Indian Ocean: A European perspective

TIM SWEIJS and JEROEN DE JONGE of the Hague Center for Strategic Studies state that the Indian Ocean and its rim with instability in its north-west corner, failing governance structures and resource competition could well become a sample stage for systemic challenges to global security even as it emerged as a key transportation hub and trade destination on the back of strong growth in its littorals.

They analyze three key themes related to Indian Ocean's maritime future in their article in Marineblad magazine, "The Maritime Future of the Indian Ocean"

1. strategic importance of the sea lines of communication (SLOC) where energy security could drive confrontation between major players,

2. vulnerability of SLOCs to the threat of non-state actors such as pirates, terrorists, and international crime syndicates and 

3. the maritime balance of power including naval assets, strategic maritime infrastructure and co-operation

They recommend closer attention to the Indian Ocean at the highest strategic levels, regional governance frameworks that facilitated smoother integration while upholding the principles of an open world economy and for industry to reassess their policies regarding supply-chain risk management.

The Ferghana tinderbox

PASCALE MEIGE WAGNER head of the International Committee of Red Cross' operations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia reviews the social and political dynamics in the Ferghana valley at the intersection of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in an analysis of the violence in 2010 in the cities of Andijan, Rasht and Osh.

In a discussion at Chatham House, "Local and Regional Politics in the Ferghana Valley", he states that a complex mix of factors such as socio-economic dissatisfaction, widespread corruption, precarious ethnic balance and distribution and religious radicalisation combined with increasing nationalism and unclear border demarcation created a volatile condition with a short fuse for violence.
He concludes that sparking violence in the region was easy and international players should rethink their approaches as well as involve Russia and China through either the Shanghai Co-operation Organization or the Collective Security Treaty organization.

Indian Ocean dynamics: An Indian perspective

PROBAL GHOSH of the Observer Research Foundation states that the Indian Ocean region with its extensive trade, energy flows, piracy, terrorism and transnational crime has seen increasing struggle for maritime influence from players such as India, China, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa seeking primacy along with the US with new strategic questions being raised due to the number of naval forces acting independently in the region. The Chinese naval deployment in this field not only reinforced its strategic reach and sustenance capability, but also displayed its capacity to act swiftly and flexibly.
In a commentary for the East Asian Forum, "Indian Ocean dynamics: An Indian perspective", he states that while China was making increasing forays into South Asia as part of its string of pearls strategy, India was seeking to neutralise Beijing's influence by courting states in its periphery such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam, enhancing politico-military relations with the states of South East Asia, East Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean.

He concludes that India would continue to enhance its influence in the Indian Ocean region in strong partnership with Australia, South Africa and Indonesia in tacit partnership with the US.

China's demographic transition

WANG FENG, director at Brookings-Tsinghua center examines China's demographic transition, role of the Chinese state as am accelerator of transition and highlights a few key unique features of China's demographic future based on a few scenarios.
In an article in the Population and Development Review, "The Future of a Demographic Overachiever: Long-Term Implications of the Demographic Transition in China", he puts in perspective China's demographic transition starting from a state of high-mortality and high-fertility to a state of low-mortality coupled with low-fertility in a span of 50 years which is unprecedented in history.
He concludes that China had to be prepared to pay the costs of rapid transition such as a shrinkage of inexpensive labour force that powered China to its position as the world's factory, and a reversal of the one-child policy was unlikely to result in a substantial increase in fertility.

Dhaka's worldview

IFTEKHAR AHMED CHOUDHURY, the former Finance Minister of Bangladesh states that Dhaka's two major foreign policy aspirations of preservation of sovereignty and quest for resources combined with the fact that was surrounded on three sides by India informed its external behavior of  being a player in world politics with a web of extra-regional linkages.

In his article for the Institute of South Asian Studies, "Foundations of Bangladesh’s Foreign Policy Interactions", he states that Dhaka's international interactions were based on twelve pillars comprised of the states such as Western aid donors, South Asian states, Middle Eastern Muslim states, China, multilateral institutions such as the UN, Commonwealth, OIC, SAARC, and trade and financial institutions such as the WTO, Bretton Woods organizations, ADB and the Islamic Development Bank.

He concludes that there was a greater commitment to multilateralism and Dhaka generally kept a lower profile on high-risk issues and higher profile on low-risk issues.

China's Spent Nuclear Fuel Management

YUN ZHOU of the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program reviews China's current nuclear fuel cycle program, spent fuel management and reprocessing policy to forecast the spent fuel and associated storage requirements until 2035 when the first commercialized Chinese fast neutron reactor is expected to be operational.

In a working paper for the Centre for International and Security Studies, "China's Spent Nuclear Fuel Management", she explores China’s long-term options for managing the back-end of its nuclear fuel cycle by examining China’s spent fuel storage capability, uranium resources, fast reactor R&D capability, and the cost and proliferation risks of each option.

The study concludes that China can and should maintain a reprocessing operation to meet its R&D activities before its fast reactor program is further developed and that China could benefit from a decision-making framework that allows for more flexibility and greater variability in order to account for the long timescales inherent in nuclear development.

Renewing Asia's Collective Destiny

SOURABH GUPTA argues that despite past missteps and future hurdles, India's and Indonesia's parallel histories, similar policy preferences and opportune international circumstances were drawing both countries closer to revitalize bilateral relations and potentially reconfigure Asian geopolitics. 

In his Asia-Pacific bulletin for the East-West Center, "India and Indonesia: Renewing Asia's Collective Destiny", he states that both countries could leverage opportunities to revitalize the bilateral relationship; New Delhi and Jakarta could start by championing each other's entry into the BRICS and MALSINDO collectives and this could help both countries set the tone on how leadership could be collaboratively exercised in the Indian Ocean region.

He concludes that a bilateral road map interspersed in equal parts with ambition and pragmatism, and cognizant of their differences in security perspective, held the potential to unlock the immense promise of this natural partnership.

Springbok-elephant tango in the African jungle

ELIZABETH SIDIROPAULOS, director of the South African Institute of International Affairs explores the overlap of interests in Africa between India and South Africa and assesses whether they could be natural partners for development in Africa as it often appeared on first glance.

She argues in her Chatham House briefing paper, "India and South Africa as Partners for Development in Africa?" that New Delhi and Pretoria were both potential partners and competitors where Pretoria recognized components of India's Africa engagement such as human capital, info-comm, and agriculture in a positive light while its own articulation of its national interest was being reassessed and they also displayed substantial differences in their approach to development.

She concludes that there was scope for deepening the substance of political and economic relations between the two which had been hampered by capacity constraints on both sides and differing priorities and that in the short-term, development cooperation between the two in Africa was not a priority for either but using the private sector in this field could be a potential model.

Follow the money... connect the dots!!

MATTHEW LEVITT of the The Washington Institute's Stein program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence states that while traditional efforts to combat terror financing focused on "seizing and freezing" terrorist assets, terrorist tactics were continuing to evolve and financial intelligence would continue to be an integral component of international efforts to confront transnational threats.
In an article for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, "Follow the Money: Leveraging Financial Intelligence to Combat Transnational Threats", he states that financial intelligence and analytics could track financial footprints up and down the financial pipelines providing critical intelligence to constrain terrorists’ operating environment, deter donors, interdict potential threats, and identify illicit conduct.
He lauds the recent renewal of the SWIFT agreement as an important step in maintaining one of the international community's most effective financial intelligence tools.

Globalization-enabled corruption

ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN of the Peterson Institute and DEVESH KAPUR of the University of Pennyslvania state that the skyrocketing corruption in India and the consequent money-laundering indicated the usage of discreet foreign jurisdictions as destinations for black money and India’s financial integration had facilitated these transfers.

In a Business Standard op-ed, "India: Fighting Imported Corruption", they also state that macroeconomic analysis showed that the laundered money came back to India as the much sought-after 'foreign' investment with additional implicit subsidies such as secrecy and avoided taxes, with the monies round-tripping back through the banking channel from countries such as Mauritius and Cyprus with lower financial transparency and low tax rates.

They call upon New Delhi to take the lead internationally in pressing for data-sharing between governments and global financial institutions on overseas assets of citizens, trade flows and remittances, and recommend an abolition of double-taxation avoidance agreements with states such as Mauritius who were not members of the Financial Agenda Tax Force.