The Abbottabad Raid--A Lesson For India?

Last week, one or another of the assorted chiefs of the Indian armed services assured the press of the country that India could replicate the American raid which ended the career and life of Osama bin Laden.  While the statement must have sounded good in the ears of many Indians, it was one showing remarkable economy with the truth.

India has been baffled for years on how it should respond to the numerous attacks mounted by terror groups supported, trained, equipped, commanded, and controlled, and, in some cases, created by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.)  The default response within the realms of journalism and politics has been to demand air strikes, a limited armored thrust, general war, or, on occasion, a "covert" operations.  The default response of the government since the terrorist attack on India's parliament by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in December 2001 and the consequent US brokerage has been a combination of diplomatic notes and "restraint."

After the May 2002 attack by Pakistani assets of the violent political Islamic nature, the US engaged in months of coercive diplomacy with the result that then Pakistani chief of state Pervez Musharrif offered the most sincere and official assurances that never more would any terrorist operate against India from any soil controlled by Pakistan.  The assurances were guaranteed by then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.  The government of India bought the Pakistani promises because and only because they were backed by the words of the US.

There were six more Pakistani backed terror attacks on India over the next several years, most notably the Mumbai Affair in November 2008.  In the last event, the Indian government presented Pakistan with reams of carefully documented evidence of involvement on the part of Pakistani nationals operating on Pakistani territory.  The accompanying requests for extradition of the named suspects were studiously ignored by the government of Pakistan.  So were Indian demands for investigations, reports, and judicial action.  Recently a government spokesman yawned off renewed requests for extradition as "familiar and outdated."

The Indian government has demonstrated a remarkable desire for a peaceful end to the ancient conflict with Pakistan.  The Indian president, Manmohan Singh, has invested his prestige as well as tremendous effort in this direction.  The pursuit of a peaceful end to the Kashmir conflict as well as the plethora of other matters on which Pakistan and India differ mightily has come to nothing.

Nor is it likely to do otherwise in the foreseeable future.

The Pakistan government, army, ISI, and their supporters or hangers-on in the elite need the ongoing pseudo-war with India to survive in power and prosperity.  Without the forever war against India, the current structure of government, military, spooks, and jihadists would collapse.  The greatest enemy of the status quo in Pakistan is peace with India.

While there is no reason for India to abandon the fruitless search (it helps assure good relations with the US if nothing else), the folks in New Delhi have to consider other options.  And do the consideration very, very rapidly.

No matter how the specifics of the aftermath of the shooting of Osama bin Laden play out with respect to US relations with Pakistan, there is no reason to conclude that the ISI and army will abandon the jihadist weapon in the necessary war with India.  Since the war must continue in order for the status quo to survive, it is requisite that the conflict be fought with means militating against vertical escalation.  The Pakistanis have no real desire to see escalation as such would run the very high risk of crossing the nuclear threshold.  Both India and Pakistan did learn that the risk of unwanted escalation runs high with the rapidly blooming crisis following the December 2001 parliament attack.

The Indians evidently learned more than did the Pakistanis as is demonstrated by their having continued to stay the course of pro forma protests over the run of Pakistani sponsored if not ordered terrorist outrages down to and beyond the Mumbai massacre.  The Pakistanis seem certain that India will stay with this approach into the future, so the risk of any response from New Delhi more robust than a sternly worded Note is perceived to be very low.

Unless and until the Indian government and military demonstrate the political will to mount armed responses commensurate with the provocation, there will be no end to the use of the jihadi weapon by Islamabad.  This translates into two specific actions, at least one of which would be very visible to the public at large.

The first, and most self-evidently public of these, is the creation of a legal framework which would serve to justify and make legal any Indian action, overt or covert, armed or not, directed against terrorists and their sponsors or facilitators located anywhere in the world.  This sort of act, like the American prototype, assure a patina of law for any retaliatory actions outside the "hot pursuit" paradigm.

Behind the scenes the Indian military must develop a low signature capacity for special operations of the same sort as that conducted by the US in Abbottabad.  It would also be necessary to demonstrate the new capacity publicly so as to dispel the impression of total incompetence generated in Mumbai by Indian commandos who took a vast number of hours filled with highly visible missteps to subdue the handful of terrorists.

Admittedly, the Americans by coming in the "back door" from Afghanistan had an easier task than would any Indian raiding party given that they would have to come via the heavily guarded "front door."  (One factor which seems to have eluded all of the legion which has argued the Paks had to be in on the Abbottabad operation is the simple one that very few of Pakistan's defenses, air or ground, face the direction of American penetration.)   This gives additional saliency to the contention that India must give some public show of a very high level of competence in special operations so as to obtain the necessary deterrent capacity in the estimate of the Pakistanis.

It is also stipulated that the creation and development of the necessary capacity in special operations of the Abbottabad sort will take money.  This means the Indian budget makers will have to make more tough decisions of the sort exhibited recently with the reprogramming of money from buying more aircraft carriers to supporting anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean.

However, it should be noted that the robust, not to say aggressive, stance taken by India regarding the pirates provides a platform for demonstrating both political will and military capability to Islamabad.  The Indian navy has taken a leading role in offensive moves against the pirates--a move which surprised many observers even though the importance of Indian Ocean maritime commerce to India is well known.  A judicious use of the anti-piracy mission will allow further development of the special operations capabilities including intelligence, command and control, coordination of assets, rapid response, and low visibility.

As new capacities are developed and firmly in place, the Indian government can make use of its assorted minor insurgencies to put a public face on them.  In a way it is to India's benefit that it has several insurgencies in progress out in the boonies; they provide both good exercise for special operators and excellent opportunity to allow adverse parties to gain a hint of what might befall them or their proxies.

In the meantime, don't brag, no matter how good the words sound in your ears--they might come back to bite you in an anatomically unpleasant location.

Pakistan Is Not Worth The Trouble Or Money It Is Costing Us

The government and military of Pakistan is continuing its campaigns of lies and extortion.  That is as self-evident as the size of the US budget deficit.  It is also self-evident that Pakistan will keep on with its dual track approach of prevarication and extortion because it has no alternative.

The Chairman of the JCS, Admiral Mike Mullen, grabbed the stinging nettle the other day when he stated categorically in the Pakistani English language newspaper Dawn as well as the TV service Geo that we knew perfectly well that the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) maintained its ongoing relationship with the Haqqani network, the most deadly American adversary in Afghanistan.  The long-standing and very strong connection between ISI and the Haqqani crew has been the worst kept secret in Washington for years now.  Mullen, bringing it into the open on an official level only hours before meeting mano a mano with his Pakistani counterpart, did the cause of honesty between alleged allies a great and long overdue service.

The response from the government and military of Pakistan was not one of either embarrassed silence or humiliating acknowledgement of the truth of the allegation.  Of course not.  The Army Chief of Staff, Ashfaq Kayani, was quoted as denouncing the Mullen statement as "negative propaganda."  The brazen effrontery of the general would be breath taking had it come from anyone other than a senior Pakistani official.

However, bald face lying is a tried and true approach practiced by Pakistani officials in and out of uniform.  The finance minister, straight face firmly in place, averred that it was "largely a myth" that Pakistan had received billions of US dollars in aid from the Great Cash Cow pastured in Washington, DC.  In the real world, the US has provided twenty or so billion bucks in the years since 9/11.  Of this mountain of money, roughly half has come under the auspices of the program entitled "Coalition Support Funds."  Much of the money shifted to Islamabad under this program has been not been properly documented or accounted for.

Other funds have flowed under other programs such as the civilian development oriented Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.  Still more money has been expended under assorted military assistance programs including those which have provided Pakistan with big ticket items such as F-16s with little utility in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism efforts.  In short, the money has been authorized, appropriated, and in major part expended all to the benefit of Pakistan.  Still, the finance minister felt obliged to carry on with a lie so humongous as to make Dr Goebbels blush.

On the extortion side of the twin prong offensive, the Pakistanis have reiterated their demands for more intelligence sharing on the part of the US--allegedly so the Paks can get on with the job of acting upon it--and transferring our UAV technology to Pakistan--supposedly so that they and not us can use Predators and Reapers to take out Haqqani network and Taliban figures in the FATA.  Actually these demands are not simply extortionate, they are part of the keep-on-lying tactic.

The Pakistanis want access to our most sensitive intelligence sources, methods, and practices so that Islamabad will know all that we know about the connections between Pakistan and the assorted groups under the protection of ISI.  After all, the highest goal of any intelligence service is finding out in detail what the enemy's spooks know and don't know about your operations.  As KGB bent every effort to penetrate MI6, MI5, OSS, and CIA, so now does Pakistan's ISI want to penetrate our intelligence operations.  There is no desire to act upon American intelligence with any goal in mind other than better protecting and facilitating the operations of the Haqqani network and other like minded groups.  (Sure, the Paks would use our information to neutralize individuals or sub-groups that have wandered too far off the reservation, but that is scarcely a benefit from our point of view.)

The Pakistani military has long drooled after our UAVs.  The generals and the spooks have had a perpetual case of the woodies ever since the first Predator launched its first Hellfire.  From their perspective, the UAVs represent a fine way of countering the Indian doctrine of "Cold Start," even better by being lower signature than their new short range battlefield missiles.  One must never forget that India and only India is the "main enemy" in the estimate of the Pakistani military.

The US has offered to provide Pakistan with eighty-five Ravens.  These small, short range, and non-lethal UAVs are "drones" and thus meet the demand for access.  It is doubtful that the Pakistanis will be satisfied with this sop.  Eighty-five Ravens do not change the calculus of forces as between India and the Muslim Republic.

After his carefully titrated dose of honesty, Admiral Mullen went back onto the standard message.  Our relationship with Pakistan is strong.  They are our close and important allies in the war on terror.  Pakistan's cooperation is critical for success in Afghanistan.  Stopping terror in the FATA is the key to universal and permanent peace.  Yadda-yadda, dabba-dabba-do and harrumph!

Let's get down, dirty, and honest here.  The US could get out of Afghanistan right now without any real decrement in its security.  It could leave that sorry piece of real estate without any meaningful increase in the risk of terror acts directed at the American homeland.  True, it would be better if we were to engage in one hellacious crescendo of lethal violence directed at each and every important al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Haqqani network figure we could pinpoint.  It would be preferable if, so to speak, we leave doing what we should have done when we first went in--launch a destructively punitive blow at the bad guys of violent political Islam.

This means admitting reality.  Afghanistan will become what it both wants to be and will be forced by the Pakistanis to be--an Islamic nation living in a hollow state.  The FATA will remain what Islamabad wants it to be--the safe haven of violent political Islam.  Both are acceptable outcomes provided the government and military of Pakistan understand that should any jihadist with any connection to either the FATA or Pakistan dominated Afghanistan harm a hair on Uncle Sam's head, we will be back.  Back not as an occupation force or a nation-building crew but as a destructive force of such a punishing nature as to make the floods and cyclones of the past appear to be gentle love pats from a benign mother nature.

It would not harm our interests either short- or long-term interests if the lying extortionists of Islamabad were made to understand and appreciate that our interests and those of India were far more closely coincident than were ours and those of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  In truth we have been cozying up too close for too long with the loser on the sub-continent.  India and the US have far more shared norms and values, far more coinciding interests.  Tilting ever more in the direction of India is in our interests--and against those of Pakistan.

Consider that last sentence for a moment.  It suggests a viable alternative should the Obama administration demonstrate its ongoing inability to play hard ball.  We too can play the extortion game.  Give Pakistan an option:  Islamabad can either both sit down and shut up, get serious in the FATA and squash the Haqqanis and the others, or we will well and truly tilt more in the direction of India.  A closer alliance between India and the US would give the army and government of Pakistan something very, very important to think about.  At the very least, it would make their dream of another rematch with India a suicidal folly.  At most, it would empower India in Afghanistan thus further cutting back on Pakistan's goal of strategic depth and a sphere of influence in the Islamic nations of the Central Asian Republics.

This tilt-to-India threat is a hard ball option but one which does not run the political risks of simply getting the hell out of Afghanistan.  As such it is a rational and realistic way to overcome the Pakistani's game of lie and extort.  But, its realism alone means the Obama administration would never consider it.  More's the pity.

David Cameron Pulls An Obama

The British Prime Minister has not only emulated the American president but his predecessor at Number 10 Downing Street.  Specifically, the man who once appeared to be a model of informed, deliberative, rational conservatism metaphorically fell on his knees apologizing for the presumed sins committed by Great Britain decades ago.  He did this while visiting Pakistan and promising the ever-needy Pakistani government beaucoup bucks to support its failing education system.

It might be noted that whatever exists in Pakistan in the area of secular public instruction is a legacy of the years of British colonial rule.  The same applies to other, worthy features of the country including the (semi-abandoned) principles of parliamentary government, rule of law, separation of state and faith as well as the continued use of the English language.

The British Raj left the sub-continent with a set of very real political, social, and economic treasures.  In India the residuals of the Raj were appreciated and built upon with results that are evident in all areas of life there.  The situation in Pakistan was divergent.  In Pakistan, parliamentary rule was compromised by a series of military coups, threats from advocates of political Islam, and flat-out brutal dictatorships.  During one of the periodic excursions into dictatorship, that of General Zia, deliberate decisions of state policy undercut both the rule of law and the supremacy of parliamentary rule.

Zia believed that a further reinforcement of the Islamic identity of the Pakistani people would provide a social and political coherence which would assure ultimate Pakistani victory over India.  To this end he invited Saudi Arabia to fund an expansive set of religious instruction centers covering all of the country.  This resulted in the effective introduction of militant Wahhibism and all that implies.

Among the implications were the degrading of the secular public instruction system, the introduction of Islamic law, Shariah, in place of the "King's Peace" derived British legal code, and the fatal merging of mosque and state.  Arguably, this was all the result of Pakistan's deep and quite irrational fear and loathing of its larger neighbor, which focused on the issue of who-owns-the-Kashmir.

While the unresolved status of Kashmir was a consequence of the hasty ending of the Raj in the months following World War II, there is no way the British government of that day can be held responsible.  This means, quite simply, that not only was Cameron's apology unnecessary, it was unjustified by the historical record.  It is mind boggling that the very highly educated Mr Cameron should be so ignorant of his own country's recent history.  Even more mind boggling is the proposition that Mr Cameron was aware of the historical reality but decided to toss it aside in the interests of some sort of truckling for Pakistani approval.

In his apology, Mr Cameron, like President Obama and former prime minister Tony Blair, did his country a massive disservice.  Worse, his effort at truckling will have no future benefit for either British interests of the betterment of the political/social situation in either Pakistan or upon the sub-continent.  It was a blunder of the sort Talleyrand famously condemned when committed by the Emperor Napoleon.

History is a complex subject.  It is not sufficient that a person have a superficial knowledge of the topic.  Rather, it requires a high degree of expertise painfully acquired over years of dreary effort reading dull books and turgid documents in dust filled archives.  Beyond that, it requires a mindset which relishes complexity, delights in finding the often faint and blurry lines of cause and effect, takes pleasure in seeing the typically dim but critical linkages between a specific event and the context in which the event occurs.  In short, despite the widespread belief that anyone--even the high school wrestling coach--can both understand and teach history, the reality is quite antipodal.

Mr Cameron in his apology, again like Obama and Blair in theirs, stepped boldly into swampy terrain where even the most erudite expert treads both lightly and hesitantly.  More importantly, it is not a part of the job description for either prime minister or president to offer apologies for the word and deeds of those who have occupied the same seats of power in long gone times.  Yes, history, the record of causes and effects, does serve to condition the options available to a contemporary incumbent.  That is a reality.  But this fact does not provide the basis for an apology.  Nor does it establish the need for one.

Prime ministers and presidents are presumed to be forward looking in their words and deeds.  The policies they espouse are for the future, not supposed to address either the sins or the brilliance of the past.  Arguably mea culpas are recipes for future failure as they encourage those to whom the apologies are directed to assume that today's policies will be the subject of tomorrow's apologies should that be desired.

It would have been far more appropriate for PM Cameron to have reminded his Pakistani auditors of all the benefits left to them by the Raj.  In that context he could have chided the Pakistanis for having sold out the splendid heritage left them for a something far less valuable than the Biblical mess of pottage.  He could have pointed out the vast difference between the current state of affairs in Pakistan and India with comments to the effect that one had held fast to the legacy while the other had abandoned it to pursue a mirage far more appropriate to the hot wastes of Saudi Arabia than the far more fertile and productive soil of Pakistan.

The UK and the West have very little about which to apologize when considering their record of interaction with and colonization of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Mideast.  The positive effects have far outweighed the negative.  Sure, that appreciation runs counter to currently popular narratives regarding all the evils perpetrated by colonial exploitation.  Simply running against the popular view does not undercut the historical record's power.  Or accuracy.

A master of the English language put it perfectly: "The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."  So it has been with the former colonies of the assorted Western states.  The combination of domestic political agendas in the one-time colonies and the great desire of left leaning intellectuals in the West to kick their native region and lands in the crotch have assured this.  It is commonplace and has been so for generations now to underline all the evils done by Western states throughout the world.  It has been and remains exceptional to note with pride the many benefits conferred by both intention and accident during the long decades of colonial rule.

Western political leaders would do themselves, their countries, their audiences, the world--and the historical truth--a great service if they would eschew the bended knee of the penitent.  If they would instead stand tall and proud while reciting all that the West has provided  over centuries for the benefit of all human beings.

Doing such would knock a lot of wind out of those who profitably practice the politics of victimization.  And, that, the Geek rather fancies, would be a very fine development.

The Chicago Slicky Boy Makes A Slick Move

In his address to the Indian parliament President Obama made a commitment to India.  Specifically, he gave full US support for the long held Indian goal of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.  Because the promise was given in the context of a major reform of the Council, it is a move heavy in symbolism and short on substance.  Altogether a typical move for the rhetorically inclined Mr Obama.

The Indians no doubt understand this.  However, understanding in no way robs the motion of its powerful diplomatic effect.  Infinitely more than the recently concluded Commonwealth Games, the gesture by the American president affirms India's coming of age.  It is a hoped for indicator by the leader of what was once--and may still be, despite the disastrous policies of Mr Obama--the most powerful and influential country on Earth that India is now a global player of the first rank.

In short, nothing could make the Indian government, elite, and opinion molders generally more delighted.  The move builds on the far more practical policy of George W. Bush which brought India into respectability in the area of civilian nuclear power without harming its nuclear weapons program to strengthen the ties between the US and the only potential counterweight to China--or the advocates of violent political Islam in Asia.  This is good for the US, good for India, good for the region, and good for the world.

It is even good for Pakistan.  That is if the government and army of the place can finally break free of the shackles of religion, the tight bindings of long past events.

Pakistan has the potential to be a far more prosperous, and far more important country than it is currently.  The untapped hydrocarbon resources under the barren topography of Baluchistan could give the country a solid economic base from which to grow, develop a diversified economy, and bootstrap the impoverished citizens out of the doldrums, doldrums which otherwise provide fertile recruiting grounds for the proponents of violent political Islam.

The Pakistani government is aware of the resources.  It is also aware of the need for outside money and talent to exploit these,  To that end as well as to wave a threat at the US, Islamabad has made overtures to the Chinese.  The Trolls of Beijing are properly aware of the potentials in Pakistan and have responded both quickly and favorably as with the deal to build another nuclear reactor in Pakistan and start port development efforts on the Baluchi coast.

The leadership of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is no doubt pleased with the early results of the demarche to China.  Longer term potential dangers have been shunted to one side.  Unless the self-satisfied leadership stops and reassesses the situation, they will find that they have mounted a tiger with respect to future freedom of action.  The Chinese are far less easy going than is the US when it comes to single minded pursuit of national interest and will brook no interference with maximum benefits flowing to Beijing.  The very nationalistic Pakistanis will rue this too late when the Chinese boot stomps on their collective face.

The Pakistanis would be far more shrewed and far more successful if they took advantage of India's new status in the world and in the estimate of the US.  Now is the right time to be openly and fully cooperative with India on the subject of terrorism.  Now is the right time to open meaningful negotiations with both India and the Kashmiris regarding the final status of the disputed territories of Kashmir and Jammu.  Now is the right time for the Pakistani army to abandon its hopes for a rematch and get down to the essential business of saving the country from the groups propagating violent political Islam.  Now is the right time for the Directorate of Interservices Intelligence to get out of the terror facilitating racket and nudge their clients such as the Haqqani network to come to the peace talk table.

Of course, since the government, military, and intelligence wallahs of Pakistan have exhibited a remarkable capacity to forget nothing and learn nothing new, none of this is likely to happen.  Rather, it is far more probable that Islamabad will get its collective nose way out of joint and try one more extortion gambit directed against the usual target, the USA.  As the initial results demonstrated clearly, the Pakistanis respond with indignation and vitriol whenever the US seems to be tilting toward India.

The alarming and totally irrational ability of the Pakistani government and elite to take offense over something so minor as the truth was evident in the remarks of President Obama in Mumbai.  In his speech there, Mr Obama made reference to violence, to deaths, to terrorism even but never mentioned that the figure behind the commandos last year, the semi-hidden hand controlling the killers of Mumbai, was Pakistan.  This genuflection before the ultra-thin skin of the Pakistanis was a regrettable necessity, a realistic appraisal that our so-called "allies" in the war against the advocates of violent political Islam is both irrational and given to working both sides of the street.

The real question, however, is not how to get the Pakistani government to be less primitive and unconstructive in its efforts but whether or not the government and army still are actually in full and effective control of their territory and population.  Or, has the real power in the place shifted insensibly to the hands of those wedded to  violent political Islam?  If that is the case--as it appears to be--Pakistan will never be more than a perpetual and lethal thorn in the side of civilized states and their citizens and interests.  It will be a more dangerous version of Iran and a never ending source of instability and danger.

Pakistan is at the cliched crossroads.  Over the next few weeks and months, the response of Islamabad to the presidential initiative in India as well as the ongoing problem of the FATA will tell which way Pakistan is headed.  Right now the ongoing reluctance of the army to move into North Waziristan coupled with the detected shifting of the Haqqani network's center of gravity to an adjacent border area bodes ill for the direction of the country.

Mr Obama--as well as the people in the diplomatic and foreign policy trenches who were behind the president's statement--deserves congratulations for executing a slick piece of diplomatic symbolism.  In one set of words the US has improved its position with a key player, taken a more robust role in the region, and provided a stimulus for Pakistan to openly and conclusively choose a side.  And, it might be mentioned in passing, the president has shown that he may have the capacity to earn his bones in the foreign relations field with considerable implications for an event scheduled for just short of two years hence.

The Natives Are Restless And The Benefits Of Going It Alone

One of President Obama's reported goals in the current Great Asia Tour is forming a solid base of support against China with South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.  As usual The Nice Young Man From Chicago is seeking the fig leaf of collective, multi-lateral action as cover for American policy genitalia.

The intent of the new solid front is that of forcing China to undertake a long overdue currency reevaluation.  The effect of this would be increasing the costs to Americans and other importers of Chinese made goods while decreasing the cost of dollar denominated goods such as those occasionally marked Made In USA.  The goal is not only laudable, it is necessary, critical even, particularly given the relative economic conditions in the US and China.

There is an easier way.  It is called going it alone.  The president could deliver an ultimatum to the Trolls of Beijing: Revalue or the US market will be closed to Chinese goods.

Horrors!  Say that can't be.  After all the Trolls could retaliate.  I mean, Geek, they hold billions of our IOUs.  If they were to dump all that paper on the market it would be a disaster of Biblical proportions.  Real dogs and cats sleeping together type stuff.

Yeah, Bucko, they could huff and puff in that direction.  Heck they might even bring back the ban on rare earth shipments.  And, without Chinese goods what would Walmart do?  How could the Sons of Sam continue to pile away the billions without the Chinese?

The Trolls may be ineptly arrogant in their recent approaches to foreign relations, but that is not to imply that they have lost rationality in the realm of profit and loss.  Dumping securities would rebound to their disadvantage, think of the opportunity costs involved.  And, as Beijing found out in its short trial balloon stoppage of rare earth exports, the consumer countries instantly started searching for alternatives ranging from recycling junked electronics to reexamining old mines thought to have been played out in their rare earth ores.

The Chinese have become rather addicted to the money flow from American consumers.  Much of their current prosperity rests solely on the backs of US shoppers.  Halting the cash tide would result in nearly instantaneous industrial dislocation with attendant mass layoffs and inevitably, social and political unrest.  If there is anything that is more anathema to the Trolls than internal unrest, it eludes the Geek completely.

The hoary analogy of two scorpions in a bottle coined for the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction applies to the current economic relation between the US and China with one critical difference.  The US is the larger scorpion with the more fatal sting.  The Trolls know this; they know how much the internal stability of China depends upon constant American purchase of massive amounts of made in China goods.  There is no way the Asian and European markets could make up the shortfall which would result from even a short hiccup in trade with the US.

Thus a threat by one Democratic president to take away what a previous Democrat provided--an open door policy benefiting China--is credible.  A purely American ultimatum has all the power needed.  There is no requirement for a united front other than the ideological preferences of Mr Obama and others of the "progressive" ilk.  In any event, other countries would follow an American lead in this area for their own individual national interest imperatives.

The takeaway is simple: Man up!  Let the Trolls know just what will happen if they do not have a sudden attack of rationality on the reevaluation matter.  And, then, stick to it.  The howls will fade.  Reason and self-interest will prevail.

Golly, the natives are sure getting restless.  All because of the Obama 2010 Asian Tour.  The upsetness centers on--hang on for huge surprise--Pakistan!

The Pakistanis generally and former strongman Pervez Musharraf in particular are bent out of shape because the American president has had the temerity to jaunt about India while totally ignoring Pakistan.  The Pakistani political heavyweights are also torqued beyond belief with the Obama view that India is a global power and Pakistan is not.

That seems fair to the Geek as Pakistan is simply a minor regional player with annoying propensities and idiosyncratic as well as remarkably parochial concerns.  Pakistan is only a regional power because of its unlimited and rather juvenile capacity to make mischief in either or both Afghanistan and Kashmir.  It is important to the US only because many, many years ago when Ike was in the Oval, the Left-leaning Indian government hacked off the stiff necked Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to the extent that the president was convinced to "tilt" our policy in favor of Pakistan.

While the mistaken need to behave as if Pakistan really matters might have started more than fifty years ago with a profound fit of pique on the part of one SecState, it has continued to American misfortune ever since.  When George W. Bush made a major move to move closer to India five years ago it was seen to be necessary to bribe the Pakistanis with yet more big ticket military items all of which were such as to be useful in a hypothetical war against India.

The US would be best served in both its regional and global interests by openly continuing the trend started by the much maligned W. Bush.  The US and India have much to share.  Other than the Menace From the FATA, the US and Pakistan have no common norms or values and very few coinciding national interests.  The relation with Pakistan will not mature unless and until the Pakistani army can get the focus on India out of its institutional DNA.  Which is to say, two days past never.

The Transcendent Zaniness of Muslims Department has a good entry today.  The dateline is Mumbai--the city in India, you will recall which was hit hard by Pakistani trained and supported suicide commandos a year back.  The American president is spending the night in Mumbai, in one of the hotels targeted by the Mighty Men of the Koran.  Not surprisingly, security is of the utmost concern.

Enter Khan the bomb sniffing dog.  Khan is a German Shepard military working dog with a great nose.  He and his handler flew in from Germany before the president arrived and, presumably, went to work.  An alert Muslim saw the dog's name on its tag and posted the story.

Faster than a muezzin can call the faithful to prayer, a protest movement bloomed across Mumbai.  The Muslims, it seems, were deeply and desperately offended by naming a dog with a presumptively "Muslim" name.  Threats have been made and apologies demanded.  Muslim hyperventilating spread hard and fast.

Wait one, Abdul!  You guys have a lot of nerve.  What chutzpah thinking the dog was named Khan in honor of a Muslim.  You all have too much ego.

First of all the term "Khan" is one which applies to certain oriental figures of high rank and great historical note such as Genghis Khan.  It may  be that Muslim education even in an advanced country such as India fails to note personalities of high profile who are not Muslim.  The Geek cannot state but rather suspects that the madrassas are poor institutes of historical study.

Have none of you heard of the classic TV series Star Trek?  If you had you would know that one of the best of the bad guys on that long running show was a gentleman named Khan.  There is no doubt but the dog was named by his handler who has shown by the name that he is a "Trekkie" of good and long standing.

So, Muslims of Mumbai, get a grip!

Obama's Confused Reaction To Certain Events Last Tuesday

The president is finally off on his oft postponed and modified trip to Asia.  He is going to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan.  In addition to the country visits, he will be making a pitch for currency and trade reform at the G20 meeting in Seoul.  Up until now, the trip was all about international security, international trade, that old reliable, Muslim outreach and its dark side, the struggle with certain unnamed "extremest elements."

Now, having partially digested the unpalatable results of the midterm election as well as the most recent and, as expected, lackluster report on employment, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has decided quite suddenly that the real goal of the trip will be job creation.  He is proposing to schlep a bunch of corporate heavies along with him in order to "open markets" in Asia and thus, create jobs in the US.  (Oh, and dragging the movers and shakers of whatever passes for American industry today will also prove that the Most Progressive President Ever has gotten over his hatred of free enterprise.)

One has to wonder just who Mr Obama believes he is fooling with this rather transparent gambit.  India is not particularly closed to American goods and services.  And, thanks in large part to federal government policies is a major recipient of jobs once occupied by Americans.  Beyond that, Indonesia has already been well and truly penetrated by Chinese manufacturers and merchants such that the place has become the frontline in conflict between traditionalist Muslims and goody loving Indonesians.  The pie is only so large given the relative poverty of most of the Indonesian population and the Chinese got there with a very big fork years ago.

South Korea is not a destination for American made consumer products--if there are any more being made here even though it has a very healthy appetite for industrial durables with the Made In America label.  That segment is large but unlikely to grow markedly in the short run no matter how much the smooth talking Guy In The Oval may wish otherwise.  Since the US already does well there even in the face of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Chinese competition, South Korean industrial demand is not going to force the hiring of too many new workers in the US.

Even if the Japanese could be convinced to drop some of their barriers against American imports, the nature of the deflation predicated economy there is not one conducive to an enhanced demand for US products.  A little increase in the import of agricultural produce will not translate into decreased unemployment here.

There is little doubt but the G-20 meeting is important to the American economic future.  Questions of currency valuation and trade asymmetries directly and substantially impact American employment.  Here the elections last Tuesday may play a role.  But, not a role which will add luster or influence to the Obama stance.  The undercutting of the president's perceived functional legitimacy provided by the election will in no way serve to convince the Chinese (for example) that a revaluation of their currency is necessary.  Indeed, support in the G-20 for the dethronement of the dollar may gain strength given the perceived weakness of the American president as well as the US economy.  Of course, dethronement might not be all bad for the US in the longer haul much as the prospect of weaker dollars equally increased imported oil costs may be disturbing short term.

The real deal for the trip has not changed regardless of presidential protestations to the contrary.  India is a crucial country for American interests short-, mid-, and long-term.  Stripped to the essentials, India is a viable strategic partner in the ongoing Afghan Affray.  It is even more important as an ally in overall regional dynamics, a counterweight to Pakistan, China, and even Iran.

Given the number of coinciding national interests as well as a wide array of common political and economic norms, the fit of India with the US is tolerably good.  As a consequence, a positive engagement with India on topics ranging from the real and pressing such as regional stability to the distant and tenuous such as climate change is in our mutual interests.

Then there is the problem of Pakistan or, more accurately, the Kashmir Question.  As Pakistan sees all foreign affairs through the prism of conflict with India, so also does India.  Obama will refuse to take a position on Kashmir, which means he will not push the Indian government on its Cold Start doctrine.  The existence of Cold Start provides Pakistan with the justification necessary to reject committing sufficient forces in the anti-Taliban campaign in the FATA.

At some point the president and his "team" will have to confront Cold Start.  Kashmir will have to be factored in to our diplomatic equation if the relation with India is to mature and meet its potential.  In its way, Kashmir is as intractable a problem as that presented by Palestine.  Not only are there the rival claims of India and Pakistan.  Not only is there the history of recurrent and ultimately indecisive warfare.  There is also a large and growing independence movement within the Kashmir population on both sides of the Line of Control.

Given the almost infantile intransigence of the Pakistani government, which has shown the diplomatic ineptitude typical of the Palestinians, it is the existence of an independence movement which provides a window of opportunity.  The Indian government might not like the notion of "surrendering" its portion of the disputed land to an independent state but is realistic enough to see this move as a rational alternative which would liberate it from not only Cold Start but the other risky and expensive features of perpetual readiness for potentially nuclear war with Pakistan.

Mr Obama would not be out of line to bring up the potential resident in an independent Kashmir--which could not exist without the cooperation of India.  Contrasting the maturity of India which has been so strikingly evident over the past decade with the unconstructive and primitive role played by Islamabad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the same period would go some way to orienting the Indians in the right direction.

(Such a demarche, even in a most preliminary way would get back to Islamabad without a doubt.  That would be good.  It would put the Pakistanis on notice that their never ending extortion game had come to an end.  The government would have to choose sides finally and permanently: Violent political Islam or civilized state.)

Having been the beneficiaries of a "tilt" in American foreign policy for so many of the past fifty or sixty years, the Pakistanis are well equipped to understand just what would be meant by a tilt in favor of India.  A reversal in the direction of American favors would portend far more than the mere ending of the dollar gusher.  Nor could Islamabad comfort itself with believing it could replace US patronage with Chinese on a one to one basis.  The Chinese calculate far more shrewdly than do the Americans, so they will seek advantage only on the cheap.

Indonesia presents problems of a different sort.  The optics from the Obama administration will be at an automatic sharp contrast with the notion that the trip is all about jobs.  The president is scheduled to make a major speech at a mosque.  The speech no doubt will be very well attended.  It is debatable that one more genuflection before the Muslim alter will play well back in the US, particularly as there is no credible way it can be associated with creating either jobs at home or peace in the world.

It is often proclaimed that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.  True.  Also it is repeatedly said that Indonesia is a beacon of tolerance and peace, a true tribute to Islam's pacifistic and open minded nature.  Not true.

Thanks in large part to Wahhibist outreached fueled by Saudi petrodollars, there are large pockets of believers who have accepted the notion of violent political Islam.  While true international terror attacks have been absent since the Bali bombing, the use of violence and its twin, terror, domestically has grown.  The Mighty Warriors of Allah have singled out Christians and denominations of Islam falling outside the austere purview of Wahhibism as targets.  In Aceh, Shariah has been adopted to the extent that there exists a dual track judicial system.  Most recently there have been Islamist attacks on Chinese owned malls and stores.

Violent political Islam is alive, well, and growing in Indonesia.  The government and its supporting elite know this and are dreading the inevitable confrontation.  The long history of internal conflict which was widely believed to have ended is showing its demise to have been premature.  The president is going to have to address this ground truth at least in private meetings and would be well advised not to go out on too long a branch publicly, not to praise Indonesian peace and tolerance too effusively.  The words might come back to bite before too long.

It is most unfortunate that Mr Obama repackaged his Asian tour as one of jobs promotion.  While the lack of jobs may have been the single most important cause of the "shellacking" received by Obama's party, it was not the only one by a long shot.  Also important was the president's long standing tradition of not being completely honest with We the People.  It seems pathetic at the least that one of his first responses to defeat was to lie.

Time To Hit The Foreign Policy "Reset" Button

If the results go as predicted a bit over a week from now, one of the options confronting the Nice Young Man From Chicago will be that of becoming a "foreign policy president."  It may be more attractive to a president who sees himself  both embattled and underappreciated to seek success on the international stage while leaving the nearly unsolvable problems of domestic and economic nature to the Republicans and whatever Democrats are left standing when the vote counting is done.

The idea of Barack Obama focusing his efforts on global politics can be frightening.  To date he has shown no particular capacity in this area.  His lack of capacity is matched by an apparent lack of interest in any foreign policy consideration beyond those rooted in his "progressive" ideology with an emphasis on blaming America first while seeing international organizations as sublime.  

However, the sting of defeat along with the bitter taste of personal failure and humiliation can focus the mind wonderfully, particularly for an individual who believes his own press releases as completely as does Mr Obama.  The cause for a sense of defeat and the horrid taste of having been personally rejected and humiliated comes in this context not from the American electorate but the words and actions of foreign leaders.  For most of two years now, more than a few leaders of states both great and small have acted as if Barack Obama was an inconsequential factor in their policy considerations.  Other leaders have seen the American president as both fatally naive and all too willing to abandon ancient allies in order to embrace recent enemies.

The increasing irrelevance of Mr Obama to the calculations of foreign politicians would have been avoided if his eccentric approaches to global politics had brought success.  A record of successful moves erases all sins in the wonderful and wacky world of diplomacy.  However, there have been no successes.  There have not been even the slightest hints of successes soon to become obvious.

Take China as an example.  Mr Obama has truckled shamelessly to the Trolls of Beijing with the expectation that a exhibition of a high quality kow-tow to the Central Empire would result in the Chinese becoming cooperative on a wide range of topics: balance of trade, currency value, nuclear proliferation, climate change, and terrorism.  In the real world the results of the Obama effort are self-evident.  In a word: Failure.

The Chinese have been so dismissive of the Obama demarches as to border on the insulting.  Beyond that, the Trolls have embarked upon a noisy diplomatic offensive which is both arrogant and triumphalist.  While the Chinese have not scored any great successes themselves with the new, muscle flexing tactics, particularly among their near neighbors, the in-your-face style of China during the past two years is a humiliating rejection of the Obama administration and the US.  In essence, Beijing has acted as if the US was so far in decline that it could be treated with the disdain due a has-been power.

For a man as proud and sure of his own importance as Mr Obama, the attitude exhibited by the Trolls has to be infuriating.  In this context it should never be forgotten that personal feelings, the power of an individual's emotions, have influenced the conduct of foreign relations on numerous occasions, sometimes for the good, often for the worse.

As the Geek noted in a post a couple of months back, the US made a tentative but important set of moves in response to the Chinese proclamation that Beijing had a special, "core interest" in the South China Sea warning the US and others to mend their ways and mind their own business.  SecState Clinton replied in Hanoi that the South China Sea was our own business.  As a matter of declaratory policy, Ms Clinton told the assembled ASEAN delegations--which included China--that the US had a history of supporting freedom of the seas and peaceful means of solving questions of competing sovereignty.

Ms Clinton's declaratory policy was backed up by a series of naval exercises in which the US Navy and allies conducted a number of war games in waters not all that far from the Chinese coast.  One planned exercise brought howls of protest from the Forbidden City.  That proposed exercise would see a joint US-South Korean task force including the USS George Washington, a CVN, operate in the Yellow Sea.

The Yellow Sea is an international water.  The right of the US or any other country to hold naval exercises anywhere in the Yellow Sea outside the territorial waters of China is well established.  Apparently, this reality was either unknown or unacceptable to the Trolls.  They went exoatmospheric.  The Chinese foreign ministry all but called the totality of the Yellow Sea Chinese territorial waters.

The US, based on remarks by Admiral Mullen and others including Robert Gates, seemed to be unperturbed by the Chinese reaction.  The exercises would proceed was a constant theme over the past ninety days.  Taken in conjunction with the ongoing effort by the US to buck up the small regional countries feeling threatened by the newly expansionist Chinese as well as to reassure both South Korea and Japan that we were back to the Pacific littoral to stay, it appeared the Obama administration was determined to out-stare the Trolls this time around.

All of that changed, maybe.  The exercise for the Yellow Sea has been cancelled.  This decision, according to South Korean sources, was taken in order that "certain countries not be antagonized as the G-20 meeting scheduled to occur in Seoul looms near.  The Pentagon for its part now denies that exercises were ever planned for the Yellow Sea.

Adrift at the policy level?  Perhaps.  The Obama administration is locked in a very real dispute with China over currency values.  The attempt by the Treasury Secretary to gain agreement prior to the meeting on a plan to limit trade surpluses/deficits came to nothing.  One of the countries objecting was China.  China was not alone, being backed by Russia and France among others.  This can lead to speculation that the administration is trying one more deep bow in the hopes the Trolls will change their tune, even if not officially.

If the cancellation is a tactical gambit, it will fail.  The Trolls will take it as one more sign of the president's personal weakness.  One more attempt at appeasement will result not in "understanding" but in more intransigence.  The Trolls will not be cowed by cowardice.

The only questions are these: When will Mr Obama react to one more insulting rebuff?  And, assuming his pride is finally wounded sufficiently, what options will he exercise?

There is an attractive option about to present itself up close and personal to the American president.  More of that after we consider another area of foreign policy embarrassment.

That area is Pakistan.  The administration has put great pressure on Islamabad to get off its duff and move into  North Waziristan.  At the same time the administration has backed quite openly the preliminary conversations underway between elements of Taliban and the Karzai government.  We have agreed with Karzai that these early talks about talks would be conducted without the presence of Pakistan or Mullah Omar, the Pakistani's man in command of Taliban.

In large measure due to the effects of American and ISAF operations in and around Kandahar coupled with the lethal impact of Predators and Reapers in the FATA, components of Taliban are now open to talks which may lead to peace negotiations.  While it is far too early to even hint at the chances of success, the fact that informal conversations are taking place and are openly acknowledged by all hands is an important development.

It is also a development which has outraged the Pakistanis.  The word from the Pakistani army, ISI, and parts of the civilian government is simply, "Without us no peace can happen.  Without our guy, Omar, there can be no peace."  At the same time the senior commanders of the what-us-fight? army of Pakistan have deprecated the effectiveness of recent and current US/ISAF military operations.

More than one braid encrusted wallah has opined that the claims of success offered by General Petreaus are bogus.  The party line is the stories of success are simply a political ploy of Obama as the midterm elections come closer.  The official view from Islamabad offered to anyone with a tape recorder or a camera is the Taliban is winning, the Americans are losing, and only Pakistan can assure peace.

On a more practical level, the Pakistanis are refusing point blank to undertake any operations against the hard core jihadists of Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.  As a contingency plan, the ISI and army have already been cranking up to facilitate the removal of the "threatened" leadership from North Waziristan to another Agency in the FATA.  This would duplicate the way in which ISI and army assured everyone who was anyone in the Taliban got out of Dodge before the slow motion army moved in during the operations into Swat and, later, South Waziristan.

In short, the Pakistanis are quite willing to accept billions of borrowed American dollars while demanding yet more and refusing to do anything useful against the advocates of armed political Islam which are a potentially fatal cancer more for Pakistan than for Afghanistan.  Nothing is going to change this ground truth.

And now for the option.  Mr Obama will be visiting India shortly.  India is a major and natural counterweight not only to Pakistan but China as well.  India has the potential to equal or surpass China economically.  It has a military capability which is orders of magnitude superior to that of Pakistan and is nearly a match for the Peoples Liberation Army.  Beyond that, India is a genuine multi-cultural society and a democratic polity.

Indian values and norms are far closer to those of the US and other Western countries than are those of either China or Pakistan.  Politically, economically, and culturally, India is a far more comfortable fit with the US and other Western countries.  It has a wide range of national interests which coincide with those of the US.  India, not Pakistan is best positioned to be a genuine ally of the US.

It is quite true that the US and India have a long record of troubled relations.  For decades, right up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, India tilted very far to the Left.  In the process, it irritated the US time after time, often to the point that our policies in the sub-continent lost all rational basis.

Those days are behind us.  While Left and far Left parties are a major political force in India, they are to a great degree a very spent force.  The growth of the middle class, the almost explosive development of the Indian economy, the inventiveness shown by Indian technologists and entrepreneurs alike all combine to thwart the agenda and appeal of the Left.

If Mr Obama makes the decision to focus on foreign policy, the Indian option presents a way by which he can not only advance American interests but go a distance in recovering from the insulting defeats inflicted upon him and his "Team" by China and Pakistan.  In words simple enough to be understood easily by the Guy in the Oval and his Foreign Policy Team: Tilt to India.  Tilt our policy in Asia in an open and obvious way in favor of India.

The triangle of India, Japan, and South Korea would constitute a stable alliance with the US.  While all four countries have current economic and economically related problems, these are neither insurmountable nor a reason not to form an understanding between countries sharing a wide range of interests and an equally broad set of norms, values, and aspirations.

A policy which seeks to link the US with India more effectively while establishing tighter ties between India and the other states currently allied with the US in Asia and the Pacific littoral would do much to inhibit China and show Pakistan the limits of acceptable non-cooperation.  Such a policy would also provide a sound base to incorporate Indonesia, which is the world's largest Muslim more-or-less democracy.

To succeed in foreign policy the president needs a new, clear vision.  It will necessitate abandoning the love affair with the UN and taking on new, regional lovers.  It will also require an accurate understanding of American national interests and an equally shrewd appreciation of the national interests of other states, both allied and hostile.

The possibility of a Democratic Party defeat in the midterms may have the unintended consequence of forcing Mr Obama to engage with foreign relations for the first time in his life.  Should, by some miracle, he do so with the sort of realistic, new vision hinted at above, he will have a unique opportunity to transform humiliation both by the domestic electorate and foreign leaders into a victory for the US.  And, it should be added, a victory for his country should be what an American president desires more than anything else.

Another (Nuclear) War Waiting To Start?

For an aficionado of impeding crises, there are plenty locations from which to choose.  As the events of the past couple of weeks demonstrated, one of the most probable spots is Kashmir.  The MSM spent a fair amount of time and attention on the civil unrest on the Indian side of the dividing line but didn't bother to place the strife in the context where it belongs.  Kashmir today is the contemporary version of Sarajevo in the summer of 1914.

The conflict over Kashmir holds the world record for longest running Cold and Hot War.  The shooting over the 92,000 square miles started with the independence of India and Pakistan sixty-two years ago.  The killing and dying have not stopped yet with the most recent additions to the body count being a hundred or so locals felled by the guns of Indian paramilitary police.

When the wars of partition ended, India was in possession of two thirds of Kashmir.  Pakistan got the rump, the less densely populated mountain region in the west.  The population divided in about the same proportion so that roughly eight million Kashmiri live on the Indian side of the Line of Control.  Three million reside on Pakistani territory.  It is important to note that over three quarters of the Kashmiri population is Muslim.  Twenty percent are Hindu with the rest scattered between Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists.  It is almost unnecessary to point out that religion is not a trivial consideration in the region.

The wars since partition have been short, bloody, inconclusive, and have usually ended to Indian advantage.  In 1999 the two powers came perilously close to yet another war.  By this time both possessed nuclear weapons.  Considering the ranges and travel times involved, both India and Pakistan would have had no choice but launch-under-warning.

The launch-under-warning necessity continues today.  Considering the most recent changes in both country's delivery systems there is good reason to posit that each is skidding toward a launch-under-threat doctrine.  That reality is sufficient to make even the most limited, most ambiguous direct contact between Pakistani and Indian forces along the Line of Control a very scary thing.

China has played and continues to play the role of the dual sided sword in the Kashmir conflict.  On the one hand Beijing has served as a destabilizing presence.  An example: Back in the days of Mao, the Fifties to be precise, the Chinese occupied and annexed a portion of Kashmir, a stretch along the Aksai Chin mountains, to allow the building of a military road between Tibet and the Xinjang province in China.  The close relationship between the Indian government under Nehru with both Moscow and Beijing assured this event went by with little noise and international interest.

Perhaps emboldened by the quick, quiet success of this action, Beijing went on to claim the Ladakh region of Indian Kashmir.  The rapid and decisive slap down administered to the Indian army by the PLA was not uncoupled from this claim.  Nor is the ongoing face off high in the mountains between Indian troops and their PLA rivals.

Through the Seventies and even more in the Eighties, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) armed, trained, and directed the activities of Kashmiri jhadi.  In 1989 the long simmering but low level ISI managed partisan war escalated to a level rivaling or surpassing the Palestinian intifadas.  The Indian security forces suppressed the uprising in a welter of blood--at least forty thousand were killed.

Neither the anti-Indian sentiments of the Kashmiri nor the ambitions of ISI were extinguished by the suppression as the rapidly blooming crisis of 1999 made clear.  The Pakistanis did not even pretend to ratchet down the partisan war until the administration of George W. Bush used a combination of bribery and diplomatic pressure in the days following 9/11 to convince Islamabad to make genuflections before the alter of peace.

Even if someone were so delusional as to believe that the results of the Bush effort would be either genuinely effective or long lasting must have been disabused of this belief when the US showed a willingness to open new avenues of cooperation with the Indian government.  These steps, most importantly the move to facilitate Indian civil nuclear power development, gave the Pakistanis pause.

Islamabad used this pause to reconsider their relations with China.  It was not a Dulles style "agonizing reappraisal" but rather a quick but well-considered demarch to Beijing.  The Trolls of Beijing were more than a tad interested in a new axis of interest between China and Pakistan.  India was seen increasingly through the prism of the Forbidden City as an emerging rival for regional preeminence as well as an economic competitor in the making.

Given this and the profound anti-American sentiment in the Pakistani government and public, it has not been surprising to see Beijing successfully seek opportunities for investment and influence alike.  Chinese money is developing port facilities in natural gas rich Baluchistan.  China stands ready, willing, and eager to supplant the US as chief armorer of the Pakistani armed forces.  Beijing's aid in the wake of the flood has been quick and generous.  And, China is standing by to aid Pakistan in developing its nuclear power needs.

The Indio-Pakistani conflict in Kashmir has spilled over into Afghanistan.  India has developed a major presence in Kabul.  Indian money has been spread generously around the Karzai government, a dynamic which is aided greatly by the Indian government's open minded attitudes regarding bribery and corruption.  The Indians have been successful to an outstanding extent in both countering Pakistan's paramount place in the Kabul government and expanding its own interests there.

This, in turn, has alarmed Islamabad.  The vision of strategic depth in Afghanistan has driven Pakistani policy there since the last days of the Soviet occupation.  In ongoing pursuit of this dream, Islamabad, particularly the ISI, has provided support and assistance to the anti-Karzai insurgents.  The training camps and other necessary facilities strewing the remoter portions of Pakistan are there because Taliban and the Haqqani network are seen as keys to eventual Pakistani dominance of Kabul.

Kashmir and the groups advocating violent political Islam are joined head and hip.  There is a set of very real problems for both India and Pakistan involved in this intimate relation between Kashmir and groups such as but not limited to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT.) It will be recalled that LeT was the executive agent of the 2008 attack on Mumbai.

As the ISI and others in Islamabad have found out repeatedly, LeT like Taliban and the Haqqani network are monsters which easily escape the leash of their creator.  LeT and the others will and do pursue what each determines to be in its "national" interest.  If that coincides with Islamabad's needs or desires, well, fine.  If it doesn't, well, that is just too bad.

Terrorists need tensions to provide the necessary context for their operations.  The combination of terrorism, violent political Islam, and tensions between states or within the population of a country is as natural as coffee and a doughnut.  However, the combination of religiously predicated terrorism and inter-state tensions turns very ugly when operations are conducted in an environment with a launch-under-threat component.

The presence of Chinese troops in northern Pakistan in a place coterminous with Kashmir can be either stabilizing or it opposite.  The troops are there ostensibly to repair the Kharakorum  highway which is the only direct land route between China and the Pakistani region of Gilgit.  The tipping point where the Chinese presence can shift from one of a potentially stabilizing one to its opposite comes with the unpleasant recent complication of an independent Kashmir.

About a million Kashmiri live in Gilgit which is historically a part of greater Kashmir.  Within this million there are those (number unknown) who, like compatriots on both sides of the Line of Control, take the view that only an independent Kashmir can find peace and prosperity.  Nationalism has been growing well under the radar scopes of the West, including the US.  This is a very dangerous fact and one which augments the analogy between Kashmir today and Bosnia in 1914.

As yet another generation comes of age in divided and bloody Kashmir, the appeals of nationalism are being reinforced.  The (to the outside world) invisible Chinese presence even though small and low profile is one more bit of kindling on the nationalistic fire.  A growing but unquantifiable number of Kashmiri are seeing themselves as "occupied" pawns in an inscrutable Game of Nations.

In this context the force of armed political Islam should not, cannot, be overstated.  A new generation of terrorist Frankenstein monsters is under construction.  Soon this new force will be far beyond the control or even influence of Islamabad or Delhi.

As the world learned nearly a century ago, the effects of a small act of nationalistic terror can be totally non-linear in its ultimate effects.  If this was true in an era of six shooters, where the machinegun was a world beater and the fighter aircraft not yet invented, think how true it might be in a day of nuclear tipped missiles and a launch-under-warning imperative.

ADMIN NOTE: The Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments.  To defeat spam comment attacks he has been forced to employ frustrating defense measures.  He apologizes.

From The Sky-Is-Blue Department

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has finally gone public on an elephant in the john which has been present but unacknowledged all too long. On the road in India the SecDef made a long overdue reference to the strategy of al-Qaeda. Quite specifically he commented to the reporters present that al-Qaeda is working with Taliban of Afghanistan, Taliban of Pakistan, and the gang behind last year's Mumbai attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to provoke war between Pakistan and India.

This option is both too obvious and too attractive not to have captured the attention of the leadership echelon of al-Qaeda. Not only have India and Pakistan gone to war several times before, both countries (Pakistan far more than India under its present government) are willing to stage another rematch. All that is needed is a proper inciting incident or maybe two if the Indians are in a particularly cautious mood.

Had it not been for India's "restraint" and "statesmanlike" behavior, as Gates correctly characterized matters, the attack on Mumbai would have been sufficient. The lack of a robust response by India undoubtedly perturbed both the heavyweights of Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda. Even the foot dragging and irresolute response on the part of Pakistan's government to the Indian demands that Islamabad haul its freight in both investigating and prosecuting the LeT leaders down home in Pakistan did not end India's policy of restraint.

A year ago some outside observers (including the Geek) expected an Islamist "second strike." It was unimportant just which group of the many available undertook the second attack as long as one occurred. No Indian government could have survived politically had it not taken strong retaliatory measures.

Gates observed that Indian patience and restraint was not unlimited in the face of future attacks on a scale rivaling the one on Mumbai. The Secretary's words were both diplomatic and quite blunt.

Their bluntness implies that the Indian government had made it abundantly clear that the next attack would not pass by unanswered. A further implication is that the Indians would be unwilling (or politically unable) to accept any US counsel to the effect that they be patient, that they show restraint, that they turn the other cheek in the event of another outrage committed by Islamist jihadists with a documented or even probable connection to Pakistan.

The Indian military has a wide range of retaliatory capabilities at its disposal. In highest probability the use of the most circumspect method would recommend itself. The most probable response would be carried out by Indian domestic manufacture cruise missiles against known terrorist training centers in Pakistan. This approach would limit collateral damage while allowing for an escalation should such prove necessary for either legitimate security reasons or compelling domestic political requirements.

Any Indian response even one as low profile as a single cruise missile strike on remotely located camps would carry risks. Additionally, it would have to be very carefully calibrated. The Indians would need to consider--and to avoid if at all possible--stimulating either of two probable Pakistani reactions. There is no desire in India for Pakistan's population to rally monolithically behind its government let alone the Islamists of LeT and Taliban. Neither would the Indian government (or the US) hope to see a Pakistan further weakened internally so as to assure an Islamist victory in that country.

Whether the Indian government and military are capable of so perfectly calibrating any hypothetical retaliatory strike is questionable at best. What Gates said hints strongly at the reality that the Indians are less concerned about that aspect of life than they are about motivating the Pakistani government to get off the dime and work far more sedulously at the task of eradicating both Taliban in Pakistan and the leader of the "syndicate of terror," al-Qaeda.

The US is just as interested in motivating Pakistan to do more in the war for its government's survival. Gates correctly called the conflict with al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan "existential" in nature. Regardless of the hopes and delusions of those Islamists in the government, military, and Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, the contest between Taliban et al and the current regime is a zero sum game. There is only room at the top for one winner be it the status quo or the Islamist jihadists.

For just over two decades now the Pakistani military and ISI have fostered, nurtured, supported, guided, and protected both Taliban and al-Qaeda. Throughout this long period and process it has been the hope of ISI and others in the power elite that someday in someway the Islamist jihadists would provide the winning element in the future war with India. Whether through the provision of strategic depth in Afghanistan or the means of creating a fifth column in Kashmir and elsewhere in India, the Pakistanis have seen Islamist jihadists as a key weapon for future success against the hated Hindu rival.

In a set of very real ways India has already won the future war. Not only is the Indian military far more competent than its Pakistani rival, the Indian decision to invest heavily in human capital has given the country a vast advantage economically and in terms of social coherence. In addition the landmass of India compared to that of Pakistan implies strongly that the former country can survive a limited nuclear attack far better than the latter.

The great equalizer of nuclear weapons does not exist as regards the Indian-Pakistani calculus. The population and economic infrastructure of Pakistan is simply too concentrated to survive even a very limited (one to five weapons of twenty kilotons yield) nuclear attack. Sheer geographic propinquity assures that even a conscientiously counter-force strike would be a major counter-value attack.

The same situation does not apply to nearly the same extent in India. The country could survive a mid-sized attack (twenty to fifty weapons of up to fifty kiloton yield) without being existentially impaired.

In short, reality behooves Islamabad even more than it does New Delhi to take firm, effective, and rapid action to end the "syndicate of terror" before the syndicate can bring its strategic vision into effect. Should the syndicate succeed, the results will be far more disastrous for Pakistan than India.

And that, bucko, was the crucial sub-text of Secretary Gates' remarks to the press. One can only hope they read the papers in Islamabad.

Playing Cards With India

The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is inside the beltway for a four day state visit. Amid all the glittery hoopla and formal dinners it is time for creative, mutual manipulation of and by two nations which have a very great deal in the way of coinciding national interests. As Richard Nixon played "the China card" against the Soviet Union, so also can Mr Obama play the "India card" against the Chinese.

At the same time PM Singh can play the "USA card" against both the Chinese and the Pakistanis. To work, the game must be one of mutual manipulation for mutual benefit.

India has a very real foreign policy problem in the expansion of Chinese interests throughout Southeast Asia. This comes on top of the conundrums presented by the steadily increasing Chinese interest and presence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A new add on in the diplomatic challenges presented India by the Chinese is the almost explosive growth of Chinese influence in Eastern and Southern Africa. India has had a long standing interest in those regions as a consequence of the large ethnic Indian communities which exist as a permanent and not always welcome legacy of the British Empire. Economic as well as ethinic, religious, and historical ties assure that the Indian government cannot be immune to the potentials as well as difficulties presented by these indigestible lumps in the African (often Muslim) stew.

India has domestic problems as well as those of foreign affairs. Some of those seemingly "internal" difficulties such as terror attacks in the Kashmir (to say nothing of outrages such as that in Mumbai a year back) have a clear foreign dimension. Others, such as the simmering "Maoist" insurgency or the long running defensive insurgency in Assam may have some degree of foreign connection.

Most of India's domestic problems are of a purely "made-in-India" nature. Most have been apparent in their development since before Independence sixty-two years ago. Most center on two structural features of Indian life--population and asymmetrical economic development and its twin, inequitable wealth distribution.

The rapid and, in many, major ways, skewed Indian economic development of the past three decades brings another set of problems--and coinciding interests. India and the US can, for example, "gang up" on China in the area of global warming mitigation efforts. As another example the two governments can do the same with respect to the continuation of the US dollar as global reserve currency.

In the latter area it is interesting to note that PM Singh said there was no realistic alternative to the dollar in that role just before embarking on his Washington trip. Nothing like a clear, public signal of intent, is there?

The Big Enchilada of the meeting will be AfPak. There is no matter of greater concern to PM Singh or the majority of Indians than that of Pakistan. The fear and loathing of the Pakistani government and military is and always has been palpable in India. While China is a longer term and far more formidable challenge than Pakistan, the latter has been the cause of several wars and the force seen behind terroristic groups from Kashmir to Mumbai and New Delhi.

The American led invasion of Afghanistan opened a new strategic theater in the region for the Indians to exploit. Their presence (unarmed with anything more lethal than money) has grown almost exponentially the past several years much to the alarm of Islamabad.

The Pakistanis have (with some real justification) seen the growing Indian presence and influence in Kabul as a species of airborne invasion of a territory which has long been considered by Pakistani military, intelligence, and political officials as their strategic depth--if not something greater. The Indians are no slouches when it comes either to reading a map or exploiting fleeting opportunities.

The Indian government and military entertains legitimate apprehension that in its apparent rush to an "exit strategy," the Obama administration will genuflect too much to the Pakistanis, grant the Pakistanis too much real or pretended influence in Afghanistan. In short, that the Obama "progressives" will recapitulate the same mistake made by the Reagan administration twenty and more years ago.

The Indian government back then did try to make their fears known to the administration but were ignored, unceremoniously blown off. Of course, at that time as for decades before various left-tilting Indian "neutralist" governments had made the country and its interests anathema in Washington by continuously behaving as if members of the "Socialist Camp."

Those days are long gone. India is a rapidly developing free market economy with a democratic process which works reasonably well all factors considered. As the nuclear technology deal made (at great political cost to and effort by PM Singh) between India and the W. Bush administration makes clear, there are core interests and stances shared by the US and the "world's largest democracy."

Now the Indians want assurances, credible guarantees that the US is not about to cut and run from Afghanistan to the advantage of Pakistan and the necessary and equal disadvantage of New Delhi. In a similar vein the Indian PM will want (demand?) a credible pledge that future military aid provided Pakistan will not be of a sort easily diverted to employment against India.

PM Singh will also be anxious to gain enough of an understanding with Mr Obama to be reasonably sure that the two countries can work together to limit Chinese influence both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In return the Prime Minister will be willing to horsetrade both on climate mitigation commitments and global economic/bilateral trade issues.

If both President and PM (and all the support wallahs) are sufficiently open and honest (strange as that stipulation might seem in diplomatic dancing) there is a lot of room open for the sort of mutual manipulation, deal-making, and so on to achieve progress on most of the coinciding issues before us including both Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is, however, one question which is not being either asked or answered in the pundits and reporters both here and in India.

Here it is--

Will, Mr Obama given his utter disinterest in foreign affairs (to say nothing of his abysmal ignorance of both history and dynamics as such are part and parcel of foreign policy) be able to rip himself away from the healthcare overhaul and other aspects of the rapidly failing "Great Transformational Agenda" to stay awake, focused, and on message for the four day event?

Well, bucko, the Geek ain't about to bet the ranch on the answer being positive.

China Steps Up To The Plate--In Pakistan

China has long enjoyed an all-weather relationship with Pakistan. In the past the Chinese have been more than generous with aid of all sorts. Pakistan has received economic development assistance, military equipment, and, last, but far from least, nuclear technology, equipment, and materials.

The increasingly close relation between the US and India as epitomized in the recently concluded deal on civilian nuclear facilities after decades of more or less acrimonious estrangement may well be the reason China is showing a renewed interest in Pakistan. There is a single dominant national interest shared by Pakistan and China.

That's right, bucko, India. Each sees the other as a reinsurance policy against India.

Why the insurance is necessary, particularly by China, is difficult to fathom. It is true that Pakistan serves China as a sort of very low cost deterrent against any Indian ambitions, but that fails to answer the key question: What ambitions on the part of India are evident enough to make Beijing seek even very low cost deterrence over and above the scope and competence of their own armed forces?

There is no, or at least very, very little probability of China and India having another passage at arms such as the skirmish (which India lost) high in the Himalayas back in 1962. Forty-seven years of staring across the icy trenches in the thin air without another go-around indicates that the frontier is and will remain stable.

The most likely motivation for China's generosity toward Pakistan is found in the search for regional hegemony. In looking at Southeast Asia from Thailand to Malaysia, China sees only one theoretical rival for regional power status--India. Insofar as India remains focused on Pakistan and the potential threats emerging from that country, China can pursue its regional goals without any anxiety of Indian counters.

Playing to Pakistan's fears concerning India is one of the easiest diplomatic games to play. The Pakistanis are ready, eager really, to accept any conspiracy notion--as long as the villain lives in New Delhi. Currently Islamabad is convinced that India is conspiring with the US to establish its odious presence in Afghanistan to Pakistan's manifest disadvantage. Beyond this, the government of Pakistan as well as assorted opinion makers are firmly of the view that the sinister hand of India is behind the separatist movement in Baluchistan (perhaps with the consent or even approval and assistance of the US.)

India is after influence in Afghanistan. That much is true. That any increase in Indian influence may serve to hinder Pakistan's similar ambition in the country is not arguable. It is rather a zero sum game. There is little doubt that India would not weep should Baluchistan gain either a measure of autonomy or even independence.

It is beyond the realm of reality that the US is involved in any Indian effort in Afghanistan beyond that of wishing it would be more effective and less high profile. Even further in the land of paranoiac fantasy is the notion that Washington would like to see the energetic disassembly of Pakistan.

Reality is of less concern to the government of Pakistan and the Pakistanis generally than is the perception of the US as being hostile to it. The same is true-on steroids--regarding India. The recent launching of the Indian nuclear submarine has put Islamabad in a rhetorical tizzy. There is little doubt but Pakistan feels an obligation to at least match this accomplishment.

As Russia helped India build its missile capable boat, so might the Chinese assist Pakistan. Also, the Chinese might well be far more willing than is the US currently to supply high ticket systems suitable for use against India. The Chinese have an unsurpassed record in furnishing weapons without any stultifying restrictions about their employment.

The US having been burned no end during the days of the open wallet approach to military aid favored by the Bush/Cheney administration now supplies only those goodies suitable for low-intensity counterinsurgency operations. This approach is reflected in the US unwillingness to give UAVs to Pakistan as these could be shifted quickly from the FATA to the Indian border.

The Chinese are not at all likely to be so picky.

India is not without its degree of paranoia. The Indian government has protested even the most recent US commitment to sell (give) counterinsurgency oriented weapons to Pakistan alleging these will end up pointed at Indians. But, the Indians are utterly rational in comparison to the Pakistanis.

The result is China will furnish more weapon systems to Pakistan. Given its enormous cash reserves, China is also perfectly situated to bolster Pakistan's weakening currency and provide other economic assistance. In return, Pakistan may well invite China to explore and develop the sub-surface resources in Baluchistan. These may be considerable.

China would also be able to count on Pakistan's assistance in gaining increasing influence among the Muslim states generally. Considering the robust diplomatic effort of China to project itself into areas of Africa and the Mideast in which Islam predominates, this would be of some advantage. Pakistan's bought and paid for good will would also be of assistance in offsetting the inevitable negative reaction within the Islamic world if it has to really crack down on the Uighurs.

Put together, the possibilities offered by a deepening relation with Pakistan provides China with a diplomatic make-weight which would more than counter any Indian efforts to forestall a Chinese regional hegemony over Southeast Asia. It is the kind of low-risk, low-cost but high-payoff approach which the Chinese prefer.

And, best of all, given the current dynamics in the Indian Sub-continent and Northwest Asia generally, it is a move which the US cannot block, cannot even attenuate. Well, it's just another one of those foreign policy challenges that the Nice Young Man From Chicago must wish would go away. But it won't.

India's New SSBN--Threat To Stability?

India launched its first nuclear powered submarine in a flurry of publicity the other day. The boat which is at least three years worth of sea trials away from acceptance as a combat unit in the Indian navy was built entirely in India--with Russian assistance. It and its cargo of short range ballistic missiles are a prestige item to be sure.

The question is whether or not the boat, whose name translates as "Destroyer of Enemies" is either a useful weapons system or an inherently destabilizing factor in the region or both.

The Pakistani government clearly sees the "Destroyer of Enemies" as a destroyer of the strategic balance between the two rivals as it gives India a survivable retaliatory capacity. At least in principle it does.

The Islamabad government is attempting to rouse support for its position in the region by alleging that the new Indian SSBN is a potential threat to all neighboring (Muslim) states. Not surprisingly the Indians deny this.

Barely pausing for breath as the Indians re-emphasized the non-threatening intent of the sub, the Pakistanis raised the spectre of a new regional "arms race." The Pakistanis need to get a grip.

The "destroyer of enemies" is more a technology demonstrator and a show-the-flag project than it is a useful system. Its missiles are very short range. Its capacity to launch submerged remains to be seen. The speed with which the Indians can increase the range and payload of the boat's missiles is yet to be seen. Also awaiting the future is the ability of the Indians to bring more SSBNs on line and the speed with which they can do this.

Building more boats will take time. A lot of time. It will take experience with the lead unit of the proposed class. A long period will necessarily ensue before the Indians can claim the possession of a legitimate seaborne leg of their nuclear triad.

Time brings with it the potential for change. Change in the relations of the two old enemies brought about by the common threat of Islamist jihadists. Change brought about by a common apprehension about Iran. Time to realise that even the limited nuclear exchange which can be executed by India and Pakistan is a death sentence for both. Time to realise that the nuclear arsenals are far less useful than their expense warrants.

It is unfortunate that the Indians launched their new toy in the immediate aftermath of the first small steps toward rapprochement between it and Pakistan only days ago at Sharm al-Sheik. The launch is an unnecessary impediment to the selling of even this limited understanding to the Pakistanis (although it will assist the Indian PM getting this unpopular move through the Indian parliament.)

Cooler heads have to prevail in Islamabad. The Indian tech demonstrator does nothing to alter the strategic balance. Neither does it pose any threat to regional stability.

The Pakistani navy should look on the bright side. Maybe they can extort some money out of the US to fund new anti-submarine warfare vessels or something like that. See, even non-threats have an up side.

What Did You Expect? An Easy Fight?

More out of Pakistan, which confirms some of the points made in yesterday's post regarding the unwillingness of the government of that country to redeploy significant elements of its regular army to the fight against Taliban. As previously written, this situation will remain unchanged unless and until the Pakistani government can bring itself to trust that India is not going to attack the moment the army is fully engaged against the Islamist jihadists.

The first bite out of Pakistan is the most to be expected. The army and government of Pakistan are pulling very long faces about the American/British effort in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The lads in command are complaining that the new offensive is driving Taliban and al-Qaeda trigger pullers across the line on a map known as the "border." This, the Pakistanis allege, is complicating their efforts in the FATA.

Well. Golly. Gee. Aw shucks.

As water runs down hill so also do guerrillas seek the line of least resistance. This means that in Helmand province for reasons right or wrong, good or ill, Taliban has concentrated its efforts against the British while giving the American Marines the next thing to a free pass in their advances. It also means that given the choice of facing the combination of disciplined fire power and mobility of the British or American forces, the Heroic Warriors Of The One True Faith would much rather slip across the frontier and take on the paramilitary units of the Frontier Corps and the odd regular Pakistani Army unit in the region.

Rather than whine, moan, bitch and complain about the Taliban doing what they must have been expected to do--take on the weakest opponent--the Pakistani government should dispatch the majority of the regular army to the real fighting front. Sitting on their collective duff and making ugly faces at the Indians across the way does nothing to defeat Taliban nor promote the genuine national security of Pakistan.

The fact that the two Waziristans, North and South, are difficult human and geographic terrain for the Pakistani forces to operate in does not obviate the reality that the people and territory of the Warziristans are the place where war must be waged. The FATA generally has never been brought under effective government control. Nor has the central regime ever done anything substantial to promote perceptions of either existential or functional legitimacy among the tribal population of the region.

These twin failures provided the soil necessary for Islamist jihad of the Taliban sort to take root and flourish. It is the up close and personal ability of Taliban to provide a sense of community identity, administer justice, and squash corruption that has brought recruits as well as provided the extensive passive mass support base without which a guerrilla entity cannot survive for long.

Rather than admit that the years of government neglect of and prejudice against the tribals of the two Warziristans might have been responsible for the rapid growth of Taliban, the Pakistani government again took the self-defeating and irresponsible path of blaming the American Predator strikes on Taliban targets in the FATA for the continuation and growth of Taliban support. The intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this approach is highlighted by developments in the contested area of Dir.

In this area as previously in South Waziristan, a civilian militia, which is to say an ad hoc group of pissed off locals, has surrounded and besieged a Taliban group. To finish the job the locals say they need assistance from the Pakistani army. The requested assistance has not been forthcoming.

Two questions are prompted by this development. One is obvious: why is the government not speeding the required troops to the assistance of the armed and angry locals?

The other is not so self-evident but strikes at the heart of the presumed impact of the icky-poo American Predator strikes. If, as the government insists, the American efforts at remote controlled death were both so inaccurate and ill advised as to turn civilian opinion en masse against the government, then why are the locals in both South Waziristan and Dir rising up angry against the jihadists?

The answer to the second question is simply that the locals finally have had a belly full of Taliban. In particular, the locals have had more than enough of Taliban's willingness to kill civilians. To the locals the suicide bombers along with the Taliban stone-throwing, sword-wielding enforcers of Islamist virtue have exhausted the local's patience with the Virtuous Army of the Prophet.

So, the locals have grabbed their guns and made their displeasure known. They also have asked the government--their government, at least in principle--for help.

The government's ear is deafened by two considerations. The first is the distaste in Islamabad for the idea of tribesmen with guns. The second is the paucity of resources the government is willing to commit to ground combat efforts.

As the war in Pakistan widens, Islamabad is once again playing an old, tired game. The name of the game is extortion. The other player in the game is the United States. The game is played this way: You want us to do something? Well, give us something. Like intelligence, ammunition and, most importantly, you give us Predators.

That's right, policy fans. The Pakistani government wants the same horrid machines that the evil Americans use to complicate Pakistani life by wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians caught in the cross hairs on some video screen thousands of miles away. You see, if we kill our own civilians, no one will mind. If you Yanks kill them, then Taliban will lose.

Gosh, who can fail to be convinced with logic like that? There is no way that Pakistan might want Predators for the same reason the government previously wanted F-16s and other platforms as well suited for counterinsurgent operations as a Baptist minister is for playing piano in a whorehouse? Like to use against the real enemy, India?

At the same time as the government of Pakistan wants us to provide more systems which would be useful against India, it wants us to convince India to cooperate with Pakistan in the "common" struggle against terrorism and terrorists. The time has come to explain the meaning of the word "consistency" to the men of the government of Pakistan. The boys just can't get their story straight.

And, that's a fact, Jack.

While we are at it, there are a couple of other points that diplomat extraordinary Richard Holbrooke might elucidate to the Pakistanis. The first point is that Taliban is the one and only existential threat confronting Pakistan. India is a mythic enemy only. It is a useful outside evil on which the government has pinned so many of its failures past, present, and future.

In point of fact had India really, really wanted to end the Kashmir dispute, it could have at any time of its choosing. The same fact still exists, Pakistan's rudimentary nuclear arsenal to the contrary not withstanding. The continuation of Kashmir as an active diplomatic dispute is testimony to India's unwillingness to use war as its instrument of choice.

The second fact of life which Mr Holbrooke or somebody ought to get through to the state-of-denial afflicted Pakistani government is that Taliban has the initiative. It has the ability to exercise horizontal escalation into Baluchistan. It can use urban terror whenever and wherever it chooses. It can avoid contact with the Pakistani forces in FATA. Or, it can attack from a local position of strength and inflict political will damaging casualties on the government forces.

And, those are facts, Jack.

The final ground truth that must be communicated to the boys in Islamabad is that they have grabbed the tiger's tail. They now have only two choices: Kill the tiger. Or, let the tiger eat them.

Whining, moaning, bitching, complaining, blaming the Americans for actually fighting a war in Afghanistan, seeking to extort Predators, or refusing to commit the majority of their ground combat forces instead of simply bombing from on high or blasting from far away are all simply ways to make damn sure the tiger eats them. Killing the tiger means standing there, facing the beast's claws and teeth--and slitting its throat.

That's the final fact, Jack.