Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010
Author: Justin Hefter

Earlier this week, Josh Rogin blogged that the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, retired Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, could be reassigned to a new post as Ambassador to Kenya, after a series of PR gaffes related to Darfur. The news comes at an important time for the people of Sudan, just months before the South Sudanese vote on a self-determination referendum. The aftermath of the referendum, scheduled for January 2011, could result in myriad scenarios ranging from two autonomous countries co-existing side-by-side, to a civil war between the North and South. Violence in Sudan has the potential to become a destabilizing factor for the entire region. At a time when the future of Sudan is dependent on the events of the next few months, it would be unwise to replace the man who has been on the ground for the past year.

Posted: August 3rd, 2010
Author: Madeleine Bruml

On his visit to Jakarta last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates lifted the U.S. military’s ban against joint training operations with Indonesia’s special forces unit Kopassus. As Indonesia demonstrates its improved human rights record, the resumption of military ties with the Special Forces is a welcome development in the bilateral defense relationship. While China and the U.S. jockey for influence in Southeast Asia’s resource rich waters and strategic Sea Lanes of Communication, America’s renewed ties with Kopassus is necessary to counter China’s rising regional influence.

Author: Vina Seelam
Posted: July 29th, 2010

The Senate Foreign Relations committee recently convened to discuss options for reconciliation in Afghanistan. Ryan Crocker, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Pakistan, and David Kilcullen, who was a senior counterinsurgency adviser to General Petraeus in Iraq, both asserted that U.S.-led forces needed to see more success in their counterinsurgency efforts before they could begin reconciliation negotiations. Kilcullen stressed that although we will eventually need to negotiate a resolution to the war, we must first get in a “position of strength.” So far, according to an announcement last month by CIA director Leon Panetta, we’ve seen no firm evidence that insurgent groups in Afghanistan are interested in reconciliation. He added that “unless they’re convinced the United States is going to win and that they are going to be defeated, I think it is very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that is going to be meaningful.”

Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010
Author: Vina Seelam

Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs introduced a new set of regulations that will make it easier for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to receive disability benefits. The new rules eliminate a prior restriction that required veterans to cite specific traumatizing events that caused the disorder. Under the new regulations, veterans diagnosed with PTSD need only prove that they experienced job-related stressors while in a war zone. The disability benefits they receive include free physical and mental health care and additional monetary compensation. These benefits were often denied to veterans who could not link the onset of their PTSD to a specific event or whose claims were rejected for other reasons, but the V.A.’s current improvements on its old protocol will help address this issue. Access to treatment is crucial to the mental health of our veterans, many of whom are suffering from PTSD but have remained undiagnosed or untreated. It may also serve to reduce the noticeably high violent crime rates of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who often cite PTSD as one of the factors leading up to their criminal offenses.

Posted: August 4, 2010
Author: Justin Hefter

August 3rd, 2010, President Obama spoke to a gathering of young African leaders, urging them to fight for democratic change on the continent. He criticized the African leaders who brought their countries to independence but who then used authoritarian practices to cling to power. Yet, while it may feel good to get praise from Barack Obama for supporting democracy, democratic states have recently been big losers. The international community praises democracy, but the current incentive structure would lead many leaders to favor dictatorship. A brief look at governments around the world today reveals several non-democratic nations in good international standing despite oppressive policies, while some democratic governments receive scorn and criticism.

Our website has been facing server issues, and as such, we have not been able to post or edit content on the main site or on the Global Security Monitor. The following sequence of posts is from the downtime on our site and are dated accordingly.

Thanks,
Elise Hogan
Editor/Director of Social Media

Author: Ashley Duenas
Posted: Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Beacon Power Corporation announced its plans to build a new 20-megawatt flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York. The energy firm closed a $43 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy on Monday that will cover 62.5% of the plant's estimated $69 million cost. According to CNET the plant will be the only one of its kind in the world. The Stephentown Project will help to reduce dependence on foreign sources of energy and create cleaner-energy technologies in the United States.

Beacon Power describes the unique qualities of the flywheel energy storage plant as a system that will:provide frequency regulation services to help stabilize and enhance the performance of the New York power grid and enable greater use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The flywheel plant's emissions-free operation will also significantly reduce CO2 levels compared to fossil fuel-based regulation methods used today. Unlike conventional fossil fuel-powered generators, flywheel plants will not consume any fuel, nor will they produce CO2 greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants, such as NOX and SO2.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, “Resource estimates indicate that renewable energy is more abundant than all of the fossil fuels combined, and that well before mid-century it will be possible to run most national electricity systems with minimal fossil fuels and only 10 percent of the carbon emissions they produce today.” Perhaps, the flywheel energy storage plant is the beginning of a national smart grid. The system is capable of recycling 250 kWh’s of energy. With a network of 200 flywheels and power conversion electronics, the flywheel energy storage system recycles energy by storing energy when generation exceeds loads and discharging energy when the load exceeds generation. By performing frequency regulation, the electric grid can balance the supply and demand of electricity resources.

Around the world, new energy systems could become an engine of industrial development and job creation, providing new economic opportunities. The Worldwatch Institute has stated that improved technology and high energy prices have created a favorable market for new energy systems over the past few years. Federal Stimulus money to improveenergy efficiency is aimed at accelerating U.S. progress in energy transition. Other countries like China are also in need of solutions for energy transition. China has been the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases since 2006 and is trying to cut energy use by 20 percent this year. The flywheel energy storage plant may help to influence future energy solutions as China and other developing countries work to develop modern energy systems.

The Stephentown Project is currently under construction and scheduled to be earning revenue by the end of the first quarter in 2011. The plant will provide about 10 percent of frequency-regulation services in New York for a typical day.

Posted: Monday, July 26, 2010
Author: Ashley Duenas

Washington is not happy about the release of more than 90,000 classified military documents, better known as The Afghan Diary, from the whistleblower website Wikileaks. In his statement on Wikileaks, US National Security Advisor James Jones said, “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security." Jones went on to comment that "Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted.” Wikileaks gave its archive of military documents to The New York Times, the Guardian of London and the German magazine Der Spiegel weeks prior to Sunday night's online release. With about 70,000 documents uploaded on the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, promised thousands of more documents to be posted. The surge of information from Sunday’s release led to a surplus of response articles and blogs on the internet examining the implications of the military documents.

· The New York Times At War Blog gave an overview of the documents on Sunday. “The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.” The reports range from spare summaries to detailed narratives and are incomplete. “It is missing many references to seminal events and does not include more highly classified information. The documents also do not cover events in 2010, when the influx of more troops into Afghanistan began and a new counterinsurgency strategy took hold.” Overall, The New York Times asserts that the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. The magazine’s colleague in Kabul, Richard A. Oppel Jr., said that the Afghan media was not in shock about the release. According to Oppel, the information about civilian casualties, as well as the efforts to hide civilian casualties is not a surprise.

· The Guardian paints a picture of Afghan President Hamid Karzai being shocked by the actual leak, but not the contents of the documents. According to the article, he is hoping for allegations of links between Pakistan and the Taliban to support his claim that Islamabad is directly supporting the insurgency.

· An article on the Deutsche Welle website quoted German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle who said the documents, which contain claims of concealed civilian casualties, had given him “comfort in to my position, which consisted of never talking up the situation in Afghanistan, which is exceptionally serious." The German government will investigate security concerns surrounding the Wikileaks documents.

· The Wall Street Journal blogged that Wikileaks documents illustrate evidence of war crimes. As mentioned by Assange, the group known as Task Force 373 conducted a strike killing several children. As Assange has stated, it is up to a court to make judgements about war crimes. How the Wikileaks release will shift public opinion is just one of the questions posed by websites like the New York Daily News. The website provides an opinion poll you can take, Does the leaking of secret Afghanistan documents impact your opinion of the war?

· Spencer Ackerman of the Danger Room speculates a possibility that “the the leaks themselves could reinforce poor intelligence habits in coalition warfare. Figuring out who actually gave Wikileaks access to all these reports may be a fruitless endeavor. But intelligence bureaucracies have a habit of responding to breaches with clenching up."

· Senator John Kerry made a statement in the Washington Post claiming the Wikileaks release could have political consequences for the President Obama.

Wikileaks was created in 2006 by Australian Julian Assange to support the freedom of information, however the sites choice of shared information remains questionable. Wikileaks is often criticized for risking the lives of individuals, and it appears this criticism will not end soon. Assange told Wired magazine he is "getting an enormous quantity of whistle-blower disclosures of high caliber.” While several countries and companies have tried to censor the website, Wikleaks complex method of web-hosting has made it difficult for its servers to be identified.The Telegraph reports that Wikileaks maintains few records of its clients so that it cannot be accused of promoting material that could be illegal.

Posted: Monday, July 26, 2010
Author: Amy Levine

Problems continue to mount for Pakistan: beyond a large homegrown militant threat, ever-worsening economy, and a fake degree scandal, Pakistan’s financial capital, Karachi, is slowly descending into chaos. Over the past forty hours alone, nineteen people have died in targeted killings. In all, more than 500 people have died since the flare-up of violence began in early 2009. These killings are largely politically motivated, but also have an ethnic component, as the majority of fighting is between the Urdu-speaking Muhajir Quami Movement (MQM) and the Pashtun Awami National Party (ANP). The situation in Karachi is further exacerbated by a volatile ethnic mix, history of ethnic and sectarian conflict, poor governance, criminal activity, and an influx of internally displaced persons. Karachi is a microcosm of Pakistan and if it cannot manage its political rivalries and ethnic diversities, it does not bode well for the rest of multi-ethnic Pakistan.

Violence in Karachi is not a new phenomenon. During the 1980s and 1990s, violence reached truly catastrophic levels, prompting a 1992 Pakistani army operation to stabilize the city. The difficult nine-year effort left over 25,000 dead. Karachi’s explosive ethnic mix partly explains the violence – in a city of over 18 million people, 6 million are muhajirs (Urdu-speaking Muslims who moved from India during Partition), 3.5 million are Pashtuns, and 2 million are Sindhis and Baloch. Immigrants from Iran, Afghanistan, and Burma and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (mostly Pashtuns) make up the rest of the population. Additionally, almost one third of the city’s citizens are Shia. Jockeying among political groups representing these ethnicities has resulted in a weak government that is unable to provide basic services. Local mafias have filled the void, creating a huge underground economy that provides citizens with much-needed housing and water. The results of this ethnic and criminal mix are political killings, mafia turf battles, and small outbreaks of sectarian violence.

Posted: Thursday, July 22, 2010
Author: Vina Seelam

Germany is pioneering a new service for Islamists who want to give up extremism. The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, is setting up a program that will help former radicals find jobs and housing in safe environments. These incentives are meant to encourage those wanting to escape the extremist lifestyle to email or call a confidential hotline where they can discuss options for relocation, job placement, and protection from threats in German, Arabic, or Turkish. The program is called HATIF, which stands for “Out of Terrorism and Islamist Fanaticism” in German and also translates to “telephone” in Arabic. The initiative is not meant as a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, but at the very least it sends a message of support from the German government to Muslim constituents who might be struggling with escaping radicalism.