Prince William’s Landmark Middle East Trip

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Issue 1702 - June 29/06/2018

Prince William’s Landmark Middle East Trip

Treading a Delicate Diplomatic Tightrope

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Issue 1702- June 29/06/2018

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Prince William’s Landmark Middle East Trip Treading a Delicate Diplomatic Tightrope

by Yasmine El-Geressi The Duke of Cambridge embarked on the most challenging diplomatic trip of his lifetime this week when he walked the thin line of Middle Eastern politics for five days while attempting to avoid any trip ups that could upset any party - a big ask for even the most seasoned head of state. The 36 year old Prince travelled to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, becoming the first ever British royal to undertake an official visit to the latter two since the British Mandate ended and the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Britain has since taken a back seat to the United States in mediating peace efforts, and the royal family has mostly steered clear of the region’s politics and so for a region with a long history of complicated and controversial British involvement, that’s a significant milestone.

Although Kensington Palace has heavily emphasised that the trip, which came at the request of the government, is strictly “non-political,” in keeping with the royal family’s ceremonial constitutional role, for people across the region, the second part of William’s tour carried political undertones as he held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. He also visited landmark Jerusalem sites at the heart of the century-old conflict. Both sides paid careful attention to the messages the Prince conveyed during these meetings particularly as the visit comes amid heightened tensions over

deadly clashes on the Gaza border and President Trump’s controversial decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

A MESSAGE OF PEACE For two days Prince William’s trip to the Middle East was relaxed and orientated around youth. It began in Jordan where he was hosted by Crown Prince Hussein, whose father King Abdullah II was in Washington to meet with President Donald Trump to talk about the myriad problems afflicting his small nation. The two future monarchs went to Fablab, an initiative of Hussein’s that equips entrepreneurs with needed technology. They also met with some of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who have sought asylum in the country. The pair even camped out in the royal family’s private residence to watch England defeat Panama 1-6 at the World Cup. Despite not being sent as a peace negotiator, The Duke of Cambridge was thrown into the midst of Middle Eastern politics following a visit Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial where he will meet two survivors who escaped Nazi Germany for the safety of Britain. During a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Prince William was asked to deliver a message of peace to the leader of the Palestinian Authority, "I know that you are going to meet President Abbas," Rivlin said, referring to the President of

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Britain›s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (C) poses in front of the golden Dome of the Rock as he visits the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem›s Old City on June 2018 ,28. (Getty)

The 36 year old Prince travelled to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, becoming the first ever British royal to undertake an official visit to the latter two since the British Mandate ended and the State of Israel was founded in 1948 The next day William met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in his Ramallah offices where Abbas reaffirmed his “full commitment to achieving a full and lasting peace based on a two-state solution where the state of Palestine lives side by side with the state of Israel, with both supervising peace and security”.

The Palestinian president told William during their meeting that he hoped his homeland would be a fully independent state by the next time he visited the Middle East.

“I’m very glad our two countries work so closely together and have had success stories with education and relief work in the past, so, long may that continue,” William told the president, risking Israeli anger over an apparent recognition of Palestinian statehood. The UK government does not recognise the Palestinian territories as a country, and the royal family is ostensibly apolitical.

the Palestinian Authority. "I would like you to send him a message of peace. "And tell him it is about time that we have to find together a way to build confidence.”

The Duke was hailed by Reuven Rivlin as a "Prince and a pilgrim,” adding: "You are writing a new page in history.

Because we've had a lot of kings and princes that came to Jerusalem during the history of Jerusalem, which is three or four thousand years, and you are the first one to come not only as a prince but also as a pilgrim. We welcome you from the bottom of our hearts."

In a public meeting with President Rivlin in front of the world's media, the Duke replied: "I very much hope that peace in the area can be achieved."

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The duke ended the day with a speech at the British consul-general’s residence in Jerusalem, in which he told Palestinians: “My message tonight is that you have not been forgotten ... I hope that through my being here and understanding the challenges you face, the links of friendship and mutual respect between the Palestinian and British people will grow stronger.”

A DELICATE BALANCING ACT Ahead of the trip, which the British Foreign Office hopes will build bridges, the Duke of Cambridge was faced with criticism from Israelis objecting to parts of his itinerary which referred to East Jerusalem as “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” as per British government policy. While this satisfied the Palestinians, it prompted Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin to call the name a “distortion” of his government’s belief of a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

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Prince William, Duke of Cambridge attends a cultural event as part of his official tour of Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories on June 2018 ,27 in Ramallah, Palestine. (Getty)

Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not internationally recognized. Israel considers the city, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, as an inseparable part of its capital. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital.

Ambassador Quarrey insisted the wording merely reflected

Despite not being sent as a peace negotiator, The Duke of Cambridge was thrown into the midst of Middle Eastern politics when Israeli President Reuven Rivlin asked him to deliver a message of peace to the leader of the Palestinian Authority

decades of terminology used by British governments. “It is important to emphasise that the Duke is not a political figure, this is not a political visit,” he said.

The trip also came under fire from Jerusalem deputy mayor Dov Kalmanovich for not including a meeting with local municipality representatives or the mayor, Nir Barkat, who is a backer of Jewish settlement in Arab neighbourhoods of the city. A spokeswoman for the UK embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed there would be no such meeting, but declined to specify why.

There were also questions around the timing of the trip with British officials “swearing blind” that it has nothing to do with “nothing to do with this year’s 70th anniversary of Israel’s creation”, the BBC reported.

Meanwhile, Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian diplomatic representative in London, claimed the visit will be considered as an “act of indirect apology” for the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British statement of support for a Jewish homeland. Speaking to The Telegraph he said: "We don’t care about the official British interpretation, we care about our impression and what the Prince could do and what messages he conveys when he meets both sides.

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Duke of Cambridge Prince William (C) accompanied by officials of Jerusalems Jordan-run Authority for Islamic Endowments, visits holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem on June 2018 ,28. (etty)

"I think this is a historic and a symbolic visit for the Royal family to visit Occupied Palestine. It reflects that Palestine is a legitimate country and the struggle of the Palestinian people is a legitimate one.

"This visit symbolises the acknowledgement that Palestine

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (C) stands with British chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (C, L) and Western Wall chief Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch (C, R) as he visits the Western Wall, Judaism›s holiest place of prayer, in Jerusalem›s Old City on June ,28 2018 in Jerusalem, Israel.

(Getty)

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and its people exist and they have the right to selfdetermination."

"We hope the prince will be a bridge between Palestinians and Israelis when he visits both sides. Maybe his good office will bring us back together to the negotiating table."

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U.S.-Canadian Relations on the Rocks Will Ottawa Go Its Own Way?

By Andrew Cohen On April 1965 ,2, Prime Minister Lester Pearson of Canada travelled to Philadelphia, where he gave an address urging U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to consider a limited halt in the bombing of North Vietnam. Although Pearson’s appeal was respectful and restrained, the president felt betrayed, and he let it be known when the two met at Camp David the next day. After a frosty lunch, Johnson led Pearson by the arm to a stone terrace and, for the next hour, lit into him for coming to his “backyard” and attacking him on Vietnam.

Charles Ritchie, Canada’s ambassador to the United States at the time, recorded the tirade in his diary. Johnson “strode the

terrace, he sawed the air with his arms, with upraised fist he drove home the verbal hammer blows.” Pearson, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a settlement in the Sinai in 1956, sat silently through the so-called Johnson treatment.

The dressing-down reached a climax when the lanky president grabbed Pearson by the lapel and hissed, “You don’t come here and piss on my rug!”

The relationship between the two never recovered. As the war in Vietnam escalated, Pearson realized that he could do nothing to stop it. Johnson never again asked Canada, “Now, what can I do for you?” as he had when he telephoned Pearson to thank him for sending peacekeepers to Cyprus in 1964. For decades, that afternoon at Camp David marked the nadir in a century and a half

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of relations between Canada and the United States.

Until, that is, earlier this month, when U.S. President Donald Trump turned on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the G7- summit in Quebec. Trump’s insults—he called Trudeau “very dishonest & weak” in a tweet—have stoked fears of a devastating trade war at a time when Canada and other U.S. allies are already reeling from the president’s breathless assault on the postwar international order that the United States itself helped create. If this trajectory continues, Canada may well have to consider something radical for a longtime loyal neighbor and partner: going its own way.

BLAME CANADA The disagreement began at a news conference after the summit, when Trudeau reiterated his frustration with the tariffs that the United States had just slapped on Canadian aluminum and steel, ostensibly for national security reasons, saying that it was “kind of insulting” for such a stalwart U.S. ally as Canada to be portrayed as a threat. Trump abruptly withdrew the United States from the summit’s joint communiqué, and in a volley of tweets sent from Air Force One as it banked over the St. Lawrence River, he lambasted Trudeau. The worst invective, however, came from two of Trump’s economic advisers: Larry Kudlow claimed that Trudeau “stabbed us in the back,” and Peter Navarro said that the prime minister’s comments had consigned him to “a special place in hell.”

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) extends his hand to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on February 2017 ,13 in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)

Duplicitous? Unfaithful? Could this really be Canada—the world’s Boy Scout, the honest broker, the Mister Rogers of nations? The attacks stunned Canadians. Never before had they been treated this way in public. Canadian prime ministers and U.S. presidents have clashed before, but the tensions arose largely in private, and they were resolved through quiet diplomacy. The contretemps between Pearson and Johnson, for example, was a secret until Ritchie revealed it, in 1974, after both leaders had died. With Trump, one need not wait for the memoirs: artlessly frank, this president holds back little in the moment.

More disturbing is how this personal chilliness may undermine the substance of the relationship. In the past, altercations between national leaders were personal, not institutional. None went to the heart of relations. Yes, U.S. President John F. Kennedy once called Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker an “SOB” and did not appreciate his refusal to put Canadian troops on alert during the Cuban missile crisis. But Diefenbaker relented, honoring Canada’s commitments to continental defense. Johnson blew up at Pearson over Vietnam but valued Canada as a trading partner and as a member of NATO. And whatever the strains between the two leaders, Canada and the United States still struck major agreements, such as the Auto Pact of 1965.

U.S. President Richard Nixon and Canadian Prime Minister

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For decades, that afternoon at Camp David marked the nadir in a century and a half of relations between Canada and the United States.

Pierre Trudeau (father of Justin) also clashed over Vietnam, and in a 1971 White House tape recording, the president was heard speaking of “that asshole Trudeau.” (“My only response was that I had been called worse things by better people,” Trudeau would later say.) Still, the relationship grew. Pierre Trudeau rankled U.S. President Ronald Reagan, too. Reagan was no fan of Trudeau’s freelance peace initiative in 1983, when the prime minister traveled the world preaching nuclear disarmament.

But Reagan came to respect him. Likewise, even though U.S. President George W. Bush resented Canada’s refusal to join the United States in invading Iraq in 2003, he never punished Canada for it.

Indeed, every time things soured between president and prime minister, the personal did not materially affect the commercial.

The relationship was always bigger than the leaders, and it continued to grow into what it is today: two countries with the largest trading partnership in the world, sharing the longest nonmilitarized border in the world. “We are your best friend,” Canadians tell Americans, “whether you know it or not.”

What makes Trump different from past presidents, Canadians fear, is that his distaste for the prime minister is not just personal.

Tantrums don’t alarm Canada; tariffs do. The president’s crude protectionism has drawn uniform condemnation in Canada, and if Trump imposes stiff duties on automobiles from Canada, as he has threatened to do, it will sting. If he goes so far as to abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement altogether, as he has also threatened to do, it will be ruinous. The United States’ leaving NAFTA would constitute a frontal attack on the two countries’ shared commitment to free trade—one of their alliance’s foundational principles, along with collective security, multilateralism, democracy, and the free market. It would also send Canada into recession. Without NAFTA, Scotiabank has predicted, Canada’s economy would contract by 1.8 percent in 2020.

OTTAWA’S OPTIONS For the moment, Canadians can do nothing other than pursue negotiations on NAFTA, vowing to stay at the table until the table is taken away—which Trump may yet do. As long as Trump continues to negotiate, Canada will, too. Trudeau could make a

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concession on dairy subsidies, which have been Trump’s chief complaint. Doing so would be politically difficult for Trudeau, since the dairy farmers who benefit are mostly in Quebec, a province that his party, the Liberals, must win to stay in power, but the move would allow Trump to save face and Trudeau to save NAFTA. For now, at least, Trump’s talk is still just talk. His anger may soon fade, just as it did with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un. But if Trump were to withdraw from NAFTA, Canada would retaliate.

Already, in reaction to Trump’s aluminum and steel tariffs, the Canadian government has announced tariffs on a number of U.S. goods, including maple syrup and whiskey, many of them made in states loyal to Trump, and if Trump left NAFTA, Canada would no doubt levy even more. Canadians, for their part, would likely boycott American goods and embrace “buy Canadian.”

Against the world’s greatest economy, however, Canada would lose a trade war. Canada relies on trade for its prosperity; the United States does not. If Canada cannot sell automobiles south of the border, plants will close in southern Ontario, the engine of the Canadian economy, leading to a disastrous domino effect on hundreds of suppliers of parts and materials.

Only then, in the ashes of NAFTA, would things get dangerous for Canada. At that point, Canadians would have to decide whether Trump is a summer squall in the relationship that will pass with the election of another president or whether “America first” represents a new ice age. If it is the latter, Canada will face an agonizing decision. The default option would be to remain committed to North America, with all the obvious advantages of shared geography, history, democracy, and language. That is what the country has done for most of its history, and could continue to do, although it would be near impossible to breach the protectionist walls of “Fortress America.”

in reaction to Trump’s aluminum and steel tariffs, the Canadian government has announced tariffs on a number of U.S. goods, including maple syrup and whiskey, many of them made in states loyal to Trump, and if Trump left NAFTA, Canada would no doubt levy even more

Or Canada could take a different direction. It could diversify its economy and pivot to Europe and Asia, gradually reducing its economic dependence on the United States. This would mean revisiting the “Third Option,” a proposal that Pierre Trudeau’s government made in 1972 in reaction to protectionist measures imposed by the Nixon administration. The idea back then was to sell less to the United States and more to Europe. Today, it would mean creating a new trade agreement with a post-Brexit United Kingdom, pursuing free trade with China and other Asian countries, and deepening the existing agreement with the EU. Canada’s trade would become less continental and more global.

This would be a difficult, perhaps impossible, option. It is easier to trade across the street than across the ocean. Canada would have to retool its economy, relying less on exports of natural resources and shifting more heavily to high technology and light manufacturing. That would take decades, but with its diverse,

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President Donald Trump (2nd L) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walk into the White House October 2017 ,11 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

multilingual, well-educated, and globally connected population, the country could do this more easily than most.

Such a shift would signal the emergence of a bolder, more confident Canada, one more European than American in outlook.

In particular, Canadian foreign policy might become more Nordic, given that Canada shares a climate (cold), geography (northern), and values (egalitarian, liberal, communitarian) with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Indeed, in their belief in universal health care, gender parity, minority rights, and a social safety net, as well as their rejection of guns, religion in politics, and capital punishment, Canadians have always been more Nordic than American.

This does not mean that Canada would ever abandon its security commitments to North America or declare neutrality. Canada would surely enhance, rather than diminish, its commitment

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to NATO. But untethered to the United States, Canada would gravitate more strongly to the UN and other international institutions that it has always supported but that Trump’s unilateralist United States distrusts. Unfazed by the threat of economic retaliation, Canada would be more skeptical of U.S. positions that offend its progressive worldview, such as fullthroated support for Israel. The reality is that a Canada less economically dependent on the United States would be more politically independent of the United States.

All of this would represent a sea change for Canada, and an existential challenge, too. But having never seen a U.S. president like Trump before, Canadians must now think in a way they never have before: contemplating a radical new course in a world without America.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Erdogan Wins Reelection What the Campaign Revealed About the Future of Turkish Politics

By Halil Karaveli On Sunday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a second term as president of Turkey. He secured more than 50 percent of the vote, avoiding the need for a runoff. His Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost ground in the parliamentary election, but Erdogan will keep his majority in parliament thanks to a strong showing by his allies, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Muharrem Ince, the leading opposition candidate and the head of the social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), received over 30 percent of the vote. That represents the best result for a social democrat in Turkey in over 40 years. After the official Anadolu news agency announced the results, Ince said that the election had not been fair but that he accepted that Erdogan had won.

Even though Erdogan secured enough votes to avoid a second round, the campaign has revealed Turkey’s future leaders. For the first time since he came to power 15 years ago, as prime minister, Erdogan has had to cope with challengers who

represent rising societal trends: social democracy and the nationalist right. As well as Ince’s challenge from the left, Erdogan faced Meral Aksener, the leader of the right-wing nationalist Good Party. Aksener should have been in a better position than Ince, since two-thirds of Turks identify as pious, nationalist, and conservative, and less than one-third identifies as of the left, as social democrats, or as socialists. But a change may be in the making.

THE CHALLENGERS Parties of the right have long dominated Turkish politics. A social democratic party has triumphed in only one election and that was 40 years ago, in 1977. The right has gained mass support by recasting class conflict as culture war. People who, in other countries, would form the base of support for center-left parties—peasants, workers, and those in the lower middle class—have rallied to populist conservatives who appeal to their religion and their resentment of the urban elite.

Many of the well-to-do have a Westernized

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan wave to supporters from the balcony of the ruling AK Party's headquarters on June 2018 ,25 in Istanbul, Turkey.

(Getty Images)

outlook, which has made it easy for conservatives to dress up class conflict as a cultural and religious confrontation. Erdogan is only the latest—albeit the most successful—conservative leader to pose as the defender of the ordinary people against the “refined,” wealthy city dwellers.

Before Ince, the left played into the conservatives’ hands by adopting elitist manners and treating the pious masses as reactionaries. It is telling that, when the social democrats won their only victory, they had a leader who was not contemptuous of the pious. Back then, they carried Turkey’s conservative bastions.

Ince seems to have learned from that history.

His formative years came in the 1970s when, as a teenager, he joined the CHP. (Back then, the party was officially “democratic leftist.”) He hails from a small town and he describes himself as

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A social democratic party has triumphed in only one election and that was 40 years ago, in 1977 the “revolutionary son of a conservative family,” but he is also a pious Sunni Muslim who attends Friday prayers. He has no issue with the headscarf or with parents who send their children to Islamic schools. He avoided the word “secularism” in his campaign appearances. All this denied Erdogan the ability to vilify him as a representative of the urban elite. Ince instead turned the class weapon against Erdogan, who he said represented the wealthy, while he was “one of the people.”

Ince also broke new ground by reaching out to the Kurds, a constituency that Turkey’s social

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democrats have a history of alienating with their nationalism. In a campaign appearance in the country’s main Kurdish city, Diyarbakir, Ince promised to “respect” the Kurds. He intimated that he opposes the government’s oppressive methods by saying that parliament must solve the problem, and he stated that he is in favor of education in Kurdish.

Ince’s support for the Kurds predates the campaign. Back in 2016, he took a principled, democratic stance when the Turkish parliament voted to lift the immunity of its members, a move that was intended to pave the way for the prosecution of parliamentarians from the proKurdish, left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP), including the party’s leader, Selahattin Demirtas. (Demirtas was arrested in late 2016 and charged with supporting separatist militants.

He remains in prison.) Ince even broke with his party on the issue. After the CHP’s leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, instructed his members to support the bill, Ince warned that the move would seriously impair Turkey’s democracy. On the day of the vote, to display his opposition, he joined Demirtas and his colleagues at their table in the garden of the parliament. After launching his presidential campaign, Ince’s first action was to visit Demirtas, who was the HDP’s presidential candidate, in prison.

is reviled by the Kurds. Aksener was interior minister in a conservative government in the mid1990-s, when the security agencies carried out a dirty war in the Kurdish regions, during which they assassinated Kurdish politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen. Her ruthlessness earned her the nickname Iron Lady.

In 2016, Aksener left the far-right MHP to form her own party, the Good Party, but she stuck to the anti-Kurdish nationalism of her old allies.

She vowed to solve the Kurdish problem in six months, presumably by using more ruthless counterinsurgency methods.

Aksener’s nationalism differs little from that espoused by Erdogan in recent years, and it is in tune with the majority of Turks. But her conservative economic program—also a replica of Erdogan’s policies—proved less so. She did not address the growing yearning for social justice and lower income equality. The working class is growing restive. Wages are low and stagnant. Income inequality has increased during the AKP’s years in power. And the government has used the state of emergency to ban several attempted strikes. Although Erdogan claims to represent the people against the wealthy elite, the elite has, in fact, been the main beneficiary of his policies.

Aksener, the other main opposition candidate

AFTER ERDOGAN

For the first time since he came to power 15 years ago, as prime minister, Erdogan has had to cope with challengers who represent rising societal trends: social democracy and the nationalist right

Dissatisfaction with growing class differences helped Ince, rather than Aksener, emerge as the principal challenger to Erdogan. Yet Ince is a reformist, not a revolutionary. He reassured the central bank that it would remain independent. He came across as a social democrat in the Keynesian mold; he called for income redistribution and a productive economy that creates jobs. That message struck a chord.

Turkey’s economic model is mostly geared toward consumption, which has been financed by an influx of foreign capital, while industrial

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Palestinian artist Bahaa al Haribi draws the portrait of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to celebrate his presidential election success near Israel-Gaza border in Khan Yunis, Gaza on June 2018 ,25.

(Getty Images)

investment has remained low. That approach has reached a dead end, and polls show that a majority of Turks want economic policies that give priority to job creation.

Yet even though Ince’s rise reflects a changing society, he is a lone rider in one crucial respect: his support for the Kurds. Other Turkish social democrats have refused to consider forming a progressive front with the moderate Kurdish left, which would have offered a counterweight to the right-wing nationalist alliance of the AKP and the MHP. Instead, the social democratic CHP allied with Aksener’s Good Party for the parliamentary election.

Ince’s strong showing indicates that he succeeded

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in winning over Kurds while retaining the support of nationalist social democrats. Even though there will not be a second round, the emergence of a social democrat who understands that social democracy needs to transcend cultural and ethnic divisions if it is to challenge the right’s monopoly on power is likely to have a major influence on future elections.

Turkish democracy needs a strong social democratic alternative to nationalism. If the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, which boosts the nationalist right, ends up overshadowing social and class issues, authoritarianism will live on, even in a post-Erdogan Turkey.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Putin's Secret Services How the Kremlin Corralled the FSB

by Andrei Soldatov In April, a series of protests hit the Moscow region. They were neither overtly political—citizens were protesting toxic landfills in their neighborhoods—nor very numerous, comprising, at most, a few thousand people in a region of over seven million. At their peak, people took to the streets in nine towns surrounding the city.

The protests, however, seemed well coordinated, and in some towns, the city authorities supported people and granted them permission to protest. Even for officials, it was difficult to ignore the awful smells emanating from the landfills, or the furious mothers and fathers of poisoned children. One of these cities was Serpukhov, some 60 miles south of Moscow.

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By the mid- 2000s , Putin’s secret services - including the FSB, the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN), and the Presidential Security Service - were at each other’s throats, fighting, spying on, and jailing one another in competition for spoils he later posted on YouTube.

In the recording, Tkachev threatens Shestun. “You will be steamrolled if you don’t resign,” he says. “You will be in prison. Like many before you, you don’t understand, it’s a big [purge].” Intimating that he was receiving orders from the Kremlin, Tkachev then lists several top-level officials who had already been jailed, including a general from the interior ministry and two governors. Tkachev even suggests that Andrey Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region and former chair of the ruling party United Russia, could be the next target.

The FSB’s clumsy attempt to silence Shestun was not an isolated incident. Rather, in its intimidation and selective repression—directed by the Kremlin and carried out by the FSB—the episode was a revealing example of the new governing model developed by Russian President Vladimir Putin over the last three years, and the role of the intelligence services within it.

THE NEW NOBILITY

Russia's President Vladimir Putin congratulates employees of the Border Service of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation on Border Guards' Day. (Getty)

One week after the protests started, an official from the Serpukhov district, Alexander Shestun, was invited to the Kremlin. There, he met with Ivan Tkachev, a general from the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s powerful intelligence agency and the successor to the Soviet-era secret police, the KGB. Apprehensive about the meeting, Shestun decided to secretly record the conversation, which

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From Putin's ascent to power in 2000 until quite recently, the FSB enjoyed the status of a “new nobility,” in the words of its former director Nikolai Patrushev. The agency was generously funded, immune from oversight, and free to act against the real and perceived enemies of the Kremlin. It also provided human resources—generals and colonels— for filling important positions within the state and stateowned corporations. For a period of time, the FSB became, as Irina Borogan and I described in 2010, the true elite of the country.

During his early years in office, Putin, himself a former KGB officer, had worked to reverse the decentralization of Russia’s intelligence services that had occurred in the 1990s—a task that largely involved concentrating power

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within the FSB and allowing its personnel to amass wealth and political influence. This, Putin hoped, would make the intelligence services into something like a new class—one loyal to the Kremlin, with a stake in the stability of the regime and able to serve as a check on the ambitions of Russia’s powerful oligarchs.

Yet for many of these newly empowered nobles, the temptations of power and lack of oversight were too strong to resist. By the mid2000-s, Putin’s secret services— including the FSB, the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN), and the Presidential Security Service—were at each other’s throats, fighting, spying on, and jailing one another in competition for spoils. Many, in fact, had turned into mercenaries of the oligarchs they were supposed to oversee. In 2007, Viktor Cherkesov, the chief of the FSKN and a close friend of Putin, complained that “the warriors” of the intelligence services had “turned into traders” after his deputy, General Alexander Bulbov, was jailed by the FSB for illegal eavesdropping. Because Cherkesov had complained in public, he lost his job.

Putin’s trust in the FSB, moreover, proved to be misplaced.

The agency failed to predict the massive protests that struck Moscow in 2011, and once the protests started, it was powerless to respond to the demonstrators’ use of social media to mobilize and organize. When the FSB sent a request to Russia’s most popular social network, Vkontakte, to take down pages used by the protestors, it did so by fax. During the initial stages of the 2014–2013 crisis in Ukraine, Moscow sent an FSB team to help its ally, President Viktor Yanukovych. For the Kremlin, Ukraine was the most important country among the former Soviet republics, and keeping it within Russia’s sphere of influence was paramount. But not only did the FSB officers fail to help Yanukovych hold on to power, they failed to

Putin already saw his secret services failing him in moments of crisis, as during the Moscow protests, but with his method of fixing them, he is opening himself up to even more disastrous consequences

even see him losing his nerve, and were taken by surprise when he fled from the capital in February 2014.

LABOR DISCIPLINE Following these mounting failures, Putin began, around 2015, to change the scheme. He got rid of old friends who were proponents and beneficiaries of the enlarged role of the secret services. In August 2015, Putin ousted his former ally Vladimir Yakunin, an ex-KGB officer, from his position as head of Russia’s state-owned-railroad monopoly. Then in 2016, he dealt with the two Ivanovs, dismissing Viktor and dissolving his agency, the FSKN, in May, and downgrading Sergei, his chief of staff, in August.

Around this time, Putin also ceased using the FSB as a recruitment base for important positions in the government and economy.

The goal of these changes was not to make the intelligence services less important; it was to reduce their autonomy.

Putin was abandoning the search for a stable post-Soviet system of governance, in which the new nobility was supposed to play a crucial part. Instead, he was making

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Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with local Federal Security Service (FSB) special forces officers during a visit to troubled Chechnya's second-largest city, Gudermes, on December 2011 ,20.

(Getty)

Center, whose head, Andrei Gerasimov, was forced into retirement. Two deputy heads were prosecuted—Sergei Mikhailov wound up jail, while Dmitry Pravikov got a suspended sentence. The FSB was also deeply embarrassed by a widely publicized case last year against MajorGeneral Vladimir Podolsky, a former commander of the FSB’s legendary special forces unit, Vympel, who was charged with fraud and sentenced to four years in prison.

Some understood pretty quickly that the country was returning to a Soviet model. In a December 2017 interview on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, the notorious predecessor of the KGB, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov found some warm words for Lavrenty Beria, Stalin’s chief hangman, and praised aspects of Stalin’s Great Purges. Others have kept a low profile. Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, is reducing its public presence, and the recently formed National Guard has abandoned its ambition to obtain surveillance powers.

FLYING BLIND

it clear that what he needed was an instrument, pure and simple, for protecting his regime.

The new model is familiar from the late Soviet Union, when the Politburo called the shots and kept the intelligence services on a short leash, with minimal room for independent action. The KGB, in turn, kept elites off balance (and intimidated the population) through selective repression—a strategy that Putin’s most cherished Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, had called “improving labor discipline.” And improving discipline is exactly what Putin has started doing. Governors and officials found themselves in prison for corruption; film directors, scientists, and ordinary people were thrown in jail, accused of helping Ukraine. The FSB played a major role in these crackdowns, but never on its own initiative. Now Putin, ruling through the Presidential Administration, calls the shots, filling the Politburo’s shoes.

A crucial part of this new model is to keep everybody off balance, including law enforcement and secret services.

Last year, the FSB was struck by purges in its Moscow directorate and its cyber unit, the Information Security

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Putin’s new model suggests little room for interagency rivalry and feuds. All of Russia’s bureaucrats, from ministers to FSB generals to regional officials, now face the same uncertain future. This should keep the elites of the country well under control, as everyone is afraid of making an unauthorized move. To achieve this security, Putin is even ready to sacrifice the capacity for long-term planning—nobody expects fearful bureaucrats, or even spies, to plan for the future.

Yet this new model has another fatal flaw. Putin saw the late Soviet model from his position as a low-ranking KGB officer in a regional department in Leningrad, and, later on, in East Germany. He was too far from the center of power in Moscow to see for himself the failures of that system, which was able neither to predict nor to prevent the Soviet collapse.

The key problem for the late-Soviet model was that the information services, including the KGB, eventually ceased supplying critical information to the top for fear of telling their bosses what they didn’t want to hear. It is, ironically, a problem that Putin never understands. He already saw his secret services failing him in moments of crisis, as during the Moscow protests. But with his method of fixing them, Putin is opening himself up to even more disastrous consequences.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Why Moderates Support Extreme Groups It's Not About Ideology

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When civil wars break out, as they have in Chad, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, moderate citizens have two options: either pick a side or attempt to remain neutral their goals are far more radical than those of the Sunni population they seek to represent. According to a 2013 survey of 38,000 Muslims in 39 countries conducted by the Pew Research Center, most Sunnis favor democracy over autocracy and large majorities strongly reject violence in the name of Islam. If so many Muslims disagree with the goals and methods of these radical groups, why have they multiplied?

The answer has little to do with religion or ideology and everything to do with politics and security. In environments characterized by rapid political change, limited rule of law, and endemic corruption, moderate citizens have rational reasons to favor ideologically extreme groups. This is true in any country, Muslim or not. And it is true even if most citizens do not believe in the underlying goals and ideology of such movements. The rise of radical Islamism is not the result of increased support for extreme ideas but the result of average Sunnis behaving strategically during turbulent times.

THE EXTREMIST ADVANTAGE

Members of the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, part of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary units, carry flags in front of portraits of fellow members who were killed in air raids 4 days earlier, during a memorial ceremony in Baghdad on June 2018 ,21. (Getty Images)

By Barbara F. Walter One of the big surprises since the end of the Cold War has been the growth of radical Islamist groups, especially those that adhere to Salafi jihadism, an ultraconservative reform movement that seeks to establish a transnational caliphate based on sharia law. These organizations reject democracy and believe violence and terrorism are justified in pursuit of their goals. Before 1990, there was only a handful of active Salafi jihadist groups. By 2013, there were 49.

The proliferation of these groups is puzzling because

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When civil wars break out, as they have in Chad, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, moderate citizens have two options: either pick a side or attempt to remain neutral. The best choice is to align with the armed faction most likely to win the war and institute real political reform. Backing the victor protects an individual from postwar reprisals, and siding with a group that promises reform opens up the possibility of positive political change. But citizens do not know who will come out on top or how the winner will behave once in power.

This strategic situation gives extremist groups an advantage. An extreme ideology allows a group to recruit zealots, who are willing to fight longer and harder for victory than moderates. These dogged fighters help the group win early battles and build a reputation for discipline and effectiveness. The result is a type of tipping game: true believers join first because of their unwavering dedication to the cause; then more practical individuals join because they believe the group is likely to win. This is exactly what

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the terrorism expert Will McCants believes happened in Syria: the early success of the Islamic State (or ISIS) convinced many former fighters of the Free Syrian Army to defect to what they felt was the better-funded and more organized jihadist group.

Moderate citizens would also prefer to back the faction that is most likely to remain uncorrupted once in office.

Determining who will govern justly, however, is extremely difficult. Rebel leaders have incentives to claim that they are different from incumbent elites and desire political change, even if they are really motivated by ambition or greed. In countries with few institutional checks on executive power, selling out once in office is common.

Once again, an extreme ideology gives groups a leg up.

First, hard-liners are expected to reject mediocre deals more often than moderates, forcing governments to make better offers. This is why, for example, the Palestinians might prefer Hamas over the Palestinian Authority when it comes to negotiating with Israel. Second, embracing an extreme ideology suggests that a rebel leader is interested in more than just power or enrichment. This is especially true if an ideology demands costly personal sacrifice from its leaders such as abstinence or poverty. Osama bin Laden was able to signal his commitment to more principled rule because everyone knew he had given up his fortune to fight.

Finally, religious extremist groups often have their own justice systems, which creates an additional check on bad behavior. Islamist extremism, for example, comes with its own extensive jurisprudence. The leadership of al Qaeda appeared to understand this advantage when it targeted regions where local populations needed basic governance.

In religious communities, there are also trustworthy third parties, such as imams, muftis, and ayatollahs, who can step in to arbitrate disputes and punish leaders who abuse their power.

ENDING EXTREMISM Individuals do not need to believe in a radical interpretation

An extreme ideology allows a group to recruit zealots, who are willing to fight longer and harder for victory than moderates

of Islam to support an extremist group. This has significant implications for U.S. counterterrorism strategy. Dissuading true believers from joining these movements is extremely difficult, but convincing moderates to defect might not be.

The best way to undercut moderate support for organizations such as al Qaeda and ISIS is to encourage political settlements to the civil wars that sustain and harbor these groups. Political settlements are the kryptonite of Salafi jihadism. Power-sharing agreements end violent political contestation. For moderates, this means that the choice is no longer which group to back but whether to accept a role in government or continue fighting. The best option is clear. And once moderates gain political representation, the base of support for extremist groups declines. This is exactly what happened to the many paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland after the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Today most of Northern Ireland’s radical groups have disarmed and violence has dramatically declined. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that ISIS warned Iraqi Sunnis to stay away from the polls in May 2018, stating that “the voting centers and

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Kashmiri Muslim protestor waves ISIS flag during a funeral procession of a Kashmiri civilian Kaiser Amin Bhat in Sinagar, the summer capital of Indian controlled Kashmir.

(Getty Images)

those within them are targets of our swords.� The group wasn’t afraid of losing the true believers. It was afraid of losing the moderates.

The United States should also help governments in conflict zones develop stronger constraints on executive power.

The lack of checks on Arab leaders and the extraordinary corruption that has characterized these regimes for decades means that most Sunnis simply do not believe that moderate leaders will not sell out once in power. It is no coincidence that an ideology that emphasizes morality and justice has emerged in a region that has been dominated by repressive and shockingly bad governments. Investments in the rule of law and stronger checks and balances would negate the need for a secondary system of justice and undercut one of the reasons moderates support extreme groups. Of course this is easier said than done. Still, the United States has historically had some success in encouraging allies such as South Korea and Taiwan to make democratic reforms.

The stronger the rule of law, the less appealing extremism is likely to be.

Another way to undercut extremist groups is to counter

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their propaganda. Salafi jihadists have convinced at least some moderates that they are more likely to institute a just political system than their opponents. One way to combat this narrative is to publicize the many instances in which leaders have been caught deviating from the rules and principles that they preach. A classic example is the July 2014 video of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wearing a Rolex watch while calling on believers to wage jihad in Iraq. The United States can also encourage moderate religious authorities (often tribal leaders) to contest the legitimacy of radical leaders who attempt to use their religiosity to their advantage. This is exactly what happened during the Anbar Awakening, when the United States worked with tribal leaders against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

An extremist ideology will always attract some true believers, but during times of uncertainty and insecurity it will attract moderates as well. If the United States can change the conditions that make supporting these groups a rational choice for average citizens, it will be much more difficult for extremism to thrive.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Vanishing Borders in the South China Sea The U.S. Must Do More to Stop China's Encroachments

by Bonnie S. Glaser and Gregory Poling

GIVING UP RIGHTS

On May 27, two U.S. Navy ships engaged in a freedom of navigation operation near the Paracel Islands to contest China’s excessive maritime claims in the South China Sea. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore several days later, when asked about the maneuver by a senior colonel from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Secretary of Defense James Mattis said, “We do not do freedom of navigation for America alone … it’s freedom for all nations, large and small, that need to transit those waters for their own prosperity and they have every reason to do so.” And yet, despite statements like these and an increase in such operations by the U.S. Navy, China continues to succeed in steadily restricting freedoms in the South China Sea, particularly those of its neighbors. This behavior exacts a direct economic toll on the region’s developing countries, and, more broadly, threatens international law and the United States’ interest in maintaining a rules-based order.

China has been aggressive in restricting its neighbors’ activities in the South China Sea over the last year. Twice in that time—in July 2017 and again in March 2018—it strongarmed Vietnam, reportedly with the threat of force, into suspending two natural gas drilling projects on the country’s own continental shelf.

With the Philippines, Beijing has pushed for joint oil and gas development in an area of the sea bed that an international court ruled belongs exclusively to Manila.

In late March, the Vietnamese government issued a last-minute order for Spanish energy company Repsol to suspend work on a planned oil and gas project in part of the Red Emperor (Ca Rong Do) field. Repsol had already commissioned a rig to depart for the project site and had, along with its partners, spent an estimated 200$ million on the project. A similar incident occurred last July, when Repsol began drilling a well in a nearby block but was ordered to stand down after Chinese authorities

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Any effective U.S. pushback will require bold initiatives, a higher tolerance for risk, and a commitment to protect not only its own freedoms at sea but those of its partners their Western counterparts, but it’s not clear whether that will remain the case. In response to Rosneft’s announcement that it would be drilling a new well in Block 06.1, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, I would like to reiterate that no country, organization, company or individual can, without the permission of the Chinese government, carry out oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction. We urge relevant parties to earnestly respect China’s sovereign and jurisdictional rights and not do anything that could impact bilateral relations and regional peace and stability.

The USS John C. Stennis (left) and USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carriers conduct operations with other U.S. warships in the Philippine Sea on Saturday. (U.S. NAVY)

reportedly threatened to attack Vietnamese outposts in the area if the work moved forward. In that case, Repsol had already spent an estimated 300$ million.

In early May, Russia’s Rosneft began drilling a new production well at the Lan Do field in Block 06.1, which is part of Vietnam’s most important offshore energy project. In the early 2000s BP, along with partners including ConocoPhillips, constructed the Nam Con Son pipeline to carry gas from the Lan Tay field in Block 06.1, but between 2008 and 2012, ConocoPhillips divested all its energy assets in Vietnam, including its stake in the project, amid pressure from China. BP followed suit, agreeing in 2010 to sell its assets to Russia’s TNK-BP (since acquired by Rosneft).

Estimates vary year-to-year, but Block 06.1 likely supplies about ten percent of Vietnam’s total energy needs, making the project critical for the country’s energy security.

To date, Russian companies engaged in Vietnam’s offshore energy sector have not faced the same pressure from Beijing as

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On the other side of the South China Sea, the Philippines has been eager to tap natural gas reserves beneath Reed Bank for over a decade but has been stymied by Chinese opposition. In 2011, a survey vessel hired by Forum Energy, which is majority owned by the Philippines’ PXP Energy Corporation, was expelled from the area by Chinese naval vessels. The company attempted to restart exploration in 2014 but was blocked by the Philippine government, which halted work while it pursued an arbitration case against China’s claims before a tribunal in The Hague. The Philippines won the case in July 2016, confirming its exclusive rights to Reed Bank, but Manila has still been unwilling to risk Beijing’s ire by greenlighting exploration.

In May 2017, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told the press that China’s President Xi Jinping had warned him that any attempt to unilaterally tap resources at Reed Bank would mean war.

Lacking any recourse, Manila entered talks with Beijing to jointly develop oil and gas in the area. Despite official optimism on both sides, no details on such a potential arrangement have emerged.

The Philippine constitution mandates that the government protect the country’s rights to its natural resources, including those offshore. With the 2016 arbitration ruling awarding Reed Bank to the Philippines, many legal experts in the country, including the acting chief justice of the Supreme Court, have rejected joint development as unconstitutional.

China has long pushed joint development as a means to manage territorial and maritime disputes with neighboring countries while at the same time expanding control over disputed land and water. Deng Xiaoping originally put forward the policy of “setting aside disputes and pursuing joint development” in the

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late 1970s in a proposal to Japan to jointly develop the resources in waters surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. In the 1980s, Deng suggested joint development of the Spratly Islands with the Philippines. But Beijing’s concept of setting aside disputes and pursuing joint development is inextricably linked to advancing its sovereignty claims. In Chinese, the policy is formulated in 12 characters as “sovereignty belongs to China, set aside disputes, pursue joint development.” The objective of joint development, in other words, is to promote other claimants’ acceptance of Chinese sovereignty.

In most cases, China’s neighbors are exploring for resources in areas that should be undisputedly theirs. Reed Bank was explicitly recognized as part of the Philippines’ continental shelf in the 2016 arbitration ruling. Vanguard Bank, which includes the blocks in which Repsol attempted to drill, is considered part of Vietnam’s continental shelf in its agreements with Indonesia and Malaysia. It falls far outside any potential Chinese claim, which must be restricted to territorial waters around disputed islands.

But coercing Manila and Hanoi into sharing resources in these areas would help legitimize China’s assertions that it maintains historic rights throughout the South China Sea, in contravention of the 2016 arbitration and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which grants countries exclusive rights to resources on their continental shelves. If Vietnam and the Philippines are forced to undertake joint development and give up their exclusive rights, it would deal a heavy blow to the rules-based order, and to U.S. credibility as a protector of that order.

A HEAVY ECONOMIC PRICE It is important to note that Beijing’s behavior in the South China Sea is unrelated to China’s vast energy demand. The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that the South China Sea holds about 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 16 billion to 33

To date, Russian companies engaged in Vietnam’s offshore energy sector have not faced the same pressure from Beijing as their Western counterparts, but it’s not clear whether that will remain the case

billion barrels of oil, most of which lies under the continental shelves of China’s Southeast Asian neighbors. For perspective, Chinese energy demand in 2018 is expected to top 12.5 million barrels of oil per day. The exploitable oil and gas reserves on the continental shelves of the Philippines and Vietnam would be a mere drop in the bucket given China’s demand. The primary purpose of China’s call for joint development is not to quench its thirst for energy but to strengthen its claims.

For China’s neighbors, on the other hand, the inability to independently develop their energy resources comes at a significant cost. The Philippines generates nearly half the electricity for its main island of Luzon from a single source, the Malampaya gas field, which is expected to start running dry around 2024. Unless an alternative is found, the country will need to either import significant amounts of natural gas, rapidly incorporate other energy sources into its power supply, or face severe shortages. Reed Bank is Manila’s best option to replace the supply from Malampaya, but preparing a new gas field is expected to take about ten years. That makes each day it fails to undertake exploration ultimately costlier than the last.

After the suspension of Repsol’s project in the Red Emperor field, state-owned energy company PetroVietnam made a rare admission that South China Sea tensions are hurting its offshore exploration and exploitation activities. Vietnam’s crude oil output this year is expected to fall to 227,000 barrels a day, down 14.7 percent from 2017. Hanoi could also be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to Repsol and its partners. Even worse is the likely long-term impact on Vietnam’s ability to attract interest

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from foreign companies in its offshore energy resources. By 2015, BP, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips had all been forced out of their investments by Chinese threats to their assets and staff, which began escalating in the mid2000-s. Other than Russia’s Rosneft and Gazprom, there are few foreign companies still invested in Vietnam’s offshore energy sector. The most promising project still on the horizon is ExxonMobil’s ambitious plan to exploit natural gas in the Blue Whale field (about ten nautical miles from China’s “nine-dash line,” the ambiguous demarcation Beijing uses to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea), but the company has delayed a final investment decision until 2019.

A TOUGHER U.S. RESPONSE

Fiery Cross Reef located in the South China Sea. (Getty)

A free and open Indo-Pacific requires that all lawful uses of the sea be preserved, including the rights of coastal states to the resources in their waters and on their seabed. If the United States proves capable of defending its military freedom of navigation but not the broader freedom of the seas in the Indo-Pacific, its position in the region will be severely undermined. Asian states will see little value in a U.S. presence that cannot advance their interests or preserve international law, which will in turn make them less supportive of Washington’s efforts and more likely to cut deals—even inequitable ones—with Beijing in the absence of better options.

Distracted by other crises and unused to confronting a challenger that employs coercion short of actual military force, Washington’s policy tools have so far proven grossly inadequate.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on May 15, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Alex Wong said that the Trump administration’s South China Sea policy consists of four things: freedom of navigation operations, legal diplomacy, maritime security assistance, and support for the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s efforts to negotiate a code of conduct with China. But all of those have been central to U.S. South China Sea policy since the Obama administration, and while necessary, have proved far from sufficient to prevent China from restricting freedom of the seas.

its claims and alter its behavior. To achieve that end, the United States would have to undertake a broader pushback strategy that would incur a heightened risk of military confrontation with China.

If the United States opts for a tougher approach aimed at halting China’s changes to the status quo in the South China Sea, one key step should be to reaffirm and clarify its treaty commitment to the Philippines. A public statement from the United States— announcing that it would consider any attack on Philippine troops, ships, or planes in the South China Sea to fall within the scope of the two countries’ Mutual Defense Treaty—would reduce the possibility of Chinese violence against the Philippines.

Chinese harassment of Philippine operations to resupply its marines on Second Thomas Shoal last month, involving both a PLA Navy vessel and a Chinese Coast Guard ship, is a reminder of the need to bolster deterrence to avert conflict. To make its commitment credible, U.S. officials should push the Philippines to fully implement the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and to include rotations of U.S. combat aircraft in Philippine bases that could rapidly respond to incidents in the South China Sea. The United States should also consider ways to more clearly support Southeast Asian countries’ rights in their own waters.

One relatively easy step would be to shift from a public focus on “freedom of navigation,” which Asian states see as referring mainly to U.S. military operations and commercial shipping, to “freedom of the seas,” which more clearly encompasses all lawful uses of the oceans and which are more directly threatened by China.

That would bolster the confidence of Southeast Asian partners in standing up to Chinese coercion because it would signal that the United States is committed to upholding their freedoms, not just its own. This, in combination with a commitment to defend the Philippines if attacked by China while developing its own waters and seabed, would send a powerful message.

The administration should be more proactive in rallying international opprobrium against Chinese actions and ensuring that Beijing faces diplomatic pushback and isolation in response.

To that end, the U.S. Department of Defense took an important step in late May by disinviting the PLA Navy from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific naval exercises—the largest multilateral naval drills in the world—in what a Pentagon spokesperson termed an “initial response to China’s continued militarization of the South China Sea.” Rescinding the invitation imposes a reputational cost on China, and such efforts should be continued, especially in concert with international partners. The upcoming two-year anniversary of the 2016 ruling provides an opportunity for the United States to speak out forcefully against Chinese coercion.

It is unclear whether the Trump administration intends to adopt a more robust pushback strategy in the South China Sea. But without one, it will fail in its stated goals. Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February, saying that “we will not abide Chinese attempts to displace the U.S. in Asia, to coerce countries in the region and … we will not be taken advantage of.… Rules and standards must be observed and countries must not be bullied or threatened, but treated as equal players.” Unfortunately, that is not exactly happening in the South China Sea, as Beijing increasingly bullies and coerces its neighbors out of their rights over their waters and seabed. Any effective U.S. pushback will require bold initiatives, a higher tolerance for risk, and a commitment to protect not only its own freedoms at sea but those of its partners.

But reputational cost alone is unlikely to make Beijing modify

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Trump's Trade War Escalates History Shows That Threats Won't Work

By Allison Carnegie Trade hostilities between the United States and China continue to escalate. Last week, President Donald Trump threatened to place tariffs of ten percent on 200$ billion worth of Chinese goods after China retaliated against his previous threats to put tariffs of 25 percent on 50$ billion worth of its products. Washington has warned of additional trade protection if China retaliates again. The latest move comes in addition to the 25 percent tariff on steel and the ten percent tariff on aluminum that the United States has placed on several countries, including China.

The Trump administration has declared that China must fulfill its demands before it will lift the tariffs. It wants China to cut its trade deficit with the United States, protect U.S. intellectual property, accept restrictions on Chinese investment in sensitive U.S. technology, allow greater U.S. investment in China, and remove trade barriers.

Washington also wants a variety of concessions from many of its other trading partners.

Although commentators often describe Trump’s approach as a radical departure, U.S. attempts to strong-arm its trading partners are nothing new. Examining what

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happened the last time the United States tried to bully China can shed light on the likely outcome this time around. The prognosis is not good, in either the short term or the long term. Trump wants to put the United States first in order to get better deals. History suggests that his strategy will have the opposite effect.

WHY TRADE THREATS WON’T WORK The United States has often used trade policy to try to coerce China into making political and economic concessions. Things got particularly heated after 1979, when Washington gave Beijing short-term tariff reductions (known as “most favored nation” status) but made their yearly renewal contingent on China implementing a variety of concessions. These included improving human rights, reducing weapons proliferation, and cutting tariffs on U.S. goods. The United States warned that if China failed to comply, it would restore its tariffs to their previously high levels.

It didn’t work. Each year, China would make some minimal gesture, such as releasing a few political prisoners, in advance of the congressional vote over whether to renew its low tariff rates, but it did little else. In 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush admitted that overall there hadn’t been much give in China’s human rights policy or other areas in which Washington had demanded reforms. In addition, the threat of raising tariffs seems to have deterred trade and investment between the two countries.

A shipping container is offloaded from the Hong Kong based CSCL East China Sea container ship at the Port of Oakland on June 2018 ,20 in Oakland, California.

U.S. president Donald Trump has threatened to impose 10 percent tariffs on 200$ billion of Chinese imports if China retaliated against his previous tariffs on 50$ billion of Chinese imports.

(Getty Images)

Today, these kinds of tactics are even less likely to work.

China now represents roughly 15 percent of the global economy, and the United States’ economic reliance on China has grown considerably over the past 25 years.

Washington is trying to pressure a country that can retaliate. The Chinese government will likely score political points for doing so, since the Chinese people will support standing up to the United States in the same way that Canadians are reacting to U.S. tariffs.

Already, instead of acquiescing, large U.S. trade partners, including China, are fighting back. China has developed its own list of counterdemands and announcedretaliatory tariffs, as have other U.S. trading partners, often targeting products in key political districts. They are also decreasing their dependence on the U.S. market so that the United States will lose leverage over them in the future.

As in the past, these policies are undermining trade between the United States and the targets of the current tariffs, while imposing costs on American people and businesses by raising prices and heightening the risk of layoffs and losses on investments that are no longer worthwhile. Firms thrive on certainty, so these threats of disruption to trade

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China now represents roughly 15 percent of the global economy, and the United States’ economic reliance on China has grown considerably over the past 25 years hurt investment. And because investments today can affect trade far into the future, this can have major long-term economic consequences.

LONG-TERM DAMAGE After past trade disputes, Washington recognized that its threats against Beijing weren’t winning concessions and were harming the U.S. economy. That’s why it allowed China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Joining the WTO was understood as a way to remove trade policy as a tool of political influence in order to reap the benefits of increased trade and investment. Washington and Beijing agreed to a set of rules and to allow the WTO to monitor compliance and adjudicate disputes.

This seems to have worked well. The economists Kyle Handley and Nuno Limão estimate that the reduced uncertainty following China’s accession explains one-third of China’s subsequent export boom to the United States, a boom that dramatically reduced prices on U.S. goods.

The problem now is that the United States is again using trade to try to gain leverage over China and other countries, but all of these countries are already WTO members. Washington is therefore undermining the primary mechanism by which it can reassure its partners that it won’t use trade to bully them.

The Trump administration has claimed that its actions are consistent with the WTO’s rules, so that the United States is just as reliable a trading partner as it has always been.

Although the WTO has yet to rule on the legality of the administration’s actions, they clearly violate the spirit of the law and the norms that have been in place for decades.

The United States’ claim that its steel and aluminum tariffs are justified under the WTO’s “national security exception”—a broad loophole that exempts trade restrictions enacted for national security reasons—is particularly worrying. What constitutes a valid national security reason is unclear and is essentially left for countries to determine for themselves. Since a country could argue that virtually

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anything falls under this exception, governments have largely avoided using it. Indeed, no WTO panel has ever been asked to rule on it before.

In addition, the WTO’s rules say that countries should bring their grievances to the WTO rather than enacting unilateral punishments in response to perceived violations of their trade agreements. The purpose of this rule is to discourage tit-for-tat retaliations that can spiral into trade wars. By enacting new tariffs in response to its allegations of China’s intellectual property theft, the United States is sparking exactly that sort of costly dispute.

More broadly, research I conducted with fellow political scientist Austin Carson shows that openly flouting international norms can weaken them by showing other countries that defections are more common and acceptable than they thought. These countries often respond by violating their agreements, too. After all, no one wants to be the only sucker who follows the rules. Trump’s actions are already prompting defections: the retaliatory tariffs placed on the United States almost certainly violate the WTO’s laws.

In the long term, the United States may thus erode the system of trade that it built for its own benefit. Now that it has demonstrated its willingness to violate international trade norms, both countries and multinational firms will likely use more caution when dealing with the United States. They may even wonder whether it can be trusted on issues unrelated to trade. That could hurt cooperation on other economic and security issues as well.

ALTERNATIVES TO A TRADE WAR It’s understandable that the United States would want to protect its intellectual property rights and gain more market access for its companies. But using trade to pressure China has real costs. In fact, when China

The Trump administration has declared that China must fulfill its demands before it will lift the tariffs

joined the WTO, Congress recognized that it would no longer be able to use trade to threaten China without breaking its commitments. As Robert Underwood, the delegate to the House of Representatives from Guam, explained, “Once China is a member of the WTO, the United States still can impose sanctions on China but they have to be WTO consistent.” So Congress developed alternatives, creating the Commission on the People’s Republic of China to “investigate and criticize” the country and using the Export-Import Bank, the Trade and Development Agency, and the

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Pedestrians walk past a stocks display board after the Hang Seng Index closed at 29468.15, a loss of 2.78 percent, in Hong Kong on June 2018 ,19.

(Getty Images)

Overseas Private Investment Corporation as alternative means to pressure China.

As well as using these mechanisms, the United States could negotiate a new cooperative agreement with Beijing to address its specific concerns. Since U.S. allies have many of the same complaints about China’s economic practices, it would make sense to craft a broad agreement that included them as well. In fact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership included investment provisions that would have addressed many points of

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contention, including over technology transfers. The United States has abandoned the TPP, but it could resume long-running talks over a bilateral investment treaty that wouldcover these issues as well. That process might seem frustratingly slow, but it has a better chance of success than unilateral threats and demands, which will only undermine the international trading system and fail to win the United States any significant victories.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

S

cience

All around the world, humans are forcing other mammals to be more active at night

By Amina Khan

primarily operate during the daylight.

Human encroachment is pushing wild mammals all over the globe to increasingly become creatures of the night, moving their daytime activities toward the darker hours, a new study finds.

This day-to-night shift, described in the journal Science, could have a host of implications for the health and survival of these species _ and the structure of their ecosystems as a whole.

Roughly 75 percent of the world's land surface has been impacted by humans, researchers say _ and as animals have been trapped in these shrinking parcels of pristine land, they've had to adapt to living in the presence of cities or near human activity. Scientists have found that some birds have had to change the frequency of their songs around loud urban environments; others have found that black birds become more sedentary.

But lead author Kaitlyn Gaynor, a wildlife ecologist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, wondered if mammals were not just getting displaced in space, but also in time _ if they were changing their routines to avoid humans, who

That question has been hard to answer until recently, scientists said.

"The effect of human disturbance on animal temporal activities has been difficult to assess, particularly in secretive wildlife," Ana Benitez-Lopez of Radboud University, who was not involved in the paper, wrote in a commentary. "In recent decades, the advent of technologies, such as satellite and GPS telemetry or camera traps, has made it possible to monitor wildlife activity more accurately."

Using these methods, researchers have now published a number of studies documenting changes in wildlife activity regionally, but Gaynor wanted to find a global pattern. So she and her colleagues put together a meta-analysis of 76 papers on 62 different species studies spanning six continents.

They focused on medium- and large-sized mammals, partly because these animals need a lot of space, have more potential to interact with humans, and are behaviorally very flexible. (Also, there was more data on their -24hour activity patterns.)

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Gaynor found that animals that lived in areas with high human activity were indeed shifting to more nocturnal activity by a factor of 1.36

European beavers (Castor fiber) are increasingly out and about after dark. (TNS)

The researchers compared the "nocturnality" _ that is, what share of an animal's activity was conducted at night _ of animals that lived in places with low and high human disturbance.

Gaynor found that animals that lived in areas with high human activity were indeed shifting to more nocturnal activity by a factor of 1.36. (For example, this meant that an animal that used to spend 50 percent of its active time at night would see that share rise to 68 percent.)

"We expected to find a trend towards increased wildlife nocturnally (across) species, but we were surprised by just how consistent the results were," Gaynor said. The trend held across continents, habitats, types of animals, and even types of human activity.

Whether that human activity was lethal (such as hunting) or largely harmless didn't seem to matter, Gaynor said.

"The response is of equal magnitude to activities that don't actually pose a risk to animals, like hiking through the woods _ activities that we think of leaving no trace," she said.

The phenomenon was widespread _ 83 percent of the 141 case studies that they analyzed saw an increase in nocturnally. Larger

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mammals appeared to shift more strongly, the scientists wrote, "either because they are more likely to be hunted or as a result of an increased chance of human encounter."

This shift could have a broad range of impacts that could ripple through an ecosystem, Benitez-Lopez said.

Among them: If apex predators can't hunt as well at night as they can during the day, they may not effectively regulate the populations of prey species. A night-time shift by one species could force them into competition with other animals who use the same resources but at different times. As some animals move into the night-time, competitors might take over their daytime niches. Animals that are sensitive to human presence might start to lose out to those that are not. Seed sizes may have to evolve if the large mammals that usually disperse them during the daytime are no longer doing so.

For those animals that remain active mostly in the daytime, their stress levels might go up _ which could have long-term physiological consequences that could affect their survival or reproduction rates but would be more difficult to observe.

"Holistic approaches that take into account behavioural, physiological, population, and evolutionary responses to human disturbance across taxa are urgently needed to fully understand the consequences of human encroachment for the persistence of wildlife populations," Benitez-Lopez said.

It's unclear whether the changes stop at the behavioural level _ or whether having humans nearby is influencing deeper, more permanent changes.

"That's the next frontier in research," Gaynor said. "We don't really know whether these behavioural adaptations are accompanied by morphological or physiological adaptations in which animals are developing traits through natural selection that facilitate improved success at night."

Ultimately, the scientists said, the findings could be used to create protected times of day for wildlife, just as we already create protected spaces. In some ways, that's already done during certain times of the year for breeding seasons, the authors pointed out.

"Currently, spatial ecology informs commonly used land-planning tools, but new tools are needed that explicitly address temporal interactions," the study authors wrote. "Approaches may include diurnal 'temporal zoning,' analogous to spatial zoning, that would restrict certain human activities during times of the day when species of conservation concern are most active or when the likelihood of negative human-wildlife encounters is highest."

This was originally published by The Los Angeles Times.

29/06/18

C

ulture

Apple strikes deal with Oprah, escalating tech's battle for Hollywood talent

By Ryan Faughnder and David Pierson

decades running, is also expected to have an on-screen role in the new Apple programming.

Apple Inc. has struck a multiyear deal with Oprah Winfrey to produce original content, the technology giant announced Friday as the battle for talent among tech titans and traditional studios keeps heating up.

Winfrey, one of the most influential voices in media for several

The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant has been courting Hollywood to produce original programming for the company, which manufactures streaming devices called Apple TV. The company has not said when it plans to launch the upcoming

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streaming service that will carry its shows, or what it will cost.

People who are familiar with the plans but not authorized to comment said it probably will debut next year. The iPhone maker's content ambitions are part of a push to diversify its revenue beyond the devices it makes and apps produced by other developers.

The company hopes to compete in entertainment with the likes of Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which have been aggressively signing deals with prominent entertainment producers to boost their original content offerings.

Netflix has signed lucrative producing agreements with the likes of Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes, who are best known for making hit shows on more traditional networks such as Fox and ABC, respectively. The Los Gatos, Calif., streaming giant recently signed a deal to have Barack and Michelle Obama make movies and shows for it.

This month, Amazon Studios announced a first-look pact with "Get Out" writer-director Jordan Peele, one of the biggest deals yet for Amazon's streaming-video arm.

Oprah Winfrey backstage at the 75th Annual Golden Globes at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 2018 ,7. (TNS)

Hulu, which is owned by a collection of major media companies, has an original hit in "The Handmaid's Tale," produced by MGM. Meanwhile, Walt Disney Co. is preparing to launch its own Netflix competitor next year, with programming from its brands including Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar.

With so much competition, Apple needs big-name players to help it catch up in the fast-growing streaming space.

"For them to take on Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, and soon Disney, Apple knows it needs to spend the money to acquire the best talent and content," said Eunice Shin, managing director of consulting firm Manatt Digital. "Going after Oprah and winning this deal is huge for Apple."

Apple landed two Sony television studio veterans, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, to lead its push into original programming last year. They report to Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

Since then, Apple has announced numerous TV-style projects with prominent entertainment industry names. One of its muchanticipated endeavors is Steven Spielberg's upcoming revival of the 1980s anthology sci-fi series "Amazing Stories."

In May, Apple announced it was producing a series called "Dickinson," which stars actress and pop star Hailee Steinfeld and is set during the era of American poet Emily Dickinson. The company has also ordered a psychological thriller series from "Split" director M. Night Shyamalan and a drama series from "La La Land" writer-director Damien Chazelle.

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Apple has announced numerous TV-style projects with prominent entertainment industry names Less is known about Apple's potential interest in feature films, an area in which Netflix is spending heavily. The tech giant is said to be in talks with an Ireland-based cartoon studio to secure the rights to an upcoming animated movie, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources.

Landing a deal with Winfrey is a coup because she provides instant star power that Apple needs to build an audience, analysts say.

For Winfrey, the deal provides a chance to expand her audience among consumers who increasingly seek out on-demand programming online.

"This is a shot across the bow from Apple and shows its content strategy is about to accelerate with other streaming competitors now keeping one eye open on Cupertino's plans," Daniel Ives, an analyst for GBH Insights, said in an email.

Apple is expected to spend about 1$ billion on programming this year, and Ives estimates it will launch a subscription streaming service by 2019 and estimates that by then, the company will spend up to 3$ billion on original content in 2019. By comparison, this year Netflix is spending 8$ billion on original and licensed content.

It's unclear what kind of programming Winfrey will produce for Apple. Apple declined to comment beyond its news release. A spokeswoman for Winfrey also declined to comment.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Winfrey will remain chief executive of the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN. Discovery Communications agreed to pay 70$ million last year to take a majority stake in the network. As part of the Discovery deal, Winfrey agreed to remain with OWN through 2025. Despite early ratings struggles and staff turnover, OWN has become popular among African-American women with such series as "Queen Sugar" and "Greenleaf."

Since her long-running talk show went off the air in 2011, Winfrey has appeared in movies such as "Lee Daniels' The Butler," HBO's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" and Disney's "A Wrinkle in Time." She also produced and appeared in Ava DuVernay's 2014 civil rights drama "Selma," which was nominated for a best picture Oscar.

This was originally published by The Los Angeles Times.

29/06/18

H

ealth

‘‘Children must not be abused for political purposes’’: What health groups say about family separation 42

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“Parental support is an essential and proven protective factor that substantially reduces risk for adverse health and developmental outcomes for children,” American Academy of Pediatrics The AAP issued a policy statement saying that children “should not be exposed to conditions that may harm or traumatize them.” The group, which represents doctors who specialize in caring for kids, cited the “internationally accepted rights of the child, immigrant and refugee children” in making this statement.

The academy recommends that children have only limited exposure to current Department of Homeland Security facilities and argues that those affected by the detention policy be evaluated over time to see how it has affected their health.

“Children, especially those who have been exposed to trauma and violence, should not be placed in settings that do not meet basic standards for children’s physical and mental health and that expose children to additional risk, fear, and trauma,” the pediatrician group said. “Separation of a parent or primary caregiver from his or her children should never occur, unless there are concerns for safety of the child at the hand of parent.”

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Children take part in a protest against US immigration policies outside the US embassy in Mexico City on June ,21 2018. (Getty Images)

The family separation policy is counter to everything experts know about children and mental health, according to the academy.

By Melissa Healy America’s medical and public health organizations have been unanimous in their criticism of the Trump administration’s practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border. President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the policy on Wednesday, after U.S. border officials placed more than 2,300 children in facilities away from their parents, who were detained for criminal prosecution.

Here’s a roundup of why these groups opposed the family separation policy, and what they’ve said about it.

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“We know that children who experience sudden separation from one or both parents, especially under frightening, unpredictable, and chaotic circumstances, are at higher risk for developing illnesses such as anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD), and other trauma-induced reactions,” Dr. Karen Dineen Wagner, the group’s president, said in a statement. This is especially true for children fleeing war, violence and other traumatic situations from their home countries.

“Parental support is an essential and proven protective factor that substantially reduces risk for adverse health and developmental outcomes for children,” Wagner said.

“Separating these children from their families in times of

H

ealth

stress creates unnecessary and high-risk trauma at the very time they need care and support the most.

“As child and adolescent psychiatrists, we know that pulling families apart can often cause harm,” she added.

American Public Health Association The APHA said the family separation policy “violates fundamental human rights.” The group expressed concern over the prospects of “acute mental trauma” for both children and parents. Critical information on a child’s health status is lost when a parent is held in a different location, and the separation of breastfeeding mothers from their babies puts maternal-child bonding at risk.

“More alarming is the interruption of these children’s chance at achieving a stable childhood,” the APHA declared. “Decades of public health research have shown that family structure, stability and environment are key social determinants of a child’s and a community’s health.”

The negative health consequences associated with adversity in childhood “include some of society’s most intractable health issues: alcoholism, substance misuse, depression, suicide, poor physical health and obesity,” the APHA statement said.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine The National Academies cited a wealth of scientific evidence in calling on the Department of Homeland Security “to stop family separations immediately.”

A body of research on child welfare “points to the danger of current immigration enforcement actions that separate children from their parents,” according to a statement signed

by Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, C.D. Mote Jr., president of the National Academy of Engineering, and Dr. Victor J. Dzau, president of the National

A body of research on child welfare “points to the danger of current immigration enforcement actions that separate children from their parents,”

Academy of Medicine.

“Parents’ impact on their children’s well-being may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child’s brain is developing rapidly and when nearly all of her or his experiences are shaped by parents and the family environment,” the trio wrote. “Child development involves complex interactions among genetic, biological, psychological, and social processes, and a disruption in any of these — such as family disruption — hinders healthy development and increases the risk for future disorders,” up to and including suicidal behavior.

The policy also violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, they added.

Bioethics.net This online community of bioethicists, physicians,

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Children take part in a protest against US immigration policies outside the US embassy in Mexico City on June ,21 2018. (Getty Images)

theologians and attorneys drafted a petition that calls the policy of separating migrant children from their parents “utterly unethical (and) manifestly immoral.” Continuing it “will cause irreparable and potentially permanent harm to the most vulnerable among us,” the group said.

Addressed to President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the petition garnered 181 signatures from 87 institutions on its first day online.

The “express purpose” of separating migrant children from their parents is to deter adults from coming to the United States. That is a “human rights violation against innocent children,” the petition states.

“Children must not be abused in this way for political purposes,” the group wrote.

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Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Michael Fraser, ASTHO’s chief executive officer, said that separating children from their parents is “one of the most serious adverse events imaginable.”

“We know this can have a lasting, long-term impact on the developing brain and the future social and emotional health and well-being of these children,” Fraser said in a statement.

The nonpartisan association of state and territorial public health leaders “supports efforts to prevent adverse childhood experiences and encourages policies that promote the health of children and families,” he said.

This was originally published by The Los Angeles Times.