The Quote of the Decade:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America 's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006
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As some know I am an avid reader of The Naval War College Quarterly having attended several courses there over the years.
Consequently, I brought to your attention, several years ago, to China's move to expand their fleet as well as new missile designs which will threaten our own ships thus keeping them at a further distance.
I have pointed out innumerable times that when a nation expands its commercial interests it is only a matter of time before the military can argue they need an expanded fleet to protect the nation's various interests.
Today's article appeared confirms what I have been writing and has serious implications for the future. (See 1 below.)
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Welcome to 2012 and pray for the Coptic's. Another tragedy and the Christian world remains mute - how sad. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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One of these days I might turn out to be right as the prospects of a confrontation between Iran and the U.S.and Israel keep edging closer and closer. (See 3 and 3a below)
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The State Department guessed wrong again. What's new? (See 4 below.)
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My friend, who lamented recent California legislation, is supported by this article. Progressives never learn. They think with their heart and cannot add. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)China Takes Aim at U.S. Naval Might
By JULIAN E. BARNES in Washington, NATHAN HODGE in Newport News, Va., and JEREMY PAGE in Beijing
The USS Gerald R. Ford was supposed to help secure another half century of American naval supremacy. The hulking aircraft carrier taking shape in a dry dock in Newport News, Va., is designed to carry a crew of 4,660 and a formidable arsenal of aircraft and weapons.
But an unforeseen problem cropped up between blueprint and expected delivery in 2015: China is building a new class of ballistic missiles designed to arc through the stratosphere and explode onto the deck of a U.S. carrier, killing sailors and crippling its flight deck.
Since 1945, the U.S. has ruled the waters of the western Pacific, thanks in large part to a fleet of 97,000-ton carriers—each one "4.5 acres of mobile, sovereign U.S. territory," as the Navy puts it. For nearly all of those years, China had little choice but to watch American vessels ply the waters off its coast with impunity.
Now China is engaged in a major military buildup. Part of its plan is to force U.S. carriers to stay farther away from its shores, Chinese military analysts say. So the U.S. is adjusting its own game plan. Without either nation saying so, both are quietly engaged in a tit-for-tat military-technology race. At stake is the balance of power in a corner of the seas that its growing rapidly in importance.
Pentagon officials are reluctant to talk publicly about potential conflict with China. Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Beijing isn't an explicit enemy. During a visit to China last month, Michele Flournoy, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told a top general in the People's Liberation Army that "the U.S. does not seek to contain China," and that "we do not view China as an adversary," she recalled in a later briefing.
Nevertheless, U.S. military officials often talk about preparing for a conflict in the Pacific—without mentioning who they might be fighting. The situation resembles a Harry Potter novel in which the characters refuse to utter the name of their adversary, says Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think tank with close ties to the Pentagon. "You can't say China's a threat," he says. "You can't say China's a competitor."
China's state media has said its new missile, called the DF-21D, was built to strike a moving ship up to about 1,700 miles away. U.S. defense analysts say the missile is designed to come in at an angle too high for U.S. defenses against sea-skimming cruise missiles and too low for defenses against other ballistic missiles.
Even if U.S. systems were able to shoot down one or two, some experts say, China could overwhelm the defenses by targeting a carrier with several missiles at the same time.
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As such, the new missile—China says it isn't currently deployed—could push U.S. carriers farther from Chinese shores, making it more difficult for American fighter jets to penetrate its airspace or to establish air superiority in a conflict near China's borders.
In response, the Navy is developing pilotless, long-range drone aircraft that could take off from aircraft carriers far out at sea and remain aloft longer than a human pilot could do safely. In addition, the Air Force wants a fleet of pilotless bombers capable of cruising over vast stretches of the Pacific.
The gamesmanship extends into cyberspace. U.S. officials worry that, in the event of a conflict, China would try to attack the satellite networks that control drones, as well as military networks within the U.S. The outcome of any conflict, they believe, could turn in part on who can jam the other's electronics or hack their computer networks more quickly and effectively.
Throughout history, control of the seas has been a prerequisite for any country that wants to be considered a world power. China's military buildup has included a significant naval expansion. China now has 29 submarines armed with antiship cruise missiles, compared with just eight in 2002, according to Rand Corp., another think tank with ties to the military. In August, China conducted a sea trial of its first aircraft carrier—a vessel that isn't yet fully operational.
At one time, military planners saw Taiwan as the main point of potential friction between China and the U.S. Today, there are more possible flash points. Tensions have grown between Japan and China over islands each nation claims in the East China Sea. Large quantities of oil and gas are believed to lie under the South China Sea, and China, Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations have been asserting conflicting territorial claims on it. Last year, Vietnam claimed China had harassed one of its research vessels, and China demanded that Vietnam halt oil-exploration activities in disputed waters.
A few years ago, the U.S. military might have responded to any flare-up by sending one or more of its 11 aircraft carriers to calm allies and deter Beijing. Now, the People's Liberation Army, in additional to the missiles it has under development, has submarines capable of attacking the most visible instrument of U.S. military power.
"This is a rapidly emerging development," says Eric Heginbotham, who specializes in East Asian security at Rand. "As late as 1995 or 2000, the threat to carriers was really minimal. Now, it is fairly significant. There is a whole complex of new threats emerging."
Beijing's interest in developing anticarrier missiles is believed to date to the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996. The Chinese government, hoping to dissuade voters in Taiwan from re-electing a president considered pro-independence, conducted a series of missile tests, firing weapons into the waters off the island. President Bill Clinton sent two carrier battle groups, signaling that Washington was ready to defend Taiwan—a strategic setback for China.
The Chinese military embarked on a military modernization effort designed to blunt U.S. power in the Pacific by developing what U.S. military strategists dubbed "anti-access, area denial" technologies.
"Warfare is about anti-access," said Adm. Gary Roughead, the recently retired U.S. chief of naval operations, last year. "You could go back and look at the Pacific campaigns in World War II, [when] the Japanese were trying to deny us access into the western Pacific."
In 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao unveiled a new military doctrine calling for the armed forces to undertake "new historic missions" to safeguard China's "national interests." Chinese military officers and experts said those interests included securing international shipping lanes and access to foreign oil and safeguarding Chinese citizens working overseas.
At first, China's buildup was slow. Then some headline-grabbing advances set off alarms in Washington. In a 2007 test, China shot down one of its older weather satellites, demonstrating its ability to potentially destroy U.S. military satellites that enable warships and aircraft to communicate and to target bases on the Chinese mainland.
The Pentagon responded with a largely classified effort to protect U.S. satellites from weapons such as missiles or lasers. A year after China's antisatellite test, the U.S. demonstrated its own capabilities by blowing up a dead spy satellite with a modified ballistic-missile interceptor.
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Last year, the arms race accelerated. In January, just hours before then U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sat down with Chinese President Hu to mend frayed relations, China conducted the first test flight of a new, radar-evading fighter jet. The plane, called the J-20, might allow China to launch air attacks much farther afield—possibly as far as U.S. military bases in Japan and Guam.
The aircraft carrier China launched in August was built from a hull bought from Ukraine. The Pentagon expects China to begin working on its own version, which could become operational after 2015—not long after the USS Gerald R. Ford enters service.
American military planners are even more worried about the modernization of China's submarine fleet. The newer vessels can stay submerged longer and operate more quietly than China's earlier versions. In 2006, a Chinese sub appeared in the midst of a group of American ships, undetected until it rose to the surface.
Sizing up China's electronic-warfare capabilities is more difficult. China has invested heavily in cybertechnologies, and U.S. defense officials have said Chinese hackers, potentially working with some state support, have attacked American defense networks. China has repeatedly denied any state involvement.
China's technological advances have been accompanied by a shift in rhetoric by parts of its military. Hawkish Chinese military officers and analysts have long accused the U.S. of trying to contain China within the "first island chain" that includes Japan and the Philippines, both of which have mutual defense treaties with the U.S., and Taiwan, which the U.S. is bound by law to help defend. They now talk about pushing the U.S. back as far as Hawaii and enabling China's navy to operate freely in the western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and beyond.
"The U.S. has four major allies within the first island chain, and is trying to starve the Chinese dragon into a Chinese worm," Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, one of China's most outspoken military commentators, told a conference in September.
China's beefed up military still is a long way from having the muscle to defeat the U.S. Navy head-to-head. For now, U.S. officials say, the Chinese strategy is to delay the arrival of U.S. military forces long enough to take control of contested islands or waters.
Publicly, Pentagon leaders such as Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said the U.S. would like to cultivate closer military-to-military ties with China.
Privately, China has been the focus of planning. In 2008, the U.S. military held a series of war games, called Pacific Vision, which tested its ability to counter a "near-peer competitor" in the Pacific. That phrase is widely understood within the military to be shorthand for China.
"My whole impetus was to look at the whole western Pacific," says retired Air Force Gen. Carrol "Howie" Chandler, who helped conduct the war games. "And it was no secret that the Chinese were making investments to overcome our advantages in the Pacific."
Those games tested the ability of the U.S. to exercise air power in the region, both from land bases and from aircraft carriers. People familiar with the exercises say they informed strategic thinking about potential conflict with China. A formal game plan, called AirSea Battle, now is in the works to develop better ways to fight in the Pacific and to counter China's new weapons, Pentagon officials say.
The Navy is developing new weapons for its aircraft carriers and new aircraft to fly off them. On the new Ford carrier, the catapult that launches jets off the deck will be electromagnetic, not steam-powered, allowing for quicker takeoffs.
The carrier-capable drones under development, which will allow U.S. carriers to be effective when farther offshore, are considered a breakthrough. Rear Adm. William Shannon, who heads the Navy's office for unmanned aircraft and strike weapons, compared the drone's debut flight last year to a pioneering flight by Eugene Ely, who made the first successful landing on a naval vessel in 1911. "I look at this demonstration flight…as ushering us into the second 100 years of naval aviation," he said.
The Air Force wants a longer-range bomber for use over the Pacific. Navy and Air Force fighter jets have relatively short ranges. Without midair refueling, today's carrier planes have an effective range of about 575 miles.
China's subs, fighter planes and guided missiles will likely force carriers to stay farther than that from its coast, U.S. military strategists say.
"The ability to operate from long distances will be fundamental to our future strategy in the Pacific," says Andrew Hoehn, a vice president at Rand. "You have to have a long-range bomber. In terms of Air Force priorities, I cannot think of a larger one."
The U.S. also is considering new land bases to disperse its forces throughout the region. President Barack Obama recently announced the U.S. would use new bases in Australia, including a major port in Darwin. Many of the bases aren't expected to have a permanent American presence, but in the event of a conflict, the U.S. would be able to base aircraft there.
In light of China's military advances and shrinking U.S. defense budgets, some U.S. military officers have begun wondering whether the time has come to rethink the nation's strategic reliance on aircraft carriers like the USS Ford. A successful attack on a carrier could jeopardize the lives of as many as 5,000 sailors—more than all the troops killed in action in Iraq.
"The Gerald R. Ford is just the first of her class," wrote Navy Captain Henry Hendrix and retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Noel Williams in an article in the naval journal Proceedings last year. "She should also be the last."
Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com and Nathan Hodge at Nathan.Hodge@wsj.com and Julian E. Barnes at Julian.Barnes@wsj.com
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2)THE YEAR WE LOST AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ,EGYPT, TURKEY, TUNISIA AND MOST
OF THE MIDDLE EAST
By Daniel Greenfield
About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren’t the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar, but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate.
The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking to carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia’s elections, Turkey’s Islamist AKP Party purged the last bastions of the secular opposition and Libya’s future as an Islamist state was secured by American, British and French jets and special forces.
Time Magazine declared that 2011 was the Year of the Protester; they might have more honestly called it the Year of the Islamist. In 2010 the Taliban were still hiding in caves. In 2012 they are set to be in power from Tunisia to Afghanistan and from Egypt to Yemen. They won’t go by that name of course. Most of them will have elaborate names with the words “Justice” or “Community” in them, but they will for the most part be minor variations on the Muslim Brotherhood theme.…
This was the year that Obama helped topple several regimes that served as the obstacles to
Islamist takeovers. The biggest fish that Ibn Hussein speared out of the sea for Al-Qaradawi was Egypt, a prize that the Islamists had wanted for the longest time, but had never managed to catch. That is until the Caliph-in-Chief got it for them. Egyptian Democracy splits the take between the Brotherhood and the Salafists, whom the media is already quick to describe as moderates. First up against the wall are the Christians. Second up against the wall are the Jews. Third up is all that military equipment we provided to the Egyptian military which will shortly be finding its way to various “moderate militants” who want to discuss our foreign policy with us.
But there’s no reason to sell the fall of Tunisia short or the transition in Yemen. And when mob protests didn’t work, NATO sent in the jets to pound Libya until Al-Qaeda got its way there. Turkey’s fate had been written some time ago, but 2011 was the year that the AKP completed its death grip on the country with a final crackdown on the military, which has now ceased to be a force for stability.…
The Islamists [now have] a nice chunk of North Africa to chew over, not to mention a few more slices of the Middle-Eastern pie, and Afghanistan will be back in their hands as soon as they manage to outmaneuver Karzai, which given his paranoia and cunning may admittedly take a while. But the Taliban are not big on maneuvers, they have the manpower, which means it’s only a matter of time until they do what the Mujaheddin did to the puppet Soviet regime. A history that everyone in the region is quite familiar with.
The ugliest part of this story isn’t what Obama did. It’s when he did it. If he really had no interest in winning Afghanistan, and if as he had said, the Taliban are not our enemy, then why did we stay for so long and lose so many lives fighting a war that the White House had no intention of winning? The ugly conclusion that must be drawn from the timing of the Iraq and Afghanistan withdrawals is that the wars were being played out to draw down around the time of the next election.…
But whatever motives we may attribute to the Obama Administration the outcome of its policies in backing the Arab Spring with influence, training and even weapons is indisputable. What Carter did to Persia, Obama has done to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and that’s not the whole of the list. Iraq will likely fall to Iran in a bloody civil war.…
Once the Islamists firmly take power across North Africa they will begin squeezing the last states that have still not fallen. Last month the leader of the Enhada Islamists who have taken power in Tunisia stopped by Algeria. Morocco has not yet come down, but at this rate it’s only a matter of time.… The Muslim Brotherhood is in a successor position [in Syria] and would welcome our intervention against the Assad regime. The Assads are no prize and they’re Iranian puppets, but shoving them out would give the Brotherhood yet another country and its sizable collection of weaponry.
All that is bound to make 2012 an ugly year in its own right, especially if the Obama Administration continues allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to control its foreign policy. For all that Time and other mainstream media outlets continue splashing the same protest pornography photos on every page, the region has become an indisputably worse place this year with the majority of moderate governments overthrown and replaced, or in the process of being replaced by Islamist thugs.
Carter can breathe a sigh of relief. In one year the Obama Administration has done far more damage than [Carter] did in his entire term.… Things have gotten so bad that we can safely say that Obama on a good day is worse than Jimmy Carter on a bad day.…
2011 was the year we lost Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and many others, but it should not be the year that we lose hope. For all that the bad guys have been gaining and domestic prospects don’t look good, the bad guys have a way of destroying themselves. Give evil its head and it will kill millions, but it will also self-destruct in a spectacular way. Even when it seems as if we have run out of productive things to do, it is instructive to remember that there is a Higher Power in the destinies of men and that the aspirations of evil men to play at being g-ds eventually leads them to complete and utter ruin through their own arrogance.…
WELCOME TO 2012--FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS
By Ross Kaminsky
2011 was a year of worldwide turmoil and great change. I expect--and to a certain degree fear--that last year was the warm-up act to 2012 which, both internationally and domestically, seems likely to be one of the most consequential years in recent history.
Imagine a boulder which had been sitting atop a mountain for longer than anyone can remember suddenly being pushed off. That was 2011. Imagine the unpredictable turns, bounces, and destruction the boulder will cause as it hurtles down the mountainside toward its next, if not final, stopping point. That is 2012.
On the global scene, some of 2011’s most significant events pose very different short- and long-term results. For example, the Arab Spring initially appeared to be a move toward freedom in an historically repressive part of the world but is now drifting toward other forms of tyranny. The Middle East remains likely to be the biggest source of turmoil in the coming year.
Egypt’s long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak was removed in what was essentially a military coup given cover by both real and fake pro-democracy demonstrators. (By fake, I mean supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic groups whose goal is not democracy but rather immediate governance under Sharia law, followed by a continued regional push for a caliphate.)
It’s not just Egypt where 2012 has the potential to be more significant and more bloody than 2011. Yemen, where al Qaeda has infiltrated…will be heading into a critical situation with their dictator of three decades, President Saleh, playing cat and mouse with his intentions to give up power while those who surround him work to make sure that they, rather than Islamists or democrats, fill the vacuum.
Libya, which is mostly off the news pages these days, is now seeing efforts by al Qaeda to recruit terrorist fighters. Libya’s new government is probably strong enough to fend off the extremists, but nothing should be taken for granted except that people, including innocents, will die before the answer is truly known.
Libya’s place in the news has been replaced by Syria, where Bashar al-Assad…is following in his father’s footsteps, ruthlessly killing civilians to protect his family’s and tribe’s power. The Assad family are Alawites, a Shi’ite sect of Islam which makes up about 12 percent of Syria’s population of about 22 million, versus the three quarters of Syrians who are Sunni. In other words, Assad and his co-religionists recognize that if they lose power, they’re likely to face intense reprisals from a large national majority for their years of tyranny. Assad will have help from Shi’ite Iran which wants to support the current regime both to assist in the mullahs’ power projection into Lebanon and to maintain access to a major direct path into Israel. This, along with the fact that Syria’s geography and western politics make NATO or other intervention unlikely, means that Assad will hold on longer and kill more people than Libya’s Gaddafi did in his final months. The question will certainly be raised “If Libya was worth western involvement, then why not Syria?”
But the biggest problem in the Middle East will be Iran which…is rapidly progressing toward the development of a nuclear weapon. In recent days, Iran has said they are ready to resume six-party nuclear talks while insisting that their nuclear ambitions are peaceful. The West may agree to these talks for two main reasons: France, Germany, and Russia make a lot of money trading with Iran. And Barack Obama along with Baroness Catherine Ashton…will delude themselves into thinking that Iran is interested in honest discussion.
These people never learn. But Israel does. And one thing Jews have learned is that when the leader of a country says he wants to eliminate us,believe him--he really does want to. Rumors have swirled for months of Israel’s considering a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. This is certainly part of the reason for Iran’s most recent pretending that they’re interested in multilateral talks.
The Iranians learn as well, and they remember 1981 when the American embassy hostages were released after 444 days in captivity at the very moment that Ronald Reagan took his first presidential oath of office. The Iranians were not afraid of the weak and anti-Israel Jimmy Carter and felt free rein to act while Carter was president. They feel the same way about Barack Obama. And why shouldn’t they? This is a man whose first major foreign policy speech as president was given in Cairo and offered little more than reverence for Islam couched in an apology for the United States. This is a man who pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq, leaving the Iranian mullahs laughing in delight at how the Great Satan could spend so many lives and so many hundreds of billions of dollars just to clear the way for Iranian regional hegemony. Iran knows that Barack Obama stands a real chance of, like Carter, being a one-term president and they are working as fast as they can to reach their multiple nefarious goals in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and their own nuclear weapons program.…
2012 promises to bring the most important election in recent American history.… It is difficult to imagine that people (other than members of public sector unions) will look at their ballots this November, see the name Barack Obama, and say “sure, let’s do that again.” But difficult and impossible are not the same thing, especially with Obama and unions aiming to spend a billion dollars on his reelection.…
President Obama can’t and won’t run on his record. Instead, he’ll have a two-pronged approach: First, he’ll try to divide the nation along economic lines, the “millionaires and billionaires” or “the 1 percent” against the rest of us. Second, he’ll argue “it would have been worse.” But the first of these approaches is fundamentally against the nature of American thinking. And the second of these approaches cannot withstand the exact same question Ronald Reagan asked in 1980 when running against Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?…”
THE SPECTRE OF 1932: HOW A LOSS OF FAITH IN POLITICIANS AND DEMOCRACY
COULD MAKE 2012 THE MOST
FRIGHTENING YEAR IN LIVING MEMORY
By Dominic Sandbrook
The dawn of a new year is usually a time of hope and ambition, of dreams for the future and thoughts of a better life. But it is a long time since many of us looked forward to the new year with such anxiety, even dread.…
In the Middle East, the excitement of the Arab Spring has long since curdled into sectarian tension and fears of Islamic fundamentalism.… Meanwhile, as the eurozone slides towards disaster, the prospects for Europe have rarely been bleaker. Already the European elite have installed compliant technocratic governments in Greece and Italy, and with the markets now putting pressure on France, few observers can be optimistic that the Continent can avoid a total meltdown.
As commentators often remark, the world picture has not been grimmer since the dark days of the mid-Seventies, when the OPEC oil shock, the rise of stagflation and the surge of nationalist terrorism cast a heavy shadow over the Western world. For the most chilling parallel, though, we should look back exactly 80 years, to the cold wintry days when 1931 gave way to 1932. Then as now, few people saw much to mourn in the passing of the old year.
It was in 1931 that the Great Depression really took hold in Europe, bringing governments to their knees and plunging tens of millions of people out of work.… Eighty years ago, the world was struggling to come to terms with an entirely new financial landscape. In August 1931, the system by which currencies were pegged to the value of gold had fallen apart, with market pressure forcing Britain to pull the pound off the gold standard. Almost overnight, the system that was supposed to ensure global economic stability was gone.…
Today’s situation, of course, is even more frightening. Our equivalent of the gold standard--the misguided folly of the euro--is poised on the brink of disaster, yet the European elite refuse to let poorer Mediterranean nations like Greece and Portugal leave the eurozone, devalue their new currencies and start again. Should the eurozone collapse, as seems perfectly likely given Greece’s soaring debts, Spain’s record unemployment, Italy’s non-existent growth and the growing market pressure on France’s ailing economy, then the consequences would be much worse than when Britain left the gold standard.
The shockwaves across Europe--which could come as early as next spring--would see banks tottering, businesses crashing and millions thrown out of work.… And as the experience of 80 years ago suggests, the political and social ramifications would be too terrible to contemplate. For in many ways, the 12 months between the end of 1931 and the beginning of 1933 were the tipping point between democracy and tyranny, the moment when the world plunged from an uneasy peace towards hatred and bloodshed.
In the East, new powers were already on the rise. At the end of 1931, Imperial Japan had already launched a staggeringly brutal invasion of China.… In the Soviet Union in 1932, meanwhile, Stalin’s reign of terror was intensifying. With dissent crushed by the all-powerful Communist Party, his state-sponsored collectivization of the Ukranian farms saw a staggering 6 million die in one of the worst famines in history.…
By comparison, Europe’s democratic leaders look woolly and vacillating, just as they did back in 1932. However, for the democratic West, this was a truly terrible year. Democracy itself seemed to be under siege. In France, President Paul Doumer was murdered by an assassin. In Portugal, the authoritarian, ultra-Catholic dictator Antonio Salazar launched a campaign of terror that would last into the Seventies. And in Italy, the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini strengthened his grip, consolidating Italian power in the looted colonies of Albania and Libya.
Eighty years on, we have no room for complacency. Although the far Right remains no more than a thuggish and eccentric minority, the elected prime ministers of Greece and Italy have already been booted out to make way for EU-approved technocrats for whom nobody has ever voted. In the new Europe, the will of the people seems to play second fiddle to the demands of Paris and Berlin. If the eurozone crisis intensifies, then it is no idle fantasy to imagine that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and their Brussels allies will demand an even greater centralisation of powers, provoking nationalist outrage on the streets of Europe’s capitals.
Sadly, there seems little point in looking across the Atlantic for inspiration. In 1932, President Herbert Hoover, beleaguered by rising unemployment and tumbling ratings, flailed and floundered towards election defeat. Today, Barack Obama cuts a similarly impotent, indecisive and isolationist figure.…
Above all, though, the eyes of the world back in 1932 were fixed on Germany. As the Weimar Republic staggered towards oblivion, an obscure Austrian painter was setting his sights on supreme power. With rising unemployment eating away at the bonds of democratic civility, the National Socialist Party was within touching distance of government. And in the last days of 1932, after the technocrats and generals had failed to restore order, President Paul von Hindenburg began to contemplate the unthinkable--the prospect of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.
We all know what happened next. Indeed, by the end of 1932 the world was about to slide towards a new dark age, an age of barbarism and bloodshed on a scale that history had never known. Eighty years on, it would be easy to sit back and reassure ourselves that the worst could never happen again. But that, of course, was what people told each other in 1932, too. The lesson of history is that tough times often reward the desperate and dangerous, from angry demagogues to anarchists and nationalists, from seething mobs to expansionist empires.
Our world is poised on the edge of perhaps the most important 12 months for more than half a century. If our leaders provide the right leadership, then we may, perhaps, muddle through towards slow growth and gradual recovery. But if the European elite continue to inflict needless hardship on their people; if the markets continue to erode faith in the euro; and if Western politicians waste their time in petty bickering, then we could easily slip further towards discontent and disaster.
The experience of 1932 provides a desperately valuable lesson. As a result of the decisions taken in those 12 short months, millions of people later lost their lives. Today, on the brink of a new year that could well prove the most frightening in living memory, we can only pray that our history takes a very different path.
2a) Islamist terror group giving Christians living in north Nigeria days to flee
By Scott Baldauf
Nigeria has sent government troops to the country's troubled northern areas, where a radical Islamist group has launched a string of attacks on Christians, most recently a Christmas Day church bombing in the capital of Abuja that killed 43 people.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the north, and sent two brigades of soldiers to towns that have been targeted by Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is a sin."
Abdul Qaqa, who claims to speak for Boko Haram, gave Christians in the north three days to leave, and urged Muslims living in the south to move up north. Nigeria's north is predominantly Muslim, while the south is mostly Christian.
"We find it pertinent to state that soldiers will only kill innocent Muslims in the local government areas where the state of emergency was declared. We would confront them squarely to protect our brothers. We also wish to call on our fellow Muslims to come back to the North because we have evidence that they would be attacked. We are also giving a three-day ultimatum to the Southerners living in the Northern part of Nigeria to move away," Abdul Qaqa was quoted as saying by the Nigerian newspaper This Day.
Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, Al Shabab in Somalia, and a scattering of groups throughout the Arabian Peninsula and the African Sahel region who call themselves Al Qaeda, Boko Haram claims that it wants to create a society totally adherent to the way Islamic society operated at the time of the prophet Mohammed.
Many Islamic scholars point out that the hardline interpretation Boko Haram is seeking to impose has more to do with the radical ideas of Boko Haram than it does with actual Islamic history. Public opinion surveys indicate that such radical groups represent a tiny percentage of current thinking among modern Muslims. But as the 9/11 attacks, and subsequent attacks in London, Madrid, Moscow, and across the Middle East show, small militant groups can punch above their weight, using violence and intimidation to achieve what they can't achieve on the political stage or the battlefield.
Nigeria's deployment of troops to the north shows that it takes the Boko Haram threat seriously, although Nigerian military spokesmen dismissed Boko Haram's rhetoric. Human rights activists warned that the state of emergency could be a cover for the Nigerian military to commit abuses against Muslims, whether there is evidence to connect them to Boko Haram or not.
Jibrin Ibrahim of the Center for Democracy and Development's Abuja office told Nigerian newspaper The Vanguard, "They've already been committing abuses. It will just legalize it, in a sense."
Because of groups like Boko Haram and the shadowy North Africa-based Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a number of African governments in the semi-arid Sahel region - a vast region just south of the Sahara that stretches from Senegal to Somalia - are turning to US military trainers for assistance. Security experts warn that tumult from the Arab uprisings in North Africa has only fed these Islamist insurgencies with weapons and fighters, although Boko Haram's transition from a tiny local group to an international terror threat occurred more than a year ago, when it detonated suicide bombs in Abuja on Nigeria's independence day.
David Francis, who reported for the Christian Science Monitor last fall during a fellowship with the International Reporting Project, wrote that Boko Haram's tactics could provoke a wider war. He also found that some Nigerians wondered if Boko Haram might not be simply fighting in order to get paid off in a general amnesty.
But is Nigeria at the brink of a religious civil war? That's not likely, writes Jean Herskovits, a history professor at the State University of New York in an op-ed for The New York Times.
Mr. Herskovits argues that news media and politicians often give groups like Boko Haram too much credit for organizational and technical ability.
"There is no proof that a well-organized, ideologically coherent terrorist group called Boko Haram even exists today. Evidence suggests instead that, while the original core of the group remains active, criminal gangs have adopted the name Boko Haram to claim responsibility for attacks when it suits them."
Boko Haram's bombast has encouraged other Nigerian militant groups, of which there are many, to add a few non-peaceful comments. In the oil-rich Niger Delta, where residents staged a short but violent rebellion of residents protesting ecological devastation, the former warlord Mujahid Dokubo-Asari has threatened to take his southern fighters up north to put Boko Haram in its place. Mr. Asari belongs to the same tribe as President Jonathan.
"For Niger Delta people to take up arms is just a minute away. It's just Good luck that is holding us back," Mr. Asari told Reuters news agency. "We have all reached the extreme. There is nothing anybody can do about it except we fight."
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3)Israeli drone over Turkish-Syrian border. Battles in Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle
Military tensions are building up on Syria's borders. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Turkish military sources reported sighting an Israeli Eitan (Heron) drone in the sky above the Turkish Hawk Brigade 14 stationed on the northern Syrian border at Kirikhan in the Hatay district of southern Turkey. The Israeli drone was said to have hovered over the encampment for four hours.
A request by local Turkish officers to fire anti-air missiles to down the Israeli Eitan went unanswered by the Turkish general staff until the drone was gone. According to the Turkish sources, two Turkish F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from the Diyarbakir 2nd Air Force Command Strike Center and stayed overhead as long as the Israeli drone was present.
This is the first time Israeli UAV's have been reported monitoring events on the Turkish-Syrian border. On Dec. 16, 21 Syrian Scud missile launchers had been stationed opposite Hatay province as a warning to Turkey, NATO and Arab forces to stay out of the Syrian uprising.
Then, on Dec. 27, our military sources reported that Qatar had organized and funded an airlift to Hatay of Libyan militia fighters under the command of former Abdelhakim Belhaj, ex-al Qaeda and commander of Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFG which seized control of Tripoli. He has established a command post in the Turkish town of Antakya (Antioch).
The Libyan and Free Syrian Army-FSA fighters are training together in Turkish military camps, the main one being the Hawk Brigade 14 over which the Israeli drone hovered. It is expected to be the main jumping off base for any foreign military intervention in Syria.
Across the border meanwhile, Syria continues its military buildup.
At the opposite end of Syria, the southern Horan province, fierce battles raged Tuesday, Jan. 4 between Syrian troops and mutineers of the 38th Mechanized Brigade, the bulk of which has gone over to the anti-Assad opposition. Both sides fighting with heavy T-72 tanks and artillery around Sida, a village in the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle, suffered dozens of casualties.
The 38th Brigade belongs to the 7th Division which is stationed on the Syrian-Israeli border which cuts through the Golan. Sounds of gunfire were clearly heard in Israel. The brigade was the largest military unit to have deserted Bashar Assad's army in the ten-month popular uprising against his regime.
3a)An accelerating covert war with Iran: Could it spiral into military action?
By Howard LaFranchi
The Stuxnet worm and other covert measures appear designed to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb. But US 'miscalculations' could raise the likelihood of a costly showdown, some experts warn
When a sophisticated American spy drone went missing a month ago and fell into the Iranian military's hands, what had been whispered speculation at the end of the Bush administration became an all-but-officially acknowledged conclusion: The United States, along with a few key allies, is involved in an accelerating covert war with Iran.
It's an example of what some are calling "21st-century warfare," given the deployment of cyberworms instead of soldiers and mysterious explosions at key military installations instead of aerial bombardment.
The overarching goal is to slow, if not reverse, Iran's apparent progress toward developing a nuclear bomb — something international diplomacy and a series of economic sanctions have not been able to accomplish. The measures also appear designed to put off the need for a military attack to stop Iran from joining the nuclear club.
The US, Israel, and Britain are thought to be involved in this unacknowledged war. While many actions go unclaimed, the intensification is occurring as the Obama administration signals a hardening stance toward Tehran.
"We've been intermittently fighting a cold war with Iran for three decades, and the covert aspect of it has increased substantially in the last few years," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "Both President Bush and President Obama seemed to calculate that covert means can be effective in delaying Iran's nuclear progress, and at a fraction of the political and economic costs of a military attack."
Tensions with Iran heightened this week, although not because of covert activity. Rather, the US is close to enacting sanctions that would target Iran's oil revenue — and Iran has responded by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a sixth of the world's oil flows. However, the US has a plan to keep the strait open, according to a New York Times report.
In recent months, tensions have also heightened with a string of mysterious and unclaimed activities in Iran. The recent drone incident was the latest of those activities.
Other incidents have included the use of computer worms to attack Iran's nuclear installations, including the Stuxnet virus that in 2010 was thought to have destroyed more than a thousand of Iran's uranium-enriching centrifuges by causing them to spin out of control. Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated, and in November explosions ripped through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' ballistic missile base near Tehran. Seventeen people were killed, including one of the IRGC's top officers in the missile development program.
In October, the Obama administration accused Iran of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, an alleged plot that some Iran analysts see as an Iranian effort to hit back. The storming of Britain's Embassy in Tehran in late November and a December explosion outside Britain's Embassy in Bahrain may be other signals of Iran's intention to respond to covert fire.
Yet if the covert activity is designed to slow Iran's nuclear progress, many doubt it will work. As damaging as Stuxnet may have been, it did not curtail Iran's enrichment activity permanently, experts say. And Iran is thought to have many more nuclear scientists and missile designers than Western intelligence services could ever eliminate.
"These programs involve dozens and hundreds of people, so taking out five or 10 is not going to do that much," says Mr. Bunn of Harvard. "If some clandestine force had taken out Gen. [Leslie] Groves in the Manhattan Project, would they have found some other hard-charging officer to lead the project and deliver the bomb? Probably."
On the other hand, covert action like assassinations can slow a regime's progress toward its aims, Bunn says — for example, by sowing doubt about who within a program may be working for "the other side."
Yet as incidents in an intensifying cold war multiply, with Iran appearing to ratchet up its response, more experts and former intelligence officers who specialize in Iran are cautioning that a spiraling tit-for-tat covert war risks becoming a hot conflict.
"I'm skeptical about any meaningful impact these kinds of actions have, except perhaps the significant effect of making the people involved more hard-line and determined than they were before," says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear proliferation expert at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Cambridge, Mass. "It's hard to see how this kind of covert activity is really going to change anything, except for the worse."
Add to the mix the rising political temperature in the US, with Republican presidential candidates trying to outdo one another on how much tougher they would be on Iran than Mr. Obama. Some Iran analysts warn of increased opportunities for "miscalculations" that could result in a potentially costly showdown.
"The kinds of covert actions we're seeing now are all double-edged swords," says Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center in Washington, "because if something goes wrong you could be in an overt war situation."
With the administration under political pressure and sounding increasingly hawkish about Iran, she adds, "The trick will now be getting to November without a war."
Some point to Israel's bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 as evidence that covert activity does not necessarily provide a means of avoiding military action — and may even make it more likely. Iraqi nuclear scientists had been targeted by unknown assailants (assumed to be Israeli operatives), but that did not prevent the airstrike. Research in the years since the attack has largely concluded that while the strike destroyed Osirak, it also prompted Saddam Hussein to push his weapons programs farther underground.
Iran might even welcome a military confrontation with the West — especially one that strikes its nuclear installations, a source of much national pride. "There is a legitimate concern that Iran may seek to provoke a military conflagration," says Mr. Sadjadpour at the Carnegie Endowment, "in order to try and mend its internal political fissures, both between political elites and between the society and the regime."
But even some Israeli military experts say that bombing Iran's nuclear installations would at best only put off its race for the bomb — and might harden its determination to build a weapon it claims it isn't developing.
As Sadjadpour says, "If Iran continues to put all of its political will and vast economic resources behind its nuclear weapons capability, or a nuclear weapon itself, we can at best delay them."
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4) The Arab Uprisings' Impact
Israeli Defense
By Efraim Inbar
Although the wave of mass protests spreading through the Arabic-speaking countries may have begun to recede, it has left a wide-ranging impact on the region. Three authoritarian regimes have collapsed, and the rest are experiencing varying degrees of duress.
This emerging political and strategic landscape has major implications for Israeli national security. Regional turmoil has effectively ruled out a major advance in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, enabled Ankara and Tehran to expand their influence, continued the decline of U.S. influence, and emboldened extremists.
A Rough Neighborhood
Though economically and militarily strong for its size, Israel is a small state with modest resources, limited diplomatic clout, and few friends in its neighborhood. As such, it cannot hope to influence its environment in the Middle East. Unable to shape the world beyond its borders, Jerusalem must be prepared to meet all security threats that could potentially emerge from the surrounding Arab-Islamic world. It, therefore, fears political unrest, which brings a degree of uncertainty to the Middle East political and strategic landscape.
The Israeli public is well aware of what can happen when sweeping domestic change engulfs its neighbors. In 1979, a pro-Western and Israel-friendly Shah was replaced by the hard-line anti-Israel theocrats of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.
Israelis are no strangers to the fact that political upheaval in the Middle East can have major strategic implications. In particular, domestic changes led to sweeping foreign policy reorientation in two important regional powers that were once Israel's allies. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran replaced a pro-Western monarchy friendly to Israel with a militant Shiite theocracy. In Turkey, once a major strategic ally of Israel, successive electoral victories by the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) since 2002 have moved this pivotal state into the anti-Israel camp.
Dangerous Outcomes for Israel
Arabic-speaking countries lag well behind the rest of the international community in civil liberties, political rights, education, gender equality, and economic productivity.[1] This deplorable state of affairs is the root cause of discontent and frustration fueling the recent wave of protests. Absent a liberal-democratic political culture, however, mass mobilization in pursuit of political change is unpredictable. Numerous outcomes are possible, few of which portend well for regional stability.
The most feared outcome is an Islamist takeover. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently warned of the danger that "Egypt will go in the direction of Iran."[2] Radical Islamists are the most powerful and well-organized opposition force in most Arab states (due in part to the protection afforded by mosques) and the most likely beneficiaries of regime change whether it comes peacefully or violently. Revolutionary regimes everywhere tend to display warlike behavior in the immediate years after taking power;[3] in the Middle East, they are almost certain to do so.
The process of democratization can also have unpredictable effects if secular, liberal political forces are weak or divided. Lebanon's 2005 Cedar Revolution, led by pro-Western political forces, ended just four years later when the government was taken over by the Shiite Islamist group Hezbollah and its allies. The Muslim Brotherhood, whose commitment to democracy is dubious at best, is the most powerful opposition force in Egypt today. Even in the event that a freely elected government comes to power, the historical record shows that states undergoing a democratic transition are more war-prone than autocratic regimes.[4]
Political turmoil can lead to the collapse or severe weakening of the state. In a failed state, the government is unable to control security over all its territory and has difficulty meeting the basic needs of the population in terms of health, education, and other social services.[5] The harbingers of such a scenario are in Libya and Yemen. As states lose their grip over their territory, and their borders become more porous, armed groups and terrorists have greater freedom of action. In addition, the enormous quantities of conventional (and non-conventional) arms typically stockpiled by autocratic regimes can fall into the wrong hands. Following the fall of Libyan leader Mu'ammar Qaddafi, Libyan SA-7 anti-air missiles and antitank rocket-propelled grenades have reportedly reached Hamas terrorists in Gaza.[6]
Since many Arab countries have ethno-sectarian minorities with strong transnational ties to foreign powers (Lebanese Shiites and Iran, for example), the eruption of civil war can readily invite external intervention. Because of their diversity, Iraq and Syria carry the greatest potential for domestic conflicts in the Middle East to escalate into regional conflagrations.
Even those Arab regimes that manage to stave off serious unrest are likely to be preoccupied in the near future parrying domestic challenges. The foreign policy decisions of weakened autocrats (none have emerged stronger from the turmoil) can be nearly as difficult to predict reliably as those of newly democratic governments. Faced with growing internal challenges, both have strong incentives to divert public attention from domestic problems by confronting Israel.
Declining U.S. Influence
As pro-U.S. Arab regimes stumble and fall, Washington's influence in the Middle East is on the decline. This is partly due to the Obama administration's deliberate "multilateral retrenchment … designed to curtail the United States' overseas commitments, restore its standing in the world, and shift burdens onto global partners"[7] and partly to its confused, contradictory, and inconsistent response to unfolding events in the Middle East. The administration was far quicker to call for the resignation of Egyptian president Husni Mubarak—a staunch U.S. ally for three decades—than that of Syrian president Bashar Assad, whose role in fomenting terrorism against the United States and its allies is rivaled only by the Iranian regime. Washington's turn against Mubarak was viewed throughout the region (approvingly or not) as a betrayal of a loyal friend.[8]
The U.S. criticism of Riyadh's military intervention in support of the Sunni ruling al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain in March 2011 raised eyebrows in Arab capitals, which viewed the emirate's Shiites as Iranian proxies.[9] Many in the region were also puzzled by the U.S. abandonment of Qaddafi, who had cooperated with the West by giving up his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2003. The lesson learned by Middle Eastern regimes—the Iranian mullahs in particular—is that it is better to hold on to WMD programs. Qaddafi's fate has become a cautionary tale for tyrants.
By contrast, the brutal suppression of the local opposition by the anti-U.S. regimes in Tehran and Damascus elicited only mild and very late expressions of criticism from the Obama administration. Washington's July 2011 decision to open a dialogue with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has further eroded its credibility as an astute political player and credible ally.
Alongside the U.S. retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration's proclivity for betraying friends and appeasing enemies, such as Syria and Iran, strengthens the perception of a weak and confused U.S. government. Israelis ask whether Washington is capable of exercising sound strategic judgment. The animosity displayed by the Obama administration toward Israeli prime minister Netanyahu reinforces a growing consensus among U.S. friends and foes alike that "Obama does not get it."
Increasing Iranian and Turkish Influence
The Arab upheavals have facilitated the expanding influence of non-Arab Iran and Turkey. The need to focus on domestic problems will likely reduce the ability of Arab states to project power beyond their borders and combat the growing Iranian and Turkish regional influence.
Both Tehran and Ankara, which are aligned with radical Islamist forces, have welcomed the Arab uprisings and have openly incited Egyptian demonstrators to topple Mubarak. An Egyptian government beleaguered with domestic problems has little energy to focus on countering Iranian and Turkish aspirations and influence. Both vie for regional hegemony and are interested in gaining popularity among the Arab states by vocally criticizing Israel. Moreover, growing influence by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt suits Tehran's and Ankara's ideological inclinations. Indeed, Egypt's interim military government quickly undertook a rapprochement with Iran.
Ankara also encourages Sunni Islamist opposition to the Alawite-dominated Assad regime in Syria,[10] Tehran's main ally. The instability in Syria has renewed to some extent the historic Turkish-Persian rivalry, signaling once more the dilution of Arab power and decreased Western influence. Syria could potentially become a battleground for Turkish and Iranian proxies.
The End of the "Oslo Process"
Diminished U.S. influence in the region does not bode well for prospects of a diplomatic breakthrough between the Jewish state and its neighbors, who have only grudgingly come to accept Israel as a fait accompli that cannot be eradicated by force. Washington has historically played an important role in bringing Arab actors to the negotiating table, narrowing differences during negotiations, and reducing Israeli anxieties in taking risks for peace.
However, the Obama administration is demonstrably less willing and able than its predecessor to pressure Arab leaders into compromising with the Israelis and less willing to compensate Jerusalem for concessions that entail security risks. The U.S. financial crisis further limits the administration's capacity to provide economic inducements to both sides.
While extremists have been emboldened by Washington's perceived departure from the region, pro-U.S. Arab leaders have come to conclude that U.S. support is ephemeral—hardly worth the political risks of recognizing Israel and alienating citizens who have been fed a steady diet of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda since grade school. Democratization will not change this—on the contrary, newly elected leaders will prefer keeping Israel at arm's length so as to curry public favor. According to an April 2011 poll, 54 percent of Egyptians favor annulling their country's peace treaty with Israel.[11] Clearly, Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are under great strain as the anti-Israel domestic forces become more influential and vocal.[12]
Whatever the outcome of the escalating conflict in Syria, no government in Damascus is likely to be strong enough politically to make peace with Israel. It is equally unlikely that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will do so. The Palestinian leadership is divided between Hamas, which took over Gaza in June 2007, and the PA leadership in the West Bank. Additionally, the PA has not reconciled itself to the idea of Jewish statehood as evidenced by recent statements by its leaders, notably Mahmoud Abbas's U.N. speech. With chances of bridging Israeli-Palestinian differences growing increasingly remote,[13] the PA has defied U.S. calls to return to the negotiating table, opting instead to press its bid for statehood at the U.N.
As for the Israelis, many fear that they cannot necessarily rely upon the Obama administration's diplomatic, economic, or military support in the event that their country is attacked or finds it necessary to preemptively strike at imminent threats to their security. Not surprisingly, few are eager to make concessions that magnify those threats. As the region looks less receptive to peace overtures, Israelis must prepare for greater regional isolation.
Tehran's Nuclear Challenge
Arab political upheaval has deflected attention away from Israel's most daunting security threat—a nuclear Iran. Despite four rounds of modest economic sanctions by the U.N. Security Council and frequent diplomatic scolding, the regime continues to develop a nuclear weapons capability. The international community is unwilling to forcibly block the Islamic Republic from achieving this goal, which most experts expect to happen in an estimated two to three years. Unlike its predecessor, the Obama administration is unlikely to launch U.S. air strikes to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities and may be reluctant to support an Israeli military attack to eliminate the threat.
A nuclear Iran would have far reaching strategic and political implications for the region.[14] Although opinions differ as to whether the country's ruling mullahs can be deterred by Israel's nuclear arsenal, few doubt that possession of nuclear weapons will embolden Tehran and its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies committed to Israel's destruction as well as Iranian-backed Shiite movements in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf states. Located along the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Caspian Basin, a nuclear Iran would be ideally poised to dominate this strategic energy sector,[15] particularly if hitherto pro-U.S. Central Asian states gravitate toward Tehran. In addition, Iran's successful pursuit of nuclear weapons is sure to encourage similar ambitions by its main regional rivals—Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. A multipolar nuclear Middle East would be a strategic nightmare.
Mounting Security Threats
While the U.S. decline in world affairs in general and in the Middle East in particular might prove temporary, it is very real for the near future. This in turn has had a negative impact on Israel's deterrence, which relies not only on its military power and ability to defeat its Arab neighbors but also on the perception that Washington will come to Jerusalem's aid should the need arise. The perceived closeness between Jerusalem and Washington is an important component of the Jewish state's deterrent posture, and the Obama administration has cast doubt on this long-standing foundation. Jerusalem can, of course, find some comfort in the fact that the Middle East upheavals have underscored yet again its position as Washington's most reliable regional ally, but the Obama administration has consistently courted U.S. enemies there at the expense of long-standing allies.
While the military forces of neighboring Arab states would be no match for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) should revolutionary upheaval somehow unite them in war against the Jewish state, political turmoil outside Israel's borders is already beginning to produce a variety of more intractable security threats.
Shortly after Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's interim military government declared its intention to honor the country's international commitments (i.e., the 1979 peace treaty with Israel), and most experts believe that an elected successor will do the same if only to preserve current levels of U.S. military and economic aid. However, the cold peace between Cairo and Jerusalem that existed under Mubarak is sure to become even chillier. In order to defuse nationwide protests, Egypt's military establishment formed an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the only well-organized political force outside the ruling government. The Brotherhood's growing political power in post-Mubarak Egypt and greater international acceptance can only be of deep concern to Jerusalem.
Under pressure from the Brotherhood, Egypt's interim government has reduced restrictions on traffic to and from Gaza, circumventing the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled enclave. This will strengthen Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Brotherhood committed to Israel's eradication, and encourage it to adopt a more aggressive posture toward the Jewish state.
In September 2011, the authorities allowed an angry mob to lay siege to Israel's embassy in Cairo, forcing the evacuation of its ambassador. Equally disturbing is the Egyptian reluctance to maintain security in Sinai, which borders Israel and Gaza. Since the fall of Mubarak, the Egyptian-Israeli natural gas pipeline has been sabotaged six times.[16] This forced the Israelis to rely on more expensive diesel and fuel oil to generate electricity, costing the country an average of US$2.7 million a day during July and August.[17] As the Eilat attacks last August indicate, Sinai may well emerge as a major anti-Israel terrorist base.[18]
The Israeli military regards Jordan, with which Jerusalem signed a 1994 peace treaty, as providing strategic depth since the two country's long border remains comparatively secure.[19] So far, King Abdullah has been successful in riding the regional political storm with minimal damage to his rule and without compromising his relations with Israel. However, if Iraq or Syria should fall victim to an Islamist takeover or a breakdown of the state, the Jordanians may find it difficult to insulate themselves from the contagion. Should King Abdullah be deposed, hostile forces would be able to straddle the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem-Haifa triangle holding most of Israel's population and economic infrastructure as Jerusalem is only twenty miles from the Jordanian border.
In Syria, the Alawite-dominated Assad regime is struggling to suppress predominantly Sunni opposition forces. In May 2011, thousands of ostensibly Palestinian protesters bused in by the authorities on "Nakba Day"—the anniversary of Israel's founding—stormed into the Golan Heights, attacking IDF soldiers with stones. Four were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire. The Syrians are "intentionally attempting to divert international attention away from the brutal crackdown of their own citizens," said an Israeli military spokesman.[20] This action suggests that Assad is not averse to confronting Jerusalem as a means of redirecting public anger away from his regime.
The West Bank and Gaza have not yet experienced major domestic turmoil. While a renewed campaign of terror against Israel would be very costly for the Palestinians, the weak and illegitimate PA president Abbas (whose term of office expired in January 2009) is under increasing pressure from Hamas to up the ante in combating the Jewish state. A Palestinian strategic miscalculation leading to new round of violence is always a possibility that Jerusalem cannot ignore.
Political turmoil in the Arab world is a warning bell for Israel to bolster its defenses. Israelis will find it necessary to station larger forces along their borders to defend against the array of security threats that can arise from political turmoil in neighboring countries. Jerusalem must also update its war-fighting scenarios and expand the IDF to be able to deal with a variety of contingencies, including a large-scale war. Since force building is a lengthy process, appropriate decisions on force structure and budget allocations are required as soon as possible.
Jerusalem must insist on defensible borders in any future peace negotiations with the PA and Syria. Loose talk about technologies that favor Israel's defensive capabilities and the decreasing military value of territory and topographical assets ignores the fact that contemporary technological advantages are fleeting. Strategists and militaries around the world still confer great importance to the topographical characteristics of the battlefield. The history of warfare shows that technological superiority and better weapons are not enough to win a war.[21]
The increased threat of rocket and missile fire from "islands of insecurity" across their borders will require the Israelis to improve both passive protection and active defense. Passive protection refers to construction of shelters in homes, educational institutions, and centers of commerce and entertainment. Active defense systems prevent incoming rockets and missiles from hitting or destroying a target. Israel's mobile Iron Dome batteries can intercept short-range rockets while its David's Sling system under development can intercept longer-range rockets and missiles.[22] Jerusalem is working to integrate these lower-tier missile defense systems with components of its upper-tier missile defense—the upgraded versions of Patriot Advanced Capability interceptors and the Arrow-2 and the Arrow-3 interceptors—into a single national command and control center.[23] Budgetary constraints and strategic shortsightedness have slowed development of this multilayered missile defense system.
Conclusion
Fortunately, Israel's flourishing economy can afford larger defense outlays to meet its national security challenges. The leadership should be courageous enough to explain to its people that changing circumstances require some austerity measures that might freeze the standard of living for a while. Israeli society has shown remarkable resilience and spirit in protracted conflict and might respond positively to a well-crafted call from the political leadership. Such an address must be accompanied by efforts to reduce the growing gaps between rich and poor in Israeli society in order to maintain social cohesion.
Whether incumbent Arab regimes stick to power, collapse, are replaced by new dictatorships, or democratize, Israel's near abroad is likely to remain in political flux in the coming years with major strategic and security ramifications. With Washington's influence in decline and two rising regional powers—Iran and Turkey—eager to challenge Jerusalem, the new Middle East promises to be considerably more challenging to Israeli security than the old.
Efraim Inbar is a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. The Tikva Fund generously supported this research.
[1] Arab Human Development reports, U.N. Development Program, New York, accessed Oct. 7, 2011; R. Stephen Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire. The Middle East in a Troubled Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
[2] The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 8, 2011.
[3] Stephen M. Walt, "Revolution and War," World Politics, Apr. 1992, pp. 321-68.
[4] Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, "Democratization and the Danger of War," International Security, Summer 1995, pp. 5-38.
[5] For an analysis of this phenomenon, see Robert I. Rothberg, ed., When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
[6] Reuters, Aug. 29, 2011.
[7] Daniel W. Drezner, "Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy? Why We Need Doctrines in Uncertain Times," Foreign Affairs, July/Aug. 2011, p. 58.
[8] Reuters, Jan. 31, 2011; Ari Shavit, "Obama's Betrayal: As Goes Mubarak, So Goes U.S. Might," Ha'aretz, Aug. 10, 2011.
[9] The New York Times, Mar. 14, 2011.
[10] Ibid., May 4, 2011; The Jerusalem Post, May 8, 2011.
[11] "Egyptians Embrace Revolt Leaders, Religious Parties, and Military, as Well," Pew Global Attitudes Project, Washington, D.C., Apr. 25, 2011.
[12] The Washington Times, Feb. 3, 2011; The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 10, 2011.
[13] Efraim Inbar, "The Rise and Demise of the Two-State Paradigm," Orbis, Spring 2009, pp. 265-83.
[14] James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, "After Iran Gets the Bomb," Foreign Affairs, Mar./Apr. 2010.
[15] Geoffrey Kemp and Robert E. Harkavy, Strategic Geography and the Changing Middle East (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1997), p. 113.
[16] Al-Ahram Online (Cairo), Oct. 3, 2011.
[17] Globes (Rishon Le-Zion), Oct. 2, 2011.
[18] The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 18, 2011.
[19] Amos Gilad, director of policy and political-military affairs at Israel's Defense Ministry, CNN, Sept. 22, 2011.
[20] The Daily Mail (London), May 16, 2011.
[21] Martin Van Creveld, Technology and War. From 2000 B.C. to the Present (New York: The Free Press, 1989), pp. 311-20; Keir A. Lieber, War and the Engineers. The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 155-8.
[22] The Washington Post, May 12, 2011.
[23] Defense News (Springfield, Va.), June 20, 2011.
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5)The Golden State Business Exodus
By Investor's Business Daily
States: California's in trouble. Businesses are leaving along with intellectual and investment capital and skilled workers. But rather than face up to serious problems, legislators pass silly laws.
One would think that given the serious nature of the state's problems, the legislature would focus on solutions at the exclusion of all else.
Instead, lawmakers - what would we ever do without them? - found the time in 2011 to trespass even deeper into Californians' personal lives.
Topping off Sacramento's monument to foolishness is a law requiring children younger than 8, except for those taller than 4 feet 9 inches, to sit in booster seats in cars. Previous law let kids leave their boosters at 6.
Now children who had moved out of cars seats are being forced back into them.
Actually, the law is more authoritarian - and offensive and infuriating - than it is silly. It assumes that wise lawmakers have a greater interest in children's safety than their parents do. It also expands the state's supervisory role over adults while decreasing their status as free citizens.
Next up is the law - one of 761 bills passed in 2011 that became California law - that bans the sale of over-the-counter cough medicine containing dextromethorphan to minors. That means popular brands such as Nyquil, Robitussin and Delsym that contain that ingredient are essentially controlled substances.
It is now also illegal in California for those under 18 to use ultraviolet tanning devices, and against the law for anyone, no matter what age, to buy alcoholic beverages at self-checkout lines. Nor can they import shark fins.
Beginning this year, the state requires schools to intervene if personnel see gay bullying. Meanwhile, it makes schools teach the historical achievements of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals.
And, no, we did not make up that last part. That's just how mad governance has become in California.
While the California legislature spent 2011 fiddling with nonsense legislation, the state's business environment continued to burn. Joe Vranich, a business consultant who monitors the Golden State's exodus, said in November that "large corporations, family-run companies and even startup enterprises in all industries continue to leave" due to high business taxes and excessive regulation "imposed on commercial enterprises of all types."
Vranich calls California the worst state in the nation to locate a business, Los Angeles the worst city. He estimates a business can save 40% in costs just by leaving.
And it's not just struggling businesses that quit. As the Orange County Register recently noted, even profitable ones are departing. Why? Though they make money in California, they know they can make more elsewhere.
Is Sacramento listening? Unfortunately, the legislature is concerning itself with lesser things.
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