
19 May 2018
Where’s the Value? An Inside Look at Walmart’s Flipkart Deal

China in Afghanistan: A military base in the offing?

Afghanistan-Pakistan Finalize Joint Action Plan for Peace
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) on Tuesday said that diplomats from Afghanistan and Pakistan have wrapped up their fourth meeting in Islamabad on the joint action plan between the two countries. The plan is known as the Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS). Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to draw up a plan in April following Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s trip to Kabul where he held talks with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani. The two leaders agreed to seven key principles to finalize the action plan.
The two leaders agreed to the following:
On China’s New Silk Road, Democracy Pays A Toll

China Has Decided Russia Is Too Risky an Investment

A Primer on Countering Terrorism
By Isaac Kfir
This article was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on 2 May 2018.

Fighting terrorism and storing intel in the age of big data
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Why Trump Can Safely Ignore Europe
By Jeremy Shapiro
Europe has reacted swiftly and with great fury to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision last week to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal. The problem is not simply that the Trump administration has undermined one of the signature achievements of European foreign policy but that his inherent volatility, his unpredictability, and most of all his lack of commitment to the transatlantic alliance mean that any act of U.S. disruption is now possible. Righteous indignation is the language of the day, and predictions about the death of the transatlantic alliance abound. But laments and indignation do not add up to strategy. The real question is not whether Europeans are pissed off but whether they will do anything in response to Trump’s actions. The answer is most likely no.
Generals Worry US May Lose In Start Of Next War: Is Multi-Domain The Answer?
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR

Defense of the Baltic States and Poland against a notional Russian missile barrage. (CSBA graphic)
QUANTICO: Russia or China could “overrun” US allies at the outbreak of war, senior military leaders fear, and our plan to stop them is very much a work in progress. Iraq and Syria have given sneak previews of how the US can combine, say, hackers, satellites, special operators, and airstrikes in a single offensive, but we’re not yet ready to launch such a multi-domain operation against a major power.
Tech Companies Are Ruining America’s Image
BY JOSHUA A. GELTZER, DIPAYAN GHOSH

Examining Civil Society Legitimacy
SASKIA BRECHENMACHER, THOMAS CAROTHERS
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gratefully acknowledges support from the Ford Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the UK Department for International Development that helped make this study possible. Civil society is under stress globally as dozens of governments across multiple regions are reducing space for independent civil society organizations, restricting or prohibiting international support for civic groups, and propagating government-controlled nongovernmental organizations. Although civic activists in most places are no strangers to repression, this wave of anti–civil society actions and attitudes is the widest and deepest in decades. It is an integral part of two broader global shifts that raise concerns about the overall health of the international liberal order: the stagnation of democracy worldwide and the rekindling of nationalistic sovereignty, often with authoritarian features.
Friends With Benefits
FRANCES Z. BROWN, MARA KARLIN
What does an “America first” national security strategy look like in action? The White House provided a hint in April, when news broke that National Security Adviser John Bolton had asked Arab nations, including Egypt and possibly Saudi Arabia, to supply ground forces to replace U.S. troops in Syria. (This came only weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump announcedhis desire to “bring our troops back home.”) Although details are scarce, Bolton’s new initiative appears to mirror a broader talking point coming from the Trump administration: rather than putting American lives at risk, the United States will work “by, with, and through” local forces to achieve its national security objectives.
At Least Do No Harm: The Negative Effects and Unforeseen Consequences of US Contracting Practices on the Afghan Local Community and its Influence on the Perception of US Forces and Americans
Greg Kleponis
Introduction
In the medical profession they abide by the edict, “Primum non nocere.” This Latin phrase simply means "first, do no harm." Another way to state it is that, "given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good." 1 It reminds the health care provider that they must consider the possible harm that any intervention might do. It is invoked when debating the use of an intervention that carries an obvious risk of harm but a less certain chance of benefit. This axiom might be applied to the entire idea of intervention in foreign countries already riddled with conflict. This paper takes a more precise look at one element of the overall intervention/stability effort in Afghanistan that many believe is having perversely, the opposite effect of that which it is intended- contracting.
A Competitive Strategy To Counter Russian Aggression Against NATO
The world has entered a new era of great power competition. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy declared: After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned. China and Russia began to reassert their influence regionally and globally. . . They are contesting our geopolitical advantages and trying to change the international order in their favor.[i] Building off the concept of a renewed great power competition, the U.S. National Defense Strategy took a broad view of the necessary actions to ensure national security:
US crude supply: longer market, lower prices
The Problems of Defence Planning
The new Defence Planning Committee needs to overcome structural flaws to be successful.
The recent establishment of the Defence Planning Committee (DPC) provides proof that the development of India’s military power is in dire need of political direction. For the most part, the Armed Forces, bereft of adequate political guidance, have been formulating their own schemes and plans based on their service-specific interpretations to shape themselves. The result has been a skewed development of the different sub-systems of military power, whose critical components have lacked integration, prioritisation, synergy and optimal utilisation of scarce resources. Coupled with a weak defence industrial base, the contemporary narrative cannot but project the notion that India is militarily ill-equipped to meet the threats posed by the growing global and regional geopolitical tensions.
Separating Better Data from Big Data: Where Analytics Is Headed

Spy Games: Ex-Mossad Chief’s Cybersecurity Startup Counters Attacks With A Hacker’s Mindset
By Ido Levy, NoCamels
For decades Tamir Pardo worked in the shadows, in a career that began in the Israeli military’s most elite commando unit and culminated in him leading the Mossad, one of the world’s most feared espionage organizations. Now, the former Mossad chief is in his second act – as a cybersecurity startup founder. After completing his term as head of the world-renown Israeli spy agency in 2016, Pardo, a veteran of the IDF’s Sayeret Matkal who served under the command of Yoni Netanyahu in Operation Entebbe in 1976, founded XM Cyber, a cybersecurity company that has since developed an automated advanced persistent threat simulation platform and whose tagline is “defense by offense.”
Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality — but it has a long way to go
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Air Force Electronic Warfare Push Gains Steam; C-5 Gets 3-D Printed Door Handles
By COLIN CLARK
We will probably never know much about it, but the Air Force's top Electronic Warfare task force has completed its first scrub and should report to top service leaders in the next month or so.The woman who leads the Air Force’s effort, Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, started the Strategic Development Planning Experimentation unit to find gaps in the service’s capabilities. Once the gap is found, the service creates an Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team (ECCT) to examine the best ways to fill it. The EW ECCT was stood up last year. While most of what it’s doing is classified, we know that cyber, which had been deemed outside its purview, is now a solid part of the work.
TEL AVIV DIARY: HAMAS IS DESPERATE—AND DESPERATE PEOPLE DO STUPID, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE THINGS | OPINION
BY MARC SCHULMAN
When I began writing this article, I had just returned from Rabin Square (the central square in Tel Aviv), where tens of thousands gathered on Monday (May 14) to celebrate the Saturday night victory at the annual Eurovision song competition by Israeli pop sensation Netta Barzilai. During the congratulatory festivities, Netta belted out her winning balad TOY, as did a dozen other Israeli former Eurovision contestants—both winners and losers. This was the second celebration of Israel’s Eurovision victory that took place within two days. Saturday night, immediately following the announcement that Netta had won, ten thousand joyous people gleefully streamed to the main square, at 2am in the morning. Rarely have I seen teeming crowds so jubilant.
Inside Google, a Debate Rages: Should It Sell Artificial Intelligence to the Military?
Mark Bergen
Last July, 13 U.S. military commanders and technology executives met at the Pentagon's Silicon Valley outpost, two miles from Google headquarters. It was the second meeting of an advisory board set up in 2016 to counsel the military on ways to apply technology to the battlefield. Milo Medin, a Google vice president, turned the conversation to using artificial intelligence in war games. Eric Schmidt, Google’s former boss, proposed using that tactic to map out strategies for standoffs with China over the next 20 years. A few months later, the Defense Department hired Google’s cloud division to work on Project Maven, a sweeping effort to enhance its surveillance drones with technology that helps machines think and see.
Will the future of work be a utopia or a dystopia?
Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics will have a dramatic impact on the future of work. Already, today’s most valuable technology companies employ about one-fifth as many workers as the most valuable companies in the 1960s. Estimates of workforce displacement due to automation range from the OECD’s 14 percent of current jobs to the European think tank Bruegel’s 54 percent. Automation will disproportionately affect low-skill workers that are least able to adapt to these changes. On May 14, Center for Technology Innovation Founding Director Darrell West unpacked these trends in a presentation and a panel discussion held at Brookings based on his new book “The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation.”
Here’s how a defense committee wants to better understand the future battlefield
By: Mark Pomerleau
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Let’s Temper the Rhetoric About Civil-Military Relations
Charlie Dunlap
As readers of Duke University’s Lawfire know, I am a fan of Major Matt Cavanaugh, but I disagree with much (but not all) of his recent post, “Losing Our Profession: The Dire Consequences of a More Partisan Military .” Allow me to share a less “dire” perspective as someone who served three and half decades in the military through multiple administrations, and who has studied civil-military relations since authoring a rather well-known essay, The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 .
Matt’s concern seems to be this:
18 May 2018
India’s Russia conundrum: a question of balance
By TENZIN TOPDEN
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia for an informal summit with President Vladimir Putin in on May 21. This previously unannounced visit follows Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s visit to Moscow in April to finalize the procurement of five S-400 Triumf air defense systems, a deal that may very well breach US sanctions against Russia. Against this backdrop, India is playing a careful game balancing these two powers. But with India pivoting toward the US and Russia warming up to Pakistan and China, the long-standing India-Russia relationship must be viewed through a new strategic framework that reflects changing geopolitical realities.
To understand India’s delicate balancing act between the US and Russia, we have to ask a simple question: What do these countries want from each other?
PAKISTAN’S NAVAL NUCLEAR AMBITIONS: CONCERNS AND CHALLENGES
by Sylvia Mishra
On March 29, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed in a press releasethat Pakistan had conducted another test of the Babur-3 nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM), after the first test in January last year. The missile, with a range of 450 km, engaged its target with “precise accuracy” and was successful in “meeting all the flight parameters.” While the yield of the Babur-3 warhead is unknown, analysts estimate from the 47 seconds of flight-testing footage shared by Pakistan’s defense establishment that the SLCM was fired underwater horizontally from torpedo tubes.

Cascades of Violence Across South Asia
By John Braithwaite and Bina D’Costa

The Strategy Behind China's Diplomatic Offensive in Latin America
BY JORGE HEINE AND ANDERS BEAL

America’s Collision Course With China
KISHORE MAHBUBANI
In the future, historians will lament that America’s long-term policy toward China was not a result of calm calculation. Instead, they are likely to focus on how America’s political polarization and simplistic ideology – shared by many who should know better – drove it into a highly damaging and utterly pointless conflict. The world’s most important bilateral relationship – between the United States and China – is also one of its most inscrutable. Bedeviled by paradoxes, misperceptions, and mistrust, it is a relationship that has become a source of considerable uncertainty and, potentially, severe instability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the brewing bilateral trade war.
ZTE Redux
Let’s put any potential ZTE deal in perspective. More than a year ago, ZTE was caught selling telecommunications equipment to Iran that included U.S. parts, thus violating sanctions. ZTE pled guilty in November 2017, paid a $900 million fine, punished the responsible executives, and—this was unwise—agreed that if it was later caught violating the terms of the settlement, it would be cut off from all U.S. technology. This last condition was certainly not in ZTE’s interest and probably not good for the United States either.
CHINA’S MARITIME QUEST IN THE INDIAN OCEAN: NEW DELHI’S OPTIONS
by Tuneer Mukherjee

Debate | The China Model
China’s rise is both unambiguous and unstoppable, whether the West likes it or not. Refusing to acknowledge reality will only generate more tension – and more risk, because failing to accommodate China will destabilize the rules-based order on which the world has come to rely. BEIJING – The global balance of power is shifting. As the United States retreats from global leadership, China is expanding its international influence. Now, many in the West fear a China-led attempt to overhaul the rules and norms that underpin the existing world order. Are they right to be afraid? The reemergence of China as a major regional and even world power certainly poses profound challenges to the US-led international order that was created after World War II. But Chinese leaders’ goal is not explicitly to upend that order, which did, after all, prove flexible enough to enable the impoverished China of the 1970s to become what it is today. Instead, the goal is to ensure that the existing order can adequately accommodate the interests and objectives of both China and the US.
The Gift that Keeps on Giving – to China
KENT HARRINGTON

Ramadan in 2018, a Threat Lens Perspective

Counter terrorism Spending: Protecting America while Promoting Efficiencies and Accountability

Views on Islam in Times of Terrorism
By Darius Farman and Enzo Nussio

Threat Report 2018: Al-Qaida Patiently Rebuilding

Trump’s New, Confrontational Foreign Policy and the End of the Iran Deal
By Robin Wright
On January 20, 1981, John Limbert and fifty-one other American diplomats were taken to Tehran’s international airport on a bus, after being held in captivity by young revolutionaries for four hundred and forty-four days. The diplomats were all blindfolded. “Listening to the motors of the plane warming up—that was the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard,” Limbert recalled last week. The Air Algérie crew waited to uncork the champagne until the flight had left Iranian airspace. The next day, however, the Timescautioned, “When the celebrations have ended, the hard problems unresolved with Iran will remain to be faced.” That’s still true, nearly four decades later. Since Iran’s 1979 revolution, six U.S. Presidents have traded arms, built back channels, and dispatched secret envoys in an effort to heal the rupture. “It’s a bad divorce, like ‘The War of the Roses,’ ” Vali Nasr, the Iranian-born dean of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said. “Neither side has ever gotten over it.” Finally, in 2015, Barack Obama led six major world powers into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the most significant nonproliferation pact in more than a quarter century. The deal limited but did not eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for relief from some but not all punitive U.S. economic sanctions.
Threat Report 2018: North Korea’s Nuclear Doctrine

Assessing the Health of the Defense Industrial Base
This week, the Department of Defense is scheduled to send the White House a long-awaited comprehensive interagency assessment on the health of the defense industrial base, identifying areas where efforts must be taken to strengthen domestic manufacturing capabilities and highlighting materials on which the U.S. is dependent upon China. Responding to an Executive Order issued by President Trump last summer, the report promises to shake up the way DoD has managed supply chain vulnerabilities for the past decade.
Independence-Minded Catalonia Will Tread a More Cautious Path

The Next Israeli War
By Jacob Shapiro

Speech by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Cyber Defence Pledge Conference (Ecole militaire, Paris)
Minister Parly,
Ambassadors,
May I start by thanking France for hosting us today. France is a strong NATO Ally, contributing to our shared security and our collective defence in many different ways. You have high end capabilities. You have professional, dedicated forces. You have the resolve and the will to deploy them when needed. And also in cyber space we see France leading the way. And just the fact that France is organising this conference. The first annual conference on the Cyber Defence Pledge. Shows France’s strong commitment to our collective defence and also to the efforts to strengthening our cyber defences. And to implement the Cyber Defence Pledge.
Blockchain Will Help ‘Drive This Next Industrial Revolution,’ Wall Street Bull Predicts; One Of 5 Key Technologies, Along With Automation, Artificial Intelligence, The Internet-Of-Things, And Robotics; And, It Has Enormous Implications For Warfare, & Espionage
Digital currency and Bitcoin may get sucking out most of the oxygen in the room; but, it is the blockchain technology that is going to fundamentally change the economic, and perhaps military landscape when all is said and done. “At this point, blockchain may still be l considered an emerging technology,” Stephanie Landsman wrote on CNBC’s webisite, May, 13, 2018; “but, Federated Investors Portfolio Manager, Steve Chiavarone, is folding the electronic system, which records crypto-currency transactions into his stock market forecasts,” she noted.
COMPASS: a new AI-driven situational awareness tool for the Pentagon?
by Heather M. Roff
In late March, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a proposers day for one of its new projects: Collection and Monitoring via Planning for Active Situational Scenarios (COMPASS). The new project’s goals are to increase a commander’s “situational awareness and reduce the ambiguity of actors and objectives in gray-zone environments”—where a “gray zone” is characterized as “limited conflict, sitting between ‘normal’ competition between states and what is traditionally thought of as war.”
Hey, Big Tech, Don’t Abandon Uncle Sam’s Cyber Warriors
BY MICHAEL STEEDFOUNDER

“The Damn Thing Melted”: Arctic Security in the Blue-Water Era
By Steve Tebbe

The Persistent Importance of an Old Cold War Concept
by Nicholas McCarty

RIP the Trans-Atlantic Alliance, 1945-2018
BY JAMES TRAUB

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