China-Nordic Arctic Research Institute

Chinese and Nordic representatives meet in Shanghai, June 4-7. (c) PRIC.

First, Chinese and Nordic representatives announced plans to establish the China-Nordic Arctic Research Institute. University World News reports that the Iceland Centre for Research, the Norwegian Polar Institute, and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies will partner with the Shanghai-based institute. The State Oceanic Administration (SOA), the government agency responsible for marine and maritime affairs, has officially endorsed the institute, while the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) will fund it. The SOA’s twelfth Five-Year Plan speaks extensively about the need for science, mentioning the words “science” or “scientific” 72 times. SOA also has significant interests at the poles, with the plan stating that one of the aims over the next five years will be: “Continuing resources survey carried out in international waters, deepening the Polar Expedition, to strengthen international waters resources survey and polar scientific investigation capacity building, and to contribute to world peace and human use of marine.” Meanwhile, PRIC has contributed substantially to formalizing Arctic research in China, even in the often neglected area of polar social sciences. For instance, they have a network of 16 affiliated research universities and institutes spread across China that study polar social sciences.

Following from this spirit of cooperation, the first China-Nordic Arctic Cooperation Symposium took place from June 4-7 in Shanghai. During the two-day seminar, a news report on PRIC’s website explains that representatives discussed Arctic waterway utilization, Arctic policy and governance, and climate change. I’d be interested in hearing more about what specifically was discussed with regard to Arctic waterways, as there are ongoing debates between the status of the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage as to whether they constitute internal waterways or international straits. As a major maritime nation and growing naval power, it would be in China’s interest to promote the two shipping routes as international straits. As Li Zhenfu, associate professor at Dalian Maritime University, wrote in a paper: “Whoever has control over the Arctic route will control the new passage of world economics and international strategies.”

In the Arctic, China seems to be cooperating the most with the Nordic countries. They were also the ones most open to admitting new observers to the Arctic Council, with countries like Denmark having supported China’s bid. Chinese political advisor Yu Zhengsheng also just wrapped up a four-day visit to Denmark, where he met with Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt to discuss cooperation in green technology, among other issues. Yu traveled to Denmark after paying official visits to Finland and Sweden. I’ll discuss the growing bilateral ties between China and the Nordic countries in more detail in a separate post.

ExxonMobil & Rosneft: Arctic Research and Design Center for Continental Shelf Development

Second, ExxonMobil and Rosneft announced that they will be forming a joint Arctic Research and Design Center for Continental Shelf Development (ARC) in Moscow. A press release from ExxonMobil explains that the research will initially be focused on the Kara Sea, with work in the areas of safety and environmental protection, ice, metocean (meteorological and oceanographic) and geotechnical surveys, and sea ice management. ExxonMobil will provide the first $200 million to ARC, with each company contributing equally to the following $250 million to the institute. ExxonMobil will have a two-thirds stake, and Rosneft will have a one-third stake.

The Kara Sea is located between the north coast of Russia and Novaya Zemlya. It remains frozen for a large part of the year, making operating conditions difficult for oil and gas companies. Rosneft and ExxonMobil are eager to begin activities, though. In the Kara Sea’s East Prinovozemelsky field where the two companies are partnering, there is an estimated 6.268 billion barrels of oil and 14.59 billion square meters of natural gas [1].

ExxonMobil and Rosneft joint cooperation blocks in the Kara Sea.

Canadian High Arctic Research Station

Finally, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station is still on target to open in July 2017 in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. A temporary office will open this summer at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit, Nunavut’s capital. On June 11, a community consultation event was held in Cambridge Bay to discuss the plans and design for the CAN $188 million research facility. Nunatsiaq News reports that CHARS will have 33 full time employees and 150 seasonal ones, a significant decrease from the original planned sized.

Significantly, CHARS will be open to the public, distinguishing it from the other two research institutes. Since one of the goals of CHARS is to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge, it is sensible for it to foster an inclusive an open atmosphere. Cambridge Bay’s senior administrative officer, Stephen King, said to Nunatsiaq News, “I feel the CHARS design team has done a great job incorporating community interests and Inuit traditional knowledge into the design. They have gone to great lengths to speak with community members to get ideas to incorporate into the design.”

While neither the China-Nordic Arctic Research Institute nor ARC are located in the Arctic, CHARS will be situated just north of the 70th parallel. This makes it important for residents of the Arctic themselves to help generate Arctic knowledge – or so one might think. As the news article reports, some tension arose after CHARS’ first two hires were revealed to be from southern Canada.

Future site of CHARS in Cambridge Bay. (c) Government of Canada

[1] http://www.rosneft.com/Upstream/Exploration/arctic_seas/

Amidst worldwide condemnation, Russia’s parliament passed a law outlawing “homosexual propaganda.”

It was definitely a shameful milestone.

As of today,

The law will make it an offence…to communicate to Russian children and young people that love between two women or two men is “just as socially valuable” as that between a man and a woman.

The fines outlined in the draft law vary from 100 euros ($133) for private individuals to more than 23,000 euros for companies or organizations. If the “propaganda” is spread via the media, the fines can be 10 or 20 times higher. For example, if someone writes in a blog that homosexual love is okay, he or she risks being fined up to 2,000 euros in Russia. Companies and organizations would pay a far higher price and can even be closed down for up to 90 days.

However, while certainly reactionary, illiberal and immoral, the measure is far from undemocratic. After all, only 16 percent of Russian believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society.

What’s more, at least some of the Western criticism of the law is a bit rich considering just how recently the advanced democracies have themselves converted to the idea of gay rights. In the U.K., sexual equality only arrived in 2003, gay marriage has yet to be signed into law, and Britain is still refusing to pardon those convicted of homosexual offenses in the past, such as the scientist Alan Turing. Not to say anything of the world’s largest democracy, India, which stopped criminalizing homosexuality as late as 2009. Plainly, Russia’s opposition to homosexuality has little to do with tsarism, communism, authoritarianism or some other “unique” experiences.

Another bizarre suggestion, in the Atlantic, posits that “Putin’s government seems to cling to the age-old Russian/Soviet idea that rulers should set the country’s moral agenda” as if this were something unique to Russia, and as if the Kremlin’s opposition to homosexuality was an imposition from above rather than capitulation to public opinion. After all, isn’t the U.S. government’s condemnation of Snowden an attempt to frame his civil disobedience in moral terms?

In fact, the explanation behind this reactionary legislation may be a lot more banal.

At a time when its approval ratings continue to slip, the law may have been one of the most popular things the Duma has done in ages. After all, bigotry can, sadly, be an excellent unifier.

Even in advanced Western societies like France, a government can find itself majorly shaken by an overly progressive stance on gay rights. As Putin’s hold on the country remains challenged by the opposition movement and relentless foreign criticism, ganging up on an already popularly reviled minority group could be a cost-free way to shore up confidence and support for a government otherwise increasingly out of step with its citizens.

The “frozen conflict” of Nagorno-Karabakh may not melt down anytime soon because of the involvement of multitude of interests.

Two decades of international community administered talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijani territory, have failed to reach a resolution. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s petro-dollar aided exponential increase in defence expenditure amid pitched rabble-rousing and frequent sniper skirmishes in the region has led many to fear that the disputed landlocked mountainous enclave in the Greater Caucasus could be one of the most likely sites of Europe’s next war.The sense was reiterated on March 28 by Arayik Haroutiounian, the secessionist enclave’s prime minister, who said in Paris that Azerbaijan and Armenia are unlikely to reach a deal this year and there is a risk of the region sliding towards a war.

But is peace such an imminent casualty in Nagorno-Karabakh, and by extension in the Greater Caucasus?

The short answer is no. While stubborn stances of the warring actors based upon ethnic and historical arguments and applicable competing principles of international law – the right of self-determination and territorial integrity ­– promise to make the coming years equally difficult for a negotiated agreement, the oft-repeated talk of a fresh war may not match up with the realities of limited abilities of the warring states to win a war outright, and dependence of external actors, notably the United States, Russia and Europe, on continued status-quo, if not negotiated peace, towards serving their economic and geopolitical interests in the region.

Adding their bits to the competitive counterbalancing are Turkey and Iran.

Turkey, which is accused by Armenia of the “Great Crime” (the 1915 massacre of over a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks), shares a “one nation-two states” doctrine with Azerbaijan because of the cultural similarities between the two. Consequently, the Turkish government has been participating in the conflict through military cooperation with the Azerbaijanis and declared a blockade on Armenia in 1993 in support to Azerbaijan. Turkey has been refusing to re-open diplomatic relations and its border with Armenia until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved.

Iran, the remaining major regional actor in the dispute, which has economic interests in the region and, like Russia, wants to keep Western countries away from the region, has been a major partner for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh – despite being an Islamic state. It has helped the two fight the economic blockade enforced by Azerbaijan and Turkey after the war.

The coming together of multitude of conflicting interests is not a recent phenomenon in the Caucasus. The vantage geographical position of the region has historically allowed both opportunity for and defence against transcontinental (Central Asia-Europe) expansionist designs of the powers that were – like the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

Currently, the region is critical to the United States and NATO’s military interests. For example, the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) played an important role in transporting the United States and NATO supplies out of Afghanistan when in November 2011 Islamabad closed supply routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan following a United States air strike that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Also, the region is a critical energy corridor for hydrocarbon resources en route to Europe from the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Three of the four major pipelines that transport Azerbaijani oil and gas to Europe lie close to the front line positions of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces stationed along both the Line-of-Contact between Azerbaijan and the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

In the event of a fresh war over Nagorno-Karabakh, these pipelines could become early targets for Armenian artillery, hitting Europe’s goal of diversifying its energy supply.

It is this complexity that is not only holding back an all-out war, but also forcing all the concerned players to put their best thinking hat forward to bring about a solution to, what is known as, the “frozen conflict.”

Since 1994, there have been a number of attempts to broker peace by the so-called Minsk Group, a subset of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chaired by Russia, the United States, and France. But the issue of sequences remains one of the biggest obstacles to the signing of a peace treaty. Azerbaijan wants Armenia to end its occupation first and withdraw its forces before discussing the republic’s final status; Armenia is seeking a resolution first on the status question before pulling out its forces; Nagorno-Karabakh wants its independence officially recognized prior to all other negotiations.

Against the backdrop of the current state of the deadlock, there is a possibility of the following scenarios developing in the coming year:

• The U.S., Russia and Europe expand their cooperative efforts in facilitating the resolution of a conflict towards pre-empting any threat to their respective interests in the Greater Caucasus. The efforts could rescue the U.S.-Russian ‘reset’, and signal a new era of European-Russian cooperation.
• Sustained pressure at home in the wake of reported high levels of discontent in Armenia about corruption, poverty, and abuse of power could force Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to divert a part of military and economic resources from Nagorno-Karabakh – without changing the official stance on the dispute – to public welfare schemes in Armenia.
• President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan could up the rabble-rousing ahead of the October presidential elections, without walking the talk on ground – both because of the dangers of getting into a war that he cannot win at the moment, and the prospects of a harsh response from the international community making his own position vulnerable at home.

The dispute presents itself as an ideal case study for the Greater Caucasus region to understand the conflict between ethnic minority groups’ fierce attachment to their socio-historical and geographical identities and modern world’s need for enforcement of legal principles. The conflict in this case is not about resources, but is about identity – something that cannot be divided.

Currently, the talk is more about the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA). For Azerbaijan, it is war, and for Armenia, it is status-quo.

Expect the Armenian position to prevail in the coming year.

The new monument to Arctic Border Guards in Murmansk, Russia. (c) ITAR-TASS/Lev Fedoseyev courtesy SuperCoolPics

DefenseNews has a thought-provoking analysis of NATO’s announcement earlier this month that it had no plans to establish a direct presence in the Arctic. On May 6 and 7, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and ambassadors from the North Atlantic Council visited Bodø, Norway, where the Norwegian Armed Forces’ operational command center is located.

Rasmussen stated, “At this present time, NATO has no intention of raising its presence and activities in the High North.” Moscow was probably content with Rasmussen’s statement, as in 2010, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed, “The Arctic can manage fine without NATO.” Earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov affirmed, “The situation in the Arctic is not complicated from the point of view of military units, which are not there (though some of our partners are trying to invite NATO)…We object to that. We believe that such a move would be a very bad signal to the militarization of the Arctic, even if NATO wants to just go there and get comfortable. Militarization of the Arctic should be avoided by all possible means” (Google Translate’s translation from a mail.ru article).

It’s interesting to note that Rasmussen uses the Norwegian term for describing the securitized space of the Arctic: the “High North.” Norway released its High North strategy in 2006 (PDF), making it somewhat ahead of the curve among countries in designing a security and foreign policy strategy for the Arctic. Rasmussen added, “The Arctic is a hard environment. It rewards cooperation, not confrontation, and I trust we will continue to see cooperation.”

To support his belief in the continuation of cooperation in the Arctic, Rasmussen pointed to the fact that four of the five Arctic littoral states are NATO members. The fifth Arctic littoral state, the one which is not in NATO, is Russia. Aside from a few instances, tensions have been relatively low between NATO and Russia in the Arctic thanks in large part to Norway’s efforts to enhance cooperation with its neighbor to the east. Norway’s High North strategy mentions Russia 79 times, showing the importance the country carries in Norwegian foreign policy. The first section of the strategy is “Deepening and renewal of cooperation with Russia.” By contrast, NATO is only mentioned twice, once in the context of Norway’s promotion of a “renewed focus on the Alliance’s core areas – including those in the north – based on long experience that a clear security policy creates stability and predictability for all parties.”

Rasmussen neglected to mention that Sweden and Finland are not in NATO. The security dimensions of the Arctic are more complicated than just NATO versus non-NATO, for even though they’re not in the military alliance, NATO members would surely come to the rescue of Sweden and Finland if Russia were to attack. These very issues were brought to the fore in March 2013, when Russian jets flew through the international airspace located between the Swedish islands of Oland and Gotland. Although Russian forces allegedly notified their Swedish counterparts in advance that the exercises would take place, the Swedish Air Force was incapable of scrambling any Gripen jets to ward off the Russian bombers. Danish planes based in NATO’s Baltic Air Policing station in Siauliai, Lithuania, stepped in instead, although they arrived too late. NATO air forces in Siauliai are generally meant to defend the airspace over the three former Soviet states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The fact that jets stationed in Lithuania had to defend Swedish airspace also shows the relatively interconnected nature of the Baltic Sea area and the Arctic.

Of course, it’s possible that Sweden could one day join NATO. Svenska Dagbladet reported that 32% of Swedes are in favor of joining NATO, up from 23% in 2011. But still, Swedes might be reluctant to join a military alliance though, since their country has been neutral since World War I. Sweden’s military has been downsized over the past years, with its budget being slashed. Compounding any reluctance to join NATO is a possible sense of complacency within Sweden. First, Defense Minister Karin Ekstrom stated in April to EUObserver, “If you really read it, the Lisbon Treaty says you must support your EU neighbours with all the necessary means.” Second, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt stated, ” The Russian military has neither the will nor the capacity to attack Swedish territory.” Norway is busy both beefing up defense in the north and increasing dialogue with Russia, while Sweden is noticeably less active in both areas. Sweden also has the benefit of Finland being sandwiched in between its eastern border and Russia – not that it stops jets from flying over. That doesn’t mean Swedes aren’t concerned, though. An article in the Russian newspaper Pravda explores the various worries expressed by the Swedish media, with Svenska Dagbladet asking, “Will there be war?”

NATO’s reluctance to create a direct presence in the Arctic shows that the general feeling in the region is one of cooperation, but on the Arctic’s periphery, there will still be moments of tension. Essentially, the episode in Sweden recalls the situations in 2009 and 2010 when Russian jets buzzed Canadian airspace. In these instances, however, fighter jets from the Alaskan NORAD Region and Canadian NORAD Region were able to intercept. Last year, Russian military officials were also welcomed into NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a simulated anti-terrorism exercise above the Arctic Circle, perhaps showing that relations are better in the Russian-North American space than in the Russian-Northern European arena.

Speaking to the lurking vestiges of the Cold War mentality on the borders of Russia, veterans of Russia’s Border Guard Service have erected an 8-million ruble (~$252,000) monument in Murmansk to the guards who defended the Kola Peninsula during World War II. The statue of the three towering bronze figures and a dog standing atop a pedestal that says, “Arctic Border Guards” was unveiled on Border Guards Day, celebrated nationwide on May 28. An article in Komsomolskaya Pravda opined, “It’s been 68 years since VE Day, and the guards are still protecting the northwestern borders of the country. After all, these days Murmansk region borders directly with the two countries – Norway and Finland, and is a basis for the protection of sea borders Russia in the Arctic. By the way, the border between Russia and Norway is the oldest on the terms set. Of all our neighboring countries, Norway is the only one that is a member of NATO, the bloc that is still hostile to us. So the border guards have to keep the border closed.” (More excellent photos of the new statue are available here.) Thus, unfortunately for cooperation in the Arctic, at least some in the Russian media are still focusing on Norway’s military build-up and membership in NATO rather than the country’s more peaceful overtures.

Lee Rigby killing

Am I lucky or what? Made it through Heathrow, U.K. airport security, and onto the plane headed back for the U.S. a measly 48 hours before a British-born Islamic extremist of Nigerian extraction drove his car over a British soldier outside the Woolwich Artillery Barracks and then tried to hack the victim’s head off with a rusty meat cleaver. Across the pond, before the U.K. went into shock, and Cameron’s government into an emergency meeting designed to address what common-sense suggests might be the response of the British people: rage and retaliation.

Understandable.

News outlets switched into mob control mode: another case of “self-radicalization.” The British Muslim Council immediately condemned the act; government spokesmen (Cameron: “It will make us stronger”) pulled out the old chestnut about “the ability of the British people to rebound from the most devastating attacks” (Obama’s version–”America can absorb another hit”), and talking heads on both sides of the Atlantic went in to non-stop speculation about the “lone wolf” aspects of the attack (read “non-state”), and whether the event — during which the perpetrator, Michael Adebolajo (reportedly a “bright and witty student”) kept shouting “Allahu Akbar” — could even be classified as a “terrorist attack,” given its apparently “non-networked” nature and origins.

If a British citizen of Nigerian descent is converted to radical jihad via the internet, the argument goes, it’s nobody’s fault but his.

Well.

Of Confederate extraction myself, I seem to recall the onus linked to the dastardly actions of one John Wilkes Booth, another “lone wolf” of sorts, whose assassination of Lincoln was deemed the work of the defeated Confederacy as a whole, and of every Southerner in particular.

Nobody seemed to question the link between Booth and the Confederacy/the South on that occasion.

“The Conspirator” – Mary Surratt

“We” assassinated the President, and anyone who’s seen Robin Wright Penn’s performance in the film “The Conspirator” (highly recommended), knows that the U.S. government arrested anyone it could claim was even remotely associated with Booth’s murder of the president, and that the “conspirators” were hanged at the behest of a military (not civilian) court — even Mary Surratt, the mother of a Booth associate who operated the Washington, DC boarding house where the ideologically-driven Booth sometimes held meetings.

Her attorney’s attempt to appeal and obtain retrial in a civilian court was unthinkable, said the victorious and grieving U.S. government. The nation needed revenge.

Deconstructing Political Reality

How times (and politics) have changed. Immediately after the killing of 25-year-old Lee Rigby, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron couldn’t get in front of the cameras fast enough to proclaim that “Islamic extremism and Islam are not the same thing.”

Maybe not. But is the distinction sufficiently relevant — as attacks by extremists on European and US soil increase — to keep victim populations at bay, both physically and politically?

Western governments are hoping the linguistic divide will hold, that the appeal to reason will override ancient impulses and allow the U.S., the U.K. and its EU allies to keep playing the Cold War chess game aimed at diminishing Russia’s influence in the Middle East and sustaining, for the U.S., the feedback loop that sends U.S. greenbacks for oil to the Gulf nations in return for big US defense contracts. Too many investors, the defense industry, the big oil companies, the political parties in thrall to both, have dogs in this fight — a commitment to the status quo.

And then there’s payola.

Let’s not forget this is a blog about organized crime.

Like the drug gangs who shot it out in New Orleans after Katrina to protect their “turf,” which was suddenly underwater, or the competing cartels in Mexico slaughtering one another over distribution routes, or the Five Families, the Mafia in New York, whose number one rule was to take it and keep it, even if that meant internecine warfare at predictable intervals, governments and the industries and special interests they represent are, as cynics and K Street lobbyists both know, in it for the money. Turf is money.

As a result, no matter what your lying eyes might tell you, Washington and Whitehall disagree: We are not under attack. The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, 3000+ dead at the Twin Towers, the Boston Marathon Bombings, Benghazi, the savage killing outside Woolwich Barracks — all anomalies, random, the work of “non-state,” “delinked,” insignificant actors.

Wrong

Then there are other voices.

Anjum Chaudhry, the former head of the radical group al-Muhajiroun, had another narrative to share with Newsnight, a U.K. broadcast, and the mainstream U.S. press: “There is a war taking place, and it is irresponsible of Cameron to say that the Woolwich attacks have no link to Islam.”

Even Michael Adebolajo, Lee Rigby’s killer outside the Woolwich Barracks in South London, clearly anticipated efforts on the part of the government to minimize his actions and redefine his attack as the work of an unhinged Islamic wannabee — as opposed to a deliberate jihadist strike against western interventionism in the Muslim world.

How do we know?

It’s on tape, people.

Adebolajo and his partner wait for the police to arrive. They encourage onlookers to videotape the killing. Adebolajo volunteers “interviews” during which the killers specifically links the killing, as it proceeds, to U.K. and U.S. policy in the Middle East, cites jihadist ideology, and warns that “It will not be the politicians who will be punished…it will be the average guy and your children.”

How specific a link (or a threat) do we need?

Consider John Wilkes Booth’s parting words as he lept onto the stage at Ford’s Theater — “Sic Semper Tyrannis.” What he said was what he meant, and his announcement in front of a packed audience was designed to link Booth’s attack to a specific political ideology.

Booth and his small band of co-conspirators may not have been tied operationally to a larger organization — the Confederate government had unconditionally surrendered — but it was its principles and beliefs, its ideological commitment, that drove Booth’s actions.

No “delinking.” Grant and the U.S. Congress, via a swift and questionable military tribunal, gave the people what their instincts demanded.

But that was before the global marketplace. Before governments became only one of the many players who take turns today at deconstructing political reality.

Defining “Delinked”

From another U.K. press report:

Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist now with the London-based Quilliam anti-extremism think tank in London, said the video and emerging details indicated the men had been inspired by al-Qaida even though they may not have been directed by any specific affiliate to attack the soldier. “There is always mood music playing before these attacks happen,” Nawaz told the AP. “In this instance, I’m not saying they are operationally linked to al-Qaida, but these men clearly felt an affinity to this global jihadist zeitgeist. And they wouldn’t have had to have visited any foreign countries for this ideology to have resonated with them.”

And of course, we now know MI-5 had Adebolajo and his cohort on a worry list of Islamic suspects — but, given the number of folks on the list and the limited resources of UK law enforcement, the agency was unable to focus on “the periphery.” (As the U.S. president told us in his recent speech, “the war on terror must come to an end.”) In other words, in hard economic times, progressive governments cut support for “hard power,” to maintain “soft power” — the bureaucracies that support negotiation, ongoing diplomacy, and positive commercial relationship-building with old and new allies.

The report continues:

Security officials have been worried over the recent increase of men seeking training and fighting opportunities in countries such as Syria, Somalia and Yemen. Dozens of British men and women are said to have been radicalized by US-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant leader who was killed in a 2011 US drone strike in Yemen.

The same article highlights the growing importance of the social media to Islamic extremists, internet apps now functioning as a ‘hub’–a organizational and informational center–for disparate cells and ready recruits.

Virtual Cells?

Al Qaeda typically depends on the use of isolated “cells” — planning cells, logistical cells, operational cells charged with actually implementing an attack on European or U.S. soil — each reporting separately, like spokes in a wheel, to a central hub or “managerial cell” whose only purpose is coordination. This central cell or single manager generally possesses little information about the identities, aims, or future plans of higher ups back in the Middle East.

Jihadist websites are ideal substitutes for these managerial cells — anonymous electronic catalysts designed to rake in recruits wherever they might surface and provide them with the information (pressure cooker bombs) they need to implement an attack. The point is that there are people behind these sites with a specific agenda and methods. Are these websites a link in an operational chain?

This is not a trick question.

A Twitter account used by members of Somalia’s al-Shabab militant group made a lengthy post Thursday about the attack in Woolwich. The Twitter account referenced the video in which the bloodied suspect called the attack “an eye for an eye.” The tweet said the British army had a “woeful record of abuses” against Muslims worldwide.

In a recent national security speech, President Obama told Congress and the American people that “al Qaeda is on the run.” That hits in Pakistan have decimated the organization. The response from Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee was immediate: John McCain, unusually diplomatic in his choice of words, indicated that the President’s assessment is “distanced from reality.”

The sectarian rampage across the Middle East, say some analysts, represents proxy conflicts via Shi’a and Sunni extremist groups, warring factions whose imams, with the injection of arms provided by the U.S. and the EU, have transformed religion into the methamphetamine of the people.

These same imams, or ruling clergy in the case of the Sunnis, say intelligence insiders, are not driven solely by theological fervor — their political patrons pay them to divert the anger and frustration of the masses away from the inability or unwillingness of their governments to share the wealth, and to instead focus their rage on the infidel, the “Great Satan” that is the West.

The West protects the Gulf states — moderate, secular, business-minded allies — who, in turn, provide power and payola to the Islamic clerics who’ve convinced their impoverished and illiterate followers that the West, with its capitalist agenda and pro-Israeli policies, is the enemy.

The Problem

Here it is. Today, these same impoverished and illiterate followers have big guns and the ability to travel anywhere they choose. They’re technologically savvy and “connected” to criminal organizations willing to supply them anything for the right price.

In the U.S., neo-cons and Cold War strategists have been lobbying non-stop for military aid to Syria. The EU has just voted not to renew the arms embargo on weapons to Syria. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, has announced Moscow is sending the S300 anti-aircraft missile system to Assad’s government. Hezbollah fighters out of Lebanon are lending muscle to Assad’s Shi’a forces.

And Senator John Kerry, our new and enthusiastic Secretary of State, has eloquently proclaimed that “the US is on the side of the Syrian people, and the Syrian opposition (FSA), large-writ, is on the side of the Syrian people.”

Wow. “Large-writ.” I think there’s a speechwriter somewhere at State who deserves a raise.

The fact is — and New York Times reporter Ben Hubbard has already said it — that “our side,” the Free Syrian Army (FSA), has been hijacked by extremist brigades (the al-Nusra Brigade has openly announced its official affiliation with al Qaeda Iraq), and a growing number of analysts on both sides of the Atlantic fear that an FSA victory will trigger a bloodbath that may be more savage than current government atrocities: the wholesale slaughter of Christians, Shi’a/Alawites, and Druze.

The Big Gamble

So, here’s the question: Is U.S. support in the Middle East a lose-lose proposition?

Is this a war, like Afghanistan, that we might do better NOT to win?

John Kerry says the larger umbrella operation tagged the FSA, under the “moderate” leadership of people like General Idris, can reign in the extremist brigades, and with our support, reinvent Syria as a stable US ally.

Worry not.

This won’t be Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Pakistan, where U.S. soldiers have as much to fear from the troops fighting with us as they do from “the enemy.” Where U.S. weapons are used against U.S. troops. Moderate Syrian leaders in the FSA will prevail. Darwin is wrong. History is mistaken.

Think again. Critics say the lapsed EU arms embargo, Moscow’s provision of anti-aircraft missiles to Assad, the fiery rhetoric from the U.S. and U.K. in support of the FSA (whose leaders have inserted a comic footnote into the process by refusing to attend “negotiation meetings,” amenable even to the Russians, unless the U.S. provides them with the anti-aircraft weapons we “promised them”) will only lend fuel to the present Syrian conflict, trigger a larger regional debacle (“spill-over”), and drag the West (the U.S.) into closer confrontation with Moscow.

So much for Obama’s declaration that “all wars have to end.”

Sunni leaders, most notably Saudi Arabia, are digging in, muscling patrons in the U.S. and Europe to provide the FSA with heavy combat artillery and missile systems. The Gulf States are betting on the self-interest of their Western partners, the political club that is cheap, always-available oil, and the political clout that U.S. and European defense manufacturers continue to wield.

The odds are with them.

There’s also that western commitment to eliminating the threat posed by Iran and our no-way-out alliance with Israel.

Europe is heavily dependent on OPEC oil, so the disappearance of the EU embargo is no surprise, but the real wild card in the debate — after years of talk about our intractable need for Saudi crude — is the announcement by the IEA that North American oil will dominate supply within the next five years.

An incredible revelation. And the first pushback against OPEC.

Sounds to me like there may be a Plan B in the offing. An understanding, perhaps, that the citizens of the U.S. (and maybe even the U.K.) might have a limited tolerance for the “random” attacks of Islamic jihadists determined, it seems, to make their identities and motives perfectly clear.

What North American domination of the oil supply will mean to OPEC, Aramco, and the oil barons in the Middle East is a question not many people seem to be pondering right now. U.S. advocates for continuing intervention in the Middle East warn that billion-dollar defense contracts that now belong to the U.S. will go to China. Maybe.

But what the gruesome murder of 25-year-old Lee Rigby tells us is not only that we are, indeed, at war, but that the cost, escalating as Sunni versus Shi’a sectarianism spreads across the Middle East, will almost certainly be more than the American people, the “average guy,” are willing to pay.

AP Photo/Virginia Mayo

Is it in the interest of the European Union to arm Syrian rebels? Here is the real question. After almost two years of vicious civil war, over 80,000 deaths and 1,5 million refugees, the EU once again led by Paris and London has received flexibility for actions if needed through eventual shipment of weapons to Syrian rebels.

After over 13 hours of negotiation on May 27, the 27 foreign ministers have agreed on supplying weapons to Syrian rebels and to extend all other sanctions, including visa bans, asset freezes and prohibition on buying oil from regime-linked firms, for one year. Despite the political agreement nobody, mainly Paris and London, will be shipping weapons at this stage to Syria.

The following segment is the official agreement made the Council on May 28^th, as published in the latest press release, the Council agreed on the following declaration:

“The Council agreed the following elements on the renewal of the restrictive measures against Syria:

1) At the expiry of the current sanctions regime, the Council will adopt for a period of 12 months restrictive measures in the following fields, as specified in Council Decision2012/739/CFSP:

– Export and import restrictions with the exception of arms and related material and equipment which might be used for internal repression;

– Restrictions on financing of certain enterprises;

– Restrictions on infrastructure projects;

– Restrictions of financial support for trade;

– Financial sector;

– Transport sector;

– Restrictions on admission;

– Freezing of funds and economic resources.

2) With regard to the possible export of arms to Syria, the Council took note of the commitment by Member States to proceed in their national policies as follows:

– the sale, supply, transfer or export of military equipment or of equipment which might be used for internal repression will be for the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces and intended for the protection of civilians;

– Member States shall require adequate safeguards against misuse of authorisations granted, in particular relevant information concerning the end-user and final destination of the delivery;

– Member States shall assess the export licence applications on a case-by-case basis, taking full account of the criteria set out in Council Common Position 2008/944/CFSP of 8 December 2008 defining common rules governing control of exports of military technology and equipment.

Member States will not proceed at this stage with the delivery of the equipment mentioned above. The Council will review its position before 1 August 2013 on the basis of a report by the High Representative, after having consulted the UN Secretary General, on the developments related to the US-Russia initiative and on the engagement of the Syrian parties.”

Syria has become a real headache for the West. In the case of the EU, this decision is far from symbolizing unity on the matter. As demonstrated by Gideon Rachman in his latest article there is no such thing than a Western view on the Syrian crisis. Even within the EU several Member States, such as Austria, Czech Republic and Sweden, have raised their concerns. Germany has as well expressed its skepticism. It appears that the most vocal EU member state opposed to this outcome was Austria leading to a clash during the meeting between British foreign secretary, William Hague, and its Austrian counterpart, Michael Spindelegger. Spindelegger went to declare afterwards that the meeting was a failure and criticized the British tactics. His main declaration was that “we [the EU] are a peace community and we would like to stay as a peace community.” Such statement is fascinating as it underlines a fundamental and ideational clash on the role of the EU as a global security actor. On one side, Paris and London want to militarize the EU in order to become a stronger global security actor, while on the other, states like Germany, Austria and so on, are advocating in favor of a more civilian type of power, if one recalls the literature developed by Duchêne and Manners. Despite strong foreign policy division, France and Britain have finally been able to advance their positions at the EU level, arming the rebels. Within the US the divisions are very clear as well: the republican hawks, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are pushing for a no fly-zone and arming the rebels; Secretary of State, John Kerry, is in favor of arming rebels; and US President, Barack Obama, is opposed to arming them and any intervention. In the case of John McCain, he did spend Memorial Day in Syria meeting with rebel leaders. As reported by Politico, his secret trip was organized by Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based group that works with the Free Syrian Army.

Der Spiegel

However, the EU position to arm the Syrian rebels raises several issues: first, Russia. Since the beginning of the uprising, Moscow has been a fervent ally of the Al-Assad regime. Russia has been sending weapons and military supports to the Syrian government. Not surprisingly Russia has already condemned the EU agreement. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov argued that “this does direct damage to the prospects for convening the international conference.” He refers to the international conference on peace talks planned for next month in Geneva. It will be interesting to follow how Moscow reacts to the new EU position and see if the peace talks will take place and how successful will they be.

Second, which lucky rebel groups will be receiving weapons and what types of weapons. Even though the U.S. and Turkey support the Franco-British strategy, the control of weapons once they cross the borders will be impossible. Assuring that the weapons, such as modern surface-to-air or anti-tank missile, go directly in the hands of the selected rebels, like the Free Syrian Army, will not be feasible. Paris, London, Washington and Ankara know that. So on the question of the risks of shipping weapons to extremist fighters, William Hague, British foreign secretary, replied

One of the arguments for sending arms is that at the moment the extremists can get weapons, the regime can get weapons, but if you are of moderate opinion, and you are a citizen of Syria, and every weapon that has ever been invented, except nuclear weapons, is being dropped on your town or village, the world has been denying you the means to defend yourself. And that is radicalising people and driving them to extremism.

Berlin has been very concerned about shipping weapons to rebels.  German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle raised the following questions which have been dividing the Union: How can it be guaranteed that the weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands? And would more weapons really help end the war sooner? Paris and London have yet to answer them.

Third, what is the endgame? The endgame ought to be informed by national and/or European interests. No need to underline that Paris and London envision a Syria free of Al-Assad regime. But what would be the direct and indirect costs of a post-Al Assad Syria? Can the West continue to use force – directly or indirectly – when war crimes are committed? Last, what are the interests of the EU and the U.S. in Syria? In case of an eventual fall of the Al-Assad regime, how will Israel and Iran react? The cost of action-in-the-dark – blindfolded actions – may be greater than inaction. The Libyan experiment illustrates such statement. The 2011 mission in Libya opened a pandora’s box, the power vacuum following the fall of the Qaddafi regime has led to a massive shift of power in the region of the Sahel. As a consequence since January 2013, the French troops have been fighting a war in Mali against rebels, tuaregs and radical Islamists. Ultimately the real question is: Can the French and the Brits assume the consequences of a regional power vacuum in a post-Al Assad period? If the answer is no, then the option is quite straightforward.

In January 1864, some strangely dressed men with odd accents arrived in the camp of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, whose troops had been reeling from shortages of arms and supplies. They demonstrate a new weapon – an amazingly high powered accurate “repeater” rifle – and offer it to Lee.

He accepts. And the arming of his troops with AK-47s brought to him from 2014 changes the course of the Civil War. As the reports read, “With the new weapons, the South wins the war and history is changed.”

In the genres of alternative history and science fiction, there is no greater example of a “game changer” that this example in Harry Turtledove’s novel “Guns of the South.” So today, perhaps with a nod to this high benchmark, we hear again and again the term “game changer” to refer to weapons or actions in the ongoing bloody fighting in Syria.

So let us ask now, and let us be clear: What really constitutes a game changer? How many times can the game changers change the game?  When do they cancel each other out?  And are they really game changers, or are we once again latching onto a catchy phrase that is rapidly becoming a cliché because of ease of use and needing little thought?

Here is what we have in the last few weeks.

One of the recent uses of “game changer” came after we heard that after an unknown government (thought to be Israel) took out a weapons storage facility in Syria. The Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, announced that Syria would provide the Shiite Lebanese movement with more weapons to replace those destroyed in airstrike in Damascus.  He said those will be “game changing” weapons that will “break the balance” of power in the region.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-05-09/hezbollah-to-get-game-changing-weapons-from-syria-chief-says

That airstrike itself, to be clear, was aimed at eliminating unspecific game changing weapons in the Syrian arsenal that could be used by its rouges-in-arms. So the air strike that was designed to stop game changing now may lead to new game changing. (See above questions.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-airstrike-into-syria-targeted-gamechanging-weapons-bound-for-lebanese-militant-group-hezbollah-8603765.html

Then we hear renewed talk from the U.S. and others of establishing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria. It’s an idea that is seriously being debated by some but has not risen to “game changer” levels as of yet.  There is deep irony in that because a similar no-fly zone established in neighboring Iraq in 1991 helped the Kurds lay the foundation for their infant democracy that is prospering today. That was a huge game changer for the region, yet not one deigned with the honorific nom de guerre, for Syria.

In the next move, as soon as that no fly discussion picked up steam, the Russians announced they are considering selling Syria advanced surface to air missiles. The S-3000 system is considered one of the most potent air defenses systems in use. It can track up to 100 incoming aircraft or missiles at once and engage maybe a dozen simultaneously.

Supplying that system to the Syrians would be a threat to any no-fly zone enforcement and, of course be a “game changer,” one unnamed western diplomat said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/kerry-warns-russia-against-selling-high-performance-missiles-to-syria/2013/05/09/273f8d68-b8c5-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html

Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned Russia against selling advanced surface to air missiles to Syria, warning that such a sale would undercut efforts to find apolitical solution and threaten Israel. Here is the reality: It is that the political solution pushed by Kerry – far less defined than a clinical, stark weapon – that has the potential to be the true game changer. It could bring actual peace, not a change in war tactics.

The game changers in Syria almost seem flavor of the week. These are not stingers in Afghanistan, the atomic bomb in World War II, the M-1 Garand rifle, the bayonet, the Hoplon shield, the flintlock, the Gatling gun, the longbow, the Roman Gladius sword, the Maxim gun, the AK-47. Those were game changers. The game changers in history may have involved a weapon, but they came with a clear strategy of use and reasonable goal. Not more calamity; a quest for clarity.

These in Syria do not.

The conference Kerry is pushing is a frame for that, to find a political process that would lead to a negotiated settlement to end the bloodshed. The tools needed to make it succeed include firm, consistent diplomatic support and some resolve to take tighter steps against the players in Syria, even against those the U.S. and others wish to support.

Kerry’s plan has Syrian President Assad’s leaving not a pre-condition before any talks begin – but only after a transitional government body is formed. That is a game changer in settlement strategy – ending the fighting, then sorting out who rules Syria.

As the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that “we are not interested in the face of certain persons.”

We will see. And if the Russian keep their word, that will be a game changer as well.

(Photo credit: Defenseweb.com)

This documentary is all over the place.

It is in part a history of modern Afghanistan and also a film about independent journalists – some of whom were killed – trying to report on the situation on the ground.

Afghanistan is called “The Graveyard of Empires” for good reason: Every country or empire that has tried to possess it gets mired down and loses its way.

What Shadow of Afghanistan does a good job of showing is how so many people have been uprooted and living in refugee camps, most on the border with Pakistan.

Another issue addressed is the landmines left behind by the retreating Soviets. The fact that they either never kept records of where they planted those mines or intentionally withheld such knowledge is barbaric.
Many Afghans – a good many children – have died or been maimed by the mines that lay scattered across the country.

Also, the makers of the film claim the CIA inadvertently supported the Taliban before 9/11 because it was funding the Pakistani ISI (the nation’s largest intelligence service) who supported the radical religious group.
What Shadow of Afghanistan does show in some detail is the number of people and parties vying for power, mostly in the 1990s. Also, the situation average Afghans face every day is explored.

This film could have been much longer or could have been divided into shorter pieces. It should be watched, however, as a primer of modern Afghanistan.

Shadow of Afghanistan is available to rent.

Murphy can be reached at: Lojano@comcast.net

Speculation swirls around today’s sudden resignation of Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief ideologue who had thought up “sovereign democracy” and invented the Nashi youth groups. He name-dropped Lacan and Derrida and even allegedly wrote a novel called Almost Zero. And now he might have become just that.

Did he jump, or was he pushed? What role was played by the government’s corruption probe into Skolkovo, the innovation hub with which he was associated? And what does all this mean for the future of prime minister Medvedev, in whose camp he supposedly belonged? These are all interesting questions, the answers to which may (or may not) emerge in the coming days and weeks. Certainly, there will be a plethora of theories to discuss at the pub.

But what might Surkov’s departure tell us about the direction of Putin’s latest presidential term?

In what remains the most astute rumination on the man, Peter Pomerantsev described Surkov’s “mixture of charm, aggression and bribery” as the key traits that allowed him to shape “not only contemporary Russia but a new type of power politics, a breed of authoritarianism far subtler than the 20th-century strains.”

Surkov’s own slippery subtlety became the template for building a society that was both liberal and repressive, that allowed people to become wealthy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams but where the sanctity of private property, as Khodorkovsky discovered too late, remained ultimately contingent on a tsar’s political whim.

The crux of Surkov’s system was a kind of passive repression, which used techniques of divide and conquer, disorientation, political confusion, arms-reach intimidation and material bribery to leave people too dazed, dazzled and distracted to successfully mobilize.

Surkov went so far as to praise members of the opposition.  Even the populist, pro-regime Komsomolskaya Pravda acknowledged today that Surkov is anything but a “silovik” type hard man.

He “disliked primitive decision-making and preferred not to bluntly push,” write Alexanders Grishin and Gamov in their appraisal of his resignation, “but rather to achieve his aims through more complex sequences of moves.”

This strikes me as the fundamental way in which he has become obsolete: Putin seems to have decided that he has no more need for an ideology. His recent flagrant show trials of Pussy Riot and now Alexey Navalny demonstrate an unprecedented disregard even for the trappings of legitimacy with which to cloak pure power.

That’s not to discount the possibility of his eventual return. After all, his political death has been announced prematurely before.

It’s no coincidence that the same day as he stepped down, the Christian Science Monitor reported that more than 30 NGOs have now been ordered to declare themselves “foreign agents,” with more than 500 others being investigated across the country.

Besides such iron-fist policies, Surkov’s trademark tactics of infiltration, cooptation and sophisticated sabotage suddenly appear not just anachronistic, but positively quaint.

Yesterday, I mentioned in a blog post that Eimskip, the Icelandic shipping company, recently moved its North American hub from Norfolk, Virginia to Portland, Maine. This will be the American port’s first direct connection to Europe in 33 years, according to an excellent, fact-filled article in the Press Herald, a local newspaper. Eimskip’s decision is in line with its mission to “provide outstanding transportation services through a dependable transport system in the North Atlantic, as well as offering extensive worldwide network of reefer logistics services.” Eimskip will also open an office and warehouse in Portland. According to the Press Herald, Eimskip has also been in discussions with Pan Am Railways to achieve freight access to North American markets. Pan Am plans to extend its railways 1,500 feet to reach the port, creating much-needed intermodal capabilities. Building on the momentum of the new port activities, Icelandic President Olafur Grímsson will give the keynote presentation at the Maine International Trade Day on May 31.

Eimskip containers being loaded in northern Norway, January 2013. (c) Mia Bennett

The Green Line route. (c) Eimskip

The move to start calling in the ice-free port of Portland twice a month builds upon Eimskip’s recent opening of services to northern Norway. The company’s Green Line will now connect Portland with Sortland, Norway, not too far from Tromso. That city is home to the new Arctic Council secretariat and a city that’s positioning itself as the “capital of the Arctic.” I sailed through Sortland on the Hurtigruten ferry in January, and it’s a stunning port. It is incredible to think that soon, Maine’s famous lobsters and blueberries could be on people’s plates not only in Tromso, but even Nuuk, Greenland and Murmansk, Russia, other destinations that Eimskip services with its fleet of 17 ships.

Eimskip’s network. (c) Eimskip

The United States’ most northeastern state will benefit in that its forestry and fishing products, among other goods, will have new export markets, particularly in Europe. Iceland will benefit, too, as its resources, such as aluminum exports, will have easier access to North American markets. Those containers bringing Icelandic goods to the U.S. and Canada can then bring back electronic circuits, civilian aircraft, lobsters, and paper pulp – the state’s top four exports in 2012 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Other items that will likely be shipped from Portland include materials needed for Exxon-Mobil’s $14 billion oil drilling project off the coast of nearby Newfoundland, Canada, thereby connecting Maine to resource developments up north.

On the other side of the planet, the Rongcheng Shenfei shipyard in China is constructing two container ships for Eimskip. China has been eying Iceland as a transshipment hub in the Arctic for some time now. So perhaps we could see a Maine-China connection eventually develop via the transshipment hub of Iceland. The Portland-Sortland route could then extend to Beijing and Shanghai. In future years, should Maine take after China’s lead, perhaps it will position itself as none other than a near-Arctic state. This would be rather fitting, as after all, it was only 1,000 years ago that Leif Ericson and his band of explorers are believed to have reached the coasts of Nova Scotia and possibly even the Pine Street State. Watch out, Alaska!

McLobster: Coming soon to Mcdonald’s in Murmansk?

The conflict between Russia and the territory of Chechnya is the backdrop for this film.
In it two Russian soldiers are taken away to a Chechen village after their group is ambushed. The reason they are captured is so that a villager can use them as a trade for his son, who is being held prisoner by Russians.
Almost documentary-like, the movie, which was shot in the Russian territory of Dagestan, shows fantastic vistas of the mountains and the village that sits atop one of them.
The storyline is based on a short story (“The Prisoner in the Caucasus”) written by Leo Tolstoy. That story is set in the Caucasian war of 1817–1864.
It is also like a documentary in that many of the scenes showing villagers look like authentic images of actual Chechens.
While mostly bleak, there are some moments of humanity and humor that pepper the film.
Of the two Russian prisoners, one is hardened and cynical while the other is a young, idealistic recruit.
The latter makes friends with the daughter of their captor who plays a critical role in the story. The way she shows her fondness for him is not that she will help him get away but that she will dig him a proper grave after he is killed.
A side story is how that young recruit’s mother travels to the village to try and rescue her son. The audience feels her anguish as she travels to a place she has never seen before.
The villager who captured her son flatly tells her he can’t help her because they are enemies.
There are only a few scenes where the Chechens appear on their prayer mats saying their Muslim prayers. They are shown in order to drive home the differences between them and Russians.

The film was made during what is called the First Chechen War, which was fought from the end of 1994 to late 1996.
Despite their overwhelming military superiority, the Russians were worn down by constant Chechen guerrilla raids.
The war became increasingly unpopular in Russia and then-President Boris Yeltsin had to declare a ceasefire and later sign a peace treaty with Chechnya.
Many thousands of Russians and Chechens were killed and wounded in the conflict and as many as half a million people were displaced as a result.
War is hell and can be absurd, two facts this movie drives home.
It also shows that some gaps cannot be filled, that centuries-old hatred cannot be erased by documents and treaties.
Much in the same way that the former Yugoslavia fell apart and its new nations turned on each other after ethnic differences that had been simmering for decades came to the fore, so, too, did some of the former Soviet Union.
What the world continues to face is a region where lines that were drawn by Josef Stalin become blurred by the ethnic groups that inhabit those areas.
There have been two recent wars between Chechnya and Russia. There probably will be another.
“Prisoner of the Mountains” is available to rent.
Murphy can be reached at: Lojano@comcast.net

As a Russian who first came to America as a small child and later spent his university years in Cambridge, Mass., I felt particularly gripped by the ongoing Boston bomber saga. There remain so many questions about why these two brothers, to whom the U.S. had given shelter, passports, schooling and acceptance, turned so violently and tragically against their adoptive land.

But one additional question that I’ve been puzzling over has been: Who let them into the U.S. in the first place, and on what merit?

At the risk of sounding like a ranting Tea Party activist, I believe that the Tsarnaev tragedy should also be seen as an extreme consequence of America’s deeply hypocritical, two-tiered immigration system.

Maybe I’m just bitter. It took me a year of trauma to be allowed to come to study in the U.S. Despite the fact that I had a full scholarship to a major university, had lived in the U.S. when my father had studied there before and never overstayed a visa, and had done everything by the book, I was denied entry twice, forced to defer college and apply again the following year. The nearest thing to an explanation I’d ever received that that it all happened “right after September 11.” Except it was a full year later, and Russia had nothing even remotely to do with the attacks. If anything, my country’s leadership fully shared the Bush administration’s less-than-cuddly approach to the Muslim world.

And yet we are now learning that the Tsarnaev brothers received asylum in the U.S. in 2002, asylum from a (then more or less) democratic country! Sure, they hailed from a war torn region, but this was almost 10 years after the outbreak of the Chechen war, and they never even lived in Chechnya!

For far too long, the U.S. authorities have been using all their resources to interrogate, abuse, discourage and thwart legitimate visa applicants while credulously treating self-proclaimed asylum seekers with kid gloves, so long as they came from countries with which America was not getting along. This may have led them to miss a series of red-flags concerning the Tsarnaevs, which would likely not have happened had they been in the U.S. on visas or as illegal immigrants.

Historically, it was Russian Jews who were the main beneficiaries of this largesse. Even during the 1970s, it was highly debatable whether all the Jews who claimed asylum to the U.S. were really victims of special discrimination or simply ordinarily oppressed Soviets looking for a better life in a richer country. And who can blame them — who wouldn’t want to swap a dreary, cold, authoritarian country where a doctor makes less than a taxi driver in America, where the same doctor can be a millionaire? The fact is that while these disproportionately highly educated emigrants were actively encouraged to come to the states with no questions asked; while some were certainly victims of discrimination, others who are now living in the U.S. still joke about all the fibs they told the asylum officers. I have personally met several Russian speakers at college who told me that they emigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, even the early 2000s, on asylum visas, claiming persecution, a full decade after Gorbachev lifted all restrictions on Jewish emigration. Over time, as relations with Putin’s Russia deteriorated, other groups have been added to the list of asylum candidates, and the cycle continues.

There’s an entire novel written about this by one of Russia’s most acclaimed novelists. The main character in Mikhail Shishkin’s Maidenhair is an interpreter who translates for Russian asylum seekers in Switzerland. Many, in fact, are from Chechnya.  And many of their stories are made up. At one point, an asylum seeker is told: “According to our instructions, improbability in statements is grounds for affixing this very stamp. So you’ll have to come up with a better legend for yourself and not forget what is most important: the minor details, the trivia.”

Of course, I’m not suggesting that all Jewish and Chechen asylum seekers are inherently untrustworthy (and I also realize how much this disclaimer sounds like the famous “I’m not a racist, but…”).  Many are, of course, victims of the enduring anti-Semitism and anti-Caucasian discrimination that continues to plague Russia. But there exists a perverse incentive to exploit the loopholes, and it can have security implications.

Imagine: You live in a poor, dirty, corrupt, dangerous and oppressive country with few opportunities for personal advancement. If, looking to make a new life and make some money for your family, you hop on a boat, or fly with a tourist visa and try to avoid going back home, or stow yourself away on a plane, or hide under a truck as it crosses the U.S. border, and you are caught, you will be immediately deported. This is the fate of most would-be immigrants from poor countries, like Mexico, or regions such as Latin America, Africa and Asia.

But, if you live in a poor, dirty, corrupt, dangerous and oppressive country with few opportunities for personal advancement, and want to make a new life and some money for your family, and your country is either an enemy of the U.S., such as Cuba or Iran, or you are part of an ethnic group that is viewed in the U.S. as a “David” oppressed by a Russian “goliath,” then you can walk in on the red carpet.

You’d be stupid not to make sure you get put in the second group, by hook or by crook.

Earlier this year, CNN reported on the trend for Mexican would-be immigrants to pretend to be Cuban in order to be allowed into the U.S. One man provided fake Cuban birth certificates and, like the character in Shishkin’s novel, instructed his clients how to correctly answer the authorities’ questions:

In one conversation with a confidential informant recorded by investigators, Morejon demanded thousands of dollars in payment for Cuban birth certificates and provided advice about how to answer questions from immigration authorities who might ask why he has a Mexican accent.

“‘Uh, because I work with a lot of Mexicans and I caught it (the accent) …’” period,” Morejon said, according to a transcript of the conversation filed in federal court. “You are Cuban … from today on … 3:25 in the afternoon you are entering the United States and you are Cuban.”

The fact is that the asylum seekers from Cuba, or the Chechen or Jewish ones from Russia, and the illegal immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere are all oppressed by the same things — lack of money, lack of potential, and therefore, lack of freedom — just as they all want the same thing: a better, safer, more successful life.

But the U.S.’s ideologically-induced blindness to this fact continues to think of all the first category asylum seekers as inherently good and trustworthy, and to view the second category of immigrants as inherently threatening, dangerous and dishonest. This way of thinking discriminates against hard-working, would-be immigrants who happen to not be from, say, Cuba, but still want to contribute to the U.S. economy, and feed their families or attend its universities. It also makes it easy for “bad guys” to take advantage of this situation.

As a result, we see people like Tamerlane Tsarnaev escaping without so much as a slap on the wrist things that would have easily seen other kinds of immigrants or visa holders deported. As the New York Times reports:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s record also showed that he had been involved in an episode of domestic violence in 2009. His father, Anzor, said in an interview on Friday in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where he lives, that Tamerlan had an argument with a girlfriend and that he “hit her lightly.”

Under immigration law, certain domestic violence offenses can disqualify an immigrant from becoming an American citizen, and perhaps expose him to deportation. But the Homeland Security review found that while Mr. Tsarnaev was arrested, he was not convicted in the episode. The law requires a serious criminal conviction in a domestic violence case for officials to initiate deportation, federal officials said.

In the wake of the Boston events, the U.S. has to start looking at reforming its irrational immigration and asylum systems as a national security priority.

Some rights reserved by Pete Tschudy

Even Violent Drug Cartels Fear God
By Damien Cave
The New York Times Magazine

“If the economy worked for the common good, there would be no Zetas. There would be no cartels,” says Robert Coogan, the chaplain at Cereso. Here the Zetas, Mexico’s most feared crime syndicate, run operations from the inside. And they are always watching.

Alexei Navalny’s Day in Court
By Joshua Yaffa
Foreign Affairs

Alexei Navalny, the well-known opposition leader against Vladimir Putin, sat Wednesday in a courtroom in Kirov, waiting for the state’s repressive apparatus — this time in a form of a trial — to be unleashed. Unfortunately for Putin, the law in this case may have a harder time consolidating power than as it did, say, with Pussy Riot. Navalny, Yaffa notes, is a formidable opponent, and has the charisma to bring the rest of Russia with him.

Ana Montes did much harm spying for Cuba. Chances are, you haven’t heard of her
By Jim Popkin
Washington Post Magazine

Once a decorated intelligence analyst, Montes now sits in a small cell, facing a similar fate to that befell Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen before her. Recruted in 1984, Montes probably seemed like a godsend for Cuba — a leftist, bilingual, and with a top secret security clearence. But with family and personal ties to the FBI and the intelligence community, Montes’ damage wasn’t just politically dangerous — it was personal.

The School
By C.J. Chivers
Esquire

“The School” is C.J. Chivers’ award-winning story on the 2004 Chechen terrorist attack on the Russian town of Beslin, where seperatists took at least eleven-hundred hostages. Although terrorism had been a part of the fight since before the first war, Basayev made it clear Russian citizens — even children — were worthy targets.

An Army of One
By Jeffrey D. Simon
Foreign Policy

What makes lone wolf terrorists so dangerous? asks Simon in the context of the Boston Marathon bombing earlier this week. Or, to put it another way, so threatening? Simon identifies several types of “lone wolves” and threat their freedom as individual actors, so to speak, poses.

Blogs:

The Thatcher Legacy and Complex Pictures of Friendship by Sara Chupein-Soroka
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U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers chairs the House of Representatives’ panel on intelligence, which this week overwhelmingly approved a new cyber security bill designed to enhance data sharing between the government and private industry to protect computer networks and intellectual property from cyber attacks.

Yet the day before it passed, Rogers had a more novel idea on how to deal with those stealing information from U.S. firms and government entities: name names.

Rogers noted that nations like China have little for the U.S. to steal back since, to paraphrase him, they stole everything of value they have from the United States.  The one thing the U.S. could – and should do – is make public compromising communications and other materials, Rogers said.

“We are in a cyber war and we just don’t know it,” Rogers, R-Mich., said at an event on the cyber threat sponsored by the American Center for Democracy. “We had better do something now” or cyber terror will ruin the U.S. economy.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/10/politics/house-cyber-bill/

In the colloquy, the cyber policy experts offered a frank, in-depth montage about threats to the U.S., saying it is past the time to act and imperative to put someone in charge of the effort.

“We got lots of work to do,” said James Woolsey, former CIA director. “Who is in charge? No one really.”  He noted that the American dog food industry spends more on research than individual U.S. firms spend on researching the hacking problem.

The experts fretted at the stagnation by the U.S. while its enemies become more skilled, daring and determined to steal intellectual, economic and national security data across the spectrum. That said, the U.S. still can both counter and pro-actively deal with cyber threats if it seeks new ways of government-private sector, among other things, they said.

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/10/cybersecurity-harnessing-the-power-of-the-private-sector/

The discussions were detailed, pointed and real – and yet the idea of cyber war seems elusive to many. Blood and guts in places like Syria can be grasped yet the potential danger of a true cyber attack – greater than nuking a city – seems to generate no forceful, focused action.  U.S. security hinges greatly on cyber security, yet U.S. foreign policy has no guide points to act.

“It is very inexpensive to create a better offense than defense” in cyber security,” said former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Steven Chabinsky. “The private sector can do a lot hand in glove with the FBI, CIA, and the military and that’s not (retribution).”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/budget-plan-doles-out-more-cash-for-cybersecurity-89898.html

The largest cyber attack in history struck during the last week in March. The theft of U.S. intellectual property and scientific innovations have already cost billions of dollars and severely damaged the U.S. economy. An 18-month study from the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board, which formed a task force to review the vulnerability of American military networks, found that during war-game exercises “red team” adversaries were able to hack into the networks with “relative ease.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/a-conservative-cybersecurity-framework-89877.html

“We cannot continue to treat security as a bolt-on afterthought.” Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Cyber Security Mark Weatherford said.  “We are backing into a situation … like we’re in with the war on terror,” said former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey. “We are (only resorting) to retaliation.”

Cyberspace has quickly become the central arena for hostile actions launched by a broad spectrum of adversaries, ranging from nation states and aligned and non-aligned terrorists and criminal groups and individuals. Cyber attacks come in many forms—denial-of-service, intellectual property theft, and disruption or manipulation of financial transactions, transportation, the electric grid and other critical infrastructure.

And not just in the U.S.  The president of Estonia, hit hard by a cyber attack from Russia, said nations must act now. “Genuine cyber security should not be seen as an additional cost, but as an enabler, guarding our entire digital way of life,” Toomas Hendrik Ilves said on Friday.

http://www.acus.org/natosource/president-estonia-cyber-allows-enemies-paralyze-country-without-attacking-its-defense-for

Woolsey said there are 18 critical structures in the U.S. and that 17 of them are dependent on the 18^th – electricity. A cyber strike against the fragile grid would render the U.S. helpless, with a prolong loss of electricity possibly leaving 200 million American dead in a year. Yet nothing has been done to protect the grid, he said.

http://freebeacon.com/taking-cybersecurity-seriously/

The experts had some ideas, but the only live action is Rogers’ bill (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act or CISPA); privacy advocates worry its provisions will allow companies to share consumers’ personal information with intelligence and law enforcement agencies without permission. The bill was introduced last year; the House passed the measure, but it went no further after a veto threat from President Obama.

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_70/congressional-efforts-to-address-cybersecurity-heat-up-1058217-1.html

Rogers said he expects the bill, or a version of it, to be before President Obama for signature this fall.

(Photo credit: U.S. Air Force)

SAUL LOEB/GETTY IMAGES

By Sarwar Kashmeri

It would be a mistake to view President Obama’s visit to Israel as just a fence-mending exercise. It is in fact part of a planned redesign of U.S. foreign policy that will change the face of American leadership around the world.

The redesign began with the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State and Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Both complement Vice President Joe Biden, and the president’s new chief of staff, Dennis McDonough. All of them, I believe, share a keen understanding of what it means to live in a world of seven billion interconnected people, in an age where the basic equation of geopolitics, that superpower equals ultimately getting one’s way, no longer holds.

The next stage of the redesign is now being rolled out with strategies to deal with today’s five key foreign policy issues: Syria, Iran, North Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and the end game of the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. Each is a ticking time bomb loaded with unforeseen consequences for U.S. national interests around the world, for America’s fragile economic recovery, and for a military still recovering after a decade of non-stop wars.

None of these issues lends itself to an America-only resolution. All five require the support and active cooperation of Russia, China, Israel and Turkey. That is why the president has moved aggressively in the last two weeks to remove impediments to better relations with each of these countries.

Russia is Syria’s benefactor and also the key to unlocking an alternative route for the removal of U.S. military assets from Afghanistan. Although the Pakistani port of Karachi is the shortest route out of Afghanistan the United States cannot afford to predicate its military exit solely on the on-again, off-again goodwill of Pakistan.

American-Russian relations have suffered because of the U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system on the borders of Russia. To be set up in four phases through 2020, this battery of anti-missile weapons is being rolled out to protect Europeans from Iranian missiles. But the Russians have never seen it that way. They see it as an American attempt to weaken the deterrent effect of Russia’s long range nuclear arsenal. Although the Russians object to the entire anti-missile project it is the project’s fourth phase, in which sophisticated interceptors would be deployed in Poland and perhaps Romania, that is of particular concern to them.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced last week that this phase will now be abandoned. There were technical and funding reasons that also contributed to the decision, but a major irritant to American-Russian relations is now off the table.

Relations with China, already tense, plummeted with the announcement two years ago of America’s “pivot to the East.” The Chinese interpret this phrase as a signal that the United States views China as a potential military competitor. The United States has tried to explain that the pivot is not really a pivot citing America’s century old presence in the Pacific and Asia. But to no avail.

To bridge this credibility gap with China the Obama Administration cited cuts to the Defense Department’s budget in announcing a study to review the “pivot” of U.S. forces to Asia. This buys time to try and fine tune the “pivot” to allay Chinese concerns

Finally, In spite of his very strong support for Israel, the president has been perceived as being wobbly in recognizing the uniqueness of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. These perceptions have now been put to rest by the president’s visit to Israel during which he delivered unequivocal statements like this one reported by CNN,

“You are not alone,” Obama said in both English and Hebrew, prompting a standing ovation when he declared that “those who adhere to the ideology of rejecting Israel’s right to exist might as well reject the earth beneath them and the sky above, because Israel is not going anywhere.”

President Obama’s visit has already borne fruit. Before Obama left the country Israel had apologized to Turkey for the 2010 killing by the Israeli military of Turkish citizens on the flotilla headed to Gaza to break the Israeli-imposed blockade. Within hours, the apology led to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey, two of America’s closest Middle-Eastern allies are again its partners in dealing with Syria and Iran.

I predict that a thaw in the Palestinian-Israeli relationship will be the next result from the Obama visit to Israel. Is this wishful thinking? Perhaps it is. But if I am correct in believing that both Israelis and Palestinians are finally convinced that nothing can shake the bond between the United States and Israel, reality will drive both sides to a bargain. To increase the odds of this thaw Vice President Biden, who accompanied the president to Israel, has stayed on to strengthen the initiatives launched by his boss.

If this be the first act of the McDonough-Biden-Kerry-Hagel foreign policy team’s debut, all I can say is bravo! Pedal to the metal gentleman, and God speed!

Sarwar Kashmeri is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association. He is adjunct professor of Norwich College, and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for International Relations. His most recent book was NATO 2.0: Reboot or Delete? You can find the original article at the Huffington Post, which was reposted with the author’s permission.