France calls for its own “pivot to Asia” amid US war drive against China

Kumaran Ira

In pursuit of reactionary financial and strategic objectives in the Asia-Pacific, French imperialism is announcing its ambitions to boost its military deployments to this region.

This was detailed in a June report, “France and Security in the Asia-Pacific,” presented by French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June. It is part of an updated version of the 2015 Military Programming Law, stipulating that Paris must invest in major upgrades of its military capabilities to develop its influence in Asia.

In the foreword, Le Drian wrote, “The evolution of the strategic balances has strongly accelerated in Asia as well as in the Indo-Pacific. In a nutshell, the geopolitical entity comprising Asia and the Indo-Pacific, which is a seat of economic dynamism, demographic growth and technological innovation, represents a source of overall prosperity, exposed to vulnerabilities. Securing this area is thus essential, within the framework of a rules-based order based on dialogue and the respect of multilaterally set rules.”

The paper highlights the Asia-Pacific’s strategic importance for Paris, declaring, “France has started to re-balance its strategic centre of gravity towards the Indo-Pacific, where it is a neighbouring power.” France has many island possessions in the Pacific and Indian oceans. It aims to develop these as springboards for naval influence. It already participates in the QUAD (Quadrilateral Defence coordination group) planning Pacific island security policy with the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

French strategists have been formulating this policy for years, since the Obama administration announced its “pivot to Asia” in 2011 to encircle China and subjugate Beijing to US interests.

An examination of Le Drian’s report makes clear the financial interests underlying French plans for a major military escalation in Asia. The report identifies Asia as the world’s centre of economic growth and a key market for French corporations and investors, noting that in 2012, French Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stocks in the Asia-Pacific already amounted to US$75 billion.

France’s yearly trade deficit with China is around €25-35 billion, France’s largest trade deficit with any single country. French and international corporations use China and the entire Asia-Pacific to provide cheap consumer goods to French and European markets, relying in the final analysis on US and European military influence to dictate profitable terms to Asian suppliers.

French imperialism also views China as a potential competitor in France’s former colonial empire in Africa, where it still maintains a major political and military presence. Since 2011, Paris has launched a series of wars and military interventions—in Libya, Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic—targeting regimes that developed economic ties with China and threatened to cut across French neo-colonial interests.

In the pursuit of these interests, President François Hollande’s Socialist Party (PS) government aligned itself with the US “pivot to Asia,” even as Washington stoked a confrontation with Beijing in the South China Sea that could trigger a conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers.

France’s 2013 military White Paper declared, “[T]he equilibrium in East Asia has been profoundly modified by the rising power of China. … Reinforcing America’s military presence in the region can contribute to controlling tensions in Asia.” It added, “France would, in the event of an open crisis, make a political and military contribution at the appropriate level.”

At a 2013 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, then foreign minister Laurent Fabius declared, “France has also, itself, launched its own ‘pivot.’ Not to try to be in style, but because France wants to be where the world of tomorrow is being built. And the Asia-Pacific will evidently be at the heart of the 21st century.”

Such plans to assert French military interests in Asia have ominous implications. It takes place amid a resurgence of all the imperialist powers’ neo-colonial ambitions, most clearly shown by the US-European war drive in Africa and the Middle East. In Asia, French imperialism is returning to the scene of some of its most horrific crimes. France was a brutal colonial power in Southeast Asia, and the 1946-1954 French Indochina war cost hundreds of thousands of lives before French imperialism was forced to abandon the region by its humiliating defeat at Diem Bien Phu.

Paris’s attempt to embark on military escalation in Asia is bound up with the intractable crisis of European and world capitalism. With the European Union (EU) mired in a deep economic slump, and pursuing a bankrupt policy of deep austerity against the working class combined with trillion-euro handouts to the banks, Paris is desperately seeking new targets for financial plunder.

The French Institute for International Relations (IFRI) think tank wrote, “The French ‘pivot’ to Asia serves the principal objective of the Hollande administration, which is to find sources of economic growth that no longer exist in Europe.” It added, “For French parliamentarians, the current economic context creates an ‘Asian imperative for France,’ which cannot be ignored on pain of ‘missing a strategic turn.’”

Claims that a French “pivot” to Asia would produce economic benefits are militarist lies, however. A French “pivot” would require a massive increase in military spending and, thus, corresponding social cuts aimed at workers. The IFRI wrote, “Moreover, considering a ‘pivot’ to Asia when budgetary constrains limit the French military’s power projection capacities seems strange. … Despite voluntarist speeches with ambitious objectives, the future of French foreign policy in Asia seems rather uncertain in this context.”

An Asian “pivot” by France or other European powers would intensify the contradictions of world capitalism, which already threaten to explode into a world war between nuclear-armed powers. Nor is it clear, in the longer term, against whom such a “pivot” would be waged—China, some other coalition of Asian powers, or even the United States.

France’s Asia policy is shot through with contradictions. On the one hand, it has developed military ties with allies of the US “pivot” to Asia—including India, Australia and Japan—with major arms sales to India and Australia. On the other, while tacitly backing the US war drive against China, it has developed economic ties with Beijing together with other European powers. Last year, it defied US requests and, like all the other major EU powers, joined Beijing’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The AIIB is designed to invest in China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative, which involves up to $1.4 trillion in rail and road infrastructure to create a rapid-transit overland route from China across Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East to Europe. The OBOR plan was a response to the US “pivot,” which blocked Chinese influence in trade routes in the Indian and Pacific Oceans vital for the security of Chinese energy imports from the Middle East.

The Brexit has sharpened such strategic rivalries between the EU and Washington. Since Britain voted to leave the EU, France and Germany have pushed to create an independent EU military that would effectively rival the NATO alliance between the US, Canada, and the European imperialist powers—a move long opposed by Washington and London.

US seals military basing deal with Australia

Mike Head

Amid rising tensions with China and Russia, the Obama administration last week finalised an “in-principle” agreement with the Australian government that clears the way for a major expansion of US use of Australia as a base for troops, bombers and warships.

Under intense pressure from Washington, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government struck a cost-sharing pact that will mean billions of dollars being spent by both countries on upgrading facilities in Darwin and elsewhere across Australia, including airstrips and barracks, for the US military.

The basing of sophisticated long-range bombers, and up to 2,500 US Marines, in northern Australia is an essential element of US preparations for war with China. The Pentagon regards Australia as a crucial base of operations, along with Japan, South Korea and Guam, for its AirSea Battle strategy, which involves an air and missile assault on the Chinese mainland, and a blockade of shipping lanes through South East Asia.

Washington’s push to seal the Australian deal escalated as Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to end joint exercises with the US in the South China Sea, and repudiate the agreement signed by his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, to establish US bases in the Philippines.

The Pentagon was also reportedly anxious to sign off on the agreement before the US presidential election, given the possibility of a victory by the populist demagogue Donald Trump, who has threatened to withdraw US forces from some locations, or force host nations to pay the full costs of maintaining them.

The arrangement announced by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne in Washington consummates a pact first made by the previous Labor government, under Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in 2011. That agreement was reached during a visit to Australia by President Barack Obama. He used the Australian parliament to formally announce the US “pivot” to Asia, directed at reasserting American hegemony over the region against China’s rising influence.

At a press conference in the US capital last Thursday, Payne refused to disclose any details of what she termed an “important milestone.” She said the US would “in large” fund a $2.5 billion Integrated Investment Program, and the two governments would share additional ongoing annual costs over 25 years. She spoke vaguely of infrastructure “dedicated to airfields, to aprons, to accommodation, to gyms, to messes, those sorts of things.”

Payne declared that the agreement would remain a “confidential document,” thus keeping the full scale of the war preparations secret from both the American and Australian populations. She confirmed that the annual US Marine deployment to Darwin, currently 1,250 soldiers, would double to 2,500 by 2020, the full size originally agreed by the Gillard government.

Carter issued a perfunctory press release, welcoming “the conclusion of negotiations over … cost sharing for the force posture initiatives in northern Australia” and emphasising “the importance of that cooperation” to the US-Australia alliance.

Carter’s reference was to the Force Posture Agreement signed at the 2014 Australia-United States Ministerial Meeting, which provided for increased joint training and exercises, deeper “interoperability” of the two armed forces and “broader collaboration between Australia, the United States and our partners in the Indo-Pacific.”

In March this year, the two governments discussed basing US long-range B-1 bombers in Darwin. These can carry the largest weapons payload of any US plane, including cruise missiles and GPS-guided precision bombs. B-1s, extensively deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, have been adapted to launch air-to-sea missiles that can destroy ships from hundreds of kilometres, making them critical for any blockade of Chinese trade routes.

The Murdoch media praised the Turnbull government for finally agreeing on the cost-sharing deal. Dennis Shanahan, political editor of the Australian, said it “guarantees the full potential for President Barack Obama’s military ‘pivot in Asia,’” with its “vision of effectively basing a battalion of troops in Australia to anchor a rapid response to crises in Asia.”

The newspaper’s foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, who has close ties in Washington, said the deal was “ludicrously overdue,” essentially criticising the Liberal-National government, first under Tony Abbott then Turnbull, for delaying the finalisation of the agreements made by Gillard.

Sheridan indicated the strategic importance of the agreement for plans for war against China. He wrote: “For the US, the deployments represent not only the living, breathing implementation of Barack Obama’s Asia pivot strategy, but a longer-term plan to disperse its forces across the Asia-Pacific, especially to decentralise them from two islands, Okinawa and Guam, where they are at least potentially vulnerable to pre-emptive missile attack.”

Just after the Turnbull government narrowly survived the July 2 federal election, US Vice President Joe Biden made a four-day visit to the country, designed to impress on the government the need to step up Australia’s involvement in the US military challenge to China. In public remarks, he aggressively warned of the perils of “betting against” the US military.

In addition to an enlarged US Marines facility in Darwin, Washington has previously pushed for greater access to naval ports and expanded airstrip capacity on Australia’s Cocos Island territories in the Indian Ocean.

Already the US controls two key, nominally “joint,” bases in Australia. In 2008-10, the Labor government agreed that the North West Cape base, originally a nuclear submarine communication station, would be upgraded with an advanced space warfare radar and telescope. Pine Gap, in central Australia, which has grown from three antennae in 1970 to 33 today, is critical for tracking satellite and mobile phone transmissions for identifying bombing targets and conducting wars in the region and the Middle East.

Other bases for US operations are the Defence Satellite Communication Station at Geraldton in Western Australia, along with Kojarena 20 kilometres inland, which are part of the US-led global Five Eyes surveillance system. The US also has access to the Delamere Air Weapons range and the Bradshaw Ranges in the Northern Territory and the training facility at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland.

By some estimates, there are effectively almost 50 joint bases across Australia, since the US can use all Australian bases in any “emergency.”

Australia’s role as a staging ground for US war plans will be further underscored when Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addresses a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament on Wednesday. His visit will cement a $2 billion base expansion agreement under which 14,000 Singaporean troops will rotate through Queensland every year.

Despite denials by the two governments, the agreement is clearly directed against China. The ruling elites of both countries are boosting their militaries and strategic ties as part of Washington’s geo-political strategy to encircle China, while trying to protect their own predatory interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

Singapore has granted Washington the right to base four littoral combat ships, designed for operations in the contested waters of the South China Sea, and to fly P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft from the island, thereby covering the entire area in which the Pentagon is challenging Beijing’s territorial claims.

Opposition grows in Indo-Pakistan borderlands to India’s warmongering

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Popular opposition is growing in India-Pakistan border areas to the warmongering campaign of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government against Pakistan. War tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals dramatically increased after the Indian military’s “surgical strike” in Azad (Pakistan-administered) Kashmir on September 28-29.

The multiple strikes came after several provocative actions, including India’s threat to cancel the Indus Valley Treaty, and the frenzied media campaign blaming Islamabad for the September 18 separatist attack on the Indian military base at Uri, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

After Indian Lt. General Ranbir Singh announced the “surgical strikes” inside Pakistan, the entire media and political establishment—from the ruling BJP to the Congress and Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist, CPM)—joined the pro-war chorus. It praised the army and the Modi government and blamed Pakistan for “cross border terrorism,” i.e., the activities of Pakistan-based separatist groups in Jammu and Kashmir.

Modi and the BJP are exploiting the “surgical strike” as the BJP government’s unpopularity mounts due to its austerity measures against workers and rural toilers. BJP President Amit Shah said the strikes would figure prominently in his party’s upcoming election campaign in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, and Modi tried to favorably contrast his hardline stance with the previous Congress Party government’s so-called “strategic restraint.”

On September 29, Indian authorities ordered the evacuation of all those living within 10 kilometers of Pakistan’s border in the Indian states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. There are nearly 1,000 villages in the six border districts of Punjab, and overall some 1.5 million people were told to evacuate. This measure in reality aimed mainly to facilitate future Indian military action and stoke a panic atmosphere.

The evacuation encountered strong popular opposition. On October 1, The Hindu reported that while thousands living near the border with Pakistan in Punjab had obeyed orders to leave, about 40 percent had remained, reluctant to leave their farms as their paddy crops were ready to be harvested. “During the [1999] Kargil War we had to evacuate as the army laid mines all around our village. But when we left, our cattle and belongings were looted. So many people are scared to leave their homes this time,” Sandhu Singh of Dhanoa Kalam village told the paper.

According to the British Daily Telegraph, whose reporter visited border villages on October 4, India has begun constructing bunkers along its border with Pakistan in Kashmir, and there is strong popular opposition to a new Indo-Pakistani war.

“People will die here. If war starts, the army will give us no shelter. We will have nothing to eat,” said 80-year-old Haji Abulla Lone, chairman of Uri town’s market traders. “I remember the 1947 war. About 200 people died here in Uri. The 1965 war destroyed many houses too. We had to leave for 10 days, when we came back many houses were burning. But this time we will have nowhere to go. Everywhere there is curfew, everywhere is closed. Even if we will die, it’s better to stay in our homes.”

An October 4 report in The Asian Age quoted enraged villagers who denounced the bellicose media campaign. “Now, don’t trigger a war!” one villager shouted at reporters. “The media are concerned about TRPs [Television Rating Points], nobody thinks of us border villagers!”

The report detailed the hardships facing border villagers: “All private and government educational institutions within 10km of the international border remain shut. Those living near the border have been asked to switch off lights at night. Many of the villagers have witnessed three wars, including 1965, 1971, Kargil in 1999, and the army stand-off in the aftermath of the parliament attack in 2001-02.”

Raja Nazir, 37, a shopkeeper in Silikote, an Indian Kashmir village near the Uri base, told the New York Times, “Those who shout on TV for war should come and live here with their children. Then they will understand the cost of war.”

In stark contrast to the bellicose propaganda of the government and the corporate media, there is deep popular hostility to a new Indo-Pakistani war. On October 8, the Punjab state government was forced to allow people to return to their homes in all six border districts.

The ruling elite works relentlessly to suppress any expression of opposition to war. Day by day, the ongoing anti-Pakistan campaign has intensified. On October 8, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, addressing Border Security Force (BSF) officers, told BSF personnel to be ready for “any eventuality.” A day earlier, he had announced that the India-Pakistan border would be “completely sealed” by the end of 2018.

On Friday, he ordered political leaders to exercise “restraint” in their comments, demanding that all should “stand by the Armed Forces at this crucial juncture.” He added, “We will take all steps to ensure that the nation’s security is not risked. Just as a farmer protects his crops, our soldiers will protect the country.”

The debate within the Indian ruling elite over the “surgical strike” underscores the reactionary, chauvinist character of all the establishment parties. Opposition parties, including the Congress and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP), which rules the National Capital Territory of Delhi, demanded the release of videos of the September 28-29 attack to refute Pakistani denials that an attack took place. They said they aimed to defend the Indian military’s “credibility.” That is, they are pressing the BJP to take an even more belligerent attitude toward Pakistan.

After echoing BJP warmongering for nearly three weeks, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on October 6 accused Modi of exploiting “surgical strikes” for political advantage. “Our soldiers conducted surgical strikes and gave their blood. Modi is just hiding behind their sacrifices,” he said. At the same time, Gandhi stressed the Congress’ full support for the Indian military, including for attacks inside Pakistan.

The Congress is no less jingoistic or anti-Pakistan than the BJP, however. Gandhi was among the first to congratulate Modi and “salute” the Indian Army after the government revealed that a “surgical” attack in Pakistan had taken place.

Not to be outdone by the BJP’s bellicose campaign, Congress leaders boasted that they ordered similar attacks when in power. Congress’ senior spokesman Anand Sharma declared, “The Indian Army carried out ‘such strikes’ in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The only difference this time was that the government of the day has taken ‘political ownership’.”

Nonetheless, the BJP government denounced all opposition to its war preparations. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar equated criticism of the army with treason, declaring that those making such comments were “not loyal to our nation.” At an October 7 press conference, the BJP denounced Gandhi’s criticism as “an insult to the bravery of the Indian Army.”

The attempt to brand any questioning of the Indian government’s war drive as treasonous has ominous implications, and constitutes a clear warning to workers and rural poor opposed to the Indian government’s war planning. It is laying the ground for attempts to clamp down on popular opposition to the Indian bourgeoisie’s reactionary war plans.

Secret Clinton speeches and emails reveal systematic corruption

Tom Carter

In a secret speech at securities law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego on September 4, 2014, Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton bragged that she “represented and worked with” so many on Wall Street and “did all I could to make sure they continued to prosper.”

In another secret speech, Clinton admitted that the policy she advocated with respect to Syria would involve mass killings of civilians. “To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk—you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians,” she stated.

Secret documents and emails containing these and other revelations were published by Wikileaks and The Intercept in recent days. The latter remarks were revealed as the United States threatens to escalate its military intervention in Syria under the pretext of protecting civilian lives.

In one remarkably Machiavellian speech, Clinton frankly admitted that she has “both a public and private position” on certain policy issues, and that she only reveals the “private position” when she is engaging in “back room discussions.” In other words, she consciously lies to and deceives the public, pursuing an entirely different agenda in secret negotiations within the American establishment.

“If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least,” Clinton said.

Perhaps one example of this distinction is provided by Clinton’s public and private positions with respect to Syria. While the US State Department uses the pretext of civilian casualties in Syria to ratchet up tensions with Russia, Clinton’s “private position” acknowledges that her own plan will “kill a lot of Syrians.”

Other emails confirm the corrupt ties between the Clinton campaign and the media, which involve undisclosed payments to pundits appearing on cable news programs. An internal list of contemptuously-labeled media “surrogates” contains those media personalities that could be relied upon to produce favorable coverage of the campaign.

The list of the “surrogates” deemed “reliable” by the Clinton campaign includes Maureen Dowd, Wolf Blitzer, David Brooks, Gail Collins, Rachel Maddow, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopolous and others. A similarly incriminating list of “progressive helpers” includes Judd Legum of ThinkProgress and the “Correct The Record” Super PAC run by David Brock.

Other documents published by The Intercept reveal secret “off-the-record” cocktail parties held by the Clinton campaign that were attended by journalists from ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, the Daily Beast, GPG, Huffington Post, MSNBC, NBC, T he New Yorker, the New York Times,People, Politico, Vice and Vox.

Invitees of these cocktail parties, where the reporters were briefed on how to present the Clinton campaign to the population in the most favorable light, apparently included Diane Sawyer (ABC), George Stephanopolous (ABC), Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) and Gail Collins ( New York Times ), among many others. The publication of these documents by The Intercept should forever reduce the credibility of these “news organizations” and “journalists” to zero.

The Clinton campaign responded to these revelations with its standard answer to all exposures of corruption and criminality on the part of the Democratic Party or Clinton personally—blame it on Russia. Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin declared that the revelations “removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump’s candidacy.”

The response of former Democratic Party presidential contender and so-called “socialist” Bernie Sanders to these revelations stands out as particularly craven and absurd. Sanders—who once rallied support based on his denunciations of the “billionaire class,” but who now functions as a Clinton campaign sideshow—reaffirmed his support for Clinton in a statement released Saturday: “Whatever Secretary Clinton may or may not have said behind closed doors on Wall Street, I am determined to implement the agenda of the Democratic Party platform, which was agreed to by her campaign.”

During the Democratic Party primary elections, Sanders made an issue of the millions of dollars in “speaking fees” Hillary and Bill Clinton had accumulated, which currently totals around $153 million. Exposing the fraudulent nature of his entire presidential bid, Sanders now admits that he will support Clinton no matter what she said or did.

Of course, only the very naive could believe for a moment that the enormous “speaking fees” accumulated by Clinton and her husband were paid for the speeches themselves. Instead, the designation of these sums as “speaking fees” more probably represents what is known in the criminal underworld as money-laundering. In other words, the corrupt flow of cash to the Clintons for services dutifully rendered to the financial aristocracy was disguised as “speaking fees” for taxation and accounting purposes.

In one secret Wall Street speech, Clinton candidly admitted that she is “far removed” from the middle-class interests that she has sought to rally behind her campaign, reassuring her rich patrons that her lifestyle and social outlook more closely mirror theirs.

Clinton stated that she is “kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven’t forgotten it.”

In a secret speech at Goldman Sachs on October 24, 2013, Clinton brushed off the conception that rampant corruption, speculation and criminality at Wall Street had led to the economic crash of 2008. Defending Wall Street, Clinton claimed that all this was a “misunderstanding.”

Speaking as though she was an attorney retained to confidentially advise all billionaires regarding their interests, Clinton pointed with concern to the perception “that somehow the game is rigged” as well as the way that hatred of Wall Street was becoming “politicized.”

In the same secret speech to Deutsche Bank on October 7, 2014, Clinton pointed to popular hostility to Wall Street as “a problem for all of us”—using the word “us” to refer to financial aristocrats and their political servants. She reassured the bankers in attendance that any measures or regulations implemented by Congress or the Obama administration would be designed to restore “public trust” in the financial system. In other words, they would be toothless and they would leave the privileges and prerogatives of the financial elite intact.

In her secret speeches, Clinton also reiterated her support for the Obama administration’s policy that the banks would continue to be allowed to “regulate” themselves. In a secret speech to the Goldman Sachs Alternative Investments Symposium on October 24, 2013, Clinton declared: “The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.” Translation: “The Obama administration and I will do nothing to halt your illegal practices or impede the flow of the world’s money into your pockets.”

Behind closed doors, Clinton also spoke frankly of her need for vast sums of money to fund her campaign. “I think I raised $250 million or some such enormous amount,” she said, describing her previous presidential bid, “and in the last campaign President Obama raised $1.1 billion.” In that speech, made to General Electric’s Global Leadership Meeting in Boca Raton, Florida on January 6, 2014, Clinton admitted that the US Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision ushered in a “wild west” period of unlimited corporate bribes in elections.

Documents released by The Intercept on Saturday detail the corrupt relations between sections of the media and the Hillary Clinton campaign, with reporters jostling each other to present themselves as the most loyal and reliable outlets for a calculated “leak” of exclusive information. “One January 2015 strategy document,” reported The Intercept, “singled out reporter Maggie Haberman, then of Politico, now covering the election for the New York Times, as a ‘friendly journalist’ who has ‘teed up’ stories for them in the past and ‘never disappointed’ them.”

The emails released over recent days appear to bolster allegations in a lawsuit filed Thursday by the campaign finance watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, which claims that the Clinton campaign flouted federal election law by coordinating activity with a “super PAC” run by David Brock, which contributed $6 million to the Clinton campaign. The allegations are serious and have the potential to trigger criminal prosecutions.

In an internal Clinton campaign email released by Wikileaks, Research Director Tony Carrk urged staff to “give an extra scrub” to the transcripts of Wall Street speeches before any portions could be publicly released.

Thousands protest Saudi bombing that killed and wounded over 700 in Yemen

Bill Van Auken

Tens of thousands of Yemenis, many of them armed, took to the streets of Sanaa, the country’s war torn capital, Sunday to protest the savage bombing of a packed funeral hall the day before by Saudi warplanes. The airstrike left over 700 civilians dead or wounded, representing the worst in a long series of war crimes carried out with the backing of the US, Britain and France.

The demonstrators converged on the United Nations building in Sanaa in an angry denunciation of the world powers for either their direct complicity in the slaughter of the Yemeni people, or their marked indifference to their deepening plight over the course of more than a year and a half of Saudi-led bombardments. Waving rifles and janbiyas, the daggers worn by virtually all Yemeni men, the protesters chanted “America is the Great Satan,” and called for the deaths of Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family.

Fragments of the bombs dropped on the funeral home bore markings identifying them as US-supplied munitions, part of Washington’s multi-billion-dollar arms sales to the Saudi monarchy.

Reports from the scene exposed the horrific character of the attack. The Associated Press quoted a rescue worker as describing the shattered remnants of the funeral hall as a “lake of blood.” Body parts, strewn into the streets and even neighboring homes, were collected in sacks.

According to local health officials, the death toll in the airstrike has risen to at least 155, with another 525 wounded. Many of the wounded suffered grievous injuries, some with limbs torn off. The number of fatalities was certain to mount with the pulling of more bodies from the rubble and the deaths of those whom Yemen’s vastly over-stressed and under-supplied hospitals prove unable to save. The country’s Health Ministry also reported that efforts were still being made to identify “charred remains.”

Video released Sunday of the bombing raid made clear that it was the kind of “double tap” strike that the Saudis have employed repeatedly against civilian targets. After first bombing a target, the warplanes wait a short period to allow other civilians and emergency service personnel to arrive on the scene and then attack it again to wipe out both survivors and those seeking to rescue them. The same vicious tactic has been employed by the US military in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Saudi government spokesmen initially denied that the attack on the funeral hall was the work of the Saudi-led coalition, which alone has warplanes flying over Yemen. It suggested that the explosions might have had other causes and even intimated that it could have been the result of a falling out between the Houthi rebels who took control of Sanaa in 2014 and military forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, with whom they are allied.

Saleh was forced out of office by the revolutionary upheavals that rocked Yemen in 2011, to be replaced by his vice president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was brought to power in a one-candidate election in 2012, which was boycotted by the Houthis. He in turn was forced to resign and then fled the country after the Houthis seized the capital. He has since resided in Saudi Arabia, functioning as a puppet of the House of Saud.

Later, Saudi officials issued a statement offering “deepest condolences and support to the families of the victims,” claiming that Saudi forces do not target civilians and stating that the incident would be investigated.

There is every reason to believe that the attack was premeditated and carried out with the aim of decapitating the Houthi-led authority in Sanaa. The hall that was hit was hosting a funeral for Sheikh Ali al-Rawishan, the father of Galal al-Rawishan, the interior minister in the rebel-led government. Among those reported killed was the mayor of Sanaa, Abdel Qader Hilal, and Maj. Gen. Abdel-Qader Hilal, the head of the capital’s local council. Al-Rawishan, the interior minister, was reported to have been seriously wounded. Such “targeted assassinations” have been a hallmark of US operations in Yemen.

While Saturday’s bombing was the worst atrocity carried out by the Saudis in Yemen, it is by no means unique. Last March, an airstrike on a market in Yemen’s northwestern city of Mastaba killed at least 119 people. The deadliest previous attack was September 2015, when Saudi warplanes attacked a wedding party near the Red Sea port city of Mokha, killing 131 civilians. In July 2015, the bombing of a power plant, also in Mokha, killed at least 120 people.

According to the United Nations the number killed since the Saudis launched the war in 2015 has risen to 10,000. Airstrikes by the Saudis and their allies are estimated to have caused two-thirds of the civilian fatalities. Hospitals have been routinely targeted, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) being forced to abandon the country after four of its facilities were hit. The aid agency stressed that it had given the Saudi military the GPS coordinates of its hospitals. Schools, mosques, refugee camps and residential neighborhoods have also been systematically targeted.

The war pits the Saudi monarchy and allied Gulf oil sheikdoms against the poorest country of the Arab world, which has seen its basic infrastructure reduced to rubble, while its population suffers from mass hunger and disease. An estimated three million people have been displaced by the war, while fully half of the population of 14 million is suffering from hunger. Cholera has begun to claim victims under conditions in which hospitals have been starved of basic supplies by a Saudi blockade enforced under the pretext of halting arms shipments into the country.

Washington’s reaction to Saturday’s war crime in Sanaa came from National Security Council spokesman Ned Price, who warned that US aid in the Saudi war in Yemen “is not a blank check.”

It certainly is not; the figures on the check are well known. Since 2009, the Obama administration has showered $115 billion worth of arms deals and military support upon the Saudi regime. Last year alone saw $20 billion worth of weaponry sent to the country. Washington has continuously resupplied the Saudi military with bombs and missiles to replace those dropped on Yemen.

“Even as we assist Saudi Arabia regarding the defense of their territorial integrity, we have and will continue to express our serious concerns about the conflict in Yemen and how it is being waged,” the US spokesman added.

This hypocritical statement is meant to cover up the direct US complicity in the criminal war against the Yemeni people. Without US intelligence and logistical support, not to mention arms sales, Saudi Arabia would be incapable of sustaining its bombing campaign. The Pentagon has fed its forces targeting information, deploying US personnel to a joint command center directing the air war. US military planes have provided aerial refueling for Saudi jets, while the US Navy has helped enforce a blockade that is aimed at starving the population into submission.

Britain has supplied similar support, while also seeking to secure a sizable share of the Saudi arms market.

The muted comments from a junior White House aide over the atrocity in Sanaa stood in stark contrast to the inflammatory rhetoric of US Secretary of State John Kerry late last week describing Russian airstrikes against US-backed and Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria as “war crimes” meriting an international investigation. Needless to say, Washington would employ all of its power to block any such investigation into the deliberate massacre of civilians in Yemen.

Equally noticeable is the scant attention paid by the US corporate media to the atrocities carried out in Yemen and the vast suffering that has been inflicted upon its people. Feigned moral outrage and humanitarian sympathy is forthcoming from these outlets only when it serves the war propaganda needs of US imperialism.

German government urges tougher action against Russia and Syria

Johannes Stern

As the Syrian army advances in the east of Aleppo with support from Russia, and with the conflict between the US and Russia intensifying dramatically, the German government has hardened its attitude towards Moscow. On Friday, leading German politicians called for fresh sanctions against Russia, the massive arming of the Islamist opposition and even the use of German ground troops.

On the same day, leading German business daily Handelsblatt, reported that Angela Merkel advocated “the withdrawal of Russian troops” from Syria in a speech in Magdeburg. Directly addressing the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, the chancellor declared, “I can again only appeal to Russia, Russia has a lot of influence on Assad: We must end this horrible crime as soon as possible.”

Given the “truly appalling situation” in Aleppo, the German government considers new sanctions against Russia a possible reaction. The German government was “considering all the options,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in Berlin.

Beforehand, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag (parliament), Norbert Röttgen (CDU, Christian Democratic Union), had called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. He told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “A war crime that had no consequences or sanctions would be a scandal.” At the same time, he also complained that European governments had only done what absolutely needed to be done under their “obligations”.

Speaking on ARD television, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok (CDU) also called for sanctions, to “put pressure on” Russia and “punish” her. In particular, he called for technological sanctions that inhibited the development of weapons—“as we have done during in the Cold War”.

Brok provided an insight into the far-reaching, aggressive plans that are being discussed in government and military circles behind the backs of the population. “The only option to do something would be to go in,” said Brok. “But who in Germany would be willing to send the army in there?” One must ask, “Are we ready to do something ourselves and go in with the army?”

He added: “Perhaps the only way—if that is possible technically, from the logistics—is to provide some of the rebels [...] with ground-to-air missiles”. It had been shown that Russia herself was not prepared to engage in “selective cooperation”. For Russia, it was “just a matter of power, of ruling this country”.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is supporting the aggressive war policies of the Christian Democrats. For example, in the Rheinische Post, SPD foreign policy expert Niels Annen said, “Instead of dispatching warships to the region and terminating agreements, for example concerning the destruction of plutonium, Russia should finally assume its responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council and respect international humanitarian law”.

In September, Social Democratic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had already demanded a no-fly zone to advance the West’s objective of regime change in Syria. Such an action would be the exact opposite of promoting “international humanitarian law”. In March 2011, the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya was the prelude to a massive NATO bombing campaign against the oil-rich country and the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime by Western-backed Islamist rebels.

Unlike the Libyan war, Germany has been in the vanguard of the imperialist powers against Syria from the beginning. In 2012, the German foreign ministry in cooperation with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and parts of the Syrian opposition, brought to life the so-called “The Day After” project to outline its “vision for a post-Assad regime” in Syria. Since the end of 2015, Germany’s Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) have been a direct party to the war in Syria, operating with tornado jets, reconnaissance technology and a warship.

To the extent that the Russian intervention in Syria is thwarting the plans of the German government and has brought the Western-backed Islamist militias to the brink of defeat, the German media has beaten the drum for war and militarism ever more hysterically.

A commentary in the current issue of news weekly Die Zeit, headlined “Can Europe really just look on in Syria”, warns that currently “some 10,000 pro-Assad fighters” are preparing “to storm East Aleppo”. Should the city fall into the hands of the Syrian regime in the next weeks, “this would be a strategic success for Bashar al-Assad”.

The counter-strategy advocated by Die Zeit: “The delivery of weapons with which the insurgents can prevail against the permanent air onslaught”, as a “first military step”. The author of the article, Andrea Böhm, who in an earlier comment had defended Al Qaeda, openly says who should be supported. “The pro- Al-Qaeda Jabhat Fateh al-sham” is “as strong as ever” and has “established itself as the most effective faction defending civilians against IS and against Assad”.

In an editorial in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday, Tomas Avenarius mused: “Finally delivering to the rebels the weapons they had long called for after years of reluctance: anti-aircraft missiles, which can bring down Russian jets from the sky. In the Afghanistan war 30 years ago, such US missiles had helped the jihadists inflict a defeat on the Red Army”.

If German politicians and media representatives are now beating the drum for sanctions against Russia, for the massive rearmament of Al Qaeda and the deployment of ground troops to Syria, they do so not as followers of the US government, which is also constantly fuelling the conflict, but as representatives of European and, above all, German imperialism.

“The second step must take place in Brussels and especially in Berlin”, Böhm emphasized in Die Zeit. The war in Syria must “be understood as a matter of supreme national security”. Avenarius is incensed that the US was not able to guarantee “a Russian defeat in Syria”. “Thanks to earlier hesitancy”, the US “no longer” had the power “to prevent” the cementing of Russian power aspirations.

To defend Germany’s geo-strategic and economic interests against Russia, but also increasingly against the United States, the German elites are prepared to foment a conflict which they themselves know could trigger a third world war. The current edition of news magazine Der Spiegel appears with a front page headline reading, “World power struggle: trouble spot Syria—Putin’s work, Obama’s contribution”, and speaks of a “world war for Aleppo”.

The Trump scandal and the US gutter election

Patrick Martin

The generally degraded state of American politics entered a new low this weekend. The entire media and political establishment was consumed with the scandal that erupted in the wake of the release of video of Republican candidate Donald Trump boasting in 2005 of his ability to use his position of wealth and celebrity to assault women with impunity.

Dozens of Republican office-holders and candidates have announced they will not vote for Trump or called for his replacement as the party’s nominee—a practical impossibility, given the widespread distribution of ballots for early, absentee or mail-in voting. Democrats jumped at the chance to denounce Trump. Media commentators, who never fail to cheer on every war launched by the American military, expressed their horrified indignation at Trump’s treatment of women.

As far as Trump’s comments are concerned, there was nothing that would surprise or shock any serious observer of the appalling decay in the political culture of the Republican Party and the capitalist two-party system as a whole. Trump in his persona embodies the backwardness of the American ruling class, a product of the sordid nexus of the New York City real estate market, Atlantic City casinos, Las Vegas and the entertainment industry.

More significant than the comments themselves are the uses to which they are being put. It is clear that a significant section of the ruling class has decided that a Trump presidency cannot be accepted. The scandal is a mechanism for fighting out differences while concealing any discussion of the extremely reactionary character of the Clinton campaign. The Democrats prefer to fight Trump on the most debased level, the politics of pornography.

Sex scandals have become a standard mechanism employed by the US ruling class to regulate its conflicts without alerting the great mass of the population to what the real issues are. Such methods have long been a feature of American politics—FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover notoriously kept folders full of such personal scandals in his desk, for use in blackmailing congressmen, executive branch officials and presidents.

There is little doubt that the video from the Access Hollywood program on NBC was located and set aside for use at a time when it would do the maximum damage, only 30 days before the election. There is also little doubt that if this particular salvo fails to finally sink the Trump campaign, more torpedoes are in the water.

What the real issues are came out to some extent in Sunday night’s Town Hall debate. Behind the mudslinging and name-calling, Clinton’s agenda was expressed in the limited discussion over foreign policy, during which she repeatedly denounced “Russian aggression” and called for a major military escalation in Syria.

Responding to a question about a leak from WikiLeaks that included excerpts of her speeches to Wall Street banks—including one in which she said that it was necessary to have a “public” and a “private” position on political issues—Clinton quickly shifted to an attack on Russia, charging that it was seeking to influence the elections in favor of Trump. “Our intelligence community has just come out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks [i.e., the exposure of DNC emails], the hacking of American accounts to influence our election. And WikiLeaks is part of that.”

Clinton later added that she supports a “no-fly” zone in Syria—which Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford said last month would mean war with Russia—in order to establish “leverage.” “Russia has decided that it’s all in in Syria,” Clinton said. “And they’ve also decided who they want to see become president of the United States, too, and it’s not me. I’ve stood up to Russia. I’ve taken on Putin and others, and I would do that as president.”

This is what the American ruling class is planning, and indeed already implementing. Clinton was not asked by debate moderators Anderson Cooper or Martha Raddatz how many people she was prepared to sacrifice in the pursuit of this policy.

The American media expresses consternation over Trump’s sexual predations, but does not bat an eyelash over the appetites of an imperialist predator who threatens the lives of thousands, if not millions. There has been no equivalent media furor over Clinton’s television interview where she chortled over the murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died.”

As far as the outcome of the debate goes, it is evident that it did not go as Clinton and the Democrats had hoped. While they seek to capitalize on hostility to Trump, the Democrats have for their own candidate an individual who is deeply despised, steeped in criminality and corruption. Clinton had no real answer to the right-wing demagogy of Trump, who denounced her as a “liar,” whose words have no relationship to her actions.

The exposure of Trump’s backwardness is obviously revealing, but it points to the illegitimate and fraudulent character of the two-party system and the electoral process as a whole. The Democratic Party, with its nomination of a corrupt political hack and warmonger, is no alternative. Out of a country of 325 million people, the two candidates are the most hated in modern US history, and deservedly so.

The installation of Hillary Clinton in the White House would only insure that the policies that represent the consensus in the American ruling elite—a more aggressive and interventionist foreign policy, directed above all against China and Russia, and a crackdown against democratic rights and working class living standards at home—will be pursued by an experienced and trusted representative of big business, rather than by an erratic billionaire who has served his purpose in pushing the political system further to the right and encouraging the development of extreme-right and fascistic forces.

Evaluating Sri Lanka’s Regional Priorities

Husanjot Chahal

While embarking on a two-day visit to New Delhi in October 2016, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was probably aware of the forthcoming challenges. Sri Lanka had recently announced that the prevailing regional environment was not conducive to hold a SAARC Summit in Islamabad, citing “lack of unanimity among member states.” This came about three days after Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan announced a ‘boycott’ of the summit, highlighting escalation of terrorism, interference in internal affairs, and “imposed terrorism” by Pakistan as reasons, respectively. Sri Lanka’s move was misunderstood by many as exclusively a pro-India attempt to isolate Pakistan. Adding to the confusion, opposition leaders in Sri Lanka referred to it as a foreign policy “blunder” and an act to please India.

In this environment, and in context of PM Wickremesinghe’s statements in India, it is important to evaluate Sri Lanka’s current regional priorities vis-à-vis three significant players, i.e., India, Pakistan and China.

PM Wickremesinghe is the first regional leader to visit Delhi after the Uri attack and subsequent cancellation of the SAARC Summit. In his talks, he openly acknowledged the issue of cross-border terrorism as being important. However, his remarks reflected a clear avoidance of any reference to Pakistan. In fact, he drew attention to how in 1985 Sri Lanka wanted the subject of cross-border terrorism on the SAARC agenda – a move New Delhi successfully defeated following bilateral diplomatic spats regarding the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Apart from highlighting New Delhi’s perceived hypocrisy, PM Wickremesinghe’s remarks probably aimed at avoiding bilateral complications with Pakistan, with whom Sri Lanka has a history of warm relations. While Indo-Lanka interests were in conflict for decades over the Tamil issue, Pakistan-Sri Lanka ties were marked by Colombo’s support to Islamabad during the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan and the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Former President Rajapaksa, who was keen on decimating the LTTE, received hard military equipment from Pakistan at a time when India refused similar support. A hiccup was caused in January 2015 with the coming of the new Sri Lankan government to power, which triggered the cancellation of a US$400 million deal to buy the jointly produced China-Pakistan JF-17 aircraft from Islamabad, reportedly due to a “diplomatic suggestion” from New Delhi. However, with the revival of Pakistan’s bid to sell the aircraft to Sri Lanka in August 2016, a majority of the cabinet voted in favour of acquiring the new jets.

While Sri Lanka’s strong friendship with India is indubitable, this should not lead to the assumption that the island country will openly stand up against Pakistan in the event of an Indo-Pak stand-off. Pakistan-Sri Lanka relations may currently be devoid of growth but their history of good relations without any major setback unlike Delhi-Colombo ties, and the prospect of jointly keeping New Delhi’s regional influence under check may act as a significant determinant of Sri Lanka’s actions in the future.

PM Wickremesinghe also emphasised the purely economic nature of Beijing-Colombo ties during his New Delhi visit. Interestingly, recent Sino-Indian competition in the strategically located country is also mainly set in the economic realm. Such a struggle between the two economic giants is favourable to Colombo, which has anxiously cited its policy of balance between India and China in support of its national interests and to prevent either from gaining too much ground. However, to what extent such a balance exists or is even possible – at least in economic terms – is highly debatable. China’s early lead in big-ticket infrastructure projects along with its foundation for future investments established under the pro-China Rajapaksa regime ensures that the very base of the balance is not uniform. Chinese economic muscle coupled with New Delhi's inability to fund the needs that China's deep pockets can finance further highlights the improbability of such a balance. Sri Lanka’s economic woes will drive most of its priorities in the current scenario and this imbalance spells out an obvious choice.

Colombo is aware of this economic imbalance - hence, the recent active engagement with its Indian counterparts. While the Sino-Lankan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) still awaits progress, PM Wickremesinghe announced that the India-Sri Lanka Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) will be signed by the end of the year. Even the vexatious fishermen issue will see serious efforts towards its resolution as the two sides step up high-level negotiations.

Above all, Sri Lanka’s priorities in the region are linked to securing its economic benefit, ensuring a power balance, and considering historical relations – in that order. For Sri Lanka, between India and China, links with the latter address the first priority, the second is dependent on which side gains more ground, and historical and civilisational ties are stronger with India. Between Pakistan and India, New Delhi is economically dominant, while the other two priorities will ensure Sri Lanka’s support to Islamabad. These dynamics of inter-state relations are not static, but recognising them is key to assessing the current situation and envisaging geopolitical advances.

Critical Challenges to the Indo-US Strategic Partnership

Chintamani Mahapatra

The strategic partnership between India and the US has slowly and steadily been moving in an upwardly trajectory through periodic turbulences. However, as the world's balance of power has entered a serious phase of transition, New Delhi and Washington need to sort out certain key issues to keep the partnership on track.

The most critical challenge comes from lack of adequate support from China and Russia to Indian and American efforts to combat terrorism. All forms of terrorist organisations in south and south west Asia have survived more than fifteen years of the war against terror led by the US and supported by India.

It is an open secret that Pakistan’s treacherous double game is the main culprit that sustains and emboldens these terrorist groups. Islamabad took money, material and military equipment from the US and passed it on to those groups whose targets were Americans and Indians! 

In the initial years of the war against terror, Washington did put pressure on Pakistan to refrain from anti-India terror activities. Pakistan was also under pressure to move troops to its border along Afghanistan, thus bringing down the volume of its anti-India activities along the Line of Control (LoC).

However, Pakistan altered its strategy - particularly since 2007 - and its support to the Haqqani militias in Afghanistan and anti-India groups most active in Kashmir resumed. The US decision to draw down its troop presence in Afghanistan, rise of the Islamic State (IS) and the shifting of US' attention to the IS has enabled Pakistan to reactivate its involvement by backing all kinds of terror groups it nurtures in Kashmir.

While the US openly backed India in the recent spate of terror attacks in Kashmir, condemned the Uri attack and appeared supportive of the Indian Army’s surgical strike against terror bases across the LoC, Washington is not prepared to come down hard on Pakistan. China, on the other hand, consistently extends its protection to all kinds of criminal and terrorist activities indulged in by the Pakistani establishment.

US policy-makers and strategic analysts repeatedly make the point that Pakistan’s stability is important and Pakistan’s help in fighting terror is indispensable. The time has come to contest both these points. First of all, disorder in the Pakistani state and society is purely an internal development. The Pakistani establishment has given priority to nurturing terror groups and interfering in the neighbourhood over promoting economic development by creating an enabling environment. The result is the Frankenstein syndrome. External help in keeping Pakistan stable has considerable limitations unless its government changes course.

The idea that Pakistan is indispensable to fight terrorism needs serious rethinking by US strategists. Pakistan is a nuclear weapons power that gives birth to, incubates, and uses terror groups. It uses terror groups as a political tool to extract US' assistance and to foment trouble in India. Indo-US cooperation in combating terrorism clearly needs refinement and upgrading.
While India expects more from the US to tackle Pakistan-backed terrorist activities, the latter perhaps expects more from India in handling China. The US finds it difficult to restrain Chinese expansionist policies in the Asia Pacific. The Indo-US joint statements on developments in the South China Sea and the Indo Pacific region are welcome developments. But clearly, there is no well defined project.

It is a fact that China is a bigger economic partner of the US and Pakistan is a major non-NATO ally. Compared to these, the Indo-US strategic partnership is a new and ongoing project. But the recent developments show that China, a nuclear weapons power, fully protects Pakistan - another nuclear weapons-armed Islamic country - in the latter’s persistent use of terror as an instrument of state policy. What can be done about it?

Added to this is Russian political activism that is partly against US policies and partly aimed at creating space for its involvement in regional politics and economics. Russia and China have begun to collaborate in an undertaking to impede US policies in the Asian and Eurasian region. One of the fallouts of this undertaking is Russian military exercises with Pakistan. There are many in India who point at the Indian government’s failure to prevent this. But the reality is that India could not have prevented it since this is part of a larger game against perceived 'American hegemony'.

The India-US strategic partnership is shaping up in the midst of a relative decline in the US' ability to preserve the global order, and Russo-Chinese collaboration to expedite that American decline. Pakistan thus has benefitted a great deal by getting US' financial support, Chinese strategic support and Russian political support. The resilience of the Taliban in Afghanistan, IS in West Asia and shifting informal alliances bolster Pakistan and pose a great challenge to Indian national security. How India and the US redefine, reshape and concretise their strategic partnership is the real test.

FSI and South Asia

Monish Gulati

The Fragile States Index (FSI) is an annual ranking of 178 nations, conceived with the core notion that weak and failing states pose a challenge to the international community and in a highly interconnected world, ‘pressures’ on one fragile state can have repercussions for the larger global community too. The FSI is based on the premise that the reasons for state weakness and failure are complex but not unpredictable, and can hence be quantified.

Furthermore, the FSI aims to take the understanding of weak and failing states beyond identifying and analysing broad social trends, by adopting a mixed approach using qualitative and quantitative techniques to establish patterns and trends. The strength of the FSI is its ability to distil millions of pieces of information into a form that is suitable to analyse, easy to comprehend and informative.

The FSI generated by the Fund for Peace (FFP) is based on its proprietary Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST) analytical platform. The Index is designed to be a critical tool in not only identifying the normal pressures that all states experience, but also to provide an indication in the time domain when such pressures begin to impact the stability of a state.

The 2016 FSI is the 12th edition of the annual Index. In the case of stability of South Asian countries, it considers India along with Bhutan and Maldives be as being at an ‘elevated warning’ stage as distinct from the six higher (and more stable) classifications that range from ‘very sustainable’ to ‘warning’.

The remaining South Asian countries find themselves evaluated at more alarming stages with Sri Lanka  at ‘High Warning’; Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar at ‘Alert’, and Pakistan being graded even lower, at ‘High Alert’. In terms of past performance, the Maldives is seen to show strong improvement and India is seen to be worsening.

These outcomes in the FSI raise a few questions about its methodology, gathering and processing of data, moderation of the value of parameters implemented for diversity etc. For example, in the case of Pakistan, does the FSI take into account the complex nature of its insurgency before evaluating the fact that it is one of the few countries in the world that is using its air force against its own citizens and military courts with tentative jurisprudence to try the captured/suspected insurgents? This fact is possibly recognised by the FFP itself, which has sought to remedy the lacunae by comparing a country with its own past parameters in addition to those of other states/countries. However even this adjustment to the FSI does not seem to adequately capture the context in each country individually.

When considering relative assessments, the question that comes to mind is whether the index gives an adequate representation of the South Asia region? However, the lack of detailed knowledge of the FSI’s assessment process limits the discourse to its outcomes. Therefore, since the FSI seeks to inform and address the global community and shapes its outlook towards a country or a region, it would be appropriate to ask if it as a concept takes into account the contribution to global peace and development by the target country or region. Therefore, does it recognise the contribution of Bangladesh or India to UN peacekeeping while it penalises countries for having an UN mission or peacekeeper on its soil? Does it discount ‘forced interventions’ and the destabilising influence of certain countries to a country or a region. The FSI appears to penalise the country whose sovereignty is violated rather than the intervener.

The next question is as to whether the FSI takes into account new age threats/issues. Has the Maldives been penalised for its failure to prevent the outflow of Jihadis of Maldivian nationality to Iraq and Syria or should Belgium be penalised for a lax security setup which has cause certain elements to use its soil to launch attacks in France? On the other hand, does it accord merit to a country’s efforts to combat climate change, which draws on its economic resources or do those initiatives fall outside the evaluation framework?

The FSI appears to have an ‘end of pipe’ or a one-dimensional approach to evaluating the stability of a state. It is alright when one is informing the target state, but when the index is for the consumption of the global community, it needs to factor in more interrelated issues to aid balanced and informed decision making.

20 University of Glasgow Masters Scholarship for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Applicants will be automatically assessed for a scholarships based on academic merit. Applicants who are being considered will be notified within the timeframes below. There is no separate application form required.

• 1 December will receive their scholarship outcome by 16 December
• 1 March will receive their scholarship outcome by 16 March
• 1 June will receive their scholarship outcome by 16 June

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

Type: Masters Taught

Eligibility: To be eligible, applicants must

• demonstrate academic excellence and achieve grades equivalent to UK 1st Class Honours
• hold an offer of a place for a postgraduate taught programme for admission in 2017
• be classed as International students for fee purposes

Number of Awardees: 20

Value of Scholarship: £10,000

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: N/A

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Glasgow