Policy Brief #177

Recommendations

The recent clash between a Chinese fishing vessel and the Japanese coast guard in the East China Sea demonstrates continuing potential for conflict between China and Japan over territory and maritime resources, one that could affect the United States. China’s stronger navy and air force in and over the waters east and south of the country’s coast is one dimension of that country’s growing power. But the deployment of these assets encroaches on the traditional area of operations of Japan’s navy and air force—and a clash between Chinese and Japanese ships and planes cannot be ruled out.

Unfortunately, civil-military relations in these two countries are somewhat skewed, with China’s military having too much autonomy and Japan’s having too little. And neither country is well equipped to do crisis management. Avoiding a naval conflict is in the interests of both China and Japan, and the two governments should take steps to reach agreement on the now-unregulated interaction of coast guard, naval, and air forces in the East China Sea. The two militaries should also continue and expand the exchanges and dialogues that have resumed in the last few years.

Finally, Japan and China should accelerate efforts to reach a follow-up agreement to implement the “political agreement” governing the exploitation of energy resources in the East China Sea. That will remove another potential source of tension. It is in neither country’s interest to see a deterioration of their relationship.

The Basic Problem

The clash on September 7 between a Chinese fishing vessel and ships of the Japanese coast guard exposes worrisome trends in the East Asian power balance. China’s power in Asia is growing. Its economy has just passed Japan’s as the biggest in the region. The capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are growing steadily while those of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) are improving only slightly. The PLA’s budget has grown by double digits each year, while the SDF’s is essentially flat. Moreover, the focus of Chinese military modernization is power projection: the ability of its air and naval forces to stretch their reach beyond immediate coastal areas. Over the last ten years, the share of modern equipment in various platforms has increased (see table).

<not-mobile message="To see PLA Modernization Table, please visit the desktop site">
TABLE 1: Modernization of the PLA

Type	2000: percentage modern	2009: percentage modern
Surface ships	< 5%	~ 25%
Submarines	< 10%	50%
Air force	< 5%	~ 25%
Air defense	~ 5%	40 - 45 %

Source: Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010,” August 2010 p. 45.[http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2010_CMPR_Final.pdf].

</not-mobile>

Japan does have a significant military presence in East Asia, in collaboration with the United States, its ally. Surface and subsurface vessels of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force regularly patrol the East Asian littoral in order to protect vital sea lanes of communication and to assert the country’s maritime rights. Planes of the Air Self-Defense Force monitor Japan’s large air defense identification zone and scramble to challenge intrusions by foreign military aircraft. Both the maritime force and the Japan Coast Guard are responsible for protecting the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, located near Taiwan, which Japan regards as its sovereign territory.

China views the East China Sea differently. It claims the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands as Chinese territory. It has undertaken oil and gas drilling in the continental shelf east of Shanghai, partly in an area that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and an appropriate site for its own drilling. China’s definition of its EEZ encompasses the entire shelf, while Japan argues that the two should split the area equitably. In 2004 and 2005, the contest for resources fostered concerns in each country about the security of its drilling platforms. There was a danger the dispute might become militarized. Tokyo and Beijing, seeking a diplomatic solution, reached a “political agreement” in June 2008, but efforts to implement it have made little progress.

More broadly, China seeks to establish a strategic buffer in the waters east and south of its coasts. So the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force are expanding their area of operation eastward. China’s Marine Surveillance Force makes its own contribution to “defend the state’s sovereignty over its territorial waters, and safeguard the state’s maritime rights and interests.” By challenging Japan in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, expanding naval operations, sailing through maritime straits near Japan, surveying the seabed, and so on, China creates “facts on—and under—the sea.” Expanding air force patrols can create “facts in the air.”
Lurking in the background is the Taiwan Strait dispute, and the concern that Japan, as a U.S. ally, would be drawn into any conflict between the United States and China over the island.

Reinforcing the specifics of naval and air operations is a more general anxiety that each country has about the intentions of the other. Japanese watch China’s military modernization with deep concern, and are anxious about the long-term implications for their country’s strategic lifeline: sea lanes of communication. China has worried that looser restrictions on Japan’s military and a stronger U.S.-Japan alliance are designed to contain its own revival as a great power and prevent the unification of Taiwan. In addition, vivid memories of the past—particularly China’s memories of Japanese aggression in the first half of the twentieth century—darken the shadow of the future. Strategists in both countries cite with concern the old Chinese expression, “Two tigers cannot coexist on the same mountain.”

A Senkaku Scenario

These trends plus the salience of naval and air operations suggest that a clash between Japan’s formidable forces and China’s expanding ones is not impossible. As the recent clash demonstrates, the most likely site is the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, which are unpopulated but which each country believes strongly to be its sovereign territory. Indeed, a group of American specialists who reviewed Japan-China security relations in 2005 and 2006 concluded that “the prospect of incidents between Chinese and Japanese commercial and military vessels in the East China Sea has risen for the first time since World War II. If an incident occurs, it could result in the use of force—with consequences that could lead to conflict.” Further, trouble over oil and gas fields in the East China Sea is not out of the question.

To be clear, civilian leaders in China and Japan do not desire a conflict or a serious deterioration in bilateral relations. Each country gains much from economic cooperation with the other. Yet even if objective interests dictate a mutual retreat from the brink, they might be unable to do so. Once a clash occurred, other factors would come into play: military rules of engagement, strategic cultures, civil-military relations, civilian crisis management mechanisms, and domestic politics. In the end, leaders may lose control and regard some outcomes, especially the appearance of capitulation, as worse than a growing conflict.

Let us explore a Senkaku scenario in detail. It would likely begin as China’s Marine Surveillance Force (MSF) challenges the perimeters that the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) maintains around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Because the JCG’s rules of engagement are ambiguous, a JCG ship then rams an MSF vessel. Surface ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force hurry to the area and take up positions. Planes of Japan’s air force and China’s Air Force soon hover overhead. Submarines lurk below. Ships of the two navies maneuver for position. And although fairly tight rules of engagement regulate the units of each military, those rules might not be exactly appropriate for this situation, leaving local commanders discretion to act independently in the heat of the moment.

Chinese strategic culture, with its emphasis on preemption and preserving initiative, could come into play. Perhaps the captain of a PLAN ship sees fit to fire at an MSDF vessel. The Japanese vessel returns fire, because its commander believes that doing so is the proper response and does not wish to be overruled by cautious civilian bureaucrats in Tokyo. Planes of the two air forces get involved. The longer the encounter goes on, predicts one American naval expert, the more likely it is that Japan’s “significantly more advanced naval capabilities would, if employed, almost certainly cause the destruction of PLAN units, with significant loss of life.”

Quite quickly, commanders in the field would have to inform their headquarters in each capital about the incident. Would they convey a totally accurate picture, or would they shade reality to put themselves in the best possible light? Would they necessarily know exactly what happened? When a Chinese naval fighter jet collided with a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft off the island of Hainan in April 2001, the local command probably lied to those higher up about which side was responsible. By the time the Central Military Commission in Beijing reported to civilian leaders, the story of the encounter between the two planes was very different from the truth. Failure to tell “the whole truth,” however, is certainly not unique to the PLA.

In the Diaoyu/Senkaku scenario, the odds are that civilian and military decision-makers in Tokyo and Beijing would not receive a completely accurate picture. They would have to respond in a fog of uncertainty, giving free rein to a variety of psychological and organizational factors that would affect the handling of information.

The military services would have a monopoly on information, impeding the voicing of contrarian views. The preexisting beliefs of each side about the other would distort their views of the reports from the field. Each side also would be likely to judge its own actions in the best possible light and those of the adversary in the worst. Groupthink, the temptation to shade reports so that they are consistent with what are assumed to be the leaders’ views and a tendency to withhold contrarian views in a tense situation would be at play.

So, there is a real chance that decision-makers in each capital would receive a picture of the incident that was at variance with the “facts,” a picture that downplayed the responsibility of its units and played up that of the other side. Working with distorted information, they then would have to try to prevent the clash from escalating into a full-blown crisis without appearing to back down. At that point, crisis management institutions in each capital would come into play, and they most likely would not respond well. Policymakers in each capital might miscalculate in responding.

The first response element to consider is the interface between senior military officers and civilian officials. In China, the interface between the military, party and government hierarchies occurs at only a few points. The most significant point of contact is at the top, in the Central Military Commission, where the party general secretary and PRC president (currently Hu Jintao) is usually chairman. But that person may be the only civilian among about ten senior military officers. Moreover, the PLA guards its right to speak on matters of national security and its autonomy in conducting operations, so the institutional bias in this instance is likely to be against restraint. On the Japanese side, civilian control has been the rule, but the autonomy of the Self-Defense Forces has increased since the late 1990s; moreover, senior officers have resented their exclusion from policymaking circles. Therefore, in the event of a clash there would likely be tension and disagreement between “suits” and “uniforms” over how to respond.

Next is the issue of the structure of decision-making in Japan and China. In both, bottom-up coordination between line agencies is difficult at best, so if initiatives are to occur, they have to come from the top down. Yet in theory and often in practice, the “top” in each system is a collective: the Cabinet in Japan and the Politburo Standing Committee in China. The need for consensus on matters of war and peace is particularly acute.
 
Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese system is flawless when it comes to handling fairly even routine matters. Coordination among line agencies is often contentious, which slows down any policy response. The Chinese system is segmented between the civilian and military wings of the hierarchy. Policy coordination mechanisms exist that facilitate top-down leadership, with Chinese leaders probably more dominant than their Japanese counterparts. But tensions still exist between the priorities of the core executive and those of the bureaucracies.

In more stressful situations, it is likely that, first, leaders receive information from below that is biased and self-serving, and ineluctably view that information through a lens that distorts the images of both their own country and the other. Second, they act in the context of a security dilemma, in which military capabilities, recent experiences on specific issues, and sentiments about past history shape the perception of each of the intentions of the other. Third, each decision-making collective relies for staff support on bodies that themselves are a collection of agency representatives: in Japan the group working under the deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management and in China both the appropriate civilian leading group and the Central Military Commission, each of which has its own perspective. Neither system has shown itself adept at responding to situations of stress that do not rise to the level of seriousness of a military clash. Neither, therefore, is likely to do well in the conflict scenario envisioned here.

Fourth is the matter of domestic politics. Although each government would have reason to keep such a clash secret, the Japanese side would probably be unable to do so because the government is rather porous and the media would see little advantage—commercial or otherwise—in suppressing a “hot” story. A leak from the Self-Defense Forces, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Ministry of Defense is all but certain. That would energize the Japanese press, with its predilection for viewing security issues in zero-sum terms. Once the news became public in Japan, it would undoubtedly stir up the Chinese public, whose hard-edged, anti-Japanese nationalism circulates quickly on the Internet and is a vocal and influential force. It is a tide against which Chinese leaders and officials, worried about domestic stability and defensive about inevitable charges of softness, are reluctant to swim. If in this instance, large demonstrations erupted, the regime would be more inclined to a tough response. Thus, the PLA’s preference for firmness and public nationalistic outrage would combine to squeeze civilian leaders.

To make matters worse, at least some of China’s nationalistic citizens have tools with which to mount their own tough response: cyber warfare. They would mount an array of attacks on Japanese institutions, which in turn would anger the Japanese public and incline the government to take a stronger stance itself. Inexorably, the spiral would descend.

None of the steps in this scenario is certain. If a clash between China and Japan occurred, it would not necessarily mean that the two governments could not contain and prevent the incident from escalating. Yet each loop in the downward spiral would increase the probability that subsequent, reinforcing loops would occur, and their cumulative effect would be to reduce Tokyo and Beijing’s chances of succeeding in their efforts to manage the crisis.

The United States Factor

If such a clash occurred, it would pose a serious dilemma for the United States. The U.S. commitment to defend Japan, enshrined in Article 5 of the Mutual Security Treaty, applies to “territories under the administration of Japan.” The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are under Japan’s administrative control, even though Washington takes no position on which state (China or Japan) has sovereignty over them under international law. Successive U.S. administrations have reaffirmed that application, suggesting that the United States would be legally obligated to assist Japan if the People’s Liberation Army attacked or seized the islands. In the more ambiguous contingency of a fight over oil and gas fields in the East China Sea, Washington would not be legally obligated to render assistance to Japan, but Tokyo would likely pressure it to do so.

In any clash over the islands or some other part of the East China Sea that could not be immediately contained, Tokyo would thus look to Washington for help in standing up to China’s probable reliance on coercive diplomacy. Washington seeks good relations with both China and Japan. It does not want to get drawn into a conflict between the two, especially one that it believed was not necessary to protect the vital interests of either. A Senkaku scenario is not, from the U.S. perspective, the issue where the American commitment to Japan is put to the test. But Washington would understand that not responding would impose serious political costs on its relations with Tokyo and would raise questions about U.S. credibility more broadly among other states that depend on the United States for their security. Congressional and public opinion would probably favor Japan or, at least, oppose China.

Avoiding a Tragedy

If such an accidental clash is not in Chinese, Japanese, or American interests, what should be done to avoid it?

First, the two governments should take steps to reduce the most likely source of conflict: the unregulated interaction of coast guard, naval and air forces in the East China Sea. There are a variety of conflict-avoidance mechanisms that could be employed. The U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement is a useful precedent.

Second, the two militaries should continue and expand the exchanges and dialogues that have resumed in the last few years. Moreover, they should be sustained even if minor tensions arise (China has a tendency to suspend exchanges in those cases).

Third, the two governments should accelerate efforts to reach a follow-up agreement to implement the “political agreement” governing the exploitation of energy resources in the East China Sea. That will remove another potential source of tension.

Objectively, these are relatively easy steps. They have been hard to take but they should be pursued. Even more difficult are initiatives that would remove the underlying sources of conflict: resolution of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute; reaching a broader and mutually acceptable approach to resource exploration in the East China Sea; remedying the institutional factors in each country that would turn small incidents into crises and make crisis containment difficult; creating mechanisms that would ameliorate the mutual mistrust fostered by China’s rise and any strengthening of the U.S.-Japan alliance; gearing the alliance to shape China’s rise in a positive, constructive direction; and mitigating memories of the past so they do not cloud the future.

All of these projects are very difficult. They are constrained by bureaucratic resistance and political opposition. But it is not in either country’s interest to see a deterioration of what can be a mutually beneficial and peace-promoting relationship.

---

[1] In order to maintain neutrality on the territorial dispute, I use both the Japanese and Chinese names in this policy brief.
[2] “Sino-Japanese Rivalry: Implications for U.S. Policy,” INSS Special Report (Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, April 2007), p. 3 [http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/SRapr07.pdf].
[3] As it did concerning a Taiwan fishing vessel in 2008.
[4] Bernard D. Cole, “Right-Sizing the Navy: How Much Naval Force Will Beijing Deploy,” in Right-Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Military, Roy D. Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell, eds. (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2007), pp. 543–44.
[5] Thus, the annual report on China of the U.S. Department of Defense warns that China’s neighbors could underestimate how much the PLA has improved; China’s leaders could overestimate the PLA’s capabilities; and both might ignore the effect of their decisions on the calculations of others. Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2009,” March 2009, p. 20 [www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Power_Report_2009.pdf.

Downloads

• Download

       

Indian and Israeli relations are getting even friendlier: Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Israel in January, and the trip is widely thought to precede higher level visits, including by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (he’d be the first Indian head of government to visit Israel). Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both also indicated that they plan to travel to India “soon.”

The foreign minister’s visit was part of the ongoing Indian effort not just to broaden and deepen India’s relationship with Israel, but also to make it more public. But the trip—not just to Israel, but to what the Indian government now routinely calls the state of Palestine—also highlighted the Modi government’s attempt to de-hyphenate India’s relations with the Israelis and Palestinians. 

What is the state of India’s relationship with Israel, the Modi government’s approach toward it, and this de-hyphenated approach? 

A blossoming friendship

Since India normalized relations with Israel in 1992, the partnership has developed steadily. The countries have a close defense, homeland security, and intelligence relationship—one that the two governments do not talk much about publicly. Shared concerns about terrorism have proven to be a key driver; so have commercial interests (including Israel’s quest for additional markets and India’s desire to diversify its defense suppliers, get access to better technology, and co-develop and co-produce equipment). India has become Israeli defense companies’ largest customer. Israel, in turn, has shot up on India’s list of suppliers. 

In the early 1990s, Israel—like the United States—did not really figure on India’s list of defense suppliers. However, between 2005 and 2014, it accounted for 7 percent (in dollar terms) of military equipment deliveries—the third highest after Russia and the United States. As Indian President Pranab Mukherjee recently noted, Israel has crucially come through for India at times “when India needed them the most” (i.e. during crises or when other sources have not been available, for example, due to sanctions). The president referred to the assistance given during the Kargil crisis in 1999 in particular, but there has also been less publicly-acknowledged help in the past, including during India’s 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. 

Beyond the defense and security relationship, cooperation in the agricultural sector—water management, research and development, sharing of best practices—might have the most on-the-ground impact, including in terms of building constituencies for Israel at the state level in India. Israeli ambassadors have indeed been nurturing this constituency and reaching out to the chief ministers of Indian states for a number of years. (Incidentally, India, for its part, has felt that the closer relationship with Israel has created a constituency for it in the United States.)

Economic ties have also grown: The two countries are negotiating a free trade agreement, and have been trying to encourage greater investments from the other. The success of Indian and Israeli information technology companies has particularly led to interest in collaboration in that sector. 

The governments have also been trying to increase people-to-people interaction through educational exchanges and tourism, with some success. Israeli tourism officials have highlighted the 13 percent increase in arrivals from India over the last year. And tourist arrivals to India from Israel have doubled over the last 15 years, including thousands of Israelis visiting after their compulsory military service. 

Let’s go public

The India-Israel relationship has developed under Indian governments of different stripes. It was normalized by a Congress party-led government and progressed considerably during the United Progressive Alliance coalition government led by the party between 2004 and 2014. However, while some ministers and senior military officials exchanged visits during that decade, there were not that many high-visibility visits—especially from India to Israel, with the foreign minister only visiting once. A planned 2006 trip by then Defense Minister Mukherjee was reportedly cancelled because of Israeli military operations in Gaza and then the Lebanon war. The last Israeli prime minister to visit India was Ariel Sharon in 2003, and no defense minister had ever visited despite those ties. 

The Israeli ambassador has talked about the relationship being “held under the carpet.” More bluntly, in private, Israeli officials and commentators have said that India has treated Israel like a “mistress”—happy to engage intimately in private, but hesitant to acknowledge the relationship in public. The explanations for this have ranged from Indian domestic political sensitivities to its relations with the Arab countries.

[I]n private, Israeli officials and commentators have said that India has treated Israel like a “mistress”—happy to engage intimately in private, but hesitant to acknowledge the relationship in public.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government took office in May 2014 with Modi at its helm, there was a belief that the partnership with Israel would be a priority and more visible. Relations under the BJP-led coalition government between 1998 and 2004 had been more conspicuous. When in opposition, BJP leaders had visited Israel, and also been supportive of that country in election manifestos and speeches. 

As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi himself had expressed admiration for Israel’s achievements, including “how it has overcome various adversities to make the desert bloom.” Traveling there in 2006 with the central agricultural minister, he also helped facilitate trips for politicians, business leaders, and farmers from his state to Israel. His government welcomed Israeli investment and technological assistance in the agricultural, dairy, and irrigation sectors. And, at a time when Modi was not welcome in many Western capitals, Israelis reciprocated: Businesses and government engaged with him, with Israeli ambassadors and consul generals from Mumbai meeting with him long before European and American officials did so. Thus, Modi’s elevation to prime minister was welcomed in Israel, as was the appointment as foreign minister of Swaraj, a former head of the India-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group.

However, the Modi government’s response to the Gaza crisis in summer 2014 left many perplexed and some of its supporters disappointed. The Indian government initially sought to avoid a debate on the crisis in the Indian parliament, on the grounds that it did not want “discourteous references” to a friend (Israel). After opposition complaints, there was a debate but the government nixed a resolution. In its official statements, the Modi government consistently expressed concern about the violence in general—and, in particular, both the loss of civilian life in Gaza and the provocations against Israel—and called for both sides to exercise restraint and deescalate. Yet, it then voted in support of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution that condemned Israel, a move that left observers—including many in the BJP base—wondering why the government didn’t instead abstain. 

Since then, however, the Modi government has moved toward the expected approach. The first sign of this was Modi’s decision to meet with Netanyahu on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014—despite reported hesitation on the part of some in the foreign ministry. Since then, there have been a number of high-level visits and interactions (and Twitter exchanges), including a few “firsts.” This past October, Pranab Mukherjee, for example, became the first Indian president to travel to Israel, where he declared the state of the relationship to be “excellent.” 

The Israeli ambassador to India has observed the “high visibility” the relationship now enjoys. Also noticed more widely was India abstaining in a July 2015 UNHRC vote on a report criticizing Israeli actions in the 2014 Gaza crisis. Indian diplomats explained the vote as due to the mention of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the resolution, but observers pointed out that India has voted for other resolutions mentioning the ICC. Israeli commentators saw the abstention as “quite dramatic;” the Israeli ambassador expressed gratitude. Palestinian officials, on the other hand, expressed “shock” and criticized the vote as a “departure.” 

In the defense space, cooperation is only growing: The Indian government moved forward on (delayed) deals to purchase Spike anti-tank missiles and Barak missiles for its navy; it recently tested the jointly-developed Barak 8 missile system, along with Israel Aerospace Industries; and an Indian private sector company has reportedly formed a joint venture with an Israeli company to produce small arms. Cooperation is also continuing in the agricultural sector, with 30 centers of excellence either established or planned across 10 Indian states. More broadly, the two governments are seeking to facilitate greater economic ties, as well as science and technology collaboration. 

There have been questions about why Modi hasn’t visited Israel yet, despite the more visible bonhomie. But, in many ways, it made sense to have the Indian president take the first leadership-level visit during this government. Mukherjee’s position as head of state, as well as the fact that he was a life-long Congress party member and minister, helped convey to both Indian and Israeli audiences that this is not a one-party approach. This point was reinforced by the accompanying delegation of MPs representing different political parties and parts of the country. For similar reasons, it would not be surprising if there was a Rivlin visit to India before a Netanyahu one. 

De-hyphenation? 

The deepening—and more open—relationship with Israel, however, hasn’t been accompanied by a U-turn on the Indian government’s policy toward Palestine. What the Modi government seems to be doing is trying to de-hyphenate its ties with Israel and Palestine. Previous governments have also tried to keep the relationships on parallel tracks—but the current one has sought to make both relationships more direct and visible, less linked to the other, while also making it clear that neither will enjoy a veto on India’s relations with the other. 

The deepening—and more open—relationship with Israel, however, hasn’t been accompanied by a U-turn on the Indian government’s policy toward Palestine.

The Modi government doesn’t demure from referring to the “state of Palestine” rather than “the Palestinian Authority.” It held the first-ever Foreign Office consultations with the Palestinians last spring, and the Indian foreign ministry made it a point to release separate press releases for the president’s and the foreign minister’s trips to Israel and Palestine. The Indian president became the first foreign head of state to stay overnight in Ramallah. Modi met with Mahmoud Abbas, whom the Indian government refers to as the “president of the state of Palestine, on the sidelines of both the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York and the climate change summit in Paris in 2015. The Indian foreign minister met with Abbas in 2014 in New York, and again in Ramallah on her visit. During their trips, both she and the Indian president also went to the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat (who the BJP in the past called “the illustrious leader of the Palestinian people”).

The government has reiterated India’s traditional position on a two-state solution, indicating its belief in an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. It voted in favor of the resolution on raising the Palestinian flag at the United Nations, and has continued to sign on to BRICS declarations “oppos[ing] the continuous Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Territories.” In Ramallah, Sushma Swaraj emphasized that India’s support for Palestinians remained “undiluted.” 

The continuity on this front is not just driven by historic and domestic political factors, but also by India’s broader balancing act in the region. Even as India’s relations with Israel have deepened, it has maintained—and even enhanced—its relations with Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Modi has welcomed the emir of Qatar, visited the UAE, and met with Iran’s Hassan Rouhani. The first-ever Arab-India Cooperation Forum ministerial meeting also took place in January. It would not be surprising if the Indian prime minister visited Saudi Arabia this year or there were high-level visits exchanged between Delhi and Tehran. The government has emphasized its “strategic intent and commitment to simultaneously enhance relations with the Arab world as well as Israel, without allowing it to become a zero sum game.” And, overall, the Israelis, Palestinians, and GCC countries have not pushed for Delhi to make a choice. 

The de-hyphenated approach, in turn, potentially gives Indian policymakers more space to take India’s relationship with Israel further. But, as was evident during the Indian president’s visit to the region, it hasn’t been problem-free and it has not been feasible to keep the two relationships entirely insulated. An upsurge in violence reportedly caused Israel to nix a proposal for Mukherjee to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. There was also some heartburn about the Israeli delay in clearing 30 Indians' computers destined for an India-Palestine Centre for Excellence in Information and Communication Technology at Al-Quds University in Ramallah, as well as its refusal to allow communications equipment to be transferred. In the Israeli press, there was criticism of the president’s lack of mention of Palestinian violence. The Indian president and the foreign ministry also found themselves having to explain the president’s remark in Israel that “religion cannot be the basis of a state.”

There have been other differences between India and Israel as well, notably on Iran (something officials have tended not to discuss publicly). There might be other difficulties in the future, stemming, for example, from: negative public and media reaction in India if there’s another Israel-Palestine crisis; the stalled free trade agreement negotiations; potential Israeli defense sales to China; renewed questions about defense acquisitions from Israel; or the behavior of Israeli tourists in India. But the relationship is likely to continue to move forward, and increase in visibility, including with visits by Rivlin, Netanyahu, and Modi—potentially before the 25th anniversary of the two countries establishing full diplomatic relations on January 29, 2017.

      

Are Turkey and Israel on the verge of signing a normalization agreement, after a six-year hiatus? Comments in recent days by senior officials in both countries suggest so. A senior Israeli official, quoted in the Times of Israel, stated that “95% of the agreement is completed,” while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said the parties are “one or two meetings away” from an agreement.

Media outlets in both countries have revealed that a meeting between senior Turkish and Israeli officials is expected to be held in Turkey on June 26—and that shortly after, an agreement is likely to be signed and go into effect. 

For two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East to bury the hatchet, reinstate ambassadors, and resume senior-level dialogue would surely be a boost for U.S strategic interests in the region. It would contribute to greater cohesion in dealing with the Syrian crisis, for example, and in the fight against the Islamic State. 

A quick recap

Let’s first recall how the crisis between the two former strategic allies developed, when in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara incident (May 31, 2010)—resulting in the deaths of 9 Turks—Turkey recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv and suspended nearly all defense and strategic ties with Israel. Israel also called back its ambassador in Ankara. At the time, Turkey set three conditions for resuming dialogue with Israel: a formal apology, compensation for the families of the victims, and a removal of Israel’s Gaza naval blockade. Relations came to a practical standstill, except in the economic sphere: trade between the two countries exceeded $5 billion in 2014, an unprecedented level. 

Israel formally apologized to Turkey in 2013 and in 2014 committed to paying compensation to the families of the victims. But the Gaza naval blockade has not been lifted. Turkey further demands greater access and presence in Gaza. For its part, Israel demands that Turkey not allow Hamas operative Salah al-Arouri, who resides in Istanbul, to coordinate terrorist operations against Israeli targets in the West Bank. Israel also wants Ankara to pressure Hamas to return the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 war in Gaza. 

Since the flotilla incident, Turkey was not always convinced that repairing relations with Israel actually served its interests. As the Arab Spring unfolded, Turkey hoped to assume a leadership role in the Arab and Muslim worlds—having good relations with Israel did not serve that purpose. And as Turkey went through periods of some unrest in the political arena (whether during the Gezi Park protests in 2013 or the hotly contested local and national elections), many in the ruling AKP party saw restoring relations with Israel as a potential liability in domestic politics. Israel, for its part, was mostly in a reactive mode: sometimes it tried to initiate contacts with Turkey, and sometimes it denounced Turkish anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The times they are a-changing

Now, however, new developments have prompted Turkey to seek a rapprochement with Israel. One key factor is the crisis in the Turkish-Russian relationship—in the aftermath of the suspension of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline project, Israeli natural gas is viewed as a possible substitute in the medium term for some of Turkey’s natural gas imports from Russia. And as the impact of the war in Syria on Turkey (including the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks) has made clear to Turkey that it must enhance its intelligence capabilities, and Israel can help. Israel, meanwhile, is searching for an export destination for its natural gas (Israeli Energy Minister Steinitz stated recently that “Turkey is a huge market for gas…they need our gas and we need this market”). Israeli leaders also know that resuming a political and military dialogue with Turkey may contribute to a more comprehensive view of the challenges Israel faces in the region. 

Five years after Israel’s formal request to open a representation office at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that NATO has approved the Israeli request. Turkey had opposed it, blocking progress, since NATO decisions are adopted by consensus. In a move seen signaling a thawing of relations, Turkey recently removed its objection to Israel’s request, paving the way to NATO’s decision. Israel continues to be a partner in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue along with Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Mauritania and Morocco. 

At a time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is attempting to strengthen his country’s regional strategic position and enhance its economic opportunities, a rapprochement with Israel makes sense. Bilateral negotiations are in the final stretch, as they have reached a compromise on the complex issue of Gaza and Hamas (Turkey will reportedly not demand the full lifting of Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, settling for greater access and presence in Gaza. Israel will acquiesce to continued Hamas political activities in Turkey and will not demand the removal of Hamas operative al-Arouri from Turkey, but will get Turkish assurances that al-Arouri’s involvement in terror will cease.)

Fixing the troubled Turkish-Israeli relationship has been a mighty task for senior negotiators on both sides over the last few years, and although an agreement seems around the corner, the experience of recent years suggests that there can be last minute surprises. Israel’s Prime Minister had to jump over several hurdles, holding off pressure from Russia and Egypt not to seek rapprochement with Turkey, and ensuring support of the deal with Turkey from his newly appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a known opponent of a deal. On the Turkish side, it seems that President Erdoğan wants a rapprochement with Israel, and feels that he needs it. This is tied directly to the Turkish domestic arena: Erdoğan has recently completed his consolidation of power, ousting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and paving the way to the election of his trusted confidant, Binali Yıldırım, as prime minister. In addition, his new allies—the military-judicial establishment—are in favor of mending ties with Israel. One caveat is that Erdoğan’s top priority is establishing a presidential system, and so if he feels at any point that reaching an agreement with Israel will somehow undermine those efforts, he may opt for maintaining the status quo. 

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

Nearly two years after ousting President Muhammad Morsi, Egypt’s military continues to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood. Much like during Egypt’s 1952-54 political transition, the recent interactions between the powerful armed state bureaucracy and the influential religious organization have had a major impact on the country’s political trajectory. In both instances, the military and Muslim Brotherhood initially cooperated before ultimately clashing violently. How has each entity determined what approach to take toward the other? What does a continued imbalance in civil-military relations mean for Egypt’s future?

In a new Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper, Omar Ashour examines the legacies and patterns of cooperation and conflict between the leaderships of Egypt’s military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Relying on extensive field research, he analyzes how each entity has made its critical decisions regarding the other by applying various decision-making models. Ashour considers the impact of cost-benefit analysis, organizational dynamics, factional disputes, and psychological factors to gain a deep understanding of the leaders’ motives.

Read "Collusion to Crackdown: Islamist-Military Relations in Egypt"

Ashour concludes that Egypt's prospects for social stability and economic recovery will remain bleak if the relationship between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood is not redefined within institutional, democratic rules of political competition. He argues that Egypt’s military should embrace a balanced civil-military relationship to realize broad, long-term benefits and avoid otherwise inevitable and costly clashes with segments of Egyptian society. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, Ashour recommends that it reevaluate its recent decisions and work to develop a sustained, solid, and cross-ideological civilian front that can pressure the military to leave politics and allow for democratization.

Downloads

• English PDF
• Arabic PDF

      

       

       

Event Information

Northeast Asia has seen significant leadership changes in recent months, with the election of Park Geun-hye as president of South Korea, Xi Jinping as leader of China’s ruling Communist Party, and Shinzo Abe as prime minister of Japan. As leaders of world-leading economies, these key players will no doubt bring about dynamic change in the region’s politics and economy, while balancing relations with the United States and its own newly re-elected president.

On November 28, 2012, the Center for Northeast Asian Studies (CNAPS) at Brookings, the Japan Center for Economic Research, and Nikkei held a one-day conference on “Managing Transitions in Northeast Asia, the Global Economy, and Japan-U.S. Relations.” Three panels, featuring Brookings scholars as well leading experts from across Asia, provided their views on issues of profound importance to the Northeast Asian region including leadership transitions, global economy and trade, global governance, and U.S.-Japan relations in the 21st Century.

Audio

• Part 1: Managing Transitions in Northeast Asia, the Global Economy, and Japan-U.S. Relations
• Part 2: Managing Transitions in Northeast Asia, the Global Economy, and Japan-U.S. Relations

       

       

       

The U.S.-Japan alliance continues to struggle with the issue of reducing and relocating the U.S. Marine Corps presence on Okinawa.  In a new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Mike Mochizuki (of The George Washington University) and I—recognizing the potential seriousness of this problem for the alliance, as well as the fact that the current plan to reduce and/or relocate has been straitjacketed by Japanese and Okinawan politics—propose a more significant set of changes. Our proposal would scale back the peacetime presence of the Marines on Okinawa even further than now planned, but it would preserve or even improve U.S. military responsiveness throughout the Western Pacific region in times of crisis or conflict.

      

       

Event Information

On August 7, the White House announced cancellation of the planned Moscow summit in early September between Presidents Obama and Putin, saying there were no prospects for significant progress on key issues at the meeting.  The White House also said cooperation with Russia remains a priority, and on August 9 Secretaries Kerry and Hagel met with their Russian counterparts, Ministers Lavrov and Shoigu.  While President Obama intends to travel to St Petersburg for the G20 summit on September 6 and 7, there has been no word on whether there will be a bilateral meeting with President Putin on the margins of the summit.  Clearly, U.S.-Russian relations have entered troubled times.

On August 28, the Center on the United States and Europe hosted a panel discussion to address these developments and future prospects for the bilateral relationship between Washington and Moscow.  Brookings Senior Fellows Clifford Gaddy, Steven Pifer and Angela Stent will take part.  Brookings Visiting Fellow Jeremy Shapiro moderated.   Following opening comments, the panelists took questions from the audience.

Watch full video from the event at C-SPAN.org »

Video

• What the U.S. Does in Syria Will Be Costly for Russia
• Russia Reluctant to Intervene in Syria
• Russia Fears Increased Instability in the Middle East

Audio

• The U.S.-Russia Relationship: What's Next?

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20130828_US_Russia_transcript

       

In August, the White House announced the cancellation of the Moscow summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, while still saying that U.S. relations with Russia remain a priority. By all accounts, the Snowden case appears to have further complicated already strained U.S.-Russia relations. With President Obama headed to St. Petersburg, Russia for the G20 summit on September 6 and 7, the likelihood of an Obama-Putin bilateral meeting remains unanswered and unlikely.

With an eye toward a possible bilateral meeting in St. Petersburg, Brookings experts Steven Pifer, Clifford Gaddy and Angela Stent address these developments and future prospects for the U.S.-Russia cooperation on issues like Syria and arms control.

Steven Pifer:

“I think people now see the reset as a failure. I actually think the reset succeeded, because the goal was not to get us to Nirvana with Russia, but to lift us out of the hole that we found ourselves in in 2008.”

Clifford Gaddy:

“Steve has said that the relations are not as bad, are at their worst since, you know, the fall of communism. I would probably say they probably are as bad.”

Angela Stent:

“It's not clear what the U.S.-Russian agenda is going forward. The things we would like to accomplish — more arms control, an agreement on missile defense, even, you know, more U.S. investment in Russia — the Russians don't seem to be interesting in responding. We do need to work together — and we will, still, on post-2014 Afghanistan, on Iran — but it's really unclear what an agenda would be going forward.”

Downloads

• Download the transcript

       

Event Information

Register for the Event

Russia remains a priority for the United States because of its nuclear weapons arsenal, its strategic location bordering Europe and Asia and its ability to support—or thwart—American interests on issues such as the Syrian conflict. Recent U.S. presidents have attempted repeatedly to forge a strong and productive partnership with Russia only to be held hostage to the deep mistrust born of the Cold War. Why has it been so difficult to move the relationship forward and is there any prospect for change in the future?

In her new book, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2014), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow and Georgetown University Professor Angela Stent calls for a fundamental reassessment of the principles and practices that drive U.S.-Russian relations and offers a path forward to meet the urgent challenges facing both countries.

On February 18, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings hosted a discussion featuring Stent that explored U.S.-Russian relations since the Soviet collapse and the challenges ahead. CUSE Director Fiona Hill, co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Brookings Press, 2013), and Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times and author of Days of Fire (Doubleday, 2013), also joined the panel.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott, who previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of State and U.S. ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union, provided introductory remarks.

Audio

• U.S.-Russian Relations in the 21st Century

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20140218_us_russia_relations

       

       

       

       

       

Event Information

Register for the Event

On April 10 and 11, 2015, the Seventh Summit of the Americas will bring together the heads of state and government of every country in the Western Hemisphere for the first time. Recent efforts by the United States to reform immigration policy, re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, and reform our approach to drug policies at home and abroad have generated greater optimism about the future of inter-American relations. This Summit provides an opportunity to spark greater collaboration on development, social inclusion, democracy, education, and energy security.

However, this Summit of the Americas is also convening at a time when the hemisphere is characterized by competing visions for economic development, democracy and human rights, and regional cooperation through various institutions such as the Organization of American States, the Union of South American Nations, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

On Friday, April 3, the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted Assistant Secretary of State Roberta S. Jacobson for a discussion on the Seventh Summit of the Americas and what it portends for the future of hemispheric relations.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #VIISummit

Audio

• The Summit of the Americas and prospects for inter-American relations

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20150403_summit_americas_jacobson_transcript

      

In recent years, relations between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the African Union have been crumbling. Relations between the two were once solid with strong support from AU member countries.  The ICC has had support from African countries because of the court’s ability to prevent Rwandan genocide-type atrocities and ease power differentials between small and large African nations in international trial situations. 

Brookings nonresident scholar, John Mukum Mbaku, discusses the rising tensions between the ICC and African countries in his contribution to Foresight Africa, a collection of short briefs on the top challenges and opportunities for Africa in 2014.

Read the related paper »

According to John Mbaku, some African countries see the ICC as quite problematic because of the perceived bias that the court brings mostly African criminal cases to trial.  Other countries feel their sovereignty is threatened by the court.  The African Union has gone so far as to ask member countries not to comply or cooperate with the ICC and has attempted (unsuccessfully) to withdraw from The Hague.  A major trigger for these the recent issues with the ICC and African countries was the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as president of Kenya. Kenyatta was indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity and for allegedly inciting ethnic violence following the highly disputed 2007 elections in Kenya.  

John argues that repairing the ties between African countries and the ICC will be difficult, but might be possible through reforms to the ICC process and commitment to stronger judicial systems in African nations.

Read Foresight Africa 2014, which details the top priorities for Africa in the coming year, to learn more about the prospects for strengthening  international justice in Africa, and other critical issues for the region.

      

       

       

       

Seven months have passed since Israel officially apologized to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara incident of May 2010, in which nine Turks were killed by Israeli fire. What seemed, at the time, to be a diplomatic breakthrough, capable of setting into motion a reconciliation process between America’s two greatest allies in the region, has been frustrated by a series of spiteful interactions.

The Turkish-Israeli alliance of the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s was viewed by senior U.S. officials as an anchor of stability in a changing region. The relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem served vital U.S. interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and so it was therefore a U.S. priority to restore dialogue between the two former allies-turned-rivals. The Obama administration, throughout both terms, has made a continuous effort to rebuild the relationship and was ultimately successful in setting the stage for the Israeli apology and the Turkish acceptance of that apology. The U.S. was not the only party that stood to gain from reconciliation; both Turkey and Israel have many incentives for normalizing relations. For Turkey, the reestablishment of a dialogue with Israel has four main potential benefits: It would allow for greater involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, it would provide greater opportunity for information sharing on the developments of the Syrian civil war allowing Turkey to have a more comprehensive perspective, it would also provide more economic opportunities for Turkey especially with regard to cooperation in the field of natural gas (following Israel's High Court of Justice recent ruling that paves the way toward exports of natural gas), and finally it would remove an irritant from Turkey's relations with the United States. In turn, Israel would benefit from the reestablishment of dialogue in three major ways: the rebuilding of relations between senior Turkish and Israeli officials would facilitate intelligence sharing and help to gain a more complete picture of the Syrian crisis, Israel would have the opportunity to contain delegitimization efforts in the Muslim and Arab worlds, and Israel may be able to rejoin NATO related activities and maneuvers.

Despite these enticements, in recent weeks a series of news stories and revelations have put the Turkish-Israeli relationship, yet again, in the international spotlight, raising doubts whether reconciliation between the two countries is at all possible at this time. As the Obama administration struggles to deal with the fallout of allegations that the NSA has tapped the office and cellular phones of Western European leaders and as it focuses on more pressing issues in the Middle East, namely the P5+1 negotiations with Iran, the Syrian crisis, Egypt and negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, it finds itself with little time to chaperone the Turkish-Israeli reconciliation process. Nevertheless, despite tensions, direct talks are reportedly being held between senior Turkish and Israeli officials in an effort to reach a compensation agreement in the near future.

The Israeli apology and Turkish acceptance, orchestrated by Barack Obama during his trip to the region in March 2013, was an essential first step in a long process of reconciliation, aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries after a four year hiatus in their relationship. The next step was an agreement between the two sides in which Israel was to pay compensation to the families of the victims of the Mavi Marmara. Several rounds of talks between senior Turkish and Israeli representatives were reportedly held during the spring of 2013 in Ankara, Jerusalem and Washington, but to no avail. Disagreements over the amount of compensation to be paid by Israel were reported, but later, in July, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Arinc clarified that money was not the issue. He stated that the problem lay in Israel’s refusal to acknowledge that the payment was a result of its “wrongful act.” Arinc added that another point of contention was Turkey's demand that Israel cooperate in improving the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Arinc emphasized that only when these two conditions were met could the countries move forward to discuss the specific amount of compensation.

The shadow cast over negotiations by Arinc’s comments was darkened by a string of comments made by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan against Israel. First, he blamed the “interests lobby” – perhaps a reference to the so-called “Israel Lobby” -- for the large protests that took place against him and his government in Istanbul’s Taksim square and across Turkey in June. Then, in August, Erdogan accused Israel of backing the military coup in Egypt, citing comments made in 2011 by the French Jewish philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, as proof of a long standing Israeli-Jewish plot to deny the Muslim Brotherhood power in Egypt. This drew sharp Israeli criticism, notably from former Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who compared Erdogan to the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

Despite these setbacks, bilateral trade between Turkey and Israel has expanded since the official apology and the number of Israeli tourists returning to visit Turkey has risen dramatically. Yet it is clear that with such harsh rhetoric it will be difficult to effectively advance a reconciliation process. Among American, Turkish and Israeli experts, the prevailing view is that Erdogan and the AKP government, mainly due to domestic political considerations, are not interested in normalizing relations with Israel, and that the only reason Erdogan accepted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology was to gain favor with U.S. President Obama.

At the end of August, as the plan for a U.S. military strike in Syria gained momentum, relative calm prevailed in the relations between Ankara and Jerusalem, both focusing on preparations and plans to address the fallout of such an attack. Yet, just when it seemed that tensions were reducing, and Turkish President Gul stated that negotiations "are getting on track," in a September interview with the Washington Post, a series of news stories and revelations injected a poisonous dimension to the already-strained ties.

In early October another round of Turkish-Israeli verbal attacks and counter-attacks was sparked by a Wall Street Journal profile of the Turkish Head of Intelligence, Hakan Fidan, which included a quote from an anonymous Israeli official stating, "It is clear he (Fidan) is not an enemy of Iran." Shortly after came the revelation by David Ignatius in the Washington Post that quoted reliable sources that pointed to Fidan as allegedly passing the names of 10 Iranians working for the Israeli Mossad on to the Iranian intelligence in early 2012. These ten people were later arrested by the Iranian authorities. Senior Turkish officials blamed Israel for leaking the story to Ignatius and the Turkish daily, Hurriyet, reported that Fidan was considering severing ties between Turkish and Israeli intelligence agencies. Reactions in Turkey and Israel to the Ignatius story were harsh and emotional. Turkish officials denied the report while Israeli officials refrained from any public comments. The Friday edition of Yediot's front page headline read, “Turkish Betrayal,” and former Foreign Minister Lieberman voiced his opposition to the apology made in March; he expressed his opinion that it weakened Israel’s stance and image in the region, and he attacked Erdogan for not being interested in a rapprochement.

In recent days Prime Minister Erdogan struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that if Israel is denying involvement in the leak then Turkey must accept it. Israeli media outlets reported over the weekend that Israeli and Turkish negotiators are again trying to reach a compensation agreement. Israeli experts, quoted in these reports, view November 6 as a possible target date to end negotiations over this agreement. The logic behind this being that former Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman’s verdict is expected that day. If acquitted of corruption charges Mr. Lieberman will return to the Foreign Minister’s job and will likely try and block any attempt to reach an agreement. Turkish experts however assess that Turkey is simply not ready to move forward at this time due to domestic political constraints, as Prime Minister Erdogan and the AKP are bracing for Presidential and local elections in 2014.

Notwithstanding, the next few weeks will be crucial in determining whether Turkey and Israel can move forward and finally put the Marmara incident behind them. Turkey and Israel both have separate disagreements with the U.S. - Turkey over Syria, Egypt and the Turkish decision to build a missile defense system with a Chinese firm under U.S. sanctions; Israel over the Iran nuclear issue. However, the lingering Syrian crisis and reported progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track, in addition to economic considerations such as trade, tourism and above all potential cooperation on natural gas may entice both sides to proceed. Undoubtedly, a final deal will require strong U.S. support.

       

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusolu’s decision earlier this month to decline to participate in the Munich Security Conference due to Israeli ministerial participation marks a new low in the troubled Turkish-Israeli relationship.

And yet, the latest statistics released this week by the Israeli government document an overall volume of $5.44 billion dollars in Turkish-Israeli trade during 2014. This marks an all-time high point in Turkish-Israeli economic relations, up 11.5 percent from 2013, including $2.75 billion in Israeli exports to Turkey (a 10 percent year-to-year increase) and $2.68 billion in Turkish imports to Israel (13 percent higher than 2013).

This pattern of an almost non-existent political dialogue at the senior levels accompanied by robust bilateral trade has characterized the Turkish-Israeli relationship since 2011. Short of unexpected dramatic changes, the relations between the two former allies will likely continue in this pattern for the foreseeable future. 

Almost two years after Israel’s official apology to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara incident (which I wrote about in depth here), the two countries continue to move in different directions, despite sharing similar strategic concerns on a range of regional issues – the civil war in Syria, instability in Iraq and Iran’s nuclear program.

The main bone of contention between the AKP-led Turkish government and the Likud-led government in Israel remains the Palestinian issue. Turkey continues to speak out against Israeli occupation and settlement activity in the West Bank, as well as on Israeli human rights violations towards the Palestinian population. In addition, Turkey remains one of the main (very few) patrons of Hamas, providing the group with political and economic support and allowing the organization to maintain representation in Istanbul. Israel viewed with disdain Turkish attempts, together with Qatar, to facilitate a ceasefire with Hamas during the summer 2014 war. Anti-Turkish sentiments in Israeli public opinion skyrocketed in response to President Erdogan’s allegations that Israeli policies on Gaza are genocidal. 

Amidst rising tensions in the relationship, President Erdogan publicly vowed after his August 2014 election that as long as he’s in power, Turkey’s approach to Israel will not change. As a result, there are no serious expectations that any senior-level political dialogue will resume, and mutual representation is likely to remain at a junior diplomatic level (after ambassadors were withdrawn from Tel Aviv and Ankara in 2011).

The interesting aspect of the relationship continues to be the booming trade between the two countries, which despite political tensions continues to grow at a rapid pace. Clearly there is an interest on both sides to insulate the economic sphere from the political sphere. Robust trade serves both countries’ economic interests and during a very unstable period keeps the relationship afloat. Nevertheless, an Israeli – Turkish natural gas deal which was considered in the past as a likely scenario and possibly a regional and bilateral “game changer” seems at present to be “off the table.” Potential energy cooperation between Turkey and Israel around the Eastern Mediterranean natural gas discoveries may be possible only in the context of political rapprochement. 

       

Recent developments in Turkey and Israel—on energy security and domestic politics, in particular—may help pave the way for a long-awaited rapprochement between the two countries.

It’s been five and a half years since the May 2010 Israel raid on the Mavi Marmara (part of the Gaza flotilla), which soured relations between Ankara and Jerusalem. At present, they’re characterized by distrust and suspicion at the top level, personal animosity between the leaders, a limited dialogue between the two governments, and ambassadors yet to be appointed. However, trade is booming and Israeli tourists are flocking back to Turkish vacation destinations.

Wanted: Energy supply and cooperation on Syria

Turkey’s downing of a Russian SU-24 fighter jet along the Syrian border on November 24 has provoked crisis in its relationship with Russia, with Russian President Vladimir Putin characterizing Turkey’s action as “a stab in the back.” Extending beyond bilateral relations, that crisis affects Turkey’s foreign policy more broadly. For Turkey, the most critical element in this feud is its energy security. 

Turkey imports most of its natural gas from Russia, and the two sides have long been engaged in talks to expand this relationship through the proposed Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline, which would channel gas to Turkey and Europe underneath the Black Sea (circumventing Ukraine). But on November 26, Russian Minister of Development Alexi Ulyukayev announced the cancellation of the project, sending shock waves throughout Turkey. The move has prompted concerns among the Turkish leadership about the reliability of Russian gas and a corresponding search for alternative supplies in the region. In addition to discussions with Qatar and Azerbaijan, there have been more statements in recent weeks from Turkish politicians, energy companies, and others calling for talks with Israel about future natural gas imports.

The Syrian crisis is another issue on which Turkey may seek quiet Israeli support—particularly the support of Israeli intelligence, which may prove crucial to Turkish war efforts.

Politically, the timing could be convenient: the Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government could approach Israel and begin talks where they left off nearly two years ago. The dust has settled over the November 2015 elections and the AKP is not facing any serious domestic political challenges in the near future. The ball is now in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court. He commented to reporters in Paris on November 30 that he believes he’s “able to fix ties” with Israel, hinting at his willingness to move forward. He then stated on December 13 that the “region definitely needs” Turkish-Israeli normalization, citing previous Turkish demands for compensation to the families of the victims of the Mavi Marmara incident as well as the lifting of the Gaza blockade as his conditions for normalization.

Wanted: Energy demand and cooperation on Syria

From Jerusalem’s perspective, Israeli energy security may provide a “fig leaf” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to reach out to Turkey. Netanyahu and his cabinet have been stuck for nearly a year in attempts to approve and launch a compromise between the government and the gas companies (Delek and Noble) to begin the crucial phase of development of Israel’s largest Eastern Mediterranean gas field, Leviathan. About to clear the last hurdle before launching the deal, Netanyahu is under pressure to demonstrate the national security benefits of developing the gas. In this context, he and the Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz have said that Turkey is being seriously considered as a future export destination. In a Knesset hearing, Netanyahu went even further by revealing that Israel has recently been engaged in discussions with Turkey to further explore the export option. 

The Syrian crisis provides Israel another reason to engage with Turkey. Israel is quite weary of the situation in Syria and may benefit from Turkish analysis and intelligence on this issue. 

Politically, Netanyahu will not face problems within his narrow coalition if he decides to warm up relations with Turkey. Former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a staunch critic of Turkey and its leadership, is no longer in office. The recently appointed Chief of Mossad (currently National Security Advisor) Yossi Cohen, in contrast, is known to be a proponent of closer ties between Israel and Turkey. 

Re-friending?

Official visits between the two sides have been increasing: in June, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Director General Dore Gold and his Turkish counterpart Feridun Sinirlioğlu met in Rome; in September, Professor Guven Sak (the head of the government-supported research institute of the Turkish industrialists and businessmen, TEPAV) led the first official visit to Israel by a Turkish political delegation; on December 3, Israeli news outlet NRG reported on a visit by Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Deputy Director General for Europe, Aviv Shiron's visit to Ankara and Istanbul in an attempt to warm relations between the two countries. 

There is no love lost between Israel and Turkey, and many issues still need to be resolved. Erdoğan has stated his conditions for normalization, and Netanyahu is reportedly insisting that Turkey expel Hamas operative Saleh al-Arouri (who has been directing Hamas terrorist activities in the West Bank) from its territory, as a condition. However, the current convergence of interests may pave the way to a resolution of the crisis between these two former strategic allies. In March 2013, President Obama helped orchestrate a formal Israeli apology to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara incident. Moving forward, more American senior-level diplomacy is needed. The United States—which has been active behind the scenes—will likely need to further push the two sides toward one another.

       

Are Turkey and Israel on the verge of signing a normalization agreement, after a six-year hiatus? Comments in recent days by senior officials in both countries suggest so. A senior Israeli official, quoted in the Times of Israel, stated that “95% of the agreement is completed,” while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said the parties are “one or two meetings away” from an agreement.

Media outlets in both countries have revealed that a meeting between senior Turkish and Israeli officials is expected to be held in Turkey on June 26—and that shortly after, an agreement is likely to be signed and go into effect. 

For two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East to bury the hatchet, reinstate ambassadors, and resume senior-level dialogue would surely be a boost for U.S strategic interests in the region. It would contribute to greater cohesion in dealing with the Syrian crisis, for example, and in the fight against the Islamic State. 

A quick recap

Let’s first recall how the crisis between the two former strategic allies developed, when in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara incident (May 31, 2010)—resulting in the deaths of 9 Turks—Turkey recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv and suspended nearly all defense and strategic ties with Israel. Israel also called back its ambassador in Ankara. At the time, Turkey set three conditions for resuming dialogue with Israel: a formal apology, compensation for the families of the victims, and a removal of Israel’s Gaza naval blockade. Relations came to a practical standstill, except in the economic sphere: trade between the two countries exceeded $5 billion in 2014, an unprecedented level. 

Israel formally apologized to Turkey in 2013 and in 2014 committed to paying compensation to the families of the victims. But the Gaza naval blockade has not been lifted. Turkey further demands greater access and presence in Gaza. For its part, Israel demands that Turkey not allow Hamas operative Salah al-Arouri, who resides in Istanbul, to coordinate terrorist operations against Israeli targets in the West Bank. Israel also wants Ankara to pressure Hamas to return the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 war in Gaza. 

Since the flotilla incident, Turkey was not always convinced that repairing relations with Israel actually served its interests. As the Arab Spring unfolded, Turkey hoped to assume a leadership role in the Arab and Muslim worlds—having good relations with Israel did not serve that purpose. And as Turkey went through periods of some unrest in the political arena (whether during the Gezi Park protests in 2013 or the hotly contested local and national elections), many in the ruling AKP party saw restoring relations with Israel as a potential liability in domestic politics. Israel, for its part, was mostly in a reactive mode: sometimes it tried to initiate contacts with Turkey, and sometimes it denounced Turkish anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The times they are a-changing

Now, however, new developments have prompted Turkey to seek a rapprochement with Israel. One key factor is the crisis in the Turkish-Russian relationship—in the aftermath of the suspension of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline project, Israeli natural gas is viewed as a possible substitute in the medium term for some of Turkey’s natural gas imports from Russia. And as the impact of the war in Syria on Turkey (including the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks) has made clear to Turkey that it must enhance its intelligence capabilities, and Israel can help. Israel, meanwhile, is searching for an export destination for its natural gas (Israeli Energy Minister Steinitz stated recently that “Turkey is a huge market for gas…they need our gas and we need this market”). Israeli leaders also know that resuming a political and military dialogue with Turkey may contribute to a more comprehensive view of the challenges Israel faces in the region. 

Five years after Israel’s formal request to open a representation office at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that NATO has approved the Israeli request. Turkey had opposed it, blocking progress, since NATO decisions are adopted by consensus. In a move seen signaling a thawing of relations, Turkey recently removed its objection to Israel’s request, paving the way to NATO’s decision. Israel continues to be a partner in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue along with Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Mauritania and Morocco. 

At a time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is attempting to strengthen his country’s regional strategic position and enhance its economic opportunities, a rapprochement with Israel makes sense. Bilateral negotiations are in the final stretch, as they have reached a compromise on the complex issue of Gaza and Hamas (Turkey will reportedly not demand the full lifting of Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, settling for greater access and presence in Gaza. Israel will acquiesce to continued Hamas political activities in Turkey and will not demand the removal of Hamas operative al-Arouri from Turkey, but will get Turkish assurances that al-Arouri’s involvement in terror will cease.)

Fixing the troubled Turkish-Israeli relationship has been a mighty task for senior negotiators on both sides over the last few years, and although an agreement seems around the corner, the experience of recent years suggests that there can be last minute surprises. Israel’s Prime Minister had to jump over several hurdles, holding off pressure from Russia and Egypt not to seek rapprochement with Turkey, and ensuring support of the deal with Turkey from his newly appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a known opponent of a deal. On the Turkish side, it seems that President Erdoğan wants a rapprochement with Israel, and feels that he needs it. This is tied directly to the Turkish domestic arena: Erdoğan has recently completed his consolidation of power, ousting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and paving the way to the election of his trusted confidant, Binali Yıldırım, as prime minister. In addition, his new allies—the military-judicial establishment—are in favor of mending ties with Israel. One caveat is that Erdoğan’s top priority is establishing a presidential system, and so if he feels at any point that reaching an agreement with Israel will somehow undermine those efforts, he may opt for maintaining the status quo. 

       

The narratives on U.S. development aid to Pakistan—as well as Pakistan’s own development policy discussion—frequently invoke the conventional wisdom that more education and better economic opportunities result in lower extremism. In the debate surrounding the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill in 2009, for instance, the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke urged Congress to “target the economic and social roots of extremism in western Pakistan with more economic aid.”

But evidence across various contexts, including in Pakistan, has not supported this notion (see Alan Kreuger’s What Makes a Terrorist for a good overview of this evidence). We know that many terrorists are educated. And lack of education and economic opportunities do not appear to drive support for terrorism and terrorist groups. I have argued that we need to focus on the quality and content of the educational curricula—in Pakistan’s case, they are rife with biases and intolerance, and designed to foster an exclusionary identity—to understand the relationship between education and attitudes toward extremism.

My latest analysis with data from the March 2013 Pew Global Attitudes poll conducted in Pakistan sheds new light on the relationship between years of education and Pakistanis’ views of the Taliban, and lends supports to the conventional wisdom. The survey sampled 1,201 respondents throughout Pakistan, except the most insecure areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. This was a time of mounting terror attacks by the Pakistani Taliban (a few months after their attack on Malala), and came at the tail end of the Pakistan People's Party’s term in power, before the May 2013 general elections.

On attitudes toward the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), 3 percent of respondents to the Pew poll said they had a very favorable view, 13 percent reported somewhat favorable views, while nearly 17 percent and 39 percent answered that they had somewhat unfavorable and very unfavorable views, respectively. A large percentage of respondents (28 percent) chose not to answer the question or said they did not know their views. This is typical with a sensitive survey question such as this one, in a context as insecure as Pakistan.

So overall levels of support for the TTP are low, and the majority of respondents report having unfavorable views. The non-responses could reflect those who have unfavorable views but choose not to respond because of fear, or those who may simply not have an opinion on the Pakistani Taliban.

The first part of my analysis cross-tabulates attitudes toward the TTP with education and income respectively. I look at the distribution of attitudes for each education and income category (with very and somewhat favorable views lumped together as favorable; similarly for unfavorable attitudes).

Figure 1. Pakistani views on the Pakistani Taliban, by education level, 2013

Figure 1 shows that an increasing percentage of respondents report unfavorable views of the Taliban as education levels rise; and there is a decreasing percentage of non-responses at higher education levels (suggesting that more educated people have more confidence in their views, stronger views, or less fear). However, the percentage of respondents with favorable views of the Taliban, hovering between 10-20 percent, is not that different across education levels, and does not vary monotonically with education. 

Figure 2. Pakistani views on the Pakistani Taliban, by income level, 2013

Figure 2 shows views on the Pakistani Taliban by income level. While the percentage of non-responses is highest for the lowest income category, the percentages responding favorably and unfavorably do not change monotonically with income. We see broadly similar distributions of attitudes across the four income levels.

But these cross-tabulations do not account for other factors that may affect attitudes: age, gender, and geographical location. Regressions (not shown here) accounting for these factors in addition to income and education show interesting results: relative to no education, higher education levels are associated with less favorable opinions of the Pakistani Taliban; these results are strongest for those with some university education, which is heartening. This confirms findings from focus groups I conducted with university students in Pakistan in May 2015. Students at public universities engaged in wide ranging political and social debates with each other on Pakistan and its identity, quoted Rousseau and Chomsky, and had more nuanced views on terrorism and the rest of the world relative to high school students I interviewed. This must at least partly be a result of the superior curriculum and variety of materials to which they are exposed at the college level.

My regressions also show that older people have more unfavorable opinions toward the Taliban, relative to younger people; this is concerning and is consistent with the trend toward rising extremist views in Pakistan’s younger population. The problems in Pakistan’s curriculum that began in the 1980s are likely to be at least partly responsible for this trend. Urban respondents seem to have more favorable opinions toward the Taliban than rural respondents; respondents from Punjab and Baluchistan have more favorable opinions toward the Taliban relative to those from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which as a province has had a closer and more direct experience with terror. The regression shows no relationship of income with attitudes, as was suggested by Figure 2.

Overall, the Pew 2013 data show evidence of a positive relationship between more education and lack of support for the Taliban, suggesting that the persisting but increasingly discredited conventional wisdom on these issues may hold some truth after all. These results should be complemented with additional years of data. That is what I will work on next.