weapons of mass destruction

Watch | ‘Sanctions Are Economic Weapons of Mass Destruction, We Must Consider Their Consequences’

In an interview with Karan Thapar, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan spoke both about the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, the global economy and the global financial system.

Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has expressed his concerns about economic sanctions, describing them as “economic weapons of mass destruction”, saying the world needs to carefully consider their consequences and implications, both for individual economies and people but also for the global economy and the global financial system.

Rajan, who is now professor of finance at Chicago University, said: “When fully unleashed, sanctions, too, are weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. They may not topple buildings or collapse bridges, but they destroy firms, financial institutions, livelihoods, and even lives. Like military WMDs, they inflict pain indiscriminately, striking both the culpable and the innocent”.

In a 35-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Rajan spoke both about the impact of the sanctions on the Russian economy but, perhaps more importantly, on the global economy and the global financial system. He spoke about the “unintended consequences” that overuse of sanctions can lead to, including that they can “perhaps fuel fascism”. He also believes sanctions could shrink Russia’s economy by 10%.

“For starters, the seemingly bloodless nature of economic weapons, and the lack of norms governing them, could result in their overuse … (this) could reverse the process of globalisation that has allowed the modern world to prosper,” Rajan said. He said this means that economic interaction between countries will shrink and a policy that is, effectively, “beggar my neighbour could also end up beggaring me”.

Another worrying consequence is that “countries might start exploring collective alternatives to the SWIFT financial messaging network, potentially leading to fragmentation of the global payment system”. Rajan points out that already China is trying to build up CIPS as an alternative to SWIFT and this could now be not just expedited but many other countries might choose to prefer CIPS to SWIFT. This would fragment and divide the world’s global payments system. He also says that, whilst at the moment, excluding countries like Russia from SWIFT looks like a sign of strength it could actually lead over time to the diminution of SWIFT or its sizing down.

Speaking about sanctions on Russia’s central bank, which affects the country’s reserves, Rajan said that whilst countries may not be able to diversify their holding into other currencies – because many, like the Pound, Euro, Yen, may also be subject to similar sanctions – they could consider adopting a strategy of deliberately inviting western institutions and banks to their country and then seek to hold them hostage in case their own reserves are sanctioned. This would be a policy of mutual hostage-taking and would fracture the trust on which the global financial system works. Suspicion would replace trust.

“A country might invite foreign banks into its market with the ulterior motive of someday holding their assets and capital hostage,” he said.

Rajan expressed concern about the fact many corporations are under pressure to opt out of Russia. He said that there are two possible unfortunate consequences that can arise from this. First, this “can lead to sanctions being broadened beyond what policymakers intended”. The second is in a sense even worse, “It’s not impossible to imagine a country being subjected to economic warfare because of its government’s position on, say, abortion or climate change.”

In the second half of the interview, Rajan discusses measures that could, in the future, determine how economic sanctions are deployed. First, “because economic weapons are too powerful to leave in the hands of any one country, their use should be subject to a minimal consensus requirement”. Rajan said this minimal consensus requirement needs to be debated and thought about. He doesn’t have a precise answer to what it should be but he wants the process of thinking about it to start now.

Second, he said “there should be a gradation of weapons use”. This means sanctions that affect oligarchs should be amongst the first that are deployed. Those that affect the general population should be amongst the last. In this connection, Rajan warned that sanctions that impoverish the middle class could leave behind a sense of grievance and unite people behind dictators and thus, perhaps, fuel fascism.

Finally, Rajan said, “Advanced economies should … no longer turn a blind eye to the proceeds of tax evasion, corruption, and theft from elsewhere that are parked in their jurisdictions”.

These are some highlights of the issues discussed in Raghuram Rajan’s interview with Karan Thapar. There are many more issues about the consequences and implications of sanctions for the global economy and for the global financial system discussed in the interview. For a complete understanding, please watch the video.

Everyone is Debating Knowns, Unknowns and the Evidence of Absence at the LAC

The contradictory claims and counter-claims being made within government, and within the media, bring to mind former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quip about Iraq.

The complex standoff between the Indian and Chinese armies along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh is further confounded by a lack of accurate information from either side, bringing to mind US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s famous 2002 quip.

When asked at a US Defence Department briefing on the lack of evidence linking the Iraqi government with possession of weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld bafflingly but compellingly declared:

“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”

Donald Rumsfeld. Photo: R.D. Ward, United States Department of Defense, public domain

Presciently, the former US defence secretary’s senseless outburst described the prevailing impasse 18 years later between the Indian Army and the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) along the LAC, particularly in the strategic Galwan Valley Area and the nearby Dapsang Plains.

In pursuit of classic Rumsfeldian logic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too, in his statement at the June 19 all-party meet with opposition leaders, issued an equally befuddling message on the PLA’s positioning on the LAC, and the circumstances surrounding the death of 20 Indian Army soldiers in a violent clash.

The PM’s account was further compounded by contradictory statements from the foreign office in New Delhi and more recently by India’s ambassador to Beijing Vikram Misri regarding the operational, military and above all territorial control of parts of the LAC. All these were also in the Rumsfeldian mould.

Further confounding matters is the slew of retired army officers, many of whom had served on and around the 3,488km-long LAC aeons ago, in their nightly rants on television news channels aimed ostensibly at providing ‘clarity’ on the military situation at these forbidding heights.

Regrettably, these armchair gladiators, long past their prime, tend to tilt Rumsfeld-wards in analysing the LAC crisis that oscillates between military commotion and ambiguity in the plethora of competing accounts.

Also Read: Modi and the Illusion of Chinese Intrusions at Ladakh

Ideally, the clincher would have been the abundance of commercial satellite imagery.

But this too is being interpreted by various television news organisations to suit their respective subjective outlooks depending on their political predilections.

One set of images is interpreted as the PLA’s withdrawal, whilst the same set denotes further PLA ingress for another channel. A third for some nationalistic channels, amazingly, depicts the Indian Army re-claiming LAC control.

Satellite image of bend in the Galwan river where Chinese and Indian troops clashed on June 15. Photo: Twitter

Returning in conclusion to Rumsfeld, we can safely state in his inimitable words that “it sounds like a riddle. It isn’t a riddle. It is a very serious, important matter”.

Furthermore, he stated at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels in mid-2000, that there is another way to phrase what he was trying to say: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way.”

“Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists, does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist. And yet almost always, when we make our threat assessments, when we look at the world, we end up basing it on the first two pieces of that puzzle, rather than all three,” Rumsfeld added.

Looked at through the Rumsfeld prism, is not the situation on the LAC crystal clear now?

As Nuclear Weapons Get Conventionalised, International Law Can’t Keep Pace

With nuclear weapons increasingly being placed on the same military continuum as conventional weapons, the challenge of regulating their use becomes insurmountable.

Nuclear weapons enjoy a separate and unique regime under international law. The majority of states struggle to establish a complete prohibition of nuclear weapons, as in the case of other categories of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). In fact, in its only authoritative pronouncement on the matter, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stressed ‘the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons, and in particular their destructive capacity’.

Yet in view of some recent developments, to be discussed below, this distinction has been gradually disappearing, with the line between nuclear and conventional weapons becoming blurred. This means that nuclear weapons are not stigmatised as their WMD counterparts, but rather have become conventionalised.

This piece is an attempt to, first, ascertain the progressing conventionalisation among the current trends related to nuclear weapons and, second, delineate its consequences for the international legal regulation of armaments.

The collective nuclear arsenal of the world has been rapidly increasing with more and more countries acquiring nuclear capacity. Credit: Reuters

Paths of conventionalisation

Nuclear weapons conventionalisation has been referred to as ‘nuclear entanglement’, which essentially means the merger of nuclear and conventional weapons. Broadly understood, it manifests itself in the following ways.

Increased reliance on non-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons:

As early as in his Dissenting Opinion to the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion, Mohamed Shahabuddeen, a judge of the ICJ suggested that assuming tactical nuclear weapons could be no more destructive than conventional weapons, they should not be less lawful than the latter. Hence, placing nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) at the top of ‘conventionalisation agenda’ is not a brand-new idea. Besides, it has recently been emphasised in national strategies.

The most striking example is, of course, the US 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which radically departs from its predecessor in mandating the development of a range of nonstrategic low-yield nuclear options. The Trump administration considers this departure necessary as a response to Russia’s substantial reliance on and expansion of non-strategic nuclear arsenal, which considerably outstrips that of the US. At face value, this means that the two most powerful nuclear-weapon states have embarked upon the rapid expansion of their non-strategic nuclear options.

Such an approach depicting NSNW as quite a usable tool to advance military and non-military goals significantly lowers the threshold for the actual use. Such reliance on a limited nuclear strike can well lead to full-blown nuclear escalation, which the ICJ considered among the possible consequences of using low yield nuclear weapons.

Integration of nuclear and conventional planning and operations:

The integration of nuclear and conventional capabilities also contributes to the conventionalisation. This is ‘nuclear entanglement’ in the original meaning of the term. The integration includes equipping dual use means of delivery with nuclear and non-nuclear warheads, merging nuclear and conventional support facilities, as well as integrating planning and training for both nuclear and non-nuclear forces. China and Russia are said to pursue this strategy whether deliberately or as a matter of historical legacy. Furthermore, US’s NPR specifically mandates ensuring ‘the ability to integrate nuclear and non-nuclear military planning and operations’ to ‘deter limited nuclear escalation and nonnuclear strategic attacks’.

These developments are frowned upon for a number of reasons. They tend to erode the line between nuclear and conventional forces in the most palpable manner. They also increase the risk of adversary’s misinterpretation of the nature of an attack, which can simultaneously target ‘entangled’ capabilities.

Expanding range of scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons:

Much has been said on the expanded range of scenarios where US contemplates first use of nuclear weapons, also in response to non-nuclear threats. Although the US strategy is most widely discussed owing to its considerable departure from the previous pattern, other nuclear-weapon states either preserve deliberate ambiguity with regard to the possible use of nuclear weapons (eg UK and France) or explicitly declare their readiness to balance an adversary’s conventional superiority with a nuclear strike (eg Russia and Pakistan).

Expanding the role of nuclear weapons beyond deterring nuclear threats alludes to an increased rationality and military utility of a nuclear strike. This further undermines the arguments that there exists opinio juris (an opinion of law) prohibiting recourse to nuclear weapons, except for the purposes of deterrence. In view of such developments, it is understandable why the ICJ refused to acknowledge that the non-recourse to nuclear weapons since 1945 had been due to such opinio juris rather than the absence of military necessity.

Nuclear saber rattling:

Finally, never before has it been so common for political leaders to boast of their states’ nuclear capacities. One may recall Vladimir Putin’s threats to deploy nuclear weapons in the course of Crimea crisis and against Baltic states, or his most recent brandishing cutting-edge nuclear technology with animated nukes striking Florida in an address to the parliament. Along the same lines, Donald Trump publicly threatened North Korea with ‘fire and fury’ and even with ‘total destruction’.

Although the ICJ refused to differentiate between nuclear and conventional weapons, when assessing the legality of the threat of nuclear weapons use (para 48), the state practice seems to have accepted a special standard for nuclear threats which is measured against the strategy of deterrence. For instance, UK’s High Court of Justiciary stated that ‘deployment of nuclear weapons in time of peace … is utterly different from the kind of specific ‘threat’ which is equated with actual use’ . Under this approach, states would only cross the line of nuclear deterrence and resort to the threat of using nuclear weapons if such a threat is specific enough, i.e. directed against a specific target.

Considering that the arbitral tribunal went so far as to equate the phrase ‘to face consequences’ to a threat of the use of force in Guyana vs Suriname, it is doubtful that states are still within the safe harbour of deterrence when directing their nuclear threats explicitly and specifically against other states.

Consequences for international law

Driven by analogy with other types of WMD, international law seeks to raise the threshold for using of nuclear weapons (or even contemplating such use) as high as possible. The adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is among the most notable developments to this end. Still, there is an observable tension between the movement towards nuclear weapons ban as enshrined in the TPNW and the trends described above.

International legal instruments like the TPNW are grounded on humanitarian considerations. In this particular case, the TPNW is meant to stigmatise nuclear weapons to the extent of their total abandonment by nuclear-weapon states. Considering that nuclear-weapon states refused to take any part in the ‘ban campaign’ leading to the adoption of the TPNW, it is reasonable to assume that such progressive stigmatisation (which can eventually generate a parallel customary prohibition) is the only way to endow the TPNW with pragmatic force. Analogy may be drawn with other disarmament treaties such as Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines Ban and Convention on Cluster Munitions: they contributed to the establishment of the customary prohibition of respective armaments even without directly binding all states possessing them.

However, when nuclear weapons are postured to be as usable as conventional ones, the normative boundary between the two is not hardened at all. No stigma is likely to appear for weapons possessing which is dictated and justified by strong military utility. As long as the conventionalisation of nuclear weapons is taking place, no binding obligations will probably proceed from the newly established TPNW regime, either as treaty rules or as a crystallising custom.

Along with the TPNW, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is to bear a major part in the ramifications. The core obligation of non-proliferation under Article II is likely to be affected, since nuclear weapons, if conventionalised, make their acquisition by non-nuclear-weapon states more conceivable. Additionally, the deployment of tactical nuclear devices makes nuclear weapons more accessible and ‘proliferable’ in the technical sense, spurring their acquisition by non-state actors, particularly, by terrorist groups. This is an alarming possibility considering that the non-proliferation to non-state actors still constitutes a legal gap largely left to Security Council Resolution 1540.

Besides, the conventionalisation of nuclear weapons invites their advancement, which is hardly in line with the (allegedly customary) obligation of nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the NPT. States are not in compliance with their disarmament obligation ‘to achieve a precise result – nuclear disarmament in all its aspects’ when they engage in the ‘vertical proliferation’ (i.e. modernising their nuclear arsenals or expand the range of scenarios to deploy nuclear weapons).

Should the described trends gain traction, their impact will in no way be limited to nuclear weapons regulation, but extend to the whole set of rules on the use of force. In particular, the gradually vanishing line between the threat of use of force and nuclear deterrence will further blur. It is questionable whether teetering on the brink of threats to use nuclear weapons is still justifiable under the concept of nuclear deterrence, which the ICJ was careful to characterise as practice ‘adhered to by states’. Consequently, it is doubtful whether nuclear deterrence should enjoy such leniency with respect to the standard of the threat of use of force.

The jus ad bellum (right to war) requirements for self-defence may also be affected by nuclear entanglement. For instance, it is highly questionable whether a limited strike with tactical nuclear weapons to preclude a massive conventional attack fails to meet the standard of proportionality. Similarly, it is not that clear whether anticipatory nuclear strike against a missile equipped with non-nuclear warhead is unlawful, since a state intercepting such a missile can be misled by its dual-use capacity in view of nuclear entanglement.

The questions of similar nature will arise with respect to jus in bello (laws of war). With the gap between nuclear and conventional weapons narrowing, there is less room to assert that employing nuclear weapons should be contrary to the proportionality principle. Correspondingly, what concerns the lawfulness of belligerent reprisals conducted with the use of nuclear weapons, a pre-defined approach exclusively based on the ‘nuclear element’ is likely to give ground to the qualification irrespective of the type of weapons. To put it bluntly, the ICJ’s reasoning that the legality of the use of nuclear weapons shall be considered on the basis of case-to-case compliance with jus in bello seems to be regaining relevance.

Conclusions

While any radical transformation of the international legal regime governing nuclear weapons is still unlikely, there is definitely room for considering its adequacy for current challenges. In the near future we should be ready to make a choice of either raising the bar on the conventionalisation of nuclear weapons or easing this process. Simply put, international law may find itself in need of deciding whether it is better to ban nuclear weapons altogether rather than to regulate them.

This article originally appeared on Arms Control Law.

Satellite Imagery Is Revolutionising the World. But Should We Trust What We See?

Geospatial data offers a powerful new way to see the world. But these high-tech images can be misleading or incomplete.

In 1972, the crew of Apollo 17 captured what has become one of the most iconic images of the Earth: the Blue Marble. Biochemist Gregory Petsko described the image as “perfectly representing the human condition of living on an island in the universe.” Many researchers now credit the image as marking the beginning of environmental activism in the US.

The Blue Marble. Credit: Wikimedia

As a geographer, I work with geospatial data, including satellite images. This imagery offers a powerful way to understand our world. Satellite images are part of the big data revolution. These images are captured through remote sensing technologies – like drones, aerial photographs and satellite sensors – without physical contact or firsthand experience. Algorithms refine these data to describe places and phenomena on the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere.

But I think it’s important for people to understand the limitations of this technology, lest they misunderstand what they see.

What satellites show us

Satellite imagery has made a difference in a wide variety of fields and industries.

For example, in 1973, satellite images were first processed to demonstrate seasonal vegetation change. This information now helps to monitor vegetative health and track droughts around the world.

Images also provide evidence of compelling stories about the power of disasters. For example, in 1986, combined data modelled from satellite images and weather data tracked the plume of radiation from the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor in the USSR. More recently, before and after images of the impact of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano revealed the flow of lava and loss of homes and businesses.

Satellite images track the changing human footprint across the globe, including rapidly growing cities, urban sprawl and informal settlements.

Increasingly, satellite imagery is used to measure, identify and track human activity. In 1995, satellite images provided evidence of mass executions in Srebrenica, in former Yugoslavia. In 2014, satellite images exposed the extent of the destruction of cultural heritage sites in northern Iraq and Syria. Last year, satellite images revealed the burning of Rohingya villages in Myanmar.

What’s missing from satellite images

But there are some caveats that anyone working with satellite images – or viewing them – should consider.

Satellite images are only as good as their resolution. The smaller the pixel size, the sharper the image. But even high-resolution images need to be validated on the ground to ensure the trustworthiness of the interpretation. Should we question the images we see? Whose view of the world are we seeing?

One example of the misuse of remotely sensed data was in 2003, when satellite images were used as evidence of sites of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. These images revealed what were identified as active chemical munitions bunkers and areas where earth had been graded and moved to hide evidence of chemical production. This turned out not to be the case.

Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. Satellite images reveal the urban form of this Kenyan city, shown by the organization of roads and buildings, adjacent land uses, and rooftops that may indicate types of building materials associated with economic conditions. Credit: Google Earth, annotations by Melinda Laituri, CC BY

What’s more, processing satellite images is computationally intensive. At best, satellite images are interpretations of conditions on Earth – a “snapshot” derived from algorithms that calculate how the raw data are defined and visualized.

This has created a “black box,” making it difficult to know when or why the algorithm gets it wrong. For example, one recently developed algorithm is designed to identify artillery craters on satellite images – but the algorithm also identifies locations that look like craters but aren’t. How can experts sift through data that may yield imperfect results?

Through platforms like Google Earth and Earth Explorer, satellite images are increasingly available to not only researchers and scientists, but to people around the world. Satellite imagery is the basis for a global effort to map the world’s communities, such as OpenStreetMap, a platform where high-resolution imagery is used to digitise maps. Maps become living documents, always in a state of flux as new elements are added, often by remote mappers.

With this increasing practice, maps derived from satellite images are constructed by those who may not be very familiar with the site. Mappers have an important responsibility when representing other people’s places. Maps derived from satellite images without local context – like street names or information about vegetation types – tell incomplete stories. Building footprints can be digitised, but only locals can identify the purpose of that building. Imaginary lines, like country boundaries, don’t show up on remotely sensed images.

As satellite images become more ubiquitous, we should reflect on where they come from, how they are created, and the purpose for their use.

Melinda Laituri, Professor of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

US Spent $2.8 Trillion on Fighting Terrorism, but to What End? We Don’t Know

A new report titled ‘Counterterrorism Spending: Protecting America While Promoting Efficiencies and Accountability’ attempts to make sense of the enormous expenditure, but doesn’t categorically judge success or failures.

Washington: According to a new report, the US has spent a whopping $2.8 trillion in the global war against terrorism over the last 17 years to reduce the threat, but it has shifted its strategies and focus multiple times, making it impossible to assess the overall success.

The war against terrorism was launched by the George W. Bush administration after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and more than 6,000 injured. Since 9/11, the US government has launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which account for the bulk of the spending. At the height of the two wars in 2008, the US spent $260 billion. It was a 16-fold increase since 2001.

But it is difficult to evaluate whether the US is spending “too much or too little on its counterterrorism (CT) mission” or whether the money is being spent effectively or efficiently, the report says. Even the figure of $2.8 trillion comes with a huge caveat – the number could be “either an overstatement or an understatement.”

According to the report – the first of its kind – the various agencies involved in the massive undertaking do not even have a “consistent definition” of what constitutes counterterrorism spending. Bureaucratic compulsions driven by spending caps instituted in 2011 have seen expenditures unrelated to the two wars get counted as war spending, the report says. “Counterterrorism Spending: Protecting America While Promoting Efficiencies and Accountability” tries to give a sense of the enormous spending but it doesn’t claim to be the last word.

The report is a bipartisan effort by the Stimson Center, a Washington DC-based think tank, written by six experts, including former officials of the National Security Council and the defence department. Laicie Heeley, the project director, said the study would allow a more “honest conversation” about CT goals, execution and results.

The main takeaway from the report: No one knows whether the war is being won or lost. The spending is discretionary and therefore difficult to monitor. When a department wants money for a pet project, it simply designates the project as CT to get the funding. Just for perspective – the total US discretionary spending between 2002-2017 was more than $18 trillion of which 15% went to the global war on terrorism, the report says.

Add to this the shifting definitions and rationales over time for what constitutes “war spending.” The US originally went into Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban government and attacked Iraq because it claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The wars have dragged on and “morphed into much broader counterinsurgency campaigns” with new insurgent groups fighting US forces. The global war on terrorism began with the Bush administration which defined terrorism as a “worldwide problem.” In 2002 he said that “terror cells in 60 or more countries” must be uncovered using every tool of finance, intelligence and law enforcement.

It was an ambitious agenda that included changing the “underlying conditions” that terrorists exploit and confronting regimes that sponsor, support and harbour terrorists.

Although the report makes no judgment on successes or failures, one country – Pakistan – has done all of the above and yet enjoyed US confidence for 17 years. The confidence may have diminished over time but the point where any US administration is willing to severely punish Pakistan is still not been reached.

George W. Bush. Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

The Bush administration shifted its CT goals somewhat in 2006 when its national strategy for combating terrorism talked about political reforms going side by side with military operations in what came to be known as a counterinsurgency strategy. This meant building institutions and promoting democracy as a long-term strategy against jihadism.

The 2006 document also called for preventing weapons of mass destruction from getting into the hands of rogue states and terrorists and preventing any country from coming under terrorist control. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan swelled in line with Bush’s expansive agenda of advancing “freedom and human dignity through democracy” as a long-term solution to international terrorism.

The world knows the fate of the Bush-Dick Cheney democracy project in Iraq. It bred the Islamic state and is a hive of instability.

By contrast, the Barack Obama administration came to office on the explicit promise of ending the two wars. It shrank the previous administration’s broad goals, and called for “waging a global campaign against Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates.” It was no longer called the global “war” against terrorism.

His 2010 national security strategy specifically said it was not “a global war against a tactic – terrorism, or a religion – Islam.” Instead, it was a war against “a specific network, al Qaeda, and its terrorist affiliates who support efforts to attack the US, our allies and partners.”

But Obama too had his version of big goals. He called for building “positive partnerships with Muslim communities around the world” as an antidote to terrorists who thrive on discontent. By 2015, Obama had announced another shift from fighting costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a “more sustainable approach that prioritises targeted counterterrorism operations, collective action with responsible partners” and preventing radicalisation.

He announced the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, leaving only around 10,000 troops in the war-torn country. But the US is still fighting that war and the Donald Trump administration has marginally increased the number of ground forces in Afghanistan.

Trump’s strategy is yet to be fleshed out but he has publicly committed to staying in Afghanistan. The war against terrorism continues and the total will surely go up from $2.8 trillion.

The three main agencies involved in the war on terrorism are – department ofdefence, department of state and the department of homeland security. The defence department spent 60% of the total, homeland security got 35% and state spent 5%, the report said.

The report recommends that the US Congress should mandate collection of data from all agencies based on clear metrics, enforce a uniform definition for CT spending, clearly define “war spending” and pass a new law requiring a separate vote on war-related contingency spending.

Until then it would be impossible to judge whether the US taxpayer is getting his money’s worth.

After Branding IIT Student a ‘Proliferation Risk’, Australia Cites ‘Privacy’ to Stonewall Queries

Ananth S. M. was denied a visa to study in Australia on the grounds that his presence in the country maybe associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Ananth S. M., a graduate of IIT-Kanpur, was denied a visa on the grounds that his presence in the country may be associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Credit: PTI

New Delhi: Twenty-nine-year-old aerospace engineering student Ananth S. M. from Indian Institutes of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-Kanpur) had been ready to fly off to Australia for his doctorate. After waiting for ten months he was finally told that his visa was denied on the grounds that he posed a risk for “proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”.

Ananth’s case came to light when the Thiruvananthapuram MP, Shashi Tharoor, wrote to the Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday. He wrote the letter after Ananth received the final notification from the Australian government’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIPB) the same day.

Credit: Twitter

When The Wire contacted Ananth, he said that he was “shocked and shattered by seeing the reasons for refusal”.

Ananth had applied for a temporary student visa after getting a full scholarship for a Ph.D. in fluid mechanics at the University of Melbourne. He applied for a visa in August 2015, but with no sign of any travel document from Australia for over ten months, Ananth approached his constituency’s MP for assistance.

After Tharoor wrote to the Australian high commission, Ananth received a letter dated June 1, 2016 from DIPB with the subject, “Adverse Information received”.

“The Department has received information that the following applicant for a visa subclass TU 574 Postgraduate Research Sector has been determined by the foreign minister, or a person authorised by the foreign minister, to be a person whose presence in Australia may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” said the letter.

Since Ananth’s presence in Australia “may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”, the letter said that his application will be refused and that no further reasons for the determination could be given.

The Australian department gave Ananth 28 days for a response.

He replied within the stipulated time along with letters of support from his professor in the University of Melbourne and his current teachers in IIT-Kanpur.

“This information did not change the determination made by the foreign minister (or a person authorised by the foreign minister) that you are a person whose presence in Australia may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” said the final letter from DIPB to the applicant dated July 19.

Following the final refusal from Australia, Tharoor urged Swaraj to take up the matter directly with her Australian counterpart, Julie Bishop. He pointed out that it was not a “typical ‘individual case’, this is one that reflects a matter of fundamental principle where a friendly country, taking no notice of our exemplary record on nuclear non-proliferation, has treated an Indian citizen as they would somebody from a rogue nation”.

Earlier, Tharoor had told the Australian high commissioner that that it was unacceptable that an Indian national was clubbed with those of rogue nuclear states like North Korea and Pakistan.

Ananth said that his area of study, which is of “fluid dynamics of flow through a cascade of aerofoils”, has applications in transport systems and renewable power generation.

In his reply to DIPB, Ananth pointed out that his research was “using fundamental mathematical models that are available in published literature and text books, which are freely available to anyone from an academic institute like IIT Kanpur”.

He further told the Australian authorities, “Till now, I have never been involved, even remotely, in any religious or political organisations that could spread some form of hatred. My police record is clean and I have never been on the wrong side of law for any reason throughout my life. As a person who wishes and always worked towards a free and peaceful life, even the thought that I am under such a suspicion is deeply painful”.

The letter of support from Richard Sandberg, chair of computational mechanics at the department of mechanical engineering also asserted that Ananth’s project was of “purely academic nature and in no way involves any classified technology”.

Ananth told The Wire that the reason for the refusal “would tarnish my name very badly at an international level”.

“I secure an admission offer with full scholarship to pursue my Ph.D. in another university in a different country in future [and] when I apply for a study visa there, I will be required to state whether I have been refused a visa by any other country before and the reasons for refusal. So I will be required to state the refusal [and the reasons] that I have to suffer for an Australian visa and that will automatically jeopardise my future visa application, and I am very much likely to get refusals for all my future applications. In other words, the stated reason and the refusal by Australia will damage my academic career, which will stop me from pursuing education in any of the reputed universities abroad,” he said.

The ten-month delay in visa processing had already “derailed” his academic plan as “it becomes more and more difficult to secure an opportunity as the age limit comes into picture”.

“Last but not least, I have been made a scapegoat here and I feel I have been denied justice. Already, myself and my parents are suffering from huge mental agony because of the difficulty in getting a study visa and the situation is getting worse day by day. I do not know what else I must do to prove my innocence and make the relevant officials understand that my true intention is to become an academician after my Ph.D. and that I don’t and will not have anything to do with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” said a distraught Ananth.

When asked about why Ananth was not given a visa, the Australian high commission spokesperson said that it does not comment on specific visa-related cases due to reasons of privacy and due process.

“It should be noted, however, Australia has clearly acknowledged India’s record on non-proliferation. For example, Australia strongly supports India’s application to join the Nuclear Supplier’s Group (NSG) and India’s admission to other export control regimes. We are strong supporters of India’s peaceful use of nuclear energy and in 2014 signed the Australia-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement,” she said in a statement issued to The Wire.

Chilcot: An Abject Lesson in How Not to Go to War

If one word sums up Chilcot’s approach to future ‘interventions’ of which recent British governments have been all too fond it is ‘caution’. This is as it should be.

Demonstrators protest before the release of the John Chilcot report into the Iraq war, at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London, Britain July 6, 2016. Credit: Reuters/Paul Hackett

To anyone outside the UK, it might be difficult to grasp the levels of anticipation for the Chilcot inquiry of British involvement in the Iraq war. Iraq has been truly toxic, not least for the perception of politics and politicians. The main reason for this, amongst many, was the popular view that former prime minister Tony Blair had misrepresented the case for war and that he exaggerated the risk posed by Iraq’s supposed ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMDs), which, unfortunately for Blair and his government, were proven not to exist.

Several inquiries over the past decade have mulled over these matters. One, led by former civil servant Robin Butler, adopted the usual tone of the British establishment and prevaricated. Another probe was led by a former judge Brian Hutton, although it was technically an inquest into the death of a government scientist who had killed himself after being exposed by the government as the source for a report by a BBC journalist. The journalist had alleged that the government had “sexed up” the case for WMDs. Hutton’s findings were widely viewed to be little more than a whitewash, placing no blame whatsoever on any government body and essentially exonerating Blair and his team from any culpability in “sexing up” intelligence or causing the scientist’s death.

Surprisingly critical

After a great deal of pressure, in 2009, Gordon Brown, who was prime minister at the time, agreed to set up a more definitive panel to be led by John Chilcot, yet again a pillar of the establishment. For two years, evidence was taken from many senior officials, civil and military, involved in the war. Given Chilcot’s background and that of his colleagues on the inquiry team (a couple of senior academics, a former diplomat and an expert in British social policy), hopes were not high for a forensic and critical examination of Britain’s involvement in the war.

Those hopes were dampened even more by a constant drip of delays. It was regularly pointed out that the report was taking longer to produce than Britain’s involvement in the war had lasted. Rumours abounded of attempts by individuals and institutions to obstruct the inquiry or restrict access to relevant documents. US officials became involved in a long wrangle over whether certain US cables, long in the public domain, could be formally reviewed by the committee. Needless to say, these documents were potentially embarrassing. Throughout all of this process, the inquiry chairman maintained a dignified silence, despite being blamed for delays that were outside his control.

So when he stepped up to the podium on Wednesday morning to deliver a calm but highly critical report summarising his conclusions, the surprise was palpable. The report is 2.6 million words, and outside the inquiry team, it will be a long time before anyone will have read all or even a large portion of it. It is said to be six times longer than the Bible and seven times longer than Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Yet the tone is now clear and its results are becoming apparent.

For many years most people, or most interested people in the UK, have fallen into one of two camps. Either they accept that Blair was justified in his actions or they believe that he is at best deluded but perhaps serially dishonest. Wherever people stand – and the latter group is far larger than the former – there is now official sanction for the view Chilcot has now put forth: that “the options had not been exhausted” prior to the invasion of Iraq.

The conclusion, in other words, is that the war was not a last resort and that its legal basis was unsound.

The report states that the evidence available to the government did not justify the case that was made and the decision was based upon “flawed information”. Planning for the post-war phase was poor to non-existent and the army was ill-equipped for the war it found itself in – a counter-insurgency – after the initial invasion. Finally, he stated that Blair had committed the UK to going to war alongside the US prior to any serious consideration of the merits, let alone legality.

Given the lamentable performance of previous investigations into the Iraq war, many people were surprised at the relatively definitive and firm tone of the Chilcot inquiry. That notwithstanding, it now stands, effectively, as the establishment’s verdict on the conduct of the conflict from the British perspective. Therein lies its importance. It is tempting, therefore, to see it as an end in itself. This would be a mistake.

The fixing that’s needed

At least of equal importance to the nature of the report as a landmark is what happens now. What is its significance? Clearly it will take many weeks for the report itself to be digested. By that time, the news cycle will have ploughed on. First, it is entirely possible that there may be some attempts at legal action against Blair and his associates. My own view, for what it is worth, is that these are unlikely to bear much fruit, unfortunate though that may be. In the longer term, however, there is much to be gained from a close study with a view to looking critically at civil and military procedures, and culture and practices relating to how we conduct war.

Other countries do this far, far better. The US report into the 9/11 attacks – taking less than the two years provided for it – for better or worse, is a roadmap to how the country’s security services were to go forward in a very different world. Similarly, after the 2006 Lebanon war, Israel’s Winograd Commission savagely indicted the Israeli political and military leadership with a view to ensuring that the nation’s security and defence structures were reformed.

With a seriously compromised military and political class, it is clear to many that the UK needs a similar overhaul. For example, there is a culture of compliance within the UK military that is deeply embedded within its current DNA. In the past, failures in warfare ensured that the right cultures were developed and the right people promoted. I have in mind particularly World War II, when the equivalent of the chief of the defence staff, general Alan Brooke, was very commonly heard to inform his political masters, notably Winston Churchill, “I flatly disagree” when the prime minster came up with ideas that were impracticable or down right ill-advised.

If only we had such officers now. The current crop may be better, but our military commanders during the Iraq war would rarely be heard openly disagreeing with Blair. On the contrary, they seemed rather more keen to ‘crack on’; in Blair’s own words they were “up for doing it”, by which he meant invading Iraq. It is the first duty of a military advisor to a senior political leader to ensure that there is a strategy in place prior to engaging in conflict. As the famous Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz put it, “No one in their right mind should start a war…without being clear as to what he is trying to achieve and how he proposes to achieve it”. It’s his duty to ask, “What do you require of us?”

It is this sort of reflection that needs to migrate from academic and journalistic discourse to reality. Sadly, having had some close interactions with senior military command over the last decade, I think that this may be a step too far. Still, one can hope but one will not be holding one’s breath.

One area where there really does seem to have been some serious reflection and change has been intelligence. The SIS (Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6) were badly burnt by the WMD fiasco. Their reputation was if not quite trashed, then very seriously compromised. The report raised some matters that I certainly had never heard of, including accounts of quite breathtaking credulity.

This naivety accompanied the rather better known failure of integrity implicit in their various ‘dodgy dossiers’ presented as ‘intelligence’ but really little more than propaganda. There is no doubt at all that they are fully aware that their watchword must be caution. I believe it is highly unlikely that MI6 will be caught out again, at least not in such an unconscionable manner.

If one word sums up Chilcot’s approach to future ‘interventions’ of which recent British governments have been all too fond it is ‘caution’. This is as it should be.

A former British military intelligence officer, Frank Ledwidge is a senior fellow at the Royal Air Force College at the University of Portsmouth.

South Korea, US to Deploy Missile Defence System Against North Korea

China, which backed the latest UN sanctions against North Korea in March, objects to the proposed THAAD deployment in the South, as the system’s radar can reach into its territory.

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the US Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. Credit: Reuters/US Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo. Credit: Reuters/US Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency

Seoul: South Korea and the US have said they will deploy an advanced missile defence system with US military forces stationed in South Korea to counter North Korea’s missile threat, drawing sharp and swift protest from neighbouring China.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system will be used only to counter the threat from the North, the South’s defence ministry and the US defence department said in a joint statement.

The selection of the location for the system could come “within weeks” and the allies were working to have it operational by the end of 2017, a South Korean defence ministry official said.

“South Korea and the United States made an alliance decision to deploy THAAD to USFK as a defensive measure to ensure the security of the South and its people, and to protect alliance military forces from North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile threats,” the joint statement said.

USFK stands for US Forces Korea, which includes 28,500 US troops based in South Korea.

“When the THAAD system is deployed to the Korean Peninsula, it will be focused solely on North Korean nuclear and missile threats and would not be directed towards any third party nations,” the statement said.

The decision to deploy the system is the latest move to squeeze the increasingly isolated North, which also involves a series of bilateral sanctions by Seoul and Washington as well as layers of UN sanctions.

China, which backed the latest UN sanctions against the North in March, objects to the proposed THAAD deployment in the South, as the system’s radar can reach into its territory.

China’s foreign ministry said on July 8 the system would destabilise the security balance in the region without achieving anything to end the North’s nuclear programme.

“China strongly urges the United States and South Korea to stop the deployment process of the THAAD anti-missile system, not take any steps to complicate the regional situation and do nothing to harm China’s strategic security interests,” it said in a statement on its website.

A joint South Korea-US working group is determining the best location for deploying THAAD, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp.

The group has been discussing the feasibility of the deployment and potential locations for the THAAD unit since February, after a North Korean rocket launch put an object into space orbit.

The launch was condemned by the UN Security Council as a test of a long-range missile in disguise, which the North is prohibited from doing under several Security Council resolutions.

North Korea rejects the ban, saying it is an infringement on its sovereignty and its right to space exploration.

North Korea in late June launched an intermediate range ballistic missile off its east coast in what was believed to be a test that showed some advancement in the weapon’s engine system.

On Thursday, the North said it was planning its toughest response to what it called a “declaration of war” by the United States after the US treasury department blacklisted the North’s leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses.

Also on Thursday, a US official said the administration of President Barack Obama is asking other nations to cut the employment of North Korean workers as a way to reduce Pyongyang’s access to foreign currency.

(Reuters)

Chilcot Condemns Blair’s Behaviour on Iraq, but Declines to Accuse Him of Lying

The Iraq Inquiry has found that the case for invading Iraq was far from watertight and made without proper care. Deception, however, is another matter.

Tony Blair and Geor W. Bush. File photo from 2007. Credit: Reuters

Seven years after it was commissioned and 13 years after the Iraq War began, the Iraq Inquiry’s report on Britain’s part in the invasion has been published – and the fallout has begun.

The headlines are already an excoriating verdict on Tony Blair’s actions before, during, and after the invasion: Crushing Verdict on Blair and the Iraq War, Iraq Invasion “Not Last Resort”. And yet, in a most British way, an upper limit has still been imposed on the criticism, first and foremost by Sir John Chilcot and his committee.

Faced with the politics as well as the evidence – dare anyone put Blair in a position to face war crimes charges, or even dare to accuse him of abusing his power? – Chilcot steered clear of the L-word.

In fact, the word “lie” does not appear once in the Executive Summary. The only time that “lying” is used refers not to Blair, but to Saddam Hussein: “When Iraq denied that it had retained any WMD capabilities, the UK Government accused it of lying.” Nowhere does the report invoke a more colourful, if politer, formulation of the conclusion: that the intelligence for the invasion was “sexed up” on the orders of the prime minister’s office.

As David Cameron said of the report after its release: “Deliberate deceit? I can’t find a reference to it.”

So how does Chilcot manage to pull off this balancing act, going just far enough in the criticism to chide Blair while not opening up the full extent of the former prime minister’s actions?

The “lessons” of the report’s Executive Summary are a demonstration of the inquiry’s agility and care. Here’s the opener:

The decision to join the US‑led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the product of a particular set of circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated. Unlike other instances in which military force has been used, the invasion was not prompted by the aggression of another country or an unfolding humanitarian disaster. The lessons drawn by the Inquiry on the pre‑conflict element of this Report are therefore largely context‑specific and embedded in its conclusions. Lessons on collective Ministerial decision‑making, where the principles identified are enduring ones, are an exception.

“Unlikely to be repeated”. Given that assurance, we do not need to draw out the specific consideration of the extent of the Blair Government’s manipulations – apparently because we will not face another situation in which a prime minister might dare to go so far.

Which, of course, pushes aside the essential point. The point of Blair’s accountability is that his conduct, which arguably could be held responsible for the deaths of 179 British personnel and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, was exceptional.

Don’t lie

Releasing itself from the unwelcome burden of judgement, the report is free to set out a series of general recommendations, all of which implicitly say “don’t lie” without actually using those words.

Sir John Chilcot, whose inquiry report into the Iraq war, was released on July 6, 2016. Credit: Reuters

Here is the report’s cautious framing of the September 2002 order from Blair and his advisor Alastair Campbell:

It was a mistake not to see the risk of combining in the September dossier the JIC’s [Joint Intelligence Committee’s] assessment of intelligence and other evidence with the interpretation and presentation of the evidence in order to make the case for policy action.

As can be seen from the JIC Assessments quoted in, and published with, this report, they contain careful language intended to ensure that no more weight is put on the evidence than it can bear …

Organising the evidence in order to present an argument in the language of Ministerial statements produces a quite different type of document.

To be fair to Chilcot, the Lessons cite “a damaging legacy, including undermining trust and confidence in Government statements” from the episode. But the report’s Executive Summary declines to address the question of whether Blair is culpable, much less of what crime. It merely says that, because of the manipulation of the intelligence, “it may be more difficult [in the future] to secure support for the Government’s position and agreement to action”.

Holding back

And so it goes throughout the lessons, with damning phrases appropriately reined in:

Constant use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” without further clarification obscured the differences between the potential impact of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and the ability to deliver them effectively …

There may be evidence which is “authoritative” or which puts an issue “beyond doubt”; but there are unlikely to be many circumstances when those descriptions could properly be applied to inferential judgements relying on intelligence …

The need to be scrupulous in discriminating between facts and knowledge on the one hand and opinion, judgement or belief on the other …

The need for vigilance to avoid unwittingly crossing the line from supposition to certainty, including by constant repetition of received wisdom.

And so Tony Blair, free from a full reckoning for his words and actions, can posture, as he did within an hour of the report’s release, that there was “no falsification or improper use of intelligence”, “no deception of Cabinet”, and “no secret commitment to war”.

Let the Stop the War movement’s protesters wave their “Bliar” signs all they want; they have yet to be officially vindicated. A few minutes after his predecessor’s response to the report, David Cameron told parliament that “at no stage does [Chilcot] explicitly say that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead people”.

And that, after 13 years, is that.

Scott Lucas is Professor of International Politics, University of Birmingham

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.