Sina Delenda Est

Defense Budget Shifts Military's Focus From Terrorism To China
By DAVID WELNA

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., talks with reporters after the National Defense Authorization Act passed 93-1 at the U.S. Capitol in 2015.

It may seem counter-intuitive and head-scratchingly odd, but Congress nearly always approves defense spending bills before the armed services committees — which actually oversee the Pentagon — vote on how the money will be spent.
Not this year.
The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 was enacted this month well ahead of a still-pending budget bill.
It was also the earliest date on the legislative calendar that the NDAA has been sent to a president for his signature in more than two decades.
The bill sped through Congress as the nation's military continues waging war in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Niger, Libya, Somalia and an untold number of other global hot spots. 

All arise from what's been the Pentagon's main post-Sept. 11 focus: fighting terrorism.
But this new NDAA reflects Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' pivot away from those prolonged and inconclusive battles with insurgencies, to what he says should be the Pentagon's main concern: the United States' growing competition with the world's two other great powers, Russia and China.
Big majorities in the House and Senate approved the NDAA. 

Among the 10 senators who opposed its final passage were three Democrats — Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — who are all considered potential contenders in the 2020 presidential race.
The $716 billion in spending authorized by the bill is $16 billion more than what Congress approved for fiscal year 2018. 

In real terms, this 2.23 percent increase amounts to a reduction in defense spending, given the 2.46 percent rise in inflation over the past year. (Exceeding that inflation rate was the bill's 2.6 percent raise for the uniformed military, the largest pay hike it's had since 2010.)

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
Congress matched dollar-for-dollar what the Pentagon asked for. 

Yet, the NDAA mandates doing more with less. 

It calls for adding 15,600 troops to the country's 1. 3 million active duty forces, an expansion also sought by the Pentagon. 

It adds another aircraft carrier and two littoral combat ships that the Pentagon did not request. 

A total of 13 new ships for the U.S. Navy are authorized — exactly half as many new ships as Russia plans to build this year.
The Republican-controlled armed service committees backtracked and bowed to several significant policy changes the Trump administration sought during the merging of the House and Senate versions of the NDAA.

Turkey
Mattis convinced Congress to strip the Senate's tough talk on Turkey from the final version of the bill.
That version instructed him to draw up plans for suspending delivery of 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters ordered by Turkey as well as Turkey's participation in an international consortium producing the radar-evading warplane.
It was retaliation for the Turkish government's arrest and detention, following a failed coup attempt two years ago, of Andrew Brunson, an American Presbyterian minister; as well as this longtime NATO ally's intention to buy the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system.
Mattis wrote Congress in July asking that Turkey's access to the F-35s not be blocked. 

In its place is language from the House bill, which simply requires that Mattis submit a report "on the status of the United States relationship with the Republic of Turkey" by Oct. 31.

China
The White House prevailed in its quest to exclude from the NDAA language approved by the full Senate blocking the sale of American technology to Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE.
Such a trade restriction had already been imposed by the Trump administration, but it was lifted after Trump spoke with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and tweeted that he was looking for a way to get ZTE back in business because "[t]oo many jobs in China [were] lost."
The final NDAA does nothing specific to restrict the sale of American technology to ZTE and Huawei, another Chinese telecommunications and video surveillance giant. 

But it does tighten overall U.S. national security reviews of American exports of sensitive technology by issuing stricter guidelines for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS.
The NDAA also bars the purchase or use by the federal government and its contractors of technology sold by ZTE and Huawei. 

That restriction would not, however, apply for sales to the general public.
There is also a ban in the bill on Pentagon spending for any Chinese language instruction provided by the Confucius Institute, which is operated by an entity associated with China's education ministry.

Russia
Mattis also prevailed in dissuading Congress from requiring enforcement of a 2017 sanctions law for countries that purchase Russian-made weapon systems or parts.
"Some nations who now actively seek a security relationship with the United States still rely on Russia for spare parts and other material," Mattis wrote, citing India and Vietnam as examples.

President Trump meets Putin in Helsinki in July.

Otherwise, the new NDAA carries a spate of policy measures likely to irritate Russia. 

They include:
— $6.3 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative, the largest U.S. infusion yet for this effort — started during the Obama administration — that's aimed at bolstering defenses in European nations near Russia.
— A requirement that Secretary Mattis send Congress by March 2019 a feasibility report on permanently stationing in Poland U.S. Army brigade combat teams that are currently cycling through nine-month rotations there. Russia maintains that the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act prohibits the establishment of permanent NATO bases in former Warsaw Pact nations, including Poland. NATO and the U.S. disagree, but have nonetheless held off establishing new bases in those countries during the 21 years since the act was signed.
— A directive that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brief Congress on all assets known to be held by Vladimir Putin, his "oligarch" associates and other high officials in Russia.
— A strengthening of a ban on funding anything that recognizes the sovereignty of Russia over Crimea.
— A labeling of Russia as a violator of the Chemical Weapons Convention, based on Russia's role in chemical attacks in Syria and Kremlin-linked assassination attempts in the United Kingdom.
— A requirement for certification that Trump has imposed sanctions on Russia for violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, as he had been directed to do in the 2018 NDAA; the bill also calls for the administration to submit plans to Congress for additional sanctions. A House provision was dropped that had called for considering INF treaty obligations nonbinding if Russia is not in compliance with the treaty.
— A ban on extending the New START nuclear arms limitation treaty (which expires in Feb. 2021) unless Congress receives a report from the administration on Russia's new strategic weapons determining whether Russia is in compliance with the treaty.
— Authorizes $65 million "for developing and producing a low-yield warhead to be mounted on a submarine-launched ballistic missile," according to a summary of the bill. Proponents say this would deter Russia from using tactical, lower-yield weapons; opponents say such weapons increase the likelihood of nuclear war.

Yemen
— Prohibits funds being spent on in-flight refueling of Saudi aircraft or members of the Saudi-led coalition conducting missions over Yemen, until the U.S. secretary of state certifies that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seeking a diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Yemen and respecting the humanitarian needs of that country's inhabitants.
— Requires that the Trump administration brief Congress on what the U.S. strategy is in Yemen.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, at the Demilitarized Zone in the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea in October 2017.

South Korea
— Bars funding for the reduction of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea below 22,000, unless the secretary of defense certifies such a draw-down is in the national security interest of the U.S., and both South Korea and Japan have been "appropriately consulted."

Syria
— Renews the Syria train-and-equip program, but limits any expenditure of funds until Trump submits to Congress the Syria strategy report mandated by the 2018 NDAA.

Afghanistan
— Extends the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund through the end of next year. This continues the effort to stand up the Afghan military and police forces, which has become the main focus of the U.S. in Afghanistan.
— Authorizes $25 million to promote recruitment, training and integration of women in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.
— Requires that the secretary of defense designate a senior civilian official focused on civilian casualties associated with U.S. military operations. That official would regularly inform Congress on civilian casualties and work to improve reporting on noncombatant casualties.

Guantanamo
— Renews congressional bans on transferring any of the 40 remaining detainees to U.S. prisons and on building facilities in the U.S. to hold them.
— Denies the $69 million requested by the Trump administration for building a new "high-value detainee complex." That would replace a top-secret structure there known as Camp Seven which currently holds 15 detainees.

Outer Space
— Establishes a U.S. Space Command as part of the U.S. Strategic Command, but does not authorize funds for creating the space force that Trump has directed the Pentagon to create.

China's Strategic Encirclement Of India’s Core Interests

By Bhaskar Roy

Having failed to constrict India within South Asia with its “String of Pearls” Strategy, China has now embarked on a new initiative to trip India’s growing comprehensive national power (CNP) and influence beyond South Asia.
India’s neighbours swam with China periodically, depending on the government in those countries. For example, the Mahinda Rajapksa government in Sri Lanka jumped into China’s lap for their own political reasons. 

The Mathiripala Sirisena government has restored the balance.
The BNP led four party alliance government (2001-2006) in Bangladesh brought relations with India to the lowest ebb. 

The alliance had parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami which were beholden to Pakistan and actively complicit in the savage rape and attempted extermination of the pro-liberation Bengalees in 1971. They were natural allies of not only Pakistan but also China which supported Pakistan. 

The return of the Awami League to power changed this policy drastically. 

The Awami League government, due to practical necessity and real politics, crafted a friendly relationship with China, but not at the expense of their relationship with India. 

China, however, is trying to entice Dhaka, but this does not worry India because India-Bangladesh relationship has more than political market imperatives. 

There is a cultural and historical conjunction.
Nepal has been vacillating between India and China. 

Lodged between the two giant countries, they are trying to get the best out of the two. 

China recognises India’s influence in Nepal, but has been consistently trying to weaken the India-Nepal relationship.
Pakistan has emerged as China’s mainstay in the region and extends to the Gulf, the Central Asian region, and now they are trying to draw in Russia in this ambit. 

Weakening India-Russia relations is one of its aims. 

With its promised 46 billion investment in Pakistan for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Control of the Gwadar Port (a military project), primary arms and defence equipment supplier and recent acquisition of 40 percent of the Pakistan stock market by a Chinese conglomerate, Pakistan is fast emerging as a country under Chinese suzerainty. 

Evidence suggests Pakistan may soon become a platform for the projection of both soft and hard power for being along the route envisaged for the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project. 

China is unlikely to declare Pakistan as one of its “core” interests, but it is already acting as such.
Lately, China has been expressing concerns about achieving the full potential of the CPEC. 

In an article in the Communist Party affiliated newspaper Global Times (Dec. 28, 2016), Wang Dehua, Director of the Institute of Southern and Central Asian Studies, Shanghai Municipal Center for Internal Studies, wrote that the CEPC was facing challenges. 

He went on to describe the project as having “significant economic, political and strategic implications for both China and Pakistan”.
Wang wrote this in the context of a spat between the Chinese Chargé d'Affaires in Islamabad Zhao Lijian and a journalist of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. 

The concerned journalist asked Zhao some uncomfortable questions including use of Chinese prisoners as labour. 

The senior Chinese diplomat lost his cool in a public place, which is very uncharacteristic of the Chinese.
Wang Dehua revealed that Chinese investment was raised to $51 billion from the initial $46 billion. The Chinese party media have extolled the virtue of the CPEC not only for China and Pakistan but other countries of the region including India, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia. 

The emphasis has been more on India, suggesting that India joining the project could help reduce tensions between India and Pakistan. 

Simultaneously, there is a suggestion to link Gwadar and Chabahar ports as sister ports and sister cities.
The CPEC is the flagship project of the larger OBOR strategic conception of extending China’s circulatory system far and wide. 

It has political and strategic penetration as significant benefits. 

Most important is the fact that it is Xi Jinping’s prestige project. It cannot be allowed to fail at any cost. 

It is also part of China’s great power signature.
At the same time, Beijing is ramping up pressure on India in a shower, trying to destabilise India’s emerging foreign policy. 

Beijing’s stand will have serious negative implications especially on the biggest threat to the world at this moment, terrorism. 

In the last week of December, China vetoed India’s move to designate Masood Azhar, head of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad as a “terrorist” at the UN Committee 2167 on terrorism. 

This, when the organisation itself is designated as a terrorist organisation by the same committee.
This one move by China has hit at the very roots of the global movement against extremism and terrorism. 

Read plainly, China will use terrorism as a political weapon against perceived enemies, in this case India.

It also encourages Pakistan to use terrorism with impunity against India, Afghanistan and even, perhaps Bangladesh.
India is determined to continue its efforts to bring other Pakistani-based and backed terrorists in front of the 2167 committee. 

China is the only member of their 15 member committee to oppose the move against Azhar. 

In a manner China stands isolated.
China took umbrage and accused India of interfering in China’s internal affairs after the Indian President met His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a function which was totally non-political. 

Their official media threatened India of retaliation of the kind they subjected the tiny country of Mongolia after Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia that was a purely religious one. 

Mongolia is a Buddhist Country, mostly of the Gelugpa sect of Buddhism which the Dalai Lama heads spiritually. 

This is a stupid threat. 

Mongolia a tiny land locked country, with a population of around two million, is dependent on China for outside access. 

Such threats do not impress the Indian government and the Indian people. 

The Chinese threat appears to be an act of frustration.
Nevertheless, Tibet is a declared core interest of China, hence the Dalai Lama. 

The 80 year spiritual leader has withdrawn himself from politics, but his influence and reverence among Tibetans inside China and outside is palpable. 

The Chinese have not been able to come to a firm conclusion whether the living 14th Dalai Lama or deceased 14th Dalai Lama will be to their interest.
The Chinese leadership has tried to denigrate the Dalai Lama in all possible ways, calling him a ‘splittist’ (separatist), ‘devil’, ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing among other things, but these have not impressed anyone. 

Beijing suspects India is using Dalai Lama as a ‘card’ against China.
India has accepted Tibet Autonomous Region as a sovereign part of China (2003). 

The Tibetan refugees in India are not allowed political activities. 

Successive governments in New Delhi have bent over backwards to accommodate China’s concerns. But if China continues to attack India on this issue, India will be forced to fight back: Allow the Dalai Lama and the generally accepted Kargyupa head Ughen Thinley Dorjee freedom to move around India including Tawang and the rest of Arunachal Pradesh.

China is trying to push the OBOR to and through Nepal and Bangladesh. 

They hope that through persuasion from these two countries India may succumb and agree to join the OBOR in the interest of its good neighbourhood policy. 

If India does not relent China may seek alternative policies in India’s neighbourhood to constrict India. 

The Global Times has already hinted at this.
Beijing remains determined to keep India out of the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG). 

It has now objected to India’s successful testing (Dec. 16, 2016) of the 5000 kms nuclear capable ballistic missile Agni V. 

In a sharply worded statement Chinese foreign ministry spokespersons threatened to take this issue to the UN Security Council resolution 1172 after the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan. 

The resolution passed at the heat of the moment and engineered by China and the US calling on the two countries to stop further nuclear tests, cap their nuclear weapon programmes, cease all fissile material production, and end development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The resolution, however is non-binding. 

China’s threat falls through the floor.
Since then, India has come a long way on the nuclear issue. 

It issued a moratorium on nuclear testing, announced no first use of nuclear weapons policy and signed the India-US nuclear deal. 

India, however, will have to counter Chinese pressures in several such areas in the future.
The Chinese spokesperson also said that “China maintains that preserving the strategic balance and stability in South Asia is conducive to peace and prosperity of regional countries ‘and beyond’. Basically, the statement implied that India may have disturbed the strategic balance in South Asia and beyond, without counting its own intercontinental nuclear capable ballistic missiles and other weapons. 

As China its military development is defensive and not aimed at any country, so is the official India position.
But things between India and China may get worse if the CPEC and OBOR falter seriously. 

This is closely linked to Xi Jinping’s politics and stature of “core” leader of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The 19th Congress to the party will be held in autumn this year and major leadership changes will take place. 

Xi cannot have any chinks in his armour.

Brics summit in Goa: Forget Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai and get tough with China

What India should do to rein the Communist nation that has no respect for international rule of law, human rights, treaties or the global fight against terrorism, and for whom transparency is a dirty word

By Srinivasa Prasad 

Dealing with Pakistan’s export of terror is difficult enough for India. 

Add to this tragedy a third player, China, which not only backs Pakistan but even plays nasty economic games against India, and then it’s quite a tough job to handle.
That’s what Prime Minister Narendra Modi must remember as he hosts the summit of the five-nation Brics and a retreat for the leaders of the seven-nation Bimstec this weekend in Goa. 

Pakistan is part of neither Brics nor Bimstec but will be at the back of Modi’s mind when he talks to Xi Jinping in Goa.
India must reconcile to the fact that, in foreseeable future, both Pakistan and China will continue to be its adversaries. 

Having already made enough gullible attempts to turn both those countries into friends, India must now begin to find ways to “manage” its relations with the rogue country on the west and its ally on the east in a manner that would be to its best advantage.
India’s recipe to fight China must have more of economics than diplomacy. 

Then as a spin-off, India can hope for a more sober Pakistan, though there is no guarantee of that since nobody knows who is — and who will be, in future — in charge of Pakistan’s affairs.
What makes the cash route a better bet to fight China is the slow-down in China’s economy. 

The dragon is breathing less economic fire now, and though it’s not ready to have its wings clipped, it’s more vulnerable than ever before.
But it would take only a fool or a jingoist to believe that India is better off than China. 

Though India’s economy is showing impressive signs of improvement, Chinese economy, even with its present mess, is still many times larger than India’s, and the Chinese military much stronger.
It’s also preposterous to even suggest that India must curb trade ties with China, in retaliation for the latter’s brazen backing for Pakistan. 

Economically, India needs China as much as China does India.
Western economists differ on whether China’s economic troubles are subsiding, and their assessments are not proving to be reliable. 

Yet the stories that continue to come out of China of job losses, unemployment and salary cuts are good news for India.
That’s what India must leverage to perk up its own economy and to bring down its own unemployment and poverty levels, say some well-meaning experts.
Like India has replied to Pakistan’s terror in its own langue with surgical strikes, India must deal with China by employing the same methodology of chicanery that the eastern neighbour has made itself notorious for: by dropping a subtle hint here and there, and by making it clear that India will do business with China on its own terms.
Brics is a good place to start, and China is already getting the right message not only from India but other countries of the bloc as well. 

Media reports suggest that India, along with other Brics members, are showing no interest in a “Brics Free Trade Agreement” that China wants to peddle to them at this week’s summit. 

This proposal is designed in a way to further China’s own interests, not anybody else’s.
Paying for its past follies, China is indeed a desperate nation today.
AFP reported on 10 October that China’s foreign exchange reserves, the largest in the world, have fallen to a five-year-low to less than US $3.18 trillion this week. 

But India’s reserves — $371.2 billion this week, though a fraction of China’s—are showing an upward trend.
But that’s not the point. 

What matters more is what the world thinks of the Chinese and what India should do to rein the Communist nation that has no respect for international rule of law, human rights, treaties or the global fight against terrorism, and for whom transparency is a dirty word.
But even China—where most things are shrouded in a sinister secrecy and where the very composition of its foreign reserves itself is a state secret—can occasionally be candid. 

That, again, perhaps is part of the Chinese passion to surprise the enemy.
On 5 October, a Xinhua report quoted a Chinese official as having made an oblique confession that the world at large thinks of the Chinese as fraudsters who are unreliable to do business with.
The official said China’s trade remained under heavy downward pressure, partly due to “increasing trade frictions” with nations around the world
In the last eight months, he admitted, 20 countries including the US launched 85 “trade remedy probes” against Chinese deals worth US $ 10.3 billion, almost double the amount for the same period last year. 

These relate to patent or trademark infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, false advertising and violation of antitrust laws.
A recent Reuters report said: “China’s offshore ambitions have come under increasing scrutiny this year by governments in Europe and the United States.”
The Chinese are learning, though slowly, that their policies could one day lead to their isolation in the world. 

Already, China finds itself to be somewhat of a pariah within Brics, though not to the same extent as Pakistan is in Saarc — yet.
Among Brics members, India suffers from a trade deficit of $ 52.7 billion with China. 

This means China’s exports to India far outstrip its imports from India. 

Russia has its own $-12-billion trade deficit with China. 

Though Brazil and South Africa enjoy trade surpluses with China, all four countries are suspicious of any move that China makes that they think can even remotely affect the balance unfairly.
Pakistan may be a vassal state of China, but Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa are not. 

They would be ready to call China’s economic bluff, though the four countries together don’t present a pretty picture of unity themselves.
There are some who argue that India must do more business with China to offset the security threat from Pakistan. 

One of them is, Niti Aayog’s Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya, who told India Today: “... our economic engagement with China can trump the security engagement of China with Pakistan.”
But those like Subhash Kapila, former Indian diplomat in Japan and the US, don’t agree. 

Kapila argues in this article: “The China-Pakistan Axis with strategic underpinnings pointedly aimed at India is also an established strategic reality. India vainly keeps hoping that economics would ultimately prevail and modulate China’s patent targeting of India’s strategic rise in Indo Pacific Asia.”
The way to grapple with the China problem lies in both politics and economics in right proportions. While using its own significant economic clout, India must raise its voice against China’s hypocritical and hegemonistc advances in the region.
It is clear that, whatever Modi does or says in Goa this week, a meek surrender to the Chinese blackmail is not an option. 

The days of Jawaharlal Nehru’s gullible Hindi-Chini bhai bhai are long gone. 

Having called Pakistan’s bluff, India must now call China’s.