2016 – The Year Ahead – Part Two

By Dr. Steve Elwart

In the last week’s eNews article, we talked about three of the Strategic Trends that the Koinonia Institute follows: Israel, America and Europe/Russia. Today we will continue the look into 2016 and examine what lies on the horizon in some of KI’s other Strategic Areas: Islam, Middle East and Asia.

Islam

Fight them until there is no more rebellion and religion is all for Allah.
— Qur’an 8:39

The world is finally waking up to the existential threat Islam poses on civilization. One cannot say “Western Civilization,” but civilization in general. For everything that Islam touches it destroys. It is not only Christians around the globe who are persecuted, but the Hindis in India’s West Bengal region, the Sikhs in England, and the Buddhists in Myanmar. A June 15, 2015, article in Forbes Magazine stated:

A handful of at least nominally Christian countries persecute; however, this behavior most often reflects authoritarian politics (in former communist states) rather than theology. In a few cases, though, the Orthodox Church relies on the government for support against other Christian faiths.
In contrast, majority Muslim nations almost uniformly persecute. The only question is how virulent the repression. Believers are mistreated everywhere, but Christians most suffer in the birthplace of Christianity. The Iraq invasion and Arab Spring have loosed a campaign of religious cleansing across the Middle East.

Al-Qaida shocked the world and staggered the United States when it destroyed the Twin Towers and struck the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad keep steady pressure upon Israel with attacks on Israeli civilians and rockets lobbed from Gaza. Hezbollah (backed by Iran) menaces Israel from Lebanon. In the Philippines, Islamic jihad groups have succeeded in compelling the government to grant Muslims an autonomous region in Mindanao. In Nigeria, Boko Haram, a terror group who claims allegiance to ISIS, horrified the world by kidnapping infidel girls and holding them for ransom or pressing them into sex slavery.
There is one group, however, that supersedes them all in terms of raw barbarism. It is the collection of savages that calls itself the Islamic State, the rest of the world calls ISIS, and the Obama administration calls ISIL. (ISIS calls itself the Islamic State.)
ISIS has beheaded Americans on video, burned a captured Jordanian pilot alive in a metal cage, and made sex slaves of thousands of women and young girls. It executes men for smoking and tortures women for the tiniest infractions against covering themselves in public.
Islamic Jihadism will continue in 2016 with even more terror attacks. Ironically, as ISIS continues to lose territory to the combined attacks from the United States, Russia, NATO and the Arab States, assaults on soft targets around the world will increase to show the world that ISIS is still a force to be reckoned with.

Europe – the New Battleground

The foundation has already been laid for a major conflict in Europe. Refugees are pouring into Europe from Syria and other Middle East countries by way of the Balkans. The large majority of these émigrés are Christians and non-violent Muslims wanting to escape the violence of their homelands. There are a small, but worrisome number of people who are coming into Europe for the sole purpose of fomenting terror within the host countries. Over 1 million refugees have crossed into Europe in 2015 alone. If only 0.5 percent of these people are jihadists, the number of people who could wreak havoc in Europe is staggering. This is a situation akin to the 1980 Mariel Boatlift where Fidel Castro allowed any Cuban wishing to leave the country was free to do so. He used the boatlift as a guise to empty his jails, sending those inmates to the United States. Law enforcement officials point to this criminal immigration as the beginning of major drug problems in the United States. ISIS has taken a page from Fidel’s playbook. Islamic State is smuggling fighters into Europe with the refugees by telling them to shave their beards and disguise themselves as one of the displaced. These people are considered ‘prize operatives’ because they can move undetected around Europe.
As the terror attacks in Europe increase, those countries threatened by the influx of immigrants will continue to close their borders. Austria has followed Germany’s lead and stepped up their border patrols and suspended the Schengen Agreement that allowed free immigration from other EU countries into their territory. In an interview with Austria’s Oesterreich newspaper, that country’s Chancellor Werner Faymann said, “All refugees must be controlled; economic migrants must be sent to the countries of their origin.” Faymann also said in the same interview, “the existence of the whole EU is in question.”
The refugee crisis and the threat of radical Islam may be the straw that breaks the EU’s back. The EU’s reason for being was to provide for a common defense and a common economy. The EU’s common defense was proven to be a paper tiger with Russia’s incursions into the Crimea and Ukraine. Their common economy also proved to be a false hope with the sovereign debt crisis of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) nations. Having also to contend with refugees using the common immigration policy has proven too much for many of the EU member countries.
As 2016 unfolds, look for major unrest in the Balkan countries (primarily Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia – Herzegovina) as refugees collect in these countries. They can no longer transit into Hungary and Austria and are being held in refugee camps there. Also look for the rise of right-wing governments in France and Germany as Euroskeptics seek to keep “Europe for Europeans.” This will also make many of the EU countries begin to question staying in the EU at all.

United States Own Border Crisis

The United States has already been talking about a border crisis. People have been coming into the United States via Mexico by the trainload. What Europe is experiencing, the United States is also dealing with to a lesser degree. While the size of the problem may be smaller, the problem is still high on the list of election year issues.
Compounding an already existing problem is the fact that Pakistanis with known ties to terror groups (also known as Special Interest Aliens) have been arrested crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. (A lesser known fact is that suspected terrorists have also been intercepted at the U.S. Canadian border). In December, several Middle Eastern men were arrested south of Tucson, Arizona; two of the group had stainless steel cylinders in their backpacks. A frustrated Border Patrol agent complained:

The truth is anyone can get into this country and stay. It’s not possible that we don’t have any ISIS sympathizers here. It’s just too easy for them to get here.

The United States has already seen acts of terror; 2016 may see one or more organized terror attempts like to one in Paris as jihadists continue to cross a notoriously porous border.

Middle East

The Middle Eastern oil-producing nations are entering another stressful year of low oil prices and expensive foreign policy commitments. The implementation of the Iran nuclear deal will add at least 500,000 barrels per day to the oil market as the sanctions against that country are lifted.
The reintroduction of Iranian oil to the market will make it very difficult for Saudi Arabia to influence the world price of oil by curtailing its own production. World oil prices are predicted to drop to a low of $18 per barrel (bbl.) regardless of Saudi intervention. (The current world price is slightly below $30/bbl.)

A Very Rough (and Confusing Neighborhood)

One thing liberals do have right about the Middle East situation, it is all about oil. If the major export of the Middle East was mangoes, the world powers would not care what happens in the Middle East. Given that oil and its price are driving the involvement of many countries in the region, a brief look at those regional players is in order.
Sunni Saudi Arabia (largest oil producer with the second largest reserves) hates Shia Iran (fourth largest reserves) and the hated is mutual.
Iran has Russia, Assad in Syria, North Korea and about 60 percent of Iraq as allies (a very rough crowd). Saudi Arabia has Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar as allies (oil rich, but weak military strength). The Saudi coalition has been supported by the U.S., France and the U.K. at least so far. Add in ISIS’s oil sales, and this makes this a very sticky situation.
ISIS doesn’t consider Iran and its Shia Muslim allies to be, well, Muslim. The legitimate country with a viewpoint most like the ISIS one is Saudi Arabia with its extremely conservative domestic Sunni Muslim leadership. The war in Yemen just south of Saudi Arabia is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In Syria, Iran supports Assad and has enlisted their terrorist group Hezbollah to support Assad and is working with the Russians to do so, while the Saudis have been quiet supporters of Syrian rebels. ISIS rose from Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria. One could make a case that the ISIS occupation of larger parts of Iraq is a proxy war between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims (or rather radicalized Sunnis vs. the world while the land they occupy just happens to belong to two countries ruled by Shia Muslims).
The whole situation reminds one of the ancient proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but who is one’s enemy and who is my friend depends on what region you are in and who is winning that day. The other day Saudi Arabia executed a Shi’a cleric, there were protests in Iran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard vowed retribution and Saudi Arabia broke of diplomatic relations with Iran. A volatile situation to say the least.
For Saudi Arabia to bring the fight against their Persian enemy through the oil weapon will be very difficult. Any increase in Saudi oil production will decrease the world price of oil. While the lower crude oil price has shut-in some marginal production in the United States, it probably will not do too much to the other oil players in the Middle East. The wells in that area are already developed and the cost to pump the oil out of the ground is low. Saudi Arabia, however, has the added burden of paying for a very large welfare system for its citizens. This system developed over time to placate their population who are not very happy with the royal family. Most of the Saudis are not part of the royal family; they are young, educated and unemployed. If payment to these individuals does stop, the Saudi people may get very testy. Is has been estimated that world oil price needs to be at about $150/bbl. for Saudi Arabia for continue its social welfare payments at a sustainable level.
To keep the dollars flowing, it is unlikely Saudi Arabia will significantly scale back production in the first half of 2016 to defend the price of oil. Once Saudi Arabia has been able to assess the price impact of Iran’s return to world oil markets — as well as taking into account declining U.S. production — Riyadh could change its energy output in the second half of the year. However, the Saudis will not be able to coordinate a sustainable production cut with other major OPEC and non-OPEC producers. In contrast, the smaller oil countries, (i.e., the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait) will have an easier time coping with another year of lower oil prices. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, will have to finance a growing budget deficit through debt issuances while making small and incremental spending cuts.
Look to see continued tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2016 with the proxy war between the two countries in Yemen heating up.

Syria

The Syrian Civil War will enter its sixth year this coming March. All sides are tiring of the conflict. ISIS sees that it can only lose ground as the fighting continues. Russia wants to stabilize its influence with the Assad regime, but does not want to get into a protracted battle in the area. The West is war-weary and wants to declare victory and get out. President Assad of Syria just wants to hang on.
All these pressures caused the U.N. Security Council to unanimously approve a peace proposal in December that will start talks between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and opposition forces, although it’s still unclear who will represent the opposition. (There is also no guarantee that all the opposition forces would abide by any agreement.) The proposal outlines talks between the parties scheduled for January: a ceasefire and a two-year timeline that would recognize the creation of a unity government followed by leadership elections.
The U.N. resolution, however, does not address Assad’s position in Syria, but his involvement or removal would surely divide western powers and Damascus allies Moscow and Tehran. The year 2016 will bring about more talks, more proposals and possibly more delays to end the military stalemate in a country that has become so fractured observers hold out only a distant hope that a solution can be found by the end of the decade, much less the end of the year.

Israel

After the killing of senior Hezbollah operative Samir Qantar in Damascus in December, the Lebanese Shiite militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly blamed Israel and vowed that the group, financially and politically backed by Iran and allied with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, would get its revenge. In a televised broadcast Nasrallah said:

Samir is one of us, a commander of our resistance and it is our right to retaliate for his assassination in the place, time and way we see appropriate. We will exercise this right, God willing. Everyone should bear this mind.

In response, the Israeli military has fortified its border with southern Lebanon and the IDF’s chief of staff said Hezbollah would face “severe consequences” for any retaliatory action. Whether the escalation is simply a war of words remains to be seen, but expect further conflict between the two entities in the coming year.

Gaza

The past year brought about the “quietest year” in Gaza since the Second Intifada in 2000. Hamas held to a cease-fire put in place after the 50-day conflict of summer 2014, distancing itself from rockets fired by rival Salafists factions in the area.
This is about to change.
Hamas is making efforts to rebuild its tunnel infrastructure and rocket arsenal, according to Daniel Nisman, president of the Tel Aviv-based security consultancy agency The Levantine Group. With Hamas group increasingly isolated from its patrons in Tehran, public unrest over power cuts and a lack of reconstruction after Israel’s Operation Protective Edge mean that another conflict ahead with Israel—despite more than 2,000 Palestinian deaths in the summer of 2014—is “the best alternative for its survival,” writes Nisman. Which means 2016 could behold another outbreak of violence.

Turkey

After the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) victory in June’s general election, a two-year cease-fire with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group collapsed, leading to a deteriorating security situation in the country’s southeastern region. The Turkish military conducted a series of operations in response to PKK attacks against security forces. The renewed violence and a negative AKP campaign against the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party pushed Ahmet Davutoglu’s party to a majority in November’s elections, but the result only served to increase tensions with Kurdish communities.
In December, some Kurdish groups in southeastern Turkey, under the umbrella of the Democratic People’s Congress, called for self-rule for the region’s Kurds. Unless President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Davutoglu offer serious concessions to the Kurds, expect further Kurdish moves to separate from Ankara, strong responses from the Turkish leadership to counter what they perceive to be Kurdish terrorism, and continued conflict in what is left of a tattered cease-fire.
The Syrian Civil War will enter its sixth year in March. The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a peace proposal in December that will begin talks between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and opposition forces, although it’s still unclear who will represent the opposition. The proposal gives credence to a plan previously discussed between the foreign ministers of a series of world powers in Vienna in October. It outlines talks between the two parties scheduled for January, a cease-fire and a two-year timeline that would see the creation of a unity government followed by leadership elections.
The U.N. resolution doesn’t address Assad’s position in Syria, but his involvement or removal would surely divide western powers and Damascus allies Moscow and Tehran. The new year will bring more diplomacy, more talks and possibly more delays to the conclusion of a military stalemate in a country that has become so fractured observers hold out only a distant hope that a solution can be found before the end of 2016.

Asia

China

Despite being viewed as the most dynamic developing country in the world, China’s global position is precarious. Unlike other world powers, which draw their strength from a combination of military, economic, social and geopolitical sectors, China’s power is closely tied to its economy. It’s recent, rapid economic growth raised China’s regional standing, but Beijing’s goal of becoming a regional hegemon, even taking the United States’ place in the region has, so far, not been attained.
China’s run of continuous economic growth is coming to an end. Growth rates have dropped, weaknesses in the Chinese stock market have been exposed, and China’s aging workforce poses a serious demographic challenge. (To this last fact, it has been said “China is a country that will grow old before it grows rich.”)
Even so, the Chinese economy is still large and is the primary source of China’s power. The current challenge for Chinese leaders is how to translate the nation’s economic power into increased influence in Asia.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Xi’s vision of “Asia for Asians” foresees a greater role for China within the region, but with economic strength serving as the primary driver of China’s resurgence. However, China lacks the leverage to alter the U.S.-dominated regional order. Countries in the Asia-Pacific are keen to reap economic benefits from China’s rapid rise, but desire a strong U.S. presence to serve as a counterweight to the uncertainty created by growing Chinese power.
As leaders in Beijing endeavor to bolster China’s regional position, they face an uphill battle mitigating negative perceptions of China while simultaneously expanding Chinese influence. China’s moves into what other countries believe are their territorial waters are not helping. Consequently, Chinese leaders must temper Chinese short-term military power projection so as to not compromise the perception they are cultivating of China as a benign regional hegemon.
In an effort to counter American influence without directly challenging U.S. hegemony, Chinese leaders have embarked on an ambitious strategy to expand Chinese interests through the establishment of new financial institutions. Some of these investments are risky and could prove too disastrous to the Chinese economy. Overinvestment in economic initiatives leaves Beijing susceptible to the same vulnerabilities that threaten the Chinese economy. If either these investments or the economy in general start to fail, it could have an adverse effect geopolitically on China.
The smaller Asian countries of Asia have tolerated Chinese assertiveness in exchange for economic gains and because they fear that challenging China could cause Beijing to punish them economically. If China is no longer able to afford those benefits, many smaller countries may be less willing to show deference and more willing to push back against Chinese threats to their interests.
In the South China Sea, where in recent years China has incrementally altered the status quo in its favor, such a development could have a positive effect. Myriad steps taken by some of the other claimants to the disputed land features, as well as by the United States, Japan, and other concerned members of the international community, have not persuaded Beijing to moderate its assertiveness and seek cooperative solutions to the current territorial disputes. Any reduction in Chinese influence may lessen the disincentives that smaller claimant states and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) face vis-à-vis China. Firmer and coordinated policies among Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, combined with greater unity among all the ASEAN member countries, might induce Beijing to conclude a binding code of conduct for the South China Sea that ensures disputes are managed peacefully and in accordance with international law.
Similarly, China’s economic slowdown could offer Japan an occasion to gain leverage in the Sino-Japanese relationship, creating the possibility to tamp down tensions in the East China Sea and stabilize bilateral ties that remain a fragile, but critically important, part of the regional security landscape. Perhaps most significantly, a Chinese economic slowdown affords the United States an opportunity to buttress its political, economic, and military position in the Asia-Pacific, and assuage worries that the United States lacks enough strategic vision and political commitment to the region. The outcome relies on how Washington plays its hand, but the result could be the strengthening of a rules-based, U.S.-led security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region for years to come.

North Korea

Tensions between North and South Korea escalated in the late summer 2015 after an Aug. 4 landmine blast in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two countries blew off the legs of two patrolling South Korean soldiers and triggered a heated exchange between the two sides. After an 11-year hiatus, South Korea began broadcasting propaganda on loudspeakers along the border toward the North. North Korea promptly fired on the speakers, declaring it was entering “semi-war” status, which prompted a return of fire from the South Korea (ROK, Republic of Korea).
The crisis was diffused after an agreement was reached on Aug. 25. The agreement, in which Pyongyang consented to end its semi-war status in exchange for a promise from Seoul to stop broadcasting propaganda, followed 43 hours of negotiations between the two sides.
Many are wondering if we will witness more of these types of crises in the coming year.
North and South Korea have clashed along the DMZ many times since the signing of the 1953 armistice. (Note, the two countries never signed a peace agreement, only a cease fire. They are technically still at a state of war.) But the “landmine incident” is telling in how it offered insights into the fragility of North Korea. The key to defusing the situation was Pyongyang’s desire to stop the South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts. To accomplish this, the regime took the unusual step of acknowledging the blast.
The North has not offered similar statements of regret over actions in the past, including the March 2010 sinking of the warship the Cheonan, which killed 46 South Korean soldiers, or the November 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, which killed four South Koreans. The agreement between the two Koreas is even more striking because North Korea took a deal without having its demand met for a cessation of the U.S. - South Korean exercises.
Before the crisis abated, the North issued an unusual ultimatum directly to South Korean national security adviser Kim Kwan-jin, threatening to attack not in response to U.S.-ROK military exercises, but if the speakers were not silenced. Propaganda broadcasting had been a staple of the two Koreas’ psychological warfare during the Cold War. But the new broadcasts were different from the knee-jerk anti-North Korean government propaganda of the Cold War. The recent broadcasts featured young females, who identified themselves as defectors, criticizing the Kim regime for its poor governance, human rights abuses and isolation. They also broadcast deeper into North Korea than before — more than a dozen miles into the country.
The normal North Korea playbook would have been to ratchet up tensions, play tough, have Kim visit military field units, draw missile strike lines to U.S. cities, and milk the crisis for as long as it can to get something— food, energy, a seat at the negotiating table with the United States. But this time, the sole issue was to stop the broadcasting.
The lesson here is that the North Korean concession may mask a deeper vulnerability—and potentially larger crisis—down the road. Ultimately, the crisis demonstrates that the regime, under the 32- or 33-year-old Kim Jong-un, is vulnerable to attacks on its legitimacy. The fiery rhetoric, belligerence and unpredictability of Kim, who took power after the death of his father in December 2011, belies an apparent hypersensitivity to criticism about his qualifications to run the country.
These responses reflect weakness, not strength. The regime has proven hypersensitive to questions about Kim’s legitimacy, suggesting difficulties in the leadership transition. Four years into his rule, Kim has purged and executed around 70 of his top lieutenants, including his influential uncle Jang Song Thaek, and his defense minister Hyon Yong Chol. And these are Kim’s people—not those of his father and predecessor Kim Jong Il.
Despite crackdowns by the regime, more news is finding its way into and out of North Korea. News about the outside world is slipping into the closed society through advanced technology and other smuggling methods. A hot item in North Korea today is the $50 Notel portable media player—which can play thumb drives with news about the outside world, movies and South Korean soap operas. There are also now nearly 3 million cellphones in North Korea. Some smuggled cellphones are used not only for business and trade but also to gain outside information and communicate with relatives who have fled the North. These communication channels funnel news from the inside to the outside, allowing the world to understand more about North Korea’s internal situation. The work of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, NGOs and several high-profile defectors has also brought much-needed global attention to issues like North Korean human rights.
The growing space between the people and the regime, the core elite and Kim Jong-un, as well as increasing external pressure are all good reasons for the North Korean leadership to be concerned. These conditions may not lead to the immediate collapse of the North Korean regime but they are certainly evidence of its growing vulnerabilities. And the last thing that North Korea wants to do is project weakness under a new leader. Thus 2016 may witness the regime pursuing a strategy that is designed to do the opposite, that is, attempt to project an image of North Korea’s military strength and Kim Jong-un’s control over the elite.
A new series of low-level provocations designed to showcase North Korea’s military capabilities without provoking a full-scale war may be in the offing. We may have already seen the first of these provocations with the announcement by Pyongyang that it had successfully detonated a nuclear device.
There has been an ever-present danger of escalation on the Korean Peninsula ever since the cease-fire was signed in 1953. If it is true that Kim Jong-un has only a tenuous hold on power, there is a danger that he may miscalculate how far he can go to raise tensions with the aim of solidifying his power. The danger is miscalculation by the young and unpredictable leadership is very concerning, and could determine the tenor of any crises to come in 2016.