Russia and Turkey resume talks on Turkish Stream

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Russia and Turkey have resumed talks on a the Turkish Stream pipeline, despite the current political upheaval in Turkey. Further civil unrest in Turkey poses significant risk to hydrocarbon transit through Turkish territory.

Shelved approximately seven months ago after a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter plane, the pipeline has more things to worry about. Originally designed to make the nation a linchpin in Europe’s energy supplies, replacing Ukraine from 2020, the project has also been delayed amid gas-supply pricing disputes. The link’s annual capacity, initially planned at 63 billion cubic meters (2.2 trillion cubic feet), or about a third of Gazprom’s exports to Europe, was later cut by 50 percent.

Bloomberg spoke about the project’s prospects with Sijbren de Jong. The full article can be read here.

Photo credit: JanChr via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Russia and Iran will continue to block the construction of the Trans-Caspian pipeline

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Turkmenistan is scheduled to hold a trilateral summit (Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan) on the Trans-Caspian pipeline project by late 2016 where the prospects of the project will be discussed. The project, whose origins date back to the early 1990s, is marred by uncertainty about its implementation among others due to heavy objections from Russia and Iran.

Trend news agency spoke about the matter with Sijbren de Jong. The full interview can be read here.

Photo credit: dalbera via Foter.com / CC BY

Assessing Cyber Security, tweede editie, najaar 2016

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In 2016 gaat het vervolg van het Assessing Cyber Security project van start. Het Assessing Cyber Security project toont de belangrijkste trends en ontwikkelingen in cyber space sinds de vorige editie. Het analyseert meer dan 70 studies, scheidt het kaf van het koren, laat zien wat we echt weten over digitale dreigingen en wat we daaraan kunnen doen.

Word nu projectpartner en verbind je aan toonaangevend cyberonderzoek, breid je netwerk uit, en profiteer van het podium!

Het project gaat van start zodra we voldoende deelnemers hebben.

Geïnteresseerd om mee te doen? Neem contact op met Louk Faesen.

The circular economy and developing countries

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A transition towards a ‘circular economy’ – in which redundant consumer goods are viewed as input rather than waste – offers great potential for societies to reduce their environmental footprint. Once products reach the end of their lifespan new value can be generated by re-using valuable resources.

In today’s globalized world, widely used (consumer) goods such as mobile phones, are generally composed of resources and materials from all corners of the world. For example, in 2014, Brazil was the largest exporter of iron ore to the EU. Lithium, a key component of batteries, is mostly imported from the US. And nearly half of aluminum ores and concentrates imported by the EU come from Guinea. Various economic sectors in Europe (e.g. aerospace, renewable energy, technology, etc.) are highly dependent on the availability of specific sets of raw materials.

However, in spite of the strong interconnectivity between export markets and countries of origin, meager attention is paid to the consequences that a transition to circularity may have on countries that rely on the export of raw materials for (economic) stability, in particular developing countries. After all, a circular economy could, ceteris paribus, result in reduced revenues for resource-exporting developing countries.

In conjunction with the upcoming Dutch government-wide program on the circular economy and the EU’s circular economy action plan, this Issue Brief by the Centre of Expertise on Resources presents the outcome of a data-analysis into the effects that a circular transition in the Netherlands and Europe may have on developing countries heavily reliant on the export of a select number of (critical) raw materials (minerals and metals) to the Dutch and EU market.

The paper can be downloaded here.

Better together: towards a new cooperation portfolio for defense

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A new HCSS report Better Together is about cooperation, the way it is changing, and what this means for our national defense organizations (NDOs). Cooperation is the foundation of any human society. The scale and extent of cooperation is what distinguishes humans from other species.

Watch an introductory video to the study below. 

In recent years the digital revolution has drastically reduced the cost of cooperating and simultaneously expanded the opportunities for cooperation. The new cooperation calculus has given rise to much more open, smaller scale, and vibrant forms of collaboration, in many instances rapidly displacing traditional models.

NDOs face a turbulent environment and an uncertain future. In these times of geopolitical shifts and rapid technological change no defense organization can go it alone. The Dutch defense organization already manages a broad portfolio of cooperation partners. Its portfolio consists of other nations’ NDOs, government departments and agencies; NGOs; local communities; defense and non-defense industry firms; knowledge institutes; etc. However, this cooperation portfolio tends to be lopsided toward long-term, formalized, closed forms of collaboration with mostly like-minded organizations. While these traditional kinds of cooperation clearly remain important, this report sets out to explore other forms of cooperation that NDOs have thus far not had much experience with – with unfamiliar partners and in more open and more loosely coupled ways, facilitated by new technological developments.

In order to gain insight into new forms of cooperation and draw lessons for NDOs, HCSS has explored three cases: InnoCentive, an open marketplace for R&D solutions; hacker communities; and Ushahidi, an open platform for crisis informatics. The report describes how these new forms of cooperation are initiated, how they are managed, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Based on the results of the case studies, the report makes some general recommendations for the Dutch defense organization. They suggest that our NDO should continue its first steps and move further along the road towards full-spectrum cooperability, that is the capability to engage in a broad portfolio of cooperation partners and forms, to strengthen and draw strength from a diverse defense and security ecosystem.

The report can be downloaded here.

Introductory video:

Nieuwe HCSS studie voor Koninklijke Luchtmacht: ‘Vleugels voor Nederland’

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De luchtmacht heeft behoefte aan een sterke lucht en ruimtevaartsector. Steeds meer nieuwe technologische ontwikkelingen lijken een paradigma shift te kunnen gaan veroorzaken voor zowel de industrie als de luchtmacht:

• afnemende houdbaarheid van technologie en accelererende innovatiecyclus;

• verschuiving van het belang van wapensystemen naar verbeterde informatiepositie;

• afnemend belang van materieel in eigen beheer naar het gebruik van services;

• noodzaak tot omvorming van gesloten naar meer open innovatiesystemen;

• noodzaak tot nieuwe vormen van verwerving die snelle innovatie toelaten;

• meer participatieve vormen van samenwerking: van klant leverancier naar partners.

Om hier de kansen en bedreigingen goed van te onderkennen en de operationele behoeften goed in te vullen, heeft de luchtmacht aangegeven innovation lead en launching customer te willen zijn op die terreinen waar ze operationeel behoeften heeft en de industrie kansen ziet business te kunnen ontwikkelen.

Doel van dit onderzoek was het vaststellen en uitdragen op welke wijze de lucht- en ruimtevaartsector zich in samenspraak met de luchtmacht sterker kan opstellen en positioneren om de strategische waarde van deze industrie voor de Nederlandse economische en veiligheidsbelangen te versterken. Hiervoor is er overleg geweest tussen de vertegenwoordigers van de kennisinstellingen, industrie en luchtmacht.

De conclusies en aanbevelingen die zijn opgesteld voor de overheid (luchtmacht), kennisinstellingen en de lucht en ruimtevaartsector zijn:

– Consolidatie van bestaande clusters is noodzakelijk om een sterker profiel aan de sector te geven en daarmee lijkt er behoefte aan nieuwe samenwerkingsverbanden tussen defensie, kennisinstellingen en de lucht- en ruimtevaartindustrie om samen met bouwers van sensoren, bedrijven in de dataverwerking, onbemande systemen te kunnen inspelen op kansen en operationele behoeften

– De langdurige verwervingsprocedures dragen niet voldoende bij aan de tijdige invulling van de behoeftes van de luchtmacht en de ontwikkeling en innovatie van de sector

– Betrek de Nederlandse lucht- en ruimtevaartindustrie vroegtijdig bij behoeftestelling en langetermijnplanning zodat snel duidelijk is wat de ambities en mogelijkheden zijn en alle stakeholders hun opties kunnen inbrengen en combineren

– Zet samen met EZ en regionale ontwikkelingsmaatschappijen in op het gezamenlijk zorgdragen voor het aanjagen en realiseren van substantieel ontwikkelingsprojecten op nationale schaal.

Zowel het rapport als de bijbehorende financieringswijzer zijn hier te vinden.

Introductory Video HCSS Report: Better Together

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A new HCSS report Better Together is about cooperation, the way it is changing, and what this means for our national defense organizations (NDOs). Cooperation is the foundation of any human society. The scale and extent of cooperation is what distinguishes humans from other species.

Watch the introductory video:

Cyber Stability Seminar 2016: Taking Security Forward – Building on the 2015 Report of the GGE

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Alexander Klimburg delivered a talk on the Cyber Stability Seminar 2016. 

The Conference considered how the international community can operationalize and build upon consensus reports – and generate momentum for a successful 2016-2017 GGE (United Nations Groups of Governmental Experts) . The conference brought together stakeholders from the Geneva diplomatic community, industry, and capital-based policymakers to discuss and explore how to leverage the GGE process to promote a peaceful, stable and secure cyber environment.

Mr. Klimburg’s presentation can be found here.

All presentations and talks can be found on the webpage of UNIDIR.

Gazprom reaches deal with Slovakia

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Yesterday Gazprom announced it will send some of the gas from its controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline through Slovakia, in a bid that may remove Slovak opposition against the project. What are the reasons for this decision and what are the consequences for Nord Stream II and EU sanctions policy?

Polish news website Biznes Alert spoke about the matter with Sijbren de Jong. The full article (in Polish) can be read here.

Photo credit: Thawt Hawthje via Foter.com / CC BY

 

Russian (dis)information?

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Hoaxes and trolls are common sights on the internet nowadays. Lately, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the Russian state uses these methods deliberately in order to influence European states. There are also the first counter-initiatives. 

The German magazine ‘Perspective Daily’ spoke about the matter with Sijbren de Jong and several other experts. The full article (in German) can be read here.

Photo credit: KOREA.NET – Official page of the Republic of Korea via Foter.com / CC BY-SA