The collapse of the Shimla Accord

Inder Malhotra | June 9, 2014

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto reneged on his commitment to Indira Gandhi much earlier than some had anticipated.

Shortly after the shining victory in the 1971 Bangladesh war, Indira Gandhi embarked on the more arduous task of restoring peace with India’s western neighbour. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, prime minister of what was earlier only the western wing of the larger Pakistan, needed a settlement a lot more acutely. Both sides knew, however, that their objectives were conflicting and therefore difficult to achieve. Gandhi wanted a final solution of the Kashmir issue once and for all. Bhutto aimed at getting back the 93,000 prisoners of war and 5,000 square kilometres of his country’s territory under Indian possession.

Consequently, there were intense “preparatory” negotiations between Gandhi’s trusted aide, D.P. Dhar, and Aziz Ahmed, a hardline Pakistani foreign secretary so liked by Bhutto that he was made minister of state for both foreign affairs and defence, controlled by the Pakistani prime minister himself. Only much later it became known that these conversations were preceded by “informal talks in London” between Gandhi’s principal aide, P.N. Haksar, and two of Bhutto’s emissaries. Before the two prime ministers met at Shimla in the last week of June 1972, Dhar and Ahmed had agreed on two points: to convert the UN-sponsored Ceasefire Line in Jammu and Kashmir into the Line of Control to be “respected” by both sides, and settling all disputes through peaceful and bilateral means.

In Shimla, Pakistan was tersely told that while India would readily return all Pakistani territory it had captured during the war, nothing of the kind would be done in relation to the areas in Kashmir that had been won. As for the 93,000 PoWs, Gandhi told Bhutto, politely but firmly, that they could not be returned without the consent of Bangladesh, which had not yet been recognised by Pakistan, and was determined to put at least 195 Pakistani officers and men “on trial for war crimes”. (It was a year later that, as a result of a trilateral agreement between India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, the PoWs were sent home without anyone having to face a trial.)

On recognising the LoC in J&K as a permanent border between India and Pakistan and thus settling the Kashmir problem on the basis of status quo, Bhutto’s position was that no ruler of Pakistan could accept this and hope to “survive”. At the same time, he pleaded that he could not go back “empty handed”. Of course, he promised to “forget the past and forge an entirely new relationship with India”. No wonder, the failure of the Shimla conference was announced on the evening of July 2. However, as often happens during India-Pakistan parleys, Bhutto suggested, after a dinner hosted for him by Gandhi, that the two of them should make a “last-ditch” effort to break the deadlock.

The North-eastern challenge

 

Published: June 9, 2014
Sanjoy Hazarika

In a region like the North-east, where few groups actually constitute a numerical majority, the State has been involved in unending and fatiguing efforts to deal with a cycle of demands and counter-demands

The recent attacks and killings in Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya by armed non-State groups represent a challenge and test for the Narendra Modi government and the need to understand the frustrating complexities of the North-eastern region.

Things are not being made easy after strident demands by the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party MPs from Assam to rid the State of “Bangladeshis,” a phrase that many from the minority community say is aimed at targeting them, irrespective of nationality, and one that can swiftly turn into a security nightmare not just for governments in Delhi and Dispur, but also for ordinary people caught up in a storm. For a moment, the “Bangladeshi” issue has moved away from the headlines because of other events that have captured public attention.

A Superintendent of Police in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district was shot dead when his tiny unit was engaged in a fight with an armed group wanting a separate state for the Karbi community in the jungles of Assam’s eastern hills — the second major setback that the police in the State have suffered, an Additional Superintendent having fallen earlier to the bullets of an armed faction from the Bodo tribe.

Some 400 kilometres west of Karbi Anglong, blurred images emerge of a woman who was executed gangland style execution after she resisted rape by men from the “Garo National Liberation Army” in Meghalaya. The GNLA was launched five years back by a former police officer, who is now in police custody. But the group is still active, extorting funds, and carrying out strikes against security forces and civilians.Rise of insurgent factions

The law and order situation in the Garo Hills, the home district of Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, is such that a top official says that his men could not have moved to the village of the murdered woman at night as they got word of a possible attack on police convoys. They got the news when the woman’s family walked into a police station and told them what had happened. This is a poor reflection of police capacity, underscoring the need for better equipment as well as strong political leadership.

These issues underline both the ethnic and social complexity of the North-eastern region, home to over 200 ethnic communities, as well as how political mobilisation and armed violence have changed in these past years. While the principal militant factions have been sitting at the negotiating table with New Delhi or in “designated camps” for years, be it the Nagas, Assamese, Karbis, Bodos and Garos, they are being sharply challenged by smaller, more violent, breakaway factions.

Armed with new weapons which are easily available in the illegal small arms markets in the region, combined with new technology and better connectivity, these groups are demonstrating the seamless manner in which they can move across State borders.

Counter-Terrorism: The Deal With The Devil That Terrifies Asia

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20140608.aspx

June 8, 2014: Pakistan’s long (since the 1970s) support of Islamic terrorism has made it something of a pariah to all its neighbors. This is because Pakistan appears to have lost control of the Islamic terrorist groups it has provided support and sanctuary to for so long. This puts all the neighbors at greater risk of attack by Islamic terrorists who still operate out of bases in Pakistan. Those threatened include India, Afghanistan, China, Iran, the Moslem Central Asian nations and, worst of all, non-Moslem nations worldwide. Especially since September 11, 2001 Pakistan was increasingly and often publically criticized for its terrorism policy. This became more common since 2011 as many of the terrorists it supported have declared war on their host and the neighbors have concluded that Pakistan has lost control of the terrorism monster it created. Now the neighbors are discussing this situation with each other and international organizations. Pakistan appears unable to fix itself or deal with the international terror threat it created.

Pakistan is still reluctant to admit it is the cause of so many problems but the neighbors are not being very understanding. China, who supplies a lot of Pakistan’s weapons and foreign investment, has told its troublesome neighbor to fix the situation or see China go from being a helpful to a hostile neighbor. The other neighbors have had a similar reaction, but given China’s place as Pakistan’s most important ally, Pakistan can no longer ignore the problem.

Yet the Pakistani government really does not have a lot of control over the situation. That’s because its intelligence service, the ISI (Inter Service Intelligence agency) is supposed to be controlling the terrorists but is itself out of control and few politicians want to mess with the ISI. It wasn't always that way. The ISI was created in 1948 as a reaction to the inability of the IB (Intelligence Bureau, which collected intelligence on foreign countries in general) and MI (Military Intelligence, which collected intel on military matters) to work together and provide useful information for senior government officials. The ISI was supposed to take intel from IB and MI, analyze it and present it to senior government officials. But in the 1950s, the government began to use the ISI to collect intel inside Pakistan, especially on those suspected of opposing the current government. This eventually backfired, and in the 1970s, the ISI was much reduced by a civilian government. But when another coup took place in 1977 and the new military government decided that religion was the cure for what ailed the country and that ISI would be expanded to make this work. That meant encouraging Islamic clergy and groups to become even more active in politics and for Islamic terrorist groups to accept cash and other help from the government. The deal with the devil was made and there was, at least for the Islamic radicals, no going back.

What kept this nasty arrangement going for so long was the fact that until quite recently elected and military government alternated running Pakistan. Typically, the Pakistani generals seized control of the government every decade or so, when the corruption and incompetence of elected officials becomes too much for the military men to tolerate. The generals never did much better, and eventually there are elections, and the cycle continued. The generals controlled ISI and supported the pro-Islamic terrorism policy. Civilian government never had sufficient time or will to shut down ISI. The latest iteration began in 1999, when the army took over, and was voted out of power nine years later, pretty much on schedule. There followed, for the first time, another election that had one civilian government replace another. This has upset the generals considerably. Civilian governments tend to be hostile to the ISI, and apparently they are making a real effort to clear out many of the Islamic radicals in the ISI this time around. Then again, recent attempts by the government to take control of the ISI backfired when the generals said they would not allow it. Nothing is simple in Pakistan but this time is different and the ISI feels it is facing a grave threat.

Counter-Terrorism: The Hidden Menace In Pakistan

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20140605.aspx

June 5, 2014: Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is largely a Pushtun problem and is rarely noted outside the region. Pakistani Islamic terrorists are most often noticed when they kill people or blow something up. Most of this mayhem is caused by the Taliban, an organization formed by the Pakistani military in the early 1990s inside the Pakistani tribal territories. The membership was almost entirely Afghan Pushtuns living in refugee camps. After 2001 a Pakistani branch of the Taliban (staffed by Pakistani Pushtuns) was formed. Largely unnoticed (outside of Pakistan) is the fact that the Pushtuns have also been responsible for a lot more of the non-Islamic criminal activity inside Pakistan as well as most of the Islamic terrorism..

What is remarkable about this is that the Pushtun tribes comprise only 15 percent of the Pakistani population and are also the poorest and least educated minority. A unique feature of Pakistan is that it's 165 million people are all minorities, although the Punjabis (44 percent of the population) are the dominant one (not just in numbers, but in education and income as well). Closely allied with the Punjabis are the Sindis (14 percent), and together these two groups pretty much run the country. Karachi, the largest city in Pakistani, is in Sind, but contains residents from all over the country. Then there are Seraikis (10.5 percent, related to Punjabis), Muhajirs (7.6 percent, Moslems who came from India after 1947), Baluchis (3.6 percent) and other minorities amounting to about five percent. The Seraikis and Muhajirs live in Punjab and Sind.

Since September 11, 2001 there have been a lot more Pushtun fleeing to Pakistan's largest city, Karachi. This metropolis contains eight percent of the nation's population (14 million people) and produces a quarter of the GDP. Islamic radicals have long been present in the city. The Taliban have established a presence among the two million Pushtuns there. But a lot of the criminal gangs in Karachi are Pushtun and these are the gangs the Taliban often work closely with. Moreover there are now more murders in Karachi than in the tribal territories and this has been a trend since 2010. Finally, in 2013, the number of terrorist deaths in the northwestern tribal territories fell below 2,000 and the murders in Karachi rose above 2,000. Pakistani security forces are acutely aware of who is doing most of the mayhem.

A lot of the violence in Karachi is the result of the Taliban trying to prevent the police from stopping the Pushtun radicals establishing save havens in Karachi. The Taliban are succeeding at this, and many Islamic terrorist attacks in non-tribal Pakistan (where over 90 percent of the population is) are coming out of Karachi Pushtun neighborhoods. The Pushtun gangsters cooperate with the Taliban to keep the police out of Pushtun neighborhoods.

Electronic Weapons: The All Seeing Towers Of Iraq

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/articles/20140607.aspx

June 7, 2014:

Iraq recently bought seven Aerostats and 14 RAID towers from the United States in order to provide persistent vidcam and radar surveillance of large areas. The aerostats and towers were key American security tools in Iraq and Afghanistan where the U.S. used over 300 towers and dozens of aerostats. Some American allies used this equipment as well. Iraq is paying about $90 million for the aerostats, towers, sensors, associated equipment, training, spare parts and tech support.

The aerostats (tethered blimps) float at about 300 meters (a thousand feet) up, tethered by a cable that provides power and communications to the radar and day/night vidcams up there. The cameras can see out to 80 kilometers at that altitude, less than half that with a radar. The major problem is not weather, but ground fire from rifles and machine-guns. Locals like using the blimps as targets. Rifle fire won't destroy the blimps, but does cause them to be brought down more frequently for repairs. Normally, the blimps can stay up for 30 days at a time, but the bullet hole repairs can cause them to be brought down every few days.

Shorter steel tower systems also suffer gunfire damage, but rarely any that damages the equipment. It was soon found that tower mounted cameras were just as good as the aerostats, in most situation, and much cheaper. Thus there are more than twenty times as many tower systems as aerostat based ones in use.

In Iraq and Afghanistan the towers were introduced in 2003 and the aerostats a year later. The U.S. would set up the towers even for temporary bases. The tower provides the equivalent of a permanent UAV presence, which, just by being there, tends to discourage attacks, or any misbehavior in the vicinity of the base. The tallest tower is 32 meters (107 feet) tall allowing cameras to spot vehicles up to 25 kilometers away. Great for keeping an eye on thinly populated areas in a desert, which western Iraq has plenty of. The nine meter (30 foot) tower can see out to eleven kilometers, the 18 meter (60 foot) tower out to 16 kilometers and 25.5 meter (84 foot) tower out to 20 kilometers. The nine meter tower was adequate for most situations, which usually involved guarding a base, but the taller towers also served as a communications relay for widely dispersed troops. The towers were designed to be easily taken apart or erected by troops.

Reforming the European project

June 9, 2014

Parvathi Menon

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/reforming-the-european-project/article6095018.ece

The victory of Eurosceptic parties has underscored the need for the reform of a bloated institutional conglomerate with excessive overreach

The current tussle within the countries of the European Union over the choice of the next head of the powerful European Commission is but a fallout of the recent European Parliament elections that showed a popular surge in favour of Eurosceptic parties.

In fact, the results to the European elections came close on the heels of an even bigger electoral exercise in another and very different part of the world. The Indian and European Parliament elections could not have been more different in terms of purpose, scale and organisation. And yet, there are some commonalities like voter impetus. In both instances, the vote contained a clear anti-establishment message. Interestingly enough, voters in India and Europe, in separate but similar voices, rejected the policy packages that had adversely impacted their national economies and lives in the last five years.

Disenchantment

Another common feature of both elections was that the parties that were most effective in directing their campaigns toward the victims of the economic crises drew the biggest electoral dividends. Unlike India, in Europe it was not just the Right that rode on on the prevailing anti-establishment mood; the Left too played that role.

The European Parliament comprises 751 directly elected members, thus making it one of the largest democratically elected assemblies in the world. Together with other institutions of the European Union, its vast and expanding legislative and executive control over national governments is the reason behind the growing opposition to it.

Thus, the election results reflect popular disenchantment with the EU and the national governments that support it. It was a vote of protest against the economic crisis that has gripped the Eurozone and resulted in rising unemployment and economic hardship for a growing number of citizens.

The voter turnout varied quite sharply across countries, with the average at 43.09 per cent — marginally higher than in 2009.

The parties on the right of the political spectrum performed better in the richer countries of northern Europe where the impact of the economic crisis has been less sharply felt. This broad group includes established pro-EU centre-right parties — Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition led by the Christian Democratic Union, for example — plus Eurosceptic, ultra-nationalist parties that represent the hard right.

It is the perceived surge in support of hard-right parties that has been read as a key outcome of the elections. These parties played on working class insecurities in developed EU economies over immigration flows from poorer, debt-ridden Europe economies.

INDIA: GENERALSHIP AND THE NORTHEAST – ANALYSIS

JUNE 6, 2014 

IPCS 

Source Link

By IPCS

By Ashok Behuria , AS Lamba

An article by Thangkhanlal Ngaihte, an independent researcher, draws a negative dimension in its exhortation of linking the appointment of a General to oversee the Northeast-specific ministry in a perspective of Generalship, and alleging that this symbolises the BJP Government’s view of the need for military control over a “troubled region with the loyalty of its people being suspect.” He also alludes to Sanjib Barua’s reference to the practice of sending “Generals as Governors”.

Interpreting the Indian Army’s long history of involvement in the Northeast as one of just quelling the people is as naïve as forgetting the true causes of insurgency and turbulence between the tribes, states and the people, and as much a grave misgiving as the Army’s first induction in 1949 in the face of the Naga Revolt. The Indian Army’s acrimony towards the people of the Northeast has often been focused on and flogged endlessly, giving adverse publicity to the Army, but the ironic truth lies far from this perception. The history of conflict and military presence in this region needs to be put into perspective.

The phenomenon of conflict in this region can be traced back to the tenth century. WW Hunter (1879), the British Administrator, observed that the Northeast witnessed constant friction and tension between numerous ethnic groups, tribes and peoples from the tenth through the eighteenth centuries, leading to a series of wars with the Chutiyas, Ahoms, Kacharis, Tripuris, Meiteis, Mons, Burmese, Shuns and others. The accounts of Elwin (1962, 1964), Furer Haimendorf (1969, 1976), Hutton (1921), Mills (1922, 1926, 1937) and other British administrators also show that various ethnic groups, for example the Angami, Sema, Lotha, Ao, Rengma and Konyak and other Naga tribes were involved in feuds, inter-khel (clan) quarrels and headhunting. About Arunachal Pradesh, Elwin (1964:13) wrote: “In temper aggressive, reserved and suspicious, they have quarrelled among themselves for generations; there are still old blood-feuds taking their toll of human life and cattle-theft had long been common.”

The Indian Army’s bond with the Northeast is older than even people from the region would know. It is pertinent to recall that the EIC (East India Company) troops predominantly comprised soldiers recruited from Eastern India till the 1857 revolt. As the Eastern India publication of Princely States’ contribution to the Indian Army (2009) recalls, Cooch Behar, Tripura, and Manipur sent soldiers to take part in WW-I, the 1st Tripura Bir Bikram Manikya Rifles and the Tripura Mahabir Legion were part of the Burma campaign in 1943, and the Bihar Regiment and Assam Regiment troops participated in WW-II. When these small armies were disbanded, Communist and other militant movements in the Northeast drew recruits and arms from some of these, sowing the seeds of conflict.

Security Concerns: A 'Threat to Sino-Pak Friendship'?

Plus the Tiananmen anniversary and the Pentagon’s China report. Friday China links. 

By Shannon Tiezzi

June 06, 2014

http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/security-concerns-a-threat-to-sino-pak-friendship/

This week’s China links:

A commentary in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper expresses concern over a “threat to Sino-Pak friendship.” The article points to terrorism and other security threats as a major issue in China-Pakistan relationship. Of China’s three major concerns regarding the China-Pakistan economic corridor, only one actually has the potential to derail the project entirely: Beijing’s security concerns.

Chinese leaders are concerned about the potential for terrorists trained in Pakistan reentering and conducting attacks in China, but they are just as worried that Pakistan’s government will be unable to guarantee the safety of Chinese workers within Pakistan. In fact, the recent kidnapping of a Chinese tourist in Balochistan seems to have inspired the Dawn commentary.

The article concludes by saying that Chinese analysts hope for Islamabad to take military action against militants in the tribal areas, where the leaders of the anti-China Turkestan Islmaic Party (TIP) are also believed to be based. And Pakistan cannot afford to ignore Chinese pressure on this issue; as the piece notes, “China is investing around $52 billion in major projects in Pakistan.”

In other news, this week marked the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. In case you missed it, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post has an excellent multimedia collection called “Voices from Tiananmen.” The page includes accounts from “former government officials, student leaders and other eyewitnesses” as well as photographs, videos, and newspaper clippings from 1989. It’s well worth checking out, as is the website of the excellent 1995 documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace. Of course, The Diplomat had plenty of coverage as well. Check out Zach Keck’s summary of comments by Winston Lord, the U.S. Ambassador to China in 1989, and histake on the odds of a modern-day Tiananmen movement. In a Diplomat feature, Tim Robertson explores the protestors’ demands beyond calls for democracy, and how modern China has (or hasn’t) lived up to those demands. 

Meanwhile, Global Times provides an oblique rebuttal to the coverage of the Tiananmen protests in an articlearguing that Chinese youth are “not a generation of ‘Square People.’” The article parrots the typical line that today’s Chinese are more interested in material goods than in politics, but says this is not due to indifference. Rather, GT argues China’s youth are quite concerned with social problems such as the plight of migrant workers and environmental protection.

The Foreign Policy Essay: What Pakistanis Think About U.S. Drone Strikes and Why

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/06/the-foreign-policy-essay-what-pakistanis-think-about-u-s-drone-strikes-and-why/

By C. Christine Fair, Karl Kaltenthaler and William J. Miller

June 1, 2014

Editor’s Note: The Pakistani people’s deep opposition to U.S. drone strikes against targets in Pakistan is common wisdom, and some observers see the associated anger as a major source of the country’s rampant anti-Americanism. C. Christine Fair, Karl Kaltenthaler, and William J. Miller challenge this conventional wisdom, pointing out the (many) flaws in polling data from which this conventional wisdom is drawn and suggesting that drone strikes, while not exactly popular, are not high on the list of concerns for most Pakistanis.

Since 2004, the United States has employed weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as “drones,” to kill alleged terrorists in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The program is controversial in Pakistan and has further strained U.S.-Pakistan ties. Although drone strikes irritate an already sensitive U.S.-Pakistan relationship, commentators often depict the strikes as the single most significant aggravation. This view is buttressed by the belief—which has become a truism in Western and even Pakistani media—that not only do most Pakistanis know about the program, they overwhelmingly oppose it.

In a recent article published in Political Science Quarterly, we report that this conventional wisdom about Pakistanis’ universal opposition to the drones is not empirically supported. Pew data from 2010demonstrate that nearly two-thirds of Pakistanis have never heard of the drone program, despite the extensive media coverage it has received in Pakistan and beyond. (Since drafting this paper, Pew has released newer data. However, at the time of writing and analysis, this was the most recent data available.) We conclude that Pakistani public opinion is less informed and much less unanimous than is often presumed.

We examined Pakistani media coverage of the drone program to draw out the arguments advanced in what we call an “elite discourse” about drones. We argue that this discourse is elite because most Pakistanis do not obtain information from newspapers (in any language) due to illiteracy: Only 55% of Pakistanis over the age of fifteen years of age can read and write. We augment this Pakistan-focused research with the scholarly literature on public opinion formation, which contends that societal and political elites play a large role in shaping what the public thinks about policy issues, particularly policy issues they do not understand very well. Our analysis suggests that the Pakistani debate over drones is waged among elites, who nonetheless differ in key ways, such as level of education, literacy in English, and access to non-Urdu media.

Drawing from our examination of Pakistani media coverage and the scholarly literature on public opinion formation, we put forward several hypotheses about who will oppose the program and why. We tested these hypotheses using data from the 2010 Pew Global Attitudes survey, which included questions about drone strikes in Pakistan. To determine the factors that predict support or opposition to the program, we leverage several questions in the Pew data, which we use variously for our dependent and explanatory variables in a Heckman probit model. We use Heckman to account for the selection effects described below.

The first question we examine is: How much, if anything, have you heard about the drone attacks that target leaders of extremist groups – a lot, little, or nothing at all? Of the responses, the largest category was nothing at all, with 43%. Don’t know/refused was the second largest response category with 22%. Of those who responded that they knew something about the drones, 21% said they knew a little and 14% said they knew a lot. Thus, in 2010, only 35% of the sample claimed that they knew something about the drone program, whereas 43% stated they knew nothing about it. Clearly, a minority of Pakistanis in these data are familiar with the drone strikes. This is the gateway question: if a respondent answers nothing at all or does not answer the question they are not asked the subsequent questions about the drone strikes. If they answer, a lot or a little, they are asked what they think about the drone strikes.

Afghanistan: Not for us to clean up.

Mohan Guruswamy

The American drawdown has begun and it is only a matter of time before it becomes a cascade. As the USA begins to pull out its NATO allies will ensure that they are not out hanging on a limb. The West after this rather disastrous experience has begun to look at countries it can pass the can to. Among the foremost is India. And Indian diplomats, professional and self styled, real and voluntary, and many others just as out of touch with reality are even now seeking a role for India into this ever-expanding morass. The heady economic growth of the past decade has resulted in a strutting Indian diplomacy. When the European financial crisis began cascading, India was generous with a $10 billion contribution to the stabilization fund. Nowadays Indian diplomats talk extravagantly about investing $10 billion in the Aynak iron ore mines and in a steel plant in the region. The fact that there is a glut of both, iron ore and steel completely eludes them. Besides the Government of India is too broke to sink $10 billion as a never to come back grant. If the government intends Indian companies to make the investment needed to fashion a nebulous reality, no Indian financial institution will risk lending to an Indo-Afghan entity. No insurance company will insure the project against all the well-known and additional risks we know lurk there. And who will consume the steel produced? When South Block conjures up plans like this, they inevitably have foundations of hot air. 

The argument for an active Indian policy in Afghanistan is that if the situation in that historically uncontrollable country is not controlled it will spill over into India. This is quite nonsensical. India doesn’t have a border with Afghanistan. It’s not without some irony that a country that was fashioned to be a buffer against Russian expansion is now seen as India’s threat. But India has Pakistan as its buffer. If that Afghan situation were to spill out it will spill out mostly into Pakistan, a country quite dedicated to our destruction.

No one country has played a more deleterious role in unleashing chaos in Afghanistan as Pakistan, and it is only Pakistan, because of its unique history and geography that can still play an active role in Afghanistan. We must never forget that half the Pashtun nation lives in Pakistan. And to understand what is Afghanistan we only have to recall the words of Afghanistan’s great poet, Khushal Khan Khattak:

• “Son, one word I have for thee,
• Fear no one and no one you flee.
• Pull out your sword and slay any one,
• That says Pashtun and Afghan are not one.
• Arabs know this and so do Romans,
• Afghans are Pashtuns, 
• Pashtuns are Afghans.”

Afghanistan only emerged as a country-of-sorts in the mid-18th century, when Ahmad Khan, later Ahmad Shah, leader of the Abdali contingent in the Persian army of Nadir Shah the Great, carved out a buffer zone between Persia and a crumbling Mughal empire in the Indian subcontinent. This later evolved into a buffer zone between Czarist Russia and British India. As a consequence of the May 1879 Treaty of Gandamak after the Second Afghan War, Britain had taken control of Afghanistan’s foreign affairs. This treaty also gave Britain control over traditional Pashtun territory west of the Indus including Peshawar and the Khyber Pass.

Pakistani Government and Militants From Pakistani Taliban Battle for Control of the City of Karachi

June 5, 2014

Counter-Terrorism: The Hidden Menace In Pakistan

strategypage.com

June 5, 2014: Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is largely a Pushtun problem and is rarely noted outside the region. Pakistani Islamic terrorists are most often noticed when they kill people or blow something up. Most of this mayhem is caused by the Taliban, an organization formed by the Pakistani military in the early 1990s inside the Pakistani tribal territories. The membership was almost entirely Afghan Pushtuns living in refugee camps. After 2001 a Pakistani branch of the Taliban (staffed by Pakistani Pushtuns) was formed. Largely unnoticed (outside of Pakistan) is the fact that the Pushtuns have also been responsible for a lot more of the non-Islamic criminal activity inside Pakistan as well as most of the Islamic terrorism..

What is remarkable about this is that the Pushtun tribes comprise only 15 percent of the Pakistani population and are also the poorest and least educated minority. A unique feature of Pakistan is that it’s 165 million people are all minorities, although the Punjabis (44 percent of the population) are the dominant one (not just in numbers, but in education and income as well). Closely allied with the Punjabis are the Sindis (14 percent), and together these two groups pretty much run the country. Karachi, the largest city in Pakistani, is in Sind, but contains residents from all over the country. Then there are Seraikis (10.5 percent, related to Punjabis), Muhajirs (7.6 percent, Moslems who came from India after 1947), Baluchis (3.6 percent) and other minorities amounting to about five percent. The Seraikis and Muhajirs live in Punjab and Sind.

Since September 11, 2001 there have been a lot more Pushtun fleeing to Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. This metropolis contains eight percent of the nation’s population (14 million people) and produces a quarter of the GDP. Islamic radicals have long been present in the city. The Taliban have established a presence among the two million Pushtuns there. But a lot of the criminal gangs in Karachi are Pushtun and these are the gangs the Taliban often work closely with. Moreover there are now more murders in Karachi than in the tribal territories and this has been a trend since 2010. Finally, in 2013, the number of terrorist deaths in the northwestern tribal territories fell below 2,000 and the murders in Karachi rose above 2,000. Pakistani security forces are acutely aware of who is doing most of the mayhem.

A lot of the violence in Karachi is the result of the Taliban trying to prevent the police from stopping the Pushtun radicals establishing save havens in Karachi. The Taliban are succeeding at this, and many Islamic terrorist attacks in non-tribal Pakistan (where over 90 percent of the population is) are coming out of Karachi Pushtun neighborhoods. The Pushtun gangsters cooperate with the Taliban to keep the police out of Pushtun neighborhoods.

Currently some 20 percent of Karachi neighborhoods are controlled (to one degree or another) by Pushtun gangsters or Islamic terrorists. Poverty and Islamic radicalism are driving more Pushtuns out of the tribal territories and into the cities and the Taliban are following. The government is fighting back but with all the corruption and mismanagement in Karachi (and Pakistan in general), it’s a losing battle so far. The Karachi government is so corrupt that there are calls for the federal government to appoint a new city administration. But a new group would likely end up as corrupt as the old one.

Without action today, Asia’s future will be a dry one

http://chellaney.net/ 

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Posted on April 24, 2014

BRAHMA CHELLANEY, Nikkie Asian Review

Asia is the world’s largest and most economically dynamic continent. But it is also the driest, and its future may depend on how well it deals with what a U.N. panel on climate change is calling a growing risk of drought-related water and food shortages.

Unusually dry weather is parching swaths of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Korean Peninsula, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India. This trend threatens to further squeeze the availability of drinking water, hamper economic growth and — together with the drought in the American West and parts of Brazil — push up international food prices. Palm oil prices, for example, have already surged.

Clouds make a rare appearance over the Manila skyline on Feb. 26, when the metropolitan area received its first recorded rainfall of the year. © AP

Even farmers in Australia’s eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland are bracing themselves amid warnings that the drought may spread to other parts of Asia this year due to the potential return of the El Nino weather pattern.

Asia’s climatic extremes play a big role in its vulnerability to droughts and heighten the risk of natural disasters and agriculture-related trouble. When it rains, it tends to pour, with monsoon-season flooding endemic in the region. But the seasons are often punctuated by long dry spells, and weak monsoons can trigger serious droughts. This can be disastrous on a continent where the availability of fresh water is not even half the global average of 6,079 cu. meters per person a year.

Asia is home to some of the world’s biggest natural-disaster hot spots, and no other continent is more prone to the cumulative impact of droughts, flooding and large storms. This fragility is compounded by the region’s unmatched population size and density, and its concentration of people living in deltas and other low-lying regions.

China's Self-Made Disaster in the South China Sea

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-self-made-disaster-the-south-china-sea-10618?page=show

Beijing keeps pushing. Its neighbors are starting to push back. 

Richard Javad Heydarian

June 7, 2014 

Shortly after Obama’s latest trip to East Asia (on April 23-29), where he sought to deepen Washington’s strategic footprint in the region and reiterate his administration’s commitment to remain as an anchor of stability in the Indo-Pacific theater, Beijing upped the ante by dispatching HYSY981—China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC) state-of-the-art oil rig—deep into Vietnam’s 200-nautical-miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Outraged by China’s provocative action, Hanoi dispatched about thirty vessels to the area, which faced off with an armada of Chinese paramilitary vessels escorting the $ 1 billion deep-water oil-drilling rig.

It didn’t take long before there were reports of low-intensity clashes in the high seas, with Hanoi subsequently taking the unprecedented decision to release—despite vigorous Chinese pressure—a video, which shows Chinese vessels using coercive measures against Vietnamese maritime forces. Meanwhile, anti-China protests in Vietnam snowballed into a wholesale destruction of factories owned by, among other nationalities, Chinese and Taiwanese investors—precipitatingthe exodus of thousands of Chinese citizens to neighboring Cambodia. At this juncture, Vietnamese-Chinese relations entered their lowest point in decades, undermining years of painstakingly established bilateral mechanisms to peacefully resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea. No wonder Beijing’s recent decision to aggressively take on Hanoi has prompted some experts to announce the birth of a new era of Chinese territorial assertiveness.

Confronting an increasingly uncompromising China, Southeast Asian claimant states such as the Philippines and Vietnam have inched closer to a genuine strategic partnership. Alarmed by the consequences of China’s actions on regional stability and the freedom of navigation in international waters, nonclaimant actors have also stepped up their efforts. Even the perennially polite Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) couldn’t hide its panic, with regional leaders expressing “serious concern” over the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Japan—along other Pacific powers such as Australia, India, and South Korea—have sought a deeper role in stabilizing Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC), given the significance of the South China Sea to the energy security and trade interests of all major regional players. In short, China’s territorial assertiveness has further internationalized the very territorial disputes, which Beijing adamantly frames as purely bilateral concerns.

China’s Motivations

Officially, China maintains that commercial considerations underscored CNOOC’s decision to dispatch HYSY981 to a contested territory, which falls 17 nautical miles south of Chinese-controlled Triton Island in the Paracels. China argues that the latest maneuver was simply a logical extension of previously conducted exploratory surveys in the (supposedly) hydrocarbon-rich area. Based on a conventional interpretation of the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Vietnam has sovereign rights over the hydrocarbon riches currently under exploration by the HYSY981. Thus, China has violated Vietnam’s EEZ privileges.

UAVs, Stealth, Carriers, Amphibs: DoD Report Details China’s Weapons

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/06/uavs-stealth-carriers-amphibs-dod-report-details-chinas-weapons/

By COLIN CLARK on June 05, 2014

WASHINGTON: The People’s Liberation Army has practiced jamming GPS signals, according to a Pentagon report today. The Chinese are testing those and other electronic warfare weapons and they have “proven effective.”

China plans to launch 100 satellites through 2015, including “imaging, remote sensing, navigation, communication, and scientific satellites, as well as manned spacecraft,” says a special section headlined ”Special Topic: Reconnaissance Satellites” in the annual Pentagon report to Congress about China’s military capabilities and intentions. (Note: that includes manned spacecraft and most of the satellites mentioned are weather, agriculture and related satellites — not advanced spy satellites.)

In another “special section,” this one about low observable technology, the Pentagon report lists weapons “demonstrated” last year:

“In February 2013, the PLA Navy launched the first ship in the new Type 056 class of corvettes, which incorporates stealth features making it more difficult to detect using radar. Although these ships can fulfill a variety of missions, they increase the PLA Navy’s ability to impose a naval blockade on Taiwan.

“After four years in development, in November 2013, the PLA flight tested its new stealth drone, the Lijian, which a Chinese news source described as ‘highly maneuverable and capable in air-to- air combat.’

“In July the PLA, which has long used camouflage, introduced a new type of camouflage netting that has multiple layers of special paints, digital camouflage, and the ability to counter detection from infrared, thermal imaging and radar reconnaissance sensors.

“Throughout 2013, the PLA Air Force continued testing its two fifth-generation stealth fighters—the J-20 and the J-31.”

The “multi-role J-20″ probably won’t enter service until 2018, the report says, pointing to the continuing problems the Peoples Republic of China has faced developing “hot section technology” — the heart of advanced military aircraft engines. Why is the PLA building as many models of advanced stealth fighter as is the US? “The PLA Air Force believes that stealth provides an offensive operational advantage that denies an adversary the time to mobilize and conduct defensive operations,” according to the report.

Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2014

ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS

http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_DoD_China_Report.pdf

 

The Obama Doctrine & the Pivot to Asia

June 4, 2014

By Ralph A. Cossa

President Obama's commencement address at West Point on May 28 appears to have been intended to send Americans and the international community a number of important messages. One of them was NOT that the U.S. commitment to the Asia “pivot” or “rebalance” was waning. For some, especially in Asia, the failure to mention this much-touted Asia policy has kindled fears that it is being reconsidered, if not abandoned. Those who are reading it that way seem to be missing a few major points, although the administration must share the blame for the misinterpretation.

Let me say at the onset that as an Asia security wonk, I would have much preferred that the president had mentioned the Asia rebalance at least once in passing, if for no other reason than to avoid the silly ensuing debate about what its absence signifies. “Obama quiet on Asia ‘pivot’,” cried a headline in the Bangkok Post, providing a case in point. Yes, the pivot was not mentioned.

But he did state that “regional aggression that goes unchecked - in southern Ukraine, the South China Sea, or anywhere else in the world - will ultimately impact our allies, and could draw in our military.” While puttingUkraine and the South China Sea in the same sentence seems like overkill, it certainly does not signal neglect or a downplaying of the challenges we face in Asia.

To conclude that Obama's failure to mention the pivot reflects a lack of commitment to the region is nonsense. He did not just take a full week of his precious time traveling toJapan, Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippinesto reinforce a policy that he had planned to downplay or abandon. And his very pointed references to China, to the South China Sea, and even to the necessity of the U.S. finally ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) all demonstrate that the Obama administration's commitment to Asia remains alive and well.

So did his inclusion of defense of allies as a U.S. ‘core interest’: “the United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it - when our people are threatened; when our livelihood is at stake; or when the security of our allies is in danger.” The only place where the security of our allies is threatened today is in Asia, on the Korean Peninsula, and in the East and South China Seas.

The real source of confusion regarding the president's West Point speech was that, administration hype notwithstanding, this was not really a “major foreign policy address” to “outline a broad vision for America's role in the world” or “to outline top national security goals.” As was appropriate to the immediate audience to which it was delivered, the address was primarily about military strategy, and more specifically about the use of military force. It was not a broader statement of U.S. foreign policy, which has important political and economic as well as military dimensions. There was no reference to APEC or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but also no references to the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement or any other trade matters. Other than a brief reference to support for democracy, human rights, and free and open economies, the speech was primarily about how best to combat challenges to U.S. security.

Europe Divided over Immigration, Work Ethics

By Pallavi Aiyar

I had never heard the word "work," made to sound like a term of abuse until a visit with the rapidly shrinking cohort of Jewish diamond merchants in the port city of Antwerp. The city is the center of the global trade in diamonds - 80 percent of the world's rough diamonds and 50 percent of all polished stones change hands here. For decades, the trade was controlled by the city's orthodox, largely Hasidic Jewish community, their austere black frock coats and tall hats in stark contrast to the glittering minerals that occupy their attention.

But the last two decades have not been easy for this community, and the younger generation has been leaving en masse for Israel. It is not anti-Semitism driving them away, but the intense economic competition unleashed by the forces of globalization, as represented by the rise of theIndian Gujarati diamantaire.

Today up to 70 percent of Antwerp's lucrative trade in diamonds is in Gujarati hands, and people with names like Mehta and Shah, rather than Epstein or Finklelsztiein. The first wave of Indians arrived in Antwerp in the 1970s. They started at the bottom of the business, trading low quality roughs, diamonds of little interest to the established diamantaires. Three decades on, the Indian community in Antwerp consists of around 400 families. Companies that began as one-man operations dealing with a handful of diamonds have been transformed into billion-dollar-plus global enterprises, employing thousands of workers with factories and offices dotted across the world.

The ingredients for this Indian success story encompass established linkages to diamond processing facilities in cities like Surat, India, where skilled labor is abundant and costs are as little as a 10th of the European equivalent. Another key factor, according to the Indians, is their willingness to work harder than the competition. "No one can withstand our competitiveness because we are always willing to work more," boasts Dilip Mehta, CEO of Rosy Blue, a company that bills itself as one of the world's largest diamond manufacturers. "We are married to our business. We will work at night and on the weekends, even for small margins."

While we turn a blind eye to Islamists, our children suffer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10881324/While-we-turn-a-blind-eye-to-Islamists-our-children-suffer.html

Politicians are so busy squabbling over extremism that they are failing to tackle it

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has asked some rude questions about why Michael Gove's Education Department had not acted

Stand back and think of some news stories in the past fortnight or so. The search for the 300 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram; the Sudanese government’s death sentence for apostasy on a pregnant mother; murders in the Jewish Museum in Brussels; the exchange of Taliban prisoners for their dubious American captive soldier Bo Bergdahl; alleged election-rigging in Tower Hamlets; the revelation that some jihadists in Syria are British citizens; and finally, the row about the Birmingham schools.

All these stories are about a religion in ferment. I do not agree with the growing numbers in the West who see Islam itself as inherently violent. All great religions contain so much of the human story that nasty bits can always be extracted by nasty people. (There was a time, remember, when many Christian adherents were more bloodthirsty than the Muslims, let alone the Jews, whom they persecuted.) What is happening, rather, is that the “ownership” of Islam is in contention.

The loudest voices in this struggle, unfortunately, are of those who turn their faith against the free, Western world. In their story, an amazing Muslim civilisation has been trashed by Christians, Jews, white men in general. No blame for misgovernment and economic failure attaches to Muslim countries themselves, except to those leaders (“hypocrites”) who sell out to the West.

The solution, in this simplistic narrative, is political Islam – it demands sharia, the rule of Allah’s law, with no tolerance of democracy or of wider civil society. It is no accident that the al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, the most murderously extreme of all the factions, is called the Islamic State. Islam is the truth revealed, and therefore those to whom it has been revealed must impose it and rule, if necessary by the sword. This grand false logic is setting the world on fire.

One Western response to this threat – still the dominant one in officialdom – is to look for “credible partners” among Muslims to neutralise it. This is the doctrine of the official behind the Gove/May explosion, Charles Farr. The able Mr Farr, seconded to the Home Office from MI6, has been head of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) since 2007. He has been passed over for two important jobs – permanent secretary of the Home Office and, more recently, director-general of GCHQ. He may be in the running to be the next head of MI6. His position is complicated because he is the partner of Mrs May’s special adviser Fiona Cunningham: the personal, the official and the political have got muddled up.

NATO and Ukraine: The Need for Real World Strategies and for European Partners Rather than Parasites

http://csis.org/publication/nato-and-ukraine-need-real-world-strategies-and-european-partners-rather-parasites

By Anthony H. Cordesman

JUN 5, 2014 

Events in Ukraine have made it all too clear that NATO’s primary function remains deterring war in Europe. The myth that Afghanistan was the key test of NATO had already died with President Obama’s unilateral decision to withdraw U.S. forces at the end of 2014, and events in Ukraine have already shown the United States just how pointless and vacuous the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that projected U.S. strategy should focus on Asia and the Middle East as if Europe was somehow “over.”

The practical problem for both the United States and Europe is now to create a level of deterrence that can secure the NATO countries nearest Russia without needlessly recreating some new form of Cold War. It is also to help the non-NATO states on Russia’s borders in ways that help them develop without provoking Russia, but that still give Russia a strong incentive not to repeat what happened in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldavia.

One key element is to make it clear that the US and Europe will not ignore Russia’s actions in the Ukraine. Empty NATO ministerial rhetoric can’t do this. Neither can German inaction because its energy dependence on Russia and outdated angst over the German role in World War II. Neither can French willingness to have President François Hollande have dinner with Putin at the G7 meeting right after having dinner with Obama, and continue to sell Russia precisely the kind of amphibious warships Russia needs for out of area adventures.

Really, sell two Mistral-class amphibious ships that carry troops, landing craft, and helicopters, that then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates asked the French Minister of Defense not to sell in 2010, and which Hervé Morin the admitted were “indeed a warship for power projection!” The last thing Europe and the Atlantic partnership need is a Germany that puts its economy above its security while wallowing in angst, or a new form of self-seeking French appeasement.

This does not mean that anyone should overreact. No one can gain from rushing into a lasting confrontation between the United States, Europe, and Russia. This is not the time to overreact, to turn Ukraine into some kind of morality play as if Ukraine was composed of blameless heroes and Russians were the villains.

It is not the time to give up on creating some form of productive economic partnership if Russia stops at the Crimea, to talk about further expanding NATO, or create conspiracy theories about Putin and Russia’s “secret” intentions to restore the Soviet Union, turn to China, and create a new structure of global rivalry. Realpolitik is not a matter of reacting to possible or imagined worst cases. It is a matter of reacting to realities as they actually emerge.

In the near term, this means that it is time to make it clear to Russia that the US and Europe are willing to impose far more meaningful sanctions if Russia goes beyond the Crimea. It is time for Europe to work collectively to reduce its over-dependence on Russian gas. It is time to give the new government in Ukraine a reasonable chance at rebuilding the governance, economy, and security of what had become corrupt, powerbroker-driven, failed state.

Europe Divided Over Immigration, Work Ethics

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/europe-divided-over-immigration-work-ethics

Aging, wealthy Europe turns on immigrants for a willingness to work for low wages

Pallavi Aiyar

YaleGlobal, 5 June 2014

Diamond business not forever: Traditional Jewish diamond cutters in Antwerp, Belgium (top); newcomer Indian diamond merchant Baron Dilip Mehta 

ANTWERP: I had never heard the word “work,” made to sound like a term of abuse until a visit with the rapidly shrinking cohort of Jewish diamond merchants in the port city of Antwerp. The city is the center of the global trade in diamonds – 80 percent of the world’s rough diamonds and 50 percent of all polished stones change hands here. For decades, the trade was controlled by the city’s orthodox, largely Hasidic Jewish community, their austere black frock coats and tall hats in stark contrast to the glittering minerals that occupy their attention. 

But the last two decades have not been easy for this community, and the younger generation has been leaving en masse for Israel. It is not anti-Semitism driving them away, but the intense economic competition unleashed by the forces of globalization, as represented by the rise of the Indian Gujarati diamantaire.

Today up to 70 percent of Antwerp’s lucrative trade in diamonds is in Gujarati hands, and people with names like Mehta and Shah, rather than Epstein or Finklelsztiein. The first wave of Indians arrived in Antwerp in the 1970s. They started at the bottom of the business, trading low quality roughs, diamonds of little interest to the established diamantaires. Three decades on, the Indian community in Antwerp consists of around 400 families. Companies that began as one-man operations dealing with a handful of diamonds have been transformed into billion-dollar-plus global enterprises, employing thousands of workers with factories and offices dotted across the world.

The first wave of Indians arrived in Antwerp in the 1970s. They started at the bottom of the business. 

The ingredients for this Indian success story encompass established linkages to diamond processing facilities in cities like Surat, India, where skilled labor is abundant and costs are as little as a 10th of the European equivalent. Another key factor, according to the Indians, is their willingness to work harder than the competition. “No one can withstand our competitiveness because we are always willing to work more,” boasts Dilip Mehta, CEO of Rosy Blue, a company that bills itself as one of the world’s largest diamond manufacturers. “We are married to our business. We will work at night and on the weekends, even for small margins.”