Young Diplomats

Summary

The legal battle between the FBI and Apple Inc. over the unlocking of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s cell phone demonstrates the increasing willingness of U.S. technology giants to challenge the government over access to user data and has inspired a wider debate over information security and privacy laws. The changing nature of the global information industry has forced companies like Apple to find ways to comply with the often disparate policies of the countries in which they operate. At the same time, the U.S. government must determine how to balance policies best suited to meet the needs of domestic technology conglomerates with its own security interests.

Analysis

The Apple case made headlines on Feb. 16 when a federal judge in Los Angeles, ordered the company to help the FBI decrypt data on the iPhone owned by Farook, who along with his wife shot and killed 14 people in a sophisticated attack on an office holiday party Dec. 2. Apple responded to the judge’s order by announcing its intention to fight the decision in court.

Though treated as breaking news by most mainstream media outlets, the confrontation between Apple and the U.S. government has been more than a year in the making. In late 2014, Apple began encrypting all iPhone data and added security hardware to its newest devices. The company also began touting its products as being so secure that even Apple could not access the information within. The move elicited criticism from top U.S. officials, who feared it would hinder investigations related to national security.

Balancing Privacy and Law Enforcement

To understand the intricacies of the Apple case, it is important to understand the technology involved. Since most people use weak passwords inadequate for protecting data, the iPhone includes a measure known as a key derivation function that is designed to deter efforts to guess a password using a brute force technique. This is a basic hacker method that essentially involves guessing passwords until one proves to be right.

Key derivation ties the encryption key needed to access the information on the phone directly to the user-created password. Each time an incorrect password is entered, the device imposes a delay before the next attempt can be made. The delays grow longer — up to an hour — with each incorrect guess. To avoid a lengthy wait, hackers will often try to circumvent the function by using a computer to generate a list of all potential keys. They then apply the keys to the encrypted information until one is successful.

But for the FBI, using a computer to crack Farook’s iPhone is not an option. Apple’s key derivation function requires the input of a second key unique to the device itself. That key is stored only on the phone’s physical hardware, and it cannot be accessed from anywhere else. As a result, the correct password must be entered on the phone itself to unlock its data. Without the second key, FBI analysts could encounter considerable delays in trying to hack Farook’s phone. In addition, too many incorrect password guesses could trigger an automatic and permanent erasure of the phone’s data.

And so, the FBI is not asking specifically for a way to get around the encryption protecting iPhone users’ data; it is asking for a way to get around the features that impede its efforts to guess Farook’s password. Technically, Apple has the ability to fulfill the FBI’s request. While the company does not maintain a record of every phone’s unique password, it does hold a master key making it possible for Apple to write software that would make it easier for an outside party to hack into an iPhone. The California court has ordered Apple to produce software specifically to help the FBI crack Farook’s phone.

The Dilemma of an Interconnected World

Certainly, Apple is not the first technology company to wrestle with how to handle law enforcement requests for help in surveilling and investigating its customers. However, the Farook case demonstrates how the interests of governments and major data companies are increasingly at odds.

In an era of networked global communications and commerce, information technologies serve as both a crucial resource and potential threat to governments. Many are struggling to find ways to protect their own data while simultaneously monitoring potential security concerns, all using the same infrastructure. Meanwhile, the expanding role of networked devices in the daily lives of billions of people has led to a growing consumer demand for data security and personal privacy, a demand increasingly incompatible with national security imperatives.

At one time, U.S. technology companies were the dominant source of information technologies that supported the Internet. But that is changing. Many countries began to develop new data security and privacy regulations after Edward Snowden leaked intelligence in 2013 detailing U.S. computer espionage activities that leveraged the domestic technology industry. Since then, U.S.-based technology corporations like Apple, Microsoft and Google have had to adapt to a variety of rapidly changing policy environments around the world.

China, for instance, has sped up the development and adoption of domestically produced technologies so that it can move away from those invented by U.S. companies. Beijing has also begun to more rigidly control its cyberspace in the name of national security. Both of these efforts could undermine the operations and competitive advantage of U.S. information companies doing business in China.

Meanwhile, under the guise of protecting its citizens, Russia has implemented a data localization law that would require certain companies to physically store digital information within its borders. And to the west, in response to privacy concerns raised by the Snowden leaks, the European Court of Justice has invalidated the Safe Harbor framework, which permitted the transfer of EU consumers’ data outside the boundaries of the bloc.

The U.S. Government vs. the Private Sector

In the United States, technology giants are becoming increasingly concerned by these developments, especially as consumers demand more privacy. Consequently, companies like Apple are leaning more heavily on data security features to market their products — a tactic that directly conflicts with the goals of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

The Farook case has given Apple an opportunity to trumpet its efforts to protect user privacy. In doing so, the company is directly answering the concerns of the European Union, which has called for U.S. companies to negotiate a new Safe Harbor framework. It is also making the company’s stance clear to governments working to solidify their information policies. This is especially true of China, where a 2015 policy proposal raised fears that Beijing would demand that U.S. companies hand over sensitive intellectual property or give it the ability to bypass data security measures.

Apple is not the only company trying to address the changing global landscape by confronting the U.S. government over privacy. Since 2013, Microsoft has been caught up in a legal feud with the U.S. Justice Department after refusing to comply with a search warrant for email stored in a data center in Ireland. Despite being a U.S. company faced with a U.S. court order, Microsoft has insisted that Washington work with Dublin to gain access to the data.

In both cases, the companies involved could have chosen to simply comply with the court-mandated orders, a decision that would not have been unusual given the tech sector’s history of cooperation with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. However, the Apple and Microsoft cases touch on issues that are becoming increasingly important to consumers — and as a result, to their biggest suppliers. It is no surprise that other technology giants have been quick to back Apple in its battle with the FBI, whether by voicing support or echoing Apple’s rhetoric.

The highly publicized dispute highlights the persistent challenge that the United States faces in its information security policies: The government plays the role of a partner, not a leader, in that security. It relies on the private sector both for infrastructure and its data monitoring strategy, whether that cooperation is consciously undertaken or not. But as the global environment that U.S. technology companies have to navigate evolves, their willingness to publicly challenge Washington’s attempts to monitor information will likely grow. And so, regardless of how Apple’s legal dispute with the FBI plays out, it’s clear that the interests of U.S. technology companies will become increasingly less aligned with those of the government that regulates them.

“Dogs go, pigs come,” read the graffiti-smeared walls throughout Taipei in February 1947. It was less than a year and a half since the Allies had driven the so-called “dogs” out, defeating the Japanese Empire and liberating Taiwan from 50 years of foreign rule. Taiwan now belonged to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government, the Kuomintang.

Soon after the Japanese surrender, however, Nationalist attention turned toward a different struggle, this time against Mao Zedong’s communists on the Chinese mainland. Fixated on the desire to seize power, the Nationalists afforded Taiwan scarce attention, and the resulting misrule and widespread discontent led to a massive uprising in February 1947. This came to be known as the “228 Incident,” the aftershocks of which still inform both the Taiwanese sense of identity and its relationship with the mainland.

Historically, Taiwan has played at most a peripheral role in China. The island was populated first by Polynesian indigenous groups and then in the 17th century by mainland Ming Dynasty refugees. Under the relatively weak Qing central rule it became part of Fujian province. In 1895, following Japan’s victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing Empire ceded Taiwan to the Japanese.

Distance and decades of colonial rule laid the foundations for Taiwan’s future sense of separation from the mainland. At the time of the Japanese surrender, many Taiwanese still regarded themselves as Chinese and welcomed mainland Nationalist rule as a return to the motherland. But soon they began to bitterly resent Nationalist rule, which was nearly as authoritarian as that of the Japanese colonial government — and nowhere near as honest and efficient. The “pigs,” it was said, had replaced the “dogs.”

Understanding the Japanese rule that preceded Taiwan’s return to the mainland is essential to understanding why the acceptance of Chinese rule was so short-lived in Taiwan. Japanese rule was harsh, particularly during World War II. Like Korea, Japan ran Taiwan as a colony with strict government monopolies on key commodities, including sugar, tea, rice, tobacco, minerals and oil refining. Aside from the bare minimum necessary for consumption on the island, Taiwan’s resources were exported to fill Tokyo’s coffers and to satisfy its voracious appetite for the commodities that were scarce on the home islands.

Yet things were not all bad. Tokyo sought to transform Taiwan into a model colony, modernizing and expanding the island’s infrastructure. This included the laying of thousands of miles of railway track. Literacy skyrocketed as Taiwanese children were enrolled in mandatory education through the eighth grade. Many went on to receive university education either at the Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial University or Japan’s prestigious universities — usually in technical subjects that made them productive imperial assets.

A postcard depicting the Seishiwan beach, Kaohsiung City, in Japanese-controlled Taiwan. (Wikimedia)

Many of these elite Taiwanese acculturated to Japanese values and appreciated the orderliness of Japanese rule. The Japanese built high-end department stores, frequented by both Taiwanese and the large Japanese expatriate community. While Japanese laws were harsh, they created a degree of order absent under the repressive Nationalist dictatorship that followed. Many elderly Taiwanese fondly recall a time when they could leave their homes unlocked without fear of being robbed.

A Liberation, of Sorts

When the Nationalists peacefully arrived, it was to great fanfare. The Japanese colonial administrators surrendered on Oct. 25, 1945, on what came to be known as Retrocession Day. Sick of years of war, most Taiwanese eagerly awaited the arrival of the new rulers, but they were soon disappointed. As the carefully arrayed Japanese forces marched to the docks in orderly formation, the much-touted Nationalist 70th Army disembarked from the U.S. Navy troopships that had been assigned to assist in the transfer.

Seasick, unkempt and marching in what hardly even resembled a formation at all, they were a sorry sight for the curious Taiwanese that came out to observe them. The vast majority of the Nationalist soldiers were peasants from China’s interior — the replacements of the replacements of the replacements of a once proud Chinese army unit that had suffered several times its number in casualties. Local Taiwanese laughed at the rustic Nationalist soldiers who wore sandals and stared slack jawed at the elevators in places such as the Japanese-owned Kikumoto department store.

The officers of the new Taiwan Garrison pose for a photograph on the island’s Retrocession Day, Oct. 25, 1945. (Wikimedia)

The disillusionment grew when the Nationalist plans for Taiwan became clear. The Kuomintang seized all Japanese property on the island, including factories, mines and homes. The Nationalist priority was to win the war against the Communists on the mainland, and to that end they forcefully purchased grains and other goods to send to their forces on the mainland, causing food shortages and high inflation. As was the case under Japanese rule, Taiwan’s resources were redirected by a distant government to goals that had little benefit for Taiwan.

Worse, the Taiwanese, who had hoped that liberation would bring about the political rights that had been denied them under Japanese rule, were disappointed to find that they were being ruled as a conquered population rather than as Chinese compatriots. According to Chen Yi, the Nationalist chief executive of Taiwan, the Taiwanese were politically backward for spending too much time under the inferior cultural influence of the Japanese. Chen Yi announced that the liberties guaranteed under the Republic of China Constitution of 1947 would not cover Taiwan, because the people were not yet ready to exercise political rights.

However, the great irony to the Taiwanese was that for all the lofty talk of political advancement from the Nationalist government, the Chen Yi administration was extremely corrupt and hopelessly incompetent. Public services such as sanitation broke down, as did the careful law and order maintained under the disciplined Japanese, to which many Taiwanese had grown accustomed. Pigs, it became clear, were really no better than dogs and, in many key respects, were worse. Resentment built against both the Nationalist government and the mainlanders themselves, and the ensuing events solidified this sense of separation.

The Eruption

On Feb. 27, 1947, this submerged tension once again broke to the surface. As with the outbreak of Arab Spring protests in Tunisia or Hong Kong’s fish ball riots, it started small. Plainclothes officers enforcing the government monopoly on tobacco sales arrested a woman selling black market cigarettes at a teahouse in Taipei’s Datong District. In the struggle, they pistol whipped her and shot into a crowd that formed to stop them, killing one person. The next morning, thousands of Taipei residents gathered in front of the governor-general’s office, demanding the arrest of the agents. Nationalist troops fired into the demonstrators to disperse them, killing more people.

From there, the situation rapidly spiraled out of control. Protesters took over the city of Taipei, administering it with a Settlement Committee and a civilian volunteer corps for a short period. They issued 32 demands for reform, including autonomy, elections and the surrender of Nationalist troops — demands that the Nationalist government was not prepared to meet. Taiwanese took over other cities from the Nationalists, and chaos engulfed the countryside. Angry Taiwanese across the island went about beating or killing mainlanders.

The dissent was short-lived, however. Chen Yi, the Nationalist chief executive whose corrupt administration sparked the debacle, declared the uprising a Communist rebellion and requested reinforcements from the mainland. By March 9, Nationalist troops had arrived from Fujian province, retaking Taipei and violently pacifying the countryside. For three days, anyone seen in the streets was shot. By April, the government had arrested all the leaders of the uprising and executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people. Historians put the toll of what came to be known as the “228 Incident” much higher. Many Taiwanese elite, the Japanese-trained intelligentsia, technocrats and teachers, around whom revolt could coalesce, were killed. This inaugurated four decades of what was later known as “White Terror,” in which Taiwan became a national security state ruled in large part through fear and coercion.

But this uprising in a minor outlying Chinese territory would have been a footnote in history had Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government not been defeated by the Communists in 1949. As Communist cadres under Mao rounded up the remaining Nationalist forces on the mainland, the government fled to Taiwan, clinging onto only a handful of tiny islands. In a massive exodus, 2 million Chinese from across the mainland followed Chiang to Taiwan, where they became the core of a new ruling class and once again changed the social and demographic fabric of Taiwanese society. With invasion by the Communists an even more terrifying prospect than rule by the Nationalists, the Taiwanese were forced to throw in their lot with the murderous regime that had dispatched troops against them shortly before.

While the quality of governance improved after 1947, relations between the Taiwanese and mainlander Nationalists remained uneasy: The mainlander regime did not trust the Taiwanese enough to allow them prominent political positions and reinforced their control by suspending the constitution and imposing martial law in 1949. The struggle of the Taiwanese to bring about democracy and to achieve political power took 38 years, culminating in the lifting of martial law in 1987. The Nationalist party-state fell, and several largely Taiwanese opposition parties were legalized, including the Democratic Progressive Party. From the ashes of the party-state rose one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.

Persistent Mistrust

The Democratic Progressive Party — formerly an opposition body — has recently gone on to sweep the ruling Nationalist Party from both the presidency and the legislature. This is a demonstration of public doubt over whether the eight years of deepening economic ties with China under Nationalist Party President Ma Ying-jeou have benefited Taiwan. The electoral upset also revealed deep-seated unease, particularly with the Nationalist Party’s official support of the One China Policy, which states that Taiwan and the mainland are part of a single China. The Nationalists still maintain that Taiwan is not a distinct entity but that it is united with the mainland, which is rightly the Republic of China, ruled by an illegitimate Communist government. The Democratic Progressive Party has never accepted the idea of unity with the mainland. The appeal of the One China policy has also waned with the general public. Today, even the grandchildren of the 2 million mainlanders who followed Generalissimo Chiang to Taiwan increasingly identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. It is an identity forged in the 228 Incident and in direct contradiction with the One China Policy.

A protester walks under a defaced photo of former President Chiang Kai-shek during August 2015 protests. (SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images)

The memory of the 70-year-old 228 Incident, which was once a major rallying cry for the opposition, continues to inform the debate about identity in Taiwan. Across the Taiwan Strait, China is once more a single-party authoritarian state, intent on reclaiming the island as its 23rd province. The mainland wishes to reunify with Taiwan under the One Country, Two Systems model already implemented in Hong Kong that guarantees Hong Kong’s autonomy. Yet these days, this promise rings hollow. The Taiwanese see the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping cracking down on the mainland and in Hong Kong, despite the latter’s supposed autonomy. Having fought for decades to free themselves from an extraneous and autocratic mainland regime, most Taiwanese have no desire to subject themselves to increased Chinese authority — or, in their minds, to the dark days of White Terror.

The New Year fireworks in Argentina have marked not only the end of the calendar year 2015, but definitely also the end of the long standing left government in the country. December 2015 has been considered a crucial transitional period in Argentina, worth mentioning that this transition was rather an unexpected one. The elections in the country have put an end to Cristina Kirchner’s mandate, as the head of her beloved Patria, and have given the Presidential power over to his opponent, Mauricio Macri.

The centered-right candidate is to be congratulated for the taking over the next office term to some broad extent thank to his foreign policies’ promises. Mauricio Macri has expressed his will to follow his preceding’s line of foreign policy to the exact opposite direction! As such, Argentina’s current President has pivoted 360º in the international scenario aiming to cut certain ties for which Kirchner had worked hard during her carrier, and has rather decided to create very new ones.

Macri, already since he launched his political campaign as a running candidate for the elections, had clearly established what he saw as the next foreign policy to be for the good of his country:

1. Emphasis on the multilateral relations: Argentina aims for a solid participation in international institutions such as Mercosur, UNASUR, CELAC, OAS and the U.N.
2. Build-up of a closer relation with the United States and Europe through Mercosur, as a way of opening up the opportunities to grow and enhance its current economic situation.
3. Focus on deepening Argentina’s trade relationships with its neighboring countries. At the regional level, the link with Brazil remains crucial to Argentina. On a different note, Macri had expressed tension towards Venezuela and a will to distant itself from Maduro, as opposed to Kirchner.
4. The annulation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran, which had been signed in the past (2013) by Cristina Kirchner. Macri expressed unacceptance towards the Iranian involvement in the AMIA case and the relations developed by the former government. Indeed, Macri promised to put his efforts in halting inroads that Iran was making in Latin America.
5. Consequently, Macri has already made the first steps of approaching the Jewish State when during the Davos conference he met with Binyamin Netanyahu and accorded to strengthen its relations with Israel. The main subjects of mutual interest between the two countries are technology, security (especially since Argentina declared a state of security emergency a few months ago), defense and alimentation.   

Rightly, Macri has proved to be a loyal believer of his newly designed moves. Indeed, within these moves, the surprising pivoting towards the big United States is to be highlighted. While the other surprising step to focus on has been the approach towards the little Israel.

As of now, Israel is experiencing the emergence of a possible new partner in the international arena. The phenomenon taking place in Israel’s traditionally “far friend” Argentina will require a steady decision on how to react next and how to adapt to the changing nature of the relationship between the two countries. The question will be: whether Macri’s promises and aims manage to survive in the long-term? And, whether or not he will be able to drag in the public opinion to his favor in the subject?

One thing is certain: Israel could definitely use this new friend and has expressed high sympathy towards it, especially being Argentina home to such a big Jewish community (estimated between 200,000-250,000 people), and having this community historically experienced very harsh moments (i.e. the AMIA terror attacks in 1994, leaving 85 dead and hundreds of wounded people).   

Summary

Feb. 27 marks the anniversary of the assassination of Russian opposition heavyweight Boris Nemtsov. His killing sparked two weeks of intrigue in Russia’s top political circles, laying bare previously obscured Kremlin infighting and putting President Vladimir Putin’s continued control in question. The dispute, which went far beyond the death of one opposition leader or even broad factional competition, was in fact a struggle over who controls Russia’s future. In this it mirrored a three-year period of division in the early 1920s that ended in a leadership transition and set the trajectory of the Soviet Union.

Analysis

Struggles among the Kremlin elite are as old as the fortified stone citadel itself. The name Kremlin literally means “fortress inside a city,” a potent metaphor for the murky elite power struggles at the heart of Russia’s bustling government system. For the past decade, the Putin government has been divided into four camps: the powerful Federal Security Services (FSB), the so-called liberal reformists, the hawkish non-FSB security circles and a circle of those who are loyal to Putin alone.

These clans are constantly competing for power, assets and influence, with Putin playing the role of arbitrator. At the moment they are balanced — no one clan can change the power at the top. Russian history has shown, however, that this can change quickly. The pattern in recent years has held steady, with the FSB squaring off against the other clans and even against Putin himself in some cases.

Ukrainian Roots

The story behind the Nemtsov assassination begins with the 2014 Euromaidan uprising in Ukraine a year before. The popular protests that ousted Kiev’s pro-Russia government took Moscow by surprise. Russia’s deep networks of influence unexpectedly failed to prevent a change in government, and only a sliver of eastern Ukraine rose up in defiance of the pro-Western government. For Kremlin insiders, blame for the failure fell squarely on the shoulders of the FSB, which held the main portfolio responsible for influence and intelligence inside of Ukraine. As a result, the FSB briefly lost its lead position overseeing Ukraine and, moreover, Putin reportedly restructured the group shortly thereafter.

This put the FSB on its heels, spurring it to engage in a series of power grabs that gave it control over key positions and increased its reach within various security circles. Toward the end of 2014, Putin’s control over the FSB also came into question. His behavior became increasingly odd as he missed major press conferences and spent his birthday alone in the Siberian forest. Putin ultra-loyalists among the Kremlin elite, particularly Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, rallied around their leader, flooding social media with messages of support. The Chechen leader also gathered 20,000 troops from his infamous Chechen Brigades to support Putin and suggested deploying them directly to Ukraine.

The clash between Putin’s cadre and the FSB escalated in 2015, culminating in two full weeks of disarray in the Kremlin. Nemtsov’s assassination on Feb. 27, 2015, was part of this. Authorities then arrested a ring of Chechens connected to Kadyrov for the murder, and Putin canceled his trip to Kazakhstan, disappearing from public view for 10 days. Russian media went into a panic, speculating that illness or even a coup had taken Putin out of commission.

These high-profile power struggles added to the standoff in Ukraine. The start of an economic recession in Russia at the end of 2014 worsened the situation, creating a perfect storm for Putin. Today, Kremlin elites are still divided along the lines that emerged from the Ukraine crisis, disagreeing over both who should be in power and how to tackle Russia’s various crises. Putin is still trying to manage these swirling controversies.

Stalinist Parallels

The current situation in the Kremlin bears distinct similarities to the period that saw the rise of Josef Stalin to replace Vladimir Lenin, a long process that was cemented in 1924 with Lenin’s death. Lenin had ridden to power on the back of the Bolshevik Revolution, which stemmed from Russia’s catastrophic role in World War I and collapse of the Tsarist system. As the Bolsheviks consolidated power in the early 1920s, they had to manage continual famines and an economy in shambles. Lenin ruled in conjunction with a system of elites who were rough analogues of the current Kremlin clans. Those in power were assiduous in moving to secure control over economic assets before the civil war among the Reds, Whites and an array of different forces had even ended. In fact, Lenin had begun his process of ruthless economic and political centralization as early as 1918.

But when the civil war ended and the Soviet system began to take shape, the elites within the Kremlin became deeply divided over what sort of economic system should come next. The region under Russian rule was in disarray, ravaged by war and blighted by famine. The Kremlin needed to catch up with the other great powers but was unsure how to rapidly modernize Russia’s industrial sector. In another parallel to today, the main split was between those who wanted to pursue further centralization and those who wanted to reverse course and liberalize the economy. Lenin came down in favor of a more open economic system, warning that Russia is “being sucked into a foul bureaucratic swamp” of entrenched corruption.

Elites were similarly divided about policies in Russia’s near abroad — much as Kremlin clans are today. In what came to be called the Georgian Affair, in 1922 Stalin proposed absorbing all the Caucasus states — Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia — into the Soviet Union in one overarching republic. His motivation was to prevent those populations from consolidating local power and challenging Moscow. Lenin accused Stalin of trying to create a “Great Russia,” a historical concept that advocated that Moscow control all the lands of Rus, especially the ethnic and linguistically related populations of Ukraine and Belarus. Stalin won the debate, although Lenin continued to push his point in the years up to his death.

Similar concerns about Russia pushing beyond its borders undergird the ongoing dispute over Ukraine policy. For the past two years, Putin and many within the conservative non-FSB security circles have evoked a concept similar to Stalin’s Great Russia, Novorossiya. The idea has its earliest roots in the ousting of the Ottomans by the Russian Empire and encompasses the swath of territory that includes southern Ukraine, modern day Transdniestria and the Donbas. Ultraconservatives in the Kremlin originally wanted Moscow to militarily capture all of Novorossiya, though Putin instead decided on a somewhat more moderate approach: annex Crimea and maintain eastern Ukraine as a semi-frozen conflict. Many are still pushing him to launch a full-on military intervention in Ukraine. However, the Kremlin’s liberal circles have begun advocating a pullback on actions in Ukraine so sanctions can be lifted and the Russian economy can heal.

In the 1920s, the similarly divided elites shored up their respective positions. As Lenin’s health declined, he continued to denounce Stalin as an unsuitable successor both within the Kremlin circles and in his written testament, which detailed his view of where the country should go. But Stalin had already started to groom loyalists behind Lenin’s back and isolate Lenin from key decision-makers under the pretext of Lenin’s illness. Toward the end of Lenin’s life, there was a dilemma within Stalin’s circles over whether to move against the iconic revolutionary. This led to wild vacillations of position and loyalties among the elites until Lenin’s death and Stalin’s consolidation.

Infighting among the Kremlin factions is similar to that seen in the Stalinist circles of the early 1920s. Putin has long been the uniting factor within the Kremlin, arbitrating among the clans, but now he seems increasingly isolated. Over the past year, Putin has encircled himself with ultra-loyalists and distanced himself from power players such as the FSB. One of the greatest factors keeping the Kremlin clans from moving against Putin is his extraordinary popularity among the Russian people. With myriad problems plaguing Russia, Putin is still the only elite able to appeal to the dissenting points of view — at least for the moment.

The echoes of the 1920s do not mean that Russia is going to witness the rise of another Stalin but that the Kremlin is in a period of division that makes it unclear precisely who is driving Russian strategy. Putin implemented a system over the past 15 years to stabilize Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaotic years under former President Boris Yeltsin. This is much like the Soviet system, which attempted to stabilize the union following war, the fall of an empire and a revolution. But cracks in the system are surfacing, and Putin’s ability to continue driving a united regime is in question. It is an uncertain period for Russia — on its borders, within the homeland, and inside the Kremlin itself.

Summary

Another oil pipeline in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region has been disrupted. Royal Dutch Shell’s Forcados Pipeline in Burutu, Delta state, was ruptured Feb. 14, which caused the entire pipeline to shut down. That it occurred in the oil-rich region, where militants have long harassed energy infrastructure for political and financial gain, is not surprising. What is remarkable is that a hitherto unheard of militant group reportedly carried out the attack. The so-called Niger Delta Avengers claimed responsibility for the damage to the pipeline, immediately reviving fears of militancy in the lucrative region.

Though it is tempting to see the emergence of an entirely new militant group as heralding greater instability in the Niger Delta — a concern not necessarily unwarranted, given the area’s history — the attack and other recent endeavors to halt energy production have mostly been in vain. That is not to say assaults will not continue or that oil may not be threatened with disruptions from time to time. But whatever political or social support that militants had in the past to threaten Nigerian energy has largely evaporated, regardless of what militants might try to do to regain that power.

Analysis

Officials confirmed that the oil spill was caused by a rupture in a section located at Tokebeleu, near Ojulagha, Delta state. Loading of all oil was immediately suspended. The Forcados terminal has a capacity of 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day, a full quarter of Nigeria’s average export over the past few years. A joint investigation conducted by Shell, Seplat Petroleum Development Co. and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. determined that the cause of the export line leak was sabotage. The drop in oil prices, combined with a national budget predicated on energy production, makes the shutdown a huge blow to Nigeria’s already depleted revenues.

The Niger Delta Avengers also claimed to have attacked the Bonny Soku Gas Export Line the week of Feb. 8. And on Feb. 23, the militant group reportedly warned that attacks on oil installations in the region would continue until the federal government addresses its grievances. Unlike other militant gangs operating in the Niger Delta typically led by prominent personalities, the Niger Delta Avengers have no known associations yet, and there are doubts as to whether they a real group. Still, that the group claims to have attacked a pipeline of such sizable output deserves attention.

Corruption and Militancy

And this is not the only incident that has brought the security of the Niger Delta into question. The Nigerian government is building a case on corruption charges against well-known former militant leader Government “Tompolo” Ekpemupolo. Remnants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which Tompolo led, attacked a pipeline in response to the case.

However, since then, Tompolo’s situation has worsened considerably. According to a Stratfor source with extensive contacts among Niger Delta militant leaders, Tompolo has said he will not submit to the courts out of fear of being shown falling from his previous prominence. Tompolo is believed to have even said he would die before he would submit and be thrown in prison. There is a genuine corruption case to be heard against Tompolo — he made the recommendation to former President Goodluck Jonathan to appoint a director of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, funds from which can be directly linked to Tompolo, including contracts that were paid without rendering services.

Tompolo is in a dilemma. He has lost the political relevance he enjoyed under Jonathan’s government. The loss of protection, followed by his refusal to submit to two court orders by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, is especially risky, given Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s drive to empower the country’s judiciary. In addition, Tompolo has physically threatened the prosecutor of the crimes commission, giving the government little choice but to come down hard on him. Daring the government with further belligerence could provoke a direct military response, which the militant leader cannot afford or repel. The commission’s prosecution will likely confiscate Tompolo’s known properties to recoup the alleged fraud as well.

Tompolo’s whereabouts are unknown. The Nigerian military has occupied his former militant camp as well as all strategic crossroads in the Niger Delta, making it difficult for him to maneuver, though he could be hiding in the Warri region or around his hometown of Gbaramatu. He must answer to the corruption case, but how and when is unknown.

The weak position of Tompolo and all Niger Delta militants even remotely considering a new militancy campaign is thanks in large part to the efforts of the Buhari and Jonathan administrations. Buhari has continued funding the patronage networks in the region, appeasing many groups and convincing them to avoid conflict with his government. The Niger Delta region also feels it enjoyed its fair share political and economic prominence under Jonathan, who hailed from the region’s Bayelsa state, from 2010-2015. But the region’s leaders could not monopolize federal government power forever, and in 2015 they accepted the country’s election results, ceding power to Buhari and his All Progressives Congress.

Along with a similar continuation of the amnesty program for former delta militants, prominent militant leaders such as Ebikabowei “Boyloaf” Victor Ben and Ateke Tom are being placated and show no sign of interest in returning to militancy. Furthermore, it would be difficult to mobilize popular support for a new militancy campaign. Host communities in the Niger Delta have seen that the amnesty program and militancy largely benefited only the militant leaders, not the people, and certain areas remain heavily impoverished. Avoiding turning their communities into battlefields between armed forces and militants is only more reason to prevent any campaign from sprouting by denying it assistance.

Unanswered Questions

Yet the rise of a new militant group in the Niger Delta still leaves many questions unanswered.

First, there are some doubts that the pipeline rupture was in fact caused by militant sabotage at all. Environmental activists ‎have questioned Shell’s claim and argued that the leak was instead caused by negligence on the part of the oil company. Criminal bunkering gone awry could also be responsible. Illegal bunkering of Nigerian crude is highly lucrative and continues to take place despite government efforts to rein it in.

Second, it is unclear what led to the founding of the Niger Delta Avengers. It is possible that some criminal splinter interests set up the new group, using the name alone to raise notoriety. It might also be led by people wanting to claim relevance to get money from the government or oil companies through security contracts. Tompolo, who allegedly acquired his wealth through fraudulent security contracts, and his loyalists are the only ones who are unlikely to be behind its formation. Though he and his men have a motive to launch a militancy campaign, it would not be in his or his men’s interest to start a war they could not win against the Nigerian government.

Buhari will continue the militant amnesty program — recently renewing it through 2018 — and other mechanisms to placate the Niger Delta region through patronage. As a result, the region will not return to widespread politically motivated violence targeting the oil and natural gas industry. But regardless of whether the Niger Delta Avengers are a real militant group, gangs will continue conducting armed robberies, occasional kidnappings for ransom, pipeline vandalism and bunkering throughout the region.

• China will soon begin its first round of anti-corruption investigations for 2016, greatly expanding last year’s efforts.
• Increases in personnel will make it possible for the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to achieve its goal of conducting more than 100 inspections during the year.
• The anti-corruption campaign will increase Chinese President Xi Jinping’s control over state media, helping him, among other things, advance reforms in the industrial sector. 

Analysis

Chinese President Xi Jinping is promising to ramp up the state’s anti-corruption campaign; however the move is not as altruistic as it may appear, and Xi has much to gain from the expansion. As 2015 ended, China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the Communist Party’s top anti-graft agency, promised to massively expand the Chinese anti-corruption campaign in 2016. According to the agency, more than 100 inspections are to take place this year — far more than were conducted in any previous year. In addition, at least one anti-corruption inspection is to be carried out on each of the 280 state and Party organizations accountable to the central government by the time the 19th Party Congress starts in 2017. Though the Party’s intent to intensify the campaign had been well publicized, the means by which it could be expanded and its exact targets have only recently become clear.

On Feb. 19, Xi completed a tour of each of China’s three top state media agencies: Xinhua, the People’s Daily and CCTV. He stressed to the agencies the need for the news media to demonstrate absolute loyalty to the Party, which is increasingly being defined as unquestioning loyalty to Xi himself. State media responded with fervent praise of the Party and of Xi, displayed on their front pages and online homepages.

Xi’s words heralded a grander political agenda, which became clear just days later when Wang Qishan, Politburo Standing Committee member and head of the CCDI, convened a conference preparing for the launch of China’s first round of anti-corruption investigations in 2016.  The Party’s Ministry of Propaganda and the related State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television — responsible for carrying out censorship directives — were identified as the first targets in the CCDI’s largest investigation to date. It is clear: Xi is using the menacing anti-corruption campaign to crack down on the Chinese media and better control the dissemination of information.

But, as central as the media is to this year’s anti-corruption push, it is not the only focus. The CCDI announced 36 targets in total — four provincial governments and 32 central government organizations, including industry-related ministries such as the National Development and Reform Commission, the economic planning body; the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the body overseeing all of China’s state-owned enterprises; and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, among others. The high number of targets that have a role in formulating and executing industrial policy suggests that this round of investigation is also intended to support China’s priority economic goals for 2016, such as reducing industrial overcapacity and merging key state industries. Of course the two focuses are related: China is trying to push forward significant economic reforms. To do that it is clearing possible opposition from within state agencies and securing control of the media to manage the narrative and maintain public support.

Recent events suggest that, contrary to original reports that the CCDI would not expand in size, the agency is in fact adding personnel. At the end of 2015, the CCDI included 15 teams, which were capable of conducting a total of 30 investigations within a single inspection round. However, the expansion of target sets suggests that this year the CCDI will expand to at least 20 teams (16 to investigate government ministries; four to investigate provinces) — double the number when Xi began the anti-corruption campaign in 2013. Assuming three rounds of investigation in a year, the CCDI could conduct anywhere from 108 to 116 inspections this year, depending on whether it chooses to continue provincial inspection tours.

A final point of interest is the government’s curious choice to reinvestigate the four provinces of Liaoning, Anhui, Shandong and Hunan, which were all among the earliest targets of the anti-corruption drive. This contradicts previous announcements from the CCDI in December that the agency would devote its large but finite resources toward just one inspection for every organization accountable to the central government (including provinces, which are structurally equivalent to ministries). Historically, investigating a province has taken a single team about three months, a period in which it could theoretically inspect up to three government ministries or state enterprises, so the reinvestigation comes at considerable opportunity costs. Certain political or economic objectives may have given the CCDI cause to take a second look at these regions. Whatever the reason, it is clear that rather than winding down, China’s anti-corruption push is accelerating, and in the service of a broader political agenda.

• Chabahar’s proximity to existing ports in the Gulf and Arabian seas will force it to compete for shipping traffic and scarce development funds.
• Construction on the port will begin this year, but several things will obstruct its completion.
• The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan will further challenge the feasibility of using Chabahar as a trade route linking Iran with Central Asia.

Analysis

India wants to expand its influence beyond South Asia, and to that end it has turned to a seemingly unlikely partner: Iran. But Iran may be a more logical choice than it would first appear. Their shared history of cooperation actually dates back to the 16th century, when Persian was the official language of India’s Mughal Empire. More recently, India and Iran jointly supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan during the first phase of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001. Both are also home to large Muslim populations.

Beyond history and culture, their cooperation also extends to the energy sector. Iran is India’s sixth largest supplier of oil, providing 250,000 barrels per day, roughly 6 percent of India’s crude oil imports. The two nations have also been negotiating on various energy projects. There is the Iran-Oman-India Pipeline, a $4.5 billion undersea natural gas corridor expected to transport 31.5 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to India, and a plan for India to increase its crude oil imports from a post-sanctions Iran by an additional 200,000 bpd, pending pricing negotiations. Yet the project that may best exemplify India’s ambitions of carving a greater sphere of influence in Asia — particularly Central Asia, the Middle East and Afghanistan — is the planned improvement of the Chabahar Port.

The Benefits

Situated on the Gulf of Oman near the Iranian border with Pakistan, Chabahar is just 299 kilometers (186 miles) east of one of the world’s most critical passageways for oil tankers, the Strait of Hormuz. In May 2015, India and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding whereby India pledged to invest $85 million in a first phase of construction to transform two berths in the port, one to a functional container terminal and the other to a multipurpose cargo terminal. In the second phase, India pledged to invest $110 million to develop a 901-kilometer railway linking Chabahar to the iron ore mines in Hajigak, Afghanistan. So far, Iran has invested $340 million into the port and has declared the surrounding area a free trade industrial zone.

The port could benefit both nations. While 85 percent of Iran’s seaborne traffic is processed through the country’s other port in Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz, that port can handle only 100,000-metric ton ships. Larger ships have to first off-load at the Jebel Ali port in the United Arab Emirates en route to Iran. Chabahar — a deep-water port — could alleviate the problem by being able to process larger ships, not to mention diversifying Iran’s ports of entry. For India, the port is part of New Delhi’s broader strategy of engaging the Middle East, expanding its trade routes with Central Asia and furthering its influence in Afghanistan.

Since assuming office in May 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has courted various, and at times competing, countries in the Middle East as part of India’s historical foreign policy of non-alignment. For instance, just as India is strengthening its energy and diplomatic ties with Iran, Modi signed a defense cooperation pact in 2014 with Iran’s rival, Saudi Arabia, which is also India’s biggest supplier of crude oil. India’s strong energy dependence on the region explains this engagement: Last year, India sourced 57 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East, and its energy dependence on the region will only grow in the next decade as India’s energy needs increase.

Besides energy, India wants to use the Chabahar Port to expand trade with Afghanistan and with the rest of Central Asia, where India has also been steadily increasing its presence. Since 2001, India has provided Afghanistanwith $2 billion in development assistance. In December, Modi visited Kabul to inaugurate the newly constructed Afghan parliament building, which India financed at a cost of $90 million. In 2009, India finished building Route 606, a 217-kilometer highway costing $100 million that links the southwestern Afghan city of Zaranj with Delaram, located on the Afghanistan-Iran border. From there, local roads connect to Chabahar. And India has made good use of the improved infrastructure: In 2012, New Delhi used the port to transport a 100,000-metric ton shipment of wheat to Afghanistan.

Reality Meets Expectations

The Chabahar Port could well give India a trade inlet to Afghanistan and Central Asia, deepening India’s presence in the Middle East while bypassing Pakistan. Still, the project is fraught with complications. First, Chabahar’s proximity to existing ports in the Gulf and Arabian seas will force it to compete for shipping traffic and scarce development funds. Iran estimates the port and surrounding chemical complexes will cost $31 billion, but so far India and Iran have invested just $340 million in the port and have promised only another $195 million — less than 2 percent of the full amount needed. India and Iran will need private investment to cover the rest and have the difficult task of convincing investors that Chabahar is a safe investment over other regional ports, including the Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi, the Duqm port in Oman and the Gwadar port in Pakistan.

Second, the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. Taliban gains suggest that Afghanistan will face a difficult year ahead. Consequently, the prospects for building the necessary rail lines linking Chabahar with Afghanistan will remain dim, similar to the recently inaugurated Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which languished for more than a decade thanks to Afghan insecurity.

Finally, India’s bureaucratic infighting will not make financing the port any easier. The six-month memorandum of understanding signed between India and Iran in May 2015 expired in November, with no conclusive deal reached. It is not the first time that an agreement between the two nations on Chabahar has expired; dealings to develop the port started in 2003. And while India and Iran signed an agreement Feb. 13 for New Delhi to provide Tehran with a $150 million line of credit to develop a railway, it came after six months of delays, during which the Indian Finance Ministry sought greater clarity on the project before granting the funds. Moreover, both nations have yet to settle India’s $6.5 billion oil debt owed to Iran. Iran has requested repayment in dollars or euros — more stable currencies than the Indian rupee — but India has declined.

Iran and India will have difficulty meeting the expectations of the Chabahar Port. They will be able to complete the first two construction phases, but finishing the entire project this year, if ever, is highly unlikely. Much has been made of Modi’s “Look East” policy of engaging more with Southeast Asia, a critical component of his plans to enhance Indian influence throughout Eurasia. But as the prime minister gazes west toward Chabahar, the outlook may be less promising.

Summary

The Ukrainian government is in the midst of a major political shake-up, but Kiev is not the only actor involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine that is undergoing change. The leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic recently fired several top officials, possibly at Moscow’s bidding. Meanwhile, a growing number of ultranationalist groups are becoming more politically active, adding to an already complex array of political entities in the country. Both the separatists and the volunteer battalions have posed a challenge to Kiev, and their evolution could complicate negotiations between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

Analysis

Politically, Ukraine has been particularly volatile in recent weeks. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk narrowly survived a vote of confidence in parliament Feb. 16, and the ruling coalition was left without a majority after the departure of the Self Reliance and Fatherland parties following the vote. Yatsenyuk has held on to his position and has begun negotiations with the Radical party, which itself left the ruling coalition several months earlier, to rejoin the coalition. While this is likely to buy Yatsenyuk some breathing room, his party’s grip on power remains tenuous, and a major overhaul of the Cabinet is all but inevitable.

Just as Kiev’s ruling coalition is under strain, the separatist territories in the east, whose quest for autonomy has fueled a two-year civil war, are reorganizing their own political leadership. Alexander Zakharchenko, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, instituted a major reshuffle within the breakaway territory’s government, firing Foreign Minister Alexander Kofman and Security Council Secretary Alexander Khodakovsky on Feb 22 and replacing the latter with Natalyia Nikonorova. Khodakovsky in particular was one of Zakharchenko’s major rivals; in fact, he had recently been strongly criticizing the separatist leader. In addition, Zakharchenko fired Liliya Rodionova, the head of the government commission for the exchange of prisoners.

Ukrainian officials have said that these terminations came at Moscow’s request. Indeed, they came shortly after a visit by Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov to Donetsk on Feb. 16. The leadership change could be a bid by Russia to bolster its ability to control the conflict, which has recently intensified on the front lines. The inability of Ukraine’s government to present a united front has stalled diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict, and Russia could be taking the opportunity to assert itself in the separatist territories. With leaders in power who are more willing to accede to Russian demands, Moscow will be able to dial the conflict up or down, giving it more power in negotiations. Moreover, by helping to eliminate one of Zakharchenko’s rivals, Russia has confirmed its support for the separatist leader — though previous changes to the separatist leadership show that Moscow’s backing is far from unconditional.

In the meantime, another important reshuffling has taken place among groups at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Dmitry Yarosh, the founder and leader of the ultranationalist group Right Sector, announced several months ago that he was leaving the movement, which he said had finished its work. Originally formed to aid in the Euromaidan uprising in Kiev and, subsequently, to resist Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine, the group has since become a powerful militia on the battlefield. It continued to function as both a volunteer battalion and a political party after Yarosh’s departure in December.

Recently, the Right Sector founder announced a new project, a global initiative called the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh (DIYA). On Feb. 23, Yarosh said his new group, which means to prepare Ukraine for “revolutionary changes that will provide liberty, justice and prosperity to the Ukrainian people,” will hold its founding meeting in April. At that point, some elements of the Right Sector will no doubt break off to join DIYA, adding further complexity to the Ukraine’s splintered military resistance. Several volunteer battalions already battle pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine, sometimes fighting alongside Ukrainian troops but clashing with Ukrainian security forces elsewhere in the country. And as Yarosh forms his new group, other ultranationalist groups have become more politically active. The Revolutionary Right-Wing Forces, for example, on Feb. 21 held a rally of more than 1,000 people in Kiev to mark the anniversary of Euromaidan.

The proliferation of right-wing movements in Ukraine — ones that sometimes resist government control — will make the political situation even more volatile. That, combined with the government’s political gridlock and the changes within separatist leadership, could complicate negotiations between Russia and the West over the future of Ukraine.

Analysis

A coordinated attack is believed to be underway in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. At least seven explosions were reported in the downtown area along with multiple exchanges of fire. Eyewitness reports and unconfirmed sources indicate that at least one suicide bomber may have been involved. At least one of the blast sites was located near a police kiosk at a busy intersection and another at a Starbucks coffee shop in Jakarta’s Sarinah Thamrin plaza. The attack was likely timed to hit busy lunchtime traffic and was centered on the convergence of Wahid Hasyim street and Medan Merdeka, close to Jakarta’s high security area. The location is a short drive from the U.S. Embassy and other government offices. The attack follows a series of arrests and warnings throughout the festive period, culminating in a failed operation to capture the leader of the East Indonesia Mujahideen terrorist network, known as Santoso. Furthermore, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri recently released a statement saying that South East Asia — including Indonesia — was ripe for attacks against foreign interests.

The location and targeting of this incident fits patterns observed in earlier attacks in the Jakarta area. The city has experienced several militant attacks in the last 15 years, mostly carried out by individuals affiliated with the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, including several incidents targeting international hotels and foreigners in the city. The most recent bombing attacks occurred in 2009 and targeted the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in the city, leaving seven dead and 50 injured, including a number of foreign travelers. While the primary operational planners and bomb makers of the Jemaah Islamiyah organization have been arrested or killed in subsequent years leaving the group’s capabilities significantly diminished, a number of militant actors are still present in the area and have the potential to carry out attacks of this sort.

Forecast

• Unless the Russian government changes its policies on combating and treating HIV, the number of Russians with the virus will double in the next four years, according to Russia’s Federal AIDS Center.
• Cultural traditions, economic weakness and Russia’s standoff with the West will dampen the Kremlin’s response to the HIV crisis.
• HIV will become more common, predominantly among working-age Russians, at a time when the country’s demographic outlook for the next decade is already bleak.

Analysis

There is a popular Russian proverb: It is better to be poor but healthy than rich but sick. Russia is beginning the new year neither rich nor healthy. As the Kremlin struggles with a weakening economy, the country’s HIV crisis has reached a milestone: The number of HIV-positive Russians has passed the 1 million mark, according to the Russian Federal AIDS Center. Just 10 years ago, the number of reported HIV cases in the country was only 170,000.

The number of HIV cases is growing at an accelerating pace, increasing by 12 percent in 2014 compared with 10 percent in 2013. Federal AIDS Center chief Vadim Pokrovsky estimates that 2 million Russians will be HIV-positive in four years. Pokrovsky has also noted that these are the cases officially registered — the true number is probably much higher. In the former Soviet region, approximately 80 percent of all new HIV infections are in Russia.

Typically, the Kremlin stays quiet about the spread of HIV in Russia. There is not a single HIV prevention and treatment expert in the Russian Ministry of Health. The Federal AIDS Center — formally called the Federal Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS — is under the Health Ministry’s oversight. Moreover, the center was set up in 1995 but was not fully operational until 2005. It gives advice on policies to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS but has no authority to implement policies.

Departing from the government’s typical stance, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in late 2015 ordered the Health Ministry to draw up a strategy for combating the spread of HIV by November 2016 — the first time the Kremlin has created a national strategy on the issue. The government also announced in October 2015 that it would double spending on HIV treatment and prevention in 2016 from $300 million to $600 million. It is a minuscule amount of funding — the United States plans to spend $25.3 billion domestically on HIV care and prevention this year — but notably, the increase comes as nearly every other part of the Russian budget has been slashed.

Russia’s HIV and AIDS Epidemic

Initially, most of Russia’s HIV and AIDS cases occurred among the country’s drug users. Russia is a smuggling superhighway for drugs moving from Afghanistan to Europe and has one of the world’s largest populations of injectable drug users. The most popular of these drugs are heroin, injectable opiates and krokodil. Between the 1980s and the early 2000s, approximately 87 percent of new HIV cases in Russia were among injectable drug users. Russia stood in stark contrast with other regions enduring HIV epidemics, such as sub-Saharan Africa, where only 0.2 percent of new HIV cases are attributed to injectable drugs. UNAIDS, the United Nations’ program on HIV and AIDS, estimates that one-third of Russia’s injectable drug users have contracted HIV.

However, during the past decade, more HIV infections in Russia have been transmitted sexually; 53 percent of new HIV cases in the country are attributed to drug injections, and 42 percent are sexually transmitted. The shift occurred as Russians became more accepting of premarital sex and as rising inflation drove up the price of condoms. The Russian media — probably as part of the Kremlin’s anti-homosexuality campaign — has also blamed Russia’s homosexual and alternative lifestyle communities for the spread of HIV through sexual contact. However, according to Russia’s Federal AIDS Center, only 1.5 percent of new cases were contracted through homosexual contact. The leap in the number of women among new HIV cases — from less than 10 percent before 2005 to 37 percent in 2015 — corroborates the center’s information.

Though new HIV and AIDS cases are a countrywide problem, more than half the cases are concentrated in just 10 of Russia’s 83 regions. Four other regions (Tomsk, Altai, Novosibirsk and Perm) are catching up, however, as new HIV cases spread rapidly. These regions vary in wealth, economic activity and education, making it difficult to detect a trend in new HIV cases.

The Kremlin’s Culpability

Many of the Kremlin’s laws and practices are abetting the rapid spread of HIV across Russia. These practices stem largely from Russian culture and the country’s geopolitical and economic situations.

Russian society stigmatizes HIV. A study by a St. Petersburg think tank found that 25 percent of people diagnosed with HIV have been denied health care and 11 percent lost their jobs. Because of the prevailing attitude toward the disease, many people never get tested or treated, leading the Federal AIDS Center, the United Nations and other observers to believe that far more Russians have HIV or AIDS than those officially reported.

Conservative factions in the government and the Russian Orthodox Church have also convinced the Kremlin to maintain a ban on sexual education and HIV prevention programs in schools and universities. The Russian Health Ministry has said such programs would lead only to increased sexual activity and more new HIV cases. Still, the church claims that it has several successful HIV prevention programs, the latest of which is called “Chastity, Faith and Patriotism” — part of the church and the Kremlin’s promotion of traditional family values under the auspices of patriotism.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has also banned opiate substitution treatments, such as the use of methadone or buprenorphine. Russia made the drugs illegal in 1997, reasoning that drug users should simply stop taking drugs abruptly or face up to 20 years in jail. Methadone’s status as an illegal drug is thought to have contributed to the continuing high rate of injectable opiate use in Russia and the subsequent spread of HIV. When Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in mid-2014, it stopped dispensing methadone to the 800 recipients on the peninsula, reportedly killing 20 people within a month.

And Russia blames the West for its growing HIV epidemic. In 2014, an adviser to Medvedev accused the West of trying to magnify the HIV crisis by failing to invite Russia to an International AIDS Society conference focusing on the HIV situation in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Russian news media linked the snub to the deteriorating relations between Russia and the West; the conference occurred just after Russian-backed separatists downed a Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine. The International AIDS Society rebutted the claim and said it had sent invitations to Russia.

At the same time, Russia has withdrawn significantly from international efforts to combat HIV and AIDS and has pressured international HIV- and AIDS-oriented organizations, particularly those that are Western, to leave Russia. The United Nations’ Global Fund to Fight AIDS halted its funding for educational and preventive services in Russia in 2012.

The official reason for cutting this funding, according to the United Nations and the Kremlin, was Russia’s wealth as a nation, but the decision was also linked to Russia’s crackdown on U.N.-related groups in the country. In 2012, Russia enacted a Law Against Foreign Agents, which required any nongovernmental organization that received foreign funding to register as a “foreign agent.” The law was rooted in fears that the West could infiltrate Russian society through aid programs and NGOs. Many foreign NGOs dealing with HIV prevention and treatment, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, were forced to leave the country. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS returned in a limited capacity when it realized the Kremlin did not replace its services when it left. The U.N. organization has distributed antiretroviral drugs to 4,300 patients in 2015, a significant drop from the 66,000 patients it distributed the treatment to in 2009. Since the 2012 crackdown on NGOs, testing for HIV has dropped by 20 percent.

Russia has also barred the World Health Organization’s Clean Needle Program, which substantially reduced the number of new HIV cases among drug users in developed countries. The European Union estimates that the combination of methadone treatments for drug users and the Clean Needle Program can nearly eliminate HIV transmission among drug users in advanced countries, as seen in the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, the Kremlin has cracked down on the pharmaceutical industry, limiting access to HIV treatments. Legally, Russia’s Federal AIDS Program is supposed to cover antiretroviral treatments, but only a symbolic few patients have received such coverage. The Kremlin retained the authority to import pharmaceuticals but abdicated responsibility for providing HIV treatment, putting the burden on the regional governments, most of which are struggling with mounting debts.

Russia imports 90 percent of its pharmaceuticals, and of its domestically produced pharmaceuticals, 99 percent require imported substances. In 2014, the Kremlin decided to boost the domestic pharmaceutical industry to break its reliance on imports, most of which come from the West. Russia has begun reducing imports from its top sources for pharmaceuticals — France, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Hungary — amid trade sanctions and cooling relations with Western powers, and Moscow wants to increase domestic pharmaceutical production even more by 2018.

Of course, Russia’s pharmaceutical sector grew 7.5 percent in 2015 after a growth spurt of 27 percent in 2014, though foreign investment spurred much of the growth. But now Russia is cracking down on foreign investors, requiring multinational companies to partner with local universities and levying a new 24 percent tax on company profits in the country. A recent study showed that about 77 percent of foreign pharmaceutical companies operating in Russia are struggling to remain profitable. The cost of importing drugs has increased during the past year as well, and Russia’s currency is still weak. Sixteen Russian companies have stopped making or selling many drugs because of the cost of imported substances, and pharmaceutical sales dropped by an estimated 30 percent in 2015. In addition, research and development in Russian sciences is declining in general.

Together, these factors have left only 3 percent of Russia’s HIV-positive population with access to antiretroviral drugs, according to the World Health Organization.

The Epidemic’s Impact

Given the estimate that Russia’s HIV-positive population could double by 2020, the epidemic has become an issue the Kremlin can no longer ignore. Not only are new HIV cases spreading rapidly, but 70 percent of HIV cases are among 20- to 39-year-olds, Russia’s primary working-age population.

Russia is already set up for demographic crises in the decade ahead. The ethnic Russian population is in steep decline, the overall population of the country is expected to drop by 10 percent before 2030, and the upcoming Russian workforce — the population cohort under the age of 20 now — is drastically smaller than the current workforce. If the bulk of Russia’s HIV cases are among the current workforce, and many new cases occur among the upcoming workforce, then Russia’s overall labor force will shrink substantially. In addition, HIV affects worker productivity, especially if the affected workers do not have access to the proper treatments. If treated, HIV patients can often participate in the workforce, though the additional health maintenance costs would create a burden for the overall economy.

However, changes in policies and practices regarding HIV would come with tradeoffs for the Russian government. The Kremlin could continue increasing spending on HIV programs and treatments, though any real progress would require amounts closer to Western spending on the crisis, in the tens of billions of dollars. With Russia in recession and oil prices probably remaining low for the foreseeable future, there is no indication that the Kremlin will spare more funds to combat the HIV crisis. Funding limitations also will prevent Russia’s pharmaceutical industry from expanding enough to produce the treatments needed.

In the current geopolitical climate, Russia will continue minimizing foreign assistance for and within the country. The Kremlin will also probably keep promoting conservative values and prohibiting HIV and sex education programs, particularly since the current government relies on a strong conservative base to maintain its power.

However, the Kremlin could take small steps to address the epidemic that would not be overly controversial. For example, Russia could make methadone and other opiate substitution treatment drugs legal in order to taper injectable drug use. If Russia does not want to import methadone from the West, it could buy it from other pharmaceutical producers in India or China. Moscow could also let international NGOs back in to provide treatment and aid, but again, the Kremlin will keep foreign activity in the country to a minimum.

Russia’s main problem is that it has waited so long to address its HIV epidemic. When the United States began addressing the rapidly growing number of HIV and AIDS cases, it took nearly two decades to reach a point where medicine and treatments could keep the disease at bay. Even if Russia were to employ the amount of financial, educational and medical resources the United States has, HIV would still hurt Russia and its population in the coming decades.