Bihar 2020: Race For Chief Minister

The way I read the situation, the person who will succeed Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of Bihar will be Prashant Kishor. Prashant will also lead a party that will have acquired national status by then.

Bihar 2020: Race For Chief Minister https://t.co/UFmjxEhDND #bihar #india @PrashantKishor @NitishKumar @SushilModi @Jduonline @BJP4India @AmitShah @BJP4Bihar @RahulGandhi @priyankagandhi

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 17, 2019

Video: BJP’s Chief Minister in Bihar | Plans to Corner Nitish Kumar

Several Aspirants From BJP for CM’s Post in Bihar According to the sources in BJP, nearly half a dozen senior leaders including three Union Ministers (Giriraj Singh, Nityanand Rai and Ravi Shankar Prasad) and three ministers in Nitish Kumar-led BJP-JD(U) coalition government (Nand Kishor Yadav, Prem Kumar and Mangal Pandey) are key CM aspirants in the state. ...... One after another, senior BJP leaders continue to embarrass CM Nitish Kumar. ....... Despite Sushil Kumar Modi’s attempt at damage control – when he called Nitish Kumar ‘captain’ of NDA in Bihar – BJP leaders continue to target the CM. Modi had said that Kumar is and will remain the captain of the NDA in 2020 Assembly polls....... But within BJP, another name that is being discussed for the post of CM is of Nityanand Rai, who belongs to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s caste – Yadav. Rai is being seen as a leader with the potential to make dent in Lalu’s traditional social support base. "BJP has already made a dent in Lalu's vote bank. Now, the party has to project a Yadav leader in place of Nitish Kumar to get their support," said a BJP leader and former MLA ....... Earlier this week, senior BJP leader Sanjay Paswan had unleashed a political storm when he stated that Nitish Kumar has occupied the chief minister’s chair for quite a long time.

The Churning in Bihar: Stage Being Set For Nitish Kumar to Lead Opposition Camp as Tejashwi Yadav Mopes RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari argued that since there was no credible opposition at the Centre these days, Kumar should come to national politics and unite all opposition parties as he had all along maintained his secular image....... The Rashtriya Janata Dal wants Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to lead the socialist-strain of political outfits in the absence of an acceptable towering leader among all the opposition parties in the country. ....... “There is a leadership vacuum in the opposition rank. I have watched Nitish Kumar in politics for nearly 35 years and I can vouch that he has the political guts and capability to become the Prime Minister of the country. He should throw the NDA yoke and become the opposition face at the national level,” Tiwari said. .......The Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) led by former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, too, has advised Kumar to walk out of the NDA and work on an alternative platform. “It is high time that all like-minded leaders should come forward and provide an alternative to the present dispensation,” Manjhi said. ....... Such overtures are being considered as an open invitation to the JD(U) chief to join hands with the RJD once again before the 2020 assembly elections and cobble up an alliance of like-minded opposition parties........ The RJD is mulling over such possibilities due to perceived disenchantment of party leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav with politics and his reluctance to lead the party as well as the opposition. He has been conspicuous by his absence since the party’s rout in the Lok Sabha election, where the RJD had for the first time drawn a blank.......

Senior RJD leaders too are mulling over getting rid of Lalu’s scions. Some of them have even proposed to elect or nominate a working president to run the party

...... Against this backdrop, it appears that stage is being set for a churning in the opposition camp with Nitish Kumar as the main protagonist before the assembly polls in some states next year. .......

On its part, the JDU has already opposed the Triple Talaq Bill and Article 370 in both the houses of Parliament. The party has diametrically opposite stand on uniform civil code and Ram Mandir and wants the two issues to be settled either through court verdict or consensus among the stakeholders

........ Though JDU is part of NDA at the Centre and in Bihar, it has decided to contest elections in four states of

Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir

individually to increase the number of votes polled in parliamentary and legislative elections so that it could attain the status of a national party by 2020. At present, the JDU is now recognized party in Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh........ A wily politician, Nitish has begun the exercise to expand his horizon beyond Bihar - at least in Hindi heartland and north-eastern states. He is attempting to draw a bigger line than the present regional leaders like Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Mamata Bannerjee and Navin Patnaik.

Why the BJP needs Nitish Kumar in Bihar On September 9, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLC Sanjay Paswan said it was time for Bihar chief minister and the Janata Dal (United), or the JD-U, chief Nitish Kumar to move to Delhi......... "We have complete faith in Nitish Kumar's honesty, good governance and competence," Paswan told the media. "My only request is that Nitishji should also trust the BJP the way we have trusted him as chief minister for 15 years and let the BJP have one term [as Bihar CM]. Either Sushil Modi or Nityanand Rai can be given a chance." ......... Nitish is yet to respond to these statements, but the state BJP leadership has already swung into damage control. Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi, the BJP's tallest leader in the state, tweeted and then retweeted that Nitish Kumar is the skipper of the NDA in Bihar and that he will "remain its Captain in next assembly elections in 2020". The purpose of Modi's tweets was twofold--to unruffle JD-U's feathers and to silence his saffron party colleagues......

nearly 70 per cent new voters have voted for Nitish Kumar. It means every second new voter has voted for Nitish Kumar

...... The new voters, Bihar's youth, are intelligent and perceptive and determined who they should look to for vision and leadership. They can differentiate between a run of the mill politician and a statesman like Nitish Kumar.......

Nitish Kumar has remained the fulcrum of Bihar politics since his party defeated Lalu Prasad's RJD in the 2005 assembly polls.

From then to 2019, Bihar has seen four Assembly and three Lok Sabha polls. And barring the 2014 Lok Sabha election--when Bihar was swept along with the country by the Narendra Modi wave--the winner had Nitish by his side in six of those seven elections. "As Bihar prepares for assembly polls next year, these details further confirms why Nitish Kumar is important for us," says a senior BJP leader........ Nitish's voter base is the numerically significant extremely backward castes (EBCs), which account for 30 per cent of his votes; and the Mahadalits (the most marginalised among the scheduled castes), which account for 15 per cent. Caste-neutral women, whom the CM won over with his landmark 2016 decision to impose prohibition in the state, form the nucleus of the JD-U's strength. These three sections make up over 45 per cent of voters in Bihar......... "Next year, the BJP may begin its negotiations for the 2020 assembly polls by demanding at least an equal number of seats. And at least a section of BJP leaders may create trouble if team saffron wins a higher number of seats," said a senior JD-U leader.

PM retains five ministers from Bihar; Nityanand Rai new face Speculation, however, was rife in the state’s NDA circle on Thursday that the PM would accommodate three from the BJP,two from the JD(U) and one from LJP in his new team........ The ratio so discussed was in accordance with the respective strengths of the three NDA partners from the state in Lok Sabha. BJP had won 17 seats, JD(U) 16 and LP six

Jitan Ram Manjhi refuses to accept Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as GA leader
As a Reward for Winning Bihar for NDA, Nityanand Rai is MoS in Home Ministry He was given the responsibility of the party in 2016 when the BJP was said to be divided in several factions and its morale was at an all-time low after having lost to the grand alliance miserably in 2015....... Shah saw in Rai the spark and ignored several senior faces in Bihar to lead the party.

Time and option fast running out for Nitish Kumar Amid such strained ties, Nitish is keeping a hawk’s eye on rebel RJD MLAs who have pledged “unconditional support during any crisis.” Besides, the JD (U) strongman has kept Congress too in good humour by not speaking anything against the grand old party

Doubts in people's mind on multi-party system: Shah come three days after he raised another controversy when he pitched for 'One Nation, One Language' to make Hindi as the national language.

‘RJD will have no alliance with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U)’: Tejashwi Prasad
Why Nitish, Mamata, Uddhav and Kamal Haasan need Prashant Kishor
No Arun Jaitley or Prashant Kishor by his side, Nitish Kumar struggles to deal with BJP The latest among the host of issues that have triggered rifts between the two is the BJP’s demand for a national register of citizens (NRC) in Bihar........ A senior BJP leader and minister in the Nitish Kumar government, Vinod Singh, wanted an NRC in Bihar to expel “Bangladeshi infiltrators”. The JD(U), however, dismissed the demand, saying there are no illegal immigrants in Bihar. ....... Four years later, Jaitley played a key role in negotiating Nitish’s return to the NDA fold........ Nitish, he said, was having an “unusually long talk with Arun Jaitley”, who was finance minister at the time. As Nitish returned, Jaitley played a role in convincing the BJP brass to give Nitish equal number of seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls........ “If I have had the opportunity to serve the people of Bihar, it was largely due to Arun Jaitley, and I will never forget it in my life,” he said. “Whenever there were differences, Arun Jaitley showed that they can be dealt with through talks.” ....... The poster war started Sunday, when a new hoarding was installed outside the JD(U) office in Patna with the message “Kyu Karey Vichar, Theek Toh Hai Nitish Kumar (Why think of an alternative, Nitish Kumar is OK)”. The hoarding was allegedly put up by R.C.P. Singh’s supporters. The RJD then installed its own take on the slogan: “Kyu Na Karey Vichar… Bihar Jo Hai Bimar (Why not think of an alternative, given that Bihar is ailing)”.

Opposing Modi govt on triple talaq and Article 370, Nitish Kumar signals a shift. Again The answers may appear unclear now but

Nitish Kumar’s challenge to Narendra Modi’s BJP at its peak is unmistakable.

Nitish Kumar captain of NDA in Bihar, hitting fours and sixes: BJP's Sushil Kumar Modi "@Nitish Kumar is the captain of NDA in Bihar and will remain its captain in next assembly elections in 2020 also. When captain is hitting fours and sixes and defeating rivals by innings where is the question of change," the deputy chief minister said on Twitter...... "The BJP respects its allies and their leaders. We abide by the coalition dharma. Expression of a personal opinion, or even that of sentiments of workers or general public must not be confused with the party's official stand," BJP state spokesman Nikhil Anand tweeted on Tuesday.

JD(U) rejects RJD proposal for Nitish Kumar to lead opposition parties at Centre “Thank you for the offer and accepting Nitish’s capability as a leader. But let me make it clear to all the GA [Grand Alliance] leaders that JD (U) is very much a part of the [BJP-led] NDA [National Democratic Alliance]. The... [NDA] is going to contest the 2020 assembly polls under his leadership in Bihar,” said JD (U)’s principal general secretary K C Tyagi. ...... Tyagi said the main reason of corruption, which forced the JD (U) to quit the RJD-led GA in 2017 remained. “Nitish Kumar’s USP has been that he has not compromised on three Cs [crime, corruption, and communalism]. Despite being with the NDA, he maintains the same posture and has differed with its alliance partner [BJP] on several issues...” ....... The JD (U) plans to contest assembly elections in Jharkhand, Delhi, and Haryana on its own even as it remains a part of the NDA. It has differed with the BJP and opposed the law that criminalizes the practice of instant divorce among a section of Muslims and abrogation of Constitution’s Article 370 that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status.

JDU to contest elections on all Assembly seats JDU will contest elections on

all the 81 assembly seats of Jharkhand

, said JDU National President Sanjay Kumar. “JDU is the only party, emerging fast as a new option in the State. Our aim is to bring a drastic change in Jharkhand by inclusive growth of the people residing here,” said Kumar....... Jharkhand is looking back at a trail of broken promises, political instability and deep-rooted corruption as it completes more than a decade. The state has always made news for the wrong reasons, instability and corruption. ...... The nexus of politicians, bureaucrats and contractors are virtually plundering the State.

'No Shah, Sultan or Samrat must renege on' unity in diversity Promise, says Kamal on Hindi imposition ....... Referring to the country's National Anthem, Haasan said it was penned in a language (Bengali) that was not mother tongue to most citizens........ "Most of the nation happily sings itsNational Anthem in Bengali with pride, and will continue to do so." ....... "The reason is the poet (Rabindranath Tagore) who wrote the National Anthem gave due respect to all languages and culture within the Anthem. And hence, it became our Anthem," he said........ AIADMK leader and Tamil culture Minister K Pandiarajan had said if the Centre imposed Hindi unilaterally, there will only be (adverse) reaction and no support, not only in this state, but also in West Bengal, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, all non-Hindi speaking ones.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is set for another term, but what's next for him Assuming that Kumar leads the NDA in the 2020 election, it will be probably his last election for the chief minister's position

Nitish Kumar Gears Up to Fill Opposition Void, Targets Pan-India Presence with JDU Expansion Nitish Kumar has begun the exercise to fill the void and expand his horizon beyond Bihar. He is attempting to draw a bigger line than the present regional leaders such as Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik......... After deciding to stay away from the Narendra Modi 2.0 government at the Centre, the Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Nitish Kumar has decided to embark on his party’s expansion and capacity building plan at the national level to have its pan-India presence........ This opportunity has come to the JDU after the crushing defeat of Congress at the national level, electoral setback to RJD and its regional allies in Bihar, and perceived dwindling base of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. ......

To begin with, the JDU has decided to increase its footprints in smaller states by increasing the number of MLAs and percentage of votes to attain the status of national recognised party by 2020.

...... the JDU resolved that it will not be a part of the BJP-led NDA outside Bihar but will contest the upcoming assembly polls in four states on its own to make the JDU a potent force beyond Bihar.......... “We will fight the elections in four states of Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir with all our might and strength and we will strive to achieve the status of a national party by 2020,” said JDU secretary general K C Tyagi. .............

The task of this capacity-building exercise has been primarily given to poll strategist and party vice-president, Prashant Kishor.

....... The selection of Jammu and Kashmir is important and indicative of party’s firm stance on core national issues because the JDU has diametrically opposite stand on Article 370 and Article 35A vis-à-vis the BJP. The BJP wants abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, while the JDU wants consensus among all stakeholders before taking any final decision on such contentious issues......... The party performed miserably in the last Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh assembly elections. It contested 12 seats each in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh but could garner only a total of 24,107 votes and all its candidates lost their security deposits. ........ In Karnataka, the JDU lost all the 27 assembly seats it had contested while its performance in Gujarat was below par as it could not open its account even though it contested on 38 seats........The JDU had earlier failed in Assam where it had contested on four seats in collaboration with AIUDF, whereas in Kerala it had contested on four seats under the Congress-led United Democratic Front but lost all seats, including two sitting seats. ....... At present, the JDU has one MLA in Nagaland and runs an alliance government with the BJP, while in Manipur it contested one Lok Sabha seat this time but lost. However,

in Arunachal Pradesh, the JDU has seven MLAs, the second largest chunk in the 60-member state assembly.

....... The JDU won 16 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar and secured 21.81% vote share this time but it is far behind meeting the criteria of a national party. It will have to wait till it garners minimum 6 per cent of votes in state assembly or Lok Sabha polls at least in four states....... With indication of Nitish’s discomfiture with the BJP, the alliance may turn untenable and a split cannot be ruled out before the 2020 Bihar assembly elections. Overtures on JDU-Congress-RJD alliance are already in the air, given the way the chips are stacked against allies of the mahagathbandhan.

War With Iran: Super Bad Idea For All Parties Concerned

What a War With Iran Would Look Like Iran’s military strategy is to keep tensions at a low boil and avoid a direct confrontation with the United States. Washington struck a tough public posture with its recent troop deployment, but the move was neither consequential nor terribly unusual. ......... the logic of escalation could conspire to turn even a minor clash into a regional conflagration—with devastating effects for Iran, the United States, and the Middle East.

War With Iran Would Be Disastrous And Enormously Costly The maximum pressure campaign is bad enough – it is not likely to change Iranian behavior, and it is ratcheting up tensions that could easily get out of hand......... “The administration’s bellicose, go-for-broke tactics for dealing with Iran are fundamentally at odds with the president’s insistence on extricating the United States from costly and protracted military conflicts.”........ A better course would be to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal and seek a détente that will make further conflict in the region less, not more likely. But that course may have to await a new administration. .........

a war with Iran would “make the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts look like a walk in the park.”

...... studies of the costs of America’s post-9/11 wars have found that the funds spent or obligated on these conflicts are at $5.9 trillion and counting. Yet in advance of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bush administration officials were claiming that it would cost on the order of $50 to $100 billion, not the trillions that in direct and indirect costs that it has generated to date. ......... a full-scale conflict with Iran could cost trillions, a huge commitment of public funds at a time when deficits are rising, the economy is at risk, and needed public investments in infrastructure, green jobs, health care, and education are lagging. ........ War is an uncertain undertaking, and the idea that it can be easily contained once a conflict starts is naïve at best, and ludicrous at worst.

What Happens to Israel if the US and Iran Go to War? once a shooting war were actually underway, full-scale military engagements could quickly and substantially involve Israeli armed forces (the IDF). In plainly worst case scenarios, these clashes would involve assorted unconventional weapons and directly impact Israel’s civilian populations. Looking ahead, the most fearful worst case narratives could sometime involve nuclear ordnance. ......... a “collateral war” would come to Israel as a catastrophic fait accompli, a multi-pronged belligerency wherein even the most comprehensive security preparations in Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv could suddenly prove inadequate.......... Donald Trump has favored or revealed absolutely no tangible military doctrine. ......... once confronted with a “no doctrine” war launched against Iran by this American president, whether as a defensive first-strike or a retaliation, Israel’s senior strategists would need to fashion their own corresponding doctrines......... Israel is less than half of the size of America’s Lake Michigan. ........ In an upcoming war with the United States, Tehran would likely regard certain direct attacks upon selected Israeli targets as proper “retaliations” for American strikes ......... Iranian forces could potentially gain operational access to hypersonic rockets or missiles....... Israel’s critical capacity to shoot down hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and/or hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs) might subsequently prove inadequate......... it could be to Tehran’s perceived advantage to ostentatiously drag Israel into any US or Iran-initiated war. ........ a Trump-initiated war against Iran would strengthen Saudi military power specifically and Sunni Arab military power in general. While such an expected strengthening might now seem less worrisome to Israel than further Iranian militarization, this delicate strategic calculus could change very quickly......... “Be careful what you wish for.” ......... Should the Trump-led American military find itself in a two-front or multi-front war — a complex conflict wherein American forces were battling in Asia (North Korea) and the Middle East simultaneously — Israel could unexpectedly find itself fighting on its own. ........ the “whole” of any deterioration caused by multi-front engagements could effectively exceed the sum of constituent “parts.” ......... Israeli strategists and planners will need to remain aptly and persistently sensitive to all conceivable synergies. In this connection, it goes without saying that the Trump administration is unaccustomed to such challenging intellectual calculations. ........ for these planners in Washington, complex strategic decision-making can be extrapolated from the unrelated worlds of real-estate bargaining and casino gambling. ........

the determining standard of reasonableness in any military contest must always lie in its presumed political outcomes

....... For a state to get caught up in war — any war — without any clear political expectations is a mistake, always, on its face, or prima facie. .......... For more years than we may care to recollect, futile American wars have been underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. In time, for both Iraqis and Afghans, once-hoped-for oases of regional stability will regress to what English philosopher Thomas Hobbes would have called

a “war of all against all.”

At best, what eventually unravels in these severely fractured countries will be no worse than if these wars had never even been fought............ This will not be a desired political outcome........ America’s principal doctrinal enemy has changed, dramatically, from “communism” to “Islamism” or “Jihadism.” ........

it is a formidable and finely-textured foe, one that requires serious analytic study, not ad hoc responses or seat-of-the-pants presidential eruptions.

......... The Jihadist enemy of Israel and America remains a foe that can never be fully defeated, at least not in any tangibly final sense. To wit, this determined enemy will not be immobilized on any of the more usual or traditional military battlefields........... this after the United States, not Iran, withdrew from an international legal agreement that was less than perfect, but (reasonably) better than nothing at all. ......... Plausibly, there could be only a tiny likelihood that American bombs and missiles would be adequately targeted on widely multiplied/hardened/dispersed Iranian nuclear infrastructures. .......

a US war against Iran would be contrary to Israel’s core national security interests and obligations.

........ If, at any point during crisis bargaining between Iran, Hezbollah, Israel, and the United States, one side or the other should place too great a value on achieving “escalation dominance” and too little on parallel considerations of national safety, the expanding conflict could quickly turn “out of control.” ........ Such consequential deterioration would be especially or even uniquely worrisome if Israel threatened or actually launched some of its presumptive nuclear forces. .........

For Israel and the United States, it is high time for sober humility and determined caution. Without exception, all mentioned Iran-centered quandaries represent turbulent and uncharted waters.

Israel Is Escalating Its Shadow War With Iran. Here's What to Know Israel, which traditionally maintains a policy of ambiguity over oversees military operations, has not taken responsibility for either the Iraq attack or the Beirut drone strike, although its military said it had carried out a separate airstrike on Saturday near the Syrian border in order to foil an “imminent” drone attack planned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah (Iran has denied planning the strike.) ........ Iranian responses could come in various forms: an attack from Hezbollah or other Iranian-proxies; attacks from Sunni militias with alliances of convenience to Tehran; and even attacks on Jewish or Israeli “targets” outside of Israel. A worst case scenario, the official said, might be an Iranian-backed attack on Jewish settlements in the West Bank or the Golan Heights, which could set off a war......... After the Syrian conflict broke out in 2011, Sunni rebels—many financed by Iran’s Gulf rivals, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—rose up against President Bashar Assad’s regime. In response, Iran began pouring money, resources and soldiers into the country in support of Assad’s regime, with which it had been strategically aligned since the 1980s. Concerned about the entrenchment of hostile Iranian forces near its northwest border, Israel has since launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria, including against Hezbollah positions and convoys transporting arms to the group in Lebanon. Iran and Iranian proxy militias have occasionally responded with cross border strikes, such as by launching rockets over a ski resort in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights in January.......... Israel’s success at disrupting Iran’s infrastructure build-up in Syria has led the Islamic Republic to turn its attention to Iraq, where there have been several reports in recent months that Iran is building an array of ballistic missiles aimed at Israel. Israel appears to have followed suit, with recent attacks reported—but not acknowledged—on weapons storage facilities controlled by Iranian-backed Iraqi militias......... the general pattern of Israel’s air strikes in Syria—largely tolerated by Russia, which backs the Assad regime. Israel’s attacks on convoys bound for Lebanon have typically concentrated on thwarting Hezbollah’s “accuracy project”—the group’s attempt to enhance the capacity of its rocket cache—to pinpoint targets in Israel....... “Iran has no immunity, anywhere” adding that Israel would act against Iran “wherever it is necessary.” ........ while Netanyahu may be keen to burnish his “Mr. Security” image, analysts consider him risk-averse and he has been careful to avoid entangling Israel in overseas conflicts....... The ramp up of Israel-Iran tension also coincides with discussion of a potential rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. ..... Top Israeli officials have voiced concerns that talks could result in a relaxation of the U.S.’ “maximum pressure campaign.” ....... the group was planning a “calculated attack” on Israel that would remain “below the threshold of war.” ....... the dozens if not hundreds of unanswered attacks on Hezbollah positions and convoys in Syria, demonstrate the group’s lack of capacity to effectively retaliate, prompting further escalation ........

Israel is “simply informing everybody that a new rule of the game is being introduced,”

Khashan says. “That is what drove Hassan Nasrallah out of his mind and caused him to issue a belligerent statement that I don’t believe he’s capable of enforcing.” .........likened the situation to both sides performing “acrobatics on the edge of the abyss.”

Iran: The Case Against War To be sure, the Iranian government is guilty of genuine transgressions against American interests and values. It backs Syria’s brutal dictator, Bashar al-Assad. It undermines the security of Israel by organizing and sustaining Shia militias in Syria, supporting the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, and arming the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah. By serving as Iran’s proxy on Israel’s border, Hezbollah exposes Lebanon—long a fragile state—to the risk of Israeli retaliation. Iran has also supported Shia militias in Iraq that in theory answer to the Iraqi prime minister through a special commission, but in practice are outside the national military command structure, which compromises the cohesion and authority of the Iraqi state......... With money and weapons, Iran backs the Houthis, an insurrectionist movement in Yemen that has ousted the elected government and attacked the territory of its Saudi patrons. It has allegedly tried to stir Shia unrest in Sunni-ruled Bahrain, where the US has an important naval base, and in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is developing ballistic missiles that could threaten its neighbors and—especially if they are capable of carrying nuclear warheads—could provoke an arms race in the region. Iranian authorities detain and jail foreigners, including Americans, on fabricated charges. And the Iranian government oppresses its own people by coercing them into obeying strict religious rules, limiting their political choices, and abusing and imprisoning journalists........

It wants to force Iran to curtail its ballistic missile development and its provocations in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—none of which the JCPOA addresses—as well its nuclear program.

........ It has not carried out terrorist attacks against Americans in years.1 Its reactions to Israeli strikes on the small forces it maintains in Syria have been subdued. The Shia militias it backs are ragtag, composed mainly of young Afghani, Iraqi, and Syrian fighters. Moreover, in Iraq, militias thought to be aligned with Iran—known as Popular Mobilization Forces—have not come into conflict with US troops and, in the fight against ISIS, were battling a common enemy. ......... Iran is economically beleaguered and its military is weak, plagued by outdated equipment, a defense-industrial base that cannot supply much of the hardware it needs, and a conscript army that is poorly trained. Its warplanes use 1960s technology. Its navy is essentially a coastal defense force, and its only means of harassing the US Navy are small, lightly armed boats that would use swarming tactics against 105,000-ton Nimitz-class carriers ......... It does possess a large inventory of cruise missiles, rockets, and mines, and is capable of disrupting shipping and harming US warships. ....... The idea that Iran could dominate, let alone subjugate, the states on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf is risible. ........Yet the Trump administration, with Saudi Arabia’s encouragement, insists that Iran controls four regional capitals—Damascus, Sana’a, Baghdad, and Beirut—and has designs on others, such as Manama, the capital of Bahrain. This is a variation on the “Shia Crescent” scenario, which acquired currency about fifteen years ago among wary Sunni governments in the region. ......... The government that ultimately emerged in Baghdad from national elections in 2018—led by President Barham Salih, a British-educated Kurdish leader; Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shia economist and intellectual who lived in France for years and attended an American Jesuit school in Baghdad; and Speaker Muhammad al-Halbusi, a former governor of Anbar Province and a supporter of US troops remaining in Iraq—can scarcely be described as Iran’s dream team for Iraq. ......... It’s true that Iran has for years had a strong foothold in Lebanon and has supplied Hezbollah with a vast arsenal of increasingly sophisticated missiles and rockets, which give Tehran the capacity to attack Israel by proxy. But Hezbollah’s militarization was the product of Israel’s invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982, which was aimed at eliminating the Palestine Liberation Organization. Iran seems to regard Hezbollah’s missile inventory as part of its own strategic deterrent, not to be put at risk for anything short of preventing Iran’s annihilation by Israel. ...........

Iran’s long-standing influence in Lebanon melds self-protection with strategic expansion.

........ Critics often point to Iranian assistance to Hamas, but it has been relatively modest, mainly financial and political, and essentially symbolic. Iran’s support for Palestinian militants and its other marginal challenges to regional stability are manageable and do not strategically threaten Israel, the United States, or its Gulf Arab partners. ........

the overall thrust of Iranian security policy is to thwart Sunni jihadism wherever it appears, especially in Syria and Iraq.

......... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo harbors a profound conviction that in opposing Iran and embracing Israel he is an instrument of God’s will, having pledged to continue such efforts until “the rapture.” .......

The Trump administration’s stated reason for “maximum pressure” on Iran through sanctions is to force Tehran back into negotiations to limit its ballistic missile program and destabilizing regional activities. But given the high degree of mistrust that the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA has generated in Tehran, that rationale can only be read as disingenuous.

......... In effect, Bolton and Pompeo have repurposed sanctions—normally conceived as an alternative to armed conflict—as the means to provoke a war. ......... Bolton, Pompeo, and CIA Director Gina Haspel apparently favored retaliation, while the Pentagon counseled restraint. ........ It is conceivable that Trump could try to rebrand the JCPOA with marginal changes as his own improved deal—much as he did with NAFTA .........

It remains impossible to tell whether the administration actually intends to go to war, is merely engaging in coercive diplomacy, or is adrift in a sea of miscues. It may not matter. In a maelstrom of probes and provocations, strategic intention may give way to heedless reaction.

.......... The White House has reinforced this possibility by doing away with the systematic interagency process conducted by the National Security Council that has traditionally built consensus on foreign policy and, even given the constraint of secrecy, allowed reasonable transparency about how that policy is formulated.

George W. Bush was the last president to jettison the policy coordination process, and it resulted in the long and bloody occupation of Iraq.

............. Trump is even more ignorant about world affairs and scornful of protocol, process, and custom than his advisers. ........ To the extent he needs a war to mobilize his base, he has one on the southern border, to which he has deployed military units, and where the enemy cannot shoot back. ........ The Pentagon is considering dispatching more warships and combat aircraft and an additional six thousand troops to the Middle East, the first group of which has been authorized. Both the 1991 and 2003 interventions in Iraq demonstrated that as operational momentum toward war builds, it becomes politically more difficult to resist..........

At this stage, Tehran’s national security decision-making appears more orderly and transparent than Washington’s.

........ The Obama administration’s accomplishment in negotiating the JCPOA was to sidestep Khamenei’s deep-seated hostility toward the US and Israel, which had until then proven an implacable obstacle to US diplomacy. The Trump administration has managed to weaken the pragmatic restraint of the hard-line leadership while turning Iranian moderates into hard-liners. .......... The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)—the elite, secretive, and proactive element of the Iranian military that the State Department designated a foreign terrorist organization in April despite objections from the Pentagon—looks to be regaining the upper hand. .......... The IRGC has also reissued its customary threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. Such a move would be a last resort; it would send oil prices through the roof and almost certainly prompt retaliatory US action. .......... Iran is predisposed to respond defiantly to concerted American attempts to cripple it. ........ Neither government might, on balance, really want war. But concerns about reputation and credibility, the risk of spontaneous clashes between US and Iranian forces, the provocations of proxies, or poorly calculated brinkmanship might cause one. These prospects are doubly worrying because the degree of mutual antipathy and distrust between the two adversaries and the absence of lines of diplomatic communication would make it exceedingly difficult for them to reverse course. ....... It is probably lost on Bolton and Pompeo—and certainly on Trump—that the US intervention in Iraq ended up increasing Iranian influence there and elsewhere in the region. It may also be lost on them that a war with Iran could be even more disastrous than the war in Iraq. ........... 1984–1988 tanker war ...... The most strategically significant aspect of this confrontation, however, was Reagan’s self-control. Even when a US warship was attacked, resulting in US casualties, he refrained from striking Iranian territory and even forced out a high-ranking US commander for planning to do so. Restraint is the real lesson of the tanker war, but Republican hawks are unlikely to heed it. .......... If the administration were to take a harder look at the tanker war, it might observe that Iran, while still vastly weaker than the United States, is in a better position to resist now than it was thirty years ago, when it had been drained by the long war of attrition with Iraq. .......... possesses old-style asymmetric means of response, such as terrorism, and new ones, including cyber capabilities and missiles ........ In the worst case, the United States would launch something along the lines of Operation Iranian Freedom, invading and occupying the country. ......... US forces would initially suppress Iran’s air defenses, target its shore batteries and missile launchers, damage communication networks, strike the headquarters of security services that keep the population under control, and cripple if not destroy hardened nuclear-related facilities with deep-penetrating “bunker-busting” bombs. If occupying Tehran became the American objective, US ground forces would overwhelm the Iranian army and oust the regime by forcing it to flee or killing its top officials with a lucky missile strike. ...........

Iran is appreciably larger than Iraq in both territory and population, so gaining control of the country and winning popular support would be all the more difficult.

While Iraq’s military was handily defeated, Sunni groups reinforced by volunteers from elsewhere in the Arab world and Shia militias indirectly supported by Iran bled US forces for nearly a decade. US forces within Iran would presumably be exposed to such guerrilla tactics, which while not decisive, drive up the cost of intervention and weaken public support for the war at home. ........... internecine warfare among its ethnic minorities—Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, Zoroastrians, and Arabs—portending the fragmentation that worried US intelligence during the Iran–Iraq War ............. Displaced persons within Iran or crossing into neighboring countries as refugees would present a humanitarian challenge comparable to Syria’s. .......

long wars begin with the conviction that they will be short.

........ Washington would find it hard to cobble together a coalition of the willing worthy of the name. ........ prospects for successfully forging a stable, US-friendly government in Iran would be less than dim. And the conflict wouldn’t wind down until long after it had caused chaos in the region and strategically isolated the United States. ......... The Israelis have no doubt started to consider the long-term regional impact of a war between the US and Iran. Their change of heart should be a warning that US policy is spinning out of control.

$100 a barrel oil: Trump’s war talk with Iran risks ‘worst-case scenario’ that slams U.S. economy
What war with Iran could look like Iranian coastal defenses would likely render the entire Persian Gulf off limits to U.S. Navy warships. Iran’s advanced surface-to-air missile defenses would be a significant threat to U.S. pilots. And Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles put U.S military installations across the U.S. Central Command region at risk. The cost in U.S. casualties could be high.............. All the while the network of proxy Iranian jihadi cells, from the Middle East to Central America find novel and makeshift ways to poke, prod and provoke the United States by hitting soft targets whenever and wherever possible. ....... What followed also included leaders of both Iran and the United States claiming they didn’t want war, yet each preparing in many ways for exactly that outcome. ........ the head of the Iranian proxy groups have been ordered to prepare for a range of strikes against U.S. and allied targets across the Middle East. ........ one threat to U.S. forces in the region is the Fateh, an Iranian semi-heavy submarine armed with subsurface-to-surface missiles with a range of about 2,000 kilometers. ....... The Fateh has subsurface-to-surface missiles with a range of about 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the region. ........ Unlike with the Iraq War, you can conduct strikes from the Arabian Sea rather than from the Persian Gulf ........... those proxy groups can hit U.S. units and allies across the region. There’s a host of groups that must be considered far from Iran’s borders in Syria, Yemen and Iraq among others. ........ “There may be buried facilities or tunnels somewhere that we don’t know about, but I do think we have a significant amount of good intelligence on where their assets are” ........

Any air campaign against Iran would be vastly different from past U.S. Air Force operations, mostly because Iran’s air defenses are more modern than past foes.

........ Strategic surprise is difficult to achieve these days, Deptula said, meaning the movement of necessary aircraft into theater would be well-known. But operational and tactical surprise remain.......... The U.S. Air Force would likely be launching a strike campaign more similar to Desert Storm, than its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria........... “During Desert Storm, we averaged over 1,200 strike sorties a day,” Deptula said. Even the Iraq War in 2003 involved about 800 strike sorties per day. That’s compared to between 10 and 50 strike sorties per day during the anti-ISIS campaign, depending on the battles being looked at. .........

Iran has the region’s largest and most diverse arsenal of ballistic missiles

.......... The country also possesses increasingly sophisticated cruise missiles, an array of shorter-ranged anti-ship missiles and challenging air defense systems........ Those missile have ranges that run from 300 kilometers up to 2,500 kilometers, giving them the ability to reach targets as far away as Italy ........ Iran’s creativity in operational concepts. ........ “They reportedly tested a Soumar cruise missile with a reported range of 2,000 kilometers,” Karako said. “If you have a cruise missile, you can go around ballistic missile defenses and attack them from behind.” ......

That would allow Iran to potentially strike Israel, anywhere in the Gulf, any base in Afghanistan and parts of Egypt.

....... While not as sophisticated as Russia or China, they may achieve their localized aim of making adversaries think twice about any kind of action against the Iranian homeland ....... Though the current administration has recently backed off from openly supporting regime change in Iran, it’s not clear that military action could even accomplish such a goal. ....... “Under that scenario, Iranians of most political persuasions would likely rally around the flag and support the regime against ‘the aggressor’ as they would term it”

If the U.S. strikes Iran, what might happen next? After a strike like the one Trump says he canceled, officials and experts warn Iran might hit back via proxy forces far from the Middle East. .......... A limited U.S. strike on Iran of the sort President Donald Trump says he canceled Thursday night could prompt a potent Iranian reaction that in turn might spark a much larger military conflict ....... Iran could do enormous damage to the global economy by mining the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway off its coast through which flows 40 percent of the crude oil traded internationally. That action, even if quickly countered by the U.S. Navy, would cause oil prices to spike. But that may not be Iran's first move in response to a limited American bomb and missile attack .........

Shiite militias could overrun the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and seize hostages.

Hezbollah, which, before 9/11, had killed more Americans than any other terror group, could strike in places as far flung as Latin America, where the group has a strong presence. ...... "Traditionally, when faced with this sort of American action, Iran doesn't tend to respond directly and immediately, but they do so asymmetrically and over a period of time" ........ The U.S. and Iran have been attacking one another covertly for decades. President Barack Obama is believed to have ordered a cyberattack that employed malware known as Stuxnet to set back Iran's nuclear program by causing centrifuges to malfunction, for example. Iran built powerful bombs that killed American troops in Iraq........ After a U.S. guided missile cruiser accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger airliner in July 1988, killing 290 civilians, Iran capitulated, believing the shootdown was not an accident. ....... analysts say Iran's capacity to inflict pain on the U.S. and its allies is much greater than in the 1980s ...... In addition to its extensive proxy forces, Iran has a potent cyber capability that could, in theory, take down networks and harm the American economy. Iran is believed to be responsible for a cyberattack that wiped out 35,000 computers at the Saudi oil company Aramco in 2012. ......... American forces could obliterate Iran's entire navy in two days, ......... Iran's clerical regime, which cares most about its survival, may respond to that in unpredictable ways. ....... "Very quickly we could end with miscalculation as both sides fear offensive action by the other or tit for tat that escalates into a much more significant conflict" ........

The U.S. might believe it was sending Iran a message of deterrence by punishing it with limited air strikes. But Iran could interpret those strikes as a precursor to an invasion, and act accordingly. The result could be full-scale war.

........ An all-out effort by the U.S. to depose the Iranian regime could cost trillions of dollars and untold American lives .........any war with Iran would tie down the United States in yet another Middle Eastern conflict for years to come. ....... Such a commitment would mean the end of the United States' purported shift to great-power competition with Russia and China"

War With #Iran: Super Bad Idea For All Parties Concerned https://t.co/8Ub2V23eKT #IranWar #iran

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 17, 2019

Globalization 4.0

Globalization 4.0: A New Architecture for the Fourth Industrial Revolution The world today needs a new framework for global cooperation in order to preserve peace and accelerate progress. After the cataclysm of World War II, leaders designed a set of institutional structures to enable the postwar world to trade, collaborate, and avoid war—first in the West and eventually around much of the globe. Faced with a changing world, today’s leaders must undertake such a project again. ....... This time around, however, the change is not just geopolitical or economic in nature. The Fourth Industrial Revolution—the complete digitization of the social, the political, and the economic—is tugging at the very fabric of society, changing the way that individuals relate to one another and to the world at large. In this era, economies, businesses, communities, and politics are being fundamentally transformed. ........

Reforming existing processes and institutions will not be enough.

Government leaders, supported by civil society and businesses, have to collectively create a new global architecture. ......... In the decades after 1945, the world’s economies underwent an ambitious process of integration. Western Europe led the charge, charting unprecedented growth rates as it aimed for an “ever closer union.” Japan and the “Asian Tigers” followed, gaining access to global markets and supersizing their economies. By the early 2000s, the BRICs economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—had spurred international trade to levels previously unseen; exports now count for about one-fifth of global GDP—the highest level in history.

News: Hong Kong, Vancouver, Diaspora Nationalism

As Hong Kong protests face mainland pushback, here's what Chinese nationalists misunderstand

Among Chinese citizens who are well educated and well traveled, nationalism runs at a fever pitch.

........ I was once a Chinese nationalist with similar proclivities. Hong Kong — with its rule of law, vibrant free press, and freedom of association and assembly — changed my mind. ......... Having emigrated from China to the United States at age 10, I was a proud U.S. citizen. But my Chinese nationalism ran deep........ A couple of years before moving to Hong Kong, I had written an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times titled, “We Ask, ‘Can One Eat Liberty?’” Much of China barely had enough to eat, I argued. ........ Hong Kong has long nourished the seeds of spontaneity that an authoritarian government cannot control.

A Bubble Tea Summit brings together pro-Hong Kong and pro-China protesters in Vancouver The rivals sat together for almost three hours, trying to understand how the other came to such wildly different views about Hong Kong’s protests to their own...... Their conversation shows how personal and family histories cast the same events during the unrest in very different light ............... this Canadian city that has 188,000 mainland-Chinese immigrants, more than 71,000 from Hong Kong........ They were met by large crowds of pro-China counterprotesters, including Feng, who works in finance. He paid for Chinese flags waved at a series of events that weekend.......Feng, 34, tells us of the death of his great-grandfather at the hands of Japanese occupiers, and his pride in the rise of China that has paralleled that of his own family, from poverty to prosperity. “We’re proud that we stood up again,” he says. ........ Sung, a former RTHK journalist, tells of her family’s suffering under the Cultural Revolution and Communist rule, and their subsequent flight to the British colony. “As soon as my parents moved to Hong Kong, they made a very definite decision to separate themselves from that China,” she says. She feels not a speck of patriotism for Communist China.......... They discuss various incidents during the unrest – the attack on protesters in Yuen Long by men in white shirts, the police storming of a train at Prince Edward MTR station.

They agree on the basics of what they saw, but never come close to consensus on the context or implications.

........ The South China Morning Post invited Feng and Sung to sit down together last week in the wake of a series of flashpoint protests and counterprotests in Vancouver – at Broadway station, outside the Chinese consulate and, most controversially, outside a church hosting prayers for Hong Kong. All took place on the weekend of August 17 and 18........... Sung, who moved from Hong Kong to Vancouver in 1991 and is convenor of the group Canadian Friends of Hong Kong, has helped promote protest events but prefers to call herself an “active supporter” rather than an organiser......... Feng likewise denies organising the pro-China protests, although he paid for flagpoles and flags waved by his camp, distributed bottled water and spoke to police and the media on the group’s behalf.........

He immediately harked back to “racial slurs” used by Hongkongers to describe mainland people when he was a child.

........ His patriotism towards China grew after arriving in Canada in 2004, to study business at Simon Fraser University..........“Before I arrived in Canada I’m one of those people who love China, but I don’t love Communist China. That’s [the same for] a lot of people I talk to one our side, before they came out to Canada,” he said............ He says negative news and views about China in Canada had aroused in him concerns about bias, that in turn reinforced feelings of patriotism. “There’s a lot of misinformation about China that goes around,” he says. ..... I say it seems ironic that the longer he has spent in Canada the more patriotic towards China he has become, and that might surprise non-Chinese Canadians. “But that is correct” and quite typical, he says. .......... For the record, Feng says he is not a Chinese spy.....Nor is his family being threatened back in China, and nor is he being paid by the Chinese consulate, he says. All are allegations made since Feng took on a public role in the counterprotests.......... He also denies having ever communicated about the protests with the consulate – which last month issued a statement in support of the counterprotesters for targeting the “sin of Hong Kong independence”.......

how do two intelligent people see events in Hong Kong in such starkly different ways?

....... Picture-taking has emerged as one of the bigger points of tension between the two camps in Vancouver. What is its purpose? And, more broadly, what is the purpose of the pro-China counterprotest movement? ......

“I had conversations [at the protests] with the other side and I don’t think it’s going anywhere.

We’ve been sitting here …” he looks at his watch “ … and I don’t see it going anywhere.”

News: Hong Kong, October 1, Protest Slang, Mental Conditioning

The date which has both Hong Kong and Beijing on edge For months, October 1 has loomed over the mass pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, as a whispered deadline for the ruling Chinese Communist Party to take action to end the unrest......... On that day, Beijing will be hoping to project an image of national strength and unity with a military parade through the city to mark 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China......... It's a significant milestone that China's leaders will not want overshadowed by protests in Hong Kong, which have grown in intensity since mass demonstrations began in June....... 2021 will be the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party. It's also the self-imposed deadline for President Xi to deliver some of his signature achievements, such as eradicating all poverty and raise living standards to new heights. ........ In the last 20 years alone, China's wealth per adult has quadrupled, while its GDP has gone from just $150 billion in 1978 to over $12 trillion in 2018. Just over 30 million people are still living in poverty in China, down from 770 million 40 years ago......

Investors would flee at the first sign of any military boots hitting the streets, something Beijing can't risk as the domestic economy slows.

....... As their options dwindle, Beijing may be forced to grin and bear a Hong Kong spoiler to their national day

As their options dwindle, Beijing may be forced to grin and bear a Hong Kong spoiler to their national day Three commentaries published by state media single out unaffordable housing as a ‘root cause’ behind young people taking to the streets in anti-government protests ......... Cathay Pacific began cracking down on employees taking part in illegal protests and reshuffled its top management after the city’s flagship carrier came under severe criticism for its hands-off approach; and the MTR Corporation started closing metro stations and asking police to take action after the rail operator was accused of allowing protesters to use its network to their advantage. ........

tycoon Li Ka-shing made when he called young people the “masters of our future”.

......... state media specifically endorsed a proposal by the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the city’s largest pro-Beijing party, for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to invoke the Lands Resumption Ordinance and take back large swathes of rural land lying unused as a quick option to tackle the shortage of land for housing. ....... The Xinhua commentary identified the inability of young people and low-income groups to afford homes and share the city’s economic success as an underlying cause of the social unrest......... A bylined commentary on the People’s Daily website took a tougher line, saying: “For the sake of public interest … it is time developers show their utmost sincerity instead of minding their own business, hoarding land for profit and earning the last penny.” ........ The Communist Party mouthpiece went on to state: “What is being responsible to Hong Kong’s future? What is showing humanity and providing a way out to the young people? This is the way.”......This was a direct counter to tycoon Li Ka-shing’s remarks last weekend, when he described the city’s youth as the “masters of our future” who should be “provided a way out” of the protest crisis.................. City University academic Ray Yep Kin-man said the state media commentary showed Beijing’s understanding of local grievances was based on economic factors......... “But they are not the sole factors, as the calls for universal suffrage, freedom and democracy are clear in the current situation,” he said, adding that Beijing’s input was also blurring the line in terms of “interference” in the city’s affairs.

Exclusive: The Chief Executive 'has to serve two masters' - HK leader Carrie Lam – full transcript

The new battle in Hong Kong isn’t on the streets; it’s in the apps Activists are using Airdrop, livestreams, and innovative maps to keep their protest alive. But the authorities have plenty of tech of their own. ............. Hong Kong is famous for its souk-like electronics malls, and it’s blanketed with high-speed internet. So when protests broke out in June over plans to implement a controversial extradition law—which would see Hong Kongers accused of crimes turned over to mainland China’s notoriously opaque justice system—it was natural that many people turned to online services for more information and guidance............. Everything from supplies of food and water to press conferences are put together in the chat app Telegram ......... LIHKG, a Reddit-like forum that is limited to local ISPs, provides a sandbox of ideas where a network of anonymous citizens can exchange memes, protest schedules, and tactics. Online polls often dictate the location of the next traffic-disrupting flash mob. .......... a small army of journalists and activists have been live-streaming everything from major marches to minor spats with police. The raw videos tap into local media habits—

many people leave live streams playing in the background while they cook dinner or hang out with friends—and help create a sense of solidarity and belonging, even among those who are not on the streets themselves

............ Supply chain: Thanks to messages on Telegram and information sent via AirDrop, protesters are able to get supplies to the front lines through chaotic scenes. ........ “We disregard quality and framing, but we’re in the middle of the protesters and even the police, and people get really immersed in the scene,” she says. “The audience doesn’t want well-packaged shots—they want to feel what it’s like to be on the ground, in the most dangerous situation.” ........

“A lot of people have told me it was like a VR experience of getting beaten.”

.......... (“No one knew where the police were or how they could get to an escape route,” he told me. “So our team began planning to map out the next big rally the following week.”)......... Now Orca and his team publish dozens of maps during large demonstrations, updating positions with colors to show the location of police, “thugs,” and protesters, plus icons to signify first aid, rest, and supply stations. All of this is put together by on-the-ground volunteers who draw the information out on a blank map on their iPads, and send it to an “integrator” who compares the data with news from live streams and television stations before putting it all together and sending it out over Telegram or Apple’s AirDrop file transfer service. During one rally, an estimated 600,000 people downloaded maps put out by Orca’s team, just one of three mapping services created during the protests. ........... Then, three weeks after she watched the train station attack, Alice decided her contributions needed to become more direct. During one of the most violent weekends so far, she joined the crowd, carrying a rucksack filled with supplies: bandages, water, snacks, and filters for gas masks. When she saw a call on Telegram, she rushed forward toward police lines for the first time, opened her bag to those in need, and quickly retreated, checking Orca’s maps to avoid running into police......... She was dressed in what has become the uniform among demonstrators: black from head to toe, her face obscured by a black surgical mask and a black baseball cap.............

"This moment is our last chance to fight for Hong Kong, or the next generation won’t even know what privacy is."

........... “In the past few months people have educated themselves incredibly quickly on end-to-end encryption, only buying single-use transit cards, and the dangers of widespread surveillance” ......... many types of data Hong Kong’s telecommunications companies do not consider to be personal and protected, including a user’s geolocation and IP addresses, as well as the information on websites visited. This interpretation, which was made privately by the companies themselves and has not been challenged in court, means that police do not need a warrant to request, say, a list of subscribers who were in a certain place at a certain time........... Information collected by Hong Kong authorities could also be handed over to China, Tsui added, since there is no formal agreement defining what can and cannot be shared............. Alice does not even know the real names of several friends she’s made at the protests. When they message on Telegram, they use their aliases—all English pseudonyms. Even though they are anonymous, anyone who is arrested is cut out of the group for fear that police could compromise their phones............. With no end in sight, Lam has considered invoking emergency powers, according to local media. One of her first targets would likely be the apps that protesters use to organize. The mere suggestion was so divisive that members of Lam’s cabinet warned her against the move, and the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association declared that “any such restrictions, however slight originally, would start the end of the open Internet of Hong Kong.”..........

The Chinese government’s concern is that the internet is also the most likely way the Hong Kong protests could spread to the rest of the country.

........ After Lam’s announcement that she would withdraw the extradition bill, posts on Chinese social media wondered why those elsewhere in China face jail time for even a hint of dissent. ......... amid attempts by the Chinese government to deter protesters by releasing viral clips on Twitter threatening a military crackdown, there is little sign Hong Kongers are cowed. Alice feels that their collective efforts are leveling the playing field between the government and demonstrators. ......... “The government uses an old playbook, but we have created whole new ways of resisting. And if we didn’t stand up and [we] let Hong Kong become just another Chinese city, all that creativity would be snuffed out.”

Hong Kong's Protestors Have Their Own Special Slang. Here's a Glossary of Some Common Terms
Avoid irresponsible remarks on Hong Kong, China warns UK MPs
Is it safe to be in Hong Kong? Against all odds the answer is still a strange ‘yes’
China’s soft power failures may cost Hong Kong its trade status
Denise Ho: Hong Kong has reached 'a point of no turning back'
Op-Ed: Why so many Chinese students can’t understand the Hong Kong protests It’s hard for Americans to understand why so many Chinese students attending school in Western countries have turned out in recent days to express support for the Chinese government in its current conflict with Hong Kong protesters. The Chinese students have tried to shout down demonstrators at pro-democracy rallies in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom....... I don’t agree with the students’ pro-Beijing sentiments on Hong Kong, but I think I understand them. They remind me of myself when I first came to the U.S. to study in 2009........ Soon after arriving, I saw protests in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., organized by Tibetans in exile, but I couldn’t make sense of them. Weren’t Tibetans happy with the high-speed trains and nice buildings the Chinese had built? Weren’t Tibetans making more money doing business with the Chinese? ....... it took me several years to be able to understand on an emotional level the sufferings of many Tibetans in China. ........ My thinking about Tibet had been fully shaped by Chinese propaganda, which held that China had freed Tibetans from serfdom and brought them prosperity and happiness. I had no access to contrary opinions because of government censorship, so I couldn’t fathom that Tibetans were self-immolating to protest the severe suppression of their language, culture and identity........ Studies show that overseas Chinese students — totaling around 1.5 million, including more than 300,000 in the United States —still rely on information from China’s heavily censored internet and media. That helps explain the fervor demonstrated by some of the anti-Hong Kong protesters. But it is deeper than that........ For those us who grew up in a system where information control is all-encompassing, processing ideas contrary to what we were taught and believed all our lives is not easy. It takes an innate curiosity, constant reading of uncensored information and self-reflective thinking — none of which are encouraged in China.......... Unlearning untrue information and the beliefs it engenders can take a lifetime. I left China a decade ago, but today I still occasionally question the truthfulness of certain knowledge I have — because I learned it in school in China........ When Chinese students step outside of China to study, they are struggling to adapt to a new education system, and are frequently confronted — in class, in daily life, and online — with assumptions that they have been “brainwashed by the Chinese government.” It makes some feel attacked and reaffirms what they were taught in China: The West is biased and hostile........

It is only human to want to speak one’s mind, but when years of conditioning teach people that having one’s own thoughts and speaking them can bring serious reprisal, you gradually learn to avoid thinking for yourself at all.

........ When you live under Communist Party rule, not thinking is self-preservation. ........ Even emotions are calibrated by the state. We are taught to be happy about certain events, to be sad or angry about others, but never to pause and ponder why. Shortly after a friend of mine emigrated to Hong Kong from the mainland in early 1997, China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, died. My friend, then a middle school student, went to the Liaison Office, Beijing’s representative in Hong Kong, to pay tribute. As he was leaving the building, a local Hong Kong journalist asked him why he was crying. “At the moment, I was just dumbstruck,” he told me. “‘Why am I crying?’ I asked myself. I didn’t really know.”.............. Universities and educators should double down on respectful, nonjudgmental engagement, mindful that the students may feel compelled to appear to defend the Chinese government.

Chinese authorities have long monitored and conducted surveillance on students from China on campuses around the world

............. For me, learning about the Chinese government’s human rights violations led to the work I do today at Human Rights Watch. In the long run, today’s students living abroad may be best positioned to return home and chart a new direction for China.

Xi Jinping Should Act

Xi Jinping, the president of China, will act, or he will find himself in the dustbins of history.

He is the only person who can act. It's not Carrie Lam. It is not the Chinese Politburo. It is Xi.

For as long as Xi does not act, he is an emperor who is walking naked.

Xi should accept the five demands in Hong Kong. And Xi should pledge political reform for all of China.

Xi Jinping does not have unlimited time. It is best he acts before October 1. Or he and his party might already be in the dustbins of history by the New Year.

Xi calls Deng Xiaoping's reforms the second revolution. China has done remarkable work over the past four decades digging millions out of poverty. Hundreds of millions. Xi should launch the third revolution. The third revolution has to be about political reforms.

Political reforms in China need not be about copying the political system in the United States. There is plenty of dissatisfaction in the United States. Money is too decisive a force in the US. People first run in the money primary. Voters don't really have much of a choice. That is why an overwhelming majority in the US can want universal health care and not get it.

Capitalism is in crisis. The wealth inequality is unsustainable and getting wider.

Face it. Communism is in crisis. It was never meant to be anti-people. It was never meant to be undemocratic.

Xi could grant universal suffrage for Hong Kong, but install the kind of campaign finance reform that progressives in the US only dream about. Xi could shape this tide. Or he could sit on his hands and wait until he is washed away. He could be washed away in a few short months.

Accept the five demands for Hong Kong now, and give a major speech on October 1 in Beijing to launch political reforms for all of China.

Inaction is not an option.

If I were to write a speech for Xi, it would look like this.

October 1, Beijing:

Two weeks ago, I convened a meeting of the politburo, and we decided to accept the five demands of the Hong Kong street protests. These idealistic young people in Hong Kong are full of energy and enthusiasm. They stand to rejuvenate not only Hong Kong but China at large.

There was a real danger things might go out of hand. We have managed to avoid that. We are here to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of this republic. And people across China, people in Hong Kong, young and old, are cheering.

In accepting the five demands, we have not imported a political system from anywhere. China does not believe in political exports and imports. It is for each country to decide its own political system. When Hong Kong rejoined China in 1997, we agreed to one country, two systems. Foreign Direct Investment that has been indispensable to our economic growth has come by way of Hong Kong in large measure. And the Chinese mainland is thankful.

Us accepting the five demands has been us respecting the political evolution of Hong Kong. The political arrangement that worked for them was no longer enough. It was time for something new.

For over a year now, the US and China have slapped tariffs on each other's exports. There is no winning side. Our economy has slowed down. Their economy has slowed down. I call on the G20 to launch a new round of reforms for the World Trade Organization. Some structural reforms that the US seeks in the Chinese economy are similar to some reforms we have sought for our own economy for years. Those reforms are necessary if we are to see the best allocation of our large but limited financial resources. If we are to avoid the middle-income trap, we must reform. If we are to see the next stage of economic growth, we must reform. If we are to move from a large manufacturing base to a high tech economy, we must reform.

Reform is not easy. It is like pulling teeth. There is pain. But reform is necessary. We have to take the necessary steps.

The founding of the republic in Mao's leadership was our first revolution. Economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping were our second revolution. Instead of saying capital has no place, we changed tack and started saying capital does have some place, a major place actually. And it has worked. Is there any country in the history of the world that has lifted more people out of poverty than China?

It will soon be time for our third revolution. On this 70th anniversary of the founding of our republic, I invite citizens across China, and members of this party to start a conversation. If we were to usher political reforms, what would they look like? We will hold this conversation for a few years and then start making changes as necessary.

We must be vigilant, though. We can not simply copy what is already not working in some other countries. We Marxists take the scientific approach. We collect data. We study and analyze. We experiment. We debate and discuss. And I believe Hong Kong has showed the way. Deng started in Guangdong what was unthinkable in China only a few decades before that. Hong Kong is the Guandong for political reforms. We will see how things play out in Hong Kong for a few years. We will then take some of the political reforms to the Hong Kong Bay Area at-large, and then eventually to the rest of China.

I am open to the idea of a directly elected president for China. But I am not open to the idea of a handful of rich people buying out political leaders. We must make sure power stays with the people. Capital does not get to hijack power.

Let the conversation begin.

Xi Jinping Should Act https://t.co/QVwtekEZS6 #HongKong #HongKongPolice #hongkongairport #HongKongProtest #HongKongProtester #FreedomHK #freedom #democracy #politicalreform #Beijing #XiJinping #tradewar #WTO

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 15, 2019

Xi Jinping Should Act https://t.co/QVwtekEZS6 @joshuawongcf #HongKong #HongKongPolice #HongKongProtestors #HongKongProtest #FreedomHK

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 15, 2019

The Asymmetry Between Beijing And Hong Kong Is On Hong Kong's Side

Beijing is over a billion people. Hong Kong is not even 10 million. Beijing has an army that could challenge the United States. The Hong Kong protestors only have gas masks and mobile phones. Beijing has unlimited billions it could put towards propaganda efforts and policing inside China. And it does spend a lot on policing and censoring. But still this is a no win situation for Beijing. It is like Beijing is IBM in 1979, and Hong Kong is Apple, or Beijing is Microsoft in 1999 and Hong Kong is Google. It is like Beijing is the PC and Hong Kong is the smartphone. Hong Kong taunts, and Beijing can only issue empty threats.

Beijing tried to imitate Hong Kong. It thought it created Shanghai. They got the hardware right: the roads, the bridges, the skyscrapers, the city lights at night time. But the software is missing. Shanghai is like an iPhone without Google Maps. For Shanghai to become Hong Kong, you need free speech, you need cultural diversity, you need rule of law, not rule of communist party, you need universal suffrage.

China depends on Hong Kong for funds. FDI enters China through Hong Kong. Hong Kong has the upper hand.

IBM did come around to making the PC. Microsoft did try to catch up with Bing. Apple simply let Google Maps to come rule the iPhone. Beijing has no choice but to let Hong Kong lead the way for all of China on political reforms. Or the dam will simply break. The dam could break before the New Year.

Hong Kong protestors should do their best to (1) not engage in damage of property and (2) not engage in violence. That kind of internal discipline will send a strong message to the world. Then the slightest acts of violence by the Hong Kong police will be major blows to Beijing. This is about claiming moral authority. It is powerful. Hong Kong keeps the upper hand that way.

2019 in Asia does not have to be like 1989 in Russia. Beijing should make the smart choice and bend. Agree to the five demands and keep one country, two systems intact. Before it is too late.

February 2019: Workers' Activism Rises as China's Economy Slows. Xi Aims ...
China: Strikes and protest numbers jump 20%
Why protests are so common in China - Masses of incidents

The new battle in Hong Kong isn’t on the streets; it’s in the apps Activists are using Airdrop, livestreams, and innovative maps to keep their protest alive. But the authorities have plenty of tech of their own. ............. Hong Kong is famous for its souk-like electronics malls, and it’s blanketed with high-speed internet. So when protests broke out in June over plans to implement a controversial extradition law—which would see Hong Kongers accused of crimes turned over to mainland China’s notoriously opaque justice system—it was natural that many people turned to online services for more information and guidance............. Everything from supplies of food and water to press conferences are put together in the chat app Telegram ......... LIHKG, a Reddit-like forum that is limited to local ISPs, provides a sandbox of ideas where a network of anonymous citizens can exchange memes, protest schedules, and tactics. Online polls often dictate the location of the next traffic-disrupting flash mob. .......... a small army of journalists and activists have been live-streaming everything from major marches to minor spats with police. The raw videos tap into local media habits—

many people leave live streams playing in the background while they cook dinner or hang out with friends—and help create a sense of solidarity and belonging, even among those who are not on the streets themselves

............ Supply chain: Thanks to messages on Telegram and information sent via AirDrop, protesters are able to get supplies to the front lines through chaotic scenes. ........ “We disregard quality and framing, but we’re in the middle of the protesters and even the police, and people get really immersed in the scene,” she says. “The audience doesn’t want well-packaged shots—they want to feel what it’s like to be on the ground, in the most dangerous situation.” ........

“A lot of people have told me it was like a VR experience of getting beaten.”

.......... (“No one knew where the police were or how they could get to an escape route,” he told me. “So our team began planning to map out the next big rally the following week.”)......... Now Orca and his team publish dozens of maps during large demonstrations, updating positions with colors to show the location of police, “thugs,” and protesters, plus icons to signify first aid, rest, and supply stations. All of this is put together by on-the-ground volunteers who draw the information out on a blank map on their iPads, and send it to an “integrator” who compares the data with news from live streams and television stations before putting it all together and sending it out over Telegram or Apple’s AirDrop file transfer service. During one rally, an estimated 600,000 people downloaded maps put out by Orca’s team, just one of three mapping services created during the protests. ........... Then, three weeks after she watched the train station attack, Alice decided her contributions needed to become more direct. During one of the most violent weekends so far, she joined the crowd, carrying a rucksack filled with supplies: bandages, water, snacks, and filters for gas masks. When she saw a call on Telegram, she rushed forward toward police lines for the first time, opened her bag to those in need, and quickly retreated, checking Orca’s maps to avoid running into police......... She was dressed in what has become the uniform among demonstrators: black from head to toe, her face obscured by a black surgical mask and a black baseball cap.............

"This moment is our last chance to fight for Hong Kong, or the next generation won’t even know what privacy is."

........... “In the past few months people have educated themselves incredibly quickly on end-to-end encryption, only buying single-use transit cards, and the dangers of widespread surveillance” ......... many types of data Hong Kong’s telecommunications companies do not consider to be personal and protected, including a user’s geolocation and IP addresses, as well as the information on websites visited. This interpretation, which was made privately by the companies themselves and has not been challenged in court, means that police do not need a warrant to request, say, a list of subscribers who were in a certain place at a certain time........... Information collected by Hong Kong authorities could also be handed over to China, Tsui added, since there is no formal agreement defining what can and cannot be shared............. Alice does not even know the real names of several friends she’s made at the protests. When they message on Telegram, they use their aliases—all English pseudonyms. Even though they are anonymous, anyone who is arrested is cut out of the group for fear that police could compromise their phones............. With no end in sight, Lam has considered invoking emergency powers, according to local media. One of her first targets would likely be the apps that protesters use to organize. The mere suggestion was so divisive that members of Lam’s cabinet warned her against the move, and the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association declared that “any such restrictions, however slight originally, would start the end of the open Internet of Hong Kong.”..........

The Chinese government’s concern is that the internet is also the most likely way the Hong Kong protests could spread to the rest of the country.

........ After Lam’s announcement that she would withdraw the extradition bill, posts on Chinese social media wondered why those elsewhere in China face jail time for even a hint of dissent. ......... amid attempts by the Chinese government to deter protesters by releasing viral clips on Twitter threatening a military crackdown, there is little sign Hong Kongers are cowed. Alice feels that their collective efforts are leveling the playing field between the government and demonstrators. ......... “The government uses an old playbook, but we have created whole new ways of resisting. And if we didn’t stand up and [we] let Hong Kong become just another Chinese city, all that creativity would be snuffed out.”

The Asymmetry Between Beijing And Hong Kong Is On Hong Kong's Side https://t.co/Xxynuegzbm #HongKong #HongKongPolice #HongKongProtests #HongKongProtestors #FreedomHK #Beijing #China #XiJinping

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 15, 2019

The Asymmetry Between Beijing And Hong Kong Is On Hong Kong's Side @joshuawongcf https://t.co/Xxynuegzbm #HongKongPolice #HongKongProtests #HongKong #FreedomHK #hongkong2019 #berlin1989 #greatfirewall #berlinwall #hongkongairport #HongKongProtest

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) September 15, 2019