AT THE KURDISTAN FRONT

Jonathan Spyer


A war is being waged along a 900-mile front between two entities that today constitute de facto quasi-states stretching across the old border between Syria and Iraq. These are the Islamic State to the south and a contiguous area of Kurdish-controlled territory to the north. Recently, I traveled to the latter, in regions of northern Iraq and northeast Syria, like the town of Derik, where I spoke with a Kurdish soldier who had recently been in a firefight with IS forces in the neighboring village of Jeza’a.

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter on the front lines near Erbil, September 10

“We were fighting for 17 hours,” said the Kurd. He was with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), affiliated with the PYD, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Worker’s party, or PKK. “There must have been about 500 of them,” he said of the IS militants. “Only about 90 of us. They’re strange, the way they keep on coming at you. We got on each side of them. In the end, you should have seen the trucks that came to take the bodies away. Stacked up.” 

He paused and took a drag on his cigarette. “I wasn’t hurt bad,” he continued. “I dislocated my shoulder when I had to jump over a wall after one of them threw a grenade. Then they got me out of there. I killed three of them. It’s not nice, you know. One of them was just a kid of about 16. But you’ve got no choice.”

So what does an IS attack look like, I asked. Do they just come running headlong at you? 

“They don’t run,” he replied, looking directly at me as if to acknowledge the eeriness of the thing he was saying. “They walk,” he said. “At a normal pace. Towards you. Like they’re not afraid. And you have to shoot them before they shoot you.”

The fighting at Jeza’a was one of the most intense clashes to have taken place between the Islamic State and the YPG. The battle formed part of a broader IS-Kurdish war taking place along a contiguous frontline stretching from Jalawla on the Iraq-Iran border all the way to Jarabulus on the line separating Syria from Turkey.

At Jeza’a, the Islamic State was trying to close the corridor that the YPG had opened in order to bring Yazidi refugees from the Sinjar Mountains to safety at the Newroz refugee camp outside Derik. The more than 100,000 refugees who made their way to Newroz are exhausted and traumatized. The Islamic State considers the Yazidi to be “devil worshippers” who are thus denied the few privileges afforded the so-called people of the book, i.e., Christians and Jews. Yazidi women were sent to the prisons of IS-controlled Mosul, where they were later sold as slaves or forced to wed IS fighters.

Conditions at Newroz are primitive, but there is food and shelter. Further east, in the Kurdish Regional Government area of northern Iraq, the towns of Dohuk and Erbil are swollen with refugees who fled Mosul and Sinjar. The Islamic State’s march toward the KRG capital of Erbil was stopped only by the intervention of the United States Air Force, and they know that any attempt to push forward would result in their obliteration from the air. The KRG’s Peshmerga forces are facing them in hastily assembled positions cut into the dirt. These frontlines are for the moment strangely silent.

In Erbil and in Dohuk, the half-built structures that until very recently were symbols of economic growth and expansion have been converted into makeshift homes for refugee families from further south. You see refugees everywhere. In the evenings the cities have a teeming, crowded feel to them. But the foreigners who came with the oil companies that moved in to do business when the KRG was the most stable part of Iraq are mostly gone. The bars and restaurants that opened up to cater to them are empty. On a Thursday evening in the Deutscher Hof restaurant in Erbil, one of the few places that serves cold beer, only a couple of British security contractors are at the bar. The Indian staff tell me that a month ago, the place would have been packed at this time.

A considerable portion of Erbil’s Kurdish population also left when it looked likely that the Islamic State was on its way. Some sources spoke of a departure of up to 30 percent of Erbil’s residents. The Peshmerga, with the help of Iraqi special forces as well as U.S. air support, have begun to push back against IS. The Mosul Dam, a highly symbolic conquest for the IS, was retaken on August 21. Since then, IS has lost ground in a number of other places. The Peshmerga are now in the process of reconquering oil fields close to Mosul.

West of the Syria-Iraq border, meanwhile, the YPG is continuing its own fight against the Islamic State. I visited the frontline area at the Yarubiya border crossing. The YPG seized the crossing in early August, and now controls both the Iraqi and Syrian sides of it. IS still holds a neighborhood immediately adjoining the crossing. Sniping from both sides and mortar fire are regular occurrences. But the morale of the YPG seemed high. “They can’t shoot,” a female fighter told me cheerfully after we sprinted across open ground to a concealed position a few hundred yards from a mosque where the IS sniper was operating.

Conversations with Kurdish officials indicate that they do not consider the fight with IS in Iraq and Syria to be a battle for the preservation of those two states. Rather, the Kurdish national agenda is visible just barely below the surface. General Maghdid Haraki of the Peshmerga, an effective-looking figure clearly influenced by American military style, put it most bluntly when he told me, “We have a different land, different language, different mentality. I don’t know why the world won’t see this. They just see ‘Iraq.’ ”

A senior KRG official linked to the political leadership was more circumspect. “Iraqi Kurds are today still part of Iraq,” he said. “But if a sectarian civil war starts in Iraq, we want no part of it. And if the mess continues in Iraq and Kurdish rights are not granted, then what is the point of it? Anyway, Kurds, like any other nation, have the right to determine their own future.”

Nonetheless, the fact is that the Kurds are not unified and their divisions are not easily resolved. The central rift is between the two rival pan-Kurdish movements. One is Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic party, which controls the KRG. The other is Abdullah Ocalan’s PKK, listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization for its three-decade-long campaign of violence against Turkey.

Still, when it comes to Kurdish self-determination, PKK-associated officials sound similar to General Haraki and his colleagues. Nilufer Koc, of the PKK-associated Kurdistan National Congress, told me in Erbil that “what’s needed is a referendum on independence here in Iraqi Kurdistan. And when we clear the issue of the referendum, if a new Iraqi government continues to reject Kurdish rights, then the Kurds need to take what belongs to them.”

UNSAVORY BEDFELLOWS

Lee Smith

Last week, Senator Ted Cruz helped unmask an organization ostensibly founded to protect a Middle East minority. When the Texas legislator, the keynote speaker, asked the gala dinner audience comprising mostly Middle Eastern Christians at the In Defense of Christians conference in Washington to stand with Israel, many hooted and booed him off the stage. The hostility came as no surprise to me: When I found myself the night before in the same bar as a group of IDC speakers and organizers—at the Four Seasons in Georgetown—I ordered a bottle of champagne and had it sent to their table. Not long after, the D.C. Metropolitan Police detained me and a friend for an hour.

Gilbert Chagoury in 2003

IDC’s proclaimed purpose—to protect Christians in the face of a jihadist onslaught led at present by ISIS—is of utmost importance. However, too many of the priests, prelates, and patriarchs from Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, as well as one of the organization’s key benefactors, Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury, have also identified themselves as supporters of the Iranian axis in the Middle East. ISIS is a murderous group, but so is the regime in Tehran and so are its clients, chief among them Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

ISIS, as the world now knows all too well, has used beheadings, crucifixions, and all forms of murder and torture to terrorize its opponents, who include Christians, Yazidis, Alawites, Shiite Muslims, and Sunnis who don’t pledge fealty. But Assad’s record in Syria is no better. Besides the gas attacks and indiscriminate bombings that have killed tens of thousands of innocents, his security forces have specialized in acts of vindictive sadism. Early in the uprising, for instance, they mutilated the corpse of a 13-year-old boy before returning the body to his parents.

And yet many of the clerics invited to speak at the IDC conference are openly supportive of Assad. For instance, Maronite patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai calls Assad a reformer. Maybe he took that message to the White House when he met with Obama and Susan Rice Thursday afternoon to ask for continued American support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, even if its military intelligence unit is controlled by Hezbollah. But whatever is wrong with Hezbollah or Assad, many of the IDC clerics reason, at least they’re killing the Sunni extremists who would kill them.

I referenced this conception of Assad’s role in the note I sent along with the champagne: “Thanks IDC—and thanks Bashar al-Assad, ‘Protector of Christians’! XOXOXO.” I asked the waitress to deliver the bottle directly to Chagoury, who according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables has supported Michel Aoun, Hezbollah’s key Christian ally in Lebanon. A 2007 cable also explains that Chagoury is close to Suleiman Franjieh Jr., another pillar of Lebanon’s pro-Damascus, pro-Hezbollah March 8 political coalition and a man who calls Assad his friend and brother. Former prime minister of Lebanon Fouad Siniora suggested to then U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman “that the U.S. deliver to Chagoury a stern message about the possibility of financial sanctions and travel bans against those who undermine Lebanon’s legitimate institutions.”

My friend noticed that the bottle was returned to the bar unopened. So there would be no thanks, sarcastic or otherwise, or insults. We left, disappointed, and got into a taxi. A policeman stopped the cab and told us to get out. His partner pulled out the note and asked if I’d written it. Of course, I said. The recipient, she explained, perceived it as a threat.

This was now getting interesting. A man who was a confidant of Sani Abacha, head of one of the bloodiest and most corrupt regimes in modern African history, and friends with Lebanese warlords like Nabih Berri thought that a note accompanying a bottle of champagne was threatening.

They can’t take a joke at their expense because usually they don’t have to, my friend said. With them it’s always the principle of “Do you know who I am?” This is what happens when you mess with a powerful man, one of the richest men in the world. However, my friend continued, this is not Nigeria or Lebanon—there are no thugs and militias waiting in the wings. This is the United States of America.

The police asked us to wait while they talked with Chagoury and his party. He’s a big Clinton donor. Who knows? Maybe he had lawyers calling in to the police. After about half an hour, someone with the Chagoury gang walked out from the hotel lobby and circled around to get a look at us. The guy looked just like Samir Kassir, a Lebanese journalist I met once when I lived in Beirut. But then I remembered it couldn’t be him: Kassir was on the other side. For opposing the Assad/Hezbollah condominium over Lebanon supported by the likes of Chagoury, Kassir was killed with a car bomb in 2005.

What happens under the hoods of Lebanese cars, what goes on in Nigerian prisons, is the province of men like Chagoury and their political patrons. This is the capital of the free world. After an hour, too long by any reckoning, the cops sent us on our way, happy to be reminded on the eve of 9/11 that as Americans we stand with our friends around the region of all faiths, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, who believe in what we believe in and fight for what we too often take for granted—the right to express oneself freely, the obligation to mock those who stand with murderers.

ALLAH AND WOMAN AT YALE

Daniel Gelernter


Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke at Yale last week, and there was mild annoyance in the press section that no screaming protesters appeared to punch up the headlines. A small group distributed leaflets to people waiting outside; inside, all was quiet.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The lack of disturb-ance was in part thanks to good planning—every seat was filled, but no standing room was allowed, and the aisles were kept clear. In the main, there was no disturbance because Ayaan Hirsi Ali is hugely admired. The hundred or more people who were turned away for lack of seats, some clutching copies of Infidel, her autobiography, had hoped only to listen respectfully (and perhaps collect an autograph). A great international thug syndicate has told Hirsi Ali that, if she keeps talking, she’s dead. And she keeps talking. That alone should win the admiration of every American.

Perhaps another reason the anti-Hirsi Ali protest fizzled is that its front-line soldiers at Yale made fools of themselves. Yale’s Muslim Students Association (MSA) was widely condemned for an open letter that argued against her appearance on campus, claiming she lacked the credentials to speak about Islam. (Never mind that she was raised Muslim and now has a fatwa out against her.) The letter referred to her childhood experiences of genital mutilation and forced marriage as “unfortunate circumstances.”

The MSA’s letter was cosigned by 35 student organizations. Except not really. On the morning of Hirsi Ali’s appearance, the Yale Daily News reported that many student groups—including Yale Hillel, Yale Friends of Israel, and the Women’s Leadership Initiative—had been listed as cosigners without their permission.

The attempts over the last decade to silence Ayaan Hirsi Ali range from death threats to polite suggestions that she be barred from campuses. They have served only to heighten her stature—and Hirsi Ali is already impressively tall. She has a stately bearing, dresses quietly and tastefully. She speaks slowly, with a rich and robust accent. And you’ll never see a less affected speaker at a podium.

She began by thanking Yale in contrast with Brandeis University. The latter had, only a few months earlier, first offered and then rescinded an honorary degree and an invitation to appear at their commencement ceremony. Yale will probably get more credit than it deserves for the comparison: It was not the university but William F. Buckley, Jr. Program, a conservative undergraduate group, that invited her to speak on campus. Perhaps Yale will follow through and do the decent thing and award her a degree this spring term. That would mean something. It would turn Yale into a bastion of freedom overnight, at a time when American universities are threatening to become an elaborate, extremely expensive practical joke.

Hirsi Ali was introduced by Harvey Goldblatt, a professor of Slavic languages, who praised her courage and especially her work on women’s rights, and reminded the audience that part of a serious academic environment is listening to opposing viewpoints. That this reminder should be deemed necessary on a university campus is striking, but even more striking was the almost pleading tone. There was a hidden acknowledgment of helplessness, like a Wild-West saloon owner sidling up to the local outlaws and saying, “Please, y’all, we don’t want any trouble here.”

The protesters who had warned against a rabble-rousing speech to be delivered by an ideological firebrand must have been doubly disappointed. Hirsi Ali is a gentle, thoughtful speaker. There were no red-meat “applause lines”—though she did often get applause. Her thesis was simple: Any attempt to deal with Islamic terrorism is doomed unless we acknowledge its connection to Islam. Every religion has a “core,” and the core of Islam is to submit to the will of Allah. (That is, in fact, what the word “Islam” means—submission to God. Hence also the title of Hirsi Ali’s film collaboration with Dutch director Theo van Gogh criticizing the treatment of women in Islam. Van Gogh was subsequently murdered by an Islamic extremist.)

She insisted that there are not, as some suggest, “many Islams”—but there are several sets of Muslims: The first group are radicals who want to force the entire world into Islam by eradicating everything else. The second group, the vast majority, are in a “state of cognitive dissonance”—torn between the strict teachings of the first group and their own consciences, which revolt at the terrorists’ behavior. The third group, perhaps the smallest, are reforming Muslims, who suggest, for example, that mosque and state should be separate. Members of the third group are excommunicated, exiled, threatened, murdered.

Hirsi Ali associates the rise of Islamic terrorism with the rise of the first group. This new order represents a striking change from the attitudes she knew growing up. In her early childhood in Somalia, the attitude had been lenient: You kept what rules you could. “If you neglected your religious duties, you were left alone.” Then a new figure appeared, “the preacher teacher.” Most often he’d been trained in Saudi Arabia. He would insist not only that all laws be followed to the seventh-century letter, but that friends and family who didn’t meet standards be snitched on immediately. If they would not reform, ties must be broken. Christians must be converted or else ties broken. Jews must simply be destroyed.

Hirsi Ali places the students of the MSA squarely in group two—Muslims who should resist the radicals, but often unthinkingly (or fearfully) direct their attacks in the wrong direction. Islamophobia, she says, is a disingenuous term. Of course there are bigots of every sort—there always have been. But why shouldn’t we criticize Islam as we would any other religion? If we refrain from criticizing Islam alone, that expresses fear of Islam. That is true Islamophobia.

She concluded with a challenge to the MSA: Who is doing the real damage to the image of Islam? Should these students protest against reforming Muslims, or should they rather protest Boko Haram’s sandwiching a Koran between two AK-47s on their flag? The flag’s inscription reads “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” The Saudi Arabian flag has the same inscription underlined with a sword—in both cases, an ordinary theological inscription turned into a threat. So, she asks, “will you submit—passively or actively—or will you finally stand up to Allah?” Will you let the preacher teachers destroy your communities, or will you tell them to bugger off? It was an inspiring speech and I think it would have given the MSA food for thought, if they’d been there. I hope they get their hands on a transcript.

FROM ROBESPIERRE TO ISIS

Gertrude Himmelfarb

The war on terror is over, the president assured us a year ago. Now, we are told, that war is very much with us and will be pursued with all due diligence. The president was obviously responding to the polls reflecting the disapproval of the public, but also to critics in his own party. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sadly commented on his admission that he had “no strategy yet”: “I think I’ve learned one thing about this president, and that is: He’s very cautious—maybe in this instance too cautious.”

The execution of Robespierre

Two centuries ago, in the midst of another “war on terror”—or so he thought of it—Edmund Burke rebuked his prime minister for a similar failing. He had admired William Pitt for his leadership in the war with France, but now, out of excessive caution, Pitt was seeking peace with that “regicide” regime. “There is a courageous wisdom,” Burke wrote in his “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” but “there is also a false reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear. Under misfortunes it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen.”

That misplaced caution, or false prudence, was all the more serious in the case of a “great state” like England, which had to behave in a manner commensurate with its power.

The rules and definitions of prudence can rarely be exact; never universal. I do not deny that in small truckling states a timely compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means, of drawling out their puny existence; but a great state is too much envied, too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. To be secure, it must be respected. Power, and eminence, and consideration, are things not to be begged. They must be commanded: and they who supplicate for mercy from others can never hope for justice through themselves.

It is an odd argument to come from Burke, and perhaps the more telling for that. If there is any one political principle associated with Burke, it is prudence. “Letters on a Regicide Peace” was written in 1796. Five years earlier, in his “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs,” he had pronounced prudence the first of all virtues. “Prudence is not only first in rank of the virtues, political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all.” But prudence was associated with a corollary principle, “circumstances,” which determine what is wise and prudent in any particular situation. On this occasion, in a war with an implacable enemy, a misplaced prudence was not a virtue but a fatal flaw.

The war with France was such an occasion, Burke believed, because France was the consummate enemy, the very embodiment of terror. The idea of the “Reign of Terror” (la Grande Terreur) was not, as some have suggested, the invention of disaffected emigrés or hostile historians. “Terror” was the term the revolutionaries publicly and proudly applied to themselves. In December 1793, with the executions well under way (they amounted to 30,000 or more in a two-year period), the “Constitution of the Terror” officially inaugurated the “Government of the Terror.” Robespierre, the head of the Committee of Public Safety, explained why terror was the necessary instrument of the revolution—the “Republic of Virtue,” as he saw it. “If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.” (Robespierre was executed shortly after, one of the notable victims of the Terror.)

Burke agreed with Robespierre about this, if about nothing else: There was a necessary connection between the revolution and terror, as there was between the Revolutionary Wars and terror. Burke’s “Letters on a Regicide Peace” (like his Reflections on the Revolution in France) may be accused of hyperbole. But if his account of the “scourge and terror” of the Revolutionary Wars seems exaggerated, it is not at all exaggerated applied to the current wars waged by the Islamic State. Indeed, it is uncannily prescient. With only slight changes of wording, we can adapt and update Burke’s tract. “Out of the tomb of the murdered Monarchy in France [read: “Out of the womb of the murderous Islamic State”] has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination and subdued the fortitude of man.” (One can also imagine the Islamic State, as it imposes sharia law upon its terrain, assuming for itself the title of “Republic of Virtue.”)

It was not only a murderous war, Burke insisted, it was a “peculiar” war, and that made it all the more threatening.

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about; not with a State which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which, by its essence, is inimical to all other Governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country. To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our channel. It has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil.

Burke’s words can be echoed almost exactly today, for it is just such a peculiar war we are waging against just such a peculiar enemy. The Islamic State is not an ordinary state with which we can negotiate or compromise, not a “manageable problem” we can resolve gradually and temperately, but an “armed doctrine,” a “system,” a “faction of opinion,” which knows no compromise and cannot be managed. With such an enemy, there cannot be a “red line” defining how far, and no further, we may go; a “no troops on the ground” policy, limiting our involvement in the war; an “end-of-war” strategy that prescribes at the outset when and how the war will be terminated. On the contrary, a war with such an enemy is a total war—and, Burke insisted, a “long war” (his italics). “I speak it emphatically, and with a desire that it should be marked, in a long war; because, without such a war, no experience has yet told us, that a dangerous power has ever been reduced to measure or to reason.” The purpose of the war must be nothing less than to “destroy that enemy” or it will “destroy all Europe,” and to do so “the force opposed to it should be made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts.”

The pamphlet containing the two “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” published in October 1796, was Burke’s last published work. He died the following year. (Two other letters were published posthumously.) He had described himself to a friend as “a dejected old man, buried in an anticipated grave of a feeble old age, forgetting and forgotten in an obscure and melancholy retreat.” The “Letters on a Regicide Peace” gives no hint of that. It is as bold and vigorous as the Reflections—and it was surprisingly popular, considering the fact that Burke was urging upon England a long, dangerous, and costly war. The mood of the American public today, to judge by the polls, should be receptive to his message, understanding our war on terror as he understood his, and willing to pursue it with the commitment and energy it deserves.

NO WINNERS YET IN UKRAINE

Cathy Young

The conflict in Ukraine took some dramatic turns this month that led many observers to conclude that the Kremlin was succeeding in its effort to keep Ukraine under Russia’s thumb, with the collusion of a spineless West. Actually, while Russia has wrested some concessions, the handwringing is largely unwarranted—so far. But much depends on the West’s willingness to continue applying pressure to Russia and offer meaningful aid to Ukraine. And, even in the best-case scenario, a “frozen conflict” zone in eastern Ukraine is a likely and troubling outcome.

Civilians training to fight Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine

In the final days of August, when Ukrainian forces seemed close to routing the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, their successful push against the insurgency was abruptly and brutally reversed; all available evidence indicates that, despite Moscow’s implausible denials, the counter-offensive was led by invading Russian troops. With Ukrainian fighters demoralized and reeling from their sudden losses, President Petro Poroshenko agreed to ceasefire talks. On September 5, representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk signed an agreement that suspended Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” and at least temporarily left pro-Russian separatists in control of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 

Then, on September 12, came the news that key parts of Ukraine’s about-to-be-ratified comprehensive trade agreement with the European Union would not take effect until the start of 2016, in consideration of Russia’s economic interests. This is, of course, the same agreement that former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych backed out of in late 2013 because of Kremlin pressure and bribery—a move that sparked the “Euromaidan” protests and sealed his political fate. Does the delay mean that Vladimir Putin has won and the revolution has lost?

Some believe so. A Time column by the magazine’s Moscow correspondent, Simon Shuster, was titled “How Putin Got His Way In Ukraine.” Shuster—whose Time cover story in late July portrayed Putin as having a near-supernatural ability to win and grow more formidable with each crisis—argues that the compromise made in Brussels gives the Russian strongman exactly what he wanted in the first place: a say over Ukraine’s relationship with Europe. This theme is echoed by European commentators such as Deutsche Welle’s Bernd Johann, who wrote, “The EU has bowed to pressure from Moscow. Ukraine can evidently become European only with the consent of Russia.”

Many Ukrainians share these concerns; deputy foreign minister Danylo Lubkivsky resigned in protest against the trade deal postponement, saying it sent “the wrong signal” both to the Russian aggressor and the citizens of Ukraine. The symbolism was reinforced when Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, approved the agreement with the EU on the same day that it passed the law on the “special order of self-government” in the rebel-held parts of eastern Ukraine.

In a blog post on the Ukrainska Pravda website, Poroshenko adviser Yuri Lutsenko urged his compatriots to “stop the cries of ‘all is lost.’ ” Lutsenko pointed out that the law applies only to parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and only for a three-year period—a far cry from Putin’s expansionist intent—and argued that the truce would give Ukraine a chance to recover from hostilities and shore up its military.

To some extent, this is spin control. But some independent Russian commentators critical of the Kremlin also believe Ukraine is gaining, not losing, from the Minsk agreement, whose terms are largely identical to the ones Poroshenko offered, and the rebels rejected, in June. Historian Mark Solonin argued on his blog that the deal spells the end of Putin’s quest to reclaim Novorossiya (“New Russia,” the czarist-era name for territories in eastern and southern Ukraine that many Russian nationalists regard as Russia’s own). The insurgents are required to disarm, disband, and allow local elections with proper monitoring—presumably by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which organized the negotiations. It seems unlikely they will comply; but, while the survival of the illegal Donetsk/Luhansk enclave certainly poses problems for Ukraine, these problems are by no means fatal.

While Ukraine was at a clear military disadvantage when it accepted the agreement, one should not overrate the strength of Russia’s position. A surprise attack to shore up the insurgency is one thing; a full-scale, long-term military operation that entails huge expenditures, extensive casualties, and de facto world pariah status is very different. The Kremlin’s propaganda machine has been frighteningly effective so far, and Putin’s approval ratings still hover around 85 percent. But it is far from certain that a population grown accustomed to stability and even relative affluence will remain docile in the face of an economic downturn and a steady stream of dead and wounded young men returning home. Surveys by the Levada Center, Russia’s most respected polling agency, show support for sending Russian troops into Ukraine dropped from 74 percent in March to just 41 percent in August.

From this perspective, the mass incursion of Russian troops into eastern Ukraine in late August looks less like a prelude to conquest than a face-saving stopgap measure to prevent Ukrainian troops from crushing the insurgency, retaking rebel-controlled territory, and dealing Russia and its proxies a humiliating defeat. Extending the insurgency’s lease on life allowed Putin to force Ukraine into negotiations in which Russia would ostensibly get to play peace broker.

The delay in the full implementation of the Ukraine-EU agreement might also be something of a face-saver for Russia. In many ways, argues pro-Maidan Ukrainian journalist Sergii Gorbachov, it also helps Ukraine. Postponing tariff-free imports from Western Europe (which Putin has claimed would flood Russian markets with cheap goods) and adoption of EU regulatory standards will give Ukraine breathing room to phase in economic reforms; meanwhile, the EU already allows tariff-free import of Ukrainian goods. The compromise also temporarily protects trade with Russia, the sudden loss of which would be a serious blow to Ukraine’s already ailing economy.

The delay will not affect Ukraine’s political integration into Europe, with a view—reiterated by Poroshenko on his visit to North America—to eventual EU membership. Thwarting that alliance, not stopping cheap imports, was Putin’s real goal when he strong-armed Yanukovych into rejecting the EU deal last year and agreeing to join Russia’s alternative “Eurasian Customs Union” with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The compromise on the trade agreement does not even come close to fulfilling those ambitions—just as the separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine, shrunken to about half the size it was in June, hardly fulfills  his ambitions for Novorossiya.

That doesn’t mean Ukraine, or the West, has won. There is little doubt that Putin will do further mischief, whether by trying to undermine Ukraine’s EU trade agreement or by trying to destabilize Ukraine through his proxies in Donetsk. The West must not let up on sanctions—which, contrary to pessimistic predictions, are starting to have some real bite—and must make it clear that there is a steep price to pay for continued Russian intervention, including covert intervention, in Ukraine. The OSCE must do what it can to monitor the situation in rebel-held areas. Ukraine must be given vitally needed aid, including defensive weapons.

As we enter a new Cold War, we should not underestimate Vladimir Putin. But it would also be wise not to overestimate him.

AL QAEDA IN INDIA

Saneya Arif

 

 

Ayman al-Zawahiri leader of the al Qaeda (AQ) has recently announced his intention to “raise the flag of jihad” in the Indian sub- continent. Will Zawahiri succeed in establishing AQ roots in India? 

 

Muslims constitute around 13 percent of India's population and do not appear sympathetic towards the AQ's ideology. Despite waving of black flags of the Islamic State (IS) in certain parts and the presence of few Indian youths in the conflict theatres of Syria and Iraq, the possibility of AQ gaining a foothold in India and turning into an organisation of redemption for Muslims is remote. 

 

Following four reasons substantiate the assertion. 

 

Faith in democracy and secularism 

Firstly, the Indian Muslims have faith in notions of democracy and secularism. Even while their social mobility has been slow and has remained a cause for concern, they do see a sign of hope for socio- economic parity with the majority. Muslim personal law is seen by them as a recognition of and respect for their distinct identity and religious freedom. 

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pledge to treat all Indians as equals regardless of religion can also be an additional source of optimism if followed by positive actions. Thus, the use of religion-inspired violence and destruction in the name of liberation of Muslims is unacceptable to them. Statements renouncing Zawahiri's statement by several leading Muslim organisations is a pointer towards that direction.

 

The most powerful statement came from the Darul Uloom Deoband which categorically asserted, "Indian Muslims would never be convinced by un-Islamic and false arguments of the Al Qaeda."  

 

Lack of Violent Societal Cleavages 

Secondly, Al Qaeda in South Asia has benefited from the existing societal cleavages, especially in the Af-Pak region. Further, it has used the existing jihadi and sectarian groups to ferment trouble. As much as it has assisted and been a magnet for groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and activities of anti-Shia groups like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) has further helped it spread the Shia versus Sunni vitriol in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As a result, besides the foreign fighters of the AQ in the Af-Pak region, local Afghans as well as Pakistanis have joined the group. 

 

In India, it is highly unlikely that any such vehicle for hire would be available for Zawahiri who is attempting to revolutionise the minds of the Sunni Muslims in India. Both the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and its predecessor, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) who could possibly have played a second fiddle to AQ, are in their weakest points. Arrests of a number of IM leaders and cadres have pushed these organisations to the brink of collapse. 

 

Unlikely Mass Movement favouring the AQ

Thirdly, in the absence of a vehicle for hire, AQ's objective to find a foothold in India would require developing operational capacities among the Indian Muslims youth. Despite few recent cases of radicalisation among the Muslim youth, the possibility of a engineering a movement favouring the AQ is unlikely. The Indian political and social systems have multiple checks and balances mechanisms in place to prevent any such eventuality. 

 

Moderate Nature of Islam in India

Fourthly, the moderate nature of Islam in India act as the most crucial shield against radicalization which could be exploited by the AQ. Islam in India has a long history, led by the Sufis who integrated the multiple communities of India sharing common cultural practices. Unlike other countries, Sufism has remained an integral part of the Indian cultural tradition. Amity exists among India's Shias and the Sunnis, in spite of a division along ideological lines. 

 

Cultural ethos can effectively hedge against an extremist rampage is clear from the experience of India's neighbour, Bangladesh. Once touted as the next Afghanistan, Bangladesh has remained free of AQ's influence. India's ability to weather the challenges is equally robust. In India, the official approach of involving the ulemas in framing a counter-narrative to AQ's appeal has immensely helped in maintaining a divide between Islam in India and its radical stream. 

 

However, be prepared to prevent the unforeseen 

Even with this positive outlook, there is a need for caution, as even handful of cases of radicalisation, if not a fully networked AQ base, could pose significant threats to India. To prevent such a scenario, certain precautionary measures should be taken. Muslims in India do have grievances of marginalisation, state-discrimination, and sense of alienation, which may get exploited. Concerns like these needs to be tackled through affirmative actions. Experts believe that reinforcing multiculturalism is the need of the hour.

 

Bringing communities together will serve as the best way to prevent radicalisation of youths. Inclusive and affirmative programmes must be undertaken so that India can never become a playground for the AQ and its violent agenda. For this, the government, NGOs, and religious organizations have to work together.

THE NAXAL IDEOLOGY AND VIOLENCE

Bibhu Prasad Routray

 

 

How does one analyse the killings of 6105 civilians and security forces in incidents related to left-wing extremism between 2005 and 2013? 

Given that the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), since its formation in 2004, has been responsible for majority of these killings, conventional analyses have mostly focused on big and small incidents that produced these victims. While such methods are useful in terms of attempting to grasp the growing or declining capacity of the outfit, it is also useful to analyse the unceasing violence as upshot of an ideology that has for decades underlined the necessity to shed the enemy's blood to bring about a change in social and political order. 

Three leaders – Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Kondapalli Seetharamaiah – dominate the discourse on Naxalism, which began in the 1960s. Mazumdar, in his ‘Eight Documents’ in 1965, exhorted the workers of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to take up armed struggle against the state. He underlined that action and not politics was the need of the hour. Such calls resulted in a number of incidents in which the CPI-M workers started seizing arms and acquiring land forcibly on behalf of the peasants from the big landholders in Darjeeling. These incidents went on to provide the spark for the 1967 peasant uprising. 

Following the formation of the All India Coordination Committee of Revolutionaries (AICCR), that emerged out of the CPI-M in November 1967 and was renamed as All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) in May 1968, Mazumdar further reiterated his idea of khatam or annihilation of class enemies. Although incidents of individual assassinations influenced by khatam resulted in repressive state action targeting the naxalite cadres, the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML), which was formed in 1969 breaking away from the CPI-Marxist, continued professing violence as the key tool of revolution.

While Mazumdar's preference for using violence to overthrow existing social order and seizing state power remained the CPI-ML's mode of operation till 1972, a counter ideology with a stress on agrarian consolidation preceding an armed struggle was reiterated by Kanu Sanyal following Mazumdar's death. Sanyal was not against the idea of an armed struggle per se. However, he opposed Mazumdar's advocacy of targeted assassination. 

In the subsequent years, the CPI-ML split into several factions. Although Sanyal himself headed a faction, he gradually grew redundant to the extreme left movement and committed suicide in 2010. Towards the last years of his life, Sanyal maintained that the CPI-Maoist's reliance on excessive violence does not conform to original revolutionary objectives of the Naxalite movement. On more than one occasion, Sanyal denounced the “wanton killing of innocent villagers”. In a 2009 interview, Sanyal accused the CPI-Maoist of exploiting the situation in West Bengal's Lalgarh "by using the Adivasis as stooges to carry forward their agenda of individual terrorism."

In Andhra Pradesh, since the 'Spring Thunder' of Srikakulam in 1970, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, was responsible for the growth of the Naxalite movement under the aegis of the CPI-ML. After leading a faction of the CPI-ML and forming the People's War Group (PWG) in 1980 Seetharamaiah oversaw a regime of intense violence, thus, earning the outfit the description of "the deadliest of all Naxal groups". Even after the expulsion of Seetharamaiah in 1991, the PWG and its factions remained the source of extreme violence targeting politicians and security forces in the state. 

Kanu Sanyal's reluctant support for armed violence was, thus, somewhat an aberration. Playing down the importance of mindless bloodshed remained a peripheral of the Naxalite movement. Each transformation of the movement thereafter in terms of splits, mergers, and formation of new identities escalated the ingrained proclivity to use violence as an instrument of expansion and influence. The CPI-Maoist represented a natural progression of this trend. And as the fatalities data reveal, each passing year, since its 2004 formation through a merger of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the PWG, it became more and more reliant on violence, rationalising the strategy as a defensive mechanism essential to its existence.  

In 2009 Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji, who led the outfit in West Bengal termed the violence as a "struggle for independence". Ganapathy, the CPI-Maoist general secretary, reiterated in his February 2010 interview that the violence is only a "war of self-defence" or a "counter-violence" in response to a "brutal military campaign unleashed by the state". Maoist Spokesperson Azad, who was later killed in controversial circumstances, rejected the appeal for abjuring violence by then Home Minister P Chidambaram in April 2010 indicating that such a move would allow the "lawless" security forces "continue their rampage". Azad also maintained that while the outfit generally avoids attacking the non-combatants, "the intelligence officials and police informers who cause immense damage to the movement" can not be spared. 

Thus understood, few conclusions can be drawn, in contrast to beliefs that a peaceful resolution of the conflict could be possible. Its current frailty notwithstanding, regaining capacities to maximise violence would be a priority for the CPI-Maoist. It will continue to reject other methods of social and political change and maintain an unwavering faith in the utility of violence. Even while realising that a total victory vis-a-vis the state is unattainable, the outfit would remain an agent of extreme violence in its own spheres of influence.  

OBAMA'S NEW ISIS STRATEGY: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIA

PR Chari

 

 

In his widely anticipated 15th anniversary address on the  9/11 attacks, President Obama has clarified his  objectives in the Middle East: “We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [the Islamic State] through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” 

 

Its contours are taking shape, but the new strategy would involve airstrikes against militants and training the moderate opposition fighters in Syria. The US will wage war against the Islamic extremists and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Wary of domestic opposition to getting mired in another overseas conflict after Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama emphasized that he would seek Congressional approval and international support from America’s Middle East and NATO allies. 

 

Could American air power and the ground forces of its partners destroy the Islamic State? There is enough realism around to appreciate that al Qaeda, ISIS and similar extremist organizations propagate beguiling ideals of equality, freedom, religious purity and so on to confront the Western alliance, headed by the United States. It is difficult to defeat an ideal, but its baneful effects can certainly be contained. This understanding, is currently informing Obama’s rejuvenated counter-insurgency strategy premised on assured domestic support and the cooperation of allies, but restricting military action to airstrikes and leaving ground action to allies.  

 

Only a modest augmentation of US troops in Iraq is envisaged, raising their total number to around 1500 for performing advisory functions by manning tactical operations centers, protecting American personnel and helping local security forces. An important, though unstated, component of this revised strategy is human intelligence to pinpoint the location of individual militant leaders for elimination by air and ground action. Jordan is critical here.

 

The new Obama strategy envisages training the Free Syrian Army. Saudi Arabia has apparently agreed to provide facilities in its territory for their training and turning them turned around to combat the Islamic extremists and the Assad regime. The dangers of this radical policy are two-fold. First, the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, would be getting embroiled in an enlarging Shia- Sunni sectarian conflict, with the lines of division getting increasingly blurred. Thus Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States are becoming uneasy partners to confront the ISIS and al Qaeda. But, Iran, alongside remnants of the Iraqi and Assad regime still feel obligated to support Hamas against Israel. How Obama’s revised Middle East strategy will sidestep these land mines of Middle East politics remains to be seen.

 

So, what do these developments signify for India? 

 

First, Obama’s 9/11 strategy is designed to ensure the continued American presence in the Middle East; its vestigial continuance would, hopefully, protect US national interests. It can similarly be adduced that the US will not leave Afghanistan altogether after 2014, but elements will remain in Bagram and other secure bases to enable air- and drone-strikes against identified militant forces. Air-strikes do not win wars, but they can seriously degrade the morale of rebel forces and weaken them by decapitating their leadership. It would be in India’s interests to support the US presence in Afghanistan, especially with the al Qaeda threatening to turn its attention against India. A dialogue with the US to firm up greater cooperation in this regard is called for. 

 

Second, it has been wryly observed that one assured supply source for ready weapons in ISIS’s brutal efforts to overrun Iraq and Syria is the US taxpayer. Significant numbers of semi-automatic rifles have been captured by ISIS from military stockpiles in Iraq and Syria, apart from heavier weapons like anti-tank HEAT (High-Explosive Anti-Tank) and shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets that can destroy armored vehicles. Much the same situation might arise in Afghanistan after the departure of US and ISAF forces. According to reports significant numbers of vehicles, small arms and ammunition will be left behind as they are prohibitively costly to ship back to the United States. Much of this materiel might find its way into India via terrorist groups operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, but with interests in Kashmir. How this menace should be thwarted requires urgent consultations with the United States.

 

Third, the growth of sectarianism in the Middle East crisis should concern India. Extremists in the Middle East have targeted Christians and other ethnic minorities, but also rival schisms within Islam.  The Shia-Sunni divide has become corrosive, which is also excoriating South Asia, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, but also India. This rapid growth in sectarianism has to be guarded against, especially with the coming into power in New Delhi of a political party with militant Hindu roots. Concerns here are not ill-founded.

 

Obama’s newly minted Middle East policy will therefore have  much wider repercussions, including the US pivot towards Asia that concerns India; further developments here will require India’s vigilant attention.

PAKISTAN AND THE COUP

 D Suba Chandran

 

 

Almost after a month of intense politicking in Islamabad and the multiple calls to Azadi and Inquilab with few thousand men and women, why have Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri failed to achieve their primary objectives? And why did the Khakis back off?

It appears very clear, that there is no revolution impending in the immediate or distant future in the political landscape of Pakistan. Nor is Nawaz Sharif is likely to resign, based on whatever has happened so far. It would be a different story that Sharif may be forced to resign at a future date for a different reason; but certainly, he is not resigning and yielding to the “Container” democrats and revolutionaries.

First and foremost, the primary objectives of Tahirul Qadri and Imran Khan failed under its own weight. Have they been pitched for something that is within the realms of possibility, they would have achieved their objectives, or at least a reached compromise closer to their position. Tahirul Qadri promised a revolution and Imran Khan asked for Nawaz Sharif’s resignation. 

Second reason for their failure has been their ability to engage their own party members and keep the protest movement coherent. Neither Qadri nor Imran Khan could galvanize their protests and sit-ins into a larger national movement. The numbers are sufficient enough to create disruption, but not large enough to usher into a revolution.

Worse, as it happened to the PTI, there have been internal dissensions within the party in terms of what needs to be achieved. Javed Hashmi episode clearly highlights that not everyone within his party agreed with Imran Khan. He has taken few decisions, contrary to what has been advised by his own party seniors. 

The Establishment did not move in. According to some, including Najam Sethi, a section within the military including senior serving officials conspired to over throw Nawaz Sharif using Imran Khan. However, the military high command did not agree to such a strategy engaging an open support to the revolutionaries against Nawaz Sharif. It is so obvious from the fact that the protesters were raising slogans in favour of the military when they were thrown out the building they had occupied earlier – Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri were waiting for the final decision by the “third” umpire. 

Perhaps, the military used Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri to achieve what they wanted. They used the crisis to ensure that the political leadership approaches them in the first place to arbiter, and later draw redlines in terms of what the Parliament could undertake and what should be left to the domain of the Khakhis. Once they got embedded into the political and foreign policy decision making, the military is not too keen in overtly overthrowing Nawaz Sharif.

Lack of popular support to the protestors and their backers in the Esrtbalishment could be another reason. Projecting a rare stand of unity, political parties (except the PTI) sided with the government. The PPP, MQM, ANP, JUI and JI did come together and realised that it is not in their interest to weaken the Parliament or supporting movement leading to a coup. None of the political parties are willing to face another elections in the near future, are be willing to accept Imran Khan as their next Prime Minister. With less that 40 seats at the National Assembly, the PTI simply does not have the numbers to make any real difference to the composition of Parliament. 

Fifth, there was fatigue, especially in the media and amongst the people. While a Jalsa may keep the attention of people for a short period, people did not have the patience to see such a tamasha being carried out on a daily basis.  There was so much buzz in the media in the initial days;  later it became a drag. Worse, the rains and floods have diverted the attention of people. 

Finally, there has been no international support forthcoming to Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri. The biggest blow came, when Pakistan’s all weather friend, decided to have a different look at the situation. China cancelled the visit of its President XI Jinping to Pakistan. Neither the US nor EU have been sympathetic to the cause of the revolutionaries. Perhaps, the military also took the cue.

Does the above mean, Sharif’s position is strengthened today? Hardly. In fact, his position is weaker than it was in July this year. He should be well aware he has got another lease and can continue in the Parliament. Only he would know what he has promised the military to ensure that the latter does not intervene. The biggest question that he should ask himself is – how did the situation come to this level in August 2014, just one year after that mammoth electoral victory in May 2013?

The earlier Sharif find answers to those factors that have caused the turnaround in the last fifteen months, the better for democracy in Pakistan. Should he pursue a vendetta politics and ensure Musharraf gets a stronger sentence? Should he engage in crony politics and ensure that the institutions are not strengthened? Should he follow a populist course and not engage in providing better governance? 

Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri may be the problems. But the solutions are with Nawaz Sharif.

ISI, INDIA AND SRI LANKA

 N Manoharan

 

 

The recent arrest of Sri Lankan national Arun Selvarajan in Chennai by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for spying on behalf of Pakistan’s ISI is concerning. He is the third Sri Lankan arrested for spying in the past over one year. Earlier, two Sri Lankan Muslims (Mohammed Sakir Hussain and Suleman Hussain) and an Indian (Thameen Ansari) were apprehended on similar charges. The arrestees confessed that their handlers were agents posted at Pakistani High Commission based in Colombo. Previously, it was Amir Zubair Siddiqui, who was posted as visa counsellor, and later it was Haji alias Siraj Ali.

 

Sri Lanka and the ISI

Sri Lanka may not be conniving with Pakistan against India, but is being used as a base by the ISI. Sri Lanka never allowed its territory for any anti-India activities and the ISI operations may be happening without Colombo’s knowledge. 

 

Why Sri Lanka has been chosen as a base by the ISI? Why are the Sri Lankans citizens involved? What is the purpose behind the Colombo module? What is the state of counter-intelligence capability of India? 

 

The ISI has been operating from some of the neighbouring countries of India like Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Myanmar and even Maldives. The southern front of India remained unpenetrated for quite some time. Sri Lanka could be the best base to do that for two specific reasons: 

• Given the proximity and similarity of language and appearance, Sri Lankan Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims, who also speak Tamil, would not find it difficult to reach Tamil Nadu and mix-up with the local population. Presence of large number of Sri Lankan refugees is yet another facilitating aspect. 

 

• Pakistan’s activities in Sri Lanka have not been seen with suspicion by the security establishment of the island state. Sri Lanka-Pakistan relations have been good without any irritants. Sri Lanka is ever grateful to Pakistan for all the military support during the Eelam War. In addition, when Sri Lanka was hauled by the international community for human rights excesses during that War, Islamabad rendered unstinted diplomatic support.

 

ISI and the Involvement of Sri Lankan Citizens

There are various reasons for the involvement of Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims in the spy ring. The primary motivation is financial. Unemployed youth are easy targets. There is a theory that argues that part of the reason for the involvement of Sri Lankan Muslims in ISI’s spy network is their increasing radicalisation. But, the theory may explain if they are involved in spying western targets based in India, but not acting against Indian targets.

 

Pakistan obviously has denied the existence of an ISI base in Sri Lanka targeted against India as “speculative” and “malicious media campaign”. The denial is not surprising. Pakistani ISI has been assiduously pursuing the objective of establishing espionage networks for collection of India’s defence related information with reference to deployment/movement of armed forces, information relating to vital installations including sensitive information pertaining to the latest knowhow with reference to technological advancement etc. For this purpose, it has been able to organise resident agents and even allure the lower staff in sensitive organizations for collection and communication of sensitive information. When there is a roadblock there, it has moved on to tap ethnic similarities in the neighbourhood.

 

Sri Lanka as a base: What is ISI’s Endgame?

What is concerning is the security dimension of the espionage. There are two aspects to spying. One is to just gather information about the enemy for the purpose of having information advantage. The second aspect is to collect information with the aim to inflict damage. Reconnaissance of Kalapakkam nuclear plant site, NSG Hub in Chennai, Coast Guard installations on the eastern coast, Officers’ Training Academy (OTA) in Chennai, Nagapattinam Port, the Madras Regimental Centre in Wellington, harbours in Chennai and Ennore, DGP office and the High Court complex in Chennai and Vizag and Kochi ports have been carried out. Places like the Sulur Air Base, the Naval detachment in Karaikal, naval installations located in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were on the pipeline. But, by then the spies have been arrested. Going by the confessions of the arrestees, information gathering was meant for planning a terror attack. The first ever terror attack in Chennai in May this year is not unconnected to the larger ISI plot.

 

Meeting the Challenge: What is required?

Whoever has been arrested is only a tip of the iceberg. It is important to find out how many more spies are on the prowl. This requires a thorough review and revamping of counter-intelligence capabilities of India. Counter-intelligence continues to be a weak spot in the Indian intelligence infrastructure. It is important to develop a totally different set of intelligence capabilities to cater to rapidly changing threat environment. This needs to be done at several levels—from training modules to doctrines to equipment to motivation. Intelligence at the state level requires modernisation. Human intelligence (HUMINT) requires more attention than just technical intelligence (TECHINT). Not the least, the intelligence flow has to be both ways: from the Centre to States and vice versa.

JAPAN, INDIA AND THE US AND THE CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION

Vivek Mishra

 

 

While Modi’s visit to Japan in early September yielded dividends in other sectors, it failed to accomplish on the nuclear deal between the two countries. Reactions (or the lack of them) from Washington DC are important and warrant analysis, as India’s civilian nuclear cooperation with the US is stuck, primarily due to the Liability Bill issue. 

 

Much depends how the US perceives and reacts to the India-Japan nuclear deal, for two reasons; Japan is one of the most important post-War allies of the US and secondly, Japan and the US are share a common ground to cooperate with India through a civil nuclear deal.

 

US: Role Versus Reaction

The role of the US has been critical in influencing the India-Japan nuclear deal. Two developments in particular, the IAEA approval and the NSG waiver, were vital in effecting a change of heart in the global strategic community towards India’s inclusion and acceptance as a nuclear responsible state. This change included Japan.

 

The reaction of the US, on the other hand, towards the failure of the India-Japan nuclear deal has been akin to one of a mute spectator and probably, deliberately so. The US, on expected lines, has kept restraint in showing its reactions over a nuclear deal in which Japan is involved, given the unfortunate nuclear history between the two countries. Such a measured response from the US is, probably, to find a balance between its desire to make India a more nuclear-responsible state, and the benefits that are likely to accrue to the US in the eventuality of an India-Japan nuclear deal. 

 

The US itself has a significant nuclear cooperation with Japan primarily comprising research in fast reactor technology, fuel cycle technology, advanced computer simulation and modelling, small and medium reactors, safeguards and physical protection; and nuclear waste management. A common nuclear cooperation with India of both Japan and the US could result in a nuclear ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ A history of trilateral talks between India, Japan and the US since 2011, adds to this expectation. In cooperating with Japan and the US, India will stand to gain on a multilateral nuclear cooperation forum. In Japan, India also sees a potential supplier of reactors. Furthermore, interlinked economic stakes of the US and Japanese companies in nuclear cooperation makes it worth for India to bring the negotiations in this regard to a conclusive halt with Japan at the soonest. The US therefore, is expected to clandestinely influence the civil nuclear deal between India and Japan without showing either too much curiosity or disinterest, as there are many convergences between Japan and the US on their civ-nuke cooperation with India.

 

Behind the curtain cooperation?

There is a possibility that the US and Japan could be working behind the curtain to get India to the nuclear negotiating table, which it has thus far eschewed. The US understands that India’s deal with Japan could be a noose that it can tighten anytime, particularly at a nascent stage when it is still being negotiated. Blocking India’s civil nuclear deal with Japan is certainly not in the interest of the US, but delaying it might well prove useful. A prolonged delay in the deal could see an energy-deficit and frustrated India, with two of its civil-nuclear cooperation efforts in limbo, willing to renegotiate the terms of the agreement. Evidence towards this lies in the September 17 announcement by Nisha Biswal that, “There is a very strong desire by this new government, and a very strong desire by the US, to work through those tough issues and to be able to make progress.” 

 

The fact that the new government in India has shown a “strong desire” to work through “tough issues” related to the civ-nuke cooperation just after the failure to reach an agreement on the issue with Japan shows India’s diminishing patience with its unsuccessful civil-nuclear forays. An agreement with the US vis-à-vis the nuclear deal, which appears to be on the cards during Modi’s US visit, might well be the gateway to a similar deal with Japan.

 

The recent failure to finalise the deal with Japan is unlikely to cast its shadow on the much ballyhooed visit of Narendra Modi to the US. However, the civil nuclear cooperation between India and the US is expected to be a dominating issue. 

PAKISTAN'S TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Varun Sahni

 

 

Hatf IX (Nasr) is a Pakistani ballistic missile which can deliver a sub-kiloton nuclear warhead over a range of 60 km, or 37.3 miles. It is supposed to have entered service in 2013 and is believed to be fully integrated into Pakistan’s C3I (command, control, communications and intelligence). Its purported role is as a low-yield battlefield deterrent against mechanised columns. Should India – and the world – take Nasr seriously? 

 

The development and deployment of Nasr by Pakistan was inevitable and  the impact of this tactical nuclear weapon (tac nuke) on the emerging India-Pakistan deterrence relationship is inherently destabilising.

 

Defining Tactical Nuclear Weapons: The Pakistani Context

There are four different yardsticks by which tac nukes could be defined and classified. The first is the range of the missile: it must be short range, that is less than 80-100 km. The second is yield of warhead, conventionally benchmarked at less than 5 kilotons (kT) with reference to a 1994 US Congressional definition prohibiting R&D in US nuclear weapons laboratories below this yield. The third is function – Pakistan would use its tactical nuclear weapons in an anti-armour role; bunker busting is the primary role envisaged by US proponents of research into low yield nuclear weapons. The fourth yardstick is impact, which in the case of tac nukes is limited to the immediate battlefield, or in other words, the sub-theatre.

 

Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Problem than a Solution?

Why are tac nukes usually seen as a problem rather than as a solution? In the first place, they lower the nuclear threshold by blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear war. Secondly, tac nukes accentuate the ‘always-never dilemma’ inherent in all nuclear weapons: they must always work when you want them to, yet never be used when you do not want them to be used. The possibility of unauthorised or accidental use increases significantly with tac nukes: unlike ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), whose commanders have delegative control, in the case of tac nukes delegative control may go down to subaltern/NCO levels under battlefield conditions. Thirdly, battlefield deployment of tac nukes, especially in situations of rapid armour movement, creates an enormous pressure to ‘use them or lose them’. Finally, there is a much greater possibility for tac nukes to fall into ‘wrong hands’ due to theft, pilferage or sabotage.

 

Given these problems, all of them well known for decades, why has Pakistan gone down the tac nuke route? In order to understand why, it is important to underline that Pakistan has, from even before South Asia’s overt nuclearisation, signalled a nuclear doctrine of not only first use but also early use. This doctrine has created problems for Pakistan, whose nuclear planners have had to grapple with the issue of nuclear thresholds, that is the point beyond which Pakistan would have no option but to use its nuclear weapons. As far back as 2002, the Landau Network–Centro Volta team (Cotta-Ramusino and Martellini) had identified four Pakistani thresholds: geographic (space threshold), military, political (domestic destabilisation) and even economic. Tac nukes are Pakistan’s solution to the military threshold.

 

Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Here to Stay

There are three essential features of Pakistan that suggest that its tac nukes are here to stay. Firstly, as the weaker power in the India-Pakistan dyad, Pakistan faces significant conventional asymmetries. Only nuclear weapons provide Pakistan with a sense of strategic parity with India. Faced with the possibility of an Indian armoured thrust in the plains or desert sectors, Pakistan is signalling that it will use its tactical nuclear weapons despite their escalatory potential. 

 

Secondly, Pakistan is a quintessential ‘homeland state’ with deep existential anxieties. Its entire national identity has been constructed as a homeland for an endangered people facing a historically implacable foe. No matter how many internal security challenges it faces, Pakistan will not drop its guard vis-à-vis India and will always give the external threat primacy. In such an identity construction, nuclear weapons give Pakistan and its people the assurance of national survival and civilizational certitude that they are second to none. Furthermore, they encapsulate the sense of ‘we will all go together when we go’ – akin to the Samson Option of that other nuclearised homeland state, Israel.

 

Finally, Pakistan is a revisionist power that has systematically pursued asymmetric strategies to overturn the territorial status quo. In this context, the nature of the ‘Kashmir issue’ comes into sharp focus. As a wise person once said of the Kashmir issue, ‘Kashmir is with India, the issue is with Pakistan.’ While admittedly a neat play on words, this observation identifies two core elements in the ‘shadow of the future’: (1) The Kashmir issue will be resolved only when Pakistan considers it resolved; (2) any change in the territorial status quo would be inimical to India. Pakistan’s dilemma is the nuclear weapons give it strategic parity but also buttress the territorial status quo. This explains why Pakistan has no compunction in deliberately shortening its nuclear fuse vis-à-vis India by deploying tac nukes.

 

An arms control agreement between India and Pakistan over tac nukes is unlikely: there is no incentive for Pakistan to remove a redline that begins at the international border (IB) itself. The strategic challenges that Pakistan’s tac nukes pose for India will be explored in a future column.

ANTI ROHINGYA ANTI MUSLIM SENTIMENTS IN MYANMAR

 Aparupa Bhattacherjee

 

 

Is there a cause and effect between the anti-Muslim sentiments and anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar? Is the latter an expression of the former?

The violence against the Rohingyas appears to be a part of larger Islamophobia within Myanmar. The religious identity of the Rohingyas seems to play a larger role than their ethnic background, triggering violence from a section within Myanmar.

Islamophobia and Anti-Rohingya Riots: Five Causes

The strife between the Rohingya’s and the Rakhines is embedded in Myanmar’s history. The communal riots in the 1990s and later in 2001 and 2003 are the fallouts of this divide, though the June 2012 riot between the two communities attracted international attention. Until then, the existing religious tension was restricted only to some parts of the Rakhine state. Since 2012, there has been a rapid spread of the anti-Muslim sentiments to the rest of Myanmar which has also further escalated the existing tension between the Rakhines and the Rohingyas.  

Several reasons triggered the scepticism against the Muslims since 2012. First, the release of the radical Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu and formation of the 969 movement under him provided an organised platform for promoting Islamophobia. Launched in 2012, the movement propagates that the Muslims (who are recorded to be four percent of the total population according to the 1983 census in Myanmar) eventually would become the majority and the largest group within Myanmar.  The members of 969 movement act as prime instigators of the anti-Muslim movement in all over Myanmar. 

Second, the withdrawal of the media censorship in 2011 by the newly formed quasi-civilian government has helped in disseminating hatred.  Uncensored media has opened the avenues of use and abuse of the social media, propagating anti Rohingya, anti Muslim speeches and messages.  The recent riot in July 2014 in Mandalay highlights the misuse of the media. A fabricated story in social media of molestation of a Buddhist girl by her Muslim employer triggered the whole violence. 

Third, the 9/11 attack in the US, had alarmed a section within Myanmar which fear being targeted by the Islamic terrorists. The Rohingya Patriotic Front (a militant group, renamed as the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) in the 1990s) and its union with Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) to evolve as the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) further exacerbated this fear.  The secessionist demands by these militant groups have only strengthened the fear and distrust among a section of Buddhist Myanmarese against the Muslims which was flared by the radical groups such as 969 movement. 

Fourth, the vulnerability of the Rohingya’s made them an easy target. The Rohingyas were stripped of their citizenship rights by the 1982 Constitution, and thus perceived as an outsider in the country. They are referred as ‘Bengalis’ from Bangladesh, and the growth of the militants amongst them, have created an image of the whole community as a bunch of reprobate. Although the Rohingyas are a minority in the Rakhine state but their population is substantial in number (one billion approximately out of the total three billion); this has supported the notion of Muslim takeover. Additionally certain villages were recognised as the Rohingya ghettos, made them easily accessible for the perpetrators. This could be substantiated by the fact that the Rohingyas living in other district in a more mixed community setup were never attacked. 

Fifth, the spread of violence to other states also indicates the anti-Rohingya hostilities are effect of the cause of Islamophobia in Myanmar. Although the June and October 2012 riots were restricted in the Rakhine state, several riots also took place across Myanmar, including the two big cities of Yangon and Mandalay. The February 2013 riot in Yangon, took place in Thaketa township comprising Muslims population of mix ethnic groups and insignificant number of Rohingyas.  According to the record, the number of people murdered, raped and displaced in both the June and October 2012 riots apart from the Rohingyas also includes other Muslims such as Kaman and Barmar Muslims too. Thus elaborating attacks in most of these riots lead by the group of Buddhists radicals were inflicted upon the Muslims irrespective of their ethnicity.  

The anti- Rohingya violence should not be treated separate from the problem of the rapid growth of anti-Muslim sentiments in Myanmar. Although the Rohingyas have faced the brunt of the growth of the anti-Muslim violence, the repercussion of the growth has impacted all Muslims in Myanmar irrespective of their ethnicity.  This implies that the solution to both the cause and its effect have to be addressed together, as one may again lead to other.  

AFGHANISTAN: THE NEW PRESIDENT AND A JOINT VENTURE GOVERNMENT

 Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy

 

 

On 21 September 2014, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan declared Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as the winner of the country’s presidential election that took place earlier this year, after a lengthy deal-making process with the other leading contender, Abdullah Abdullah.

What does the creation of ‘Chief Executive Officer’ (CEO) mean for Afghanistan? Does the end of the political deadlock automatically spell good times for the country? 

Deal-making and the Emergence of the Unity Government

The 2014 Afghan presidential election – the first transfer of power to a whole new leadership – was precariously prolonged and fraught with several strong opposing stances and allegations. After the tense flux and indecision that followed the elections, which led to an UN-overlooked and US-funded audit of the ballots, the results were finally declared three months after the run-off concluded. The IEC declared Ashraf Ghani as the president-elect, and runner-up Abdullah Abdullah as the CEO – a post that was created to facilitate power-sharing and to end the electoral deadlock.

 

The IEC and the candidates simply announced the results without declaring the vote statistics. In fact, the deal-making between Abdullah and Ghani that took months to finalise, ended on the condition that the vote statistics won’t be made public.

This does not bode well for a country that is on its path towards democracy after years of civil war and strife. A decision on the leadership was extremely pressing and the Sunday announcement comes as a relief for the political stability of the country at the moment. However, the means to reach that end was not ideal, and has potential to lead to problems in the future. The decision for deal-making was agreed upon and took place between the parties and the declaration of results were stalled and delayed due to intransigence on the part of the contenders, thereby making the candidates and not the IEC the real decision-makers. The deal-making between the candidates undermines the credibility and significance of the IEC – which emerged as a toothless tiger. It indicates the lack of authority on the IEC’s part to ensure the writ of the state – in terms of election processes as mandated by the constitution of Afghan state – as it is supposed to do. This points towards the urgent need for reforms in the IEC and other state institutions – especially given how the 2015 parliamentary election is fast approaching.

 

An Assessment of the Election Process

An interesting trend that emerged over the course of the electoral process was the blending of Afghan cultural characteristics with the concept of democracy.  Negotiations – an extremely prominent aspect of the Afghan culture – continually took place between various players during various stages of the polls. This demonstrates to an extent the adaptation of the concept of democracy into the pre-existing Afghan system.

 

At present, the president is the head of the government, and the constitution does not include space for a prime ministerial post.  According to the National Unity Government Agreement, until such time as the post of a prime minister will be created, the post of a CEO (a role with the essence of an executive prime minister’s post) will be created to accommodate Abdullah Abdullah or his nominee in the government. 

 

However, the Agreement, states that “On the basis of Article 2 of the Joint Statement of 17 Asad 1393 (August 8, 2014) and its attachment (“…convening of a Loya Jirga in two years to consider the post of an executive prime minister”), the President is committed to convoking a Loya Jirga for the purpose of debate on amending the Constitution and creating a post of executive prime minister.” The text of the Agreement makes no explicit commitment towards the creation of a prime minister’s post and/or a deadline to carry the said task out.  The text only speaks of the president’s commitment towards calling for a Loya Jirga meeting on amending the constitution, without specific mention of commitment towards the creation of the post itself. It is important to note that nomenclature isn’t the focus of the debate. The skepticism stems from the fact the post of the CEO will be created by a presidential decree – that isn’t difficult to revoke.

Furthermore, the IEC’s decision to withhold voting statistics did not go well with the Afghans – who had defied terrorist threats and turned up in large numbers to cast their ballots. This is not unfounded, for they now feel that their votes were of no consequence given how decisions on leadership were taken by two opposing candidates who co-opted each other and eliminated the purpose of votes altogether.  As one Afghan police officer was quoted saying, the newly-formed government is a “Joint Venture” between two politicians. 

Looking Ahead

In essence, this is essentially a hastily cobbled government whose creation was extremely important for the moment, but one that brings baggage of potential instability for the immediate years. Decision-making – especially on issues of security and foreign policy – will become a complicated process given the likelihood of divergent interests and objectives of the two leaders. Furthermore, given the limited maneuvering space both leaders will enjoy, the likelihood of large-scale changes seems bleak at the moment. If this trajectory continues, the cracks may lead to instability, inactions and/or delays in several matters, providing fertile ground for non-state actors to make inroads.

SOUTHEAST ASIA: ANSWERING THE CALL FOR JIHAD

 Aparupa Bhattacherjee


On 23 July 2014, a video was posted on YouTube showed Isnilon Hapilon, a senior member of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), and other members, pledging their support to the Islamic State (IS) through both financial and manpower support. Similarly, Mochammad Achwan, the chairman of Jemmah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) has delivered the message of their founder Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s support for IS and its self-proclaimed Caliphate of the State of Islam. There are already records of huge numbers of Southeast Asians - approximately like 12,000 - travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight for the IS.

Why are the numbers of Southeast Asians trying to join the IS growing? Why are the Southeast Asian terrorist organisations supporting IS?

Motives
The terrorist organisations have claimed that the reason for their support is that the war is being led by their Muslim “brothers” in Iraq and Syria. Another reason as claimed by these groups is the fact that the establishment of a Caliphate of the Islamic Kingdom is more or less a common goal. However the real motive for the support to the IS could also be the resurrection of their credibility and hold in Southeast Asia. ASG in was formed as a splinter group from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is based in Philippines. Their collaboration with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and al Qaeda led to the establishment of this group as one of the most violent separatist groups in that region. Heavy crackdowns through the joint efforts of Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian anti-terrorist squads have led to the disintegration of the JI into numerous smaller and less powerful splinter groups and weakened the ASG whose terror attacks since 2005 have been limited to extortion and looting of local foreign tourists. Thus supporting the IS could be perceived the ASG an opportunity for them to revives their claim to fame.

The video that was posted on YouTube began with still photos of Isnilon Hapilon on US’ ‘most wanted’ posters in addition to the symbolic black flag. This suggests that Hapilon was trying to establish their notoriety. They have already kidnapped two German tourists and demanded that the German government not support the US in their war against the IS. JAT, founded by one of the initial founders of the JI, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, is one of the most powerful splinter group of JI in comparison to other groups such as Hisbah, Tawid Wal Jihad and the Negara Islam Indonesia (NII). JAT is considered a jacket for JI and for some as a re-emergence of JI.  However, JAT did not gain the stature of JI had attained till 2005. Support for the IS could thus be visualised by Ba’asyir to attain that stature. 

Employment Opportunities
Both unemployment and poverty are factors for the growing number of Southeast Asian youth who are joining the IS. Muslim youth in rural Malaysia, Indonesia, southern Thailand and Philippines are mostly educated in the pasentrens or madrassas (Islamic schools), and many of them are unable to get mainstream jobs due to the poor standards of education. Fighting for the IS is therefore a job opportunity as they are provided with both salaries and food.  Further, many of the pasentrens in Indonesia are generally schools run by the former JI and members of other terrorist organisations preaching war strategies in the name of Islam.

Ideological Impact
Not all Southeast Asians joining the IS are doing so for money - for example, there are reports of a Malaysian navy officer travelling to Iraq to join the IS. Many Southeast Asians are spurred by the idea of fighting a war for the self-proclaimed Caliph and also to fight against the Shia majority (Shias are a minority in all the Southeast Asian countries). Recurring recruitment videos on YouTube also has an ideological impact on some Southeast Asian Muslims. In fact use of social media for recruitment is one of the biggest factors for the large numbers of Muslims from all over the world joining the IS.

Whatever may be the reasons, the fallout could be alarming. Both JI and ASG were organised by the Southeast Asian veterans of the Afghanistan war who had received training at al Qaeda camps. These organisations had not only developed these terror networks but had also contributed to the spread of a radical form of Islam - then a new phenomenon in Southeast Asia. History might repeat itself, and the return of the soldiers from Iraq and Syria might again lead to a development of the same pattern.

ISLAMIC STATE: STRAINING THE US DEFENCE BUDGET

Vivek Mishra

 

 

The most recent estimation vis-à-vis the US’ military campaign against the Islamic State (IS) has it that the cost of Washington’s war against the IS has surpassed $780 million. This comes at a time when the Pentagon has hinted at request for more support. Essentially, the US military is spending up to $10 million a day. While air strikes might seem to be a safe option, the costs incurred are heavy. Besides, there is increasing chorus for involvement of ground troops, as isolated air strikes are not believed to be adequate. Amidst this seemingly intractable involvement of the US in Iraq and Syria, will the US will be able to sustain budgetary allowances for its campaign, against the IS in particular and its other foreign military presence in general?

Engaging the Islamic State: A Folly?

With its newly announced campaign against the IS, the US again stands at crossroads, divided between three strenuous military commitments – Asia-pacific, Ukraine and West Asia – and a reduction in budgets back home. Although the extent of the US military involvement differs in each case, the cumulative budgetary toll on the country’s defence budget has necessitated a rethink.

The pressure on Washington was evident when US President Barack Obama announced an open-ended “broad coalition” to fight the IS, instead of taking it forward unilaterally. The US restricted itself from committing fully to the anticipated long-drawn war against the IS through a combination of “no boots on ground” and “light military footprint.” However, both these strategies will depend on how cooperative other allies and friends of the US, particularly those in the region, are. So far, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar have pledged support to the US against the IS. Whether the campaign against the IS remains to be not “America’s war alone” will be contingent on the nature of support the US gets from these countries.

At least two suggestions imply that the US could get further embroiled in its fight against the IS; Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that more US ground forces could be needed in its fight against the IS and the further expansion of airstrikes by the US inside Iraq. The US wanted to disentangle from wars in West Asia but ended up redeploying troops to Iraq and expanding air operations in Syria. The nature of the threat emerging from the IS has required the US to enter deeper in the region than initially anticipated. Apart from these, the Pentagon-White House rift, on whether the US campaign against the IS will succeed, adds to its bane.

Impact on Defense Budget

These military commitments have taken a huge toll on the US defence budget. The first five weeks of US airstrikes in northern Iraq has cost $262.5 million. The military offensive planned against the IS is likely to bite off a massive $500 billion into Pentagon’s spending cuts planned over the next decade. Since these are mandatory cuts mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act (also called Sequestration), it would mean a resource-depleted US force over the next decade.

This is anticipated in a Department of Defence (DoD) paper released in April 2013, titled ‘Defense Budget Priorities and Choice-Fiscal Year 2014.’ The report mentions drawdown of forces and resource depletion as two important strategies planned in the roadmap for the US military. The paper categorically mentions that the DoD estimates a 20 per cent drop in the overall defence budget from 2010 to 2017. Sequestration, if not amended through an amendment, will lead to further cuts in the defense budget ($50 billion each year, through 2021). Unfortunately, all of these coincide with the US’ foreign military engagements.

This is a massive cut the DoD is talking about and will likely have an impact on the number of troops, overseas operations, ammunitions, military intelligence and defence research, among other things. Specifically, the US will have to do a reduction of approximately 50, 000 active-duty soldiers, do away with a navy carrier and its mid-air refuel tankers KC-10s, apart from similar reductions. If the US might have to choose between strength reduction and ammunition reduction, the latter would be a harder choice. Obama, in the past, has held the relation between technology and success as directly proportional. To that extent, defence research and production are likely to continue with the current pace, or even higher. Truth, then, might be on the side of the Republican hawks when they argue that the IS has revealed the US’ incapacity to cut military spending.

The beheading of two US journalists by the IS militants has garnered the necessary domestic support to carry out military strikes against these militants, which seems to have shrouded the defence budget cut debate for now. But could this only be a temporary lull?