How the EU subsidises Israel’s military-industrial complex

by Ben Hayes

Israeli Aerospace Industries Heron 1 UAV.  (photo: Calips – WikiMedia Commons).

The EU is providing generous R&D (research and development) subsidies to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the state-owned manufacturer of Israeli ‘drones’ and other ‘battlefield solutions’. Some of the grants are for IAI to adapt its killer robots for use within the EU.

Regardless of where you stand on Israel-Palestine, things have surely gone awry in Brussels for the EU to be providing generous R&D (research and development) subsidies to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the state-owned manufacturer of Israeli ‘drones’ and other ‘battlefield solutions’. Some of the grants are for IAI to adapt its killer robots for use within the EU. It’s a wonder David Cameron didn’t mention it in his crusade against the EU budget. Perhaps not: but how does EU tax-payers hard-earned cash end up in the hands of the Israeli war machine?

EU research subsidies to Israel

The EU’s framework research programme is the biggest single R&D budget in the world. The current “FP7” programme(2007-2013) has a budget of €51 billion; the next programme, “Horizon 2020”(2014-2020), will have somewhere between €70 and €80 billion. Israel joined the European Research Area in 1995 under the terms of a remarkably generous EC“association agreement” and participates in the framework programmes on the same footing as EU member states. This means it puts up some of the money (each participating state pays a proportion based on its GDP) and is eligible to apply for the funds on offer. With its buoyant R&D sector, few states have been as successful in landing EU grants as Israel (which is thus a net recipient of EU research funds) and the EU is now second only to the Israeli Science Foundation in Jerusalem as a source of domestic research funding.

Israel Aerospace Industries has been a principle beneficiary of the EU’s largesse. Established in 1957 upon recommendation of Shimon Perez, then Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IAI is now a world leader in the booming drone market, producing the Heron, Hunter and Ghost, among many others - in 2010 its total annual revenues topped the $3 billion mark. Since Israel joined the European Research Area, IAI has landed at least 69 EU research grants. Because the European Commission is ostensibly prohibited from funding military R&D, most of these grants have come from the transport and aerospace budgets, where military and defence contractors play a leading role in developing new materials for aircraft and more efficient engines as part of the EU’s “clean skies”programme. The EU has also ploughed money into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs/drones), which it wants to see introduced into commercial airspace as soon as practicably possible.

Since the EU launched the dedicated “security research” component of the FP7 programme, funding has poured directly into Israel’s defence and homeland security sectors. Among dozens of EU-funded UAV projects, IAI landed contracts to develop drones for European security agencies to “autonomously” stop “illegal migrants” and “non-cooperative vehicles”,whatever that entails. Meanwhile Israel’s Verint Systems, one of the world’s largest surveillance contractors, is leading a project to bring “Total Airport Security” to European airports; its consortium includes Elbit Systems, another massive defence conglomerate, which helped construct and maintain Israel’s illegal “Separation Wall”. Other recipients of EU security grants include Motorola Israel (producer of “virtual fences” around Israeli settlements), Aeronautics Defense Systems (another Israeli drone manufacturer specialising in "networked warfare") and the Israel Counter-Terrorism and Security Academy (which is helping the EU with its “counter-radicalisation” strategy). As FP7 draws to a close having already funded over 200 security research projects, one in five contracts includes an Israeli security partner.

An ethical void

The European Union has expressed “concern” about Israel’s “targeted killings” and the Separation Wall, and “condemned” new Israeli settlements. So should it be funding the very companies that sustain these unlawful activities? Ask the relevant European Commission officials and they will simply point to the EU-Israel cooperation agreement with one hand (i.e. don’t blame us) and the independent evaluation of EU research proposals with the other (i.e. Israel is actually rather good at security technology).

So what about the ethical standards governing EU research funding? The problem here is that these do not address the ethical standing of the researchers, only the ethical issues raised by the research. Put simply, this means that as long as they’re not developing GM foods or stem cells etc., or testing their wares on children or animals, there’s no case to answer where the participation of the Israeli war industry is concerned.

What about the supposed EU prohibition of “dual use” research - shouldn’t this prevent the funding of research with potential military spin-offs? Unfortunately the EU security research programme is predicated on the adaptation of military technology for “civil” security purposes, rendering “dual use” largely impotent in the face of considerable subsidies for defence contractors diversifying into all things Homeland Security: border control, counter-terrorism, infrastructure protection, mass surveillance and so on.

So here is the question we should be asking: why on earth is “democratic”, non-militarist Europe so keen to import Israel’s hyper-militaristic security architecture in the first place? Terrorists, illegal migrants, or the future threat to social order posed by their own citizens?

Towards “Horizon 2020”

Regardless, we cannot rely on the European Commissioner for Research or Members of the European Parliament to address the obvious problems with the existing EU framework – the former has repeatedly declared herself satisfied that there is no moral, legal or ethical case to answer in respect to the likes of IAI; the latter, with a few honourable exceptions, have simply ignored the pleas and complaints of NGOs and campaigners. Nevertheless, the preparations for “Horizon 2020”, which will begin in 2014, provide an important opportunity to reflect on the plans that are under way.

It is clear that without changes to the status quo, things will get a lot worse (or better if you happen to be an Israeli security contractor). First, the security research budget is set to grow from €1.4 billion in FP7 to as much as €4.1 billion under Horizon 2020 (the exact figure is not known because the legislation is still under negotiation). Second, the EU is strongly prioritising research that can be monetarised, so there will be a lot more subsidies for industry and less for the fluffy stuff like social science, which while creating knowledge for human development, rarely helps the corporate bottom line. Third, with the global market for Homeland Security now reportedly worth $100 billion-a-year, EU security research appears certain to escape the cuts secured by the likes of David Cameron. Fourth, there is a tangible culture of cooperation between the European and Israeli security research elite, with the former assuming that participation of the latter enhances their funding prospects.

Campaign challenge

In this climate the only challenge to EU-Israeli security cooperation is coming from the bottom-up. In the UK, following a campaign by Palestinian solidarity groups and the National Union of Students, Kings College and the Natural History Museum expressed regret at their EU-funded partnership with Ahava, whose Dead Sea Laboratories are based in an illegal Israeli settlement.

Last week I spoke to students at the prestigious Catholic University of Leuven, where activists have launched a campaign against its partnership with IAI in five EU-funded projects. Their tenacity means there is every chance that Leuven will, in the next few months, commit to excluding Israel’s defence and security industry from future partnerships. Similar campaigns are under way in other universities across Europe.

Of course it would be far better for the EU to simply demonstrate the “leadership” and “even-handed” approach to Israel-Palestine it has long promised by simply changing the rules of its research programme. Until then, there is every likelihood that the Nobel Peace Prize will come back to haunt us.

Ben Hayes is project director at Statewatch and a fellow of the Transnational Institute. He tweet @drbenhayes

This article first appeared on openDemocracy March 6, 2013.

US preparations for cyber war against China

by Peter Symonds

US officials participate in cyber warfare classes at the US Air Force Academy, Colorado. (Source: PressTV)

The Obama administration, working hand-in-hand with the American media, has opened up a new front in its aggressive campaign against China. A slew of articles, most notably in the New York Times, has appeared over the past week purportedly exposing the involvement of the Chinese military in hacking US corporations and hinting at the menace of cyber warfare to vital American infrastructure such as the electricity grid.

The Times article on Tuesday based itself on the unsubstantiated and self-serving claims of a report prepared by cyber-security company Mandiant alleging that a Chinese military unit based in Shanghai had been responsible for sophisticated cyber-attacks in the US. (See: “US uses hacking allegations to escalate threats against China”). The rest of the media in the US and internationally followed suit, with articles replete with comments from analysts, think tanks and administration officials past and present about the “Chinese cyber threat”, all but ignoring the emphatic denials by China’s foreign and defence ministries.

This set the stage for the release on Wednesday of Obama’s “Administration Strategy on Mitigation of Theft of US Trade Secrets,” which, while not formally naming China, cited numerous examples of alleged Chinese cyber espionage. In broad terms, the document laid out the US response, including “sustained and coordinated diplomatic pressure” on offending countries and the implied threat of economic retaliation via “trade policy tools.”

US Attorney General Eric Holder warned of “a significant and steadily increasing threat to America’s economy and national security interests.” Deputy Secretary of State Robert Hormats declared that the US had “repeatedly raised our concerns about trade secret theft by any means at the highest levels with senior Chinese officials.”

The demonisation of China as a global cyber threat follows a well-established modus operandi: it is aimed at whipping up a public climate of fear and hysteria in preparation for new acts of aggression—this time in the sphere of cyber warfare. Since coming to office in 2009, Obama has launched a broad economic and strategic offensive aimed at weakening and isolating China and reinforcing US global dominance, especially in Asia.

Accusations of Chinese cyber theft dovetail with the Obama administration’s economic thrust into Asia through its Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a new multilateral trade agreement aimed at boosting US trade at China’s expense. The protection of “intellectual property rights” is a central component of the TPP, as the profits of American corporations rest heavily on their monopoly over markets via brand names and technology. Allegations of cyber espionage will become the pretext for new trade war measures against China.

However, the more sinister aspect of the anti-Chinese propaganda is the US preparation of war against China. Under the banner of its “pivot to Asia,” the Obama administration has put in train a far-reaching diplomatic and strategic offensive aimed at strengthening existing military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand, forging closer strategic partnerships and ties, especially with India and Vietnam, and undermining close Chinese relations with countries like Burma and Sri Lanka.

Obama’s “pivot to Asia” has already resulted in a dangerous escalation of maritime disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, encouraged by the US, have pressed their territorial claims against China. The focus on these strategic waters is not accidental, as they encompass the shipping lanes on which China relies to import raw materials and energy from the Middle East and Africa. The US is establishing new military basing arrangements in Australia, South East Asia and elsewhere in the region to ensure it has the ability to choke off China’s vital supplies in the event of a confrontation or war.

The Pentagon regards cyber warfare as a vital component of the huge American war machine and has devoted considerable resources towards its development, especially under the Obama administration. In May 2010, the Pentagon set up its new US Cyber Command headed by General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), drawing on the already massive cyber resources of the NSA and the American military.

US accusations of Chinese cyber espionage are utterly hypocritical. The NSA, among other US agencies, has been engaged in electronic spying and hacking into foreign computer systems and networks around the world on a vast scale. Undoubtedly, China is at the top of the list of prime targets. The Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed this week that at least 14 million computers in China were hacked by 73,000 overseas-based users last year, including many cyber attacks on the Chinese Defence Ministry.

The US has already engaged in aggressive, illegal acts of cyber sabotage against Iran’s nuclear facilities and infrastructure. Together with Israel, it infected the electronic controllers of the gas centrifuges used in Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant with the Stuxnet worm, causing hundreds to spin out of control and self-destruct. This criminal activity took place alongside more traditional forms—the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and other acts of sabotage by Israel.

It is inconceivable that the Pentagon’s cyber capacities are being deployed for purely defensive purposes against the “Chinese threat.” Indeed, in taking over as cyber warfare chief in 2010, General Alexander outlined his credo to the House Armed Services subcommittee. After declaring that China was viewed as responsible for “a great many attacks on Western infrastructure,” he added that if the US were subject to an organised attack, “I would want to go and take down the source of those attacks.”

Last August, the US Air Force issued what was described by the New York Times as “a bluntly worded solicitation for papers advising it on ‘cyberspace warfare attack capabilities,’ including weapons to ‘destroy, deny, deceive, corrupt or usurp’ an enemy’s computer networks and other hi-tech targets. The same article referred to the Pentagon’s research arm, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, hosting a gathering of private contractors wanting to participate in “Plan X”—the development of “revolutionary technologies for understanding, planning and managing cyber warfare.”

This week’s propaganda about the “Chinese cyber threat” provides the justifications for stepping up the already advanced US preparations for conducting cyber-attacks on Chinese military and civilian targets. Amid the rising tensions between the US and China produced by Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, reckless American actions in the sphere of cyber warfare only compound the danger of open military confrontation between the two powers.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 23 February 2013, and was republished with permission.

The United States Promotes Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinians

by Francis A. Boyle

 

In direct reaction to Israel provoking the Al Aqsa Intifada, on October 19, 2000, the then United Nations Human Rights Commission (now Council) condemned Israel for inflicting “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” upon the Palestinian people, some of whom are Christians, but most of whom are Muslims.[i]

 

This Special Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted the Resolution set forth in U.N. Document E/CN.4/S-5/L.2/Rev. 1, “Condemning the provocative visit to Al-Haram Al-Shariff on 28 September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, the Likud party leader, which triggered the tragic events that followed in occupied East Jerusalem and the other occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians.” The U.N. Human Rights Commission said it was “[g]ravely concerned” about several different types of atrocities inflicted by Israel upon the Palestinian people, which it denominated “war crimes, flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity.”

 

In operative paragraph 1 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission then:

 

“Strongly condemns the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in violation of international humanitarian law by the Israeli occupying Power against innocent and unarmed Palestinian civilians…including many children, in the occupied territories, which constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity;…”

And in paragraph 5 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission:

 

“Also affirms that the deliberate and systematic killing of civilians and children by the Israeli occupying authorities constitutes a flagrant and grave violation of the right to life and also constitutes a crime against humanity;…”

 Article 68 of the United Nations Charter had expressly required the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council to “set up” this U.N. Commission (now Council) “for the promotion of human rights.” This was its U.N.-Charter-mandated job.

 

The reader has a general idea of what a war crime is, so I am not going to elaborate upon that term here. But there are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes. In particular are the more serious war crimes denominated “grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987, the world has seen those heinous war crimes inflicted every day by Israel against the Palestinian people living in occupied Palestine: e.g., willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army and by Israel’s criminal paramilitary terrorist settlers. These Israeli “grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandate universal prosecution for the perpetrators and their commanders, whether military or civilian, including and especially Israel’s political leaders.

 

Let us address for a moment Israel’s “crimes against humanity” against the Palestinian people—as determined by the U.N. Human Rights Commission itself, set up pursuant to the requirements of the United Nations Charter. What are “crimes against humanity”? This concept goes all the way back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 for the trial of the major Nazi war criminals in Europe. In the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, drafted by the United States Government, there was created and inserted a new type of international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people:

 

Crimes against humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

 The paradigmatic example of “crimes against humanity” is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish people. This is where the concept of “crimes against humanity” originally came from. And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission (now Council) determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian people: crimes against humanity.

 

Expressed in legal terms, this is just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews. That is the significance of the formal determination by the U.N. Human Rights Commission that Israel has inflicted “crimes against humanity” upon the Palestinian people. The Commission chose this well-known and long-standing legal term of art quite carefully and deliberately based upon the evidence it had compiled.

 

Furthermore, the Nuremberg “crimes against humanity” are the historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. The theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish people was so horrific that it required a special international treaty that would codify and universalize the Nuremberg concept of “crimes against humanity.” And that treaty ultimately became the 1948 Genocide Convention.

 

Article II of the Genocide Convention defines the international crime of genocide in relevant part as follows:

 

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:

(a)   Killing members of the group;

(b)   Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c)   Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

As documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his seminal book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), Israel’s genocidal policy against the Palestinians has been unremitting, extending from before the very foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, and is ongoing and even intensifying against the 1.6 million Palestinians living in Gaza as this book goes to press.

 

As Pappe’s analysis established, Zionism’s “final solution” to Israel’s much-touted and racist “demographic threat” allegedly posed by the very existence of the Palestinians has always been genocide, whether slow-motion or in blood-thirsty spurts of violence. Indeed, the very essence of Zionism requires ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide against the Palestinians. In regard to the latest 2008-2009 Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza – so-called Operation Cast-lead — U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua during the Reagan administration’s contra-terror war of aggression against that country, condemned it as “genocide.”[ii]

 

Certainly, Israel and its predecessors-in-law—the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs—have committed genocide against the Palestinian people that actually started on or about 1948 and has continued apace until today in violation of Genocide Convention Articles II(a), (b), and (c). For over the past six decades, the Israeli government and its predecessors-in-law—the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs—have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, and economic campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) group constituting the Palestinian people.

 

This Zionist/Israeli campaign has consisted of killing members of the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(a). This Zionist/Israeli campaign has also caused serious bodily and mental harm to the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(b). This Zionist/Israeli campaign has also deliberately inflicted on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in substantial part in violation of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention.

 

Article I of the Genocide Convention requires all contracting parties such as the United States “to prevent and to punish” genocide. Yet to the contrary, historically the “Jewish” state’s criminal conduct against the Palestinians has been financed, armed, equipped, supplied and politically supported by the nominally “Christian” United States. Although the United States is a founding sponsor of, and a contracting party to, both the Nuremberg Charter and the Genocide Convention, as well as the United Nations Charter, these legal facts have never made any difference to the United States when it comes to its blank-check support for Zionist Israel and their joint and severable criminal mistreatment of the Palestinians—truly the wretched of the earth!

 

The world has not yet heard even one word uttered by the United States and its N.A.T.O. allies in favor of R2P/humanitarian intervention against Zionist Israel in order to protect the Palestinian people, let alone a “responsibility to protect” the Palestinians from Zionist/Israeli genocide. The United States, its N.A.T.O. allies, and the Great Powers on the U.N. Security Council would not even dispatch a U.N. Charter Chapter 6 monitoring force to help “protect” the Palestinians, let alone even contemplate any type of U.N. Charter Chapter 7 enforcement actions against Zionist Israel – which are actually two valid international legal options for R2P/humanitarian intervention! The doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” and its current “responsibility to protect” transmogrification so readily espoused elsewhere when U.S. foreign policy interests are allegedly at stake have been clearly proven to be a sick joke and a demented fraud when it comes to stopping the ongoing and accelerating Zionist/Israeli campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people.

 

Rather than rein in the Zionist Israelis—which would be possible just by turning off the funding pipeline—the United States government, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. media, and U.S. taxpayers instead support the “Jewish” state to the tune of about 4 billion dollars per year, without whose munificence this instance of genocide – and indeed conceivably the State of Israel itself – would not be possible. Without the United States, Israel is nothing more than a typical “failed state.” In today’s world genocide is permissible so long as it is done at the behest of the United States and its de jure allies in N.A.T.O. or its de facto allies such as Israel.

 

I anticipate no fundamental change in America’s support for the Zionist/Israeli ongoing campaign of genocide against the Palestinians during the tenure of the Obama administration and its near-term successors, whether neoliberal Democrats or neoconservative Republicans. Tweedledum versus Tweedledee.

 

What the world witnesses here is (yet another) case of bipartisan “dishumanitarian intervention” or “humanitarian extermination” by the United States and Israel with the support of the N.A.T.O. states, against the Palestinians and Palestine. While at the exact same time these white racist cowards and hypocrites preach R2P/humanitarian intervention in order to subjugate Libya, now Syria, and perhaps someday soon Iran.

 

As Machiavelli so astutely advised The Prince in Chapter XVIII of that book:

“…one who deceives will always find one who will allow himself to be deceived.”[iii]

 On these dissentient points, this law professor rests his case against the doctrines of “humanitarian intervention” and its imperialist transformation into the demagogic “responsibility to protect.”

 
This article was first published on Global Research, January 26, 2013

Copyright © Francis A. Boyle, Global Research, 2013

Tokyo accuses Chinese navy of “locking onto” Japanese targets

by Peter Symonds

 

Chinese Su-27 fighter

Amid a tense on-going territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea, Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera on Tuesday accused the Chinese navy of locking radar guidance systems onto a Japanese warship last month. No weapons were fired. Branding the action as “extremely abnormal behaviour,” he said, “A small mistake could have led to a very dangerous situation.”

Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stepped up the pressure on China, accusing Beijing of deliberately inflaming tensions between the two countries. “It was a unilateral, provocative act and extremely regrettable,” he said. “I urge strong restraint by China so the situation will not unnecessarily escalate.”

The Chinese government has yet to respond to Japan’s claims. Onodera provided few details of the alleged incident on January 30, saying only that it involved Chinese frigates and a Japanese destroyer in the East China Sea. He also said that a Chinese ship had targeted a Japanese navy helicopter on January 19 in a similar manner.

The latest Japanese accusations follow months of escalating friction between the two countries, after the previous Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government “nationalised” the disputed islands in September. Beijing responded by dispatching maritime surveillance vessels, and more recently aircraft, to the area to challenge Japan’s administration of the islands and surrounding waters and airspace.

The result has been increasingly dangerous manoeuvring in the vicinity of the islands, as Japan has responded by sending coast guard vessels and scrambling F-15 fighters to challenge Chinese ships and aircraft. On January 10, China dispatched its own J-10 fighters to the area, bringing warplanes from the two countries into close quarters. Japan has hinted that it could authorise its fighters to fire warning shots against “intruders.” All of this increases the risk of a miscalculation or mistake, triggering a military clash that could rapidly escalate out of control.

The military standoff has been accompanied by the deliberate stirring up of nationalism and militarism by both governments, which have exploited the dispute to divert attention from mounting social tensions at home. The Chinese regime gave the green light in September for widespread anti-Japanese protests that involved attacks on Japanese businesses and citizens. The state-owned Chinese media has subsequently published a rash of articles and commentary on an impending war with Japan.

In comments last week, new Chinese leader Xi Jinping was uncompromising. As reported by the state-run Xinhua news agency, he warned: “No foreign country should ever nurse hopes that we will bargain over our core national interests, and nor should they nurse hopes that we will swallow the bitter fruit of harm to our country’s sovereignty, security and development interests.”

The Japanese elections in December brought Abe and the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) back to power, promising to bolster the military and take a tougher stance against China. The Abe government has increased the defence budget for the first time in a decade, made the first moves towards modifying the country’s so-called pacifist constitution, and called for a reconsideration of the previous limited apologies issued for Japanese war crimes in the 1930s and 1940s.

Abe visited the southern island of Okinawa, some 500 kilometres from the Senkaku/Diaoyu islets, on Sunday. Speaking at the Naha air force base, he promised “to strengthen the defence structure” for the southwest islands region, to deal with “continuous challenges to Japan’s sovereignty.” He added: “I will stand in the forefront and am determined to resolutely protect our territory, territorial waters and airspace.” Abe also visited the regional coast guard headquarters responsible for patrolling the disputed islands.

The Japanese coast guard, which is already well equipped, announced last week that it would form a special unit over the next three years dedicated to patrolling Japanese waters in the East China Sea. The unit will include 10 new and larger patrol boats, two sophisticated helicopter carriers and a specialised force of 600 additional troops.

The British-based Guardian reported in early January that both countries were stepping up their drone surveillance capacities. The Japanese military has plans to purchase US drones—long-range Global Hawks that can fly continuously for up to 30 hours at a height of up to 20,000 metres.

While the US has called for calm from both countries, the Obama administration is responsible for stoking tensions in the East China Sea, and for inciting territorial disputes between China and South East Asian countries in the South China Sea. As part of his aggressive “pivot to Asia”, Obama has encouraged Japan to end the constitutional limitations on its military and adopt a tougher stance towards China.

Top Obama officials have repeatedly declared that Washington was “neutral” in the territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, warning at the same time that the US would side with Japan against China if a conflict broke out. Last month, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provoked an angry response from Beijing when she called for an end to “unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration” of the islands—comments that tacitly acknowledged Japanese control.

In late January, Natsuo Yamaguchi, the leader of New Komeito, the junior partner party in the LDP-led ruling coalition, visited Beijing and delivered a letter from Abe to the new Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In the course of the meeting, Xi reportedly called for an improvement in bilateral relations. While tensions between the two countries appeared to ease for a few days, the situation has worsened since.

Last Saturday, the Japanese coast guard detained a Chinese fishing boat and its crew of 12, alleging that it had engaged in illegal coral fishing. The vessel was not in the disputed waters, but off Miyako Island, around 150 kilometres away from the Senkaku/Diaoyu group. Nevertheless in the heated atmosphere between the two countries, any incident, no matter how minor has the potential to trigger a conflict. The captain and crew were released on Sunday.

The allegations of Chinese warships locking onto Japanese targets followed a diplomatic dressing down of the Chinese ambassador to Tokyo on Monday. The foreign ministry summoned the ambassador to register another “strong protest” over the presence of Chinese ships in waters around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. According to the Japanese coast guard, two Chinese maritime surveillance vessels spent around 14 hours in the area.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 7 February 2013, and was republished with permission.

Hoe Obama lessen kan trekken uit de decennialange bemoeienis met Iran

        

Op 20 januari 2013 begon president Barack Obama aan zijn tweede termijn. De president is er zich terdege van bewust dat er van zijn ambitieuze agenda bij zijn aantreden in 2009 om de Amerikaanse invloed en het imago van de VS in de wereld te herstellen niets in huis is gekomen. Hij heeft dan wel de oorlog in Irak beëindigd, maar de “oorlog uit noodzaak” in Afghanistan niet gewonnen. En van nucleaire ontwapening is niet veel meer terechtgekomen dan de ratificatie van het nieuwe Start-verdrag met Rusland. Obama heeft de Amerikaans-Russische relaties laten verzuren, onder andere door de Amerikaanse plannen voor een raketschild in Europa, kijkt terug op een serie mislukte pogingen om de dialoog aan te gaan met tegenstanders van Amerika en kan evenmin een krachtig initiatief rond de klimaatproblematiek op zijn palmares schrijven.

De president heeft laten weten dat hij terug wil naar zijn oorspronkelijke agenda, maar geeft te verstaan dat hij wel subtieler te werk te wil gaan. Hij is een ervaring rijker door de mislukte diplomatieke initiatieven rond Noord-Korea en Iran, het gebrek aan invloed van Amerika in Egypte, Pakistan en Israel, en de onthutsende realiteit van het mensenlevens en geld verslindende avontuur in Afghanistan. Men moet van hem de komende jaren dus niet direct grote verdragen verwachten, grootschalig militair ingrijpen of omvangrijke steunmaatregelen. Maar of zo’n aanpak tot resultaat kan leiden blijft de vraag. De geheime acties en bliksemaanvallen zoals de snelle oorlog in Libië en de cyberoorlog tegen Iran hebben de tegenstanders dan schade berokkend, doorslaggevend zijn die acties toch niet geweest.

Vandaag kijkt de wereld met wantrouwen naar de beloftes van de Amerikaanse president om de zaken anders aan te pakken. Zo confronteerde een student in Cairo een Amerikaanse journalist met de vraag waarom Guantanamo Bay nog altijd open was, en op een diner in Washington vroeg een Europese minister van Buitenlandse Zaken of de Amerikaanse pivot naar Azië misschien een andere term is voor het negeren van de rest van de wereld. De Amerikaanse president, die in 2009 change zo'n prominente plaats gaf in zijn verkiezingscampagne, blijft geloven in sancties tegen landen die niet aan de leiband van de VS lopen. Recent verlengde hij resoluut het ruim 50 jaar oude handelsembargo tegen Cuba “in het nationaal belang van de Verenigde Staten”. Onder de Trading With the Enemy Act van 1917 is hij in oorlogstijd bevoegd om sancties op te leggen. Maar hij had die tegen Cuba ook kunnen intrekken of verzachten. De sancties missen niet alleen hun doel, maar schenden ook de mensenrechten van Cubanen en VS-burgers.

Tot dusverre heeft de president de verwachtingen van de wereld niet kunnen inlossen. Een nieuwe koers in de relatie met tegenstanders als Cuba, Iran, Noord Korea, Myanmar en Venezuela lijkt enkel in Myanmar effect te sorteren. Het opbod tegen China blijft de grote uitdaging. In zijn tweede termijn hoopt de president de verstandhouding met deze grote rivaal te verbeteren. Maar China maakt zich steeds meer zorgen over de Amerikaanse pivot, temeer daar die gepaard gaat met een ongekend militair opbod in China’s achtertuin. De nieuwe Chinese leiders kunnen dat beleid alleen maar interpreteren als een poging het land in bedwang te houden. Dat hebben we al gezien in de vorm van verontrustende confrontaties in de regio, waarbij China in de Zuid-Chinese Zee werd opgezet tegen Vietnam en de Filippijnen, en tegen Japan in de Oost-Chinese Zee. Op korte termijn zal dit wel niet uitmonden in vijandigheden, maar de inzet van drones en cyberwapens blijft een reëel risico.

Men kan ernstige bedenkingen hebben bij de benoeming van bij John Kerry op Buitenlandse Zaken. Obama zet steevast mensen op dat soort posten die tot de Democratische rechtervleugel behoren en de Irak-oorlog steunden. Kerry is de afgelopen jaren sterk naar rechts opgeschoven. Hij verdedigde de Irak-oorlog zelfs nadat bleek dat er geen massavernietigingswapens waren. Voor hem hebben de VS het recht om zonder internationaal mandaat andere landen aan te vallen. Hij haalde scherp uit naar de VN secretaris-generaal en veegde de vloer aan met de Spaanse premier die vragen stelde bij het Amerikaanse unilateralisme. Kerry was ook niet akkoord met de uitspraak van het Internationaal Strafhof dat Israel met de bouw van de muur op Palestijns gebied de Vierde Conventie van Genève schendt. Voor Kerry was dat een anti-Israel motie. Kerry sluit zich op veel punten aan bij het gedachtegoed van de Republikeinse neoconservatieven. Naar buiten versterkt zo’n benoeming natuurlijk het beeld dat de VS boven de wet staan.

Hoewel de debatten in de Situation Room erop duiden dat de president zich bewust wordt van de beperktheid van de Amerikaanse invloed blijft neoconservatief Amerika geloven in machtsuitoefening met de harde hand. De manier waarop Amerika al tientallen jaren omgaat met Iran toont de fundamentele fouten in het denken van de politieke elite, en juist van deze geschiedenis zou de president moeten leren. Voor velen beginnen de betrekkingen tussen de VS en Iran met de gijzeling van de Amerikaanse ambassade in Teheran in 1979, waarna een groep irrationele moellahs aan de macht kwam met wie elk overleg bij voorbaat uitgesloten is. Monsters die enkel luisteren naar geweld. En die op het punt staan kernwapens te ontwikkelen en te gebruiken. Maar de werkelijkheid is dat de CIA vanuit dezelfde ambassade in 1953 de democratische regering-Mossadegh omverwierp omdat deze de Iraanse olierijkdom aan de Iraniërs wilde voorbehouden in plaats van aan buitenlandse ondernemingen.

De CIA installeerde de Sjah die de Amerikaanse wapenindustrie megawinsten bezorgde, terwijl zijn land een proeftuin werd voor geheime-dienst-technieken en mensenrechtenschendingen. Maar de Sjah verarmde en vervreemdde zijn bevolking. Een seculiere democratiegezinde revolutie bracht de Sjah in 1979 geweldloos ten val. Toen interne tegenstellingen niet snel leidden tot een nieuwe regering probeerde de CIA de Sjah aan de macht te houden, maar stuurde uiteindelijk aan op een gematigde theocratie. Nadat de Amerikaanse ambassade door een ongewapende menigte werd overgenomen sloten moellahs een deal met Amerikaanse Republikeinen om de gijzeling voort te zetten tot Carter de verkiezingen zou hebben verloren. De regering-Reagan hervatte de wapenverkopen aan Iran en maakte tegelijk wapendeals met Saddam Hussein die de oorlog tegen Iran twee termijnen Reagan kon volhouden dankzij Amerikaanse steun. En vandaag is Iran onder druk van het militair-industrieel complex doelwit van oorlogsdreiging, harde sancties en terrorisme.

De les die de Amerikaanse president uit de Iran-case moet trekken is dat het buitenland geen probleem heeft met de Westerse cultuur, maar met inmenging in hun bestuur, met het installeren van dictators die natuurlijke rijkdommen het land uitsluizen, elke vrijheid aan banden leggen en dissidenten opsluiten en martelen. Maar die les is aan de president verloren. Tijdens zijn inwijdingsspeech ter gelegenheid van zijn tweede ambtstermijn was het weer volop Amerikaans exceptionalisme:“Amerika blijft de spil van sterke allianties in alle uithoeken van de wereld. We zullen versterkt investeren in middelen die ons moeten toelaten buitenlandse crises het hoofd te bieden. Want niemand heeft meer belang bij vrede in de wereld dan de machtigste natie. We steunen democratie, van Azië tot Afrika, van Latijns-Amerika tot het Midden-Oosten. Onze belangen en ons geweten dwingen ons om op te treden in naam van hen die naar vrijheid verlangen”, zo klonk het.

De Amerikaanse sociologieprofessor Julian Go wijst er in zijn boek Patterns of Empire: the British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present op dat imperialistisch optreden een strategie is om werelddominantie te vrijwaren, een fenomeen dat gestalte krijgt in meer openlijk militair optreden in tijden van economische teruggang. Na tien jaar oorlog in Irak en Afghanistan zal Amerika zijn imperialisme wel enkele jaren op een laag pitje zetten, maar Amerikanen hebben een kort geheugen. Als de economie verder verslechtert ten voordele van de belangrijkste rivalen ziet men snel weer overal bedreigingen die bestreden moeten worden. Het beeld is beangstigend: het militair sterkste land ter wereld geraakt economisch meer en meer in verval. Amerikaanse agressie leidt onvermijdelijk tot een escalatie tussen de wereldmachten. En dat betekent wereldoorlog. De les van The Ugly American is nog even actueel als bij de verschijning van deze politieke roman in 1958.

Drone wars: the new blowback

by Paul Rogers

The United States and Israel see armed drones as a valuable tool of "remote control". But Iran, China and Russia - and non-state actors - are working to achieve their own capacity. The emerging era is one of drone proliferation.

Among the changes brought by Egypt's political transformation in 2011-12 has been that international journalists find it easier to enter Gaza. In turn this ensured much greater media reporting from within Gaza of Israel's assault in mid-November 2012 than had been the case over Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. A largely unreported aspect of this situation was that many of these journalists had immediate experience of frequent and intense Israeli drone-flights over Gaza during the week-long conflict.

Suddenly, a large number of journalists was made aware - possibly for the first time - of the kind of situation villagers in northwest Pakistan had long been subject to: the sound of a drone in their vicinity, buzzing above their head, compounded by a fear that it is armed and could, at any moment, unleash a Hellfire missile at a nearby house or compound.

The use of drones in Pakistan and Gaza (over which Israel routinely deploys drones, even when there is no armed confrontation) is best seen as a signal of the emerging era of warfare by "remote control" (see "Remote control, a new way of war", 18 October 2012. It is too little realised, though, that many countries are already embracing drone technology; that it is becoming a substantial feature of the international arms trade; and that there is a particular trend towards armed drones (see "Suicide-bombs without the suicides: why drones are so cool", 13 September 2012).

A worldwide boom

In recent weeks, military journals have been full of reports of new "products" and deployments. Britain's first squadron of Reaper armed drones has been flown from bases in Afghanistan, under the control of an RAF team at Creech air-force base in Nevada; it will in due course be run from RAF Waddington, near Lincoln in eastern England (which already controls a second squadron of drones) (see Tim Ripley, "Reaper ops move to UK", Jane's Defence Weekly, 24 October 2012).

Japan, meanwhile, is purchasing Israeli drones and adapting them to fill a gap in its missile warning system (see James Hardy, "Japan plans IR-equipped UAV as part of BMD shield", Jane's Defence Weekly, 14 November 2012); and Russian state media report that Sukhoi - one of the major Russian aerospace companies - is responding to President Putin's call for Russia to catch up with the west by focusing on drones rather than manned combat-aircraft.

China now has two design bureaux working on drones similar to the United States's Reaper (see Wendell Minnick, "China's Unmanned Aircraft Evolve From Figment to Reality", Defense News, 26 November 2012. There are strong indications that it will prioritise exports (see Bradley Perrett, "Chinese Aerospace Plants See Profits in Civil Work", Aviation Week, 28 November 2012).

Iran's story

All these developments involve countries that have either been working on drones for many years or have large aerospace industries that can develop new products. What is perhaps more interesting, not least because of the regional implications, is that Israel is not the only country in the middle east that is heavily involved in drone development. Iran is in there too - in a programme that started thirty years ago and has continued throughout all the country's political changes.

By coincidence, in the very week of the intense Gaza war where Israel made concentrated use of drones, one of the first substantial unclassified reports on the Iranian programme was published (see Jeremy Binnie, "Rise of the Pahpad", Jane's Defence Weekly, 21 November 2012). The programme has its roots in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 whose greatly destructive battlefield stalemates resembled the western front's trench-warfare of 1914-18. In the effort to counter Iraqi capabilities, Iranian technicians developed crude drones that could undertake aerial photo-reconnaissance of Iraqi forces. The development of an indigenous drone industry had begun.

By the end of the 1990s, an arms exhibition in the United Arab Emirates included an Iranian exhibit of modest size, Ababil-2 (Swallow). The vehicle was around 2.7 metres in length with a 3.3-metre wingspan, had a top speed of around 280 kilometres per hour, and could reach a height of 3,300 metres. Iran then created the Mohajer (Emigrant) series with greater endurance. By early 2000, drones were being used to observe the anti-government Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK) rebels living in eastern Iraq and reportedly being supported by the Saddam Hussein regime.

These systems were far less sophisticated than those being developed by the United States and Israel. In any case, to "fly" drones over any distance requires real-time direct-communications links via satellites. Iran doesn't have such systems, and to maintain links would either need forward-operating units or have to "buy" time on commercial communications satellites.

A new phase

Yet the Iranian drone programme has a twofold significance. First, it is a mature programme developed over some thirty years - perhaps often rather crude, but showing a commitment and ability that may well be shared with others. Jeremy Binnie, for example, reports that the Sudanese government has used Iranian drones, and that Venezuela has received Iran's assistance in developing its own drones (see "An asymmetrical drone war", 19 August 2010) .

Second, a revealing Israeli experience occurred on 6 October 2012. It seems, as far as the details can be pieced together, that a drone was assembled in southern Lebanon from components supplied by Iran; launched by Hizbollah, possibly aided by Iranian personnel; then "piloted" to fly offshore down the Mediterranean coast of Israel before turning east over land towards the northern part of the Negev desert. An Israeli Defence Forces statement says that the drone was spotted off the coast of Gaza, implying that it had initially evaded Israeli coastal-surveillance systems, and was eventually shot down in the Yatir forest area near the West Bank.

Israeli sources say the drone was observed for some time before being shot down when it was approaching sensitive areas. This seems implausible, since it could have been armed and could have diverted very quickly towards a town or village at any stage.

What is more interesting is that since the drone flew a substantial distance there must have been some way in which it could be kept in communication with its operating base in southern Lebanon. This suggests that Iran had either found a way of using commercial satellite links or else had personnel established in Gaza that could maintain communications, coordinating their activities with those in that Lebanese base.

None of this is particularly threatening to a state as powerful as Israel.Yet it adds a symbolic dimension - a worrying sense of impotence - that follows the impact of the rockets fired from Gaza to the very end of the conflict.

Furthermore, it is one part of a longer-term process that is more advanced than many people think (see "Hizbollah's warning flight", 5 May 2005). Such is the nature of drone technology that states with intermediate technical capabilities are likely to become serious forces in the drone-orientated world soon to emerge. If the United States can persist with targeted assassinations in northwest Pakistan, acting with seeming impunity as it rewrites the laws of war, and if Israel can do the same in Gaza - why should other countries not follow suit?

The use of armed drones by the Americans, Israelis, British and others may seem hugely attractive in the short term. But it sets a precedent that may be followed much sooner than might be expected. If that proves the case, then Iran's thirty-year drone programme may have done much to bring it about.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy's international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century(Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

This article first appeared on openDemocracy November 29, 2012