Last week, Iran was invited to attend the international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague. This invitation was part of U.S. President Barack Obama plan to get Afghanistan's neighbors actively involved in being part of the solution rather than part of the problem. At that conference, Iran unsurprisingly criticized the occupation forces but said that it would help regarding the drug problem. The question remains: how much will Iran help?
After Pakistan and NATO, Iran is the most important player in Afghanistan. Iran has a long history with Afghanistan: Afghans settled in Iran hundreds of years ago. Today an estimated 2 million Afghans are believed to be living in the Islamic republic, but about 50 percent of them are illegal immigrants.
Iran had time and again threatened to deport the illegals, and this especially since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president. At the end of 2006 Iran announced a massive deportation of illegal Afghan workers. The idea behind it was to help Iranian workers by heavily fining employers who did not favor Iranian workers.
But some analysts have pointed out that the economic problems are just a populist smokescreen and that almost every illegal immigrant is a man living without his family and without any social protection. Afghans represent an inexpensive source of labor.
A possible factor behind Iran's continued threats to throw out the Afghan workers is because it gives them an additional card to throw down on the table if and when the time comes. Tehran has been blowing hot and cold on this issue. From April 2007 to Jan. 2008 Iran deported some 360,000 illegals. Iran realizes Kabul's vulnerability given its shaky economy. This allows them to pressure the Afghans.
Afghanistan's rural areas are already overpopulated and with high unemployment. The sudden return of tens of thousands of refugees would cause havoc to the Afghan economy.
From the beginning of 2009 Iran started again deporting Afghan refugees despite pledges not to do so. Said Afghanistan's Refugee Affairs Ministry spokesman Shams-u-Din Hamid, "As in the past, every time the Islamic Republic of Iran has made a pledge [not to deport Afghans], they have violated this pledge and broken their promises."
Another important aspect of Tehran's interest in the Afghan issue is western Afghanistan. In fact it is a strategic zone for Shiite influence and Heart city there is home to 180,000 Shiites (18 percent of the total population) who speak the same language and practice the same religion than as in Iran.
Tehran also always posed as a natural protector of the Hazara a predominantly Shiite minority. Iran has allies such as the Shiite governor and the Afghan Shiite religious authorities, trained in Iran. The population in the area watch Iranian TV channels which stigmatize the presence of the U.S. forces on Afghan soil.
Furthermore, Iran is Afghanistan's main trading partner. In 2006 Iran accounted for more than 30 percent of direct investments in the province, in particular in industry, construction and textile.
Local sources indicate that Iranian Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guards, are present in Herat. They have been mobilized by Ahmadinejad to be the eyes and ears of the Iranian regime, monitoring NATO troops.
The most disconcerting aspect of Iran's involvement in Afghanistan is its alliance with the Taliban. While it is true that Iran and the Taliban are mortal enemies, Iran has been using the Taliban to fight a proxy war against NATO.
NATO officials told ABC News in 2007 that they had caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces. British special forces found evidence in Oct. 2007 and Jun. 2008 of Iran's supplying the Taliban with the same bomb-making equipment it provided the insurgents in Iraq.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai confirmed: "Weapons of Iranian origin have turned up in Afghanistan in significant numbers."
Finally, recently U.S. Gen. David Petraeus stated that Iran is helping the Taliban in Afghanistan. Also, according to the French daily Le Figaro, Iran is not only supplying weapons and ammunition, but has set up three training camps for Taliban fighters inside Iran.
One area that Iran will help in Afghanistan is indeed the drug issue; the reason being that it represents a great danger to Iran's national security. About 3,700 Iranian security officials were killed between 1989 and 2003 in clashes with drug traffickers. Also total drug seizures increased from 155 tons in 2001 to 618 tons in 2007, most of it coming from Afghanistan. There are close to 4 million drug addicts in Iran and according to a recent official study at least 15 percent of nine- to 25-year-olds are using hard drugs in Iran.
Iran's role in the region complicates the security situation at a time when the Afghan theater has become the central front on the war against radical Islam. Being the shrewd negotiators that they are, Iranians will most certainly use the drug issue as well as the refugees to try and push for greater concessions from the West.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Pentagon Preps for Economic Warfare by Eamon Javers
The Pentagon sponsored a first-of-its-kind war game last month focused not on bullets and bombs — but on how hostile nations might seek to cripple the U.S. economy, a scenario made all the more real by the global financial crisis.
The two-day event near Ft. Meade, Maryland, had all the earmarks of a regular war game. Participants sat along a V-shaped set of desks beneath an enormous wall of video monitors displaying economic data, according to the accounts of three participants.
“It felt a little bit like Dr. Strangelove,” one person who was at the previously undisclosed exercise told POLITICO.
But instead of military brass plotting America’s defense, it was hedge-fund managers, professors and executives from at least one investment bank, UBS – all invited by the Pentagon to play out global scenarios that could shift the balance of power between the world’s leading economies.
Their efforts were carefully observed and recorded by uniformed military officers and members of the U.S. intelligence community.
In the end, there was sobering news for the United States – the savviest economic warrior proved to be China, a growing economic power that strengthened its position the most over the course of the war-game.
The United States remained the world’s largest economy but significantly degraded its standing in a series of financial skirmishes with Russia, participants said.
The war game demonstrated that in post-Sept. 11 world, the Pentagon is thinking about a wide range of threats to America’s position in the world, including some that could come far from the battlefield.
And it’s hardly science fiction. China recently shook the value of the dollar in global currency markets merely by questioning whether the recession put China’s $1 trillion in U.S. government bond holdings at risk – forcing President Barack Obama to issue a hasty defense of the dollar.
“This was an example of the changing nature of conflict,” said Paul Bracken, a professor and expert in private equity at the Yale School of Management who attended the sessions. “The purpose of the game is not really to predict the future, but to discover the issues you need to be thinking about.”
Several participants said the event had been in the planning stages well before the stock market crash of September, but the real-world market calamity was on the minds of many in the room. “It loomed large over what everybody was doing,” said Bracken.
“Why would the military care about global capital flows at all?” asked another person who was there. “Because as the global financial crisis plays out, there could be real world consequences, including failed states. We’ve already seen riots in the United Kingdom and the Balkans.”
The Office of the Secretary of Defense hosted the two-day event March 17 and 18 at the Warfare Analysis Laboratory in Laurel, MD. That facility, run by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, typically hosts military officials planning intricate combat scenarios.
A spokesperson for the Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed the event, and said it was the first purely economic war game the facility has hosted. All three participants said they had been told it was the first time the Pentagon hosted a purely economic war game. A Pentagon spokesman would say only that he was not aware of the exercise.
The event was unclassified but has not been made public before. It is regarded as so sensitive that several people who participated declined to discuss the details with POLITICO. Said Steven Halliwell, managing director of a hedge fund called River Capital Management, “I’m not prepared to talk about this. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you.”
Officials at UBS also declined to comment.
Participants described the event as a series of simulated global calamities, including the collapse of North Korea, Russian manipulation of natural gas prices, and increasing tension between China and Taiwan. “They wanted to see who makes loans to help out, what does each team do to get the other countries involved, and who decides to simply let the North Koreans collapse,” said a participant.
There were five teams: The United States, Russia, China, East Asia and “all others.” They were overseen by a “White Cell” group that functioned as referees, who decided the impact of the moves made by each team as they struggled for economic dominance.
At the end of the two days, the Chinese team emerged as the victors of the overall game – largely because the Russian and American teams had made so many moves against each other that they damaged their own standing to the benefit of the Chinese.
Bracken says he left the event with two important insights – first, that the United States needs an integrated approach to managing financial and what the Pentagon calls “kinetic” – or shooting – wars. For example he says, the U.S. Navy is involved in blockading Iran, and the U.S. is also conducting economic war against Iran in the form of sanctions. But he argues there isn’t enough coordination between the two efforts.
And second, Bracken says, the event left him questioning one prevailing assumption about economic warfare, that the Chinese would never dump dollars on the global market to attack the US economy because it would harm their own holdings at the same time. Bracken said the Chinese have a middle option between dumping and holding US dollars – they could sell dollars in increments, ratcheting up economic uncertainty in the United States without wiping out their own savings. “There’s a graduated spectrum of options here,” Bracken said.
For those who hadn’t been to a Pentagon event before, the sheer technological capacity of the Warfare Analysis Laboratory was impressive. “It was surprisingly realistic,” said a participant.
Still, the event conjures images of the ultimate Hollywood take on computer strategizing: the 1983 film “War Games” in which a young computer hacker nearly triggers a nuclear apocalypse.
The film and the reality had one similarity: The characters in the movie used a computer called WOPR, or War Operation Plan Response. The computer system used by the real life war-gamers? It was called WALRUS, or Warfare Analysis Laboratory Registration and User Website.
The two-day event near Ft. Meade, Maryland, had all the earmarks of a regular war game. Participants sat along a V-shaped set of desks beneath an enormous wall of video monitors displaying economic data, according to the accounts of three participants.
“It felt a little bit like Dr. Strangelove,” one person who was at the previously undisclosed exercise told POLITICO.
But instead of military brass plotting America’s defense, it was hedge-fund managers, professors and executives from at least one investment bank, UBS – all invited by the Pentagon to play out global scenarios that could shift the balance of power between the world’s leading economies.
Their efforts were carefully observed and recorded by uniformed military officers and members of the U.S. intelligence community.
In the end, there was sobering news for the United States – the savviest economic warrior proved to be China, a growing economic power that strengthened its position the most over the course of the war-game.
The United States remained the world’s largest economy but significantly degraded its standing in a series of financial skirmishes with Russia, participants said.
The war game demonstrated that in post-Sept. 11 world, the Pentagon is thinking about a wide range of threats to America’s position in the world, including some that could come far from the battlefield.
And it’s hardly science fiction. China recently shook the value of the dollar in global currency markets merely by questioning whether the recession put China’s $1 trillion in U.S. government bond holdings at risk – forcing President Barack Obama to issue a hasty defense of the dollar.
“This was an example of the changing nature of conflict,” said Paul Bracken, a professor and expert in private equity at the Yale School of Management who attended the sessions. “The purpose of the game is not really to predict the future, but to discover the issues you need to be thinking about.”
Several participants said the event had been in the planning stages well before the stock market crash of September, but the real-world market calamity was on the minds of many in the room. “It loomed large over what everybody was doing,” said Bracken.
“Why would the military care about global capital flows at all?” asked another person who was there. “Because as the global financial crisis plays out, there could be real world consequences, including failed states. We’ve already seen riots in the United Kingdom and the Balkans.”
The Office of the Secretary of Defense hosted the two-day event March 17 and 18 at the Warfare Analysis Laboratory in Laurel, MD. That facility, run by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, typically hosts military officials planning intricate combat scenarios.
A spokesperson for the Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed the event, and said it was the first purely economic war game the facility has hosted. All three participants said they had been told it was the first time the Pentagon hosted a purely economic war game. A Pentagon spokesman would say only that he was not aware of the exercise.
The event was unclassified but has not been made public before. It is regarded as so sensitive that several people who participated declined to discuss the details with POLITICO. Said Steven Halliwell, managing director of a hedge fund called River Capital Management, “I’m not prepared to talk about this. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you.”
Officials at UBS also declined to comment.
Participants described the event as a series of simulated global calamities, including the collapse of North Korea, Russian manipulation of natural gas prices, and increasing tension between China and Taiwan. “They wanted to see who makes loans to help out, what does each team do to get the other countries involved, and who decides to simply let the North Koreans collapse,” said a participant.
There were five teams: The United States, Russia, China, East Asia and “all others.” They were overseen by a “White Cell” group that functioned as referees, who decided the impact of the moves made by each team as they struggled for economic dominance.
At the end of the two days, the Chinese team emerged as the victors of the overall game – largely because the Russian and American teams had made so many moves against each other that they damaged their own standing to the benefit of the Chinese.
Bracken says he left the event with two important insights – first, that the United States needs an integrated approach to managing financial and what the Pentagon calls “kinetic” – or shooting – wars. For example he says, the U.S. Navy is involved in blockading Iran, and the U.S. is also conducting economic war against Iran in the form of sanctions. But he argues there isn’t enough coordination between the two efforts.
And second, Bracken says, the event left him questioning one prevailing assumption about economic warfare, that the Chinese would never dump dollars on the global market to attack the US economy because it would harm their own holdings at the same time. Bracken said the Chinese have a middle option between dumping and holding US dollars – they could sell dollars in increments, ratcheting up economic uncertainty in the United States without wiping out their own savings. “There’s a graduated spectrum of options here,” Bracken said.
For those who hadn’t been to a Pentagon event before, the sheer technological capacity of the Warfare Analysis Laboratory was impressive. “It was surprisingly realistic,” said a participant.
Still, the event conjures images of the ultimate Hollywood take on computer strategizing: the 1983 film “War Games” in which a young computer hacker nearly triggers a nuclear apocalypse.
The film and the reality had one similarity: The characters in the movie used a computer called WOPR, or War Operation Plan Response. The computer system used by the real life war-gamers? It was called WALRUS, or Warfare Analysis Laboratory Registration and User Website.
The Somali Hijacking Fiasco by Douglas Farah
One thing one has to admit-the criminal/terrorist elements holding the world’s shipping lanes hostage have the game figured out. Although one hijacking of a U.S.-manned shipped was thwarted, they have the captain hostage.
Now, other pirate ships, loaded with hostages, are making their way toward the life boat to help insure the pirates escape with impunity.
The U.S. Navy is there, but able to do very little. It is a classic standoff of asymmetrical forces: the USS Bainbridge, armed with cruise missiles, in a stalemate with a life boat that is out of fuel and adrift in the sea.
The hostage captain’s attempted escape was thwarted. The ships are too far away to help him. And several boats with dozens of other hostages will be arriving before long. Not a pretty scenario, but one that will likely be repeated over time.
Anyone who doubts that non-state actors operating out of either complicit states or stateless regions will have a major economic impact on the world in coming years should now be disabused of that notion. And, if you think economic shocks are not part of military contingency planning, see this story by Politico about how the Pentagon is now war-gaming different economic scenarios.
“Why would the military care about global capital flows at all?” asked another person who was there. “Because as the global financial crisis plays out, there could be real world consequences, including failed states. We’ve already seen riots in the United Kingdom and the Balkans.”
While the shipping lanes are not capital flows, maintaining them free of piracy (and, in this case, with part of the ransom proceeds going to radical Islamist groups intent on spreading other kinds of havoc around the world) is vital to maintaining capital flows.
The dynamic whereby ships are captured, taken to a known location, identifiable and known leaders negotiate and ransoms are paid, has been a enabling part of the equation from the beginning. That dynamic must be broken.
No one likes boots on the ground action, particularly in an environment where the military is seriously overstretched. But this is a major international problem, and the use of force must be very much at the forefront of any real settlement to the issue.
It is not a burden of the United States alone. China, Saudi Arabia and most of Europe have all had their ships hijacked, their crews held hostage and ransoms paid. Yet it is know where the criminals’ stronghold it, it is known where their boats dock and it is known who the leaders are.
Yet the prevailing attitude seems to be that, since the crews and ships are generally freed after a ransom is paid, no harm is really done. That is rubbish. If the international community cannot get together to act on this, then a true coalition of those affected should take matters into their own hands.
Until they are forced to stop, the pirates will not. Why would they? Ships continue to venture into the waters unarmed, continued to get hijacked and continue to pay ransom. What have the pirates lost? Absolutely nothing.
If one or two of their boats were blasted out of the water, their home base occupied or their leaders dealt with, the equation would change. Maybe this drama will finally bring some action.
Now, other pirate ships, loaded with hostages, are making their way toward the life boat to help insure the pirates escape with impunity.
The U.S. Navy is there, but able to do very little. It is a classic standoff of asymmetrical forces: the USS Bainbridge, armed with cruise missiles, in a stalemate with a life boat that is out of fuel and adrift in the sea.
The hostage captain’s attempted escape was thwarted. The ships are too far away to help him. And several boats with dozens of other hostages will be arriving before long. Not a pretty scenario, but one that will likely be repeated over time.
Anyone who doubts that non-state actors operating out of either complicit states or stateless regions will have a major economic impact on the world in coming years should now be disabused of that notion. And, if you think economic shocks are not part of military contingency planning, see this story by Politico about how the Pentagon is now war-gaming different economic scenarios.
“Why would the military care about global capital flows at all?” asked another person who was there. “Because as the global financial crisis plays out, there could be real world consequences, including failed states. We’ve already seen riots in the United Kingdom and the Balkans.”
While the shipping lanes are not capital flows, maintaining them free of piracy (and, in this case, with part of the ransom proceeds going to radical Islamist groups intent on spreading other kinds of havoc around the world) is vital to maintaining capital flows.
The dynamic whereby ships are captured, taken to a known location, identifiable and known leaders negotiate and ransoms are paid, has been a enabling part of the equation from the beginning. That dynamic must be broken.
No one likes boots on the ground action, particularly in an environment where the military is seriously overstretched. But this is a major international problem, and the use of force must be very much at the forefront of any real settlement to the issue.
It is not a burden of the United States alone. China, Saudi Arabia and most of Europe have all had their ships hijacked, their crews held hostage and ransoms paid. Yet it is know where the criminals’ stronghold it, it is known where their boats dock and it is known who the leaders are.
Yet the prevailing attitude seems to be that, since the crews and ships are generally freed after a ransom is paid, no harm is really done. That is rubbish. If the international community cannot get together to act on this, then a true coalition of those affected should take matters into their own hands.
Until they are forced to stop, the pirates will not. Why would they? Ships continue to venture into the waters unarmed, continued to get hijacked and continue to pay ransom. What have the pirates lost? Absolutely nothing.
If one or two of their boats were blasted out of the water, their home base occupied or their leaders dealt with, the equation would change. Maybe this drama will finally bring some action.
Microsoft's marketing follows Apple's playbook by Tom Krazit
At some point, clever marketing can backfire.
It's been quite a run for Microsoft of late. After sleeping for nearly three years while Apple successfully bashed it every night on network television with the Mac vs. PC ad campaign, Microsoft has sobered up and taken the offensive over the last several months with a series of marketing messages comparing the relative prices of Macs and PCs made by Microsoft's partners.
Make what you will of Lauren and Giampaolo's sincerity, there's no denying that the ads have struck a nerve. For years, fanboys of various stripes have fought vicious battles armed with HTML tags over the proper way to compare the prices of Macs and PCs, and by tapping into that, Microsoft's Windows marketing team has shown it has a pulse.
But perhaps someone at Microsoft should start to wonder what kind of branding message they are implanting in the public mind.
Microsoft's public-relations squad e-mailed reporters Thursday morning with another cutesy message regarding the "Apple Tax," because next week is Tax Day. (Get it?) My colleague Ina Fried has all the details on the maze of twisty passages Microsoft followed to calculate the Apple Tax, but the gist is basically the same as you've heard before: Macs are expensive, PCs are cheaper, and in these troubled economic times, won't you do the right thing for yourself and your family and save your money? It's a reasonable tactic: every marketing student learns about the Four Ps very early on in their education, and price is an essential weapon in any business plan. But in continuing to push this strategy, Microsoft is inadvertently reinforcing every single branding message Apple has ever attached to the Mac.
Virtually everyone who has ever used a personal computer has used Windows, meaning that almost every single computer user on the planet has developed an association with Windows. Most of those current associations still center on Windows 95 and Windows XP, which got the job done but also introduced the world to massive security threats, software engineer jargon, and the concept of hitting the "Start" button to stop using the computer.
That's what Apple has so successfully exploited with the smarmy Mac vs. PC campaign. The ads positioned the Mac as not only a superior computing experience to Windows, but a hipper one.
Microsoft has essentially conceded that point. As others have noted, Microsoft's shoppers don't ever wonder about the relative merits of Finder versus Windows Explorer in its latest series of ads. Instead, they focus completely on trying to make a hardware-to-hardware price comparison between various notebooks. Yet, Microsoft is a software company. And software, not hardware, is where you form a lasting relationship with a computer.
With its current ad campaign, Microsoft--perhaps the most dominant consumer software company the planet has yet to produce--is doing nothing to repair the damage done to the Windows brand by the Mac vs. PC campaign. One could argue the campaign is right for the times, as the company has (wisely) pretty much given up on trying to sell Windows Vista, Windows 7 isn't ready yet, and any rational person is watching their money more closely than they did in 2008.
But when Windows 7 is ready, Microsoft will have a bit of a dilemma on its hands. It could find it hard to sell Windows as a better experience than Mac--even if it is--because it has spent so much time and money on convincing people that Windows PCs are a bargain.
Argue all you want about the Apple Tax--it doesn't matter. There has always been, and will always be, a sizable group of people willing to pay extra for certain consumer goods simply because they carry an extra level of status. For years, the companies that sell those goods have profited quite handsomely from delivering two services: a quality product, and a status symbol.
Under Steve Jobs, Apple has almost always sought to position the Mac as an antiestablishment high-end computer, a computer for those who "think different" and get excited by their computers. Price is not a consideration for those willing to think different.
The only thing the PC industry is excited about right now are Netbooks, which they fail to mention are eroding their margins even more than they have already been eroded after decades of price wars. And now Microsoft is once again driving the price message, training consumers to expect ever lower prices from their computer salesperson.
Apple, meanwhile, with the best margins in the personal computer industry and two highly profitable consumer electronics products funding its growth, has now had its marketing message of the last two years--Macs are better than PCs--amplified by its rival's message--PCs are cheaper than Macs.
While the world needs Kias, the world wants BMWs, and anyone old enough to grasp a dollar understands that most times, you get what you pay for. Consumer confidence will one day return, and in taking the "Apple Tax" campaign to new heights (or lows) Microsoft has not only strained the bounds of credulity, it has cemented the idea that Macs are an aspirational product.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
The Sacred Leviathan by Thomas Barnett
ARTICLE: Short '06 Lebanon War Stokes Pentagon Debate, By Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, April 6, 2009; Page A01
My problem with the U.S.-Israel comparison has always been one of scale: Israel's army is a small fraction of ours (187k, or roughly the size of our Marines, versus our force of somewhere just shy of 1.5 million). That says that if you make a force about the size of Marines get focused on COIN, it could have a rough time in a straight-up conventional fight against a force like Hezbollah.
As for the rest of our 1.3 million? Apparently they just sat around meantime getting fat and stupid and learning nothing, so they were a complete waste.
Ah, then they come back at you with a year-in-the-life description of an average soldier and say "he can't manage both."
Again, why try to make everybody in the entire military good at this? Why not just some appropriate portion and an additional rotatable segment?
Then the argument usually retreats to truly big-war scenarios and opponents state we can't have a portion of our troops unready for that, as we might have to send all our Marines into China for the Big One.
In the end, the only choice that makes your opponents happy is a continued, force-wide focus on big-war and big-war platforms and you discard any attempt to get good at the postwar.
(If you detect industry's big-war constellation of officers and think tankers here, then you're beginning to see the funding dynamics behind a lot of this debate. Gates threatens that, and he's being pre-approved by his opponents for losing our next conventional war. As I said in PNM: no one gets in trouble for screwing up security (postwar), but you can always be condemned for even the tiniest diminution of our national "defense" (war).)
Because you're no good at that, you're back in Powell Doctrine territory: we win meaningless conflicts decisively, having no lasting impact and scheduling return dates that we'll like even less.
Some of this stuff is the usual Marine paranoia about losing their identity. The Army moves back into familiar, most constabulary-heavy venues, and the Marines fear being sucked anonymously into that. It's the same reason why, force structure-wise, the Marines are heading back ... to the sea.
My problem with the U.S.-Israel comparison has always been one of scale: Israel's army is a small fraction of ours (187k, or roughly the size of our Marines, versus our force of somewhere just shy of 1.5 million). That says that if you make a force about the size of Marines get focused on COIN, it could have a rough time in a straight-up conventional fight against a force like Hezbollah.
As for the rest of our 1.3 million? Apparently they just sat around meantime getting fat and stupid and learning nothing, so they were a complete waste.
Ah, then they come back at you with a year-in-the-life description of an average soldier and say "he can't manage both."
Again, why try to make everybody in the entire military good at this? Why not just some appropriate portion and an additional rotatable segment?
Then the argument usually retreats to truly big-war scenarios and opponents state we can't have a portion of our troops unready for that, as we might have to send all our Marines into China for the Big One.
In the end, the only choice that makes your opponents happy is a continued, force-wide focus on big-war and big-war platforms and you discard any attempt to get good at the postwar.
(If you detect industry's big-war constellation of officers and think tankers here, then you're beginning to see the funding dynamics behind a lot of this debate. Gates threatens that, and he's being pre-approved by his opponents for losing our next conventional war. As I said in PNM: no one gets in trouble for screwing up security (postwar), but you can always be condemned for even the tiniest diminution of our national "defense" (war).)
Because you're no good at that, you're back in Powell Doctrine territory: we win meaningless conflicts decisively, having no lasting impact and scheduling return dates that we'll like even less.
Some of this stuff is the usual Marine paranoia about losing their identity. The Army moves back into familiar, most constabulary-heavy venues, and the Marines fear being sucked anonymously into that. It's the same reason why, force structure-wise, the Marines are heading back ... to the sea.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
My Generation's Moral Recession by Charlie Nathan
There are high hopes for my generation, the Millennials, born between 1981 and 2001. We are to be the ones to stop global warming, cure cancer, and solve most of the world's other problems. After all, the Millennials helped elect Barack Obama, who championed hope and change. Once America has weathered the current economic crisis, we Millennials will be called upon to bring the economy into the middle of this century -- to take risks, create jobs, and elevate the nation to the next level of achievement by replacing our retiring entrepreneurs.
It's a shame we never learned the solid moral values necessary to accomplish these goals and maintain a healthy civil society.
The Millennials have been born into prosperity and leisure. Before now, we have not witnessed a major economic downturn and the closest most of us have been to war is playing a video game. For better or for worse, we are the "coddled generation," watched by overzealous "helicopter parents" who would do anything to give their child the edge. We grew up being told that we're "special" by everyone from little league coaches who give trophies to both winners and losers, to the late Mr. Rogers, who reminded us every morning that the world revolves around us.
We are also the "bling" and reality TV generation. Television shows like MTV Cribs deluded us into thinking that we will one day be able to afford the grand houses, personal chefs, and enormous shark-filled fish tanks of the stars. We couldn't stop watching reality shows like I Love New York and Flavor of Love, where the dregs of society congregated for their fifteen minutes of fame. Contestants hoped to cash in on their newfound celebrity, emulating Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, who, after debuting on The Apprentice, has appeared on more than 20 shows. Other programs, like I Love Money, provide an outlet for money-hungry reality "stars," degrading themselves in the process. With all this worship of money, it's no wonder that rapper 50 Cent's album Get Rich or Die Tryin' was the best selling album of 2003.
Beyond excessive coddling and the unrealistic pursuit of "bling," there is a greater weakness in my generation that may spoil our plans for success: our moral compass is pointing in the wrong direction. According to the Josephson Institute for Youth Ethics 2008 survey on the ethics of American youth, 64 percent of high school students admitted cheating on a test during the previous year and 38 percent did so two or more times. 30 percent admitted to stealing from a store within the past year. Yet, incredibly, an astounding 93 percent of those same high school students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character.
My personal experiences have confirmed these statistics. I know of one instance where rich parents offered a brand-new BMW to an SAT tutor to take the test for their child, who was surely in on the scheme. The parents didn't want their child to achieve on merit alone and encouraged cheating. The tutor declined the offer, but I am confident this is not the only case.
To share another personal example of twisted morality, two summers ago I was eating at a diner with some recent acquaintances. After we finished, I left a generous tip. As we were leaving, my companions started to laugh hysterically. I asked what was so funny and they revealed that they had taken my tip, a reward for service that was perfectly fine, and replaced it with a penny. These boys essentially stole the major source of income from a waitress, insulting her in the process -- all to "teach me a lesson" about over-tipping.
Looking at the big picture, my generation's moral deficiencies may derail our economic future. In 1985, when he was still known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a prophetic article, entitled "Market Economy and Ethics." The Cardinal argued that a market economy cannot be understood without taking the morality of the participants into account. The capitalistic model of the self-regulating free-market economy, he contended, includes the assumption "that the laws of the market are in essence good... whatever may be true of the morality of the individuals." The Cardinal disagreed, concluding that the development of an economy "depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions."
From Enron to Madoff, we have witnessed the economic consequences of immoral behavior. The current financial crisis was in part caused by immorality: buyers bought homes they couldn't afford, sellers sold homes to people who couldn't afford them, and the government sat back, enjoying the show.
The ruling generations are now debating whether capitalism has failed us and America should become more socialist. The outcome of this debate will dictate what kind of country we Millennials will inherit. Although I am only a junior in high school and haven't even taken Econ 101, it does not take an advanced degree to know that moral behavior is essential to any economy -- capitalist, socialist, or communist. Immoral people can make socialist or even communist economies just as dysfunctional as the worst capitalist ones. If all economic systems have the same possibility for immoral, economically destructive behavior, why not choose the one with the greatest reward for the most people: capitalism. The public is too quick to forget how America achieved its place as king of the world economy. It was not through nationalized industries and government subsidies, but through fierce yet healthy competition and rapid growth of the private sector.
So far, we Millennials have not had much of a chance to step up to the plate and prove ourselves morally capable of becoming the leaders of the American economy. But we will have no choice and, unless we change our ways, our immoral behavior can have disastrous consequences. Get Rich or Die Tryin' may have been a popular album, but it must not become the mantra of a generation.
There is one point on which I respectfully disagree with Pope Benedict: his view that only "strong religious convictions" can provide the morality needed to perfect the world economy. Whether it is God, Karma, or whatever else that informs our moral ethics, all that Millennials need to do is simply be good. As Rabbi Hillel said two thousand years ago when he summarized the Torah, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary."
It's a shame we never learned the solid moral values necessary to accomplish these goals and maintain a healthy civil society.
The Millennials have been born into prosperity and leisure. Before now, we have not witnessed a major economic downturn and the closest most of us have been to war is playing a video game. For better or for worse, we are the "coddled generation," watched by overzealous "helicopter parents" who would do anything to give their child the edge. We grew up being told that we're "special" by everyone from little league coaches who give trophies to both winners and losers, to the late Mr. Rogers, who reminded us every morning that the world revolves around us.
We are also the "bling" and reality TV generation. Television shows like MTV Cribs deluded us into thinking that we will one day be able to afford the grand houses, personal chefs, and enormous shark-filled fish tanks of the stars. We couldn't stop watching reality shows like I Love New York and Flavor of Love, where the dregs of society congregated for their fifteen minutes of fame. Contestants hoped to cash in on their newfound celebrity, emulating Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, who, after debuting on The Apprentice, has appeared on more than 20 shows. Other programs, like I Love Money, provide an outlet for money-hungry reality "stars," degrading themselves in the process. With all this worship of money, it's no wonder that rapper 50 Cent's album Get Rich or Die Tryin' was the best selling album of 2003.
Beyond excessive coddling and the unrealistic pursuit of "bling," there is a greater weakness in my generation that may spoil our plans for success: our moral compass is pointing in the wrong direction. According to the Josephson Institute for Youth Ethics 2008 survey on the ethics of American youth, 64 percent of high school students admitted cheating on a test during the previous year and 38 percent did so two or more times. 30 percent admitted to stealing from a store within the past year. Yet, incredibly, an astounding 93 percent of those same high school students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character.
My personal experiences have confirmed these statistics. I know of one instance where rich parents offered a brand-new BMW to an SAT tutor to take the test for their child, who was surely in on the scheme. The parents didn't want their child to achieve on merit alone and encouraged cheating. The tutor declined the offer, but I am confident this is not the only case.
To share another personal example of twisted morality, two summers ago I was eating at a diner with some recent acquaintances. After we finished, I left a generous tip. As we were leaving, my companions started to laugh hysterically. I asked what was so funny and they revealed that they had taken my tip, a reward for service that was perfectly fine, and replaced it with a penny. These boys essentially stole the major source of income from a waitress, insulting her in the process -- all to "teach me a lesson" about over-tipping.
Looking at the big picture, my generation's moral deficiencies may derail our economic future. In 1985, when he was still known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a prophetic article, entitled "Market Economy and Ethics." The Cardinal argued that a market economy cannot be understood without taking the morality of the participants into account. The capitalistic model of the self-regulating free-market economy, he contended, includes the assumption "that the laws of the market are in essence good... whatever may be true of the morality of the individuals." The Cardinal disagreed, concluding that the development of an economy "depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions."
From Enron to Madoff, we have witnessed the economic consequences of immoral behavior. The current financial crisis was in part caused by immorality: buyers bought homes they couldn't afford, sellers sold homes to people who couldn't afford them, and the government sat back, enjoying the show.
The ruling generations are now debating whether capitalism has failed us and America should become more socialist. The outcome of this debate will dictate what kind of country we Millennials will inherit. Although I am only a junior in high school and haven't even taken Econ 101, it does not take an advanced degree to know that moral behavior is essential to any economy -- capitalist, socialist, or communist. Immoral people can make socialist or even communist economies just as dysfunctional as the worst capitalist ones. If all economic systems have the same possibility for immoral, economically destructive behavior, why not choose the one with the greatest reward for the most people: capitalism. The public is too quick to forget how America achieved its place as king of the world economy. It was not through nationalized industries and government subsidies, but through fierce yet healthy competition and rapid growth of the private sector.
So far, we Millennials have not had much of a chance to step up to the plate and prove ourselves morally capable of becoming the leaders of the American economy. But we will have no choice and, unless we change our ways, our immoral behavior can have disastrous consequences. Get Rich or Die Tryin' may have been a popular album, but it must not become the mantra of a generation.
There is one point on which I respectfully disagree with Pope Benedict: his view that only "strong religious convictions" can provide the morality needed to perfect the world economy. Whether it is God, Karma, or whatever else that informs our moral ethics, all that Millennials need to do is simply be good. As Rabbi Hillel said two thousand years ago when he summarized the Torah, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary."
Monday, April 06, 2009
Remaking the Pentagon For The Future by Douglas Farah
It is clear that the current debate over the future configuration of the military is a divisive and extremely important one.
While Secretary Gates, bowing to the budget realities of the Obama administration, is cutting programs while moving toward a stronger focus on irregular warfare and special forces,the clear resolution to the debate is that both sides have considerable merit. Some common ground must be found, and it is a question of focus, not a question of either or. The recent North Korean missile challenge also serves as a reminder that traditional state actors and threats cannot be ignored.
There is no doubt that non-state armed groups are occupying more space around the globe, both in areas of obvious strategic concern to the United States, and those that may not seem to be of particular concern but contribute to overall instability. Most of these groups are irregular, fragmented and more similar to the movements in Afghanistan/Pakistan than regular movements.
While it is often difficult to see the specific security challenge these groups pose, the overarching threat of radical Islamists operating in this manner is not. All the major Islamist terrorist attacks against the United States (1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa, 2000 USS Cole, 9/11) were all carried out by a non-state actor operating from what was conventionally described as a failed state (Afghanistan). That threat was underestimated by successive administrations, and the price paid has been horrific.
But the groups that will form the most pressing threats in the future, I believe, will be modeled on Hezbollah, able to mass troops, deploy advanced weapons systems and fight for territory, while remaining outside of direct state control.
This is because Hezbollah (like the FARC and somewhat similar to HAMAS), have the resources and state backing to be the hybrid forces that are the future.
Hezbollah is not a state actor, nor is the FARC. But they both enjoy two things that set them apart: state support (for Hezbollah, Iran and Syria; for the FARC, Venezuela and Ecuador) and the ability to generate independent funding for their operations. In the case of Hezbollah, it is a wide array of criminal and contraband activities. For the FARC it is drug trafficking and kidnapping.
In many ways, this is the ideal situation for any irregular force, and presents a whole different set of challenges to states. The asymmetrical aspects of the conflict take on added dimensions.
The non-state groups can operate from the sanctuary of a friendly state, but are not wholly dependent on it. The state they are attacking (Israel, Colombia) cannot effectively move against them unless they are willing to go to war with another state, something that is often too high a price to pay.
If the terms of the alliance were to become too onerous, the irregular force can survive because it is not entirely dependent on the state. The state can use the non-state force for specific actions that it would not carry out as an internationally-recognized government.
As groups like the Taliban and others move more heavily into drug trafficking and other economic adventures (see the Guardian story on the Taliban’s use of emeralds now and see if reminds you of the blood diamond trade in West Africa), they will become more like Hezbollah, particularly if they can gain state sanctioned sanctuary in Pakistan.
The stakes are high and the challenges are multiple. The hybrid groups that can fight both ways make it imperative that the United States also retain the capacity to fight both types of wars. It is not an either/or proposition. It is, unfortunately, a double threat.
While Secretary Gates, bowing to the budget realities of the Obama administration, is cutting programs while moving toward a stronger focus on irregular warfare and special forces,the clear resolution to the debate is that both sides have considerable merit. Some common ground must be found, and it is a question of focus, not a question of either or. The recent North Korean missile challenge also serves as a reminder that traditional state actors and threats cannot be ignored.
There is no doubt that non-state armed groups are occupying more space around the globe, both in areas of obvious strategic concern to the United States, and those that may not seem to be of particular concern but contribute to overall instability. Most of these groups are irregular, fragmented and more similar to the movements in Afghanistan/Pakistan than regular movements.
While it is often difficult to see the specific security challenge these groups pose, the overarching threat of radical Islamists operating in this manner is not. All the major Islamist terrorist attacks against the United States (1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa, 2000 USS Cole, 9/11) were all carried out by a non-state actor operating from what was conventionally described as a failed state (Afghanistan). That threat was underestimated by successive administrations, and the price paid has been horrific.
But the groups that will form the most pressing threats in the future, I believe, will be modeled on Hezbollah, able to mass troops, deploy advanced weapons systems and fight for territory, while remaining outside of direct state control.
This is because Hezbollah (like the FARC and somewhat similar to HAMAS), have the resources and state backing to be the hybrid forces that are the future.
Hezbollah is not a state actor, nor is the FARC. But they both enjoy two things that set them apart: state support (for Hezbollah, Iran and Syria; for the FARC, Venezuela and Ecuador) and the ability to generate independent funding for their operations. In the case of Hezbollah, it is a wide array of criminal and contraband activities. For the FARC it is drug trafficking and kidnapping.
In many ways, this is the ideal situation for any irregular force, and presents a whole different set of challenges to states. The asymmetrical aspects of the conflict take on added dimensions.
The non-state groups can operate from the sanctuary of a friendly state, but are not wholly dependent on it. The state they are attacking (Israel, Colombia) cannot effectively move against them unless they are willing to go to war with another state, something that is often too high a price to pay.
If the terms of the alliance were to become too onerous, the irregular force can survive because it is not entirely dependent on the state. The state can use the non-state force for specific actions that it would not carry out as an internationally-recognized government.
As groups like the Taliban and others move more heavily into drug trafficking and other economic adventures (see the Guardian story on the Taliban’s use of emeralds now and see if reminds you of the blood diamond trade in West Africa), they will become more like Hezbollah, particularly if they can gain state sanctioned sanctuary in Pakistan.
The stakes are high and the challenges are multiple. The hybrid groups that can fight both ways make it imperative that the United States also retain the capacity to fight both types of wars. It is not an either/or proposition. It is, unfortunately, a double threat.
Bone-Repairing Stem Cell Jab Hope by Michelle Roberts
Doctors may soon be able to patch up damaged bones and joints anywhere in the body with a simple shot in the arm.
A team at Keele University is testing injectible stem cells that they say they can control with a magnet.
Once injected these immature cells can be guided to precisely where their help is needed and encouraged to grow new cartilage and bone, work on mice shows.
The aim is to treat patients with injuries and arthritis the UK National Stem Cell Network conference heard.
Professor Alicia El Haj, working with Professor John Dobson, also of Keele University, says the technology, patented by Magnecell, could be tested in humans within five years.
It would provide a way to treat disease without invasive surgery or powerful drugs.
The injection would use the patient's own stem cells, harvested from their bone marrow. These mesenchymal cells would be treated in the lab to give them a coating of minute magnetic particles.
Use in scans. These same magnetic nanoparticles are already approved in the US where they are routinely used as an agent to make MRI scans clearer to read. Targeted magnetic fields could then move the cells around the body to the desired place and switch them into action without the need for drugs or other biochemical triggers. Professor Al Haj said: "The ultimate aim is to repair cartilage and bone. We have been able to grow new bone in mice. Now we will look at whether we can repair damaged sites in goats.
"We should be able to move to human trials within five years."
Meanwhile, experts at the University of Southampton, led by Professor Richard Oreffo, have treated four patients with hip joint problems using stem cell therapy.
The technique combines the patients own bone marrow stem cells with donor bone cells to patch-repair damaged bones that would otherwise need treatment with metal plates and pins.
They say it is only a matter of years before their method could be used routinely to treat some of the 60,000 people who fracture a hip in the UK each year.
A team at Keele University is testing injectible stem cells that they say they can control with a magnet.
Once injected these immature cells can be guided to precisely where their help is needed and encouraged to grow new cartilage and bone, work on mice shows.
The aim is to treat patients with injuries and arthritis the UK National Stem Cell Network conference heard.
Professor Alicia El Haj, working with Professor John Dobson, also of Keele University, says the technology, patented by Magnecell, could be tested in humans within five years.
It would provide a way to treat disease without invasive surgery or powerful drugs.
The injection would use the patient's own stem cells, harvested from their bone marrow. These mesenchymal cells would be treated in the lab to give them a coating of minute magnetic particles.
Use in scans. These same magnetic nanoparticles are already approved in the US where they are routinely used as an agent to make MRI scans clearer to read. Targeted magnetic fields could then move the cells around the body to the desired place and switch them into action without the need for drugs or other biochemical triggers. Professor Al Haj said: "The ultimate aim is to repair cartilage and bone. We have been able to grow new bone in mice. Now we will look at whether we can repair damaged sites in goats.
"We should be able to move to human trials within five years."
Meanwhile, experts at the University of Southampton, led by Professor Richard Oreffo, have treated four patients with hip joint problems using stem cell therapy.
The technique combines the patients own bone marrow stem cells with donor bone cells to patch-repair damaged bones that would otherwise need treatment with metal plates and pins.
They say it is only a matter of years before their method could be used routinely to treat some of the 60,000 people who fracture a hip in the UK each year.
American Interests in Pakistan: Zardari serves them better than Sharif by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Recent turmoil in Pakistan has altered the political landscape in ways that should register with policymakers in Washington. Events have cast something of a pall over the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, a champion of the fight against Islamic militants, while elevating populist opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, a two-time former prime minister now returned from exile in Saudi Arabia. Sharif has adopted an increasingly conspiratorial and anti-American tone. The leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), he may be preparing for a return to power--which could create trouble for U.S. strategic interests.
When Zardari, widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, succeeded General Pervez Musharraf as president in September 2008, some looked to a new era of stability. The convulsions of the past month have undercut those hopes. On February 25, Pakistan's supreme court disqualified Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab province, from public office. While Nawaz had a long history of corruption, Joshua T. White, a research fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement, believes the dismissal of Shahbaz Sharif was foolish, in that Shahbaz "was seen as legitimate, popular, and relatively clean of controversy."
Nawaz Sharif responded by urging the people of Pakistan to rise up. Thousands took to the streets, torching cars and images of President Zardari. Protests were held in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, and numerous districts in Punjab. Nawaz Sharif managed the situation skillfully, positioning himself as an adherent of democracy and the rule of law even as he instigated violent protests. The ruling barring the Sharif brothers from public office became linked to a second political issue, the reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice.
The pro-Sharif demonstrators rallied to the cause of Chaudhry's reinstatement. Sharif began to lead a "long march" from Lahore to Islamabad, accompanied by a throng of lawyers. This coincided with other signs of instability, including tensions within Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party that led to the resignation of his information minister (in protest over a media clampdown) and a senior federal minister.
Zardari caved, restoring Chaudhry as chief justice on March 16. He also agreed to permit an appeal of the Sharif brothers' disqualification from office. Chaudhry promptly reinstated Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister of Punjab.
At the height of these events the security forces briefly balked at following civilian orders, "a classic precursor indicator to the collapse of the Pakistani government," counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen told the Wall Street Journal. Since then, Pakistan has stepped back from the brink, Zardari's concessions having defused some of the anger directed at his government. But doubts remain about the government's long-term stability.
The clear winner from the chaos, Nawaz Sharif has "shrewdly aligned himself with Pakistani public opinion," White told me, "and positioned himself to be the next prime minister down the road." By the time that happens, political power may have shifted back from the presidency to the prime ministership, reversing a Musharraf-era reform.
All of this should cause concern in Washington. Sharif has been harshly critical of the U.S. role in Pakistan, and his party, according to commentator Ali Malik in the English-language Pakistani daily The News, "probably represents the single biggest segment of the Pakistani polity that is still not convinced about the urgency of the threat of religious extremism and terrorism"; indeed, the writer accuses the PML-N of having "a soft corner for the extremist elements." Sharif's illiberal attitudes, moreover, are nothing new. In a 1990 run for prime minister, he railed against Benazir Bhutto as part of an American-led "Indo-Zionist lobby."
Where would a Sharif government stand on U.S. Predator strikes carried out on Pakistani soil? The present government has been distinctly more accommodating than its predecessor. In 2007, Musharraf's last full year as president, the United States located over 20 terrorist targets in Pakistan and requested permission to strike about 15, but Pakistan's leadership approved only 3 strikes. In contrast, Zardari has authorized over 30 hits in his seven months as president, allowing the United States to eliminate several high-value targets.
"Sharif has said that the United States needs to end drone strikes," according to Kamran Bokhari, the director of Middle East analysis at the private intelligence firm STRATFOR. "Though he knows that you will say one thing when you're out of office, but do different things when in office, it would be difficult for Sharif to work aggressively with the United States in the war on terror." Most likely, Sharif would narrow the circumstances in which drone strikes could be authorized.
And in two other policy areas, a Sharif government would likely be uncongenial to the United States. It would probably take a more aggressive stance toward Kashmir, detracting from the fight against jihadists. "If Pakistan's military is geared to fight India," a high-level Pakistani official asked me, "how can they fight insurgents?"
And Sharif would likely push for the extension of sharia law, as he did both times he was prime minister (in 1990-1993 and 1997-1999). While this probably wouldn't threaten U.S. strategic interests, it would bode ill for Pakistan's women and religious minorities.
Sharif is aided in his rise by a sympathetic media, who ignore his shortcomings and help him "cultivate the image of a strong man who does not budge from his stance," in the words of commentator Yahya Hussaini. Officials in Zardari's government raised this concern with me. One complained that several recent pro-Sharif rallies were shown repeatedly on television before they had attracted many participants, and that the saturation coverage helped to increase their size.
The strong anti-American strand in Pakistan's media, moreover, indirectly aids Sharif. Thus, the message behind one music video that played frequently on Pakistani television during the recent crisis was that Pakistan's problems are caused by the American war in Afghanistan, not by jihadism. The video portrays a sinister-looking CIA agent and a cigar-smoking President Zardari cackling as a Predator strike kills an unjustly imprisoned Pakistani man who escapes from prison determined to "change the system of the country." Elsewhere in Pakistan's media, conspiracy-minded figures like commentator Ahmed Quraishi, who sees the hidden hand of the United States and India behind virtually all of Pakistan's ills, are reaching new prominence.
Against this turbulent backdrop, President Obama has correctly noted that Pakistan should not be given blank checks; in the past, the United States often failed to gear its aid toward American strategic interests. Pakistan remains the critical country in the war against al Qaeda, yet too little aid has been directed toward counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations.
At the same time, the United States cannot be seen as meddling excessively in internal affairs. The challenge is to avoid that error, while still giving meaningful support where appropriate. The United States has a poor reputation for supporting its allies in times of crisis, and it is important that this view of America not be reinforced. With Nawaz Sharif waiting in the wings, Washington should be keenly aware that Zardari's government is far better aligned with America's strategic interests.
When Zardari, widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, succeeded General Pervez Musharraf as president in September 2008, some looked to a new era of stability. The convulsions of the past month have undercut those hopes. On February 25, Pakistan's supreme court disqualified Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab province, from public office. While Nawaz had a long history of corruption, Joshua T. White, a research fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement, believes the dismissal of Shahbaz Sharif was foolish, in that Shahbaz "was seen as legitimate, popular, and relatively clean of controversy."
Nawaz Sharif responded by urging the people of Pakistan to rise up. Thousands took to the streets, torching cars and images of President Zardari. Protests were held in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, and numerous districts in Punjab. Nawaz Sharif managed the situation skillfully, positioning himself as an adherent of democracy and the rule of law even as he instigated violent protests. The ruling barring the Sharif brothers from public office became linked to a second political issue, the reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice.
The pro-Sharif demonstrators rallied to the cause of Chaudhry's reinstatement. Sharif began to lead a "long march" from Lahore to Islamabad, accompanied by a throng of lawyers. This coincided with other signs of instability, including tensions within Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party that led to the resignation of his information minister (in protest over a media clampdown) and a senior federal minister.
Zardari caved, restoring Chaudhry as chief justice on March 16. He also agreed to permit an appeal of the Sharif brothers' disqualification from office. Chaudhry promptly reinstated Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister of Punjab.
At the height of these events the security forces briefly balked at following civilian orders, "a classic precursor indicator to the collapse of the Pakistani government," counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen told the Wall Street Journal. Since then, Pakistan has stepped back from the brink, Zardari's concessions having defused some of the anger directed at his government. But doubts remain about the government's long-term stability.
The clear winner from the chaos, Nawaz Sharif has "shrewdly aligned himself with Pakistani public opinion," White told me, "and positioned himself to be the next prime minister down the road." By the time that happens, political power may have shifted back from the presidency to the prime ministership, reversing a Musharraf-era reform.
All of this should cause concern in Washington. Sharif has been harshly critical of the U.S. role in Pakistan, and his party, according to commentator Ali Malik in the English-language Pakistani daily The News, "probably represents the single biggest segment of the Pakistani polity that is still not convinced about the urgency of the threat of religious extremism and terrorism"; indeed, the writer accuses the PML-N of having "a soft corner for the extremist elements." Sharif's illiberal attitudes, moreover, are nothing new. In a 1990 run for prime minister, he railed against Benazir Bhutto as part of an American-led "Indo-Zionist lobby."
Where would a Sharif government stand on U.S. Predator strikes carried out on Pakistani soil? The present government has been distinctly more accommodating than its predecessor. In 2007, Musharraf's last full year as president, the United States located over 20 terrorist targets in Pakistan and requested permission to strike about 15, but Pakistan's leadership approved only 3 strikes. In contrast, Zardari has authorized over 30 hits in his seven months as president, allowing the United States to eliminate several high-value targets.
"Sharif has said that the United States needs to end drone strikes," according to Kamran Bokhari, the director of Middle East analysis at the private intelligence firm STRATFOR. "Though he knows that you will say one thing when you're out of office, but do different things when in office, it would be difficult for Sharif to work aggressively with the United States in the war on terror." Most likely, Sharif would narrow the circumstances in which drone strikes could be authorized.
And in two other policy areas, a Sharif government would likely be uncongenial to the United States. It would probably take a more aggressive stance toward Kashmir, detracting from the fight against jihadists. "If Pakistan's military is geared to fight India," a high-level Pakistani official asked me, "how can they fight insurgents?"
And Sharif would likely push for the extension of sharia law, as he did both times he was prime minister (in 1990-1993 and 1997-1999). While this probably wouldn't threaten U.S. strategic interests, it would bode ill for Pakistan's women and religious minorities.
Sharif is aided in his rise by a sympathetic media, who ignore his shortcomings and help him "cultivate the image of a strong man who does not budge from his stance," in the words of commentator Yahya Hussaini. Officials in Zardari's government raised this concern with me. One complained that several recent pro-Sharif rallies were shown repeatedly on television before they had attracted many participants, and that the saturation coverage helped to increase their size.
The strong anti-American strand in Pakistan's media, moreover, indirectly aids Sharif. Thus, the message behind one music video that played frequently on Pakistani television during the recent crisis was that Pakistan's problems are caused by the American war in Afghanistan, not by jihadism. The video portrays a sinister-looking CIA agent and a cigar-smoking President Zardari cackling as a Predator strike kills an unjustly imprisoned Pakistani man who escapes from prison determined to "change the system of the country." Elsewhere in Pakistan's media, conspiracy-minded figures like commentator Ahmed Quraishi, who sees the hidden hand of the United States and India behind virtually all of Pakistan's ills, are reaching new prominence.
Against this turbulent backdrop, President Obama has correctly noted that Pakistan should not be given blank checks; in the past, the United States often failed to gear its aid toward American strategic interests. Pakistan remains the critical country in the war against al Qaeda, yet too little aid has been directed toward counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations.
At the same time, the United States cannot be seen as meddling excessively in internal affairs. The challenge is to avoid that error, while still giving meaningful support where appropriate. The United States has a poor reputation for supporting its allies in times of crisis, and it is important that this view of America not be reinforced. With Nawaz Sharif waiting in the wings, Washington should be keenly aware that Zardari's government is far better aligned with America's strategic interests.
Lashkar-e-Taiba Resumes Operations Against Indian Forces in Jammu and Kashmir by Animesh Roul
After lying low for a few months following the November 2008 Mumbai carnage and the subsequent crackdown on its leadership and camps in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has once again resumed operations in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
LeT fighters engaged Indian regulars of 1 Para and 6 Btn. Rashtriya Rifles (a counterterrorism paramilitary created in 1990 for use in Kashmir) in a five-day firefight, beginning on March 20 in the Shamasbari forest range of Kupwara District, close to the Kashmir Line of Control (LoC) – a military control line constituting a de facto border between Indian and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The LeT claimed responsibility for the ambush on an army patrol party and the subsequent encounter in which 17 militants and eight soldiers (including a major) were killed (Kashmir Live, March 25; NDTV, March 24). The Indian Army ascribed its losses to the technical sophistication of the insurgents and their extensive use of GPS systems in the densely forested region. According to Brigadier Gurmit Singh; "The militants killed in the encounter were highly trained, well equipped. We have recovered the latest weapons, communication systems and maps from them” (Kashmir Observer, March 27).
Indian security agencies suspect the Pakistani army of involvement in the infiltration of the militants. The army’s suspicion is based on recovered snow gear, maps, GPS systems, a Thuraya satellite phone, rations and medicines (Kashmir Observer, March 27; RTT News, March 26). However, Pakistan has dismissed the idea that the Kupwara encounters were supported by government forces across the border.
In mid-March, almost a week before the Kupwara battle, at least three LeT terrorists successfully crossed the LoC and were later killed during a siege of the mosque in which they took refuge in the Kishtwar district of Jammu region (News Agency of Kashmir, March 14). One of the militants was identified as an LeT commander, Yusuf Gujjar (Indo-Asian News Service, March 14; Times of India, March 15).
The recovery of two Pakistan-made liquefied petroleum gas cylinders and four AK-47 assault rifles in the Mendhar area of Poonch District indicated militants successfully crossed the LoC late last month (Daily Excelsior [Jammu], March 22).
A day after the Army completed the operation in Kupwara, the LeT terrorists again made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Kashmir Valley from the Gurez sector in Bandipora District and from the Hachamarg area of Handwara District (Times of India, March 28). Indian troops deployed at the LoC have confirmed large-scale attempts by Pakistan-based militants, mostly LeT and Hizb ul-Mujahidin (HuM) cadres, to infiltrate into the state through the forests of the Kupwara and Gurez sectors.
After recently overhauling its infrastructure in J&K, the LeT has reportedly vowed to continue lethal strikes against the security forces and vital installations in the state. Claiming responsibility for the Kupwara encounters, the LeT’s elusive spokesman, Abdullah (Gaznavi) Muntazir, told local media; “The encounter which ensued turned out to be a long-drawn-out battle… [it] should serve as an eye-opener for New Delhi... India should understand that the freedom struggle in Kashmir is not over… it is active with full force” (Rising Kashmir [Srinagar], March 25).
There is increasing concern in the Indian security establishment over the flourishing terror infrastructure across the border. Contrary to Pakistan’s claim to have shut down terror camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, unconfirmed reports in early March suggested the LeT has opened up more camps in Muzzafarabad, Mirpur and Kotli for the fresh recruitment and training of new cadres. According to Indian intelligence agencies, the LeT has positioned around 800 cadres under newly designated leaders in charge of J&K operations. The new leaders were identified by Indian intelligence sources as Shahji (a.k.a. Abu Anas), Hyder Bhayee (a.ka. Bilal, a.k.a. Salahuddin), Huzefa (a.k.a. Abdul Gaffar) and Walid, the LeT’s “top man for ammunition supply and finances” (Indian Express, March 7). The four senior LeT commanders reportedly replaced Mumbai attack masterminds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah and Yousuf Muzammil, all currently in Pakistani custody.
However, the Kupwara encounter took the Army and paramilitary by surprise and forced them to increase their level of preparedness to meet future infiltration attempts by Pakistan-based terrorists. Likewise, security has been beefed up along the LoC and around vital installations in J&K following intelligence inputs about impending attempts to infiltrate militants into Kashmir in the spring to sabotage the Parliamentary poll in the state. 183 paramilitary companies will be deployed to provide security for the elections (Hindu, March 31).
The infiltration attempt and subsequent encounter in Kupwara coincided with the first major violation of the bilateral ceasefire in the Uri sector of north Kashmir, in which Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged fire for several hours on March 20 (Rediff.com, March 21; Daily Times [Lahore], March 22).
The question remains as to how the LeT has been able to bounce back, even after Pakistan’s so-called crackdown following the Mumbai episode. Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh addressed this puzzle recently by saying the LeT has made a resurgence “because the government of Pakistan is either not able to control them or they are not willing to control them" (Indian Express, April 1).
LeT fighters engaged Indian regulars of 1 Para and 6 Btn. Rashtriya Rifles (a counterterrorism paramilitary created in 1990 for use in Kashmir) in a five-day firefight, beginning on March 20 in the Shamasbari forest range of Kupwara District, close to the Kashmir Line of Control (LoC) – a military control line constituting a de facto border between Indian and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The LeT claimed responsibility for the ambush on an army patrol party and the subsequent encounter in which 17 militants and eight soldiers (including a major) were killed (Kashmir Live, March 25; NDTV, March 24). The Indian Army ascribed its losses to the technical sophistication of the insurgents and their extensive use of GPS systems in the densely forested region. According to Brigadier Gurmit Singh; "The militants killed in the encounter were highly trained, well equipped. We have recovered the latest weapons, communication systems and maps from them” (Kashmir Observer, March 27).
Indian security agencies suspect the Pakistani army of involvement in the infiltration of the militants. The army’s suspicion is based on recovered snow gear, maps, GPS systems, a Thuraya satellite phone, rations and medicines (Kashmir Observer, March 27; RTT News, March 26). However, Pakistan has dismissed the idea that the Kupwara encounters were supported by government forces across the border.
In mid-March, almost a week before the Kupwara battle, at least three LeT terrorists successfully crossed the LoC and were later killed during a siege of the mosque in which they took refuge in the Kishtwar district of Jammu region (News Agency of Kashmir, March 14). One of the militants was identified as an LeT commander, Yusuf Gujjar (Indo-Asian News Service, March 14; Times of India, March 15).
The recovery of two Pakistan-made liquefied petroleum gas cylinders and four AK-47 assault rifles in the Mendhar area of Poonch District indicated militants successfully crossed the LoC late last month (Daily Excelsior [Jammu], March 22).
A day after the Army completed the operation in Kupwara, the LeT terrorists again made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Kashmir Valley from the Gurez sector in Bandipora District and from the Hachamarg area of Handwara District (Times of India, March 28). Indian troops deployed at the LoC have confirmed large-scale attempts by Pakistan-based militants, mostly LeT and Hizb ul-Mujahidin (HuM) cadres, to infiltrate into the state through the forests of the Kupwara and Gurez sectors.
After recently overhauling its infrastructure in J&K, the LeT has reportedly vowed to continue lethal strikes against the security forces and vital installations in the state. Claiming responsibility for the Kupwara encounters, the LeT’s elusive spokesman, Abdullah (Gaznavi) Muntazir, told local media; “The encounter which ensued turned out to be a long-drawn-out battle… [it] should serve as an eye-opener for New Delhi... India should understand that the freedom struggle in Kashmir is not over… it is active with full force” (Rising Kashmir [Srinagar], March 25).
There is increasing concern in the Indian security establishment over the flourishing terror infrastructure across the border. Contrary to Pakistan’s claim to have shut down terror camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, unconfirmed reports in early March suggested the LeT has opened up more camps in Muzzafarabad, Mirpur and Kotli for the fresh recruitment and training of new cadres. According to Indian intelligence agencies, the LeT has positioned around 800 cadres under newly designated leaders in charge of J&K operations. The new leaders were identified by Indian intelligence sources as Shahji (a.k.a. Abu Anas), Hyder Bhayee (a.ka. Bilal, a.k.a. Salahuddin), Huzefa (a.k.a. Abdul Gaffar) and Walid, the LeT’s “top man for ammunition supply and finances” (Indian Express, March 7). The four senior LeT commanders reportedly replaced Mumbai attack masterminds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah and Yousuf Muzammil, all currently in Pakistani custody.
However, the Kupwara encounter took the Army and paramilitary by surprise and forced them to increase their level of preparedness to meet future infiltration attempts by Pakistan-based terrorists. Likewise, security has been beefed up along the LoC and around vital installations in J&K following intelligence inputs about impending attempts to infiltrate militants into Kashmir in the spring to sabotage the Parliamentary poll in the state. 183 paramilitary companies will be deployed to provide security for the elections (Hindu, March 31).
The infiltration attempt and subsequent encounter in Kupwara coincided with the first major violation of the bilateral ceasefire in the Uri sector of north Kashmir, in which Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged fire for several hours on March 20 (Rediff.com, March 21; Daily Times [Lahore], March 22).
The question remains as to how the LeT has been able to bounce back, even after Pakistan’s so-called crackdown following the Mumbai episode. Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh addressed this puzzle recently by saying the LeT has made a resurgence “because the government of Pakistan is either not able to control them or they are not willing to control them" (Indian Express, April 1).
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