thought to refer to protests of a relatively substantial scale or disruptive effect (and perhaps triggering a response from public security units) -- has climbed sharply in recent years. It is now estimated at well over 100,000 annually. Less dramatically, millions of aggrieved citizens file petitions with the government and courts and the like (sometimes through special 'letters and visits' offices at government and judicial organs) to register their complaints and to seek redress. Their grievances focus primarily on abuses at the hands of authorities or the authorities’ inadequate fulfillment of their roles, including protection of citizens’ rights and safety. Pervasive problems and, especially, dramatic incidents fuel media storms (often crossing the platforms of an increasingly free traditional media, harder-to-control nontraditional web-based media, and a burgeoning universe of web-postings) that reflect, and sometimes stoke, popular discontent with how China is governed (or not governed).

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Not much thought for what's next for Syria

2011-08-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

Paul Pillar at The National Interest says that there is a need for deeper thinking on applying pressure and its effects on the Assad regime in Syria:

Insofar as sanctions do work, how they work also will help determine what comes after the Assad regime and will affect the course of post-Assad Syrian history. That history is likely to be very messy in any case, but how the regime falls, which is partly a matter of to whom it falls, will matter. In thinking of possible post-Assad outcomes, it becomes apparent that one needs to be careful about what one wishes for. Under most scenarios, for example, Islamist influence is likely to be substantially greater in Syria than it is now. It is easy to imagine nervous reactions to this by Islamophobic Israelis, who will long for Bashar al-Assad as someone who was an inveterate adversary but at least one who was a known quantity who could be relied on most of the time to keep the frontier quiet.

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Piracy taking a worrisome turn this year

2011-08-19T12:33:00.000-04:00

Eoin Stewart of Obelisk International LLC says in a guest post that 2011 marks a worrisome turning point for piracy, noting that by August there had taken place:

304 attacks worldwide

31 hijackings worldwide

176 incidents off the coast of Somalia

22 hijackings off the coast of Somalia

377 hostages taken

19 vessels under the control of Somali pirates

... and most striking 7 persons killed as a result of piracy off the coast of Somalia. Somalia aside, the tiny nation of Benin had only one attack between 2006 and 2010, there have been 15 reported pirate attacks off the coast in 2011. The Nigerian Navy has become an Africa-wide maritime counter-piracy force, with inconsistent successes, and other coastal nations worldwide are seeing record accounts of piracy for varied but largely deadly results.

The turning point refers to the refining of piracy methods and the introduction of murder. It has been made clear that a trained and determined Pirate Action Group (PAG) can overcome most if not all measures outlined in BMP3 -- the maritime industry's counter-piracy guidelines Best Management Practice Edition 3 -- including Citadels, inner-chamber safety fortresses, and that they are willing to take human life when the situation turns against them.

In 2010 alone over 4,185 seafarers were attacked and 1,090 were held hostage. Tactics currently used by pirates off Somalia also include the use of hostages as human shields (516 in 2010) and the use of non-African hostages to pilot PAG vessels as a ruse against detection. Over 488 hostages have alleged torture and psychological abuse. The European Union's Naval Forces has reported that there are regular manifestations of torture associated with hostages. The truly alarming aspect from a security standpoint is that these figures are not routinely presented to the public by the press and one rarely if ever sees mention of the word “torture.”

Why would non-reporting effect security? As we have seen in past years, the use of armed security aboard vessels has been limited by some national laws, but more times than not limited by the perception that armed security is both a legal liability risk and that returning fire from an PAG is considered by some as an “escalation of force.” From my own professional perspective it is very, very difficult to escalate a PAG threat once the attempt to seize a vessel has begun. Currently 10 countries have anti-piracy policies, which include armed security and if the trend continues more will no doubt implement such planning.

Being a Private Military Security Company we advocate the use of armed security aboard ship, but as with any operation the overall scope must be taken into account. The presence of potentially hazardous material aboard a ship can limit the fields of fire, the presence or lack of a Citadel, the rules of engagement and escalation of force a client is willing to accept, at least five layers of law governing a security force’s actions, and last, but not least, how to handle potential detainees.

I would submit that operational planning and multiple contingencies must be both developed and rehearsed for any circumstance listed above. I would also add that BMP3 and the use of Citadels alone has proved to be a failure as ships using the BMP3 methodology, including Citadels, have been boarded and taken by determined PAGs.

As a strategic and operational planner I advocate the concept of a hybrid of BMP3 and armed security. The use of a Citadel for the crew and vetted, well trained armed security aboard a vessel can ensure that a PAG will 1) Not take a crew member hostage, and 2) the PAG will not successfully board and take control of a vessel due to the armed security detail. From my own company’s standpoint no person should be injured unless absolutely necessary to protect oneself or the lives of others. This said, the concept of an armed security detail purely as a deterrent is the best option. The challenge is that in order to consistently achieve objectives 1) and 2) cited above and the armed detail being a deterrent prior to anyone becoming a casualty (primarily members of the PAG), the use of armed security must be known by the criminals controlling PAG activity and to achieve this, armed details must be the norm and not the exception.

Two last points of note are that as piracy tactics continue to evolve we must also and indeed stay one step ahead. Also since a roadmap to success has been developed and successfully implemented in multiple regions I predict that piracy will become more prevalent in areas previously looked on as “Low Risk”. The stage is set for piracy operations both large and small to conduct activities in virtually every region of the globe and, unfortunately, be successful. I have read that some look upon hostage numbers as an acceptable percentage of the overall shipping industry worldwide, but I’m sure if one spoke to a hostage being held in an undisclosed location in Somalia today they would say that one successful attack is one too many.

As an industry we can counter and defeat a large percentage of PAG attacks and hostages taken (not to mention negate the payment of millions of dollars and the loss of cargo) if we use a hybrid protection concept as outlined above. Without the cooperation of all parties involved, including governments and ship owners, the plague of piracy will continue to see not only success, but as I have predicted, expansion into sea lanes which are today considered safe to traverse.

I welcome your thoughts and questions as we all navigate this complex maritime environment together.

Eoin Stewart is chief executive officer, president, and founder of Obelisk International LLC and a fellow of the Society of Antiquarians (FSA) Scot. Obelisk International is a licensed, insured and registered veteran-owned private military security company headquartered in the Pacific Northwestern United States that specializes in the development, delivery and integration of protective services and professional training for law enforcement, military, corporate, humanitarian, naturalist and other at-risk clientele. Though the firm's capabilities span the spectrum of protective services operations, its primary focus is VIP/dignitary close protection, anti-piracy/maritime security, facilities anti-terrorism/force protection and tactical & operations readiness training.

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Attacks underscore Gaza a Hamas citadel

2011-08-18T17:58:00.000-04:00

Jonathan S. Tobin says at Commentary that Hamas poses challenges to Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority by using Gaza to launch renewed cross-border attacks:

Today’s atrocity is being widely condemned but it is more likely than not to be dismissed as just another wildcat terror operation that shouldn’t distract the world from a campaign on pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. Yet Hamas’s reminder that it can unleash terrorists on cross-border raids anytime it likes ought to be taken into consideration by those United Nations member states who are being asked to vote this fall to recognize an independent Palestinian state without it first being required to make peace with Israel. The independent terror state in Gaza is a warning to the world of what a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Jerusalem may become .... Should Hamas make a concerted effort to escalate the level of violence in order to enhance their credibility as a political force the results could be unpredictable. Their strength is the fact that although the PA leadership is too insecure to really make peace, Hamas believes it is invulnerable in its fortified Gaza enclave.

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Sinai a breeding ground of resentment toward Egypt, Israel

2011-08-18T12:24:00.000-04:00

Andrew McGregor says at The Jamestown Foundation that jihadists could find a home in the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt's military-run interim government must contend with the "emergence of an al-Qaeda chapter in the Sinai":

Sinai-based militants have repeatedly targeted a natural gas pipeline to Israel in a show of distaste for Arab-Israeli relations and to strike a symbol of the corruption of Mubarak’s regime. These attacks and the recent storming of a police station by armed militants in the regional capital of al-Arish have alarmed Cairo, which has lost control of the region since security forces fled Bedouin attacks in the January revolution. In response to these developments, Egyptian security forces have returned to the Sinai, though there are conflicting accounts of whether their mission will be solely defensive or directed at eliminating the militant threat .... Thousands of years of Egyptian occupation have failed to integrate the native peoples of the Sinai Peninsula into Egypt, whether socially, politically or even economically. The persisting sense of alienation provides fertile ground for the growth of militancy, conditions easily exploited by Salafist-Jihadi groups that see themselves as fighting two enemies in the region -- the apostate regime in Cairo and the Zionist regime in Israel.

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