India’s Emerging Role in the Indo-Pacific: Rise of Sub-imperialism?

 K M Seethi

Is India sliding itself into the world capitalist centre as a ‘sub-imperialist’ country fulfilling the ‘responsibilities’ of the imperialist core? Going beyond the conventional Leninist conceptualisation, India, an emerging economy with a credo of neoliberal aspirations and militarism, appears to be exercising a particular form of imperialism over its partners in the Global South, by fulfilling the role of a sub-imperialist agent in the increased coordination between the imperial forces. The latest in the series of such engagements could be seen in India’s incorporation into the ‘grand strategy’ of the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. Here the conventional economic theory of imperialism could be effectively supplemented by concepts which take into account ‘imperialism by delegation.’

The Indo-Pacific Business Forum held in Washington recently witnessed this coronation ceremony—of elevating India’s status to “Tier-1’ of the ‘Strategic Trade Authorization’ (STA) regime. The Trump Administration already acknowledged that the American investment in the Indo-Pacific region “is good for America, good for business, and good for the world.” The Administration announced “$113.5 million in immediate funding to seed new strategic initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region.” Announcing “a range of new economic cooperation efforts with Japan, Australia, India, and Mongolia,” the Department of Commerce “granted Strategic Trade Authorization Tier 1 status to India, enabling American companies to export more high-technology items under a streamlined license exception” (US, White House 2018).

It was the Secretary State Michael R. Pompeo—while addressing the Business Forum to launch the “economic and commercial pillars” of the Trump Administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy—who emphasized “the critical role of the U.S. private sector in ensuring a sustainable, financially responsible economic future for the Indo-Pacific.” Pompeo also announced strengthened support for important regional institutions in the Indo-Pacific, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and U.S.-ASEAN Connect, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and the Lower Mekong Initiative, along with a first-ever contribution to the Indian Ocean Rim Association (US, Department of State 2018b).

Following Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’s participation in the Indo-Pacific Business Forum, the Department of Commerce announced its plan “to dedicate  its upcoming flagship events” to Indo-Pacific themes which included “Trade Winds: India” which  will take place in New Delhi in 2019. It will be a conference and trade mission to India and other surrounding countries where “U.S. exporters will meet with decision makers on opportunities they have learned.” Ross also announced that “India’s status as a Major Defense Partner will allow it to receive more U.S. high technology and military items without individual export licenses.  India will be moved into Tier-1 of the Department of Commerce’s Strategic Trade Authorization (STA) license exception. STA Tier-1 treatment, comparable to NATO allies, will expand the scope of exports subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) that can be made to India without individual licenses.” This regulatory change is expected to “enhance the bilateral defense trade relationship and result in a greater volume of U.S. exports to India.  Over the last seven years, approximately $9.7 billion worth of licensed exports to India may now eligible for export under this license exception” (Ibid).

In effect, India’s status as a major defense/strategic partner would lead to its becoming a junior partner of the US imperialism, comparable to its NATO allies. This obviously reflects India’s membership in three of the four multilateral export control regimes, as well the development of its national export control system. The American companies can now more efficiently export a much wider range of products to Indian high technology and military customers.  India’s new status will benefit U.S. manufacturers immensely, while continuing to fulfill the ‘strategic responsibilities’ of Washington in the Indo-Pacific region.

India welcomed the announcement about the Trump administration’s “decision to move India into Tier-1 of the Strategic Trade Authorization license exception.”  Hoping that the new step would further facilitate India-U.S. trade and technology collaboration in defence and high technology areas, the Ministry of External Affairs statement said that it was “a logical culmination to India’s designation as a Major Defense Partner of the U.S. and a reaffirmation of India’s impeccable record as a responsible member of the concerned multilateral export control regimes” (India, Ministry of External Affairs 2018b).

It may be noted that way back in June 2016, Washington had designated India as a “Major Defence Partner” with a view to enhancing defence trade and technology sharing with India to a level proportionate to that of its closest strategic partners and allies. India’s relations with the U.S have, over years, transformed into a ‘global strategic partnership’ based on “increasing convergence of interests on bilateral, regional and global issues.” The emphasis placed by India on a range of issues has facilitated the process to reinvigorate bilateral ties and enhance cooperation during the first two summits of Prime Minister Modi and President Obama in September 2014 and January 2015 respectively. The summit level joint statement issued in June 2016 called the India-U.S. relationship an “Enduring Global Partners in the 21st Century (India, Ministry of External Affairs 2017).

There were already more than 50 bilateral dialogue mechanisms between India and the U.S. The first two meetings of the Strategic and Commercial Dialogue were held in Washington DC in September 2015 and New Delhi in August 2016. This apex-level dialogue has added a commercial component to the traditional pillars of bilateral relations on which the erstwhile Strategic Dialogue of Foreign Ministers had focused (Ibid).  Defence-strategic partnership has emerged as a major pillar of India-U.S. relations with the signing of ‘New Framework for India-U.S. Defense Relations’ in 2005 and the resulting dynamics in defence trade, joint exercises, personnel exchanges, collaboration and cooperation in maritime security, and exchanges between each of the three services. The Defence Framework Agreement was also renewed for another decade in June 2015.

India participated in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in July-August 2016 for the second time with an Indian Naval Frigate. Bilateral dialogue mechanisms in the field of defence include Defence Policy Group (DPG), Defence Joint Working Group (DJWG), Defence Procurement and Production Group (DPPG), Senior Technology Security Group (STSG), Joint Technical Group (JTG), Military Cooperation Group (MCG), and Service-to-Service Executive Steering Groups (ESGs).The agreements signed in recent years include Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Association (LEMOA) signed in August 2016, Fuel Exchange Agreement signed in November 2015,Technical Agreement (TA) on information sharing on White (merchant) Shipping signed in May 2016 and the Information Exchange Annexe (IEA) on Aircraft Carrier Technologies signed in June 2016 (India, Ministry of External Affairs 2017).

In 2017, the aggregate worth of defence acquisition from U.S. Defence had crossed over US$ 13 billion. The two countries also started a Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) with a view to  simplifying technology transfer policies and exploring possibilities of co-development and co-production to invest the defence relationship with strategic value. The DTTI Working Group and its Task Force are expected to “expeditiously evaluate and decide on unique projects and technologies which would have a transformative impact on bilateral defence relations and enhance India’s defence industry and military capabilities.” During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the U.S. in June 2016, the U.S. recognised India as a ‘Major Defence Partner,’ which committed Washington “to facilitate technology sharing with India to a level commensurate with that of its closest allies and partners, and industry collaboration for defence co-production and co-development” (India, Ministry of External Affairs 2017). The latest one taken at the Indo-Pacific Business forum is a continuation of this process of India’s incorporation into the American grand strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, rechristened as ‘Indo-Pacific’ with a view to containing China and Russia.

Plausibly, the new partnership is a clear indication that Modi’s talk about ‘strategic autonomy’ is a travesty of facts and his characterization of the “free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific Region” at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore (India, Ministry of External Affairs 2018a) is nothing but a threshold-magic of sub-imperialism. The US had already decided to recast its strategic interests in the Pacific Rim by reshaping the geopolitical layout put in place by the Obama administration—‘rebalancing.’ The ‘rebalance’—initially called ‘pivot’—implied that Washington would play an activist role in the ‘Asia-Pacific’ region–strengthening diplomatic ties, promoting a regional free trade agreement, and bolstering military and strategic relations with many Asian clients (US, White House 2014). However, during President Trump visit to the region in November 2017, he insisted on having a different strategic layout of the “free and open Indo-Pacific” (US, White House 2017a)—with a view to offsetting the Obama formulation. The politico-security implications of this ‘shift’ of emphasis have been explained by the Trump administration in the document National Security Strategy of the United States, December 2017 (USNSS 2017). The USNSS 2017 is more explicit in its anxieties on China and Russia:

China and Russia want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests. China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor. Russia seeks to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders. The intentions of both nations are not necessarily fixed. ..For decades, U.S. policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others. China gathers and exploits data on an unrivaled scale and spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance. It is building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own….Russia aims to weaken U.S. influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners. Russia views the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union (EU) as threats. Russia is investing in new military capabilities, including nuclear systems that remain the most significant existential threat to the United States… (US, White House 2017b: 25).

In a few weeks time, the Trump Administration underscored the role of India in the emerging US strategy in the Indo-Pacific. On 2 April 2018, Alex N. Wong, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs said: The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ “acknowledges the historical reality and the current-day reality that South Asia, and in particular India, plays a key role in the Pacific and in East Asia and in Southeast Asia. That’s been true for thousands of years and it’s true today.” It is “in our interest, the U.S. interest, as well as the interests of the region, that India play an increasingly weighty role in the region. India is a nation that is invested in a free and open order. It is a democracy. It is a nation that can bookend and anchor the free and open order in the Indo-Pacific region, and it’s our policy to ensure that India does play that role, does become over time a more influential player in the region.”  “India for sure has the capability and potential to play a more – a more weighty role. But the role is on all fronts, whether it’s security, economic and diplomatic” (US, Department of State 2018a).

The recognition at the Indo-Pacific forum that India’s role is commensurate with the status of America’s NATO allies is obviously an indication that the ‘strategic autonomy’ that the Prime Minister Modi has been talking about is a diplomatic chimera to masquerade the new equations in global power configurations where India has already become a delegated sub-imperialist power. The forthcoming 2+2 dialogues between the foreign and defence ministers of India and the U.S will witness the increasing accommodation of the American interests in the Indo-Pacific region.

Common Enemy: Why Israel is Embracing Fascism in Europe

Ramzy Baroud

Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, visited Israel on July 19, where he met Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other officials. Orban’s visit would have not required much pause except that the Hungarian leader has been repeatedly branded for his often racist, anti-Semitic remarks.

So why is Orban wining and dining with the leaders of the so-called ‘Jewish State’?

The answer does not pertain only to Orban and Hungary, but to Israel’s attitude towards the rapidly growing far-right movements in Europe, as a whole. Netanyahu and Zionist leaders everywhere, are not just aware of this massive political shift in European politics but are, in fact, working diligently to utilize it in Israel’s favor.

On his visit to Israel, Orban asserted that Hungarian Jewish citizens should feel safe in his country, an odd statement considering that it was Orban and his party that deprived many Jews and other members of minority groups of any feeling of safety.

Still, Netanyahu has welcomed Orban as a “true friend of Israel” and Orban called on his European counterparts to show more support for Israel. Mission accomplished.

Netanyahu had visited Budapest in July 2017, but that supposedly ‘historic’ visit did nothing to change Hungary’s official discourse, dotted with racism and anti-Semitism. In fact, in March 2018, Orban derided Jews, focusing his criticism mostly on Jewish financiers such as George Soros.

At an election rally campaign, Orban said, “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”

It is well-known that Israel and Zionist leaders are quite selective in manipulating the definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ to serve their political agendas, but Israel’s attitude towards the racist far-right movements in Europe takes this truth to a whole new level.

Indeed, the ‘special relationship’ between Netanyahu and Orban is only the tip of the iceberg. For years, Netanyahu’s Israel has been ‘flirting’ with radical right movements in Europe.

The unmistakable Israeli strategy, of course has its own logic. Israeli leaders feel that Europe’s move to the far-right is irrevocable and are keen to benefit from the anti-Muslim sentiment that accompanies this shift as much as possible.

Moreover, the EU’s resolve to label illegal settlement products and refusal to heed calls for moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is pushing Netanyahu to explore these new routes.

During his previous visit to Hungary, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with leaders from the so-called Visegrad-4, which includes Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

On that visit, Netanyahu hoped to find new channels of support within the EU, through exerting pressure by using his new-found allies in these countries. In an audio-recording obtained by Reuters, Netanyahu chastised Europe for daring to criticize Israel’s dismal human rights record, illegal settlement policies and military occupation.

“I think Europe has to decide whether it wants to live and thrive or it wants to shrivel and disappear,” he said.

Netanyahu’s arrogance is unbridled, especially as the censure is emanating from a leader who represents an ethno-nationalist state, which has just recently canceled any reference to ‘democracy’ in its newly-issued Jewish Nation-state Law.

The new ‘basic law’ defines Israel by an ethnic identity, not any democratic values. Netanyahu is now closer to Europe’s far-right racist groups than to any liberal democratic model, thus the ongoing flirting between Israel and these groups.

In fact, the term ‘flirting’ is itself an understatement considering that Israel’s ties with various far-right, neo-Nazi and fascist parties in Europe involve high-level political coordination and, in the case of the Ukraine in particular, the actual supplying of weapons.

Human rights groups recently petitioned the Israeli High Court to stop Israel’s export of weapons to neo-Nazi groups.

The Israeli-far-right embrace almost touches every single European country, including Italy and Germany, whose history of Nazism and Fascism has wrought death and misery to millions.

In Italy, the connection between Italian far-right parties and Israel goes back to the early 2000s, when post-Fascist leader, Gianfranco Fini, labored to rebrand his movement.

Initially, Fini was the leader of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement), which saw itself as the “heir to the Fascist Party”.

The rebranding of the party required a trip by Fini to Israel in 2003, after changing the name of his movement to the ‘National Alliance.’ Interestingly, in his highly-touted visit, Fini was accompanied by Amos Luzzatto, the head of the Italian Jewish community.

Unsurprisingly, far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, Italy’s current Interior Minister, went through the same political baptism by Zionist Israel – as Orban and Fini also did – by paying a visit to Tel Aviv in March 2016 to launch his political career and declaring his undying love for the Jewish State.

The same scenario is being repeated in Germany where the far-right party – Alternative for Germany (AfD) – has risen in ranks to the point that it nearly toppled a government coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

AfD has more in common with Israel than the common anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views. The party which is “derided for anti-Semitic, xenophobic views redolent of the Nazis is also staunchly supportive of Israel,” reported the Times of Israel.

Last April, the anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic German party, enthusiastically began a campaign pushing for the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, despite Merkel’s views to the contrary.

The story, however, does not end there. What began as Israeli flirting with far-right racist movements is now Israel’s official policy towards Europe. The same story, with different actors and names can be found in Austria’s Freedom Party (FPOe), Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) and virtually everywhere else.

It remains to be seen how Israel’s embrace of fascist Europe will bode, both for Israel and the European Union. Will the EU “shrivel and disappear”, or will Israel be finally exposed for what it truly is, an ethno-nationalist state with no interest in true democracy in the first place?

Mexico – A step forward towards gender parity

Sheshu Babu

Though women constitute at least half of the world’s population, their representation in political system is not in commensurate with the proportion of their numbers. Even many advanced countries like US and UK have less number of women when men in Senate and parliament. Mexico is leading the way in giving women to have more say in their politics.

Status of women

Until the twentieth century, Mexico has been primarily a rural country and women were confined to rural family and community. But, with the Spanish conquest of the ‘Aztec’ empire, cities began to develop and women began to come out of their rural life. They made great strides towards more equitable legal and social status. In 1953, Mexican women were granted to vote in national elections.(en.m.wikipedia). But, by and large, they are still exploited and discriminated in most parts of the country.

Political representation

Women represent 52% of Mexico population but it ranked 49 out of 190 countries in the percentage of women in executive and ministerial positions. (April,10,2015, by Juanita Islas, Political representation of women in Mexico, www.wilsoncenter.org) . In congress, women occupy 37% of seats which was 24% ten years ago. In 2014, the country passed a political reforms law stipulating that at least fifty percent of the candidates fielded in federal and state election must be female. ( Mexico seeks to Empower Women in Politics, July 10, 2014, wilsoncenter.org). Women account for 38% of legislators in the lower house and 35% of Senators. In US women occupied only 18% of seats in the House of Representatives and 20% of senators are filled by women. Quota of 50% must be maintained by political parties and replacement for women candidates must be women only. Affirmative action taken by Mexico government has made progress of women in politics possible in a big way.

The future

After July 1 elections, in the next congress, women will make up 47.8% of lower house and 49.2% of senate and at least 50% of most state legislatures. ( Mexico’s election was a breakthrough for women, axios.com ). The lower house will have world’s fourth largest female representation. Senate will have world’s second largest female member representation after Belgium. It will be the only country with an elected senate having women majority. ( Women Win Big in Mexico’ s Elections, Lauren Gilger, posted July 13, 2018, kjzz.org ). The country not only has a left – leaning president but Mexico city will have a woman mayor for the first time in the history of the nation.

A lesson

Other nations, including India, should learn from Mexico the ways of empowerment of women. The 33% women’s quota bill in India is yet to be passed. No political party is interested in giving compulsory quota to women. Mexico has taken a significant step in this direction. According to an article in the Washington Post ( Women won big in Mexico’s elections – taking nearly half the legislature seats …. July11,2018) , Magda Hinojosa and Jennifer M. Piscopo state that women’s wins are the result of 15 years of electoral reforms, in which Mexico incrementally refined the affirmative action rules that compel political parties to nominate women. Analysing the impact of imposing reservations for women, the writers argue that gender parity is possible mainly through quotas and women have the same credentials as men and are even better qualified. They care more about rights issues and social problems more than men. Even women of rightist parties are more progressive than men.

Over 75 countries have some form of quota for women in politics. All Latin American nations except Guatemala and Venezuela have laws regarding political reservations for women. Mexico is leading the way:will other developing countries of Asia and Africa follow its footsteps?

Pakistan: Towards Understanding the Challenges of Political Change and Future-Making

Mahboob A. Khawaja

Are the New National Elections a Prelude to Change?

People have spoken out loud and quite logically, Imran Khan is the elected candidate to lead a futuristic system of political governance. To discard the incurable resentment against the former indicted criminals turned politicians, people of Pakistan have rejected them at the ballot box. The July 25 national elections under a caretaking non-partisan government were a history-making event in Pakistan’s formal history. Had this happened some sixty years earlier, Pakistan could have been a leading model of democratic norms, social and economic cohesion and political stability to lead other nations in Southwest Asia. For over 60 years, the so called Pakistani politicians – former neo-colonial landlords were masters of lies and deception – inept, greedy and historically egomaniacs who stole time and opportunities from the young and educated generations to foster political change and productivity and make Pakistan a stable nation.  While other progressive nations of the world encouraged participation and paved favorable opportunities to enlist new educated and intelligent brand of the young generations, Pakistani political leaders were naïve and indifferent and guilty of having plunged the morally and intellectually conscientious nation into abyss.  None of the Islamic parties appear to have any worthwhile activism in the outcome of the elections. Have they succumbed to be impotent for the future?  Imran Khan, the new elected would be Prime Minister wants to rebuild a New Pakistan – a highly promising ideal and slogan under unusual political circumstances.  Pakistan desperately needs a new constitution and new political system of governance, a revitalization of socio-economic and political integration between all the cultural diversities of its people in Punjab, Baluchistan, Pakhtoonva and Sindh. Pakistanis lost East Pakistan to India and surrendered in 1971 because they were foolish, corrupt and leaderless. The national integration, security, end to foreign aid and strategic cooperation, and political cohesion of the country must assume priorities over other major policy agendas.  To dispel the history’s malicious ironies, Imran Khan would need to widen the scope of his thinking and strategic planning to encompass the prevalent political realities of Pakistan.

What Needs to be Changed?

Nothing is normal in today’s Pakistan.  Institutionalized corruption is a favorite perversion to attract people’s support for new ideals of change and anti-corruption psychology.  Most indicted criminals like Nawaz Sharif, Bhuttos, Zardrai – all wanted to serve the noble ideals of political fairness, honesty, socio-economic stability, human rights and law and justice. The problem was, none of them had such qualities and characteristic in their own life and profile. How could they have given something to others what was not part of their own life and possessions? One cannot combine wickedness and righteousness in one human character.  To make Imran Khan comparatively a credible candidate for genuinely soft approaches to articulate a sustainable compound culture of new thinking, new ideals and new strategies for a New Pakistan, it is imperative that Mr. Khan must know and fully comprehend the nature and scope of the sickness that continued for decades to rob the nation of its due opportunities for change and future-making – a deliberate  pillage leading to massive destruction of the socio-economic, moral, intellectual and political infrastructures of the Pakistani nation. None of the former criminals are punished visa-a-vis their crimes against the nation. Mr. Khan does have first–hand knowledge and observations of lot of such accumulated pillage over the decades..

Mr. Khan appears to be patriotic person with immense know-how and abilities but he must realize rebuilding a nation is not the individual task but a collective formulation of wide range of thinkers, intellectuals, planners and expertise to work in a team and undertake proactive progressive assignments from top to bottom, not the other way in Pakistan. The dishonesty underlying the Pakistan’s political landscape is nothing new or unknown.  Allow this conscientious author to say: WHO IS NOT DISHONEST IN PAKISTANI POLITICS?   If you get a chance to read “Pakistan: Enigma of Change” (series of articles -1999 onward in Media Monitors Network, USA), and “Pakistan: Leaders who could not Lead” (10/2007, Media Monitors Network, USA;  “Pakistan: Leaders who stabbed the Nation”, 2010;  “Pakistan : Anatomy of Turbulent 68th Independence Day”, “Pakistan in Quest of Navigational Change” (2014), by this author, you should have no rational problem to understand the realities of today’s sadistic politics of Pakistan.

Towards the Imperatives of Change and Reconstruction

For over 70 years, Pakistan had no viable system of political governance corresponding to the moral, intellectual and political genius of the masses. The ruling elite and the people lived in conflicting time zones generating wide gulfs of mistrust, foreign influence, corruption, military dictators, and disdained politicians lacking sense of honesty and accountability with no appeal to reason or missing indicator of live conscience to be serving the public good. How do you change such a filthy and stinking piles of socio-political culture whereby all the well known thugs and criminals have looted the resources, lifelines and positive energies of the people just for their own good?  Mr. Khan must face the existing realities to THINK of the future or he will become part of the piled garbage – a junk history of the nation. He must enlarge the scope of proactive thinking and enlist people of knowledge, intellect moral and professional caliber and those without any stains on their conscience to help him carve a beginning for a new future.  He must be careful not include any pathological liars and interlocutors who were part of darkest chapters of Pakistan’s contemporary history. In parliamentary governance, Imran Khan with 115 seats at the National Assembly would require 22 more elected members to have 137 numbers for a political governance. There should be no horse-trading if he believes in an innovative strategy to evolve a New Pakistan.  It will be imperative to put all those egoistic rulers of the past out of business. Their accumulative dishonesty underlying the failure of politics was clear and obvious.  Perhaps, educated and intelligent Pakistanis living abroad could be more helpful to Imran Khan if he is serious about developing a New and people-oriented 21st century democratic Pakistan. Often historical errors of judgment and mistakes are irretrievable. If truth and logic has its place in the future-making of New Pakistan, it must have a new Constitution, Presidential system of political governance, a non-partisan strong community of law and justice,  retrained elite in the civil services, independent foreign policies and constantly changing and progressive strategies to plan for the future and make it happen out of the planned ideas and workable ideals. Experts and intellectuals who deal with future-making must know the weaknesses of  a non-productive socio-economic culture, highly corrupted civil elite and strength of the role of the masses for a durable future.  Nothing will change or happen on its own without any critical thinking and prompt diagnostic action with proper follow-up methods of meeting the end purpose.

To change and enhance political reformation and developing a new presidential form of governance, Imran Khan would urgently need a coalition of well educated, intelligent and honest proactive people of young generation to build a foundation of ideas and ideals and workable strategies based on refined plans for future-making. It is apparent that after this highly contested election, the nation will not accept normalcy of having previous indicted thugs, criminals and killers as part of the solution for future-making. Imran Khan must be careful not to indulge in melodramatic claims for the future; it could undermine his political future without making it happen on the ground. He should not rely on party loyalists or other seasonal collaborators but those enriched with sense of honesty and obligation to work in team and usher a collective plan of action for planned change and progressively sustainable results. Nation are not build by chance or by the few but of a collective thinking and action plan to make the future-happen and to monitor its progress continuously with fullest accountability for the policy outcomes. Good judgments and logical pursuits seek rational and balanced strategies to ensure collective progress and accountability, lack of such imperatives eventually find failure, imbalance and treachery to the ideals of nation-building. Given his sense of proclaimed honesty and clean political character, Mr. Imran Khan must know the 21st century requisites of creative and effective leadership and must not allow self-ego turned into a kind of cancer that could consume the self and indulge in perversion of the challenging realities of Pakistan’s future-making.

Australian government promises changes to My Health Records following widespread opposition

Cheryl Crisp 

In a sign of growing problems for the Turnbull government, Health Minister Greg Hunt has been forced to pledge to amend the My Health Records (MHR) legislation governing the collection, storage and release of the medical records of millions of people in Australia.

No details of the changes have been provided, but Hunt said they would stipulate that a “court order” would be required to release any health details to law enforcement agencies and government departments. This contradicts his many statements over the past week insisting that this was already enshrined in official policy.

Hunt also promised a person’s records would be deleted if they withdrew from the scheme once their file had been created. Previously, once the file was created it would remain on the system for 30 years following death even if the owner opted out. Hunt also broached the possibility of extending the opt-out period for a further month.

This turnaround follows growing opposition from ordinary people, doctors and IT specialists to the government’s July 16 announcement that the entire population’s health records would be placed in a central data bank unless individuals “opted out” of the scheme within three months. After the opt-out period ended on October 15, a My Health Record would be automatically created for every man, woman and child.

Public concern mounted after it became known that the records could be made available to the police and other government agencies, including the Australian Tax Office and Centrelink, which controls welfare payments.

The government’s Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) administers the data. Over the past six years, it has collected the health records of six million people in a trial called the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record. The legislation governing the scheme was introduced in 2012 by the Gillard Labor government, with the support of the now-ruling Liberal-National Coalition.

While the trial was purportedly a voluntary “opt-in” scheme, some people were unaware they were participating and only discovered they had a health record when they tried to opt out during the past week. In 2016, with Labor’s backing, the Turnbull government proposed to shift the scheme from opt-in to opt-out.

In the face of the public outcry, Labor leader Bill Shorten lobbied the government to suspend the scheme, extend the opt-out period and ensure the privacy of patients’ files. This is an attempt to deflect attention from Labor’s role in initiating and supporting the legislation.

The government evidently hoped the cut-off date would go relatively unnoticed. No advertising campaign was launched to explain the need to opt out or the consequences of not doing so. Nevertheless, on July 16, the first day of the opt-out period, 20,000 people left the scheme despite some having to wait more than an hour on the phone due to problems with the online opt-out features.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practictioners (RACPG), two major doctors’ groups, provided initial support for the scheme. However, together with the Law Council, which represents lawyers, they later raised concerns that the legislation allows access to individual files by police and government agencies without a warrant. Hunt’s promise to draft legislative amendments followed emergency meetings with the AMA and the RACPG.

Until it is amended, Section 70 of the Act provides that the ADHA can disclose health information if it “reasonably believes that the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary for…

(a) the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of criminal offences, breaches of a law imposing a penalty….

(b) the enforcement of laws relating to the confiscation of the proceeds of crime;

(c) the protection of the public revenue;

(d) the prevention, detection, investigation or remedying of seriously improper conduct or prescribed conduct;

(e) the preparation for, or conduct of, proceedings before any court or tribunal, or implementation of the orders of a court or tribunal.”

In a revealing development, the Queensland Police Union advised its members to opt out. It warned them that access would also be available to the immigration department, anti-corruption commissions, financial regulators and other agencies that impose fines or are tasked with “protection of the public revenue.”

Centrelink could use the data to cut pensioners, disabled workers and the unemployed off welfare payments, and the immigration department could deny visas to anyone assessed as not passing health tests.

Sections 64 and 68 of the Act also permit participants to disclose a person’s health information if it is “necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to public health or public safety” or “for purposes relating to the provision of indemnity cover for a healthcare provider.”

Another sweeping provision evidently not slated for amendment is Section 98. It provides that the ADHA may, by writing, delegate one or more of its powers to the chief executive of Medicare, an Australian Public Service employee in the health department or “any other person with the consent of the Minister.” This would provide anyone approved by the health minister access to the entire system.

IT specialists and privacy advocates also raised concerns that data could be hacked, sold or provided to third parties, including insurance companies and private health funds. One private health insurer, NIB, already declared: “We desperately need this data to make the world a better place.”

Health insurers have been lobbying for access. Rachel David, the chief executive of peak body Private Healthcare Australia, said Hunt had agreed to discuss a framework with the sector.

On July 17, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull defended provisions allowing insurance companies to request My Health Records for claimants. Turnbull said people had an obligation to make “full disclosure” when applying for insurance.

Paul Shelter, a former head of the government’s Digital Transformation Agency, noted that individual users must arrange their own security settings. The default setting established by ADHA is that all data is shared. Most MHR holders would be unaware that to secure their records they have to manually change their security setting.

With an estimated 900,000 medical professionals and more than 12,000 organisations accessing the system, the danger of security breaches is high. Singapore, which operates a centralised digital medical storage system, last week suffered a cyber security breach. The health records of 1.5 million people were copied—a fact that authorities took a week to discover.

ADHA chief executive Tim Kelsey led what has been described as an “almost identical” program in Britain—Care.data. It was suspended in 2014, then axed in 2016, after patient data was sold to insurers.

Minister Hunt also said patients’ sensitive and private health data will be made available for public health and research purposes, unless patients indicate that their records cannot be used.

Hunt claimed the data “cannot be used for commercial and non-health-related purposes, including direct marketing to consumers, insurance assessments, and eligibility for welfare benefits.” However, the legislation allows entities to be handed data if they can show it is in the “public interest.”

The ADHA has scrambled over the past week to tighten data access by mobile phone apps, but companies such as Telstra, HealthEngine, Tyde and Healthi already have access to patients’ records. Last month it was revealed that HealthEngine had shared patient information with personal injury lawyers.

Centralised health records have clear benefits—they may provide doctors with access to crucial health details in circumstances where the patient is unable to convey such information. Under the capitalist profit system, however, the harvesting and storage of such information is liable to serve corporate purposes.

Moreover, the access given to police and security agencies has no health benefits whatsoever. The handing over of patients’ sensitive physical and mental health records can be explained only from the standpoint of enabling mass surveillance and intervention against targeted individuals.

German government launches camp system for refugees

Christoph Vandreier

On Wednesday, seven reception centres for refugees in Bavaria were converted into so-called “anchor centres,” in which all those seeking protection will have to remain until they are deported or receive residency status. With this inhumane system of camps, the German government is implementing the racist refugee policy of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). According to the grand coalition agreement, the Bavarian camps are to be extended across the entire country.

“Anchor” stands for “arrival, decision and repatriation.” All the relevant authorities are represented in the camps and refugees must stay there until their asylum application has been decided. Adults could stay for up to 18 months, and the Bavarian state executive even wants to accommodate children in the mass camps for up to six months. The largest portion of those interned would then be deported directly from the camps.

Pictures of the anchor centres inevitably evoke the darkest chapters in German history. Surrounded by high fences reinforced with several rows of barbed wire, 1,000 to 1,500 people per camp are to be disciplined and separated from society. The gates are heavily guarded and no one can pass unnoticed. Even the Catholic charity Caritas speaks of a “prison atmosphere.”

Camp residents are denied basic rights. They are obliged to live in the camp and are not allowed to leave the district of the competent immigration office. The press is forbidden access, as are lawyers and friends. Volunteers from Caritas, relatives and even priests must apply to be admitted to the facilities.

So-called “accelerated” asylum procedures are to be carried out in the camps, characterized above all by shorter periods for lodging appeals. Obtaining legal assistance is made difficult. The aim is to prevent refugees from lodging objections to negative decisions with the Administrative Court, which have been 50 percent successful in the past.

“Without effective access to lawyers, without being accompanied at hearings, without independent advice after receiving the—often flawed—asylum decisions of the Federal Office, the legal protection guarantee of the German constitution is de facto rendered null and void,” the aid organization ProAsyl has declared.

Refugees in the camps are deliberately mistreated and humiliated to force them to depart “voluntarily.” For example, instead of receiving cash benefits for food, clothing and hygiene articles, inmates are given only benefits in kind. This is more complicated and expensive for the authorities, but it is nevetheless being done in order to deter people. “There is a clear signal,” said the field manager responsible for the anchor centre in Manching, Daniel Waidelich. “It is not worth coming to Germany.”

Camp inhabitants are not allowed to work and are condemned to idleness and external control for months. The nearest shop is a 40-minute walk away. There are no local buses. The refugees are being deliberately isolated.

The inhumane set-up of the anchor centres reveals the character of the entire refugee policy of the German government, which relies on the sealing of borders, deportation and oppression. The newly opened anchor centres in Bavaria are the result of a systematic development.

As early as 2015, so-called arrival and return facilities were opened in Bamberg and Ingolstadt/Manching, where refugees from the western Balkans, and later many other refugees with allegedly poor prospects for remaining, were quartered until their deportation. Families who had previously lived in normal neighbourhoods, whose children had gone to kindergarten and school, were forced to relocate to the camps overnight.

In 2017, these facilities were renamed transit centres and supplemented by camps in Regensburg and Deggendorf. From then on, those who fled from a country with a recognition rate below 50 percent, which applies to the vast majority of countries, were brought to these centres.

As of Wednesday, in addition to these four, the three remaining reception facilities—in Donauwörth, Zirndorf and Schweinfurt—have been converted into anchor centres. This means that all refugees arriving in Bavaria must now live in such detention and deportation camps.

A concrete picture of the new anchor centres can be gained by looking at the first two camps, in Bamberg and Manching, which now provide the template for all facilities throughout Germany.

Some 5,000 refugees have lived in Manching since it opened in 2015. Of these, 1,000 were deported, according to official figures. Twenty-five hundred more people were induced to agree to “voluntary” departure. Only about 100 have received a positive asylum decision.

“It’s like prison here,” complained Jeffrey to Spiegel Online. He has been living in the Manching camp with his wife and young son for ten months now. “You can't do anything. You wake up in the morning and see the same faces. You can’t work, you have to hang around.”

A 19-year-old mother, who has been living with a toddler in the facility’s dorm rooms for seven months, said the situation was worse than in her native Nigeria and when she was on the run.

According to Caritas, nine out of ten women from Nigeria are fleeing because they have been victims of violence, forced prostitution and trafficking.

The Funke media group published a report on seven-bed dorms. “Seventy women, men and children share one bathroom and one toilet,” the newspaper said. “Almost every night, asylum seekers are woken up when police and security guards enter the dormitories in the early hours to collect rejected asylum seekers for deportation.”

In addition to the security service, the police were sent in 250 times last year to maintain order in the camp by force.

The anchor centres that are now being tested in Bavaria and will be extended throughout the country are part of much broader plans for a comprehensive system of camps to span Europe and North Africa. The master plan of German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union not only envisages the expansion of anchor centres throughout Germany, but also the “extension of the hotspot concept” across Europe.

The so-called hotspots are camps on the outer borders of Europe. They are notorious for their inhumane conditions. Human Rights Watch reported several days ago that refugees in Greece are exposed to “appalling reception and detention conditions, with vulnerable groups not receiving sufficient protection.” Among other things, the human rights organization criticized the lack of medical care and said that Greece undercut “international standards” in the camps.

Seehofer’s master plan provides for the “development of a standard hotspot model” that can be transferred to other regions of Europe. To that end, the European Union is already working closely with the Libyan Coast Guard, which is accused of taking refugees to private prisons where they are tortured, ill-treated and killed. In correspondence, the German Foreign Ministry described conditions there as “concentration camp-like.”

It is becoming ever clearer what the German government, and with it the whole of the European Union, is doing: Refugees who make it to inner European countries, and especially to Germany, will be quartered in the anchor centres and deported as quickly as possible either to their home countries or to the EU country where they were first registered, according to the Dublin accord.

There they will end up in the inhumane hotspots and be forced to leave or face deportation.

Eventually they will arrive back in North African countries, where they will end up in private prisons or be sold as slaves or sent on death marches.

This monstrous internment and deportation machinery evokes memories of the Nazi concentration camps, which initially interned political opponents, then Jews, Gypsies and Roma. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union, these camps became the basis for the largest extermination machine in human history.

The grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) is already working on a camp system in which tens of thousands of people seeking protection are to be quartered and deported. This terrible apparatus is directed not only against refugees, but against anyone who opposes the right-wing policies of the government.

The opening of the anchor centres in Bavaria takes place in the wake of the mass demonstration last week in Munich against the witch-hunting of refugees and against poverty and war. It embodies the contempt of not only the CSU, but the entire grand coalition and all of the bourgeois parties in Germany for the sentiments of the vast majority of the population.

The only social force that can counteract this shift to the right and defend the rights of refugees is the working class. To act as an independent force it needs a socialist programme that counterposes to the nationalism of the ruling class the international unity of all workers.

Ryanair’s mass sacking threat raises need for globally coordinated struggle of airline workers

Steve James 

Pilots at budget airline Ryanair, members of the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA), are holding a fourth one-day strike Friday in pursuit of better pay and conditions. Earlier this week, Ryanair pilots in Germany, members of the Vereinigung Cockpit union, voted by 96 percent to strike in support of improved working conditions.

The Irish strikes and German vote came days after the largest action in the company’s 34-year history, which saw one-day strikes by cabin crew in Spain, Belgium and Portugal.

The stoppages not only show that the objective conditions exist for a unified international struggle by airline workers, baggage handlers, air traffic controllers and broader sections of the working class in defence of living standards and working conditions, but also that there is widespread support for such an offensive.

Other recent Ryanair disputes include a four-hour pilot’s strike in Germany late last year and three earlier cabin crew strike days in Portugal.

These actions are in addition to threatened strikes by Menzies Aviation baggage handlers at Luton, Manchester and Aberdeen airports in Britain and Amsterdam’s Schipol airport—although all but the Manchester strikes were cancelled.

Between February and April, flight and ground crew at Air France voted and struck for 15 days against pay offers recommended by the trade unions.

Air traffic controllers in France also struck last month. According to Eurocontrol, the European Union’s air traffic control agency, the total volume of flight time delayed during 2018 due to air traffic control strikes will be 53 percent higher than in 2017. Budget airline Easyjet complained that 2,600 flights were cancelled this quarter, compared with 314 last year.

Ryanair is intent on defending its business model, based on low pay and long working hours. Last week, it issued a 90-day “protective notice,” threatening the sacking of more than 100 pilots and 200 cabin crew based at Dublin Airport. Chief Operating Officer Peter Bellew complained of a downturn in bookings “partly as a result of recent rolling strikes by Irish pilots.” He made clear that the company intended to victimise workers as a warning to others.

What is most striking is that this threat was made in the aftermath of last year’s decision by the company to reverse its traditional stance of opposing union recognition.

With the shortage of pilots, the company has been unable to retain staff. Last year, Ryanair was forced to cancel up to 20,000 flights. Its workforce took the opportunity to seek improvements in their conditions, while pushing for union recognition agreements across the company’s 87 bases.

At the time, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary railed against “laughable demands for legacy-type inefficiencies. … We are fully prepared to face down any such disruption if it means defending our cost base or our high-productivity model.”

By “legacy” inefficiencies, O’Leary means the wages and working conditions of pilots in Ryanair’s more longstanding competitors, which, while under assault, remain significantly better than those at Ryanair.

It was at the height of this crisis that Ryanair decided to sign a recognition agreement with BALPA, the British pilots’ union, which includes 10,000 pilots and is recognised by 23 different companies. One quarter of Ryanair’s pilots and aircraft are based in the UK.

Other union recognition agreements have also been signed.

That this shift has been followed by threats to sack striking workers confirms that the unions have been brought into the company by management to act as an industrial police force over their newly recruited members.

Ryanair did not retreat from its anti-worker offensive, only belatedly recognising the role played by the unions everywhere on behalf of corporations and management.

The immediate response from the Irish Forsa trade union, of which IALPA is part, to Ryanair’s sacking threat showed that the company’s confidence in the trade unions is well placed. Its press statement politely complained that Ryanair was showing “unwillingness and/or inability to implement the airline’s declared intention to agree working conditions” through negotiation with the trade unions.

Forsa sought to present the sackings as seasonal. “It is normal practice,” the press statement continued, “for airlines to reduce activity in the winter months. In light of this—and of Ryanair’s recent difficulty in recruiting and retaining enough pilots to fulfill its schedules—it remains unclear if today’s provocative move heralds a significant change in normal practice.”

Finally, it called for “third-party facilitation” to resolve the dispute.

Any genuine workers’ organisation would immediately have demanded Ryanair retract its threats and seek the most combative and united struggle by all the company’s workers worldwide. But such a struggle is anathema for the trade unions.

This is illustrated by the experience of workers at the transnational retail and delivery company, Amazon. A July 23 article, “The global strike surfaces,” in the Catalan paper La Vanguardia , commented that the Ryanair action pointed to the emergence of internationally coordinated workers’ struggles.

Citing Ryanair’s earlier threat to sack striking cabin crew in Portugal and replace them with workers in other countries, it noted that employees at the budget airline, along with those at Amazon, Deliveroo and other companies, “have understood that global strategies can only be answered with global responses.”

The article noted a recent meeting in Rome held by members of the Uni Global Union regarding Amazon. Officials, ostensibly representing 20 million workers, “discussed the possibility of a global strike in Amazon’s centres in Europe,” the newspaper wrote, but “in the end they opted to leave it for later. ...”

The unions didn’t decide to leave a “global strike” by Amazon workers until a later date. They have been working to prevent such a development for months by isolating and sabotaging strikes in one country after another, under conditions in which they are fully aware of the potential to bring Amazon’s European and even its entire global chain to a grinding halt.

While workers were striking at Amazon’s Spanish plant in San Fernando de Henares, the unions ensured that operations continued as normal at its distribution centre in Alcobendas, just half an hour’s drive northwest, and at Getafe, half an hour to the southwest, where, in the four weeks before the strike, the company took on up to 350 new temporary hires.

Last year, Spanish unions colluded with Amazon in scabbing on a protest at one of the company’s facilities in northern Italy during Black Friday sales by allowing an increase in the workload at the company’s plant in Barcelona.

The role of the unions at Amazon is not to expand strikes, but to isolate them and confine any action to a 24-hour stoppage, with non-unionised agency workers separated from those striking.

The necessity for globally coordinated industrial action against globally organised corporations is becoming clear to large numbers of workers. Production that is integrated across national borders brings the international working class together in a way never before possible. Not only do workers often share the same employers, appalling conditions and grievances, but they have the ability to communicate their opposition and organise collectively, thanks to modern technology and the use of social media.

These global processes have enormously strengthened the position of the working class against capital. A struggle by workers anywhere on the planet can very quickly become a rallying point for workers everywhere.

However, the central issue faced by workers at Ryanair, Amazon or any major corporation is that they must develop their fight back in a political and organisational rebellion against the trade unions, whose sole role is to smother the class struggle. To do so they must establish independent rank-and-file committees that can link workers with their brothers and sisters in a worldwide fight against exploitation based on an anti-capitalist and socialist programme.

Financial parasitism and the American oligarchy

Patrick Martin

The report of plans by the Trump administration to push through yet another $100 billion rip-off for the super-rich underscores the urgent reality facing the working class: American society can no longer afford the endless demands of the ruling elite for the accumulation of ever-greater personal wealth.

This is, of course, a global problem. As an Oxfam study found last year, eight billionaires control more wealth than the poorer half of humanity, some 3.6 billion people. Six of those eight are Americans, and nowhere is the conflict between the needs of working people and the insatiable appetite of the financial aristocracy so great as in the United States.

One mega-billionaire alone, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the world’s richest man, has seen his fortune rise nearly $50 billion in 2018—enough to pay a bonus of $100,000 to each of the company’s more than half a million workers.

The proposal for another massive tax handout is the latest expression of a bipartisan agenda of wealth redistribution, which has proceeded over the course of the past several decades under both Democrats and Republicans. Indeed, the greatest transfer occurred under the Obama administration in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse, with trillions allocated to inflate the financial markets—the principal mechanism for engineering the bailout of the rich.

A recent report by the Roosevelt Institute and the National Employment Law Project reveals the staggering level of financial parasitism that characterizes the American economy. The report examined stock buybacks overall, and in detail for three major industries: restaurants, retail sales and food manufacturing.

Under the financial deregulation pushed by both Democratic and Republican administrations over the past 25 years, stock buybacks have soared from less than 5 percent of earnings in the early 1980s to 54 percent of earnings in 2012, and nearly 60 percent today.

Such figures put paid to the pro-capitalist mythology suggesting that high corporate profits will “trickle down” to the masses because companies will invest those profits in new machinery and hiring new workers. Actually, they spent well over half of their profits enriching big shareholders and top management, who hold the lion’s share of stock.

Remarkably, the restaurant industry spent far more on stock buybacks than it made in profits, 136.5 percent. That means that companies in this sector went into debt, borrowing money to give payouts to investors. The top five restaurant chains for buybacks included McDonald’s, YUM Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut), Starbucks, Restaurant Brands International (Burger King, Tim Horton’s) and Domino’s Pizza. If the same money had been divided among the workers, it would have raised wages by 25 percent.

The retail industry spent 79.2 percent of net profit on stock buybacks, and companies like Walmart, CVS, Target, Lowe’s and Home Depot could have given workers across-the-board raises of 63 percent instead. For food manufacturing (Pepsico, KraftHeinz, Tyson Foods, and Archer Daniels Midland, among others), the comparable figures are 58 percent of net profit going to stock buybacks, but the profits were larger and could have financed raises of 79 percent to workers.

Stock buybacks particularly enrich CEOs, who generally take the bulk of their income in stock, and thus benefit when the buyback drives up the price. CEOs reaping the most spectacular returns, named in a report this week by Politico,included Safra Katz of Oracle ($250 million), Thomas Kurian, also of Oracle ($85 million) and Ajay Banga of Mastercard ($44.4 million).

Another fact exposes the enormous sums being looted by the corporate and financial aristocracy. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that 350 Goldman Sachs executives and board members who received stock options in 2008, at the height of the global financial crash, will have accumulated $3 billion dollars by the time these options expire this year.

The flood of stock buybacks has been triggered by the mammoth $1.5 trillion tax cut pushed through by Trump and the Republican Congress last December with the complicity of the Democrats. Corporate America is funneling $2.5 trillion into the pockets of shareholders through buybacks, dividends, mergers and acquisitions, and other financial manipulations.

There was evidently some resentment in sections of the super-rich that the tax cut applied mainly to corporate and personal income taxes, and left the capital gains tax rate unchanged. In response, the Trump administration has indicated that it is preparing to reverse previous precedent and is considering an executive action to change the rules for taxing capital gains—the profits made from the buying and selling of stocks, bonds and other financial assets—so that the wealthy can deduct the effects of price inflation.

This will cut the capital gains tax by one-third, or $102 billion over ten years. Two-thirds of this sum, or $66 billion, would accrue to the top 0.1 percent of Americans.

This is an administration that demonizes millions of working people who come to the United States seeking safety and a better life, calling them “illegal aliens” because they are undocumented. But when it comes to the interests of the billionaires, there’s no concern over what is legal, only over how best to fatten their portfolios.

What sustains the Trump administration, in the face of mounting popular hostility to its retrograde social policies, flagrant attacks on democratic rights and unbridled militarism, is the character of the nominal opposition. The Democratic Party is a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, no less dedicated than Trump to defending the interests of the corporate and financial elite.

There is not a single social problem that can be resolved so long as the corporate and financial elite rules over American and world economy. An end to the domination of these social parasites means an end to the economic system, capitalism, that exists to maintain and expand their wealth and power.

The Dilemma of a Threshold

Vijay Shankar


The nuclear planner is acutely involved in analysis of when and under what political conditions opposing leadership (military or otherwise) may resort to the employment of nuclear weapons. For nations with a policy of no first use (NFU), the answer is 'in response to the first-use (FU) of a nuclear weapon under conditions as stipulated in the doctrine.' However, between nuclear-armed states, the one with a first use (FU) policy is faced with a more complex set of issues which will invariably rack up the question: 'are political ends served with first-use of nuclear weapons knowing that an escalatory response may well be massive and place value targets in its cross hairs?' 

Does first-strike come paired with the ability to offset a nuclear response? Indeed there is the theoretical possibility that the first strike may altogether neutralise the opposition’s capability of a nuclear response; but this, as the evolution of nuclear thought and development of nuclear arsenals have shown, is a fantasy. Even the smallest retaliation in a nuclear exchange targeting a city will imply horrific destruction that the first striker must contend with. To put matters in perspective, consider the following: the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon, say a 20 kiloton nuclear weapon airburst, targeting a city such as Karachi (in 2017, metropolitan area population was estimated at 23 million with a population density of 24,000 per sq km) will result in at least 8,00,000 primary casualties and another 12,00,000 secondary (statistics approximate based on casualty curves, Abraham Henry, Nuclear Weapons and War, 1984).One only has to recall the geographic extent and casualties of the 1986 Chernobyl power plant disaster to appreciate that the hazards of a nuclear encounter are not abstract notions. In the radiation fallout spread from Scandinavia to the Black sea, over 1,16,000 people were affected while Belarus has since shown a 2400 per cent annual increase in incidents of thyroid cancer.

The capability to respond unfailingly and credibly to a nuclear first strike lies at the heart of a deterrent strategy driven by an NFU policy. Faced with the certainty of appalling destruction in response to a nuclear adventure, why a state armed with nuclear weapons should contemplate FU remains bizarre since it is at odds with the very idea of survival. Whatever be the conditions of conflict; the approach of such a threshold when one or the other protagonist may reach for the nuclear trigger must not only be transparent but be declared if deterrence is to work, so that return to normalcy becomes viable.

The strategic irony of dealing with Pakistan is that not only is it armed with nuclear weapons, but also forewarns FU shorn of a declared doctrine. The weapon, as recent statements from their establishment suggest, is 'India-specific' and the development of their nuclear arsenal is to deter India’s conventional forces from offensive operations through the use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW). Should that elicit a massive response, it would be countered by an assured 'limited' second strike capability. The latter, in their view, serves to 'stabilise' the former (a conversation with Khalid Kidwai, 2015); never-you-mind what or who caused the primary provocation. The doctrine remains under a cloak of ambiguity emboldened by the belief in a yet to be developed sea-based second strike launched from conventional submarines.

The first deduction that may be made from such a doctrine is that Pakistan has adopted a nuclear war-fighting doctrine notwithstanding a dangerous absence of technology necessary to provide intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and command and control on land, at sea and in air. The second deduction is that between their first and second strikes, Pakistan is convinced of surviving massive retaliation with its second strike intact. Is this a reasonable assumption or is it more bravado than sense? The third understanding is, when such a nuclear doctrine remains cloaked in ambiguity, the separation between the nuclear and principles that govern conventional warfare are blurred. This attains a catastrophic bent, significantly when conventional principles such as surprise and deception are integrated into a first or a second strike plan, for the unsaid implication is that Pakistan, in some woolly manner, holds sway over the escalatory dynamic.

In all this, what alarms is the lowering of the nuclear threshold while exposing the weapon to unintended use in its movement into the tactical battle area and the truancy of centralised command and control. Also, the deterrent value of the weapon from the standpoint of both time and space is narrowed if not foreclosed. Two more issues need to be recognised relating to the vexed geography of the India-Pakistan situation: the Line of Control (LoC) demarcates the extent of geographic control over disputed territory in Jammu and Kashmir, and to advocate creating a nuclear wasteland in territorial hankerings does not quite make strategic sense. It is equally clear that among states that share common borders, a nuclear exchange will spread devastation irrespective of man-made boundaries.

In the early stages of Pakistan weaponising its nuclear capability, it had made feeble sounds of where its nuclear threshold lay. As could be deciphered, FU of nuclear weapons was predicated on four thresholds: large territorial setbacks, comprehensive military attrition, economic collapse, and political precariousness. The deterrent logic these thresholds described was really quite unmistakeable for they provided to Pakistan a context for maintaining conventional power. However, this rationality flew in the face of the acquisition of TNWs. The perception widely held among commentators in India is that the four-threshold doctrine has since been trashed.“Full-spectrum deterrence” is what Pakistan today makes its arsenal out to be. Central to this doctrine is the integration of TNWs with conventional forces and a callow belief that the nuclear escalatory ladder is in control of the first striker. This abstruse doctrinal tangle suggests that Pakistan not only fails to take account of India’s nuclear response but is also convinced of their ability to initiate a nuclear war and survive unscathed from the encounter. 

To establish where Pakistan’s nuclear threshold lies conceptually is a baffling task. However, Pakistan escalating to the nuclear dimension in response to an Indian conventional riposte to a major terror assault traced to GHQ Rawalpindi cannot be consistent with their “full spectrum” doctrine since the riposte does not come as a result of the latter's failed conventional action, which is the 'first tier' of the spectrum. Rather, in this frame of reference, the nuclear FU threshold must be assessed in the context of political realities; state policy that finds unity with jihadists and military capability. An ambiguous nuclear doctrine in these circumstances cannot alone determine the nuclear threshold; what it can do is calibrate the uncertainty that it imposes and in the process limit both extent and intensity of the riposte. 

Nuclear thresholds are neither fixed by geography nor by time but determined more by severity and purpose of military action which by some national gauge or a combination of triggers will lead to the decision that a threshold has been breached. As may be surmised from Pakistan’s peace-time nuclear posture, due to a lack of high-technology-persistent-ISR, absence of cyber and outerspace capabilities, and the fragility of the second strike; their nuclear threshold may not lie at the low end of the scale. The reason being the first tier of the spectrum may not have quite ruptured in the early stage of a crisis while the second strike remains unfledged. And yet it is equally clear that threat of nuclear use has been brought out of the backdrop to a position from where nuclear deterrence becomes a looming immediacy.

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Internship Programme for Graduate and University Students 2018 – Abu Dhabi, UAE

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Eligible Countries: All

To Be Taken At (Country): UAE, Bonn or New York

Type: Internship

Eligibility: Interns are selected on a competitive basis, based on the needs of the Agency.

• Candidates should be enrolled in a post-graduate programme or in their final year of undergraduate studies, in fields related to the work of the Agency (including economics, environmental sciences, law, international relations, natural sciences, engineering, political science, human resources, public administration, business administration, IT/computer sciences, communications, etc.) at the time of application and during the entire period of internship.
• Recent graduates can also be included in the internship programme provided the start date of the internship is less than one year from completion of studies.
• Applicants must be able to work in English. Another language would be an asset.

Selection Criteria: Applicants should have an interest in IRENA’s work, ability to adapt to new environments and work in a team with people from different cultural backgrounds. Interns work under the supervision of an IRENA staff member.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Interns are paid a monthly stipend to assist them to cover living and accommodation expenses. A round-trip air or rail ticket will be provided to interns who reside beyond commuting distance from the duty station where the internship is to take place.
• All other expenses connected with the internship will be borne by the intern or by his or her sponsoring government or academic institution. When the intern is sponsored by his or her government or academic institution, stipend and travel are not covered by the Agency.
• Applicants must ensure that they have medical insurance for the duration of the internship and that they obtain any immunizations required in the country where the internship is to take place.

Duration of Programme: 3-6 Months

How to Apply: 

• Applicants should apply on-line at least three months before the intended start of the Internship Programme, including a letter of interest indicating the date of availability.
• Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
• Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for further arrangements.

Apply

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: IRENA