Geopolitical thread

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 24 Apr 2010 07:39

prad wrote:
ramana wrote:Northern Mexico is turning into FATA/WANA badlands.
situation is likely to get worse only. the drug trade greases the wheels of the Mexican economy too much, for the Mexicans to perceive it has a threat to their national security.

US successfully chased the druglords out of Columbia, only to see the same industry set up shop in Mexico. The day isn't far off when you'll see carbombs going off in Brownsville or Phoenix, as these ultra-violent criminals expand their territory.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 24 Apr 2010 07:40

Chinese Naval Power Expands to Waters Traditionally Dominated by the U.S.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Apr 2010 09:49

Is there a study of what nations' shipping is being hit by the Somali pirates? Tonnage, insurance, bribes being paid etc? The recent bringing Somali pirates to US for trail seems to be a measure to bring home the impact of these folks on shipping lanes in Horn of Africa.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 24 Apr 2010 10:04

Prem wrote:http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... arches-on/

There’s another connection. The United States increasingly favors the emergence of India as a world and regional power. In the context of the Middle East and Africa, Americans see India as a stabilizing, anti-extremist force. More broadly, while the United States isn’t (and shouldn’t be) operating a policy of containment against China, the growing prosperity and power of India in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East is an important positive factor in maintaining the kind of international order the United States wants to see. That means, among other things, that the United States is likely to look with more favor on transfers of technological know how and the sales of advanced weapons systems from Israel to India than from Israel to China. This preference reinforces the ties between the two most successful democracies to emerge from British colonialism in modern Asia.

The growing Israel-India connection is only beginning to make itself felt. Long term, the relationship provides Israel with another great power ally to supplement its relationship with the United States. From both a geopolitical and an economic point of view, the relationship with India helps assure Israel of a long-term future in the region. As India develops and its power grows, the Gulf Arabs, Iran (a natural long-term ally for both India and Israel once it moves beyond the delusional and dead-end geopolitical agenda of its current government), and countries like Sudan and Somalia will increasingly feel its influence. India and Israel, with the quiet blessing of the United States, can also do more to promote economic development and democracy in East Africa — a region that has historically had close links to India and which is of great strategic importance to Israel.

Interesting article. First, about the author - he seems to be fairly big shot in the think-tank world:

Walter Russell Mead (born 12 June 1952, Columbia, South Carolina) is the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the country's leading students of American foreign policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Russell_Mead

Now for some excerpts:

[India's] Relations with Pakistan need to improve; nothing would improve India’s security at home or enhance its ability to play a major regional role as much as reconciliation with Pakistan (And nothing could be worse for India than the continued descent of Pakistan into the horrors of terrorism and civil strife).

Implicit in that Pakistan will continue to be supported, and play its role as a leash on India.

Suppose instead that both the United States and Israel are going to prosper and grow, based in part on their economic relationship with India.

This is an important point - The western world is in economic trouble - and needs new avenues to generate wealth. The Chinese are far too independent to be relied upon. But India, with its slavish elite and confused commoners, will do quite nicely. The western elites would find it much harder to support Pakistan unless they can make money from India.

Interestingly, the lead story in that issue of the "American Interest" magazine is a piece by C. Raja Mohan entitled "The Return of the Raj" - http://www.the-american-interest.com/ar ... ?piece=803

The content of C. Raja Mohan's article is best summarized by the cover image of the magazine - India as a dumb beast being driven by an American Mahout:

I would say this image is quite appropriate, considering how many Indians happily support electronic voting machines with US-installed binaries (New book downloadable from http://www.indianevm.com/book_democracy ... k_2010.pdf).

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 24 Apr 2010 11:10

Pranav wrote:
Interestingly, the lead story in that issue of the "American Interest" magazine is a piece by C. Raja Mohan entitled "The Return of the Raj" - http://www.the-american-interest.com/ar ... ?piece=803

A third legacy of the Raj is a security system for the smaller states of the Subcontinent. Britain constructed a glacis around India that involved the creation and maintenance of a set of protectorates and buffer states from Persia to Siam through Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma. If Partition ruptured the strategic unity of the Subcontinent and enormously weakened the so-called “India Center” in Asian security affairs, then the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia, and the re-emergence of a centralized China, likewise chipped away at the presumed primacy of New Delhi in the region.

This was the entire intention of the partition. They wanted complete breakup of "India". Indian leader barley manger to hold on to what was left and Sardar Patel made sure it stayed together.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 24 Apr 2010 11:11

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas ... ica-s-door

Iran, Russia, China beat a path to Latin America's door
Recent visits to Latin America by China's Hu Jintao and Russia'a Dmitry Medvedev underscore how sometime US rivals are competing for business and geopolitical influence in the US's backyard.

Why It Matters

The rise of China and the fall of the US's Monroe Doctrine ("Hands off South America, Europe!"), in particular, have given the region new global importance. But are its new partners simply the latest economic imperialists?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Apr 2010 22:12

Prem, Pranav, The two articles confirm the reasons for British Empire rising. India is the link a country between Europe, Middle East and Far East. The British Empire was built on the relationships and take over of trading routes of the India sub-continent. The two world wars eclipsed Great Britain and the US stepped in without the intellectual knowhow. They took surface phenomenon to be real and marched full speed a head. End of Cold War and 9/11 has opened their eyes to what the whole thing is about. Walter Russel Mead is a famous policy wonk. He belongs to the Realist school of Foreign Policy. BTW US has finally caught on to how the British Empire was built. It needed informers to keep them appraised of Indian society and Indian thoughts. In old days of EIC it was the merchant class (Jagat Sheth, Nanda Kumar, etc), princely class and babu log (Hurre Babu in Kim and real life ones). After Independence the British links got reduced but since the 70s (after East of Aden policy) the US stepped in. And they have spent the last 40 years trying to build new set of relationships : mainly in academia and media. The article by CRM is an example of the new interlocutors.

I owe this to Acharya which we discussed off line without knowing this set of articles are making the waves!

BTW, Prad that post you quoted is from CS Monitor and not Acharya's ideas. You can fix the post by saying "CS Monitor wrote" to remove the potential mis-perception.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 25 Apr 2010 00:24

Horizontal Asia

Geographical terms do not in themselves change the lines on maps, but they do shape conceptions and, consequently, behavior. “Asia” is certainly a term whose meaning has changed with historical circumstances and their contexts. In the heyday of Western imperialism, “Asia” typically referred to everything from Suez to Shanghai, with a particular emphasis on those parts of Asia readily accessible to Western navies and merchant ships. But by the third quarter of the 20th century, a series of events—the War in the Pacific, the rise of a communist regime in China, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the economic ascent of Japan and the Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore)—both narrowed what we took to be “Asia” and underlined its growing importance. For most purposes “Asia” came to mean the north-south coastal region extending from Korea to Indonesia. The fact that the West’s key strategic interaction with the continent was via American naval power reinforced this vertical, maritime conception of Asia, as did late 20th century efforts at regional organization. Often expressed in the concept of the “Asia Pacific”, this particular geostrategic artifice created some odd legacies: Asia’s preeminent economic and political body, APEC, includes Chile but not India, Mexico but not Mongolia.

But this focus on naval power ignores the increasing significance of Asia’s vast territorial expanses. If the rise of Japan and the Asian Tigers, all island or coastal nations closely bound to the United States, accentuated Asia’s vertical, maritime identity, then the rise of the great Asian land powers, India and China, and the persisting position and power of Russia, are surely redefining Asia in more horizontal and continental terms. That will matter enormously for the West. Chinese, Indian and Russian influence will grow in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia; and a less maritime Asia will be, unsurprisingly, less amenable to Western maritime power.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 25 Apr 2010 00:35

prad wrote:
Piracy rattles Japan to open first foreign military base

Japan is opening its first overseas army base in Djibouti, a small African state strategically located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, to counter rising piracy in the region.

"This will be the only Japanese base outside our country and the first in Africa," Keizo Kitagawa, Japan's navy force captain and coordinator of the deployment, told AFP recently.

Piracy will used as an excuse to create base by all major trading nations in the Indian Ocean. So all the recent 3 year piracy news and wide publicity given to piracy in Wall street and other major news media is to create the awareness for piracy and what the public has to support in the future.
But who has paid those pirates from Somalia to attack the merchant ships. They seemed to know the exact coordinates of the merchant shipping in the area. Who has those kind of information in real times. Mostly the London shipping agents such as Lloyds - http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/home/index.htm

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 25 Apr 2010 00:48

You are correct, although I think the author meant something different by less maritime, I think he meant "all the action is in the land powers rather than the island nations".

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 25 Apr 2010 06:26

Thai Red-Shirts Mean Business

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 640249.stm

I think that the govt could fall, and the Thai military chief would have to resign

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 26 Apr 2010 00:11

Global Strikeout
The Pentagon's new missile program is expensive, unnecessary, and insanely dangerous.

BY JOSEPH CIRINCIONE | APRIL 23, 2010
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... t?page=0,1

New weapons systems should always meet three requirements: They should be feasible, needed, and affordable. The proposed Prompt Global Strike program, which according to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been "embraced by the new administration," does not meet any.
Would such a system even work? The diagram of the concept is almost a Rube Goldberg scheme: an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches and releases a space plane that glides through the atmosphere and flies to strike area where it drops a bomb on target. A more complete schematic would include other necessary features like a heat shield that would try to stop the glider from melting on re-entry as it screams in much faster than the space shuttle. Proponents of the program say it will rely on "cutting-edge technology." (Read: "We don't know how to do it.")

It is not that America hasn't tried. This program is basically another version of the now discredited "space plane" -- a pipe dream that, as nonproliferation analyst Dennis Gormley notes, the United States has been chasing for decades. In 2001, President Ronald Reagan's former missile-defense chief, Henry Cooper, told a congressional panel that, after three decades of work and $4 billion in development, the U.S. program had only produced "one crashed vehicle, a hangar queen, some drop-test articles, and static displays." Now the contractors have repackaged the idea and are re-peddling it to the Pentagon.

But does the United States need this capability? No. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which the United States would use this weapon. The Pentagon has better weapons in its arsenal that, if updated, could accomplish long-range strikes. Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright favors using modern, precision-guided conventional munitions to replace nuclear weapons now assigned to such missions. He's right.

csharma · Post by **csharma** » 27 Apr 2010 00:39

Shyam Saran's lecture at NMF. Great read. Has to be read in full.

http://www.maritimeindia.org/pdfs/TheGe ... uences.pdf

Geopolitical Consequences of the Global Financial and
Economic Crisis - A Reassessment after One Year

In my view, the US effort to co-opt China in its recovery strategy, by
offering the latter the prospect of global co-leadership has failed. The
Chinese perceived the US invitation as evidence of US infirmity and
therefore, an opportunity for strategic assertiveness by China .Despite its
inferiority in various other components of national power and global reach,
China saw its trillion dollar surplus as a potent weapon to change the
geopolitical pecking order permanently in its favour. Such perceptions also
led China to adopt a more muscular and sometimes overbearing, posture visà-
vis other major powers such as Japan, the European Union and India.
Consider what happened on the Dalai Lama issue. While commenting on
President Obama’s decision not to receive the Dalai Lama in the White
House, before his own visit to Beijing, an Indian political leader observed to
a visiting dignitary : “The Chinese frowned and Obama ducked. “
But the fall out of this Presidential deference to Chinese sensitivity was that
the Chinese, in their posture towards India, became increasingly vocal in
their opposition to His Holiness’ proposed visit to Arunachal Pradesh and
even our own Prime Minister’s visit to the state provoked strong criticism.
US expectations of any quid pro quo from China were, of course, thoroughly
belied during President Obama’s visit to China in October last year. On none
of the issues that the US anticipated Chinese cooperation,be it the
revaluation of the Chinese Yuan, the sanctioning of Iran or leaning on North
Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions , were expectations met. Rightly or
wrongly, there was a sense in the US, that its President had been treated as a
supplicant.US frustration led to a deliberated targeting of China rather than
as a strategic partner, with common interests and responsibilities. The US
had sought “strategic reassurance” from China. Instead it received a lecture
on how the US must respect China’s core concerns.US frustration led to a
deliberate targeting of China at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference,
and the prospects of diarchy receded. Both sides miscalculated.

Two, if we look at the past couple of years, India’s hedging strategy has
been fairly successful. We have been able to adjust to and cope with a new
US administration, whose priorities and preoccupations have relegated
relations with India to a somewhat lower trajectory than during the Bush
administration. We have begun to define our interest in Afghanistan
independently of US objectives. The recent Chechen suicide bombing in
Moscow, provided an opportunity for India and Russia to revive a regional
partnership, including with respect to Afghanistan which helps the two
countries to go beyond their largely military hardware relationship. We were
able to deflect US and European pressures on climate issues, by forging a
coalition with China, Brazil and South Africa and hold our ground
successfully. This led directly to US acknowledgment of the influence of
this group, when Obama negotiated the final version of the Copenhagen
Accord with the BASIC leaders, leaving other actors including the
Europeans , out in the cold. The efficacy of BASIC will go beyond Climate
negotiations. India’s role in BASIC as also in IBSA and the BRIC, offers
opportunities to increase its global leverage and relevance.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 27 Apr 2010 01:39

prad wrote:
But this focus on naval power ignores the increasing significance of Asia’s vast territorial expanses. If the rise of Japan and the Asian Tigers, all island or coastal nations closely bound to the United States, accentuated Asia’s vertical, maritime identity, then the rise of the great Asian land powers, India and China, and the persisting position and power of Russia, are surely redefining Asia in more horizontal and continental terms. That will matter enormously for the West. Chinese, Indian and Russian influence will grow in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia; and a less maritime Asia will be, unsurprisingly, less amenable to Western maritime power.

from the Horizontal Asia article above.

eh...i'm completely baffled here. a less maritime Asia??? PRC is becoming more maritime, not less. it's entire economic miracle is dependent on a rising maritime culture; not less of it. Japan is the same. SE Asia is the same: historically it's the pacific naval powers which have influenced this region. this entire East Asian and SE Asian region is a gigantic maritime region. and increasingly, as India increases its trade with ASEAN countries, it too will have a rising maritime culture. i have no idea how the author can say that Asia is becoming less maritime!!!

er...the reference is to the revival of trade along the old silk route. There will be limited utility for the maritime supowers powers to control this trade should it come to happen. It has been kept under control so far through offshore balancing i.e. using Taiwan for PRC – Pakistan for India. Keeping Turkey sterilized etc. Decline of silk route trade and diversion of trade and revenue to maritime route was the reason for rise of maritime powers.

Pls refer to Great game thread for details where it was discussed some time ago.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Apr 2010 01:42

ramana wrote: BTW US has finally caught on to how the British Empire was built. It needed informers to keep them appraised of Indian society and Indian thoughts. In old days of EIC it was the merchant class (Jagat Sheth, Nanda Kumar, etc), princely class and babu log (Hurre Babu in Kim and real life ones). After Independence the British links got reduced but since the 70s (after East of Aden policy) the US stepped in. And they have spent the last 40 years trying to build new set of relationships : mainly in academia and media. The article by CRM is an example of the new interlocutors.

So there is no nirvana for India?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Apr 2010 01:48

If you have awareness then night can turn into day or otherwise.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Apr 2010 02:06

I am confused is between two contradictory thoughts

India has the potential to share global security burdens and can be security keeper in IOR and SEA (South-east-asia).

India cannot contribute to and influence the security scenario in western-subcontinent and west-asia.

Takes me back by a couple of months where it was mentioned that India is allowed to grow its power projection in the ocean but not on lands.

India can protect the sea routs but not own the land-based pipelines?

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 27 Apr 2010 02:43

Indian can really use a good think tank at this time to guide bumbling boys in GOI , transform the ad hoc culture into clear long term view to extract the maximum out of the geopolitics of today . Right decision on right time goes long way in consolidating interests.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 27 Apr 2010 02:49

Paul wrote:er...the reference is to the revival of trade along the old silk route. There will be limited utility for the maritime supowers powers to control this trade should it come to happen. It has been kept under control so far through offshore balancing i.e. using Taiwan for PRC – Pakistan for India. Keeping Turkey sterilized etc. Decline of silk route trade and diversion of trade and revenue to maritime route was the reason for rise of maritime powers.

Pls refer to Great game thread for details where it was discussed some time ago.

It is important to note that Europe was a major destination along the silk route because of its purchasing power, but that the overland silk route also served other destinations along the way, mostly the various Muslim empires.

However its also worth remembering that there were significant maritime components as well; a lot of the trade from China and SE Asia to India was maritime, as was trade from India to Egypt, Iraq.

The decline in the silk road wasnt simply the result of European naval dominance; it was the fact that Europe's share of consumption of products and raw materials came to dwarf consumption by other regions thanks to a combination of rapid population growth and the industrial revolution.

The revival of the 'silk road' is in part because the industrialisation and modernisation of much of the rest of the world has changed consumption patterns outside the West. It still makes sense to ship cars from China to Europe, the Americas and Australia, but does it make sense to ship cars from China to Iran? Or Turkey? Or Thailand? Or Russia?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Apr 2010 04:10

Revival of old Silk Road in modern times could mean road and rail transport of container traffic to bypass sea routes in order to gain time and efficiencies. It doesnt mean two humped camels transporting high value stuff over long distances. It means land transport option.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 27 Apr 2010 04:16

ramana wrote:Revival of old Silk Road in modern times could mean road and rail transport of container traffic to bypass sea routes in order to gain time and efficiencies. It doesnt mean two humped camels transporting high value stuff over long distances. It means land transport option.

It will also greatly help the local economies in the entire land locked routes in greater asia.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 27 Apr 2010 04:22

Acharya wrote:
ramana wrote:Revival of old Silk Road in modern times could mean road and rail transport of container traffic to bypass sea routes in order to gain time and efficiencies. It doesnt mean two humped camels transporting high value stuff over long distances. It means land transport option.
It will also greatly help the local economies in the entire land locked routes in greater asia.

Removal of pakistan and the neutrality of Afghanistan ( both previous Indic territories) can make this possible again. No surprise Both U sitting there with Mundu in lap.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 27 Apr 2010 04:26

Ramana, precisely. The question is where do those efficiencies lie? In the relative size of the markets that are strung out *between* East Asia and Western Europe. It is the relative growth of those markets that is part of what is driving the revival of the silk road. The other factor is China's *enormous* hunger for natural resources, whether its oil or metals, and secure routes to move those from Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa to its coast.

Road connectivity is logistically much simpler to build in terms of inter-regional trade.

Take a look at this map of world railway gauges to see what I mean:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _world.png

Iran is expanding standard gauge networks in to Afghanistan, and reportedly, Pakistan is looking at a standard gauge network to facilitate connectivity with the PRC from the Khunjerab pass, south to Gwadar, and westwards in to Afghanistan.

Ambitious Chinese railway plans; Beijing-London in 48 hours by 2025
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Busi ... 4Cb01.html

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 27 Apr 2010 15:16

JOhann has an important point.I've been predicting too for nigh on 20+ years now about the future Chinese surge into the Gulf and M-East through Af-Pak.The PRC has been meticulously makiing this possible,the first major achievemnent was the rail link into Tibet.From here it is a comparatively easy job further westwards through Af-Pak,where the Karakorum highway already exists.Simultaneously,the Burma route is also being developed with Burma also roped into the NoKo missile axis and a possible nuclear reactor too for it to clandestinely like Pak and NoKo acquire N-weapons as security against western agression.The Chinese thus will have "three stooges",Pak NoKo and Burma who will be its nuuclear proxies.

The Chinese with the land route rhrough Tibet and the sea route through Burma,with waystops along the way,H'tota,Gwadar,etc.,are nicely poised to service their fleet of merchantmen and naval froces in the coming decades,bringing back home the mineral and energy loot from Africa and the Middle East.The speedy movement of troops also through "all-weather friend" and client state Pakistan can take place whenever the PRC pleases.The looming crisis over Iran and its N-ambitions,it already has long range launchers that can reach Israel,is going to erupt in the future and Iran,a large recipient of PRC military wares,might very well in an emergency request PRC help in the future/allow the PRC to use Iranian facilities so that PRC vessels can transit without harrassment and also support the Iranian regime.Don't rule it out.Stranger things have happened in history.

Meanwhile,eggs and smoke bombs in the Ukranian Parliament,over the extension of the lease of the Sevastopol naval base to Russia!

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

EXcerpt:

Smoke bomb and eggs thrown in Ukraine parliament
Politicians pelted Ukrainian lawmakers with a smoke bomb and eggs as the parliament approved an agreement allowing the Russian Navy to stay in a Ukranian port until 2042.

Published: 27 Apr 2010
Chamber speaker Volodymyr Litvyn was forced to take shelter under his umbrella as he was hit by eggs after deputies from newly elected President Viktor Yanukovich's coalition approved the extension to the Russian Black Sea Fleet's base in Crimea.

Ukrainian nationalists, led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former President Viktor Yushchenko, regard the base as a betrayal of Ukraine's national interests. They wanted to remove it when the existing lease runs out in 2017.

Mr Yanukovich agreed the navy base deal with Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev on April 21 in exchange for a 30 percent cut in the price of Russian gas to Ukraine - a boon to Kiev's struggling economy.

In a parallel discussion on Tuesday morning, the Russian Duma was expected to rubber-stamp the deal, which is being touted by the Kremlin as a diplomatic coup.

The Russian fleet has been based in Sevastopol since the reign of Catherine the Great in the 18th century. But, under an accord after Ukraine gained independence following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the fleet would have had to leave in 2017.

Mr Yushchenko, Mr Yanukovich's pro-Western predecessor who favoured Ukrainian membership of NATO, pushed hard when he was in office for the fleet to be withdrawn on time in 2017.

But the newly elected Mr Yanukovich says he wants to significantly improve ties with Ukraine's former Soviet master. He says the Black Sea fleet in Crimea does not endanger Ukraine's national interests and enhances European security.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Apr 2010 20:37

Well China has been insular for a atleast few centuries. It has expanded only in SE Asia while its primary threat has been from Central Asia from time immemorial. Its about time China did something about it and cut the challengers down where they originate. Otherwise they will get nurtured to strike against China and India eventually.

India wont and cant do anything about its hisotric ghost from Central Asia which is occupying the Afghan-Indus region. So why grudge someone who is taking care of Indian problem? We are not he West you know.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 27 Apr 2010 22:05

Ramana,

There's no question that the combination of resolutely irreligious Chinese commercialism, consumerism and ruthlessness ambition has begun to fill the vacuum left in Central Asia by communism's retreat, and will reduce the space for militant Islam.

However, the PRC has also become the largest investor in Gilgit-Baltistan - they're building a dam at Bunji, electric generation and distribution, paying for the widening of the Karakoram highway, and soon the addition of a railway line as well. The Chinese stakes in the preservation of stability in Pakistan are growing rather than diminishing. China in terms of aid, trade and investment will within a decade far surpass the US in its economic impact on Pakistan.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 27 Apr 2010 22:07

Johann wrote:
However, the PRC has also become the largest investor in Gilgit-Baltistan - they're building a dam at Bunji, electric generation and distribution, paying for the widening of the Karakoram highway, and soon the addition of a railway line as well. The Chinese stakes in the preservation of stability in Pakistan are growing rather than diminishing. China in terms of aid, trade and investment will within a decade far surpass the US in its economic impact on Pakistan.

Once the Tibet falls into India where will China go in the future.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Apr 2010 22:46

Acharya ji

I think the first baby step is POK.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 27 Apr 2010 23:14

RamaY wrote:Acharya ji

I think the first baby step is POK.

I may have to disagree. It is the population which supports India which is the most important. First India has to get all of them within its fold. Then other will atleast ask for article 370 for their region. One Sindhi Paki discussed with me and expressed interest in article 370 for Sindudesh.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Apr 2010 23:15

I see your logic Acharya-ji. It makes sense.

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 27 Apr 2010 23:19

An article 370 type resolution is OK if it is temporary and for a fixed time period, like what was done with HK and Macau, but those terms should be clear from the start. That fixed time period should be used for building Indian institutions from security to education in the new territories.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Apr 2010 23:45

A modified and time bound A370 I hope based on what we learned so far.

One of the things that must go away is

Indian citizens from other states and Kashmiri women who marry men from other states can not purchase ~~land or~~ property in Jammu & Kashmir

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Apr 2010 03:39

RamaY wrote:
ramana wrote: BTW US has finally caught on to how the British Empire was built. It needed informers to keep them appraised of Indian society and Indian thoughts. In old days of EIC it was the merchant class (Jagat Sheth, Nanda Kumar, etc), princely class and babu log (Hurre Babu in Kim and real life ones). After Independence the British links got reduced but since the 70s (after East of Aden policy) the US stepped in. And they have spent the last 40 years trying to build new set of relationships : mainly in academia and media. The article by CRM is an example of the new interlocutors.
So there is no nirvana for India?

Sometime back someone had said that the Brits were copious note takers in the early centuries and it was the knowledge from those notes that they turned into an empire. Here is an instance from the Telegraph, Kolkata.

A rare Englishman in the ‘city of pale faces’

Imagine bridging the divide of a century and more, and chatting with a 19th century Englishman, a midshipman, traveller and indigo planter who used to write to his father journal-style of his travels in Asia and elsewhere and also illuminate them with watercolours.

Jenny Balfour-Paul, who did her doctoral thesis in indigo in the Arab world and wrote a book on indigo worldwide for the British Museum, discovered the “Talking Papers” of Thomas Machell (1824-62) in November 1999.

Since then she has traced his route across continents to write, in the words of Machell, “a novel in the form of an autobiography”. He died too young to fulfil this ambition himself. The Machell papers were acquired by the British Library in 1980.

Balfour-Paul, now with Exeter University, was recently in town as her odyssey, which started in February 2000, came to a conclusion. She came this time to lecture at the second Sutra conference on natural dyes and textile conservation.

Balfour-Paul says she has developed a kinship with Machell, who in his day and age studied Hinduism and Islam and came to the conclusion that Christianity was not necessarily the only religion. Machell was concerned about the condition of workers, loved the Bengal countryside, promoted handloom, founded a school for poor village children, thought women were better than men and hated violence, particularly warfare and bloodsports.

He started writing letters and sketching when en route to Asia in 1840 aged 16, later gathering the material together into a 3,000-page journal. What first caught Balfour-Paul’s attention were his words that echoed her own experience: Who would have thought indigo would give me a chance to lead an interesting life, travel and meet people? He even planned to write a book on indigo. Machell also wondered out loud if someone would come across his writing in a library in the 20th century and find it of interest.

Balfour-Paul was so impressed that she changed the indigo lecture she was giving in January 2000 at London’s Royal Geographical Society to include Machell.

When Balfour-Paul came to India the following month, joined by her husband and Amrita Mukerji, the founder of Sutra, she tracked down various ruined neel kuthis (indigo plantations) in Bengal. She also travelled overland to Bangladesh, a journey that took Machell five hours on horseback.

Machell’s last factory near Jessore on the Ichhamati river had been destroyed in 1971, but she eventually discovered its headquarters in a very remote place near Bongaon, the offices and huge tanks still surviving in the jungle.

Machell may have been a nobody, who was bullied on board ship and affected by a “birth defect” of a limp, but that he had a voice and head of his own is clear from his sobriquet for Calcutta — “City of Pale Faces”. When he came to the city he usually stayed in a modest house of friends on Wellesley Street. In 2000 it had become a video shop but now that too is gone.

Machell’s journal gives vivid descriptions of life in Calcutta. For example, in one section he describes the cannon booming at Fort William to usher in 1850.

The ship in which he sailed to the city on that occasion was the Rajah and he stayed then with friends at 1 Lower Circular Road, the corner house at the Chowringhee-end near the newly erected St Paul’s Cathedral. He describes the fine houses along Chowringhee and the merchant vessels like royal frigates, and he also went to see the race course.

Machell had an eye for detail and had typically amusing comments to make on the foppish young blood of Bengal. “…But of all the gay horsemen on this occasion none amused me more than the native gentlemen who are here called Young Bengal… Their patent leather boots, smart European dress, handsome horses and English saddles contrasted strongly with their dark faces and Oriental head dress glittering with gold and jewels…”

Machell was one of those rare Englishmen to have left behind an account of his forays in north Calcutta and the accompanying illustrations in his manuscript show a pankhapuller and pulley used to keep the large rectangular pankhas or fans in motion. He shows a thakurdalan, identified as the one in the house of Akrur Datta opposite Wellington Square, now Subhodh Mullick Square.

Durga puja is still held here although the thakurdalan is screened by an apartment block that has come up in front of it.

Machell, says Balfour-Paul, witnessed the Opium War (1840-43) as a teenager, when the merchant ship he was working on was commandeered in Calcutta as a troop ship. He saw the fishing village of Hong Kong transformed in just three years into an international trading port.

His next long voyage was sailing “before the mast” round the Cape Horn to the French Polynesian islands of the Marquesas, transporting coal from Newcastle to fuel the small steamships used by the French to patrol their latest colony.

On the return journey they picked up South American guano, used as a new fertiliser. In 2002, following Machell, Balfour-Paul took a cargo ship from Tahiti to the Marquesas.

When a teenager herself in 1970, Balfour-Paul travelled home from India by sea around the Cape of Good Hope, as Machell had done several times himself.

At New Year this year, on the last leg of her Machell travels, she again journeyed by sea, this time from Southampton to Mumbai in a large freighter via the Red Sea, the same route undertaken by Machell in 1848 on wooden dhows in the company of Arab merchants.

Both Machell and Balfour-Paul had to contend with the threat of pirate attack off the coast of southern Arabia.

Machell revisited India and Calcutta several times in search of jobs. On one occasion when he could not land one, he became assistant to indigo planter James Forlong, who has been described as a “white sheep among black”.

In another adventure Machell travelled up the Indus to visit his brother in Peshawar and Kashmir. His journal ends in 1856, when Balfour-Paul thought he died. Later she discovered that he breathed his last six years later in Narasinghpore near Jabalpur.

When she returned to Calcutta in 2003 for the first Sutra conference, on trade textiles, she took the chance to search for his grave. In an abandoned and overgrown cemetery with very few graves remaining, her daughter found it just as Balfour-Paul had given up hope.

Balfour-Paul feels many parallels exist between Machell’s life and her own. Her forthcoming book will be, she says, “the opposite of biography”, because she will not distance herself from her subject.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 28 Apr 2010 06:23

Check out how middle east and India plans were always in sync.

The U.S. & Iran: A History of Imperialist Domination, Intrigue and Intervention
Part 1: Iran and Imperialism's “Great Game” of Empire
http://revcom.us/a/089/iran-en.html

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 28 Apr 2010 06:46

Get the timeline for Great Game

Great Game Timeline
http://www.oxuscom.com/greatgame.htm

(From The Great Game and Setting the East Ablaze, by Peter Hopkirk)

You are welcome to quote any material from this website in an article or research paper, but please give the
appropriate URL of the webpage you are quoting from. Thank you!

711 An Arab army conquers Sind

997-1026 Mahmud of Ghazni raids northern India

1175-1206 Mohammad of Gor invades India six times

1219-1240 Russian principalities fall to the Mongols

1398 Timur (Tamerlane) sacks Delhi

1480 First armed confrontation between the Russians, under Ivan III (the Great, 1462-1505), and the Mongols on the River Ugra ends in both sides fleeing from each other

1526 Babur invades India and establishes the Mogul Empire

1553 Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible, 1547-1584) captures the Mongol fortress of Kazan

1717 Russian expedition to Khiva sent by Tsar Peter the Great (1682-1725) under leadership of Prince Alexander Bekovitch ends in the slaughter of the Russians in Khiva

1725 Death of Peter the Great and beginning of story that he had commissioned his heirs to possess India and Constantinople as the keys to world domination

1737 The Russians build the Fortress of Orenburg north of the Caspian Sea in order to subdue and control the Kazak tribes

1739 Nadir Shah of Persia invades India and briefly seizes Delhi

1939 Non-aggression Pact signed between Germany and the Soviet Union (Aug.)

1939 Britain and India declare war on Germany (Sept.)

1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union (June)

1942 Sheng demands that Moscow remove its advisors from Sinkiang (Oct.)

Nazaroff dies in South Africa

1944 Sheng unleashes an anti-Communist witch-hunt, followed by an anti-Kuomintang witch-hunt

Sheng leaves Sinkiang to take up a post in the Republican government in Formosa (Sept.)

1949 Communist victory in China

1951 Borodin dies in a Stalinist labour camp

1954 Roy dies in India

1967 Bailey dies in England, bringing to a close the Great Game!

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 28 Apr 2010 06:49

India is at the top table. Now what?

On Sunday, China and India enlarged their seats at the top table of international relations. As part of a general increase in capital, rich countries agreed to give up 3.1 percentage points of voting shares in the World Bank and to give China, India, and other emerging economies greater voting power. The Bretton Woods table is hardly the only one that matters in international relations. But the agreement makes China the number three shareholder in the Bank, while India—at number seven—now has greater voting power than Russia, Canada, Australia, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. That’s an arresting fact. And when you combine it with the decision taken at last year’s Pittsburgh G20 meeting to supplant the G8 with the more inclusive G20, the trendline becomes clearer still. China and India are sitting at the top table.
....

India’s post-Cold War foreign policy is hotly contested terrain. One question is what will replace nonalignment as the basis of Indian foreign policy. But another is whether and how India will leverage its growth, not to mention its seat at the top tables of international relations, such as the G20, into political influence and leverage.
....

In short, Sunday’s decision will be seen as very good news in India. But India now faces broader—and much tougher—foreign policy choices than merely how to acquire or enlarge its seat at the top table.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 28 Apr 2010 14:53

A key piece in the Great Game has fallen to Russia yet again.UKraine.With a renewal of Ukranian-Russo defence industries,India should benefit from such a development where some of our eqpt. of former SU oriigin was of Ukranian origin.Pak tried hard to leverage relations with a pro-west Ukraine obtaining tanks,etc. from it.Happily for India,the opportunity is here to develop strong ties with Ukraine especially in the security/defence sphere.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 109889.ece

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 28 Apr 2010 22:46

I can see that Johann as usual is obfuscating the real subject with his false arguements ably helped by his desi gunga dins...wonder why others are not seeing it as well.

Ramana...Will do so shortly!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Apr 2010 22:48

Paul you need to rebut with arguements or else it will be an ad hominem. So suggest you bolster your charge with arguements.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 29 Apr 2010 02:45

Looks like North Korea really is behind this Kargil-style attack on the S.Korean naval vessel:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 50,00.html

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/htm ... 00604.html

http://www.smh.com.au/world/generals-pr ... -tn8j.html

And like India, all SKorea can do is moan about it. Hell, they can't even find a P3-Orion to ambush - I don't think massa would let them.

I presume the NKorean generals are acting up because of their stability/succession fears, amid news of lil' Kim's failing health. Nothing like a nice external war to keep everyone rallied to the side of the regime.

If Pyongyang can boldly demand direct talks with the US over the future of the Korean peninsula (effectively bypassing a govt in Seoul which it sees as illegitimate), then why can't Seoul similarly call for more talks with China in an increasingly loud voice? At the very least, it might embarrass China into more public denunciations of its NKorean surrogate.

The Beijing-Pyongyang relationship is the key link that props up Pyongyang, and therefore China should be key to any SKorean lobbying effort.