Video: Cleo Paskal's presentation at the 2018 Camden Conference

Cleo Paskal - "The '3 Geos' Reshaping Our World" from Camden Conference on Vimeo.
The 31st Camden Conference
New World Disorder and America’s Future
February 16, 17, 18, 2018

Cleo Paskal is an associate fellow in the Energy, Environment and Resources department of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent policy institute based in London. She is a geopolitical expert specializing in the confluence of the “three geos” (the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geophysical).  Her research includes the geopolitical, security, and economic implications of environmental change (including climate change) and Arctic and Pacific security.

Ms. Paskal is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Geopolitics, Manipal University, India and adjunct professor of Global Change in the School of Communication and Management Studies, Kochi, India.  In 2015, she was awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Visiting Fellowship to lead a multi-year research project based at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) looking at strategic shifts in the Indo-Pacific region.

Ms. Paskal has taught at the US Army War College, the Royal College of Defence Studies (UK), the National Defence College (India), and the National Defence College (Oman).   She has consulted for or briefed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the German Foreign Office, the European Union, major corporations and security professionals.

Her book Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map has won multiple awards.  Her most recent book, the bestselling Spielball Erde, was co-authored with German TV news anchor Claus Kleber, and focuses on the security implications of climate change. She has been a columnist for Canada’s National Post and Toronto Star, a radio producer for the BBC, and the author of an Emmy-winning documentary television series.

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The 2018 Camden Conference explored shifts in global power and the ramifications for major players, particularly China, the US and the nations of Europe, in pursuing their national interests. Our speakers addressed the impact of globalization, the rise of nationalism, transformations in global economies, and the management of a range of future threats such as climate change, population growth, and cyber insecurity.  How can the United States remain competitive economically, preserve national security, safeguard American values, and meet dangerous challenges from unstable countries? What role in the world do Americans want for their country?

Interview: Analyst highly critical of NZ over PACER Plus deal (Radio New Zealand)

From Dateline Pacific.

8 March 2018. An analyst says New Zealand's planned trade deal with Pacific Island nations could be extremely damaging to their economies.

For the past ten years, New Zealand with Australia has been strongly promoting the PACER PLUS trade deal and it is now awaiting ratification. 

But Dr Cleo Paskal of the global think tank Chatham House says the deal shows a disconnect between the country's political aims in the region and its economic moves.

Speaking at a recent New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Dr Paskal said New Zealand risks gaining "strategic nincompoop" status.

Don Wiseman asked what she meant.

Audio is here.

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on 'Canada mishandles trendy identity politics in India'

Quoted: NZ told PACER Plus deal could be destructive for the Pacific (Radio New Zealand)

6 March 2018

An analyst says New Zealand's planned trade deal with the Pacific Island nations could be extremely damaging to their economies.

Representatives who signed the PACER Plus trade agreement in Tonga Photo: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat

New Zealand with Australia has been strongly promoting the PACER Plus trade over the past 10 years and later last year it got the required backing, though it is still to be ratified.

But Dr Cleo Paskal of the global think tank Chatham House said there was very little in PACER Plue for the island nations.

She said Australia and New Zealand had bullied Pacific countries into a deal that offers very little and include no development for them.

"If you push through this deal you will end up not creating an integrated economic environment that ultimately revolves around Australia and New Zealand, you will end up with a fragmented Pacific economic area, which creates even more dislocation internally and potentially more inequalities and more abilities for outside actors to come in."

Dr Cleo Paskal said the way PACER Plus has been approached shows a disconnect between the economic engagement in the Pacific and the political and strategic engagement.

https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/351935/nz-told-pacer-plus-deal-could-be-destructive-for-the-pacific

Interview: Analyst highly critical of NZ over PACER Plus deal (Radio New Zealand)

From Dateline Pacific. An analyst says New Zealand's planned trade deal with Pacific Island nations could be extremely damaging to their economies. For the past ten years, New Zealand with Australia has been strongly promoting the PACER PLUS trade deal and it is now awaiting ratification. 

But Dr Cleo Paskal of the global think tank Chatham House says the deal shows a disconnect between the country's political aims in the region and its economic moves.

Speaking at a recent New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Dr Paskal said New Zealand risks gaining "strategic nincompoop" status.

Don Wiseman asked what she meant.

Audio is here.

Quoted: New Zealand risks becoming a “strategic nincompoop” as China woos tiny Pacific islands (Quartz)

Good piece by Steve Mollman on China and New Zealand in Oceania. Quotes Cleo Paskal:

However, the strategic effectiveness of the free-trade agreement New Zealand and Australia have in place with Pacific island nations, called PACER Plus, came under criticism this week ahead of Ardern’s trip. The agreement as structured amounts to “bullying” and can make the island nations poorer and less resilient, making it more likely they’ll accept soft loans from China, argued Cleo Paskal, an associate fellow with the Chatham House think tank, at a New Zealand Institute of International Affairs conference. Nations like Fiji and Papua New Guinea declined to join the deal, Paskal noted, over concerns it would harm their economy. She warned that New Zealand risks being a “strategic nincompoop,” accidentally acting to shore up China’s influence in the region, rather than its own.

“Times are too tense at the moment for such an obvious and avoidable own goal,” she said.

https://qz.com/1219925/new-zealand-risks-becoming-a-strategic-nincompoop-as-china-woos-tiny-pacific-islands/

Audio: Camden Conference talk on Maine Public Radio (watch the video instead -- the slides help)

Thursday, March 1 at 2:00 pm

New World Disorder And America’s Future - “The ‘Three Geos’ Reshaping Our World.”

Cleo Paskal AUDIO: https://cpa.ds.npr.org/mpbn/audio/2018/02/20180301_sim_cc_cleo_paskal_0.mp3

In part one of a two-part episode, Evan Medeiros, Managing Director of Asia at the Eurasia Group and former Special Assistant to President Obama, talks about “Politics, Nationalism And Their Impact On Us-China Relation And China’s Role In World Affairs.”  In part two of a two-part episode, Cleo Paskal, Associate Fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, talks about “The 3 Geos Reshaping Our World.”

Speaker:
Cleo Paskal
Cleo Paskal is an associate fellow in the Energy, Environment and Resources department of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent policy institute based in London. She is a geopolitical expert specializing in the confluence of the “three geos” (the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geophysical).  Her research includes the geopolitical, security, and economic implications of environmental change (including climate change) and Arctic and Pacific security.

Ms. Paskal is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Geopolitics, Manipal University, India and adjunct professor of Global Change in the School of Communication and Management Studies, Kochi, India.  In 2015, she was awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Visiting Fellowship to lead a multi-year research project based at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) looking at strategic shifts in the Indo-Pacific region.

Ms. Paskal has taught at the US Army War College, the Royal College of Defence Studies (UK), the National Defence College (India), and the National Defence College (Oman).   She has consulted for or briefed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the German Foreign Office, the European Union, major corporations and security professionals.

Her book Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map has won multiple awards.  Her most recent book, the bestselling Spielball Erde, was co-authored with German TV news anchor Claus Kleber, and focuses on the security implications of climate change. She has been a columnist for Canada’s National Post and Toronto Star, a radio producer for the BBC, and the author of an Emmy-winning documentary television series.

The Camden Conference is a non-partisan, non-profit, volunteer-run organization whose mission is to foster informed discourse on world issues through community events benefitting hundreds of Maine university and high school students. Its signature February Conference is presented in Camden, Rockland, Belfast, and Portland.

Source:  www.camdenconference.org/2018-camden-conference/
For more information about the 31st annual Camden Conference, please click HERE.

Quoted: New Zealand risks 'strategic nincompoop' status in the Pacific (Stuff; Widely Syndicated in NZ)

PATTRICK SMELLIE

Last updated 05:00, March 1 2018

OPINION: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's first major foreign policy speech, delivered this week, ended with the observation that when New Zealand speaks on the world stage, it does so with "credibility" and when it acts, it does so with "decency".

We'd all certainly like to believe that.

But as she heads to Sydney to meet counterpart Malcolm Turnbull this Friday and next week makes a tour of the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Niue, uncomfortable questions are being asked about how well New Zealand is playing its role in the Pacific.

​Speaking at the same New Zealand Institute of International Affairs conference as Ardern, an associate fellow with the global think tank Chatham House, Dr Cleo Paskal, laid out a damning alternative to the assumption New Zealand is Pacific Island countries'(PICs) best friend.

Rather, she says New Zealand risks "strategic nincompoop" status as the contest for influence in the region heats up against a global backdrop in which China and authoritarianism are on the rise while the global rules-based system underpinned since the Second World War by the United States declines.

Speaking at the same session as Paskal, Australian Institute of International Affairs president Allan Gyngell declared the post-war global order "is over" and "we're going to look back on that period as one that was much better suited to small and middle-sized powers" like New Zealand and Australia.

Gyngell's point was partly hawkish Aussie, suggesting New Zealand won't be able to keep straddling the diplomatic fence between the US and China, and between the economic and security trade-offs implied by choosing between the two.

In that context, Paskal suggested a troubling confusion in attempting to integrate PICs into the economies of Australia and New Zealand using mechanisms such as the PACER Plus free trade  agreement.

Rather than making these strategically important neighbours more resilient and self-sufficient, PACER Plus is likely to make them poorer, less well-disposed to New Zealand and Australia, and more likely to be driven into the arms of regional contestants such as the Chinese, she argued.

Excluding French Polynesian territories, PICs represent just 2.3 million people spread across 15 per cent of the Earth's surface. The World Bank says they are among the most exposed to annual natural disasters and long term climate change impacts.

Yet their geographic location means their strategic importance, for shipping and aviation, defence and security, and access to resources, particularly fish stocks far outstrips their economic potential.

Just making them viable states is challenge enough, and the blandishments of cheap loans, few-strings-attached infrastructure projects and resource deals with other nations, particularly China, are deeply tempting to Pacific Island governments.

That being so, New Zealand and Australia's main strategic focus should be to keep the PICs focused on Australasia as their main source of regional security and support, Paskal argued. 

Instead, New Zealand and Australia have been pursuing "an incredibly peculiar deal" in the form of PACER Plus, for which there are "few, if any, good reasons" for PICs to sign.

Rather than strengthening the region, PACER Plus is "essentially creating division economically in the region … creating regional instability, contributing to global disruption, giving openings to China and others and will fundamentally make New Zealand look like a strategic nincompoop, at best", she said. 

Papua New Guinea and Fiji have already refused to sign the deal, Tonga is wobbly, and US-aligned Federated States of Micronesia have gone AWOL, and French Polynesia was always outside the tent. 

"If we're talking about moral leadership, you really need to take a look at the reality of what's going on in the trade negotiations going in with Pacific Island partners," said Paskal.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/101846532/pattrick-smellie-making-trouble-in-our-own-backyard

Quoted: NZ risks 'strategic nincompoop' tag with Pacific policy (Scoops BusinessDesk)

By Pattrick Smellie

Feb. 27 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand risks being seen as a "strategic nincompoop, at best" if it persists with attempts to bind Pacific Island countries into the New Zealand and Australian economies using mechanisms such as the PACER Plus free trade agreement, an analyst with global think-tank Chatham House told a high-powered foreign policy conference in Wellington.

While such an approach may be intended to curb the potential influence of new actors in Oceania, such as China, it risked having the opposite effect, said Cleo Paskal, a Canada-based Chatham House associate fellow in energy, environment and resources policy, 

Her comments come just days before Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern meets her Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney before making a tour of the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga early next week.

Ardern addressed the same conference in her first major foreign policy speech, saying New Zealand's international reputation was for speaking with "credibility" and acting with "decency".

On relations with Pacific Island nations, Ardern said "we can do better and we will" to assist countries "where prosperity is threatened by environmental issues and encroachment on fish stocks, as much as by size and isolation". 

Foreign Minister Winston Peters would be outlining the government's thinking on Pacific relations in a speech to the Lowy Institute, in Sydney, on Thursday, ahead of Ardern's meeting with Turnbull on Friday.

However, Paskal argued that one of the centrepieces of Australian and New Zealand policy in Oceania - the PACER Plus free trade agreement - amounted to the kind of manipulation of Pacific Island states that New Zealanders often accused the United States of bringing to bear on New Zealand.

The "incredibly peculiar deal" had been reached by what many had described as "bullying and chequebook diplomacy", with Fiji and Papua New Guinea pulling out, Tonga threatening to leave, and the Federated States of Micronesia - US protectorates - not turning up to last June's signing ceremony.

"Objectively, there are few, if any, good reasons for Pacific Island countries to ratify PACER Plus," Paskal told a session of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs conference, which was entitled 'Asia-Pacific: Game of Thrones in our Own Backyard'. 

"If we're talking about moral leadership, you really need to take a look at the reality what's going on in the trade negotiations with Pacific Island partners," she said.

She warned that such efforts could backfire and drive Pacific nations into the arms of soft loans from China and other rivals in the region rather than deepen ties to Australasia.

That also risked reducing New Zealand's value to the 'Five Eyes' intelligence-gathering partnership with the US, UK, Canada and Australia, in which New Zealand was tasked with being the primary source of reliable information about the Pacific.

"In the long term, the people of the PICs (Pacific Island countries) will suffer disproportionately, create regional instability, contribute to global disruption, giving openings to China and others, and will fundamentally make New Zealand like a strategic nincompoop at best," she said.

"Times are too tense at the moment for such an obvious and avoidable own goal."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1802/S00749/nz-risks-strategic-nincompoop-tag-with-pacific-policy.htm

Quoted: The 2018 Camden Conference — A New Player in the Global Security Game — Rising Sea Levels (The Free Press)

by Christine Parrish

Thursday, February 22, 2018 6:52 AM

Melting polar ice, rising sea levels and catastrophic hurricanes are now established factors in national security and foreign policy, according to Cleo Paskal, a policy analyst based at Chatham House in London who researches the security, economic, and political implications of climate change around the world. 

Paskal looked at two major players at the Camden Conference: the U.S. and China.

Airports are typically built on river plains or in flat places that are subject to flooding, said Paskal. As such, American air force bases are increasingly becoming liabilities, not defense installations. This was the case at Keesler Air Force Base during Hurricane Katrina and at other U.S. military bases around the world. A report released to Congress this January showed that over half of the 3,500 U.S. military bases around the world are affected by the changing climate.

The Arctic is becoming increasingly important in global security as melting polar ice opens up the way for shipping. Chinese leaders surprised many security analysts in January when they announced plans to establish a new trade route called the Polar Silk Road across the top of the world — in spite of the fact that China has no territory adjacent to the Arctic. There is no internationally adopted Arctic Treaty in place to stop them, although Arctic powers, including the U.S., are concerned.

Little islands are having big impacts, too. The 200-mile marine Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, gives each small island a big territorial footprint on the globe under the international treaty known as the Law of the Sea.

Right now, the U.S. has the largest EEZ footprint in the Asia Pacific due to its territorial claim to islands. But the Law of the Sea left a big loophole: it didn’t account for rising seas swallowing up islands — something that is currently happening. Will the 200-mile EEZ go down in the drink, too? Maybe. If it does, it will change American influence in the region. 

While islands sink in some places, China is building islands in the South China Sea to capture the territorial claim to the 200-mile EEZ. 

A rock with a hut attached manned by three unlucky Chinese soldiers doesn’t look like part of a grand territorial strategy, but it is. A military installation built on a Chinese-made island at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands shows why. 

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the man-made islands have hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers, enough hangars to house 28 military planes, and a runway long enough to land a Chinese bomber that could perform combat operations within 3,500 miles of the reclaimed reef.

The islands also overlap territorial claims made by Vietnam and the Philippines.

Without American engagement in the Law of the Sea and the other international agreements, the U.S. is poised to lose territorial advantage and strategic power that will have real consequences for American trade and security, said Paskal. The costs will make their way down to Main Street and American wallets.

https://freepressonline.com/Content/Home/Homepage-Rotator/Article/The-2018-Camden-Conference-A-New-Player-in-the-Global-Security-Game-Rising-Sea-Levels/78/720/57229

Quoted: New World Disorder and America’s future (Camden Herald)

Ron Bancroft covered the 31st Camden Conference for the Camden Herald. He wrote this about Cleo Paskal's presentation:

My personal favorite was Cleo Paskal, a Canadian working on energy and environmental issues at Chatham House in England. Cleo’s specialty is the intersection of geopolitics and the geophysical – think geopolitical implications of Chinese constructing islands out of barren rocks in the Pacific. Cleo had much to offer and she did it in a warmly self-deprecating way. This Canadian certainly endeared herself to us Americans present when she finished one Q&A in which our present administration had taken some heat by saying that we all should remember and be thankful for how much good America has and will continue to contribute to the world. I could have hugged her for that.

For the full article: https://knox.villagesoup.com/p/new-world-disorder-and-americas-future/1726314

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on The Quad Powers (US-India-Australia-Japan) rattle China.

Video: Camden Conference Panel of All Speakers (Cleo Paskal, Avril Haines, Stephen Walt, Natalie Nougayrede, Thea Mei Lee, Chas Freeman, Jerry Seib, Matthew Goodwin)

Final Panel of All Speakers from Camden Conference on Vimeo.
The 31st Camden Conference
New World Disorder and America’s Future
February 16, 17, 18, 2018

The 2018 Camden Conference explored shifts in global power and the ramifications for major players, particularly China, the US and the nations of Europe, in pursuing their national interests. Our speakers addressed the impact of globalization, the rise of nationalism, transformations in global economies, and the management of a range of future threats such as climate change, population growth, and cyber insecurity. How can the United States remain competitive economically, preserve national security, safeguard American values, and meet dangerous challenges from unstable countries? What role in the world do Americans want for their country?

Video: Camden Conference Panel With Cleo Paskal, Thea Met Lee, Avril Haines, Evan Medeiros and Indira Lakshmanan

Saturday Afternoon Panel from Camden Conference on Vimeo.
The 31st Camden Conference
New World Disorder and America’s Future
February 16, 17, 18, 2018

The 2018 Camden Conference explored shifts in global power and the ramifications for major players, particularly China, the US and the nations of Europe, in pursuing their national interests. Our speakers addressed the impact of globalization, the rise of nationalism, transformations in global economies, and the management of a range of future threats such as climate change, population growth, and cyber insecurity.  How can the United States remain competitive economically, preserve national security, safeguard American values, and meet dangerous challenges from unstable countries? What role in the world do Americans want for their country?

Article: Things can only get better between India and Canada (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | 17 February, 2018

Ideally, the era of relative neglect is over in both India and Canada. 

On 17 February, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in India for a week-long visit. He has brought his wife, three children, and some of the 19 Indo-Canadian Members of Parliament elected from his Liberal Party. That includes four Sikh Cabinet Members. Canadian Ministers of Defence, Foreign, and Trade are all a part of the delegation.

It’s a serious delegation, in India for a relatively long visit. Trudeau and his team will try to show their hosts that Canada-India relations extend far beyond the 1.3 million Indo-Canadian Diaspora there, and that they can go much further still.

Getting there, though, may take some handling. In particular, touchy topics will be: Why should India care about Canada? Is Canada doing enough on the Khalistan issue? Is this trip about domestic Canadian politics or international relations?

First, why should India care about Canada? When Modi visited Canada in April 2015, it was the first dedicated visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over four decades. Meanwhile, Trudeau is on his first visit to India since being elected in 2015, while he already visited China (however, his trip there was for only four days). Up to now, there has been a seeming lack of urgency in both capitals in moving forward quickly.

This belies the natural compatibilities of India-Canada relations. There was $8.3 billion in merchandise trade in 2017—there is room for much more, especially in a range of critical commodities and resources (Canada sells everything from pulses to uranium to India) but also in software, aeronautics, power generation, etc. Additionally more Indian parents are opting to send their kids to Canada’s safe and reputable universities, and more techies are looking to Canada rather than south of the border.

National level politics aside, these trends are likely to increase, assuming barriers aren’t put in their way. Ideally, the era of relative neglect is over in both capitals.

That seems to be true on the Canadian side, at least. The length and size of the mission shows how serious Ottawa now is engaging with India. And showing up for a week is certainly a good way to focus the host’s mind. That said, Canada is a bit late beating a path to Delhi. The ground is already well trodden, from Modi’s inauguration with the SAARC leaders, to the recent Republic Day with the ASEAN leaders, and many world leaders in between.

It will be up to Trudeau to show that he is in India not just to please a certain vocal section of his electorate, but rather to build a new relationship with India that benefits all Canadians and Indians. 

So why should India care about Canada when it already has so many potential partners lining up? Apart from the economic compatibilities mentioned above, as the Indo-Pacific grows in importance in India’s strategic outlook, it’s worth remembering that Canada is also a Pacific nation. Additionally, it has very close ties to US, and is a member of Five Eyes. Building trust and working more closely together might help all concerned.

For example, on the agenda for discussions during the visit are defence and security issues. This brings in the question of is Canada doing enough on the Khalistan issue? To be upgraded from just an economic partner to something more serious would be beneficial for both countries over the long term. Canada will need to show that it understands India’s concerns and is willing to built trust and work together to counter terror in all its forms. If that happens, we will all be safer.

Which brings us to the final question, is this trip about domestic Canadian politics or Canada’s international relations? We will know more in a week. The itinerary (Delhi, Agra, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Amritsar) is certainly designed with Canadian vote bank politics in mind.

It will be up to Trudeau to show that he is in India not just to please a certain vocal section of his electorate, but rather to build a new relationship with India that benefits all Canadians and Indians. That new mutually beneficial and trust-based relationship, built on a nation-to-nation basis, rather than an ethnicity or religious basis would anyway ultimately be an even bigger vote-getter for Trudeau among Canadians, including farmers, tech companies, film industry, defence, etc.,

Canada’s Minister of International Trade François-Philippe Champagne has said of Canada’s potential relationship with India, “The opportunity in front of us is huge. We want to engage.”

Hopefully, this week, Trudeau will prove that Ottawa means it. And Delhi will move things along a bit faster. Regardless, India and Canada will trade goods, people, and knowledge. And, given the natural compatibilities, things can only get better.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian’s North America Special Correspondent.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/12780-things-can-only-get-better-between-india-and-canada

Article: ‘More India and less China, please’ (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | New Delhi | 20 January, 2018

Many from the strategic community who attended the Raisina Dialogue want India to play a stabilising role. 

The world needs more India and less China—that’s according to many of the members of the global strategic community who were in India last week. They came for the third Raisina Dialogue, hosted by the Observer Research Foundation and India’s Ministry of External Affairs. It was a stellar line up.

On the Indian side, among the those giving talks were Ministers Sushma Swaraj, M.J. Akbar, Smriti Irani, Suresh Prabhu, General (Retd.) V.K. Singh and Hardeep Singh Puri. The current Foreign Secretary, S. Jaishankar, was there, as well as the future one, Vijay Keshav Gokhale. Politically, the tone was kept appropriately neutral, with prominent roles for both Ram Madhav and Shashi Tharoor.

The range and seniority of foreign delegations underlined the uniqueness of India’s global position. There were high-level speakers from around the region and around the world, including the United States, Russia, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore and more.

The opening session was addressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance. It set the tone. While countries may have specific issues with Delhi, there was an overwhelming drive at Raisina to put those aside and instead focus on expanding broad and deep cooperation with India. In the case of Netanyahu, he politely ignored India voting against Israel at the UN on Jerusalem. Rather, he lauded the “natural” bonds between the two countries, the many areas of current cooperation (irrigation, agriculture, defence, etc), the potential for future cooperation, and how pleased he was that Modi was the first Indian leader to visit Israel in its 3,000-year history. It was a genuinely warm speech, and the audience reciprocated.

That desire for “more India please”, was repeatedly echoed throughout the three-day event. Especially in the context of China and the Indo-Pacific. Admiral Harry Harris, Jr., Commander of US Pacific Command, said that he believed that China was a disruptive transitional power, noting the effect on Vietnam of China moving oil research platforms into Vietnamese waters. At the same time, he lauded increased military cooperations between the US and India. Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted that if China is the sole emerging global power it’s more a threat to liberal world order than if free and democratic India also plays a role. Former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma underlined that the Pentagon doesn’t have a rapid response unit for any other country except India—that the relationship between the two countries is unique.

In an Indo-Pacific context, the full potential of the Quad (India, US, Japan, Australia) was on display in a uniquely powerful panel featuring Admiral Sunil Lanba (Chief of Naval Staff, India) Admiral Harris (Commander, US Pacific Command), Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano (Chief of Staff, Joint Staff, Japan) and Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, Chief of Navy, Australia. Hinting at the potential for a Quad+, also on the dais was Dino Patti Djalal, founder of the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia.

The positive role of global India was rarely questioned and, when it was, it was quickly and firmly answered. When a British Crown Prosecutor of Pakistan origin accused India of “state sponsored terrorism” in Balochistan, General David Petraeus jumped in to say “as director of the CIA, and Commander of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan, I never once heard the term ‘Indian state-sponsored terrorism’”. The audience burst into rapturous applause.

So much was covered, a summary is impossible. But key takeaways include:

1. The Indo-Pacific concept is now firmly entrenched in strategic thinking. And that means a bigger role for India. General Petraeus made clear that the shift in the US lexicon from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific is an “explicit” recognition of the importance of India. And Ram Madhav noted that India has to “reorient strategic thinking from west thinking to east looking; from land based to ocean based,” and that it “can’t just be a spectator or a participant, it has to be a stakeholder.”

2. As a part of that, the Quad (and its various bilateral relationships) is increasingly, if tentatively, solidifying.

3. Several US delegates asked the international community to “look beyond the tweets” and see that, far from retreating, the US is becoming more engaged internationally. Participants were urged to read the new National Security Strategy and, even more important, follow the troops and the money. They’d find a stronger stance on China, increased activity in Iraq/Syria/Afghanistan, open criticism and withholding of funds for Pakistan, more funding for NATO, engagement on North Korea, and more.

4. India’s neighbours are also looking to India. Among the speakers were Hamid Karzai, former President of Afghanistan, the State Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka and the Foreign Secretary of Nepal. Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh noted that India is the only country in the region that has the pull to host an event such as the Raisina Dialogue.

5. Europe and European countries are trying to figure how to engage with India both individually and as the European Union. While the substantial British delegation wasn’t a surprise, there were also high-level delegates from Poland, Italy, Hungary, and others, including the former Prime Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt. France in particular seems to be looking at closer ties with India. As their Ambassador for the Oceans pointed out, France has territories all over the Indo-Pacific, including in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. Which may explain why Raisina also had dedicated closed-door track 1.5 meetings between India/France and between India/Australia/France. Perhaps Paris would like the Quad to become le Cinq.

6. China, China, China.

The theme of the Raisina Dialogue was “Managing Disruptive Transitions”. Foreign Secretary Jaishankar raised four major global disruptions: the rise of China; the choices, postures and behaviour of the US; terrorism; and non-market economics. India potentially has a stabilising role to play in each of the four. From the tone at Raisina, much of the world wants India to play that role. The question is now, what does India want?

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian’s North America Special Correspondent.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/12453-more-india-and-less-china-please

Video: Raisina 2018 | Fragile World: Preventing a Scorched Earth (Panel, 17 January 2018 )

Article: Fire and Fury explodes like an IED in Washington Beltway (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | New Delhi | 13 January, 2018

It is not that this Improvised Editorial Device’s salacious tidbits are necessarily true. 

Michael Wolff’s new book about the Donald Trump presidency, Fire and Fury, has exploded like an IED (Improvised Editorial Device) inside the Washington Beltway. It’s not that the book’s salacious tidbits are necessarily true. Many errors have already been called out, and Wolff was careful to give himself cover at the start of the book.

Wolf wrote: “Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book. Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances I have, through a consistency in the accounts and through sources I have come to trust, settled on a version of events I believe to be true.”

Oh, ok then.

But at this point, the contents of the book are not the story. It’s all about the fallout. That’s where we can see who are the winners and losers from the publication of a book that may be even less accurate than the infamous “Trump Dossier”.

THE LOSERS

One of the big losers is domestic harmony in the Trump family. President Trump clearly values his immediate family, and has given relatives roles in his administration. The book takes direct aim at inner family relations, in the most personal ways possible. It implies Donald Trump thinks his sons are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. That Trump’s daughter Ivanka questions her father’s abilities and makes fun of his hair.

That there are problems with the marriage between Trump and his wife Melania. And much, much more. It is a textbook for sowing distrust, hurt and debilitating miscommunications at the core of the administration.

The biggest single loser is Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon. Bannon had already left the administration, but was still running the highly influential Breitbart news. He was also trying to lead a campaign to unseat Republican Congress members whom he thought were part of the “corrupt Washington swamp” and replace them with more members of the “Trump Army”. This failed spectacularly in the recent Alabama Senate race, in which Bannon’s candidate lost what had been a relatively safe Republican seat, to a Democrat.

In Fire and Fury, Bannon is quoted as implying that a meeting attended by one of Trump’s sons with Russians was potentially treasonous. These factors and others resulted in Trump strongly and openly criticising Bannon. That in turn led to Bannon being kicked out of Breitbart and losing important financial backers. Bannon apologised to Trump’s son and has not criticised Trump himself. Regardless, the Trump-Bannon break has meant some fracturing and deflation of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, and a weakening of Bannon.

THE WINNERS

The first winner is obviously Wolff, who stands to make millions from the book, thanks in large part to the free coverage President Trump gave him with his tweets and threatened injunction.

A much more important winner is China. With Bannon sidelined, one of the strongest voices pushing for “standing up to China” has been muted.

Bannon was consistent in questioning Chinese trade practices and expansionist policies, both of which he viewed as direct threats to the United States, and the “free world”. He was also heavily involved in trying new approaches to combating Islamist terror. As were many of the candidates he was supporting, and many of the writers he had at Breitbart. Beijing will be happy that Bannon has taken a hit.

Other big winners are the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment. Anything that hurts Trump is, of course, good for the Democrats, especially leading into the midterm elections. And anything that weakens the generals or key communicators of the Trump Republicans, like Bannon, is often good for the Republican establishment. From the point of view of MAGA supporters, this has been a great week for the DC swamp monsters.

However, counter-intuitively, another winner might be the prospects of a second term Donald Trump presidency. By getting this brutal and personal early on, it might sap opposition ammunition before 2020 and inure the public to this sort of attack. It also shears away people, like the kind of candidate supported by Bannon in Alabama, who might alienate traditional Republicans voters.

Fire and Fury isn’t particularly reliable, or groundbreaking, but it has amplified existing currents, and brought that turbulence to the surface. The book may have spurred Trump to openly lash out at Bannon, but he was already angry with him over Alabama, and more. And Bannon is not going to just disappear. The book highlights and exacerbates a political moment in time. But this week’s losers may be next election’s winners.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian’s North America Special Correspondent.

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on the Road to Doha: The politics of the Subcontinent and Qatar.