Ukraine says Russia pushing it out of arms market
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/worl ... aine-.html
:20 a.m. October 29, 2008
KIEV – Russia is waging an 'information war' against Ukraine to try to push it out of lucrative arms markets, the head of Ukraine's main arms export agency was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
In comments posted on the Ukrainian president's Web site, Serhiy Bondarchuk said Russian allegations that Ukraine had made illegal arms sales, specifically to Georgia, were aimed at trying to secure control over key markets.
'Russia has launched an unprecedented, large-scale information war on Ukraine,' Bondarchuk, head of the Ukrspetsexport agency, said in a statement.
'Although Russia is formally our strategic partner, it is also trying, through rough and often dirty means, to compete with Ukraine on the key sections of today's arms market.'
He said this was reflected in the recent 'wave of hysteria' of allegations that Ukraine had supplied arms illegally to Georgia. Russia fought Georgia in a five-day war in August.
Ukraine mainly exports Soviet-designed tanks, transport aircraft, naval ships and armoured personnel carriers. Bondarchuk has previously said Ukraine is the world's sixth largest arms exporter with $700 million of sales in 2007.
Bondarchuk made his comments a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticised U.S. sanctions against Moscow over alleged sales of sensitive technology that could help Iran, North Korea and Syria develop dangerous weapons.
Medvedev dismissed those sanctions as 'short-sighted' amounting to 'unscrupulous competition' aimed at cutting Russia off from markets. He also reiterated the Kremlin's complaints that the West, and some of its ex-Soviet allies like Ukraine, were selling offensive weapons to Georgia.
In his comments, Bondarchuk said Ukraine, Russia and other states 'had actively sold arms to Georgia over the last 10 years'.
Russian troops thrust into Georgia in August after Georgian forces attempted to retake the Moscow-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia.
'The only illegal issue here concerns the unrecognised separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,' he said. 'And this is an issue to put to Russia – how and why did modern modern weapons end up there, clearly in amounts disproportionate to the population.'
Bondarchuk and other Ukrainian officials have repeatedly denied that Ukraine supplied arms illegally to Georgia, which is led, like Ukraine, by a pro-Western president committed to joining the NATO alliance. Russia denounces NATO expansion to its ex-Soviet states as a threat to its own security.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; writing by Ron Popeski; editing by Richard
Geopolitical thread
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
"NATO is a defensive pact among nations...",then what is it doing in Afghanistan pray? If defensive,why is it also encouraging more members to join it when the Warsaw Pact is now extinct? The truth is that a new global security appratus was/is planned by Bush & Western adventurists,that would have as its inner core NATO forces and an outer core of allies like Japan,Oz,S.Korea-to also seduce India into its fold.The "1000 ship" global navy that the USN's planners have been envisaging and attempting to create ,would have at its core the USN and navies of allies making up the remaining numbers.Naturally,the Russian Navy and the PLAN would be kept completely out of this armada.
The US wants key assets from India,the "unsinkable carrier" of the Indian sub-continent to operate from,along with the IN,the dominant navy in the region to balance against China,as it will have its hands fully tied up with any Pacific crisis involving Taiwan.The concern about the recent Rand Corp. study that revealed that the USAF's strategy of "stealth" fighters (F-22 and JSF) and AWACS would be defeated by the Chinese numerical superiority in a Taiwan crisis,is similarly reflected in naval operations,where China's huge naval expansion,especially its massive sub production-out of all proportion to the potential threats against it,wikl significantly stunt naval operations in a maritime crisis in the Asian/Pacific theater,as it did during WW2,more so now because of the energy shipping route from the Gulf and M-East through the IOR.The "outer core" of US/NATO allies and non-NATO allies,will make up the numbers and protect the backsides and flanks of the USN,etc.,in present and future crises,with the addition of logistic and repair facilities at Indian ports and bases.
The US wants key assets from India,the "unsinkable carrier" of the Indian sub-continent to operate from,along with the IN,the dominant navy in the region to balance against China,as it will have its hands fully tied up with any Pacific crisis involving Taiwan.The concern about the recent Rand Corp. study that revealed that the USAF's strategy of "stealth" fighters (F-22 and JSF) and AWACS would be defeated by the Chinese numerical superiority in a Taiwan crisis,is similarly reflected in naval operations,where China's huge naval expansion,especially its massive sub production-out of all proportion to the potential threats against it,wikl significantly stunt naval operations in a maritime crisis in the Asian/Pacific theater,as it did during WW2,more so now because of the energy shipping route from the Gulf and M-East through the IOR.The "outer core" of US/NATO allies and non-NATO allies,will make up the numbers and protect the backsides and flanks of the USN,etc.,in present and future crises,with the addition of logistic and repair facilities at Indian ports and bases.
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
Why the West wants Syria to dump all its old friends
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do2907.xml
When Syria's portly foreign minister - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Israel's fallen strongman, Ariel Sharon - visited London this week, he used the splendour of a mansion beside St James's Park to denounce America's raid on his country as "terrorist aggression".
Walid al-Muallem's official visit for talks with David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was the latest thread in the tangled web of contradiction forming Syria's relations with the outside world.
Only three years ago, Syrian intelligence agents helped bring yet more carnage to Beirut when a ton of high explosives killed Rafiq Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, and 21 bystanders. Two years ago, Syria cheered on a key ally, Hizbollah, when it started a war against Israel that claimed at least 1,300 lives. Last year, Israeli jets destroyed a suspected nuclear facility, perhaps linked to North Korea's illicit weapons programme, concealed in the Syrian desert.
All this might lead you to believe that Syria was a pariah state, sponsoring terrorists and dabbling in the supremely dangerous game of nuclear proliferation.
Yet only last week, Gordon Brown's foreign policy adviser, Simon McDonald, flew to Damascus to meet President Bashar al-Assad. This week, Mr Muallem had three hours of talks with Mr Miliband and invited him to Damascus. And President Nicolas Sarkozy of France recently invited the Syrian leader to Paris.
If the Foreign Secretary accepts, he will find himself in the same city as the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the radical Palestinian movements. As well as issuing invitations to British ministers, Syria also manages to be Iran's crucial ally - in fact, Iran's only real friend in the Middle East. Mr Assad's regime juggles all this and still manages to hold indirect peace talks with senior Israeli officials.
When you lead a poor country with hardly any oil, only 19 million people and a pitifully weak army, you cannot afford to burn your bridges with anybody. Mr Assad's foreign policy is to reach in all directions at once, play in every game and explore every possible alliance.
This stems from his personal vulnerability. In a country that calls itself a republic, Mr Assad inherited the presidency from his father, Hafez, who died in 2000. This makes him the world's only example of a very odd species - an absolute monarch, with no throne, ruling a hereditary republic. When it comes to lacking any shred of popular legitimacy, no one can compete with Mr Assad. He cannot even claim the dubious standing that comes from having led a successful coup. As every Syrian knows, Mr Assad is their president only because his Dad ran a military coup 38 years ago.
As if this was not bad enough, the Assad family does not share the mainstream Shia faith of Iran nor the Sunni traditions of Saudi Arabia nor, in fact, the religious loyalty of any other regime in the Middle East. Instead, they are from the tiny Alawite sect, making them a minority in their own country.
The elder Mr Assad needed every ounce of his remarkable political skill to survive in power. He carefully divided authority within Syria, systematically depriving any possible opponent of a power base. Instead of having one intelligence agency, he created numerous rival outfits, whose energies were duly devoted to fighting one another instead of threatening the Assad clan.
In the Assad school of foreign policy, no one is alienated forever. But the West and Israel both want Syria to acquire the habit of spurning allies. The friends they want Mr Assad to shake off are, in ascending order of importance, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran.
In return for dumping all his allies, Mr Assad would get a normal relationship with the West, the lifting of US sanctions and, in the event of a peace agreement with Israel, the return of the Golan Heights. If this happened, the strategic balance of the Middle East would be transformed. At present, Syria forms the crucial supply route linking Hizbollah with its chief paymaster and arms dealer, Iran. Mr Assad's goodwill also saves Iran from near total diplomatic isolation in the Middle East.
By reaching an accommodation with Syria, the West could gravely weaken both Iran and Hizbollah with a single blow. Hence the importance that Britain attaches to sounding out Mr Assad. As it happens, his wife, Asma, is half-British and the couple met when Mr Assad was a doctor in London.
Even if he was willing to make this extraordinary leap, would Israel hand over the Golan Heights? At present, Israel sees the talks with the Palestinians as a higher priority.
"When you look at the Palestinian issue, there's a sense of urgency. There's no sense of urgency with Syria," said Professor Asher Susser, the head of Middle East Studies at Tel Aviv University. "I don't see any Israeli government handing over the Golan."
This would be doubly true if Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party wins Israel's forthcoming election. If so, this would let Mr Assad off the hook and allow him to continue his eternal game of keeping all doors open and every bridge unburnt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do2907.xml
When Syria's portly foreign minister - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Israel's fallen strongman, Ariel Sharon - visited London this week, he used the splendour of a mansion beside St James's Park to denounce America's raid on his country as "terrorist aggression".
Walid al-Muallem's official visit for talks with David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was the latest thread in the tangled web of contradiction forming Syria's relations with the outside world.
Only three years ago, Syrian intelligence agents helped bring yet more carnage to Beirut when a ton of high explosives killed Rafiq Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, and 21 bystanders. Two years ago, Syria cheered on a key ally, Hizbollah, when it started a war against Israel that claimed at least 1,300 lives. Last year, Israeli jets destroyed a suspected nuclear facility, perhaps linked to North Korea's illicit weapons programme, concealed in the Syrian desert.
All this might lead you to believe that Syria was a pariah state, sponsoring terrorists and dabbling in the supremely dangerous game of nuclear proliferation.
Yet only last week, Gordon Brown's foreign policy adviser, Simon McDonald, flew to Damascus to meet President Bashar al-Assad. This week, Mr Muallem had three hours of talks with Mr Miliband and invited him to Damascus. And President Nicolas Sarkozy of France recently invited the Syrian leader to Paris.
If the Foreign Secretary accepts, he will find himself in the same city as the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the radical Palestinian movements. As well as issuing invitations to British ministers, Syria also manages to be Iran's crucial ally - in fact, Iran's only real friend in the Middle East. Mr Assad's regime juggles all this and still manages to hold indirect peace talks with senior Israeli officials.
When you lead a poor country with hardly any oil, only 19 million people and a pitifully weak army, you cannot afford to burn your bridges with anybody. Mr Assad's foreign policy is to reach in all directions at once, play in every game and explore every possible alliance.
This stems from his personal vulnerability. In a country that calls itself a republic, Mr Assad inherited the presidency from his father, Hafez, who died in 2000. This makes him the world's only example of a very odd species - an absolute monarch, with no throne, ruling a hereditary republic. When it comes to lacking any shred of popular legitimacy, no one can compete with Mr Assad. He cannot even claim the dubious standing that comes from having led a successful coup. As every Syrian knows, Mr Assad is their president only because his Dad ran a military coup 38 years ago.
As if this was not bad enough, the Assad family does not share the mainstream Shia faith of Iran nor the Sunni traditions of Saudi Arabia nor, in fact, the religious loyalty of any other regime in the Middle East. Instead, they are from the tiny Alawite sect, making them a minority in their own country.
The elder Mr Assad needed every ounce of his remarkable political skill to survive in power. He carefully divided authority within Syria, systematically depriving any possible opponent of a power base. Instead of having one intelligence agency, he created numerous rival outfits, whose energies were duly devoted to fighting one another instead of threatening the Assad clan.
In the Assad school of foreign policy, no one is alienated forever. But the West and Israel both want Syria to acquire the habit of spurning allies. The friends they want Mr Assad to shake off are, in ascending order of importance, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran.
In return for dumping all his allies, Mr Assad would get a normal relationship with the West, the lifting of US sanctions and, in the event of a peace agreement with Israel, the return of the Golan Heights. If this happened, the strategic balance of the Middle East would be transformed. At present, Syria forms the crucial supply route linking Hizbollah with its chief paymaster and arms dealer, Iran. Mr Assad's goodwill also saves Iran from near total diplomatic isolation in the Middle East.
By reaching an accommodation with Syria, the West could gravely weaken both Iran and Hizbollah with a single blow. Hence the importance that Britain attaches to sounding out Mr Assad. As it happens, his wife, Asma, is half-British and the couple met when Mr Assad was a doctor in London.
Even if he was willing to make this extraordinary leap, would Israel hand over the Golan Heights? At present, Israel sees the talks with the Palestinians as a higher priority.
"When you look at the Palestinian issue, there's a sense of urgency. There's no sense of urgency with Syria," said Professor Asher Susser, the head of Middle East Studies at Tel Aviv University. "I don't see any Israeli government handing over the Golan."
This would be doubly true if Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party wins Israel's forthcoming election. If so, this would let Mr Assad off the hook and allow him to continue his eternal game of keeping all doors open and every bridge unburnt.
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
Link HereForeign and Security Policy in 2009
Expectations, Challenges, Opportunities
Von Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
DruckenVersendenSpeichernVorherige Seite
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
A sign of changing times
Developing countries and civil society for many years criticised the power distribution at the BWIs. How is it possible that small European countries like Switzerland or Belgium had more votes than India, Brazil or Mexico? The reason was that power was based upon the money countries put into the BWIs, and that again was based on the economic weight of a country.
Developing countries and civil society for many years criticised the power distribution at the BWIs. How is it possible that small European countries like Switzerland or Belgium had more votes than India, Brazil or Mexico? The reason was that power was based upon the money countries put into the BWIs, and that again was based on the economic weight of a country.
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
Putin: Kazakhstan one of Russia's closest allies
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008- ... 285044.htm
ASTANA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia views Kazakhstan as one of its closest allies, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said here Thursday.
Putin made the remarks at a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Karim Masimov on the sidelines of the 7th Prime Ministers' Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries in the Kazakh capital of Astana, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
During the meeting, Putin said economic ties between Russia and Kazakhstan cover diverse sectors ranging from raw materials and mechanical manufacturing to energy and high technology.
Russian and Kazakh enterprises should boost cooperation in view of the problems brought about by the global financial crisis, he said.
Also on Thursday, Putin held talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Russian leader voiced confidence that cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan would help both nations cope with the crisis and avoid major losses.
Nazarbayev, for his part, said that the crisis could be called the worst in the last century. It is important for the international community to join hands to work out solutions, he added.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008- ... 285044.htm
ASTANA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia views Kazakhstan as one of its closest allies, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said here Thursday.
Putin made the remarks at a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Karim Masimov on the sidelines of the 7th Prime Ministers' Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries in the Kazakh capital of Astana, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
During the meeting, Putin said economic ties between Russia and Kazakhstan cover diverse sectors ranging from raw materials and mechanical manufacturing to energy and high technology.
Russian and Kazakh enterprises should boost cooperation in view of the problems brought about by the global financial crisis, he said.
Also on Thursday, Putin held talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Russian leader voiced confidence that cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan would help both nations cope with the crisis and avoid major losses.
Nazarbayev, for his part, said that the crisis could be called the worst in the last century. It is important for the international community to join hands to work out solutions, he added.
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
After Kazhakastan now Libya.Col.Ghadaffi is all set to embrace the Bear in a hug across the waves,with his desire for Russia to have a naval base in Libyan territory,as protection against US attack.Venezuela,has already started hiostign Russian naval flotillas and along with Syria's similar desire for a Russian naval base at Tartus (earlier report below),specially aftre the US air raid on its soil,Russia is all set for an enhanced presence in the Meditteranean and will influence events in the Middle East.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20081031/118052964.html
Libya 'ready to host Russian naval base'
10:09 | 31/ 10/ 2008
MOSCOW, October 31 (RIA Novosti) - Libya is willing to host a Russian naval base as a means of security against any possible U.S. attack, a Russian business daily said on Friday.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi will pay an official visit to Russia at the invitation of President Dmitry Medvedev from October 31 to November 2.
The Kommersant newspaper cited a source close to the preparations for the visit as saying that the Libyan leader was planning to raise the naval base issue during talks with the Russian leadership.
"The Libyan leader believes that a Russian military presence in the country would prevent possible attacks by the United States, which despite numerous Libyan attempts to amend bilateral relations is not in a hurry to embrace Colonel Qaddafi," the paper said.
Russia desperately needs a naval base in the Mediterranean to establish a permanent military presence in the region. As a sign of a possible deal with Libya, Russian warships have recently paid a number of visits to the North African country.
A naval task force from Russia's Northern Fleet, led by the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky, visited the Libyan capital, Tripoli, in October and the Neustrashimy (Fearless) missile frigate from Russia's Baltic Fleet has also recently called at Tripoli to replenish supplies.
Another Russian business daily, Vedomosti, said last week that deals to supply arms to Libya worth more than $2 billion could be signed during Qaddafi's visit.
Qaddafi, who has ruled oil and gas-rich Libya since 1969, last visited the Russian capital in 1985, before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The paper also cited an official in the Russian Technology Corporation as saying that contracts had been discussed on the supply of 16 SU-30 MKI Flanker-H multirole fighters, T-90 tanks, and TOR-M2E air defense systems to Libya.
Libya's Soviet-era $4.6 billion debt was recently written off in lieu of a host of new contracts, the largest being a $3 billion deal under which the Russian Railways monopoly is to build a 554-km (344-mile) railroad in Libya.
The deal was signed when the then president and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, visited the country in April 2008.
other articles
12:46 31/10/2008 Libyan leader to discuss arms deals during visit to Russia
12:13 29/10/2008 Libyan leader Qaddafi to visit Russia Oct 31-Nov 2 - Kremlin
13:08 13/10/2008 Russian naval task force leaves Tripoli
Russian warships head to the Caribbean
A Russian naval task force departed Monday on a tour of duty in the Atlantic Ocean, including joint naval drills with the Venezuelan navy in November
Russia building naval base in Syria - report
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 31,00.html
Russian magazine reports Moscow planning to turn Syrian port into permanent naval base; Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson denies report
Vera Yadidya Israel News
Russian magazine Kommersant reported Friday that the Russian army is laying the groundwork for building the Syrian port of Tartus, in the north of the country.
Russia maintained a base in the port since the days of the Soviet Union, the report said, adding that Moscow could be planning to turn the port into a naval base where ships withdrawn from Sevastopol in Ukraine can anchor.
Vladimir Zimin, a senior economic advisor at the Russian Embassy in Damascus, confirmed the plans to the magazine.
The move was said to be part of Russia's effort to boost its influence in the Middle East and safeguard Syria.
”As an official at Russian naval headquarters explained, the creation in Tartus of a fully fledged naval base should help Russia redeploy the naval and supply ships leaving Sevastopol,” Kommersant said.
Russian military engineers will install an air defense system with S-300PMU-2 Favorit ballistic missiles at the port to protect Russian naval ships, the magazine reported.
”For the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia will create its own military base outside former Soviet borders, which will allow Moscow to conduct its own political game in the Middle East,” the newspaper added.
The Russian Defense Ministry categorically denied the report, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
"This is an absolutely false report that has no foundation whatsoever," Defense Ministry spokesperson Vyacheslav Sedov told Novosti.
Russia has also agreed to upgrade Syria's aerial defense systems, which Moscow supplied in 2005, and its fleet of 1,000 T-72 tanks.
Syria is also trying to convince Moscow to sell it two submarines and to upgrade its fleet of MiG 29 fighter jets, the magazine added.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20081031/118052964.html
Libya 'ready to host Russian naval base'
10:09 | 31/ 10/ 2008
MOSCOW, October 31 (RIA Novosti) - Libya is willing to host a Russian naval base as a means of security against any possible U.S. attack, a Russian business daily said on Friday.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi will pay an official visit to Russia at the invitation of President Dmitry Medvedev from October 31 to November 2.
The Kommersant newspaper cited a source close to the preparations for the visit as saying that the Libyan leader was planning to raise the naval base issue during talks with the Russian leadership.
"The Libyan leader believes that a Russian military presence in the country would prevent possible attacks by the United States, which despite numerous Libyan attempts to amend bilateral relations is not in a hurry to embrace Colonel Qaddafi," the paper said.
Russia desperately needs a naval base in the Mediterranean to establish a permanent military presence in the region. As a sign of a possible deal with Libya, Russian warships have recently paid a number of visits to the North African country.
A naval task force from Russia's Northern Fleet, led by the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky, visited the Libyan capital, Tripoli, in October and the Neustrashimy (Fearless) missile frigate from Russia's Baltic Fleet has also recently called at Tripoli to replenish supplies.
Another Russian business daily, Vedomosti, said last week that deals to supply arms to Libya worth more than $2 billion could be signed during Qaddafi's visit.
Qaddafi, who has ruled oil and gas-rich Libya since 1969, last visited the Russian capital in 1985, before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The paper also cited an official in the Russian Technology Corporation as saying that contracts had been discussed on the supply of 16 SU-30 MKI Flanker-H multirole fighters, T-90 tanks, and TOR-M2E air defense systems to Libya.
Libya's Soviet-era $4.6 billion debt was recently written off in lieu of a host of new contracts, the largest being a $3 billion deal under which the Russian Railways monopoly is to build a 554-km (344-mile) railroad in Libya.
The deal was signed when the then president and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, visited the country in April 2008.
other articles
12:46 31/10/2008 Libyan leader to discuss arms deals during visit to Russia
12:13 29/10/2008 Libyan leader Qaddafi to visit Russia Oct 31-Nov 2 - Kremlin
13:08 13/10/2008 Russian naval task force leaves Tripoli
Russian warships head to the Caribbean
A Russian naval task force departed Monday on a tour of duty in the Atlantic Ocean, including joint naval drills with the Venezuelan navy in November
Russia building naval base in Syria - report
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 31,00.html
Russian magazine reports Moscow planning to turn Syrian port into permanent naval base; Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson denies report
Vera Yadidya Israel News
Russian magazine Kommersant reported Friday that the Russian army is laying the groundwork for building the Syrian port of Tartus, in the north of the country.
Russia maintained a base in the port since the days of the Soviet Union, the report said, adding that Moscow could be planning to turn the port into a naval base where ships withdrawn from Sevastopol in Ukraine can anchor.
Vladimir Zimin, a senior economic advisor at the Russian Embassy in Damascus, confirmed the plans to the magazine.
The move was said to be part of Russia's effort to boost its influence in the Middle East and safeguard Syria.
”As an official at Russian naval headquarters explained, the creation in Tartus of a fully fledged naval base should help Russia redeploy the naval and supply ships leaving Sevastopol,” Kommersant said.
Russian military engineers will install an air defense system with S-300PMU-2 Favorit ballistic missiles at the port to protect Russian naval ships, the magazine reported.
”For the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia will create its own military base outside former Soviet borders, which will allow Moscow to conduct its own political game in the Middle East,” the newspaper added.
The Russian Defense Ministry categorically denied the report, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
"This is an absolutely false report that has no foundation whatsoever," Defense Ministry spokesperson Vyacheslav Sedov told Novosti.
Russia has also agreed to upgrade Syria's aerial defense systems, which Moscow supplied in 2005, and its fleet of 1,000 T-72 tanks.
Syria is also trying to convince Moscow to sell it two submarines and to upgrade its fleet of MiG 29 fighter jets, the magazine added.
Re: Geopolitical thread - 15
China's footprint in Myanmar expands
By Brian McCartan
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Busi ... 1Cb02.html
CHIANG MAI - Once under the radar in mostly remote areas, China's growing investments in resource-rich Myanmar have become more openly apparent as Beijing parlays its close diplomatic ties to the country's ruling military junta into lucrative contracts and concessions. China's commercial advance comes while the United States and Europe impose strict trade and investment sanctions against the military regime.
Recent investigative reports, including from environmental groups EarthRights International and Arakan Oil Watch, detail the involvement of some 69 Chinese multinational corporations in at least 90 hydropower, mining and oil and gas projects across the country. The growing commitments are a testament to China's pragmatic approach to commercial diplomacy and underscore its interest in maintaining Myanmar's political status quo.
China's Myanmar investments focus mainly on energy and natural resources, which are required in ever-larger quantities to fuel its fast-expanding industrialization and urbanization. Chinese projects range from hydropower dams to the highly ambitious and controversial Shwe Gas pipeline that is projected to cross the length of Myanmar to transport fuel to China's landlocked southern Yunnan province.
That particular project is designed to open access for China to the Indian Ocean for some fuel shipments and circumvent the congested Strait of Malacca, through which over 70% of its current oil and gas imports travel. Beijing has expressed strategic concerns that in a conflict the United States could block the strait and starve the Chinese economy of fuel imports.
India and Thailand also aggressively jockey for access to the resources of neighbor Myanmar, in contrast to US and Europe, which subject the country to strict trade and investment sanctions in protest against its rulers' abysmal rights record. Those curbs were recently augmented by so-called "smart sanctions" aimed at hitting the private resources of senior junta members and their top business associates.
The growing scale of China's commitments have the potential to provide huge profits for the regime, funds which historically have been employed to buy weaponry that is used to suppress the democratic and ethnic opposition. Some economic analysts estimate the regime has in recent years earned US$3.5 billion in natural gas sales alone.
China's investment in Myanmar's oil and gas reserves is on the rise. EarthRights International identified 21 Chinese-funded onshore and offshore oil and natural gas projects, including the Shwe Gas project in Arakan state and newer blocks in Sagaing division. China is also reportedly interested in using Kyaukpyu Island off Arakan state as a transshipment point for Middle Eastern oil and gas imports, which will then be piped up through Myanmar to China's Yunnan province.
A $1 billion contract has been signed between the Myanmar government and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, to build a first oil pipeline. A parallel gas pipeline is expected to follow. A memorandum of understanding has also been signed between China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) for an assessment on the construction of a crude oil terminal.
Chinese partners are also involved in the gigantic 7,100-megawatt Tasang Dam on the Salween river in Shan state, while other dams on the N'Mai Hka, Mali Hka and Irrawaddy rivers in Kachin state are being built to provide electricity to Yunnan. According to EarthRights Internation, the Kachin state dams are expected to have a combined capacity of 13,360 megawatts.
Sidestepping sanctions
Chinese companies have also long taken part in small-scale mining operations in Myanmar, often in quest of gold and jade. According to EarthRights International, China is now involved in at least six major mining operations in the country, including China Nonferrous Metal Mining Company's recent $600 million investment in the Taguang Taung nickel deposit.
While the US recently imposed sanctions on the import of precious stones from Myanmar, Chinese merchants have helped to fill the trade gap. A government-sponsored gem fair in Yangon in October netted the regime an estimated $175 million. Chinese traders, who were mostly interested in Myanmar jade, represented the largest contingent at the event, with 2,200 out of the 2,648 attendees.
China's commercial embrace of Myanmar is underwritten by a long-standing policy of non-interference between the two neighboring countries. First signed in 1954 and known formally as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the policy nominally separates business from politics. It has allowed China to invest heavily in Myanmar's underdeveloped resources while resisting US, European and United Nations calls to leverage its influence to push for political change.
Political change in Myanmar could erode Beijing's present privileged position there. Certainly China has used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block criticism and sanctions against Myanmar.
In the past year, Chinese statements on Myanmar have taken a slightly critical edge, indicating to some either that Chinese patience with Myanmar's generals is waning, or a concern that stability be maintained to protect Beijing's economic and strategic interests. After the junta's violent crackdown on demonstrators last year resulted in widespread international condemnation, Chinese diplomat Tang Jiaxuan was reported to have told Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win in September 2007, "China wholeheartedly hopes that Myanmar will push forward a democracy process that is appropriate for the country." That veiled criticism went further the following month, when China joined with Russia and India in a call for the Myanmar's ruling generals to meet with the opposition.
A UN Security Council resolution in October last year condemning the Myanmar government for its use of violence against protestors and demanding the release of political prisoners was supported by the Chinese government. Yet China is clearly most concerned about a possible international intervention or sudden regime change in Myanmar that nullifies its commercial concessions and privileges.
Earlier this year, Beijing expressed strong opposition to the idea that US, France and Great Britain should use military means to force Myanmar's generals to accept foreign aid after the Cyclone Nargis disaster displaced as many as two million people in the country. At the height of the standoff, the US and France had warships near the coastal region worst hit by the storm, while Western diplomats pushed to invoke a UN "right to protect" provision to help the stranded victims.
China has instead advocated Myanmar change from within, in line with the ruling junta's stated plans to move towards a managed form of electoral democracy by 2010. At the same time, the democratic opposition has made few attempts to convince China that should they take power, Chinese strategic interests and investments would be preserved and guaranteed.
At least outwardly, there appears at present to be no contact between the opposition and the Chinese government. China's ability to provide low-cost machinery, technical know-how and long-term, low-interest loans would presumably make it an attractive strategic partner regardless of who holds power in Myanmar.
But from Beijing's point of view, its growing and more visible commercial interests are for now better served by the devil it knows.
Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist
By Brian McCartan
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Busi ... 1Cb02.html
CHIANG MAI - Once under the radar in mostly remote areas, China's growing investments in resource-rich Myanmar have become more openly apparent as Beijing parlays its close diplomatic ties to the country's ruling military junta into lucrative contracts and concessions. China's commercial advance comes while the United States and Europe impose strict trade and investment sanctions against the military regime.
Recent investigative reports, including from environmental groups EarthRights International and Arakan Oil Watch, detail the involvement of some 69 Chinese multinational corporations in at least 90 hydropower, mining and oil and gas projects across the country. The growing commitments are a testament to China's pragmatic approach to commercial diplomacy and underscore its interest in maintaining Myanmar's political status quo.
China's Myanmar investments focus mainly on energy and natural resources, which are required in ever-larger quantities to fuel its fast-expanding industrialization and urbanization. Chinese projects range from hydropower dams to the highly ambitious and controversial Shwe Gas pipeline that is projected to cross the length of Myanmar to transport fuel to China's landlocked southern Yunnan province.
That particular project is designed to open access for China to the Indian Ocean for some fuel shipments and circumvent the congested Strait of Malacca, through which over 70% of its current oil and gas imports travel. Beijing has expressed strategic concerns that in a conflict the United States could block the strait and starve the Chinese economy of fuel imports.
India and Thailand also aggressively jockey for access to the resources of neighbor Myanmar, in contrast to US and Europe, which subject the country to strict trade and investment sanctions in protest against its rulers' abysmal rights record. Those curbs were recently augmented by so-called "smart sanctions" aimed at hitting the private resources of senior junta members and their top business associates.
The growing scale of China's commitments have the potential to provide huge profits for the regime, funds which historically have been employed to buy weaponry that is used to suppress the democratic and ethnic opposition. Some economic analysts estimate the regime has in recent years earned US$3.5 billion in natural gas sales alone.
China's investment in Myanmar's oil and gas reserves is on the rise. EarthRights International identified 21 Chinese-funded onshore and offshore oil and natural gas projects, including the Shwe Gas project in Arakan state and newer blocks in Sagaing division. China is also reportedly interested in using Kyaukpyu Island off Arakan state as a transshipment point for Middle Eastern oil and gas imports, which will then be piped up through Myanmar to China's Yunnan province.
A $1 billion contract has been signed between the Myanmar government and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, to build a first oil pipeline. A parallel gas pipeline is expected to follow. A memorandum of understanding has also been signed between China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) for an assessment on the construction of a crude oil terminal.
Chinese partners are also involved in the gigantic 7,100-megawatt Tasang Dam on the Salween river in Shan state, while other dams on the N'Mai Hka, Mali Hka and Irrawaddy rivers in Kachin state are being built to provide electricity to Yunnan. According to EarthRights Internation, the Kachin state dams are expected to have a combined capacity of 13,360 megawatts.
Sidestepping sanctions
Chinese companies have also long taken part in small-scale mining operations in Myanmar, often in quest of gold and jade. According to EarthRights International, China is now involved in at least six major mining operations in the country, including China Nonferrous Metal Mining Company's recent $600 million investment in the Taguang Taung nickel deposit.
While the US recently imposed sanctions on the import of precious stones from Myanmar, Chinese merchants have helped to fill the trade gap. A government-sponsored gem fair in Yangon in October netted the regime an estimated $175 million. Chinese traders, who were mostly interested in Myanmar jade, represented the largest contingent at the event, with 2,200 out of the 2,648 attendees.
China's commercial embrace of Myanmar is underwritten by a long-standing policy of non-interference between the two neighboring countries. First signed in 1954 and known formally as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the policy nominally separates business from politics. It has allowed China to invest heavily in Myanmar's underdeveloped resources while resisting US, European and United Nations calls to leverage its influence to push for political change.
Political change in Myanmar could erode Beijing's present privileged position there. Certainly China has used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block criticism and sanctions against Myanmar.
In the past year, Chinese statements on Myanmar have taken a slightly critical edge, indicating to some either that Chinese patience with Myanmar's generals is waning, or a concern that stability be maintained to protect Beijing's economic and strategic interests. After the junta's violent crackdown on demonstrators last year resulted in widespread international condemnation, Chinese diplomat Tang Jiaxuan was reported to have told Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win in September 2007, "China wholeheartedly hopes that Myanmar will push forward a democracy process that is appropriate for the country." That veiled criticism went further the following month, when China joined with Russia and India in a call for the Myanmar's ruling generals to meet with the opposition.
A UN Security Council resolution in October last year condemning the Myanmar government for its use of violence against protestors and demanding the release of political prisoners was supported by the Chinese government. Yet China is clearly most concerned about a possible international intervention or sudden regime change in Myanmar that nullifies its commercial concessions and privileges.
Earlier this year, Beijing expressed strong opposition to the idea that US, France and Great Britain should use military means to force Myanmar's generals to accept foreign aid after the Cyclone Nargis disaster displaced as many as two million people in the country. At the height of the standoff, the US and France had warships near the coastal region worst hit by the storm, while Western diplomats pushed to invoke a UN "right to protect" provision to help the stranded victims.
China has instead advocated Myanmar change from within, in line with the ruling junta's stated plans to move towards a managed form of electoral democracy by 2010. At the same time, the democratic opposition has made few attempts to convince China that should they take power, Chinese strategic interests and investments would be preserved and guaranteed.
At least outwardly, there appears at present to be no contact between the opposition and the Chinese government. China's ability to provide low-cost machinery, technical know-how and long-term, low-interest loans would presumably make it an attractive strategic partner regardless of who holds power in Myanmar.
But from Beijing's point of view, its growing and more visible commercial interests are for now better served by the devil it knows.
Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist
Re: Geopolitical thread
President Dmitri Medvedev orders missiles deployed in Europe as world hails Obama
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 090077.ece
(Dmitry Astakhov/AFP/Getty Images)
Dmitri Medvedev delivers his state of the nation address
Tony Halpin in Moscow
President Medvedev ordered missiles to be stationed up against Nato’s borders yesterday to counter American plans to build a missile defence shield.
Speaking within hours of Barack Obama’s election, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad – the former German city – next to the border with Poland.
He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads.
Taking advantage of the world’s attention on the US elections, Mr Medvedev also cancelled plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia by 2010.
Transition team looks to emulate Roosevelt
Fawning over their new best friend
US troops in Iraq not won over by Obama
In his first state-of-the-nation address, Mr Medvedev said the missiles would be deployed “to neutralise if necessary the antiballistic missile system in Europe”. He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its Navy off Kaliningrad and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which relies on a radar station in the Czech Republic and ten interceptor missiles in Poland.
Nato’s eastern members greeted the Russian move with dismay.
A Czech Foreign Ministry spokesman described the Kremlin’s move as unfortunate. Lithuania’s President Adamkus accused his Russian counterpart of going back on his word.
But government ministers and parliamentary deputies assembled in the Kremlin applauded Mr Medvedev.
The President failed to congratulate Mr Obama or even to mention him by name during the 85-minute address televised live across Russia.
In a criticism directed at the US, Mr Medvedev said: “Mechanisms must be created to block mistaken, egotistical and sometimes simply dangerous decisions of certain members of the international community.” He accused the West of seeking to encircle Russia and blamed the US for encouraging Georgia’s “barbaric aggression” in the war over South Ossetia in August. He also gave warning that Russia would “not back down in the Caucasus”.
“The August crisis only accelerated the arrival of the crucial moment of truth. We proved, including to those who had been sponsoring the current regime in Georgia, that we are strong enough to defend our citizens and that we can indeed defend our national interests,” Mr Medvedev said.
“What we’ve had to deal with in the last few years – the construction of a global missile defence system, the encirclement of Russia by military blocs, unrestrained Nato enlargement and other gifts . . . The impression is we are being tested to the limit.” The outgoing President Bush insists that the missile shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but the plan has infuriated Moscow, which argues that it threatens Russia’s security.
Mr Medvedev said that Russia had been forced to cancel its plans to withdraw the intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have a range of 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometres). He said: “We want to act together. But they, unfortunately, don’t want to listen to us.”
Mr Medvedev blamed the US for the global financial crisis, saying that the rest of the world had been “dragged down with it into recession”. He said that the era of American dominance after the collapse of the Soviet Union was over. “The world cannot be ruled from one capital. Those who do not want to understand this will only create new problems for themselves and others,” he said.
Mr Medvedev, who was elected in March, also set out proposals to extend the presidential term from four years to six. He did not say whether the reform would apply to his current term.
Room for manoeuvre
—Iskander SS26 (codenamed Stone by Nato) is an export variant of the more powerful Iskander M
— Weighs 3.8 tonnes, carrying a payload of 480kg
—Range of 174 miles (280km). Can travel at 2,100m a second and hit within 20m of target
—Easily transported by a truck or transport-erector-launcher (TEL)
—A TEL, below, can carry two ready-to-launch missiles and two more for reloading. Equipped with advanced targeting technology
Sources: fas.org, defence-update.com
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 090077.ece
(Dmitry Astakhov/AFP/Getty Images)
Dmitri Medvedev delivers his state of the nation address
Tony Halpin in Moscow
President Medvedev ordered missiles to be stationed up against Nato’s borders yesterday to counter American plans to build a missile defence shield.
Speaking within hours of Barack Obama’s election, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad – the former German city – next to the border with Poland.
He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads.
Taking advantage of the world’s attention on the US elections, Mr Medvedev also cancelled plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia by 2010.
Transition team looks to emulate Roosevelt
Fawning over their new best friend
US troops in Iraq not won over by Obama
In his first state-of-the-nation address, Mr Medvedev said the missiles would be deployed “to neutralise if necessary the antiballistic missile system in Europe”. He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its Navy off Kaliningrad and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which relies on a radar station in the Czech Republic and ten interceptor missiles in Poland.
Nato’s eastern members greeted the Russian move with dismay.
A Czech Foreign Ministry spokesman described the Kremlin’s move as unfortunate. Lithuania’s President Adamkus accused his Russian counterpart of going back on his word.
But government ministers and parliamentary deputies assembled in the Kremlin applauded Mr Medvedev.
The President failed to congratulate Mr Obama or even to mention him by name during the 85-minute address televised live across Russia.
In a criticism directed at the US, Mr Medvedev said: “Mechanisms must be created to block mistaken, egotistical and sometimes simply dangerous decisions of certain members of the international community.” He accused the West of seeking to encircle Russia and blamed the US for encouraging Georgia’s “barbaric aggression” in the war over South Ossetia in August. He also gave warning that Russia would “not back down in the Caucasus”.
“The August crisis only accelerated the arrival of the crucial moment of truth. We proved, including to those who had been sponsoring the current regime in Georgia, that we are strong enough to defend our citizens and that we can indeed defend our national interests,” Mr Medvedev said.
“What we’ve had to deal with in the last few years – the construction of a global missile defence system, the encirclement of Russia by military blocs, unrestrained Nato enlargement and other gifts . . . The impression is we are being tested to the limit.” The outgoing President Bush insists that the missile shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but the plan has infuriated Moscow, which argues that it threatens Russia’s security.
Mr Medvedev said that Russia had been forced to cancel its plans to withdraw the intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have a range of 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometres). He said: “We want to act together. But they, unfortunately, don’t want to listen to us.”
Mr Medvedev blamed the US for the global financial crisis, saying that the rest of the world had been “dragged down with it into recession”. He said that the era of American dominance after the collapse of the Soviet Union was over. “The world cannot be ruled from one capital. Those who do not want to understand this will only create new problems for themselves and others,” he said.
Mr Medvedev, who was elected in March, also set out proposals to extend the presidential term from four years to six. He did not say whether the reform would apply to his current term.
Room for manoeuvre
—Iskander SS26 (codenamed Stone by Nato) is an export variant of the more powerful Iskander M
— Weighs 3.8 tonnes, carrying a payload of 480kg
—Range of 174 miles (280km). Can travel at 2,100m a second and hit within 20m of target
—Easily transported by a truck or transport-erector-launcher (TEL)
—A TEL, below, can carry two ready-to-launch missiles and two more for reloading. Equipped with advanced targeting technology
Sources: fas.org, defence-update.com
Re: Geopolitical thread
GLOBAL POWER BALANCE 2020: PERSPECTIVES
By Dr. Subhash Kapila
Introductory Observations
The global power balance has been in a churning state ever since the turn of the millennium. The disintegration of the Soviet Union enabled the United States global strategic predominance to be unrivalled and unquestioned. Concerned by United States unilateralism., Russia and China as the two nations most strategically affected set in motion two significant initiatives to offset the US predominance.
Russia under the dynamic leadership of President Putin set Russia on a course of strategic and military resurgence. This was facilitated by rising Russian oil revenues. China with significant economic resources at its disposal embarked on a strategic build-up of its strategic assets and military upgradation.
The United States decade-old strategic global predominance was now to be under challenge by Russia and China. This strategic challenge by these two nations became further accentuated as a result of United States getting inextricably tied down militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The current global economic turbulence has prompted many strategic analysts to re-examine the short-term global balance of power perspectives with 2020 taken as a more identifiable time frame. Some would like to believe that the current economic melt-down could affect the global power balance and the inter-se strategic equations between USA, Russia and China. They would like to suggest that the United States as the strongest economy in the world could weather the storms, but Russia and China, and especially Russia’s resurgence and its strategic challenge to the United States could be diluted.
This Author would like to maintain that the economic meltdown today is globalised in its dimensions and would therefore affect USA, Russia and China without any exception. However, Russia and China’s strategic programs directed at altering the global power balance would not be diluted. This besides other reasons, is valid, because Russia and China are not involved in any costly strategic distractions like the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, requiring a significant outlay of financial resources.
Otherwise too, it is conceded by many economists that economies of the world surface more strongly after economic depressions.
Strategically, the historical evidence cannot be ignored that the Second World War took place within a decade of the Great Depression in which the United States was the most vitally affected.
Therefore, in strategic analysis such economic depressions may act as “speed breakers” but definitely do not bring global strategic power rivalries to a “dead end”.
With the above as an introductory background, this Paper attempts to analyse “Global Power Balance 2020: Perspectives” under the following heads:
Global Power Balance 2020 Will be Bi-polar in Nature
Multi-polarity is a Political and Strategic Myth
United States Would Have Strategic Edge Over Russia in a Bi-polar World
A New Cold War is Inevitable
Global Power Balance 2020 Will be Bi-polar in Nature
Assertions of this Author in this direction stand examined in fair detail in earlier SAAG Papers and particularly those dealing with Russia’s resurgence. This Author firmly believes that the global power balance in 2020 would be bi-polar in nature with the United States and Russia as the two poles.
Russia is being dismissively discussed in US and Western think-tanks and Russia’s resurgence is de-emphasised and devaluated. This dismissive attitude is not born out of realistic strategic analysis but wishful thinking that Russia does not emerge as a strategic challenge to United States global predominance.
The moot question that needs to be considered is that who amongst Russia and China is more strategically potent to challenge United States global predominance?
Even on current analysis the following strategic realities suggest that Russia is the foremost candidate to challenge USA and not China (1) Russia’s existing strategic nuclear weapons arsenal outnumbers the United States whereas China’s nuclear arsenal at about 400 warheads is a remote comparison (2) Russia’s existing power projection capabilities extend far beyond its immediate neighbourhood, in all dimensions – land, sea and air. China’s power projection is limited to her periphery and limited to ground forces dimensions only (3) Russia is an "energy self-independent" state and this is an essential pre-requisite of national power. Japan and Germany lost the Second World War because they were not “energy self-reliant” (4) Russia has existing strategic partnerships with many countries across the globe. China has no “natural allies” to boost her strategic power (5) Russia’s resurgence has been welcomed in many regions and more importantly in the Middle East. China is not viewed as a credible strategic challenger to the United States.
More importantly Russia has been a practitioner of global power politics in the bi-polar environment of the Cold War and successfully provided countervailing power to the United States for 45 years. Further, it needs to be noted that Russia was not defeated by the United States in the Cold War; it was Russia that defeated itself.
Russia’s current strategic and political resurgence is precisely aimed in this direction once again, namely, to reclaim her former superpower status. It has won recognition in Europe, Middle East, Central Asia and South East Asia too.
Reading between the lines one gets a sneaking feeling that the United States may prefer China as a manageable strategic rival rather than Russia. But the strategic realities indicate that the United States would in 2020 have to accept a bi-polar world with Russia as the second pole.
Multi-polarity is a Political and Strategic Myth
Multi-polarity as a desirable state in the global power balance was forcefully enunciated by China to begin with in the immediate period following the demise of the Soviet Union.
To begin with, in the early 1990s, China advocated a multi-polar world incorporating China, India, Iran and Syria with Pakistan added. Later inducements were to include France and Germany. This enunciation never took off though being repeated periodically.
So the initial Chinese model of multi-polarity comprised Asian nations with no strong strategic linkages with USA as the unipolar power. China then as the only nuclear weapons state in this grouping may have been led to believe that it would emerge as the natural leader of its proposed multi-polar grouping.
Russia today also talks of multi-polarity but one suspects that it is more for political reasons in favor of China than any strategic conviction. Russia would strategically prefer a bi-polar world at the global level and without frowning on multi-polarity at the regional level.
China, Japan and India even with the full development of their strategic strengths cannot hope to equal the strategic potential of being super-powers in the classical sense of definition of the term. They can sit on the global powers high table as associate global players, but not as “super powers”.
China, Japan and India therefore are incapable of emerging as multiple poles to bring about a multi-polar world. Only the United States and Russia qualify to be superpowers.
Available indicators suggest that the United States and Russia would be the two super-powers in 2020 and no scope exists for any of the other global players intruding into that league.
United States Would Have Strategic Edge Over Russia in a Bi-polar World
Russia today is on a fast-track course to regain her erstwhile super-power status that existed till 1991. Russia’s modernization of her strategic nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear missiles has been underway for some time. Global force projection capabilities is another primacy focus of Russia.
Russia has put her ‘Monroe Doctrine’ (discussed in an earlier paper of this Author) into effect with her military intervention in Georgia. It has put the global powers on notice that it intends making a strategic presence in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea by deploying her naval resources in these regions. It has recommenced her global strategic surveillance flights across the globe with her strategic bombers.
Russia has made significant strategic forays in the Middle East especially in countries which were known to be strong military allies of the United States. Today it has both a political and strategic foothold in the Middle East.
Russia’s strategic equations with the global rising powers are in good shape. Russia’s strategic nexus with China has not frayed as yet and her strategic partnership with India is in a vibrant mode.
Russia is using her “energy diplomacy” and “energy strategy” to achieve political and strategic influence amongst the rising power like China, Japan and India. Russia has a similar influence with “Old Europe”.
So on all counts, Russia is well on the way to re-establish itself as the second superpower and the second pole in the global balance of power.
In 2020, the United States and Russia would be the two superpowers presiding over the global power balance in a bi-polar world. However, in comparative terms the United States on present indicators in the run-up to 2020 would enjoy a strategic edge over Russia.
The United States will continue to have at its command awesome political, strategic economic and military strengths at its disposal. Russia would be hard-pressed to narrow down the differentials in these strengths in the 2020 time-frame.
A New Cold War is Inevitable
With the United States intent on devaluing Russia’s re-emergence as a superpower and Russia’s resurgence aimed at regaining that status, a Cold War is already underway.
In the run-up to 2020, one should expect that this competitive strategic rivalry between USA and Russia will acquire accentuated contours in strategic regions of the world.
One is not forecasting that a global war or clash of titans would ensue, but one certainly foresees that Cold War pattern of strategic jostling for political and military influence would ensue.
In such an ensuing Cold War environment China, Japan and India as the rising global powers would constantly be challenged to re-calibrate their policies. China stands identified as being in the Russian camp strategically and Japan in the American camp. It is India that is well-placed to become the “swing factor” strategically, provided the Indian political leadership can adroitly play the game of management of the two superpowers.
Concluding Observations
In conclusion, the only point that one would like to reiterate is that in the global power tussle in the run-up to 2020, the United States would be hard pressed to maintain its global strategic domination. It has to emerge successfully from Iraq and Afghanistan and to maintain its strategic alliance linkages that it crafted in the heyday of the earlier Cold War.
Russia would have a strategic edge over USA in the sense that in the run-up to 2020 it would have greater space for strategic maneuver and to establish new strategic linkages all over the world. Strategically it would also have single-minded focus to narrow its strategic differentials with the United States.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
Re: Geopolitical thread
"More political than military",is the view of the Russian Iskander missiles to be stationed in Kaliningrad.However,it marks another milestone on the road to Cold War 2.
Living on the frontline of the new cold warRussians in Baltic enclave on EU's doorstep endorse challenge to US missilesLuke Harding in Kaliningrad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/no ... -lithuania
The Guardian, Saturday November 8 2008
Tourists pose on a second world war assault ship that serves as a naval memorial in Kaliningrad. Photograph: Alamy
The Soviet-era radio station is visible from the road. Rising above a forest of tall pines and birches, the radio masts near the town of Bolshakova were a listening post during the cold war. Up the road is Lithuania. In the other direction is Poland.
Two decades later, the Soviet Union has gone. But the town with its pretty German cottages and gardens full of geese is now on the frontline of a new cold war. On Wednesday Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, said he would deploy Iskander nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad - the small Baltic Sea chunk of Russian territory encircled by what are now Nato countries.
The hardware would be pointed at US missile defence and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, Medvedev said. Russia would use sophisticated radio jamming equipment to sabotage the Pentagon's ambitious missile defence system, helped by its Baltic fleet in the port of Baltiysk.
Residents in Kaliningrad - the former German city of Königsberg seized by Stalin after the second world war - say they support Medvedev's uncompromising stance. Russia had little choice but to react following its hostile encirclement by the US and the new countries of Nato, they suggested.
"This is the right step. Nato isn't behaving properly," said Ivan Radin, 72, leaning on a banner embossed with a portrait of Lenin. Radin, a communist supporter who turned up yesterday to a rally commemorating the 90th anniversary of the 1918 Bolshevik revolution, said the west tricked Russia when the Soviet Union fell apart.
"When Gorbachev met Reagan, Reagan promised that Nato wouldn't expand to the east. We got rid of the Warsaw pact bloc. But now we see Nato in Europe, the Baltics, Ukraine and even in Georgia," he said. "Russia is like a wolf that has been trapped by hunters."
The Kremlin shares that view. After bitterly criticising the Bush administration's move, Moscow is now reanimating the nuclear infrastructure of the cold war. Last time, Russia placed its short-range missiles in communist East Germany and Czechoslovakia. This time they are deployed in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost point.
Analysts predicted yesterday that the truck-based Iskander missiles would soon trundle through Kaliningrad's rustic forests - past a landscape of grass-filled meadows and small villages. Here, there are abandoned German churches and Gothic towers. The missile's range is 500km (310 miles), sufficient to destroy the US's proposed missile base (which was a Soviet base when Poland was communist) just down the Baltic coast.
Yesterday the French presidency of the EU expressed "strong concern" at Medvedev's plan to station missiles near Poland's border. "This does not contribute to the establishment of a climate of trust and to the improvement of security in Europe, at a time when we wish for a dialogue with Russia on questions of security in the whole of the continent," it said.
The US claims its system is aimed not at Russia, but at Iran. Russia says this is nonsense, arguing that the system is aimed at its still formidable nuclear arsenal. Not everyone, however, believes the deployment means that a third world war is now inevitable.
"The Soviet and US leaders didn't want to commit suicide. I think the new leaders won't do it either," said Vladimir Abramov, a political scientist at Kaliningrad's Immanuel Kant University. The missiles stationed here during Soviet times were far more potent, he said. "Back then we had SS-20s. They were capable of wiping out everything in Europe. The Iskander missiles are much smaller. Essentially they are symbolic. It's a political action. It's designed to show Nato that the US missile plan is a red line for Russia, and that can't be crossed."
For Kaliningrad to find itself on the frontline of two empires is not new. Founded in 1255 by a group of Teutonic knights, the region was ethnically German for 700 years - marking out the eastern boundary of the Prussian state and then the German Reich. In 1944, British aviation destroyed most of historic Königsberg, with the Red Army seizing the town in April 1945 and evicting its German citizens.
Today there are a few ghostly reminders of the German past. Several handsome Jugendstil mansions survive north of the centre, past the German-built zoo and football stadium. A statue of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant - the town's most famous former resident - stands next to the university in a quiet chestnut-lined park. For some reason Kant is holding a tricorn hat.
And yet these days modern Kaliningrad is a booming part of capitalist Russia. With its European-style plazas, Japanese restaurants, and dinky ice-cream bars, the city is thriving economically, a sort of Russian Hong Kong. Its proximity to the EU means that locals are more westernised than elsewhere, though to drive to nearby Riga or Gdansk they need a Schengen visa.
Back in Bolshakova, an hour's drive from Kaliningrad, local people said the activities of the radio station were not exactly a secret. During the evening, villagers trying to make a telephone call heard a strange buzzing on their lines. Sometimes even metal objects vibrated.
"You can hear a radio noise," Elena Kochkova, a shopworker, said.
Other residents said they were confident that Kaliningrad would get through this latest standoff. "In the past capitalist countries surrounded us. We got through that. Now it's the same situation," said Nikolay Perov, 82, taking part in yesterday's communist rally. The answer was socialism, he suggested. "With capitalism war is inevitable. Only socialism can deliver peace and friendship."
Living on the frontline of the new cold warRussians in Baltic enclave on EU's doorstep endorse challenge to US missilesLuke Harding in Kaliningrad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/no ... -lithuania
The Guardian, Saturday November 8 2008
Tourists pose on a second world war assault ship that serves as a naval memorial in Kaliningrad. Photograph: Alamy
The Soviet-era radio station is visible from the road. Rising above a forest of tall pines and birches, the radio masts near the town of Bolshakova were a listening post during the cold war. Up the road is Lithuania. In the other direction is Poland.
Two decades later, the Soviet Union has gone. But the town with its pretty German cottages and gardens full of geese is now on the frontline of a new cold war. On Wednesday Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, said he would deploy Iskander nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad - the small Baltic Sea chunk of Russian territory encircled by what are now Nato countries.
The hardware would be pointed at US missile defence and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, Medvedev said. Russia would use sophisticated radio jamming equipment to sabotage the Pentagon's ambitious missile defence system, helped by its Baltic fleet in the port of Baltiysk.
Residents in Kaliningrad - the former German city of Königsberg seized by Stalin after the second world war - say they support Medvedev's uncompromising stance. Russia had little choice but to react following its hostile encirclement by the US and the new countries of Nato, they suggested.
"This is the right step. Nato isn't behaving properly," said Ivan Radin, 72, leaning on a banner embossed with a portrait of Lenin. Radin, a communist supporter who turned up yesterday to a rally commemorating the 90th anniversary of the 1918 Bolshevik revolution, said the west tricked Russia when the Soviet Union fell apart.
"When Gorbachev met Reagan, Reagan promised that Nato wouldn't expand to the east. We got rid of the Warsaw pact bloc. But now we see Nato in Europe, the Baltics, Ukraine and even in Georgia," he said. "Russia is like a wolf that has been trapped by hunters."
The Kremlin shares that view. After bitterly criticising the Bush administration's move, Moscow is now reanimating the nuclear infrastructure of the cold war. Last time, Russia placed its short-range missiles in communist East Germany and Czechoslovakia. This time they are deployed in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost point.
Analysts predicted yesterday that the truck-based Iskander missiles would soon trundle through Kaliningrad's rustic forests - past a landscape of grass-filled meadows and small villages. Here, there are abandoned German churches and Gothic towers. The missile's range is 500km (310 miles), sufficient to destroy the US's proposed missile base (which was a Soviet base when Poland was communist) just down the Baltic coast.
Yesterday the French presidency of the EU expressed "strong concern" at Medvedev's plan to station missiles near Poland's border. "This does not contribute to the establishment of a climate of trust and to the improvement of security in Europe, at a time when we wish for a dialogue with Russia on questions of security in the whole of the continent," it said.
The US claims its system is aimed not at Russia, but at Iran. Russia says this is nonsense, arguing that the system is aimed at its still formidable nuclear arsenal. Not everyone, however, believes the deployment means that a third world war is now inevitable.
"The Soviet and US leaders didn't want to commit suicide. I think the new leaders won't do it either," said Vladimir Abramov, a political scientist at Kaliningrad's Immanuel Kant University. The missiles stationed here during Soviet times were far more potent, he said. "Back then we had SS-20s. They were capable of wiping out everything in Europe. The Iskander missiles are much smaller. Essentially they are symbolic. It's a political action. It's designed to show Nato that the US missile plan is a red line for Russia, and that can't be crossed."
For Kaliningrad to find itself on the frontline of two empires is not new. Founded in 1255 by a group of Teutonic knights, the region was ethnically German for 700 years - marking out the eastern boundary of the Prussian state and then the German Reich. In 1944, British aviation destroyed most of historic Königsberg, with the Red Army seizing the town in April 1945 and evicting its German citizens.
Today there are a few ghostly reminders of the German past. Several handsome Jugendstil mansions survive north of the centre, past the German-built zoo and football stadium. A statue of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant - the town's most famous former resident - stands next to the university in a quiet chestnut-lined park. For some reason Kant is holding a tricorn hat.
And yet these days modern Kaliningrad is a booming part of capitalist Russia. With its European-style plazas, Japanese restaurants, and dinky ice-cream bars, the city is thriving economically, a sort of Russian Hong Kong. Its proximity to the EU means that locals are more westernised than elsewhere, though to drive to nearby Riga or Gdansk they need a Schengen visa.
Back in Bolshakova, an hour's drive from Kaliningrad, local people said the activities of the radio station were not exactly a secret. During the evening, villagers trying to make a telephone call heard a strange buzzing on their lines. Sometimes even metal objects vibrated.
"You can hear a radio noise," Elena Kochkova, a shopworker, said.
Other residents said they were confident that Kaliningrad would get through this latest standoff. "In the past capitalist countries surrounded us. We got through that. Now it's the same situation," said Nikolay Perov, 82, taking part in yesterday's communist rally. The answer was socialism, he suggested. "With capitalism war is inevitable. Only socialism can deliver peace and friendship."
Re: Geopolitical thread
[quote=Capt M Kumar,Oct 5 2008, 10:12 PM]The Prussian Monarchy Stuff
by William S. Lind
Thus, when Americans and Europeans wonder today how and why the West lost its historic culture, morals and religion, the ultimate answer is the Allied victory in 1918. Again, the fact that World War I occurred is the greatest disaster. But once that had happened, the last chance the West had of retaining its traditional culture was a victory by the Central Powers. The question should not be why I, as a cultural conservative, remain loyal to the two Kaisers, Wilhelm II and Franz Josef, but how a real conservative could do anything else.
Nor is this all quite history. Just as the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 marked the tipping point downward of Western civilization and the real beginning of the murderous Twentieth Century, so events in the Middle East today may mark the beginnings of the 21st Century and, not so much the death of the West, which has already occurred, but its burial. The shadows of 1914, and of 1918, are long indeed, and they end in Old Night.
[right][snapback]88798[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]
by William S. Lind
Thus, when Americans and Europeans wonder today how and why the West lost its historic culture, morals and religion, the ultimate answer is the Allied victory in 1918. Again, the fact that World War I occurred is the greatest disaster. But once that had happened, the last chance the West had of retaining its traditional culture was a victory by the Central Powers. The question should not be why I, as a cultural conservative, remain loyal to the two Kaisers, Wilhelm II and Franz Josef, but how a real conservative could do anything else.
Nor is this all quite history. Just as the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 marked the tipping point downward of Western civilization and the real beginning of the murderous Twentieth Century, so events in the Middle East today may mark the beginnings of the 21st Century and, not so much the death of the West, which has already occurred, but its burial. The shadows of 1914, and of 1918, are long indeed, and they end in Old Night.
[right][snapback]88798[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]
Re: Geopolitical thread
^^^
Looks like for him the west is traditional west, represented by monarchies. It doesn't mean that current west, as we know, is in for burial.
Looks like for him the west is traditional west, represented by monarchies. It doesn't mean that current west, as we know, is in for burial.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Well, the 'current' west is just the geographical west. And its 'ethnic purity' as well as its 'ideological purity' (xtian+superior+manifestly destined+greco-roman hellenic hertitage etc etc) is increasingly diluted by new immigrant ethnicities, faiths, values, experiences etc.shyam wrote:^^^
Looks like for him the west is traditional west, represented by monarchies. It doesn't mean that current west, as we know, is in for burial.
Demographically the west is heading for what WWI thinkers would call trouble - falling birthrates and rising logevity resulting in surging numbers of seniors claiming and straining social resources.
Just my 2 cents onlee.
Re: Geopolitical thread
India signs defence/security agreement with Qatar
Giving a strategic depth to their bilateral ties, India and Qatar on Sunday signed agreements on defence and security, addressing issues of maritime security and sharing of intelligence to prevent terrorist activities.
The defence cooperation agreement includes issues of maritime security, while the pact on security and law enforcement would cover issues like common threat perceptions and sharing of data.
Re: Geopolitical thread
These are the guys who provided their country as a base for US forces to attack Iraq in 2003.India signs defence/security agreement with Qatar
Its only because iran is in a better position to fight back that they have announced they will not host a US attack against that country... or so they claim.
In my view, countries that act as launchpad to attack their neighbours are untrustworthy from the get go.
Re: Geopolitical thread
This is a Uncles hand here - part of the nuke dealNeshant wrote:These are the guys who provided their country as a base for US forces to attack Iraq in 2003.India signs defence/security agreement with Qatar
Its only because iran is in a better position to fight back that they have announced they will not host a US attack against that country... or so they claim.
In my view, countries that act as launchpad to attack their neighbours are untrustworthy from the get go.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Radical Islamic cleric and alleged AlQ mastermind arrested while trying to flee Britain.Qatada probably tried to flee after the latest UK security warnings about imminent Al Q attacks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -flee.html
Abu Qatada arrested after 'attempts to flee'
Radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada has been arrested after allegedly attempting to flee the country.
By Charlotte Bailey
Last Updated: 8:20AM GMT 10 Nov 2008
Abu Qatada arrested after allegedly breaching his bail Photo: JONATHAN EVANS
Qatada, described as Osama bin Laden's "right-hand man in Europe", is under strict bail conditions following an earlier Court of Appeal decision to refuse his deportation.
After being freed from HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire in June, he was ordered to spend at least 22 hours a day confined to his West London home, wearing an electronic tag.
However, according to The Sun newspaper, Qatada, 47, has been arrested after allegedly breaching his bail. The newspaper reported that the UK Borders Agency received a tip-off that he was planning to leave Britain.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office confirmed reports that he had been arrested but would not comment further.
She said: "We do not comment on individuals."
Scotland Yard refused to comment and referred all inquiries to the Home Office.
Back in June, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she was "extremely disappointed" at the court's decision to bail Qatada, while the Conservatives branded the decision "offensive". The Home Office had pledged to deport Qatada to Jordan to face terror charges.
Qatada has been accused of helping to inspire the September 11 attacks after videos of his sermons were found in the flat used by three of the hijackers, including their leader Mohammed Atta.
He is wanted in his native Jordan for allegedly plotting a series of bomb attacks in Amman in 1998 and for providing finance and advice to terrorists planning a series of explosions there on Millennium night.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -flee.html
Abu Qatada arrested after 'attempts to flee'
Radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada has been arrested after allegedly attempting to flee the country.
By Charlotte Bailey
Last Updated: 8:20AM GMT 10 Nov 2008
Abu Qatada arrested after allegedly breaching his bail Photo: JONATHAN EVANS
Qatada, described as Osama bin Laden's "right-hand man in Europe", is under strict bail conditions following an earlier Court of Appeal decision to refuse his deportation.
After being freed from HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire in June, he was ordered to spend at least 22 hours a day confined to his West London home, wearing an electronic tag.
However, according to The Sun newspaper, Qatada, 47, has been arrested after allegedly breaching his bail. The newspaper reported that the UK Borders Agency received a tip-off that he was planning to leave Britain.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office confirmed reports that he had been arrested but would not comment further.
She said: "We do not comment on individuals."
Scotland Yard refused to comment and referred all inquiries to the Home Office.
Back in June, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she was "extremely disappointed" at the court's decision to bail Qatada, while the Conservatives branded the decision "offensive". The Home Office had pledged to deport Qatada to Jordan to face terror charges.
Qatada has been accused of helping to inspire the September 11 attacks after videos of his sermons were found in the flat used by three of the hijackers, including their leader Mohammed Atta.
He is wanted in his native Jordan for allegedly plotting a series of bomb attacks in Amman in 1998 and for providing finance and advice to terrorists planning a series of explosions there on Millennium night.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Neshant, whatever the case, Qatar has been generally friendlier to India than KSA, Qatar and KSA have a long-standing border dispute and hate each other, and Qatar has huge gas deposits. We play realpolitik here and don't stand on moral high ground.Neshant wrote:These are the guys who provided their country as a base for US forces to attack Iraq in 2003.India signs defence/security agreement with Qatar
Its only because iran is in a better position to fight back that they have announced they will not host a US attack against that country... or so they claim.
In my view, countries that act as launchpad to attack their neighbours are untrustworthy from the get go.
Added later: India seeks additional LNG from Qatar
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Re: Geopolitical thread
Acharya,
These moves are a long term strategy to put India in charge of its Asian security network.
India is being handed over the security from the red sea to the straits of malacca. And yes the nuke deal was part of the whole big deal.
Now, if only we could get some free energy
-------------------
Qatar being a small country, and their leader having ambition to influence events beyond his country's size, they try to make friends all over the place. They not only hosted the US invasion of Iraq, but they are also home to the great Al-Jazeera - often called mouth piece of Bin Laden.
They try to live many lives at the same time.
Having a defence pact with them is not such a bad idea. It gives us a security profile in a region which we should never have left - ME.
These moves are a long term strategy to put India in charge of its Asian security network.
India is being handed over the security from the red sea to the straits of malacca. And yes the nuke deal was part of the whole big deal.
Now, if only we could get some free energy
-------------------
Qatar being a small country, and their leader having ambition to influence events beyond his country's size, they try to make friends all over the place. They not only hosted the US invasion of Iraq, but they are also home to the great Al-Jazeera - often called mouth piece of Bin Laden.
They try to live many lives at the same time.
Having a defence pact with them is not such a bad idea. It gives us a security profile in a region which we should never have left - ME.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Qatar and Oman are eager for security pacts with India. What about the other countries of GCC like Bahrain, UAE? How do Kuwait and Saudi Arabia look at this?
Added later:
How could Yemen fit in there?
Added later:
How could Yemen fit in there?
Last edited by RajeshA on 10 Nov 2008 20:06, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Geopolitical thread
India needs its own 'pearl strategy' with KSA in center . Relations with Kuwait have been built steadily over the years to make it another Sg'pore in terms of geo-strategic value for India .Bahrain is of great imp. to both KSA & USA having Shia majority population but a Sunni ruling family , US holds Bahrain for now to keep Iran off . UAE is free for all .
Re: Geopolitical thread
Maldives is sinking.......literally, thanks to global warming. Govt want to buy land from another country. Options are Australia,Lanka and India...........they do not want to go Burkina Fasso. Me think we can offer them statehood inside Indian Union. JMT
Re: Geopolitical thread
Maldive Islands are spread over a large area in the Indian Ocean. It would not be bad, if this area join the Indian Union. 350,000 people can be accommodated in some new city on Indian Mainland, possibly around Tamil Nadu, considering the people there are ethnically closer to the Tamils.rsingh wrote:Maldives is sinking.......literally, thanks to global warming. Govt want to buy land from another country. Options are Australia,Lanka and India...........they do not want to go Burkina Fasso. Me think we can offer them statehood inside Indian Union. JMT
I for one would support this move, regardless of the fact, that the people adhere to Islam. They have been Buddhists and Hindus before they became Muslims, and I am sure they are aware of their history.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Yemen is key to Arabic Middle East...
meanwhile x-posted...
What this means is the threat of Europe coalescing into a second or third pole are remote(10^-6) in the near to mid term future. The idea of Western civilization holding the Europeans together is another myth. It means Anglo-Saxon groups will continue to dominate. And march of India continues as demographics comes into play. And all those intl insititution sthat GOI and DIEnasty folks hankers after like G-8, UNSC what not are irrelevant if you have strong state.
meanwhile x-posted...
2008 and the Return of the Nation-State
George Friedman
10 November 2008
In 1989, the global system pivoted when the Soviet Union retreated from Eastern Europe and began the process of disintegration that culminated in its collapse. In 2001, the system pivoted again when al Qaeda attacked targets in the United States on September 11, triggering a conflict that defined the international system until the summer of 2008. The pivot of 2008 turned on two dates, August 7 and October 11.
On August 7, Georgian troops attacked the country’s breakaway region of South Ossetia. On August 8, Russian troops responded by invading Georgia. The Western response was primarily rhetorical. On the weekend of October 11, the G-7 met in Washington to plan a joint response to the global financial crisis. Rather than defining a joint plan, the decision - by default - was that each nation would act to save its own financial system with a series of broadly agreed upon guidelines.
The August 7 and October 11 events are connected only in their consequences. Each showed the weakness of international institutions and confirmed the primacy of the nation-state, or more precisely, the nation and the state. (A nation is a collection of people who share an ethnicity. A state is the entity that rules a piece of land. A nation-state - the foundation of the modern international order - is what is formed when the nation and state overlap.) Together, the two events posed challenges that overwhelmed the global significance of the Iraqi and Afghan wars.
The Conflict in Georgia
In and of itself, Russia’s attack on Georgia was not globally significant. Georgia is a small country in the Caucasus, and its fate ultimately does not affect the world. But Georgia was aligned with the United States and with Europe, and it had been seen by some as a candidate for membership in NATO. Thus, what was important about the Russian attack was that it occurred at all, and that the West did not respond to it beyond rhetoric.
Part of the problem was that the countries that could have intervened on Georgia’s behalf lacked the ability to do so. The Americans were bogged down in the Islamic world, and the Europeans had let their military forces atrophy. But even if military force had been available, it is clear that NATO, as the military expression of the Western alliance, was incapable of any unified action. There was no unified understanding of NATO’s obligation and, more importantly, no collective understanding of what a unified strategy might be.
The tension was not only between the United States and Europe, but also among the European countries. This was particularly pronounced in the different view of the situation Germany took compared to that of the United States and many other countries. Very soon after the Russo-Georgian war had ended, the Germans made clear that they opposed the expansion of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. A major reason for this is Germany’s heavy dependence on Russian natural gas, which means Berlin cannot afford to alienate Moscow. But there was a deeper reason: Germany had been in the front line of the first Cold War and had no desire to participate in a second.
The range of European responses to Russia was fascinating. The British were livid. The French were livid but wanted to mediate. The Germans were cautious, and Chancellor Angela Merkel travelled to St. Petersburg to hold a joint press conference with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, aligning Germany with Russia - for all practical purposes - on the Georgian and Ukrainian issues.
The single most important effect of Russia’s attack on Georgia was that it showed clearly how deeply divided - and for that matter, how weak - NATO is in general and the Europeans are in particular. Had they been united, they would not have been able to do much. But they avoided that challenge by being utterly fragmented. NATO can only work when there is a consensus, and the war revealed how far from consensus NATO was. It can’t be said that NATO collapsed after Georgia. It is still there, and NATO officials hold meetings and press conferences. But the alliance is devoid of both common purpose and resources, except in very specific and limited areas. Some Europeans are working through NATO in Afghanistan, for example, but not most, and not in a decisive fashion.
The Russo-Georgian war raised profound questions about the future of the multinational military alliance. Each member consulted its own national interest and conducted its own foreign policy. At this point, splits between the Europeans and Americans are taken for granted, but the splits among the Europeans are profound. If it was no longer possible to say that NATO functioned, it was also unclear after August 8 in what sense the Europeans existed, except as individual nation-states.
The Global Financial Crisis
What was demonstrated in politico-military terms in Georgia was then demonstrated in economic terms in the financial crisis. All of the multinational systems created after World War II failed during the crisis - or more precisely, the crisis went well beyond their briefs and resources. None of the systems could cope, and many broke down. On October 11, it became clear that the G-7 could cooperate, but not through unified action. On October 12, when the Europeans held their euro-zone summit, it became clear that they would only act as individual nations.
As with the aftermath of the Georgian war, the most significant developments after October 11 happened in Europe. The European Union is first and foremost an arrangement for managing Europe’s economy. Its bureaucracy in Brussels has increased its authority and effectiveness throughout the last decade. The problem with the European Union is that it was an institution designed to manage prosperity. When it confronted serious adversity, however, it froze, devolving power to the component states.
Consider the European Central Bank (ECB), an institution created for managing the euro. Its primary charge - and only real authority - is to work to limit inflation. But limiting inflation is a problem that needs to be addressed when economies are otherwise functioning well. The financial crisis is a case where the European system is malfunctioning. The ECB was not created to deal with that. It has managed, with the agreement of member governments, to expand its function beyond inflation control, but it ultimately lacks the staff or the mindset to do all the things that other central banks were doing. To be more precise, it is a central bank without a single finance ministry to work with. Unlike other central banks, whose authority coincides with the nations they serve, the ECB serves multiple nations with multiple interests and finance ministries. By its nature, its power is limited.
In the end, power did not reside with Europe, but rather with its individual countries. It wasn’t Brussels that was implementing decisions made in Strasbourg; the centers of power were in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and the other capitals of Europe and the world. Power devolved back to the states that governed nations. Or, to be more precise, the twin crises revealed that power had never left there.
Between the events in Georgia and the financial crisis, what we saw was the breakdown of multinational entities. This was particularly marked in Europe, in large part because the Europeans were the most invested in multilateralism and because they were in the crosshairs of both crises. The Russian resurgence affected them the most, and the fallout of the US financial crisis hit them the hardest. They had to improvise the most, being multilateral but imperfectly developed, to say the least. In a sense, the Europeans were the laboratory of multilateralism and its intersection with crisis.
But it was not a European problem in the end. What we saw was a global phenomenon in which individual nations struggled to cope with the effects of the financial crisis and of Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there has been a tendency to view the world in terms of global institutions, from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization. In the summer of 2008, none of these functioned. The only things that did function effectively were national institutions.
Since 2001, the assumption has been that sub-national groups like al Qaeda would define the politico-military environment. In US Defense Department jargon, the assumption was that peer-to-peer conflict was no longer an issue and that it was all about small terrorist groups. The summer of 2008 demonstrated that while terrorism by sub-national groups is not insignificant by any means, the dynamics of nation-states have hardly become archaic.
The Importance of the State
Clearly, the world has pivoted toward the nation-state as the prime actor and away from trans-national and sub-national groups. The financial crisis could be solved by monetizing the net assets of societies to correct financial imbalances. The only institution that could do that was the state, which could use its sovereign power and credibility, based on its ability to tax the economy, to underwrite the financial system.
Around the world, states did just that. They did it in very national ways. Many European states did it primarily by guaranteeing inter-bank loans, thereby essentially nationalizing the heart of the financial system. If states guarantee loans, the risk declines to near zero. In that case, the rationing of money through market mechanisms collapses. The state must take over rationing. This massively increases the power of the state - and raises questions about how the Europeans back out of this position.
The Americans took a different approach, less focused on inter-bank guarantees than on reshaping the balance sheets of financial institutions by investing in them. It was a more indirect approach and less efficient in the short run, but the Americans were more interested than the Europeans in trying to create mechanisms that would allow the state to back out of control of the financial system.
But what is most important is to see the manner in which state power surged in the summer and fall of 2008. The balance of power between business and the state, always dynamic, underwent a profound change, with the power of the state surging and the power of business contracting. Power was not in the hands of Lehman Brothers or Barclays. It was in the hands of Washington and London. At the same time, the power of the nation surged as the importance of multilateral organizations and sub-national groups declined. The nation-state roared back to life after it had seemed to be drifting into irrelevance.
The year 1989 did not quite end the Cold War, but it created a world that bypassed it. The year 2001 did not end the post-Cold War world, but it overlaid it with an additional and overwhelming dynamic: that of the US-jihadist war. The year 2008 did not end the US-jihadist war, but it overlaid it with far more immediate and urgent issues. The financial crisis, of course, was one. The future of Russian power was another. We should point out that the importance of Russian power is this: As soon as Russia dominates the center of the Eurasian land mass, its force intrudes on Europe. Russia united with the rest of Europe is an overwhelming global force. Europe resisting Russia defines the global system. Russia fragmented opens the door for other geo-political issues. Russia united and powerful usurps the global stage.
{This is the core of the Great Game and Central Asia is the underbelly of Russia.}
The year 2008 has therefore seen two things. First, and probably most important, it resurrected the nation-state and shifted the global balance between the state and business. Second, it redefined the global geopolitical system, opening the door to a resurgence of Russian power and revealing the underlying fragmentation of Europe and weaknesses of NATO.
The most important manifestation of this is Europe. In the face of Russian power, there is no united European position. In the face of the financial crisis, the Europeans coordinate, but they do not act as one. After the summer of 2008, it is no longer fair to talk about Europe as a single entity, about NATO as a fully functioning alliance, or about a world in which the nation-state is obsolete. The nation-state was the only institution that worked.
This is far more important than either of the immediate issues. The fate of Georgia is of minor consequence to the world. The financial crisis will pass into history, joining Brady bonds, the Resolution Trust Corp. and the bailout of New York City as a historical oddity. What will remain is a new international system in which the Russian question - followed by the German question - is once again at the centre of things, and in which states act with confidence in shaping the economic and business environment for better or worse.
The world is a very different place from what it was in the spring of 2008. Or, to be more precise, it is a much more traditional place than many thought. It is a world of nations pursuing their own interests and collaborating where they choose. Those interests are economic, political and military, and they are part of a single fabric. The illusion of multilateralism was not put to rest - it will never die - but it was certainly put to bed. It is a world we can readily recognize from history.
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisp ... spx?id=227
What this means is the threat of Europe coalescing into a second or third pole are remote(10^-6) in the near to mid term future. The idea of Western civilization holding the Europeans together is another myth. It means Anglo-Saxon groups will continue to dominate. And march of India continues as demographics comes into play. And all those intl insititution sthat GOI and DIEnasty folks hankers after like G-8, UNSC what not are irrelevant if you have strong state.
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abhischekcc
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Re: Geopolitical thread
Friedman as usual has brilliantly expressed the problem.
But there is another movement barely noticed taking place - the silent expansion of the Indian military in Asia, esp ME.
The idea is that US will hand over power to India to watch this region, under the condition that India not try to break out of the IOR - which is fine with India. It greatly accelarates our own rise.
We have a choice that we can rise with US cooperation or against it. Russia is unlikely to give India such a role, and China would actively oppose India - to the point of going to war.
Which brings us to the question - what will be the shape of Indo-Russian relations in the coming decades? India is now firmly in the Anglo-American, high-tech led world. We have no business with Russia except defence.
----------
PS, I had predicted many years ago that Germany would withdraw from EU/NATO (not the same thing), which would cause its collapse. The reason would be the Germany would be tires of carrying the burder of Europe (esp France) on its shoulders. Glad to see they have finally come out of the guilt of WW2.
But there is another movement barely noticed taking place - the silent expansion of the Indian military in Asia, esp ME.
The idea is that US will hand over power to India to watch this region, under the condition that India not try to break out of the IOR - which is fine with India. It greatly accelarates our own rise.
We have a choice that we can rise with US cooperation or against it. Russia is unlikely to give India such a role, and China would actively oppose India - to the point of going to war.
Which brings us to the question - what will be the shape of Indo-Russian relations in the coming decades? India is now firmly in the Anglo-American, high-tech led world. We have no business with Russia except defence.
----------
PS, I had predicted many years ago that Germany would withdraw from EU/NATO (not the same thing), which would cause its collapse. The reason would be the Germany would be tires of carrying the burder of Europe (esp France) on its shoulders. Glad to see they have finally come out of the guilt of WW2.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Just because Germany has come out of its guilt for WWII, doesn't mean Germany is going to get out of EU/NATO anytime soon.
EU has proved to be a worthy and useful vehicle to advance German/France interests and will increase the level of their influence in EU after the ratification of Treaty of Lisbon sometime in 2009. Germany does not mind doing a bit more than necessary (financially speaking) if it means, they get the weight of the whole European Union behind it.
Germany and France were very uncomfortable during George W. Bush's reign because of his march into Iraq and efforts to pull NATO into an abyss. Germany and France may not have a huge appetite to pick fights all over the world, and is very happy that USA under Barack Obama shares this hesitation and that he would unnecessarily open new fronts. Germans remain wary of Obama's push to Germany to increase its troops size and responsibilities in Afghanistan but that may be manageable, as long as they know that the man at the helm is intelligent and takes their views seriously.
Relations with Russia would always prove a bit tricky, but would never be a reason for Germany to leave NATO.
EU has proved to be a worthy and useful vehicle to advance German/France interests and will increase the level of their influence in EU after the ratification of Treaty of Lisbon sometime in 2009. Germany does not mind doing a bit more than necessary (financially speaking) if it means, they get the weight of the whole European Union behind it.
Germany and France were very uncomfortable during George W. Bush's reign because of his march into Iraq and efforts to pull NATO into an abyss. Germany and France may not have a huge appetite to pick fights all over the world, and is very happy that USA under Barack Obama shares this hesitation and that he would unnecessarily open new fronts. Germans remain wary of Obama's push to Germany to increase its troops size and responsibilities in Afghanistan but that may be manageable, as long as they know that the man at the helm is intelligent and takes their views seriously.
Relations with Russia would always prove a bit tricky, but would never be a reason for Germany to leave NATO.
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abhischekcc
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Re: Geopolitical thread
RajeshA
Germany has always swung between west and east. Its ambivalence has single handedly changed geopolitics of europe. Case in point - the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Even before that, the Czars and Kaisers were trying to patch differences for decades before WW1 broke out.
This time, Germany's response to Russia has blunted European response.
>>Germany and France were very uncomfortable during George W. Bush's reign because of his march into Iraq and efforts to pull NATO into an abyss
I would not gove too much credence to their public posturing. Everybody loves a profitable war.
>>Relations with Russia would always prove a bit tricky, but would never be a reason for Germany to leave NATO.
Leave is a strong word, a better word would be neutralize - as in not criticize aggression against Georgia
They are not there, but they will get there.
-------------
PS
Q. If GWB was an Indian, what would be his name?
A. Aurangzeb
Germany has always swung between west and east. Its ambivalence has single handedly changed geopolitics of europe. Case in point - the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Even before that, the Czars and Kaisers were trying to patch differences for decades before WW1 broke out.
This time, Germany's response to Russia has blunted European response.
>>Germany and France were very uncomfortable during George W. Bush's reign because of his march into Iraq and efforts to pull NATO into an abyss
I would not gove too much credence to their public posturing. Everybody loves a profitable war.
>>Relations with Russia would always prove a bit tricky, but would never be a reason for Germany to leave NATO.
Leave is a strong word, a better word would be neutralize - as in not criticize aggression against Georgia
They are not there, but they will get there.
-------------
PS
Q. If GWB was an Indian, what would be his name?
A. Aurangzeb
Re: Geopolitical thread
abcc: If Germany has tried to patch up with Russia in the past, then so has France, when France was the biggest power on the land (Napolean) and their attempts to keep Russia at bay through a shaky alliance, against the British, which eventually fell by 1812.
Would it not be fair to say, that the history of continental European powers is a history of trying to manage Russia in the East and the UK in the west.
Friedman's central message seems to be, the EU as an entity has not yet matured, when it comes to core interests and managing crises, which are still relegated to nation states. Another observer had commented " Which self respecting Italian will swear their allegiance to the EU and willing to die for it"?
The challenge of continental europe is, they seem to be in this between the lands, where they are unwilling or unable to make the necessary investments in defense to manage their own interests and the EU is unable to provide a protective cover for these core interests yet. Translation - European states are effectively still under the yoke of the American led economic and security architecture.
Me personally feels, that Europe is the story of the past and we should not dwell too much to look at history to predict the future.
Would it not be fair to say, that the history of continental European powers is a history of trying to manage Russia in the East and the UK in the west.
Friedman's central message seems to be, the EU as an entity has not yet matured, when it comes to core interests and managing crises, which are still relegated to nation states. Another observer had commented " Which self respecting Italian will swear their allegiance to the EU and willing to die for it"?
The challenge of continental europe is, they seem to be in this between the lands, where they are unwilling or unable to make the necessary investments in defense to manage their own interests and the EU is unable to provide a protective cover for these core interests yet. Translation - European states are effectively still under the yoke of the American led economic and security architecture.
Me personally feels, that Europe is the story of the past and we should not dwell too much to look at history to predict the future.
Re: Geopolitical thread
EU as a nation state is not going to happen. It is an economic giant but that is it. It still has the 1000 year war memory. Yugoslavia is still in memory.ramana wrote:Yemen is key to Arabic Middle East...
meanwhile x-posted...
2008 and the Return of the Nation-State
George Friedman
10 November 2008
What this means is the threat of Europe coalescing into a second or third pole are remote(10^-6) in the near to mid term future. The idea of Western civilization holding the Europeans together is another myth. It means Anglo-Saxon groups will continue to dominate. And march of India continues as demographics comes into play. And all those intl insititution sthat GOI and DIEnasty folks hankers after like G-8, UNSC what not are irrelevant if you have strong state.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya's view of European sociopolitics.
http://bjp.org/philo.htmNationalism, democracy, socialism or equality (equality is there at the root of socialism; equality is different from equability), these three doctrines have dominated European social political thinking. Every now and then apart from these ideals of world peace and world unity also cropped up. All these are good ideas. They reflect the higher aspirations mankind. But by itself each of these doctrines is incomplete. Not only that, each stands opposed to the rest in practice. Nationalism poses a threat to world peace. Democracy and capitalism join hands to give a free reign exploitation. Socialism replaced capitalism and brought with it an end to democracy and individual freedom. Hence the West is present faced with the task of reconciling these good ideals. They have not succeeded to this day, in this task. They have tried combinations and permutations, by emphasis on one or the other ideal. England emphasized nationalism and democracy and developed her politico-social institutions along those lines, whereas France could not adopt the same. There, democracy resulted in political instability. The British Labor party wanted to reconcile socialism with democracy but people have raised doubts whether democracy will survive if socialism gains strength. Hence the labor party no longer supports socialism so strongly as the Marxist doctrines advocate. If socialism has been diluted considerably, Hitler and Mussolini adopted nationalist cum socialism and buried democracy. In the end socialism also became a tool for their nationalism which posed a great threat to world peace and unity.
Re: Geopolitical thread
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/techn ... ss&emc=rss
http://www.google.org/flutrends/
http://www.google.org/flutrends/
Something similar can be done for the terrorists and all the Pakis who are searching for materials for bombGoogle Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread
By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: November 11, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — There is a new common symptom of the flu, in addition to the usual aches, coughs, fevers and sore throats. Turns out a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases like “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctor.
That simple act, multiplied across millions of keyboards in homes around the country, has given rise to a new early warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks called Google Flu Trends.
Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In early February, for example, the C.D.C. reported that the flu had recently spiked in the mid-Atlantic states. But Google says its search data show a spike in queries about flu symptoms two weeks before that report came out. Its new service at google.org/flutrends analyzes those searches as they come in, creating graphs and maps of the country that, ideally, will show where the flu is spreading.
Re: Geopolitical thread
I would be surprised that if such tools are not yet there with many agencies around the world. Just trust me on this
Google is bringing them to public domain. In my view this is a very careless thing to do and this will lead to coordinated manipulation. By the way, these are not difficult tools to write as all the search engines provide paid services and the core software is already developed and being improved regularly.
Google is bringing them to public domain. In my view this is a very careless thing to do and this will lead to coordinated manipulation. By the way, these are not difficult tools to write as all the search engines provide paid services and the core software is already developed and being improved regularly.
Re: Geopolitical thread
It already is being used. In one murder trial, a husband claimed he and his wife were walking on the beach when she was shot by some stranger. The police had their doubts about his testimony.
They had google or yahoo turn over his online search reacord. It had keywords like "gunshot wound, suicide, insurance, guns..etc.." weeks before the actual killing. It obviously did not help that he raised his wife's life insurance by a few hundred thousand dollars a year before her death.
So if you have to kill your wife, don't google it. Just do it the 'traditional' Indian way and use good old kerosene. (joking)
They had google or yahoo turn over his online search reacord. It had keywords like "gunshot wound, suicide, insurance, guns..etc.." weeks before the actual killing. It obviously did not help that he raised his wife's life insurance by a few hundred thousand dollars a year before her death.
So if you have to kill your wife, don't google it. Just do it the 'traditional' Indian way and use good old kerosene. (joking)
Re: Geopolitical thread
Our strategic ties lie with India: Maldives Minister
"Our primary strategic interests lie with India. And there is nothing that can change this plain fact," Maldives Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed told IANS in an interview in this capital city days after the 41-year-old Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed was sworn in as the first democratically elected president of the country.
"We have always been able to identify our interests with those of India. The 400 miles (640 km)between Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) and Male is never going to change. That simple geographical fact is the cornerstone of our foreign policy," said Shaheed, a self-confessed Indophile who has visited India at least 20 times.
"Our foreign policy is convergent to that of India," he stressed.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Maritime security training for ARF countries begins at Chennai
The week-long advanced maritime security training programme-2008 for participants from ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) countries is all set to begin in Chennai on Monday.
The instructional class / lecture will be imparted by the Indian Coast Guard officers and faculty members from other organisations.
The objective of the training programme is to achieve overall awareness of the threat perception in the sealanes of the maritime nations and to identify correct counter measures for maritime security.
The training forum will cover piracy, search and rescue, Global Maritime Dist ress Safety System (GMDSS), offshore and port security, poaching and other topics covering the threats in the region.
During the last ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Ministerial level meeting at Manila in 2007, the External Affairs Minister had proposed a series of training programmes on maritime security issues for all member states. The first such programme was organised in Chennai, in March, 2008.
Re: Geopolitical thread
Madeleine Albright: A letter to the next president
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do0406.xml
By Madeleine K. Albright
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 04/11/2008
Have your say Read comments
Congratulations on your success. You have won an impressive victory – but with that victory comes the responsibility to guide a troubled America in a world riven by conflict, confusion and hate. Upon taking office, you will face the daunting task of restoring America’s credibility as an effective and exemplary world leader.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama's first job will be to re-establish respect for America
This cannot be accomplished merely by distancing yourself and your administration from the mistakes of George W. Bush. You must offer innovative strategies for coping with multiple dangers, including the global economic meltdown, two hot wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan), al-Qaida, nuclear threats and climate change. In every realm, you will need to recruit a first-rate team of advisers, apply the principles of critical thinking and develop a coherent strategy with a clear connection between actions and results.
Your first job as president will be to re-establish the traditional sources of international respect for America: resilience, optimism, support for justice, and the desire for peace. As you recognised during your campaign, America’s good name has been tarnished. Your message to the world should be that the United States, though unafraid to act when necessary, is also eager to listen and learn.
That first step is important, but you will need to do much more.
Starting on Inauguration Day, you must strive to restore confidence in the economic soundness and financial stewardship of the United States. The October crash proved that our current leaders have lost their way. All eyes are now on you. Pick the right people; show discipline; stick to the rules you establish; and push for an economic system that rewards hard work, not greed.
Overseas, you should begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. If you hesitate, you will be forced _ by an evolving consensus within Iraq _ to do so nonetheless. By initiating the process and controlling the timing, you can steer credit to responsible Iraqi leaders instead of allowing radicals to claim that they have driven us out.
US presidential election 2008
The troops that remain as the redeployment proceeds should focus on further preparing Iraqi forces for command. Despite recent gains, the country is still threatened by sectarian rivalries. These have a long history and can be resolved only by Iraq’s own decision-makers. American troops cannot substitute for Iraqi spine. The time for transition is at hand.
In Afghanistan, an unsustainable stalemate has developed in which the majority of the population fears the Taliban, resents Nato and lacks faith in its government. Given the stakes, you may be tempted to “do more” in Afghanistan, but that alone would be a reaction, not a strategy.
Our own military admits that the current approach is not working. We cannot kill or capture our way to victory. We need more troops, but we also need a policy that corresponds to the aspirations and sensitivities of the local population. Under your leadership, Nato’s primary military mission should be to train Afghan forces to defend Afghan villages, and its dominant political objective should be to improve the quality of governance throughout the country.
Economic development is crucial, and you should encourage global and regional institutions to take the lead in building infrastructure and creating jobs. Diplomatically, you should concentrate on enhancing security co-operation between Islamabad and Kabul. Overall, allied efforts must go beyond killing terrorists to preventing the recruitment of cadre to replace them.
In addition to the Taliban, the reason we are in Afghanistan is al-Qaida, which remains an alien presence wherever it exists. Even its roots in Pakistan are not deep, and the failure of its leaders to articulate a positive agenda has reduced the allure of Bin Laden-style operations even to potential sympathizers. Al-Qaida, still dangerous, is beginning to lose the battle of ideas.
Targeted military actions remain essential, but you should avoid giving the many in the Muslim world who disagree with us fresh reason to join the ranks of those who are trying to kill us. This is, after all, an important distinction. Closing Guantánamo will help.
From the first day, you should also work to identify the elements of a permanent and fair Middle East peace. Cynics are fond of observing that support for peace will not pacify al-Qaida, but that is both obvious and beside the point. Your efforts can still enhance respect for American leadership in the regions where al-Qaida trawls for new blood.
Only effective regional diplomacy can persuade Israelis and Arabs alike that peace is still possible. In the absence of that hope, all sides will prepare for a future without peace, thereby validating the views of extremists and further complicating every aspect of your job.
The dangers radiating from the Middle East and Persian Gulf are sure to occupy you, but they should not consume all your attention. Just as an effective foreign policy cannot be exclusively unilateral, neither can it be unidimensional. You should devote more time and resources to regions, such as Latin America and Africa, that have been neglected.
As a leader in the global era, you must view the world through a wide lens. That is why I hope you will establish a new and forward-looking mission for our country: to harness the latest scientific advances to enhance living standards across the globe.
This initiative should extend to growing food, distributing medicine, conserving water, producing energy and preserving the atmosphere. It should include a challenge to the American public to serve as a laboratory for best environmental practices, gradually replacing mass consumption with sustainability as an emblem of the American way. Such a policy can serve the future by reducing our vulnerability to energy blackmail, while conveying a clearer and loftier sense of what the United States is all about.
Mr. President-Elect, the job once held by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the Roosevelts will soon be yours. In years to come, you will be required to maintain your balance despite being shoved ceaselessly from every direction, and to exercise sound judgment amid the crush of events both predictable and shocking.
To justify our confidence in you, you must show confidence in us. End the politics of fear. Treat us like adults. Help us to understand people from distant lands and cultures. Challenge us to work together. Remind us that America’s finest hours have come not from dominating others but from inspiring people everywhere to seek the best in themselves.
Madeleine K. Albright was U.S. secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. She is the author of “Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership” (HarperCollins, 2008).
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Nayak
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Re: Geopolitical thread
Is this the same fat chick who runs around with some fancy brooches stuck on her barrel-chest ?
Re: Geopolitical thread
Military obligations are eating up US economy
The blogger discusses USA support to Israeli causes, about USA debt owing to the need of controlling the planet and uncontrolled spending at home and more....
The blogger discusses USA support to Israeli causes, about USA debt owing to the need of controlling the planet and uncontrolled spending at home and more....
Pirate issue needs to be settled permanently
India should take lead in eliminating pirates. Instead of wasting fuel by flying the Sukhois on training missions to A&N islands, they should be sent on bombing missions to Somalia. This meance needs to addressed immediately and very firmly else the situation will truly get out of control.
Somali pirates seize supertanker loaded with crude
Somali pirates seize supertanker loaded with crude
The Associated Press wrote:
By BARBARA SURK – 38 minutes ago
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Somali pirates hijacked a supertanker hundreds of miles off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Saudi-owned ship loaded with crude and its 25-member crew, the U.S. Navy said Monday.
It appeared to be the largest ship ever seized by pirates.
After the brazen hijacking, the pirates on Monday sailed the Sirius Star to a Somali port that has become a haven for bandits and the ships they have seized, a Navy spokesman said.
The hijacking was among the most brazen in a surge in attacks this year by ransom-hungry Somali pirates. Attacks off the Somali coast have increased more than 75 percent this year, and even the world's largest vessels are vulnerable.
The Sirius Star, commissioned in March and owned by the Saudi oil company Aramco, is 1,080 feet long — about the length of an aircraft carrier — making it one of the largest ships to sail the seas. It can carry about 2 million barrels of oil.
Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, said the pirates hijacked the ship on Saturday about 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya — the farthest out to sea Somali pirates have struck.
By expanding their range, Somali pirates are "certainly a threat to many more vessels," Christensen said. He said the pirates on the Sirius Star were "nearing an anchorage point" at the Somali port town of Eylon Monday.
Somali pirates have seized at least six several ships off the Horn of Africa in the past week, but the hijacking of a supertanker marked a dramatic escalation.
The pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rockets launchers and various types of grenades.
With most attacks ending with million-dollar payouts, piracy is considered the most lucrative work in Somalia. Pirates rarely hurt their hostages, instead holding out for a huge payday.
The strategy works well: A report last month by a London-based think tank said pirates have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this year alone.
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized and better-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades.
They do occasionally get nabbed, however. Earlier this year, French commandos used night vision goggles and helicopters in operations that killed or captured several pirates, who are now standing trial in Paris. A stepped-up international presence of warships recently also appears to have deterred several attacks.
The Sirius Star was sailing under a Liberian flag. The 25-member crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals on board.
An operator with Aramco said there was no one available at the company to comment after business hours. Calls went unanswered at Vela International, the Dubai-based marine company that operated the ship for Aramco.
Classed as a Very Large Crude Carrier, the Sirius Star is 318,000 dead weight tons.
Raja Kiwan, a Dubai-based analyst with PFC Energy, said the hijacking raises "some serious questions" about what is needed to secure such ships on the open seas.
"It's not easy to take over a ship" as massive as oil tankers, which typically have armed guards on board, he said.
But pirates have gone after oil tankers before.
In October, a Spanish military patrol plane thwarted pirates trying to hijack an oil tanker by buzzing them three times and dropping smoke canisters.
On April 21, pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades at a Japanese oil tanker, leaving a hole that allowed several hundred gallons of fuel to leak out, raising fears for the environment.
In September, three pirates in a speed boat fired machine guns at an Iranian crude oil carrier, though the ship escaped after a 30-minute chase.
Warships from the more than a dozen nations as well as NATO forces have focused their anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, increasing their military presence in recent months.
But Saturday's hijacking occurred much farther south, highlighting weaknesses in the international response.
Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd, said the increased international presence trying to prevent attacks is simply not enough.
"The coalition has suppressed a number of attacks ... but there will never be enough warships," he said, describing an area that covers 2.5 million square miles.
He also speculated that the crew of the Sirius Star may have had a false sense of security because they were so far out to sea.
He said the coalition warships will have to be "one step ahead of the pirates. The difficulty here is that the ship was beyond the area where the coalition were currently acting."
Associated Press Writer Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.