9. November 2010 by admin.

Why Obama’s India Trip Matters? President Barack Obama is on a high-profile diplomatic trip to India this week, furthering Obama’s goal of deepening U.S.-India ties and addressing a number of related issues. Since entering office, Obama has continued President George W. Bush’s emphasis on building a special relationship between the two countries, making Indian Prime Minister Manmohan K. Singh the guest of honor at Obama’s first official state dinner. Here’s what’s happening on the visit, why it matters, and what it could mean for the two countries and beyond.

• Why the U.S. and India Want to Be Best Friends  The New York Times’ Jim Yardley writes, “Both countries are eager to build on their improved ties and set up a unique, special relationship, given that together they represent the world’s richest and largest democracies. Faced with a rising authoritarian China, and an economically wounded Europe, a weakened United States is casting about for global partners. India would seem a nice fit.”

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9. November 2010 by admin.

The other elephant

Barack Obama thinks that the rise of India will be good for American jobs. There is another side to the story

ON THE eve of the 2008 New Hampshire primary Bill Clinton finally gave vent to his fury with the Obama campaign. He dismissed Barack Obama’s message as “the biggest fairy tale” he had ever heard. (“Give…me…a…break,” he roared at the startled crowd.) And he denounced underhand tactics, particularly a description of Hillary Clinton as “the senator from Punjab”.

On November 5th Mr Obama, fresh from his humiliation in the mid-term elections, flies to India accompanied by an entourage of almost 250 businesspeople. His message for the folks back home will be that India could be a goldmine for American jobs. And he will clinch a succession of huge business deals with India—not least a $5.8 billion aircraft sale by Boeing.

Mr Obama’s win-win rhetoric is plausible enough. India is growing at about 8% a year at a time when America can barely manage 2%. It is also set to add 240m people to its working population by 2030. And America produces all sorts of things that Indians crave, from iPads to MBAs to fighter planes.

Yet the rise of new economic powers always brings problems as well as opportunities for incumbents. New companies displace old ones. New business models disrupt established ones. Comfortable workers in the rich world are forced to compete with hungrier ones in the poor world.

India is producing a legion of new global giants that are competing head-to-head with established American companies. Look at Arcelor Mittal and Tata Steel in steelmaking; Bharat Forge and Sundram Fasteners in car parts; Hindalco in aluminium rolling; and a host of companies, including Infosys, Tata Consulting Services (TCS), Cognizant and HCL Technologies, in information services. Twenty years ago India had no global companies worth mentioning. Today the Tata group earns 60% of its revenues abroad, and Indian companies ranging from natural-resource firms, such as Reliance Industries, to health-care companies, such as Pirmal Healthcare, have been snapping up American brands.

American companies are also setting up shop in India. Bangalore and Hyderabad have “electronic cities” crowded with America’s leading companies. In Bangalore Cisco spent $1 billion on its Globalisation Centre East and General Electric (GE) opened a swanky research centre. IBM employs more people in India than in the United States.

For American workers the most worrying thing about all this is the flight of brain-intensive jobs to India. Americans reconciled themselves to the loss of manufacturing jobs with the thought that they would keep the smart jobs. But they reckoned without two things: the power of the internet and the hunger of emerging-market companies.

India has long since turned itself into the world’s back-office—subjecting paper-processing hubs such as Kansas City to the same forces of competition that devastated former industrial cities such as Gary, Indiana. Now Indian-based companies are moving into an wider range of services: reading CT-scans and X-rays, processing legal documents and helping with animation. They are also moving into sophisticated niches. TCS and Infosys compete directly with IBM and Accenture in consulting. American companies are adding to the trend by moving more of their important operations to India: John Chambers, Cisco’s boss, has decreed that 20% of the firm’s leadership should be in Bangalore.

Companies in India are challenging American ones in an area that they have long considered their own—innovation. The Boston Consulting Group’s 2010 survey of innovation notes that the number of American companies on its list of top innovators is declining while the number of Indian companies is rising. It also points out that the Indian firms place a higher value on innovation than the American companies.

Most strikingly, Indian companies have produced a new type of innovation, variously dubbed “frugal”, “reverse” and “Gandhian”. The essence is to reduce the price of a product or service by a breathtaking amount—80% rather than 10%—by removing unnecessary bells and whistles. Tata Motors is selling its “people’s car” for $3,000; GE’s Indian arm offers a medical ECG machine for $400; Bharat Biotech sells a single dose of its hepatitis B vaccine for 20 cents and Bharti Airtel provides one of the cheapest wireless telephone services in the world. These frugal products are likely to disrupt established Western companies (including GE itself) by forcing them to engage in a bloody price war.

Luring them back

To add to this general turbulence Indian-based companies are also on a hiring binge. For decades America has gorged itself on a seemingly limitless supply of brilliant Indian PhD students and entrepreneurs. Half of Silicon Valley’s start-ups were either founded or co-founded by Indians. But these paragons are now returning en masse to the mother country (just as America makes life more difficult for immigrants). Why work for a sluggardly American firm when Infosys is growing at double digits? Why live in a flimsy bungalow in the Valley when an Indian company will provide you with a villa in a gated community, membership of a country club and a chauffeur-driven car?

There is an upside to these downsides. Frugal products will be a godsend for America’s pinched consumers. They may even prevent the American economy from being crushed by the health-care Godzilla. But Americans need to get back on the treadmill. In a recent speech Mr Obama told schoolchildren in Philadelphia that: “When students around the world in Bangalore or Beijing are working harder than ever, and doing better than ever, your success in school is not just going to determine your success, it is going to determine America’s success in the 21st century.” That is not a bad theme for the next two years of his presidency.

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6. November 2010 by admin.

U.S. President Barack Obama begins a four-day visit to India today (on Nov. 6), heading a 375-member entourage of security personnel, policymakers, business leaders and journalists to demonstrate to the world that the U.S.-Indian relationship is serious and growing.Obama will begin his visit in the financial hub of Mumbai, where he will make a symbolic show of solidarity with India on the counterterrorism front by staying at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, which came under attack in 2008, and highlight corporate compatibility between the two countries. Obama will spend the rest of the trip in New Delhi, where he will address a joint session of Parliament, a reciprocal gesture following Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to Congress in November 2009.Most Indians and Americans think and hope that Indo-US relations could be much better and closer than what it is now. However, regardless of what one may want the relations to be like, the geopolitical needs of both the countries are different and there are and will be numerous issues on which India and America will have to agree to disagree on. How did the biggest and largest democracies of the world drifted apart and failed to build close and deep relationship is a matter of historical and geopolitical analysis and beyond the scope of current article. But in spite of that, there is little doubt that the United States and India are sounding a much deeper and strategic relationship, as illustrated by their bilateral civilian nuclear agreement, growing business links, arms deals and a host of military exercises taking place over the next several months. Still, very real and unavoidable constraints on ties remain in place, constraints that will hamper this already uneasy partnership from developing into a robust alliance. The immediate hindrance lies in the U.S. strategic need to bolster Pakistan to shape a U.S. exit strategy from Afghanistan and try to shore up the balance of power on the subcontinent. In the longer term, however, India could use the threat of Chinese expansion in Beijing’s perceived sphere of influence to enhance its relationship with Washington.Strategic MotivationsIndia does not make friends easily (or has failed to recognize and make friends easily), particularly friends with militaries capable of reaching the subcontinent. India grew closer to the Soviets during the Cold War out of fear of the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, but only because Moscow’s military reach into the subcontinent was limited. After the Soviet Union collapsed, India was left without a meaningful ally, all the while becoming deeply resentful of the blind eye Washington turned toward the rise of Pakistan’s Islamist proxies in Kashmir and Afghanistan.The 9/11 attacks finally created an opportunity for a U.S.-Indian relationship to materialize. Both countries had common cause to cooperate with each other against Pakistan, neutralize the jihadist threat and embark on a real, strategic partnership. For the United States, this was the time to play catch-up in balance-of-power politics in South Asia. The U.S. interest at any given point on the subcontinent is to prevent any one power from becoming strong to the point that it could challenge the United States, while at the same time protecting vital sea lanes running from East Asia to the Persian Gulf via the Indian Ocean basin. The United States has the naval assets to guard these maritime routes directly, but as it extends itself more and more worldwide, its need for regional proxies grows. Though India’s capabilities remain quite limited given its domestic challenge, it is an aspiring naval power with a deep fear of Chinese encroachment and Islamist militancy.India also has a massive consumer market of 1.2 billion people and has the United States at the top of its list of trading partners. A roughly balanced and diversified relationship exists between the two economies, even as protectionist tendencies run heavily on both sides of the trade divide. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States exported $16.4 billion worth of goods and services to India, mostly aircraft, fertilizers, computer hardware, scrap metal and medical equipment, while India exported $21 billion worth of goods and services to the United States, mostly information technology services, pharmaceuticals, textiles, machinery, gems and diamonds, iron and steel products, and food products. India thus makes a strong candidate for a regional U.S. proxy.But this is where a fundamental U.S.-Indian disconnect arises. India is far from interested in molding itself into a proxy of the global hegemon. India’s self-enclosed geography and internal strengths permit it to remain fiercely independent in its foreign policy calculations, unlike much weaker Pakistan, which needs an external patron to feel secure.The United States has been caught off guard every time New Delhi takes a stance that runs counter to U.S. interests, something that has happened despite the U.S. charm offensive toward India that revved up in 2005 with a civilian nuclear deal. India has refused to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran, still has reservations about allowing U.S. firms into the Indian nuclear market after the bilateral nuclear deal, and protests what New Delhi perceives as U.S. interference in the Kashmir dispute. As a former Indian national security adviser put it, India is happy to have its partnership with the United States, but Washington is going to have to get used to hearing “no” from India on numerous issues.The Pakistan ProblemThe much more urgent misalignment of interests hindering the U.S.-India relationship concerns Pakistan and the future of Afghanistan. In 2001, when al Qaeda struck the United States and Pakistan-backed militants attacked the Indian parliament soon after, India sensed an opportunity. The Cold War shackles on ties were broken as the urgency of a broader Islamist militant threat drove New Delhi and Washington together. India hoped the bond would sustain itself, keeping Pakistan isolated over the long term, but it was only a matter of time before U.S. efforts to balance India against Pakistan disappointed New Delhi.The United States has now reached a saturation point in its war in Afghanistan. While short-term military victories have provided Washington useful political cover as they do in all unpopular wars, they obscure the core disadvantage occupiers face against the insurgents when it comes to on-the-ground intelligence, corruption, population control, and the insurgent luxury of choosing the time and place of battle. Washington is thus shaping an exit strategy from Afghanistan. This necessarily will involve some sort of accommodation with the Taliban that only one power in the region has the relationship to orchestrate: Pakistan.Pakistan has every interest in having the United States as its patron and keeping it involved in the region, but not to the extent that U.S. military activity in the Pakistani-Afghan borderland risks severely destabilizing the Pakistani state. For its part, the United States does not want India to become the unchallenged hegemon of the subcontinent at the expense of a much weaker Pakistan. This means that in return for Pakistani cooperation in tying up loose ends in the jihadist war, Pakistan will expect the United States to facilitate a restoration of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. This would extend Pakistan’s strategic depth, stifling any Indian attempt to develop a foothold in the region that could see Pakistan wind up in a pincer grip.This naturally upsets New Delhi, which maintains that Islamabad will continue to compensate for its military weakness by backing militant proxies to target the Indian state, something Washington is ignoring to achieve its goals in Afghanistan. India sees a Taliban political comeback in Afghanistan as setting the stage for Pakistan-backed militants to regroup. More worryingly for New Delhi, a number of these militants have been drawn into a much more unpredictable, lethal jihadist network that makes it harder for New Delhi to blame Pakistan for terrorist acts in India.India’s strategic interest calls for taking advantage of Islamabad’s sour relationship with the current Afghan government to build a foothold in Afghanistan with which to create an additional lever against Islamabad along Pakistan’s northwestern rim. India has done so primarily through a number of development projects. Besides being one of the top five bilateral donors to the war-torn country, India has thousands of laborers in Afghanistan building schools, hospitals, roads and power plants. One of the most notable projects India has been involved in is the funding and construction of a 218-kilometer (about 135 miles) highway from Zaranj in Afghanistan’s southwestern Nimroz province to Delaram in Farah province.Since Afghanistan forms a land bridge between South Asia and Central Asia, where vast amounts of energy and mineral resources are concentrated, India has a deeper interest in developing the necessary transit links to access the Central Asian energy market, which the Chinese already have tapped into extensively. India cannot rely on its Pakistani rival to allow Indian goods to flow overland. Under a current arrangement, Afghan goods to India must pass through Pakistan. But Pakistan does not allow Indian goods to transit Pakistan overland to Afghan markets. Instead, India relies on its favorable trading terms with Iran to transport Indian goods via the Iranian port of Chabahar to Afghanistan and on to Central Asia. In creating transit infrastructure in Afghanistan, like the Zaranj-Delaram highway, and between Afghanistan and Iran, India is developing alternative trade routes in the region that will allow it to bypass Pakistan.The Question of Indian Troops for AfghanistanWhether India should elevate its support for Afghanistan, to include deploying Indian forces to the country, has been the subject of quiet debate among Indian defense circles. The public rationale given for such a plan is that insurgents have targeted Indian laborers involved in reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, and that the small contingent of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in Afghanistan has proven insufficient to protect the laborers. In addition to regular attacks on Indian construction crews, the 2008 and 2009 bombings on the Indian Embassy in Kabul highlighted the threat that Pakistan could use its militant connections in Afghanistan to try and drive India out of the country.Those arguing for an Indian military deployment to Afghanistan believe that placing Indian troops in the country would sufficiently alarm Pakistan to divert forces from its east, where Pakistani forces are concentrated in Punjab along the Indo-Pakistani border, to its northwestern border with Afghanistan. This (they hope) would shift some of the focus of Pakistani-Indian conflict away from Kashmir and the Indian homeland. Those calling for Indian troops are making a dangerous assumption, however, that the United States will remain in Afghanistan for the long haul and will be there to contain attempts by Pakistan to act against Indian military overland expansion in the region.There are a number of reasons why this troop scenario is unlikely to play out. The most obvious constraint is the enormous logistical difficulty India would have in supplying troops in Afghanistan. If India cannot convince Pakistan to allow overland trade to Afghanistan, it can certainly rule out Pakistan agreeing to an Indian military supply line to Afghanistan. India is also extremely risk-averse when it comes to military deployments beyond its borders. It already is struggling with a counterinsurgency campaign in Kashmir and in Naxalite territory along the country’s eastern belt and remembers the deadly fiasco that followed the Indian deployment of forces to Sri Lanka to counter the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the late 1980s. And Indian troops in Afghanistan would make prime targets for hardened jihadists receiving support from Pakistan.At the same time, India is unwilling to bow to Pakistani pressure by downgrading its presence in Afghanistan. An inevitable U.S. drawdown from the region and a Pakistani return to Afghanistan translates into a bigger security threat for India. The more India can dig its heels in Afghanistan, primarily through reconstruction projects, the better the chances it will develop some say in Afghan affairs with which to check Pakistan’s regional ambitions. For its part, Pakistan will continue to demand that the United States use its leverage with New Delhi to minimize the Indian presence in Afghanistan and hand over the task of shaping the future Afghan government to Islamabad.Though little of this discussion will hit the headlines, the disconnect in U.S.-Indian strategic interests — in which India wants the United States to sustain pressure on Islamabad and serve as a check on Pakistan-backed militancy while Washington needs to bolster Pakistan to withdraw from Afghanistan and maintain some balance in the region between the two nuclear rivals — will put a cloud over Obama’s high-profile visit. India might even have to share the spotlight during Obama’s tour, as rumors are circulating that the U.S. president may make a surprise visit to Afghanistan to show his dedication to the war effort. The U.S. administration has debated whether the president could make such a trip without stopping over in Pakistan to reduce the fallout that could emerge from having Air Force One bypass Pakistan in an Afghan-India trip. The delicate nature of these issues illustrates just how high-maintenance the region is for the United States, and how urgent Washington’s need is to keep relations with Pakistan on steady footing.Leveraging a Mutual Concern Over ChinaWhile Pakistan and Afghanistan are pulling India and the United States apart, China could keep the emerging U.S.-India partnership from derailing. China’s insatiable appetite for resources, heavy reliance on export trade and overarching need to protect those vital commercial supply lines has driven Chinese naval expansion into the Indian Ocean Basin, namely through ports in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and overland linkages through Pakistan and Myanmar on India’s flanks. Indian fears of Chinese encirclement have prompted New Delhi to modernize and expand the Indian navy. Just as the United States is interested in bolstering Japan’s naval defenses, Washington (along with Japan) views Indian military expansion in the Indian Ocean as a useful hedge against China.India has watched with concern as China has become more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir and has broached the suspect of more robust military assistance to Pakistan during its present time of need. Moreover, while India’s Nepal policy has largely been on autopilot, China has quietly built up its clout in the small Himalayan kingdom, threatening to undermine New Delhi’s influence in a key buffer state. China also has attempted to create a closer relationship with the junta and ethnic factions in Myanmar, where Beijing seeks oil and natural gas pipelines that will give some of its energy imports an overland route that will allow it to replace the Strait of Malacca.Meanwhile, the United States is engaged in a standoff with China as it tries to end Beijing’s currency manipulation policies while Beijing is unwilling to comply due to the social and political costs of rapidly reforming its financial system. As bilateral trade tensions continue to simmer, China has sought to take advantage of the U.S. preoccupation with wars in the Islamic world to assert itself in areas of strategic interest, including the South China Sea and East China Sea and in territories it disputes with India. China’s sovereignty claims and military capability in the South China Sea are of particular concern to the United States. This level of assertiveness can be expected to grow as the People’s Liberation Army Navy continues to increase its clout in political affairs, though Beijing knows it must avoid provoking an outright confrontation with the United States.Though U.S. attention is currently absorbed in trying to work out an understanding with Pakistan on Afghanistan (an understanding that will severely undermine the U.S.-Indian relationship in the near term,) it is only a matter of time before U.S. attention turns back toward countries like China whose interests potentially are on a collision course with U.S. interests. As U.S. attention on China increases, India can highlight its own fears of Chinese expansion in South Asia to bolster the Indian relationship with Washington, especially if China is able to maintain its internal stability long enough to sustain a bold foreign policy. The China factor could prove particularly useful for New Delhi to voice its concerns over more pressing threats, like Pakistan, as India and the United States attempt to work out the kinks of their bilateral relationship. Ultimately, India and the United States will have to agree to disagree on a number of issues, relying on high-profile state visits to keep up appearances. But a mutual concern over China may help reduce some of the current tensions between New Delhi and Washington over Pakistan in the future.

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30. October 2010 by admin.

Skilled immigration: Green-card blues

 A backlash against foreign workers dims business hopes for immigration reform.BAD as relations are between business and the Democrats, immigration was supposed to be an exception. On that topic the two have long had a marriage of convenience, with business backing comprehensive reform in order to obtain more skilled foreign workers. That, at least, was what was meant to happen. In March Chuck Schumer, a Democratic senator, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, proposed a multi-faceted reform that would toughen border controls and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants while granting two longstanding goals of business: automatic green cards (that is, permanent residence) for students who earned advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or maths in America, and an elimination of country quotas on green cards. The quotas bear no relationship to demand, leaving backlogs of eight to ten years for applicants from China and India. Barack Obama immediately announced his support. But the proposal never became a bill, much less law. Mr Graham developed cold feet and withdrew his support; he was concerned that the Democrats were moving too quickly, as the economic misery that has turned Americans against foreign trade spread to dislike of foreign workers. Last year Congress made it harder for banks that had received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Programme to hire workers on H-1B visas, the most popular type for skilled foreign workers. In January the Citizenship and Immigration Service barred the use of H-1Bs for workers based on a client’s premises instead of their own company’s, a move aimed at outsourcing companies, many of them based in India. In August even Mr Schumer, needing to look tough on outsourcing, pushed through a bill sharply raising H-1B fees on firms that depend heavily on the visas. Perhaps the most naked election-year hostility to foreigners appeared during the debate in September over a Democratic bill in the Senate that would have rewarded companies for firing foreign-based workers and replacing them with Americans. Charles Grassley, a Republican senator, responded with a proposal to prohibit any company that had laid off Americans from hiring visa workers at all. The bill did not win enough votes to break a filibuster. Tightened restrictions, political aggravation and economic conditions seem to be having an effect. In 2009 the number of employment-based green cards and H-1B visas was the lowest in years (see chart). It took an unusually long time for the quota of H-1Bs for the fiscal year that ended on September 30th to be used up. Several Indian outsourcing companies have made a point of boosting local hiring at American facilities. This is partly the result of the recession, which has hurt demand for all types of workers. But in a recent report the Hamilton Project, a moderately liberal research group, notes that the number of foreign workers in America has been declining for some time. This might reflect America’s diminished appeal to the world’s most sought-after workers, as well as brightening prospects in their own countries. A survey for the pro-immigration Kauffman Foundation in 2007 found that only a tiny proportion of foreign students planned to stay in the United States. This almost certainly extracts an economic toll, since immigrants are more likely than others to start businesses or file patents. America’s immigration policies have long put a higher priority on family reunification than on employment. Legal immigrants to the country are more likely to have failed to finish high school than either native-born Americans or immigrants to other English-speaking countries. Immigrants to Canada are far more likely to have a college degree. Legislators from both parties have at various times advanced proposals that would smooth the way for skilled migrants, but they have usually foundered on the more intractable problem of dealing with illegal immigration. These two issues can and should be separate,” says Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project. We are giving up economic growth by putting the two issues together. Democratic Hispanic legislators oppose separating them for fear of losing business support for comprehensive reform. In principle, then, a Republican takeover of the House might increase the likelihood of a stand-alone bill on skilled immigration. That, however, is not the Republicans’ priority. Lamar Smith, the Republican who would probably become chairman of the House judiciary committee, is more focused on deporting illegal immigrants and strengthening the border.Still, it would be premature to write off the odds of immigration reform. If Mr Obama is to accomplish anything in the next Congress, he needs to find common ground with Republicans on something Business-friendly immigration reform might just qualify.

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27. October 2010 by admin.

We are a week away from the 2010 U.S. midterm elections. The outcome is already locked in. Whether the Republicans take the House or the Senate is close to immaterial. It is almost certain that the dynamics of American domestic politics will change. The Democrats will lose their ability to impose cloture in the Senate and thereby shut off debate. Whether they lose the House or not, the Democrats will lose the ability to pass legislation at the will of the House Democratic leadership. The large majority held by the Democrats will be gone, and party discipline will not be strong enough (it never is) to prevent some defections. Should the Republicans win an overwhelming victory in both houses next week, they will still not have the votes to override presidential vetoes. Therefore they will not be able to legislate unilaterally, and if any legislation is to be passed it will have to be the result of negotiations between the president and the Republican Congressional leadership. Thus, whether the Democrats do better than expected or the Republicans win a massive victory, the practical result will be the same. When we consider the difficulties President Barack Obama had passing his health care legislation, even with powerful majorities in both houses, it is clear that he will not be able to push through any significant legislation without Republican agreement. The result will either be gridlock or a very different legislative agenda than we have seen in the first two years. These are not unique circumstances. Reversals in the first midterm election after a presidential election happened to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. It does not mean that Obama is guaranteed to lose a re-election bid, although it does mean that, in order to win that election, he will have to operate in a very different way. It also means that the 2012 presidential campaign will begin next Wednesday on Nov. 3. Given his low approval ratings, Obama appears vulnerable and the Republican nomination has become extremely valuable. For his part, Obama does not have much time to lose in reshaping his presidency. With the Iowa caucuses about 15 months away and the Republicans holding momentum, the president will have to begin his campaign. Obama now has two options in terms of domestic strategy. The first is to continue to press his agenda, knowing that it will be voted down. If the domestic situation improves, he takes credit for it. If it doesn’t, he runs against Republican partisanship. The second option is to abandon his agenda, cooperate with the Republicans and re-establish his image as a centrist. Both have political advantages and disadvantages and present an important strategic decision for Obama to make.

The Foreign Policy Option

Obama also has a third option, which is to shift his focus from domestic policy to foreign policy. The founders created a system in which the president is inherently weak in domestic policy and able to take action only when his position in Congress is extremely strong. This was how the founders sought to avoid the tyranny of narrow majorities. At the same time, they made the president quite powerful in foreign policy regardless of Congress, and the evolution of the presidency over the centuries has further strengthened this power. Historically, when the president has been weak domestically, one option he has had is to appear powerful by focusing on foreign policy.For presidents like Clinton, this was not a particularly viable option in 1994-1996. The international system was quiet, and it was difficult to act meaningfully and decisively. It was easier for Reagan in 1982-1984. The Soviet Union was strong and threatening, and an aggressive anti-Soviet stance was popular and flowed from his 1980 campaign. Deploying the ground-launched cruise missile and the Pershing II medium-range ballistic missile in Western Europe alienated his opponents, strengthened his position with his political base and allowed him to take the center (and ultimately pressured the Soviets into agreeing to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty). By 1984, with the recession over, Reagan’s anti-Soviet stance helped him defeat Walter Mondale.Obama does not have Clinton’s problem. The international environment allows him to take a much more assertive stance than he has over the past two years. The war in Afghanistan is reaching a delicate negotiating state as reports of ongoing talks circulate. The Iraq war is far from stable, with 50,000 U.S. troops still there, and the Iranian issue is wide open. Israeli-Palestinian talks are also faltering, and there are a host of other foreign issues, ranging from China’s increasing assertiveness to Russia’s resurgent power to the ongoing decline in military power of America’s European allies. There are a range of issues that need to be addressed at the presidential level, many of which would resonate with at least some voters and allow Obama to be presidential in spite of weak political support.There are two problems with Obama becoming a foreign policy president. The first is that the country is focused on the economy and on domestic issues. If he focuses on foreign policy and the U.S. economy does not improve by 2012, it will cost him the election. His hope will be foreign policy successes, or at least the perception of being strong on national security, coupled with economic recovery or a plausible reason to blame the Republicans. This is a tricky maneuver, but his presidency no longer offers simple solutions. The second problem is that his presidency and campaign have been based on the general principle of accommodation rather than confrontation in foreign affairs, with the sole exception of Afghanistan, where he chose to be substantially more aggressive than his predecessor had been. The place where he was assertive is unlikely to yield a major foreign policy success, unless that success is a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. A negotiated settlement will be portrayed by the Republicans as capitulation rather than triumph. If he continues on the current course in Afghanistan, he will seem to be plodding down an old path and not pioneering a new one. Interestingly, if Obama’s goal is to appear strong on national security while regaining the center, Afghanistan offers the least attractive venue. His choices are negotiation, which would reinforce his image as an accommodationist in foreign policy, or continued war, which is not particularly new territory. He could deploy even more forces into Afghanistan, but then would risk looking like Lyndon Johnson in 1967, hurling troops at the enemy without a clear plan. He could, of course, create a massive crisis with Pakistan, but it would be extremely unlikely that such an effort would end well, given the situation in Afghanistan. Foreign policy presidents need to be successful.There is little to be done in Iraq at the moment except delay the withdrawal of forces, which adds little to his political position. Moreover, the core problem in Iraq at the moment is Iran and its support of disruptive forces. Obama could attempt to force an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, but that would require Hamas to change its position, which is unlikely, or that Israel make massive concessions, which it doesn’t think it has to do. The problem with Israel and the Palestinians is that peace talks, such as those under Clinton at Camp David, have a nasty tendency to end in chaos. The European, Russian and Chinese situations are of great importance, but they are not conducive to dramatic acts. The United States is not going to blockade China over the yuan or hold a stunning set of meetings with the Europeans to get them to increase their defense budgets and commit to more support for U.S. wars. And the situation regarding North Korea does not have the pressing urgency to justify U.S. action. There are many actions that would satisfy Obama’s accomodationist inclinations, but those would not serve well in portraying him as decisive in foreign policy.

The Iranian Option

This leaves the obvious choice: Iran. Iran is the one issue on which the president could galvanize public opinion. The Republicans have portrayed Obama as weak on combating militant Islamism. Many of the Democrats see Iran as a repressive violator of human rights, particularly after the crackdown on the Green Movement. The Arabian Peninsula, particularly Saudi Arabia, is afraid of Iran and wants the United States to do something more than provide $60 billion-worth of weapons over the next 10 years. The Israelis, obviously, are hostile. The Europeans are hostile to Iran but want to avoid escalation, unless it ends quickly and successfully and without a disruption of oil supplies. The Russians like the Iranians are a thorn in the American side, as are the Chinese, but neither would have much choice should the United States deal with Iran quickly and effectively. Moreover, the situation in Iraq would improve if Iran were to be neutralized, and the psychology in Afghanistan could also shift.If Obama were to use foreign policy to enhance his political standing through decisive action, and achieve some positive results in relations with foreign governments, the one place he could do it would be Iran. The issue is what he might have to do and what the risks would be. Nothing could, after all, hurt him more than an aggressive stance against Iran that failed to achieve its goals or turned into a military disaster for the United States. So far, Obama’s policy toward Iran has been to incrementally increase sanctions by building a weak coalition and allow the sanctions to create shifts in Iran’s domestic political situation. The idea is to weaken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and strengthen his enemies, who are assumed to be more moderate and less inclined to pursue nuclear weapons. Obama has avoided overt military action against Iran, so a confrontation with Iran would require a deliberate shift in the U.S. stance, which would require a justification. The most obvious justification would be to claim that Iran is about to construct a nuclear device. Whether or not this is true would be immaterial. First, no one would be in a position to challenge the claim, and, second, Obama’s credibility in making the assertion would be much greater than George W. Bush’s, given that Obama does not have the 2003 weapons of mass destruction debacle to deal with and has the advantage of not having made such a claim before. Coming from Obama, the claim would confirm the views of the Republicans, while the Democrats would be hard-pressed to challenge him. In the face of this assertion, Obama would be forced to take action. He could appear reluctant to his base, decisive to the rest. The Republicans could not easily attack him. Nor would the claim be a lie. Defining what it means to almost possess nuclear weapons is nearly a metaphysical discussion. It requires merely a shift in definitions and assumptions. This is cynical scenario, but it can be aligned with reasonable concerns. Destroying Iran’s nuclear capability does not involve a one-day raid, nor is Iran without the ability to retaliate. Its nuclear facilities are in a number of places and Iran has had years to harden those facilities. Destroying the facilities might take an extended air campaign and might even require the use of special operations units to verify battle damage and complete the mission. In addition, military action against Iran’s naval forces would be needed to protect the oil routes through the Persian Gulf from small boat swarms and mines, anti-ship missile launchers would have to be attacked and Iranian air force and air defenses taken out. This would not solve the problem of the rest of Iran’s conventional forces, which would represent a threat to the region, so these forces would have to be attacked and reduced as well. An attack on Iran would not be an invasion, nor would it be a short war. Like Yugoslavia in 1999, it would be an extended air war lasting an unknown number of months. There would be American POWs from aircraft that were shot down or suffered mechanical failure over Iranian territory. There would be many civilian casualties, which the international media would focus on. It would not be an antiseptic campaign, but it would likely (though it is important to reiterate not certainly) destroy Iran’s nuclear capability and profoundly weaken its conventional forces. It would be a war based on American strengths in aerial warfare and technology, not on American weaknesses in counter insurgency. It would strengthen the Iranian regime (as aerial bombing usually does) by rallying the Iranian public to its side against the aggression. If the campaign were successful, the Iranian regime would be stronger politically, at least for a while, but eviscerated militarily. A successful campaign would ease the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, calm the Saudis and demonstrate to the Europeans American capability and will. It would also cause the Russians and Chinese to become very thoughtful. A campaign against Iran would have its risks. Iran could launch a terrorist campaign and attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, sending the global economy into a deep recession on soaring oil prices. It could also create a civil war in Iraq. U.S. intelligence could have missed the fact that the Iranians already have a deliverable nuclear weapon. All of these are possible risks, and, according to STRATFOR’s thinking, the risks outweigh the rewards. After all, the best laid military plan can end in a fiasco.We have argued that a negotiation with Iran in the order of President Richard Nixon’s reversal on China would be a lower-risk solution to the nuclear problem than the military option. But for Obama, this is politically difficult to do. Had Bush done this, he would have had the ideological credentials to deal with Iran, as Nixon had the ideological credentials to deal with China. But Obama does not. Negotiating an agreement with Iran in the wake of an electoral rout would open the floodgates to condemnation of Obama as an appeaser. In losing power, he loses the option for negotiation unless he is content to be a one-term president. I am arguing the following. First, Obama will be paralyzed on domestic policies by this election. He can craft a re-election campaign blaming the Republicans for gridlock. This has its advantages and disadvantages; the Republicans, charging that he refused to adjust to the electorate’s wishes, can blame him for the gridlock. It can go either way. The other option for Obama is to look for triumph in foreign policy where he has a weak hand. The only obvious way to achieve success that would have a positive effect on the U.S. strategic position is to attack Iran. Such an attack would have substantial advantages and very real dangers. It could change the dynamics of the Middle East and it could be a military failure. I am not claiming that Obama will decide to do this based on politics, although no U.S. president has ever engaged in foreign involvement without political considerations, nor should he. I am saying that, at this moment in history, given the domestic gridlock that appears to be in the offing, a shift to a foreign policy emphasis makes sense, Obama needs to be seen as an effective commander in chief and Iran is the logical target. This is not a prediction. Obama does not share his thoughts with me. It is merely speculation on the options Obama will have after the midterm elections, not what he will choose to do.

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26. October 2010 by admin.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has just returned from Kashmir. He appealed for peace and requested the “separatists” to return to the negotiating table. He held a series of conferences with the officials and political leaders. And as expected, he announced over Rs. 1000 crore sops to the state. Importantly, to score some misplaced points, he threatened the armed forces to behave properly in Kashmir, forgetting the fact that but for those forces he, or any Indian Prime Minister, would not have been able to land in the Srinagar valley.

But one fails to understand what did the Prime Minister achieve overall from his two-day Kashmir visit in concrete terms? Well, the media, both national and international, went overboard. The press in Pakistan, where our homer minister and foreign secretary are heading later this month, got enough material to comment on. But the separatists have not been impressed. And what is worse, the security forces have been greatly demoralized. It has become now quite routine for the civilian regime and elites in Kashmir to effortlessly raise their fingers at the Indian armed forces for all their troubles, thus providing fuels to the extremists and separatists. And on the flimsiest of pretexts, officials of the military and paramilitary forces are being framed and suspended.

Ironically, the Prime Minister has not deemed it fit to travel to other, and in a sense more turbulent, part of the country – the North East, particularly Manipur and Nagaland. People there have been facing a blockade for more than two months now. The government has totally mishandled the Naga issue, of late. If any part of the country needed the presence of the Prime Minister to assure the affected people and encourage their morale, it is North-East. But, Singh and his advisors do not think so. And that is perhaps due to the fact that a visit to North East will not attract headlines the way a visit to Kashmir will.

I have no problem with the “news-worthiness” of Kashmir. But what is worrying is that the central government and the dominant section within the strategic community in the country find it politically incorrect to reveal the real problem in the Kashmir valley from the viewpoint of India’s national interests. And that real problem is the growing Islamisation of the valley, which, in turn, makes any negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue almost impossible. An “Islamic Kashmir” will have nothing to do with India. Let me explain this point.

Over the years, Kashmir has been witnessing what Bangladeshi scholar Abu Taher Salahuddin Ahmed says three principal trends – Indianness, Kashmiriness and Muslimness. The Indianness has been propagated by the federal forces of the country, be it the central government or national parties like the Congress and BJP. However, the problem in the state is due to the tussle between those believing in Kashmiriness and those loyal to Muslimness. Kashmiriness is an offshoot of the much talked about Kashmiriyat, which, while coexisting with Indianness, talks of inclusive or composite identity, binding all groups together and not offending any section. No wonder why despite being a Muslim-majority area, beef-eating, until recently, was virtually non-existent in the valley.

Of course, some scholars now point out that there were always differences between Muslims and Hindus (essentially Kashmiri Pundits) in their interpretations of the concept of Kashmiriyat. But those believing in the concept did promote coexistence. Majority of the Kashmiri Muslims, therefore, had no problems with the Hindus or for that matter with the Buddhists. And the important factor key to the success of the Kashmiriyat was the fact that overwhelming majority of the Kashmiri Muslims believed in Sufism or what is said the “Rishi tradition” that believed in saint and shrine worships. Of course, it was greatly facilitated by the fact that as was the case in other parts of the subcontinent, Muslims were essentially converts from the fold of Hinduism.

In contrast, the Muslimness always advocated the exclusive concepts in the valley. Promoted by the Wahhabi and Ahl-i-Hadith sects, this school relies more on the authority of the Quran and Hadith and totally opposed to the concept saints and shrine worships. This tradition or school has always been in minority in Kashmir, but it has been there always. It was behind the oraganisations like Muslim Conference and Kashmir Jamaat (KJ).

Needless to say that almost all the separatists and terrorist, including the so-called moderate separatist elements like Huriyat Conference, belong to the school of Muslimness. They have nothing to do with India. They believe in the theory of “Kashmir for Muslims”. Their essential argument is that they cannot coexist in a Hindu-dominated India.

Interestingly, these elements became active in Kashmir only after the 1979 Iranian revolution. It was after 1979 that one heard more and more of “liberation of Kashmir” and “Islamic revolution”. These elements became more vocal in politics also and formed many small political outfits. In September 1985, twelve such outfits came together to form the Muslim United Front (MUF). Soon the MUF claimed to provide an alternative to the National Conference of Farooq Abdullah on the ground that he “sold out” Kashmiris’ interests in the Accord with the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Since then, the political Islam has made firmer roots in the valley. The Pakistani support and assistance to the cause has greatly facilitated the cause. But what has really helped the Political Islam in the valley is the virtual politics of appeasement on the part of the central and state governments to the separatists. The likes of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have wrongly believed that by pandering to the demands of the Huriyat and civil right activists, the situation will improve. But appeasement will never work with forces of “Muslimness”; it will rather embolden them and strengthen the cause of “Kashmir for Muslims”. Did not we hear the likes of Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah even saying during the agitation over Amarnath Yatra last year that Kashmir must not compromise its Muslim character?

Fortunately, even today the majority of the people in the state would like to remain part of India, as evident by the recent opinion poll, conducted by Chatham House (UK) on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. The poll said that showed that only 2 per cent of the people of J&K want to be part of Pakistan. As many as 58 per cent of the 3,774 polled, in J&K and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), are ready to accept the LoC as a permanent “soft border” — an idea dating back to the famous “Simla Agreement” of 1972 between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

That being the case, it is high time the Indian Prime Minister, whichever party he or she may belong to, stopped inviting the separatist leaders to the negotiating table. Because, any amount of concessions will not satisfy them. They just need to be ignored and their militant supporters need to be disciplined. They do not represent the majority. If they are imposing the so-called bandhs and people are listening to them it is mainly because of the fear they have generated in the people’s hearts and the self-imposed helplessness of our security forces.

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19. September 2010 by admin.

An Islamic Strategy - HOW TO USE AMERICA versus AMERICA 

UK and France have recently witnessed riots and protests from muslim immigrants who have legally entered their country. The policy is simple and well tested….. and successful . Islamists have declared Southern France as an Islamic State and are working their way towards achieving the same in UK now. 

The ideology of Islam is to Islamise all the countries of the world. They are attacking America now.

How they are invading America is explained as follows.

The Strategy

You may have noticed, that the media in USA is pro-Islamist these days. Any American who is vocal about his/her concerns for the well being of this great nation, is labeled as racist/communal….and his argument is simply dismissed as “Islamophobia” . You will realize how they have a complete hold on the media. This is the first step.

The next step is to get into the judicial and political system of the country. While the media is used to brainwash people regarding the plight of minority muslims, a lot of money is also being spent to hire local Americans (in media and politics) who fight for the equal rights and religious rights of muslim minorities. The local Americans are however those people who try to project the liberal side of America. The law and the political system is being used to make this convenient. Amendments are being made in the law of the land to legally have a representative of muslims in the country’s parliament.

The next step is to use the law to declare innocent those muslims who are under suspicion of terrorist acts or have been convicted and are serving a sentence, or are under trial. The law here is again used to relieve them of sentences and they are declared innocent. In this process, people who were responsible (cops, judges, lawyers, etc) for arresting these criminals, the people who risked their lives to book the guilty are humiliated by either being dismissed from their duty and/or they are accused of falsely implicating muslims as criminals.

At the same time, they use their influence to distort the history of the country. Claims are made that Islam became popular because it is a religion of peace. History books in schools and colleges have chapters singing praises of how Islamic rulers and clerics influenced your country in a positive manner. However, the original historical heroes of the country who contributed and built the nation are projected in poor light. This is done to humiliate the local people of everything that they have ever been so proud of in the history of their nation. Watch out. It won’t be long before the muslims claim that America was originally an Islamic country, and people of other faiths are actually immigrants so they should either leave America or revert to Islam.

As the number of muslims grow in a country, their very next step is to gather themselves as a vote bank….and no politician would like to lose a large vote bank. This is how and why they get political backing. Once they have their representative in the parliament, the muslims use this as a tool to make amendments in the law of the land to favour Islam.

Defaming other Faiths/Religions

Another aspect that is simultaneously worked hard upon is the ‘conversion to Islam’ factor. A huge amount of money is also being spent on internet websites and personal propaganda to defame other religions to make Islam appear as the only religion that is true and scientific, and the only surviving religion of the world. So don’t be surprised when you come across statements like “Islam was always a part of your country”, or any propaganda that says “Christianity never existed” and “Jesus Was A Muslim”.

False propaganda is being circulated now, where they claim that thousands and thousands of people are converting to Islam every day. You will hear their propaganda that Islam is spreading like wild fire and people are submitting to Islam. Actually the fact is, that after 9/11 many muslims have given up Islam and converted to other religions because they were ashamed of being muslims for following the ideology of destruction and hate (this aspect is however never highlighted by them). Don’t we often complain that the voice of “moderate muslims” is missing when it comes to condemning Islamic terror attacks? Obviously, we don’t hear their voices because “the moderate muslim” has already quit Islam. In USA itself there are several organizations that have ex-muslims who are educating the rest of the world about the real ideology of Islam. See Youtube. You will find several videos showing people converting to Islam, but the videos showing muslims converting to other religions are flagged and removed. Please google “ex-muslims” for these organizations. Their statements should be valid enough for anyone to wake up.

Sowing the seeds for a FUTURE JIHAD

The original proposal of building a “Peace Mosque” at ground zero was seen by many as a symbol of victory by Islam in an infidel land.

Actually, the proposed mosque at Ground Zero is nothing but “Sowing The Seeds Of Dispute” for a FUTURE JIHAD. The reason to build a mosque there is to refute any claims in the future by anyone that the Twin Towers really existed and that America was ever attacked. It is obvious that there would be protests against the mosque. Nobody is against building a mosque. The mosque can be built elsewhere, why only on Ground Zero??? But these protests against building the mosque on Ground Zero will be used/projected to the Islamic world as “denial of freedom to follow Islam” by America … thus instigating further hatred by muslims for America and the West. This makes any muslim (who has grown up with the ideology that all non-muslims are their enemies) a potential recruit for a never-ending jihad against America, which they propose for many many generations to come….And with the number of muslims growing within America, there would be no need to look outside for help in jihad.

The War Today

One cannot deny that conversions are on the rise in America. Aggressive conversions are happening in different states because conversions are the fastest way to grow in numbers as compared to procreation and marriages with non-muslims to convert them into Islam (which is also on the rise now). The purpose of growing in numbers is to attain muslim majorities in different geographical pockets of a country. Once the muslim population is in majority in a state, their demand for a separate muslim state comes into play. They set up terror training camps, indulge in stone-pelting, riots and blasts, and they demand for a separate Islamic State within the country, tearing away a nation, piece by piece. That is the whole idea - To have separate Islamic states spread out from corner to corner of a country/continent…and then join all the dots to form a single majority Islamic State - the best and simplest way to Islamise a nation from within.

A majority of people who are being converted into Islam these days in USA are the African-Americans….especially those from ghettos and with criminal backgrounds. This is being done on purpose. Also being targeted are the illegal Mexican immigrants. Islamists know the history of America and how the Africans came to USA. These people are shown “Islam as a religion of tolerance and brotherhood”. They are told, “they will regain their pride and dignity if they embrace Islam. Islam will give them the equality that the white Americans always denied them and suppressed them”. Using Islam as a tool, these converts are now being brainwashed into believing that they must fight the Jihad for Allah. They will use the frustrations of African Americans against the White Americans. And why not??? With the growing number of muslims in USA, it is most convenient and in their best interest to fight this war from within. This is how they are going to use America versus America in their Jihad!!!

This strategy is however, not just limited to America. All nations in the east and the west who have resisted Islam for all these years are going through this pattern of Islamisation now.

This is war, my friends……….this IS “THE WAR”.

Open your eyes before it is too late.

If you think this makes sense, please circulate it among like minded people and your community.

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11. September 2010 by admin.

Rumors are circulating on the Internet and Indian media over the reported presence of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, ostensibly to provide “protection for aid and construction workers”. It is not really unusual that the reports/news might be a bit over blown by the media, BUT China’s growing reassertion of territorial claims in the region will not go ignored by India and will give New Delhi and Washington another cause for cooperation. The prospect of greater U.S.-Indian defense cooperation and diminishing U.S. interest in Afghanistan will meanwhile drive Pakistan closer to China, creating a series of self-perpetuating threats on the subcontinent.Let us analyse the geopolitical implications on the subcontinent and relationship of India, Pakistan and China with each other and with United States. U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Robert F. Willard is on a two-day visit to India to meet with the Indian defense leadership Sept. 9-10. Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony will follow up his meetings with Willard when he meets with U.S. defense leaders in Washington at the end of September. With an arduous war being fought in Afghanistan and India’s fears growing over Pakistan-based militancy, there is no shortage of issues for the two sides to discuss. But there is one additional topic of discussion that is now elevating in importance: Chinese military moves on the Indian subcontinent.Allegations over a major increase of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops in northern Kashmir have been circulating over the past several weeks, with an Op-Ed in The New York Times claiming that as many as 7,000 to 11,000 PLA troops have flooded into the northern part of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, known as the Gilgit-Baltistan region. This is an area through which China has been rebuilding the Karakoram Highway, which connects the Chinese region of Xinjiang by road and rail to Pakistan’s Chinese-built and funded ports on the Arabian Sea. Though Chinese engineers have been working on this infrastructure for some time, new reports suggest that several thousand PLA troops are stationed on the Khunjerab Pass on the Xinjiang border to provide security to the Karakoram Highway construction crews. Handfuls of militants have been suspected of transiting this region in the past to travel between Central Asia, Afghanistan and China’s Xinjiang province, and Chinese construction crews in Pakistan have been targeted a number of times by jihadists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That said, a large Chinese troop presence in the region is likely to serve a larger purpose than simply stand-by protection for Chinese workers.Pakistan responded by describing the reports as fabricated and said a small Chinese presence was in the area to provide humanitarian assistance in the ongoing flood relief effort. Chinese state media also discussed recently how the Chinese government was shipping emergency aid to Pakistan via Kashgar, Xinjiang province, through the Khunjerab Pass to the Sost dry port in northern Pakistan. India expressed its concern over the reports of Chinese troops in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said it was working to independently verify the claims, and then claimed to confirm at least 1,000 PLA troops had entered the region.Such claims of troop deployments in the region are often exaggerated for various political aims, and these latest reports are no exception. It is still not known for sure the exact number of PLA troops in and around Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (known as Gilgit-Baltistan) and what percentage of those are combat troops. It has been reported that a convoy of approximately 110 Chinese trucks recently delivered some 2,000 metric tons of mostly food aid through the Khunjerab Pass to the Gojal Valley, an area devastated by recent flooding and landslides. Chinese Bridges and Roads Co. (CBRC) has been working on expanding the Karakoram Highway for the past three years and has roughly 700 Chinese laborers and engineers working on the project. The highway expansion is expected to be completed by 2013, but the deadline is likely to be extended as a result of recent flooding.Though, as per various media sources, on-ground reports so far track closest with the Chinese claims of flood relief operations, such relief and construction work can also provide useful cover for a more gradual buildup and sustained military presence in the region. This prospect is on the minds of many U.S. and Indian defense officials who would not be pleased with the idea of China reinforcing military support for Pakistan through overland supply routes.

What can be the intentions behind this build-up?

Though Pakistan, as per its typical characteristic, has reacted defiantly to the rumors, Islamabad has much to gain from merely having the rumor out in the open. Pakistan’s geopolitical vulnerability cannot be overstated. The country already faces a host of internally wrenching issues but must also contend with the fact that the Pakistani heartland in the Indus River Valley sits near the border with Pakistan’s much bigger and more powerful Indian rival, denying Islamabad any meaningful strategic depth to adequately defend itself. Pakistan is thus on an interminable search for a reliable, external power patron for its security, and its preferred choice is the United States, which has the military might and economic heft to buttress Pakistani defenses. However, Washington must maintain a delicate balance on the subcontinent, moving between its deepening partnership with India and keeping Pakistan on life support to avoid having India become the unchallenged South Asian hegemon.

Though Pakistan will do whatever it can to hold U.S. interest in an alliance with Islamabad — and keeping the militant threat alive is very much a part of that calculus — it will more often than not be left feeling betrayed by its allies in Washington. With U.S. patience wearing thin on Afghanistan, talk of a U.S. betrayal is naturally creeping up again among Pakistani policymakers as Pakistan fears that a U.S. withdrawal from the region will leave Pakistan with little to defend against India, a massive militant mess to clean up and a weaker hand in Afghanistan. China, while unwilling to put its neck out for Pakistan and provoke retaliation by India, provides Islamabad with a vital military backup that Pakistan can not only use to elicit more defense support against the Indians, but also to capture Washington’s attention with a reminder that a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan could open the door for Chinese military expansion in South Asia.Chinese motives in the Kashmir affair are more complex. Even before the rumors, India and China were diplomatically sparring over the Chinese government’s recent refusal to issue a visa to a senior Indian army general on grounds that his command includes Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Such diplomatic flare-ups have become more frequent over the past couple of years, as China has used visa issuances in disputed territory in Kashmir and in Arunachal Pradesh along the northern Indian border to assert its territorial claims while trying to discredit Indian claims. Even beyond Kashmir, China has injected life into its territorial claims throughout the East and South China seas, much to the consternation of the Pacific Rim states.China’s renewed assertiveness in these disputed territories can be explained in large part by the country’s resource acquisition strategy. As China has scaled up its efforts to scour the globe for energy resources to sustain its elephantine economy, it has increasingly sought to develop a military that can safeguard vital supply lines running through the Indian Ocean basin to and from the Persian Gulf. Building the Karakoram Highway through Kashmir, for example, allows China to substantially cut down the time it takes to transit supplies between the Pakistani coast and China’s western front.China’s increasing reliance on the military to secure its supply lines for commercial interests, along with other trends, has thus given the PLA a much more prominent say in Chinese policymaking in recent years. This trend has been reinforced by the Chinese government’s need to modernize the military and meet its growing budgetary needs following a large-scale recentralization effort in the 1990s that stripped the PLA of much of its business interests. Over the past decade, the PLA has taken a more prominent role in maintaining internal stability — including responses to natural disasters, riots and other disturbances — while increasing its participation in international peacekeeping efforts. As the PLA’s clout has grown in recent years, Chinese military officials have gone from remaining virtually silent on political affairs to becoming commentators for the Chinese state press on issues concerning Chinese foreign policy.The PLA’s political influence could also be factoring into the rising political tensions in Kashmir. After all, China’s naval expansion into the Indian Ocean basin for its primarily commercial interests has inevitably driven the modernization and expansion of the Indian navy, a process the United States supports out of its own interest to hedge against China. By both asserting its claims to territory in Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir and raising the prospect of more robust Chinese military support for Pakistan, the Chinese military can benefit from having India’s military focus on ground forces, which require a great deal of resources to maintain a large troop presence in rough terrain, while reducing the amount of attention and resources the Indian military can give to its naval modernization plans.

The Indian Response

There may be a number of commercial, political and military factors contributing to China’s military extensions into South Asia, but India is not as interested in the multifaceted purposes behind China’s moves as it is in the actual movement of troops along the Indian border. From the Indian point of view, the Chinese military is building up naval assets and fortifying its alliance with Pakistan to hem in India. However remote the possibility may be of another futile ground war with China (recall the Sino-Indian war of 1962) across the world’s roughest mountainous terrain, India is unlikely to downplay any notable shifts in China’s military disposition and infrastructure development in the region. India’s traditional response is to highlight the levers it holds with Tibet, which is crucial buffer territory for the Chinese. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit with the Dalai Lama was certainly not lost on Beijing. Chinese media have already reported recently that India is reinforcing its troop presence in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, which flanks the Tibetan plateau. Singh also recently warned that India would have to “take adequate precautions” against Chinese “pinpricks” in Jammu and Kashmir, while maintaining hope of peaceful dialogue.The Chinese relief work in the area so far does not appear to have reached the level of criticality that would prompt India to reinforce its troop presence in Kashmir. However, tensions are continuing to escalate in the region and any meaningful shift in India’s troop disposition would carry significant military implications for the wider region.India has been attempting at least symbolically to lower its war posture with Pakistan and better manage its territorial claims by reducing its troop presence in select parts of Indian-administered Kashmir. If India is instead compelled to beef up its military presence in the region in reaction to Sino-Pakistani defense cooperation, Pakistan will be tempted to respond in kind, creating another set of issues for the United States to try to manage on the subcontinent. Washington has faced a persistent struggle in trying to convince Pakistan’s military to focus on the counterinsurgency effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan and leave it to the United States to ensure the Indian threat remains in check. Though the Pakistani security establishment is gradually adjusting its threat matrix to acknowledge the war right now is at home and not with India, Pakistan’s troop disposition remains largely unchanged, with 147,000 troops devoted to the counterinsurgency effort in northwestern Pakistan and roughly 150,000 troops in standard deployment formation along the eastern border with India.

The United States, like India, is keeping a watchful eye on China’s military movements on the subcontinent, providing another reason for the two to collaborate more closely on military affairs. Willard was quoted by the Indian state press Sept. 10 as saying that “any change in military relations or military maneuvers by China that raises concerns of India” could fall within U.S. Pacific Command’s area of responsibility, while also maintaining this is an issue for the Indian military to handle on its own. 

Though the United States is being exceedingly cautious in defining its role in this affair, it cannot avoid the fact that every time U.S. and Indian defense officials get together to discuss Pakistan and China, Islamabad’s fears of a U.S.-Indian military partnership are reinforced, drawing the Pakistanis closer to China. This combination of insecurities is creating a self-perpetuating threat matrix on the subcontinent with implications for U.S., Indian, Chinese and Pakistani defense strategy.

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7. September 2010 by admin.

Rethinking American Options on Iran

By George FriedmanCourtsey: www.stratfor.comPublic discussion of potential attacks on Iran’s nuclear development sites is surging again. This has happened before. On several occasions, leaks about potential airstrikes have created an atmosphere of impending war. These leaks normally coincided with diplomatic initiatives and were designed to intimidate the Iranians and facilitate a settlement favorable to the United States and Israel. These initiatives have failed in the past. It is therefore reasonable to associate the current avalanche of reports with the imposition of sanctions and view it as an attempt to increase the pressure on Iran and either force a policy shift or take advantage of divisions within the regime.My first instinct is to dismiss the war talk as simply another round of psychological warfare against Iran, this time originating with Israel. Most of the reports indicate that Israel is on the verge of attacking Iran. From a psychological-warfare standpoint, this sets up the good-cop/bad-cop routine. The Israelis play the mad dog barely restrained by the more sober Americans, who urge the Iranians through intermediaries to make concessions and head off a war. As I said, we have been here before several times, and this hasn’t worked. The worst sin of intelligence is complacency, the belief that simply because something has happened (or has not happened) several times before it is not going to happen this time. But each episode must be considered carefully in its own light and preconceptions from previous episodes must be banished. Indeed, the previous episodes might well have been intended to lull the Iranians into complacency themselves. Paradoxically, the very existence of another round of war talk could be intended to convince the Iranians that war is distant while covert war preparations take place. An attack may be in the offing, but the public displays neither confirm nor deny that possibility.

The Evolving Iranian Assessment

STRATFOR has gone through three phases in its evaluation of the possibility of war. The first, which was in place until July 2009, held that while Iran was working toward a nuclear weapon, its progress could not be judged by its accumulation of enriched uranium. While that would give you an underground explosion, the creation of a weapon required sophisticated technologies for ruggedizing and miniaturizing the device, along with a very reliable delivery system. In our view, Iran might be nearing a testable device but it was far from a deliverable weapon. Therefore, we dismissed war talk and argued that there was no meaningful pressure for an attack on Iran.We modified this view somewhat in July 2009, after the Iranian elections and the demonstrations. While we dismissed the significance of the demonstrations, we noted close collaboration developing between Russia and Iran. That meant there could be no effective sanctions against Iran, so stalling for time in order for sanctions to work had no value. Therefore, the possibility of a strike increased. But then Russian support stalled as well, and we turned back to our analysis, adding to it an evaluation of potential Iranian responses to any air attack. We noted three potential counters: activating Shiite militant groups (most notably Hezbollah), creating chaos in Iraq and blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which 45 percent of global oil exports travel. Of the three Iranian counters, the last was the real “nuclear option.” Interfering with the supply of oil from the Persian Gulf would raise oil prices stunningly and would certainly abort the tepid global economic recovery. Iran would have the option of plunging the world into a global recession or worse. There has been debate over whether Iran would choose to do the latter or whether the U.S. Navy could rapidly clear mines. It is hard to imagine how an Iranian government could survive air attacks without countering them in some way. It is also a painful lesson of history that the confidence of any military force cannot be a guide to its performance. At the very least, there is a possibility that the Iranians could block the Strait of Hormuz, and that means the possibility of devastating global economic consequences. That is a massive risk for the United States to take, against an unknown probability of successful Iranian action. In our mind, it was not a risk that the United States could take, especially when added to the other Iranian counters. Therefore, we did not think the United States would strike.Certainly, we did not believe that the Israelis would strike Iran alone. First, the Israelis are much less likely to succeed than the Americans would be, given the size of their force and their distance from Iran (not to mention the fact that they would have to traverse either Turkish, Iraqi or Saudi airspace). More important, Israel lacks the ability to mitigate any consequences. Any Israeli attack would have to be coordinated with the United States so that the United States could alert and deploy its counter-mine, anti-submarine and missile-suppression assets. For Israel to act without giving the United States time to mitigate the Hormuz option would put Israel in the position of triggering a global economic crisis. The political consequences of that would not be manageable by Israel. Therefore, we found an Israeli strike against Iran without U.S. involvement difficult to imagine.

The Current Evaluation

Our current view is that the accumulation of enough enriched uranium to build a weapon does not mean that the Iranians are anywhere close to having a weapon. Moreover, the risks inherent in an airstrike on its nuclear facilities outstrip the benefits (and even that assumes that the entire nuclear industry is destroyed in one fell swoop — an unsure outcome at best). It also assumes the absence of other necessary technologies. Assumptions of U.S. prowess against mines might be faulty, and so, too, could my assumption about weapon development. The calculus becomes murky, and one would expect all governments involved to be waffling.There is, of course, a massive additional issue. Apart from the direct actions that Iran might make, there is the fact that the destruction of its nuclear capability would not solve the underlying strategic challenge that Iran poses. It has the largest military force in the Persian Gulf, absent the United States. The United States is in the process of withdrawing from Iraq, which would further diminish the ability of the United States to contain Iran. Therefore, a surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear capability combined with the continuing withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would create a profound strategic crisis in the Persian Gulf.The country most concerned about Iran is not Israel, but Saudi Arabia. The Saudis recall the result of the last strategic imbalance in the region, when Iraq, following its armistice with Iran, proceeded to invade Kuwait, opening the possibility that its next intention was to seize the northeastern oil fields of Saudi Arabia. In that case, the United States intervened. Given that the United States is now withdrawing from Iraq, intervention following withdrawal would be politically difficult unless the threat to the United States was clear. More important, the Iranians might not give the Saudis the present Saddam Hussein gave them by seizing Kuwait and then halting. They might continue. They certainly have the military capacity to try. In a real sense, the Iranians would not have to execute such a military operation in order to gain the benefits. The simple imbalance of forces would compel the Saudis and others in the Persian Gulf to seek a political accommodation with the Iranians. Strategic domination of the Persian Gulf does not necessarily require military occupation — as the Americans have abundantly demonstrated over the past 40 years. It merely requires the ability to carry out those operations. The Saudis, therefore, have been far quieter — and far more urgent — than the Israelis in asking the United States to do something about the Iranians. The Saudis certainly do not want the United States to leave Iraq. They want the Americans there as a blocking force protecting Saudi Arabia but not positioned on Saudi soil. They obviously are not happy about Iran’s nuclear efforts, but the Saudis see the conventional and nuclear threat as a single entity. The collapse of the Iran-Iraq balance of power has left the Arabian Peninsula in a precarious position.King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia did an interesting thing a few weeks ago. He visited Lebanon personally and in the company of the president of Syria. The Syrian and Saudi regimes are not normally friendly, given different ideologies, Syria’s close relationship with Iran and their divergent interests in Lebanon. But there they were together, meeting with the Lebanese government and giving not very subtle warnings to Hezbollah. Saudi influence and money and the threat of Iran jeopardizing the Saudi regime by excessive adventurism seems to have created an anti-Hezbollah dynamic in Lebanon. Hezbollah is suddenly finding many of its supposed allies cooperating with some of its certain enemies. The threat of a Hezbollah response to an airstrike on Iran seems to be mitigated somewhat.

Eliminating Iranian Leverage In Hormuz

I said that there were three counters. One was Hezbollah, which is the least potent of the three from the American perspective. The other two are Iraq and Hormuz. If the Iraqis were able to form a government that boxed in pro-Iranian factions in a manner similar to how Hezbollah is being tentatively contained, then the second Iranian counter would be weakened. That would “just” leave the major issue — Hormuz.The problem with Hormuz is that the United States cannot tolerate any risk there. The only way to control that risk is to destroy Iranian naval capability before airstrikes on nuclear targets take place. Since many of the Iranian mine layers would be small boats, this would mean an extensive air campaign and special operations forces raids against Iranian ports designed to destroy anything that could lay mines, along with any and all potential mine-storage facilities, anti-ship missile emplacements, submarines and aircraft. Put simply, any piece of infrastructure within a few miles of any port would need to be eliminated. The risk to Hormuz cannot be eliminated after the attack on nuclear sites. It must be eliminated before an attack on the nuclear sites. And the damage must be overwhelming. There are two benefits to this strategy. First, the nuclear facilities aren’t going anywhere. It is the facilities that are producing the enriched uranium and other parts of the weapon that must be destroyed more than any uranium that has already been enriched. And the vast bulk of those facilities will remain where they are even if there is an attack on Iran’s maritime capabilities. Key personnel would undoubtedly escape, but considering that within minutes of the first American strike anywhere in Iran a mass evacuation of key scientists would be under way anyway, there is little appreciable difference between a first strike against nuclear sites and a first strike against maritime targets. (U.S. air assets are good, but even the United States cannot strike 100-plus targets simultaneously.) Second, the counter-nuclear strategy wouldn’t deal with the more fundamental problem of Iran’s conventional military power. This opening gambit would necessarily attack Iran’s command-and-control, air-defense and offensive air capabilities as well as maritime capabilities. This would sequence with an attack on the nuclear capabilities and could be extended into a prolonged air campaign targeting Iran’s ground forces.The United States is very good at gaining command of the air and attacking conventional military capabilities (see Yugoslavia in 1999). Its strategic air capability is massive and, unlike most of the U.S. military, underutilized. The United States also has substantial air forces deployed around Iran, along with special operations forces teams trained in penetration, evasion and targeting, and satellite surveillance. Far from the less-than-rewarding task of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, going after Iran would be the kind of war the United States excels at fighting. No conventional land invasion, no boots-on-the-ground occupation, just a very thorough bombing campaign. If regime change happens as a consequence, great, but that is not the primary goal. Defanging the Iranian state is.It is also the only type of operation that could destroy the nuclear capabilities (and then some) while preventing an Iranian response. It would devastate Iran’s conventional military forces, eliminating the near-term threat to the Arabian Peninsula. Such an attack, properly executed, would be the worst-case scenario for Iran and, in my view, the only way an extended air campaign against nuclear facilities could be safely executed. Just as Iran’s domination of the Persian Gulf rests on its ability to conduct military operations, not on its actually conducting the operations, the reverse is also true. It is the capacity and apparent will to conduct broadened military operations against Iran that can shape Iranian calculations and decision-making. So long as the only threat is to Iran’s nuclear facilities, its conventional forces remain intact and its counter options remain viable, Iran will not shift its strategy. Once its counter options are shut down and its conventional forces are put at risk, Iran must draw up another calculus. In this scenario, Israel is a marginal player. The United States is the only significant actor, and it might not strike Iran simply over the nuclear issue. That’s not a major U.S. problem. But the continuing withdrawal from Iraq and Iran’s conventional forces are very much an American problem. Destroying Iran’s nuclear capability is merely an added benefit. Given the Saudi intervention in Lebanese politics, this scenario now requires a radical change in Iraq, one in which a government would be quickly formed and Iranian influence quickly curtailed. Interestingly, we have heard recent comments by administration officials asserting that Iranian influence has, in fact, been dramatically reduced. At present, such a reduction is not obvious to us, but the first step of shifting perceptions tends to be propaganda. If such a reduction became real, then the two lesser Iranian counter moves would be blocked and the U.S. offensive option would become more viable.

Internal Tension in Tehran

At this point, we would expect to see the Iranians recalculating their position, with some of the clerical leadership using the shifting sands of Lebanon against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Indeed, there have been many indications of internal stress, not between the mythical democratic masses and the elite, but within the elite itself. This past weekend the Iranian speaker of the house attacked Ahmadinejad’s handling of special emissaries. For what purpose we don’t yet know, but the internal tension is growing.The Iranians are not concerned about the sanctions. The destruction of their nuclear capacity would, from their point of view, be a pity. But the destruction of large amounts of their conventional forces would threaten not only their goals in the wider Islamic world but also their stability at home. That would be unacceptable and would require a shift in their general strategy. From the Iranian point of view — and from ours — Washington’s intentions are opaque. But when we consider the Obama administration’s stated need to withdraw from Iraq, Saudi pressure on the United States not to withdraw while Iran remains a threat, Saudi moves against Hezbollah to split Syria from Iran and Israeli pressure on the United States to deal with nuclear weapons, the pieces for a new American strategy are emerging from the mist. Certainly the Iranians appear to be nervous. And the threat of a new strategy might just be enough to move the Iranians off dead center. If they don’t, logic would dictate the consideration of a broader treatment of the military problem posed by Iran.

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4. September 2010 by admin.

How the US army protects its trucks – by paying the Taliban

Insurance, security or extortion? The US is spending millions of dollars in Afghanistan to ensure its supply convoys get through – and it’s the Taliban who profit

The lawyers for Hamed Wardak and NCL Holdings, Mishcon de Reya say: NCL and Mr Wardak learned of the contracting opportunities for the provision of trucking services in Afghanistan from the “fedbizopps” website, which is hosted by the US Government, and open to all, with all of the stringencies required in such an exercise. NCL competed for the contract according to the advertised criteria and were awarded it on the merits of its tender in a fair and open exercise. Neither NCL nor Mr Wardak were the recipients of the contract because of Mr Wardak’s connections in Afghanistan. The contracts were not awarded unfairly. Although each tendering party has been awarded transit contracts with a value of up to US$360 million for a period of two years, NCL have so far, nearly half way through the first year, performed contacts to the value of US$18.5 million. Mr Wardak and his family have dedicated their political lives to the welfare of Afghanistan, in vocal opposition to the Taliban. He does not directly or indirectly provide funds to the Taliban. There is no evidence that any money from NCL was received by the Taliban.

On 29 October 2001, while the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime’s ambassador in Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat’s right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.

But Popal was more than just a former mujahideen. In 1988, a year before the Soviets fled Afghanistan, Popal had been charged in the United States with conspiring to import more than a kilo of heroin. Court records show he was released from prison in 1998.

Flash forward to 2009, and Afghanistan is ruled by Popal’s cousin, President Hamid Karzai. Popal has cut his huge beard down to a neatly trimmed one and has become an immensely wealthy businessman, along with his brother Rashid Popal, who pleaded guilty to a heroin charge in 1996 in Brooklyn in a separate case.

The Popal brothers control the huge Watan Group in Afghanistan, a consortium engaged in telecommunications, logistics and, most important, security. Watan Risk Management, the Popals’ private military arm, is one of the few dozen private security companies in Afghanistan [its senior personnel are ex-British army, many of them from Special Services]. One of Watan’s enterprises, key to the war effort, is protecting convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies.

Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA ^­ officials and ex–military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahideen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.

In this grotesque carnival, the US military’s contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban.

“It’s a big part of their income,” one of the top Afghan government security officials admits. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10% of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts – hundreds of millions of dollars – consists of payments to insurgents.

Understanding how this situation came to pass requires untangling two threads. The first is the complex web of connections that determines who wins and who loses in Afghan business, and a good place to pick up this thread is a small firm awarded a US military logistics contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars: NCL Holdings.

Like the Popals’ Watan Risk, NCL is a licensed security company in Afghanistan. What NCL Holdings is most notable for in Kabul contracting circles, though, is the identity of its chief principal, Hamed Wardak. He is the young American son of Afghan’s current defence minister, General Rahim Wardak, who was a leader of the mujahideen against the Soviets.

Earlier this year, the firm, with no apparent trucking experience, was named as one of the six companies that would handle all the US trucking in Afghanistan, bringing supplies to the web of bases and remote outposts scattered across the country.

Striking contracting gold

At first the contract, for “host nation trucking”, was large but not gargantuan. But over the summer, citing the coming “surge” and a new doctrine, “Money as a weapons system”, the US military expanded the contract 600% for NCL and the five other companies. The contract documentation warns of dire consequences if more is not spent: “Service members will not get the food, water, equipment and ammunition they require.”

Each of the military’s six trucking contracts was bumped up to $360m, or a total of nearly $2.2bn. Put it in this perspective: this single two-year effort to hire Afghan trucks and truckers was worth 10% of the annual Afghan gross domestic product. NCL, the firm run by the defence minister’s well-connected son, had struck pure contracting gold.

Host nation trucking does, indeed, keep the US military efforts alive in Afghanistan. “We supply everything the army needs to survive here,” one American trucking executive told me. “We bring them their toilet paper, their water, their fuel, their guns, their vehicles.”

The epicentre is Bagram air base, just an hour north of Kabul, from where virtually everything in Afghanistan is trucked to the outer reaches of what the army calls “the battlespace” – that is, the entire country. Parked near Entry Control Point 3, the trucks line up, shifting gears and sending up clouds of dust as they prepare for their various missions across the country.

The real secret to trucking in Afghanistan is security on the perilous roads, controlled by warlords, tribal militias, insurgents and Taliban commanders. The American executive I talked to was fairly specific about it: “The army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money.”

That is something everyone seems to agree on. Mike Hanna is the project manager for a trucking company called Afghan American Army Services. The company, which still operates in Afghanistan, had been trucking for the United States for years but lost out in the host nation trucking contract that NCL won. Hanna explained the security realities quite simply: “You are paying the people in the local areas – some are warlords, some are politicians in the police force – to move your trucks through.”

Hanna explained that the prices charged are different depending on the route. “We’re basically being extorted. Where you don’t pay, you’re going to get attacked. We just have our field guys go down there, and they pay off who they need to.”

Sometimes, he says, the fee is high, and sometimes it is low. “Moving 10 trucks, it is probably $800 per truck to move through an area. It’s based on a number of trucks and what you’re carrying. If you have fuel trucks, they are going to charge you more. If you have dry trucks, they’re not going to charge you as much. If you are carrying Mraps [mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles] or Humvees, they are going to charge you more.”

Hanna says it is just a necessary evil. “If you tell me not to pay these insurgents in this area, the chances of my trucks getting attacked increase exponentially.”

The private security industry in Afghanistan has developed quite differently from the private military model seen in Iraq, where firms such as Blackwater were arms of the US government. The industry in Kabul is far more dog-eat-dog. “Every warlord has his security company,” is the way one executive explained it to me.

The heart of the matter is that insurgents are getting paid for safe passage because there are few other ways to bring goods to the combat outposts and forward operating bases where soldiers need them. By definition, many outposts are situated in hostile terrain, in the southern parts of Afghanistan. The security firms don’t really protect convoys of US military goods here because they simply can’t; they need the Taliban’s co-operation.

One of the big problems for the companies that ship US military supplies across the country is that they are banned from arming themselves with any weapon heavier than a rifle. That makes them ineffective for battling Taliban attacks on a convoy. Insurgents are “shooting the drivers from 3,000ft away” with Kalashnikovs, a trucking company executive in Kabul told me. “They are using RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] that will blow up an up-armed vehicle. So the security companies are tied up. Because of the rules, security companies can only carry AK-47s, and that’s just a joke. I carry an AK – and that’s just to shoot myself if I have to!”

The rules are there for a good reason: to guard against devastating collateral damage by private security forces. Still, as Hanna points out, “An AK-47 versus a rocket-propelled grenade – you are going to lose.”

That said, at least one of the host nation trucking companies has tried to do battle instead of paying off insurgents and warlords. It is a US-owned firm called Four Horsemen International (FHI). Instead of payments, it tried to fight off attackers. FHI, like many other firms, refused to talk publicly; but insiders in the security industry say that FHI’s convoys are attacked on virtually every mission.

Watan’s secret weapon

For the most part, the security firms do as they must to survive. A veteran American manager in Afghanistan who has worked there as both a soldier and a private security contractor in the field told me, “What we are doing is paying warlords associated with the Taliban, because none of our security elements is able to deal with the threat.”

He is an army veteran with years of Special Forces experience, and he is not happy about what is being done. He says that, at a minimum, American military forces should try to learn more about who is getting paid off. “Most escorting is done by the Taliban,” an Afghan private security official told me. He is a Pashto and former mujahideen commander who has his finger on the pulse of the military situation and the security industry. And he works with one of the trucking companies carrying US supplies. “Now the government is so weak,” he added, “everyone is paying the Taliban.”

To Afghan trucking officials, this is barely even something to worry about. One woman I met was an extraordinary entrepreneur who had built up a trucking business in this male-dominated field. She told me the security company she had hired dealt directly with Taliban leaders in the south. Paying the Taliban leaders meant they would send along an escort to ensure that no other insurgents would attack. In fact, she said, they just needed two armed Taliban vehicles. “Two Taliban is enough,” she told me. “One in the front and one in the back.” She shrugged. “You cannot work otherwise. Otherwise it is not possible.”

Which leads us back to the case of Watan Risk, the firm run by the Popals, the Karzai family relatives and former drug dealers. Watan is known to control one key stretch of road that all the truckers use: the strategic route to Kandahar called Highway 1. Think of it as the road to the war – to the south and to the west. If the army wants to get supplies down to Helmand, for example, the trucks must make their way through Kandahar.

Watan Risk, according to seven different security and trucking company officials, is the sole provider of security along this route. The reason is simple: Watan has a deal with the local warlord who controls the road.

Watan’s secret weapon to protect American supplies heading through Kandahar is a man named Commander Ruhullah. Said to be a handsome man in his 40s, Ruhullah has an oddly high-pitched voice. He wears traditional salwar kameez and a Rolex watch. He rarely, if ever, associates with westerners. He commands a large group of irregular fighters with no known government affiliation, and his name, security officials tell me, inspires obedience or fear in villages along the road.

According to witnesses, Ruhullah works like this: he waits until there are hundreds of trucks ready to convoy south down the highway. Then he gets his men together, setting them up in 4×4s and pickups. Witnesses say he does not limit his arsenal to AK-47s but uses any weapons he can get. His chief weapon is his reputation. And for that, Ruhullah is paid royally, collecting a fee for each truck that passes through his corridor. The American trucking official told me that Ruhullah “charges $1,500 per truck to go to Kandahar. Just 300km.”

Security, extortion or insurance?

It is hard to pinpoint what this is, exactly – security, extortion or a form of “insurance”. Then there is the question, does Ruhullah have ties to the Taliban? That is impossible to know. As an American private security veteran familiar with the route says, “He works both sides . . . whatever is most profitable. He’s the main commander. He’s got to be involved with the Taliban. How much, no one knows.”

Even NCL, the company owned by Hamed Wardak, is reputed to pay. Two sources with direct knowledge tell me that NCL sends its portion of US logistics goods in Watan and Commander Ruhullah’s convoys. Sources say NCL is billed $500,000 a month for Watan’s services. To underline the point, NCL, operating on a $360m contract from the US military, and owned by the Afghan defense minister’s son, is apparently paying millions a year from those funds to a company owned by President Karzai’s cousins, for protection.

Cleaning up what looks like cronyism may be easier than the next step: shutting down the money pipeline from Department of Defense contracts to potential insurgents. Two years ago, a top Afghan security official told me, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), alerted the American military to the problem. The NDS is a well-run service, trusted by the international forces. The NDS delivered what I’m told are “very detailed” reports to the Americans explaining how the Taliban are profiting from protecting convoys of US supplies. The Afghan intelligence service even offered a solution: what if the US was to take the tens of millions paid to security contractors and instead set up a dedicated and professional convoy support unit to guard its logistics lines? The suggestion went nowhere.

The bizarre fact is that the practice of buying the Taliban’s protection is not a secret. I asked Colonel David Haight, who commands the Third Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, about it. After all, part of Highway 1 runs through his area of operations. What did he think about security companies paying off insurgents?

“The American soldier in me is repulsed by it,” he said in an interview in his office at forward operating base Shank in Logar province. “But I know that it is what it is: essentially paying the enemy, saying, ‘Hey, don’t hassle me.’ I don’t like it, but it is what it is.”

As a military official in Kabul explained contracting in Afghanistan overall, “We understand that across the board, 10-20% goes to the insurgents. My intel [intelligence] guy would say it is closer to 10%. Generally, it is happening in logistics.”

In a statement about host nation trucking, the US army’s chief public affairs officer in Afghanistan, Colonel Wayne Shanks, says international forces are “aware of allegations that procurement funds may find their way into the hands of insurgent groups, but we do not directly support or condone this activity, if it is occurring”. He adds that, in spite of oversight, “the relationships between contractors and their subcontractors, as well as between subcontractors and others in their operational communities, are not entirely transparent”.

In any case, the main issue is not that the US military is turning a blind eye to the problem. Many officials acknowledge what is going on while also expressing a deep disquiet about the situation. The trouble is that – as with so much in Afghanistan – the United States doesn’t seem to know how to fix it.

This is an edited version of an article that appears in the current edition of the Nation magazine

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