issue 3 - 2014€¦ · eastern mediterranean is the part of europe’s near abroad on which at...

ISSUE 3 - 2014

Q

CeMiSS Quarterly is a review supervised by CeMiSS director, Major General Nicola Gelao. It provides a

forum to promote the knowledge and understanding of international security affairs, military strategy and

other topics of significant interest.

The opinions and conclusions expressed in the articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily

reflect the position of the Italian Ministry of Defence.

Evolving energy security in the Eastern MediterraneanPaolo Quercia 5

SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE

U A R T E R LY

MIDDLE EAST - PERSIAN GULF

AFRICA

Iran and the Iraqi CrisisNicola Pedde 17

CHINA

The International Economic Partnership Models With AfricaMarco Massoni 23

The question of Hong KongNunziante Mastrolia 29

YEAR XII ISSUE III 2014

Indian Foreign Policy in the Modi Era Claudia Astarita 35

INDIA

China and Latin America: beyond the zenithAlessandro Politi 9

LATIN AMERICA

FOCUS

QUARTERLYMilitary Center for Strategic Studies

Department of International RelationsPalazzo Salviati

Piazza della Rovere, 83 00165 – ROME - ITALYtel. 00 39 06 4691 3204 fax 00 39 06 6879779

e-mail [email protected]

EU sanctions and EU-relations with RussiaClaudio Catalano 41

EUROPEAN DEFENCE INITIATIVES

Between the challenge of Bangsamoro and the shadow of ISIS: a crucial autumn for the Philippines Stefano Felician Beccari 47

PACIFIC (JAPAN-KOREA - ASEAN COUNTRIES - AUSTRALIA

Can dialogue between Kiev and Moscow start?Lorena Di Placido 53

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND CENTRAL ASIA COOPERATION

After the Wales SummitLucio Martino 59

NATO -TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS

Islamic State: a threat to South East Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) and to Nato-Resolute Support Mission?Claudio Bertolotti 65

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South Eastern Europe

Year XII N° III - 2014

Evolving energy security in the EasternMediterranean

Paolo Quercia

Numerous developments in the energy field are occurring simultaneously in and around the EasternMediterranean region, while the game for securing energy resources becomes more uncertain andfluid than ever. Among the many causes of the growing energy insecurity in the Mediterraneanregion, an important role has been played by the concurrent deterioration of several of the on-going conflicts in and around the Mediterranean geopolitical space. The absence of the UnitedState as determinant conflict resolver and its more “vigilant but defiladed” role in the Mediter-ranean and Middle East has created a huge geopolitical vacuum that activated a complex compe-tition for acquiring the regional leadership. A leadership that is mostly shaped by two strictlyconnected capacities: that of determining the outcomes of the current civil wars in (Libya, Syriaand Iraq); and that of determining – in an increasingly volatile environment – the future energygas and oil supply routes to Europe from the Middle East and Eurasia. Eastern Mediterranean is the part of Europe’s near abroad on which at least four sub-regional crisisdischarge their tensions: the Middle East quagmire, with the Syrian and Iraqi conflict as well asthe rise of the jihadist proto-states; the post-Arab spring North Africa with an arch of crisis ofweakened countries and regimes, with the special case of Egypt; the unfinished South-Eastern Eu-rope, with an uncompleted transition from communism and unsolved socio-economics failuresthat endanger the accomplishment of the Euro-Atlantic enlargements; the divided Black Sea, withthe creeping civil war in Ukraine, that has already produced relevant consequences on EU – Russiaaffairs, and that could poison future Eurasian relations.

Turkish dual role in EastMed energy security In perspective, Turkey appears to be the barycentric country for all the mentioned four crises, withrelevant interests and leverage in each of the sub-regional instability and conflicts. At the sametime, Turkey is the strategic pivot for most of the energy transit projects for oil and gas to Europeas far as South Europe and Eastern Mediterranean are concerned. In fact Turkey is de facto an in-dispensable energy “choke point” both for Russia’s South-western energy transport projects toEurope (like South Stream) and for the consumer driven East – West routes towards Europe, by-passing Russia (like Nabucco, or ITGI). The crescent dual-role played by Turkey in the EasternMediterranean both in the security and energy fields has already transformed Ankara in the strategicpivot of any Eurasian geopolitical game. Potentially, Turkey could be the deciding factor in mostof the strategic rifts where actors like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt even their own vital

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interest, and that polarise a number of state and non-state actors. Since energy relations and energy security remains the grammar of most of the geopolitical com-petitions in the region, the fact that Turkey is geographically wedged in an intermediate positionbetween Europe – the second world market for gas consumption – and the main gas world reserves(Caspian basin, Middle East, Russia, Central Asia) makes Ankara, even without its own energyresources, the key player in the trans Eurasian energy relations. This role of trans-continental en-ergy bridge is doomed to increase further due to the explosion of the Ukraine civil war and the“enlargement” of Russian territorial waters in the Black Sea as consequence of the annexation ofCrimea. Nevertheless, becoming an effective energy junction in a crossroad of highly instablestates – where the use of energy economics in the service of state nationalism is widespread – isa game that could be more intricate and dangerous of what Turkey can afford to play with its pres-ent capacities and political weight. The risk that the overall foreign policy of Turkey could be hi-jacked by the new Middle Eastern energy great game is also significant, and it may contribute toan important diversion of Turkish political resources from other areas of its multifaceted foreignpolicy.

Pivot or consumer ? One of Turkey’s weaknesses to become the crucial Eastern pivot of European energy game isAnkara’s still weak internal consumption of gas, that still is a fable base for becoming a hub fortrans-European energy procurement. In fact, Turkey's volume of domestic consumption of gas -albeit rising and driven by sustained economic growth - is still at the level of a developing country,if considering its population of around 80 million inhabitants. Before the economic crisis of 2008,Ankara overestimated its future demand for gas imports, which in the period 2007-2013 increased30% less compared to the previous five years (+ 400 billion cubic meters, compared with an in-crease of more than 600 billion cubic meters recorded in the period 2002-2007). Like many otherEuropean countries, Turkey has come to revise the terms of the contract for the supply of hydro-carbons, renegotiating its relationship with its main energy providers. The gas that comes fromAzerbaijan to Turkey (via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erurum pipeline) is the least expensive among the dif-ferent Ankara’s supply lines, costing 25% less than Russian gas and more than 45% less than theIranian one. This should make us reflect on the fact that economic security is not only a functionof the physical "availability" of the resources but – as far as technology makes more and more re-sources available – it becomes increasingly connected to the "price" dimension that a country canafford to pay to have oil and gas flowing at its borders. Russia is set to remain the first providerof Ankara, covering a share of 58% of the requirements of Turkish gas, while Iran is the secondlargest supplier, covering 19% of imports; Azerbaijan is third with 9% of Turkish gas procurement.A further 21% comes mainly from the LNG market, with long-term contracts with Algeria (9%)and Nigeria (3%), while the missing part is left to the spot LNG market, mainly from Qatar, Egyptand Norway. The situation of instability and conflict around Turkey and the objective geopoliticalvulnerability around its borders is another factor that threatens Ankara's ambitions to become thebiggest hub for the transfer of gas from Asia and the Middle East towards Europe. Nevertheless,at the same time, Turkey is one of the few stable countries in an increasingly fragmented region,and remains one of the few “strong” actors in the intermediate space between Europe and Russia.

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It is likely to remain a potential energy partner for Moscow also in the medium - long term, evenif the crisis in Ukraine is jeopardising the developments of energy cooperation between Ankaraand Moscow.

Turkey and the Cyprus – Israel energy axis Turkey’s position of dual energy partner, to Europe and to Russia, however, has been put in dangerby the new energy axis that has emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean between two Europeancountries (Cyprus and Greece) and Israel, a former ally of Ankara before Erdogan impressed a de-termined pro-islamist spin to the country’s regional posture. This “Orthodox – Jewish” cooperationseems to have the precise aim to exclude Turkey from explorations in the eastern Mediterraneanand to provide an alternative maritime Southern corridor to Europe. This, together with the silt ofAnkara’s neo-Ottoman policy and the role played in the Arab spring and in the conflicts in Syriaand Iraq, have increased the deterioration of the relations with Israel, which - despite some hintsof a thaw - are very far from recovering. Even in the case of the wrecked relations with Israel, theenergy element appears to be a determinant but instrumental factor of the game. A game that isstill open, since by 2017 Israel will have to decide and project the exporting routes to Europe (orelsewhere) for the gas discovered in its Exclusive Economic Zone (the most important, theLeviathan basin, contains 450 billion cubic meters of gas). From a sound economic point of view,it would be less expensive to export these reserves through off-shore pipelines to Turkey and thanto Europe, making it one of the possible supply branches of EU energy Southern-corridor. But itlooks like that the possibility of the creation of such an energy corridor is quite low, since it wouldrequire, as a precondition, a double improvement of the political climate between Turkey and Israeland Turkey and Cyprus. At the moment, both seems far from improving, as it is also evident fromthe diplomatic quarrel between Cyprus and Turkey after the Turkish oceanographic research vesselBarbaros Hayreddin Pasa, escorted by a Turkish warship and two support ships, continued its ex-plorations in the eastern Mediterranean, in waters where Cyprus declared its Exclusive EconomicZone, that Ankara doesn’t recognise and respect. The alternatives to an Israeli-Cyprus-Turkeypipeline are all more expensive, involving the construction of one or more Israeli/Cyprus LNGoffshore terminals for gas liquefaction, or laying a long submarine pipeline between Cyprus - Cretein order to bring the gas to the EU. By ignoring Cyprus EEZ and its quest for energy security in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkeysends a strong message just before the trilateral summit of heads of state of Egypt, Cyprus andGreece that will take place on November 8th in Cairo, de facto challenging the growing politicalaxis and energy cooperation among the three countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. The questionof energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean is very complex, since Turkey has not signedUNOCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which regulates the creationof exclusive economic zones, and it does not recognize the greek Cypriot government in Nicosia,while it has declared its own EEZ with the internationally unrecognised TRNC. Apart from thestrictly international law issue, the problem for Turkey in the Eastern Mediterraean is not onlyrepresented by the decade long conflict with Cyprus, but it appears that the whole region has be-come a geopolitical no-go area for Ankara. In addition to Nicosia, Tureky has de facto no politicalrelations with Cairo, Tel Aviv and Damascus, namely 4 out 5 countries bordering Eastern Mediter-

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ranean. Furthermore, the fact that the Cypriot government has signed in the past years the bilateraldelimitation of its exclusive economic zone with Egypt and Israel, paving the way for the start ofoil and gas exploration, sums up with the historic conflict between Turkey and Greece on thegreek EEZ, which according to Athens aspiration would stretch as far as Cypriot EEZ. Turkeyhas, since long time, declared that the eventual establishemnt of Greece’s EEZ in the EasternMediterrenean would be considered a “casus belli”. Both old and new are the geopolitical traps in the Eastern Mediterranean. And too many are therelevant stakeholders of the regional energy game. A game were the decision making process ex-ceeds the energy issues since they key political actors all manoeuvre within a larger strategic playin which gas and oil are instrumental to the achievement of long-term geopolitical goals. As far asAnkara is concerned, it tries to remain actively involved (and exposed) in a high number of diffi-cult-to-conciliate strategic challenges, a traditional peculiarity for Turkey’s multi-vectorial foreignpolicy. The difference of the present environment appears to be that the more Turkey will advancein its projects to become an energy hub, the more difficult it will be to conciliate some of its con-flicting foreign policy and energy security options. We could name such a process a “differentia-tion” of Turkish foreign policy, where the regional international posture of Ankara will beconfronted with an increasing need of “taking side” in a more and more volatile geopolitical en-vironment. This process is accelerated by the crisis in Ukraine and in Syria – two conflicts thatwill remain active for decades to come, and in which Moscow, an important energy partner forAnkara, is a major player in both. In the short term, Turkey mat be forced to make importantgeopolitical decisions that could advantage some of its partners and hinder others. The presentgeopolitical dilemma for Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean/Middle East is how to remain apower-broker in a growing conflicting environment, having lost the option of neutrality, and findinghard to conciliate its national interests with many and different actors such as NATO, EU countries,Saudi Arabia, EAU, Qatar, Egypt, Russia, Iran, USA, ISIS, PKK etc. In this context, the key question is whether the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts – and Moscow is amajor player in both – are compatible with the long-term maintenance of a multi-vector energypolicy or if they will push for singling out a specific choice between the different geopolitical op-tions. Within the present situation of the Ukranian and Syrian conflicts, it seems that one conse-quence could be the increased strategic leverage of Moscow on Ankara’s future options.

China and Latin America: beyond the zenith

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Latin America


Alessandro Politi

The relationship between China and Latin America has marked a historical strategic change inthe past decade, modifying existing balances between the countries the USA and Europe. Thatsaid, notwithstanding Brazil’s pre-eminent role in the BRICS, the intense economic relationshiphas never become a strategic one. Moreover the strategic context has become less favourable forthis relationship due to: the global financial and economic crisis, the repercussions of Arab Rev-olutions and global warming on energy requirements and supplies; the US rebalancing towardsAsia and the possible negative effects of TPP and TTIP on BRICS. Also the regional backdrop isless positive than one can think. Firstly economic exchanges are heavily imbalanced in favour ofChines manufactured goods. Secondly all major countries in the region experience economicand/or political difficulties, making them less attractive partners and finally the Chinese low wagelabour market is still undercutting manufacturing margins in most of the region, with the exceptionof Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. In short Latin America is still a major Chi-nese interest, but is will remain secondary in comparison to more pressing issues in the Asia Pacificarea (maritime and land core interests) or to possibilities offered by wider political combinationsin Eurasia (including Russia and the SCO).

The precedents of China’s presenceTalking today about Beijing’s presence in Latin America is a truism, but its beginnings are neitherobvious nor easy and even its development if much more difficult than the rhetoric about the har-mony of South-South relations seems to suggest. We will consider here only the main countries inhistorical terms, but describing the situation and looking at possible scenarios will take into accountthe whole subcontinent.The strategic partnership with Brazil, for instance, exists since 1993, but it becomes really sub-stantive only by 2004 after the election of the Brazilian president’s, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,.In principle the two countries should have some political common ground within the BRICS(Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) framework, but in reality there has always been a cer-tain imbalance between Brasilia’s support and Beijing’s choices. Just considering some cases,Brazil has propped up Chinese positions regarding human rights, but successive Chinese leadershave denied, much to Brazil’s chagrin, any opening regarding the issue of expanding the permanentseats of the UN Security Council. Following similar dynamics, China has put forward its political and economic interests during the

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Latin America


WTO Doha Round, in the informal G-8 or G-20 fora or by blocking any free trade agreement be-tween the Latin American trade union Mercosur/Mercosul until Uruguay does not cut diplomaticrelationships with Taiwan.Contacts with Mexico go back even to 1972 and again only in 2004 they become a strategic part-nership; four years after the country is the second commercial partner, the first export destinationin Latin America and the third country by investments. Nevertheless not all that glitters is gold,because the commercial and productive bases are not complementary and hence in strong compe-tition in three areas:• Products (textiles, shoes and toys), entailing a number of customs and non-customs bar-riers put by Mexico in order to protect its own industry, that in turn have generated smuggle flowsdue to the then sufficiently favourable price differential for Chinese goods;• Markets because when China entered by 2001 the Wold Trade Organization, it becamethe third US commercial partner (after Canada and Mexico) and outdid Mexico becoming the sec-ond exporting country the United States. This situation has been particularly painful because be-tween 1994 and 2001 Mexico was favoured by the special relationship with the rest of NorthernAmerica via the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement);• Foreign Direct Investments-FDI, also in this sector Mexico enjoyed a comfortablelead due to the quality of its financial services, but has been outstripped by China’s and Brazil’ssheer size (FDI in 2013: China $117,6 billion; Brazil $64,46 bn and Mexico $35,2 bn).1

Venezuela is the third biggest country connected to China and its relations grew especially afteryear 1999. Despite investments in the sectors of mobile communications, satellites, railways andmilitary hardware (including some small sales of jet trainers and ground based radars), the mainstayof commerce remains oil and until now it is shown as a success story.During the past presidency of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, Caracas declared repeatedly that itwanted to increase oil exports towards Beijing, but until 2012 60% of the export went to the USA(Venezuela was the fourth-greatest supplier, covering 10-15% of US oil consumption), becausethey have significant refining capabilities adapted to the Venezuelan heavy crude drilled in theOrinoco Belt.The obstacles towards a bigger Venezuelan oil export to Asia were: limited Chinese heavy oil re-fining; the ongoing expansion works of the Panama Channel to be finished by January 2016; aminimum 2 million/barrel tanker capacity requirement for economically viable exports; the limitsof the trans-Panama pipeline.2Nevertheless by the end of 2013 Asia overtook North America as the main destination for Venezue-lan exports of crude oil and processed fuels with 1 billion bpd against 879.000 bpd (Canada, USA,Mexico) according to official and IEA sources. By November 2013 China received a total of563.000 bpd, India 396.000 while the USA still hold the first place with 797.000 bpd.Also relations with Argentina date back to 1972, when several countries recognised the PRC,breaking diplomatic ties with the Republic of China. China is now Argentina’s second most im-portant trading partner after Brazil (trade in 2013 amounted to $14,5 bn) while Buenos Aires isChina´s sixths largest trading partner in Latin America. Since 2008 Chinese investments havereached an estimated $15 billion primarily regarding petrochemicals and agriculture followed by

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Latin America


telecommunications, mining, finance, transport, energy and manufacturing. The next energy in-vestments are likely to be the shale oil deposits of Vaca Muerta in partnership with Bridas Corp.(an Argentinian oil company owned at 50% by CNOOC) and local major entrepreneurs.

A different geostrategic contextMore than a decade has passed since the term BRICS was coined (2001) and the geostrategiccontext has significantly changed even without taking into account the latest developments ofthe Ukrainian crisis.3 At the beginning of this century China started its commercial and eco-nomic expansion towards Africa and Latin America in a strategic situation marked by the politi-cal engagement of the major powers in the “war on terror”, that helped papering over structuraldivergences, and by a permissive environment for global business despite the burst of the dot-com bubble. The BRICS were considered emerging and important partners in the world econ-omy and hence also in the political sphere.Since then the BRICS have acquired an economic relevance and have become a political group tobe reckoned with, but the actual context is complicated by the following factors:

1. The global financial and economic crisis that has upset the euro-dollar tandem and createdimportant cleavages among heavily exports dependent economies, like Brazil, China and Russia;2. The Arab Revolutions have underlined the problems of Chinese dependence from Middle Easternenergy sources (51% of crude in 2013, 38% of LNG in 2012, EIA), while shale oil and gas promise at leasta decade a diversification also in Asia and Latin America;3. The global warming is gradually inducing Chinese authorities to pay more attention toenvironmental needs at home, modifying the energy portfolio away from coal, further supportinginitial gas deals with Russia;4. The US rebalancing towards Asia, notwithstanding the crisis in Kiev, is creating morefrictions among the BRICS especially regarding the critical China-India relationship;5. The possibly negative outcome the twin free trade regional treaties (TPP and TTIP) re-garding the BRICS role in world markets.

These factors affect the relationship with Brazil and the rest of Latin America in a significant way.On the one hand Brazil can represent the natural hinge for a long-term strategy in the area, but onthe other trade competition, commercial imbalances and currency wars put at odds Brasilia andBeijing in an overall context where the role of Latin America is bound to remain ancillary to morepressing interests in the Asia Pacific area (maritime and land core interests) or to more momentousones in Eurasia, like the possible political combinations between Berlin, Moscow and Beijing inaddition to energy linkages to the Russian hub or the widening role of the Shanghai Co-operationOrganization.Despite the fact that the Monroe Doctrine was quietly waived or at least blandly pursued vis-à-visincreasing Chinese activities in the area, China has repeatedly expressed its fundamental unwill-ingness to be perceived as a hemispheric strategic competitor of the United States and thereforeits commitment to policies that are prevalently market-oriented.

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Latin America


Strengths, weaknesses and mythsThe alarms pointing at a dangerous and creeping Chinese military presence in the region arecurrently overstated. Even the yearly US DoD reports to the Congress on China’s militarypower have just cursory mentions on Latam, if any.4 The relevant activities that have been ob-served in the past eight years are:

• A peacekeeping deployment of 130 riot policemen in Haiti (2004-2010);• Military exchanges, with Chilean, Colombian, Mexican, Peruvian and Uruguayan militaries at-tending Chinese academies, military attaches in 10 countries and 6 defence agreements signed between2010 and 2012;5

• Military sales around the $500 million threshold, featuring Venezuela as the biggest recipient;6

• Technology co-operations that failed in the field of commercial aeronautics (like the ERJ-145with Brazil) and succeeded in the sector of light helicopters (Argentina) and satellites (Brazil, Bolivia andVenezuela).7

Economic relations are naturally China’s forte, but they are concentrated on few countries andeven fewer products. 77% of the trade revolves around Brazil, Chile and Argentina, generally in-volving 2-3 products per country (see following table).

China-Latin America Trade

Source: Relaciones económicas de América Latina con China y Asia Pacífico, Osvaldo Rosales, v. directordivision de Comercio Internacional, CEPAL, Conferencia Internacional CIEPLAN Santiago, Chile,29/3/2012.

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Latin America


These data highlight a number of underlying problems which include the excessive reliance onthe export of raw materials vis-à-vis imports of manufactures that in the end offer limited scopefor diversification and the creation of technological alliances. Latin America’s high tech exportsreveal a distressing situation. In the 2006-2009 period the exporting countries are, in descendingorder: Costa Rica and Mexico (more than 20% of the total trade and in direct competition withChinese products); Cuba shows about 20% of high tech exports; Argentina and Brazil less than10%; Chile and Venezuela close to zero.Also investments are relatively small and prevalently made in the areas of hydrocarbons andmining (90%), while the destinations are mainly fiscal paradises (see table).8

Main destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean stock (2007)

Source: PRC Trade Ministry

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Latin America


In the medium term, there are two big negative unknowns affecting the economic role of Beijingin the subcontinent: one linked to the economies of individual nations and one related to the struc-turing of the next great trade agreements. From north to south the main economic drivers remain(in descending order) Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, but all of these countries are ex-periencing serious economic slowdowns in September 2014 (slight growth for Mexico +3%, Brazilbraking at 1,8%) or situations close to a crisis (Venezuela -0,5%, Argentina +0,5% of GDP growth)and this cannot attract further Chinese investments. Worse, Caracas is emerging as China’s divest-ment dilemma due to its difficult political and economic conditions.Even more problematic is the question of the inclusion of these economies in the major agreementsthat are being forged on both sides of the ocean under US leadership. The TTIP (TransatlanticTrade and Investment Partnership) is an exclusive EU-US partnership that cuts completely out allthe Latin American economies.The TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) has been selectively opened only to Mexico, Chile, Peru,otherwise it has the potential to marginalize any regional economic grouping in South America(e.g. Mercosur) and to increase the exclusion of Latin American wares from the Pacific marketsof the smaller AFTA (ASEAN Free trade Area), which shows lower internal commercial barriersthan Mercosur.9

The weak penetration of Latin American commerce in the Asia-Pacific area

Source: CEPAL/COMTRADE, op. cit.

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Latin America


1 The complex web of interests is adequately highlighted by the failure of the maquiladoras model.Maquiladoras or maquilas are small factories that import raw or semifinished products and assemble theminto finished products, taking advantage of the lower wages paid to the local workforce (the maquila wasoriginally the meal’s share due to the miller). The combination of Chinese competition and global finan-cial crisis in 2006 was fatal for the maquiladoras along the Mexican-US border and contributed to the on-going mafia war in Mexico. Over the years the maquiladoras’ share in Mexican exports decreased from54% to 45% on the total. See Sangmeister e Zhang, Die China-Connection: Chinesische Wirtschftsinte-ressen in Lateinamerika, Ibero-Analysen, IAI-PK, Berlin, September 2008.2 The pipeline was originally intended for the shipping of Alaskan oil to the refineries in Texas, Louisiana,Mississippi and Alabama. Its main pumps have been changed by year 2010 in order to allow the reversepumping from the Atlantic to the Pacific with a 800.000 barrel per day (bpd) capacity that can be shippedthrough 300.000 DWT tankers . See. http://www.cges.co.uk/news/506-panama-pipeline-reversal-opens-a-new-route-to-pacific-markets; http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-27/venezuela-to-send-reasonable-oil-exports-to-u-s-more-to-asia.htmlhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/10/venezuela-oil-idUSL2N0N21X120140410 http://blogs.platts.com/2013/05/21/venz-numbers/ (24/09/2014).3 The crisis started the 30/11/2013 with the first riots in the Independence Square (Maidan Nezhalesnosti).4 See DoD, Annual report to Congress, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Re-public of China, 2010, 2013 and 2014 editions (15/09/2013).5 That said trainees are in the tens, whereas the militaries attending US academies are in the hundreds; seeGabriel Marcella, China's Military Activity in Latin America, Americas Quarterly, A publication of theCouncil of the Americas Volume: 0, Issue: 0 (Winter 2012). Moreover one should note that in the regionTaiwan has military attaches in six countries.6 Caracas has acquired : 10 air search radars (unconfirmed); 18 K-8 training/light attack jets (+9 proba-bly); 100 short range air-to-air missiles (unconfirmed); 8 Y-8 transport aircraft; 8 Z-9C anti-submarinewarfare helicopters; 36 self- propelled mortals and multiple rocket launchers; a still unspecified numberof armoured vehicles of the types VN-16, VN-18 and 8×8 VN-1; 91 (+300 on order) VN-4 for the Na-tional Guard. See SIPRI Arms Transfers Database (15/9/2014).

7 The joint Brazilian-Chinese CBERS satellite programme, operating since 2002, will continue until 2017with the launch of the CBERS-5 satellite despite the loss of CBERS-3 due to a malfunction of the LongMarch space vector.8 Compared to the USA (17% of total investments, with some $15 billion) and to the Netherlands repre-senting 13% , China invests just 9% in the area (2010 data); see Relaciones económicas de AméricaLatina con China y Asia Pacífico, op.cit..

9 Until October 2014 Colombia (the fourth member of the Alianza del Pacifico) has been left out of theTPP both because it is not member of the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and because theUSA has not still supported Bogota’s candidacy. Chile on the contrary is linked to the Alianza through anFTA and is part of the TPP

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Middle East - Persian Gulf


Iran and the Iraqi Crisis

Nicola Pedde

The Iraqi crisis has taken the majority of the Iranian political administration by surprise, requiringthe rapid adoption of emergency measures and opening an intense internal debate regarding theneed to revise the management model for regional security.Without mincing words, Iran has paid for the political myopia of its unconditional support for al-Maliki, and the concomitant endorsement of policies for the institutional stifling of Sunni and Kur-dish minorities. And Iran was unable to realize until the end how much the political climate inBaghdad had deteriorated, thus facilitating al-Maliki’s futile attempt at political resistance and thesimultaneous detachment within the Sunni communities. As is well-known, this concluded withISIS entering into part of Iraq, and the start of the season of bloodshed which seems now to havereturned Iraq to the terrible days of 2004-2006.Military circles had a very different point of view, however, where especially among the ranks ofthe IRGC the problem of the Iraqi crisis was known for some time, as evidenced by their repeatedappeals for caution to both the Iraqi and the Iranian political administrations.Not surprisingly, on 12 June 2014, under pressure from the country’s military leadership, an ex-traordinary meeting of the Supreme Council of National Security was convened, devoted almostexclusively to Iraq and in the context of which the seriousness of the Iraqi political situation wasclearly shown.This meeting was followed by General Suleimani’s informal attempt—as the influential head ofthe IRGC’s Quds Force—to convince al-Maliki of the need to take a step back politically, allowingfor the appointment of a prime ministerial candidate able to better represent the demands for na-tional reconciliation. An attempt that ended, however, with a new and arrogant refusal from al-Maliki to back down and with the disclosure of the details of the meeting to the press, in the vainas much as misguided hope of making Iran seem like a force which intervened to the detriment ofIraq’s interests.And so, it was after this episode that the spiral of the former prime ministerial candidate’s politicalcrisis entered into a vertical stall, resulting—over a brief period—in the end of any political supportwithin the Shiite sphere and the definitive abandonment of forming a government.At the same time, however, the IRGC had already undertaken a massive increase in its own logis-tical and training support to the Iraqi forces, trying to plug the holes caused by the dissolution ofthe operational capacity of Baghdad’s armed forces largely in much of the West of the country,and making extensive use of the most recent national technological developments, such as sur-

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veillance and attack drones.Although Iran was later actually the first of the international actors to supply arms and ammunitionto the Kurds, the hesitation that even in Tehran accompanied this painful decision initially workedto the advantage of ISIS.In Teheran, in fact, the Kurdish question has always been viewed with great concern, knowingthat an autonomous and independent Kurdistan in Iraqi territory—although advantageous as amanifestation of Baghdad’s diminished central capacity—is also, however, a prelude to a possiblepush for autonomy by Iran’s Kurdish population. One that Iran has no intention of supporting inany way. Therefore two facts are clear in Iran today as regards the question of Kurdistan. The first com-prises—like it or not—the need to involve the Kurds in the fight against ISIS and in the return tonormality; but the second is the realization that in a short time this involvement will translate intoa de facto recognition of their autonomy—with everything that will follow— probably in the di-rection of creating an autonomous State.It therefore appears clear that an injection of pragmatism was necessary in Tehran in recent weeks,to accept the lesser evil of strengthening the Kurds, and provide not only a quick arms transferprogram, but also a massive support operation through the transfer of paramilitary units originatingfrom Southern Iraq to some of the areas most at risk, with the task of helping out the peshmerga.Iran officially does not take part in managing security in Iraq with its own military forces, althoughit is apparent that not a few of its military advisors are actively engaged in operational support.And the lead role in this effort, as in Lebanon and Syria, seems again to fall to General QassemSuleimani’s units.Shifting the perspective from the field of the crisis to Iran’s political and military institutions, how-ever, it is appropriate to look at how uniform the perception of the Iraqi problem is, and how—onthe contrary—varied is the thinking on the way to manage the same.The Iraqi crisis as a whole is thus perceived within Iranian strategic thinking as part of a morecomplex framework of regional crises, and therefore indistinct from the context of the Syrian crisisand the more general problem of the confrontational relationship with Saudi Arabia.It is nearly a universal belief in Iran that the role of jihadism—and especially of ISIS—is the spinoff of Saudi action in Syria, by now out of the control of the same Riyadh leadership, and in itsown time poised to promote the collapse of the Bashar al-Asad regime in a purely anti-Iranianway.A plan, therefore, devised to counter what the Saudi’s perceive as Iran’s political and geostrategicexpansionism, and which has turned into—in little more than three years—a military catastropheof unpredictable political, social and economic consequences in much of the Middle East.A viewpoint not far from the truth—and indeed fairly accurate—where Iran, however, has alwaysrefused to understand that for regional actors reading its policy is cause for concern.In Iran, this truly unique and universal belief regarding how the phenomenon of the crisis is per-ceived, is nonetheless accompanied by an extremely varied and confusing definition of contain-ment and opposition strategies. The country’s military and intelligence apparatus is reading withconcern the set of signals coming from the region and the global context, opting for a posture mod-elled on the need to promote the speed and effectiveness of the Syrian and Iraqi military interven-

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tion, in conjunction with an effective and flexible capacity for logistical support on Iran’s part.The same apparatus considers every form of official cooperation with the United States dangerous,but believes that any coordinated action is essential at this stage, especially with Washington’s airforces engaged in striking ISIS targets on the ground. All this provided there is an effective andexclusive control of such coordinative capacity within the IRGC’s forces, and not just in the handsof the political environment in Tehran.The government, equally concerned about the evolution of the dangerous situation, is thereforecaught in the grip on the one hand of the demands of the operational components—which are seek-ing to dictate a line of conduct that is clear, but completely autonomous, and de facto independentfrom the executive—and on the other, those of the more confrontational and animated parliamen-tary context, where the branch hostile to the policies of the Rohani government has strengthenedconsiderably over the past few months due to the stagnation in the process of drafting the nuclearagreements with the 5+1 countries.The executive is therefore attempting to define a policy framework that on the one hand satisfiesthe pressing requirements of the military context, ensuring that these have the operational planningnecessary for the consolidation of political support from the governments of Damascus and Bagh-dad, and on the other seize onto the undeniable signs of possible contact with the United Statesand with Western countries in order to use them as a tool of confidence building for the resump-tion—quick and effective—of the nuclear talks.This aspect, however, is meeting growing opposition within the more radical circles of the con-servative sphere, also resulting in Iran in the prospect of a decidedly dangerous and certainly point-less political deadlock in this very delicate phase of national and regional policy.In the fight against ISIS in Iraq, the United States and Iran are testing a fragile but interesting formof cooperation, which, however, poses a serious threat to the stability of the Rohani government.The complex Iraqi political crisis, exacerbated by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s resist-ance to surrendering his post to a transitional candidate, was partially resolved in mid-August withthe identification of Haider al-Abadi as prime ministerial candidate to replace the said predecessor.Although at first there were fears of a political clash among Shiite factions, with the possibility ofan actual coup d’etat by militias loyal to al-Maliki, the crisis has slowly and partially recededmainly thanks to the clear and definitive support of the international community for the new primeministerial candidate.A support that has seen improvements from both the United States and Iran equally, in an attemptto strengthen the institutional framework and begin to deal organically with the threat of the jihadistgroups in the central and eastern regions of the country. The warning to al-Abadi by all the international community leaders is, however, unambiguous:focus firmly in the direction of a government of national unity that is inclusive and comprehensivein terms of opportunities and prospects for the Sunni and Kurdish communities. Otherwise endurethe collapse of central stability and the outbreak of a conflict much larger in size than the currentone.The Iranians also agree with this—early on in the crisis they were sceptical about encouragingbold political openness, but are now apparently convinced of the need for far more pragmaticaction than that envisioned up to this point. Admiral Ali Shamkhani also insisted on this point—

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former Minister of Defence under President Khatami, and now Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Na-tional Security Council—reiterating throughout all the interviews in which he expressed the Coun-cil’s support for al-Abadi the need for a unified strategy within all of Iraq’s political groups andcoalitions.The plan that no one dares define as “cooperation”, but at most “coinciding vision” between Iranand the United States, is growing in scale in Iraq, which is being realized in the coordination ofthe actions of ground forces with American air raids. In a recent interview, the former commander of US troops in Afghanistan, David Petreus, assertedthat “the United States cannot become the air force of the Shiite community”, thereby showing aclear embarrassment that currently regards the Washington administration. And which appearsthrough the need to provide direct military assistance, but in the context of a policy frameworkdefined by “national support”, which is, however, not at all convincing.The President of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, did not hesitate toconfirm how Iran was the first country to supply arms and ammunition to the peshmerga, at thesame time criticizing the reluctance of Baghdad’s central government to distribute among theKurds the arms received from Western countries. His statement was made during a press confer-ence in Erbil, in the presence of Tehran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.In this way, for Kurdistan as well, a fairly accurate picture of Iranian pragmatism is taking shaperegarding the difficult handling of the crisis created by the entry of ISIS into Iraq, with Tehranspecifically and intensively engaged in providing operational and logistical support to many ofthe ethnic and religious groups involved in the conflict with al-Baghdadi’s jihadists.What Masoud Barzani complains about is the persistent political short-sightedness of the centralgovernment which—even in a situation of serious crisis like the present one—for the sake of notaltering the balance of power among the various ethnic and religious groups of the country in ahypothetical post-ISIS future, prefers to run risks on the military front, sitting on the military aidreceived from Western countries. On the contrary, he confirmed how Iran’s support “has made thedifference”, providing as an example the recapture of the Mosul dam on 17 August, thereby avert-ing the danger of jihadist militias controlling the water flows. Iran’s support is not, however, limited to the Kurdish side, being extended mainly to the centralgovernment’s units, but in some cases even to loyalist units of the Sunni faith. Tehran’s strategyhas been articulated and well-coordinated, especially favouring the mobility on the ground ofSouthern Shiite militias also in support of targets outside the traditional areas of majority Shiitedenomination. Numerous fighters from the Badr militias and Iraq’s Hezbollah were thus placedside by side with the military units of the central government and with those of the Kurdish pesh-merga, but also with the small militias of the minorities and in some cases with those Sunni onesengaged alongside the government.Perhaps the most obvious instance of this cooperation involved breaking the blockade on the cityof Amerli, a small Turkmen stronghold that for 81 days resisted heavy siege, managing in late Au-gust to open a breach and defeat the jihadist forces. It would seem that the same General Suleimani,at the head of the Jerusalem Brigade of the IRGC, was present in Amerli during the battle, per-sonally coordinating much of the ground operations.The siege was, however, broken thanks to an additional factor, which makes the framework of

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anti-jihadist cooperation even more special and potentially promising. It was in fact due to the un-relenting engagement of the American bombers that the Shiite and Kurdish paramilitary forceswere able to thwart the siege and go on the offensive, all this displaying the measure of a cooper-ation that—although not officially direct and overt—has seen Washington and Tehran’s diplomatsbecome involved in the search for, if not a cooperation, at least a close coordination. The extent of Iran’s regional and global affairs continues, however, also to have an impact on thenational political level—more precisely in the constant attempt by the more radical groups to causeembarrassment to the government of Hassan Rohani while restricting its room to manoeuvre inany scenario of negotiation—or even merely cooperation—with the United States.In this sense must be read not only the arrest, but especially the wording of the indictment againstJason Rezaian (Iranian-American reporter for the Washington Post), his wife Yeganeh Salehi (cor-respondent for Dubai’s national newspaper) and of another photojournalist, arrested in late Julyin Tehran, and now charged with espionage activities.Supporting this theory, the allegation of Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, Attorney General andJustice Ministry spokesman, formerly Minister of Intelligence, who said that the United States isactively engaged in trying to promote a “velvet revolution” through the use of agents recruitedfrom among the ranks of Iranian-Americans.A very heavy indictment, although hardly a consistent one, which will likely create few ripples onthe judicial level, but enormous harm on the level of Iran’s international credibility and especiallyon the difficult subject of talks with the United States.An additional pretext, therefore, for causing political embarrassment and freezing the already weaklines of communication with Western countries, especially at a time when the crises in Syria andIraq have put Iran at the centre of regional attention, in fact proving to the United States and Europehow—and how much—a normalization of relations could contribute to regional stability and se-curity.Provided, however, that if pursued it would give an undeniable political advantage to Rohani’smoderate and pragmatic team, in all likelihood triggering an irreversible process towards thawingrelations between Washington and Tehran.The circle of opponents to Rohani’s policies has unfortunately widened over the past few months,mainly as a result of the standstill in negotiations on the agreements with the 5+1 countries, andmore generally due to the observation of a general feeling of coldness on the part of the interna-tional community towards what in Iran were—in many respects for good reason—considered his-toric concessions by the government. Concessions that many wish to see accompanied by tangible negotiation results—and especiallyby the lifting of sanctions—and who do not intend to make sacrifices to the intangible realm ofrealpolitik or the medium- to long-term interests of the State.They are joined by the first generation of the opposition group, comprising leaders of the nationalsecurity and intelligence system, as well as of the judiciary and the national military industry, whoderive the greatest economic and political benefit from the country’s isolation and constant stateof alert. And with these go hand in hand a good part of the new Iranian entrepreneurs—who makeenormous profits from the isolation and the embargo, a small part of the clergy, and that part ofthe population—increasingly inconsistent from one year to the next, but still present—which is

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ideologically convinced by the revolutionary model and of the need to prevent in any way, andforever, a dialogue with the United States.Under the lens of the opposition forces, therefore, are not only the delicate nuclear negotiationswith the 5+1 countries—although these are watched over by the military apparatus in particularso as to avoid conceding too much without anything real in return—but also the logistical and mil-itary engagement preceding the crises in Syria and Iraq, where, for the first time, the real possibilityof a collaborative relationship with the United States is being addressed, even if indirect and un-planned, and which many fear the herald of a subsequent phase of political euphoria on the bilaterallevel.If, therefore, the establishment of the nuclear negotiation process—however delicate and contro-versial—shows at least the potential for an agreement aimed at relieving the sanctions and recog-nizing Iran’s status as a regional actor, cooperation with the United Stated in any theatre of crisisis otherwise considered devoid of any objective advantage on the part of the more radical and con-servative groups in the Iranian political fabric. These therefore oppose any suggestion of coordi-nation, at the same time discouraging their counterparts through discrediting the Rohanigovernment.And this point is also the red line that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not willing to cross in theotherwise wide political support granted to Hassan Rohani. If, in fact, on the nuclear negotiationsthe President requested and received the full support of the Rahbar, in the context of regional andglobal politics, and especially of relations with the United States, the Supreme Leader continuesto represent the generational and cultural movement of revolutionary militancy, which looks withdeep suspicion upon any suggestion of openness, and that in fact considers impossible every formof dialogue with the United States.Any attempt to push in the direction of a clear cooperation formula with the USA—and especiallyone removed from the assessment and possible management of the IRGC—will therefore en-counter strong opposition, largely from the conservative political system, such that the Presidentalso loses some of the support currently guaranteed within the clergy, and especially within thesphere of the first generation of the national political system.

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The International Economic Partnership Models With Africa

Marco Massoni

Several international economic partnership models, to be seen indirectly political, with both in-dividual African countries and with regional organizations as well as with the African Union (AU),according to a mixed pace and time, are emerging, following this very irreversible industrializationstage of the African continent.Actually, the partnerships that the AU has with the rest of the worldfall into five broad groups, namely the Continent to Continent Partnership, the Continent to Coun-try Partnership, the Partnerships in Prospects, the Institution to Institution Partnership/Relation-ship and finally the Non-African States & Regional Integration & International OrganisationsAccredited to the AU. In truth, there are several ways that the old colonial powers and emergingcountries have started or are about to implement at bilateral or multilateral level. Specifically,France and the United States share the Closeness and Supervision Approach especially for issuesrelated to peace & security and to the political influence to be used, while Germany and the UKcarry on a Rights Diplomacy Approach in terms of democratic, merit, transparency and account-ability conditionalities expected from African partners. China, Turkey, India and Brazil on theother hand, notwithstanding their own differences, share a kind of Partnership for DevelopmentApproach, inasmuch they see themselves as still developing countries. Italy, conversely, by virtueof the recent revival of her relations with Africa (particularly Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya,Mozambique, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Senegal and South Africa), is being characterizedby the so-called Growth Diplomacy, especially in light of the brand new law on development co-operation. At the moment, if the opportunities for Italian companies in Africa are the economicgrowth, the rise of the middle class and the consequent increase in domestic demand and consumergoods, however in terms of risks one should include the lack of infrastructure, the poor access tolocal credit, corruption and bureaucracy as well as the strong competition of other investors farmore equipped. In fact, cooperation and partnership agreements coming from Latin America to-wards Africa are getting stronger, as reflected for example by the ratification of preferential tradeagreements between MERCOSUR – the South American free trade area, which includes Argentina,Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), comprisingBotswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Further examples are not only the in-creasing relations between Buenos Aires and Pretoria, but also the various editions of the Africa-South America (ASA) Summits, the first of which took place in 2006 in Nigeria, the second in2009 in Venezuela and the most recent in 2013 in Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), patently dedicatedto the mechanisms and strategies necessary to strengthen the South-South Cooperation between

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the two continents. Anyway, Brazil remains the main Latin American country in economic andtrade cooperation in Africa, which is witnessed in its political and economic agenda through variousmeans including the trilateral initiative IBSA Dialogue Forum (i.e. India, Brazil and South Africa),also known as G3 or Axis of the South. Established by the Brasilia Declaration in 2003, it has theaim of supporting a new multipolar international order, by safeguarding the politico-military in-terests, reflecting the priorities of the three Member States, as to establish each one of them as theregional power in their respective continents. Thus, Brazil presents itself as a spokesperson forthe causes of African countries, so as to achieve a broader consensus, in order to soon become apermanent member of the UN Security Council. Also, Brasilia offers under favourable conditionsher free of charge know-how transfer, in exchange for discounted rates for the procurement of rawmaterials from Africa. The state oil company – Petrobras – is present in Libya, Nigeria and Angola,where it has invested more than $3 billion in oil production. A further preferred channel marketpenetration for strategic cooperation is the increasing importance of the international block of theCommunity of Portuguese-speaking Language Countries (CPLP), which has over two hundredand forty million people; established in 1996, the CPLP is formed by nine countries: Angola,Brazil, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé andPrincipe and East Timor. Although the relationship between Africa and the Arab world have alwaysbeen tense and difficult, yet it is worth mentioning the call for unity of the Arab bloc with theAfrican one that was expressed during the so far three editions of the Arab-African Summit, whosevery first edition was held in 1977 in Cairo, the second in 2010 in Sirte, and the third most recently(19 to 20 November 2013) in Kuwait City. Yet, on that occasion, the final statement looked likemuch more an ineffective wishful thinking, compared to the days when Gaddafi used to run a goodpart of the movable market across all Africa. In addition, unlike the Chinese one, the Arab part-nership makes use of the local workforce and labour. The foreign policy of Turkey has been con-sidering for the last fifteen years Africa as the driving force for her growth and influence by virtueof both the catalytic power that a moderate Islamic democracy can have on a number of Africancountries with a Muslim majority and the peculiarities of a country that is at the same time Balkan,European, Middle Eastern, Caucasian and Asian, being also a member of the Council of Europe,OSCE, NATO, OECD and observer of both the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the AfricanUnion (AU). As a matter of fact, Ankara proactively uses in this regard the cooperation governmentagency – Turkish International Cooperation Development Agency (TIKA) – through its branch-offices present in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Senegal, Somalia and Sudan. Another relevantasset is given by the ad hoc fora, such as the Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summits, whose first edi-tion was held in 2008 in Istanbul and the second, albeit more modest, in 2013 in Addis Ababa. Anentirely different register are the means that India has been putting in place since 2002 in Africa,clearly marked by the following three elements: production (in the form of technical cooperation),logistics and security. Actually, New Delhi aims to be the star of a new geopolitical dimension,whose failure was nevertheless caused by the supremacy of the strategic projection of China acrossthe Indian Ocean and the African continent. In fact, India focuses on the East coast and on SouthernAfrica (Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique), primarily for mil-itary and security purposes, with the ultimate goal to foster the containment of China’s and Pak-istani expansionisms across the area. The Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), formerly known

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as the Indian Ocean Rim Initiative and Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation(IOR-ARC), is a regional-international organization consisting of coastal states bordering the In-dian Ocean. It has been established in 1997 and it is based in Mauritius, of which eight Africanstates are full members, as also India, which has been able to exclude Islamabad, while Beijingmaintains the status of a dialogue partner. New Delhi, in accordance with its maritime doctrineclaims a new area of security and defence policy throughout all the Indian Ocean, including thefight against piracy and the confidence to continue to acquire hydrocarbons supplies not only fromSaudi Arabia, Nigeria and Angola, but also from Mozambique. Finally, concerning the officialplatform of dialogue between the Indian subcontinent and the African continent, the third editionof the India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-III), will take place in early December of this year. China,on the other hand, by means of her Multilateralism Simulation©, pretends to reassure the Westabout her real intentions, namely securing the definitive long-term hegemony and monopolythroughout Sub-Saharan Africa on the whole. This is witnessed, among other things, by the SpecialEconomic Zones (SEZs) that are special areas of economic cooperation and trade or industrial dis-tricts identified in six African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Zambia and Nigeria).

Northern Africa: MauritaniaThe elections of 21 June in Mauritania, have confirmed to the Presidence of the Republic, withmore than eighty percent of the votes, Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, having defeated his opponent,Birame Ould Dah Ould Abeid. The former Minister of Transport, Yahya Ould Hademine, has be-come the new Prime Minister, replacing Ould Mohamed Laghdaf.

Western Africa: Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Nigeria and SenegalIn September, President of Ghana, John Mahama, has given rise to a small government reshuffle,putting at the top of the Ministry of Defence Benjamin Bewa-Nyog Kunbour, who was the headof the ruling party’s parliamentary group, replacing Mark Woyongo, subsequently moved to theguide the Ministry of the Interior. Guinea-Bissau has been reinstated both in the African Unionand within the Lusophone bloc, namely the Community of Portuguese-speaking Language Coun-tries (CPLP), after the return to constitutional order obtained through the last May presidentialelection, won by José Mário Vaz. Domingos Simões Pereira is the new Prime Minister, who pre-viously served as president of PAIGC and Secretary of the CPLP. As per Mali, the French President,Francois Hollande, has early August announced the start of Barkhane Operation, to replace thosenow ended (i.e. Serval and Épervier). The Opération Barkhane takes place in close cooperationwith the governments of some Sahelian concerned states such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali andMauritania. In the meantime, a new political and military Arab group for independence was borne,the Popular Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MPSA). After having reached a preliminaryagreement in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), the two Malian delegations met in Algiers with thepurpose to search for a just and lasting peace in Mali: on the one hand the government of Bamakoand on the other the northern groups, namely the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad(MNLA), the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA), the Arabic Movement of Azawad(MAA), the People’s Coalition for Azawad (CPA), the Arabic Azawad Dissident Movement(MAAD) and the Coordination of Movements and Patriotic Resistance Fronts (CM-FPR). Con-

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cerning Nigeria, the continuing round tables promoted by President Goodluck Jonathan on the oc-casion of the National Conference go ahead, trying to make fruitful a difficult mediation betweenthe poorer Islamic north and the richer Christian south, which in other words are two blocks char-acterizing the Nigerian political life in anticipation of next year’s elections. At present, the criticalquestion is that of the transfer of federal funds from the oil-producing Southern states in favour ofthe Northeastern States, where the raging conflict between federal security forces with the coop-eration of the Armed Forces of Cameroon against Boko Haram militias is still ongoing. Actually,the head of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has announced on the web the fall of the city of Gwozaand Damboa in Borno State, proclaiming the establishment of an Islamic caliphate there. Moreover,Boko Haram was able to occupy some Cameroonian towns along the porous border with Nigeria.At the same time there are some defections from the regular Nigerian Army ranks, complainingof not being enough equipped to adequately respond to the threat constituted by the asymmetrictactics of the Islamist sect. On July 6, the President of the Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall, hasappointed Mohamed Dionne new prime minister, following the sudden removal of Aminata Touré,in office for a year. This is the third reshuffle since the electoral victory of March 2012.

Eastern Africa: Burundi, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and South SudanIn addition to Kirundi and French, English too has become the official language of Burundi. Bu-jumbura, having joined the Commonwealth in 2012, considers critically important to conform tothe English-speaking standards of the East African Community (EAC), to which it belongs since2007. In September, Burundi and Tanzania have reached an agreement for consensual demarcationof a stretch of about thirty miles of the border, along which a buffer zone has been created, in orderto combat the transit of weapons and militias. Bujumbura and Dar es Salaam do suffer from theproximity to the Kivu, being the epicentre of instability across the Great Lakes Region. Some rebelfactions in Burundi took refuge right in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from whereon the other way round Eastern Congolese militia regularly cross the border, without finding anyinterposition on the part of the Burundian security forces. In Kenya, the Governor of the countyof Lamu has been accused of terrorism on the massacres carried out in two coastal towns in May.Nairobi considers appropriate to place the responsibility on local politics, although doubts remainabout the real instigators. The head of al-Shabaab in Somalia, Ahmed Abdi ‘Godane’, was killedin an operation led by the Washington, but immediately replaced with Ahmed Umar, also knownas Abu Ubaidah. The parliamentary and presidential elections in Sudan will be held April 2 nextyear. The cease-fire and the subsequent establishment of a government of national unity for SouthSudan under the Addis Ababa Agreement of May 9, remain a dead letter. Meanwhile, in order totry to put an end to the civil war, the Bahr el Ghazal region traditional leaders, land of origin ofthe controversial President of the Republic, Salva Kiir, have implored him to leave power volun-tarily before the natural expiration of its mandate next year.

Central Africa: Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC) and GabonAbout Cameroon, along the porous border, Islamist sect Boko Haram infiltrations from and toNigeria ceaselessly continue. President Paul Biya has ratified and promulgated an Act, authorizing

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hydrocarbons transit from Niger through the Cameroonian territory. Regarding the Central AfricanRepublic (CAR), at the end of July in the capital of the Republic of the Congo, Brazzaville, a Na-tional Reconciliation Forum took place, bringing together representatives of the two warring fac-tions within the CAR: the Anti-Balaka on one side and the former rebels of the Séléka coalition,within which a split was also consumed, on the other. A current is in fact coming coalescing aroundthe figure of the former President, Michel Djotodia, for months in exile in Benin, an ethnic Goula,while the other is led by the current General Abdoulaye Hissène, expression of Ronga ethnicity,and Advisor to the interim Government. In late August, a new transitional government, under theleadership of Prime Minister Mahamat Kamoun, a Muslim, took office; in particular, there werethree Ministries due to Seleka, but only one to the Anti-Balaka group. On September 15, theAfrican-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) handed overto the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central AfricanRepublic (MINUSCA). As per the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while several hun-dred militants, including those of the notorious M23 Movement, defeated last year in combat,were pardoned by the government of Kinshasa, the Ugandan rebels of the Allied DemocraticForces–National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU), active in the east of the coun-try, have been recognized by the United Nations in the list of armed groups subject to internationalsanctions. As far as Gabon is concerned, the former President of the African Union Commission(AUC), Jean Ping, is one of the promoters of the new political party, the Opposition United Op-position Front for Alternation (FOPA), that in view of the presidential election of 2016, is goingto oppose the never before defeated ruling party, the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), led fordecades by the Bongo family.

Southern Africa: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and ZimbabweAlso thanks to the mediation of South Africa and the Southern African Development Community(SADC), the 30th of August a coup occurred in Maseru failed. Grounds of the unsuccessful golpein Lesotho lie on the confrontation between police and military, having the latter launched an op-eration against the former taking control of its headquarters also confiscating several police sta-tions, vehicles and weapons. Presumably, the soldiers were deployed at key points across thecapital, but to withdrew a few hours later. Most likely, the Army had in mind to disarm the police,as suspected of arming political activists, ahead of a protest called the same day. In Lesotho, anenclave within South Africa, the political and social climate is increasingly tense, because of theauthoritarianism of the Premier, Thomas Thabane, leader of the All Basotho Convention (ABC),which rules in coalition with the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), whose Secretary-Gen-eral, Mothejoa Metsing, also Deputy Prime Minister, has long been at odds with the head of theExecutive. According to the spoils system logic, the newly elected President of Malawi, PeterMutharika, has launched a turnover of the most influential senior civil servants, dismissing amongothers the head of the Armed Forces, General Henry Odillo, replacing him with Ignancio Maulana.As per Mozambique, on September 8, also thanks to the Italian mediation, the peace agreementbetween the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) and the Front for the Liberation ofMozambique (FRELIMO) was fully signed, right before the upcoming elections scheduled on 25October. Afonso Dhlakama, the historical leader of RENAMO, who had gone into hiding in Goron-

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gosa October of 2012, expressed the hope that the peace between the two main parties would putan end to what he called the ‘party-state system’. In Zambia, President Michael Sata has dismissedWynter Kabimba, Minister of Justice and Secretary General of the ruling party – the Patriotic FrontParty (PFP) – probably because the main competitor to the succession to the elections of 2016.For Zimbabwe, Marufu Grace Mugabe, second wife of the head of state, Robert Mugabe, has beendesignated a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic.

ConclusionsFrom any African perspective, the twenty-first century will be, if not a Chinese, for sure an Asianone. The international economic partnership pattern successful by far is the Chinese. India andChina are rivals for the logistic distribution and marketing of similar and/or equivalent productsdestined to the African markets. Truly, one of the features of the Indian technology is to offer prod-ucts suitable, appropriate and accessible on a collision course from the point of view of competitionwith the Chinese. China was the first to open the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), platforms ofmutual benefit provided by the strategic partnership, which are to allow for a quantum leap overother international competitors as far as the strategic, economic and political positioning of Chinain Africa is concerned. At present, SEZs are in the process of implementation in some selectedAfrican countries, in order to overcome the obstacles and constraints in relation to the interna-tional trade to the detriment of the US and the EU. As for today, at strategic level it still appearsminimal the Chinese interest in any military confrontation in Africa, being the Chinese presencestructural and transformational, but certainly not episodic nor cyclical: by 2025, many Chineseenterprises in the manufacturing sector will have at last transferred a great deal of their productionin Africa, to escape wages and costs production increase at home. This means that the centre ofworld production within the next twenty-five years will not be in Asia any longer, rather in Africa.

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The long standoff between the activists of Occupy Central, asking for election by universal suffrageamong multiple candidates competing for the Government of the Autonomous Province of HongKong on behalf of the Basic Law (the mini-constitution that would govern relations between theformer British colony and the motherland) and the Chinese authorities has reached a turning point.After a long media campaign, after a referendum, organized by activists in Hong Kong, with800,000 citizens who have spoken out for universal suffrage (referendum branded as illegal bythe central authorities) on August 31, Beijing has made a decision on the question of Hong Kong1.The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress decided that in 2017 the Chief Exec-utive of Hong Kong will be elected by universal suffrage. However, to run for the position onlycandidates who obtain the consent of at least 51% of the delegates of the Nominating Committeewill be eligible2. The delegates, among other things, will have to verify that aspiring candidatesnurture a real and sincere “love” towards Hong Kong and the Motherland. What is meant by “love”is explained clearly by Xiankui Chen, of the Renmin University of China. Chen defines “love” as“love of country and love of party [as] one and the same in modern China,” because in China –argues Chen - the Communist party is identified in the nation as the party which represents “thefundamental interests” of all the people3. The Party press has hailed the decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Con-gress as a “great leap forward”4 for democracy in Hong Kong. On the contrary, for the activists ofthe “Occupy Central” movement the decision is a further major step toward the abolition of allautonomy and freedom, that on paper, should have been guaranteed to the former colony, sincethe Nominating Committee will conduct a true pre-screening in order to exclude from the electionthose who might have adverse positions against the CCP in Beijing.On September 26, the response of the people of Hong Kong has given rise to massive street demon-strations. The people of Hong Kong ask for Western democracy, (long-deprecated by the Beijingauthorities and the press of the Communist Party), freedom, and autonomy, as well as social justice.Michael Chugani of China Morning Post writes: “The mass uprising that began over the weekendis not just about democracy. It is also about demoralized young adults. It is about our property ty-coons making the Forbes wealthiest list, while a million Hong Kongers live in poverty. It is aboutbrand-name stores for the rich forcing out noodle shops. It is about big businesses opposing evena very modest minimum wage law. It is about clueless bureaucrats in chauffeured cars turning ablind eye to how floods of mainland visitors have turned our quality of life upside down.” 5

For Beijing, the demonstrations in Hong Kong are simply illegal. On October 28, the police inter-

The question of Hong Kong

Nunziante Mastrolia

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vened with tear gas and pepper spray, and then, in the following days, withdrew. On the same day,online messaging programs (Weibo and WeChat6) were censored, and internet photos and messagesrelated to the protest were deleted. On October 1, the protesters demanded the resignation of CYLeung, Chief Executive, threatening otherwise to occupy government buildings.

Symbols matterIn any society, those in power must explain why only they have the right to command and onlythey have the right to use force legitimately. Talleyrand explained to Napoleon: “You can do any-thing with bayonets except sit on them”, suggesting that without a firm principle of legitimacy, noprince can feel confident of his throne if using only the strength to assert the right to stay in power.Therefore, it is necessary to construct a narrative or a mechanism to justify the fact that some havethe right to rule over others. The monarchies of the past resorted to divine law, the Western democ-racies resort to the popular will expressed through universal suffrage. In China (and not only there),the myth of the Communist palingenesis, the enlightened vanguard (the dictatorship of the prole-tariat or rather the dictatorship over the proletariat), which knows the laws of historical evolutionhas failed. Consequently, the Party is forced to recourse to another principle of legitimacy, to an-other historical interpretation that could justify its stay in power.This new narrative is as follows: only the Communist Party has managed to raise the country fromthat state of despair, humiliation and resignation which resulted from the European and Japaneseimperialism, that reduced China to the status of semi-colony. Only the Communist Party was ableto discard the Japanese invaders, and to restore dignity to China, which is now the planet's secondlargest economy, putting behind the century of humiliation that extended from the first OpiumWar to the founding of the People's Republic.Given these successes, the Party and only the Party can successfully lead the redemption of thecountry, and return to it its great power status. Therefore, it follows, that it is the duty of every Chinese citizen to “love” the Party and look withsuspicion at the other major powers, whose ultimate aim is to turn back the clock of history andto stop the rise of China. This concept should be all the more true in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which re-mained for more than a century under the rule of a foreign power. However, this new narrativehas not taken root among the populace of Hong Kong. The protesters in the streets of Hong Kong are waving the British colonial flag, and denouncingthe “imperial arrogance” of Beijing: “Chinese colonists get out !!”, how is possible to read onsome banners of the protesters. Furthermore, on October 1, the sixty-fifth anniversary of the found-ing of the People's Republic and, in the historical narrative of the Party, the justification of its roleand a day which marks the end of the century of humiliation, Hong Kong protesters have turnedtheir backs on the Chinese flag, and booed the national anthem of China7.In the days of the uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the students built a copy of the Statue ofLiberty (also called the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom or Spirit of Democracy) in papermachè, while the protestors spread - according to the chroniclers of the time - the Marseillaise inChinese, to emphasize their objectives: the liberal freedoms of the West. On September 29, in thestreets of Hong Kong, a replica of the Statue of Liberty appeared also, accompanied by the song“Do You Hear the People Sing?”, from the soundtrack of the musical “Les Miserables,” translatedinto Chinese. In Hong Kong, there also appeared a “wall for democracy”. This wall, in Beijing,was the main symbol of the pro-democracy movement, which spread throughout China from thefall of 1978 to the end of 1979. On the wall, the Chinese citizens, with different emphasis, criticizedMao Zedong and his cult of personality, the Cultural Revolution, the lack of democracy or respect

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for human rights.These symbols, which echo Western freedoms, are very meaningful. They show how the HongKong protesters are followers of those pro-democracy movements that are part of the history ofChina, followers of the same battles of 1979 and 1989, in an attempt to give the country the fifthmodernization, which has never been achieved, namely the political modernization, that will endthat transfusion process of the Western ideas into Chinese civil society and political sphere.This transfusion process can go on, which means that all the elements of the open Western societywill be transplanted in to the closed society of China. Indeed, the process of economic and tech-nological modernization is followed, like a shadow, by cultural and institutional modernization. But this process could also revert it course, which implies the closure of China to the outside worldin an attempt to seal (according to the North Korean model) the country from any Western influ-ence. Therefore, this process can move either forward or backward, but it cannot stand still: themonopoly of power is, in fact, incompatible with economic pluralism and with a civil society moreand more open to the world. Consequently, it is not possible to sustain that Chinese Communism Party has created a new model(different from the western democracies and different from the oriental despotisms), a new thirdway, as has been theorized by many, but rather is a risky attempt - which may not be successful -to integrate only some selected aspects of an open society into a closed society.

Terzium non daturInternational observers note that in 2003 Beijing had succumbed to the protests of the citizens ofHong Kong by withdrawing the “anti-subversion” law, and in 2012 Beijing was forced to backdown in an attempt to insert “patriotic education”8 into school subjects taught in Hong Kong.These examples were important in the past years, but they are not appropriate to current protests.The protests attempt to achieve both the autonomy that was supposed to be guaranteed by the for-mula “one country, two systems” as well as the right of universal suffrage to choose among severalcandidates vying for the post of governor of the city. This means more parties competing to winthe elections: a claim that Beijing authorities consider antithetical to the institutional structure ofmainland China, where a State Party claims to be the one and only representative of the funda-mental interests of the Chinese people. Moreover, while the protesters in Hong Kong are invoking Western democracy as a universal valueand are waving the British colonial flag, they are dismantling the CCP attempt to build its new le-gitimacy principle9.It’s obvious that Beijing can not grant the autonomy that the citizens of Hong Kong demand, con-sidering the risk of spreading autonomous movements to mainland China (from Xinjiang to Tibet)nor can Beijing grant universal suffrage to choose among candidates not previously selected bythe PCC. If Beijing accedes to the demands of Hong Kong, it could no longer deny similar requeststhat may come from other parts of the country (Shanghai? Shenzhen? 10). Furthermore, Beijingcan not grant what the protesters in Hong Kong are claiming, because it would means to yield tothose Western values and ideals, which from Beijing's perspective, are decadent and outdated, andrepresent a real threat to that one-party systems that rules China. If, then, in view of the Beijing authorities the issue of Hong Kong is inextricably linked to the per-manence of the ruling Communist Party, and to the survival and territorial integrity of the country,it is clear that no concessions will be made in the future. It is, indeed, in the interest of the Partyto assimilate Hong Kong into the ruling system of the mainland, eliminating all the perspectives,

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and all the peculiarities of the former British colony which, from its freedom to the activism of itscitizens, has been for Beijing, writes Timothy Cheek, “ a source of continuing embarrassment. “Beijing, therefore, cannot surrender voluntarily, unless it is willing to the risk of a revolt againstthe CCP throughout mainland China, nor, in principle, may it use force in order to put an end tothe protests, as in '89; a decision that could provoke a wave of condemnation both at national andinternational level.Beijing's can only “starve” the protesters11, in the hope that the protest is deflated, concurrent witha press campaign that attempts to reduce the consensus, that the protestors appear to have in thepopulation of Hong Kong. The CCP, to counter that support, focuses on the negative effects of theprotests12: underlying the economic costs to the city13; stressing the possibility that the protestscould degenerate into acts of vandalism, throwing the city into chaos14; painting the activists asagents in the pay of foreign powers, which act - directly or indirectly - to destabilize the country15.In conclusion, if the analysis as presented is correct, it is impossible that the stalemate in HongKong can be resolved with a mediation: or the demands of autonomy and democracy will be totallyrejected, or the CCP will be dismissed from China. In other words, Hong Kong and the protesterscan secure their demands only if all of China follows its example. Beijing can secure its goals onlyby definitively ending the individualism of Hong Kong, by fully integrating it into the rest of themainland. If Beijing succeeds, it is possible that, in a short time, all forms of autonomy will beeliminated, pro-democracy activists will be hunted and arrested, and the British heritage will dis-appear entirely. If Hong Kong is successful, the entirety of China could be affected by this blazeof freedom and grassroots activism. In either circumstance, neither Hong Kong nor China will bethe same in the future16

11 “Full text of NPC decision on Hong Kong's constitutional development”:http://www.fmcoprc.gov.hk/eng/syzx/tyflsw/t944943.htm2 “Annex I : Method for the Selection of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Re-gion”: http://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/annex_1.html3 Rachel Lu, “ A New Definition of Chinese Patriotism”, Foreign Policy, September 11, 2014. 4 “A New Chapter for Democracy”, Bejing Review, September 11, 20145 “Occupy Central is about so much more than democracy”, South China Morning Post, October1, 20146 “Spyware Targets Hong Kong Protesters’ Phones”, China Digital Times, September 30, 20147“Hong Kong stages huge National Day democracy protests”, BBC, October 1, 2014; “The “umbrellarevolution”: students turn their backs on flag raising for China’s National Day “, Asia News, October 1,2014

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88 “Hong Kong protests: What happens next?”, The Telegraph, October 1, 2014; “Hong Kong'sProtests: Six Scenarios for What Will Happen Next”, The New Republic, October 14, 20149 N. Mastrolia, “Il secolo delle umiliazioni e la questione della legittimità del Partito comunista ci-nese”, CeMiSS Instant Study, 2014. 10 “Shenzhen man detained after posting Occupy Central pictures”, South China Morning Post, Oc-tober 1, 201411 “Hong Kong leader plays waiting game, protesters demand he resigns”, Reuters, October 1,2014. “Unless there's some chaotic situation, we won't send in riot police ... We hope this doesn't happen(…) We have to deal with it peacefully, even if it lasts weeks or months”, “Hong Kong Government’sStrategy on Protesters: Wait Them Out”, The New York Times, October 1, 2014; “Hong Kong Govern-ment Seeks to Wait Out Protesters”, The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 201412 “Protests endanger life and limb”, China Daily, October 1, 2014. See also “Tang: 'Occupy'surely unlawful”, China Daily, October 1, 2014, “Protest disrupts life in HK, depresses stocks”,China.org, September 30, 201413 “HK is paying the price”, China Daily, October 1, 2014; “Protesters are to blame for the 'OccupyCentral' chaos”, China Daily, October 1, 201414 “Opposition losing its grip on protests: Analysts”, China Daily, October 1, 201415 “MFA reiterates opposition to foreign interference in HK”, China Daily, October 1, 2014; “Be-ware of foreign meddling”, China Daily, October 1, 2014. See “Russian state television says Britain andUS provoked Hong Kong protests”, The Telegraph, September 30, 201416 “'Occupy' is seeking regime change in HK”, China Daily, September 30, 2014

Indian Foreign Policy in the Modi Era

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Any time a country elects a new government, speculations are made regarding possible changesof that country’s foreign policy. Narendra Modi’s India is no exception to this trend, and the PrimeMinister peculiar background together with the recent flurry of official visits who saw him tri-umphing in China, Japan, Australia and the United States, not to mention several others SouthAsian states, can suggest that something is changing in the way in which New Delhi wants to plannational foreign policy, eventually drawing new lines among its regional and global friends andfoes. At the same time, in the background of such an engaging tour, Modi’s absence during thelatest Asia-Europe summit in Milan emerges for its non-appropriateness, making an analysis onIndian foreign policy and political ambitions even more valuable and urgent.The fact that Narendra Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister who has been literally catapultedfrom a local level politics into national most important political position inevitably limits whatcan be argued about his foreign policy views and ambitions. Although during the electoral campaign Modi seldom talked about his foreign policy views, thereare at least three elements that can be useful in disclosing what he is planning for India: the veryfirst speech he made on foreign policy in 2013, the foreign policy section of the new Bjp Manifesto,and his recent international official meetings.On the 18th of October, 2013, Narendra Modi was in Chennai to discuss his “India and the Worldgrand design” in details. He said there that Indian foreign policy has to be shaped by both valuesand interests. Aware that “many of the global problems between nations have their roots in a lackof appreciation of each other’s viewpoints”, Modi stresses that India should not be shy of dis-charging its responsibility in dealing with some of the world’s troubled hot spots. At the sametime, he argued that Indian soft power should be revived to positively influence global regions introuble. While doing that, India can also stop being a passive actors in regional and global nego-tiations, transforming itself in a country able to negotiate from a position of strength. During hisChennai speech, Modi also stressed that economic strength is crucial to implement an effectiveforeign policy, implying that economic reforms and restructuring need to maintain their priorityover any foreign policy commitment. Although they were not extensively developed during thespeech, these ideas can definitely anticipate the vision of a “new” India inclined to focus on itsown priorities at its own conditions. Finally, considering Modi’s preference to deliver his speechesin Hindi, the fact that he chose English for his very first talk on foreign policy may imply aninterest in sharing his ideas with a much broader audience than the one who gathered in Chennai

Claudia Astarita

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to listen to him. The second element to be considered when trying to anticipate Modi’s foreign policy moves isthe new Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp) Manifesto released in April 2014. This document contains asection on foreign policy in which Modi’s hand is clearly visible. It is stated that Indian foreignpolicy should be grounded on four principles: relations will be mended through pragmatism anda doctrine of mutually beneficial and interlocking relationships, based on enlightened national in-terest; championing uniform international opinion on issues like terrorism and global warming;instead of being led by big power interests, India will engage proactively on its own with countriesin the region and beyond. In the region it will pursue friendly relations. However, where requiredit will not hesitate to take a strong stand and act accordingly. It will work towards strengtheningregional forums like Saarc and Asean. And it will continue India’s dialogue, engagement and co-operation with global forums like Brics, G20, Ibsa, Sco and Asem1A few other passages from theBjp Manifesto are even more explicit in clarifying that Mr Modi is committed to let India play anactive global role that will remain aligned to national strategic interests and economic priorities.India needs to “create a web of allies to mutually further [its] interests. We will leverage all ourresources and people to play a greater role on the international high table […] There is a need tointegrate our soft power avenues into our external interchange, particularly, harnessing and focus-ing on the spiritual, cultural and philosophical dimensions of it. India has always played a majorrole in world affairs, offering a lot to the World […] The magnetic power of India has always beenin its ancient wisdom and heritage, elucidating principles like harmony and equity. This continuesto be equally relevant to the world today in today’s times of Soft power. We will adopt ProactiveDiplomacy to spread the same”2 . This “proactive democracy” paradigm is probably the most important and innovative point ofNarendra Modi’s vision of Indian foreign policy. When discussing nation states participatory approaches to foreign policy, it is often argued thatthe majority of them is considered “reactive”, meaning that participation starts only after a changehas occurred. These kinds of approaches generally refer to countries engaged in problems defini-tion, discussion and analysis talks, or nations involved in consultations aimed at improving acertain situation or taking action. A “proactive” approach, instead, implies that planning and actionsshould be initiated before a threat and an opportunity occur. According to this rationale, the futureis not just something coming. Instead certain future possibilities can be shaped or avoided whensome nations decide to engage themselves in a continuous transformation process. Countries interested in adopting a proactive foreign policy approach should be aware that theyneed to meet certain conditions to be successful: among them, be recognized as reputable peacefulpowers, potential external stabilizers, stable democracies and strong in both hard and soft power,but more inclined to recur to the former only when external condition make it compulsory to doso. Considering that Modi’s words never come by coincidence, there is certainly a good reason whyhis party’s Manifesto talks about proactive democracy rather than proactive foreign policy. If aproactive foreign policy is meant at convincing other countries that they want the same outcomethat one of them (the proactive influencer) is proposing, leaving the option of recurring to coercionin case it is needed open, it can be argued that the difference between a proactive foreign policy

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and a proactive democracy approach is similar to the one we have with hard and soft power. To beeven more explicit, as soft power is used to convince nations to opt for a certain behaviour recurringto co-optation rather than coercion, leaving any hard power dimension outside the externally in-fluenced bargain, the influence of a proactive democracy in international relations is per se leavingany hard dimension behind. Accordingly, rather than introducing India as an emerging powerwhich may end up embracing assertive or threatening positions, talking about a proactive democ-racy Modi de facto stresses New Delhi’s intention to strengthen its connections with foreign powersfocusing on promoting bilateral trade, tourism and cultural exchanges more than on influencingstrategic equilibriums. A few sentences in the Bjp Manifesto indirectly confirm this plan: “Thesymbols of our ancient civilizations stand as a testimony to our […] excellence. We will reviveBrand India with the help of our strengths s T’s: Tradition, Talent, Tourism, Trade and Technology”. If economic, prosperity and cultural exchanges are central to Modi’s thinking about foreign policy,the new Indian Prime Minister is also aware that his country’s image, influence and credibilityhas been badly damaged in almost all neighbouring countries, and that in order to revive India’scivilizational role and restore its ancient glory domestic strengths needs to be boosted. Accordingly,in order to support India’s shift from an inward-looking and generally unreliable power to a proac-tive democracy interested in promoting global wellness and peaceful development, it was com-pulsory for Modi to relaunch bilateral dialogues with small and medium neighbours and foreignpowers. While emphasizing India’s no-nonsense toughness towards threats to national security, Modi alsostressed that his “new” India will no longer remain weak when the country needs to be strong orinsensitive when it needs to be sensitive. In other words, Modi’s India is deeply committed to re-launch international trade and any form or bilateral or multilateral cultural exchange without al-tering the current strategic equilibrium, unless more assertive reactions will be required by externalevents and provocations that directly challenge India’s interests. In order to test whether during his first round of official visits Modi succeeded in re-introducingIndia to the international community as a peaceful and collaborative partner while at the sametime emphasizing that New Delhi is not disposed to see any of its strategic priorities challenged,it is useful focus on these visits’ achievements. The opening months of Mr. Modi’s prime minis-tership have witnessed official gatherings to the neighbouring states of Bhutan and Nepal, majorpowers like Japan and the United States, and China’s President Xi Jinping and Australian PrimeMinister Tony Abbott were also recently welcomed to India. All these visits yielded gifts: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to invest $35 billionin India over the next five years, while Xi Jinping partially matched it with $20 billion. TonyAbbott offered something even more precious, uranium, and economic and strategic partnershipswere the focus of Modi and Obama’s discussions, too, even though Modi’s trip to the United Stateswas embedded in an “official recognition” issue pushing both leaders to define under which con-ditions their political connections could be re-launched before focusing on other priority. Modi’sremarkable achievements during all these visits cannot but confirm Indian Prime Minister’s com-mitment to substantially improve his bilateral relations with other global powers. Beyond that,during each meeting he indirectly challenged a certain “international custom” to India’s favour.While choosing Japan as his very first international destination and stretching bilateral cooperation

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beyond culture and economics in order to embrace strategic forms of partnerships, Modi not onlyindirectly re-emphasised Tokyo’s strategic weight in the region, but he also impressed Beijing andthe world with such an “unexpected” solid friendship which was implicitly proving on the onehand that India is interested in consolidating its foreign connections, and on the other hand thatbeing a proactive democracy, it is not interested in snubbing any country sharing its priority ofmaximising peace and mutual benefits. In early September, Minister Tony Abbott was chosen asthe first world leader to be received in Delhi in a full state visit. In this occasion, Modi not onlyconfirmed his interest in forging India’s connections will all Asian powers, but he also secured aregular supply of affordable and abundant energy such as natural gas, coal, and uranium to en-ergy-thirsty his country. Once Xi Jinping reached India in mid-September, China’s priority in shap-ing its Indian relations could no longer be the one of threatening a weak country with looseinternational connections with assertive statements. On the contrary, Beijing’s priority suddenlybecame the one of re-adjusting New Delhi’s posture pushing it to lean to China’s side. However,in this occasion, Modi’s realist and pragmatic imperative of shaping India foreign policy in a waythat will never sacrifice its other priorities was further confirmed when, after signing dozens ofagreements and welcoming investments for more than $20 billion, Indian Prime Minister empha-sized the urgency of reaching a compromise on border disputes as well as that no unfair solutionwould have ever been considered by India. Then it was Modi’s turn to fly to the United States tobe officially welcomed by the same country that, less than ten years before, had labelled him per-sona non grata. Modi’s trip to America cannot be considered a landmark visit in terms of signedagreements and bilateral expressions of interest for future cooperation. Modi went to the UnitedStates to show India and the world that he is a world leader that needs to be considered and ap-proached as such, as well as to further consolidate his proactive but peaceful approach to engageinternational partners in bilateral and multilateral cooperation schemes. After re-launching bilateral cooperation on an equal basis with the four most important countriesfor Indian contemporary foreign policy and after pushing his counterparts to recognize him as apeer, it is argued that Modi’s foreign policy will now focus on two other priorities: exploiting for-eign connections to promote Indian economic development, and focusing on neighbouring coun-tries to solve another thorn in national foreign policy’s side: Pakistan. If it is true that Modi’spragmatism will push him to implement a more muscular policy towards his arch-enemy, whichhas in the meanwhile become virtually an Islamic state, he needs to increase India’s reliability ratein South Asia. Two major factors so far have prevented New Delhi from been recognized as apeaceful and trustworthy power in its own regions: its size and political ambitions, which pushedneighbouring countries to consider it a threat rather than a potential partner, and its long-lastingantagonistic relations with Pakistan, which convinced Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan andMaldives to fall into China’s arms looking for an economic partner and a regional counterbalancer. Luckily for Modi, it seems time is eventually ripe to strengthen Indian status in South Asia: withPakistan growing increasingly intolerant and China perceived as too much aggressive, there isdefinitely more room for India to introduce itself as a stable ad reliable partner, especially afterraising its reputation vis-à-vis several major powers. More than one foreign policy analyst believethat Modi will treat Pakistan differently, bolstering India’s military strength to create a credibledeterrent for Islamabad’s bad games, but to do that freely, Indian Prime Minister needs to reassure

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his partners that none of its military move will be ever directed against them. Lots of time will beneeded to achieve such a remarkable change, and Modi has a long way to go to succeed in thischallenge. Strengthening his reputation by securing stable and mutually beneficial partnershipswith international world powers is definitely a good start. However, although it is too early tomake some realistic speculations on Modi’s unexpected choice not to attend Asem meeting inMilan in October, his absence shows that his foreign policy is probably even more nuanced thanwhat has been decoded so far, that there are some other details encrypted on it, and that we willneed more time to decipher, understand and interpret his point of view.

1 Prakash Nanda, India Foreign Policy Under Modi, Fearless Nadia Occasional Papers, Winter 2014, Volume3, Australia-India Institute, The University of Melbourne, p. 11. 2 Manifesto 2014, Bjp (www.bjp.org/manifesto2014).

EU sanctions and EU-relations with Russia

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In the aftermath of the unilateral annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the United Statesand the European Union (EU) have established sanctions against Russia. Initially, the EU and American sanctions were directed only to a few specific individuals. TheUnited States had also included legal persons, in particular selected companies. In April, the UnitedStates started to include mild sanctions against Russian aerospace and defence companies. On July 17th, the United States have taken stricter sanctions as a result of the crash of MalaysianAirlines MH17 flight in eastern Ukraine. According to American and German intelligence, theMH17 flight was allegedly shot down by pro-Russian rebel militia with Russian-made anti-aircraftmissiles. In late July, the United States and the EU, with its Regulation 833/2014 of July 31st and the decision2014/512/CFSP, have agreed further sanctions against Russian defence companies and banks. TheUnited States has also decided to sanction the oil and gas companies in Russia.

Effects of military sanctions to RussiaFor the EU Member States military sales to Russia total about 583 billion Dollars. The major con-tract is with France consisting of 1.2 billion Euro for the two Mistral-class helicopter carriers. Co-operation with Russia in the defence sector is important for the cooperation between Russianand European companies in third markets, especially for Italy with the agreement for the com-mercialization of the submarine S-1000. Finmeccanica cooperation with Russian companies, withSukhoi for the Superjet 100 regional jet, and by means of agreements of AgustaWestland withRosoboronexport for the commercialization in third markets of the AW149, are exclusively aimedat the civilian market alone, and are not intended to develop ties in the defence sector.For Italy, the situation is not good because the submarine S-1000 in collaboration with Fincantieriwas suspended and the sales of M65 Iveco Defence Vehicles (also known Light Multirole Vehicleor nicknamed “Lince” in Italian) were frozen. The contract with Iveco was supposed to be a majorcontract, but as things stand, only 57 of the 1.700 vehicles authorised were built. Regardless of the embargo, on August 4th, Germany, has unilaterally cancelled Rheinmetall contractwith Russia for a 120 million Euro combat simulation center. The three-years contract had beensuspended in March by the German Ministry of Economy, as a consequence of the annexation ofCrimea. In any case, the contract was worth for Russia rather than for Germany, given that theshare of Rheinmetall was equivalent to only 10% of the center that the Russians are building at

Claudio Catalano

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Mulino in the central Volga region. The Russians have stated that the construction of Mulino centeris on schedule, as they may easily find a national supplier specialised in modeling & simulation. Germany is also putting pressure on Paris to cancel contract for two Mistral-class ships, demandingcompensation for France as the purchase or leasing of two ships from NATO or the EU. Russiahad not put on hold the Mistral-class ship contract and France had asked the EU for an exemptionfor this contract on the basis of the impact on employment and the reputation of France as a seriousand reliable supplier. The contract was not well regarded by the United Kingdom, Poland and theBaltic countries. Eventually, on the eve of the NATO summit in North Wales France announcedto have halted the delivery the first of the two ships to Russian Navy scheduled on 1st November2014. Russian Deputy Defence Minister Yury Borisov stated that French decision to cancel theMistral-class contract could add tensions in the bilateral relations, but it was not a tragedy for themodernization of Russian Navy.Paradoxically, military sanctions on Russia create serious problems to the United States’ access tospace. On May 13th, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, announced the inter-ruption of the supply of Russian RD-180 engines of NPO Energomash for use on US militarylaunchers Atlas V of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) - a joint venture of Boeing and LockheedMartin. Engines supply to launchers for civilian purposes remains unchanged. The US Air Force (USAF) has two alternatives to the Atlas V: the Delta IV of ULA and the Falcon9 of Space X. In December 2013, the USAF issued a no-bid contract to ULA for 36 Atlas V andDelta IV in 5 years. Six or seven other launchers would be put to tender. This damages two Amer-ican private companies: Space Exploration Technologies Corp of billionaire Elon Musk whoprotested against the ULA monopoly, and Space X who complained that the money of the Amer-ican taxpayers may end up in Russia. Space X appealed to the Court of Federal Claims to ask foran embargo on Russian engines for the Atlas V. Initially, the Court had ordered to ULA not to buymore RD-180, though it immediately withdraw the injunction. According to the ULA, Space Xinitiatives have led Russia to its decision on RD-180 ban. For the ULA the RD-180 in inventoryallow a two years supply, which ULA would need to substitute the Atlas V launcher with a newDelta launcher built with US components only. The cost to develop a US alternative to RD-180 isworth about 1 billion dollars and 5 years of time. In May, Congress has proposed only 220 milliondollars to develop a US alternative to RD-180 that will be ready in 2019. The military embargo on Russia does not harm its security of supply, because Russia traditionallylimits off-the-shelf purchase, with the exception of the period of the Defence Minister, AnatoliySerdyukov (2007-2012). In fact, all foreign contracts concluded Serdyukov time are now placedunder review. The Russian rearmament program (GPV-2020) announced in 2010 continues and it is deemed in-dependent from the facts of Ukraine. GPV-2020 will focus more on domestic products. The current Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that the Russian military industrialcomplex must obtain maximum independence from foreign sources and imported technology. The Federal Decree 26 of 2011 has limited the purchase from abroad and the Russian program ofmilitary imports substitution aims to replace military imports from the EU and the United Stateswith domestic suppliers. More than the EU embargo, the real damage to Russia is the termination of military/industrial co-

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operation with Ukraine, because Ukraine's military sales to Russia amounted to the total of thoseof all the EU Member States. Russia and Ukraine also had collaborations on major programs, suchas the 5th generation fighter Sukhoi PAK-FA T50. Conversely, the Ukrainian defence industry was totally dependent on Russia, which was its firstmarket, given that Ukraine has limited internal market. The Crimea region alone accounted for10% of the Ukrainian industry. In spring 2014, Russian defence industry managers have visitedindustrial plants of the Crimea to see what was possible to dismantle and relocate in Russia. Russia intends to compensate for the loss of cooperation with Ukraine by offshoring its low value-added production in Belarus, China, and Serbia.

General and macro-economic effects of EU and Russian sanctionsThe Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria called the EU 'the great no-show on the interna-tional stage'.The summit on Ukraine in Berlin on August 18th held between the French foreign minister, LaurentFabius and Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, without inviting the Italian presidency of the EU,has not led to nothing. The concept of the EU as a “civilian power” as the European version of “soft power” has neverbeen popular outside of Europe. The EU Member States are also in a difficult position in economicand commercial terms with Russia. It is well known that the EU imports more than 30% of energy needs from Russia, which accountsfor 7% of European exports and is the third largest trading partner for the EU after the UnitedStates and China, in particular for Germany and Italy. According to the Financial Times, the European sanctions will have negative effects on large Eu-ropean companies such as Adidas, Siemens, Volkswagen, the leading mass retailer Metro, and oilcompanies such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total. Visa and Mastercard companies also may beaffected by a drop in spending of Russian billionaires in Europe. In addition, Russia issued sanctions issued on August 6th to sanctioning countries with the blockfor a year on the import of agricultural products, raw materials and food. Further penalties wereissued on August 11th on textiles and clothing, footwear and leather goods. These restrictions putEuropean exports in danger, and especially those of Italy. Although the first entry of Italian exportsin Russia is mechanical engineering, businesses such as food products and fashion are the symbolof the “made in Italy”. For example, Italian wines have won 28.5% of the market share in Russiaand in 2013 the Italian fashion has exported 2.3 billion euro in Russia. The director of the Con-sorzio Grana Padano, Stefano Berni, called the block decided by Russia as “a very heavy penaltyfor those who, like us, are investing in Russia for years with excellent results in terms of consumersmarket.”The restrictions to EU food products would benefit primarily the food producers outside Europe.The restrictions on textiles concerns at the moment only affect direct imports by the Russian federalgovernment and municipalities, not individuals. Only positive effect, it is possible that the Russian billionaires in Italy, decide to prolong the hol-idays in Versilia, Costa Smeralda or in cities of art in order to procure directly from the source,delicacies, wines, Italian shoes and clothes. These unless further limitations in the future would

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also impair the movement of persons, which negatively influence elite tourism in Italy. The sanctions towards Russia impact on a weakened economic environment. The IMF in July hasrevised downwards its growth forecast of Russia's GDP for 2014 from 1.3% to 0.2%, because ofthe reduction of investments. The sanctions have an impact especially on the banking sector andinvestment and export companies, especially oil and gas. According to a report by the SACE: “the loosening of relations between Russia and Europe couldlead to a delay in major energy projects planned between the two areas,” particularly the SouthStream gas pipeline participated by Eni. This could “on the one hand push Russia in the short termto review the arrangements for the supply of energy to Europe” and on the other hand “incentiveBrussels to diversify in the long run its energy supplies.”In 2013, Italy has exported to Russia for 10.4 billion Euro and it is the fifth largest supplier in thecountry. According to SACE due to the reduction of Russia's GDP, Italian exports would suffer a“contraction of about 9% in 2014 and a recovery of 0.5% in 2015 to a total loss of exportsamounted to 938 million euro in two years.” In a scenario of military escalation, the decline in exports to Italy would be “equal to 12% in 2014and 11% in 2015” and it would record “a total loss of exports amounted to 2.4 billion euro in theperiod 2014-2015, of which 1 billion in the field of mechanical engineering.”The food restrictions would lead to a loss of 163 million euro, without considering the risk oflosing the market due to product substitutes or counterfeits of Italian original food products. Ac-cording to Coldiretti, in the world the “made in Italy” counterfeits food products total more than60 billion euro with respect to an export of Italian food products of 20 billion a year. As compensation, the European Commission announced on August 18th the opening of € 125 mil-lion credits to support food producers affected by Russian embargo. As long as the block is limitedto public procurement of textiles, the Italian fashion industry is saved, but this does not precludean extension of the sanctions, given that at the end of August, Russia considered to enact restric-tions on the import of cars. This automotive limitations would spare the European manufacturersthat have plants in Russia, such as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, but it would hit the most prestigiousItalian brands in Russia, such as Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati.

The sanctions are a double edged sword and may have adverse effects especially on large exportersin Russia, such as Italy. The only effective countermeasures to Russian policy in the Ukrainiancrisis could be policy initiatives such as acceleration on the process of Association of Ukraine tothe EU or a NATO involvement for the Ukrainian crisis. The signing of the political chapters ofEU-Ukraine association agreement in March 2014 has been described by some analysts as a casusbelli for Moscow. However, the association agreement has been formally signed in June 2014,and ratified by the Ukrainian parliament. This has not prevented from negotiating in September the Minsk Protocol and the Minsk Memo-randum, agreed in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group, which are a good news and astep towards a political solution of the crisis.No one hopes a military escalation in Ukraine, nor EU Member States, nor Russia. Russia seemsto be at ease with the status quo in Crimea, while both Russia and the EU would hope for a nor-malization of EU-Russia trade relations. But time is not on Russia’s side: in the last four

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months there has been a 30% significant drop in oil prices from 115 to 80 dollars per barrel. Thisis a good news for oil importers, such as continental Europe (except Norway), but it could lead toa strong worsening of Russian public debt. Russia has forecasted its public debt with an averageoil price set at 117 dollars per barrel in 2014, and 100 dollars in 2015. About 50% of Russian ex-ports rely on hydrocarbons: 4/5 on oil and 1/5 on natural gas. For the trade gap, Russia could re-sort to its Reserve Fund and Sovereign Wealth Fund only up to 2018. After this deadline, Russiawould have to negotiate with the West for a solution to the Ukraine crisis.

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Pacific(Japan-Korea-ASEAN Countries-Australia)

2014 has been defined as an “historical” year for the Philippines: after many efforts and roundsof negotiations, in October 2014 there has been an important step to establish the “Bangsamororegion” (BR) also called “Bangsamoro”. This new institution, that will replace the existing Au-tonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is the final stage of a long and difficult processbetween the Filipino Government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, also know asMILF. There are great expectations about this new agreement: the ARMM, established in 1989,has been recently labelled as a “failed experiment”by the current Filipino President, therefore itis time to move forward. Is the BR a definitive solution for the so-called “Moro” issue? From oneside the political agreement could be an historical moment for the whole country; on the otherside, this agreement does not involve other radical armed groups active in the Philippines, likethe communist insurgents, and especially the more violent Jemaah Islamya (JI) or Abu Sayyaf(AS). The latter recently has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, theinsurgent group of the Middle East. Is the shadow of ISIS looming over the Philippines? How theestablishment of the Bangsamoro will influence the stabilization of the Southern Philippines andthe separatist groups?

The last months in the Philippines have shown an increasing momentum for the agreement betweenthe government of Manila and the MILF, one of the biggest separatist organizations in the country.The main aim of this agreement is the establishment of a new region, called Bangsamoro, whichwill succeed the existing ARMM. Is it going to be a definitive solution for the autonomist aspirationof the Southern Philippines?

The “Moro” issue: a bleeding wound The difficult debate about the transition ARMM-BR is the final stage of a long and complex con-frontation between the central government of Manila and the local authorities of the south. Butthe roots of this contrast date back in time. The arrival of the Spanish explorers, led by FerdinandMagellan in 1521, opened the way for the colonization of the islands, called “Philippines” in honorof the king Felipe II of Spain. For the next 350 years the Filipino archipelago was under the ruleof Madrid, as a part of the Spanish Empire. But while the colonization of the northern and centralpart of the Philippines was easier, the south was more difficult to subjugate. The southern “resis-tance” was mainly based on two elements, the religion and the local political structure, divided in

Between the challenge of Bangsamoroand the shadow of ISIS: a crucial autumn for the Philippines

Stefano Felician Beccari

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many sultanates. Due to the trade with many Arab merchants, the south of the Philippines, duringthe Medieval times, has been exposed to the influence of Muslim missionaries; therefore, whenthe Spanish troops arrived, they had to face an established political system deeply intertwined withthe Islamic religion and traditions. But the superior firepower and the modern organization of theSpanish units were not enough to subdue the Southern populations, labelled by the Spanish as“Moro”, the same word used during the Spanish Reconquista to identify the Arabs. “Moro” inSpanish is an adjective that means “dark”, and it is a clear reference to the dark skin of the Arabdescendants once located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. More than 350 years of Spanishdomination did not solve the Moro problem, which remained an open wound in the SouthernPhilippines; other violent confrontations erupted periodically during the US rule (1898-1942) andthe Japanese occupation (1942-1945). The end of the Second World War just suspended for a whilethe Moro problem, which came back, again, in the end of the 60s. The current issue of establishinga “Moro” area (the BR) is a direct consequence of the tensions, still existing, between Manila andits Muslim minority, traditionally located in the Southern Philippines. This explains why the officialwebsite of the ARMM says that <<the history of the ARMM has always been intertwined withthe struggle of the Muslim peoples of Mindanao towards self-rule and self-determination. Thesepeoples, who, now collectively call themselves “Bangasamoro” wanted to shape their own destinyunder Islamic law and culture. They had repelled the influence of foreign domination particularlythe Spaniards, Japanese, and Americans>>. “Bangsamoro” is something more than just a name ora statement: it is considered as a symbol of the different identity of the Moro people. Bangsa inMalay language means “nation”: so the BR, officially called “Bangsamoro” will be the formalrecognition of the specific status of the Moro people, land and claims after centuries of struggleand fights.

From ARMM to BR The challenge between the central government and the southern provinces exploded again at theend of the 60s, when it was established the (first) separatist group, called Moro National LiberationFront, or MNLF. Its leader, Nur Misuari, at that time advocated for the independence (“liberation”from the central government) of the Moro region. The birth of MNLF underlined the beginning ofa new confrontation in the Philippines. Misuari, despite his marxist and secular background, wasable to reunite many Moro instances and to present himself as the main advocate of the Moro'srights, mixing political and religious ambitions with a paramilitary organization capable to strikeon Manila's forces. After some years of open (violent) confrontation, in 1976, with the so-called“Tripoli agreement”, the government and the MNLF negotiated a truce which then led to the es-tablishment of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, or ARMM; on the other side, MNLFwas supposed to quit the armed insurgency and to concentrate its effort on the implementation ofthe regional autonomy. After some years, in 1996, Misuari was also elected president of theARMM: many Moro people saw this event as a possible solution to the contrast between the“North” and the “South” of the country. But after the election of Misuari he started to misbehave,and soon his supporters turned against him. After some accusations of corruption, Misuari waseventually ousted from the regional government by the President of the Philippines, in 2001. Thehistory of ARMM continued under other leaders, but essentialy failed to resolve the Moro issue.

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Morevover, after the end of the first war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and the return of many Fil-ipino “foreign fighters”, some new rebel groups were established, as Abu Sayyaf or Jemaah Is-lamiyah, both listed officially as “terrorists” by many governments. These groups, and other smallmovements, were not part of the negotiation process between the government and the Moro coun-terparts, as the MNLF or the MILF; AS and JI started a campaign of bombings, kidnappings andattacks against Manila's forces and unarmed citizens. These groups still advocate for such a radicalsolution (the indipendence and the establishment of a teocratic state, for AS, while JI envisions a“regional caliphate” in South East Asia) there are few elements to negotiate with the authoritiesof Manila. The establishment (rectius: transformation) of the BR today seems to be the (only?)solution for the historical problem of the Moro: now, in the end of 2014, it seems that this dreamis getting closer to reality. The 7th of October, after 15 years of peace negotiations, Manila's Gov-ernment and the MILF reached a Framework Agreement that would allow the creation of the BR:this important step has been officially announced by the President of the Philippines. As a Filipinomedia reported, the President also added that the Agreement <<paves the way for a final, enduringpeace in Mindanao, as it brings all former secessionist groups into the fold; no longer does theMoro Islamic Liberation Front aspire for a separate state. This means that hands that once held ri-fles will be put to use tilling land, selling produce, manning work stations, and opening doorwaysof opportunity for other citizens […] finally, we have achieved peace, a peace that will serve asthe foundation of our dreams for Bangsamoro, for Mindanao, and for the entire Filipino nation>>.The last round of negotiations for the current agreement began in 2012 between the Filipino au-thorities and the MILF; now the beginning of BR is scheduled for 2016. In the meanwhile, a Tran-sition Commission (TC) will be established, and it will manage the creation of the BR by 2016.The TC will be composed of fifteen members: seven will be appointed by Manila's Governmentand eight by the MILF; the MILF will also have the chairman of the TC. The Commission willdraft the “Bangsamoro Basic Law”, for the future BR: the law should reflect the guidelines andthe aims of the peace agreement between MILF and the central government. When the BangsamoroBasic law will be promulgated and ratified, ARMM will cease to exist. The law will be eventuallyconfirmed by a referendum; after this there will be the elections for the new regional assemblyand government. One of the crucial points in the process has been the balance of powers between Manila and thefuture BR: the central state will keep exclusive powers in some areas (i.e. defence, foreign affairs,monetary policy) while the <<Filipinos of Bangsamoro>> has said the President <<on the otherhand, will be assured a fair and equitable share of taxation, revenues, and the fruits of nationalpatrimony. They will enjoy equal protection of laws and access to impartial justice>>.

BR: the difficult way aheadThe former ARMM has been labelled by the current President of the Philippines, Benigno AquinoIII, as <<a failed experiment>>. So, what are the main differences between the ARMM and thenew BR? Why BR should be successful, compared to the previous “failed” experience? When theARMM was established, in 1989, the two parts (Manila's government and the MNLF) agreed ona “package” of options to favor the regional government. ARMM's administration, therefore, en-joyed a certain degree of flexibility in the management of some local issues, such as taxes, fees,

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charges and the implementation of the sharia, the traditional islamic law. But after more thantwenty years, it is quite clear that these powers were not able to solve the main issues of the region:a tragic underdevelopment of the economy, poverty and a fragile security. According to the WorldBank data, ARMM <<suffers from poor infrastructure and inadequate basic services, such as healthand education, poor local governance and a weak private sector. Armed conflicts, including thestruggle for self-determination by Moro groups, clan disputes, communist insurgency, and banditry,among others cause severe economic and social displacement. This situation in turn results inlong-term poverty and deprivation from adequate schooling and healthcare and drives the popu-lation to sell their valuables or go into deeper debt to meet basic needs>>. But the previous expe-rience failed also for another reason: ARMM was “created” without a proper “peace process”between the stakeholders; therefore it looked as a kind of “imposition” from the central govern-ment, rather than the result of a bottom-up approach. Therefore the MNLF and the MILF refusedthe ARMM and boycotted its role. In comparison with the ARMM, the current “Bangsamoro op-tion” presents some advantages. First, the deal has been negotiated, for many years, with the mostimportant separatist group of the Southern Philippines: the MILF. MNLF is declining while ASand JI are more interested in small and violent terrorist actions: it is clear that without a stableagreement with the MILF it is not possible to achieve a credible solution for the area. Secondly,the government has decided to open an official negotiation process with the MILF, considering itas an equal political partner, without “imposing” its unique view. Thirdly, one of the provisions ofthe agreement will be the disarmament of the MILF and its militants: this should reduce the pos-sibility of future armed clashes in the region. Finally, the government wants to provide new fundsfor the BR, especially an “annual block grant” taken from the national revenue collection: thisshould help the implementation of local development projects in the Bangsamoro.

Bangsamoro and the role of ISIS The establishment of the BR seems to be the only reasonable option that the Government of Manilahas to settle the Moro issue in the south. After many years of negotiations, 2014 is seen as a crucialyear for the history of the Philippines: but, unfortunately, during the summer other shadows havebegan to move over South East Asia and especially over the Philippines. Today the most evidentsecurity challenge for the region is ISIS, the famous radical group active in the Middle East. De-spite the geographical distance, ISIS' call has a strong influence in the region, especially on themarginalized Muslim communities. Despite the lack of official data, it is no secret that many Fil-ipinos (as well as Indonesians and Malayans) are currently fighting in the Middle East, as soldiersor militants of ISIS: unofficial esteems say 50-100 Filipinos, as well as nearly 50 Indonesians or20/40 Malayans. The involment of Filipino “foreign fighters” happend already in the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-1989: the result was that after the return of those “volunteers” a new wave ofterrorism shocked the country. Fierce terrorist groups as Abu Sayyaf (AS) or Jemaah Islamiyah(JI) were established regrouping the veterans of the Afghan war and exploiting their military ca-pabilities. After being backed by Al-Quaeda, now AS and JI are increasingly looking towards ISISto find support and a political backing for their actions. In July, AS' leader, Isnilon Hapilon, hasofficially expressed his support for <<the brothers of ISIS>>, endorsing the ambitions of the Is-lamic State, while JI is supposed to have only some links with the group. Apparently, the Southern

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Philippines could be a new cradle for terrorism in South East Asia. Is it a real perspective? Fromone side ISIS “spillover effects” - as the recruitment of foreign fighters, the return of “veterans”from the Middle East and a possible new round of attacks in the Philippines and in South EastAsia - should not be underestimated. But on the other side Manila's government has some advan-tages both on the security and the political level. On the security level, the joint efforts of theArmed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philipino National Police (PNP) were able, in thepast years, to control and limit the scale of the attacks. At the same time, the cooperation withneighbor countries today is stronger and more structured; finally, AFP and PNP, compared to thepost-1989 situation, have 25 years more of experience in anti-terrorism and counterterrorism. Onthe political level the challenge is also very relevant. Manila's Government and President Aquinohimself have invested a huge amount of resources and efforts in the establishment of the BR. Asmooth and positive transition from ARMM to BR could be a huge political gain for Aquino ad-ministration: he could be the first Filipino president able to implement the peace between Manilaand its Moro minority. Setting the Moro issue will be also very useful to cut the support for theother groups still active, such AS, JI or new violent organizations such as the Bangsamoro IslamicFreedom Fighters (BIFF). A successful beginning of the BR will show to the Moro minority – tra-ditionally the sympathizer of the separatist or terrorist groups – that there is an alternative way toadvocate for their rights, refusing violence and insurgency. This explains also why PresidentAquino is advertising so much the last agreement. As a local Filipino media has reported, the Pres-ident has said <everything will be disclosed; we have no desire to keep secrets. To the best of ourability, we have examined these agreements; we believe we have reached balance and commonground. As a result, we have rectified the errors of the past, and installed mechanisms to makesure they do not recur>>. He has also <<urged the public to “not think in terms of ‘them’ and ‘us.’but rather as a ‘we’ united under a single flag. The time for misunderstandings has passed, and ifwe truly care for one another, then it is only a matter of time: a matter of time before we put anend to violence; a matter of time before normalcy is restored to the Filipinos of Bangsamoro>>.The next months will show if these high expectations will be implemented.

The establishment of the Bangsamoro seems to be a big step forward for the Philippines' nationalsecurity and internal stability. If the deal with MILF will continue, in the next years it will be pos-sible to begin a new process of “normalization” of the BR, and a general disarmament of the in-surgent groups. But the solution of the Moro issue does not require just a military answer: thecentral government should find the way and the means to recover Bangsamoro's economy, andfight warlordism, poverty and the lack of basic infrastructures. If the Aquino administration willnot win the challenge of the BR, consequences could be grim. A failure would be a devastatingblow for Aquino's credibility and will probably provide the radical groups new elements to be usedagainst the central government. This could also enlarge the support for the radical organizations.In other words, the Bangsamoro is a one way solution: this opportunity must not be missed or de-railed.

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International Organizations andCentral Asia Cooperation


Although in July and August there was a further radicalization of the confrontation betweenUkraine and Russia, which resulted in a game of raising the stakes negatively affecting all involvedparties, several negotiation attempts were carried out between the end of August and throughoutSeptember among Kiev, Moscow and the representatives of the separatist groups in the easternregions of the country. Although partially successful, these attempts were planned to give a newcourse of events, even in the clear and demonstrated inability to reach an agreement on the keyissues of the crisis: the status of the eastern regions of Ukraine and the price of gas.

The downed plane and the increase in sanctionsOn 17th July, a Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in an area of the Donetsk region controlled by theseparatist militias. The Ukrainian authorities stated that the rebels, spreading documentary materialin support of their argument and accusing Moscow of having supplied the separatists with anti-aircraft weapons to be used to shoot down planes at the same height the Malaysia Airlines wasshot down. These are likely to be the same weapons used to attack military aircraft of the Kievforces, many of which were shot down during the two months prior to the anti-terror operation.For its part, the Russian government rejected any wrongdoing, arguing that what happened shouldbe blamed on Kiev and its decision to continue the military campaign in the east. The investigationsof international observers were hampered both by the continuation of the fighting and the restric-tions imposed by the pro-Russian militias controlling the area where the remains of the crashedaircraft were located. Because of the shooting down, government troops re-launched counter-terrorism operations, com-ing to lay siege to Donetsk and Lugansk and gaining positions inside or near residential areas. Sharing Ukraine's position on the shooting down, the European Union and the United States tight-ened sanctions against leading Russian companies and individuals. As a result, on 7th August,Russia imposed a "total embargo" on food imports (fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairyproducts) from the EU, US and other Western countries. In addition to the embargo on food im-ports, Russia banned air transit of Ukrainian airlines and is also considering a ban on transit overSiberia for EU and US airlines (there would be a significant increase in costs and times of flightfor EU and US jets used for many Asian destinations). Since the counter-sanctions could be longlasting, the Russian authorities are trying to enter into new agreements to import food from otherproducers (South America, Turkey and China) and boost domestic production to keep prices low.

Can dialogue between Kiev and Moscow start?

Lorena Di Placido

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According to EU estimates, sanctions will have negative effects on the Russian economy, estimatedat 1.5% of GDP for 2014 and 4.8% of GDP for 2015. Russia’s future does not seem bright, andthe same is for many countries subject to Moscow’s counter sanctions. Food exports from Europeto Russia amounted to €11.8 billion in 2013 (those from the US €972 million), and are sufficientlyimportant to affect growth prospects during the embargo. The Polish peasants were the first tocomplain, calling for aid from Brussels to compensate for the inevitable losses. Besides sanctions, other problems for the Russian economic and financial system resulted fromthe 28th July ruling of the Court of Arbitration in The Hague for the serious irregularities in thecourt case that led to the bankruptcy of the Yukos oil company and a 10-year prison sentence forits main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The Russian Federation was sentenced to compen-sation amounting to over $51 billion (about 2.5% of GDP) in favor of all shareholders of Yukos.International tension is also causing a gradual capital flight abroad. The IMF expects it to amountto $ 100 billion by the end of 2014, compared with $ 63 billion in 2013.

Institutional troubles in KievWith the development of the crisis in the east of the country and the continuing difficulties in car-rying out an effective plan to reform institutions, relations among the political forces in Ukraine,including the majority forces, also deteriorated. On 24th July, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyukresigned from office after leaving the government coalition of the parties Udar and nationalistSvoboda ("Freedom") for disagreements on new taxes to finance military spending and the pres-entation of a law to encourage Western companies to enter the energy sector. Volodymyr Hroysmanwas appointed interim Prime Minister. However, the resigning Prime Minister joined his interimsuccessor in the official meetings, until the parliament rejected Yatsenyuk’s resignation a weeklater. Still on 24th July, the Ministry of Justice launched a criminal case against the Communist Party,accused of having supported Russian annexation of Crimea and the aspirations of autonomy ofDonetsk and Luhansk. Lastly, Minister of Economy Pavlo Sheremeta resigned on 21st August, due to disagreements withthe Prime Minister on the reform programme. Poroshenko then announced possible early electionsto be held in October, hoping that a parliament free from the old political class manages to accel-erate the implementation of reforms needed by the country. The country has long suffered the social consequences of the occupations and protests which tookplace in Kiev’s center between December 2013 and February 2014. In early August, a directive ofMayor Vitaly Klitchko – former boxer, Udar party leader and leader of the anti-government demon-strations – ordered to clean up Maidan square from barricades and tents, which were still keptintact to remind the government to keep renewal promises.

Aid from MoscowOn 12th August, Russia sent to the Ukrainian border a humanitarian convoy of about 280 trucks.The convoy remained idle in a border area controlled by the pro-Russian groups for several days,waiting, as required by the Ukrainian authorities, for the International Red Cross to check the loadand safety conditions for distribution. Kiev was, indeed, strongly suspicious about Moscow’s true

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intentions, fearing that the humanitarian aid hid a military invasion of the east of the country. Thisassumption seemed to be confirmed by the large number of Russian soldiers who have been massedalong the border with Ukraine for months (at the time of writing, there is an estimated 45,000forces). Russia’s official version about troops being engaged in a planned exercise gave no reas-surance.Some of the convoy vehicles were allowed to enter the Luhansk region between 20th and 21stAugust. But the situation deteriorated on 22nd August: about 70 trucks entered on their own ini-tiative, apparently heading for Luhansk under the escort of the separatists. The Russian ForeignMinistry reportedly declared to have lost patience after a long and unjustified wait, strengtheningKiev’s belief that the convoy was not part of a humanitarian operation. Distrust between Kiev andMoscow has significantly increase, throwing shadows on the 26th August summit between Pres-idents Putin and Poroshenko in Minsk. Two other Russian humanitarian convoys arrived in September, but did not worry the Kiev au-thorities as much as the first one did.

From bilateral contacts between Ukraine and Russia to the ceasefireThe progress of the difficult dialogue between government members and Ukrainian separatistshas Russia as a third player: although it is not officially entitled to have a negotiating role in thecrisis between Kiev and its suburbs, and, instead, denies any allegation of financing and armingthe militias fighting in Donbas (the area including the two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine),Moscow undeniably holds a mediating position between the parties and affects the course of eventswith its own political and military decisions. So much so that on 26th August Presidents Putin andPoroshenko met in Minsk and reached a preliminary agreement for a ceasefire. During the summit,Putin pledged his committing to the peace process. However, on the same day, pro-Russian militiagroups took control of the city of Novoazovsk and other smaller towns in the Sea of Azov, andlater headed for the port of Mariupol, marking an oscillatory mode in which every step forward inthe negotiation process corresponded to a deterioration of the situation on the ground. On the otherhand, with the continuing clashes, the increasing foreign and Russian military presence in the east(there were reportedly at least 1,000 Russian troops, equipped with armoured vehicles and artillery,as shown by 28th August NATO satellite images), and hundreds of Ukrainian military prisonersof the separatists, an actual relaxation of relations appeared to be rather unlikely. On 3rd September, there was a new telephone conversation between Putin and Poroshenko, whoagreed on many points of a plan aimed at a permanent ceasefire and a political solution to thecrisis. The phone call was followed by the signing, which took place in Minsk on 5th September,of a ceasefire agreement between the Kiev government and representatives of the self-proclaimedrepublics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as a result of a meeting of the Contact Group made up ofUkraine, Russia, OSCE and separatist representatives.The 5th September agreement was only partially complied with. While some of the prisoners cap-tured or surrendered during the fighting have been released and the parliament in Kiev set the leg-islation to grant greater autonomy to the separatist regions and an amnesty to the rebels, both sideshave accused each other of repeated ceasefire violations. In addition, the separatists have continuedto demand full independence, refusing to participate in both the 26th October parliamentary elec-

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tions and the 7th December local elections. Dialogue has not, however, stopped and, on 20th September, the parties signed in Minsk a sup-plementary agreement to the 5th September pact. The new agreement provides for: the creation ofa 30-km buffer zone between the government and separatist factions; the prohibition to deploytanks, artillery and other heavy weapons near towns; the suspension of flights of drones and fighterjets over clashes regions; the use of international observers to monitor compliance with the bufferzone.The future status of the eastern regions is still pending: while the time seems to have come to dis-cuss the cessation of hostilities and try to bring back normality to the areas where clashes havebeen taking place since April, the debate between greater autonomy (Kiev’s position) or separationfrom Ukraine (strongly requested by separatists) seems decidedly premature. Nor, probably, theissue will be dealt with in the longed-for new meetings of the Contact Group and in the next (per-haps imminent) summit between Presidents Putin and Poroshenko. Finally, while the cause of the crisis may be identified with the political dichotomy representedby the decision to choose either Brussels or Moscow, an argument in favor of the ongoing dialogueresults from Kiev's decision to postpone the implementation of the commercial part of the Asso-ciation Agreement (signed on 27th June) to 2016, and the submission of EU membership applica-tion to 2020. By doing so, Moscow felt protected from the UE expansion to Russian westernborders, and the creation of a buffer zone in the separatist regions of Ukraine is, ultimately, anothermeasure for the protection of the Russian border.

The energy issueThroughout the crisis, the flow of Russian gas was a major element of conflict between the partiesand a negotiating issue of strategic importance, given the implications for the wider European re-gion. Following the deterioration of bilateral crisis between Russia and Ukraine and the resultingfailure of the agreement for the purchase of Russian gas at a reduced price, (see OsservatorioStrategico 6/2014), Kiev decided on the one hand to save its reserves (e.g. suspension of distribu-tion of hot water in the capital until October) and on the other hand get gas from alternative sup-pliers. To this purpose, Ukraine signed agreements with Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, whichcommitted to exporting to Ukraine the share of gas supplies which they got from Russia and ex-ceeding domestic demand (the first supplies came on 2nd September). According to some esti-mates, the Ukraine would thus be able to meet about a third of its annual gas demand. However,the supplying of the countries which signed the so-called “reverse agreement” is likely to be threat-ened by a possible decrease in Russian gas supplies (by contract, Gazprom does not allow a countrythat receives gas to re-export it in turn) or a voluntary withdrawal from the (reverse) agreement.The first case is that of Poland, which on 10th September reported a 24% decrease in suppliesfrom the Russian company Gazprom, while the second case is that of Hungary, that on 26th Sep-tember withdrew from the reverse agreement, fearing retaliatory action that could affect flows thatare needed to meet national demand. The European Union promoted negotiations that led, on 26th September, to a tentative energyagreement among the EU, Ukraine and Russia, which is an attempt to find a temporary solutionto the issue of energy supply to Kiev and the countries of Western Europe receiving Russian gas

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through Ukraine. The flow of gas to the west is therefore guaranteed for the winter and until spring2015 thanks to a compensation of Kiev’s debt providing for Ukraine to pay $2 billion to Russiaby the end of October and another billion by the end of the year. No negotiation was, however,launched in relation to Kiev’s debt to Gazprom for the purchase of gas. The question is still open,pending a solution from the arbitration court in Stockholm.

Concluding remarksCompliance with the ceasefire agreement, the establishment of a buffer zone, and the conclusionof a preliminary agreement ensuring gas supplies to Ukraine and Western Europe for the wintermonths are few but significant points in favor of a dialogue among Kiev, Moscow and separatistrepublics, which would have been inconceivable a few weeks earlier. It is, however, hard to wel-come these results with uncritical enthusiasm, since the most sensitive issues are still out of thenegotiation process: the status of the separatist republics (as such they intend to stay, rejecting anyalternative, even a higher degree of autonomy) and the definition of the purchase price of Russiangas to Kiev. The scenario is still open to several solutions, such as the freezing of the conflict sit-uation in the east or a political solution to the crisis, with a federation of Ukrainian eastern regionsas a guarantor of a neutral area for Moscow. Kiev’s next challenge is the parliamentary election(scheduled for late October) and the counter-election in Luhansk and Donetsk.

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NATO-Transatlantic Relations


Until the outbreak of the recent crisis in Ukraine, the Atlantic Alliance had established a set ofgoals, some ambitious, for its relationship with the Russian Federation. The documents drawn upto define these are numerous, and just as numerous have been the offers of multi–sectorial coop-eration. The framework for this remarkable set of bilateral initiatives was the Founding Act onMutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) and the Russian Federation in May 1997. In this document, which reflected the strongspirit of international cooperation typical of the Nineties, the parties not only agreed on many areasof cooperation. They also described how each saw the other. At the time, NATO and the RussianFederation no longer viewed each other as adversaries. The rivalry of the past was replaced by adesire for strong and stable partnerships. In exchange for an expansion east, the first phase ofwhich had already begun, the Atlantic Alliance offered the Russian Federation a political guaranteethat, in assumption of a continuation of the circumstances prevailing at that time, NATO wouldnot transfer nuclear weapons or a significant number of troops to within the territory of its newmembers. In 2002, the two parties also further intensified their cooperation with the creation ofthe NATO – Russia Council. The aim was to allow not only the discussion of a wide variety of se-curity problems but also to solve them together. Cooperation with the Russian Federation wasgranted particular relevance within the Strategic Concept presented in Lisbon at the end of 2010.The NATO summit held in early September in Wales, was the most important meeting of the NorthAtlantic Alliance since Lisbon in November 2010. At Lisbon, three fundamental NATO missionshad been identified: the collective defense of the member countries, as codified in Article 5 of theWashington Treaty; the management of regional crises already introduced in 1999; and the pursuitof cooperative security, that is, the policy of partnership and cooperation with dozens of countriesand international organizations worldwide as developed by NATO over the past twenty years. Ifthe Lisbon Summit responded primarily to the need, imposed by the operations in Afghanistan, tolegitimate matters not provided for by the North Atlantic Treaty signed on 4 April 1949, the Summitin Newport was instead dominated by the requirements imposed by the continuing violence in theMiddle East and the dramatic time in the Ukraine.The main result was the Wales Declaration on the Transatlantic Bond, a broad statement of prin-ciple by which the Atlantic Alliance is committed to recognizing and countering old and newthreats issued on September 5. A series of steps has been devised by NATO to bolster protectionin Eastern Europe after the Ukraine crisis within the limits of key post Cold War agreements with

After the Wales Summit

lucio Martino

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the Russian Federation because the deep ideological and global divide created by the conflict,which lasted nearly fifty years, had completely dissolved to never come back. Specifically, themeasures agreed upon, however, seem relatively modest. With regard to the Russian Federation,NATO members approved a Readiness Action Plan (RAP) that will lead to the preparation of arapid reaction force of about few thousand men, and the positioning of its advanced equipment sothat this force may be used with forty–eight hours’ notice. Complementing NATO’s (multinational)Response Force, the grounding of the RAP, which includes land, air, sea and Special Force ele-ments, has a clear symbolic meaning, given the numerical imbalance of opposing forces in EasternEurope it would find itself facing in a possible deployment. The intention is obviously to indicateto any potential aggressor a willingness to defend the new Allies in the Baltic and Eastern Europefrom any possible threat.The other important outcome of the Wales Summit is the lack of military support for Ukraine,which had still seemed possible, and perhaps likely, on the eve of the Summit, given that many ofthe Atlantic Alliance member States had in any case agreed on the launch of a new round of eco-nomic sanctions against the Russian Federation. In addition, NATO announced plans to launch aDefense Capacity Building Initiative aimed at reinforcing the Allied commitment to partner na-tions. It includes cooperation with Georgia, Moldova and Jordan, provides security capacity sup-port for Libya, and it is ready to assist Iraq on request. The Summit thus demonstrated that theNATO member states still enjoy a guarantee of a level of security not bestowed on non-memberStates.As regards the Middle East, and the emergency created in recent months by the rapid occupationof about a third of Iraq by radical Islamic forces, nine of the twenty–eight members of the NATOnations, led by the United States, have decided to undertake the breakup and destruction of thisnew incarnation of the radical Islamic threat through a series of mostly air operations destined tolast perhaps for more than three years, as admitted by the British Prime Minister Cameroon. Thesedecisions did not result in any particular controversy either internally or externally to NATO. Inthe history of the Atlantic Alliance, however, problems have tended to reveal themselves in theimplementation rather than the planning stages.NATO is not always able to match its rhetoric to its performance, and even a slight cooling off ofthe crisis in Ukraine could be a pretext sufficient to slow down, or even abandon, the design ofthis new rapid reaction force. For reasons not only commercial, there is no doubt that there aremany and important states within the Atlantic Alliance which do not wish to see any further dete-rioration in their relations with the Russian Federation. Therefore, they may be tempted to slowdown the creation of the force, while the Allies of the Baltic and Eastern Europe would continueto support it, regardless of how the Ukrainian question may evolve.The imperfect harmony characterizing some members of the Atlantic Alliance is even more evidentin how they have undertaken to respond to new threats which could fundamentally compromisethe weak balance achieved in the last decade in the Middle East. The problem is the urgent need,still unanswered, to clearly define the respective roles and responsibilities. The Wales Summit hasshown how much work remains to be done here. None of the member States seem willing to in-tervene directly in the Middle East by launching major new stabilization operations. NATO hasalways been an elastic alliance, assuming several meanings and alleged functions for its quite

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often way off membership. Thus, nowadays NATO’s determined foray, based upon a host of largelyoff the cuff rationales, is an extension of historic practice.

The two per cent solutionThe Wales Summit was marked by the problem of the need to match ambitions with existing abil-ities and performance. In all likelihood, in the present and in the foreseeable future, the most im-portant challenge facing NATO is to solve the size of the contributions that each of the memberStates are willing to provide to support the Atlantic Alliance. For a few years now it has seemedincreasingly clear that NATO has become, in the words of former Secretary of Defense Gates, atwo-speed alliance, in which only the United States and the United Kingdom spend the minimumstandard of least two per cent of their gross domestic product on defense, as agreed in 2002 atPrague Summit.Since then, the difficult, and in some cases almost catastrophic economic crisis suffered by manylarge and small European countries has made many Allied political leaders to say at the least re-luctant to reveal to public opinion the sacrifices required to increase defense spending. Perhapsthat is why whereas one part of the Atlantic Alliance has re–confirmed in practice the two per centstandard, the group has also given itself the deadline of an undefined and very comfortable nextdecade for the achievement of this objective. In any case, only time will tell to what extent theUnited States will be able to develop and implement a coherent and coordinated plan able to uniteNATO members in the set of operations deemed necessary for the redefinition of the future ofIraq, and renewal of guarantees of an common defense of the East. The recent visits of the Secretaryof Defense Hagel in Turkey, and of the Secretary of State Kerry in Saudi Arabia in particular, withthe Obama administration facing a new and increasingly important midterm election, seem tomany observers to demonstrate a determination regarding the Iraqi problem not matched by thatshown towards Ukraine.In the meantime, the Russian Federation, with the annexation of the Crimea has caused a temporaryloss of its status as a strategic partner of NATO. In April 2014, in response to the actions of theRussian Federation, the foreign ministers of the NATO member States decided to suspend all formsof civil and military cooperation covered by the NATO – Russia Council. Several members of theAtlantic Alliance also loudly expressed the view that relations between the two parties should becompletely eliminated. However, they were not able to solidify their standpoint with the consentnecessary to make this the common position towards the Russian Federation. The present debateseems unable to reconcile the position of those who believe that in complying with the provisionsin force, NATO could jeopardize the credibility of its security policy, with of those who are con-vinced that the long–term goal of the Atlantic Alliance cannot avoid being the integration of theRussian Federation within the Euro–Atlantic security community. As the months pass, on the otherhand, the official relationship between NATO and the Russian Federation seems to weaken in realsignificance; because many allied governments continue to cooperate with the Russian leadershipon a bilateral level in areas anything but secondary such as the supply of energy and internationalissues related to the fight against terrorism.

Three possible directions

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In the aftermath of the Wales Summit, faced with the evident failure of the partnership model thatfor almost fifteen years has inspired relations with the Russian Federation, the Atlantic Alliancelooks intent to, sooner or later and in one way or another, set out in one of three possible direc-tions.The first is a return to the model of peaceful coexistence typical of extensional phases of the ColdWar. This new peaceful coexistence would be built based on the recognition that there is no realpossibility of integrating the Russian Federation within the framework of the Euro-Atlantic insti-tutions and principals of conduct. Though, within this same approach it is assumed that the twosides would be willing to agree to not resort to any kind of pressure or military action to resolveconflicts, because such a choice would ultimately be unnecessarily detrimental to both. At thesame time, even the supporters of this policy recognize that a strategy of peaceful coexistence re-lations with Russia would inevitably mean giving nod to another sphere of influence, which withthe passage of time may also lead to a substantial decline in the prestige of the Atlantic Alliance,given that the distinction between NATO members and countries covered by the Russian sphereof influence would crystallize with time.The second path is a return to the old policy of Containment. Proponents of this policy believethat it would be possible, through the careful use of military force, to dissuade the Russian Feder-ation from pursuing aggressive policies. This would mean abandoning the prudence that has char-acterized the decisions of NATO since the end of the Cold War, especially with regard to thepermanent stationing of troops and equipment within the territory of the new members of NATOand, more generally, regarding broader expansion of an Allied collective defense capability againstthe Russian Federation. Those defending this position often recognize the risks and limitations ofa strategy that may persuade the Russian Federation to forego a military attack against the BalticStates and Poland, but which does not explain how to dissuade the use of hybrid strategies ofdestabilization such as the mobilization of the Russian minorities, the organization of irregularmilitias and the implementation of special economic measures. In addition, the use of a contain-ment policy does not seem to solve the fundamental problem of political competition in the order-ing of the post–soviet space. As long as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova remain outside NATO, itseems clear that these three countries will never be able to acquire the resources necessary to pro-tect themselves effectively. However, if these countries were granted accelerated accession to theAtlantic Alliance, the current conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO could not avoidbecoming even more deep–seated, making even cooperation on issues of common interest impos-sible.It seems, therefore, that the stability of the Euro–Atlantic area is likely to be pursued by an almostinevitable third strategy, one capable of reassuring the new Eastern member states of NATO andat the same time leaving open the possibility of significant new cooperation initiatives with theRussian Federation. As demonstrated by the decision taken in Wales to establish a new RAP, theseassurances do not necessarily mean giving up political obligations developed under the FoundingAct on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, as even these plans are worthwhile pursuingfor the case of further deterioration of the stability of the regions to the East and North of the BlackSea. However, both the communication channels as well as the forms of cooperation which servecommon interests, even in these uneasy times, seem destined to remain at least in principle open.

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The most significant obstacle in deciding which approach to take with regard to the Russian Fed-eration, more than that of Ukraine, is the problem of the Crimea. The annexation of the latterwithin the Russian Federation, if not legally resolved in the short term, could make any form offuture international cooperation with the Russian Federation very difficult. With this in mind, aprecedent could be provided in the manner in which Western governments have cooperated withthe Soviet leadership without ever recognizing the annexation of the Baltic States. In the absenceof Russian concessions on issues of security policy, such as the reduction of stocks of strategicand sub–strategic nuclear weapons, in large part also tied to the future of an Obama administrationwhich could shortly find itself without the Senate majority needed to ratify any new internationalagreement, the position of those NATO members who would like to freeze cooperation with theRussian Federation, and which are no longer willing to enter into agreements dating back to thelate Nineties, could be strengthened to an extent that appreciably weakens the internal cohesionof the Atlantic Alliance.

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Focus


The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL, ISIS, or more simply IS) is attempting to expand itsinfluence from the Middle East to Asia, in particular to Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.A possible confirmation of the results obtained by the Jihadi-group linked to the IS could be con-firmed by the 4th of October declaration of allegiance of a part of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP) to the group and its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the self-appointedCaliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Qureshi al Hussaini). The TTP is still formally allied with al Qaeda,and operates mainly in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.It is reported that Shahidullah Shahid, the TTP’ spokesman, and five senior members and importantregional leaders of the movement vowed allegiance to the IS; in particular the leaders who declaredtheir support to the IS are the regional heads in the northwestern cities of Peshawar, Hangu, theOrakzai, Kurram and Khyber tribal areas (in total is assessed the amount of the defecting groupscould involve 700/1000 fighters).This event, which could underscores divisions among Islamist Armed Opposition Groups as theIS rises, marked the first instance of a major contingent of Taliban figures signaling, on the onehand, a renouncement of fealty to the Afghan Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar; on theother hand, this shift in loyalties could, firstly, weaken the Afghan Taliban and, secondly, createmore vulnerabilities to the Pakistan and Afghanistan states because of the violence and the ag-gressive policy largely used by the IS in Iraq and Syria.But, what is important to underline is that, even if these commanders could remain part of the Pak-istani Taliban’s organization, they will probably represent IS in Pakistan.

IS, Al-Qaeda and Jihadi propaganda in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India: weakness andstrengths. There are signs that the IS could gain grip in South East Asian countries, in particular in Pakistan,thanks to propaganda and recruitment activities. In October, a manifesto was distributed in Pe-shawar areas, inviting people to join the group in order to establish a Muslim caliphate; at thesame time stickers and wall drawings have been spotted, as well as sporting IS t-shirts have beendistributed within Indian Muslim areas.In addition, open sources reported that some Pakistanis and Afghanis are operating in Syria andIraq fighting under the IS flag, as well as some Indians joined IS.As response, Al-Qaeda is actively reacting to IS initiatives. One example is represented by the

Islamic State: a threat to South East Asia(Afghanistan, Pakistan, India)

and to Nato-Resolute Support Mission?

Claudio Bertolotti

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Focus


video message released by the Al Qaeda head, Ayman al-Zawahiri, announcing the establishmentof a new group named “Qaedat al-Jihad in the Indian subcontinent”. This initiative, after a long-silence period, could be read as a sign that al-Qaeda is reacting to the IS pressure and “successes”in the Middle East and the attempt to penetrate South East Asia.In the message, Zawahiri discussed “differences and discord” among jihadists – with possible ref-erence to IS – and called Jihadi fighters to unite, invoking Osama bin Laden, insisting on the con-cepts of artificial borders (to be deleted) and the “Tawhid” (monotheism).Simultaneously, the competition is conducted on the “virtual” front through social media cam-paigns on “Twitter”, “Facebook”, “Youtube”, “Instagram”; in this case IS is winning the compe-tition thanks to an aggressive, effective and successful communication strategy based on westernapproach and methods.It is clear that these simultaneous efforts aimed to recruiting fighters and supporters are signs thatboth the groups are in competition for the dominance in the region, with al Qaeda in trouble seekingto reassert its supremacy as a bursting IS raises in attractiveness.

Brief AnalysisOn the one hand, the sum and the connections of the dynamics deriving from the entry of a newgroup in the area of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, could drive to more violence; as consequencetensions will rise increasing divisions among the groups, in particular involving more communitiesand armed opposition groups, religious minorities in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, as well asnon-Sunni Muslims, and those Jihadists consider as heretics. It is assessed that overall violence inthe region is likely to rise because if a group is conducting a more aggressive campaign, the othergroups will also escalate their activities and initiatives. This could be a direct threat to the stabilityof Afghanistan and to the US and Nato’s role in the country.On the other hand, as consequence of the changed equilibrium, Al Qaeda and the IS have signifi-cantly stepped up their recruiting efforts in Pakistan and in other South East Asian countries; itchanged the regional dynamics: a change which must stimulate analysts and governments to payattention to the competition between the two groups to enlist radicalized fighters. Fighters that, inparticular, could be involved in local conflicts as well as in the global jihad carried out by the ISsupporters and leaders.On the “market” of the regional Jihad there are now two different and contending brands: the tra-ditional “Al-Qaeda style” and the modern and fashionable Islamic State. The second one continuesto gain followers.

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