Geopolitical thread

[devesh]

if india is the young wife, then theif and young wife are reaching an agreement? if that is case, the old man's goose is cooked.

India is not the young-wife. it is the anti-India that is young wife.

[Philip]

How Britain plans to seize Assange and throw diplomatic protocol,international convention and propriety to the wind like a "gangsta" rogue state! The report also revealed the existence of an ultra secret British special ops unit known only as "SS 10".SS standing for a latter day version of the infamous Nazi "Schutz Staffel" what ?!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ealed.html

WikiLeaks: Met police embarrassed as Assange arrest plan revealed
A policeman has accidentally revealed a secret plan to seize Julian Assange “under all circumstances” if he steps outside the Ecuadorian embassy, in an embarrassment for Scotland Yard.

By Martin Beckford, Home Affairs Editor

6:41PM BST 24 Aug 2012

The uniformed Met officer was pictured holding a clipboard detailing possible ways the WikiLeaks founder could try to escape from the building he has been holed up in for the past two months.

His target, who is trying to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged rape and sexual assault, is currently safe on diplomatic territory. He has been given political asylum by the Latin American country, on the grounds that he faces persecution in the USA over his whistle-blowing website, but faces arrest the second he steps outside because he has breached his bail conditions.

The policeman’s handwritten tactical brief, captured by a Press Association photographer as he stood outside the Knightsbridge embassy on Friday afternoon, discloses the “summary of current position re Assange”.

It stated: “Action required – Assange to be arrested under all circumstances.”
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How a cosy chat with the president of Ecuador turned into a diplomatic headache
19 Aug 2012

The notes said should the maverick Australian should be taken even if he emerges in a vehicle, under diplomatic immunity or in a diplomatic bag, which may involve “risk to life”. There had been speculation that he could be smuggled out of the building in a parcel or given a post in the United Nations by Ecuador in an attempt to evade arrest.

The operational guidance, marked “restricted”, also warned of the “possibility of distraction”, suggesting that the Yard fears Mr Assange’s supporters could try to create a commotion outside the embassy, providing cover under which he could flee.

Further details of the notes, which were obscured by the officer holding them, appeared to relate to the “everyday business” of the embassy and the possible need for “additional support” from an unknown agency known as SS10. Scotland Yard said it did not know what this referred to.

The last few sentences referred to SO20, the counter-terrorism command, and included the words "welfare" and "standards".

A separate page carried by the uniformed officer, who was chatting to a colleague, showed an “event diary” including codes and phone numbers.

The blunder by the policeman, captured by a Press Association photographer on Friday afternoon, has echoes of the downfall of Britain’s senior counter-terrorism officer in 2009.

Bob Quick resigned after he was photographed carrying documents marked “secret” and detailing joint plans by police and MI5 as he arrived in Downing Street for a meeting, forcing an anti-terror operation to be rushed forward.

It is the latest embarrassment for the British authorities in the diplomatic stand-off over Mr Assange.

After the failure of his two-year appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he was accused of sexually assaulting two women, he was allowed to walk into Ecuador’s embassy and claim asylum in June.

He has remained there ever since and the Foreign Office was denounced by Ecuador for supposedly threatening to withdraw the building’s diplomatic protection and “storm” inside to arrest Mr Assange.

Last Sunday he was allowed to give an address from a balcony, to cheering crowds and ranks of police officers, in which he claimed police had been “swarming up inside” the embassy only to be held back because “the world is watching”.

Meanwhile Britain has re-started “formal communication” with diplomats from Ecuador but the country’s officials insist Mr Assange can stay in their embassy for “centuries” if necessary.

Ambassadors from several South American countries met in London on Friday to oppose Britain’s “threats against the integrity and sovereignty” of the Ecuadorian embassy.

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the accidentally revealed tactics on Mr Assange nor on the possibility of disciplinary action for the officer responsible for the slip.

[ramana]

Continuing the big themes of history

Nigthwatch, 23 Aug 2012...

http://www.kforcegov.com/Services/IS/Ni ... 00163.aspx

Point of order. On multiple occasions this month US news outlets have described Turkey as a one-time ally of Syria that has now turned against it. The Turks have not been allies of Arabs in more than a thousand years. Somebody needs to tell Fox News and others that their research staffers need to actually read some history.

The second point is about the US statements of concern about Syrian use of chemical weapons. The US warning to Syria ignored the infinitely more serious and palpable threat that Salafist or al Qaida fighting groups might overrun and capture a CW depot and redistribute its weapons to other terrorist groups or fire them at Israel.

Syria has been as responsible as any great power in controlling its chemical weapons. It has assured the international community on multiple occasions that it would not use CW against its own citizens.

On the other hand, theWestern and Arab backers of the Syrian opposition do not even know the identity, nationality, composition and theology of the opposition fighting groups that might take possession of Syrian weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. The danger that these could be turned against Israel is reinforced by the statement of the captured fighter in Aleppo that he understood he was fighting against Israel.

If Syrian opposition militants fire Syrian CW at Israel, war crimes accusations against Western and Sunni Arab policy makers could follow at some point.

An e-mail response to me....

Below are a few thoughts originating from Edward Luttwak's book & connections mind is forming :


A quote from 23 Aug Nightwatch Brief :

The Turks have not been allies of Arabs in more than a thousand years. Somebody needs to tell Fox News and others that their research staffers need to actually read some history

Byzantine Empire too had long standing hostility with Arabs . Ottomans in a way were byzantine 2.0 ( bad or worse but carried same traits ) . Simply put Turks couldn't swim against the tide of historical trend even if we include religion as a counter .

Again the Sassanian Empire too was at odds with Arabs . In present day it has manifested itself into Shia-Sunni or Persia- Arabian rivalry .

Germanic tribes if am not wrong bought their peace with Byzantine Empire but never with Rome ( no wonder Turks made Germany their second home & deeper into northern europe , all byzantine time allies of byzantine empire) .Odd one is Franks ( present day France ) an ally of Byzantine Empire but now French don't have that sort of rapport with Turks maybe its short term thing or something to do with Crusade ?

What i am trying to understand is look beyond religion as the main mover in geo-politics , yes it played a role but only within limits of historical trends . It couldn't against it .


Another thing that comes up in mind was so long Byzantine Empire existed , Arabs had their eyes set on it & India remained relatively safer . Things went against India completely once Byzatine Empire was weakend & finished off . Tribes from CARs were always drawn towards Byzantine Empire but once it was finished off by Arabs & Crusades , India was the obvious choice other than China i guess .

Does this mean rise of Turkey good for us in medium term ( time to gain strength ) .

Yes the better word for geopolitics is "sthana bala" or power of the place. The place requires a certain way of exercising power.

The Arabs were finished as a power by the Persio Arabs or the Abbasids soon after the conquest of Persia. The Abbasids brought in Turks as mamelukes or slaves as they didn't trust the Arabs for their intercinine quarrels.

So it wasnt the Arabs who turned against India but miscellaneous Persio- Afghan Turks from the Ghazanavid period. They were overturned by the Chagatai Turks who became known as the Mughals.

As a high school student I thought Asia had four empires:Ottomon, Safavid, Mughal and Ming that kept the balance from the early Middle ages to the pre-Modern age.

Each of these faced internal rot in just a century and gave way to colonialism.
The Turks got defeated at Vienna in 1680 and their decline started
The Mughals lost to the Persians in 1580 and lost Kandhar and in 200 years after were gone
The Safavids lost to the Qazilbakshs around 1720s and the decline started.

The Mings suffered sack of Beijing in 1650s.

[Agnimitra]

Continuing the big themes of history

Nigthwatch, 23 Aug 2012...

http://www.kforcegov.com/Services/IS/Ni ... 00163.aspx

Does this mean rise of Turkey good for us in medium term ( time to gain strength ).

Yes the better word for geopolitics is "sthana bala" or power of the place.

But sthAna-balam is modulated by relative civilizational spans and the depth of the number of iterations of different civilizational contexts. Generally, yes, a westward looking Persia keeping "Rome" busy is good for India and buys us time to build our strength and gain traction. But the time horizon, as well as what kind of strengths need to be gained, depends on the context.

When it was Greece and then Rome versus Persia, Iran was civilizationally linked in many ways with India, though not in our orbit in any way (in even more ancient times that was the case). So the time horizon for India in this situation was more comfortable. Then when it became Sunni Ottomans versus Shia Safavis, the time horizon was much shorter, because now although there was vicious fighting, the schism was internal - Persia was now civilizationally uprooted and linked with W. Asia. History within India itself shows that, while the Sunni-Shi'a-Hindu political triangle did help to distract and contain getting steamrolled, it did not stop the steady advance of the other civilization within India. It continued to happen either via Sunni hard power force, or by Shi'a soft power interactions, or both. In fact, the net effect was that the weakest player - Shi'a - managed to wield disproportional hard power by virtue of sharing Moslem identity, while also occupying the center of the cultural space in many ways by its soft power relationships with Hindus. So, both the Shi'a and Hindu used the tussle to buy time and gain powers...but the Shi'a did at least as well as the Hindu, because of its position.

Today's "Rome" is the West. Turkey is the old E. Rome, but it is not part of the West today, but part of the Islamic world. Turkey's westernization adds an interesting fold, though. It adds another iteration to its context depth. It is an Islamic country, which has processed a Westernization iteration. We should not be confused by the depth of context and its external opportunistic alliances.

In the short term, the West using Turkey to keep Iran occupied in W. Asia and C. Asia can be used by India to gain strength. But HOW is this "strength" to be gained? We MUST do something to make the iterations there hit a limiting condition and start to unravel. Otherwise the adversarial civilization will keep increasing its contextual depth beyond the capacity of India civilization to trigger responses even reactively. Our culture will system-crash if we don't make theirs crash. The encirclement must be understood not just in terms of geopolitics, hard-power, trade, etc., but also soft power, identity, etc.

Therefore India must use this short-term or medium-term Iran-Turkey competition to do the following: Increase the isolation and estrangement of Persians from Turko-Arabs and Islam. This has to go waaay beyond playing "Shi'a-Sunni" politics and the old Sunni-Shi'a-Hindu political triangle.

Instead of "Rome" (the West) using the Turkish state to take out Iran -- and possibly make Iran a Westernized satellite...India should take advantage of the West-Sunni alliance against Iran to make sure Iran eventually falls on this side of the board. The fact that we ourselves do have a context depth that includes a well-established Westernization iteration means that we can satisfy any such inclinations Iranians may have for that aspect also. Its just my belief that such civilizational and identity politics has a big role to play in the longer term, and so due consideration must be given to it in the short and medium terms.

If India does not do this, then Turkey will. Already Turkey uses its "Western" iteration to set itself up as a model for the Sunni Islamist "progressive" world. In fact, even many Iranians want to be more like Turkey. So NO, the rise of Turkey is NOT a good thing for India in the medium term, because at a very fundamental level they are our competitors. It is at a level that modifies the net effect of "sthana-balam". Moreover, the Turkish Islamists are inspired by Said Nursi, who said he was inspired by Imam Rabbani.

Thus, Indian strategy must be able to create a gameplan not just in geostrategic terms, but in terms of shifting civilizational gravitational axes and boundaries, and Iran's orbit in one civilizational sphere versus another. JMT.

[Philip]

Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Tutu snubs war criminal Tony Blair!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... q-War.html

Archbishop Desmond Tutu pulls out of event with Tony Blair because of Iraq War
Retired Anglican bishop and South African peace campaigner Desmond Tutu has pulled out of an event because he cannot share a platform with Tony Blair because of the Iraq War.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu pulls out of event with Tony Blair because of Iraq War
Archbishop Tutu’s office said in a statement: 'Ultimately, the Archbishop is of the view that Tony Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible' Photo: Startraks Photo /Rex/Eddie Mulholland
Christopher Hope

By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent
28 Aug 2012

The Nobel Peace Prize winner who was the first black archbishop of Cape Town made the protest because of the former Prime Minister's “morally indefensible” decision to lead British forces into Iraq in 2003.

However Mr Blair hit back in a statement, insisting that such "decisions are never easy morally or politically”.

Mr Blair and Archbishop Tutu, who received the Nobel Prize in 1984 for campaigning against apartheid, were due to appear at a leadership summit in Johannesburg later this week.

A local Muslim party has already announced that it would attempt to arrest Blair when he arrives in Johannesburg for “crimes against humanity”.

Archbishop Tutu’s office said in a statement: “Ultimately, the Archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible.

“The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit has leadership as its theme. Morality and leadership are indivisible. In this context, it would be inappropriate and untenable for the Archbishop to share a platform with Mr Blair.

A spokesman told the New Statesman’s website that Archbishop Tutu was “a very prayerful man” who will have “spent hours on his knees considering this decision”.

He said: “He thinks and prays and then acts. That's how he's always done things, including during the struggles.”

Mr Blair’s office said in a statement the former Prime Minister was “sorry that the Archbishop has decided to pull out now from an event that has been fixed for months and where he and the Archbishop were never actually sharing a platform.

“As far as Iraq is concerned they have always disagreed about removing Saddam by force - such disagreement is part of a healthy democracy.

“As for the morality of that decision we have recently had both the memorial of the Halabja massacre where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons; and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.

“So these decisions are never easy morally or politically”.

[abhishek_sharma]

Trending Upward: How the intelligence community can better see into the future.

[ramana]

Niall Fergusson gets it. Bush led to the fall of the West by his Don Quixote move into Iraq:

Niall Ferguson, "The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West"
Publisher: Penguin Press HC | ISBN: 1594201005 | edition 2006 | 880 pages |

Niall Fergusson's most important book to date-a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing.


From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the cold war, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of human history. How can we explain the astonishing scale and intensity of its violence when, thanks to the advances of science and economics, most people were better off than ever before-eating better, growing taller, and living longer? Wherever one looked, the world in 1900 offered the happy prospect of ever-greater interconnection. Why, then, did global progress descend into internecine war and genocide? Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics, and evolutionary theory, Niall Ferguson-one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People"-masterfully examines what he calls the age of hatred and sets out to explain what went wrong with modernity.

On a quest that takes him from the Siberian steppe to the plains of Poland, from the streets of Sarajevo to the beaches of Okinawa, Ferguson reveals an age turned upside down by economic volatility, multicultural communities torn apart by the irregularities of boom and bust, an era poisoned by the idea of irreconcilable racial differences, and a struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new states. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was the West. Some even talk of the American century. But for Ferguson, the biggest upshot of twentieth-century upheaval was the decline of Western dominance over Asia.

MMS and his coterie wants to replicate the rise of the West in India.

[JE Menon]

>>the age of hatred

Kali yugam?

[abhishek_sharma]

Nobody's century: The American Prospect in Post-Imperial Times

On Being a Spy

[Klaus]

X-Posting from Perspectives Thread:

The title speaks for itself, methinks. Alba & Cymru might take hints, hopefully.

Catalan Autonomy Demand in Spain.

Aragon a big part of Spain got subsumed in the new Spain after the Reconquista. Catehrine of Aragon and Fredinand of Castille were married and they sponsored Columbus' voyages. Castille made a clause that the revenues from new world wont be shared with Aragon. Eventually they died off due to lack of money and ended up merged with Spain.

So lets see if they start making noises.

The Catalan people always had the thirst for autonomy, the existence of Andorra as a nation is living proof of that. Historically its largely been Leon and Galicia who've been the body and tail for the Kingdom of Castille.

Perhaps the Scots are acting as inspiration for the Catalan people to finish what they started. Spain was blinded to the obvious danger by the EU integration pappi-jhappi at the close of the 20th century.

[Klaus]

If India does not do this, then Turkey will. Already Turkey uses its "Western" iteration to set itself up as a model for the Sunni Islamist "progressive" world. In fact, even many Iranians want to be more like Turkey. So NO, the rise of Turkey is NOT a good thing for India in the medium term, because at a very fundamental level they are our competitors. It is at a level that modifies the net effect of "sthana-balam".

On this note, is there material relating to Olaf Caroe's projection of Turkey and its geopolitical weight-class, with respect to Eurasia and the wider world?

The reason I brought him up was that he was a strong advocate of a strong Persia + protecting Greater China and sub-continental Islamic nationalism as the way forward for British interests in the sub-continent, above quoted post was very similar in its prescription.

BTW Iranians who wish to be more like Turkey could be a result of psy-ops, point to remember is that Iran is the target of an intensive fake modernism drive, just like Bharat is.

[abhishek_sharma]

Sabra and Shatila: A somber anniversary

[abhishek_sharma]

OUR MEN IN IRAN? by Seymour M. Hersh

[Agnimitra]

On this note, is there material relating to Olaf Caroe's projection of Turkey and its geopolitical weight-class, with respect to Eurasia and the wider world?

The reason I brought him up was that he was a strong advocate of a strong Persia + protecting Greater China and sub-continental Islamic nationalism as the way forward for British interests in the sub-continent, above quoted post was very similar in its prescription.

Hi Klaus, just saw your post.

Re: Olaf Caroe's views on Turkey and Turks in general - In his book the Pathans, Caroe also traces the origin of the Ghilzai Pashtuns to Attila and the Huns. Britain, Germany and other anti-Russian powers of that time were actively promoting pan-Turkism - an ideology that was conjured up in European universities by Orientalists like Hermann Vambery. It was through him, then, that the thought was seeded into the Ottoman intelligentsia and then the Young Turks like Enver Pasha. One hardly finds Vambery's and others' names mentioned in articles on Pan-Turkism today, but he is rightly given the name of "Father of Pan-Turkism". He was Hungarian, so there is that connection.

Some other links by Caroe:
Why Turkey?

Soviet empire : the Turks of Central Asia and Stalinism

It is worth emphasizing that present day Turkey is NOT geopolitically in the same bracket as the E. Roman empire. Present day Turkey has deep links with all the CA stans to the east and north of Iran, as well as to the Afghans. the Sunni Pakis are also their eager slaves. Gulenist Turks in aprticular have already cultivated networks of schools and businesses in all CA stans and are aggressively competing with Persians in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. They also are active as volunteers in the Northern Areas of PoK, as well as parts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa. Lastly, they have a bigger presence in B'Desh than they do even in India. So Turkey's power projection is not something that only keeps Iran Westward-looking and embroiled, but it touches us very directly.

BTW Iranians who wish to be more like Turkey could be a result of psy-ops, point to remember is that Iran is the target of an intensive fake modernism drive, just like Bharat is.

Yes, a section of Iranians have caved in to very aggressive psy-ops that has been going on since the Qajari Shah Nasiruddin's time -- an aggressive "West is best" and "Iranians can (almost) be white" invitation. In fact, it was a major theme of ideologues like Al-e-Ahmad and Ali Shariati who is being discussed on the "Iran's Identity Faultlines" thread, a term called gharbzadeh (Westoxified). In connection with this tendency, I was suggesting in my post above that each civilizational "suitor" of Iran must make full use of all its iterations and context-depth - "The fact that we ourselves do have a context depth that includes a well-established Westernization iteration means that we can satisfy any such inclinations Iranians may have for that aspect also."

[brihaspati]

Any talk of surprising/shocking events next Tuesday/Wednesday in ME?

[Agnimitra]

^^^ B ji, need to keep a closer ear out for the chatter.

Added to above post: Re: Olaf Caroe's views on Turkey and Turks in general - In his book the Pathans, Caroe also traces the origin of the Ghilzai Pashtuns to Attila and the Huns. Britain, Germany and other anti-Russian powers of that time were actively promoting pan-Turkism - an ideology that was conjured up in European universities by Orientalists like Hermann Vambery. It was through him, then, that the thought was seeded into the Ottoman intelligentsia and then the Young Turks like Enver Pasha. One hardly finds Vambery's and others' names mentioned in articles on Pan-Turkism today, but he is rightly given the name of "Father of Pan-Turkism". He was Hungarian, so there is that connection. Coming back to Caroe, it is interesting to see how the Brits want to use the different ethnic strains to embroil the Pamir Knot and areas surrounding.

[ramana]

Carl, Caroe made a map which divided the modern post WWII world into seven zones. Klaus is asking about that map.

Caroe's history of Pashtuns is another propagandu material.

[abhishek_sharma]

China, Japan and the world’s Agadir Crisis (1911)

Turkey’s Towering Ambition

[svinayak]

People are taking Caroe very seriously

Caroe is a product of the colonial era and they assumed that the nations and geo political situation will remain the same as in the past. World has shrinked and globalization has changed the picture.

[Lilo]

West Attempts to Trigger Clash of Civilizations - Tony Cartalucci

FWIW, An opinion near to my instincts.

[ramana]

West Attempts to Trigger Clash of Civilizations - Tony Cartalucci

FWIW, An opinion near to my instincts.

So AlQ has come back under Western control!!!

[brihaspati]

^^^ B ji, need to keep a closer ear out for the chatter.
[...] Coming back to Caroe, it is interesting to see how the Brits want to use the different ethnic strains to embroil the Pamir Knot and areas surrounding.

The hints are about Tuesday/Wednesday, or a day after to neutralize antcipatory preparations.

[ramana]

Many interesting headlines:

http://www.realclearworld.com/

[devesh]

http://world.time.com/2012/09/25/why-th ... -main-lede

Why the Benghazi Consulate Attack Will Blind the U.S.

The overrunning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the murder of the American ambassador to Libya are disastrous for U.S. intelligence-gathering capabilities in the Middle East. The resultant siege mentality in Washington creates an imperative to pull American spies and diplomats back into fortresses, heavily defended U.S. sanctuaries from which it’s almost impossible to collect good human intelligence.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens lost his life on Sept. 11 while doing his job representing the President. But never forget that ambassadors are also intelligence collectors. By wading in among the Libyans, from going to dinners at the homes of Libyan leaders to talking with ordinary people in the streets, he was gathering both important opinions and intelligence minutiae. It’s that daily immersion into the dynamics of a society that has always made the U.S. ambassador’s personal take on a situation as important as the judgment of any intelligence agency.



After Benghazi, however, we can all but assume that the White House and State Department will have near zero tolerance for exposing U.S. officials to the risks attached to mingling in the Middle East. In countries even lightly touched with the downsides of the Arab Spring, American diplomats and spies will be confined to heavily guarded facilities and allowed out only in highly conspicuous entourages of visibly armed guards, traveling in heavily armored vehicles.

None of this is new, of course. American diplomats and spies are already confined to bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they meet locals only when accompanied by small armies of security personnel — or when those locals are willing to enter U.S. facilities, passing through metal detectors and armed guards.

People unfamiliar with espionage may wonder, given the risk, what the downside is of making locals go to Americans. The problem is a basic one: any local with dangerous information worth having won’t risk passing through a security cordon. Even if the would-be informant were willing to risk being seen by hostile lookouts while approaching a U.S. facility, that person simply could not be sure that the American guards aren’t working for the enemy.

The damage caused by Benghazi isn’t limited to making it harder for the local mole or informant to hand over a packet of documents or a nugget of information to his American handler. Any good spy has to immerse himself in the local milieu — just as a great diplomat like Ambassador Stevens was doing. Night and day, the capable spy is out meeting with locals, having schooled himself in their language and customs. As soon as he gets off the plane at his new destination, he’ll start learning his way around the streets. It means endless driving, getting lost and finding your way back. And it’s always done alone, with no safe way to reach out to a local for help.


Maintaining direct contact with locals is the lifeblood of a spy seeking to understand a country. Most of what local sources say is of little or no interest to Washington, but such contact helps orient American intelligence officers and shows them how to find their way to real secrets. After Benghazi, that will be almost impossible to do. And keep in mind, sending out intelligence collectors disguised as students and businesspeople is just as risky and no more palatable to Washington.

The incidents of the past two weeks suggest it may be time to admit that large parts of the Middle East have fallen off the cliff for the U.S., and large parts of it will be beyond the ken of intelligence for the foreseeable future. Something terrible is going on in Syria, but because it’s too risky to put American intelligence officers on the ground there, it’s unclear just how terrible it is and how it could be ended. There’s simply no way for Americans to tell whether the armed rebellion is dominated by militant Islamists or Jeffersonian democrats. Nor can Americans get a picture of how the men leading the fighting forces on which Bashar Assad is most reliant might be turned.

This problem isn’t unique to Syria. A number of countries in the Middle East, from Lebanon to Yemen and from Jordan to Egypt, appear poised to fall into the political abyss. Consider Egypt: since the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, my sources tell me the army there is being purged of officers considered pro-American. I’ve been told that up to 4,000 officers have been let go, although I have no way to confirm that claim. But it would be surprising if the Muslim Brotherhood were not trying to cut Americans off from their traditional influence over the Egyptian military, just as the tragedy in Benghazi will likely cut off Americans’ access to ordinary Libyans.

Ambassador Stevens died a hero. Whether or not he took an unnecessary risk, he knew he couldn’t do his job while isolating himself from Libyans. The same holds true for American spies.

If the contagion in the Middle East continues to spread, the one thing Americans can count on is going blind — and it won’t be the fault of U.S. intelligence or anyone in Washington but just another sign of Americans’ declining position in the region.

the guy doesn't sugarcoat.

[ramana]

He might, but he just tarred all US diplomats as spies. He goes on and on about espionage and diplomats in same article.

[satya]

Nightwatch guy in his couple of briefs post anti- islam movie demonstrations pointed to this possibility where US diplomats & eventually intel officers movement being severely curtailed owing to growing hostility against US ( Number of hostile protests against US diplomatic outposts across Asia & Africa were unprecedented ) . What happened to Rome when it withdrew itself behind the illusion of safety behind the wall against the barbarians ? Middle east events suggest clear development of such a wall for US from 'US-inspired Arab spring'.

[abhishek_sharma]

The Great Escape: How the CIA used a fake science fiction film to sneak six Americans out of revolutionary Iran. The declassified story that became Ben Affleck’s Argo.

[abhishek_sharma]

The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy: It's time to set the record straight about John F. Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis.

[Lilo]

EADS, BAE call off world's biggest arms merger

PARIS/BERLIN/LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - EADS and BAE Systems called off the world's largest defence and aviation merger on Wednesday, and pinned the blame on Germany for wrecking the $45 billion deal.

The acrimonious collapse followed weeks of tense negotiations and triggered recriminations between capitals.

Securing such an enormous and complex cross-border deal in a sector where commercial considerations are typically trumped by political, economic and national security concerns was always going to be desperately difficult.

The merger hinged on France and Germany accepting a more limited role in the combined firm than they have wielded in the past at EADS, maker of Airbus aircraft. In the end, it was Berlin, rather than Paris, that proved the problem.

"We had clear red lines that we were not willing to go beyond, relative to engagement and involvement of governments," BAE's CEO Ian King said. "If that was going to impinge on our ability to commercially run this new merged organisation, and support and develop our existing business, then we wouldn't go to that point, and that is where we are today."

Asked if he had encountered more problems with Berlin than Paris, he said: "That would be an accurate representation."

EADS chief executive Tom Enders, himself a German, said: "It is, of course, a pity we didn't succeed, but I'm glad we tried. I'm sure there will be other challenges we'll tackle together in the future."

A source close to the talks said the companies had met all of Berlin's requests and were baffled as to why Chancellor Angela Merkel's government blocked the deal.

"Germany blocked the deal, although all demands from the German side were met," the source said. "Top German negotiator Lars-Hendrik Roeller was the one who formulated all demands and said no in the end." Roeller is Merkel's economic adviser.

But German officials said they were ultimately unconvinced by the commercial logic of combining the Airbus maker with a British firm whose biggest customer is the Pentagon on behalf of the U.S. military.

"We started asking ourselves, 'Does this deal really make sense?'" one senior German official said. "The market went down, investors were against it, the synergies were unclear, as was U.S. market access with the big state shareholdings."

Many EADS shareholders had also opposed the deal, and the firm's share price rose more than 5 percent on Wednesday.

BAE SEEKS CURBS ON STATE INFLUENCE

Europe's two largest aerospace groups have very different ownership structures. BAE is a private British company, and the American armed forces account for nearly half of its revenue. Because Washington is reluctant to give contracts to firms influenced by foreign governments, BAE considers minimising state control as crucial to its business.

EADS has a more complicated share structure that gives big influence to German and French industrial groups and the French state. To keep its influence at the combined firm, Germany would have had to buy out a holding by engineering firm Daimler.

Many Germans see EADS as primarily a civilian planemaker. Making a large investment in a trans-Atlantic arms firm could be politically uncomfortable in Germany, which has a post-World War Two history of pacifism.

"This would have created the biggest defence company in the world," said a second source close to Merkel. "But defence is an especially sensitive subject in Germany."

Ultimately, German officials said the parties were unable to resolve the shareholding issue to everyone's satisfaction. Paris wanted to retain the option of going up to 13.5 percent by buying a stake held by French firm Lagardere at a later date. German officials insisted they be able to follow suit.

The British wanted a cap of 10 percent each, concerned that the Germans and French could approach a blocking minority if they went above that level.

Still, the companies believed they could have bridged the differences if Germany was more willing to negotiate.

"France and the UK agreed that Germany have the same stakeholding as France in the merged group. Separately, vast guarantees were given regarding safeguarding national security interests, sites, jobs. The topic of headquarters was being discussed very emotionally, but not an issue big enough to let the deal fail," a source close to the transaction said.

RIVAL TO BOEING

The companies had until Wednesday afternoon to declare their intentions and either scrap the merger, ask British regulators for more time or finalise their plans. The merger would have created a group employing nearly a quarter of a million people that could better compete with U.S. rival Boeing.

Analysts called the breakdown a severe blow especially for BAE boss King, who had faced a revolt from his company's largest shareholder, Invesco. BAE could now become a takeover target, perhaps from U.S. defence rivals.

Asked whether BAE management felt under pressure as a result of the stormy investor reaction followed by the collapse of the plans, King said: "Certainly not. No more than usual".

French President Francois Hollande said the decision to end merger talks lay with the companies, and his government's intervention was limited to stating its conditions.

Britain backed the deal and has largely supported BAE's case that French and German influence would have to be limited to make the deal work, especially given BAE's vast U.S. business.

The deal's failure is arguably a setback for Prime Minister David Cameron. A source familiar with the negotiations said Cameron spoke to Merkel about the deal on Tuesday but failed to persuade her to lift objections.

"Our view is that for this company as a merged entity to have been successful, it would have needed to be able to operate as a commercial company free of undue control or influence by any single government and that's something that the company evidently has decided it is not able to achieve," British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said.

A British source familiar with the deal also suggested Berlin, rather than Paris, was the holdout.

"It was absolutely heading in the right direction," the source said of the talks. "There was very significant (British) progress with France. There wasn't the same progress elsewhere."

BAE SHARES DOWN, EADS UP

With global defence spending declining and the civil aviation sector robust, BAE probably needed the deal more than the Airbus maker. Ultimately, investors saw the collapse of the deal as bad news for BAE and good news for EADS. BAE shares closed down 1.38 percent at 320.9 pence in London, while EADS shares were up 5.29 percent at 27.480 euros in Paris.

Barry Norris, founding partner at Argonaut Capital Partners, an EADS shareholder, said: "Today's decision to terminate the merger talks is a triumph for common sense and shareholder value. Having sunk almost 30 billion euros into new Airbus plane projects, which are only now beginning to break even, it made no sense for EADS to now share this with BAE shareholders.

"Continuing merger negotiations would have resulted in a long battle with shareholders and sustained tension over weak corporate governance. That the problems in executing the deal proved too complex should be a source of celebration rather than regret," he added.

It is still conceivable that a deal could be resurrected, although there were no indications that this was being discussed. Brinkmanship is common in European negotiations. EADS - whose full title is the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company - was itself only created after talks about its structure collapsed and were resurrected weeks later.

The merger had faced growing unease from investors in both companies who complained they were lacking information. Many people had bought shares in EADS on the strength of its growing Airbus civil unit, rather than its defence ambitions, while BAE investors were attracted by its dividend yield.

"While BAE's long-term prospects could still be quite excellent, the failed merger will leave the firm much more exposed to uncertain factors beyond its control, such as major declines in the U.S. defence budget and potential losses in an increasingly competitive international defence market," said David Reeths, consultant at defence analyst IHS Jane's.

BAE CEO King and Chairman Dick Olver said after the merger talks ended that the company's dividend policy would continue and that it was not looking for a tie-up with another company. They also said management would be staying in place.

The British government holds a golden share in BAE that allows it to block foreign takeovers.

Germany does not currently have a direct stake in EADS, but is represented by industrial ally Daimler AG, which holds just over 22 percent and aims to reduce its stake. France holds an identical stake, split between the state and French publisher Lagardere.

Adding to the hurdles facing the deal, BAE's largest shareholder, fund manager Invesco Perpetual, with 13.3 percent, had said it was not convinced of the rationale for the deal.

A source with the Spanish government, which holds a 5.5 percent share in EADS, said: "In the short term this guarantees Spain's stake in EADS from being diluted, but of course a big long-term opportunity has been lost."

Merkel again throws in a monkey wrench into the Perfidious Albion's plans.

[shyamd]

Its not as simple as what they are saying from what I am told. US had reservations too. They don't want their sensitive tech that they are willing to share with the brits to be shared also with the French and Germans.

[Agnimitra]

A good older TED talk:
The intricate economics of terrorism

Touches upon the following:
1. Main preoccupation of terrorist outfits is with getting money - similar to any religious or ideological cult.

2. Therefore there is the inevitable involvement of terrorist and other ideological outfits with a "parallel economy" - criminal nexus.

3. This parallel economy is a force throughout history that comes to the fore, floods its underground boundaries and overwhelms society during periods of transition. Today's globalization is one such period of transition.

4. During these periods of transition, politics loses control of economies. Therefore the time is ripe for forces of chaos or competition between different elite factions.

5. There is a definite progression between state-sponsored terrorism --> privatization of terrorism --> globalization of terrorism.

6. A lot of this depends on the laundering of money from this parallel economy.

7. Due to dollar seigniorage, during the 80's and 90's a lot of this dirty money flew into the US via offshore enterprises, and was being laundered there.

8. Once terrorism reached the globalized stage, the US was also affected because they were losing political control over terrorism as a result of losing full economic control. So the Patriot Act has a financial section that wants to unilaterally clamp down on this money laundering by giving the US the authority to examine all dollar transactions.

9. In reaction, many bankers all over the world told their clients to get off the dollar and move to other currencies, such as the Euro.

Because of the link between privatization and globalization of terrorism, the locus of laundering and funding automatically becomes a site for the enactment of at least some terror attacks. This may explain some of the EU's experience with terror?

In any case, if there is to be a solution, it is to reinstitute political control over global economics. The US tried it unilaterally using its existing dollar seigniorage advantage, but that has been scuttled and the US hasn't yet been able to force its control internationally. Notably, the succession of wars has been against dictators who were publicly threatening to start selling their oil in currencies other than the dollar. Even after finishing them off, there doesn't seem to be control.

Some say that at least a section of the transnational industrial community may be thinking of shifting base from the US to China? In times of uncertainty, the political command with more control will win out -- this is the main concern for business in the "mainstream" economy. This has also conspicuously been the main argument of Chinese economists during "India versus China" debates. They contend that the next few decades are a time of uncertainty, and the the Chinese state's muscle command political system has a definite advantage over India's unpredictable and weak-willed, direction-confused democracy. The same logic holds true between China and the US too.

So if uncertainty characterizes this period, and the problem is that politics has lost control of economics, then the US needs to reverse that. At this point it looks like it will have to be a multilateral effort. At some point that gaming will come to the fore. Before that becomes the focus, bigger players will try to discredit the other contenders' ability to ensure stability and deal with uncertainty.

Lastly, Pakistan's economic "failure" is only w.r.t the mainstream economy. But that vermin, parasitic qabilah nation's main sustenance has always come from the dark side, the "parallel" economy.

[Singha]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opini ... ef=general

IN the early 14th century, Venice was one of the richest cities in Europe. At the heart of its economy was the colleganza, a basic form of joint-stock company created to finance a single trade expedition. The brilliance of the colleganza was that it opened the economy to new entrants, allowing risk-taking entrepreneurs to share in the financial upside with the established businessmen who financed their merchant voyages.

Venice’s elites were the chief beneficiaries. Like all open economies, theirs was turbulent. Today, we think of social mobility as a good thing. But if you are on top, mobility also means competition. In 1315, when the Venetian city-state was at the height of its economic powers, the upper class acted to lock in its privileges, putting a formal stop to social mobility with the publication of the Libro d’Oro, or Book of Gold, an official register of the nobility. If you weren’t on it, you couldn’t join the ruling oligarchy.

The political shift, which had begun nearly two decades earlier, was so striking a change that the Venetians gave it a name: La Serrata, or the closure. It wasn’t long before the political Serrata became an economic one, too. Under the control of the oligarchs, Venice gradually cut off commercial opportunities for new entrants. Eventually, the colleganza was banned. The reigning elites were acting in their immediate self-interest, but in the longer term, La Serrata was the beginning of the end for them, and for Venetian prosperity more generally. By 1500, Venice’s population was smaller than it had been in 1330. In the 17th and 18th centuries, as the rest of Europe grew, the city continued to shrink.

The story of Venice’s rise and fall is told by the scholars Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in their book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,” as an illustration of their thesis that what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society. Inclusive states give everyone access to economic opportunity; often, greater inclusiveness creates more prosperity, which creates an incentive for ever greater inclusiveness.

The history of the United States can be read as one such virtuous circle. But as the story of Venice shows, virtuous circles can be broken. Elites that have prospered from inclusive systems can be tempted to pull up the ladder they climbed to the top. Eventually, their societies become extractive and their economies languish.

That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

You can see America’s creeping Serrata in the growing social and, especially, educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school.

Economists point out that the woes of the middle class are in large part a consequence of globalization and technological change. Culture may also play a role. In his recent book on the white working class, the libertarian writer Charles Murray blames the hollowed-out middle for straying from the traditional family values and old-fashioned work ethic that he says prevail among the rich (whom he castigates, but only for allowing cultural relativism to prevail).

There is some truth in both arguments. But the 1 percent cannot evade its share of responsibility for the growing gulf in American society. Economic forces may be behind the rising inequality, but as Peter R. Orszag, President Obama’s former budget chief, told me, public policy has exacerbated rather than mitigated these trends.

Even as the winner-take-all economy has enriched those at the very top, their tax burden has lightened. Tolerance for high executive compensation has increased, even as the legal powers of unions have been weakened and an intellectual case against them has been relentlessly advanced by plutocrat-financed think tanks. In the 1950s, the marginal income tax rate for those at the top of the distribution soared above 90 percent, a figure that today makes even Democrats flinch. Meanwhile, of the 400 richest taxpayers in 2009, 6 paid no federal income tax at all, and 27 paid 10 percent or less. None paid more than 35 percent.

Historically, the United States has enjoyed higher social mobility than Europe, and both left and right have identified this economic openness as an essential source of the nation’s economic vigor. But several recent studies have shown that in America today it is harder to escape the social class of your birth than it is in Europe. The Canadian economist Miles Corak has found that as income inequality increases, social mobility falls — a phenomenon Alan B. Krueger, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has called the Great Gatsby Curve.

Educational attainment, which created the American middle class, is no longer rising. The super-elite lavishes unlimited resources on its children, while public schools are starved of funding. This is the new Serrata. An elite education is increasingly available only to those already at the top. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama enrolled their daughters in an exclusive private school; I’ve done the same with mine.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, I interviewed Ruth Simmons, then the president of Brown. She was the first African-American to lead an Ivy League university and has served on the board of Goldman Sachs. Dr. Simmons, a Harvard-trained literature scholar, worked hard to make Brown more accessible to poor students, but when I asked whether it was time to abolish legacy admissions, the Ivy League’s own Book of Gold, she shrugged me off with a laugh: “No, I have a granddaughter. It’s not time yet.”

America’s Serrata also takes a more explicit form: the tilting of the economic rules in favor of those at the top. The crony capitalism of today’s oligarchs is far subtler than Venice’s. It works in two main ways.

The first is to channel the state’s scarce resources in their own direction. This is the absurdity of Mitt Romney’s comment about the “47 percent” who are “dependent upon government.” The reality is that it is those at the top, particularly the tippy-top, of the economic pyramid who have been most effective at capturing government support — and at getting others to pay for it.

Exhibit A is the bipartisan, $700 billion rescue of Wall Street in 2008. Exhibit B is the crony recovery. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that 93 percent of the income gains from the 2009-10 recovery went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The top 0.01 percent captured 37 percent of these additional earnings, gaining an average of $4.2 million per household.

The second manifestation of crony capitalism is more direct: the tax perks, trade protections and government subsidies that companies and sectors secure for themselves. Corporate pork is a truly bipartisan dish: green energy companies and the health insurers have been winners in this administration, as oil and steel companies were under George W. Bush’s.

The impulse of the powerful to make themselves even more so should come as no surprise. Competition and a level playing field are good for us collectively, but they are a hardship for individual businesses. Warren E. Buffett knows this. “A truly great business must have an enduring ‘moat’ that protects excellent returns on invested capital,” he explained in his 2007 annual letter to investors. “Though capitalism’s ‘creative destruction’ is highly beneficial for society, it precludes investment certainty.” Microsoft attempted to dig its own moat by simply shutting out its competitors, until it was stopped by the courts. Even Apple, a huge beneficiary of the open-platform economy, couldn’t resist trying to impose its own inferior map app on buyers of the iPhone 5.

Businessmen like to style themselves as the defenders of the free market economy, but as Luigi Zingales, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, argued, “Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition.”

IN the early 19th century, the United States was one of the most egalitarian societies on the planet. “We have no paupers,” Thomas Jefferson boasted in an 1814 letter. “The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families.”

For Jefferson, this equality was at the heart of American exceptionalism: “Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?”

That all changed with industrialization. As Franklin D. Roosevelt argued in a 1932 address to the Commonwealth Club, the industrial revolution was accomplished thanks to “a group of financial titans, whose methods were not scrutinized with too much care, and who were honored in proportion as they produced the results, irrespective of the means they used.” America may have needed its robber barons; Roosevelt said the United States was right to accept “the bitter with the sweet.”

But as these titans amassed wealth and power, and as America ran out of free land on its frontier, the country faced the threat of a Serrata. As Roosevelt put it, “equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists.” Instead, “we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.”

It is no accident that in America today the gap between the very rich and everyone else is wider than at any time since the Gilded Age. Now, as then, the titans are seeking an even greater political voice to match their economic power. Now, as then, the inevitable danger is that they will confuse their own self-interest with the common good. The irony of the political rise of the plutocrats is that, like Venice’s oligarchs, they threaten the system that created them.

[gunjur]

Apologies if already posted.
Cuban Missile Crisis' Untold Story: Castro Almost Kept Nuclear Warheads On The Island

It began the moment that Khrushchev told Kennedy he would remove the “weapons which you call offensive” from Cuba, nuclear warheads capable of reaching U.S. cities as far as 1,550 miles away. What the Soviet leader neglected to mention was that he had deployed nearly 100 tactical nuclear weapons designed to defend against another Bay of Pigs, the botched U.S.-led invasion just 18 months before. Officials in Washington knew about the Luna missiles but wouldn't learn until 1992 that they carried nuclear warheads.

In sensitive negotiations that would remain secret for decades, Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Mikoyan initially told Castro he could keep the tactical nukes that had escaped U.S. notice.
During a tense four-hour meeting on Nov. 22, 1962, Castro fumed to Mikoyan: "What do you think we are? A zero on the left, a dirty rag. We tried to help the Soviet Union to get out of a difficult situation."

All this -- as well as Castro's orders to shoot at U.S. surveillance planes -- convinced Mikoyan that "the Cuban tail was quite capable of wagging the Soviet dog,” . “What became clear to Mikoyan … is that the Soviets could not really control their Cuban ally.”
Mikoyan decided on his own that Castro could not be trusted and that the missiles must be removed from the island. He told Castro that a Soviet law -- which did not exist -- banned a permanent transfer to the Cubans.

"Ironically, if the Cubans were a little more pliant, and a little less independent, if they were more willing to be Soviet pawns, they would have kept the tactical nuclear weapons on the island," researcher Svetlana Savranskaya wrote in Foreign Policy. "But they showed themselves to be much more than just a parking lot for the Soviet missiles. Cuba was a major independent variable of the Cuban Missile Crisis."

[abhishek_sharma]

Cuban missile crisis: how the US played Russian roulette with nuclear war

[abhishek_sharma]

The Occupy Handbook edited by Janet Byrne

The renaissance of geographic history.

This Is Not a Revolution

[svinayak]

Quites from the second book above

Very interesting that The author sees India as a religous entity
All the Indian religions are just manifestation of only one culture

We learn of the ancient struggle between China’s inlands and its outerlands; of India’s claustrophobic geographic dilemma (too many religious passions in too little space);

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/a ... z2AHMVRF3Y

For that matter, when Afghanistan makes its inevitable appearance—geographic history always ends in Afghanistan, the way baseball history ends in Yankee Stadium—it is hard not to be struck by the news that Indian trade overland across Central Asia is expected to grow by a hundred billion dollars annually, and that all that stands in the way of this growth is an unstable Afghanistan. Pacify the place, and India’s economic empire would explode. Maybe the Great Game for Afghanistan really is worth playing.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/a ... z2AHMR526Q

[ramana]

Acahrya, Good catch. Please post the book review in the Modeling Geodynamics and the Great game thread. That key phrase was the object of the Great game.

[gunjur]

Ukraine election: President Yanukovych party claims win

The Party of Regions has more than 36%, and the opposition party of Yulia Tymoshenko, who is in jail, has just over 21%,

Thousands of observers were in Ukraine for the vote, which Mr Yanukovych hopes will boost his democratic credentials.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton cited "worrying trends" in the interim election report from the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

These included government resources being used to favour ruling-party candidates, media restrictions, vote-buying and lack of transparency on the electoral commissions.

Since his dramatic political comeback Mr Yanukovych has forged closer relations with Moscow, Ukraine's former master in the Soviet era.

[Rony]

Oops, just realised Acharya already posted it

[abhishek_sharma]

The Fifth problem: math & anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union