Agora - content

The open forum for foreign policy

Blogs

Mining for answers in Britain’s ever-shifting coal policy

by

Coal seems to many as a thing of the past, connotating miners is sooty uniforms and canaries in cages, yet we are still haunted by coal’s legacy even today. In the face of an ongoing climate crisis, why can’t the British government make up its mind about coal?

Modern society is undoubtedly in the era of Petroleum, with the fossil fuel characterising not just the way we live, from transport to energy, but also to how the world is run. Since the principal discovery and exploitation of the resource in the mid-1800s, our world was changed. However, none of this would have been without the boost in capacity for growth that its predecessor, coal, provided.

Even though we have transitioned from the era of coal to the era of petroleum, however, coal is very much an integral part of our society. Coal still makes up more than ¼ of the world’s energy mix, with it primarily being burnt to produce electricity in coal-fired power generation. Over the past few years, given the growing pressures and efficiencies of renewable energy sources, and even the cheaper price points of petroleum and natural gas, coal has slowly been put on the backburner in terms of national energy policy. Yet over the past few years, the British government can’t seem to make up their mind on what they think about coal – why?

There are several reasons for this. First – the coal industry in the UK has a complex history rooted in the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Coal allowed Britain to emerge as one of the cornerstones of the world, with a massive boost to its economy and enabling its military capacity to grow to the largest it has been in its entire history.

This leads thus into the second reason, being the institutionalised nature of coal in our national energy mix and infrastructure. While coal only makes up approximately 9% of the national energy mix, and has been gradually replaced by the more favourable natural gas (which in contrast makes up 43% of the mix), the phase out of coal power stations has been slow. Whilst the numbers may indicate that coal is not a big deal, it is still 9% of dirty fossil fuel that is being burned compared to natural gas which is marginally cleaner.

The slow phase out of coal has not been helped by the contemporary culprit: the lack of any concrete perspective on coal by the government for the past four years. After a shift from Liberal Democrat to Conservative hands following the 2015 election, the government has had three separate Secretaries of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs; the most current being MP Michael Gove. Additionally, the past three years have obscured the presence of any explicit department for energy with a concrete plan. What was once the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), no longer exists as of 2016 and is now a mere fragment of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

What does all this mean? Quite simply, it means that the fight against climate change has been put on the backburner with regards to the government’s main focuses. The disappearance of DECC into BEIS indicates that climate change, whilst still a serious issue, cannot be prioritised over the economy. Current international ties, particularly to the United States appear to make coal a desirable part of the energy mix; given President Trump’s election promise to revive the coal industry, prompting “Trump digs Coal” signs to pop up at rallies along the campaign trail. Bilateral relations with China may have a stake in the presence of coal, particularly given China’s role in British nuclear power. Even relations with the EU, through which the UK receives most of its natural gas as a result of an agreement with the Russian Federation, may revive the importance of coal following Brexit.

The British government claims to be a ‘leader’ in the fight against climate change, with the conservative party claiming to be the ‘greenest party ever’, yet these statements beg questioning given the blatant contradiction-in-terms. It is clear that the presence of coal is still here in the UK, and it is going to take more than converting the skeletons of our sooty past like Battersea Power Station, and the flimsy plan to close all current plants by 2025 to change this.

Micheil Page is currently reading an MSc in Global Energy and Climate Policy at SOAS, University of London, specialising in Arctic governance. He is also the Director of UniSolar, the UK’s first student-led community energy enterprise.

Westminster Woes – Brussels Battering? Why government insecurity does not necessarily mean foreign weakness.

by

Despite Theresa May’s weakness reasonable progress has been made in Brussels. No no deal. No Brussels trouncing. Why did her weakness not lead to weakness in the negotiations and what can we learn from this?

2017 was, at the very the least, an ill-starred year for UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative government. May was dogged by gaff, scandal and disaster at home, all whilst attempting to negotiate the Brexit settlement abroad.

Compounding the Prime Minister’s misery were the parliamentarians and pundits, on hand after every misfortune to explain why her crumbling authority would have negative consequences for Britain in the Brexit negotiations. Dire predictions abounded; the negotiations were going to be a Brexi-nightmare and Britain was to be Brexi-bulldozed.

And yet here we are. Many would argue that a seemingly reasonable compromise has been reached on the Irish border, citizens’ rights and the divorce bill. Furthermore, it appears that the UK has not been bullied into capitulating wholesale at the negotiating table despite May’s weakness. What are we to make of this state of affairs?

First, we should not be surprised. American political scientist, Robert Putnam, showed negotiations are two level games: the agreement is negotiated internationally at level 1 and ratified domestically at level 2. Each negotiating team has a set of all possible agreements which could be reached at level 1 (the international level) and that ratifiers (members of the cabinet, parliament and the public) could accept at level 2 (the domestic level).

Providing a deal does not fall apart then the negotiators at level 1 will usually arrive at an agreement somewhere in the middle where their domestic win sets overlap and they can be confident of ratification.

So, if we take the divorce bill and citizens rights both sides began by touting their preferred options before ceding ground until an acceptable middle ground was reached. This is how negotiations between relative equals proceed – domestic weakness does not mean foreign surrender.

Second, and more speculatively, perhaps the law of unintended consequences has helped May, albeit perversely. The stronger a government is, the greater the number of potential agreements they can accept at the international level because they know they can simply force them through at the domestic level. Strangely therefore, strong governments can end up ceding more at the negotiating table. Had May done well in the June election she would have gone to Brussels with a strong parliamentary majority and her own personal mandate. As it turned out her gamble backfired catastrophically leaving her with no parliamentary majority and a divided party. Perhaps this has allowed her to withstand demands from the EU for say, a greater amount in the divorce bill, on the grounds that she would not be able to get the deal ratified at home.

However, this does not automatically mean that a negotiating team will be able to gain concessions. This is only possible if a government’s best alternative to no agreement is credible. In the UK, this would be to separate without continuity from the EU, falling back on WTO rules in the critical area of trade. If the EU did not believe this was credible and could have negative implications for the EU as well then they may well have taken advantage of May’s weakness to try and force a punitive deal upon the UK. Yet they have not.

Therefore, finally, EU leaders are committed to securing a sensible deal for both parties. They do not want to see a no deal scenario and such a scenario now looks highly unlikely. This could explain why EU leaders are publically praising May. Perhaps they feel that it is better to prop up a weak but amenable Prime Minister than deal with her potential replacement who would possibly be more prepared to destabilise negotiations by playing the ‘no deal’ card.

Dire domestic politics does not necessarily translate into a dire position at the negotiating table abroad. It now appears that May and the EU will reach a deal. That deal will not be optimal for either side but if the wiser heads prevail it will be fair and Britain will not be bulldozed.

Chris Kunkler (24) is a graduate student and lives in London. He is currently studying for a master’s degree in global politics at LSE.

 

 

Decoding the Deterrent: What are Trident’s Cyber Vulnerabilities?

by

The Cyber Offensive: WannaCry and Beyond

In civilian and military spheres alike, cyber technology has come to dominate the way we operate. Maintaining a grasp of what renders these systems vulnerable is of acute importance, whether for the security of emails or complex military weapons. It is in this lens that the scope of government activity, particularly in the civilian sphere, is changing to incorporate these systems into its broader security mandate. However, this task has proven to be far more challenging and ambiguous than previously conceived.

Offensive capabilities are not to be understood as the product of a hacker singlehandedly infiltrating a security system from his/her basement, but as specialised government programs designed for use on a defined adversary. The Stuxnet virus in 2007 is the primary example of a state-developed offensive technology successfully penetrating an “air gapped” system (fully independent from the internet and other public networks), however the scope of state offensive technology goes beyond that.

The already infamous WannaCry attack in May 2017 infected 200,000 systems running Windows platforms older than Windows 10 without the MS-17-010 update, including the Russian Interior Ministry. The WannaCry virus was based on a design vigorously developed by the NSA that was stolen by a criminal organisation known as the Shadow Brokers. In 2015 a state sponsored offensive cyber virus, code named Project Sauron, infected air gapped systems via a USB insertion. It brought to light how stealthy and insidious cyber-attacks can be that operate in the background gathering information.

When it comes to Trident, the UK’s £205 billion nuclear continuous-at-sea deterrent, designed to be ready to attack any adversary at any given point in time, understanding and securing its cyber vulnerabilities should be a top imperative.

Trident

The prominent government position highlights its impermeability by virtue of being air gapped. Quite rightly, this dispels the notion that one could hack into the cyber components of the nuclear submarine while on patrol at sea. However, the key cyber vulnerabilities of Trident centre around three main areas, listed below. These relate to different parts of the weapon system itself and may present challenges to the submarine’s stealth, the vessel’s internal functions, the control of the nuclear missiles and operational information secrecy. The prominent government position highlights its impermeability by virtue of being air gapped. Quite rightly, this dispels the notion that one could hack into the cyber components of the nuclear submarine while on patrol at sea.

However, the key cyber vulnerabilities of Trident relate to different parts of the weapon system itself and may present challenges to the submarine’s stealth, the vessel’s internal functions, the control of the nuclear missiles and operational information secrecy. As a consequence, they centre around three main areas: create three general categories for these areas e.g. stationing, software, procurement.

The first vulnerability develops from the time each of the four Trident-armed submarines spends docked at the Faslane Naval Base in Scotland, which is up to 40% of its service life. Stationed here, the system is vulnerable to cyber-attack by the physical introduction of malware, which is often how air gapped systems are compromised. A breach of security became a legitimate concern in 2015 after an Engineer Technician Submariner for UK’s Trident II D5 System warned that the poor safety procedures at the base and aboard the submarine itself left the system vulnerable to attack.

The second concern is that Trident currently operates on an outdated software design. As it was built almost thrirty years ago, the Vanguard submarines use a Windows XP operating system. In 2004 the government said that continued use of Windows XP was credible because of Microsoft’s long-term product support, however that support has since stopped. Moreover, it was precisely the lack of a Microsoft update on older Windows systems that left systems susceptible to WannaCry’s EternalBlue malware.

The third weakness relates to the forthcoming procurement of the Dreadnought Class submarines. Due to be completed by the early 2030s, the new submarines are to replace the Vanguard Class submarines that have housed the Trident nuclear capability since the 1990s. The physical introduction of malware into the system can occur during the long procurement stage and lay dormant in the system until activated by the adversary. One solution would be a tightly coordinated procurement process, where the Ministry of Defence itself is overseeing the production of each component. This would help to minimise the risk of a malware introduction. However, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Babcock and other firms are all part of the construction process and will subsequently take responsibility for the security of each stage of production. This distribution of procurement responsibilities would augment to the vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

Given the importance of the UK’s £205 billion nuclear option and the archaic nature of cyber warfare, securing any vulnerabilities should be a top imperative. Despite assurances, Trident is vulnerable and identifying its three key cyber vulnerabilities is the first step to addressing them. Special attention should be given to: securing the nuclear naval base, developing a robust and bespoke operating system and carefully monitoring the procurement already in place to replace Trident in 2030.

Aleem Datoo is co-Leader of Agora’s Defence & Security Programme.

Why the UK Should Have Considered the Sistani Factor when Shaping its Iraqi Foreign Politics

by

The world most revered Shia cleric, born in Iran in 1930, is as influential in Iraq than in the UK. His website held by a team of Shia IT specialists, receives hundreds of online advice requests every day. Considering that the UK counts thousands of his followers among its citizens and he unleashes crowds in Iraq, Ayatollah al-Sistani is, more than a cleric, an institution.

Other ‘instagirls’ and ‘instaboys’ may be green with envy: Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani gathers 27.9K followers on his Persian Instagram. Because his charisma spreads widely among the Shia worldwide diaspora and Shia Iraqis, Sistani’s network, enshrined in the UK through the Imam Ali Foundation, is among the richest religious Shia seminary in the world. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani gathers followers from Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere in the West.

Since he shifted from aloofness to centre-stage with his political fatwa in June 2003, he became increasingly proactive. He pushed for democracy and militated against ethno-sectarian policies imposed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) involved in Iraq since 2003. He stood against the foreign invasion and the coalition’s implementation of the TAL (Transitional Administrative Law). Although, in 2003 al-Sistani was snubbed by the US-led coalition, he forced Paul Bremer to negotiate a deal to ensure a legitimate transition, arguing for Iraqi people to be sovereign and the only ruler of their own condition.

To some extent media outlets worldwide have portrayed him as a religious dictator who seeks to spread his power across the Levantine Peninsula. However, the sectarian narrative, best illustrated by King Abdallah II of Jordan who described it as “the Shia Crescent”, is an obstacle to the understanding of Sistani’s input. Sistani’s involvement on the Iraqi political stage did not aim to bolster sectarian hatred. In fact, quite the opposite, his public statements were supposed to give a sense of national unity against the usurpation of power. It started first with the coalition, and ended with the self-serving ruling elite, namely Nuri al-Maliki, against which Sistani stood to defend the implementation of a civil state.

With the rise of ISIS in Iraq in 2014, Sistani issued a call to arms on national TV for men to mobilise and defend their nations. Although he gathered a clear majority of Shia fighters, some Sunnis also answered his call. As Sistani’s agency is spread worldwide, he had to praise for British Muslims to stay home and leave Iraqis fighting for their own cause.

The Kurdish secessionist impulse, coupled with the fight against ISIS, as well as the awaited outcome of the Syrian conflict, leave Iraq as a fragmented and desolated country. However, if Theresa May is willing to promote UK’s security and stability agenda in the Middle Est, she should reconsider her approach to religion without a sectarian reading grid of the Middle East.

Sistani is among the only buffers against – and potentially, among the only real option – to stop the spread of sectarian violence. However, Sistani’s quietist approach to politics, and his defence of self-determination, lead him to remain silent despite the outbreak of the recent events in Iraq. But we had better keep a close eye on the situation, or follow his Instagram account.

Valentine Debonneville is currently works for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization on human rights issues and minorities rights.

Electric Dreams – Supplying the UK’s post-petrol future  

by

The UK Government recently announced that there will be no new cars powered solely by internal combustion engines on UK roads by 2040. The primary current alternative and chargeable electric cars represent a challenge for the UK’s electricity transmission network. This, in turn, can have implications for Brexit negotiations as the UK works with EU partners to meet electricity demand at peak times.

In July 2017, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Department for Transport published the UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide Concentrations.

In this plan, the Government announced its intention to “end the sale of all new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans”. The alternatives to conventional vehicles include electric and hybrid vehicles, whose widespread production and use will likely have a marked effect on the UK’s electricity transmission network.

Another kind of gridlock

The National Grid, the owner and operator of electricity transmission networks in England and Wales, assumes that electric vehicles will make up between 30% and over 90% of new car sales in the UK by 2040.

The commonly considered alternative to cars that run on fossil fuels are electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries. These batteries are used in everyday electronical devices such as phones and laptops – and just as for phones and laptops, these batteries need charging.

Drivers of electric cars are most likely to plug their vehicles into the grid when they get home from work. National Grid estimates that this will push up energy demand by 5 to 30 GW at peak times. Since electricity cannot currently be efficiently stored on a large scale, additional electricity must be generated and transmitted instantly on demand. Following the National Grid’s report, it has been suggested that the generation capacity of up to ten nuclear power plants may be required to cater for the possibility of an additional 30 GW of peak demand.

Peak electricity demand is not actually met by “switching on” nuclear power plants. In fact, peak demand lasts for short periods of time; typically around 5.30pm on a winter’s day when households put the lights and heating on while businesses and factories have not yet closed.

Demand at peak times can be met by generating facilities that are easy and economical to switch on and not dependent on nature’s elements, like gas-powered plants. The scenario where electric vehicles add 30 GW (just under 50%) to projected peak demand is the most unlikely (albeit possible) future path analysed by National Grid, as it assumes that there would be no cars powered by diesel or petrol (including hybrid vehicles), old or new, in use in the UK by that time. The scenario that National Grid considers most likely adds 5 GW, or 8%, to projected peak demand in 2040.

Electricity supply after Brexit

While still a member of the EU, the UK is part of the European Single Market for Electricity and Gas. But as Prime Minister Theresa May stated in her Florence speech in September: “We will no longer be members of its single market or its customs union”.

The first point to consider is UK’s membership of the EU’s regulators for electricity and gas markets: Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and European Network Transmission System Operators (ENTSO) for Gas and Energy. If the UK were to keep trading gas and electricity in the EU, it may need to consider its post-Brexit membership and influence on EU’s regulatory bodies.

Secondly, Brexit could make the UK grid more vulnerable during peak demand times. At the moment, around  7% of the UK’s electricity is imported1. Electricity can flow both ways between UK and neighbouring EU countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland). Depending on the price differential,  if electricity from the mainland is cheaper, it can flow via interconnectors into UK’s grid and vice versa. The capacity of interconnectors between UK and EU is set to double by 2021. The UK could be more vulnerable to electricity shortages or less advantageous electricity prices if the interconnectors were operated on a basis other than price arbitrage.

To manage these vulnerabilities, it is likely that the government will have to consider whether it can and will commit to maintaining the current mechanisms of operating interconnectors. In negotiations with its European electricity trade partners, the UK may also want to consider mitigating the vulnerability to shortages by using the existing market with spare electricity capacity.

The phasing out of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040 is a decision that will have many knock-on effects on the UK’s electricity supply and transmission system. Is it likely that UK government will have to articulate a policy for dealing with its European partners in electricity trade to mitigate possible risks associated with widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Whatever lies on UK’s post-petrol road ahead, it will be a fine balancing exercise.

Rozalie is on Agora’s Board of Trustees. She is a land economist by training and graduated from Clare College, Cambridge in 2016. Since then, she has been training to become an insurance underwriter in the energy sector. 

Spain’s law of return, Brexit and the ‘worth’ of immigrants

by

Like Brexit, Spain’s attempt to establish historical justice for the past Reconquista is just another case of the economisation of immigration.

In 2015, the Spanish government issued a ‘law of return’, inviting descendants of Jews expelled more than 500 years ago from the Iberian Peninsula to apply for Spanish citizenship. The idea was to ‘correct a historical error’, as Spanish Minister of Justice Rafael Català stated. The ‘error’ was the Alhambra Decree of 1492, which asked all Jews living in Spain to either convert to Christianity or leave the now Christian lands.

The Decree of 1492 constitutes a turning point in the history of Spain – in fact, ‘Spain’ as we understand it today did not exist before this year. The Decree marked the endpoint of the so-called ‘Reconquista’, the battle of the Christian Kingdoms against the Muslim rulers, who governed the Iberian Peninsula for 800 years; and the beginning for a new understanding of ‘Spanishness’ in light of the strengthening Inquisition. To be ‘Spanish’ meant to be ‘ethnically Catholic’; conversion was no longer an escape. New Christians, former Muslims and Jews, were subject to the ‘limpieza de sangre’, the purification of blood.

This Inquisition officially lasted right up until 1834, fostering an atmosphere of constant suspicion between Spaniards. The entanglement of the Spanish nation-state with Catholicism and monarchy, which – at least superficially – held diverse cultural entities together, has caused tensions ever since: from Francisco Franco’s suppression of regional differences; to Basque anarchist, anti-monarchist nationalism and terrorism; right up until our own times with the Catalonian crisis.

The ‘law of return’ therefore seemed like a belated attempt at historical reconciliation as well of acknowledgement of Spain’s past and present diversity. It opened the young Spanish democracy, established in 1978, to an alternative concept of Spanish citizenship, away from Catholicism and the Catholic crown.

However, this is a deception. Basque congressman Jon Iñarritu García and others have questioned the motives behind this new law. It is clearly targeted at wealthy individuals who could financially boost the stricken Spanish economy. According to Iñarritu García, the complex conditions tied to the new law and non-transparent application process are evidence of this. Amongst other things, exams on Spanish history, culture and language must be passed to qualify; as well as proof of heritage, including onomatology. Iñarritu García estimates the total cost of the application process at 6.000 Euros. This is illuminating, especially when coupled with the fact that individuals, who cannot present their exact genealogy, can still apply for the citizenship as long as they have invested substantially in Sephardic culture. Finally, the applicants have to vow allegiance to the Spanish constitution, and incredibly, to the Spanish King.

Hence, the ‘law of return’ does not establish historical justice, as proclaimed by the Spanish government, but perpetuates the ideology behind 1492. Instead of a change in the Spanish mentality, it appears that Sephardi immigrants are not perceived as having the right to reside in Spain, but are evaluated according to their financial value to Spain. The Spanish government holds the power to pick and choose the ‘good’ immigrants, showing some uncomfortable parallels with the Inquisition during which certain useful ‘New Christians’ were protected.

The economisation of immigration is not an issue unique to Spain. Most recently the Brexit movement has displayed a similar pattern. For some that voted to Leave, the sovereignty of the UK state is paramount, especially the right to choose how many and what kind of EU-nationals are allowed to come to the UK; that is, those deemed to be ‘good’ immigrants, i.e. educated Western Europeans. The UK government has done little to ease the concerns of EU citizens currently residing in the UK during the ongoing Brexit negotiations and has often been accused of using them as bargaining chips for trade deals. It appears, then, that this is not so different from the Spanish case.

The often-cited ‘Empire nostalgia’ that accompanied the Brexit vote, supports this perspective. Though the idea of the former Empire implies a certain cosmopolitanism, it can also invoke a time when non-British nationals were seen as means to an end, which is not so dissimilar to the current situation.

To view immigrants primarily through a financial lens is dangerous. It de-humanises individuals and overlooks the cultural contribution of immigration to society. Perceiving immigrants as an economic cost puts every them under the microscope and invites scrutiny: Has he or she contributed enough to the economy to be accepted by the society in which they live in?

In short, contemporary rationales for both Spanish and UK immigration policy reflect far older power dynamics. A ‘historical error’ cannot be corrected. It seems that the lessons of the past have not been learned.

Susana Zickert (25) is a 2017 graduate from the MA programme ‘Religion in Global Politics’ at SOAS and lives in London.