Signal: High Turnout for the Iraqi Kurds Referendum

Impact on Issues ➙➚ ➁/➄ Iraq Kurds Referendum The Iraqi Kurds would need allies if they want to survive. However correct and right their right to self-determination, being landlocked, surrounded by countries opposing this right is hardly conducive to state-building.The question surrounding the Kurdish referendum is all the more crucial considering that the Islamic State remains a threat and thus that Iraq is still at war.Turnout high as Iraqi Kurds defy threats to hold independence voteERBIL/SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Kurds voted in large numbers in an independence referendum in northern Iraq on Monday, ignoring pressure from Baghdad, threats from Turkey and Iran, and international warnings that the vote may ignite yet more regional conflict. The vote organized by Kurdish authorities …

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Which U.S. Decline? The View from the U.S. National Intelligence Council

The second decade of the 21st century appears to be rough for the U.S.. Could it mean that American power is waning? The question of a putative decline of the U.S. regularly emerges in international relations and in the media since at least the 1970s (Kenneth Waltz; Theory of International Politics, 1979: 177-178). However, each time, so far, it has been proven wrong. But what if, this time, it were true?

This series of three articles examines three dimensions of U.S. decline as perceived – publicly – by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), part of the U.S. Office of The Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Here we shall start by examining what is meant exactly by a U.S. decline and its onset. Then, in the second article, we shall focus on the sources of American decline and power, as identified by the NIC, which will also give us indicators to monitor the decline. Finally, in the third article we shall point out the paradoxical character of a U.S. decline, and address the inability of the U.S. to accept its demise as superpower.

Climate Change: the Long Planetary Bombing

cenarios, warning, strategy, Red (Team) Analysis Society

Executive summary

The current and coming impacts of climate change are becoming equivalent to those of a long bombing. This can be seen with the damages wrought in Texas, Louisiana and Florida by hurricanes Harvey and Irma. In a few days, the total costs of these disasters has amounted to at least 290 billion USD, similar to the $275 billion USD damages born by Syria … between 2011 and 2016. The catastrophes appear as being “only” parts of immense and international series of climate related disasters, which are impacting societies and economies all around the world, in a repeated and increasingly more frequent way. As the economic and financial dimensions of globalization have become the vectors and means of the local pressures exerted by climate change, the multiplying series of climate change related disasters are creating what we call here a “disaster glocalization”.

Furthermore, climate change also inflames the current worldwide geopolitical tensions. For example, China, Pakistan and India are going through a new cycle of tensions related to disputes about the construction of dams in the Himalaya, which could decrease the amount of water for India, while numerous mountain glaciers are melting because of regional warming.

As a result, climate change is transforming geopolitics and the economy, impacting all actors. These transformations must be understood as being the new global and strategic reality and must imperatively be included as such in any operation, investment planning, budget, or more largely human activity. Scenarios are the best way to anticipate now exposed activities.

Article

A titanic worldwide bombing is rampaging the Earth: its name is climate change.

That change is becoming the equivalent of a planetary-wide and permanent and deepening social, economic, political and environmental crisis (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Is climate change a geostrategic issue? Yes!”, The Red Team Analysis Society, 14 October 2013. It became especially obvious in 2017, when the devastatingly powerful hurricanes Harvey and Irma ravaged respectively Texas and Florida, after Irma brought its deadly toll on the Caribbean Islands. Furthermore, this happened after several months of other massive climate-related catastrophes, around the world (Robert Scribbler, “Half a World Away From Harvey, Global Warming Fueled Deluges Now Impact 42 Million People”, Robert Scribbler, Scribbling for environmental, social and economic justice, August 30, 2017).

Those series of climate shocks are impacting and transforming the current world economic and geopolitical order

The permanently growing list of climate crisis related catastrophes must be understood as ever stronger signals of the fact that the human, social, economic, political and geopolitical state of affairs is now deeply climate change-centred through permanent and complex impacts. This means that the multiplying extreme weather events are interlinking societies, nations, agriculture, industry and finance systems with the permanently growing climate crisis ((Eric Holtaus, “James Hansen Bombshell’s climate warning is now part of the Scientific canon”, Slate.com, March 22, 2016).

Beyond the immediately catastrophic impact of the extreme weather events and their human, social and economic toll, it must be understood that these events are signals of a new planetary and geopolitical reality. Those extreme weather events are not a sum of “climate accidents”, but are set in series of extreme weather events related to the current global climate crisis. Those series of climate shocks are impacting and transforming the current world economic and geopolitical order (Dennis and Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth, the 30-Year-Update, 2004).

In this article, we shall see first how the international economy is now impacted by climate change. Then, we shall underline how this new state of affairs is also putting geopolitical relations under pressure. Then, we shall stress the novel necessity to integrate climate change to understand current geopolitics.

Climate change-centred geoeconomy

In our globalized world, the combination of the titanic hurricanes Harvey and Irma on Texas, Louisiana and Florida and the mammoth wildfires in California and Canada, as well as the series of giant wildfires throughout the south of Europe, Siberia, as well as Greenland, the massive floods in South Asia, the multiple typhoons in Hong Kong and Macao, must not be understood as isolated and contained phenomena, but as events being part of larger series and having multiple kinds of social, political and economic consequences.

For example, if we focus on the U.S., the mammoth disasters wrought by hurricane Harvey in Texas are alone putting a massive pressure on economic activities and on the insurance sector because of the direct damages wrought to the infrastructures, cities, homes, fields and industries. To these costs will have to be added those of repairs, of business interruption, and of detoxification made necessary because of the massive industrial chemicals and sewage spillage (Erin Brodwin and Jake Canter, “A chemical plant exploded twice after getting flooded by Harvey – but it’s not over yet”, Business Insider, 30 August, 2017).

“Hurricane Harvey has damaged at least 23 billion dollars of property…”

These human and economic costs are going to be multiplied to consider those incurred by Houston and the whole state of Texas, as well as by Louisiana. It must also be remembered that a lot of oil extraction and transaction operations have been suspended, and thus impact the companies involved in these activities (Matt Egan and Chris Isidore, “Tropical storm Harvey threatens vital Texas energy hub”, CNN Money, August 26).

If we take a look at just the counties of Harris and Galveston in Texas, for example, we see that “Hurricane Harvey has damaged at least 23 billion dollars of property…” (Reuters, Fortune, 30 August 2017). 26% of this sum is land value, the remaining part is being constituted by dozens of thousands of houses, buildings and infrastructures.

They will be unable to pay their mortgages.

The banks will not be able to seize their destroyed houses, furthermore located on lands which value has sharply decreased…

with potential huge impact for the U.S. banks and finance industry…

Some of those are insured but a lot more are not, which means that, potentially, millions of people find themselves brutally projected in very precarious situations. They will be unable to pay their mortgages, while the banks will not be able to seize their destroyed houses, furthermore located on lands which value has sharply decreased. This could easily lead to important problems for the managers of mortgages portfolios, which are an important part of the U.S. finance industry, as the subprime default crisis, which almost broke the world economy in 2007-2008, has shown (Kevin Phillips Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, 2008).

The cumulative costs of Harvey and Irma will be around a staggering 290 billion dollars.

They will have an impact on the entire U.S. economy and on the federal budget.

To these tremendous costs must be added those resulting from the heavy damages wrought by the giant Hurricane Irma in Florida and the Keys to infrastructures, cities, business and agriculture, especially to the orange production (Berkeley Lovelace Jr, “Irma could be “the last straw” for the Florida orange industry, commodities expert says”, CNBC, 8 September 2017). This means that, if we only take into accounts the lower estimates, the cumulative costs of Harvey and Irma will be around a staggering 290 billion dollars and will have an impact on the entire U.S. economy as well as on the federal budget (Rob While, “The estimated costs of hurricanes Irma and Harvey are already higher than Katrina”, Money, September 11, 2017).

Irma and Harvey U.S. global estimated cost = 290 billion USD

2011 – 2016 Syrian war estimated cost = $275 billion USD

As a result, the comparison between climate change related disasters and an air bombing campaign becomes meaningful indeed. In terms of financial costs – without considering war related human sufferings, which remain incomparable – the 290 billion dollars costs of damages inflicted by hurricanes Harvey and Irma inn the U.S. can be compared to the damages in Syria, as evaluated by the report published by the charity World Vision and consultancy firm Frontier Economics. According to this report, the Syrian war had cost the country an estimated $275 billion between 2011 and 2016 (World Vision & Frontier economics, The cost of conflict for children, 5 years of the Syria crisis, 2016).

It must also be remembered that these costs must be added to those related to the 2016 extreme weather events, such as the two giant flooding events in Louisiana in March and in August 2016. The cumulative costs for these are beyond 10 to 15 billion dollars, considering direct damages, losses in property value and in tax revenues from businesses, as well as direct and indirect damages to agricultural activities (“USA-Louisiana Floods to Cost US Economy 10 to 15 Billion Dollars Says AON Benfield”, Flood List News in Insurance USA, 9 September 2016). Meanwhile, human impacts, such as loss of job, combination of health and financial insecurity and exhaustion should also be taken into account.

In 2017, by September, California had burnt with 4900 wildfires.

While titanic hurricanes Harvey and Irma hammered down and drowned Texas, half of Louisiana and Florida, California was ravaged by its third giant wildfire, the most important among the so far 4900 wildfires accounted for in 2017, some of them having entered the Yosemite Park and the giant sequoia grove. Those wildfires are also inflicting heavy damages on the economy, and are new occurrences of the series of catastrophic weather events that have battered the U.S. for years (Dahr Jamail, “Welcome to the new world of fires”, Truth Out, September 09, 2017). In the Californian case, those costs must be added to those stemming from the already long series of growing damages wrought by wildfires, especially since 2000 (“Chart: 13 of California’s 20 largest wildfires burned since 2000”, Climate Signals).

The long drought of the summer 2012 impacted more than 80% of American agricultural land

This new climate related economy insecurity also takes other forms. For example, the long drought of the summer 2012 impacted more than 80% of American agricultural land. If the effects were less severe than expected, they were nonetheless felt on livestock food prices during the last quarter of 2012 and through slight but widely distributed rises in prices for different kinds of agricultural products (cereals, dairy, poultry, fruits) on the U.S. and international markets (USDA: U.S Drought 2012, Farm and Food Impacts, July 26, 2013.

The multiplying series of climate change related disasters are creating what we call here a “disaster glocalization”

Those hurricanes that have hammered Texas, Louisiana and Florida, and all the other extreme weather events fueled by climate change and their human, economic and political costs are creating a regional, national and global system of immobilized capital destruction, i.e. of net loss for the individuals, the businesses and the governments, while insurance and re-insurance companies have to adjust their costs and models. In others terms, the economic and financial dimension of globalization have become the vectors and means of the local pressures exerted by climate change, in the U.S. as well as all over the world, as the devastating wildfires in Chile in January 2017. The multiplying series of climate change related disasters are creating what we call here a “disaster glocalization” (remark by Dr Hélène Lavoix, 14 September 2017).

Climate change-centred political and military tensions

The huge costs implied by Harvey and Irma are only parts of the climate shocks known by the US and the whole world in 2017. In Europe, the giant heat wave dubbed “Lucifer” gripped Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Greece, Hungary, Poland and triggered catastrophic wildfires which also occurred … in Greenland (Robert Scribbler ibid and Dahr Jamail), “Greenland is burning: wildfires and floods surge worldwide”, Truth Out, 5 September 2017). In India, for the third year in a row, gigantic wildfires ravaged the country between April and June. Then India was hit, along Nepal and Bangladesh, by record monsoons and massive floods, which killed 1200 people for the whole of South Asia (Haroon Siddique, “South Asia floods kill 1200 and shut 1.8 million children out of school”, The Guardian, 31 August 2017).

In a globalised world, these destructions and disruptions have international and strategic ripple effects.

In a globalised world, these destructions and disruptions have international and strategic ripple effects. For example, the drought in India is increasing geopolitical tensions over water sharing rights with Pakistan, which is also impacted by drought, and with China. These tensions are inscribed in the already overcharged geopolitical and strategic landscapes between India and Pakistan, which conflict over Kashmir and the way they share the Indus waters, since 1947, while the two countries are now nuclear powers since 1998 (Fazilda Nabeel, “How India and Pakistan are competing over the mighty Indus river”, The Independent, 7 June 2017).

New tensions have arisen in 2016 and 2017 between the two countries, centered on the overexploitation of the Indus (Muhammad Daim Fazil, “Why India must refrain from a water war with Pakistan”, The Diplomat, March 08, 2017). Tensions also tend to often mar India and China relationships (for a recent example, Michael Auslin, “Can the Doklam dispute be resolved? The dangers of China and India’s border dispute”, Foreign Affairs, August 1, 2017).

Meanwhile, China and Pakistan have signed a memorandum of agreement for the construction of two giant dams on the Indus, one of them in the Gilgit-Batilstan region, in the Himalayas, claimed by both India and Pakistan and close to China (Drazen Jorgic, “Pakistan eyes 2018 start for China funded mega dam, opposed by India”, Reuters, June 13, 2017). These dams will produce 4200 MW and 2700 MW of electricity respectively, and their construction will cost 27 billion dollars. They are parts of the Chinese “One Belt One road – New silk road” agreements signed between China and Pakistan in 2015 (Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis, May 18, 2015).

The Indian political authorities are concerned about the consequences of these dams on the Kashmiri water flow, which is a major source of water for the country, as well as for Pakistan.

These tensions take place in a context defined by the accelerating melting of the mountain glaciers because of climate change, when the sources of major Asian rivers, necessary to the lives of billions of people are located in these very glaciers and when the development of these countries and the multiplying heatwaves that impact them necessitate to use increasingly more water (Robert Scribbler, “The Glacial mega flood: global warming poses growing glacial outburst flood hazard from Himalayas to Greenland and west Antarctica”, Robertscribbler: scribbling for environmental, social and economic justice, August 19, 2013).

The creation of a new kind of geopolitical crisis of an incredibly large scope

Now, these three countries together dominate South Asia and East Asia, while being regional and international economic and political powerhouses. Furthermore, their overall population amounts to almost 2.5 billion people – i.e. a third of human beings. As a result, the tensions created by their competition for water in a warming world is a new kind of geopolitical crisis. It means that climate change is putting an increasingly growing pressure on political and military actors, which are already at odds with each other, while putting water cooperation systems under an intensifying stress. Climate change thus becomes an amplifier of current and future geopolitical crises.

Understanding the geopolitics of an increasingly warming planet

The climate crisis-centredness results from the interconnections between climate change, economic vulnerabilities and the geopolitical fault lines of the international system.

These examples, which are nothing but instances of global series of events and of their impacts, show us how our interconnected world is now climate crisis-centred, directly and indirectly. The climate crisis-centredness results from the interconnections between climate change, economic vulnerabilities and the geopolitical fault lines of the international system. This means that, in our current globalised world, climate change is a game changer that will keep on impacting the fabric of societies, their economy and their political system, while permanently modifying the international balance of power.

It comes from this new reality that all actors from governments to the corporate sector have to start preparing themselves, in a very pro-active way, to live on a dangerously and rapidly shifting planet. The new global and strategic reality must imperatively be included as such in any operation, investment planning, budget, or more largely human activity. Scenarios are the best way to anticipate now exposed activities.

——

About the author: Jean-Michel Valantin (PhD Paris) is the Director of Environment and Security Analysis at The Red (Team) Analysis Society. He is specialised in strategic studies and defence sociology with a focus on environmental geostrategy.

Featured image: GOES-16 Sees Hurricanes Katia, Irma and José
GOES-16 captured this geocolor image of three hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic on the afternoon of September 8, 2017. NOAA – Credit: CIRA – Public Domain

The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly –
14 September 2017 – Ignorance and Indifference in a Dangerous World?

scan, monitoring, warning, The Red Team Analysis Society, signal, scanning

Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals…

We are back to a thoroughly edited and categorised scan… (available below after the editorial).

Editorial: What the scan does not stresses is the rising discrepancy between two worlds. One world (portrayed by the Weekly out of the choice of sources and keywords used by the algorithm) is a planet where threats and dangers abound and spread, where changes and novelty emerge in an accelerating way, with the potential to converge and mix in a myriad of ways, which are not only completely unknown but also for which human societies have no precedent and experience. The second world is mainly constituted by human beings – disconnected from their habitat – and is a world where stock exchanges are at their highest, where concern and anticipation about threats, dangers and their very real impact seem to be at its lowest, where media focus only for the shortest time possible on the latest event, or fad, where citizens are more concerned about sports and celebs than about anything else (check Google Trends across country).

Google Trends U.S. – 14 Sept 2017 – Compare interests with the signals collected by The Weekly

The increasing gap between the two worlds would not be such a topic of concern if, in the same time, the second world were not also meant to rule or be responsible for the first. Is our time, this twenty-first century that has so much knowledge and information available for all, actually about to confirm the democratically shocking – but finally true? – statement of Sir Arthur Nicolson, the British permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs before the outbreak of World War I:

“The public are as a rule supremely indifferent to and very ignorant of foreign affairs” (quoted in Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft, 1990: 61)?

The even more frightening question for us is: who is the 21st century public…? Or, if we rephrase the question: who are those who are supremely indifferent to and very ignorant of foreign affairs? What is their role and what is their power?

—–

Each section of the scan below focuses on signals related to a specific theme: world (international politics and geopolitics); economy; science; analysis, strategy and futures; technology and weapons; energy and environment. However, in a complex world, categories are merely a convenient way to present information, when facts and events interact across boundaries.

As polarisation rises, not only internationally but also domestically within many countries, weak signals are not only “direct”, describing facts, but also, increasingly, “indirect”, i.e. perspectives on reality providing more indications about the positioning of actors, the rising tension(s) and uncertainty, than about facts. The Weekly also aims at monitoring this rising tension to evaluate the possibility for future overt crises, and the underlying corresponding dynamics.

Read the 14 September 2017 scan→

The Weekly is the scan of The Red (Team) Analysis Society and it focuses on political and geopolitical uncertainty, on national and international security issues.

The information collected (crowdsourced) does not mean endorsement but points to new, emerging, escalating or stabilising problems and issues.

If you wish to consult the scan after the end of the week period, use the “archives” directly on The Weekly.

Featured image: Antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two companion galaxies to our own Milky Way galaxy, can be seen as bright smudges in the night sky, in the centre of the photograph. This photograph was produced by European Southern Observatory (ESO), ESO/C. Malin [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – A Lasting Salafist Victory

In this article, however unlikely it would appear currently*, we shall assess the likelihood of a lasting victory by the Salafists — in other words, the ability of Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State to not only achieve victory, but also to maintain lasting control. By victory, we mean a complete victory by one side over its adversaries, which is not imposed from the top down by external powers. In the previous article, we evaluated the likelihood for the initial victory of both Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, finding that an Al-Qaeda victory was least unlikely. Now that intervention is already occurring, as we saw in our article on intervention scenarios, the “Salafist Victory” scenarios are considered to be sub-scenarios of …

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Strategic Digital China – The Great Cyber Shield

In this article, we shall focus on the Chinese cyber security national system, formally known as the “Golden Shield Project” and frequently dubbed “the Great Firewall” (“The Great Firewall of China: Background”, Torfox, a Stanford Project, June 1, 2011). Previously, we saw how China promotes a mammoth digital development and is becoming, as a result, a “digital nation”, indeed the “Middle Kingdom of the Cyberspace” (Jean-Michel Valantin , The Red Team Analysis Society, June 26, 2017).

While rapidly developing the access of its citizens, companies and public services to the internet – in 2016, 710 million Chinese people were internet users (against a worldwide total of 3.6 billion, i.e 19.72% of the world internet users are Chinese) – and actively supporting the development of the “digital sinosphere”, Beijing also works at securing the country’s cyberspace (Simon Alexander, “The Rise of the Sinosphere and the Digital Silk Road”, DCX. Technology, February 2, 2017).

As China becomes the “Middle Kingdom of Cyberspace”, its political and economic authorities develop and expand a vast cyber security system, “the Golden Shield Project”, also named the “Great Firewall” after the “Great Wall”, which was built to defend China against invaders. The Golden Shield Project is aimed at securing the development of the Chinese society and its economy, while exerting an active surveillance on the contents and ideas circulating within the Chinese part of the Internet.

Here, we shall see how and why this national cyber security system is developed, focusing upon its underlying strategic philosophy, in order to understand its political meaning from a Chinese point of view.

The Golden Shield Project and the Chinese Nation

In order to respond to the challenges of cyber security on a Chinese scale, the Golden Shield Project is dedicated to preventing and blocking multiple kinds of cyber attacks, as well as potential cyber threats, against state organs, companies, infrastructures, and civil and military organizations (“China’s internet: the great firewall: the art of concealment”, The Economist, April 6^th 2013.).

As a “digital nation”, China, the Chinese people, institutions and companies are highly exposed to cyber attacks, as shows the staggering 969% growth of their number between 2014 and 2016 (“Chinese See Almost 1000 Percent Increase in Cyber Attacks”, Reuters, Nov 29, 2016). This impressive number means that, for example, during the first semester 2016, 37% of the Chinese Internet users have suffered economic loss because of diverse kinds of Internet attacks and fraud. In 2016, the total financial loss resulting from these cyber attacks reached 91.5 billion Renminbi, i.e. almost 13 billion USD (“Cyber security in China”, KPMG China, August 2016).

This proliferation of cyber attacks may be linked to the higher degree of connectivity between people as well as between electronic devices known by the Chinese society. Connectivity between electronic devices creates the famous “internet of things” through an exponential number of interactions, and thus potential vulnerabilities, which attract attacks. Hence, in 2016, the National People’s Committee issued the second review of the Cyber Security Law: cyber security became a national security issue in order to provide higher cyber security requirements for public services, companies and internet providers (KPMG, ibid).

This securization is known as the “Golden Shield Project”, a.k.a the “Great Fire Wall”, which political and strategic meaning largely includes and transcends the issue of “state censorship”, even if the latter is also a very important issue (Sherisse Pam, “China fortifies great firewall with crackdown on VPNs”, CNN Tech, January 24, 2017).

Numerous commentators focus their attention quasi exclusively on the way this system is a means to censor the spread of democratic ideas in China and to orient the national political debate in favour of government positions (“The Great Firewall of China”, Open Democracy, 15 March 2013). However, it should also definitely not be forgotten that the digital development of China also entails a need for cyber security, as for any country and society. Securing the digital dimension of China thus appears of the utmost importance in order to protect the economic development of China, and the enrichment of its people, which are at the core of the current form of social contract between the Chinese political authorities and the Chinese society (Loretta Napoleoni, Maonomics, Why Chinese Communists Make Better Capitalists Than We Do?, 2011).

The “Golden Shield Project” is a national cyber security system of unparalleled scope and depth (Open Democracy, ibid). It blocks or authorizes, partly or fully, the access to and of contents and IP addresses, which are deemed threatening for China by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Industry, the China Banking Regulation Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Payment and Clearing Association of China. These different administrations are coordinating the different “segments” of the “Great Firewall”, which includes them all into a national system of cyber security systems (KPMG, ibid).

The philosophy of the Golden Shield Project is rooted in Chinese strategic thinking and political history, dominated by the definition of China needing to protect itself from the outside, especially from Central Asian invaders, while being able to build the relations and trade it needs to develop itself. This philosophy has first inspired the building of the Great Wall, which was meant to protect China from outside threats. The Golden Shield Project a.k.a Great Firewall is meant to ensure the protection of the “cybernation” that China is currently becoming from cyber aggressors. As a matter of fact, as a digital nation, China needs a form of protection, for its citizens, economy, infrastructures, companies, and its political project. Thus, the political authorities try to protect the Chinese nation not “simply” from external influences, but also from external disruptions, knowing that the effects of such occurrences can have extremely violent consequences in China, as the “Middle Kingdom” repeatedly experienced throughout its very long history.

We shall recall, for example, the repeated and sometimes devastating invasions, especially from the nomadic tribes of Central Asia, such as the 12th and 13th centuries Mongol invasions, including those led by Genghis Khan. More recently, since the middle of the 19th century, the political, military, economic and ideological threats and causes of chaos, invasion, war, civil war, and revolution, came in great parts from the outside world (John King Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985, 1987).

From the Great Wall to the Great Cyber Shield

In this regard, the name “Golden Shield” given to the Chinese national cyber security service is not a superlative metaphor, but is, in fact, an extension of the concept of defence and protection from an attack against the national territory. In this regard, it may be seen, indeed, even though the name would have been originally coined in a 1997 Wired article, as an extension of the Great Wall and of its political and strategic philosophy in the cyber space.

The Great Wall has been a long work in progress, which started during the Warring States period, i.e. from the 5th to the 2nd century BC. Then, the different warring Chinese states started to build fortifications alongside their frontiers, in order to protect themselves from each other, and from the nomadic peoples of the central steppes. After the unification of the country by the Qin ruler, the First Emperor, these multiple fortifications were integrated into a series of great fortifications built to keep the nomads out of China (Jacques Gernet, Le Monde Chinois, 2005).

Through the same process, this system of fortifications, while being used to watch upon the outside of China, was also extended to parts of the Central Asian steppe. This was done in order to protect the network of roads going from China to Europe, the Silk Roads (Gernet, Ibid). This network was used by merchants and armies from the 1st century BC to the 16th century and was the main support of exchange between Europe, China and India for centuries (Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads, a new history of the world, 2015). It was so important to the Chinese political authorities that, during centuries, they deployed a strategic system using the Great Wall to protect both China and its “useful exterior”.

The strategic and philosophical meaning of the Golden Shield Project

This means, that, at a deeper level, the idea underlying the Great Wall influences the thought behind the Golden Shield Project. The Golden Shield can be seen as a new version of the Great Wall, adapted to the 21st century. It is created through the constitution of the material and cyber “envelope” necessary for both the protection and development of China. This novel surrounding fortification is meant to isolate China from the outside, while also allowing for interactions with its abroad in the safest possible way, exactly as the Great Wall both not only protected from invasion but also facilitated safe exchanges through the Silk Roads.

The Golden Shield Project is thus somehow the continuity of the multi-millennial construction of the Great Wall, and both are a manifestation of the defence and security mission of the Chinese state. Thus, thanks to this national cyber protection system, added to the New Silk Road, China install itself “in the middle of the world”, not only from a geographical perspective, but also from a cyber space’s point of view, while maintaining its singularity.

In other words, protecting China also means developing it, while centring China in the heart of the global world of the 21st century, especially through the “New Silk Road / One Belt One Road” grand strategy (Jean-Michel Valantin, “ “The “One Belt, One Road” Summit and the Chinese Shaping of the Globalization?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, June 5, 2017).

About the author: Jean-Michel Valantin (PhD Paris) leads the Environment and Geopolitics Department of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. He is specialised in strategic studies and defence sociology with a focus on environmental geostrategy.

Featured image: The Great Wall of China by Mary Wenstrom, Pixabay, CC0, Public Domain

Evaluating Likelihoods for the Future of Libya – A Salafist Victory?

In this article, we shall assess the likelihood of a total victory in Libya in the medium term by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. By victory, we mean a complete victory by one side over its adversaries, which is not imposed from the top down by external powers. In the previous article, we evaluated the likelihood for the lasting victory of each government, finding that a COR victory was least unlikely. Now that intervention is already occurring, as we saw in our article on intervention scenarios, the “Salafist Victory” scenarios are considered sub-scenarios of Scenario 2: Intervention instead of independent scenarios. As such, this will be reflected in the indicators, mapping and likelihoods. Indeed, as events unfolded and intervention took …

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Towards Renewed War in Syria? The Kurds and Turkey

President Erdogan “Countries We Consider Our Friends See No Problem in Cooperating with Terrorist Organizations”, Eid al-Fitr celebration, AK Party’s Istanbul branch, 25 June 2017 – Presidency of the Republic of Turkey.“The entire world should know that we will never allow the establishment of a terror state across our borders in northern Syria. … We will continue to crush the head of the serpents in their nests. Here is my message to those who want to block the steps we will take for the survival of our state and nation…” President Erdogan (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, “Countries We Consider Our Friends See No Problem in Cooperating with Terrorist Organizations“, Eid al-Fitr celebration, AK Party’s Istanbul branch , 25 June …

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Digital China – The (Middle) Kingdom of Cyberspace?

The Chinese presence in cyberspace is gathering speed, scope and mass. This was especially obvious during the “One Belt, One Road” Forum for International Cooperation that took place in Beijing on 14 15 May 2017. There, the Chinese government and companies and their counterparts from more than 69 Asian, African, American and European countries signed a myriad of deals, contracts and memorandum of understanding (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The “One Belt, One Road” Summit and the Chinese Shaping of the Globalization?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, June 5, 2017). A large part of these deals are related to the expansion of the Chinese New Silk Road in cyberspace, which thus becomes a medium and a support of the multi-areas Chinese grand strategy,.

For example, China’s telecom companies are committing their “full support” to “Digital Kazakhstan 2020”. In the same dynamic of technological and cyber development, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China initiated the “Joint Initiative to Establish the International Coalition for Green Development on the Belt and Road” with the United Nations Environment Program, as well as the Belt and Road Environmental Cooperation plan, while setting up “the Big Data Service Platform on Ecological and Environmental Protection” (“List of Deliverables of Belt and Road Forum”, Xinhua.net, 2017-05-15). These measures are part of a larger set of initiatives, such as the negotiations between China, Russia and Japan to install a maritime fibre optic cable along the Siberian Northern Sea Route that links the Bering Strait and Asia to Europe through the newly opened corridor that follows the Siberian coast (Marex “Norway and China Friends Again“, The Maritime Executive, 2016-12-19).

These different examples are just samples of the mammoth and expanding cyber dimension of China. The corresponding “re-shaping” takes place through the installation of the Chinese economy “in the middle” of an international network of exchanges of products and resources. The cyber dimension is aimed at reinforcing the centrality of China in the cyberspace as well as the interconnection between the member states of the “One Belt One Road” initiative and China. In other terms, China becomes the Middle Kingdom of the cyberspace.

In the first article of this series on the strategic consequences of the Chinese cyber development, we shall look at the way the actualization of the “digital sino-sphere” is in itself a transformation of the political status of China. We shall notably ponder if China is using the Internet to develop itself, or if China is building its own national sphere in the cyberspace? In other terms, could the digitalization of China be an extension of the Chinese nation in the cyberspace, and could the cyberspace be the support of a new evolution of the Chinese nation?

The digitalization of the Middle Kingdom

Tencent Headquarters – 2011 Design Competition Proposal by Wong Tung & Partners by By RonaldFNg (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Within a few years time, China has become a “digital nation”. In 2016, the world number of internet users reached 3.6 billion, out of which more than 710 million were Chinese (against 590 million internet users for China in 2013). That number includes 656 million mobile users, out of which 250 million are already using 5G network (Simon Alexander, “The Rise of the Sinosphere and the Digital Silk Road”, DCX. Technology, February 2, 2017). In other terms, one Internet user out of five is a Chinese citizen. Observers of the growth of the Chinese Internet market estimate that this number is going to almost double during the coming decade (“Timeline: China’s Internet development”, ChinaDaily.com, 2016-11-15). Their evaluation can be supported, for example, by the success of WeChat, the Chinese social network created by Tencent. Launched in 2011, WeChat reached 253 millions users in August 2013 (Theo Merz, “WeChat passes 100 millions users outside China”, The Telegraph, 15 August 2013) and, in 2017, attracted more than 889 millions users per month (“2017 WeChat Users Behavior Report”, China Channel, April 25, 2017).

A headquarter twin tower of Tencent in Nanshan under construction By Wishva de Silva (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons — Tencent Seafront Tower, Nanshan District at the junction of Binhai Road and Baishi Road, Shenzhen, 9 April 2016, By Wishva de Silva (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

This Chinese social network can be used to chat, to exchange contents and to pay for products and services through mobile phone, with an extension on the World-Wide-Web. It also has more than 100 millions users in Asia. If this exponential rate of growth keeps on, the 1.4 billion strong population of China will be a collective user of WeChat in 3 or 4 years. Furthermore, in 2017, the WeChat company started to work on a search function that will assure an even more important presence of its hundreds of millions of users in the cyberspace. The overwhelming success of WeChat must be considered as inter-connected with the massive effort initiated by the Chinese government in order to develop the access by 80% the Chinese population to the Internet through fibre optic cables, in order to guarantee a growing broadband access to the population (“China eyes fibre optic use to expand communications systems”, Global Times, 2017/2/6).

This Internet development is deeply linked to the success of Chinese giant Internet companies, such as WeChat as we just saw, or Alibaba, the Chinese leviathan of online retail, as a positive feedback loop between Chinese customers, the Internet, the websites of the companies, the transport and distribution services as well as the massive proliferation of computers and mobile phones in the population is created. As a result, Alibaba saw the number of its active buyers rise from 133 million during the first quarter of 2012 to 454 million during the first quarter of 2017 (“Number of active buyers across Alibaba’s online shopping properties from 2nd quarter 2012 to 1st quarter 2017 (in millions)“, Statista, The Statistical Portal, 2017). The dimension of Alibaba may be better apprehended when compared to the 300 million users of Amazon.com, the online U.S. giant retail company, in the first quarter of 2017 (“120 Amazing Amazon Statistics and Facts (February 2017)”, DMR, 15 March 2017).

These are (strong) signals indicating the importance that must be given to the understanding of the Chinese Internet development strategy in considering notably the very Chinese meaning of this development, while linking it with the enormous challenges and opportunities related to the cyber development of China, as we shall now see.

From water history to digital development

Through giant companies such as Huawei, or Chinese Telecom, among others, and public organisations such as different ministries, China appears to be handling cyberspace as it handled other vital flows, such as water flows, during its long history.

Indeed, traditionally, the Chinese world vision diverges radically from the occidental one. In China, the basic principles, Yin and Yang, which are both antagonistic and complementary are spanning the whole universe, space included and their flow is in constant dynamic. Out of these principles flows the totality of the universe, i.e. the Sky, Earth, nature and humankind and their opposition make them transform into one another and thus permanently flowing. The opposition between these dynamic principles must carefully be “managed”, in order to maintain equilibrium in the human and natural world (Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise, 1934). This dynamic and complementary opposition is also structuring the Taoist world vision, in which the Qi, the “matter energy” and the “Li” the principle of universal order, are different, entwined and must be nurtured and kept in harmony (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine Moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la Globalisation, 2014).

In other terms, the Chinese “Weltanschauung” is centred around an understanding of the world as being a system of flows and these flows must be developed in order to develop the human society, which is not basically different from the rest of the universe, because it is moved by the same principles.

In very practical terms, this has led the Chinese to an understanding of their territory as being literally made of flows, like water that needs to be both used and respected, i.e. canalized in the most harmonious possible way.

The infrastructural and political mastery of water flows has indeed been a crucial and permanent feature of the multi-millennial Chinese history, as well as of its world vision (Philip Ball, The Water Kingdom, 2016). Furthermore water is also, from the Chinese point of view, part of the different dynamic elements that must be maintained into a state of evolving equilibrium. Water flows are of a vital importance for the development of agriculture, of rural and urban communities, and for transportation (Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise, 1934).

The mastery of giant rivers such as the Yellow River, are a way of unifying and integrating the Middle Kingdom into one entity, despite its numerous regional, social and cultural disparities. In the same time, mastering the flow of water, from the very local to the national and international levels, is an absolute necessity because the flow of water can also become a dire threat, through excesses: not enough means drought, while too much means flood. In both cases, water catastrophes mean social, economic and human crisis and as such political crisis for a government that cannot protect its own people and that seems to be losing the “celestial mandate” (John King Fairbanks, Merle Goldman, China, a New History, 2006). This dynamic is even more important with the rapid urban and industrial development started at the end of the 1970s as exemplified by the construction of the infamous Tree Gorges dam, the largest hydropower project in the world (Brian Handwerk, “China’s Three Gorges Dam, by the numbers”, The National Geographic, June 9, 2006).

A good mastery of the flows of water and of the other flows shows that a carefully managed equilibrium between the natural world and the human world is cultivated, thanks to properly managed social, economic, and political activities, guided by the theosophical practices of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014).

The notion of mastering water also refers to the notion of mastering the different kinds of flows and their interactions upon which depend the life of the Middle Kingdom. That is why the development of the mastery of water plays a central role throughout the history of China, with systems of irrigation, dams, sluice, canals. The different forms of the water mastery has been paramount for the success of agriculture, which is the foundation for population growth as well as for domestic trade, through the economic development of rural communities, as trade between communities and between provinces, are made easier by the use of waterways. Mastering water flows has thus an essential political function because it allows the biological, social and economic life of the Kingdom as well as its cohesion.

This permanent quest for equilibrium and harmony is the very basis for the legitimacy of the Chinese political authorities, and has been qualified for a long time as the “Celestial Mandate”. This culture of material, social, and spiritual collective search for equilibrium turned China into a sustainable and largely self-sufficient and self-sustainable nation for thousands of years, despite important sequences of political turmoil, violence and war (John King Fairbanks, Merle Goldman, China, a New History, 2006).

This very careful control of water has given to the Chinese authorities, as well as to the population, an experience and a world vision in which the notion of flow, mastery of these flows and politics are going hand in hand. Because the cyber dimension has become a crucial part of the reality of the 21^st century and, as a result, is of vital importance for people’s life and for the life of the whole Chinese nation, thus, from a Chinese political and social point of view, the mammoth development of the national cyberspace infrastructure is a necessity of the same importance and order as the mastery of the water flow.

Mastering the cyber flow

The necessity to master the cyber domain, which is understood, as explained more in terms of flows than in static terms of space, drives the creation of the infrastructures aimed at mastering this new ethereal and vital flow, upon which the social and economic life of life of numerous countries and of the great powers increasingly depend upon. As a result, the Chinese government, the Ministry of Security, the Chinese Internet companies and the Chinese telecom companies, combined with the millions of kilometres of fibre optic cables are forming a cyber nexus (“China’s Digital Transformation: The Internet Impact on Productivity and Growth“, Mc Kinsey Global Institute, 2014).

Meanwhile, the mammoth population of Internet users settles on the Internet, while using the Chinese language in order to exchange, thus creating de facto a singular community, which is also defined by its common world vision, representations and needs. Moreover, as seen, the logistical, electronic and software infrastructures of the Chinese presence in cyberspace is the result of a Chinese combined effort of the national political authorities and national companies. Thus, the combination of this state’s sponsored national endeavour with the mass created by the hundreds of millions of Chinese and the common national identity of the users turns the cyber presence of China into a literal “cyber nation” (Hoo Tian Boon, “Xi’s speech illustrates China a Responsible Cyber Nation”, China Daily.com, 2015-12-17).

The Chinese cyber nexus and its cyber nation has an importance and a meaning that transcends the notion of network of networks, which has historically defined the Internet (Richard T. Griffiths, The History of the Internet, Internet for Historians (and just about everyone else), University of Leiden, 11 October 2002). It results, in fact, into the settlement of the Chinese nation in the cyberspace. In other terms, the Middle Kingdom installs its digital dimension “in the middle” of the cyberspace.

It is from this political perspective that we are now going to have to understand the Chinese strategy of cyber security known as the “Great Firewall” as well as the consequences of this digital development on the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, also known as the “New Silk Road” Chinese grand strategy, currently deployed worldwide.

Featured image: Matrix by Tobias_ ET via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

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