Thursday, September 11, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Meanwhile NATO is threatening Russia . . .
| Sarkozy Heads to Afghanistan Following French Troop Deaths | |
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Bryant report - Listen (MP3)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy traveled to Afghanistan Tuesday, after 10 French troops were killed and 21 wounded in the deadliest attack in several years on French forces deployed abroad. From Paris, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA.
The French troops were killed in a battle with Taliban insurgents, who, officials say, attacked NATO forces on Monday about 50 kilometers east of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
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| French President Nicolas Sarkozy (file) |
Daniel Korski, a London-based defense specialist for the European Council on Foreign Relations, says the attack is the latest example of resurgent violence in Afghanistan.
"It's an incredibly dangerous mission that both French and other NATO allies are on, and what we've seen since 2007 is an increasingly capable Taliban insurgency - able to hit not just at civilian targets and the reconstruction efforts, but also against NATO soldiers," he said.
Korski says the French government is serious about its commitment in Afghanistan. But the troop deaths may fan doubts on the part of ordinary French about putting their soldiers in the line of fire - doubts that have been voiced in other European countries with troops in Afghanistan.
"The bigger problem is going to be with the French public," he said. "The mission in Afghanistan hasn't received much publicity - perhaps deliberately. And I think to a large extent, the number of deaths we're now talking about may spark the debate that has taken place in Germany, in Britain, in many other European countries - but hasn't really taken place in France yet."
The killings in Afghanistan amount to the deadliest attack on French forces since 2004, when nine French troops were killed in northern Ivory Coast, during the civil war in that West African country.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
How's that Afghanistan war workin' out for ya?
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - In the first week of July, several people were killed in a village in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar by international forces. The US-led coalition forces described the operation as a precision air strike which had killed militants. Locals said they were civilians. Claims. Counter-claims. It seemed business as usual until investigations revealed that the air strike had in fact bombed a wedding party, killing 50, including the bride.
Though the incident was reported widely with concern for the civilian casualties, there was less attention on the other "collateral damage" it caused - the casualty of credibility.
The war of words between anti-government militants and pro-government forces has become so routine that little attention is paid to the contradictions in the claims. In the process, the anti-government insurgents are gaining, a dangerous situation when the government's legitimacy is already under question.
The power of the militants' propaganda is evident from a new report published by the Brussels-based independent International Crisis Group (ICG) this week. The report, "Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words", argues that the Taliban are "successfully tapping into the strains of Afghan nationalism and exploiting policy failures by the Kabul government and its international backers". The result, it says, "is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban".
A boom in independent media, with the help of generous donor support, began in 2001 following the ouster of the Taliban. As media houses mushroomed, however, little attention was paid to the efficacy of the communication strategies of the government and the international community.
Despite considerable funding of the offices of the communications departments of various ministries and high-level offices, little in the way of accountability has been sought from them. While media houses have had to "perform or perish", the communication wings of most government institutions bumbled along.
Take for example access to the media. The presidential spokesman (of Hamid Karzai) and the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior are arguably the two most important offices which give the government's viewpoint on major events. Yet among the media based in Kabul, these two are reliably known as the least accessible and their spokesmen are always "in meetings". Their offices, by relying on single individuals to impart information, are largely mute in their absence.
While spokesmen for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force are available and provide regular updates to the media, the office of the OEF is outside Kabul at the Bagram military base while the NATO media office is based in its headquarters in the capital.
Both bases are heavily fortified, making them difficult to access. The international forces also fail to provide transcripts of their press conferences, even though entering the military compounds is a tedious process which forces many journalists to opt out of attending the regular meetings.
Though the Taliban are understandably not easy to access, they provide ready updates on information and operations and their own claims. According to the ICG, the Taliban's rudimentary website is updated several times a day and the Taliban are able to put out their story rapidly, though its messages are sometimes contradictory.
The speed of the Taliban in communicating with the media is "much easier when spokesmen do not need to establish facts", the ICG states. However, the credibility that could compensate for the pro-government forces' lack of speed is also missing. Attuned to a military culture in which information is just part of propaganda in a situation of conflict, the international forces feel justified in presenting their version of the truth in the ongoing war. Unfortunately, this impacts not just on the military forces, but on the entire international community and the government.
Rather than step up their efforts to communicate, the pro-government forces are relying more on efforts to contain and control the media. Local journalists are from time to time issued "guidelines" on their content. A new media bill that is still on hold has invited fierce opposition from local journalists as it seeks to impose greater curbs on media content.
Journalists are also detained both by the government's national security apparatus and the international forces. While journalists cannot expect automatic exemption from the processes adopted by security agencies, the failure to charge the detainees or to produce any evidence leads to the assumption that the journalists were detained in connection with their professional work - an issue raised by the International Justice Network in Kabul last week.
When tasked with their lack of credibility or media savvy, pro-government spokesmen are prone to compare their efforts with those of the Taliban. However, this comparison is usually counter-productive since it invites the media to view the two "sides" as equal contending parties who need to be evaluated by the same yardstick, rather than automatically distancing the pro-government forces from the Taliban on the basis of a higher moral ground.
"The Taliban are adept at exploiting local disenfranchisement and disillusionment," the ICG report points out, emphasizing that "the Kabul administration needs to ensure it is seen as one worth fighting for, not least by ending the culture of impunity and demanding accountability of its members".
The ICG argues that the Taliban's propaganda is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban. The Karzai government and its allies must make greater efforts, through word and deed, it says, to address sources of alienation exploited in Taliban propaganda, particularly by ending arbitrary detentions and curtailing civilian casualties from aerial bombing.
"Whatever the military benefits of arbitrary detentions, they are far outweighed by the alienation they cause. The effectiveness of aerial bombardment, even if strictly exercised within the bounds of international law, must be considered against the damage to popular support," it says.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
Original article posted here.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Consequences of a lost war
By M K Bhadrakumar
Three or four seemingly unconnected statements within the space of the past week, and the "war on terror" in Afghanistan acquires new shades of meaning. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the holy city of Qom that the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq "under the pretext of the September 11 terror attack".
A day earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who was on a visit to London, publicly expressed skepticism over the conduct of the Afghan war by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He warned that NATO is "courting disaster". On Monday, addressing a student gathering in Beijing's Tsinghua University, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urged Chinese and Russian help in stabilizing Afghanistan. But in the ultimate analysis, it is
the sensational revelation by erstwhile Northern Alliance leaders about their ongoing contacts with the Taliban that makes nonsense of the battle lines of the Afghan war.
The United States' monopoly of the Afghan war is beginning to come under serious public challenge. The "lameduck" George W Bush administration in Washington faces an uphill task to gain mastery over the equations developing on multiple levels.
Meanwhile, some questions arise. Are these statements and public stances essentially more prudent and prophylactic than provocative? Do they stem from a genuine concern in the region that the US is simply unable to forge ahead in the war? Or do they signify the stirrings of a concerted regional challenge to the US mission?
Ahmadinejad's statement is the first time that Tehran has questioned frontally at the highest level of leadership the raison d'etre of the US intervention in Afghanistan. He suggests that terrorism is the pretext rather than the reason for the US intervention. The Iranian leader alleges that the US intervention was more geopolitical. Considering that Iran (under former president Mohammed Khatami) had provided logistical support for the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, Wednesday's statement signifies an important rethink in Tehran. Ahmadinejad has implicitly absolved the Taliban regime of any role as such in the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Compared with the nuanced Iranian statement, Babacan has taken a stance from the perspective of Turkey being a major NATO power. Babacan said in an interview with the London-based Telegraph newspaper that NATO is courting disaster by relying too much on force to defeat the Taliban. He distanced Ankara from the US counterinsurgency strategy by stressing that the shift to a "more militaristic approach would backfire and ultimately undermine the Afghan government".
Babacan forcefully rejected the US criticism that Turkey has refused to deploy troops in the troubled southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. He insisted on the continued logic of Turkey's Afghan policy, which focuses on reconstruction activities aimed at "winning their [Afghans'] hearts and minds". Significantly, he warned that Afghans could "start to perceive the [NATO] security forces as occupiers" and that the situation would become "very complicated". But he, too, avoided any criticism of the Taliban as such.
Interestingly, Babacan made these remarks in an interview in which he underlined Turkey's growing alienation from Europe. Also, on Monday, another round of Turkish-Iranian consultations were held in Ankara regarding bilateral cooperation in regional security, which is already quite substantial.
Musharraf has gone a step even further. He expressed the hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could play a role in stabilizing Afghanistan. He added, "If the SCO can come along, then we would need to ensure that there is no confrontation with NATO." SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members and Iran and Pakistan as "observers".
Musharraf is famous for making impromptu remarks, but the fact that he made such a statement in Beijing merits attention. Pakistan has been seeking full SCO membership. The indications are that Beijing is, in principle, supportive of the Pakistani claim. Reports had also just appeared that Washington is pressing for an intrusive role to monitor the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Musharraf has virtually endorsed a call by Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov at the recent NATO summit meeting in Bucharest (April 2-4) to the effect that the "Six plus Two" format of the 1997-2001 period (with the "six" being the countries bordering Afghanistan and the "two" being Russia and the US), which aimed at bringing about intra-Afghan reconciliation between the Taliban and its opponents, be expanded into a new "Six plus Three" format that would now include NATO, along with China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and the US.
Moscow and Tashkent have a coordinated approach in this regard. Washington finds itself in a quandary to respond to the Uzbek offer of cooperation with NATO, which would mean virtual abandonment of alliance's plans to expand into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.
However, in a hard-hitting speech on Monday at Maxwell-Gunter air force base in Montgomery, Alabama, which was devoted entirely to the US strategy in Afghanistan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice precisely invoked the great Cold War icons - George Marshall, Harry S Truman, George Frost Kennan and Dean Acheson. She sent a stunning message to Moscow that NATO's victory in Afghanistan is "not only essential, it is attainable".
Rice pointed out, "Successes in Afghanistan will advance our broader regional interests in combating violent terrorism, resisting the destabilizing behavior of Iran, and anchoring political and economic liberty in South and Central Asia. And success in Afghanistan is an important test for the credibility of NATO."
Rice coolly ignored the Russian-Uzbek offer of cooperation. Against the above background, this week's statement in Kabul by the top leadership of the erstwhile Northern Alliance (NA) merits close attention.
The NA leaders enjoy the support of Russia, the Central Asian states and Iran - and Turkey to an extent. Sayyed Agha Hussein Fazel Sancharaki, spokesman of these groups which now come under the umbrella of the United National Front (UNF), revealed to the Associated Press (AP) that former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and the top NA commander from Panjshir, Mohammed Qasim Fahim (who also holds the position currently as a security advisor to President Hamid Karzai) have been meeting Taliban and other opposition groups (presumably, the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) during recent months for national reconciliation. He claimed these meetings have involved "important people" from the Taliban.
Indeed, Fahim (who was the chief of intelligence under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud) and Rabbani (who belonged to the original "Peshawar Seven" - mujahideen leaders based in Pakistan in the 1980s) would have old links with Hekmatyar and top Taliban leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani. Rabbani told AP that the six-year war must be resolved through talks.
"We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations," he said. Rabbani added that the opposition leaders would soon discuss and possibly select a formal negotiating team for holding talks with the Taliban. He found fault with Karzai for not pursuing dialogue with the Taliban. "I told Karzai that when a person starts something, he should complete it. On the issue of negotiations, it is not right to take one step forward and then one step back. This work should be continued in a very organized way."
It stands to reason that regional powers - especially Russia, Uzbekistan and Iran - will be watching closely the intra-Afghan dialogue involving the UNF and the Taliban. What gives impetus to this dialogue is apparently that the NATO summit in Bucharest came up with only small troop increments, which puts question marks on the viability and prospects of the NATO operations. But is that all?
These various strands can be expected to run concurrently for a while until some begin to outstrip others. It seems the geopolitics of energy are already taking an early lead. Musharraf last Friday aired with Chinese President Hu Jintao the topic of a gas pipeline connecting Iran and China via Pakistani territory; Iran is pressing for SCO membership; a gas cartel is about to take shape at the seventh ministerial meeting of the gas-exporting countries scheduled to be held in Moscow in June.
China's National Offshore Oil Corporation has confirmed that talks are indeed progressing on a US$16 billion gas deal involving Iran's North Pars gas field, close on the heels of the $2 billion agreement signed in March between the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and Iran for developing the latter's Yadavaran oil field.
A prominent expert, Igor Tomberg of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote recently, "Iran and Russia should probably not compete against each other but rather join hands on the gas market. The Iranian president has more than once suggested to his Russian colleague that their countries coordinate their gas policies and possibly divide gas markets. Moreover, there could be an agreement under which Russia will continue to supply gas to Europe, while Iran will export its gas to the East. This would undermine plans to diversify supply to Europe, which heavily depends on the United States."
Afghanistan is a key hub of resource-rich Central Asia and the Middle East. To use the words from Rice's Montgomery speech, "Let no one forget, Afghanistan is a mission of necessity for the US, not a mission of choice."
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Original article posted here.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The crumbling empire
WASHINGTON - The U.S. is on the verge of losing the war in Afghanistan, says a former top CIA official who was involved in attempts to capture and kill Osama bin Laden.
"Afghanistan of course is a terrible disaster for the United States and NATO. NATO seems to be dying in Afghanistan," says Mike Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit when the war began.
Scheuer is no longer with the agency. His harsh assessment comes in his new book, "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq."
"What we managed to do was what invaders of Afghanistan always do. We took the cities and declared victory, but we didn't kill the enemy," Scheuer tells WTOP.
"The enemy escaped, the Taliban and al Qaida, now we have a growing insurgency in Afghanistan. And, we certainly don't very many more troops to send there."
So, why is the war a disaster? Scheuer says the U.S. made some horrible miscalculations.
"We tried to do Afghanistan on the cheap," he says.
"We tried to win a war with several hundred intelligence officers and about a thousand special forces."
What does Scheuer think should happen now?
"Unfortunately, it would involve several major politicians saying we've lied to you for the last 15 years."
WTOP has contacted the Department of Defense but the department has yet to respond.
(Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. is on the verge of losing the war in Afghanistan, says a former top CIA official who was involved in attempts to capture and kill Osama bin Laden.
"Afghanistan of course is a terrible disaster for the United States and NATO. NATO seems to be dying in Afghanistan," says Mike Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit when the war began.
Scheuer is no longer with the agency. His harsh assessment comes in his new book, "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq."
"What we managed to do was what invaders of Afghanistan always do. We took the cities and declared victory, but we didn't kill the enemy," Scheuer tells WTOP.
"The enemy escaped, the Taliban and al Qaida, now we have a growing insurgency in Afghanistan. And, we certainly don't very many more troops to send there."
So, why is the war a disaster? Scheuer says the U.S. made some horrible miscalculations.
"We tried to do Afghanistan on the cheap," he says.
"We tried to win a war with several hundred intelligence officers and about a thousand special forces."
What does Scheuer think should happen now?
"Unfortunately, it would involve several major politicians saying we've lied to you for the last 15 years."
WTOP has contacted the Department of Defense but the department has yet to respond.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Moron's Missteps: This is what happens when you destroy NATO and lose all military deterrence capability. Introducing a rising Russia
(CNN) -- Russia has not ruled out using force to resolve the dispute over Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia if NATO forces breach the terms of their U.N. mandate, Moscow's ambassador to NATO warned on Friday.
Serbs opposed to Kosovo's independence storm the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade Thursday in Belgrade.
"If the EU works out a single position or if NATO steps beyond its mandate in Kosovo, these organizations will be in conflict with the U.N., and then I think we will also begin operating under the assumption that in order to be respected, one needs to use force," Dmitry Rogozin said, in comments carried by Russia's Interfax news agency.
Russia, which has close ties with Serbia, has refused to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty, triggering a terse diplomatic standoff with the U.S. and several EU member states including the UK, France and Germany which have already recognized its independent status.
NATO has led a 15,000-strong peacekeeping operation -- known as KFOR -- in Kosovo since 1999 under the terms of a U.N. Security Council mandate authorized following a 78-day bombing campaign by the military alliance against Serbia.
Following Kosovo's declaration of independence last weekend, NATO Secretary-General said KFOR would "respond swiftly and firmly against anyone who might resort to violence in Kosovo."
Police were guarding the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade on Friday, one day after a charred body was found and dozens of people were reportedly injured in an attack by angry demonstrators protesting Kosovo's independence from Serbia.
The Embassy's consular section remained closed on Friday as officials were advised to remain in their residences and avoid movement amid continuing fears over anti-Western protests, according to a statement on the U.S. Embassy Web site.
The Embassy warned American citizens to avoid areas of demonstration and to exercise "extreme caution."
Throwing rocks, breaking windows and setting fires, the protesters capped a day of mass protest against Western support for an independent Kosovo.
Thursday's violence was part of a much bigger, peaceful demonstration where up to 150,000 people chanted "Kosovo is Serbia," and vowed to never accept the province's independence.
The larger group of protesters marched to the Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, where a huge outdoor prayer service was held.
Serbian TV showed someone trying to set fire to the U.S. flag at the embassy, which was closed and unstaffed when the masked protesters attacked.
Riot police fired tear gas at the rioters and lines of armored vehicles were on the streets before the embassy perimeter was secured.
Kosovo declared independence last Sunday and the United States was among the first countries to offer official recognition of its split from Serbia. 
Watch a discussion on the history of tense relations between Serbia and Kosovo »
One charred body -- a male protester -- was found in the U.S. Embassy compound, embassy spokesman in Belgrade William Wanlund said.
"I can tell you that it was not an American," said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. All Americans were safe and accounted for, McCormack said. Watch McCormack discuss U.S. embassy security precautions »
Belgrade fire officials said the body was found in an "unoccupied area" of one of the embassy buildings, he said, around the same area as that reached by the demonstrators.
Bratislaw Grubacic, chief editor of VIP magazine in Belgrade, said police reported 32 people injured, including 14 police officers. Watch as a protester tries to set fire to the embassy flag »
Teresa Gould, a translator for Belgrade TV, said the Croatian Embassy next door also was attacked. Police quickly rounded up the demonstrators, witnesses said.
Nikola Jovanovic, a political writer for the newspaper Blic, said two floors of the embassy were burned. He estimated about 50 people, including 15 police officers, were injured.
Serbian media, however, estimated that between 96 and 107 people were injured in the protests, up to 35 of them police officers.
Smaller groups attacked police posts outside the Turkish and British embassies in another part of the city, but were beaten back, The Associated Press reported. 
See photos of the chaos »
"The fact that (independence has) not happened as peacefully as people had hoped is the direct result of the incitement to violence by extremist elements in Belgrade, implicitly and privately supported by the Russians," said Richard Holbrooke, a former negotiator in the Balkans under former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
The U.S. has received assurances from Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica "that there would not be a repeat of this episode, and we will hold them to that," State Department spokesman McCormack said.
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, said: "Those scenes that we saw are regrettable. The Serbian government has repeated time and time again that any solution to the Kosovo problem -- other than peaceful and mutually accepted a compromise solution -- would lead to instability in the region. Unfortunately, this fell on deaf ears."
Kostunica, who earlier addressed the larger peaceful rally, said "Kosovo is Serbia's first name." He called the declaration of independence last Sunday illegal and said he would do all he can to get it annulled.
Tensions also erupted at the Kosovo border checkpoint in Merdare -- about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Kosovo's capital Pristina -- as several hundred Serbian army reservists clashed with NATO-led peacekeepers and police, AP said.
U.N. police said the demonstrators had come by bus from the Serbian town of Kursumlija and were largely army veterans who had fought with the Serbian side in Kosovo's 1998-1999 war, AP reported. Following the clashes, the demonstrators returned to the Serbian side of the checkpoint.Meanwhile, several hundred Bosnian Serbs rallied in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka and in the Sarajevo suburb of Lukavica, AP said.
Students in Lukavica were seen waving Serbian flags and singing Serbian patriotic songs while police in Banja Luka were stopping demonstrators from marching on the U.S. consulate there.Original article posted here.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Who woudda thunk it seven years ago?
| Senior British Diplomat: 'Defeat' a Real Possibility in Afghanistan | |
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| Paddy Ashdown (file photo) |
In an article published Wednesday in Britain's Financial Times, Ashdown notes the upsurge in Taliban-related violence and says public support for the Afghan mission is waning among NATO countries.
Ashdown says to make progress in Afghanistan, NATO must improve security by winning over moderates and convincing ordinary Afghans their government can provide better security than Taliban insurgents.
Ashdown also says there should be a greater focus on strengthening the Afghan government and rule of law, in a country where corruption and lawlessness is growing.
Ashdown, the former U.N. representative to Bosnia, was rejected last month by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the post of U.N. envoy to Afghanistan.
Separately, Italy's defense ministry says an Italian soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack Wednesday outside the Afghan capital, Kabul. Officials say the troops were fired upon by insurgents, as they carried out civilian and military activities in the area.
Also today, at least three Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded when their convoy hit a roadside bomb in the Musa Qala district of the Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
Friday, February 08, 2008
What Sarkozy proposes just after his little honeymoon: Send French soldiers off to die in NATO's lost war
VILNIUS, Lithuania - France is considering sending forces to join the fight against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and planned talks Feb. 8 with Canadian officials requesting 1,000 troops to support its beleaguered soldiers in volatile Kandahar province.
A reversal of France's refusal to deploy combat units to the southern front-lines would ease tensions within NATO. A rift has emerged in the alliance between nations such as the United States, Canada and Britain, who have troops in the south, and those like France, Germany and Italy, whose units operate in the relative safety of north and west Afghanistan.
However, French officials cautioned that it was unlikely Paris would provide all the troops Canada is seeking and said a decision on whether to deploy was unlikely before April, when NATO leaders meet for a summit in Bucharest, Romania.
While NATO defense ministers resumed talks in Lithuania, Canadian diplomats said the delegation heading to Paris would lay out details of what Ottawa needs in Kandahar.
The lack of support from key European allies in southern Afghanistan has provoked stark warnings this week from the United States about the future of alliance unity and prompted an ultimatum from Canada.
Ottawa said it would withdraw its 2,500 troops from their key role in the 43,000-strong NATO force next year unless it got reinforcements. Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Ottawa wants an offer of help by the April summit in Bucharest.
French Defense Minister Herve Morin on Feb. 7 said France would help Canada, but declined to give details. He suggested President Nicolas Sarkozy could announce a strengthening of the French role in Afghanistan with a redeployment of the 1,500 French troops that are mostly in Kabul area.
"My message to the Canadian public is 'be a bit patient,'" Morin said when asked if France would help in the south. However, he added that a media report that Sarkozy was considering the deployment of 700 paratroopers to the south was premature.
"In the framework of this new policy in favor of Afghanistan, what we are studying are several options," he told reporters. "But announcing figures like that is really going too fast."
France, along with Germany, Italy, Spain and Turkey, has so far refused to deploy significant numbers of combat troops in southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency. Although none of the European holdouts has publicly announced a change in its position at the NATO meeting, diplomats were hopeful that France would answer the Canadian appeal.
If Sarkozy were to agree to deploy to the south, it would be a significant shift from the policy of his predecessor Jacques Chirac and underscore the new president's stated aim of improving relations with the United States. Under Sarkozy, France is also considering a full return to NATO's integrated military command, from which President Charles de Gaulle withdrew in the 1960s.
Canadian officials said Canada would likely have talks with other allies, although MacKay acknowledged that not all nations had the military capacity to maintain 1,000 troops in the tough Kandahar battlefields.
Many European governments are under public pressure not to send troops to the Afghan front-lines. Some think it better to focus on reconstruction in the more stable areas rather than pursuing the insurgents. Others say their militaries are stretched elsewhere.
Germany in particular has bristled at recent U.S. criticism, insisting its 3,300 troops in Afghanistan are doing important work supporting reconstruction in the relatively stable north.
"If we constantly rush back and forth between the different regions in Afghanistan, I think that also would be a difficult thing," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin Thursday. "This deployment is not easy and that everyone who is active in this operation is doing his best to build up Afghanistan's overall structure."
Despite the difficulties raising forces, NATO insisted they were gaining ground in the battle against the Taliban and efforts to promote reconstruction in Afghanistan, rejecting the findings of a series of recent high-profile reports.
"Despite some gloomy headlines, there is clear progress," alliance Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said, pointing to military successes against the Taliban and improvements to the country's economy, schools and health care.
With Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak joining the NATO meeting Friday, de Hoop Scheffer stressed the need for the authorities in Kabul to fight corruption, build up a viable police force and take on opium producers.
"Governance must visibly improve, so the Afghan people have trust in their leaders," de Hoop Scheffer said.
He appealed to the United Nations and the European Union - which also attended the meeting - to match NATO's military effort with increased backing for reconstruction.
Original article posted here.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Looks like the Taliban will have crushed NATO
CAMPBELL CLARK
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA — Canada and other countries bearing the brunt of a counterinsurgency in southern Afghanistan will warn NATO defence ministers today that the future of the alliance is on the line unless other members commit more combat troops.
Canada's Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, who arrived in the Lithuanian capital yesterday, made clear that Ottawa is not prepared to negotiate over its conditions for remaining in Kandahar beyond 2009: another 1,000 NATO combat troops and help obtaining helicopters and unmanned drones.
"I expect blunt talk and a frank discussion about - certainly from our perspective - where we find ourselves and what we'd like to see," he said before leaving Canada.
The blunt talk had already begun yesterday, with U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates warning that the failure of some countries to commit more combat troops "puts a cloud over the future of the alliance."
He said that only the Canadians, British, Australians, Dutch and Danes "are really out there on the line and fighting" and said he doubts a seven-month deployment of 3,200 U.S. Marines to southern Afghanistan, to begin in March, will be enough.
"I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security, and others who are not," Mr. Gates said during a Senate hearing in Washington.
He said he has sent letters to every alliance defence minister asking them to contribute more troops and equipment, but hasn't received any replies.
Although he did not identify the other tier, the reluctance of major European countries, such as Germany, Italy and Spain, to commit combat troops to Afghanistan's dangerous south has led to frustration among those who have.
Germany's Defence Minister, Franz Josef Jung, ruled out again yesterday sending troops to the south, even as his country agreed to deploy an additional rapid-reaction force of about 200 to the relatively stable north, where Germany already has about 3,000 soldiers.
In London to discuss Afghanistan strategy with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that NATO faces a turning point.
"The alliance is facing a real test here and it is a test of the alliance's strength," she said at a news conference with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. "Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission. This is a counterinsurgency problem and that's different."
Mr. Brown said NATO needs to share troop and equipment burdens more equitably and called for countries to commit more at an April summit of the alliance's 26 national leaders in Bucharest, Romania.
"What we are looking for, particularly when it comes to the NATO summit a few weeks from now, is a determination on the part of all our allies to ensure the burden-sharing in Afghanistan is fair," he said in the British House of Commons.
While in Vilnius, Mr. MacKay is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Defence Minister Hervé Morin of France - a country that Canada sees as a bright hope for committing troops to Kandahar.
He is also slated to hold bilateral talks with counterparts from countries with troops in southern Afghanistan, including the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands. And tomorrow, he will chair a meeting of ministers from those countries - essentially the group pressuring other countries to do more.
Original article posted here.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
New Nato blueprint for global destruction
by Ian Traynor
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April. "The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.
The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:
· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.
To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:
· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.
· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.
· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.
· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".
In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that Nato's future is on the line in Helmand province.
"Nato's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan," said Van den Breemen.
"Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure," according to the blueprint.
Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country's performance in Afghanistan. "The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner." By insisting on "special rules" for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to "the dissolution of Nato".
Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as "a wake-up call". "This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."
Naumann conceded that the plan's retention of the nuclear first strike option was "controversial" even among the five authors. Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".
Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the west's cold war strategy in defeating the Soviet Union. Critics argue that what was a productive instrument to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.
Robert Cooper, an influential shaper of European foreign and security policy in Brussels, said he was "puzzled".
"Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."
Another senior EU official said Nato needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".
Naumann suggested the threat of nuclear attack was a counsel of desperation. "Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this."
Nato needed to show "there is a big stick that we might have to use if there is no other option", he said.
The Authors:
John Shalikashvili
The US's top soldier under Bill Clinton and former Nato commander in Europe, Shalikashvili was born in Warsaw of Georgian parents and emigrated to the US at the height of Stalinism in 1952. He became the first immigrant to the US to rise to become a four-star general. He commanded Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq at the end of the first Gulf war, then became Saceur, Nato's supreme allied commander in Europe, before Clinton appointed him chairman of the joint chiefs in 1993, a position he held until his retirement in 1997.
Klaus Naumann
Viewed as one of Germany's and Nato's top military strategists in the 90s, Naumann served as his country's armed forces commander from 1991 to 1996 when he became chairman of Nato's military committee. On his watch, Germany overcame its post-WWII taboo about combat operations, with the Luftwaffe taking to the skies for the first time since 1945 in the Nato air campaign against Serbia.
Lord Inge
Field Marshal Peter Inge is one of Britain's top officers, serving as chief of the general staff in 1992-94, then chief of the defence staff in 1994-97. He also served on the Butler inquiry into Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and British intelligence.
Henk van den Breemen
An accomplished organist who has played at Westminster Abbey, Van den Breemen is the former Dutch chief of staff.
Jacques Lanxade
A French admiral and former navy chief who was also chief of the French defence staff.
Original article posted here.
Friday, January 18, 2008
The Afghani Nato blame game.
By M K Bhadrakumar
When the blame-game begins in an indeterminate war, it is time to sit up and take note. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' interview with the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday rings alarm bells.
There has been no effort to claim he was misquoted. In fact, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell confirmed the chief was "not backing off his fundamental criticism that NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] needs to do a better job in training for counter-insurgency".
Morrell made a little concession, though, that Gates meant no offence to any particular NATO country. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer responded he had the "greatest respect" for NATO forces fighting in southern Afghanistan. He advised Washington, "Combating insurgency is a complex thing, and not always easy." At The Hague, the American ambassador was summoned and asked to "clarify". Dutch Defense Minister Van Middlekoop publicly regretted, "This is not the Robert Gates we have come to know." Other European politicians expressed surprise, indignation.
In NATO history there have been few such laundering of dirty linen in public view. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban head Mullah Omar have achieved something that Soviet leaders Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev couldn't.
Washington mocks NATO
Gates' criticism was pinpointed - NATO was a lemon. He said: "I'm worried we're deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counter-insurgency operations ... Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap [NATO's Cold War battle lines in Germany]."
Gates was giving vent to pent-up frustrations. Finally, Afghanistan is threatening to be a blemish on his successfully nurtured record in public service. On December 11, at the US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan, Gates admitted somberly, "If I had to sum up the current situation in Afghanistan, I would say there is reason for optimism, but tempered by caution."
Gates warned the NATO mission "has exposed real limitations in the way the alliance is, or organized, operated and equipped. I believe the problem arises in a large part due to the way various allies view the very nature of the alliance in the 21st century, where in a post-Cold War environment, we have to be ready to operate in distant locations against insurgencies and terrorist networks." He solicited help from US Congressmen for "pressuring" the NATO capitals "to do the difficult work of persuading their own citizens [in Europe] of the need to step up to this challenge."
Gates again spoke forcefully at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 14. But "no one at the table stood up and said: 'I agree with that'," he later lamented.
This week, the Pentagon underscored its displeasure by making a deployment of 3,200 Marine Corps to southern Afghanistan, bringing the US presence to about 30,000 troops. The NATO force in Afghanistan numbers about 40,000, of which 14,000 are Americans. The Washington Post described the US move as one to "fill a void created in part by NATO's inability to fight the insurgency adequately, a job the allies never signed up to do". The majority of the marines will be directly engaged in fighting in the south alongside British, Australian, Dutch and Canadian troops, who have taken record casualties during the past year.
Of course, shadowboxing is to be expected in the run-up to the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, in April, where Afghanistan will be a key agenda item. But that cannot explain away the unusual public discord. The reluctance on the part of major NATO powers to commit more troops to Afghanistan arises as much out of profound disagreement with Washington over the objectives of the war and the fashion in which the US spearheads the war as in deference to growing anti-war sentiment in Europe.
A general hits out
Gates' criticism draws heavily from a recent study authored by the US general who commanded the forces in Afghanistan from October 2003 until May 2005, Lieutenant General David W Barno, in the prestigious journal Military Review. Barno is an influential voice in the US defense community. He chose to begin his paper devoted to the counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, citing lines by ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu, "Strategy without tactics is the slowest road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
Barno claimed the US counter-insurgency strategy during his period produced "positive and dramatic" results. He gave the "center of gravity" in his strategy to the Afghan people and not the "enemy". He kept in view the Afghan people's "immense enmity to foreign forces" and deduced that eschewing the "Soviet attempt at omnipresence" in Afghanistan, only through a "light footprint approach" instead, could the war be successfully fought.
Barno wrote that Afghan people's tolerance for a foreign presence was "a bag of capital [that was] finite and had to be spent slowly and frugally" and, therefore, under his charge US forces took great care to avoid Afghan casualties, detainee abuse, or transgressions in observance of respect to tribal leaders or causing offence to traditional Afghan culture.
Second, Barno outlined that he and the then-US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, bonded as a team and they had a "unity of purpose" in ensuring perfect interagency and international-level coordination. According to Barno, the slide began in mid-2005 after he and Khalilzad were reassigned. Washington then decided to publicly announce that NATO was assuming responsibility for the war and that the US was making a token withdrawal of 2,500 troops.
"Unsurprisingly, this was widely viewed in the region as the first signal that the United States was 'moving for the exits', thus reinforcing long-held doubts about the prospects of sustained American commitment. In my judgement, these public moves have served more than any other US actions since 2001 [the fall of the Taliban] to alter the calculus of both our friends and our adversaries across the region - and not in our favor."
Barno implied NATO messed up the top-notch command structure he created. The result is, "With the advent of NATO military leadership, there is today no single comprehensive strategy to guide the US, NATO, or international effort." Consequently, he says, the unity of purpose - both interagency and international - has suffered and unity of command is fragmented, and tactics have "seemingly reverted to earlier practices such as the aggressive use of airpower".
Barno makes some chilling conclusions. First, he says the "bag of capital" representing the tolerance of Afghan people for foreign forces is diminishing. Second, NATO narrowly focuses on the "20% military dimension" of the war, while ignoring the 80% comprising non-military components. Third, the "center of gravity" of the war is no longer the Afghan people but the "enemy". Fourth, President Hamid Karzai's government is ineffectual "under growing pressure from powerful interests within his administration". Fifth, corruption, crime, poverty and a burgeoning narcotics trade have eroded public confidence in Karzai. Finally, "NATO, the designated heir to an originally popular international effort, is threatened by the prospects of mounting disaffection among the Afghan people."
What can be achieved?
Somewhere along the line, mud-slinging had to happen. Yet, almost everything Barno wrote could be true. Barno drew a handsome self-portrait. He whitewashes a controversial phase of the war. NATO inherited a dysfunctional war. By end-2006, it was no longer a winnable war. When the alliance's defense ministers gathered in the Dutch seaside resort of Noordwijk last November to commemorate the first anniversary of NATO in Afghanistan, the crisis atmosphere was palpable.
There were no offers of major reinforcements by the member countries. The Dutch indicated they were close to withdrawing their 1,600-strong contingent from Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan the coming autumn. The likely knock-on effect of the Dutch decision on countries such as Canada worried everyone present at the meeting. Germany, France, Italy and Spain insisted they were constrained by their national caveats guiding deployment of troops on non-combat roles.
The result has been a sort of "Balkanization" of Afghanistan, as Daan Everts, outgoing civilian representative of the NATO secretary general in Kabul, admitted to al-Jazeera in a recent interview. "You have a little 'German Afghanistan' in the north, an 'Italian Afghanistan' in the west, 'Dutch Afghanistan' in Uruzgan and a 'Canadian Afghanistan' in Kandahar and so on. Geographically we [NATO] have been fractured, but also sectorally with equal ineffectiveness - like giving the justice sector totally to the Italians, counter-narcotics to the British, the police to Germans, anti-terrorism to the Americans."
Everts was unusually frank for a high-ranking NATO official. He said Afghan reconstruction has been a "bonanza for consultants, serious consultants, half-baked consultants, marginal consultants and mailbox consultants"; there has been an outflow of resources from Afghanistan of up to 40% of aid given to the country. "So there is this aid industry that descends on a poor nation and runs away with part of the loot." He called for a government in Kabul that is "more serious about problems" such as corruption, drug-trafficking and law-enforcement.
In such a mess, Lord (Paddy) Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon is due to arrive in Kabul shortly as the United Nations' super envoy. Is a British colonial-style governor the right answer? Lord Ashdown - former Royal Marine commando and special forces officer, Liberal Democrat leader, member of Parliament, the European Union's high representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina during 2002-2006 - is a forceful personality, and was hugely successful in restoring order to the Balkan country torn apart by violence and ethnic cleansing.
But Afghanistan is notoriously untamed in history. Ashdown has sought to combine Everts' former responsibilities with those of Tom Koenigs, the low-profile German diplomat who served as the UN's special representative in Afghanistan. He hopes to be the main point of contact between Karzai's government and the international forces, the European Union policing mission and the UN contingent, apart from coordinating Afghan reconstruction efforts.
That is much too much for anyone to take on. But Ashdown is gifted. Even then, the chances are the blame-game is going to accelerate. The Afghans are unlikely to accept a British viceroy - even if he wears a blue beret. Karzai's government resents being bypassed. While in theory a "unity of purpose" and a formal link between the Afghan government and among NATO and the EU and the UN is desirable, there are problems. Some UN member countries do not want a direct relationship with NATO (or vice versa). NATO will chaff at subordination to the UN. There is no such thing as a unified EU voice. Least of all, Washington simply doesn't know how to be self-effacing.
Reconciliation with the Taliban
But then, Ashdown's real mission lies elsewhere, in addressing the core issue: What do we do with the Taliban? No doubt, the Taliban's exclusion from the Bonn conference seven years ago proved to be a horrible mistake. That was also how the Afghan and Pakistan problem came to be joined at the hips.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf made a valid point in his interview with the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel this week when he said al-Qaeda isn't the real problem that faces Pakistan. "I don't deny the fact that al-Qaeda is operating here [Pakistan]. They are carrying out terrorism in the tribal areas; they are the masterminds behind these suicide bombings. While all of this is true, one thing is for sure: the fanatics can never take over Pakistan. This is not possible. They are militarily not so strong they can defeat our army, with its 500,000 soldiers, nor politically - and they do not stand a chance of winning the elections. They are much too weak for that," Musharraf said.
The heart of the matter is Pashtun alienation. The Taliban represent Pashtun aspirations. As long as Pashtuns are denied their historical role in Kabul, Afghanistan cannot be stabilized and Pakistan will remain in turmoil. Musharraf said, "There should be a change of strategy right away. You [NATO] should make political overtures to win the Pashtuns over."
This may also be the raison d'etre of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's intriguing choice of a Briton as his new special representative. Conceivably, the inscrutable Ban has been told by Washington that Ashdown is just the right man to walk on an upcoming secretive bridge, which will intricately connect New York, Washington, London, Riyadh, Islamabad and Kabul.
The point is, Britain grasps the Pashtun problem. Britain realizes that the induction of US special forces into the Pakistani tribal areas, or the custodianship of Pakistan's nuclear stockpile, or an al-Qaeda takeover in Pakistan isn't quite the issue today.
That is why Musharraf's four-day visit to London starting on January 25 assumes critical importance. British mediation in Pakistani politics may already be working. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has begun calibrating his stance.
Reconciliation between Musharraf and the Sharif brothers is in the cards. Shahbaz Sharif will be on call in London during Musharraf's stay there. If the reconciliation - thanks to British (and Saudi) mediation - leads to the formation of a national government in Pakistan, a leadership role for Nawaz Sharif may ensue and Pakistani politics may gain traction. Nawaz Sharif is the only politician today with the credentials and stature to mount the dangerous platform of Islamist nationalism and reach out to the Taliban and its followers inside Pakistan. The Sharif brothers could be invaluable allies for the Pakistani military - and for NATO - at this juncture.
Barno sidesteps the ground realities. The US strategy's real failure happened, in fact, in the 2003-2005 period when he was in charge of the war. Of course, the failure was not at the military level, but at the political and diplomatic level. That was a crucial phase when the window of opportunity was still open for a course correction over the Taliban's exclusion from the Afghan political process. The Taliban should have been invited to come in from the cold and join an intra-Afghan dialogue and reconciliation. The extreme emotions of 2001 had by then begun to ebb away.
On the contrary, Khalilzad's diplomatic brief was that the US presidential election of 2004 was the priority for the White House. The "war on terror" in Afghanistan was a milch cow in US domestic politics. Presidential advisor Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney shrewdly calculated that an enemy in the Hindu Kush was useful for the Republican Party campaign, while resonance of the booming guns in Afghanistan would be a good backdrop for election rhetoric against a decorated war veteran like John Kerry.
And, showcasing of Karzai in Kabul's presidential palace helped display Afghanistan as a success story. A victorious Karzai indeed landed in the US to a hero's welcome from George W Bush on election eve. Bush went on to win a second term, but the Afghan war was lost. The slide began by mid-2005 as the embittered Taliban began regrouping. As the year progressed, as Everts and many others pointed out, the Iraq war "sucked the oxygen away from Afghanistan". How could Gates possibly admit all that? He would rather NATO take the blame. But then, it is a sideshow in actuality.
Britain is now called on to salvage the Afghan war. NATO at best will be a sleeping partner. The Hindu Kush is all set to be Lord Ashdown's theater. He represents the UN; the White House reposes confidence in him; he takes counseling and directions from London, which coordinates with Riyadh and Islamabad - and then, gingerly, he sets out, searching for the Taliban. Incidentally, among his many attributes, Lord Ashdown is a gifted polyglot who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and other languages. Maybe he already speaks Pashto.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Original article posted here.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The warming of the New Cold War
 |
President Vladimir Putin warned NATO against "muscle-flexing" on Russia's border Tuesday and ordered top generals to raise the combat readiness of the country's nuclear missiles.
Meanwhile, the armed forces chief of staff, General Yury Baluyevsky, also confirmed that Russia would suspend adherence to a key Cold War arms treaty on December 12, news agencies reported.
"In violation of previous agreements, certain member countries of the NATO alliance are increasing their resources next to our borders," Putin told a meeting of defence chiefs in Moscow in comments broadcast on state television.
"Russia cannot remain indifferent to the clear muscle-flexing," he said.
The Kremlin leader, who earlier this year threatened to target nuclear missiles at Europe, said he wanted the atomic arsenal put on a higher level of readiness.
"One of the most important tasks remains raising the combat readiness of the strategic nuclear forces. They should be ready to deliver a quick and adequate reply to any aggressor," Interfax quoted him as saying.
Baluyevsky told the meeting of top brass that Russia would "certainly" suspend its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty on December 12.
"We will certainly fulfil this ruling exactly on time," Baluyevsky was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying, following a vote in parliament to suspend application of the CFE.
However, Putin left the door open to Russia resuming participation, saying Moscow will "re-examine the possibility of renewing its obligations after our partners join the adapted treaty and, more importantly, implement it."
The 1990 CFE treaty places strict limitations on the deployment of tanks and other military hardware across Europe.
Russia says it cannot stick to the CFE rules until members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ratify an updated version of the accord.
NATO has said it will do so only when Russia pulls its forces out of two ex-Soviet republics -- Georgia and Moldova.
The treaty's demise highlights deteriorating relations between Moscow and countries of the Atlantic alliance as Putin's administration pushes to reassert Russia on the international stage.
Putin ordered the CFE moratorium on July 13 amid a row over US plans to install an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. Last Friday, the senate voted unanimous approval of the decree.
NATO criticised the decision as "regrettable."
Earlier this month, Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Kolmakov said that plans were being considered for boosting troop deployments on Russia's western flank, something impossible under the CFE.
Russia has also this year renewed long-distance strategic bomber patrols and to withdraw from other bedrock disarmament treaties dating from the Cold War.
Adding to the tension is the growing unease in the West with wide-ranging limitations imposed by Putin on democratic reforms and what critics call Russia's aggressive use of massive energy resources.
Moscow accuses Washington of interfering in Russia's backyard and attempting to rule the world as the sole superpower.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
As American power crumbles, little European countries rightly fear Russian resurgence
By Adam B. Ellick
EVEN as Jonas Kronkaitis, now retired as Lithuania's top general, admires the transformation of this once drab Soviet city into a proud member of the New Europe, a worry eats at him: Russian power is rapidly returning to the Baltics, only this time the weapons are oil and money, not tanks.
Kronkaitis has a unique perspective. He fled Lithuania to America as a boy in 1944, and served nearly 30 years in the United States Army before returning to command his newly independent country's military in the 1990's. He engineered its entry into NATO in 2004, thinking this would help cement security for the tiny Baltic nation. Now he says his hopeful view was wrong.
The signs of Russia's resurgent influence are everywhere in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia: in Kremlin-financed media; in the financing of local politicians and economic development; in a growing assertiveness, encouraged by Moscow, among the third of the Baltic population that is of Russian heritage; in the Kremlin's manipulation of its energy supplies as a bludgeon.
These tactics — especially the use of Russian cash — have evoked stress in the Baltics that was unthinkable even five years ago.
"What we are afraid of is the very huge money that comes from Russia that can be used to corrupt our officials," Kronkaitis said in an interview. "And I'm talking about very large money. Money can then be used to control our government. Then Lithuania, in a very subtle way, over many years perhaps, becomes dominated and loses its independence."
"Over many years" may be an understatement, Baltic nationalists say. In 2004, Lithuania's president was impeached for alleged connections to Russia's secret service and big business.
It all seems part of a strategy by President Vladimir Putin to revive Russian power in much of Eastern Europe.
For the Balts, any move that angers Russia runs huge risks. Last month, for example, the Estonian state prosecutor charged four ethnic Russians with organizing riots in April to protest the government's move of a statue of a Soviet soldier from the capital to a suburb as the anniversary of victory in World War II neared. The Russian-language press had egged on the protesters.
"There is reason to believe that financial support and advice to organize mass disorders was also received from the Russian Federation," the prosecutor said. After the riots, hackers briefly paralyzed Estonia's government and banks, and Estonia said the cyberattacks were traced to Kremlin addresses.
The tensions over the riots come as the Baltic countries are trying to challenge Russia's energy monopoly. All three are resisting an ambitious Russian-German plan to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea that would send gas directly from Russia to Western Europe — bypassing the Baltics and cutting them out of transit fees and access to the flow. Estonia has led this opposition, with a challenge on environmental grounds. Many Balts find it disheartening that the former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, sits on the board of the joint venture, in which Russians hold a 51 percent interest.
Gazprom, the Russian oil giant, already controls more than 35 percent of Baltic gas companies. Latvia has been cut off from an old Russian oil pipeline since 2003 and Lithuania since 2006, forcing them to import more expensive oil by ship. The Russians blame pipeline problems, but Latvians and Lithuanians don't believe that; Estonia was shut off for several weeks after the spring riots.
Any Baltic defiance of Russian pressure is made more emotional by their shared and bitter history. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania began the 20th century under Russia's czars but gained independence after World War I.
Then, after the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact in 1939, Soviet troops swept in and Stalin deported hundreds of thousands of Balts to die in Siberian gulags. When Hitler's troops marched through in turn, many Balts saw the Germans as liberators — and significant numbers collaborated with the Nazis to annihilate the region's Jews.
After the war came an influx of Russian workers whose presence would, in time, be cited by the Soviets to claim that these states should never again get independence. For its part, the Putin government has campaigned for ethnic Russians to insist on attaining a stronger voice by accepting Baltic citizenship.
"In the Baltics, history is a ghost that still walks the streets in a very active way," said Daina Eglitis of George Washington University. "It's not just past, it's present. But people have different readings on it."
One example is a Vilnius tourist attraction, the torture chambers of the old KGB headquarters, which had been Gestapo headquarters. It is now the Museum of Genocide Victims, but "genocide" applies only to what Russians did to Balts — not to what Nazis and their local collaborators did to Jews.
The museum all but ignores the Baltic people's role in the Holocaust, an omission that angers not only Jews, but also Russians, who view the Soviets as liberators and are now reasserting control over the historical record. For example, a new pan-Baltic Russian-language television station, financed by the Kremlin, often features documentaries that praise the Soviet Union.
About one-third of Lithuania's television stations are already in Russian. "Russians buy our politicians, they buy our press, and they buy our minds — I think that's all," Indre Makaraityte, editor of Revival, an independent Lithuanian newspaper, said sarcastically.
She organized a demonstration in May to support Estonia against the ethnic Russians' protests and show solidarity with the West. But she says she was disheartened when European and American leaders took a week to condemn Russia after the riots.
"We became members of NATO and EU expecting we would be defended immediately," she said. "There's a fear of Russia, and a fear that we are again alone, not defended by our Western partners. They are too naïve in evaluating Russia."
Original article posted here.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Nice short article getting the points across
Ten Reasons Why Russia Can’t Trust Uncle Sam by Robert Bridge | |
Global Research, August 26, 2007 | |
The West says that it is perplexed by Russia's "aggressive" behavior of late, and suggests that Moscow is desirous to regain its past superpower status, and even a little empire. But if cashing in on oil is imperialism, how do we explain the following U.S. moves:
9. "Mission Accomplished" 8. Pentagon Spending Spree 7. NATO XXL 6. New Military Bloopers 5. Think-Tank Saber Rattling 4. Cheney Comfort 3. Gates' Gated Community 2. EU Culpability 1. Don't Worry, These anti-Missile Missiles won't Hurt You, Really - Washington is now incredulous, shocked, mortified that Moscow has the nerve to suggest that there could be less than good intentions involved in the construction of an anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even though there are no bad-guy technologies on the horizon that such a system could intercept. Go figure! | |
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Afghanistan not looking good
Mark Townsend
British troops could remain in Afghanistan for more than the 38 years it took them to pull out of Northern Ireland. That is the bleak assessment by Army commanders on the ground in Helmand province.
In an interview with The Observer at HQ in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, Brigadier John Lorimer, commander of UK forces in Helmand, said: 'If you look at the insurgency then it could take maybe 10 years. Counter-narcotics, it's 30 years. If you're looking at governance and so on, it looks a little longer. If you look at other counter-insurgency operations over the last 100 years then it has taken time.'
His scenario is the starkest assessment yet from a senior officer tasked with defeating the Taliban, tackling the heroin trade and rebuilding the war-ravaged country. Last week troops pulled out of Northern Ireland after 38 years, the longest operation in UK military history. Afghanistan, commanders fear, may take longer.
Lorimer said he could visualise UK forces staying in Helmand after the Taliban and a growing counter-insurgency was defeated. His comments came as British infantry, often fighting for hours in temperatures of up to 50C, pushed north against well-defended Taliban positions.
Scores of soldiers have succumbed to heatstroke while hundreds have battled on despite dehabilitating illness. Almost 50 out of 160 forward troops reported severe sickness and diarrhoea in the forward base at Sangin last month. A number of troops have lost limbs during firefights in the upper Gereshk valley, south of Sangin.
The 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglians, with 650 soldiers in Afghanistan, has used 480,100 rounds since the start of April. Former defence secretary John Reid envisaged operations could be conducted without firing a single bullet.
Original article posted here.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
US not the only one who can say "fuck off" to treaties
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russia on Saturday suspended its participation in a key European arms control treaty that governs deployment of troops on the continent, the Kremlin said, a move that threatened to further aggravate Moscow's already tense relations with the West.
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty due to "extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe.
Under the moratorium, Russia would halt inspections and verifications of its military sites by NATO countries and would no longer limit the number of its conventional weapons, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In Brussels, NATO spokesman James Appathurai condemned the decision. "NATO regrets this decision by the Russian Federation. It is a step in the wrong direction," Appathurai said.
The treaty, between Russian and NATO members, was signed in 1990 and amended in 1999 to reflect changes since the breakup of the Soviet Union, adding the requirement that Moscow withdraw troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia.
Russia has ratified the amended version, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to do so until Russia completely withdraws.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could no longer tolerate a situation where it was complying with the treaty but its partners were not, and he expressed hope that Russia's move would induce Western nations to commit to the updated treaty.
"Such a situation contradicts Russia's interests," Peskov told The Associated Press. "Russia continues to expect that other nations that have signed the CFE will fulfill their obligations."
The treaty is seen as a key element in maintaining stability in Europe. It establishes limitations on countries' deployment of tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters and combat aircraft.
Withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty would allow Moscow to build up forces near its borders.
But Russian military analysts have said the possibility of suspending participation in the treaty was a symbolic rising of ante in the missile shield showdown more than a sign of impending military escalation.
Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defense analyst, said the moratorium probably won't result in any major buildup of heavy weaponry in European Russia. Russia has no actual interest in the highly costly build up of forces because it faces no real military threat and has no plans to launch an attack of its won, he said.
But, he said, it could mean an end to onsite inspections and verifications by NATO countries, which many European nations rely on to keep track of Russian deployments.
For the United States, the moratorium will mostly be a symbolic gesture, he said, since the U.S. has an extensive intelligence network that keeps close track of Russian forces. But it will still be seen as another unfriendly move in Washington, Felgenhauer predicted.
"This will be a major irritant," he said. "It will seriously spoil relations. The kind of soothing effect from the last summit with Putin and (President) Bush will evaporate swiftly," he said referring a summit between the leaders earlier this month at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Felgenhauer also said that there is no provision under the treaty for a moratorium, suggesting Russia was acting illegally. "This is basically non-compliance, and this is an illegal move," he said.
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