David Kilcullen
Some quick notes from Georgetown, where David Kilcullen has just addressed students and faculty at the Center for Peace and Security Studies. Highlights below:
- We’ve suffered from only incrementally increasing the number of troops over the years. The Taliban has proven itself capable of absorbing the impact from an additional 10-30 thousand troops. We need to either “overmatch” them with a substantially larger deployment or not send any at all (or possibly draw down).
Staff Articles
Terrorist target?
The World Food Program was hit in Pakistan by a suicide bomber earlier this week. As usual, Stratfor.com has churned out a long-winded analysis to explain why the NGO was targeted: it’s a “softer target,” small-scale attacks are “easy to conduct and require very few resources,” and NGO’s like the WFP are perceived to be allied with the US. All true, but the obvious reason is that NGO’s are favored by Western media organizations who play up the attacks. Thus, bombing a UN office (example) or a similar NGO facility (example)–or just killing their people (example)–will be taken as proof that the government has lost support because it cannot protect the capital, cannot protect a major city, cannot protect foreigners, and so on.
Staff Articles
Thought we were moving on?
The WSJ reports today:
The Justice Department on Monday appointed a special prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA mistreatment of terror suspects, a move representing a sharp break from the president’s early determination to move beyond Bush-era controversies.
President Obama, April 16, 2009 (click here for full text):
In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs…
Staff Articles
Rules of the road?
David Johnson runs an excellent newswire service about all things Russia over at the Center for Defense Information (click here to support him). Scraps of Moscow has kindly reprinted one article from the latest posting here. The piece is an op-ed written by a Russian policywonk who is calling for a “new world order.” This excerpt caught our eye:
It is possible for the existing centers of power these days to recognize political units as sovereign states or deny them this recognition regardless of the accepted legitimate criteria. Some UN states including three permanent members of the UN Security Council recognized the former Serbian autonomy as a sovereign state in February 2008. Permanent member of the UN Security Council and Atomic Club, Russia recognized sovereignty of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in August 2008. In the meantime, Russia flatly refuses to recognize Kosovo while the United States and its EU allies keep singing hosannah to the Georgian territorial integrity. In a word, common rules, standards, and criteria no longer work. Political expediency is the only guideline. It did not begin yesterday, of course. Last year events became but another confirmation (in the post-Soviet zone, for a change) of the premise that the Yalta-Potsdam version of the international law is history and that nothing has been developed to replace it. [emphasis added]
The Kosovo Precedent is being used to justify refashioning borders. It is easy for the US and EU to talk of Kosovo being a one-off. Their secessionists are either kooks — extremists in Vermont and Hawaii — or harmless — independence advocates in Puerto Rico and Flanders, for example. Most of the rest of the world lives with arbitrary borders because once you open the issue to revision there is no particular endpoint short of Mad Max.
Scott Palter Articles
The Map (The Guardian)
Another long-winded piece from Stratfor that, this time at least, gets to the essentials. Yes, “point defense,” while psychologically necessary, just chases the bombers to new targets. They are trading their lives for a headline. For this, they need someplace photogenic in a major city with dead First Worlders in the aftermath.
The sad fact is that urban terror is a condition to be mitigated, not a problem to be solved. Even the Israelis, with a near garrison state, still get hit with sudden jihad syndrome — terrorists who will run amok and kill as many people as possible with buses or bulldozers if no bomb vests are available.
Scott Palter Articles
China's String of Pearls: Ports/Navy Bases Under Construction
BBC has the summary of a military pact agreed upon today between India and the United States. Overall, this is very good for the US. India is a rising power, an obvious counterweight to an unstable Pakistan, and the only blue water competitor in the Indian Ocean. It is also a counterweight to China.
Further, India is a good economic fit with the US. There is a large Indian diaspora here. They speak English and adhere to similar legal and political structures. They do a lot of back office and customer service work for US firms.
However, vocal segments of the Indian polity will find it hard to swallow this deal. There is going to be constant friction from the left-wing in the Congress, the two Communist parties and the nationalist left in general. America was the de facto enemy for too long under the Nehru dynasty, so expect a good bit of friction, backsliding, etc., and expect the American left to amplify this under the usual anti-imperialist concerns.
Staff Articles
Rashid in 1992 (Reuters)
A typical editorial from the July 13 edition of The New York Times warrants some coverage. The article states:
Add this to the Bush administration’s sordid legacy: a refusal to investigate charges that forces commanded by a notorious Afghan warlord - and American ally - massacred hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war in late 2001.
According to survivors and witnesses, over a three-day period, fighters under the command of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum stuffed surrendering Taliban prisoners into metal shipping containers without food or water. Many suffocated. Guards shot others to death. The victims are believed to be buried in a grave in the desert of Dasht-i-Leili in northern Afghanistan.
Yes, Dostum is an unsavory character. He’s been on every side at one time or anther. While there is no evidence that would survive a court-room in the West, there is reasonable belief that he was a major drug runner — either directly or indirectly, by providing protection — back to the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He and the other North Alliance commanders are also clearly involved in the ongoing corruption in the current Afghan government.
The details of the “atrocity” are murky and he may well be guilty. (For some perspective, see this link for a description of the sort of prisoner revolt Dostrum might have been afraid of.) The key question is: So what?
Scott Palter Articles
Has the national leadership asked us to bear any burden?
Stratfor’s latest “geopolitical intelligence update” runs over 2,200 words. Nothing new here, really, just more of the same long-winded treatises to which we’ve grown accustomed. Among the many points Dr. Friedman makes:
This is not a question of the American will to fight; it is a question of the American interest in fighting.
With all due respect to the Austin-based firm, that misses the point. The key is that neither the American or British governments is willing to make a continuous effort to explain to the Anglosphere public why an ongoing war of attrition in Afghanistan is in our interests. This leaves the field to media and activist groups who reflexively oppose every war and exertion of Western power in the former colonial areas. Any casualty level above zero for both Western troops and Afghans will be portrayed in the worst possible light. Any expenditure of funds will be weighed and measured against “unmet domestic needs.”
Scott Palter Articles
Franklin Roosevelt, July 4, 1942:
“To the weary, hungry, unequipped army of the American Revolution the Fourth of July was a tonic of hope and inspiration. So is it now. The tough, grim men who fight for freedom in this dark hour take heart in its message–the assurance of the right to liberty under God–for all peoples and races and groups and nations, everywhere in the world.”
Tristan Abbey Articles
Easy target.
It didn’t take long for the usual suspects to start theorizing that the United States was behind the ouster of Honduras’ leftist president, Manuel Zelaya. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, it is easy to blame the CIA for everything that happens in Latin America. The intellectual luminaries over at the Democratic Underground are squabbling amongst themselves over the extent of Agency involvement, as are some Ron Paul supporters, but the prize goes to Prison Planet’s theory that the CIA orchestrated the coup because Zelaya wanted to legalize drugs and, well, the CIA just loves the drug war too much to let that happen.
Staff Articles