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!

Two Twitchy Scorpions In A Very Small Bottle

India and Pakistan both have a nuclear capability. India's atomic arsenal is much larger than Pakistan's. The new US-Indian deal on fissionable materials allows India to divert its entire domestic production of uranium to the bomb making assembly lines so its ability to green glass large swaths of Pakistan will grow.

Although well behind India in the numbers and perhaps yields of its weapons, the Pakistanis are currently enlarging their production capacity. Even without an increase, Islamabad has more than enough splittable neutrons to ruin India's (and the world's) whole day.

Making life all the more anxiety producing for those who hope to avoid the planting of mushroom shaped clouds in the sky over the sub-continent, both India and Pakistan have shown a truly awesome capacity to avoid cooperation on key existential issues, reject any sort of roadmap for a final settlement on the disputed lands of the Kashmir and, at least un-officially, wave the nuclear card as if it were actually one which could be played. While India every now and then indicates that the nuclear option is a rational one, the Pakistanis are far more willing to endorse the notion of nuclear war as a viable policy approach.

In the relationship between India and Pakistan it is the latter which is the more distrusting, the more apprehensive, the more willing to reach for a threat, including the nuclear one. But, India, when provoked as it was by the Mumbai Incident, can equal or outdo Pakistan in the dire threats department.

Currently there are two issues which yawn like a World War I trench system with the two combatants glaring at each other through the sights of their guns. One is the matter of Pakistani complicity in the Mumbai Incident. The other is water.

There is little doubt that Islamabad has been sleep-walking through the motions of judicial proceedings against Pakistanis accused of having played a role in the Mumbai Incident. More debatable but far from rebuttable is the contention that the Mumbai Incident involved some level of support from instruments of the Pakistani government, most probably the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.) The obvious lack of promptness and candor on the part of the government of Pakistan (GOP) in pursuing either allegations or suspicions of its citizens or agents involvement in the Incident have fueled the darkest of dark Indian suspicions.

The shocking (dare the Geek say, "Perry Mason" style) confession of the sole surviving Mumbai terrorist in open court poured napalm by the gallon on the worst Indian conjectures. It seems likely that the Indian government which is not a monument to either stability or cautious reflection before taking action will come under heavy pressure to do something unless the GOP takes effective, public action to act on information contained in the so far secret (or at least gag rule suppressed) confession.

At the very least the confession of Ajmal Kasab has the potential of perturbing, even rupturing, the tentative rapprochement made between India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the recently concluded Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference in Sharm al-Sheik, Egypt. The meeting of the minds at Sharm al-Sheik was neither comprehensive nor free of mutual suspicion to the extent that India and Pakistan might well engage in a rush away from it.

(It should be mentioned that SecState Hillary Clinton stepped on her diplomatic tongue with golf shoes when she averred surviving heavyweights of al-Qaeda were still holed up in Pakistan's FATA. The implication was this state of affairs could not exist without the tacit approval of either or both GOP and ISI. While both the sanctuary and the implication might be factual, it is not at all appropriate to say so at this critical juncture in Indo-Pakistan relations. Ms Clinton deserves to be taken to the woodshed.)

Pakistan needs to feel free to turn its back on India as it gets on with its fight against Taliban. More specifically Pakistan needs assurances, credible, verifiable assurances that India is not seeking a strategic advantage by its presence in Afghanistan. Only the US can serve as an honest broker in this matter and SecState Clinton's ill-advised imitation of Joe (I'll-Say-Anything-That-Crosses-My-Tongue-Without-Involving-My-Brain) Biden will do nothing to enhance the American role in this matter.

Our Secretary of State is correct when she pats Pakistan on the back for its "serious" efforts to defeat Taliban. The military portion of the anti-Taliban campaign is continuing with continued superficial indications of success. More important than the body count touted is the underlying fact that the majority of the ground fighting is still being carried out by the second string units of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and not the regular Pakistani army.

This means simply that GOP has not felt free to redeploy substantial numbers of their regular forces from the Indian border. Continued reliance upon the Frontier Corps, which is, relatively, less well trained, equipped, and officered than the Regulars will assure the campaign moves slowly, perhaps too slowly to continue effective public support and political will. The faltering of support and will has been the ruination of previous anti-Taliban efforts. The same dynamic is not far from the surface today.

The second issue--water--has emerged in the past few weeks to complicate the relation between Pakistan and India. Water, and the potential for hostilities over it, has been highlighted recently by assorted Pakistani media and political figures. This means there is less inducement for India to take confidence building measures such as thinning out its forces on the common border which would allow Pakistan to concentrate its army on the abatement of the Taliban.

Water has been an issue between India and Pakistan since Partition. A series of agreements on the use and division of rivers serving the two countries, particularly those running through the disputed territories of Jammu and Kashmir, have been signed. In general these agreements have been observed to the satisfaction of both governments.

The Indus River Treaty of 1960 which was facilitated by the World Bank is the most important of these agreements. It has become a source of strain between the two countries in the past year or so. Covering the six river systems shared by the two nations, the Indus River Treaty is seen to be threatened by the Indian government's ambitious sixty-seven project program for dams, hydroelectric power production, and irrigation covering the Indian administered portion of Kashmir state.

From the perspective of Pakistani nationalists, the Indian development program whose centerpiece, Baglihir dam, went on line last year is an attempt to create an absolute and irrefutable fact on the ground in Kashmir and Jammu. In the view of these irredentist folks the Indian government is seeking to fully integrate the Muslim majority population of Indian controlled Kashmir and Jammu to the ultimate disadvantage of both Islam and Pakistan.

The Indian government says it is simply discharging its responsibility to the population of the two provinces while fostering both agricultural and economic development such as to benefit the locals and the nation equally. There is nothing outre nor exceptional in this position. It is what governments everywhere are supposed to do--and, at least on occasion, do actually do.

Not so fast, counter the irredentists of Pakistan. The massive project carries the potential of threatening the Pakistani agricultural use of the water to our collective loss. This argument carries a lot of freight with Pakistanis.

The consensus is Pakistan faces a water crisis in the near future. The country has been experiencing a decrement in water flow for the past several decades and may face genuine emergency conditions in the next five years. Compounding the problem is Pakistan has failed to build its own dams, resevoirs, and irrigation systems such that most of the water flowing through the rivers is lost to the sea without having been put to beneficial use along the way.

As Pakistan's population is expected to hit 250 million in the not too distant future, the impact of water shortages particularly when taken in conjunction with shortfalls in basic commodities would be severely dislocative. Even though the GOP is in large measure responsible for the looming water crisis, it is far more convenient and in keeping with historical experience to pin the tail of blame on the Indian donkey.

Various and sundry retired generals including a former head of ISI and the one time boss of the national water authority along with assorted nationalist politicians are now raising the accusation that India is using the water as a weapon. This crew loudly, repeatedly, and in a high visibility way has charged that the new dam and its associated projects are actually offensive weapons more deadly than atomic bombs aimed at the hearts of Pakistan and Islam.

Now, the charges have reached the point that purportedly responsible Pakistanis are contending that resorting to nuclear war in response to this Indian hydraulic assault is appropriate. What a concept! You have to admit it would work. After a brief exchange the resulting population reduction of several million would diminish the need for water--assuming any which did not glow in the dark could be found.

While there is no real (immediate) probability of the two countries going to nuclear war over water or any thing else, the mere fact of this irredentist thinking (to use the term generically only) is indicative of the underlying distrust, suspicion, and flat out fear which provides the context for all Indo-Pakistani affairs. It is emblematic of the gap which the US must help bridge in our own interest.

Secretary of State Clinton will have to be far more careful in both the wording and timing of her public remarks than she evidenced in the wake of the NAM if she is going to play the constructive role in nudging the governments of Pakistan and India toward a working relationship which will meet Pakistan's needs as it takes on Taliban. Unless and until both the government and politically articulate elite of Pakistan can grow beyond their reflexive and unreasoning fear of India, the task of squashing Taliban and akin Islamist threats will stay incomplete.

Unless and until Pakistan devotes its full energies and forces to abating the Islamists in its midst, the American effort in Afghanistan is probably doomed to fail. Time is against both the US government and GOP.

The reason time is on the side of the Islamists is the same in both Pakistan and the US. Sacrifice without evident success saps political will. SecDef Gates has warned that We the People will turn our backs on the Afghanistan war without real, observable success in the next twelve to eighteen months. The time frame in Pakistan is shorter, perhaps much shorter.

Ms Clinton and the rest of the Obama foreign policy team have their work cut out for them. The question is simply--Are they up to the task?

Jihadists Change The Rules Of The Game--Again

The purpose of terrorism, Lenin once observed, is to terrorise. To terrorise, the terrorist must attract attention--a lot of attention. This means staging spectacular operations that shift the paradigm.

Al-Qaeda shifted the defining paradigm on 9/11. This group pushed the envelop of suicide bombing attacks later in both London and Madrid.

These successes were such because each attack fell outside the limits of previous experience. Put simply, the security and intelligence structures of the US, the UK, and Spain had not foreseen terrorist acts of this nature and quality. Nothing in the recent institutional memory of any of these target countries had sensitised the defenders toward new forms of attack.

In the case of the US there had been a dearth of foreign sponsored attacks delivered against domestic targets. With the exception of the truck bomb attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma, all of the American experience with terrorism had been limited to low casualty bombings in which only the first attempt on the World Trade Center had generated much national attention.

Attenuating the lessons which might have been learned from the first WTC attack was the speed with which the men responsible were identified, arrested, and convicted. It was a counter-terror slam dunk. When the high-fiving was done, no one bothered to take a closer, harder look at what the bad guys might do next time--or even if there would be a domestic next time.

Admittedly, al-Qaeda helped reinforce the lack of American thinking. The next efforts by the group were off-shore. They were successful, but in a real sense, stereotyped: Surface based attacks using suicide vehicle-borne, improvised explosive devices.

The possibility of an air delivered attack was not considered probable. Neither, the available evidence suggests strongly, was the possibility of a high body-count attack on a CONUS target.

The UK had much experience with terrorism thanks to the lengthy and occasionally creative campaign by Irish organisations. In a real sense, the presence of terror had become part of the urban scene not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the UK. Terror could be and was marginalised because the Irish version had been low in its body count yield, and rarely escalated beyond the small IED variety.

The coordinated attacks on the London subway system on 7 July 2002 marked a genuine paradigm shift in recent British experience. The unsuccessful attempt to emulate the initial set of strikes two weeks later demonstrates that the 7/7 operation was not an anomaly.

The situation in Spain was virtually identical to that in the UK. The Spanish security agencies and public had undergone a long acquaintanceship with terror thanks to ETA. While some of the Basque separatist operations were both high visibility and bloody, most had been ho-hum and relatively lacking in bombs resulting in body parts strewn across the landscape.

The Madrid attacks were something else again. They were sophisticated in timing and very deadly in their consequences. For the Spanish as for the Brits and the Yankees, the rules of the game had been changed.

Over the past six years, particularly in the past two, al-Qaeda has experienced a steady decline from the high point of its fortunes following the shocks of the three paradigm shifting bombings. The largest combat capable component of the al-Qaeda franchise, al-Qaeda in Iraq, has been destroyed as an effective paramilitary formation--ironically in large measure at the hands of Sunni tribesmen whom al-Qaeda had alienated.

Other than in the FATA and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers such as Taliban have enjoyed little success in capturing either the attention of the world or greater support within the Mideast. (OK. To err on the side of accuracy, the emergence of al-Qaeda affiliates in North Africa has been a bothersome uptick in the jihadist success quotient.)

Comes now Lshkar e-Tayyeba. If initial indicators which point to this group having been behind the Mumbai are reinforced in coming days, credit can be given to this long standing armed group hailing from Pakistan for shifting the paradigm of terrorism.

The wave of the future may well be more commando type operations involving a small number of well trained, well equipped individuals with excellent reconnaissance, good command, control and communications and, while being willing to die, are not expected to become "martyrs." If this proves to be the case, we will have to spend a lot less time gnashing our teeth over terrorist weapons of mass destruction.

It also means we will have to get a grip on two very unpleasant but historically undeniable facts. The jihadists have the initiative, and small commando units as well as their indigenous "pilot teams" are even harder to detect and defeat in the pre-mission phase than other forms of terror producing activities.

Terrorists, like guerrilla insurgents, enjoy the initiative in comparison with their opponents. As war after war has demonstrated, the asymmetrical contest is decided by the capacity to seize and maintain the initiative. This, in turn, is based on the political wills of the two contestants.

The side with the greater political will ultimately will prevail over the side with the weaker. This has been true in every insurgency over the past four hundred years. It is equally true in a war between non-state actors using terror as their preferred tactic and the states which oppose them.

The Mumbai model has powerful appeals for the terrorist.

First, the men pulling the triggers need be no more eager or ready ot die than any well-trained, well-motivated special forces trooper. This enlarges the recruitment pool. It also conserves expensively developed assets.

Then, consider contemporary technology. Cell phones and social networking sites such as Twitter provide an excellent means of command, control and communication. These and other features of virtual life assure that the impact of the operation will be transmitted instantly and effortlessly around the world without any real chance of target government intervention.

Of course, the results of a meticulously researched and planned operation that is pushed home with vigor and resolve will provide benefits to the attacker--including off-stage sponsors--that greatly exceeds the costs involved.

Check it out. Low risk. Low investment. High payoff. Now, that's a deal.

The greatest part of the investment is time. It takes time to recruit, select, and train the operational personnel. It takes time to properly research the target. It takes time to put the pilot teams in place with appropriate cover. It takes time to infiltrate the trigger pullers.

It takes time to pull off an operation such as that in Mumbai that was more logistically complex than even the 9/11 attacks. Given the initial impact, however, it was time very well used.

Time. To Americans in particular, time is a commodity to be spent efficiently. We hate spending a lot of time on things--particularly unpleasant activities. Like war. War is a very unpleasant matter on which to expend time.

But, history proves beyond a reasonable doubt that in asymmetrical conflict, the side which is more willing to spend time pursuing its goals is the side which will win. Again, it is a matter of political will.

The expenditure of months, even years, on the run up to a major spectacular such as the Mumbai attacks is well worth it from the perspective of the attacker. Making the costs of time and lives even more worthwhile is the high probability that some of the attackers have escaped with an invaluable cargo of lessons-learned.

While the actual number of individuals involved either directly or in support roles is not yet known and probably never will be, it is safe to assert that the the Indian authorities are knowingly lying when it is asserted that only ten men were responsible for the deaths and damage resulting from nearly simultaneous attacks on ten targets.

Lashkar e-Tayyeba appears to have reinvigorated international terrorism as a tactic just as al-Qaeda is fading everywhere but the chaotic areas of FATA and Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda's number two capo, al-Zawahiri, released a new (and uncharacteristically rambling) video which carried the same tired messages of his earlier efforts as the Mumbai attack was unfolding.

There might be a deliciously ironic symbolism here. In a way, the juxtaposition of the old jihadist's focus on the Mideast and the blood covered videos from Mumbai show the passing of the old and the coming of the new.

Most importantly, the combination of the old (al-Zawahiri) and the new (Lashkar e-Tayyeba) shows the incoming administration of Barack Obama that an old cliche obtains as he comes into office.

The cliche?

"The more things change, the more thay stay the same."