Tel Aviv is using social media to state its case in the Gaza conflict, but Will Ward of Arab Media and Society says the most effective voices in the internet propaganda war hail from outside official channels.
PODCAST
January 10, 2009
Republicans search for their 'Obama'
Where will the Republican Party go in the age of Barack Obama? The political swamps of Louisiana offer a clue, says Jim Gabour for openDemocracy.
By Jim Gabour for openDemocracy.net
Until the autumn of 2008 a political gambler would have been given major odds by any bookie in America against a major change in national and world government emerging from the corrupt backwaters of Louisiana.
After all, this is the state that re-elected Representative William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, even after he was caught by the FBI with US$90,000 in marked currency in his freezer. This is the state in which a city magnified the destruction of a cataclysmic hurricane by re-electing a mayor proved both incompetent and self-serving, a man still to this day able to stonewall wrongdoing by literally cursing anyone who questions his word or authority. This is the state served by Representative David Vitter, still holding a death-grip on his seat in Congress after years of paying for the illegal sexual services of call-girls and strippers.
This is Louisiana
And yet the unimaginable has happened. It happened because of the unlikely collusion of three "regular" guys, all named secondarily, by or for someone else.
There is Piyush, and Anh, and... Gustav.
Who are respectively Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, Representative-elect Anh "Joseph" Cao and... hurricane Gustav.
Piyush entered the game first, a brilliant and sincere young man of Indian origins who was selected to revitalize a decaying department of health by a distinctively retro-conservative Republican governor. Chief executive Mike Foster was a man who ran a plantation with an iron hand and rode his chromed Harley-Davidson motorcycle to work. He encouraged his protégé to run to succeed him, but Jindal was unsuccessful, beaten by Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who promptly had her political career destroyed by her handling of hurricane Katrina.
Through hard work and grassroots political acumen, Jindal eventually parlayed that first position into two terms in Congress, and finally into the same governorship he had coveted under Foster. He was successful, handsome, a moderate of sorts, he was America's first governor of Indian descent, and he was a first-generation American. That noted, he was immediately thrown into contention as a possible running mate for presidential hopeful John McCain.
Jindal reportedly turned down the offer, and McCain then disastrously decided that Jindal's complete opposite was really what America needed. Instead of the intellectual and intuitive man who had converted to Catholicism in his teens and considered the priesthood, who had attended Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, America needed an over-dressed and under-briefed rustic Alaskan soccer mom.
"You betcha," said Sarah Palin.
"Nope," said America.
McCain's choice gave Barack Obama what he needed to win the presidency in November.
Immediately after the election, Republicans saw Jindal for what he is, the anti-Palin, and in less than a week every news magazine and editorial writer in America began writing of him as the true "future of the Republican party."
Newsweek, among others, said: "There are plenty of rising stars in the GOP. But in the wake of Barack Obama's victory on Nov. 4, none has attracted as much speculation, curiosity and unapologetic hype as Jindal."
Enter Gustav
Something else was originally scheduled to be on the ballot that November Tuesday, but was nowhere to be seen: the general election for the second congressional district House of Representatives seat from Louisiana.
Another unschooled entity, this one named Gustav by a committee of scientists, had already intervened in early September, crashing ashore in Louisiana to scatter residents and disrupt the scheduled Democratic Party primary for the House seat. The September election was set back to the November date. So instead of the general election that would encompass all parties, the presidential election Tuesday was, for the House election, merely the Democratic primary, and was again won handily by indicted Representative William Jefferson.
That dismal outcome was inevitable. Louisiana's second district was engineered as a blatant gerrymander to create the first majority African- American district in the state. That majority was inevitably parceled by power brokers into political action groups like SOUL, BOLD and COUP, all working organizations that guaranteed voter turnout of their members in return for tax-deductible contributions.
But they didn't have to work hard in November. With Obama's charismatic candidacy, there was no problem in turning out an unprecedented number of African-American voters in the second district. Jefferson's black opponents were overwhelmed as the skewed logic of empowerment prevailed, i.e., "He may be a crook, but he's our crook." His sole remaining opponent was a young attractive Hispanic woman with no real experience - she had been a TV news reporter prior to her run against Jefferson. The race was his.
But Jefferson still had the general election, now rescheduled to December, an election which the second district political organizations completely disregarded - they thought they had won in November, when Obama won, and that was that.
The future is Cao
Come December signs started sprouting along streets, signs touting a person named Anh "Joseph" Cao, the Republican candidate, and lone remaining major party candidate to face Jefferson. They were formidable signs, colourful and sturdy. They cost lots of money, which was suddenly being supplied not only by the national party, but by locals as well. People began asking who the fellow was, and most I knew simply said he was "Jefferson's only competition", so he was worth supporting, just to end the shame.
I researched a bit: Anh immigrated as a child to the United States from Vietnam, earned advanced degrees in physics and philosophy, like Jindal embraced a brief consideration of the priesthood, then took a law degree from Loyola University, where I teach. His specialty was immigration law. He stands just over five feet tall and is extremely shy, though articulate.
I have never before in my life voted for a Republican. But faced with the alternative of the further disgrace and inaction of another term from "Dollar Bill", I voted for Cao. The district's political action groups, thinking the race was in the bag, did not deign to come to the polls.
The rest of us did.
Cao won, the first person of Vietnamese extraction to be elected to Congress. Even his own people couldn't believe it. When they first started arriving in Louisiana after the war, there was resistance. Local residents did not want a wave of unknown foreigners. But slowly in New Orleans the idea of a people who loved the subtropics, fished for a living and drank beer, had rice as a staple of their diet and knew how to bake French bread - well, they seemed to fit right in. Most were French-style Catholics and formed a community in New Orleans East around their churches, though the Buddhist contingent congregated on the Westbank of the city.
It hasn't been that long since even being a Catholic or speaking French was a considered a serious detriment to getting elected to statewide office in Louisiana. Just a few decades ago it seemed a miracle that a Cajun French Catholic named Edwin Edwards became governor. Of course this is the man now sitting in a federal penitentiary, awaiting a pardon from the outgoing president, imprisoned for transgressions committed during his tenure as the state's highest elected official.
But suddenly there was Cao. And, like Jindal, the reaction was immediate:
"Less than 24 hours after his upset defeat of a longtime Democratic congressman from New Orleans, Anh ‘Joseph' Cao found the weight of the entire Republican Party resting on his diminutive shoulders.
"The chairman of the Republican National Committee said Cao's election Saturday night showed that, even battered and bruised from political drubbings in the past two years, Republicans ‘still know how to win elections.' House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) was more blunt, issuing a memo Sunday declaring: ‘The future is Cao.'"
Even Senator David Vitter, the politician of hooker-for-hire fame, was trying to cleanse himself by attaching to the new representative in an interview headlined as "Disgraced Senator talks about election of Joseph Cao as an improvement to Louisiana's image."
A clean slate
So what does this dual anachronism matter? Is it even minutely significant in the long term? Jindal is a strong campaigner and has political savvy, which Cao despite his integrity and intellect does not possess. Jindal was helped in gaining his office by campaigning among Baptist and Pentecostal churches, "testifying" at many, in the process embracing traditional black religious culture.
Though Cao has even taken the step of applying for membership in Congress's Black Caucus, he has not been well-received, and African-American political organisations in Cao's district will not be caught sleeping again. Despite his possible good work, a new clean slate and a progressive outlook, the district that re-elected Jefferson ten times may be unwilling to let someone who is not of their number continue a second term in Washington. You can't count on a hurricane like Gustav every election.
Still it seems amazing that in a state known for white rural conservatism, in a party that has doggedly kept its franchise white and traditional and Protestant, voters find that they have elected two men of colour, and of foreign origin, who have both intellectual depth and an overriding passion in their beliefs.
And more amazingly these two men, who both speak in complete sentences, now have the nation's and world's attention as the "future" of the Republican party.
A party that would previously never have counted on anyone named Piyush or Anh... or Gustav.
SWAT:A civilisation at risk
Source: Dawn, Pakistan
The unique, ancient and historic heritage of Swat is being destroyed in the name of religion
By Khurshid Khan
"Several renowned Buddhist scholars deliver Buddhist Philosophy as well as contemporary sciences in the valley. The Monasteries and schools are densely populated by uncountable students who have travelled here from far off lands. They are provided with accommodation and food," observed Sung Yun, the famous Chinese pilgrim who came to Swat in 519.A.D. He was overwhelmed by the heavenly peace, happiness and agricultural produce of the valley and wrote, "jungle fowls, deer and other wild animals openly roam the streets of the villages". Another traveller, Hiuen Tsiang (630 A.D) wrote about Swat's favourable climate and abundance of forests, flowers and fruit-trees. He spoke of 1400 monasteries on both sides of the River Swat.
The rulers of Swat State were the true heirs of Gandhara civilisation. They transformed Swat into a cradle of peace previously devastated by the Huns and other such barbarians. During the 16th century Swat State Era, an array of schools and hostels were constructed. It seemed that the spirit of Udyana and Gandhara civilisations was reincarnated. Today, this cradle of peace has once again been invaded by "modern" barbaric Huns. Undoubtedly this nation of barbarians is not native but has infiltrated from outside.
Before the establishment of Swat State, the valley was a victim of extreme restlessness, violence and anarchy. The day to day skirmishes and killing had entangled the society of Swat in its venomous tentacles. Famous Pashto saying about Swat was "Swat dakk da fasad" (Swat full of violence). The intelligent central authority of the Miangul Abdul Wadood (1917-1969) put the affairs on the right track and brought prosperity and peace back to the valley.
The inheritors of Gandhara Civilisation spread serenity and harmony in the valley. The name Udyana means garden where fragrant flowers, chirping birds, peace and tranquillity reign supreme. The valley of Swat is replete with historical relics from the banks of River Swat to the peaks of the snowy mountains. Udyana civilisation originated here and spread from Swat to Tibet in China. Several enchanting stupas and relics still embellish the landscapes. Some of these are in perfect condition while the others have been damaged badly. The sublime epitome of Gandharan Art, Swat museum, still boasts the conserved Buddhist relics and beautifully stone carved artefacts in perfect condition. The credit goes to the last Wali of Swat, Miangul Jahanzeb, who generously supported the Italian archaeologist who excavated the ancient historic heritage of Swat and won international status for the valley. These cultural heritages and legacies of Swat are the substantial examples of the civilised people occupying Swat.
America exploited religion against Russia in Afghanistan in securing its vested interests and departed victorious but left behind the fierce Arabian tribal culture in a guise of narrow interpretation of Islam, devastating the centuries-old legacy of Afghanistan and stigmatising the Afghan community all over the world.
The Wahabi influence has penetrated the Frontier, especially this side of the Durand Line. The unique, ancient and historic heritage of Swat is being destroyed in the name of religion. The historic stone-carved statue of seated Buddha in Jan Abad, which was second to Bamyan, was wiped out in this ongoing turbulence. This historic masterpiece of art is irretrievable, destroying the soft image of the valley worldwide.
These extremists are national criminals and the silent witnesses of these crimes are, in a sense, allies. The government has failed to conserve these historic relics because the Establishment has always refused to acknowledge the history that existed before 712 A.D. It has always attempted to impose an alien blanket identity upon the dwellers of the region, giving no room to be proud of their rich history.
The irony is that they talk of 'interfaith harmony' and 'tolerance' and consider tourism as a potential source of revenue but have not yet recognised the significance of cultural diversity in bringing about the same. It is proposed that a status of a "historic valley" should be given to Swat instead of a district. The electronic and print media can also play an important role to do the ground work in this context. The National Assembly should legislate cultural heritage laws to restrain the vandals and treasure hunters.
The valley has all the ingredients of building and maintaining a civilisation. If we do not raise a voice to reclaim and protect all these valuable resources, barbarism will replace civilisation in Swat.
The unique, ancient and historic heritage of Swat is being destroyed in the name of religion
By Khurshid Khan
"Several renowned Buddhist scholars deliver Buddhist Philosophy as well as contemporary sciences in the valley. The Monasteries and schools are densely populated by uncountable students who have travelled here from far off lands. They are provided with accommodation and food," observed Sung Yun, the famous Chinese pilgrim who came to Swat in 519.A.D. He was overwhelmed by the heavenly peace, happiness and agricultural produce of the valley and wrote, "jungle fowls, deer and other wild animals openly roam the streets of the villages". Another traveller, Hiuen Tsiang (630 A.D) wrote about Swat's favourable climate and abundance of forests, flowers and fruit-trees. He spoke of 1400 monasteries on both sides of the River Swat.
The rulers of Swat State were the true heirs of Gandhara civilisation. They transformed Swat into a cradle of peace previously devastated by the Huns and other such barbarians. During the 16th century Swat State Era, an array of schools and hostels were constructed. It seemed that the spirit of Udyana and Gandhara civilisations was reincarnated. Today, this cradle of peace has once again been invaded by "modern" barbaric Huns. Undoubtedly this nation of barbarians is not native but has infiltrated from outside.
Before the establishment of Swat State, the valley was a victim of extreme restlessness, violence and anarchy. The day to day skirmishes and killing had entangled the society of Swat in its venomous tentacles. Famous Pashto saying about Swat was "Swat dakk da fasad" (Swat full of violence). The intelligent central authority of the Miangul Abdul Wadood (1917-1969) put the affairs on the right track and brought prosperity and peace back to the valley.
The inheritors of Gandhara Civilisation spread serenity and harmony in the valley. The name Udyana means garden where fragrant flowers, chirping birds, peace and tranquillity reign supreme. The valley of Swat is replete with historical relics from the banks of River Swat to the peaks of the snowy mountains. Udyana civilisation originated here and spread from Swat to Tibet in China. Several enchanting stupas and relics still embellish the landscapes. Some of these are in perfect condition while the others have been damaged badly. The sublime epitome of Gandharan Art, Swat museum, still boasts the conserved Buddhist relics and beautifully stone carved artefacts in perfect condition. The credit goes to the last Wali of Swat, Miangul Jahanzeb, who generously supported the Italian archaeologist who excavated the ancient historic heritage of Swat and won international status for the valley. These cultural heritages and legacies of Swat are the substantial examples of the civilised people occupying Swat.
America exploited religion against Russia in Afghanistan in securing its vested interests and departed victorious but left behind the fierce Arabian tribal culture in a guise of narrow interpretation of Islam, devastating the centuries-old legacy of Afghanistan and stigmatising the Afghan community all over the world.
The Wahabi influence has penetrated the Frontier, especially this side of the Durand Line. The unique, ancient and historic heritage of Swat is being destroyed in the name of religion. The historic stone-carved statue of seated Buddha in Jan Abad, which was second to Bamyan, was wiped out in this ongoing turbulence. This historic masterpiece of art is irretrievable, destroying the soft image of the valley worldwide.
These extremists are national criminals and the silent witnesses of these crimes are, in a sense, allies. The government has failed to conserve these historic relics because the Establishment has always refused to acknowledge the history that existed before 712 A.D. It has always attempted to impose an alien blanket identity upon the dwellers of the region, giving no room to be proud of their rich history.
The irony is that they talk of 'interfaith harmony' and 'tolerance' and consider tourism as a potential source of revenue but have not yet recognised the significance of cultural diversity in bringing about the same. It is proposed that a status of a "historic valley" should be given to Swat instead of a district. The electronic and print media can also play an important role to do the ground work in this context. The National Assembly should legislate cultural heritage laws to restrain the vandals and treasure hunters.
The valley has all the ingredients of building and maintaining a civilisation. If we do not raise a voice to reclaim and protect all these valuable resources, barbarism will replace civilisation in Swat.
The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan
Excerpt: 'The Great Gamble'
by Gregory Feifer
LISTEN NPR : http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99090399
LISTEN : http://www.tantor.com/mp3/1057_GreatGamble.mp3
NPR.org, January 7, 2009 · According to at least one Soviet general staff officer, no one ever actually ordered the invasion of Afghanistan. Instead, between December 10 and 30, various units were given some thirty various directives to prepare for action. Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov's lack of combat experience helps explain the absence of centralized implementation. A career spent building the military-industrial complex gave him scant knowledge of how to command the invasion of a sovereign state. Since it was beneath the marshal to ask subordinates for advice, staff activity remained largely uncoordinated.
On December 13, 1979, one of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin's Soviet cooks slipped KGB-provided poison into a lunch prepared for the new president and his nephew. The chemicals were estimated to start working after six hours. The Soviets hunkered down to wait for signs of panic at the presidential palace, after which a signal would be given to take over Kabul's key military and communications installations. When nothing happened after the allotted time had passed, the KGB station called Moscow to request further orders. It was decided to cable Amin from Moscow, providing a way to ascertain the president's health by delivering the message to the palace. After a personal communique was sent around eleven p.m., a military intelligence officer and an interpreter set out to deliver it to Amin. The Soviets had extra trouble passing the palace guard because of a nighttime curfew. But when they were finally admitted, Amin and his nephew Asadullah were there. Amin looked pale but showed no other signs of sickness. He listened while the interpreter read the telegram, thanked his visitors, and asked them to send his compliments to Brezhnev, KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, and the rest of the Soviet leadership.
Amin's poison had been dissolved in a glass of his favorite drink, Coca-Cola. Its bubbles rendered the concoction almost harmless. Amin's nephew Asadullah was less lucky. He became seriously ill by the following day, but survived after his evacuation to Moscow for treatment. When the vexing news was relayed to Moscow, an order was given to proceed with the ground-force operation anyway. Another paratroop battalion flew to Bagram to take part in storming the palace. The units obeyed a command to prepare until a second order came to stand down. There would be no coup d'etat attempt that day.
The top Soviet officials in Kabul later cabled Moscow that a successful operation would require more troops. That document was the main genesis of outright military invasion. After the failed assassination attempts, the operation grew into a full-scale assault as if on its own — thanks first to postponement, then inertia. Incredible as it may seem, no further Politburo meetings took place after December 12. Either the final decision was given orally or the directive was destroyed (together with many other single-copy documents) on Andropov's later orders. In any case, December 27 was picked as the day for "Storm-333": a new operation to kill Amin.
Excerpted from The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan, by Gregory Feifer, published in January 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright: Russ Intellectual Properties, 2009, all rights reserved.
January 09, 2009
Ukraine: A key geopolitical battleground between Russia and the West
by Jose Miguel Alonso
Global Research, January 9, 2009
The countdown for Ukraine’s presidential election, to be held on January 31 2010, has already started. The much-anticipated electoral process will be decisive due to its deep geopolitical implications. Its result will have a considerable impact on the world’s balance of power. A fierce battle on Ukrainian soil approaches and it will be fought, once again, between pro-Western and pro-Russian forces.
During the so called ‘Orange Revolution’ a pro-Western coalition headed by former Ukrainian Central Banker Viktor Yushchenko came out victorious over the Party of Regions, lead by Viktor Yanukovich and prone to pro-Russian positions. Shortly afterwards, Kiev distanced itself from Moscow in order to become of the staunchest American allies in the post Soviet space (along with Mikheil Saakashvili’s Georgia). Since then, Ukrainian foreign policy has persistently sought membership in both the EU (European Union) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
That ‘regime change’ was evidently a major setback for Russian interests. Conspicuously enough, many American NGOs and semi-official organizations became actively involved, such as USAID, George Soros’ Open Society Institute and Freedom House (whose Chairman at the time was none other than former CIA Director James Woolsey).
As prominent neocon Charles Krauthammer declared "This [the Western-sponsored Orange Revolution] is about Russia first, democracy second…" which plainly means that the main goal of Washington’s efforts was to crown an unconditional regime in Kiev in order to further isolate Russia from Europe and ultimately dismantle the Russian Federation as a functioning Nation-State.
That project is hardly new; it was originally plotted by Polish intelligence officers in the early twentieth century. Back then it was called ‘Prometheism’ and its core methodology to break Russia into pieces included the support of separatist groups willing to antagonize Moscow both inside Russian territory and beyond its borders (that is, the Russian sphere of influence). Prometheism was reloaded by Zbigniew Brzezinski when he lured the Soviets into the Afghan trap using the Islamist card as bait. The idea was to create an irritant which could absorb and eventually erode Soviet power. Also, another goal of that endeavor was to instigate unrest in the predominantly Muslim (yet officially secular) Central Asian Republics which were part of the Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90’s, the Kremlin has been attempting to promote the idea of an economic reintegration in the Former Soviet Union (an area also called the ‘Near Abroad’ by Moscow’s geostrategists), using Russia’s gravitational pull to attract other countries belonging to the Post-Soviet Space. In its initial stages, this cooperation would encompass Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan (those States which are closer to Moscow in geographic, linguistic and demographic terms). If successful, this project could serve as a platform to launch some other initiatives meant to enhance this re-integration process by including some more participants and by establishing a parallel mutual defense system. This agenda has been pushed through several institutional organisms such as:
The Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its main purpose is to advance the formation of a Single Economic Space in terms of trade, investments, customs regulation, foreign exchange control, energy markets and so on.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, a.k.a. ‘The Tashkent Pact’) which encompasses Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its founding charter stipulates that member States are not allowed to join any other military alliance. This agreement indicates that an aggression committed against any signatory would be regarded as an attack against all members.
The Union of Russia and Belarus. This project intends to merge both States economically, monetarily and politically. However, it is not yet clear how this unification will proceed so there have been disagreements over weather there will be some sort of confederacy or if Belarus will just be incorporated into the Russian Federation as another Oblast (administrative region).
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It is rather a multilateral forum which provides a space to promote joint initiatives and to discuss common issues.
Russia, needless to say, possesses many interests in the Former Soviet Union in terms of energy and military cooperation, development of natural resources and geostrategic concerns. However, Ukraine is the single most important Post-Soviet State for Moscow because:
Is a buffer State that prevents Russia’s European borders from being directly exposed to NATO forces. One must bear in mind that there is no considerable natural obstacle to attack Russia’s westernmost borders. This is a weakness which was exploited by invaders such as Napoleon and Adolph Hitler.
Possesses warm water ports in the Crimean Peninsula, like Odessa, Yalta and Sevastopol. The latter hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters. Thus, the Ukraine is vital to maintain a Russian naval presence in the Black Sea. The Crimea, by the way, was transferred in 1954 from the Soviet Russian Republic to the Soviet Ukrainian Republic which is why Ukraine inherited it after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Has infrastructure linking Europe and Russia, particularly pipelines, railways and highways.
Is home to a considerable number of ethnic Russians and even a large portion of Ukraine’s population professes pro-Russian sympathies. Moreover, Russia and Ukraine share some common traits because they are countries mainly populated by Orthodox Slavs. The Medieval State called the ‘Kievan Rus’ is an ancestor to modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, i.e. the ‘Great Russians’, the ‘Little Russians’ and the ‘White Russians’, respectively. Thus, in the minds of Russian statesmen, a hostile government is Kiev is little more than a historic aberration that has to be corrected.
As previously stated, Ukrainian President Yushchenko has demonstrated an obstinate determination to embed Ukraine into Atlanticist institutions (e.g. the EU and NATO) at the expense of cooperation with Russia and he intends to achieve that as quickly as possible (presumably before his term is over or before someone else decides to put an end to it). Yushchenko’s pro-Western policies program has even met a considerable deal of domestic opposition. As polls indicate, the overwhelming majority (close to 50% or even a larger percentage according to other surveys) of Ukraine’s citizens do not favor membership in NATO so even a nation-wide referendum perhaps would be defeated. In 2006 the Sea Breeze Ukraine-NATO military exercise (scheduled to be held in the Crimean) did not take place because such plans sparked several protests denouncing NATO presence there.
Yushchenko’s administration unleashed the Kremlin’s wrath when his government provided weapons for Georgia prior to the latter’s attack against South Ossetia. Moreover, it has been reported that Ukrainian mercenaries participated in the fighting on Georgia’s side.
Therefore, taking into account all of the above; Russia cannot simply let a pro-Western coalition triumph in Ukraine’s incoming electoral process. For national security reasons and long-term geopolitical strategy, the Russians need a pro-Russian regime in Kiev just as much as the Americans need a friendly government in Mexico.
Moscow can count on the backing of the Party of Regions, firmly pro-Russian, and who is the dominant political force in Ukraine’s eastern part. The Kremlin has made substantial efforts to seduce (politically, that is) Yulia Timoshenko who, even if does not have the same pro-Russian sentiment as the Party of Regions, is well aware that recklessly provoking the Russian bear goes against Ukrainian national interests.
Just a few days ago, Ukraine experienced a cutoff in its gas natural gas supplies by Russia due to failed bilateral negotiations concerning the pricing of this fossil fuel. Other Eastern European States have also been affected by this, even though more important purchasers of Russian natural gas (read Germany) have not yet experienced the same deal of trouble. That means that this is apparently an effort undertaken by the Kremlin to carry out a controlled demolition of Ukraine’s pro-Western government, taking into account that Ukraine will hold presidential elections early next year. With this maneuver, Moscow is making its point clear to the EU that it is impossible to alienate Russian interests without expecting some meaningful retribution in return. The Putin-Medvedev duo is thus expressing that Russia is neither afraid nor hesitant to use a little bit of hard power to advance its key geopolitical objectives.
Therefore, the Kremlin will resort to every available option at its disposal to defeat the pro-Western political factions in Ukraine (i.e. to prevent Viktor Yushchenko from being reelected). Now, Moscow has many tools at its disposal that it can use to win this critical geopolitical battle. Russia can:
Exploit Ukrainian dependence on Russian energy
Negotiate with the West a geopolitical tradeoff (i.e. Atlantist abandonment of Ukraine in exchange for Russian abandonment of Iran).
Capitalize pro-Russian sentiment and mobilize political support for Ukrainian forces of pro-Russian orientation, mainly the Party of Regions, and even Yulia Timosehnko.
Use Russian language media outlets operating in Ukraine.
Employ Russian intelligence agencies and exploit the assets they have developed in Ukraine.
Manipulate Russian oligarchs as a foreign policy tool as a vehicle to advance Moscow’s interests in Kiev.
If Russia is indeed successful in empowering a friendly government in Kiev, that would be a major geostrategic victory that will return Ukraine back to the Russian sphere of influence. That would also mean the end of American intentions to accomplish NATO membership for Ukraine. Likewise, this success could become a catalyst to trigger a further (re)integration throughout the post-Soviet space. A post-Yuschchenko Ukraine could then be invited to join the CSTO, EurAsEC, the Union of Russia and Belarus and perhaps even the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization).
Even if the Kremlin fails, Putin and Medvedev still will be able to resort to military means to ensure that Russian interests ultimately prevail. The use of force to annex Ukraine’s eastern part (which is pro-Russian and is industrialized) must not be discarded. There have been many rumors concerning the Russian government distributing Russian passports all over the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. In case the Yushchenko government targets pro-Russian citizens and even Russian passport holders, Moscow could intervene invoking the protection of its own citizens as a rationale. Here, one must bear in mind that the defense of Russian nationals is an integral part of the so called ‘Medvedev Doctrine’.
Assuming the Kremlin is triumphant in convincing the Europeans to comply with Russian interest in the Former Soviet Union, there still will be two members of the Atlantic community that will not be easily persuaded because they do not depend on Russian energy supplies: The United States and the United Kingdom. Moscow knows it can dispense carrots and sticks to both.
Nonetheless, that does not mean that there are no ways to put pressure on them. Moscow has also several levers which it can use to arrange an understanding with Washington and London. One bargaining chip that could be particularly useful is the links Russia has established with Iran. Moscow is Teheran’s main weapons provider and the Russian Nuclear Agency Rosatom is in charge of completing the Busher nuclear plant. The Kremlin could suggest a tradeoff with the US and the UK, i.e. Iran in exchange for Ukraine.
The role of Russia in Middle Eastern geopolitics must not be underestimaved under any circumstance. Some analysts explain Moscow’s decision to sell the S-300 air defense system to Iran as merely a vendetta against the US for supplying weapons, military advisors and training to Georgia. Nevertheless, such maneuver has a far deeper strategic significance because Russia could lure Washington into a deadly trap. The 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq provided Moscow with a profitable opportunity to enhance its own power because the US became distracted by dedicating a considerable fraction of its military and diplomatic efforts to invade and later occupy Iraq.
Any eventual US invasion of Iran would not be necessarily undesirable for Russia at all. For the Americans, the Persian operations theater would be definitively far more challenging than Iraq because Iran is territorially larger, its geography is more complex, has a higher degree of internal cohesion (even though it is not ethnically homogeneous) and it has a better and bigger arsenal.
In case Israel decides to attack Iran and is assisted by the US, such situation could lead to a quagmire that will entrap the Americans in Iranian soil. This will imply that, for Russian geostrategists, Persia will be a sort of ‘black hole’ which will suck up a formidable amount of American resources in terms of troops, funds and power projection in general. Russia would thus obtain an ample opportunity to consolidate its power in the post-Soviet space and it just turns out that Ukraine is right at the very top of Russia’s strategic agenda because of the reasons discussed beforehand.
Another option is to raise the stakes in the US neighborhood (read the American hemisphere) by supporting regimens openly hostile to American power and even by fueling instability in Mexico. Moscow has been busy developing closer ties in South America and the Caribbean which were, until recently, regarded as Washington’s exclusive backyard.
The case of Venezuela is noteworthy because it has become a major buyer of Russian-made military equipment. Venezuela has purchased tanks, fighter aircraft, assault rifles and so on from Russia. Moscow and Caracas have deepened their cooperation to the point that Venezuelan soil has hosted Russian long range strategic bombers as well as military sea vessels.
Moscow is probably considering increasing somehow its presence in Venezuela, but it knows that the stability of the Hugo Chavez regime is uncertain. The dramatic drop of oil prices has been problematic for Venezuela because oil exports are its largest source of income and, thus, they provide funds needed to finance ambitious public policies. Regardless of that, Russia is preparing to collaborate with Venezuela in order to apply a good dose of geopolitical pressure on the US in its own continent.
The Russian government has also become a close friend of Nicaragua. Actually, besides Moscow, Managua is the only capital that has granted Abkhazia and South Ossetia diplomatic recognition. It is predictable that in 2009, to persuasively convince Washington to stop messing with Russian interests in Eurasia, the Kremlin will seek more cooperative links (commercial, diplomatic, arms sells, etc.) with some other Latin American governments prone to display anti-American proclivity, such as Ecuador, Bolivia and even Paraguay.
Cuba’s devastation by meteorological phenomena offers Moscow a sizeable opportunity to increase its presence in the Caribbean and maybe even to exert some influence in eventual economic and political reforms in the island. Indeed, the Kremlin has already manifested its will to participate financially and logistically in the Cuban reconstruction efforts. It is logical that they will receive a generous and grateful compensation from Havana.
There has been some discussion regarding Russo-Cuban intentions to reinforce links between both States, specifically in areas like cooperation on defense issues. Moscow has been seriously contemplating the possibility of stationing strategic bombers, fighter jets and maybe even submarines in the Caribbean island, as well the opening of electronic intelligence collection facilities. With the Kremlin’s contribution toward the reconstruction of Cuba, Russia has just found a window of opportunity to advance those goals.
One can reasonably conclude that Russia is more than serious in its efforts to get Ukraine back in the Russian orbit. Putin and Medvedev hold many tools at their disposal in order to make Russian interests ultimately prevail. The Kremlin has thus developed an integral strategy designed to convince both the Europeans and the Americans that they have to take into considerations Moscow’s wishes. Otherwise, they would have to face very serious repercussions indeed.
Global Research Articles by Jose Miguel Alonso
Global Research, January 9, 2009
The countdown for Ukraine’s presidential election, to be held on January 31 2010, has already started. The much-anticipated electoral process will be decisive due to its deep geopolitical implications. Its result will have a considerable impact on the world’s balance of power. A fierce battle on Ukrainian soil approaches and it will be fought, once again, between pro-Western and pro-Russian forces.
During the so called ‘Orange Revolution’ a pro-Western coalition headed by former Ukrainian Central Banker Viktor Yushchenko came out victorious over the Party of Regions, lead by Viktor Yanukovich and prone to pro-Russian positions. Shortly afterwards, Kiev distanced itself from Moscow in order to become of the staunchest American allies in the post Soviet space (along with Mikheil Saakashvili’s Georgia). Since then, Ukrainian foreign policy has persistently sought membership in both the EU (European Union) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
That ‘regime change’ was evidently a major setback for Russian interests. Conspicuously enough, many American NGOs and semi-official organizations became actively involved, such as USAID, George Soros’ Open Society Institute and Freedom House (whose Chairman at the time was none other than former CIA Director James Woolsey).
As prominent neocon Charles Krauthammer declared "This [the Western-sponsored Orange Revolution] is about Russia first, democracy second…" which plainly means that the main goal of Washington’s efforts was to crown an unconditional regime in Kiev in order to further isolate Russia from Europe and ultimately dismantle the Russian Federation as a functioning Nation-State.
That project is hardly new; it was originally plotted by Polish intelligence officers in the early twentieth century. Back then it was called ‘Prometheism’ and its core methodology to break Russia into pieces included the support of separatist groups willing to antagonize Moscow both inside Russian territory and beyond its borders (that is, the Russian sphere of influence). Prometheism was reloaded by Zbigniew Brzezinski when he lured the Soviets into the Afghan trap using the Islamist card as bait. The idea was to create an irritant which could absorb and eventually erode Soviet power. Also, another goal of that endeavor was to instigate unrest in the predominantly Muslim (yet officially secular) Central Asian Republics which were part of the Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90’s, the Kremlin has been attempting to promote the idea of an economic reintegration in the Former Soviet Union (an area also called the ‘Near Abroad’ by Moscow’s geostrategists), using Russia’s gravitational pull to attract other countries belonging to the Post-Soviet Space. In its initial stages, this cooperation would encompass Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan (those States which are closer to Moscow in geographic, linguistic and demographic terms). If successful, this project could serve as a platform to launch some other initiatives meant to enhance this re-integration process by including some more participants and by establishing a parallel mutual defense system. This agenda has been pushed through several institutional organisms such as:
The Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its main purpose is to advance the formation of a Single Economic Space in terms of trade, investments, customs regulation, foreign exchange control, energy markets and so on.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, a.k.a. ‘The Tashkent Pact’) which encompasses Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its founding charter stipulates that member States are not allowed to join any other military alliance. This agreement indicates that an aggression committed against any signatory would be regarded as an attack against all members.
The Union of Russia and Belarus. This project intends to merge both States economically, monetarily and politically. However, it is not yet clear how this unification will proceed so there have been disagreements over weather there will be some sort of confederacy or if Belarus will just be incorporated into the Russian Federation as another Oblast (administrative region).
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It is rather a multilateral forum which provides a space to promote joint initiatives and to discuss common issues.
Russia, needless to say, possesses many interests in the Former Soviet Union in terms of energy and military cooperation, development of natural resources and geostrategic concerns. However, Ukraine is the single most important Post-Soviet State for Moscow because:
Is a buffer State that prevents Russia’s European borders from being directly exposed to NATO forces. One must bear in mind that there is no considerable natural obstacle to attack Russia’s westernmost borders. This is a weakness which was exploited by invaders such as Napoleon and Adolph Hitler.
Possesses warm water ports in the Crimean Peninsula, like Odessa, Yalta and Sevastopol. The latter hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters. Thus, the Ukraine is vital to maintain a Russian naval presence in the Black Sea. The Crimea, by the way, was transferred in 1954 from the Soviet Russian Republic to the Soviet Ukrainian Republic which is why Ukraine inherited it after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Has infrastructure linking Europe and Russia, particularly pipelines, railways and highways.
Is home to a considerable number of ethnic Russians and even a large portion of Ukraine’s population professes pro-Russian sympathies. Moreover, Russia and Ukraine share some common traits because they are countries mainly populated by Orthodox Slavs. The Medieval State called the ‘Kievan Rus’ is an ancestor to modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, i.e. the ‘Great Russians’, the ‘Little Russians’ and the ‘White Russians’, respectively. Thus, in the minds of Russian statesmen, a hostile government is Kiev is little more than a historic aberration that has to be corrected.
As previously stated, Ukrainian President Yushchenko has demonstrated an obstinate determination to embed Ukraine into Atlanticist institutions (e.g. the EU and NATO) at the expense of cooperation with Russia and he intends to achieve that as quickly as possible (presumably before his term is over or before someone else decides to put an end to it). Yushchenko’s pro-Western policies program has even met a considerable deal of domestic opposition. As polls indicate, the overwhelming majority (close to 50% or even a larger percentage according to other surveys) of Ukraine’s citizens do not favor membership in NATO so even a nation-wide referendum perhaps would be defeated. In 2006 the Sea Breeze Ukraine-NATO military exercise (scheduled to be held in the Crimean) did not take place because such plans sparked several protests denouncing NATO presence there.
Yushchenko’s administration unleashed the Kremlin’s wrath when his government provided weapons for Georgia prior to the latter’s attack against South Ossetia. Moreover, it has been reported that Ukrainian mercenaries participated in the fighting on Georgia’s side.
Therefore, taking into account all of the above; Russia cannot simply let a pro-Western coalition triumph in Ukraine’s incoming electoral process. For national security reasons and long-term geopolitical strategy, the Russians need a pro-Russian regime in Kiev just as much as the Americans need a friendly government in Mexico.
Moscow can count on the backing of the Party of Regions, firmly pro-Russian, and who is the dominant political force in Ukraine’s eastern part. The Kremlin has made substantial efforts to seduce (politically, that is) Yulia Timoshenko who, even if does not have the same pro-Russian sentiment as the Party of Regions, is well aware that recklessly provoking the Russian bear goes against Ukrainian national interests.
Just a few days ago, Ukraine experienced a cutoff in its gas natural gas supplies by Russia due to failed bilateral negotiations concerning the pricing of this fossil fuel. Other Eastern European States have also been affected by this, even though more important purchasers of Russian natural gas (read Germany) have not yet experienced the same deal of trouble. That means that this is apparently an effort undertaken by the Kremlin to carry out a controlled demolition of Ukraine’s pro-Western government, taking into account that Ukraine will hold presidential elections early next year. With this maneuver, Moscow is making its point clear to the EU that it is impossible to alienate Russian interests without expecting some meaningful retribution in return. The Putin-Medvedev duo is thus expressing that Russia is neither afraid nor hesitant to use a little bit of hard power to advance its key geopolitical objectives.
Therefore, the Kremlin will resort to every available option at its disposal to defeat the pro-Western political factions in Ukraine (i.e. to prevent Viktor Yushchenko from being reelected). Now, Moscow has many tools at its disposal that it can use to win this critical geopolitical battle. Russia can:
Exploit Ukrainian dependence on Russian energy
Negotiate with the West a geopolitical tradeoff (i.e. Atlantist abandonment of Ukraine in exchange for Russian abandonment of Iran).
Capitalize pro-Russian sentiment and mobilize political support for Ukrainian forces of pro-Russian orientation, mainly the Party of Regions, and even Yulia Timosehnko.
Use Russian language media outlets operating in Ukraine.
Employ Russian intelligence agencies and exploit the assets they have developed in Ukraine.
Manipulate Russian oligarchs as a foreign policy tool as a vehicle to advance Moscow’s interests in Kiev.
If Russia is indeed successful in empowering a friendly government in Kiev, that would be a major geostrategic victory that will return Ukraine back to the Russian sphere of influence. That would also mean the end of American intentions to accomplish NATO membership for Ukraine. Likewise, this success could become a catalyst to trigger a further (re)integration throughout the post-Soviet space. A post-Yuschchenko Ukraine could then be invited to join the CSTO, EurAsEC, the Union of Russia and Belarus and perhaps even the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization).
Even if the Kremlin fails, Putin and Medvedev still will be able to resort to military means to ensure that Russian interests ultimately prevail. The use of force to annex Ukraine’s eastern part (which is pro-Russian and is industrialized) must not be discarded. There have been many rumors concerning the Russian government distributing Russian passports all over the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. In case the Yushchenko government targets pro-Russian citizens and even Russian passport holders, Moscow could intervene invoking the protection of its own citizens as a rationale. Here, one must bear in mind that the defense of Russian nationals is an integral part of the so called ‘Medvedev Doctrine’.
Assuming the Kremlin is triumphant in convincing the Europeans to comply with Russian interest in the Former Soviet Union, there still will be two members of the Atlantic community that will not be easily persuaded because they do not depend on Russian energy supplies: The United States and the United Kingdom. Moscow knows it can dispense carrots and sticks to both.
Nonetheless, that does not mean that there are no ways to put pressure on them. Moscow has also several levers which it can use to arrange an understanding with Washington and London. One bargaining chip that could be particularly useful is the links Russia has established with Iran. Moscow is Teheran’s main weapons provider and the Russian Nuclear Agency Rosatom is in charge of completing the Busher nuclear plant. The Kremlin could suggest a tradeoff with the US and the UK, i.e. Iran in exchange for Ukraine.
The role of Russia in Middle Eastern geopolitics must not be underestimaved under any circumstance. Some analysts explain Moscow’s decision to sell the S-300 air defense system to Iran as merely a vendetta against the US for supplying weapons, military advisors and training to Georgia. Nevertheless, such maneuver has a far deeper strategic significance because Russia could lure Washington into a deadly trap. The 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq provided Moscow with a profitable opportunity to enhance its own power because the US became distracted by dedicating a considerable fraction of its military and diplomatic efforts to invade and later occupy Iraq.
Any eventual US invasion of Iran would not be necessarily undesirable for Russia at all. For the Americans, the Persian operations theater would be definitively far more challenging than Iraq because Iran is territorially larger, its geography is more complex, has a higher degree of internal cohesion (even though it is not ethnically homogeneous) and it has a better and bigger arsenal.
In case Israel decides to attack Iran and is assisted by the US, such situation could lead to a quagmire that will entrap the Americans in Iranian soil. This will imply that, for Russian geostrategists, Persia will be a sort of ‘black hole’ which will suck up a formidable amount of American resources in terms of troops, funds and power projection in general. Russia would thus obtain an ample opportunity to consolidate its power in the post-Soviet space and it just turns out that Ukraine is right at the very top of Russia’s strategic agenda because of the reasons discussed beforehand.
Another option is to raise the stakes in the US neighborhood (read the American hemisphere) by supporting regimens openly hostile to American power and even by fueling instability in Mexico. Moscow has been busy developing closer ties in South America and the Caribbean which were, until recently, regarded as Washington’s exclusive backyard.
The case of Venezuela is noteworthy because it has become a major buyer of Russian-made military equipment. Venezuela has purchased tanks, fighter aircraft, assault rifles and so on from Russia. Moscow and Caracas have deepened their cooperation to the point that Venezuelan soil has hosted Russian long range strategic bombers as well as military sea vessels.
Moscow is probably considering increasing somehow its presence in Venezuela, but it knows that the stability of the Hugo Chavez regime is uncertain. The dramatic drop of oil prices has been problematic for Venezuela because oil exports are its largest source of income and, thus, they provide funds needed to finance ambitious public policies. Regardless of that, Russia is preparing to collaborate with Venezuela in order to apply a good dose of geopolitical pressure on the US in its own continent.
The Russian government has also become a close friend of Nicaragua. Actually, besides Moscow, Managua is the only capital that has granted Abkhazia and South Ossetia diplomatic recognition. It is predictable that in 2009, to persuasively convince Washington to stop messing with Russian interests in Eurasia, the Kremlin will seek more cooperative links (commercial, diplomatic, arms sells, etc.) with some other Latin American governments prone to display anti-American proclivity, such as Ecuador, Bolivia and even Paraguay.
Cuba’s devastation by meteorological phenomena offers Moscow a sizeable opportunity to increase its presence in the Caribbean and maybe even to exert some influence in eventual economic and political reforms in the island. Indeed, the Kremlin has already manifested its will to participate financially and logistically in the Cuban reconstruction efforts. It is logical that they will receive a generous and grateful compensation from Havana.
There has been some discussion regarding Russo-Cuban intentions to reinforce links between both States, specifically in areas like cooperation on defense issues. Moscow has been seriously contemplating the possibility of stationing strategic bombers, fighter jets and maybe even submarines in the Caribbean island, as well the opening of electronic intelligence collection facilities. With the Kremlin’s contribution toward the reconstruction of Cuba, Russia has just found a window of opportunity to advance those goals.
One can reasonably conclude that Russia is more than serious in its efforts to get Ukraine back in the Russian orbit. Putin and Medvedev hold many tools at their disposal in order to make Russian interests ultimately prevail. The Kremlin has thus developed an integral strategy designed to convince both the Europeans and the Americans that they have to take into considerations Moscow’s wishes. Otherwise, they would have to face very serious repercussions indeed.
Global Research Articles by Jose Miguel Alonso
INDIA PARALYZED BY PAKISTAN’S SUPERIORITY IN “BATTLE OF PERCEPTIONS”
POST MUMBAI 9/11: INDIA PARALYZED BY PAKISTAN’S SUPERIORITY IN “BATTLE OF PERCEPTIONS”
By Dr. Subhash Kapila
Introductory Observations
Pondering agonizingly over India’s paralysis in not striking back credibly against Pakistan in response to the Pakistan Army and its ISI-sponsored “war of terror” assault on India’s sovereignty at Mumbai on November 26, 2008, this Author came across a feature in “The Jerusalem Post” written against the back drop of the assaults on Israel’s sovereignty by Hezbollah earlier and Hamas presently and why Israel strikes back forcefully.
The point that caught attention in this feature was that currently, the Israeli Defense Forces in their senior commanders training lays emphasis on how modern warfare is conducted. Israel believes that emphasis today should not be on which side conquers more territory or loses more fighters and fighter aircraft – as was the case in conventional battles such as the 1967 Six War, “but rather on perceptions. In other words, the victor is the side that is perceived to have won”.
Applying this precept in the context of Mumbai 9/11 and India’s paralysis in the post-Mumbai 9/11 phase of over a month, one painfully comes to the conclusion that the root cause of India’s lack of credible responses against the Pakistani military establishment, the ISI and their affiliated Islamic Jihadi terrorist organizations, is that Pakistan established a superiority over India in the “Battle of Perceptions”.
India’s long history of not striking back at major Pakistan-sponsored terrorism incidents from 1992 onwards, India’s misplaced faith that “Friends of Pakistan” would dissuade Pakistan and restrain Pakistan’s war-like provocations against India and Indian political leadership of the day shirking from the will to use power, despite preponderant instruments of power at their command, led to Mumbai 9/11 – a “war of terror” on India when a handful of Pakistan terrorists held India to ransom for three days in sustained gun battles and blasts. In those three days more than 200 lives were lost.
Post-Mumbai 9/11, India’s political leadership fell back in its traditional mould of shirking to use power to safeguard India’s “National Honour” and the unprovoked assault on her sovereignty.
Brave statements were made by India’s political leaders that “all options are on the table” in terms of a riposte to Pakistan. But the one option that India should have exercised in the first few days of Mumbai 9/11, “continues to lie on the table” even after a month of the attacks.
India’s political leaders to strategically chastise Pakistan for its proven involvement and culpability in Mumbai 9/11 attacks moved away from their strident calls on Pakistan to atone for Mumbai 9/11 to a “diplomatic offensive” to present clinching evidence to world capitals. The Indian policy establishment should realize that it is not fighting a “court case” where evidence will count. Does it not occur to the Indian Government that it is dealing in terms of terrorism with a “rogue state” dominated by Pakistan Army on whose agenda, peace with India does not figure. Nor would any guarantees by Pakistan military establishment count that no further terrorist war against India would take place. Are not Pakistan’s broken pledges to the United States to wage war on terrorism, a lesson to be learnt and kept in mind?
India continued to be let down by its political leaders, policy advisors and policy formulation mechanisms in not responding firmly at the outset and thereby further reinforcing Pakistan’s “perceptions” that India can be played around with and will not respond even after a "thousand bleeding cuts"
The Pakistani policy establishment and its more powerful military establishment stood emboldened by their “perceptions” of India’s leadership vulnerabilities to launch Mumbai 9/11 and stand further emboldened by the “perceptions” once again that India would be unable to strike back and continue to seek assistance and support from “Friends of Pakistan”, rather than acting on her own strengths.
Pakistan therefore stands to have won the “Battle of Perceptions” on both counts due to India’s flawed counter-terrorism responses.
This Author’s last paper entitled “India: Policy Establishments Failure on Pakistan Threat Assessment (SAAG Paper No. 2987 dated 19 Dec. 2008 has already brought out in fair detail the flawed threat assessments on President Zardari and General Kiyani, Pakistan Army Chief of India’s political leadership and India’s policy establishment.
This Paper intends to be a study of the following aspects of the “Battle of Perceptions” between India and Pakistan and is discussed under the following heads:
India’s Flawed Perceptions on Pakistan
India’s Misplaced Perceptions of Trust in “Friends of Pakistan” to Restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” Against India
Pakistan’s Perceptions of India’s Paralysis to Strike Back, Post -Mumbai 9/11
This Paper is not going to elaborate on what India’s responses should be, which is a separate subject by itself but focus entirely on why India fails to strike back credibly and creates “wrong perceptions” in Pakistan. Only if India had done so in the past and does so now after her “diplomatic offensive” is over, can then India hope that the “appropriate perceptions” have been created in the Pakistani military establishment's mind that India cannot be messed around with.
But before addressing the above aspects, a bit of digression is required to highlight Indian political leader’s propensity to shirk from safeguarding India’s “National Honor” and India’s propensity to rely on the international community to discipline Pakistan’s “War of Terror”.
India’s Political Leaders Propensity to Shirk from Safeguarding India’s National Honour and Propensity to Seek International Support to Discipline Pakistan’s “War of Terror”
India’s political leadership of both the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the present ruling Congress Party have both demonstrated a propensity to shirk from safeguarding India’s National Honour” and a marked propensity to seek international support, more specifically from the United State to discipline Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. Both have abdicated their responsibilities and seek to “outsource India’s counter-terrorism” to the international community.
The BJP after armed attacks on India’s Parliament House in December 2002 mobilized the entire Indian Army on Pakistan’s borders and promised an “Aar Pas Ki Larai”, the mother of all battles, to end Pakistan’s terrorism against India. It was a bold move which could have brought decisive results had Indian forces struck in the first few months. The BJP leadership let the strategic advantage fizzle out after a year, under pressure from the United States.
The Congress government in the wake of Mumbai 9/11 gave strong indications that it would indulge in air and missile strikes and should Pakistan enlarge the conflict use India’s conventional might. Once again, history has been repeated and the Congress Government, like the BJP Government buckled under United States pressures for restraint. Once again India’s strategic advantages over Pakistan were foreclosed.
India’s political leaders of all political dispensations need to be reminded of a few home-truths on both these counts from two quotations from the noted British strategist Maj. Gen. Fuller, which this Author incorporated in the last chapter entitled “Prescriptions for India’s National Security” in his book “India’s Defence Policies & Strategic Thought: A Comparative Analysis”. They read as follows. First on “National Honour”:
“There is only one balsam which can make peace worth living – Honour, which is righteousness. There are sublimer ideals than mere peacefulness, and honour is one of these. Peace without honour is degradation and as a noble woman safeguards her honour, and will even sacrifice her life to maintain it in order to keep the family clean, and as a man will give up his life to protect her and her children, so will an upright nation because of its honour, not only protect but sacrifice itself for righteousness cause. All may be lost save honour, for without honour mankind ceases to be human”
and then the thoughts on nations relying on international support to safeguard “National Honour” and this presently applies to India in more ways than one:
“The nation which depends for the security of its honour on some international force (or support from a superpower: my emphasis) has become but a kept woman among nations. There is only one guardian of honour – a virile arm backed by a virile brain. Again a state, which is not prepared to defend its honour by a righteous war, and depends on the benevolence of others to guarantee its existence, when life is threatened, is but a paralytic living in an alm-house; it has scarcely the right to live, for it lacks the might to thrive”
These two messages for all Indian political leaders should be self-explanatory and also denote what Indian public opinion expect from their political leaders, especially when after Mumbai 9/11 Indian nationalism stands aroused.
If India’s political leaders pay heed to these two maxims, they would be able to ensure that the next time around India is subjected to another Pak-initiated terrorist strike, India’s instruments of power stand readied and are used for flick-knife retaliation without the agony of unending debates on Indian TV and media as to what India’s options should be. Nor would there be any requirement to heed advice of “Look before you leap”, India should at all times be ready for a strategic and military leap to chastise its aggressors.
India’s Flawed Perceptions on Pakistan
India’s political leaderships and policy establishment’s flawed perceptions and misplaced readings on the emergence of President Zardari and General Kayani and their impact on Indo-Pak security environment stand discussed in the last Paper of this Author. Timely warnings on these two dignitaries on this account, given months in advance of Mumbai 9/11 stood reflected in this Author’s Papers since mid-2008.
India’s flawed perceptions on Pakistan prevailing in the mindsets of Indian political leaders and policy making establishment are reflected below in brief.
Strategically and militarily, the following misperceptions seem to prevail in India’s policy making circles: (1) Pakistan with its nuclear weapons arsenal is the strategic equal of India (2) In case of Indian military strikes against Pakistan, that country could strike back with nuclear weapons (3) Pakistan has the capability and wherewithal to enlarge a limited war into a general war (4) China could enlarge and intervene in any Indo-Pakistan armed conflict (5) Pakistan can inflict massive damage in retaliation of Indian strikes.
India should welcome Pakistan crossing the nuclear threshold as it would be a suicidal step for the destruction and disintegration of Pakistan. China in the current security environment where Pakistan’s “war of terror” could visit Xinjiang also would not be tempted to go beyond rhetoric in any Indo-Pak armed conflict.
Politically, the Indian policy making mindset is dominated by the following misperceptions (1) Pakistan could develop into a peaceful neighbor with more political patience and understanding from India (2) Pakistan’s politics domination by Islamic fundamentalist elements could fade away (3) Pakistan Army could be brought under firm control of a civilian democratic political government (4) Pakistan’s civil society wants peace with India (5) Pakistan’s civil society could bring about the over throw of Pakistan Army’s political dominance of Pakistan’s governance (6) Track II diplomacy and use of Special Indian Envoys to Pakistan could facilitate peaceful Indo-Pak relations (7) Pakistan is a responsible stake-holder in regional peace and a responsible member of the international community.
To any discerning Indian policy maker it should be evidently clear that all the above perceptions of Indian policy establishment on Pakistan are misplaced and wrong. There are no concrete indications on the ground to suggest otherwise.
It are these strategic, military and more substantially the political misperceptions on Pakistan which have distorted Indian policy-makers formulations on Pakistan and the absence of an Indian credible response to Pakistan’s provocation “war of terror” against India.
India’s political leaders and policy establishment needs to recognize the reality that more than a decade of Track II diplomacy and the flitting of Special Envoys between New Delhi and Islamabad have not brought the two countries to peaceful co-existence. This is for the simple reason that the Pakistan Army calls the shots in Pakistan on its foreign policies and peace with India is not Pakistan Army’s objective.
India’s Misplaced Perceptions of Trust in “Friends of Pakistan” to Restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” Against India
Pakistan would like to claim the international community as “Friends of Pakistan” because most of the Western countries, China and the oil-rich Islamic monarchies of the Gulf Region bankroll Pakistan’s sustenance, notwithstanding that the bulk of these finances are diverted to the Pakistan Army and the operation of Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India and Afghanistan.
In terms of discussion of India’s misplaced trust in “Friends of Pakistan” to restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India, the discussion in this Paper would focus on the role of the United States, China and Saudi Arabia.
Despite 9/11 when the United States itself was subjected to a combination of Pakistani operated and Saudi-financed terrorism onslaught against mainland USA, the United States has been reluctant to recognize that the Pakistani “War of Terror” against India is also part of the global Islamic Jihad and needs to be firmly dealt with in a concerted manner by the global community by backing strong actions by India against Pakistan, rather than diplomacy.
The United States has the strategic, military, political and economic clout to stop Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. But it would not use that clout, because Pakistan colludes in American strategy in the region and India does not.
India’s trust that an evolving US-India Strategic Partnership would make America play a different ball-game in South Asia, vis-à-vis Pakistan, is grossly misplaced, in light of Mumbai 9/11.
The flurry of top US dignitaries visiting New Delhi in the wake of Mumbai 9/11 were not intended to reinforce New Delhi’s resolve to strike back at Pakistan but to pressurize India not to resort to military strikes against Pakistan and exercise restraint.
China enjoys even more stronger strategic, military, political and economic clout over Pakistan. In the wake of Mumbai 9/11 and moreso in the years preceding it, China was in a strong and coercive position to restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. It did not do so for reasons best known to every Indian.
In the wake of Mumbai 9/11, China has advocated restraint on both India and Pakistan. However the actual message should have been a stern and salutary message by China to Pakistan, that its “War of Terror” in the region, which may eventually engulf Xinjiang too, should stop. China can be expected to continue to support Pakistan even now in its face-off with India.
Saudi Arabia as far as international terrorism is concerned is along with Pakistan is the “Real Axis of Evil”. Saudi Arabian Islamic charities finance Pakistani terrorist organizations “War of Terror” on both flanks of Pakistan. Pakistan is heavily dependant on Saudi Arabia for free oil supplies, financial aid and political backing. Saudi Arabia more than USA and China could discipline Pakistan in a second if it wishes to.
The visit of Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister last month was meaningless. He hesitated and shirked from condemning Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. His visit was meaningless even if India intended that through it to send a message to Islamic Countries.
In any case it should have struck the Indian policy establishment that no Gulf Region Islamic countries have come out with any outright condemnation of Pakistan following 9/11. Further the media in these countries has been spewing vitriolic outbursts that India is now involved in American-Zionist conspiracies to fragment Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal – the only one in the Islamic world. More cynically that Mumbai 9/11 was fabricated by India intelligence agencies as an excuse for the above.
All in all, the stark pointer is that India cannot rely on the international community to curb Pakistan’s “War of Terror”. The “Friends of Pakistan” count on Pakistan to serve their strategic ends and would go to great lengths to protect Pakistan from India’s wrath however well placed.
Pakistan’s Perceptions of India’s Paralysis to Strike Back, Post Mumbai 9/11
In the “Battle of Perceptions” post-Mumbai 9/11 Pakistan seems to have established a superiority over India by correctly perceiving India’s paralysis.
Gleaning through the demonstrated performance and statements of Pakistan’s political and military leaders and the writings of Pakistani columnists in their media, the Pakistani perceptions of India’s paralysis to strike back post-Mumbai 9/11 were read as follows: (1) India failed to strike back against Pakistan in 2002-2003 OP PRAKARM despite an initial advantage of surprise and strength. (2) In the large number of major terrorist attacks in India by Pak-sponsored terrorists or their modules within India there were no retaliatory responses from India (3) India every time took the “softer route” of attempting to enlist international condemnation against Pakistan (4) Pakistan this time too was confident that after the first few days of general condemnation, the international community would lapse back as hithertofore (5) Pakistani columnists harped on India’s military machine not being fully prepared for war due to incomplete inventories and slow inflow of Russian military hardware (6) Pakistan’s military establishment was confident in their perceptions that India would not be able to obtain substantial USA, China, Saudi Arabia backing for Indian retaliatory strikes against Pakistan.(7) India would be held back by fears that any assertive step could lead to internationalizing of the Kashmir issue.
Indian political leader’s propensity to shirk away from using “hard options” to protect India’s “National Honour” and rely more on international condemnation of Pakistan was correctly read by the Pakistani military establishment.
The course of events even after a month post-Mumbai 9/11 seem to bear out Pakistan’s military establishments perceptions of India in terms of retaliatory strikes or other hard actions.
To that extent it can be said that Pakistan has established superiority over India in the “Battle of Perceptions” unless India now decides to change course, in confronting Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India.
The current "diplomatic offensive" by India and providing dossiers of clinching involvement of Pakistan's official establishment in Mumbai 9/11 will not shame the Pakistani military establishment or prompt it to any positive action to dismantle its terror-networks or extradite the wanted terrorists to India for trial.
At the end of this "diplomatic offensive" Pakistan's military establishment's "Perceptions" of India's soft responses would continue.
India would be left then with only two options, namely to execute military strikes against Pakistan or just accept a "lump-it" situation.
Concluding Observations
The major concluding observations that need to be made are as under:
India cannot endlessly go on buckling to Pakistan Army sponsored and Pakistan based “War of Terror” against India.
The next such “War of Terror” strike against India would perforce pressurize the present Indian Government or the one that succeeds it to go in for the “hard option” of retaliatory military strikes, irrespective of the cost.
USA, China and Saudi Arabia would be well-advised as “Friends of Pakistan” to clamp down on Pakistan Army sponsored terrorist organization in Pakistan and their disruptive activities as any future conflict on this count could also jeopardize their respective national security interests in this region.
Pakistan itself needs to realize that when its traditional intransigence against India pushes India to the wall, it could result in another fragmentation of Pakistan as in 1971.
India needs to recognize that “diplomatic offensives” do not tame strategic delinquencies of military-dominated nations like Pakistan. Hard options are called for:
Finally, India’s political leaders need to recognize that threats to Indian “National Honour”, sovereignty and security have to met squarely and eliminated by India and India alone. India's counter-terrorism operations cannot be "out-sourced" to others.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
By Dr. Subhash Kapila
Introductory Observations
Pondering agonizingly over India’s paralysis in not striking back credibly against Pakistan in response to the Pakistan Army and its ISI-sponsored “war of terror” assault on India’s sovereignty at Mumbai on November 26, 2008, this Author came across a feature in “The Jerusalem Post” written against the back drop of the assaults on Israel’s sovereignty by Hezbollah earlier and Hamas presently and why Israel strikes back forcefully.
The point that caught attention in this feature was that currently, the Israeli Defense Forces in their senior commanders training lays emphasis on how modern warfare is conducted. Israel believes that emphasis today should not be on which side conquers more territory or loses more fighters and fighter aircraft – as was the case in conventional battles such as the 1967 Six War, “but rather on perceptions. In other words, the victor is the side that is perceived to have won”.
Applying this precept in the context of Mumbai 9/11 and India’s paralysis in the post-Mumbai 9/11 phase of over a month, one painfully comes to the conclusion that the root cause of India’s lack of credible responses against the Pakistani military establishment, the ISI and their affiliated Islamic Jihadi terrorist organizations, is that Pakistan established a superiority over India in the “Battle of Perceptions”.
India’s long history of not striking back at major Pakistan-sponsored terrorism incidents from 1992 onwards, India’s misplaced faith that “Friends of Pakistan” would dissuade Pakistan and restrain Pakistan’s war-like provocations against India and Indian political leadership of the day shirking from the will to use power, despite preponderant instruments of power at their command, led to Mumbai 9/11 – a “war of terror” on India when a handful of Pakistan terrorists held India to ransom for three days in sustained gun battles and blasts. In those three days more than 200 lives were lost.
Post-Mumbai 9/11, India’s political leadership fell back in its traditional mould of shirking to use power to safeguard India’s “National Honour” and the unprovoked assault on her sovereignty.
Brave statements were made by India’s political leaders that “all options are on the table” in terms of a riposte to Pakistan. But the one option that India should have exercised in the first few days of Mumbai 9/11, “continues to lie on the table” even after a month of the attacks.
India’s political leaders to strategically chastise Pakistan for its proven involvement and culpability in Mumbai 9/11 attacks moved away from their strident calls on Pakistan to atone for Mumbai 9/11 to a “diplomatic offensive” to present clinching evidence to world capitals. The Indian policy establishment should realize that it is not fighting a “court case” where evidence will count. Does it not occur to the Indian Government that it is dealing in terms of terrorism with a “rogue state” dominated by Pakistan Army on whose agenda, peace with India does not figure. Nor would any guarantees by Pakistan military establishment count that no further terrorist war against India would take place. Are not Pakistan’s broken pledges to the United States to wage war on terrorism, a lesson to be learnt and kept in mind?
India continued to be let down by its political leaders, policy advisors and policy formulation mechanisms in not responding firmly at the outset and thereby further reinforcing Pakistan’s “perceptions” that India can be played around with and will not respond even after a "thousand bleeding cuts"
The Pakistani policy establishment and its more powerful military establishment stood emboldened by their “perceptions” of India’s leadership vulnerabilities to launch Mumbai 9/11 and stand further emboldened by the “perceptions” once again that India would be unable to strike back and continue to seek assistance and support from “Friends of Pakistan”, rather than acting on her own strengths.
Pakistan therefore stands to have won the “Battle of Perceptions” on both counts due to India’s flawed counter-terrorism responses.
This Author’s last paper entitled “India: Policy Establishments Failure on Pakistan Threat Assessment (SAAG Paper No. 2987 dated 19 Dec. 2008 has already brought out in fair detail the flawed threat assessments on President Zardari and General Kiyani, Pakistan Army Chief of India’s political leadership and India’s policy establishment.
This Paper intends to be a study of the following aspects of the “Battle of Perceptions” between India and Pakistan and is discussed under the following heads:
India’s Flawed Perceptions on Pakistan
India’s Misplaced Perceptions of Trust in “Friends of Pakistan” to Restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” Against India
Pakistan’s Perceptions of India’s Paralysis to Strike Back, Post -Mumbai 9/11
This Paper is not going to elaborate on what India’s responses should be, which is a separate subject by itself but focus entirely on why India fails to strike back credibly and creates “wrong perceptions” in Pakistan. Only if India had done so in the past and does so now after her “diplomatic offensive” is over, can then India hope that the “appropriate perceptions” have been created in the Pakistani military establishment's mind that India cannot be messed around with.
But before addressing the above aspects, a bit of digression is required to highlight Indian political leader’s propensity to shirk from safeguarding India’s “National Honor” and India’s propensity to rely on the international community to discipline Pakistan’s “War of Terror”.
India’s Political Leaders Propensity to Shirk from Safeguarding India’s National Honour and Propensity to Seek International Support to Discipline Pakistan’s “War of Terror”
India’s political leadership of both the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the present ruling Congress Party have both demonstrated a propensity to shirk from safeguarding India’s National Honour” and a marked propensity to seek international support, more specifically from the United State to discipline Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. Both have abdicated their responsibilities and seek to “outsource India’s counter-terrorism” to the international community.
The BJP after armed attacks on India’s Parliament House in December 2002 mobilized the entire Indian Army on Pakistan’s borders and promised an “Aar Pas Ki Larai”, the mother of all battles, to end Pakistan’s terrorism against India. It was a bold move which could have brought decisive results had Indian forces struck in the first few months. The BJP leadership let the strategic advantage fizzle out after a year, under pressure from the United States.
The Congress government in the wake of Mumbai 9/11 gave strong indications that it would indulge in air and missile strikes and should Pakistan enlarge the conflict use India’s conventional might. Once again, history has been repeated and the Congress Government, like the BJP Government buckled under United States pressures for restraint. Once again India’s strategic advantages over Pakistan were foreclosed.
India’s political leaders of all political dispensations need to be reminded of a few home-truths on both these counts from two quotations from the noted British strategist Maj. Gen. Fuller, which this Author incorporated in the last chapter entitled “Prescriptions for India’s National Security” in his book “India’s Defence Policies & Strategic Thought: A Comparative Analysis”. They read as follows. First on “National Honour”:
“There is only one balsam which can make peace worth living – Honour, which is righteousness. There are sublimer ideals than mere peacefulness, and honour is one of these. Peace without honour is degradation and as a noble woman safeguards her honour, and will even sacrifice her life to maintain it in order to keep the family clean, and as a man will give up his life to protect her and her children, so will an upright nation because of its honour, not only protect but sacrifice itself for righteousness cause. All may be lost save honour, for without honour mankind ceases to be human”
and then the thoughts on nations relying on international support to safeguard “National Honour” and this presently applies to India in more ways than one:
“The nation which depends for the security of its honour on some international force (or support from a superpower: my emphasis) has become but a kept woman among nations. There is only one guardian of honour – a virile arm backed by a virile brain. Again a state, which is not prepared to defend its honour by a righteous war, and depends on the benevolence of others to guarantee its existence, when life is threatened, is but a paralytic living in an alm-house; it has scarcely the right to live, for it lacks the might to thrive”
These two messages for all Indian political leaders should be self-explanatory and also denote what Indian public opinion expect from their political leaders, especially when after Mumbai 9/11 Indian nationalism stands aroused.
If India’s political leaders pay heed to these two maxims, they would be able to ensure that the next time around India is subjected to another Pak-initiated terrorist strike, India’s instruments of power stand readied and are used for flick-knife retaliation without the agony of unending debates on Indian TV and media as to what India’s options should be. Nor would there be any requirement to heed advice of “Look before you leap”, India should at all times be ready for a strategic and military leap to chastise its aggressors.
India’s Flawed Perceptions on Pakistan
India’s political leaderships and policy establishment’s flawed perceptions and misplaced readings on the emergence of President Zardari and General Kayani and their impact on Indo-Pak security environment stand discussed in the last Paper of this Author. Timely warnings on these two dignitaries on this account, given months in advance of Mumbai 9/11 stood reflected in this Author’s Papers since mid-2008.
India’s flawed perceptions on Pakistan prevailing in the mindsets of Indian political leaders and policy making establishment are reflected below in brief.
Strategically and militarily, the following misperceptions seem to prevail in India’s policy making circles: (1) Pakistan with its nuclear weapons arsenal is the strategic equal of India (2) In case of Indian military strikes against Pakistan, that country could strike back with nuclear weapons (3) Pakistan has the capability and wherewithal to enlarge a limited war into a general war (4) China could enlarge and intervene in any Indo-Pakistan armed conflict (5) Pakistan can inflict massive damage in retaliation of Indian strikes.
India should welcome Pakistan crossing the nuclear threshold as it would be a suicidal step for the destruction and disintegration of Pakistan. China in the current security environment where Pakistan’s “war of terror” could visit Xinjiang also would not be tempted to go beyond rhetoric in any Indo-Pak armed conflict.
Politically, the Indian policy making mindset is dominated by the following misperceptions (1) Pakistan could develop into a peaceful neighbor with more political patience and understanding from India (2) Pakistan’s politics domination by Islamic fundamentalist elements could fade away (3) Pakistan Army could be brought under firm control of a civilian democratic political government (4) Pakistan’s civil society wants peace with India (5) Pakistan’s civil society could bring about the over throw of Pakistan Army’s political dominance of Pakistan’s governance (6) Track II diplomacy and use of Special Indian Envoys to Pakistan could facilitate peaceful Indo-Pak relations (7) Pakistan is a responsible stake-holder in regional peace and a responsible member of the international community.
To any discerning Indian policy maker it should be evidently clear that all the above perceptions of Indian policy establishment on Pakistan are misplaced and wrong. There are no concrete indications on the ground to suggest otherwise.
It are these strategic, military and more substantially the political misperceptions on Pakistan which have distorted Indian policy-makers formulations on Pakistan and the absence of an Indian credible response to Pakistan’s provocation “war of terror” against India.
India’s political leaders and policy establishment needs to recognize the reality that more than a decade of Track II diplomacy and the flitting of Special Envoys between New Delhi and Islamabad have not brought the two countries to peaceful co-existence. This is for the simple reason that the Pakistan Army calls the shots in Pakistan on its foreign policies and peace with India is not Pakistan Army’s objective.
India’s Misplaced Perceptions of Trust in “Friends of Pakistan” to Restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” Against India
Pakistan would like to claim the international community as “Friends of Pakistan” because most of the Western countries, China and the oil-rich Islamic monarchies of the Gulf Region bankroll Pakistan’s sustenance, notwithstanding that the bulk of these finances are diverted to the Pakistan Army and the operation of Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India and Afghanistan.
In terms of discussion of India’s misplaced trust in “Friends of Pakistan” to restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India, the discussion in this Paper would focus on the role of the United States, China and Saudi Arabia.
Despite 9/11 when the United States itself was subjected to a combination of Pakistani operated and Saudi-financed terrorism onslaught against mainland USA, the United States has been reluctant to recognize that the Pakistani “War of Terror” against India is also part of the global Islamic Jihad and needs to be firmly dealt with in a concerted manner by the global community by backing strong actions by India against Pakistan, rather than diplomacy.
The United States has the strategic, military, political and economic clout to stop Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. But it would not use that clout, because Pakistan colludes in American strategy in the region and India does not.
India’s trust that an evolving US-India Strategic Partnership would make America play a different ball-game in South Asia, vis-à-vis Pakistan, is grossly misplaced, in light of Mumbai 9/11.
The flurry of top US dignitaries visiting New Delhi in the wake of Mumbai 9/11 were not intended to reinforce New Delhi’s resolve to strike back at Pakistan but to pressurize India not to resort to military strikes against Pakistan and exercise restraint.
China enjoys even more stronger strategic, military, political and economic clout over Pakistan. In the wake of Mumbai 9/11 and moreso in the years preceding it, China was in a strong and coercive position to restrain Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. It did not do so for reasons best known to every Indian.
In the wake of Mumbai 9/11, China has advocated restraint on both India and Pakistan. However the actual message should have been a stern and salutary message by China to Pakistan, that its “War of Terror” in the region, which may eventually engulf Xinjiang too, should stop. China can be expected to continue to support Pakistan even now in its face-off with India.
Saudi Arabia as far as international terrorism is concerned is along with Pakistan is the “Real Axis of Evil”. Saudi Arabian Islamic charities finance Pakistani terrorist organizations “War of Terror” on both flanks of Pakistan. Pakistan is heavily dependant on Saudi Arabia for free oil supplies, financial aid and political backing. Saudi Arabia more than USA and China could discipline Pakistan in a second if it wishes to.
The visit of Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister last month was meaningless. He hesitated and shirked from condemning Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India. His visit was meaningless even if India intended that through it to send a message to Islamic Countries.
In any case it should have struck the Indian policy establishment that no Gulf Region Islamic countries have come out with any outright condemnation of Pakistan following 9/11. Further the media in these countries has been spewing vitriolic outbursts that India is now involved in American-Zionist conspiracies to fragment Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal – the only one in the Islamic world. More cynically that Mumbai 9/11 was fabricated by India intelligence agencies as an excuse for the above.
All in all, the stark pointer is that India cannot rely on the international community to curb Pakistan’s “War of Terror”. The “Friends of Pakistan” count on Pakistan to serve their strategic ends and would go to great lengths to protect Pakistan from India’s wrath however well placed.
Pakistan’s Perceptions of India’s Paralysis to Strike Back, Post Mumbai 9/11
In the “Battle of Perceptions” post-Mumbai 9/11 Pakistan seems to have established a superiority over India by correctly perceiving India’s paralysis.
Gleaning through the demonstrated performance and statements of Pakistan’s political and military leaders and the writings of Pakistani columnists in their media, the Pakistani perceptions of India’s paralysis to strike back post-Mumbai 9/11 were read as follows: (1) India failed to strike back against Pakistan in 2002-2003 OP PRAKARM despite an initial advantage of surprise and strength. (2) In the large number of major terrorist attacks in India by Pak-sponsored terrorists or their modules within India there were no retaliatory responses from India (3) India every time took the “softer route” of attempting to enlist international condemnation against Pakistan (4) Pakistan this time too was confident that after the first few days of general condemnation, the international community would lapse back as hithertofore (5) Pakistani columnists harped on India’s military machine not being fully prepared for war due to incomplete inventories and slow inflow of Russian military hardware (6) Pakistan’s military establishment was confident in their perceptions that India would not be able to obtain substantial USA, China, Saudi Arabia backing for Indian retaliatory strikes against Pakistan.(7) India would be held back by fears that any assertive step could lead to internationalizing of the Kashmir issue.
Indian political leader’s propensity to shirk away from using “hard options” to protect India’s “National Honour” and rely more on international condemnation of Pakistan was correctly read by the Pakistani military establishment.
The course of events even after a month post-Mumbai 9/11 seem to bear out Pakistan’s military establishments perceptions of India in terms of retaliatory strikes or other hard actions.
To that extent it can be said that Pakistan has established superiority over India in the “Battle of Perceptions” unless India now decides to change course, in confronting Pakistan’s “War of Terror” against India.
The current "diplomatic offensive" by India and providing dossiers of clinching involvement of Pakistan's official establishment in Mumbai 9/11 will not shame the Pakistani military establishment or prompt it to any positive action to dismantle its terror-networks or extradite the wanted terrorists to India for trial.
At the end of this "diplomatic offensive" Pakistan's military establishment's "Perceptions" of India's soft responses would continue.
India would be left then with only two options, namely to execute military strikes against Pakistan or just accept a "lump-it" situation.
Concluding Observations
The major concluding observations that need to be made are as under:
India cannot endlessly go on buckling to Pakistan Army sponsored and Pakistan based “War of Terror” against India.
The next such “War of Terror” strike against India would perforce pressurize the present Indian Government or the one that succeeds it to go in for the “hard option” of retaliatory military strikes, irrespective of the cost.
USA, China and Saudi Arabia would be well-advised as “Friends of Pakistan” to clamp down on Pakistan Army sponsored terrorist organization in Pakistan and their disruptive activities as any future conflict on this count could also jeopardize their respective national security interests in this region.
Pakistan itself needs to realize that when its traditional intransigence against India pushes India to the wall, it could result in another fragmentation of Pakistan as in 1971.
India needs to recognize that “diplomatic offensives” do not tame strategic delinquencies of military-dominated nations like Pakistan. Hard options are called for:
Finally, India’s political leaders need to recognize that threats to Indian “National Honour”, sovereignty and security have to met squarely and eliminated by India and India alone. India's counter-terrorism operations cannot be "out-sourced" to others.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
Harnessing space energy
11:59 | 06/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev, for RIA Novosti) - European Union leaders agreed during the Brussels summit on global warming to cut 1990 levels of carbon dioxide emissions 20% by 2020.
However, some researchers theorize that global warming is ending and that world temperatures will cool in the foreseeable future.
Naturally, this does not mean that the world must scrap programs for cutting toxic emissions into the atmosphere. Humankind will face an environmental disaster if the volume of harmful substances continues to increase. Although alternative sources of energy, now generating only 1-2% of all power worldwide, could solve the problem, even industrial countries are in no hurry to use them.
This can be explained by a number of factors. Alternative-energy sources are expensive. Traditional energy giants which do not want to lose their profits are pressuring governments not to implement them. It is also believed that our conservative society would find it hard to adapt to a new lifestyle. Nevertheless, we cannot do without alternative energy sources. Only 0.0125% of solar-radiation energy could meet global energy demand, while 0.5% could solve many long-term energy problems.
The so-called external photo-effect, or external photo-emission, when light quantums hit materials and generate electrons is the simplest power-generation concept. In 1930, Soviet physicists from the Leningrad-based Physical Technical Institute used this method to generate electricity for the first time in history.
Although sulfur-helium solar batteries used at the time had an efficiency of less than 1%, more advanced solar batteries with 10% efficiency were developed by the mid-1970s. Their efficiency was raised to 15% by the mid-1990s and reached 20% at the turn of the century. This was made possible by streamlining silicon production from quartzites, the main solar-battery element. Incidentally, Russia abounds in super-pure quartzite.
Five years ago, the Dubna-based Joint Institute for Nuclear Research near Moscow displayed a solar battery with 50% efficiency. Scientists called their brainchild the Star Battery using nanotechnologies to facilitate the effectiveness of well-known processes.
A 0.5-mm thick silicon film is injected with tiny gold particles. The properties of this precious metal alter efficiency so much that two, rather than five or six, photons of light can now generate one electron. This method has clear practical applications: One square meter of a solar battery can now generate about 600 Watts; and its capacity can be boosted to one kWt.
Scientists from Dubna have made a super-condenser using the same substance. A cylinder with a diameter of three-centimeters can store 900 times more power than a car battery. This is important because solar power plants only operate during the day, while power is needed round the clock and must therefore accumulated inside high-capacity batteries.
The first commercial solar power plant was commissioned in 1985 near the town of Shchelkino in the Crimea in the Soviet Union and had a peak load of 5 mWt, or just as much as the world's first nuclear reactor. But the costly and inefficient power plant had to be shut down in the mid-1990s, as on Earth it could not work to full capacity. Consequently, we must consider building such power plants in outer space.
The Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences discussed this issue soon after Yury Gagarin's trailblazing space flight in April 1961 and said it deserved every attention. In the years that followed, experts started designing numerous space-based solar power plants, especially during the global energy crisis of the mid-1970s.
But all of them had to be placed into geostationary orbits, specifically geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator (0° latitude), approximately 36,000 km above sea level and with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period. Although these orbits are the most efficient routes for transmitting electricity back to Earth, there are not many parking places left, with numerous satellites launched by many countries, whose operation could be disrupted by such power plants. Moreover, it costs $35,000-50,000 to orbit one kilogram of geostationary payload. Any solar power plant would only recoup itself if launch costs are reduced to $100-200 per kilogram of payload.
Technically speaking, Russia would prefer a sun-synchronous orbit - a geocentric orbit combines altitude and inclination in such a way that an object on that orbit passes over any given point on the Earth's surface at the same local solar time. When launched, a solar power plant would have an apogee of 40,000 km above the North Pole, while its 500-km perigee would be located 500 km over the South Pole.
The power plant would transmit electricity eight hours a day to the most power-strapped northern Russian regions, while its batteries would accumulate electricity during another four hours.
The Keldysh Research Center's experts have come up with a concept for building low-orbit power plants that would transmit electricity to Earth. They estimate that 10 to 30 solar power plants could be built by 2020-2030. Each power plant would consist of ten 15-mWt modules. Under optimistic scenarios, up to 800 power plants could be orbited by 2050-2100.
Apart from the photo effect, there are other methods for converting solar radiation into electricity. This includes the thermodynamic method for converting solar energy into heat energy. A solar-radiation concentrator is focused on a heat absorber, which subsequently builds heats. Its working medium, namely, gas, oil or any other liquid, begins to boil, turns into steam and starts rotating the turbine that generates electricity. The efficiency of such method could reach 40% and more.
However, the use of metal-intensive systems, such as turbines, radiators and electric generators, increases power-plant weight.
They could convert electricity into UHF beams with frequencies ranging between one millimeter and one meter and transmit them back to Earth. In that case, not more than 2% of power would be lost in the atmosphere. The narrower laser beams generated and received by small units could also transmit power to the planetary surface. However, atmospheric laser-ray absorption could reduce power-transmission efficiency.
It would become necessary to develop an impressive array of vehicle-assembly buildings, aerospace transport systems and orbital tugs for delivering solar power plant components to their working orbits. In fact, this is the same mind-boggling task as the creation of orbital solar power plants themselves.
Russian scientists also suggest other scenarios for solving power-supply problems with the help of up-to-date space technology. There are plans to develop space platforms with solar reflectors for illuminating polar regions and opencast mines, for increasing crop yield, etc. Such reflectors would illuminate 30-km sectors for several hours before sunrise and after dusk any place in the world.
Japan and the United States are also developing orbital power plants. Tokyo wants to orbit a power plant by 2020, while Washington hopes to do the same at an earlier date.
In the next few decades, the space power industry will become a rapidly developing global economic sector and will eventually cost as much as conventional power plants on Planet Earth.
Yury Zaitsev is an academic adviser with the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev, for RIA Novosti) - European Union leaders agreed during the Brussels summit on global warming to cut 1990 levels of carbon dioxide emissions 20% by 2020.
However, some researchers theorize that global warming is ending and that world temperatures will cool in the foreseeable future.
Naturally, this does not mean that the world must scrap programs for cutting toxic emissions into the atmosphere. Humankind will face an environmental disaster if the volume of harmful substances continues to increase. Although alternative sources of energy, now generating only 1-2% of all power worldwide, could solve the problem, even industrial countries are in no hurry to use them.
This can be explained by a number of factors. Alternative-energy sources are expensive. Traditional energy giants which do not want to lose their profits are pressuring governments not to implement them. It is also believed that our conservative society would find it hard to adapt to a new lifestyle. Nevertheless, we cannot do without alternative energy sources. Only 0.0125% of solar-radiation energy could meet global energy demand, while 0.5% could solve many long-term energy problems.
The so-called external photo-effect, or external photo-emission, when light quantums hit materials and generate electrons is the simplest power-generation concept. In 1930, Soviet physicists from the Leningrad-based Physical Technical Institute used this method to generate electricity for the first time in history.
Although sulfur-helium solar batteries used at the time had an efficiency of less than 1%, more advanced solar batteries with 10% efficiency were developed by the mid-1970s. Their efficiency was raised to 15% by the mid-1990s and reached 20% at the turn of the century. This was made possible by streamlining silicon production from quartzites, the main solar-battery element. Incidentally, Russia abounds in super-pure quartzite.
Five years ago, the Dubna-based Joint Institute for Nuclear Research near Moscow displayed a solar battery with 50% efficiency. Scientists called their brainchild the Star Battery using nanotechnologies to facilitate the effectiveness of well-known processes.
A 0.5-mm thick silicon film is injected with tiny gold particles. The properties of this precious metal alter efficiency so much that two, rather than five or six, photons of light can now generate one electron. This method has clear practical applications: One square meter of a solar battery can now generate about 600 Watts; and its capacity can be boosted to one kWt.
Scientists from Dubna have made a super-condenser using the same substance. A cylinder with a diameter of three-centimeters can store 900 times more power than a car battery. This is important because solar power plants only operate during the day, while power is needed round the clock and must therefore accumulated inside high-capacity batteries.
The first commercial solar power plant was commissioned in 1985 near the town of Shchelkino in the Crimea in the Soviet Union and had a peak load of 5 mWt, or just as much as the world's first nuclear reactor. But the costly and inefficient power plant had to be shut down in the mid-1990s, as on Earth it could not work to full capacity. Consequently, we must consider building such power plants in outer space.
The Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences discussed this issue soon after Yury Gagarin's trailblazing space flight in April 1961 and said it deserved every attention. In the years that followed, experts started designing numerous space-based solar power plants, especially during the global energy crisis of the mid-1970s.
But all of them had to be placed into geostationary orbits, specifically geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator (0° latitude), approximately 36,000 km above sea level and with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period. Although these orbits are the most efficient routes for transmitting electricity back to Earth, there are not many parking places left, with numerous satellites launched by many countries, whose operation could be disrupted by such power plants. Moreover, it costs $35,000-50,000 to orbit one kilogram of geostationary payload. Any solar power plant would only recoup itself if launch costs are reduced to $100-200 per kilogram of payload.
Technically speaking, Russia would prefer a sun-synchronous orbit - a geocentric orbit combines altitude and inclination in such a way that an object on that orbit passes over any given point on the Earth's surface at the same local solar time. When launched, a solar power plant would have an apogee of 40,000 km above the North Pole, while its 500-km perigee would be located 500 km over the South Pole.
The power plant would transmit electricity eight hours a day to the most power-strapped northern Russian regions, while its batteries would accumulate electricity during another four hours.
The Keldysh Research Center's experts have come up with a concept for building low-orbit power plants that would transmit electricity to Earth. They estimate that 10 to 30 solar power plants could be built by 2020-2030. Each power plant would consist of ten 15-mWt modules. Under optimistic scenarios, up to 800 power plants could be orbited by 2050-2100.
Apart from the photo effect, there are other methods for converting solar radiation into electricity. This includes the thermodynamic method for converting solar energy into heat energy. A solar-radiation concentrator is focused on a heat absorber, which subsequently builds heats. Its working medium, namely, gas, oil or any other liquid, begins to boil, turns into steam and starts rotating the turbine that generates electricity. The efficiency of such method could reach 40% and more.
However, the use of metal-intensive systems, such as turbines, radiators and electric generators, increases power-plant weight.
They could convert electricity into UHF beams with frequencies ranging between one millimeter and one meter and transmit them back to Earth. In that case, not more than 2% of power would be lost in the atmosphere. The narrower laser beams generated and received by small units could also transmit power to the planetary surface. However, atmospheric laser-ray absorption could reduce power-transmission efficiency.
It would become necessary to develop an impressive array of vehicle-assembly buildings, aerospace transport systems and orbital tugs for delivering solar power plant components to their working orbits. In fact, this is the same mind-boggling task as the creation of orbital solar power plants themselves.
Russian scientists also suggest other scenarios for solving power-supply problems with the help of up-to-date space technology. There are plans to develop space platforms with solar reflectors for illuminating polar regions and opencast mines, for increasing crop yield, etc. Such reflectors would illuminate 30-km sectors for several hours before sunrise and after dusk any place in the world.
Japan and the United States are also developing orbital power plants. Tokyo wants to orbit a power plant by 2020, while Washington hopes to do the same at an earlier date.
In the next few decades, the space power industry will become a rapidly developing global economic sector and will eventually cost as much as conventional power plants on Planet Earth.
Yury Zaitsev is an academic adviser with the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
January 08, 2009
The current crisis was predicted 30 years ago
16:10 08/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vlad Grinkevich) - The current economic crisis came as a bolt from the blue for most. In the meantime, experts warned in the early 1970s that the world economy was heading for a crisis in the first decades of the 21st century.
In the 1960s, Western countries concluded that oil-stained beaches, smoggy megalopolises, and heavy pollution of major European rivers were too high a price for the benefits of mass production. In 1968, a group of industrialists, politicians, and scientists set up the Club of Rome in the Italian capital. They had enough money to conduct a series of studies with the participation of prominent scientists, and the use of tested methods.
Computer-predicted disaster
The Club's first report, which had the tell-tale title "Limits to Growth," caused a shock. It was compiled by a group of scientists headed by Dennis L. Medows, who decided to create a cybernetic model of global development. Having focused on five global processes: fast industrialization, population growth, increasing shortage of food, depletion of non-renewable resources, and degradation of the environment, they modeled the future on a computer.
The emotionless machine produced an answer that sounded like a verdict: the human race is in for a disaster. Considering that the population was growing at a rate of over two percent annually at that time, while industry was growing at up to five to seven percent, modern civilization was bound to reach the limits of growth in the first decades of the 21st century. Mineral resources will have been depleted; environmental pollution will have become irreversible; a sudden uncontrolled drop in the population and decline in production will have become inevitable. Millions of people will have died as a result of man-made catastrophes, spontaneous economically motivated social conflicts and unknown pandemics.
To prevent the cataclysm, the authors of the report offered a concept they called "zero growth," under which new purchases should only replace used up items. For example, a new car should be purchased only when the old one has stopped running; there should be universal birth control - no more than two children per family, and they suggested restricting consumption.
The report was a bombshell. It called into doubt the foundations of the Western economies. The zero growth concept contradicted the very logic of industrialized society which rested on the principle of supply-and-demand. The concept did not offer a future for the poor people of the non-capitalist world: a resident of a Soviet communal apartment was bound to live in it until he died, while a Chinese peasant was doomed to heat his hut with manure and dead-wood.
Does the truth begin as heresy?
Needless to say, the report was subjected to severe criticism, primarily because its authors did not offer any solutions. They admitted that their model was far from ideal, but the conclusions of their opponents were no less fallacious. Optimistic scenarios were not limited to only good wishes. The concept of a post-industrial society, for one thing, promised a miraculous salvation. It was very similar to the bright future predicted by communist ideologists.
Unprecedented technical breakthrough was the sine qua non both for building communism in the U.S.S.R. and for post-industrialized society in the West. It was supposed to produce technology which would resolve a number of environmental and socio-economic problems (for instance, let machines do arduous, dirty work).
As a result, the elites of the industrially advanced countries preferred to live with a due account of restrictions, and grow until they reach the natural limits in the hope of a technological leap which would allow them to go beyond the limits.
Global self-deception
The talk of the looming global crisis quickly ground to a halt in the latter half of the 1980s. Optimists were bragging about the resolution of global problems, and many analysts were confident that the bright post-industrial future had already arrived.
They seemed to be right but only at first glance. The majority of the European and U.S. middle class were white collar workers, involved in finances, marketing, and research. But in reality, driven by the market's logic, the leaders of the industrialized countries simply followed the path of least resistance. They switched the dirtiest and most labor-consuming industries to the developing countries, and let guest workers from the same countries take the worst jobs at home because they were cheaper than machines.
However, practice has shown that even a very advanced country cannot resolve global problems alone. Indeed, the once lifeless Czech Vltava or the German Rhine now abound with dozens of fish species, but the environmental crisis which the West has overcome is now looming elsewhere. It became clear that it would go beyond the limits of assembly lines several years ago when the Amur River was covered by a huge benzol spill. Resource restrictions are even more obvious - regardless of where a plant or factory oriented to the world market is located, a certain amount of resources is required to produce a commodity.
Finally, to control the production scattered all over the world, a sophisticated financial system had to be construed. With time, it started taking on a life of its own, produced by a fictitious economy with the profits of financial institutions depending not on real production but on intricate financial transactions.
This resulted in a big number of disproportions in the world economy. Investment in the financial market surpassed corporate capital, while the funds accumulated in the financial bubble exceeded the money in the real economy by many times.
As a result, an attempt to mothball the problem ended in failure. Having reached the limits of growth, the financial system collapsed and triggered the current economic turmoil.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti
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The Limits to Growth
Abstract established by Eduard Pestel. A Report to The Club of Rome (1972),
by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis l. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, William W. Behrens III
Short Version of the Limits to Growth
Our world model was built specifically to investigate five major trends of global concern – accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment.
The model we have constructed is, like every model, imperfect, oversimplified, and unfinished.
In spite of the preliminary state of our work, we believe it is important to publish the model and our findings now. (...) We feel that the model described here is already sufficiently developed to be of some use to decision-makers. Furthermore, the basic behavior modes we have already observed in this model appear to be so fundamental and general that we do not expect our broad conclusions to be substantially altered by further revisions.
Our conclusions are :
1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.
2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability
that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic
material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his
individual human potential.
If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin
working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.
All five elements basic to the study reported here--population, food production, and consumption of
nonrenewable natural resources--are increasing. The amount of their increase each year follows a pattern
that mathematicians call exponential growth.
A quantity exhibits exponential growth when it increases by a constant percentage of the whole in a
constant time period.
Such exponential growth is a common process in biological, financial, and many other systems of the
world.
Exponential growth is a dynamic phenomenon, which means that it involves elements that change over time.
(...) When many different quantities are growing simultaneously in a system, however, and when all the
quantities are interrelated in a complicated way, analysis of the causes of growth and of the future behavior
of the system becomes very difficult indeed.
Over the course of the last 30 years there has evolved at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a new
method for understanding the dynamic behavior of complex systems. The method is called System
Dynamics. The basis of the method is the recongnition that the structure of any system--the many circular,
interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships among its components--is often just as important in
determining its behavior as the individual components themselves. The world model described in this book is
a System Dynamics model
Extrapolation of present trends is a time-honored way of looking into the future, especially the very near
future, and especially if the quantity being considered is not much influenced by other trends that are
occuring elsewhere in the system. Of course, none of the five factors we are examining here is independent.
Each interacts constantly with all the others. We have already mentioned some of these interactions.
Population cannot grow without food, food production is increased by growth of capital, more capital
requires more resources, discarded resources become pollution, pollution interferes with the growth of both
population and food.
Furthermore, over long time periods each of these factors also feeds back to influence itself.
In this first simple world model, we are interested only in the broad behavior modes of the population-capital
system. By behavior modes we mean the tendencies of the variables in the system (population or pollution,
for example) to change as time progresses.
A major purpose in constructing the world model has been to determine which, if any, of these behavior
modes will be most characteristic of the world system as it reaches the limits to growth. This process of
determining behavior modes is "prediction" only in the most limited sense of the word.
Because we are interested at this point only in broad behavior modes, this first world model needs not be
extremely detailed. We thus consider only one general population, a population that statistically reflects the
average characteristics of the global population. We include only one class of pollutants--the long-lived,
globally distributed family of pollutants, such as lead, mercury, asbestos, and stable pesticides and
radioisotopes--whose dynamic behavior in the ecosystem we are beginning to understand. We plot one
generalized resource that represents the combined reserves of all nonrenewable resourCes, although we
know that each separate resource will follow the general dynamic pattern at its own specific level and rate.
This high level of aggregation is necessary at this point to keep the model understandable. At the same time
it limits the information we can expect to gain from the model.
Can anything be learned from such a highly aggregated model? Can its output be considered meaningful? In
terms of exact predictions, the output is not meaningful.
On the other hand it is vitally important to gain some understanding of the causes of growth in human
society, the limits to growth, and the behavior of our socio-economic systems when the limits are reached.
All levels in the model (population, capital, pollution, etc.) begin with 1900 values. From 1900 to 1970 the
variables agree generally with their historical value to the extent that we know them. Population rises from
1.6 billion in 1900 to 3.5 billion in 1970. Although the birth rate declines gradually, the death rate falls more
quickly, especially after 1940, and the rate of population growth increases. Industrial output, food and
services per capita increase exponentially. The resource base in 1970 is still about 95 percent of its 1900
value, but it declines dramatically thereafter, as population and industrial output continue to grow.
The behavior mode of the system is that of overshoot and collapse. In this run the collapse occurs because
of nonrenewable resource depletion. The industrial capital stock grows to a level that requires an enormous
input of resources. In the very process of that growth it depletes a large fraction of the resource reserves
available. As resource prices rise and mines are depleted, more and more capital must be used for obtaining
resources, leaving less to be invested for future growth. Finally investment cannot keep up with
depreciation, and the industrial base collapses, taking with it the service and agricultural systems, which
have become dependent on industrial inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, hospital laboratories, computers,
and especially energy for mechanization). For a short time the situation is especially serious because
population, with the delays inherent in the age structure and the process of social adjustment, keeps rising.
Population finally decreases when the death rate is driven upward by lack of food and health services. The
exact timing of these events is not meaningful, given the great aggregation and many uncertainties in the
model. It is significant, however, that growth is stopped well before the year 2100. We have tried in every
doubtful case to make the most optimistic estimate of unknown quantities, and we have also ignored
discontinuous events such as wars or epidemics, which might act to bring an end to growth even sooner
than our model would indicate. In other words, the model is biased to allow growth to continue longer than
it probably can continue in the real world. We can thus say with some confidence that, under the
assumption of no major change in the present system, population and industrial growth will certainly stop
within th next century, at the latest.
To test the model assumption about available resources, we doubled the resource reserves in 1900, keeping
all other assumptions identical to those in the standard run. Now industrialization can reach a higher level
since resources are not so quickly depleted. The larger industrial plant releases pollution at such a rate,
however, that the environmental pollution absorption mechanisms become saturated. Pollution rises very
rapidly, causing an immediate increase in the death rate and a decline in food production. At the end of the
run resources are severely depleted in spite of the doubled amount initially available.
Is the future of the world system bound to be growth and then collapse into a dismal, depleted existence?
Only if we make the initial assumption that our present way of doing things will not change. We have ample
evidence of mankind's ingenuity and social flexibility. There are, of course, many likely changes in the
system, some of which are already taking place. The Green Revolution is raising agricultural yields in non
industrialized countries. Knowledge about modern methods of birth control is spreading rapidly.
Although the history of human effort contains numerous incidents of mankind's failure to live within
physical limits, it is success in overcoming limits that forms the cultural tradition of many dominant people
in today's world. Over the past three hundred years, mankind has compiled an impressive record of pushing
back the apparent limits to population and economic growth by a series of spectacular technological
advances. Since the recent history of a large part of human society has been so continuously successful, it
is quite natural that many people expect technological breakthrough to go on raising physical ceilings
indefinitely.
Will new technologies alter the tendency of the world system to grow and collapse?
Let us assume, however, that the technological optimists are correct and that nuclear energy will solve the
resource problems of the world.
Let us also assume a reduction in pollution generation all sources by a factor of four, starting in 1975.
Let us also assume that the normal yield per hectare of all the world's land can be further increased by a
factor of two.Besides we assume perfect birth control, practiced voluntarily, starting in 1975.
All this means we are utilizing a technological policy in every sector of the world model to circumvent in
some way the various limits to growth. The model system is producing nuclear power, recycling resources,
and mining the most remote reserves; withholding as many pollutants as possible; pushing yields from the
land to undreamed-of heights; and producing only children who are actively wanted by their parents. The
result is still an end to growth before the year 2100.
Because of three siumultaneous crises. Overuse of land leads to erosion, and food production drops.
Resources are severly depleted by a prosperous world population (but not as prosperous as the present US
population). Pollution rises, drops, and then rises again dramatically, causing a further decrease in food
production and a sudden rise in the death rate. The application of technological solutions alone has
prolonged the period of population and industrial growth, but it has not removed the ultimate limits to that
growth.
Given the many approximations and limitations of the world model, there is no point in dwelling glumly on
the series of catastrophes it tends to generate. We shall emphasize just one more time that none of these
computer outputs is a prediction. We would not expect the real world to behave like the world model in any
of the graphs we have shown, especially in the collapse modes. The model contains dynamic statements
about only the physical aspects of man's activities. It assumes that social variables--income distribution,
attitudes about family size, choices among goods, services, and food--will continue to follow the same
patterns they have followed throughout the world in recent history. These patterns, and the human value
they represent, were all established in the growth phase of our civilization. They would certainly be greatly
revised as population and income began to decrease. Since we find it difficult to imagine what new forms of
human societal behavior might emerge and how quickly they would emerge under collapse conditions, we
have not attempted to model such social changes. What validity our model has holds up only to the point in
each output graph at which growth comes to an end and collapse begins.
The unspoken assumption behind all of the model runs we have presented in this chapter is that population
and capital growth should be allowed to continue until they reach some "natural" limit. This assumption also
appears to be a basic part of the human value system currently operational in the real world. Given that first
assumption, that population and capital growth should not be deliberately limited but should be left to "seek
their own levels", we have not been able to find a set of policies that avoids the collapse mode of behavior.
The hopes of the technological optimists center on the ability of technology to remove or extend the limits to
growth of population and capital. We have shown that in the world model the application of technology to
apparent problems of resource depletion or pollution or food shortage has no impact on the essential
problem, which is exponential growth in a finite and complex system. Our attempts to use even the most
optimistic estimates of the benefits of technology in the model did not prevent the ultimate decline of
population and industry, and in fact did not in any case postpone the collapse beyond the year 2100.
Unfortunately the model does not indicate, at this stage, the social side-effects of new technologies. These
effects are often the most important in terms of the influence of a technology on people's lives.
Social side-effects must be anticipated and forestalled before the large-scale introduction of a new
technology.
While technology can change rapidly, political and social, insitutions generally change very slowly.
Furthermore, they almost never change in anticipation of social need, but only in response to one.
We must also keep in mind the presence of social delays--the delays necessary to allow society to absorb or
to prepare for a change. Most delays, physical or social reduce the stability of the world system and
increase the likelihood of the overshoot mode. The social delays, like the physical ones, are becoming
increasingly more critical because the processes of exponential growth are creating additional pressures at a
faster and faster rate. Although the rate of technological change has so far managed to keep up with this
accelerated pace, mankind has made virtually no new discoveries to increase the rate of social, political,
ethical, and cultural change.
Even if society's technological progress fulfills all expectations, it may very well be a problem with no
technical solution, or the interaction of several such problems, that finally brings an end to population and
capital growth.
Applying technology to the natural pressures that the environment exerts against any growth process has
been so successful in the past that a whole culture has evolved around the principle of fighting against limits
rather than learning to live with them.
Is it better to try to live within that limit by accepting a self-imposed restriction on growth? Or is it
preferable to go on growing until some other natural limit arises, in the hope that at that time another
technological leap will allow growth to continue still longer? For the last several hundred years human
society has followed the second course so consistently and successfully that the first choice has been all but
forgotten.
There may be much disagreement with the statement that population and capital growth must stop soon. But
virtually no one will argue that material growth on this planet can go on forever. At this point in man's
history, the choice posed above is still available in almost every sphere of human activity. Man can still
choose his limits and stops when he pleases by weakening some of the strong pressures that cause capital
and population growth, or by instituting counterpressures, or both. Such counterpresures will probably not
be entirely pleasant. They will certainly involve profund changes in the social and economic structures that
have been deeply impressed into human culture by centuries of growth. The alternative is to wait until the
price of technology becomes more than society can pay, or until the side-effects of technology suppress
growth themselves, or until problems arise that have no technical solutions. At any of those points the
choice of limits will be gone.
Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most
fundamental problem--the problem of growth in a finite system--and prevent us from taking effective action
to solve it.
On the other hand, our intent is certainly not to brand technology as evil or futile or unnecessary. We
strongly believe that many of the technological developments mentioned here--recycling, pollution-control
devices, contraceptives--will be absolutely vital to the future of human society if they are combined with
deliberate checks on growth. We would deplore an unreasoned rejection of the benefit of technology as
strongly as we argue here against an unreasoned acceptance of them. Perhaps the best summary of our
position is the motto of the Sierra Club : "Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress".
We would hope that society will receive each technological advance by establishing the answers to three
questions before the technology is widely adopted. The questions are:
- What will be the side-effects, both physical and social, if this development is introduced on a large scale?
- What social changes will be necessary before this development can be implemented properly, and how
long will it take to achieve them ?
- If the development is fully successful and removes some natural limits to growth, what limit will the
growing system meet next? Will society prefer its pressures to the ones this development is designed to
remove?
We are searching for a model that represents a world system that is:
1. sustainable without sudden and uncontrollable collapse; and
2. capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people
The overwhelming growth in world population caused by the positive birth-rate loop is a recent
phenomenon, a result of mankind's very successful reduction of worldwide mortality. The controlling
negative feedback loop has been weakened, allowing the positive loop to operate virtually without constraint.
There are only two ways to restore the resulting imbalance. Either the birth rate must be brought down to
equal the new, lower death rate, or the death rate must rise again. All of the "natural" constraints to
population growth operate in the second way--they raise the death. Any society wishing to avoid that result
must take deliberate action to control the positive feedback loop--to reduce the birth rate.
But stabilizing population alone is not sufficient to prevent overshoot and collapse; a similar run with
constant capital and rising population shows that stabilizing capital alone is also not sufficient. What happens
if we bring both positive feedback loops under control simultaneously? We can stabilize the capital stock in
the model by requiring that the investment rate equal the depreciation rate, with an additional model link
exactly analogous to the population-stabilizing one.
The result of stopping population growth in 1975 and industrial capital growth in 1985 with no other
changes is that population and capital reach constant values at a relatively high level of food, industrial
output and services per person. Eventually, however, resource shortages reduce industrial output and the
temporily stable state degenerates. However, we can improve the model behavior greatly by conbining
technological changes with value changes that reduce the growth tendencies of the system.
Then the stable world population is only slightly larger than the population today. There is more than twice
as much food per person as the average value in 1970, and world average lifetime is nearly 70 years. The
average industrial output per capita is well above today's level, and services per capita have tripled. Total
average income per capita (industrial output, food, and services combined) is about half the present average
US income, equal to the present average European income, and three times the present average world
income. Resources are still being gradually depleted, as they must be under any realistic assumption, but the
rate of depletion is so slow that there is time for technology and industry to adjust to changes in resource
availability.
If we relax our most unrealistic assumption--that we can suddenly and absolutely stabilize population and
capital, replacing them with the following:
1. The population has access to 100 percent effective birth control.
2. The average desired family size is two children.
3. The economic system endeavors to maintain average industrial output per capita at about the 1975 level.
Excess industrial capability is employed for producing consumption goods rather than increasing the
industrial capital investment rate above the depreciation rate.
We do not suppose that any single one of the policies necessary to attain system stability in the model can or
should be suddenly introduced in the world by 1975. A society choosing stability as a goal certainly must
approach that goal gradually. It is important to realize, however, that the longer exponential growth is
allowed to continue, the fewer possibilities remain for the final stable rate.
Many people will think that the changes we have introduced into the model to avoid the growth-and collapse
behavior mode are not only impossible, but unpleasant, dangerous, even disastrous in themselves. Such
policies as reducing the birth rate and diverting capital from production of material goods, by whatever
means they might be implemented, seem unnatural and unimaginable, because they have not, in most
people's experience, been tried, or even seriously suggested. Indeed there would be little point even in
discussing such fundamental changes in the functioning of modern society if we felt that the present pattern
of unrestricted growth were sustainable into the future. All the evidence available to us, however, suggests
that of the three alternatives--unrestricted growth, a self-imposed limitation to growth, or a nature-imposed
limitation to growth--only the last two are actually possible.
Achieving a self-imposed limitation to growth would require much effort. It would involve learning to do
many things in new ways. It would tax the ingenuity, the flexibility, and the self-discipline of the human
race. Bringing a deliberate, controlled end to growth is a tremendous challenge, not easiliy met. Would the
final result be worth the effort? What would humanity gain by siuuch a transition, and what would it,lose?
Let us consider in more detail what a world of nongrowth might be like.
We have after much discussion, decided to call the state of constant population and capital, by the term
"equilibrium". Equilibrium means a state of balance or equality between opposing forces. In the dynamic
terms of the world model, the opposing forces are those causing population and capital stock to increase
(high desired family size, low birth control effectivness, high rate of capital investment) and those causing
population and capital stock to decrease (lack of food, pollution, high rate of depreciation or obsolescence).
The word "capital" should be understood to mean service, industrial, and agricultural capital combined. Thus
the most basic definition of the state of global equilibrium is that population and capital are essentially stable,
with the forces tending to increase or decrease them in a carefully controlled balance.
There is much room for variation within that definition. We have only specified that the stocks of capital
and population remain constant, but they might theoretically be constant at a high level or a low level--or one
might be high and the other low. The longer a society prefers to maintain the state of equilibrium, the lower
the rates and levels must be.
By choosing a fairly long time horizon for its existence, and a long average lifetime as a desirable goal, we
have now arrived at a minimum set of requirements for the state of global equilibrium. They are:
1. The capital plant and the population are constant in size.The birth rate equals the death rate and the capital
investment rate equals the depreciation rate.
2. All input and output rates--birth, death, investment, and depreciation--are kept to a minimum.
3. The levels of capital and population and the ratio of the two are set in accordance with the values of the
society.They may be deliberately revised and slowly adjusted as the advance of technology creates new
options.
An equilibrium defined in this way does not mean stagnation. Within the first two guidelines above,
corporations could expand or fail, local populations could increase or decrease income could become more
or less evenly distributed. Technological advance would permit the services provided by a constant stock of
capital to increase slowly. Within the third guideline, any country could change its average standard of living
by altering the balance between its population and its capital. Furthermore, a society could adjust to
changing internal or external factors by raising or lowering the population or capital stocks, or both, slowly
and in a controlled fashion, with a predetermined goal in mind. The three points above define a dynamic
equilibrium, which need not and probably would not "freeze" the world into the population
Capital configuration that happens to exist at present time. The object in accepting the above three
statements is to create freedom for society, not to impose a straitjacket.
What would life be like in such an equilibrium state? Would innovation be stifled? Would society be locked
into the patterns of inequality and injustice we see in the world today? Discussion of these questions must
proceed on the basis of mental models, for there is no formal model of social conditions in the equilibrium
state. No one can predict what sort of institutions mankind might develop under these new conditions.
There is, of course, no guarantee that the new society would be much better or even much different from
that which exists today. It seems possible, however, that a society released from struggling with the many
problems caused by growth may have more energy and ingenuity available for solving other problems. In
fact, we believe, that the evolution of a society that favors innovation and technological development, a
society based on equality and justice, is far more likely to evolve in a state of global equilibrium than it is in
the state of growth we are experiencing today
Population and capital are the only quantities that need be constant in the equilibrium state. Any human
activity that does not require a large flow of irreplaceable resources or produce severe environmental
degradation might continue to grow indefinitely. In particular, those pursuits that many people would list as
the most desirable and satisfying activities of man--education, art, music, religion, basic scientific research,
athletics, and social interactions--could flourish.
All of the activities listed above depend very strongly on two factors. First, they depend upon the availability
of some surplus production after the basixc human needs of fod and shelter have been met. Second, they
require leisure time. In any equilibrium state the relative levels of capital and population could be adjusted to
assure that human material needs are fulfilled at any desired level. Since the amount of material production
would be essentially fixed, every improvement in production methods could result in increased leisure for
the population--leisure that could be devoted to any activity that is relatively nonconSuming and
nonpolluting, such as those listed above
Technological advance would be both necessary and welcome in the equilibrium state. The picture of the
equilibrium state we have drawn here is idealized, to be sure. It may be impossible to achieve in the form
desribed here, and it may not be the form most people on earth would choose. The only purpose in
describing it at all is to emphasize that global equilibrium need not mean an end to progress or human
development. The possibilities within an equilibrium state are almost endless.
An equilibrium state would not be free of pressures, since no society can be free of pressure. Equilibrium
would require trading certain human freedoms, such as producing unlimited numbers of children or
consuming uncontrolled amounts of resources, for other freedoms, such as relief from pollution and
crowding and the threat of collapse of the world system. is possible that new freedoms might also
arise--universal and unlimited education, leisure for creativity and inventiveness, and, most important of all,
the freedom from hunger and poverty enjoyed by such a small fraction of the world's people today.
We can say very little at this point about the practical, day by-day steps that might be taken to reach a
desirable, sustainable state of global equilibrium. Neither the world model nor our own thoughts have been
developed in sufficient detail to understand all the implications of the transition from growth to equilibrium.
Before any part of the world's society embarks deliberately on such a transition, there must be much more
discussion, more extensive analysis, and many new ideas contributed by many different people.
The equilibrium society will have to weigh the trade-offs engendered by a finite earth not only with
consideration of present human values but also with consideration of future generations. long-term goals
must be specified and short term goals made consistent with them.
We end on a note of urgency. We have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the natural delays in the
population-capital system of the world. These delays mean, for example, that if Mexico's birth rate gradually
declined from its present value to an exact replacement value by the year 2000, the country's population
would continue to grow until the year 2060. During that time the population would grow from 50 million to
130 million. We cannot say with certainty how much longer mankind can postpone initiating deliberate
control of its growth before it will have lost the chance for control. We suspect on the basis of present
knowledge of the physical constraints of the planet that the growth phase cannot continue for another one
hundred years. Again, because of the delays in the system, if the global society waits until those constraints
are unmistakably apparent, it will have waited too long.
If there is cause for deep concern, there is also cause for hope. Deliberately limiting growth would be
difficult, but not impossible. The way to proceed is clear, and the necessary steps, although they are new
ones for human society, are well within human capabilities. Man possesses, for a small moment in his
history, the most powerful combination of knowledge, tools, and resources the world has ever known. He
has all that is physically necessary to create a totally new form of human society--one that would be built to
last for generations. The two missing ingredients are a realistic, long-term goal that can guide mankind to
the equilibrium society and the human will to achieve that goal. Without such a goal and a commitment to
it, short-term concerns will generate the exponential growth that drives the world system toward the limits
of the earth and ultimate collapse. With that goal and that commitment, mankind would be ready now to
begin a controlled, orderly transition from growth to global equilibrium.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vlad Grinkevich) - The current economic crisis came as a bolt from the blue for most. In the meantime, experts warned in the early 1970s that the world economy was heading for a crisis in the first decades of the 21st century.
In the 1960s, Western countries concluded that oil-stained beaches, smoggy megalopolises, and heavy pollution of major European rivers were too high a price for the benefits of mass production. In 1968, a group of industrialists, politicians, and scientists set up the Club of Rome in the Italian capital. They had enough money to conduct a series of studies with the participation of prominent scientists, and the use of tested methods.
Computer-predicted disaster
The Club's first report, which had the tell-tale title "Limits to Growth," caused a shock. It was compiled by a group of scientists headed by Dennis L. Medows, who decided to create a cybernetic model of global development. Having focused on five global processes: fast industrialization, population growth, increasing shortage of food, depletion of non-renewable resources, and degradation of the environment, they modeled the future on a computer.
The emotionless machine produced an answer that sounded like a verdict: the human race is in for a disaster. Considering that the population was growing at a rate of over two percent annually at that time, while industry was growing at up to five to seven percent, modern civilization was bound to reach the limits of growth in the first decades of the 21st century. Mineral resources will have been depleted; environmental pollution will have become irreversible; a sudden uncontrolled drop in the population and decline in production will have become inevitable. Millions of people will have died as a result of man-made catastrophes, spontaneous economically motivated social conflicts and unknown pandemics.
To prevent the cataclysm, the authors of the report offered a concept they called "zero growth," under which new purchases should only replace used up items. For example, a new car should be purchased only when the old one has stopped running; there should be universal birth control - no more than two children per family, and they suggested restricting consumption.
The report was a bombshell. It called into doubt the foundations of the Western economies. The zero growth concept contradicted the very logic of industrialized society which rested on the principle of supply-and-demand. The concept did not offer a future for the poor people of the non-capitalist world: a resident of a Soviet communal apartment was bound to live in it until he died, while a Chinese peasant was doomed to heat his hut with manure and dead-wood.
Does the truth begin as heresy?
Needless to say, the report was subjected to severe criticism, primarily because its authors did not offer any solutions. They admitted that their model was far from ideal, but the conclusions of their opponents were no less fallacious. Optimistic scenarios were not limited to only good wishes. The concept of a post-industrial society, for one thing, promised a miraculous salvation. It was very similar to the bright future predicted by communist ideologists.
Unprecedented technical breakthrough was the sine qua non both for building communism in the U.S.S.R. and for post-industrialized society in the West. It was supposed to produce technology which would resolve a number of environmental and socio-economic problems (for instance, let machines do arduous, dirty work).
As a result, the elites of the industrially advanced countries preferred to live with a due account of restrictions, and grow until they reach the natural limits in the hope of a technological leap which would allow them to go beyond the limits.
Global self-deception
The talk of the looming global crisis quickly ground to a halt in the latter half of the 1980s. Optimists were bragging about the resolution of global problems, and many analysts were confident that the bright post-industrial future had already arrived.
They seemed to be right but only at first glance. The majority of the European and U.S. middle class were white collar workers, involved in finances, marketing, and research. But in reality, driven by the market's logic, the leaders of the industrialized countries simply followed the path of least resistance. They switched the dirtiest and most labor-consuming industries to the developing countries, and let guest workers from the same countries take the worst jobs at home because they were cheaper than machines.
However, practice has shown that even a very advanced country cannot resolve global problems alone. Indeed, the once lifeless Czech Vltava or the German Rhine now abound with dozens of fish species, but the environmental crisis which the West has overcome is now looming elsewhere. It became clear that it would go beyond the limits of assembly lines several years ago when the Amur River was covered by a huge benzol spill. Resource restrictions are even more obvious - regardless of where a plant or factory oriented to the world market is located, a certain amount of resources is required to produce a commodity.
Finally, to control the production scattered all over the world, a sophisticated financial system had to be construed. With time, it started taking on a life of its own, produced by a fictitious economy with the profits of financial institutions depending not on real production but on intricate financial transactions.
This resulted in a big number of disproportions in the world economy. Investment in the financial market surpassed corporate capital, while the funds accumulated in the financial bubble exceeded the money in the real economy by many times.
As a result, an attempt to mothball the problem ended in failure. Having reached the limits of growth, the financial system collapsed and triggered the current economic turmoil.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti
___________________
The Limits to Growth
Abstract established by Eduard Pestel. A Report to The Club of Rome (1972),
by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis l. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, William W. Behrens III
Short Version of the Limits to Growth
Our world model was built specifically to investigate five major trends of global concern – accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment.
The model we have constructed is, like every model, imperfect, oversimplified, and unfinished.
In spite of the preliminary state of our work, we believe it is important to publish the model and our findings now. (...) We feel that the model described here is already sufficiently developed to be of some use to decision-makers. Furthermore, the basic behavior modes we have already observed in this model appear to be so fundamental and general that we do not expect our broad conclusions to be substantially altered by further revisions.
Our conclusions are :
1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.
2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability
that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic
material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his
individual human potential.
If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin
working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.
All five elements basic to the study reported here--population, food production, and consumption of
nonrenewable natural resources--are increasing. The amount of their increase each year follows a pattern
that mathematicians call exponential growth.
A quantity exhibits exponential growth when it increases by a constant percentage of the whole in a
constant time period.
Such exponential growth is a common process in biological, financial, and many other systems of the
world.
Exponential growth is a dynamic phenomenon, which means that it involves elements that change over time.
(...) When many different quantities are growing simultaneously in a system, however, and when all the
quantities are interrelated in a complicated way, analysis of the causes of growth and of the future behavior
of the system becomes very difficult indeed.
Over the course of the last 30 years there has evolved at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a new
method for understanding the dynamic behavior of complex systems. The method is called System
Dynamics. The basis of the method is the recongnition that the structure of any system--the many circular,
interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships among its components--is often just as important in
determining its behavior as the individual components themselves. The world model described in this book is
a System Dynamics model
Extrapolation of present trends is a time-honored way of looking into the future, especially the very near
future, and especially if the quantity being considered is not much influenced by other trends that are
occuring elsewhere in the system. Of course, none of the five factors we are examining here is independent.
Each interacts constantly with all the others. We have already mentioned some of these interactions.
Population cannot grow without food, food production is increased by growth of capital, more capital
requires more resources, discarded resources become pollution, pollution interferes with the growth of both
population and food.
Furthermore, over long time periods each of these factors also feeds back to influence itself.
In this first simple world model, we are interested only in the broad behavior modes of the population-capital
system. By behavior modes we mean the tendencies of the variables in the system (population or pollution,
for example) to change as time progresses.
A major purpose in constructing the world model has been to determine which, if any, of these behavior
modes will be most characteristic of the world system as it reaches the limits to growth. This process of
determining behavior modes is "prediction" only in the most limited sense of the word.
Because we are interested at this point only in broad behavior modes, this first world model needs not be
extremely detailed. We thus consider only one general population, a population that statistically reflects the
average characteristics of the global population. We include only one class of pollutants--the long-lived,
globally distributed family of pollutants, such as lead, mercury, asbestos, and stable pesticides and
radioisotopes--whose dynamic behavior in the ecosystem we are beginning to understand. We plot one
generalized resource that represents the combined reserves of all nonrenewable resourCes, although we
know that each separate resource will follow the general dynamic pattern at its own specific level and rate.
This high level of aggregation is necessary at this point to keep the model understandable. At the same time
it limits the information we can expect to gain from the model.
Can anything be learned from such a highly aggregated model? Can its output be considered meaningful? In
terms of exact predictions, the output is not meaningful.
On the other hand it is vitally important to gain some understanding of the causes of growth in human
society, the limits to growth, and the behavior of our socio-economic systems when the limits are reached.
All levels in the model (population, capital, pollution, etc.) begin with 1900 values. From 1900 to 1970 the
variables agree generally with their historical value to the extent that we know them. Population rises from
1.6 billion in 1900 to 3.5 billion in 1970. Although the birth rate declines gradually, the death rate falls more
quickly, especially after 1940, and the rate of population growth increases. Industrial output, food and
services per capita increase exponentially. The resource base in 1970 is still about 95 percent of its 1900
value, but it declines dramatically thereafter, as population and industrial output continue to grow.
The behavior mode of the system is that of overshoot and collapse. In this run the collapse occurs because
of nonrenewable resource depletion. The industrial capital stock grows to a level that requires an enormous
input of resources. In the very process of that growth it depletes a large fraction of the resource reserves
available. As resource prices rise and mines are depleted, more and more capital must be used for obtaining
resources, leaving less to be invested for future growth. Finally investment cannot keep up with
depreciation, and the industrial base collapses, taking with it the service and agricultural systems, which
have become dependent on industrial inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, hospital laboratories, computers,
and especially energy for mechanization). For a short time the situation is especially serious because
population, with the delays inherent in the age structure and the process of social adjustment, keeps rising.
Population finally decreases when the death rate is driven upward by lack of food and health services. The
exact timing of these events is not meaningful, given the great aggregation and many uncertainties in the
model. It is significant, however, that growth is stopped well before the year 2100. We have tried in every
doubtful case to make the most optimistic estimate of unknown quantities, and we have also ignored
discontinuous events such as wars or epidemics, which might act to bring an end to growth even sooner
than our model would indicate. In other words, the model is biased to allow growth to continue longer than
it probably can continue in the real world. We can thus say with some confidence that, under the
assumption of no major change in the present system, population and industrial growth will certainly stop
within th next century, at the latest.
To test the model assumption about available resources, we doubled the resource reserves in 1900, keeping
all other assumptions identical to those in the standard run. Now industrialization can reach a higher level
since resources are not so quickly depleted. The larger industrial plant releases pollution at such a rate,
however, that the environmental pollution absorption mechanisms become saturated. Pollution rises very
rapidly, causing an immediate increase in the death rate and a decline in food production. At the end of the
run resources are severely depleted in spite of the doubled amount initially available.
Is the future of the world system bound to be growth and then collapse into a dismal, depleted existence?
Only if we make the initial assumption that our present way of doing things will not change. We have ample
evidence of mankind's ingenuity and social flexibility. There are, of course, many likely changes in the
system, some of which are already taking place. The Green Revolution is raising agricultural yields in non
industrialized countries. Knowledge about modern methods of birth control is spreading rapidly.
Although the history of human effort contains numerous incidents of mankind's failure to live within
physical limits, it is success in overcoming limits that forms the cultural tradition of many dominant people
in today's world. Over the past three hundred years, mankind has compiled an impressive record of pushing
back the apparent limits to population and economic growth by a series of spectacular technological
advances. Since the recent history of a large part of human society has been so continuously successful, it
is quite natural that many people expect technological breakthrough to go on raising physical ceilings
indefinitely.
Will new technologies alter the tendency of the world system to grow and collapse?
Let us assume, however, that the technological optimists are correct and that nuclear energy will solve the
resource problems of the world.
Let us also assume a reduction in pollution generation all sources by a factor of four, starting in 1975.
Let us also assume that the normal yield per hectare of all the world's land can be further increased by a
factor of two.Besides we assume perfect birth control, practiced voluntarily, starting in 1975.
All this means we are utilizing a technological policy in every sector of the world model to circumvent in
some way the various limits to growth. The model system is producing nuclear power, recycling resources,
and mining the most remote reserves; withholding as many pollutants as possible; pushing yields from the
land to undreamed-of heights; and producing only children who are actively wanted by their parents. The
result is still an end to growth before the year 2100.
Because of three siumultaneous crises. Overuse of land leads to erosion, and food production drops.
Resources are severly depleted by a prosperous world population (but not as prosperous as the present US
population). Pollution rises, drops, and then rises again dramatically, causing a further decrease in food
production and a sudden rise in the death rate. The application of technological solutions alone has
prolonged the period of population and industrial growth, but it has not removed the ultimate limits to that
growth.
Given the many approximations and limitations of the world model, there is no point in dwelling glumly on
the series of catastrophes it tends to generate. We shall emphasize just one more time that none of these
computer outputs is a prediction. We would not expect the real world to behave like the world model in any
of the graphs we have shown, especially in the collapse modes. The model contains dynamic statements
about only the physical aspects of man's activities. It assumes that social variables--income distribution,
attitudes about family size, choices among goods, services, and food--will continue to follow the same
patterns they have followed throughout the world in recent history. These patterns, and the human value
they represent, were all established in the growth phase of our civilization. They would certainly be greatly
revised as population and income began to decrease. Since we find it difficult to imagine what new forms of
human societal behavior might emerge and how quickly they would emerge under collapse conditions, we
have not attempted to model such social changes. What validity our model has holds up only to the point in
each output graph at which growth comes to an end and collapse begins.
The unspoken assumption behind all of the model runs we have presented in this chapter is that population
and capital growth should be allowed to continue until they reach some "natural" limit. This assumption also
appears to be a basic part of the human value system currently operational in the real world. Given that first
assumption, that population and capital growth should not be deliberately limited but should be left to "seek
their own levels", we have not been able to find a set of policies that avoids the collapse mode of behavior.
The hopes of the technological optimists center on the ability of technology to remove or extend the limits to
growth of population and capital. We have shown that in the world model the application of technology to
apparent problems of resource depletion or pollution or food shortage has no impact on the essential
problem, which is exponential growth in a finite and complex system. Our attempts to use even the most
optimistic estimates of the benefits of technology in the model did not prevent the ultimate decline of
population and industry, and in fact did not in any case postpone the collapse beyond the year 2100.
Unfortunately the model does not indicate, at this stage, the social side-effects of new technologies. These
effects are often the most important in terms of the influence of a technology on people's lives.
Social side-effects must be anticipated and forestalled before the large-scale introduction of a new
technology.
While technology can change rapidly, political and social, insitutions generally change very slowly.
Furthermore, they almost never change in anticipation of social need, but only in response to one.
We must also keep in mind the presence of social delays--the delays necessary to allow society to absorb or
to prepare for a change. Most delays, physical or social reduce the stability of the world system and
increase the likelihood of the overshoot mode. The social delays, like the physical ones, are becoming
increasingly more critical because the processes of exponential growth are creating additional pressures at a
faster and faster rate. Although the rate of technological change has so far managed to keep up with this
accelerated pace, mankind has made virtually no new discoveries to increase the rate of social, political,
ethical, and cultural change.
Even if society's technological progress fulfills all expectations, it may very well be a problem with no
technical solution, or the interaction of several such problems, that finally brings an end to population and
capital growth.
Applying technology to the natural pressures that the environment exerts against any growth process has
been so successful in the past that a whole culture has evolved around the principle of fighting against limits
rather than learning to live with them.
Is it better to try to live within that limit by accepting a self-imposed restriction on growth? Or is it
preferable to go on growing until some other natural limit arises, in the hope that at that time another
technological leap will allow growth to continue still longer? For the last several hundred years human
society has followed the second course so consistently and successfully that the first choice has been all but
forgotten.
There may be much disagreement with the statement that population and capital growth must stop soon. But
virtually no one will argue that material growth on this planet can go on forever. At this point in man's
history, the choice posed above is still available in almost every sphere of human activity. Man can still
choose his limits and stops when he pleases by weakening some of the strong pressures that cause capital
and population growth, or by instituting counterpressures, or both. Such counterpresures will probably not
be entirely pleasant. They will certainly involve profund changes in the social and economic structures that
have been deeply impressed into human culture by centuries of growth. The alternative is to wait until the
price of technology becomes more than society can pay, or until the side-effects of technology suppress
growth themselves, or until problems arise that have no technical solutions. At any of those points the
choice of limits will be gone.
Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most
fundamental problem--the problem of growth in a finite system--and prevent us from taking effective action
to solve it.
On the other hand, our intent is certainly not to brand technology as evil or futile or unnecessary. We
strongly believe that many of the technological developments mentioned here--recycling, pollution-control
devices, contraceptives--will be absolutely vital to the future of human society if they are combined with
deliberate checks on growth. We would deplore an unreasoned rejection of the benefit of technology as
strongly as we argue here against an unreasoned acceptance of them. Perhaps the best summary of our
position is the motto of the Sierra Club : "Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress".
We would hope that society will receive each technological advance by establishing the answers to three
questions before the technology is widely adopted. The questions are:
- What will be the side-effects, both physical and social, if this development is introduced on a large scale?
- What social changes will be necessary before this development can be implemented properly, and how
long will it take to achieve them ?
- If the development is fully successful and removes some natural limits to growth, what limit will the
growing system meet next? Will society prefer its pressures to the ones this development is designed to
remove?
We are searching for a model that represents a world system that is:
1. sustainable without sudden and uncontrollable collapse; and
2. capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people
The overwhelming growth in world population caused by the positive birth-rate loop is a recent
phenomenon, a result of mankind's very successful reduction of worldwide mortality. The controlling
negative feedback loop has been weakened, allowing the positive loop to operate virtually without constraint.
There are only two ways to restore the resulting imbalance. Either the birth rate must be brought down to
equal the new, lower death rate, or the death rate must rise again. All of the "natural" constraints to
population growth operate in the second way--they raise the death. Any society wishing to avoid that result
must take deliberate action to control the positive feedback loop--to reduce the birth rate.
But stabilizing population alone is not sufficient to prevent overshoot and collapse; a similar run with
constant capital and rising population shows that stabilizing capital alone is also not sufficient. What happens
if we bring both positive feedback loops under control simultaneously? We can stabilize the capital stock in
the model by requiring that the investment rate equal the depreciation rate, with an additional model link
exactly analogous to the population-stabilizing one.
The result of stopping population growth in 1975 and industrial capital growth in 1985 with no other
changes is that population and capital reach constant values at a relatively high level of food, industrial
output and services per person. Eventually, however, resource shortages reduce industrial output and the
temporily stable state degenerates. However, we can improve the model behavior greatly by conbining
technological changes with value changes that reduce the growth tendencies of the system.
Then the stable world population is only slightly larger than the population today. There is more than twice
as much food per person as the average value in 1970, and world average lifetime is nearly 70 years. The
average industrial output per capita is well above today's level, and services per capita have tripled. Total
average income per capita (industrial output, food, and services combined) is about half the present average
US income, equal to the present average European income, and three times the present average world
income. Resources are still being gradually depleted, as they must be under any realistic assumption, but the
rate of depletion is so slow that there is time for technology and industry to adjust to changes in resource
availability.
If we relax our most unrealistic assumption--that we can suddenly and absolutely stabilize population and
capital, replacing them with the following:
1. The population has access to 100 percent effective birth control.
2. The average desired family size is two children.
3. The economic system endeavors to maintain average industrial output per capita at about the 1975 level.
Excess industrial capability is employed for producing consumption goods rather than increasing the
industrial capital investment rate above the depreciation rate.
We do not suppose that any single one of the policies necessary to attain system stability in the model can or
should be suddenly introduced in the world by 1975. A society choosing stability as a goal certainly must
approach that goal gradually. It is important to realize, however, that the longer exponential growth is
allowed to continue, the fewer possibilities remain for the final stable rate.
Many people will think that the changes we have introduced into the model to avoid the growth-and collapse
behavior mode are not only impossible, but unpleasant, dangerous, even disastrous in themselves. Such
policies as reducing the birth rate and diverting capital from production of material goods, by whatever
means they might be implemented, seem unnatural and unimaginable, because they have not, in most
people's experience, been tried, or even seriously suggested. Indeed there would be little point even in
discussing such fundamental changes in the functioning of modern society if we felt that the present pattern
of unrestricted growth were sustainable into the future. All the evidence available to us, however, suggests
that of the three alternatives--unrestricted growth, a self-imposed limitation to growth, or a nature-imposed
limitation to growth--only the last two are actually possible.
Achieving a self-imposed limitation to growth would require much effort. It would involve learning to do
many things in new ways. It would tax the ingenuity, the flexibility, and the self-discipline of the human
race. Bringing a deliberate, controlled end to growth is a tremendous challenge, not easiliy met. Would the
final result be worth the effort? What would humanity gain by siuuch a transition, and what would it,lose?
Let us consider in more detail what a world of nongrowth might be like.
We have after much discussion, decided to call the state of constant population and capital, by the term
"equilibrium". Equilibrium means a state of balance or equality between opposing forces. In the dynamic
terms of the world model, the opposing forces are those causing population and capital stock to increase
(high desired family size, low birth control effectivness, high rate of capital investment) and those causing
population and capital stock to decrease (lack of food, pollution, high rate of depreciation or obsolescence).
The word "capital" should be understood to mean service, industrial, and agricultural capital combined. Thus
the most basic definition of the state of global equilibrium is that population and capital are essentially stable,
with the forces tending to increase or decrease them in a carefully controlled balance.
There is much room for variation within that definition. We have only specified that the stocks of capital
and population remain constant, but they might theoretically be constant at a high level or a low level--or one
might be high and the other low. The longer a society prefers to maintain the state of equilibrium, the lower
the rates and levels must be.
By choosing a fairly long time horizon for its existence, and a long average lifetime as a desirable goal, we
have now arrived at a minimum set of requirements for the state of global equilibrium. They are:
1. The capital plant and the population are constant in size.The birth rate equals the death rate and the capital
investment rate equals the depreciation rate.
2. All input and output rates--birth, death, investment, and depreciation--are kept to a minimum.
3. The levels of capital and population and the ratio of the two are set in accordance with the values of the
society.They may be deliberately revised and slowly adjusted as the advance of technology creates new
options.
An equilibrium defined in this way does not mean stagnation. Within the first two guidelines above,
corporations could expand or fail, local populations could increase or decrease income could become more
or less evenly distributed. Technological advance would permit the services provided by a constant stock of
capital to increase slowly. Within the third guideline, any country could change its average standard of living
by altering the balance between its population and its capital. Furthermore, a society could adjust to
changing internal or external factors by raising or lowering the population or capital stocks, or both, slowly
and in a controlled fashion, with a predetermined goal in mind. The three points above define a dynamic
equilibrium, which need not and probably would not "freeze" the world into the population
Capital configuration that happens to exist at present time. The object in accepting the above three
statements is to create freedom for society, not to impose a straitjacket.
What would life be like in such an equilibrium state? Would innovation be stifled? Would society be locked
into the patterns of inequality and injustice we see in the world today? Discussion of these questions must
proceed on the basis of mental models, for there is no formal model of social conditions in the equilibrium
state. No one can predict what sort of institutions mankind might develop under these new conditions.
There is, of course, no guarantee that the new society would be much better or even much different from
that which exists today. It seems possible, however, that a society released from struggling with the many
problems caused by growth may have more energy and ingenuity available for solving other problems. In
fact, we believe, that the evolution of a society that favors innovation and technological development, a
society based on equality and justice, is far more likely to evolve in a state of global equilibrium than it is in
the state of growth we are experiencing today
Population and capital are the only quantities that need be constant in the equilibrium state. Any human
activity that does not require a large flow of irreplaceable resources or produce severe environmental
degradation might continue to grow indefinitely. In particular, those pursuits that many people would list as
the most desirable and satisfying activities of man--education, art, music, religion, basic scientific research,
athletics, and social interactions--could flourish.
All of the activities listed above depend very strongly on two factors. First, they depend upon the availability
of some surplus production after the basixc human needs of fod and shelter have been met. Second, they
require leisure time. In any equilibrium state the relative levels of capital and population could be adjusted to
assure that human material needs are fulfilled at any desired level. Since the amount of material production
would be essentially fixed, every improvement in production methods could result in increased leisure for
the population--leisure that could be devoted to any activity that is relatively nonconSuming and
nonpolluting, such as those listed above
Technological advance would be both necessary and welcome in the equilibrium state. The picture of the
equilibrium state we have drawn here is idealized, to be sure. It may be impossible to achieve in the form
desribed here, and it may not be the form most people on earth would choose. The only purpose in
describing it at all is to emphasize that global equilibrium need not mean an end to progress or human
development. The possibilities within an equilibrium state are almost endless.
An equilibrium state would not be free of pressures, since no society can be free of pressure. Equilibrium
would require trading certain human freedoms, such as producing unlimited numbers of children or
consuming uncontrolled amounts of resources, for other freedoms, such as relief from pollution and
crowding and the threat of collapse of the world system. is possible that new freedoms might also
arise--universal and unlimited education, leisure for creativity and inventiveness, and, most important of all,
the freedom from hunger and poverty enjoyed by such a small fraction of the world's people today.
We can say very little at this point about the practical, day by-day steps that might be taken to reach a
desirable, sustainable state of global equilibrium. Neither the world model nor our own thoughts have been
developed in sufficient detail to understand all the implications of the transition from growth to equilibrium.
Before any part of the world's society embarks deliberately on such a transition, there must be much more
discussion, more extensive analysis, and many new ideas contributed by many different people.
The equilibrium society will have to weigh the trade-offs engendered by a finite earth not only with
consideration of present human values but also with consideration of future generations. long-term goals
must be specified and short term goals made consistent with them.
We end on a note of urgency. We have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the natural delays in the
population-capital system of the world. These delays mean, for example, that if Mexico's birth rate gradually
declined from its present value to an exact replacement value by the year 2000, the country's population
would continue to grow until the year 2060. During that time the population would grow from 50 million to
130 million. We cannot say with certainty how much longer mankind can postpone initiating deliberate
control of its growth before it will have lost the chance for control. We suspect on the basis of present
knowledge of the physical constraints of the planet that the growth phase cannot continue for another one
hundred years. Again, because of the delays in the system, if the global society waits until those constraints
are unmistakably apparent, it will have waited too long.
If there is cause for deep concern, there is also cause for hope. Deliberately limiting growth would be
difficult, but not impossible. The way to proceed is clear, and the necessary steps, although they are new
ones for human society, are well within human capabilities. Man possesses, for a small moment in his
history, the most powerful combination of knowledge, tools, and resources the world has ever known. He
has all that is physically necessary to create a totally new form of human society--one that would be built to
last for generations. The two missing ingredients are a realistic, long-term goal that can guide mankind to
the equilibrium society and the human will to achieve that goal. Without such a goal and a commitment to
it, short-term concerns will generate the exponential growth that drives the world system toward the limits
of the earth and ultimate collapse. With that goal and that commitment, mankind would be ready now to
begin a controlled, orderly transition from growth to global equilibrium.
China - Social Unrest: On the Streets
SOURCE: Chatham House
Yiyi Lu, January 2009
The World Today, Volume 65, Number 1
Download article here
Taxi drivers are famed for expressing strong views to passengers held 'captive' in their cabs. In China, drivers, incensed by a lack of attention to their grievances, have gone further, raising the spectre of increased social unrest. So-called 'mass incidents', such as street demonstrations, the siege of government or factory buildings by disgruntled peasants and industrial workers, or even riots, are no longer novelties. As the economic slump brings further bad news - rising unemployment, plummeting share prices, a housing market collapse and weakening export demand, more popular protests are thought to be inevitable. This would severely test Beijing's ability to maintain political control and social stability.
Yiyi Lu, January 2009
The World Today, Volume 65, Number 1
Download article here
Taxi drivers are famed for expressing strong views to passengers held 'captive' in their cabs. In China, drivers, incensed by a lack of attention to their grievances, have gone further, raising the spectre of increased social unrest. So-called 'mass incidents', such as street demonstrations, the siege of government or factory buildings by disgruntled peasants and industrial workers, or even riots, are no longer novelties. As the economic slump brings further bad news - rising unemployment, plummeting share prices, a housing market collapse and weakening export demand, more popular protests are thought to be inevitable. This would severely test Beijing's ability to maintain political control and social stability.
Global Power Shift – West to East?
ASIA SENTINEL
:Written by Sarajit Majumdar
Friday, 09 January 2009
The west-east transfer of power depends on acquiring technological knowhow to go with it
How far east of Washington, DC is east? The question arises from the report of the US-based National Intelligence Council 2025 Project, published in December, which foresees “the unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East:”
The whole international system, the report says, “as constructed following WWII – will be revolutionized,” according to the council. “Not only will new players – Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) – have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.”
Wealth as material objects means nothing unless a nation acquires the appropriate knowledge to use it. From the Neanderthal age to the Computer age, the story of civilization and prosperity is marked by the progress of technological knowledge. In this sense, the US symbolizes the west for its technological prowess. It is the only state that, according to Neil Postman, can be called a technopoly – totalitarian technocracy. Less so are France, Germany, Russia, et al. Following the NIC pointer far to the east, can India and China overcome the US technopoly?
Anyone from outside the US has reasons to be elated at the possible decline of the “Big Boys” supremacy, since the observation comes from a highly influential US agency – the NIC, and not from agencies of weaker economies. Taken seriously, the observations require careful consideration. Consider:
India and China have crossed the US$1 trillion-plus gross domestic product, the latter far exceeding the former. Indian GDP grew at 9.2 percent, close to double digits, during 2007 according to the IMF. China did even better at 11.4%. They lend money to the US government. Both achieved all this with export-led growth, not by catering to their own population. India achieved high growth by exporting service sector products like IT and IT enabled services. China exported small-scale and large-scale industrial products – steel, garments, toys, milk products, electronic products, etc. Exportable goods are highly susceptible to demand fluctuation abroad, as evident from the onset of the current worldwide recession. Export-dependent growth will remain wobbly. Stability of growth has to be found in the two countries’ own backyard.
None of these Asian giants is blessed with endogenous technical progress, the key to sustained high growth of wealth. The Indian industrial sector depends heavily on adoption of foreign technology in large-scale industries. The small and medium scale industrial sectors in India succumbed to the onslaught from alien technology and have decayed rapidly since the 1990s. At present 250,000 such Indian industries, employing more than a million workers, are declared sick.
Though China integrates large scale with small scale industrial production, her technological progress is not exemplary either. In fact, the quality of Chinese products does not match the world standard. Electronic hardware that China produces for the world depends on designs and materials supplied by US firms. It is imperative that the countries intensify technology research and development, suited to local conditions, and not depend on imported technology. The Indian space project Chandrayan II and China joining the club of Nuclear Supplier Group are not complete dossiers of their technology spectrum. Lacking technology, India in the recent past was compelled to sign a “123 Agreement” with USA in order to obtain civilian nuclear technology, when the US herself is not expanding nuclear energy facilities. Obviously, India will be served with outdated nuke technology.
This corroborates a long standing grievance among economists that imported technology is often outdated and its crucial knowhow is never shared. This is where the West dominates the East. Control of modern technology is crucial to western business corporations’ competitive edge. And the US corporations lead the pack in three crucial areas – war technology, software and biotechnology.
Seeking geopolitical control of space the US “war technology” often strikes us dumb. During the Iraq war in 1991 US army abundantly used sophisticated war technology, unmatched by any other country in the world. It even outmaneuvered French and Russian technology used by Iraq. This the USA is never going to share with the world. Nor do we wish to see many more countries develop war materials at the cost of people’s lives.
In everyday parlance we are faced with a technology spectrum, be it software or biotechnology, all of which are controlled by US transnational corporations.
Computers and software have become part and parcel of our modern data-handling and communication. Both hardware and software technologies are controlled totally by the US giants. Processor manufacturers of Intel Pentium, AMD are located in California’s Silicon Valley. Microsoft Windows and UNIX are the two oft used software platforms, controlled by US firms. On such platforms, application softwares, like - Oracle, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker, etc. are produced by US firms. These all are patented products.
Biotechnology is another major area where the US industries dominate. Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, Amgen are some of the US market leaders. According to recent reports, the US biotech corporations generated revenue of US$70 billion plus – more than half the world’s revenue of the industry, whereas Indian biotech industry generated a paltry $2 billion. Chinese biotechnology research is still at a nascent state.
The abovementioned crucial high tech areas put the US in an unassailable position. Without technological might the east will remain where it is today. With all the accolades earned from the NIC, growing Asian giants are not in the reckoning of economic power.
Instead, economic power will probably shift to countries like France, Russia and Germany, to the east of Washington, DC. Though biotech research in Europe is yet to match the US supremacy, as admitted by the European Association of Bioindustries, France and Germany are in a fiercely competitive mode.
In other fields of science and technology too, France, Germany and Russia, the countries according to George W Bush that constitute the “Old Europe” are growing as potential technological powers. If these countries can dismantle NATO, the impact of US “war technology” will be neutralized. Ultimately technological control, in turn economic power, will shift to “Old Europe” to the east.
Sarajit Majumdar is a Calcutta-based economist and former member of the faculty of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.
:Written by Sarajit Majumdar
Friday, 09 January 2009
The west-east transfer of power depends on acquiring technological knowhow to go with it
How far east of Washington, DC is east? The question arises from the report of the US-based National Intelligence Council 2025 Project, published in December, which foresees “the unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East:”
The whole international system, the report says, “as constructed following WWII – will be revolutionized,” according to the council. “Not only will new players – Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) – have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.”
Wealth as material objects means nothing unless a nation acquires the appropriate knowledge to use it. From the Neanderthal age to the Computer age, the story of civilization and prosperity is marked by the progress of technological knowledge. In this sense, the US symbolizes the west for its technological prowess. It is the only state that, according to Neil Postman, can be called a technopoly – totalitarian technocracy. Less so are France, Germany, Russia, et al. Following the NIC pointer far to the east, can India and China overcome the US technopoly?
Anyone from outside the US has reasons to be elated at the possible decline of the “Big Boys” supremacy, since the observation comes from a highly influential US agency – the NIC, and not from agencies of weaker economies. Taken seriously, the observations require careful consideration. Consider:
India and China have crossed the US$1 trillion-plus gross domestic product, the latter far exceeding the former. Indian GDP grew at 9.2 percent, close to double digits, during 2007 according to the IMF. China did even better at 11.4%. They lend money to the US government. Both achieved all this with export-led growth, not by catering to their own population. India achieved high growth by exporting service sector products like IT and IT enabled services. China exported small-scale and large-scale industrial products – steel, garments, toys, milk products, electronic products, etc. Exportable goods are highly susceptible to demand fluctuation abroad, as evident from the onset of the current worldwide recession. Export-dependent growth will remain wobbly. Stability of growth has to be found in the two countries’ own backyard.
None of these Asian giants is blessed with endogenous technical progress, the key to sustained high growth of wealth. The Indian industrial sector depends heavily on adoption of foreign technology in large-scale industries. The small and medium scale industrial sectors in India succumbed to the onslaught from alien technology and have decayed rapidly since the 1990s. At present 250,000 such Indian industries, employing more than a million workers, are declared sick.
Though China integrates large scale with small scale industrial production, her technological progress is not exemplary either. In fact, the quality of Chinese products does not match the world standard. Electronic hardware that China produces for the world depends on designs and materials supplied by US firms. It is imperative that the countries intensify technology research and development, suited to local conditions, and not depend on imported technology. The Indian space project Chandrayan II and China joining the club of Nuclear Supplier Group are not complete dossiers of their technology spectrum. Lacking technology, India in the recent past was compelled to sign a “123 Agreement” with USA in order to obtain civilian nuclear technology, when the US herself is not expanding nuclear energy facilities. Obviously, India will be served with outdated nuke technology.
This corroborates a long standing grievance among economists that imported technology is often outdated and its crucial knowhow is never shared. This is where the West dominates the East. Control of modern technology is crucial to western business corporations’ competitive edge. And the US corporations lead the pack in three crucial areas – war technology, software and biotechnology.
Seeking geopolitical control of space the US “war technology” often strikes us dumb. During the Iraq war in 1991 US army abundantly used sophisticated war technology, unmatched by any other country in the world. It even outmaneuvered French and Russian technology used by Iraq. This the USA is never going to share with the world. Nor do we wish to see many more countries develop war materials at the cost of people’s lives.
In everyday parlance we are faced with a technology spectrum, be it software or biotechnology, all of which are controlled by US transnational corporations.
Computers and software have become part and parcel of our modern data-handling and communication. Both hardware and software technologies are controlled totally by the US giants. Processor manufacturers of Intel Pentium, AMD are located in California’s Silicon Valley. Microsoft Windows and UNIX are the two oft used software platforms, controlled by US firms. On such platforms, application softwares, like - Oracle, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker, etc. are produced by US firms. These all are patented products.
Biotechnology is another major area where the US industries dominate. Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, Amgen are some of the US market leaders. According to recent reports, the US biotech corporations generated revenue of US$70 billion plus – more than half the world’s revenue of the industry, whereas Indian biotech industry generated a paltry $2 billion. Chinese biotechnology research is still at a nascent state.
The abovementioned crucial high tech areas put the US in an unassailable position. Without technological might the east will remain where it is today. With all the accolades earned from the NIC, growing Asian giants are not in the reckoning of economic power.
Instead, economic power will probably shift to countries like France, Russia and Germany, to the east of Washington, DC. Though biotech research in Europe is yet to match the US supremacy, as admitted by the European Association of Bioindustries, France and Germany are in a fiercely competitive mode.
In other fields of science and technology too, France, Germany and Russia, the countries according to George W Bush that constitute the “Old Europe” are growing as potential technological powers. If these countries can dismantle NATO, the impact of US “war technology” will be neutralized. Ultimately technological control, in turn economic power, will shift to “Old Europe” to the east.
Sarajit Majumdar is a Calcutta-based economist and former member of the faculty of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.
Finnish Security Police opens archive : 1949-1959
Security Police open older archives
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Security+Police+open+older+archives/1135242455651
“Anti-Soviet slogans were shouted at Senate Square.”
This was the content of the first report by the Finnish Security Police, just after the stroke of midnight on January 1st, 1949. The report was unusual, in that from the very beginning SUPO’s main focus was on monitoring the activities of the Finnish Communist Party and Soviet intelligence.
On Friday, the entire SUPO archive for 1949 and the archive catalogues for 1949-1959 were opened to the public.
SUPO papers have not been made available to the public before, but those of its predecessors, the State Police (VALPO) and the Etsivä keskuspoliisi (“Investigative Centrel Police) have been submitted to the National Archives in their entirety.
Historians have already made the biggest revelations from the papers of the early decades of SUPO, but ordinary citizens and foreigners are now being better access.
“This is the first time that private individuals can see directly what kind of information the archives of the Security Police have about themselves or their parents”, says Professor Kimmo Rentola, who is writing a book to mark the 60th anniversary history of SUPO.
There were not many reports on Soviet espionage in the early years of SUPO.
“At first, the most sensitive matters were not committed to paper, and if they were, the papers did not end up in the archives. In 1949 there was uncertainty about the future of the office, and its future leaders”, Rentola notes.
The SUPO archive was re-arranged in the early 1960s, Rentola says, and at that time, it appears that some of the material was lost. The most serious shortcoming of the early years is that the “X-reports”, which involved particularly sensitive matters, were not preserved as unified series. All that is left are extracts, and references in personal files, for instance.
Ville Kajanne, chief inspector at the National Archives, says that “a few metres” of SUPO material is now being made public. The National Archives have about 50 metres of SUPO material for the years 1949-1959, of which small amounts are made public yeach year.
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Security+Police+open+older+archives/1135242455651
“Anti-Soviet slogans were shouted at Senate Square.”
This was the content of the first report by the Finnish Security Police, just after the stroke of midnight on January 1st, 1949. The report was unusual, in that from the very beginning SUPO’s main focus was on monitoring the activities of the Finnish Communist Party and Soviet intelligence.
On Friday, the entire SUPO archive for 1949 and the archive catalogues for 1949-1959 were opened to the public.
SUPO papers have not been made available to the public before, but those of its predecessors, the State Police (VALPO) and the Etsivä keskuspoliisi (“Investigative Centrel Police) have been submitted to the National Archives in their entirety.
Historians have already made the biggest revelations from the papers of the early decades of SUPO, but ordinary citizens and foreigners are now being better access.
“This is the first time that private individuals can see directly what kind of information the archives of the Security Police have about themselves or their parents”, says Professor Kimmo Rentola, who is writing a book to mark the 60th anniversary history of SUPO.
There were not many reports on Soviet espionage in the early years of SUPO.
“At first, the most sensitive matters were not committed to paper, and if they were, the papers did not end up in the archives. In 1949 there was uncertainty about the future of the office, and its future leaders”, Rentola notes.
The SUPO archive was re-arranged in the early 1960s, Rentola says, and at that time, it appears that some of the material was lost. The most serious shortcoming of the early years is that the “X-reports”, which involved particularly sensitive matters, were not preserved as unified series. All that is left are extracts, and references in personal files, for instance.
Ville Kajanne, chief inspector at the National Archives, says that “a few metres” of SUPO material is now being made public. The National Archives have about 50 metres of SUPO material for the years 1949-1959, of which small amounts are made public yeach year.
Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Act as an Iraqi Agent
DOWNLOAD COURT DOCUMENT
Dec 22nd, 2008 by www.BackgroundNow.com Staff.
Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, age 67, an Iraqi national living in Maryland, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, specifically, as an agent of Iraq, announced Patrick Rowan, Assistant Attorney General for National Security and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.
“Since coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the Justice Department has charged at least a dozen people who served in the United States as illegal agents for the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein or its feared intelligence service, the Mukhabbarat. The number of these cases underscores the reach of Saddam’s intelligence service in America and the extent to which the former Iraqi regime was concerned with defectors and expatriate groups here,” said Patrick Rowan, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
“Documents recovered in Iraq by the United States Military led to Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy’s confession that he secretly worked as an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service under Saddam Hussein, using his restaurant as a meeting place and passing information to Iraqi agents,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. “Mr. Al-Dellemy lied about his work for Saddam Hussein regime when he was questioned by FBI agents in 2008, long after he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States.”
“The FBI is committed to rooting out and prosecuting those individuals who enjoy the benefits of residing in this country but who are acting on behalf of hostile foreign Intelligence services,” said Amy Jo Lyons, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Baltimore Field Office.
According to the plea agreement, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) routinely recruited individuals, either currently in the United States or to be placed into the United States, to support the IIS and the Government of Iraq. Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2000, was one of these individuals. He was born in Iraq and was a member of the Ba’ath Party. He came to the United States as a student in the 1980s. His education in the United States was paid for by the Ba’ath Party. In exchange, Al-Dellemy was expected to provide information to the Government of Iraq on matters of interest to the government and the IIS.
Following the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in March 2003, the U.S. military obtained confidential IIS documents establishing that beginning in 1989, and continuing through the Saddam Hussein regime, Al-Dellemy, referred to in many instances by the code name “Adam,” had been providing information to officials of the Government of Iraq and intelligence officers with the IIS. This information included reporting on the identities and activities of individuals and organizations in the United States that were opposed to Saddam Hussein and his regime, and specifics regarding U.S. policy and actions towards the Iraqi government. The seized documents also established that Al-Dellemy periodically received payments from the IIS and the Iraqi government as compensation for his assistance and information.
Specifically, according the plea agreement, throughout the conspiracy Al-Dellemy performed tasks at the Iraqi Embassy and at the Iraqi Interests Section (ISEC), formed in 1991 within the Algerian Embassy in Washington, D.C., after the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iraq for invading Kuwait. For example, in 1990, around the time of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Al-Dellemy assisted in the shredding of Ba’ath Party and other diplomatic documents maintained at the Iraqi Embassy that could compromise the Saddam Hussein regime and identify those individuals in the United States who had been acting as agents of the IIS. Al-Dellemy also attended and organized social gatherings at the Iraqi Embassy and the ISEC, which were used to recruit individuals to work for the IIS; to interact with individuals who were already working with the IIS and Saddam Hussein’s regime; and to maintain the loyalties of the participants to the Ba’ath Party and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Throughout the conspiracy Al-Dellemy made a restaurant he operated in Maryland available as a meeting place for IIS officers and Iraqi government officials, and utilized his restaurant as a means to gather information pertaining to U.S. government agencies near the restaurant, such as the National Security Agency and Fort George G. Meade.
Throughout the conspiracy, Al-Dellemy relied on fellow Ba’ath Party members and/or sympathizers to provide him with information about the Iraqi opposition in the United States, including members of the Iraqi community in Detroit, Michigan. Al-Dellemy also gathered information in Maryland regarding U.S. military training and travel concerning U.S. actions in Iraq.
Al-Dellemy, at the request of Iraqi government officials, sought out individuals for employment at the ISEC and in 2000, arranged for a coconspirator to be employed full-time at the ISEC as an accountant and a driver. This coconspirator continued his employment at the ISEC through March 2003, then resumed his employment at the Iraqi Embassy when it reopened in Washington, D.C., in December 2003. The coconspirator continued to work at the Iraqi embassy until March or April 2004. The coconspirator acted as a conduit between Al-Dellemy, Ba’ath Party members and loyalists in Detroit, and IIS and ISEC officials to transmit information of interest to the IIS, the Saddam Hussein regime, and the Ba’ath Party. Al-Dellemy was never recognized by the Department of State or the Attorney General of the United States as a diplomatic or consular officer of the Government of Iraq, or officially or publicly acknowledged and sponsored as an official, representative, or employee of Iraq.
According to the plea, Al-Dellemy never revealed his affiliation with the Ba’ath Party in applications to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) for residency status in the United States, in an effort to conceal his activities as an agent for the Iraqi government. In addition, at the end of March 2003, Al-Dellemy and others destroyed numerous Ba’ath Party documents and related literature in his possession that would have compromised the activities of Al-Dellemy and his coconspirators as agents of the Iraqi government in the United States. On Oct. 13, 2008, during an interview with FBI agents, Al-Dellemy falsely denied passing information to the IIS and the Iraqi government, denied receiving payment from the IIS, and denied collecting information on the Iraqi opposition movement and reporting that information to the IIS.
Al-Dellemy faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy to act as an agent for a foreign government. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for March 5, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.
Dec 22nd, 2008 by www.BackgroundNow.com Staff.
Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, age 67, an Iraqi national living in Maryland, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, specifically, as an agent of Iraq, announced Patrick Rowan, Assistant Attorney General for National Security and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.
“Since coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the Justice Department has charged at least a dozen people who served in the United States as illegal agents for the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein or its feared intelligence service, the Mukhabbarat. The number of these cases underscores the reach of Saddam’s intelligence service in America and the extent to which the former Iraqi regime was concerned with defectors and expatriate groups here,” said Patrick Rowan, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
“Documents recovered in Iraq by the United States Military led to Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy’s confession that he secretly worked as an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service under Saddam Hussein, using his restaurant as a meeting place and passing information to Iraqi agents,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. “Mr. Al-Dellemy lied about his work for Saddam Hussein regime when he was questioned by FBI agents in 2008, long after he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States.”
“The FBI is committed to rooting out and prosecuting those individuals who enjoy the benefits of residing in this country but who are acting on behalf of hostile foreign Intelligence services,” said Amy Jo Lyons, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Baltimore Field Office.
According to the plea agreement, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) routinely recruited individuals, either currently in the United States or to be placed into the United States, to support the IIS and the Government of Iraq. Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2000, was one of these individuals. He was born in Iraq and was a member of the Ba’ath Party. He came to the United States as a student in the 1980s. His education in the United States was paid for by the Ba’ath Party. In exchange, Al-Dellemy was expected to provide information to the Government of Iraq on matters of interest to the government and the IIS.
Following the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in March 2003, the U.S. military obtained confidential IIS documents establishing that beginning in 1989, and continuing through the Saddam Hussein regime, Al-Dellemy, referred to in many instances by the code name “Adam,” had been providing information to officials of the Government of Iraq and intelligence officers with the IIS. This information included reporting on the identities and activities of individuals and organizations in the United States that were opposed to Saddam Hussein and his regime, and specifics regarding U.S. policy and actions towards the Iraqi government. The seized documents also established that Al-Dellemy periodically received payments from the IIS and the Iraqi government as compensation for his assistance and information.
Specifically, according the plea agreement, throughout the conspiracy Al-Dellemy performed tasks at the Iraqi Embassy and at the Iraqi Interests Section (ISEC), formed in 1991 within the Algerian Embassy in Washington, D.C., after the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iraq for invading Kuwait. For example, in 1990, around the time of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Al-Dellemy assisted in the shredding of Ba’ath Party and other diplomatic documents maintained at the Iraqi Embassy that could compromise the Saddam Hussein regime and identify those individuals in the United States who had been acting as agents of the IIS. Al-Dellemy also attended and organized social gatherings at the Iraqi Embassy and the ISEC, which were used to recruit individuals to work for the IIS; to interact with individuals who were already working with the IIS and Saddam Hussein’s regime; and to maintain the loyalties of the participants to the Ba’ath Party and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Throughout the conspiracy Al-Dellemy made a restaurant he operated in Maryland available as a meeting place for IIS officers and Iraqi government officials, and utilized his restaurant as a means to gather information pertaining to U.S. government agencies near the restaurant, such as the National Security Agency and Fort George G. Meade.
Throughout the conspiracy, Al-Dellemy relied on fellow Ba’ath Party members and/or sympathizers to provide him with information about the Iraqi opposition in the United States, including members of the Iraqi community in Detroit, Michigan. Al-Dellemy also gathered information in Maryland regarding U.S. military training and travel concerning U.S. actions in Iraq.
Al-Dellemy, at the request of Iraqi government officials, sought out individuals for employment at the ISEC and in 2000, arranged for a coconspirator to be employed full-time at the ISEC as an accountant and a driver. This coconspirator continued his employment at the ISEC through March 2003, then resumed his employment at the Iraqi Embassy when it reopened in Washington, D.C., in December 2003. The coconspirator continued to work at the Iraqi embassy until March or April 2004. The coconspirator acted as a conduit between Al-Dellemy, Ba’ath Party members and loyalists in Detroit, and IIS and ISEC officials to transmit information of interest to the IIS, the Saddam Hussein regime, and the Ba’ath Party. Al-Dellemy was never recognized by the Department of State or the Attorney General of the United States as a diplomatic or consular officer of the Government of Iraq, or officially or publicly acknowledged and sponsored as an official, representative, or employee of Iraq.
According to the plea, Al-Dellemy never revealed his affiliation with the Ba’ath Party in applications to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) for residency status in the United States, in an effort to conceal his activities as an agent for the Iraqi government. In addition, at the end of March 2003, Al-Dellemy and others destroyed numerous Ba’ath Party documents and related literature in his possession that would have compromised the activities of Al-Dellemy and his coconspirators as agents of the Iraqi government in the United States. On Oct. 13, 2008, during an interview with FBI agents, Al-Dellemy falsely denied passing information to the IIS and the Iraqi government, denied receiving payment from the IIS, and denied collecting information on the Iraqi opposition movement and reporting that information to the IIS.
Al-Dellemy faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy to act as an agent for a foreign government. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for March 5, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.
Who Contributes to Clinton Foundation in Middle East?
Source: IntelligenceOnline.com
08/01/2009 New York
The nomination of Hilary Clinton as secretary of state has forced her husband to reveal the list of donors to his welfare foundation, which he had always declined to do.
Among the most generous donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation set up by former U.S. president Bill Clinton figure a significant number of contributors from the Near and Middle East (see graph below), with the Saudi royal family in the forefront (between $10 and $25 million). Clinton agreed to release the exhaustive list of his donors on Dec. 18 to offset suspicion that the money could directly influence the political choices of his wife as new secretary of state.
To pave the way for Hillary’s nomination to the post, three of the Clinton couple’s regular lawyers (Cheryl Mills (vice president of New York University), David Kendall and Robert Barnett (both partners in the firm William & Connolly) assisted Barack Obama’s transition team by examining all available financial information about Bill Clinton and the potential for conflicts of interest stemming from his business dealings with foreign governments.
08/01/2009 New York
The nomination of Hilary Clinton as secretary of state has forced her husband to reveal the list of donors to his welfare foundation, which he had always declined to do.
Among the most generous donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation set up by former U.S. president Bill Clinton figure a significant number of contributors from the Near and Middle East (see graph below), with the Saudi royal family in the forefront (between $10 and $25 million). Clinton agreed to release the exhaustive list of his donors on Dec. 18 to offset suspicion that the money could directly influence the political choices of his wife as new secretary of state.
To pave the way for Hillary’s nomination to the post, three of the Clinton couple’s regular lawyers (Cheryl Mills (vice president of New York University), David Kendall and Robert Barnett (both partners in the firm William & Connolly) assisted Barack Obama’s transition team by examining all available financial information about Bill Clinton and the potential for conflicts of interest stemming from his business dealings with foreign governments.
January 06, 2009
China: Rising and responsible?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/01/06/2003433061
By Parris H.chang 張旭成
Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009, Page 8
A Chinese naval fleet consisting of two destroyers and a supply ship departed on Dec. 26 on a mission to fight pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters. The mission is China’s first outside the Pacific in modern times.
Piracy off the Somali coast intensified last year with 20 percent of the 1,265 Chinese ships passing through the area coming under attack.
The UN has passed three resolutions since July calling for the international community to respond to the piracy problem. More than a dozen warships, including vessels from the US, Russia, the UK, France, India and Saudi Arabia, have answered the call, leaving China the only major power not taking an active part in the process.
By participating in such a mission, China’s image as a world power may improve. Until now, China’s external behavior can hardly be described as that of a responsible international stakeholder worthy of the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
For example, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs James Shinn told US Congress that Chinese state-owned companies have repeatedly violated UN Security Council sanctions that ban the sales of weapons, military equipment and nuclear technology to Iran. Shinn said in his testimony that he was particularly concerned at China’s sales of weapons to Iran and accused Tehran of arming and supporting militant groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan that “target and kill Americans and our allies.”
On several occasions, the US has imposed sanctions on Chinese firms for selling Iran weapons, weapons-related products and other dual-use commodities that can have a military use, but Beijing has protested and condemned those US moves.
China has been on the record opposing UN sanctions against Iran, which has withstood three rounds of limited sanctions because of its suspected development of nuclear technology. Tehran can continue to count on China — a longstanding and staunch ally of Iran — and Russia, now at odds with the West over Georgia, to delay, obstruct and water down any stronger punitive measures sought by the US and the EU.
While some European companies have cut trade with Iran or withdrawn investments to pressure Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Chinese firms have stepped in to fill the void and take the business. For example, Royal Dutch Shell and French oil giant Total pulled out of planned investments in Iran — only for China National Offshore Oil Corp and Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas company to reach an agreement last July to exploit the North Pas gas field. More than 100 Chinese State companies are working in Iran on airports, ports, highways, dams, steel manufacturing and telecommunication projects. Two-way China-Iran trade is expected to reach US$11 billion, making China Iran’s No. 2 trading partner, behind only the United Arab Emirates.
Since the Shah’s ouster in 1979, Beijing has viewed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a highly valuable anti-Western partner and sought to cultivate and forge a strategic partnership with Tehran. China and Iran share the belief that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and have closely cooperated to challenge and counterbalance US domination in the Middle East.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the only way in and out of the Persian Gulf. Such a threat is taken seriously, as Iran has large numbers of Chinese made C-801 and C-802 anti-ship missiles deployed in coastal batteries along the eastern shore of the waterway and Chinese-supplied Houdong fast patrol boats equipped with C-802s, capable of launching high-speed attacks against the US Fifth Fleet’s warships.
It should be emphasized that Sino-Iranian cooperation on arms also includes nuclear weapons technology, biological weapons and chemical weapons. While Beijing has vehemently denied accusations of secret sales of weapons of mass destruction to Iran and other rogue states, international intelligence agencies have over the years collected enough evidence that identifies China as among the world’s leading proliferators.
For diplomatic and other reasons, the US and the EU rarely blow the whistle on China’s illicit and outrageous violation of international anti-proliferation goals.
As China rises in economic and military strength, the world has a stake in China being genuinely peace-loving and responsible, and showing respect for human rights, international rules and institutions.
Parris H. Chang, professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University, is chairman of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
By Parris H.chang 張旭成
Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009, Page 8
A Chinese naval fleet consisting of two destroyers and a supply ship departed on Dec. 26 on a mission to fight pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters. The mission is China’s first outside the Pacific in modern times.
Piracy off the Somali coast intensified last year with 20 percent of the 1,265 Chinese ships passing through the area coming under attack.
The UN has passed three resolutions since July calling for the international community to respond to the piracy problem. More than a dozen warships, including vessels from the US, Russia, the UK, France, India and Saudi Arabia, have answered the call, leaving China the only major power not taking an active part in the process.
By participating in such a mission, China’s image as a world power may improve. Until now, China’s external behavior can hardly be described as that of a responsible international stakeholder worthy of the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
For example, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs James Shinn told US Congress that Chinese state-owned companies have repeatedly violated UN Security Council sanctions that ban the sales of weapons, military equipment and nuclear technology to Iran. Shinn said in his testimony that he was particularly concerned at China’s sales of weapons to Iran and accused Tehran of arming and supporting militant groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan that “target and kill Americans and our allies.”
On several occasions, the US has imposed sanctions on Chinese firms for selling Iran weapons, weapons-related products and other dual-use commodities that can have a military use, but Beijing has protested and condemned those US moves.
China has been on the record opposing UN sanctions against Iran, which has withstood three rounds of limited sanctions because of its suspected development of nuclear technology. Tehran can continue to count on China — a longstanding and staunch ally of Iran — and Russia, now at odds with the West over Georgia, to delay, obstruct and water down any stronger punitive measures sought by the US and the EU.
While some European companies have cut trade with Iran or withdrawn investments to pressure Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Chinese firms have stepped in to fill the void and take the business. For example, Royal Dutch Shell and French oil giant Total pulled out of planned investments in Iran — only for China National Offshore Oil Corp and Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas company to reach an agreement last July to exploit the North Pas gas field. More than 100 Chinese State companies are working in Iran on airports, ports, highways, dams, steel manufacturing and telecommunication projects. Two-way China-Iran trade is expected to reach US$11 billion, making China Iran’s No. 2 trading partner, behind only the United Arab Emirates.
Since the Shah’s ouster in 1979, Beijing has viewed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a highly valuable anti-Western partner and sought to cultivate and forge a strategic partnership with Tehran. China and Iran share the belief that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and have closely cooperated to challenge and counterbalance US domination in the Middle East.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the only way in and out of the Persian Gulf. Such a threat is taken seriously, as Iran has large numbers of Chinese made C-801 and C-802 anti-ship missiles deployed in coastal batteries along the eastern shore of the waterway and Chinese-supplied Houdong fast patrol boats equipped with C-802s, capable of launching high-speed attacks against the US Fifth Fleet’s warships.
It should be emphasized that Sino-Iranian cooperation on arms also includes nuclear weapons technology, biological weapons and chemical weapons. While Beijing has vehemently denied accusations of secret sales of weapons of mass destruction to Iran and other rogue states, international intelligence agencies have over the years collected enough evidence that identifies China as among the world’s leading proliferators.
For diplomatic and other reasons, the US and the EU rarely blow the whistle on China’s illicit and outrageous violation of international anti-proliferation goals.
As China rises in economic and military strength, the world has a stake in China being genuinely peace-loving and responsible, and showing respect for human rights, international rules and institutions.
Parris H. Chang, professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University, is chairman of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
Leading Features of the International Security Landscape in 2008
Leading Features of the International Security Landscape in 2008
Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6566867.html
As the footsteps of the incoming year are heard around the corner, The Study Times is honored with an exclusive interview with Comrade Xiong Guangkai, Chairman of China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS) focusing on issues related to the situation of international security in 2008. Chairman (CIISS) Xiong Guangkai stated that the international security situation in 2008 on the whole has retained the basic posture of peace and stability, and yet has been dented by the palpable growth of the unstable and uncertain elements, which is evidenced by the remaining grave presence of traditional threats to security and the meteoric spreading of the non-traditional threats to security that are looming larger than before. Therefore, we are required to be mindful of possible dangers while enjoying the present security, foster a comprehensive "grand security concept", and deal properly with the possible impacts inflicted on China by the intricate situation generated by the interlaced state of the current traditional security and the non-traditional security issues.
Question (hereinafter referred to as "Q"): 2008 will be remembered as quite an unusual year. As the running year eased into the incoming one, could you please share with our readers your overall assessment of the international security landscape in 2008.
Answer (hereinafter referred to as "A"): Due to the forward pushing of the in-depth development of the world trends of multi-polarization, economic globalization and the building of information-centric society, the international balance of forces in recent years has witnessed novel rise and fall, while the interests of various states have experienced fresh changes, which has led to the constant retooling of the diplomatic and security strategies by the major world powers. It is against this general backdrop that we examine and analyze the international security situation.
2008 stands out to be quite an unusual year with the international security situation going through numerous complicated changes that can be reduced to the following three principal ones: To begin with, peace and development remain the themes of the times with the international situation in stable status generally, and yet the insecurity, unstable and uncertain elements have decidedly increased with some areas experiencing fresh chaos and even war. The representative example of the latter development is the case of the Russia-Georgia armed skirmish which features "minor clash with a grand strategy". Secondly, the trend of the traditional threats to security and the non-traditional threats to security being intertwined is becoming increasingly prominent with traditional threats to security remaining gravely present while the non-traditional threats to security being promptly stretched to cover such sectors as climate, food, energy, economy, finance and what not in addition to terrorism. The most projected one is the international crisis triggered off by the American sub-prime mortgage crisis. Thirdly, the above-said developments have driven various countries to give more weight to international dialogue and cooperation in dealing with diversified security issues. While the armed forces of all the major powers are devoting great endeavor to such nuclear issues as boosting in a deep-going way the new round of revolution in military affairs and uplifting the combat capability under information-centric conditions, greater importance has been attached to building up the capability of executing military operations other than war for the sake of dealing with various threats to security.
2008 is likewise quite an unusual year for China's national security situation. China has not only been hit by the powerful tsunami of international financial crisis, but has also been nagged by such problems as "Taiwan independence" and "Tibet independence" as well as the troubles incited by the "East Turkeystan" terrorist forces in addition to the atrocious damage and heavy loses inflicted by the ice calamity and fatal earthquake. Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary, the whole nation is of one mind to tide over the hard times. Generally speaking, the fundamental state of a favorable national security for China on the whole remains unchanged, only she is still faced with numerous risks and challenges.
Q: In 2008, the hot spot issues in the global traditional security field remains now eased-up, now tense again with the rise and fall of local wars and armed conflicts. How do you view the change and development of the present international traditional security issues?
A: Traditional security issues refer to such security issues related to national sovereignty, territorial integrity, political stability and the like, epitomized in political and military domains. In the post-Cold War period, the principal traditional security issue in the international security field is the lingering hegemonism and power politics, which is prominently reflected in the following three respects in 2008: a). Local wars and armed conflicts remain a phenomenon of frequent eruption; b). the international military competition with the new revolution in military affairs as the centerpiece is getting fiercer with each passing day; c). the situation of nuclear proliferation and armament control is still grim.
The local wars and armed conflicts in the present world have taken on the features of "high occurrence, being relatively concentrated in some regions and with complicated and diversified causes". The year of 2008 saw the eruption of 46 local wars and armed conflicts worldwide, showing a sharp jump from the 33 cases befell the corresponding period last year. The Middle East and South Asia are the two regions where relatively more local wars and armed conflicts popped up. The Afghanistan War staged by the U.S. in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003 are unable to wind up to this day. The American forces are still bogged down in the quagmires in Iraq while the security situation in Afghanistan has got worsened rapidly, forcing the US forces to gradually shift the strategic priority to Afghanistan and new developments have also been detected in the local turbulent situation in the Middle East and South Asia. What merits attention is that armed conflict flared up between Russia and Georgia on August 8 over the South Ossetia issue. The armed conflict lasted four and half days with over 30,000 troops being thrown in. Judging from the size, intensity and duration of the said conflict, it is no more than a "minor skirmish", and yet its fallout should not be overlooked. Because both parties of the conflict fielded forces from the three services of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, and got locked in a contest of strength in a multidimensional battlefield, in which a certain scale of warfare of public opinion, psychological warfare, legal warfare and cyber warfare were carried out. What is worth thinking deeply about is that the Russia-Georgia conflict broke out against the strategic backdrop of Russia in rapid recovery of national strength and the U.S and Europe busying in pushing forward with their drive of eastward expansion, hence with a deeper strategic background of geopolitics and complicated historical root. Therefore, we should not confine ourselves to taking a purely military view of the conflict, and what's more, its strategic impact on the international security situation is far from coming to a close.
At the same time, the new round of revolution in military affairs with informationization as the centerpiece is unfolding in various major powers in a deep-going way and in the midst of constant adjustment. All the major powers are progressively swelling their input in military outlay. In the FY-2008, the U.S. military budget hits USD $481.4 billion, showing a year-on-year hike of 4.35%; the British military budget stands roughly at USD $64.6 billion with 0.6% year-on-year increase; USD $52.2 billion for France with a 1.4% year-on-year rise; and USD $40.2 billion for Japan, also retaining a rather high figure. To parallel with this is the neck-snapping development of the strategic nuclear force in major world powers. The U.S. has issued the "National Security and Nuclear Arms in the 21st Century" which reassessed the nuclear security environment and is considering retooling its nuclear policy; Russia has sped up its pace of deploying its mobile "Topol-M" intercontinental ballistic missile and test-fired the "Bulava" submarine-launched ballistic missile for several times, putting priority on lifting the capability in breaking through the missile defense and on raising the accuracy of strike. The U.S.-Russia rivalry centering on the deployment of the missile defense system continues to develop. To begin with, the U.S. has ramped up its push for deploying missile defense system in East Europe. The U.S. and Czech Republic signed an agreement on July 8, 2008, granting the U.S. the right to establish an missile defense radar base about 60 km to the Southwest of Prague and is projected to be in operation in 2013. Then on August 20, the U.S. signed an agreement with Poland mandating the U.S. to establish a missile defense base in that country. The U.S. agenda says that it will put in place 10 missile interception systems in the northern part of Poland prior to 2013. To counter the American move of installing missile defense systems, Russia has declared that it will deploy Eskander operational-tactical missile system in Kaliningrad State and postpone the plan of dismantling the Kozelsk intercontinental ballistic missile division. The fierce rivalry in the space is mounting. The U.S. has been keeping on developing anti-satellite weapons and the space-to-land strike weapon systems in an effort to retain its leading edge in the space. On February 21, 2008, the U.S. launched a "Standard"-3 I A anti-missile interception missile from the U.S. warship anchoring near Hawaii and successfully knocked off a run-away spy satellite about 247 km above the earth. In the meanwhile, Russia has stepped up the development of the "Glonass" satellite global navigation positioning system. India blasted off its first circumlunar flying device. Japan, on the other hand, has approved the Basic Law on Universe clearing the legal hurdle for exploiting the space for military purpose. The major powers continue to deepen the military reform. Russia has proclaimed that it will enforce the military reform of downsizing the armed forces and optimizing the structure of the officers by 2012, keeps on pushing forward its process of turning the Army divisions into brigades. Japan on its part has trotted out the Reform of the Defense Agency, planning to overhaul the policy of directing the military by civil officials and the leadership and commanding system of the armed forces. In a nutshell, a new round of international arms race with quality building as the centerpiece is in full swing.
Besides, the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the Iran nuclear issue remain to be the hotspot issues in the international security sector, the nuclear proliferation sector in particular. The work to disable the nuclear facilities of the Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon is making hard-earned headways in twists and turns, with the newly recorded progresses showing that North Korea has officially submitted to the six-party talks a nuclear declaration list and demolished the 5 megawatts nuclear reaction cooling towers at Yongbyon; and the U.S. State Department declared officially on Oct. 11, 2008 to remove Korea from the list of countries offering support to terrorism. At the third meeting of the chief negotiators of the sixth round of six party-talks on Dec, 2008, consensus was arrived at on some issues, and yet falling short of reaching an agreement on verifying the nuclear declaration list submitted by North Korea, which indicates that numerous difficulties remain to be overcome before the ultimate settlement of the Korea nuclear issue, and worse still, even backslides can not be ruled out. The Iran nuclear issue remains at a deadlock. The U.S. and Europe bypassed the UN Security Council to impose a number of sanctions on Iran in an attempt of forcing Iran to give up nuclear development but of no avail. On its part, Iran has been playing both hard and soft tactics to deal with the U.S. and Europe in an endeavor to win more time for its nuclear development. So far, peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue remains the primary choice of the international community and the door for negotiation has not been closed and yet the possibility of deterioration cannot be ruled out.
China pursues an independent foreign policy of peace and has made positive contributions to seeking for peaceful solutions to international conflicts and to promoting anti-nuclear proliferation and arms control. However, the complete reunification of China is yet to wrap up, and therefore obliges us to fight against traditional security issues like secession and subversion. In addition, the disputes between China and some neighboring countries over the territorial sovereignty, the sovereign right over territorial waters as well as over the maritime rights and interests are yet to be settled, and accordingly that too requires proper handling.
Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6566867.html
As the footsteps of the incoming year are heard around the corner, The Study Times is honored with an exclusive interview with Comrade Xiong Guangkai, Chairman of China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS) focusing on issues related to the situation of international security in 2008. Chairman (CIISS) Xiong Guangkai stated that the international security situation in 2008 on the whole has retained the basic posture of peace and stability, and yet has been dented by the palpable growth of the unstable and uncertain elements, which is evidenced by the remaining grave presence of traditional threats to security and the meteoric spreading of the non-traditional threats to security that are looming larger than before. Therefore, we are required to be mindful of possible dangers while enjoying the present security, foster a comprehensive "grand security concept", and deal properly with the possible impacts inflicted on China by the intricate situation generated by the interlaced state of the current traditional security and the non-traditional security issues.
Question (hereinafter referred to as "Q"): 2008 will be remembered as quite an unusual year. As the running year eased into the incoming one, could you please share with our readers your overall assessment of the international security landscape in 2008.
Answer (hereinafter referred to as "A"): Due to the forward pushing of the in-depth development of the world trends of multi-polarization, economic globalization and the building of information-centric society, the international balance of forces in recent years has witnessed novel rise and fall, while the interests of various states have experienced fresh changes, which has led to the constant retooling of the diplomatic and security strategies by the major world powers. It is against this general backdrop that we examine and analyze the international security situation.
2008 stands out to be quite an unusual year with the international security situation going through numerous complicated changes that can be reduced to the following three principal ones: To begin with, peace and development remain the themes of the times with the international situation in stable status generally, and yet the insecurity, unstable and uncertain elements have decidedly increased with some areas experiencing fresh chaos and even war. The representative example of the latter development is the case of the Russia-Georgia armed skirmish which features "minor clash with a grand strategy". Secondly, the trend of the traditional threats to security and the non-traditional threats to security being intertwined is becoming increasingly prominent with traditional threats to security remaining gravely present while the non-traditional threats to security being promptly stretched to cover such sectors as climate, food, energy, economy, finance and what not in addition to terrorism. The most projected one is the international crisis triggered off by the American sub-prime mortgage crisis. Thirdly, the above-said developments have driven various countries to give more weight to international dialogue and cooperation in dealing with diversified security issues. While the armed forces of all the major powers are devoting great endeavor to such nuclear issues as boosting in a deep-going way the new round of revolution in military affairs and uplifting the combat capability under information-centric conditions, greater importance has been attached to building up the capability of executing military operations other than war for the sake of dealing with various threats to security.
2008 is likewise quite an unusual year for China's national security situation. China has not only been hit by the powerful tsunami of international financial crisis, but has also been nagged by such problems as "Taiwan independence" and "Tibet independence" as well as the troubles incited by the "East Turkeystan" terrorist forces in addition to the atrocious damage and heavy loses inflicted by the ice calamity and fatal earthquake. Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary, the whole nation is of one mind to tide over the hard times. Generally speaking, the fundamental state of a favorable national security for China on the whole remains unchanged, only she is still faced with numerous risks and challenges.
Q: In 2008, the hot spot issues in the global traditional security field remains now eased-up, now tense again with the rise and fall of local wars and armed conflicts. How do you view the change and development of the present international traditional security issues?
A: Traditional security issues refer to such security issues related to national sovereignty, territorial integrity, political stability and the like, epitomized in political and military domains. In the post-Cold War period, the principal traditional security issue in the international security field is the lingering hegemonism and power politics, which is prominently reflected in the following three respects in 2008: a). Local wars and armed conflicts remain a phenomenon of frequent eruption; b). the international military competition with the new revolution in military affairs as the centerpiece is getting fiercer with each passing day; c). the situation of nuclear proliferation and armament control is still grim.
The local wars and armed conflicts in the present world have taken on the features of "high occurrence, being relatively concentrated in some regions and with complicated and diversified causes". The year of 2008 saw the eruption of 46 local wars and armed conflicts worldwide, showing a sharp jump from the 33 cases befell the corresponding period last year. The Middle East and South Asia are the two regions where relatively more local wars and armed conflicts popped up. The Afghanistan War staged by the U.S. in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003 are unable to wind up to this day. The American forces are still bogged down in the quagmires in Iraq while the security situation in Afghanistan has got worsened rapidly, forcing the US forces to gradually shift the strategic priority to Afghanistan and new developments have also been detected in the local turbulent situation in the Middle East and South Asia. What merits attention is that armed conflict flared up between Russia and Georgia on August 8 over the South Ossetia issue. The armed conflict lasted four and half days with over 30,000 troops being thrown in. Judging from the size, intensity and duration of the said conflict, it is no more than a "minor skirmish", and yet its fallout should not be overlooked. Because both parties of the conflict fielded forces from the three services of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, and got locked in a contest of strength in a multidimensional battlefield, in which a certain scale of warfare of public opinion, psychological warfare, legal warfare and cyber warfare were carried out. What is worth thinking deeply about is that the Russia-Georgia conflict broke out against the strategic backdrop of Russia in rapid recovery of national strength and the U.S and Europe busying in pushing forward with their drive of eastward expansion, hence with a deeper strategic background of geopolitics and complicated historical root. Therefore, we should not confine ourselves to taking a purely military view of the conflict, and what's more, its strategic impact on the international security situation is far from coming to a close.
At the same time, the new round of revolution in military affairs with informationization as the centerpiece is unfolding in various major powers in a deep-going way and in the midst of constant adjustment. All the major powers are progressively swelling their input in military outlay. In the FY-2008, the U.S. military budget hits USD $481.4 billion, showing a year-on-year hike of 4.35%; the British military budget stands roughly at USD $64.6 billion with 0.6% year-on-year increase; USD $52.2 billion for France with a 1.4% year-on-year rise; and USD $40.2 billion for Japan, also retaining a rather high figure. To parallel with this is the neck-snapping development of the strategic nuclear force in major world powers. The U.S. has issued the "National Security and Nuclear Arms in the 21st Century" which reassessed the nuclear security environment and is considering retooling its nuclear policy; Russia has sped up its pace of deploying its mobile "Topol-M" intercontinental ballistic missile and test-fired the "Bulava" submarine-launched ballistic missile for several times, putting priority on lifting the capability in breaking through the missile defense and on raising the accuracy of strike. The U.S.-Russia rivalry centering on the deployment of the missile defense system continues to develop. To begin with, the U.S. has ramped up its push for deploying missile defense system in East Europe. The U.S. and Czech Republic signed an agreement on July 8, 2008, granting the U.S. the right to establish an missile defense radar base about 60 km to the Southwest of Prague and is projected to be in operation in 2013. Then on August 20, the U.S. signed an agreement with Poland mandating the U.S. to establish a missile defense base in that country. The U.S. agenda says that it will put in place 10 missile interception systems in the northern part of Poland prior to 2013. To counter the American move of installing missile defense systems, Russia has declared that it will deploy Eskander operational-tactical missile system in Kaliningrad State and postpone the plan of dismantling the Kozelsk intercontinental ballistic missile division. The fierce rivalry in the space is mounting. The U.S. has been keeping on developing anti-satellite weapons and the space-to-land strike weapon systems in an effort to retain its leading edge in the space. On February 21, 2008, the U.S. launched a "Standard"-3 I A anti-missile interception missile from the U.S. warship anchoring near Hawaii and successfully knocked off a run-away spy satellite about 247 km above the earth. In the meanwhile, Russia has stepped up the development of the "Glonass" satellite global navigation positioning system. India blasted off its first circumlunar flying device. Japan, on the other hand, has approved the Basic Law on Universe clearing the legal hurdle for exploiting the space for military purpose. The major powers continue to deepen the military reform. Russia has proclaimed that it will enforce the military reform of downsizing the armed forces and optimizing the structure of the officers by 2012, keeps on pushing forward its process of turning the Army divisions into brigades. Japan on its part has trotted out the Reform of the Defense Agency, planning to overhaul the policy of directing the military by civil officials and the leadership and commanding system of the armed forces. In a nutshell, a new round of international arms race with quality building as the centerpiece is in full swing.
Besides, the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the Iran nuclear issue remain to be the hotspot issues in the international security sector, the nuclear proliferation sector in particular. The work to disable the nuclear facilities of the Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon is making hard-earned headways in twists and turns, with the newly recorded progresses showing that North Korea has officially submitted to the six-party talks a nuclear declaration list and demolished the 5 megawatts nuclear reaction cooling towers at Yongbyon; and the U.S. State Department declared officially on Oct. 11, 2008 to remove Korea from the list of countries offering support to terrorism. At the third meeting of the chief negotiators of the sixth round of six party-talks on Dec, 2008, consensus was arrived at on some issues, and yet falling short of reaching an agreement on verifying the nuclear declaration list submitted by North Korea, which indicates that numerous difficulties remain to be overcome before the ultimate settlement of the Korea nuclear issue, and worse still, even backslides can not be ruled out. The Iran nuclear issue remains at a deadlock. The U.S. and Europe bypassed the UN Security Council to impose a number of sanctions on Iran in an attempt of forcing Iran to give up nuclear development but of no avail. On its part, Iran has been playing both hard and soft tactics to deal with the U.S. and Europe in an endeavor to win more time for its nuclear development. So far, peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue remains the primary choice of the international community and the door for negotiation has not been closed and yet the possibility of deterioration cannot be ruled out.
China pursues an independent foreign policy of peace and has made positive contributions to seeking for peaceful solutions to international conflicts and to promoting anti-nuclear proliferation and arms control. However, the complete reunification of China is yet to wrap up, and therefore obliges us to fight against traditional security issues like secession and subversion. In addition, the disputes between China and some neighboring countries over the territorial sovereignty, the sovereign right over territorial waters as well as over the maritime rights and interests are yet to be settled, and accordingly that too requires proper handling.
Chinese Military Leader on "Non-Traditional" Security Threats
January 6, 2009 (LPAC)--The "meteoric rise of non-traditional threats to security" is a leading issue for 2009, stated Gen. Xiong Guangkai, Chairman of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS), in an interview with The Study Times published today. General Xiong is also deputy chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army and was formerly director of intelligence for the PLA general staff. The CIISS is Beijing's leading defense policy thinktank.
While beginning with the traditional "peace and development are the leading themes" line, Xiong warned that China "is still faced with numerous risks and challenges," led by the world financial crisis. The "non-traditional security issue has a strong spreading, trans-national and global nature," Xiong said. "Therefore, it is beyond a single nation's capability to tackle the problem at its source. Accordingly, dealing with the non-traditional security issue has become one of the essential contents of the international and regional security cooperation in today's world." Xiong said that China has been using both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to seek international cooperation to deal with non-traditional security threats.
"The current international financial crisis is pervading rapidly and stands out to be the most prominent security issue," Xiong said in the interview. This "once-in-a-hundred-year financial crisis...started with the virtual economy and proliferated to the real economy." While the U.S. and Europeans are using multi-trillion-dollar bailouts, the "effect remains to be seen," he said. Despite Beijing's national investment policies, "the impact of the international financial crisis on the growth of the Chinese economy will loom larger and larger in the coming period of time. In response to this, China must make a sufficient estimate of the difficulty ahead and deal with it meticulously and in a down-to-earth way," he said.
Fighting terrorism also "remains grim and challenging." Including the attack on Mumbai, "South Asia has projected itself to be the 'hotbed' and the 'region of frequent incidents of international terrorist attacks,'" Xiong said, noting that just from January-October 2008, there were more than 380 terrorist attacks in South Asia, 42% of the world total. China also faced increased threats, especially from Tibetan and East Turkistan secessionism.
The wildly fluctuating oil price and the food issue are also critical areas, Xiong said. "Driven by the combined effect of such elements as the devalued U.S. dollar, the soaring oil price, the increased cost of grain production and the speculation in international hedge fund etc., the futures price of the principal agricultural products at the international market soared by leaps and bounds in the first half of 2008," with prices at decades-high levels. Grain security remains an issue for China, because, despite 95% self-sufficiency, dependence upon imports is increasing
While beginning with the traditional "peace and development are the leading themes" line, Xiong warned that China "is still faced with numerous risks and challenges," led by the world financial crisis. The "non-traditional security issue has a strong spreading, trans-national and global nature," Xiong said. "Therefore, it is beyond a single nation's capability to tackle the problem at its source. Accordingly, dealing with the non-traditional security issue has become one of the essential contents of the international and regional security cooperation in today's world." Xiong said that China has been using both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to seek international cooperation to deal with non-traditional security threats.
"The current international financial crisis is pervading rapidly and stands out to be the most prominent security issue," Xiong said in the interview. This "once-in-a-hundred-year financial crisis...started with the virtual economy and proliferated to the real economy." While the U.S. and Europeans are using multi-trillion-dollar bailouts, the "effect remains to be seen," he said. Despite Beijing's national investment policies, "the impact of the international financial crisis on the growth of the Chinese economy will loom larger and larger in the coming period of time. In response to this, China must make a sufficient estimate of the difficulty ahead and deal with it meticulously and in a down-to-earth way," he said.
Fighting terrorism also "remains grim and challenging." Including the attack on Mumbai, "South Asia has projected itself to be the 'hotbed' and the 'region of frequent incidents of international terrorist attacks,'" Xiong said, noting that just from January-October 2008, there were more than 380 terrorist attacks in South Asia, 42% of the world total. China also faced increased threats, especially from Tibetan and East Turkistan secessionism.
The wildly fluctuating oil price and the food issue are also critical areas, Xiong said. "Driven by the combined effect of such elements as the devalued U.S. dollar, the soaring oil price, the increased cost of grain production and the speculation in international hedge fund etc., the futures price of the principal agricultural products at the international market soared by leaps and bounds in the first half of 2008," with prices at decades-high levels. Grain security remains an issue for China, because, despite 95% self-sufficiency, dependence upon imports is increasing
Education and the Asian Surge
Education and the Asian Surge
A Comparison of the Education Systems in India and China
By: Charles A. Goldman, Krishna B. Kumar, Ying Liu
SOURCE: RAND
China and India have faced similar conditions and challenges in education during their rapid industrial and social transformation. The two countries started building their national education systems under comparable conditions in the late 1940s. However, different policies, strategies, and historical circumstances have led them through different routes. China has outperformed India in primary and secondary education along a broad spectrum of access, quality, and delivery indicators. India, on the other hand, enjoys a competitive edge over China in higher education. Recently, India has begun catching up with China in K-12 education, while China has already overtaken India in terms of the college enrollment and number of graduates. The respective successes and challenges of the Chinese and Indian education systems offer valuable lessons for both countries and for the rest of the developing world. The authors identify issues that deserve further attention of researchers and policymakers.
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A Comparison of the Education Systems in India and China
By: Charles A. Goldman, Krishna B. Kumar, Ying Liu
SOURCE: RAND
China and India have faced similar conditions and challenges in education during their rapid industrial and social transformation. The two countries started building their national education systems under comparable conditions in the late 1940s. However, different policies, strategies, and historical circumstances have led them through different routes. China has outperformed India in primary and secondary education along a broad spectrum of access, quality, and delivery indicators. India, on the other hand, enjoys a competitive edge over China in higher education. Recently, India has begun catching up with China in K-12 education, while China has already overtaken India in terms of the college enrollment and number of graduates. The respective successes and challenges of the Chinese and Indian education systems offer valuable lessons for both countries and for the rest of the developing world. The authors identify issues that deserve further attention of researchers and policymakers.
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Afghan Opium And Terror In South Asia
By Ramtanu Maitra
06 January, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Following the Mumbai massacre (Nov. 26- 29, 2008), many “important” personnel moved through the Indian Subcontinent, ostensibly with the intent of unearthing the ghastly plot that killed at least 200 people and made a mockery of India’s security. During the visits of these “important” personnel, and subsequently, only one person mentioned the thousands of tons of opium (8,200 tons in 2007, and reportedly, 421 tons of heroin) produced year after year in Afghanistan, as a major cause of the growing terrorism in the region.
In reality, the huge amount of opium is allowed to be produced not only to finance terrorists and illegal gun manufacturers, but also to infuse cash into the bankrupt world financial system, through the offshore banks. That voice of reality was heard from Moscow when, in an interview with the Russian government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia’s federal anti-narcotics service director Viktor Ivanov said: “The gathered inputs testify that regional drug baron Dawood Ibrahim had provided his logistics network for preparing and carrying out the Mumbai terror attacks.” Ivanov said the Mumbai attacks were a “burning example” of how the illegal drug-trafficking network was used for carrying out terrorism. “The super profits of the narco-mafia through Afghan heroin trafficking have become a powerful source of financing organized crime and terrorist networks, destabilizing the political systems, including in Central Asia and Caucasus,” Ivanov said at the fifth India-Russia meeting of the joint working group on combatting international terrorism, in mid-December. The Indian delegation was led by Vivek Katju, Special Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs; the Russian delegation was led by Anatoly Safonov, Special Representative of the President.
The Drug-Led Corruption
While Dawood Ibrahim’s involvement has been tossed about in the media, what Ivanov said never gotthrough to the investigators. Or, is it that the drug angle was deliberately ignored, in order to abort the investigation by resorting to blame games, with the purpose of ending up nowhere?
The Dawood angle was also pointed out in the Asia Times by Raja Murthy on Dec. 9, when he said it is likely that, despite all the noises that are made in New Delhi, India really does not want Dawood back. His argument goes: “The catch is that India’s most infamous mafia boss has stories that powerbrokers on both sides of the border might not want the world to hear. Therein lays a reason why Ibrahim apparently continues to live lavishly—alternating between Karachi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to various reports including from the Pakistan media.”
Be that as it may, it is nonetheless true that there is hardly anyone with “power and authority” in Mumbai— and that includes Shiv Sena supremo Raj Thackrey and mainstream politician and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, among many other political luminaries, law-and-order bigwigs, and almost the entire group of tax-evading Mumbai movie moguls—who is not on the take from this drug-pushing, murderous creature, now under the wings and threats of the Pakistani Inter-Services Security (ISI), British MI6, and the CIA.
But, then again, like the terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, et al., creatures like Dawood would remain active as long as drugs are grown aplenty to serve the interests of the powers-that-be, and to fill the coffers of bankrupt banks. That is how Dope, Inc. survives and flourishes. The deaths of common citizens are “collateral damage” that the powers-that-be ignore, by diverting attention in such ways as blaming others and creating war-like situations.
This is exactly what has been promoted through a pantomime orchestrated by New Delhi and Islamabad. Instead of addressing the devastating role of thousands of tons of opium, produced annually in Afghanistan and distributed all over, fostering terrorists in Pakistan and bringing misery to India, New Delhi and Islamabad chose to flex their muscles, providing the terrorists and jihadists alike, with a rare opportunity to portray themselvesas “patriots.” Would bringing troops to the India-Pakistan border eliminate terrorism? Did it ever achieve this objective? Would anybody with an iota of sense believe that? Then, why do it? Why create a situation in which some mischief-makers could create an incident leading to armed confrontations and the deaths of many, while solving nothing? Why? Why?
The Coverup
The answer to that question is basically the unwillingness of political leaders to protect their citizens, and instead, to kowtow to the powers-that-be. The 8,200 tons of opium, when a large chunk of it is converted into heroin, generates a lot of cash. It could be as high as a couple of hundred billion dollars when cut, re-cut, and sold to addicts in Russia, England, and elsewhere in Europe. It brings in about $100 million for the Taliban and other brands of terrorists, or jihadis, or Hindu Tamil Tigers, or Shiv Sena—you name it. That amount, generated annually, is enough to arm and train hosts of terrorists stretching from Chechnya, to Urumqi, to Mumbai. When one group of terrorists is exposed, it is converted to another brand. It is also a boon for the powers-that-be, that opium money is acceptable to all “devoutly religious” terrorists, be they Islamists, Hindufanatics, or Sikh Khalistanis. That money has no color.
It is also known that the global financial system, which is the quintessential Anglo-Dutch Liberal system designed in the 18th Century to loot the colonies, and imposed on the war-ravaged world in 1944 after President Roosevelt’s death, is presently in its death throes. The City of London is bankrupt, Wall Street is bankrupt, and the only cash that “could” keep the collapsed financial system going is drug money. This drug money, at least a good part of it, is generated in this area, with the help of Dawood Ibrahim, who works overtime on behalf of the British and runs his operation through British-controlled Dubai. Drugs come into Dubai by means of Dawood’s “mules,” protected by the ISI-MI6; and in containers which carry equipment sent to Dubai for “repair” from Kandahar and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan. British troops control the southern Helmand province in Afghanistan, where 53% of Afghanistan’s gargantuan 8,200 tons of opium were produced in 2007.
The drugs are converted to cash in Dubai, where Dawood maintains a palatial mansion, similar to the one he maintains in Karachi. Dubai is a tax-free island-city, and a major offshore banking center. The most common reason for opening an offshore bank account nowadays is the flexibility that comes with such an account, and expatriates can particularly benefit from an offshore bank account, as it will likely allow them to manage their international financial commitments with ease.
With the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which is the latest free-trade zone there, flexible and unrestricted offshore banking has become big business. Many of the world’s largest banks already have a significant presence in Dubai—Abbey National Offshore, HSBC Offshore, ABN Amro, ANZ Grindlays, Banque Paribas, Banque de Caire, Barclays, Dresdner, and Merrill Lynch all have offices there. And as drug production continues in Afghanistan, and bankruptcies galore take place worldwide, more banks will surely “find” Dubai.
Drugs and Offshore Banks
Besides Dubai, most of the offshore banks are located in former British colonies. Exceptions include Cyprus, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Dominica, Cape Verde, and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. But the vast majority are situated in former British colonies, and all are involved in money laundering: Legitimizing cash, generated from drug-sales and other smuggled goods, for the “respectable banks,” is the watchword of these offshore banks.
Arguably the most important of the Caribbean offshore financial centers is the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory run by a royal governor appointed by Queen Elizabeth II. The Caymans are mainly a mail drop and regulation-free zone, a place where hot money is welcome and few questions are asked.
It is well known in law enforcement circles that the dope trade would quickly choke on its own cash were not a significant portion of the global financial system devoted to money laundering. The offshore centers in the Caribbean were set up to facilitate the Central American drug trade, and have expanded with it.
Overseeing the Caymans financial system are a number of imperial operatives. The royal governor, Stuart Duncan Jack, is a knighted Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority is run by Timothy Ridley, who was made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. Richard Rahn, a member in the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, was an economic advisor in the 1980s to President George H.W. Bush; now he heads the European Center for Economic Growth and is a member of the oligarchical Mont Pelerin Society.
In other words, the drugs that Dawood’s mules carry are doing a yeoman’s service for the Anglo-Dutch global financial system, as well as for the terrorists who are killing innocents all over the world. Why make waves about that, New Delhi ponders.
Moreover, Indians know better than most others that where there is opium, there are the British. In Helmand province, British troops rule the roost—or rather, take good care of the City of London’s valuable cash. In India, as Prof. Amitav Ghosh (author of Sea of Poppies) pointed out during his research work, the British Empire, in the late 18th Century, became so dependent on the opium trade, that almost 60% of its revenue was generated from opium sales. Ghosh says if there had been no opium, the British Empire would have died in a minute.
That tradition continues even today. Wherever there is opium, Anglo-Dutch financiers and their American despot friends, like bees seeking honey, set up their houses. Pakistan’s powers-that-be are fully immersed in enjoyment of the drug money, at the expense of being about to lose the western part of Pakistan. But India is no less affected by it; things work differently there.
In India, when the British finally left, partitioning this country, there were about 550-odd princely states. Because of the nature of their set-up, these were completely under the grip of Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. These miserable feudal lords used to spend whatever fortune the British allowed them to have, in British hotels and brothels, vying at the same time for “rewards” from the British monarchy. This despicable class of feudalists in India was downright anti-national, and the worst of the British lackeys, to say the least. In India, the first legislation to curb the cultivation and production of opium was through the Bengal Regulation Act 4 1797 which made cultivation, production, and trade in opium a monopoly of the East India Company in the territories controlled by it. Further, the Company tried to control the trade in opium in the princely states, by creating huge transit barriers: transit tax and customs duties for the opium exported through its territory and ports. Incidentally, all the seaports were held by the East India Company. The next regulations to control opium cultivation, production, and trade were the Opium Acts of 1858 and 1878.
Subsequently, the British created mechanisms for controlling production, processing, vending, and exporting of opium, making huge profits. They began with Patna opium (in Bihar and United Provinces); extended their control over Telengana opium in the princely state of Hyderabad, under the Nizam. But it was much later that they managed to control Malwa opium, produced in today’s states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Capital formation in western India was directly linked to the smuggling of opium to China with the help of Parsee, Marwari, and Gujarat entrepreneurs.
The British also made large profits through taxes on local consumption, because they were the monopoly suppliers. While, for the British, the Dutch, and other colonial powers, opium was a major article of trade, the United States did not get involved in the opium trade, although a number of New England families, some of
them later known as the “Boston Brahmins,” transported opium to China. In the post-colonial period, the United States became heavily involved in the Central American cocaine traffic, and, during the 1980s, with Afghan opium.
The Princely State Connection
Unfortunately, the former princely states’ connection to the drug inflow has not ended, particularly among the states bordering Pakistan, whence almost all Afghan opium comes into India. A number of former princely states, such as the House of Gwalior, continued to remain involved in illegal domestic opium trafficking.
It is opium and heroin, entering from Pakistan, that comes through many of these former princely states, where the old drug-network still survives.
The March 2008 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board noted increased trafficking and abuse of cannabis and heroin in South Asia. West African traffickers have targeted countries in South Asia, particularly India, for cocaine trafficking.
The report further said: “South American cocaine is trafficked to India in small quantities where it is exchanged for South-West Asian heroin bound for Europe and North America. India is increasingly being used as a major transit country and also as a destination country for drug trafficking. Cross-border smuggling is relatively easy because of the porous borders between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Illicit cultivation and abuse of cannabis continue to be a problem in most of the countries in South Asia.” It has also been noted that opium and heroin enter India through Punjab, where at least four former princely states exist, as well as through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Mumbai, among other areas.
The Case of Three Terrorists
This brings us to the events of 1999, and the release of three top terrorists to the Taliban in Kandahar, in order to gain release of 188 hostages. Those three terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who were in Indian jails, were personally delivered by the Indian External Affairs Minister and scion of the former princely state of Jodhpur, Jaswant Singh. Jodhpur lies along the Afghan opium drug route into India.
This raises many questions. To begin with, all three were top-drawer terrorists. Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar has renewed the activity of al-Umar Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad, close to the Line of Control, in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, and is recruiting and training youth to carry out terrorism in the Indian part of Kashmir.
Maulana Masood Azhar hit the headlines again following the Mumbai massacre, when New Delhi demanded that Islamabad hand him over as a “test of sincerity.” Masood Azhar founded the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, and was identified by Indian investigators as the one who masterminded, along with the Pakistani ISI, the audacious attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. That assault left 14 people dead, including all five terrorists, who India says were also Pakistanis. The incident almost led to war between India and Pakistan.
Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, a British subject, is perhaps the biggest fish in the kettle. He is an MI6 agent who was recruited to serve in Kosovo. Later, he was sent to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where he kidnapped foreigners and was arrested. Following his release, Sheikh was named as an accomplice of one of the 9/11 terrorists, and later slit the throat of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist investigating the terrorist links. Although London vehemently denies that Sheikh is an MI6 agent, Sheikh’s role in the Subcontinent makes it necessary for MI6 to deny his post-Kosovo affiliation to British intelligence.
This raises another question: Was Sheikh’s release obtained through pressure from London, using a scion of a former princely state? Since so many people have since been killed by these released terrorists, it is worth getting the answer to that question.
06 January, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Following the Mumbai massacre (Nov. 26- 29, 2008), many “important” personnel moved through the Indian Subcontinent, ostensibly with the intent of unearthing the ghastly plot that killed at least 200 people and made a mockery of India’s security. During the visits of these “important” personnel, and subsequently, only one person mentioned the thousands of tons of opium (8,200 tons in 2007, and reportedly, 421 tons of heroin) produced year after year in Afghanistan, as a major cause of the growing terrorism in the region.
In reality, the huge amount of opium is allowed to be produced not only to finance terrorists and illegal gun manufacturers, but also to infuse cash into the bankrupt world financial system, through the offshore banks. That voice of reality was heard from Moscow when, in an interview with the Russian government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia’s federal anti-narcotics service director Viktor Ivanov said: “The gathered inputs testify that regional drug baron Dawood Ibrahim had provided his logistics network for preparing and carrying out the Mumbai terror attacks.” Ivanov said the Mumbai attacks were a “burning example” of how the illegal drug-trafficking network was used for carrying out terrorism. “The super profits of the narco-mafia through Afghan heroin trafficking have become a powerful source of financing organized crime and terrorist networks, destabilizing the political systems, including in Central Asia and Caucasus,” Ivanov said at the fifth India-Russia meeting of the joint working group on combatting international terrorism, in mid-December. The Indian delegation was led by Vivek Katju, Special Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs; the Russian delegation was led by Anatoly Safonov, Special Representative of the President.
The Drug-Led Corruption
While Dawood Ibrahim’s involvement has been tossed about in the media, what Ivanov said never gotthrough to the investigators. Or, is it that the drug angle was deliberately ignored, in order to abort the investigation by resorting to blame games, with the purpose of ending up nowhere?
The Dawood angle was also pointed out in the Asia Times by Raja Murthy on Dec. 9, when he said it is likely that, despite all the noises that are made in New Delhi, India really does not want Dawood back. His argument goes: “The catch is that India’s most infamous mafia boss has stories that powerbrokers on both sides of the border might not want the world to hear. Therein lays a reason why Ibrahim apparently continues to live lavishly—alternating between Karachi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to various reports including from the Pakistan media.”
Be that as it may, it is nonetheless true that there is hardly anyone with “power and authority” in Mumbai— and that includes Shiv Sena supremo Raj Thackrey and mainstream politician and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, among many other political luminaries, law-and-order bigwigs, and almost the entire group of tax-evading Mumbai movie moguls—who is not on the take from this drug-pushing, murderous creature, now under the wings and threats of the Pakistani Inter-Services Security (ISI), British MI6, and the CIA.
But, then again, like the terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, et al., creatures like Dawood would remain active as long as drugs are grown aplenty to serve the interests of the powers-that-be, and to fill the coffers of bankrupt banks. That is how Dope, Inc. survives and flourishes. The deaths of common citizens are “collateral damage” that the powers-that-be ignore, by diverting attention in such ways as blaming others and creating war-like situations.
This is exactly what has been promoted through a pantomime orchestrated by New Delhi and Islamabad. Instead of addressing the devastating role of thousands of tons of opium, produced annually in Afghanistan and distributed all over, fostering terrorists in Pakistan and bringing misery to India, New Delhi and Islamabad chose to flex their muscles, providing the terrorists and jihadists alike, with a rare opportunity to portray themselvesas “patriots.” Would bringing troops to the India-Pakistan border eliminate terrorism? Did it ever achieve this objective? Would anybody with an iota of sense believe that? Then, why do it? Why create a situation in which some mischief-makers could create an incident leading to armed confrontations and the deaths of many, while solving nothing? Why? Why?
The Coverup
The answer to that question is basically the unwillingness of political leaders to protect their citizens, and instead, to kowtow to the powers-that-be. The 8,200 tons of opium, when a large chunk of it is converted into heroin, generates a lot of cash. It could be as high as a couple of hundred billion dollars when cut, re-cut, and sold to addicts in Russia, England, and elsewhere in Europe. It brings in about $100 million for the Taliban and other brands of terrorists, or jihadis, or Hindu Tamil Tigers, or Shiv Sena—you name it. That amount, generated annually, is enough to arm and train hosts of terrorists stretching from Chechnya, to Urumqi, to Mumbai. When one group of terrorists is exposed, it is converted to another brand. It is also a boon for the powers-that-be, that opium money is acceptable to all “devoutly religious” terrorists, be they Islamists, Hindufanatics, or Sikh Khalistanis. That money has no color.
It is also known that the global financial system, which is the quintessential Anglo-Dutch Liberal system designed in the 18th Century to loot the colonies, and imposed on the war-ravaged world in 1944 after President Roosevelt’s death, is presently in its death throes. The City of London is bankrupt, Wall Street is bankrupt, and the only cash that “could” keep the collapsed financial system going is drug money. This drug money, at least a good part of it, is generated in this area, with the help of Dawood Ibrahim, who works overtime on behalf of the British and runs his operation through British-controlled Dubai. Drugs come into Dubai by means of Dawood’s “mules,” protected by the ISI-MI6; and in containers which carry equipment sent to Dubai for “repair” from Kandahar and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan. British troops control the southern Helmand province in Afghanistan, where 53% of Afghanistan’s gargantuan 8,200 tons of opium were produced in 2007.
The drugs are converted to cash in Dubai, where Dawood maintains a palatial mansion, similar to the one he maintains in Karachi. Dubai is a tax-free island-city, and a major offshore banking center. The most common reason for opening an offshore bank account nowadays is the flexibility that comes with such an account, and expatriates can particularly benefit from an offshore bank account, as it will likely allow them to manage their international financial commitments with ease.
With the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which is the latest free-trade zone there, flexible and unrestricted offshore banking has become big business. Many of the world’s largest banks already have a significant presence in Dubai—Abbey National Offshore, HSBC Offshore, ABN Amro, ANZ Grindlays, Banque Paribas, Banque de Caire, Barclays, Dresdner, and Merrill Lynch all have offices there. And as drug production continues in Afghanistan, and bankruptcies galore take place worldwide, more banks will surely “find” Dubai.
Drugs and Offshore Banks
Besides Dubai, most of the offshore banks are located in former British colonies. Exceptions include Cyprus, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Dominica, Cape Verde, and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. But the vast majority are situated in former British colonies, and all are involved in money laundering: Legitimizing cash, generated from drug-sales and other smuggled goods, for the “respectable banks,” is the watchword of these offshore banks.
Arguably the most important of the Caribbean offshore financial centers is the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory run by a royal governor appointed by Queen Elizabeth II. The Caymans are mainly a mail drop and regulation-free zone, a place where hot money is welcome and few questions are asked.
It is well known in law enforcement circles that the dope trade would quickly choke on its own cash were not a significant portion of the global financial system devoted to money laundering. The offshore centers in the Caribbean were set up to facilitate the Central American drug trade, and have expanded with it.
Overseeing the Caymans financial system are a number of imperial operatives. The royal governor, Stuart Duncan Jack, is a knighted Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority is run by Timothy Ridley, who was made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. Richard Rahn, a member in the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, was an economic advisor in the 1980s to President George H.W. Bush; now he heads the European Center for Economic Growth and is a member of the oligarchical Mont Pelerin Society.
In other words, the drugs that Dawood’s mules carry are doing a yeoman’s service for the Anglo-Dutch global financial system, as well as for the terrorists who are killing innocents all over the world. Why make waves about that, New Delhi ponders.
Moreover, Indians know better than most others that where there is opium, there are the British. In Helmand province, British troops rule the roost—or rather, take good care of the City of London’s valuable cash. In India, as Prof. Amitav Ghosh (author of Sea of Poppies) pointed out during his research work, the British Empire, in the late 18th Century, became so dependent on the opium trade, that almost 60% of its revenue was generated from opium sales. Ghosh says if there had been no opium, the British Empire would have died in a minute.
That tradition continues even today. Wherever there is opium, Anglo-Dutch financiers and their American despot friends, like bees seeking honey, set up their houses. Pakistan’s powers-that-be are fully immersed in enjoyment of the drug money, at the expense of being about to lose the western part of Pakistan. But India is no less affected by it; things work differently there.
In India, when the British finally left, partitioning this country, there were about 550-odd princely states. Because of the nature of their set-up, these were completely under the grip of Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. These miserable feudal lords used to spend whatever fortune the British allowed them to have, in British hotels and brothels, vying at the same time for “rewards” from the British monarchy. This despicable class of feudalists in India was downright anti-national, and the worst of the British lackeys, to say the least. In India, the first legislation to curb the cultivation and production of opium was through the Bengal Regulation Act 4 1797 which made cultivation, production, and trade in opium a monopoly of the East India Company in the territories controlled by it. Further, the Company tried to control the trade in opium in the princely states, by creating huge transit barriers: transit tax and customs duties for the opium exported through its territory and ports. Incidentally, all the seaports were held by the East India Company. The next regulations to control opium cultivation, production, and trade were the Opium Acts of 1858 and 1878.
Subsequently, the British created mechanisms for controlling production, processing, vending, and exporting of opium, making huge profits. They began with Patna opium (in Bihar and United Provinces); extended their control over Telengana opium in the princely state of Hyderabad, under the Nizam. But it was much later that they managed to control Malwa opium, produced in today’s states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Capital formation in western India was directly linked to the smuggling of opium to China with the help of Parsee, Marwari, and Gujarat entrepreneurs.
The British also made large profits through taxes on local consumption, because they were the monopoly suppliers. While, for the British, the Dutch, and other colonial powers, opium was a major article of trade, the United States did not get involved in the opium trade, although a number of New England families, some of
them later known as the “Boston Brahmins,” transported opium to China. In the post-colonial period, the United States became heavily involved in the Central American cocaine traffic, and, during the 1980s, with Afghan opium.
The Princely State Connection
Unfortunately, the former princely states’ connection to the drug inflow has not ended, particularly among the states bordering Pakistan, whence almost all Afghan opium comes into India. A number of former princely states, such as the House of Gwalior, continued to remain involved in illegal domestic opium trafficking.
It is opium and heroin, entering from Pakistan, that comes through many of these former princely states, where the old drug-network still survives.
The March 2008 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board noted increased trafficking and abuse of cannabis and heroin in South Asia. West African traffickers have targeted countries in South Asia, particularly India, for cocaine trafficking.
The report further said: “South American cocaine is trafficked to India in small quantities where it is exchanged for South-West Asian heroin bound for Europe and North America. India is increasingly being used as a major transit country and also as a destination country for drug trafficking. Cross-border smuggling is relatively easy because of the porous borders between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Illicit cultivation and abuse of cannabis continue to be a problem in most of the countries in South Asia.” It has also been noted that opium and heroin enter India through Punjab, where at least four former princely states exist, as well as through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Mumbai, among other areas.
The Case of Three Terrorists
This brings us to the events of 1999, and the release of three top terrorists to the Taliban in Kandahar, in order to gain release of 188 hostages. Those three terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who were in Indian jails, were personally delivered by the Indian External Affairs Minister and scion of the former princely state of Jodhpur, Jaswant Singh. Jodhpur lies along the Afghan opium drug route into India.
This raises many questions. To begin with, all three were top-drawer terrorists. Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar has renewed the activity of al-Umar Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad, close to the Line of Control, in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, and is recruiting and training youth to carry out terrorism in the Indian part of Kashmir.
Maulana Masood Azhar hit the headlines again following the Mumbai massacre, when New Delhi demanded that Islamabad hand him over as a “test of sincerity.” Masood Azhar founded the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, and was identified by Indian investigators as the one who masterminded, along with the Pakistani ISI, the audacious attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. That assault left 14 people dead, including all five terrorists, who India says were also Pakistanis. The incident almost led to war between India and Pakistan.
Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, a British subject, is perhaps the biggest fish in the kettle. He is an MI6 agent who was recruited to serve in Kosovo. Later, he was sent to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where he kidnapped foreigners and was arrested. Following his release, Sheikh was named as an accomplice of one of the 9/11 terrorists, and later slit the throat of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist investigating the terrorist links. Although London vehemently denies that Sheikh is an MI6 agent, Sheikh’s role in the Subcontinent makes it necessary for MI6 to deny his post-Kosovo affiliation to British intelligence.
This raises another question: Was Sheikh’s release obtained through pressure from London, using a scion of a former princely state? Since so many people have since been killed by these released terrorists, it is worth getting the answer to that question.
Costs of war: No to tribal militias
Although the US strategy of using tribal militias to improve security has been credited with great success in Iraq, expanding it to Afghanistan could be disastrous, Shaun Waterman writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Shaun Waterman in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch
US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood told a 30 December press conference in Kabul about plans for new tribal militias, dubbed the Community Guard program - a move he said was "meant to strengthen local communities and local tribes in their ability to protect what they consider to be their traditional homes."
Traditional local councils known as shuras will recruit volunteers to defend their villages against Taliban insurgents under the plan, Wood said, according to news agencies.
"Once the group has been identified, they will receive training and clothing and other support," he added. The militias would be given communications equipment to call in support from Afghan and US forces in the event of a Taliban attack.
Wood did not answer questions about who would arm the new militias, but emphasized that the US would not do so.
Most Afghan households own firearms and even relatively heavy weapons like rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers are quite common.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier last month that the program would be rolled out first in Wardak province, through which runs the main road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar. The road has recently been the focus of insurgent attacks that have threatened to make it impassable.
The Journal, citing US officials, said the militias would be paid by US forces through the local shuras. It also quoted Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as calling the US focus on building a strong central government in Afghanistan "overstated." He said the US would now focus more on "enabling” local communities and their leaders.
"How strong the central government will be in the future, I think, is yet to be determined," he told reporters.
Although Wood was careful to say that the plans had been proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, there is little doubt that in reality it is an extension of the US counter-insurgency strategy employed in Iraq; and promoted by military experts like Colonel John Nagl, who developed the US Army's counter-insurgency strategy alongside General David Petraeus, who currently commands US forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Buying off your enemies is [...] a time-honored tactic in counter-insurgency with a proven track record of success," Nagl said last year.
"Over time, you try to incorporate those people into the government security organizations," he added. "I absolutely think that there are tribal organizations in Afghanistan who could be incorporated. … It would be a way to rapidly increase the size of [the Afghan National Police and National Army] with cohesive units."
But even in Iraq, the strategy of forming and paying Sunni tribal militias (called Awakening Councils) to maintain security has been criticized as storing up problems. And there is opposition to extending it to Afghanistan
"The tribal militia idea that has been around for some time now is controversial; we are not onboard with that," Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press. He said the proposal had been debated at a 19 November meeting of countries leading the fight in southern Afghanistan, and there was "no agreement around the table.
"Our preference is to continue with [a] more formal training process that leads to a more reliable, more professional [...] Afghan national security force," MacKay concluded.
And many of those who are more familiar with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan - though perhaps less acquainted with military theory - have grave doubts about the Community Guard program, warning it would risk the fragile gains of the state-building strategy that the international community has been pursuing there.
"At best, it would be a tactical gain, but also an immense strategic loss," said Ali Jalali, a former Afghan interior minister and now a visiting professor at the US National Defense University, noting that by fragmenting power and undermining the authority of the central government, the strategy in the long run could actually worsen the instability it sought to ameliorate.
He called this "effort to gain peace through manipulating tribal dynamics" a "colonial approach."
Levels of corruption and instability were already much too high in the volatile border regions of the country, said retired Marine Colonel Daniel Curfiss, also a professor at the National Defense University.
"My concern is, it would be throwing kindling on this [fire] [...] to pay people who are already unwilling to relinquish power," he said.
"There are precedents, and the precedents are not terribly hopeful," said former US ambassador to Afghanistan James Dobbins, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of a recent study of state-building efforts in the war-ravaged country.
In the period immediately after the ouster of the Taliban government at the end of 2001, Dobbins said, the US and its allies attempted to limit their military commitment by restricting peacekeeping troops to Kabul and using "tribal militias and warlords" to maintain security in the rest of the country.
"Over time it was found that that was not an adequate policy," said Dobbins, with dry understatement.
Jalali said continuing efforts by coalition nations to work directly with tribal and other local leaders had been "one of the problems when I was interior minister" from 2003 to 2005. "They gave them weapons, money and vehicles."
In 2006, he said, the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai tried itself to use tribally based militias - with unhappy results.
Most of the 12,000 members of the militias, formally titled the Afghan National Auxiliary Police, "either deserted with their arms and equipment or were more or less forced to join the insurgents," he said, adding that the force was scheduled to be finally phased out of existence by the end of the current year.
He also pointed out that years of war and insurgency in the tribal areas of Afghanistan had physically decimated the tribal leadership and eroded their influence. "Over the past 30 years, the influence of the traditional leaders has waned," he said, adding that it was warlords and extremists who had replaced them.
Jalali said a strategy of working through local militias was putting the cart before the horse. "The tribes will only stand up [against the extremists] if they see that the government had authority in their areas [...] that is not the case today."
The priority should be building the capacity of the central government, Jalali said. "Capacity-building is the central challenge in Afghanistan today."
Even those who support the proposal are wary about possible unanticipated side-effects.
Vikram Singh, of the think tank Center for a New American Security, was briefed on the plan last year.
"No one is thinking at the strategic level [...] if this is the right answer," he said, adding there was "no analysis by the coalition of how this would play out.
"There's a lot of downside," he concluded.
Indeed. Several of Singh's colleagues at the Center for a New American Security are advising the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama. He should call them and get the idea stymied.
Shaun Waterman is a senior writer and analyst for ISN Security Watch. He is a UK journalist based in Washington, DC, covering homeland and national security for United Press International.
Editor's note:
Shaun Waterman's column, Costs of war, appears every other Tuesday.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).
PM Inaugurates Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, inaugurated the Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security in New Delhi today. Following is the text of the Prime Minister’s inaugural address on the occasion:
“We last met to discuss internal security issues in December 2007, a little over a year ago. The twelve months that have passed since then have been a difficult period for us. The security situation has, if anything, become even more complex. Many predictions made a year ago have unfortunately turned out to be true. In some cases the scale and magnitude of terrorist attacks appear to have been stepped up exponentially. In the prevailing circumstances we cannot afford to take a partial or segmented view. A holistic approach to our security concerns is definitely called for.
During the past year, we faced a severe challenge from terrorist groups operating from outside our country. Many of them act in association with hostile Intelligence Agencies in these countries. The attempt has been to exploit our vulnerabilities, and at times they do succeed as is evident from the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Our problems are compounded by the fact that we have a highly unpredictable and uncertain security environment in our immediate neighbourhood. The Governments in some of our neighbouring countries are very fragile in nature. The more fragile a Government, the more it tends to act in an irresponsible fashion. Pakistan’s responses to our various demarches on terrorist attacks is an obvious example.
We face multi-dimensional challenges of different kinds, but the most serious threats are those posed by Terrorism, Left Wing Extremism and insurgency in the North East. Left Wing Extremism is primarily indigenous and home-grown. Terrorism, on the other hand, is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilized terrorism as an instrument of State policy. Insurgency in the North-East exploits disparities in income and wealth but it is also sustained by the sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgency movements in the neighbouring countries. There are, hence, fundamental differences in the way we need to view the internal security challenge and deal with the three threats that I had mentioned.
In the previous meeting it had been mentioned that terrorists were enlarging the canvas of threats. Increasingly, their concentration was on attacking economic, infrastructure, and iconic targets, apart from political, military and security ones. Mention had also been made of the fact that the sea route was now being exploited and explored as an alternative to land routes. It had, therefore, been suggested that there should be greater vigilance along our coast line and better monitoring of maritime activity in our territorial waters. The terrorists who carried out the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 used the sea route, and managed to evade our coastal surveillance.
Calculating and responding to security challenges of this nature is in itself a complex exercise at the best of times. It becomes even more challenging in the circumstances I have just now mentioned. Our security calculus is a matrix of many imponderable factors, but there are two fundamental and underlying aspects, i.e., protecting the territorial integrity of the country and ensuring our internal security.
A strong sense of nationhood is important to withstand both these types of threats. Our nation is clearly united in our determination to defeat both external as well as internal security challenges. Our determination and sense of nationhood derives from our inheritance of a great historical experience of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-caste and multi-lingual society. To-day, even as Pakistan engages in whipping up war hysteria, our nation remains steadfastly united and, if anything, the process of national consolidation is becoming stronger.
Dealing with internal security problems does not alter this dynamic. The situation may appear challenging and it is challenging but it is by no means beyond control. Concerns may exist that our defence mechanisms to thwart the numerous threats are inadequate. There may be criticism that the range of the instruments that we possess to deal with internal security threats, are not sufficiently sophisticated. Clearly, there is need to review the effectiveness of our set up for the collection of technical signalling and human intelligence. The training and equipment provided to our security forces also requires a careful review. I will admit that a great deal more can, and needs to, be done. Both the Centre and the State Governments must attend to this national task with speed, efficiency and utmost commitment.
Our external policies have been dictated by a desire to have a supportive neighbourhood. Unfortunately, we cannot choose our neighbours, and some countries like Pakistan have in the past encouraged and given sanctuary to terrorists and other forces who are antagonistic to India. We have tried to minimize the impact of such hostility by erecting certain defences. We have fenced our border along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, from where the vast majority of the infiltrations into India tended to take place. We are currently fencing our border with Bangladesh, from where also a number of infiltrations have been reported.
Consequent upon this, those in charge of the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan have resorted to other stratagems to infiltrate terrorists into India. Infiltration is occurring via Nepal and from Bangladesh, though it has not totally ceased via the Line of Control in J&K. We are aware that the sea route is another option that is now being exercised. A few interceptions have taken place, though we failed to intercept the 10 Pakistani terrorists who came by sea from Karachi on November 26.
The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November last year was clearly carried out by a Pakistan-based outfit, the Lashkar-e-Taiba. On the basis of the investigations carried out, including the Agencies of some foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack, there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.
We are aware of the existence of different concentric circles of terrorism which impact on our security. The Mumbai terrorist attack fell into the category of one carried out exclusively by a foreign based outfit. There are other concentric circles of terrorism that often involve a combination of external forces backed by internal elements. There are still others which are essentially indigenous in character.
Recent patterns of terrorist incidents also suggest that increasingly the attacks have a pan-Indian and trans-national aspect. The terrorists are able to fashion new techniques and employ new skills. There is growing emphasis on ‘mass casualty attacks’. Terrorist communications have become state-of-the-art. Use of the Internet and Voice Over Internet Protocol connectivity, gives the terrorists greater anonymity and makes detection difficult for the authorities.
Attacks today are again less random than previously. In the case of Mumbai, a definite link can be discerned between our economic and security interests. Targetting of foreigners, specially from the West, was obviously intended to convey an impression that India was unsafe as a destination for the West and Western investments. We need to effectively counter this impression. We need to ensure that another major terrorist attack does not take place on our soil. We must implement the policy of ‘Zero Tolerance of Terrorism’ with total commitment.
Few countries have suffered so frequently or faced so much violence at the hands of terrorists as our country. During the past year, there have been terrorist attacks in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Assam, Mumbai and some places in U.P. and these show higher levels of sophistication with each attack.
What makes terrorism particularly threatening at this moment is the impression of vulnerability combined with the display of greater sophistication in techniques and methodologies of terrorist outfits. The challenges before us are to demonstrate that we have both the capability as well as the sophisticated instrumentalities to anticipate and overcome the shifts and changes in terrorist methods. We cannot, therefore, afford to conceptualize narrowly. We must not react merely to immediate events.
This is the underlying message contained in the Home Minister’s letter inviting you to this Meeting. It is important at this juncture to demonstrate our combined will, and that we are effectively galvanizing the internal security system to deal with future terrorist attacks. Technology is empowering non-state actors across the globe and it is necessary for us to come up with a comprehensive strategy that combines the best of technological and human capabilities within the country to defeat terrorism in all its manifestations.
The Home Minister has already outlined a number of steps that have been taken in recent weeks to erect additional mechanisms to counter future terrorist attacks. The main message is that we need to break down barriers to information-sharing between the various agencies.
What I would add is that we need better intelligence and perhaps, more importantly, sophistcated assessment and analysis of the intelligence that is available. Complaints are often heard that the intelligence provided by the Agencies is not actionable. All intelligence produced is actionable, though it may not always be specific. It depends on the capability and ingenuity of those who assess the information to further develop and convert the fragmentary pieces of intelligence into a complete whole and for those who have to act on it to possibly pursue each and every lead.
Getting information early in time is vitally important and we need to encourage the setting up of an elaborate information system at the village, block and district level to report on any and all untoward events and incidents. Mobile telephones today provide opportunities for easy communication. Even our fishermen out at sea can use mobile telephones to report any untoward incident in our territorial waters. We must understand that no counter-terrorist action can hope to succeed unless it is based on the cooperation of the community and hence the importance of an expanded community policing system in our country. I would request the Chief Ministers to personally attend to this vital task.
The information available from diverse sources, thereafter needs to be properly channelized to reach a common point such as the recently revitalized Multi-Agency Centre in Delhi for collation and analysis. It will, hence, be necessary to establish Centers locally, at the State and lower levels across the country, to collate all the available information which might have a bearing on a potential terrorist situation. Other countries which have a federal structure similar to ours, like the United States, do have such centers spread across the country to coordinate local level responses to terrorism.
A large empirical data base will not yield results without using techniques such as structured analytic methodologies to convert the mass of information into actionable intelligence. Applications such as Threat Assessment Modeling and Artificial Neural Networks will have to be added to the existing analytic techniques. Three Dimensional Modeling of Critical Infrastructure is a new aspect that needs to be introduced. In several situations, we could even think of a Virtual Operations Centre.
I recently had occasion to mention in Parliament that the time had come for us to establish a permanent Crisis Management Group to handle the fall-out of major terrorist attacks anywhere in our country. This is now being established. We have also begun the process of strengthening maritime security against asymmetric threats from the sea. We have coordinated measures to plug loopholes in regard to our air space. The process of augmenting and strengthening our counter-terrorist forces has also begun.
What we hope to achieve is closer scrutiny and attention as well as a more rapid response to new and emerging threats. Our aim is to achieve the concept of total security.
Additionally, I would here also like to refer to the danger from Left Wing Extremism. Naxalite groups do pose a challenge, though of a different nature. Left Wing Extremism has been in vogue for four decades now, but the danger is that over time the nature of the movement has substantially altered. From an ideologically driven movement it has been transformed into one in which the military ethos has become predominant. The CPI-Maoist is perhaps the only militant organization in the country which has its own Guerrilla Army, though, as yet, this is of modest proportions. It is perhaps the only militant body to-day which has a rigid organizational structure. They also have some rudimentary capabilities to manufacture arms. They show increasing sophistication in the way they carry out attacks. They also do not seem to have any dearth of new recruits to the movement.
Quite a few States in the country are affected by Left Wing Extremism, notably Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. As the movement spreads, and becomes more energized and active, we must ponder deeply on how best to effectively deal with it. This is so, as the movement still retains a modicum of ideological appeal. It is still able to garner support from among members of Civil Society and Civil Liberties organizations. It still attracts sections of the youth. Choosing the right methods and adopting a proper strategy are therefore important so that the action we take does not give a greater fillip to the growth of the movement.
Finally, I would like to say that Terrorism should not be conceptualized solely in military terms. While taking all the measures necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, we must simultaneously ensure that the concept of terrorism is delegitimized through better investigation and superior intelligence. We must convince the world community that States that use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy, must be isolated and compelled to abandon such tactics. We must engage vigorously in debates to press the point that ‘soft’ support for terrorism cannot any longer be endorsed. We must demonstrate that an alert pluralistic and secular society such as ours is the best defence against terrorist onslaughts. Terrorism, Naxalism and Insurgency in the North-East, Hon’ble Chief Ministers, constitute major challenges for our national security establishment. We need to mobilize all our wisdom, knowledge and experience to meet these challenges head on. I am confident that our nation has the resilience and will power to emerge victorious in this fight. I wish you all success in your deliberations.”
“We last met to discuss internal security issues in December 2007, a little over a year ago. The twelve months that have passed since then have been a difficult period for us. The security situation has, if anything, become even more complex. Many predictions made a year ago have unfortunately turned out to be true. In some cases the scale and magnitude of terrorist attacks appear to have been stepped up exponentially. In the prevailing circumstances we cannot afford to take a partial or segmented view. A holistic approach to our security concerns is definitely called for.
During the past year, we faced a severe challenge from terrorist groups operating from outside our country. Many of them act in association with hostile Intelligence Agencies in these countries. The attempt has been to exploit our vulnerabilities, and at times they do succeed as is evident from the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Our problems are compounded by the fact that we have a highly unpredictable and uncertain security environment in our immediate neighbourhood. The Governments in some of our neighbouring countries are very fragile in nature. The more fragile a Government, the more it tends to act in an irresponsible fashion. Pakistan’s responses to our various demarches on terrorist attacks is an obvious example.
We face multi-dimensional challenges of different kinds, but the most serious threats are those posed by Terrorism, Left Wing Extremism and insurgency in the North East. Left Wing Extremism is primarily indigenous and home-grown. Terrorism, on the other hand, is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilized terrorism as an instrument of State policy. Insurgency in the North-East exploits disparities in income and wealth but it is also sustained by the sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgency movements in the neighbouring countries. There are, hence, fundamental differences in the way we need to view the internal security challenge and deal with the three threats that I had mentioned.
In the previous meeting it had been mentioned that terrorists were enlarging the canvas of threats. Increasingly, their concentration was on attacking economic, infrastructure, and iconic targets, apart from political, military and security ones. Mention had also been made of the fact that the sea route was now being exploited and explored as an alternative to land routes. It had, therefore, been suggested that there should be greater vigilance along our coast line and better monitoring of maritime activity in our territorial waters. The terrorists who carried out the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 used the sea route, and managed to evade our coastal surveillance.
Calculating and responding to security challenges of this nature is in itself a complex exercise at the best of times. It becomes even more challenging in the circumstances I have just now mentioned. Our security calculus is a matrix of many imponderable factors, but there are two fundamental and underlying aspects, i.e., protecting the territorial integrity of the country and ensuring our internal security.
A strong sense of nationhood is important to withstand both these types of threats. Our nation is clearly united in our determination to defeat both external as well as internal security challenges. Our determination and sense of nationhood derives from our inheritance of a great historical experience of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-caste and multi-lingual society. To-day, even as Pakistan engages in whipping up war hysteria, our nation remains steadfastly united and, if anything, the process of national consolidation is becoming stronger.
Dealing with internal security problems does not alter this dynamic. The situation may appear challenging and it is challenging but it is by no means beyond control. Concerns may exist that our defence mechanisms to thwart the numerous threats are inadequate. There may be criticism that the range of the instruments that we possess to deal with internal security threats, are not sufficiently sophisticated. Clearly, there is need to review the effectiveness of our set up for the collection of technical signalling and human intelligence. The training and equipment provided to our security forces also requires a careful review. I will admit that a great deal more can, and needs to, be done. Both the Centre and the State Governments must attend to this national task with speed, efficiency and utmost commitment.
Our external policies have been dictated by a desire to have a supportive neighbourhood. Unfortunately, we cannot choose our neighbours, and some countries like Pakistan have in the past encouraged and given sanctuary to terrorists and other forces who are antagonistic to India. We have tried to minimize the impact of such hostility by erecting certain defences. We have fenced our border along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, from where the vast majority of the infiltrations into India tended to take place. We are currently fencing our border with Bangladesh, from where also a number of infiltrations have been reported.
Consequent upon this, those in charge of the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan have resorted to other stratagems to infiltrate terrorists into India. Infiltration is occurring via Nepal and from Bangladesh, though it has not totally ceased via the Line of Control in J&K. We are aware that the sea route is another option that is now being exercised. A few interceptions have taken place, though we failed to intercept the 10 Pakistani terrorists who came by sea from Karachi on November 26.
The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November last year was clearly carried out by a Pakistan-based outfit, the Lashkar-e-Taiba. On the basis of the investigations carried out, including the Agencies of some foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack, there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.
We are aware of the existence of different concentric circles of terrorism which impact on our security. The Mumbai terrorist attack fell into the category of one carried out exclusively by a foreign based outfit. There are other concentric circles of terrorism that often involve a combination of external forces backed by internal elements. There are still others which are essentially indigenous in character.
Recent patterns of terrorist incidents also suggest that increasingly the attacks have a pan-Indian and trans-national aspect. The terrorists are able to fashion new techniques and employ new skills. There is growing emphasis on ‘mass casualty attacks’. Terrorist communications have become state-of-the-art. Use of the Internet and Voice Over Internet Protocol connectivity, gives the terrorists greater anonymity and makes detection difficult for the authorities.
Attacks today are again less random than previously. In the case of Mumbai, a definite link can be discerned between our economic and security interests. Targetting of foreigners, specially from the West, was obviously intended to convey an impression that India was unsafe as a destination for the West and Western investments. We need to effectively counter this impression. We need to ensure that another major terrorist attack does not take place on our soil. We must implement the policy of ‘Zero Tolerance of Terrorism’ with total commitment.
Few countries have suffered so frequently or faced so much violence at the hands of terrorists as our country. During the past year, there have been terrorist attacks in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Assam, Mumbai and some places in U.P. and these show higher levels of sophistication with each attack.
What makes terrorism particularly threatening at this moment is the impression of vulnerability combined with the display of greater sophistication in techniques and methodologies of terrorist outfits. The challenges before us are to demonstrate that we have both the capability as well as the sophisticated instrumentalities to anticipate and overcome the shifts and changes in terrorist methods. We cannot, therefore, afford to conceptualize narrowly. We must not react merely to immediate events.
This is the underlying message contained in the Home Minister’s letter inviting you to this Meeting. It is important at this juncture to demonstrate our combined will, and that we are effectively galvanizing the internal security system to deal with future terrorist attacks. Technology is empowering non-state actors across the globe and it is necessary for us to come up with a comprehensive strategy that combines the best of technological and human capabilities within the country to defeat terrorism in all its manifestations.
The Home Minister has already outlined a number of steps that have been taken in recent weeks to erect additional mechanisms to counter future terrorist attacks. The main message is that we need to break down barriers to information-sharing between the various agencies.
What I would add is that we need better intelligence and perhaps, more importantly, sophistcated assessment and analysis of the intelligence that is available. Complaints are often heard that the intelligence provided by the Agencies is not actionable. All intelligence produced is actionable, though it may not always be specific. It depends on the capability and ingenuity of those who assess the information to further develop and convert the fragmentary pieces of intelligence into a complete whole and for those who have to act on it to possibly pursue each and every lead.
Getting information early in time is vitally important and we need to encourage the setting up of an elaborate information system at the village, block and district level to report on any and all untoward events and incidents. Mobile telephones today provide opportunities for easy communication. Even our fishermen out at sea can use mobile telephones to report any untoward incident in our territorial waters. We must understand that no counter-terrorist action can hope to succeed unless it is based on the cooperation of the community and hence the importance of an expanded community policing system in our country. I would request the Chief Ministers to personally attend to this vital task.
The information available from diverse sources, thereafter needs to be properly channelized to reach a common point such as the recently revitalized Multi-Agency Centre in Delhi for collation and analysis. It will, hence, be necessary to establish Centers locally, at the State and lower levels across the country, to collate all the available information which might have a bearing on a potential terrorist situation. Other countries which have a federal structure similar to ours, like the United States, do have such centers spread across the country to coordinate local level responses to terrorism.
A large empirical data base will not yield results without using techniques such as structured analytic methodologies to convert the mass of information into actionable intelligence. Applications such as Threat Assessment Modeling and Artificial Neural Networks will have to be added to the existing analytic techniques. Three Dimensional Modeling of Critical Infrastructure is a new aspect that needs to be introduced. In several situations, we could even think of a Virtual Operations Centre.
I recently had occasion to mention in Parliament that the time had come for us to establish a permanent Crisis Management Group to handle the fall-out of major terrorist attacks anywhere in our country. This is now being established. We have also begun the process of strengthening maritime security against asymmetric threats from the sea. We have coordinated measures to plug loopholes in regard to our air space. The process of augmenting and strengthening our counter-terrorist forces has also begun.
What we hope to achieve is closer scrutiny and attention as well as a more rapid response to new and emerging threats. Our aim is to achieve the concept of total security.
Additionally, I would here also like to refer to the danger from Left Wing Extremism. Naxalite groups do pose a challenge, though of a different nature. Left Wing Extremism has been in vogue for four decades now, but the danger is that over time the nature of the movement has substantially altered. From an ideologically driven movement it has been transformed into one in which the military ethos has become predominant. The CPI-Maoist is perhaps the only militant organization in the country which has its own Guerrilla Army, though, as yet, this is of modest proportions. It is perhaps the only militant body to-day which has a rigid organizational structure. They also have some rudimentary capabilities to manufacture arms. They show increasing sophistication in the way they carry out attacks. They also do not seem to have any dearth of new recruits to the movement.
Quite a few States in the country are affected by Left Wing Extremism, notably Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. As the movement spreads, and becomes more energized and active, we must ponder deeply on how best to effectively deal with it. This is so, as the movement still retains a modicum of ideological appeal. It is still able to garner support from among members of Civil Society and Civil Liberties organizations. It still attracts sections of the youth. Choosing the right methods and adopting a proper strategy are therefore important so that the action we take does not give a greater fillip to the growth of the movement.
Finally, I would like to say that Terrorism should not be conceptualized solely in military terms. While taking all the measures necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, we must simultaneously ensure that the concept of terrorism is delegitimized through better investigation and superior intelligence. We must convince the world community that States that use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy, must be isolated and compelled to abandon such tactics. We must engage vigorously in debates to press the point that ‘soft’ support for terrorism cannot any longer be endorsed. We must demonstrate that an alert pluralistic and secular society such as ours is the best defence against terrorist onslaughts. Terrorism, Naxalism and Insurgency in the North-East, Hon’ble Chief Ministers, constitute major challenges for our national security establishment. We need to mobilize all our wisdom, knowledge and experience to meet these challenges head on. I am confident that our nation has the resilience and will power to emerge victorious in this fight. I wish you all success in your deliberations.”
The world’s most famous seer
11:47 | 02/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW. (Anatoly Korolev for RIA Novosti) - In the 505 years since his birth, Nostradamus (December 14, 1503 - July 1, 1566), born Michel de Nostredame, has become one of the most vivid personalities in human history.
If we completely believe his prophecies, we will have to admit that the actual laws of the Universe are different from those accepted by modern science. According to Einstein, time and space are bound together and form a common gravity field, with the future just a point of origin on the coordinate axis, where the present happens simultaneously with the "clock striking on the hour."
According to Nostradamus, our future exists somewhere beyond time; it has almost happened already and is vaguely visible in the distance, first as if through a veil of fog, and then becomes increasingly more clear. Finally, the fog lifts, and with every strike of the clock, the future comes to meet us as our present.
That means that a prophet can see the future by the will of God and tell it to the common people. At a royal audience at the Louvre Palace on September 30, 1555, Nostradamus told King Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici that in foretelling the future, he was just a string of a great violin, played by God. And the violin player uses him to convey information. Why was he chosen? He doesn't know. He is just an ordinary sinner.
Nostradamus' predictions stretch over a period of several thousands of years, from 1555 to 3797. The last part of the Centuries, covering the period from 2300 to 3797, is missing.
What will happen in 2125 according to this book? The last ever Christian and Judaic services will be performed, with religions taking different forms that don't include rituals or ceremonies from then on.
By a twist of fate, the greatest number of Nostradamus' prophecies are related to the 20th century and include the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the murder of the Russian royal family, the rise to power of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, political terror and Holocaust, Nazi Germany and its defeat in World War II, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and other events.
Here is an excerpt on the disintegration of the USSR: "The new Babylon, augmented by the abomination of the first Holocaust, will last no less than 73 years and 7 months."
If we consider the start of the Soviet era as the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks on January 19, 1918, and its end as the 1991 coup, it makes exactly 73 years and 7 months.
His uncanny accuracy is what has made Nostradamus an iconic figure in the 20th century.
He was born into a Jewish family which had converted to Catholicism in St. Rémy, Provence, in southern France. His ancestors were merchants and doctors, and a similar fate was awaiting him. Before getting his doctorate at the Montpellier University, he went under the name of de Nostredame, which means "Holy Mother." Becoming a Doctor gave him the right to assume the Latin version of the name, Nostradamus.
Not much of his biography has survived intact to this day. We know the most about the last period of his life, which was recorded by his disciple and first biographer Jacques Chauvigny. The most important events were Nostradamus' struggle against the plague, the release of his first book of the Centuries, and the sensational prediction of King Henry II's death at a duel in the summer of 1559.
Nostradamus made his first prediction while attending a Catholic school in Avignon. Having seen two young pigs at the barn-yard, a black and a white one, he said the white pig would be killed by a wolf, and the black one served for dinner.
After the rector found out about the prediction, he ordered to have the black pig slaughtered and buried, and to serve the white pig for dinner immediately. The cook rushed to fulfill the order, but was told at the barn-yard that the white pig had been snatched by a wolf, who had entered the barn through the roof, and only the black pig was left. Unsure of what to do, the cook served the black pig for dinner.
But the Medieval world was a small place. Rumors spread quickly and the cook had to confess the truth.
After graduating from Avignon University and getting a Master's degree, Michel moved to Aachen, where was happily married to Agene, and had two children with her. But the plague epidemic swept through the area in 1537, taking the lives of his wife and children.
It was then that Nostradamus had his first revelation.
He spent the next ten years struggling with the plague, saving hundreds of lives from the deadly disease. His formula was simple: fresh air, clean water and lemon juice mixed with water, which contains Vitamin C. For his medical merits, the Provence Parliament granted Nostradamus a lifetime pension in 1546 and he remained financially independent until the end of his life.
Nostradamus left the site of his family's death and moved to Salon. There he married another woman and had six children with her. Soon he released the first almanac of his Centuries, consisting of 24 quatrains, or poetic puzzles which featured the future of Europe.
The book was a great success. The 1555 issue was completely sold out. One year later, Nostradamus published another section of the Centuries in four parts, each comprising 100 quatrains, or a total of 400 prophecies. He did this every year until the end of his life.
He had been considered the town's lunatic for a long time, until one of his predictions came true in a most striking way.
Here it is: "The young Lion will overcome the old one, in martial field by a single duel. In a golden cage he shall put out his eye."
On July 9, 1559, a solemn spear duel was held in Paris to mark the wedding of the Spanish King to the French King Henry II's daughter. The French King, wearing a gold-plated headgear with the vizor down, took on the young Scottish count Gabriel Montgomery. The count's lance broke against the King's armor and a fragment penetrated the vizor, taking out Henry II's eye and reaching the brain.
The news of the cruel death resounded throughout France.
The Queen was furious and swore to wear mourning for her husband all her life, a promise she kept.
Nostradamus prepared for the worst. But Catherine de Medici spared him. In fact, his fate was reminiscent of Joseph, who was brought to the Egyptian Pharaoh to decipher the meaning of a strange dream. Nostradamus was put in charge of the Queen's children. He soon predicted the new king's death, the enthronement of Catherine's third son, her favorite, the massacre of St. Bartholomew and his own death.
According to Jacques Chauvigny, his biographer, one day he wished good night to Nostradamus as usual, but the great seer replied: "You will not find me alive at sunrise." And that was just what happened.
In the morning of July 1, 1566, Nostradamus lay breathless on the floor in his study. He was 63.
In his testament, the seer wished to be buried in a standing position, adding, however, that some day his bones would be scattered. The prediction came true during the French Revolution, when sans-culottes opened up his grave and scattered his bones to retaliate for his prophesy of the 1792 bloodshed. As soon as the fact was reported to Robespierre, he ordered that the violators be executed immediately and Nostradamus' remains reburied. He had a monument installed on his grave with an inscription that read, To the Prophet of Liberty.
Writer Anatoly Korolev is a member of the Russian PEN Club.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (Anatoly Korolev for RIA Novosti) - In the 505 years since his birth, Nostradamus (December 14, 1503 - July 1, 1566), born Michel de Nostredame, has become one of the most vivid personalities in human history.
If we completely believe his prophecies, we will have to admit that the actual laws of the Universe are different from those accepted by modern science. According to Einstein, time and space are bound together and form a common gravity field, with the future just a point of origin on the coordinate axis, where the present happens simultaneously with the "clock striking on the hour."
According to Nostradamus, our future exists somewhere beyond time; it has almost happened already and is vaguely visible in the distance, first as if through a veil of fog, and then becomes increasingly more clear. Finally, the fog lifts, and with every strike of the clock, the future comes to meet us as our present.
That means that a prophet can see the future by the will of God and tell it to the common people. At a royal audience at the Louvre Palace on September 30, 1555, Nostradamus told King Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici that in foretelling the future, he was just a string of a great violin, played by God. And the violin player uses him to convey information. Why was he chosen? He doesn't know. He is just an ordinary sinner.
Nostradamus' predictions stretch over a period of several thousands of years, from 1555 to 3797. The last part of the Centuries, covering the period from 2300 to 3797, is missing.
What will happen in 2125 according to this book? The last ever Christian and Judaic services will be performed, with religions taking different forms that don't include rituals or ceremonies from then on.
By a twist of fate, the greatest number of Nostradamus' prophecies are related to the 20th century and include the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the murder of the Russian royal family, the rise to power of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, political terror and Holocaust, Nazi Germany and its defeat in World War II, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and other events.
Here is an excerpt on the disintegration of the USSR: "The new Babylon, augmented by the abomination of the first Holocaust, will last no less than 73 years and 7 months."
If we consider the start of the Soviet era as the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks on January 19, 1918, and its end as the 1991 coup, it makes exactly 73 years and 7 months.
His uncanny accuracy is what has made Nostradamus an iconic figure in the 20th century.
He was born into a Jewish family which had converted to Catholicism in St. Rémy, Provence, in southern France. His ancestors were merchants and doctors, and a similar fate was awaiting him. Before getting his doctorate at the Montpellier University, he went under the name of de Nostredame, which means "Holy Mother." Becoming a Doctor gave him the right to assume the Latin version of the name, Nostradamus.
Not much of his biography has survived intact to this day. We know the most about the last period of his life, which was recorded by his disciple and first biographer Jacques Chauvigny. The most important events were Nostradamus' struggle against the plague, the release of his first book of the Centuries, and the sensational prediction of King Henry II's death at a duel in the summer of 1559.
Nostradamus made his first prediction while attending a Catholic school in Avignon. Having seen two young pigs at the barn-yard, a black and a white one, he said the white pig would be killed by a wolf, and the black one served for dinner.
After the rector found out about the prediction, he ordered to have the black pig slaughtered and buried, and to serve the white pig for dinner immediately. The cook rushed to fulfill the order, but was told at the barn-yard that the white pig had been snatched by a wolf, who had entered the barn through the roof, and only the black pig was left. Unsure of what to do, the cook served the black pig for dinner.
But the Medieval world was a small place. Rumors spread quickly and the cook had to confess the truth.
After graduating from Avignon University and getting a Master's degree, Michel moved to Aachen, where was happily married to Agene, and had two children with her. But the plague epidemic swept through the area in 1537, taking the lives of his wife and children.
It was then that Nostradamus had his first revelation.
He spent the next ten years struggling with the plague, saving hundreds of lives from the deadly disease. His formula was simple: fresh air, clean water and lemon juice mixed with water, which contains Vitamin C. For his medical merits, the Provence Parliament granted Nostradamus a lifetime pension in 1546 and he remained financially independent until the end of his life.
Nostradamus left the site of his family's death and moved to Salon. There he married another woman and had six children with her. Soon he released the first almanac of his Centuries, consisting of 24 quatrains, or poetic puzzles which featured the future of Europe.
The book was a great success. The 1555 issue was completely sold out. One year later, Nostradamus published another section of the Centuries in four parts, each comprising 100 quatrains, or a total of 400 prophecies. He did this every year until the end of his life.
He had been considered the town's lunatic for a long time, until one of his predictions came true in a most striking way.
Here it is: "The young Lion will overcome the old one, in martial field by a single duel. In a golden cage he shall put out his eye."
On July 9, 1559, a solemn spear duel was held in Paris to mark the wedding of the Spanish King to the French King Henry II's daughter. The French King, wearing a gold-plated headgear with the vizor down, took on the young Scottish count Gabriel Montgomery. The count's lance broke against the King's armor and a fragment penetrated the vizor, taking out Henry II's eye and reaching the brain.
The news of the cruel death resounded throughout France.
The Queen was furious and swore to wear mourning for her husband all her life, a promise she kept.
Nostradamus prepared for the worst. But Catherine de Medici spared him. In fact, his fate was reminiscent of Joseph, who was brought to the Egyptian Pharaoh to decipher the meaning of a strange dream. Nostradamus was put in charge of the Queen's children. He soon predicted the new king's death, the enthronement of Catherine's third son, her favorite, the massacre of St. Bartholomew and his own death.
According to Jacques Chauvigny, his biographer, one day he wished good night to Nostradamus as usual, but the great seer replied: "You will not find me alive at sunrise." And that was just what happened.
In the morning of July 1, 1566, Nostradamus lay breathless on the floor in his study. He was 63.
In his testament, the seer wished to be buried in a standing position, adding, however, that some day his bones would be scattered. The prediction came true during the French Revolution, when sans-culottes opened up his grave and scattered his bones to retaliate for his prophesy of the 1792 bloodshed. As soon as the fact was reported to Robespierre, he ordered that the violators be executed immediately and Nostradamus' remains reburied. He had a monument installed on his grave with an inscription that read, To the Prophet of Liberty.
Writer Anatoly Korolev is a member of the Russian PEN Club.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
China's mounting pink slips
International Herald Tribune
By Christina Larson Published: January 4, 2009
Set aside Yao Ming and the furry mascots. The buoyant spirit of the 2008 Beijing Olympics already seems like a lifetime ago. A new icon has recently emerged for today's China: the disgruntled, laid-off factory worker, standing dejected outside a shuttered factory, another victim of the global economic downtown.
As startling as these factory closures have been, the fate of another less-heralded figure may be more significant: the laid-off office worker.
After 30 years of nearly continuous, even momentous, economic growth - which has lifted millions out of poverty and bolstered the ruling Chinese Communist Party - the economy's manufacturing base is slipping. Last month, exports dipped for the first time in seven years.
Mounting factory layoffs this year - around 2 million have been sent packing near the factory city of Dongguan alone - have prompted a string of noisy but isolated protests across the country's southern industrial region. The anxious Chinese government has rushed in with bailout money for companies and some compensation for workers. So far, a thousand sparks haven't become a wildfire. Fretful Chinese workers have yet to channel discontent into unified campaigns, or demands for representation in the political sphere. But whether Beijing can so easily mollify the growing apprehension among the country's middle class could be another story entirely.
That workers haven't linked arms factory to factory and city to city may seem anti-climactic. Then again, consider the realities of China's internal politics. Most linemen were farmers five years ago. They are recent migrants to the cities, on the bottom rung of status and expectations. The combination of fragmented social networks, poor education, and gray legal status (most are "unregistered" urban residents) gives them limited power to organize.
Today in Opinion
Obama's Afghan challenge: Build a new allianceRestoring the U.S. Army to full forceExit, stonewallingMany have learned to tolerate poor labor conditions, minimal rights, and dubious payroll practices. They are now reacting, loudly, when shunted aside, but what they're demanding is that employers fork over back pay - not any kind of systematic change.
But China's middle class (now some 100 million to 150 million strong) is a different animal. The country's economic and political fabric will face an unheralded challenge if large numbers of pink slips go to white-collar workers in 2009 - the kind of people who have grown accustomed to having more choices and a higher standard of living.
In recent years, they haven't had many complaints. But when roused, they can potentially punch back. Perhaps the most striking example of citizens exerting direct pressure on national policy came in 2004, when a network of middle-class Chinese environmental activists and lawyers, pointing to Beijing's own "environmental impact assessment law," convinced the government to halt planned dams on China's last wild waterway, the Nu River.
The last time China's middle class really got agitated, of course, was on the heels of another financial crisis. That was in 1989, following a year of spiraling inflation, price shocks, and cash-flow woes. One telling, if unsexy, demand of the university students protesting at Tiananmen was to hold accountable those who caused inflation.
Much has changed in two decades. China's financial managers are far more sophisticated. There are new unemployment and Social Security schemes that, in theory, offer more safety nets to soften the blow for laid-off urban workers. But as Pieter Bottelier of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in Washington points out, those systems, created within the last few years, are still in their nascent stages.
At the same time, there is, on paper, a broader array of options for disgruntled people to blow off steam. In recent years, Beijing has passed regulations that purport to give citizens limited avenues for policy feedback - including posting draft versions of certain "laws closely related to the interests of the people" on government Web sites for public comment. Such channels have so far remained basically dormant (and may well have been created quite cynically), but a prolonged financial slump could raise their profile.
Whether China's middle class will ultimately focus on discreet issues (more unemployment benefits) or broader concerns (more freedom for the media to detail white-collar problems) remains unknown. But the deeper the financial hole, the less likely political complacency.
Christina Larson, a contributing editor at Washington Monthly, reported from China this summer and fall.
By Christina Larson Published: January 4, 2009
Set aside Yao Ming and the furry mascots. The buoyant spirit of the 2008 Beijing Olympics already seems like a lifetime ago. A new icon has recently emerged for today's China: the disgruntled, laid-off factory worker, standing dejected outside a shuttered factory, another victim of the global economic downtown.
As startling as these factory closures have been, the fate of another less-heralded figure may be more significant: the laid-off office worker.
After 30 years of nearly continuous, even momentous, economic growth - which has lifted millions out of poverty and bolstered the ruling Chinese Communist Party - the economy's manufacturing base is slipping. Last month, exports dipped for the first time in seven years.
Mounting factory layoffs this year - around 2 million have been sent packing near the factory city of Dongguan alone - have prompted a string of noisy but isolated protests across the country's southern industrial region. The anxious Chinese government has rushed in with bailout money for companies and some compensation for workers. So far, a thousand sparks haven't become a wildfire. Fretful Chinese workers have yet to channel discontent into unified campaigns, or demands for representation in the political sphere. But whether Beijing can so easily mollify the growing apprehension among the country's middle class could be another story entirely.
That workers haven't linked arms factory to factory and city to city may seem anti-climactic. Then again, consider the realities of China's internal politics. Most linemen were farmers five years ago. They are recent migrants to the cities, on the bottom rung of status and expectations. The combination of fragmented social networks, poor education, and gray legal status (most are "unregistered" urban residents) gives them limited power to organize.
Today in Opinion
Obama's Afghan challenge: Build a new allianceRestoring the U.S. Army to full forceExit, stonewallingMany have learned to tolerate poor labor conditions, minimal rights, and dubious payroll practices. They are now reacting, loudly, when shunted aside, but what they're demanding is that employers fork over back pay - not any kind of systematic change.
But China's middle class (now some 100 million to 150 million strong) is a different animal. The country's economic and political fabric will face an unheralded challenge if large numbers of pink slips go to white-collar workers in 2009 - the kind of people who have grown accustomed to having more choices and a higher standard of living.
In recent years, they haven't had many complaints. But when roused, they can potentially punch back. Perhaps the most striking example of citizens exerting direct pressure on national policy came in 2004, when a network of middle-class Chinese environmental activists and lawyers, pointing to Beijing's own "environmental impact assessment law," convinced the government to halt planned dams on China's last wild waterway, the Nu River.
The last time China's middle class really got agitated, of course, was on the heels of another financial crisis. That was in 1989, following a year of spiraling inflation, price shocks, and cash-flow woes. One telling, if unsexy, demand of the university students protesting at Tiananmen was to hold accountable those who caused inflation.
Much has changed in two decades. China's financial managers are far more sophisticated. There are new unemployment and Social Security schemes that, in theory, offer more safety nets to soften the blow for laid-off urban workers. But as Pieter Bottelier of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in Washington points out, those systems, created within the last few years, are still in their nascent stages.
At the same time, there is, on paper, a broader array of options for disgruntled people to blow off steam. In recent years, Beijing has passed regulations that purport to give citizens limited avenues for policy feedback - including posting draft versions of certain "laws closely related to the interests of the people" on government Web sites for public comment. Such channels have so far remained basically dormant (and may well have been created quite cynically), but a prolonged financial slump could raise their profile.
Whether China's middle class will ultimately focus on discreet issues (more unemployment benefits) or broader concerns (more freedom for the media to detail white-collar problems) remains unknown. But the deeper the financial hole, the less likely political complacency.
Christina Larson, a contributing editor at Washington Monthly, reported from China this summer and fall.
Is Baluchistan the next battleground then?
The year gone by was the bloodiest in a decade for Baluchistan, the country's largest but most impoverished province where a low key insurgency has raged for decades, the Daily Times said. Official data showed a steadily rising level of violence, up from 303 people killed in 2005 to 433 in 2008, the first time killings crossed the 400-mark.
There were 120 bomb blasts, 208 rocket attacks, 141 landmine blasts and 32 hand grenade attacks in the past year, and it could have been worse if the three main Baluch nationalist insurgent groups operating in the area - the BLA, the Baloch Republic Army and Baloch Liberation Front - had not declared ceasefire, the newspaper said. One of them, the BRA, has announced the end of the ceasefire from the New Year accusing the government of of kiling tribesmen.The other two groups may well follow suit, the Daily Times said, warning of a difficult year ahead in the vast sparsely populated desert region that straddles Afghanistan and Iran...
Is Baluchistan the next battleground then?
Reuters Blogs
There were 120 bomb blasts, 208 rocket attacks, 141 landmine blasts and 32 hand grenade attacks in the past year, and it could have been worse if the three main Baluch nationalist insurgent groups operating in the area - the BLA, the Baloch Republic Army and Baloch Liberation Front - had not declared ceasefire, the newspaper said. One of them, the BRA, has announced the end of the ceasefire from the New Year accusing the government of of kiling tribesmen.The other two groups may well follow suit, the Daily Times said, warning of a difficult year ahead in the vast sparsely populated desert region that straddles Afghanistan and Iran...
Is Baluchistan the next battleground then?
Reuters Blogs
January 05, 2009
Gazprom says will cut gas deliveries to Ukraine by amount stolen
21:10 | 05/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW, January 5 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom will reduce its delivery of gas to Ukraine by 65.3 million cubic meters - the volume that has been stolen, the Russian energy giant's CEO said on Monday.
"There is a proposal to reduce deliveries across the Russian-Ukrainian border by the same volume that has been stolen from Russia - 65.3 million cubic meters, and in the future to cut volumes by the amount of gas stolen each day," Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who agreed with the suggestion.
Miller also said that Gazprom was ready to guarantee deliveries to Europe by buying gas on the spot market, and that as well as increasing transit volumes through Belarus, Poland and Turkey, Gazprom would increase volumes of gas taken from underground reservoirs in European countries.
Putin asked who would ultimately pay for the gas. "Naftogaz of Ukraine," Miller replied.
Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday after last-ditch talks with Kiev on a new deal for 2009 and debt repayments failed late on New Year's Eve.
Around 80% of Russia's gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine, and some European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, have reported drops in Russian gas supplied through Ukraine's pipeline network.
Miller has accused Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz of tapping Russian gas, which Ukraine denied, blaming Russia for creating the shortfall by deliberately cutting deliveries to Europe.
The Czech Republic said on Monday that Russian gas supplies had returned to normal after a drop of 5%. Local analysts have hinted that Kiev decided to restore Czech supplies in full to avoid antagonizing the country, which took over the EU presidency on January 1.
With Ukraine's gas debt to Russia from 2008 unresolved and no contract agreed for 2009 deliveries, the issue of Russian gas flowing through Ukrainian pipes to European consumers further west has become contentious.
In response to a claim by Ukraine's energy ministry, the Kiev economic court ruled on Monday that Naftogaz could not pump Russian gas westwards at a price of $1.6 for 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers.
"It means that the contracts to which Gazprom are refering are void," Naftogaz spokesman Valentin Zemlyansky told RIA Novosti.
The ruling was rejected by official Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.
"The resolution of the Kiev economic court is absolutely illegitimate," he said. "Our disputes can only be resolved in Sweden."
Both Gazprom and Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz have said that they will file lawsuits with the Stockholm Arbitration Court, which deals with international commercial legal disputes. The court on Monday said it could not comment on whether it was considering lawsuits from either party in the gas dispute.
MOSCOW, January 5 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom will reduce its delivery of gas to Ukraine by 65.3 million cubic meters - the volume that has been stolen, the Russian energy giant's CEO said on Monday.
"There is a proposal to reduce deliveries across the Russian-Ukrainian border by the same volume that has been stolen from Russia - 65.3 million cubic meters, and in the future to cut volumes by the amount of gas stolen each day," Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who agreed with the suggestion.
Miller also said that Gazprom was ready to guarantee deliveries to Europe by buying gas on the spot market, and that as well as increasing transit volumes through Belarus, Poland and Turkey, Gazprom would increase volumes of gas taken from underground reservoirs in European countries.
Putin asked who would ultimately pay for the gas. "Naftogaz of Ukraine," Miller replied.
Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday after last-ditch talks with Kiev on a new deal for 2009 and debt repayments failed late on New Year's Eve.
Around 80% of Russia's gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine, and some European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, have reported drops in Russian gas supplied through Ukraine's pipeline network.
Miller has accused Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz of tapping Russian gas, which Ukraine denied, blaming Russia for creating the shortfall by deliberately cutting deliveries to Europe.
The Czech Republic said on Monday that Russian gas supplies had returned to normal after a drop of 5%. Local analysts have hinted that Kiev decided to restore Czech supplies in full to avoid antagonizing the country, which took over the EU presidency on January 1.
With Ukraine's gas debt to Russia from 2008 unresolved and no contract agreed for 2009 deliveries, the issue of Russian gas flowing through Ukrainian pipes to European consumers further west has become contentious.
In response to a claim by Ukraine's energy ministry, the Kiev economic court ruled on Monday that Naftogaz could not pump Russian gas westwards at a price of $1.6 for 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers.
"It means that the contracts to which Gazprom are refering are void," Naftogaz spokesman Valentin Zemlyansky told RIA Novosti.
The ruling was rejected by official Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.
"The resolution of the Kiev economic court is absolutely illegitimate," he said. "Our disputes can only be resolved in Sweden."
Both Gazprom and Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz have said that they will file lawsuits with the Stockholm Arbitration Court, which deals with international commercial legal disputes. The court on Monday said it could not comment on whether it was considering lawsuits from either party in the gas dispute.
INDIA: Focus on human intelligence, new SWAT teams as CMs brainstorm on terror today
Indian Express, India
Shishir Gupta
Posted: Jan 06, 2009 at 0424 hrs IST
New Delhi: In a paradigm shift, the Centre has urged Chief Ministers to reactivate human intelligence networks in their states without reducing emphasis on technical intelligence and set up SWAT commando police units for special operations, and informed them of the beefing-up of the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) as the country’s core counter-terror mechanism. The Government has, through a classified order, put both the military and civilian apparatus at the MAC’s disposal in the event of a terrorist threat.
A 27-page agenda paper the Home Ministry has sent to Chief Ministers ahead of Tuesday’s meeting notes that human intelligence has got “considerably eroded” with an “increasing reliance on TechINT, which, although extremely and crucially important in its own place and requiring incremental development of capabilities, can never be a substitute for the former.”
The paper calls for the revival of the beat constable system, and urges state governments to develop domain intelligence by harnessing human resources within the community. Under the head of ‘Preventive Measures and Security Arrangements’, the Government has asked state police forces to carry out detailed security audits of soft targets like malls, multiplexes, hotels, hospitals and mass rapid transit systems with the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureaus in their states.
A key suggestion is to set up Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams to deal with terrorist situations. “Such teams would have the capability of rapid mobilisation, deployment and would have specialised weaponry, training, communications and protective devices.”
The Government has also decided that at least two companies in each of the 134 India Reserve Battalions would now have a commando component. A sum of Rs 6 crore has been approved per battalion.
At the heart of the proposal to enhance the internal security and intelligence apparatus is the December 31, 2008 order defining the role and power of the MAC under the Director, Intelligence Bureau. The order says: “It is necessary and expedient to establish a centre to counter terrorism and terrorist threats and bring under one body all matters relating to gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence pertaining to terrorism, and devising strategies to vacate the threat.”
The Centre has informed Chief Ministers that subsidiary centres would be opened in all states, and that it is imperative that all data and intelligence inputs are forwarded to it.
The decision to redefine the powers of the MAC, originally set up on the recommendation of the Kargil Committee through a December 6, 2001 order, was taken in view of the agency’s failure to live up to its objectives and expectations. “While a (terrorist) database has been built, other aims of MAC have not been achieved; practically no data related to terrorist activities are received from the Central and state security forces and agencies.”
Shishir Gupta
Posted: Jan 06, 2009 at 0424 hrs IST
New Delhi: In a paradigm shift, the Centre has urged Chief Ministers to reactivate human intelligence networks in their states without reducing emphasis on technical intelligence and set up SWAT commando police units for special operations, and informed them of the beefing-up of the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) as the country’s core counter-terror mechanism. The Government has, through a classified order, put both the military and civilian apparatus at the MAC’s disposal in the event of a terrorist threat.
A 27-page agenda paper the Home Ministry has sent to Chief Ministers ahead of Tuesday’s meeting notes that human intelligence has got “considerably eroded” with an “increasing reliance on TechINT, which, although extremely and crucially important in its own place and requiring incremental development of capabilities, can never be a substitute for the former.”
The paper calls for the revival of the beat constable system, and urges state governments to develop domain intelligence by harnessing human resources within the community. Under the head of ‘Preventive Measures and Security Arrangements’, the Government has asked state police forces to carry out detailed security audits of soft targets like malls, multiplexes, hotels, hospitals and mass rapid transit systems with the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureaus in their states.
A key suggestion is to set up Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams to deal with terrorist situations. “Such teams would have the capability of rapid mobilisation, deployment and would have specialised weaponry, training, communications and protective devices.”
The Government has also decided that at least two companies in each of the 134 India Reserve Battalions would now have a commando component. A sum of Rs 6 crore has been approved per battalion.
At the heart of the proposal to enhance the internal security and intelligence apparatus is the December 31, 2008 order defining the role and power of the MAC under the Director, Intelligence Bureau. The order says: “It is necessary and expedient to establish a centre to counter terrorism and terrorist threats and bring under one body all matters relating to gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence pertaining to terrorism, and devising strategies to vacate the threat.”
The Centre has informed Chief Ministers that subsidiary centres would be opened in all states, and that it is imperative that all data and intelligence inputs are forwarded to it.
The decision to redefine the powers of the MAC, originally set up on the recommendation of the Kargil Committee through a December 6, 2001 order, was taken in view of the agency’s failure to live up to its objectives and expectations. “While a (terrorist) database has been built, other aims of MAC have not been achieved; practically no data related to terrorist activities are received from the Central and state security forces and agencies.”
CAN INDIA EMULATE ISRAEL'S ACTION IN GAZA?
B.RAMAN
Ever since Israel started its military strikes in Gaza a week ago to put down the acts of terrorism of the Hamas, there have been demands from sections of analysts and the general public in our country that India should emulate Israel and retaliate in a similar manner against Pakistan for its complicity in the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistani terrorist organisation, in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008.
2. Nobody can question Israel's exercise of its right of self-defence to protect the lives and property of its citizens from rocket attacks from Gaza by the Hamas for weeks and months now. As the Deputy Permanent Representative of the US to the United Nations said in a press interview after the US had refused to join in the condemnation of Israel's action by the UN Security Council: " Israel, like all other members of the UN, has the right of self-defence. This right is not negotiable."
3. Like Israel and other members of the UN, India too has the right of self-defence against acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistani territory and sponsored by the State of Pakistan and has the right to retaliate against Pakistan and the duty to do so to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
4. The question is not whether we should retaliate. We should if we want Pakistan and the horde of terrorists nursed by it to take us seriously. The question is whether a direct military strike will be the wise and appropriate way of retaliating against Pakistan or should we do it through political and diplomatic measures, followed by deniable covert actions if those measures do not make Pakistan change its ways.
5. For many years, Israel has been the victim of acts of terrorism by organisations such as the Hamas and the Hizbollah sponsored mainly by Syria and Iran. Its retaliation has been directed against these terrorist organisations and not against their State-sponsors. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 Israel has indulged in military strikes in the territory of a sovereign state and a member of the UN only on two occasions---- against the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq in the early 1980s and against the Hizbollah's infrastructure in the Lebanese territory in 2006. In the past,Israeli armed forces had operated in Lebanese territory on other occasions too.
6. Its action against Osirak in Iraq was a success, but its action in the Lebanon in 2006 against the Hizbollah was not. Despite its concerns over the nuclear sites in Iran for the production of enriched uranium, Israel has till now avoided any military strikes on these sites despite public pressure from sections of the Israeli people to do so. It did launch an attack on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last year, but as a deniable covert action and not as an admitted military strike.It has also indulged in covert actions against suspected Hamas operatives based in Syria.
7. It is able to indulge in openly admitted military strikes against the Hamas in Gaza because Gaza is not part of any sovereign State. In the past, Israel's retaliatory military strikes have been against terrorist organisations posing a threat to Israeli citizens and property and not against the States sponsoring them. Its actions against States sponsoring terrorism have been in the form of covert actions and not direct military strikes.
8. Practically all States facing the problem of terrorism have a covert action capability because it gives you a third option if political and diplomatic measures fail. If you don't have this capability, the only option you have if political and diplomatic actions fail is a military retaliation, which could be messy when used against a next door neighbour. If you don't use military strikes and if you don't have a covert action capability, the state-sponsor and the terrorists sponsored by it develop a contempt for you.
9. The US has bombed Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan in retaliation for their perceived anti-US acts, but it never does it against Cuba, its next door neighbour. It has declared Cuba a state-sponsor of terrorism and constantly keeps trying to undermine Cuba's political stability and economy, but avoids direct military action against it despite its being a super power because it knows it could be messy.
10. It is hoped the Government draws the right lessons from its dilemma after Mumbai and tries to revive quikly our covert action capability, which was discarded more than a decade ago as an ill-conceived unilateral gesture to Pakistan.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com ) Reply Reply to all Forward
Posted by B.RAMAN at 1:27 AM 1 comments
Sunday, January 4, 2009
LTTE: ONE MORE Q & A
B.RAMAN
Q.It was really interesting to read your recent article (LTTE after Klinochchi –Q&A) as well as past articles. But I would be happy if you can send me answer for my question. The War will mark major turn if the LTTE air men strike Kamikaze type attack on Colombo or other important places and military bases in Sri Lanka?
A.I am sure the LTTE must be examining the various options available to it. At present, it has very little opportunity for offensive action in the North when it is relentlessly under pressure from the Sri Lankan Army. However, it has the option of unconventional offensive strikes in other fronts far removed from the North. One such front could be Colombo. Another Trincomallee. The third Hambantota where the Chinese are reportedly constructing a modern port for Sri Lanka. Very often, turning points in unconventional warfare come when the terrorists start attacking the economic infrastructure. One saw this in the British fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Mrs.Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister in the 1980s, took a very strong line against the IRA and waged a no-holds-barred campaign against it in Northern Ireland. The IRA managed to carry the fight to London and carried out some explosions in London's finance district where the offices of leading British banks are located. This led to a more nuanced policy towards the IRA instead of relying exclusively on brute force. One of the objectives of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan in attacking Mumbai on November 26-29 was to try to damage India's economic growth. The LTTE must be trying hard for mounting kamikazee type attacks on military---particularly Air Force ---targets in Colombo similar to its raid on the SLAF base in Anuradhapura. The fact that it has not succeeded so far would indicate that the physical security for such establishments is strong and that the LTTE is facing shortages of the required materials for such attacks. One notices that the LTTE has not yet used all the weapons in its arsenal. It has apparently retained for itself an element of ultimate surprise.
Ever since Israel started its military strikes in Gaza a week ago to put down the acts of terrorism of the Hamas, there have been demands from sections of analysts and the general public in our country that India should emulate Israel and retaliate in a similar manner against Pakistan for its complicity in the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistani terrorist organisation, in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008.
2. Nobody can question Israel's exercise of its right of self-defence to protect the lives and property of its citizens from rocket attacks from Gaza by the Hamas for weeks and months now. As the Deputy Permanent Representative of the US to the United Nations said in a press interview after the US had refused to join in the condemnation of Israel's action by the UN Security Council: " Israel, like all other members of the UN, has the right of self-defence. This right is not negotiable."
3. Like Israel and other members of the UN, India too has the right of self-defence against acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistani territory and sponsored by the State of Pakistan and has the right to retaliate against Pakistan and the duty to do so to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
4. The question is not whether we should retaliate. We should if we want Pakistan and the horde of terrorists nursed by it to take us seriously. The question is whether a direct military strike will be the wise and appropriate way of retaliating against Pakistan or should we do it through political and diplomatic measures, followed by deniable covert actions if those measures do not make Pakistan change its ways.
5. For many years, Israel has been the victim of acts of terrorism by organisations such as the Hamas and the Hizbollah sponsored mainly by Syria and Iran. Its retaliation has been directed against these terrorist organisations and not against their State-sponsors. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 Israel has indulged in military strikes in the territory of a sovereign state and a member of the UN only on two occasions---- against the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq in the early 1980s and against the Hizbollah's infrastructure in the Lebanese territory in 2006. In the past,Israeli armed forces had operated in Lebanese territory on other occasions too.
6. Its action against Osirak in Iraq was a success, but its action in the Lebanon in 2006 against the Hizbollah was not. Despite its concerns over the nuclear sites in Iran for the production of enriched uranium, Israel has till now avoided any military strikes on these sites despite public pressure from sections of the Israeli people to do so. It did launch an attack on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last year, but as a deniable covert action and not as an admitted military strike.It has also indulged in covert actions against suspected Hamas operatives based in Syria.
7. It is able to indulge in openly admitted military strikes against the Hamas in Gaza because Gaza is not part of any sovereign State. In the past, Israel's retaliatory military strikes have been against terrorist organisations posing a threat to Israeli citizens and property and not against the States sponsoring them. Its actions against States sponsoring terrorism have been in the form of covert actions and not direct military strikes.
8. Practically all States facing the problem of terrorism have a covert action capability because it gives you a third option if political and diplomatic measures fail. If you don't have this capability, the only option you have if political and diplomatic actions fail is a military retaliation, which could be messy when used against a next door neighbour. If you don't use military strikes and if you don't have a covert action capability, the state-sponsor and the terrorists sponsored by it develop a contempt for you.
9. The US has bombed Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan in retaliation for their perceived anti-US acts, but it never does it against Cuba, its next door neighbour. It has declared Cuba a state-sponsor of terrorism and constantly keeps trying to undermine Cuba's political stability and economy, but avoids direct military action against it despite its being a super power because it knows it could be messy.
10. It is hoped the Government draws the right lessons from its dilemma after Mumbai and tries to revive quikly our covert action capability, which was discarded more than a decade ago as an ill-conceived unilateral gesture to Pakistan.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com ) Reply Reply to all Forward
Posted by B.RAMAN at 1:27 AM 1 comments
Sunday, January 4, 2009
LTTE: ONE MORE Q & A
B.RAMAN
Q.It was really interesting to read your recent article (LTTE after Klinochchi –Q&A) as well as past articles. But I would be happy if you can send me answer for my question. The War will mark major turn if the LTTE air men strike Kamikaze type attack on Colombo or other important places and military bases in Sri Lanka?
A.I am sure the LTTE must be examining the various options available to it. At present, it has very little opportunity for offensive action in the North when it is relentlessly under pressure from the Sri Lankan Army. However, it has the option of unconventional offensive strikes in other fronts far removed from the North. One such front could be Colombo. Another Trincomallee. The third Hambantota where the Chinese are reportedly constructing a modern port for Sri Lanka. Very often, turning points in unconventional warfare come when the terrorists start attacking the economic infrastructure. One saw this in the British fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Mrs.Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister in the 1980s, took a very strong line against the IRA and waged a no-holds-barred campaign against it in Northern Ireland. The IRA managed to carry the fight to London and carried out some explosions in London's finance district where the offices of leading British banks are located. This led to a more nuanced policy towards the IRA instead of relying exclusively on brute force. One of the objectives of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan in attacking Mumbai on November 26-29 was to try to damage India's economic growth. The LTTE must be trying hard for mounting kamikazee type attacks on military---particularly Air Force ---targets in Colombo similar to its raid on the SLAF base in Anuradhapura. The fact that it has not succeeded so far would indicate that the physical security for such establishments is strong and that the LTTE is facing shortages of the required materials for such attacks. One notices that the LTTE has not yet used all the weapons in its arsenal. It has apparently retained for itself an element of ultimate surprise.
INDIA : The Covert Option
India should build up its psychological and cyber warfare to thwart terrorism
VIKRAM SOOD
02 Jan 2009
This time, in Mumbai, the enormity of the ongoing tragedy really hit ‘us’. The debate about the how and why and what to do next has been on for a month now, unlike in the past when bomb blasts and killings were about ‘them’ and handled by the ‘others’. Shaken from the secure comfort of our opulence and tearful of the loss of fancy places to eat, few of us realise that in the year that has gone by, 1,007 civilians and 368 security forces personnel were killed in terrorist-related violence all over the country. There are a few important lessons from this and one can only hope that the extreme anger of November will translate into cold determination for the future.
One has also to be realistic about countering terrorism. Like crime, it will never disappear completely, no matter what laws and agencies we have. It can only be deterred and contained. The Mumbai massacres are undoubtedly a lesson about our vulnerabilities, our huge security gaps, our disjointed reaction, our media hype and our weak response to Pakistan. As a result, we are today seeing the unfortunate spectacle of Pakistan, the obvious suspect in this case and many others that have preceded this, stealing the ground from under us and screaming that Islam and Pakistan are under threat from India. The suspect has changed the rules of the debate and smuggled in Kashmir into the equation.
Mumbai happened even though there was a semblance of some intelligence, but no one connected the dots. We may not be lucky next time, and there will be a next time unless we do several things in the short term and others in the long term. Every terrorist attack is a learning experience for the terrorist and he comes back stronger and deadlier. Unfortunately, the State learns less.
We must also admit that quite a few of the things that happen or do not happen do so because of the way we are. The contempt the citizen has for the law in India is visible on our streets all over the country, and the state shows its indifference when it fails to correct this. It is a sad reflection on our polity that promises bijli, sadak and paani (electricity, roads and water) as an election slogan 60 years after Independence. Obviously, the State has receded when we find that those who have the means no longer depend upon it. They get themselves a generator when the State does not supply electricity, dig tube wells when there is no water, and hire private guards when there is no security.
Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata’s comment — “We will protect ourselves and we will try to deter such activities again and we will seek external expertise for the same’’ — has a significance that may have escaped many. What he is saying in effect is that India will have to move up from the present system of merely gated communities with unarmed guards to a system where the corporate sector must learn to anticipate and protect itself against lethal attacks. In a sense it means that the State will not or cannot protect or provide security to all its national assets. Possibly this means entering into the sphere of corporate warriors where each big corporate house has its own security apparatus more in the style of Blackwater, Dyncorp or Vinnel of the US. It was Dyncorp personnel who provided security to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in the initial days. Considerable security work has been outsourced in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to private warriors. Maybe that is the need of the hour because the first thing that we need to do in the short term is to protect ourselves and to make our vulnerable national assets invulnerable.
This would leave the State free to handle those responsible for spreading terror. This means taking on Pakistan differently from the way we have in recent years. Talking peace with Pakistan may be necessary, but we should not delude ourselves into assuming that Pakistan’s attitude will change. With a 7,500-km sea frontier and porous land borders, we will always be vulnerable to terrorist attacks launched by an implacable foe. They cannot be guarded by good intentions and fond hopes. Pakistan has been fighting a proxy war especially after 1971 at places and times of its choosing. It is a total war against India and we must treat it so. Other than adopting defensive postures, we have done precious little to teach the perpetrator a lesson.
Getting ready for Pakistan and its terrorists extends beyond modernising the armed forces with the latest aircraft, tanks or submarines. It means above all ensuring a highly professional and sharp intelligence capability. It means equipping our specialised forces with the most lethal and suitable equipment, and keeping them agile, trained and mobile for all times. It means empowering the local state units adequately in every sense of the word to be the first respondents in a crisis. It means developing a covert option.
This probably sounds sinister, but a country’s national interests are protected by hard-nosed realism and not by soft options. A State is respected by others only if it is able to protect its interests and project its power. If India is seen to be soft and weak by our neighbours, we will lose respect even here. The covert option is something many States have and they use it, too. The Americans are quite free and easy in announcing that they have set aside funds to destabilise an unfriendly regime. The same rules do not apply to us but the principles of trade craft are usable.
Covert action can be of various kinds. One is the paramilitary option, which is what the Pakistanis have been using against us. It is meant to hurt, destabilise or retaliate. The second is the psychological war option, which is a very potent and unseen force. It is an all weather option and constitutes essentially changing perceptions of friends and foes alike. The media is a favourite instrument, provided it is not left to the bureaucrats because then we will end up with some clumsy and implausible propaganda effort. More than the electronic and print media, it is now the internet and YouTube that can be the next-generation weapons of psychological war. Terrorists use these liberally and so should those required to counter terrorism.
The third weapon in the covert option is the use of cyber techniques. This is an ability to intercept cyber networks and communications, cripple systems and carry out counter attacks on the enemy’s systems. In a country that boasts its brain power, it should not be difficult to find such expertise.
Despite the latest drama on our borders, future wars are unlikely to engage massive armies locked in prolonged battle for real estate. Attacks could be of the Mumbai kind or come by stealth, master-minded by some computer whiz kid and the targets are our ways of life. Unless the State learns to be flexible and agile, and unless there is full international cooperation, it will always be an uphill struggle with the peak never really visible. The covert option is more than just blowing bridges and killing innocents. At all times, it should form part of a State’s armoury. It takes years to build this capability and just a few weeks to destroy this.
The author is a former secretary of Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW)
(Businessworld Issue 06-12 January 2009)
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