0230 GMT January 31, 2010

Tonight is one of discombobulation caused by existential angst, as in "Who am I, why am I on earth, what's on the other side of the mountain, why cannot I fly without mechanical apparatus', if a spaceship landed and the aliens invited me to go with them without possibility of return, could I leave my children - all grown by the way, why am I always broke, and more important, why am I always without a date on Saturday night?" It is indeed ironic that having spent one's entire life since age 13 chasing the opposite sex - now that one can chase legally, with no wife (different ones, at least)around for the first time in 43 years (not always to the same person), one finds oneself unable to chase women. Incidentally, even when Mrs. R IV was around, editor had no dates on Saturday: he stayed at home with the kid while Mrs. R. went on dates. One's patheticity is nauseating. Oh well, at least one's students find one hilariously funny.

• Pakistan sending sixth division to NWFP A reader alerted us to this, and yesterday Mandeep Bajwa confirmed it. He says as yet the division is unidentified, at least by India, and no, it is not a rotation but a reinforcement.
• No reason apparent as yet for the dispatch. Pakistan has clearly said it will conduct no further operations against the Taliban till matters stabilize (i.e., the Taliban that have been "defeated" - think Austin Powers apostrophes - openly return). In any case winter is no time to start a new campaign. Are the "bad" Taliban creating a situation that requires immediate action? We used Austin Powers apostrophes because Pakistan very much considers the "bad" Taliban to be useful assets, and certainly not to be fought, beyond making a sound and light show for the Americans and passing the hat around for another billion bucks.
• The other divisions in the NWFP are the resident 7 and 9 (XI Corps), 19 (X Corps reserve). 37 (GHQ Reserve) and 40 (companion of 1st Armored Division in II Corps). Several brigades are in Balochistan doing what we have no idea.
• Incidentally, as far as we know, the new lightweight howitzers India has purchased from the US are going to existing mountain divisions, one per division. The mountain divisions - as far Editor knows - have 3 x 105 light gun regiments each with 18 guns, and a 120mm mortar heavy mortar regiment. The only medium artillery at present is 130mm guns with corps artillery, usually 1-2 regiments, the others being rocket and 105mm regiments. So the arrival of the new guns, few as they are, will represent a major boost for the mountain divisions, particularly for counter-battery as well as their usual role of general fire support.
• PRC to outlaw forced demolitions of private houses Readers will be aware of this issue which is causing widespread unrest in China. We'd mentioned it in connection with the Chinese banning the more "Avatar".
• Problem is, forced demolition is already unlawful under existing statutes. The developers buy off the public officials and do just as they please. Why will this be different just because there's a new law?
• More news you can do without/Oi! Leave that man alone! UK Telegraph says Italians from a national commission have sought permission to open da Vinci's grave. Why? They suspect because of his love of riddles he painted himself a woman, specifically, the Mona Lisa. They hope to be able to tell from his skull if this is the case. They will presumably create a computer reconstruction.
• First, aren't there enough self-portraits of the Leonardo to judge his skull shape?
• Second, what purpose does this exhumation serve? It is not as if we are trying to get details about a period lost to history. This is about satisfying someone's whim about the model for the Mona Lisa which hardly seems important enough to desecrate the man's grave.
• Third, isn't the point of the Mona Lisa is that the lady is a mystery? Why can't we leave it at that?
• Make sure you are cremated when you die and your ashes are scattered. No one will be able to mess with you.
• Achtung! Fuehrer On Board! A Jewish family lost its poster collection when it was seized in 1938 by Herr Goebbels. The collection has been in a German museum. The family owning it tried to get it back. The Berlin Court of Appeals says the museum can keep it even though it is stolen property. Apparently Germany signed a 1998 convention saying restitution had to be made for art looted by the Nazis. Also, isn't Germany in contravention of UNESCO agreements?
• How can this be anything other than anti-Semitism? 

0230 GMT January 30, 2010

• PLAN to join NATO/EU anti-piracy patrol So far the PLAN's three warships have been operating on their own. Beijing has now agreed to put the ships under joint command. This will free up warships for patrol in other areas to which the threat has been extended.
• The Chinese motive is said to be show the world that China is a responsible member of the international community, and to defuse growing alarm in Asia at the PLAN's expansion.
• While the move will definitely give the PLAN good press, it will do nothing to allay the fears of Asian nations: just because China takes part in multinational operations doesn't mean it has given up, or will give up, its own national security imperatives.
• The biggest reaction has come from India, where the Indian Navy has put underway so many new construction/acquisition programs that generalists like the Editor can no longer keep track. You now need to devote serious time to figuring out what the Indians are doing. We'll give a summary of India's major programs next week.
• F-35s for FY 2011 will cost - gulp! - $250-million each Of course this includes all sorts of stuff like spares, but this is not the life-cycle cost by an means. It doesn't matter how darn rich you are, you can't buy a whole lot at that price.
• For broad details of the procurement budget for FY 2011, see http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4475754&c=AME&s=AIR
• The US Army is to create a 12th combat aviation brigade by rationalizing existing assets and begin the process of activating yet another by 2015. But when you consider that the FY 2011 budget provides just $2.6-billion for Army helicopters, and that are steady combat/combat-related losses, and a huge modernization backlog, you wonder how the present structure is to be maintained, leave alone expanded.
• A combat aviation brigade is assigned to each division (two for 101st) and brigades range from 88 to 116 depending on type. If we recall right, the  Vietnam era ROAD divisions had 101, and that was only the start, because you had a whacking great number of helicopters outside the division. Again, if we recall right, the helicopter slice was 400 per division in Vietnam. Yes, yes, the helicopters today are much more capable than those of yesteryear, yada yada, but requirements have also escalated in major ways, yada yada. The 101st Air Division has 230+ helicopters, compared to the nearly 400 the old 1st Air Cavalry Division had. For CAB details, look at http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/97018/
• Arctic ice is thinning say experts Though satellite picture show the ice is growing, much of the new buildup is new ice, which is very thin, and in many spots the thick ice has weakened. So a long term trend still needs to be established: will new ice keep being laid down or will the Arctic warm and ice start disappearing again. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1956932,00.html
• We mention this solely as an example of how difficult the debate over warming is, and why its best for a calm study of what's happening.

0230 GMT January 29, 2010

• Israel-Mideast Human Rights Watch has rejected Hamas's claims that the militant organization attacked only Israeli military targets with its rocket and mortar attack. HRW says Hamas appears guilty of war crimes - the organization has previously condemned Israel - and asks that Hamas investigate/fix responsibility for the attacks.
• Israel warns Syria and Lebanon of retaliation if Hezbollah attacks Israel. Lebanon because Israel holds Lebanon responsible for allowing Hezbollah to function within the country, whereas its hardly secret knowledge that if Lebanon acted against Hezbollah, the result would be civil war. Israel has already devastated Lebanon's infrastructure in the 2006 War and threatens a repeat.
• Why Syria? Though Syria-Israel relations seem warm, Syria has supplied Hezbollah with longer-range guided missiles that leave North and Central Israel vulnerable to attacks. The UN has pushed Hezbollah out of southern most Lebanon, but it has merely moved north, and with longer range missiles can still endanger Israel. Syria has also given naval surface-to-surface missile to Hezb, thus rendering the Israeli coast vulnerable, amd also handed over SAM-2s. OK, the SAM-2 is a relatively primitive SAM by today's standards, but if Iran updates the missiles, Hezb could conceivably shoot down an Israeli fighter or two.
• Israel looks at microsats for rapid response special missions. These would likely be fired into space by F-15s. The aim is to preserve Israel strategic assets; other these relatively few assets will have to be diverted for tactical roles. US has also been working on microsats for years; Editor knows nothing about the status of programs. Given the multi-billion dollar US satellite budget its easy to hide several microsat programs.
• Amos 4 to feature 50-cm resolution sensor This new satellite, still to be launched, will permit finer resolution than current ones which do 70-cm.
• Please note the increasing Indo-Israeli cooperation on satellites and launchers.
• Pentagon submits request for 145 M-777 howitzers for India Now, for some time Editor has been talking about the Indo-US alliance against China and that this will involve US committing USAF units to India. Notch up another level of cooperation. The Pentagon statement to Congress specifically states as one of its aim increasing interoperatively between Indian and US forces. So now we're talking of US ground units entering India. We're not quite sure why they'd be needed, but there it is.
• There has been grumbling that the M777 is rated second to the Singapore howitzer and US FMS deals are not "transparent". Har de har har. M777 is combat tested, more to the point, even if its not the best its good enough. As for "transparency", what the foreign arms companies mean is they do not get to bribe the Indians.
  Whichever Indian bureaucrat came up with the FMS route deserves a promotion and recognition. India's military modernization has been crippled because bureaucrats/generals are so scared of being accused of taking bribes that no one signs off on arms deal. But with this new government-to-government arrangement, there is no place for bribes.
• If the Singapore company and others want to contend, then best it ask its government to do the deal.
• International Panel on Climate Change takes another beating. The UK Telegraph says the IPCC's report on the Amazon, which says 40% of the region will see climate changed, is based on a study by two nature advocacy which was not peer reviewed. No other reference to support the IPCC's alarming conclusions has yet been found. (Thanks to reader FlyMike, http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023598/after-climategate-pachaurigate-and-glaciergate-amazongate/ )
• This is the third strike against the IPCC, headed by the Indian environmentalist Rajendra Pachuri. Dr. Pachauri refuses to take responsibility for the wrong statements.
• What is most alarming, is not the wrong reports. Dr. Pachauri - a railway engineer and an economist, not a scientist - apparently has connections with more corporations than can be tallied. "What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations." ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html )
• Among his business connections are banks, energy companies, and energy funds which invest in carbon treading.
• To us, most damning is the news that in 2005 he set up a Texas company, GloriOil, which specializing in oil recovery from depleted fields. What is the big deal, you may ask? Well, the problem is that the good doctor is possibly the most visible opponent of hydrocarbons for energy. We say the most without including Mr. Al Gore, because though everyone in the US knows Mr. Gore and few know Dr. Pachauri, in the rest of the world, particularly in the international climate change sector, its the other way around.
• The question of if climate change is happening or not is a serious one. It is not, contrary to what some believe, the most important issue facing humanity. Climate has changed all through pre-history and pre-history, and there is an excellent case to made - as the Dutch have done - that rather than trying to change a planet's climate, a project breathtaking in its hubris - we should adapt, as humans have done for tens of thousands of years.
• The issue should be discussed and studied at length, and not be kidnapped by people with vested interests who propagandize that the end is near if we do not act as they want.
• What Dr. Pachauri has done is discredit the climate changers. The damage he has caused is enormous, and it will only get worse as more and more people pile on to every study, looking for the minutest errors of science. We need an honest debate - as we need an honest debate on many, many other global issues. We don't need a bunch of money-hungry people doctoring - and badly at that - the science of climate change.
• Another example of sensationalized science in 1998 a British doctor made an "unfounded" allegation that the MMR vaccine leads to autism. This led to millions of children going without MMR, and Editor at least, has not seen how many additional deaths or crippling illness that caused. Last year after a massive study US authorities say there is no link - not that that has convinced activist US parents. Now the British are considering decertifying the doctor responsible.
• Lessons learned We could give many lesson learned from the Climate Change and MMR-Autism scandals, but we'll stick to a couple. First, in today's world people, even scientists, thinking nothing of presenting false or incorrectly interpreted data to further their agenda. We've gotten to the stage its hard to know who to trust. Second, the internet has brought about a democratization of information. We can see how easy it is to use this democratization to fool the public because now everyone can be an "expert". Third, manipulation of data lies beneath the complete breakdown of comity in the United States, which has now become United only in the sense that each and every party is free to peruse her/his partisan agenda, and does. It is the tactic of taking one little part of a complex issue, and then hammering on it to the exclusion of all other issues. The result is a breakdown of rational discussion and compromise.

0230 GMT January 28, 2010

• Pakistan agency reports tribesmen down 2nd UAV this week The story by Geo TV says that tribesmen in the Miran Shah area brought down a UAV, the second this week. No word on if they were armed or unarmed - most US UAVs are puttering around on reconnaissance. An armed UAV caught by surprise will find retaliating difficult, but if the UAV operator figures out what's going on after escaping the initial attack, he has a good chance of launching a counterattack.
• So, this is not a big deal. Indeed, we cannot figure out why its taken the tribes so long. Action, reaction. That is the nature of warfare, and particularly when a war has been going on for so long, the enemy is going to react. Now we will have to wait to see what the US does next.
• Naturally there is suspicion in the blogs ( http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=288947&D=2010-01-27&SO=&HC=1 ) about if the flak crew was Pakistan Army. This is possible. Miran Shah area has a substantial number of Pakistani troops.
• By the way Pakistanis have been telling the US "give us armed UAVs and we'll go after the insurgents". No need to explain this will be insurgents deems unfriendly, not insurgents US deems unfriendly. So US has cleverly agree to hand over 12 unarmed reconnaissance UAVs.
• So now Pakistan will have a greater capability to tell where US-Afghan soldiers are located/patrolling, and where the gaps for infiltrating insurgents and supplies into Afghanistan like.
• Sri Lanka ruling president wins against former army chief The Sri Lanka Army chief who eliminated the LTTE felt he was not getting honors due him for the historic victory. Government felt he was planning to enter politics in opposition to the ruling party and did not want to give him a boost. The army chief stood for election anyway, and was defeated by a large margin by the sitting president.
• Rumors flew back and forth all yesterday that the former Army chief would be arrested. Sri Lanka government said it wanted to arrest deserters the chief was sheltering and that he was free to go where he wanted. The Army chief said the men were part of his security detail and they were taken away.
• Now, we don't know if Sri Lanka operates the same way as India, but it's likely it does - same colonial power and all that. In India, the Army Chief gets a batman and a driver after he retires (or is it just one person?), and that's it. He does not get a security detail unless the government deems he is in danger. So the soldiers with the army chief might very well be deserters, if they did not quit the military before they went to guard him after he retired, or if the government did not assign the former army chief a security detail.
• Bangladesh executes Mujib's killers Sheikh Mujabir Rehman should have become Prime Minister of Pakistan after the 1970 election. Problem as far as the West Pakistan elite who ruled Pakistan was concerned, he was from East Bengal. Pakistan had prime ministers from the East previously, but for some reason the elite decided he was not to be permitted to rule the country though he had won the election.
• This triggered off the Pakistan Civil War, which ended with Mujib's installation as Prime Minister of newly independent Bangladesh. Less than four years latter, he was assassinated along with much of his family.
• Thirty-five years later, five of his killers have been executed.
• Now, Editor is not responsible for Bangladesh - he is not from that part of the world. But next time Editor raves about the inhumanity of the American criminal justice system which keeps people on death row for decades, you might want to remind him of Bangladesh and 35 years. Of course, if the best we can say for America is: "Well, look at Bangladesh," then America is in serious trouble.
• Four senior Indian generals in land scam We've often mentioned how corrupt the Pakistan Army is, so its only fair to tell you that four senior Indian generals have been found guilty by court martial  for a land scam. We don't have the details, but are told one is the Military Secretary, which makes him the most important staff officer to the Chief of Army Staff, one is waiting to become the Deputy Chief of Staff and another is GOC 33 Corps.
• There is a difference between the two countries. In Pakistan the Army and other services systematically partake of a spoils system regarding land. The military puts in a requisition for land, allegedly for military bases, then asks for land in the best areas of Pakistan and the best land in the best areas. Large parts of the land are sold off to officers at nominal prices. In India the Army sets up bases in the middle of nowhere, to avoid causing undue hardship to the land owners and also to keep land cost down, and the Army has to justify itself every which way to the civil bureaucrats.
• The other difference, of course, is that these senior officers are facing court-martial and  dismissal in disgrace.
• In conclusion, though, we do need to point that the scam was one where the officers "unduly influenced" the transfer of civilian land to an educational institution, though the Army vigorously objected as the land was adjacent to an army base. We assume it was pretty much unoccupied and part of a buffer around the base. The Military Secretary was to join the educational institution after retirement. So it is not as if the generals stole land and sold it off to pocket the money.

0230 GMT January 27, 2010

• US using E-chips to target insurgent leaders? The Times of India has a Press Trust of India story that says: "There have been reports that tribesmen have been paid off by US forces to plant electronic chips that help pilot-less spy planes to home in on targets, including Taliban-held compounds." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Taliban-kill-7-in-Pakistans-tribal-belt-for-spying-for-US/articleshow/5495142.cms
• If indeed US is doing this, congratulations, and it may explain the sudden surge is both attacks and kills of insurgent leaders. This is US ingenuity at its best.
• Of course, now that the news is it - assuming its true - the next thing the Taliban/AQ are going to do is locate the chips planted on them, and plant the chips on their enemies who are allied with the government. You could prevent that by having chips that die within a certain number of hours, but - whatever. The enemy are no fools, they seem to have their share of tech experts.
• The Indian newspaper mentions this in the context of the Taliban killing tribesmen for spying for the Americans.
• Now, we are in the happy position of telling you something the US is working on, though of course we have no idea how many years or decades it will take to come to market, so as to speak.
• This is smart nanodust. Get the dust onto the clothes/shoes of an insurgent; he trots off to see the chief; the nanodust drifts around, locates the chief, self-assembles in his nose or eyes or mouth and poisons him. The really joyful part is if this stuff gets into the wrong hands...
• Reader James Freemon is appalled, to say the least, at our post suggesting the solution to people complaining about New Testament verse numbers imprinted on gunsights: "

WHAT?!?  The very idea that the Creator favors any side involved in killing his human creations is ludicrous. I am a former Marine machine gunner, Vietnam veteran. I seriously doubt God had anything to do with my aim. We humans may happily butcher each other in His name, but He probably doesn't help. Maybe we could put Marvel comic volume numbers on our sights. That should confuse 'em.

• We definitely like his suggestion! And it follows, from the pyswar viewpoint, for the company to put references to Koran verses on the gunsights, and to let ABC News or whoever "discover" the references. That should confuse people even more!
• Seriously - and we are sure Mr. Freemon knows this, our main point was all the groveling and sniveling and butt-smooching US is doing on the point. We said  put everyone's holy books because someone will make a lawsuit saying US Government is favoring one religion. As for the verse references, Editor's point is that when he is in mortal danger he is happy to be "protected" by anyone's religious talisman.
• But if, as Mr. Freemon suggests, the company is saying: "kill them and Jesus loves you", well, that is not the message of the Bible.
• But we do want people to remember that one side in this war very vehemently believes that its Creator wants it to kill people who not just don't belong to their religion, but to their sick interpretation of that religion. So its not Muslims killing infidels, its also Muslims killing Muslims whom they declare infidel.
• And this is what amazes us: Muslims know 99% of the victims of these wars are Muslims killed by other Muslims. Yet few will stand and unequivocally denounce their brothers. None of this has anything to do with religion. It has to do with a tiny minority seeking to gain power by imposing its wishes on the majority.
• Familiar story, and Muslims are hardly the first ones to do this. 
• From Reader Sanjith Menon While I very much respect your views I feel that your words criticizing Indian leaders as sissies is completely wrong. we are a developing nation, and our main focus is to grow a 10% for the next 20 yrs or so, to pull up our people from poverty.
• Pakistan will always be a pain, and no amount of talks will ever change that, a war will only complicate the situation further. plus why are we contemplating war, and walk into that hell of sting bees!
• Terrorism will forever remain, there are 3000 people falling out from, Mumbai `s suburban trains every year, does that effect Mumbai! Likewise, terrorism will not hold back Indian development.
• Indian leaders have done what they could under very trying circumstances, and this was just before elections. Was terrorism an  important subject when, elections were held! No.
• And, what do you actually want our leaders to do? Please clarify when you can.
• Editor's response This letter was a sign to the Editor that he should be a bit more humble. He thinks he is still in a world where everyone in India knew his prescriptions for India's security. Well, he hasn't been in India for 20+ years, and there is a whole new generation who doesn't - isn't this really shocking - know what the Editor wants done. so at another time he will comply with Mr. Menon's request.
• Shawn Dudley writes will all sorts of information regarding US Army TOEs We'll have to tell you all the details at another time, but meanwhile, here are things to think about.
• (a) US Army is caught between configuring itself for CI and retaining its conventional warfighting capability. So it is not taking CI as seriously as it should.
• (b) The reason US divisions have four brigades is not to give each division more capability, but because the plan was for a division to send one of its brigades overseas for six months a time and to have brigades not deploy more than once every two years.
• (c) The reason the heavy brigades are organized as they are, at least, is because the organization was tailored for the Bob Hope class RO-RO ships. This might be a first, where you configure units to fit neatly into your shipping, rather than configuring units to do their job in the field. Frankly, jaded as the Editor is, after six hours he is still completely taken aback at this news. He keeps saying: "This is incredible."
• (d) The artillery battalion (about 360 men) often functions as a "short" infantry battalion in the field.
• (e) The Army strips troops from other units so that units going overseas are overstrength by upto 25%.
• We'll comment today only on the last point. The US Army has a whole series of TOEs for each unit. If we recall in Vietnam days it was from 80% of unit strength to 133% - those who know better please correct us. Units deployed for combat always go with extra strength because on any given day, even if the unit is not fighting, it has a number of men unavailable: sick, posted to other units, sent out for a particular job, emergency that requires them away from the units etc. It is completely wrong for the US Army to be stripping other units to keep its deployed units at war strength. Its shows the Army's anathema to adding manpower is bordering on the dysfunctional.
• BTW, we mentioned this, but even the six mini-brigades the US Army was supposed to raise for GWOT was cut down to three. So in the nine years since GWOT began, US has added three mini-brigades and USMC had added three battalions. Great job, Pentagon. Way to go.

0230 GMT January 26, 2010

• A Reader Asks "Dear Editor, you keep talking of the need to increase US infantry strength for CI operations. Would exactly is it you propose?"
• We've been assuming the typical US brigade nowdays has the equivalent of 10 companies: 8 rifle, and the three reconnaissance troops in the RSTA equate to two more companies. So 43 brigades, 430 companies. We were therefore unpleasantly surprised to learn that outside of the heavy battalions, US infantry battalions have only three rifle companies and the fourth is the weapons company. The US keeps changing its TO with such ferocious determination that you have to marvel how completely out of ideas it must be. The rule is: when out of ideas, reorganize.
• To keep things simple, lets assume the US needs to keep four heavy divisions, leaving six infantry divisions. Lets assume that's 24 brigades, and each has 6 rifle and 2 recon companies. In other words, brigades consist of two effective battalions. (A stryker brigade would have an extra rifle company as it has three battalions excluding the RSTA) but lets talk broad numbers.
• What we want is for the US to add 8 more companies to the brigade. Whether it is 14 rifle and 2 recon or 12 rifle and 4 recon is something we leave to the experts. If you added a third battalion HQ and strengthened the RSTA battalions HQ,  that plus 8 more rifle companies would mean adding 1500 men to the brigade, give another 500 to boost the artillery battalion and support units. You are looking at 48,000 more troops.
• There are many different ways of getting those 48,000, but the simplest would be for the Army to stop playing children's game and add 48,000. The army has steadfastly refused to add personnel because it doesn't want a reduction of its expensive weapons budgets. Someone needs to tell the Army: "we are at war, in counterinsurgency we need as many ground thumpers as possible, you will do as you are told and you will recruit and train 48,000 more troops, and if you don't like it, you can resign." And that someone should add: "We don't care how many studies you show us saying how you can replace bodies with this gadget and that sensor, we are not going to listen," Because in CI you need bodies, and we really, truly, are sorry about that. There are no technology short-cuts in CI. sure, you can use technology to supplement men, but you cannot use it to supplant men. CI is not fought by UAVs, high-tech sensors, airpower and the like, it is fought by men who walk, who look everywhere, and who talk to everyone.
• If you doubled the infantry component of a brigade, you'd double its capability. You'd increase the area it covers, you'd increase the frequency of patrols.
• This is just the first step. Even adding just 48,000 troops is seriously retarded when the US is fighting a global war. Other steps we can discuss at another time.
• We love you Hugo El Presidente says he suspects the Haiti earthquake was caused by the US Navy, testing a secret weapon.
• Okay, Hugo, if the US can slay 200,000 people at a time with its undetectable secret earthquake weapon, shouldn't you be nice to the US? Just as a precaution, you know?
• Secretary Gates was in India the other day and he complimented the Indians on their "maturity" for not reacting to the Bombay 2008 terror attacks.
• This man has a real way with words. He calls the Indian leaders mature. We call them gutless freaks. We were assured by several sources that India would punish Pakistan for the attack. All of 2009 went by and we don't see any punishment. Maybe the Indians stuck pins in a map of Pakistan as a punishment. Maybe they beat pictures of the Pakistani leaders with a flower, and beat them every hour while tiptoeing through the tulips.

0230 GMT January 25, 2010

• Reader Vikhr Akula writes to say he has no time for Christianity as his country has suffered at the hands of Christians; nonetheless  the uproar over the gun sights which carry references to Bible verses is absurd.
• Now, while we understand some of the gun sights have gone to Afghan soldiers, how can the US be proselytizing when no one who lacks a deep familiarity with the Bible can guess what the inscriptions mean? The company that put the markings did so for US soldiers, the great majority of whom are Christians - and we doubt the great majority of them caught it. The sight of US officials including General Petraeus all but abasing themselves is sickening. Why was it not sufficient for US officials to say, sorry, this is for our troops; we'll withdraw the sights given to Afghans, and we'll sort this out ourselves if it is appropriate for our troops or not. There will be no further discussion with the Afghans.
• We are secular, we don't proselytize says General Petraeus. Really? America is a secular country? Yes, under the US Constitution the Government has no business advancing one religion or another. But America is a Christian country that extends full tolerance to all religions - and expects others to reciprocate.
• We don't want to give the Crusader vibe, says the good General. Well, then, General Sir, your war is lost. The other guy has attacked you because his religion says he must kill the infidel, you are the infidel. He is the Crusader, not America. America is only trying to defend itself against religious fanatics. Does anyone really think we are going to win by being politically correct?
• Maybe the good General and his fellow apologists can tell us, how many Christians, Jews, Hindus, Confucians, Buddhists have launched terror against the US? So we're supposed to believe its just a curious, regrettable coincidence that its been Islamists and Islamists alone that have been attacking?
• This is 100% a religious war, with one religion attacking everyone else including Jews and Hindus.
• Sure, US armed forces prohibit proselytizing. The solution in our mind is to put references from verses other than the Bible, including appropriate appropriate versus from the Koran.
• The verses that have been discussed speak of Jesus as the Light of the World. Where in heck's name is that proselytizing? Where is the implication that Christianity is superior to other religions and that people should abandon their gods and worship Christ? It is a beautiful metaphor that does justice to Jesus's call for non-violence and tolerance and love. It's just a little token of good luck to troops that are in danger.
• And frankly, if Editor was in mortal danger of his life, he wouldn't give one little thought to which manifestation of God he had to appeal to for protection. To be on the safe side, he would appeal to all of them, as well as the real God of America, the US Dollar. ("Oh Almighty Dollar, let me live, and I will kiss your behind for all my life...oh, wait, I've already spent my life kissing your behind and fat lot of good that's done, but you know what I'm saying: a religion grows stronger the more followers it has, so you need to keep me alive for your greater glory, even though the share I have of you is so tiny a nanoscope can not see it." Now there's a deeply moving and inspiring catechism.)
• This country needs to stop its rank stupidity. It has every right to ask why Saudi Arabia does not permit places of worship of other religions. It has every right to ask the same of the Afghans and the Pakistanis. It has every right to call Iraq to account for persecuting Christians.
• To say "I respect your religion but please feel free to poop on mine" is not secularism, it is not tolerance. It is a moral degeneracy of the severest kind. It starts verging on immorality, and to paraphrase President Obama - let me be quite clear on this: an immoral nation has no business preaching to anyone about anything or trying to export its beliefs to any other country.
• British troops to stay in Afghanistan till 2015 according to a leaked document. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7000999.ece Part of Plan C or D or whichever it is, is UK will pay tribes hundreds of millions of pounds sterling to cease fighting.
• First, we doubt that British troops will stay in numbers till 2015.
• Second, we are not in principle against paying the tribes. This was standard during Britain's imperial days, and it worked reasonably well. It was one of the tools a country of 30-million used to hold down an empire that encompassed a quarter of the globe.
• What we doubt is the utility of paying the hardcore Taliban. Our colleague at Long War Journal, Mr. Bill Roggio has opined that the Taliban will not accept money, and we agree.
• When we say the US must coopt the Taliban, we don't mean it should pay them off. Coopting them means saying: "Okay, you want to run the country, go ahead, meantime lets work together to further our mutual interests, and as a sign of our good faith, what can we do for you?." That means holding our noses at what are going to be completely unacceptable Taliban social practices. But we managed to hold our collective noses rather well when it came to the USSR. And as far as China is concerned, we have chopped off our noses so we don't smell a thing.
• Maybe this wont immediately work. The Taliban are likely to say "Be orf with you". But ultimately just as the US must deal with the world, every country has to deal with the US. This 800-kilo gorilla may be getting paunchy and bald and long in the tooth and quite brain damaged, but it remains an 800-kilo gorilla which can kill you merely by sitting on you while thoughtfully picking its nose.
• We'd have preferred an outright victory over the Taliban. But that isn't going to happen, as even the Pentagon now realizes - see Secretary Gates' statements about the need to talk to the Taliban.

0230 GMT January 24, 2010

• Al-Shabab threatens Central Somalia and Somaliland In a move with grave implications, Somalia's extremist Islam group al-Shabab has threatened the semi-autonomous province of Puntland (central Somalia) and the breakaway region of Somaliland. Now that it has consolidated its hold in the South, it is ready to move north. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/shabaab_looks_to_the.php
• Both these regions have actual functioning governments as opposed toare better governed that the rest of Somalia and are relatively peaceful. if they fall to al-Shabab, the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea region will become highly vulnerable to terror attacks and the expansion of piracy. When you consider that Yemen is already under threat, we are seeing a nasty situation where terrorists are operating on both sides of a critical shipping choke point.
• Long War Journal notes that the way to Puntland and Somaliland is not exactly open. Puntland has a large, anti-fundamentalist tribe that al-Shabab has to defeat; Somaliland has regular armed forces - albeit operating on a shoestring budget even by third world standards.
• Please note that if Puntland and Somaliland fall, Djibouti will come under intolerable pressure, and Ethiopia will be in danger.
• America's strategic failure Nonetheless, this news is frustrating in the extreme because it's now evident that as the GWOT enters its ninth year, the global extremist threat is expanding faster than the US's ability to react. And reaction is in itself a losing strategy.
• To us, the GWOT is starting to look like Second Indochina.
• First, In that war the US won every single battle of company-size or larger. Yet the US lost the war. In the current war, you have armed forces that spend more on defense (all US security related budgets together, which is somewhere around 750-800 billion dollars) that the rest of the world put together. The US armed forces are the best equipped and have the most rigorous training/combat experience possible. The competency of the US armed forces is unmatched.
• Second, in both cases the enemy knew/knows it cannot possibly defeat the US military. In both cases the enemy has subordinated military action to political action, whereas the US has focus on the military aspect. Islamic fundamentalists have shown us that they have diligently worked to expand the war at a cost which is unlikely to exceed $100-million. That is less than a day worth of US spending for fuel. ammunition, and construction without counting pay/allowances, long-term medical care and equipment costs. The US is simply incompetent at  long duration CI, and there is just no way to sugar-coat this reality.
• Third, Americans are terrified of appearing unpatriotic - which makes one wonder how patriotic they really are - and so scrutiny of the first war was non-existent. But Nixon at least got the US out of Indochina. In the case of GWOT, President Obama is so scared of being accused of softness, he is actually upping the stakes in Afghanistan. To be sure there is dissent on Afghanistan strategy. But first, in the main, its muted because everyone assumes - reasonably - that the US will be getting out soon and this is not an endless war. There is no debate as to why extremism is expanding in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa as the obvious examples.
• Last, as in Vietnam the Americans are fighting what they called limited war. They are not prepared to fully mobilize because they don't want to hurt their comfortable peacetime lives. But more insidiously, Americans are no longer prepared to sacrifice their lives. In Vietnam there at least was a draft. Learning from that experience - in a negative way - American generals are determined to fight wars with a small corps of professional soldiers and determined to put force protection as their first priority. There is no outcry about casualties because casualties have been absurdly low due to the timidity of the field commanders; moreover, we can fall back on "oh well, they're volunteers, they know what they're getting into, and we are trying our best to bring them home alive." If the other guy is willing to give up his life for his faith, and you are not, how can we win? By using UAVs? What a joke.
• The net result of all this is we don't have a strategy, our military tactics are defective, and despite the huge amount of money we are spending on defense, we cant produce more than 50 under strength brigades plus 10 real brigades of Marines,  including reservist brigades mobilized for specific periods, for military commitments that extend around the world. we messed up in Iraq for lack of troops, we messed up in Afghanistan for lack of troops, and you know what? Editor at least is unprepared to bet a dime that we will not mess up the new fronts for lack of troops.
• The United States has about 120,000 actual fighting troops available, Army and Marines. Sure, all those transport units and artillery etc are required, but in CI you need the ground thumpers. The 50 army brigades each have the equivalent of 2 1/2 battalions of troops, approximately 125 battalions. Add 30 Marine battalions. Take away the mechanized forces and global commitments exclusive of the GWOT you have what - 100 battalions? Ideally you should not deploy more than a third of your force on long-war operations, but by flogging its troops half to death the US deploys 50 battalions with perhaps 25,000 direct fighters.
• The above analysis is quickly done, it is not precise. But - hate to point this out to you, oh wealthiest and greatest of nations,  the Indian Army has 45,000+ men in rifle companies available for deployment from just one single force, the Rashtriya Rifles. (66 battalions, likely to expand to 75.) And the RR is just one of many forces available without touching the regular army which has 125 infantry/mountain brigades exclusive of mechanized forces. These brigades each have between 12 and 16, often more, rifle companies available to them.
• Please notice we are not talking total manpower: the US is an expeditionary force, obviously it will require twice, likely thrice as many troops for a given unit, say an infantry battalion, than India. We are talking net deployable forces.
• Someone please explain to us how the US plans to win the GWOT with 25,000 fighters available. As one grows older, and options and hopes fade, one has to believe in miracles. The Divine is omnipotent, but we doubt if even S/He can get the United States to see sense here. We'd be idiots to hope for a miracle that will get the US to fight the GWOT properly.

0230 GMT January 23, 2010

• China vs India economic growth Many cannot take India seriously when they (a) consider India's 6-9% annual growth compared to China's 9-11%, particularly when China began its reforms a decade before India and has that much bigger base on which to grow; and (b) when they look at India's infrastructure versus China's. Pointing that India is a democratic state and people cannot be just thrown out of their lands and home cuts no ice with hard-core businesspeople.
• Nonetheless, John Lee writing in Business Week February 1/8 2010 ("Don't underestimate India's consumers" p. 84) has a different perspective.
• China allocates 3/4th of available capital to state companies and only 1/4th to private companies. in effect misallocating capital.
• In China the rural-urban income gap has doubled from 1.8 in the 1980s to 3.5 today. In India the gap has halved. Thus, China's rural masses are twice as badly off compared to their urban counterparts; India's, though still significantly behind their urban counterparts, are rapidly narrowing the gap, even though high growth began 10 years after China.
• India's middle class is estimated at 300-million; China's at 100-200 million depending on the parameters.
• Rural India now accounts for 41% of GDP and has outpaced urban India by 40%. In China 400-million have seen their income growth stall or reverse; and rural China generates just one-third of the GDP and 15% of its growth.
• In China incomes of workers, rural or urban, have grown at half the GDP rate over the last 15 years. Rural poverty and illeteracy have doubled
• We might add: the Indian rupee is fully convertible on current account, and is moving toward full convertibility on capital account; China's yuan is tightly set at whatever rate the government wants.
• So do we all start singing and dancing a la Bollywood? We absolutely do not. The impressive growth figures cannot hide the reality that at least a third of Indians go to bed hungry, or that basic services in the rural areas are just appalling. If rural India is growing so fast, it is despite the government. India could easily grow at 10% while observing the rule of law, simply by becoming more efficient. The governments in both countries are massively corrupt. In China, however, the government is corrupt and still effective at delivering high growth. Agreed India has to abide by the rule of law. Nonetheless, the government, while having come a long way in freeing the market, has a long way to go.
• In this context, the Indian economist Swaminathan Ayier has noted that India's two new states, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, carved out from the most hopelessly backward of Indian states, have been growing at near 10% despite super-corruption. Being much smaller states than their parent states (Madyha Pradesh and Bihar), a handful of determined political leaders can push high economic growth even as they line their pockets handsomely.
• Last, what's maddening about India is the relative ease with which its poor could be provided a guaranteed 1800 calories/day, clean water, health clinics, schools, and electricity, using just a small part of the Union/States budgets. Doing this would be equitable, and it would jump-start blazing growth in the rural areas. Growth cannot take place unless the government provides basic services.
• Its not just the rural people would be helped change their lives. Indians would feel better about themselves. This may sound unscientific, but Indians are major believers in karma. Editor has never met a single well-off Indian who has failed to admit the plight of the wretched masses. The better off Indians keep heaping more guilt on themselves each year because everyone realizes that India lacks not resources, but will-power. Indians know they incur bad karma by not helping the wretched of the earth. People who know they are not doing the right thing punish themselves. One way to get the well-off to feel truly good would be to help the wretched, particularly when it need not take anything out their pockets that is not already being taken by the Government.
• Letter from Ramganesh Iyer on the US coopting the Taliban Make them into US allies. People say this will never work as these gentlemen are ideological fanatics. But they had no issues with America until America made issues with them.”

· You are spot-on in saying that these guys had no issues with the US till US made issues with them. But somehow, it is the US that appears to be an ideological fanatic here – so obsessed are they with democracy and the Western way of life that they seek to actively export it around. The likes of us Indians might swallow this pill and wash away our rich cultural heritage in the name of ‘modernisation’, but the Taliban would not.

· So ‘making’ them into allies involves first US unequivocally admitting the doctrine of ‘live and let live’. It involves its reversing its several decade old habit of exporting its way of life to the rest of the world, and behaving like a global policeman.

· All this, I believe, is too much for the US to admit and do. So life is going to continue as-is. US will withdraw in a year or two. The Taliban will take over. They will continue to fight overtly and / or covertly.

· Editor's response One of the off thing about the Americans is their refusal to see they are possibly the most fanatic of peoples. States fight wars because they are attacked, or because they will gain economically by conquest, or because the status quo ante helps them make profits.  After World War 2, every single war the US has fought except for Gulf I has been to spread US ideology. I know Americans believe that Korea was a war of defense. But honestly, that's not the way most of the non-Western world sees it. The US had, in the 20th Century, made dozens of invasions to keep its sphere-of-influence free from contaminating others. All the Chinese were doing was grabbing their sphere-of-infleunce. Sure, the Soviets were also ideological. But their ideology was a cynical fake to keep an elite in power. It was so fake that in the end, even the real Communists could not bear to sacrifice to sustain its fictions.

· Now, I happen to like that ideology, as I am sure does Mr. Iyer. But what Mr. Iyer opposes is the use of force to further ideology.

· In this Editor differs from many people. He has zero problem with the US using force to export its ideology because ultimately the world will be a better place. What the Editor objects to - Korea, Vietnam, Gulf II, Afghanistan, and now Iran, is that the US - like the Soviets - refuses to make the sacrifices needed to win.

· Shedding the blood of your citizens and spending their money is, to Editor's mind, perfectly legitimate if the nation gains. But when you send soldiers to be killed, and spent vast sums of money, and so completely fail as has the US, then that is immoral.

· (Iraq is a losing cause? Yes, of course it is. What has the US gotten out of invading Iraq? It has only strengthened Iran. US cant even get a decent oil contract! And to think people still say America invaded Iraq for its oil! When Iraq gets up to 4-million barrels of oil a day, it will have no further need for the Americans. And when it gets to 6-million barrels a day, Americans will have to grovel - and oh yes, the Iraqis are going to make us grovel, just as we grovel to the Saudis. Some victory.)

0230 GMT January 22, 2010

Statement to www.longwarjournal.org on Pakistan's tribal zone by a US official:

"It isn't just al Qaeda operating in the tribal areas," a senior US intelligence official told The Long War Journal. "You have Pakistani groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. You have the Uzbek terror groups. You have HuJI (the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, a terror group based in Pakistan and Bangladesh), Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf, you name it."

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/wanted_abu_sayyaf_op.php#ixzz0dIJUGEFX

• Pakistan tells US no further offensives in 2010 We have to admire the Pakistanis for finally standing up to the Americans - if indeed they are standing up and not bargaining for even more aid and/or a reduction of US pressure.
• Wait a minute, readers will say: we thought you're on the US side re GWOT. Of course we are. But you don't seriously think Pakistan's many offensives have actually hurt the Taliban? They have been sham offensives. In the last couple of months its US strikes again Taliban/AQ have been making a difference - if it matters - by killing scores of Taliban leaders, major and minor. As such, Pakistan's refusal to stage more offensives - the reason given is that Pakistan has to stabilize itself after the recent offensives - makes no difference.
• Now, insofar as Pakistan is part of South Asia, and Editor is from that region, it bothered him exceedingly the Pakistanis groveled at America's feet and begged/accepted alms. He has been saying for a while that both the America and Pakistan need to publically acknowledge the truth about their relationship and take the consequences. It makes no sense at all for the Pakistanis to destroy the fourth arm of the military, the Taliban, just to keep the Americans happy. They were never going to do it, they did not do it. They will NOT do it in the future particularly as the Taliban are winning. The current US surge will force the Taliban back from 10% of Afghanistan, so that instead of 85% control (our measure is control by night) the percentage will fall to 75%. Big deal. Yawn. And when the US withdraws, Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban.
• Maybe its time for the US to switch strategies. First, admit that pressuring Pakistan has not worked. Second, co opt both the Pakistani and the Afghanistan Taliban. Make them into US allies. People say this will never work as these gentlemen are ideological fanatics. But they had no issues with America until America made issues with them. Once the Taliban take over Afghanistan - again - they will break free of Pakistan if they have somewhere to turn. And the US should make sure the Taliban turn to America. America hurt Vietnam a 1000 fold more than it has hurt the Taliban. Yet Vietnam and America are allies in all but name. The Vietnamese like anyone else want economic growth. And they want an ally against China. No one can say the North Vietnamese were not ideological fanatics: no one accepts two-million dead in a multi-decade war unless they are ideological fanatics.
• US turned Vietnam around. It can turn the Taliban around too.
• China and the Blue People Something exceedingly odd is happening in China concerning the ban on the movie "Avatar", ostensibly because the movie will lead the Chinese masses to stand up and object to the way their land/property has been grabbed in the last 30 years for economic development.
• Paranoid reasoning, in our humble opinion, but okay, we can see it from the viewpoint of the Chinese Communist Party.
• But only the 2D version has been banned. The 3D version plays on.
• We have a theory as to what gives, but we want to wait and see if the 3D version is also banned before we comment.

0230 GMT January 21, 2010

• Republican wins "Ted Kennedy's Seat" So everyone has their theory on how the Democratic candidate, ahead by 30 points, tanked so badly almost at the last minute that she lost 47-52%. On the sound theory that no one actually knows what they are talking about, Editor, who admits to not knowing what he is talking about, throws his theory in the ring.
• Perhaps the Massachusetts voters - who tend to be so Democratic their state is called the Bluest State - took a look at the health plan they already have and compared it the health plan Mr. Obama promised. The Massachusetts plan covers an incredible 98% of people, compared to Mr. Obama's plan, which would leave a significant percentage uncovered. Perhaps they noted that no back door deals were cut in getting their plan. And perhaps they noticed that no one's taxes were raised.
• So, perhaps they looked at their fave Senator, now gone to his heavenly reward or wherever it is politicians go, and said to themselves: "If Teddy was alive and standing for election, we'd have voted for him because we love to pieces. But he's gone now, bless his soul, and his health care ideals are being betrayed by the President, to the extent that the plan he's proposing is far worse than the plan we already have. So what's the point of voting for his anointed successor? We're gonna lose, not win, if we vote for her."
• Sure, there's always more than a few "main reasons" in something as complex as a Senatorial election. This was definitely a referendum on the President, as well as on his color. Pay no heed to the pools that say 9 of 10 Americans like him personally regardless of where they stand on his policies. People lie. They don't want to come out and say "really, we were leery of a black man to begin with, but after this one year in office we will not vote for a black - or if we voted we regret it."
• Of course Mr. Obama's betrayal of his own campaign promises, and so rapidly, has a lot to do with it. Obama is being derided as Bush 43 1/2, because he is doing everything that Bush did: Afghanistan is expanded well beyond what Bush dared, Guantanamo is not closed, Mr. Obama is in bed with the bankers and financiers in the worst way, and his disdain for the common man is unbelievable for a man who belongs to the human race.
• Of course people are hugely upset unemployment is 10%, true unemployment 17%, and no one who is a common man has any security of keeping their job. In America when you lose your job, you are on the down-escalator to heck, because you get bankrupted, lose your house, lose your insurance coverage, have to beg charities to feed your family etc etc. This could happen to you, dear Orbat reader. It could happen to the Editor. Sure, if you could get another job in three months, or six months for those who have been frugal and saved money, or a year for those who pinched pennies till they squeaked, you wouldn't be so afraid, but now-a-days people are not even getting jobs for half what they earned even after a year or more of looking, so everyone is afraid. Its fine for the economists to call this process "the creative destruction of capitalism", but that pays no heed to the terrifying prospects we all face. And sure, this so-called recovery is like a patient from critical care being moved to intensive care. Its no recovery. And sure, people are unbelievably angry that Congress is taking sleaze to a new high and that the Wall Street lot are bestowing centi-million dollar bonuses on themselves.
• All these things played into the defeat. But to our mind, you cannot take the ugliest pig in the world - the health care bill - get the best make-up artists in the world, and present it to America as Katherine Heigal. Mr. Obama and company have lied and lied and lied about this bill, and even its most fervent supporters have to have a queasy fluttering in their stomachs, saying to themselves: "Gosh, we're scared to find out what's really going to happen when this bill is enacted, if that's terrible right now." And of course, we believe Americans are disgusted at the back-room deals cut to get this bill.
• We're going to make a rather bold statement People elected Mr. Obama for change. He has turned out to be as much a rotten tomato as his predecessor, and without the genuine empathy for ordinary people Mr. Bush had. This president talks and talks and talks, and in the end all the words disappear in a flash of fireworks and you are left with wispy smoke rapidly blown away with the wind. We believe Americans have decided they are going to punish not just Mr. Obama, but Congress. We believe that what we are witnessing today is the very first baby steps toward the Second American Revolution your Editor, at least, has been advocating.
• Are we saying the Republican Party is the savior? Heavens, no. To our mind, there is no difference between the Republicans and Democrats when it comes to special interests, corruption, contempt for the country, ineffectiveness, stupidity, etc etc. They ALL have to go. And the American people have to change the way they look at their world. Its no longer about entitlements, its no longer about rights. When we feel entitled to everything, whether we earned it or not, and when we are so abusive in pushing our rights that we trample over the rights of others, we have a dysfunctional nation.
• It's we the people who sent these corrupt buffoons to Washington. That says more about us than the buffoons. The first duty of an American is to take responsibility for herself or himself. We have to own our responsibility for the mess and not blame the politicians.
• We have to understand for the next 100 years, to build America back, we're going to have to talk about our duties to our country, not the rights that the country must lay at our feet.
• So maybe Editor is wrong. But he has great faith in the younger generation and that they will do the right thing. He never had the same feeling about his generation when he was young.

0230 GMT January 20, 2010

• US has 10-cm UAVs says the US Air Force's Chief Scientist, according to Defense News. The official indicates US is very close to even smaller one.
• Russia's population increases by 15-25,000 This is the first increase after 14 successive years of declines, says Times London. The population is now 141-9-million.
• Personally, we don't see how you can count a 0.0002 percent increase with any reliability. The number of deaths still exceed birth, the increase is supposed to be due to immigration. But what disturbs us more is that Times headlines this as "offering hope of economic growth". Why do we have economic systems that depend on more and more people spending more and more money? In the long run this is ruinous for the world. No economists we, but surely the Giant Brains can figure out something better?
• BTW, you could take Russia's 142-million and drop them into Uttar Pradesh, which is India's biggest population state, and still have room. UP has 170-million people. Then people wonder why governance in India is poor.
• We love you, China Yes we do, And when you're not with us, We're so blue...with apologies to Bye Bye Birdie. Blue as in Avatar the giant James Cameron movie, which is to be banned in China because the authorities fear their citizens will identify too much with the colonized people. If you don't believe us, read http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6992685.ece
• Good grief, PRC Government. Grow up. Chinese, like most Asians, are very color conscious. Our guess is the Chinese people will refuse to identify with the Blue Catfolk at all costs. But - who are we to say. Uneasy the head that wears the crown and all that.
• Hugo is back at it We thank our favorite dictator. Life has been such a bore of late. He says the US presence in Haiti as a "military colonization". Get a life, young man, will you? Worry about your own survival.
• So, you will say, why are we slamming Hugo and not the French minister who made almost the same allegation after a French aid plane was turned away from Port-au-Prince by US authorities. No explanation given as yet, but we suspect it could have to do with congestion rather than US occupation. Well, the reason we are not slamming the French minister is that the French are, well, the French. We love the French because they helped America get independence, and we certainly are not going to let the usual petulant pre-kindergarten behavior the French are prone too when they are irked trouble us.
• Besides, how can you not admire a country where the women dress so well? They make American women look like peasants. Albeit very fit, healthy, and large peasants.

0230 GMT January 19, 2010

• 12,500 US military in Haiti mission as of Monday; 1000 troops on the ground are increasing to 3500. US military official says that while it's too early to say, up to 200,000 may have died. As of yesterday 70,000 bodies had been cremated or buried.
• Record ransom of $5.5-million paid to Somali pirates by a company whose tanker with 2-million barrels of oil was being held. The ransom may have been as much as $7-million. Four pirates died in shoot-outs over shares of the money. We expect Al-Shabab is taking its share, which is usually given to these fundamentalists simply to avoid problems with them.
• The tanker company head marvels that 200-years ago governments were a lot more serious about combating piracy than they are now. Well, we're all softies now. Back in the day they promptly hung pirates, these days no one wants to even try them on the pretext that international law does not allow it. Actually, the law of the sea which is still operative says any country who captures pirates can try them.
• But why complain? Americans are so frightened of trying terrorists in the US that President Obama's decision to do that has resulted in a firestorm of criticism. When the great Americans are messing up their panties, why blame Euro-sops like France and Germany and UK?
• Greenpeace head says he was wrong about Arctic ice melting in 2030. This is a news story from the BBC in 2009, but it's still worth looking at  in light of the current controversies. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8184392.stm (Thanks to reader Flymike.)
• India currently has 47 division-equivalents in its Army. Mandeep Bajwa and Editor completed a detail study over several days and have concluded that with 100% probability the Indian Army has 47-division-equivalents. This is not counting one of the two new divisions, as we don't have brigade numbers for it, or the two new divisions. On current plans it is likely India will have 51-division-equivalents by 2012 (three brigades to a division). The count excludes 5 division-equivalents of specialized counter-insurgency troops.
• We regret we cannot share more detailed information as we do not wish to aggravate anyone in authority. Our purpose is simply to tell the world that its likely, with its 1000 infantry, mechanized, armored, parachute, special forces, field artillery, air defense artillery, CI, and engineer battalions the Indian Army is the largest in the world. Indian battalions, with the exception of armor, tend to the large: almost 900 for infantry/mechanized and near 1100 for CI battalions. So these are not 300, 400, 500, 600 man battalions.
• Moreover, none of the battalions is reserve, nor does India have a system of differentiating combat/combat support formations by the level of equipment or readiness. PRC, once reserves are counted, likely has more divisions and battalions than does India. But the Indian forces are fully trained and equipped, ready to go now.
• Also BTW: we have not counted 350 border forces battalions - Border Security Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Assam Rifles, and SSB. These battalions are expected to perform first-line combat duties in wartime.

0230 GMT January 18, 2010

• Jordanian doctor who was a double agent It's confirmed now that this man was coerced into working for the Jordanians. He first came to the government's attention due to loud postings on the web. The Jordanians threatened him and his family should he refuse to cooperate. Fat lot of good the threat made. The doctor removed himself from the hands of the Jordanians by killing himself plus a serious number of CIA people and his Jordanian handler. Since he's dead he's not in a position to worry any more what his government will do to his family. We're a bit astonished that the American media, in true form, has been seeking to put the blame for the incident entirely on Americans, while we see no mention of the Jordanian role in this extremely stupid recruitment.
• Haiti: the world is trying it best, but this is the reality Read http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6991810.ece
• Russians participating in Haiti rescue Though the US is doing most of the work in Haiti, dozens of other countries are participating. Here is a quote from ITAR-Tass on the fourth Il-76 jet sent to Haiti:

· Flying to Haiti aboard the jet is a company of fifteen rescuers who have taken part in post-quake search and rescue operations in Russia and abroad on many occasions in the past.  Also, the same jet is carrying some specialized search equipment that will make it possible to disassemble and break up heavy joists and to make passages into ruined buildings from lower floors, the spokesman said.  The rescuers are carrying along with them the lightening equipment that will help them work during nighttime. These are the powerful searchlights and a light tower. The same Ilyushin-76 is also carrying a light helicopter of the BK-117 family, which the rescuers will use for aerial surveillance and for evacuating severely ill from remote and hard-to-get-to areas.

· Incidentally, we learn from the blog http://defensetech.org/2010/01/15/drones-the-first-to-arrive-in-haiti/ that the first aircraft to reach Haiti was a Global Hawk UAV, possibly on the 13th, a day after the earthquake. The blog says US is getting ready to fly U-2s over Haiti to assess infrastructure damage.

· And if you want a truly bizarre, Debka type of story but not from Debka, read http://defensetech.org/2010/01/06/intel-us-shuts-down-arms-shipment-to-georgia/ An excellent map of where Georgia is in relation to Iran is available at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/middle_east_95.jpg

· Another odd-ball story: 10 Israeli soldiers sent to jail for mutiny Jerusalem Post says 10 soldiers from the Nahal Brigade received military prison terms of 20-45 for refusing to obey orders during an exercise. The men had questioned the competence of their platoon leader.

· An IDF spokesperson warned that the Israeli Army is founded on orders. So in other armies the soldiers get to vote on if they are going to follow orders or not? But seriously, we see the punishments as another example of the decline of the Israeli Army. We don't see the men refusing orders to be a sign of decline: that happens all the time in citizen armies. But that they were given slaps on the wrists shows (a) how soft the Israeli Army has gotten, and (b) how terrified it is of riling Israelis, and indication it feels its authority is weak. Wonder if the men will get to take their soft blankies and bunny slippers with them.

· While we speak of softies let us not forget the US Army. We learn from the WashPo that a soldier convicted of desertion when he failed to report for deployment to Iraq and fled to Canada has been released after less than one year in jail. Good thing Editor is not responsible for discipline in either army. 20 years hard labor sounds like a fair sentence for both the 10 Israelis and the lone American.

0230 GMT January 17, 2010

• Congratulations to US Military and State Department on their response to the Haiti disaster. While doubtless the lessons of Hurricane Katrina played some part in the rapid, decisive manner both acted, we must note in fairness that the US at all times maintains its forces at high readiness rates. Moreover, the US has an established command structure in the region (4th Fleet) and Haiti is in America's back yard. So, Katrina or not, we believe the US military would have acted with equal rapidity.
• In some senses US State Department's Agency for International Development had the harder job, that of coordinating civilian public and private agencies, without highly disciplined management structures in place. US AID is headed, as of one week ago, by one of the new breed of Indo-American Indian wunderkind; in this case an unflappable 36-year old man who reacted smoothly to the unprecedented disaster as if he had years of experience.
• Also something that showed the rightly-maligned American politicians in a good light: the appearance with President Obama of former presidents Clinton and Bush. This showed not bi-partisanship, but a rising above politics. Particularly touching is that Presidents Bush and Clinton have formed a joint appeal for aid to Haiti.
• Before anyone concludes that the US has redeemed itself after the double Katrina disaster, one created by nature and the other created by humans, we'd like to note that Haiti is overseas, so no US politicians are around to mess up things.
• We must concede, however, that America is not without efficient politicians. We are told that Katrina caused significantly more damage in Mississippi than in Louisiana, but you don't hear much about the former. That is because the Mississippi governor, Hailey Barbour, acted with speed and efficiency. He is said to have an unparalleled list of contacts and the ability to get them to do his work, and he used that to the advantage of the people of Mississippi.
• Democrats in danger of losing Ted Kennedy's seat The Democrats started with a 30% advantage but now the talk is they might actually lose the seat to a Republican challenger. In which case chaos will erupt in Washington because Massachusetts is as liberal as states come. So not only will the Democrats filibuster-proof majority of 60-10 be busted to 41-59, conservative Democrats, of whom there are many, might jump President Obama's ship.
• The latest poll shows the Republican ahead by 50-46, but there is a 4% margin of error, meaning it could come out 50-46 against him. Still, to go from 30% behind to this close is astonishing and shows, to us, that just one year out, President Obama's magic has faded.
• By the way, the article says that the outcome will likely depend on independent turn-out, and here the Republican is ahead 2-1.
• Further evidence of how the Government has bungled health care reform: 51% of Massachusetts people say they are against the reform and 61% says the US cannot afford it. To understand the significance of this, please consider Massachusetts is one of the first states to require universal health coverage and least from what we casually read, the new system is working.
• Who said Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035? In 2007 a UN agency issued a report making that dire prediction. Now it turns out that the report was based on a 1999 New Scientist story. This weekly is great fun and Editor loves it, being sad only he cannot afford a subscription. But it is a journal of popular science, not a science journal. You cannot possibly pontificate about something so politically charged as global warming and seek to make worldwide policy changes based on an article from the weekly, any more than you can make national security policy based on a story in the WashPost or NY Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece
• But wait: it gets worse. The weekly's story was based on a short phone conversation with an Indian scientist, who now says he is no expert on the subject and was merely speculating.
• But wait: there could be something even worse. The scientist who forced the revisiting of this issue apparently wrote an article in BBC last December. He quoted a scientist as saying in 1996 that the glaciers might melt by 2350 AD. You have to wonder if the Indian scientist casually read the same article and wrote down the melt date as 2035.
• Folks, Editor has no position on global warming because he completely lacks expertise. We have referred a few times to the subject because we like being contrary, and in any case when "everyone" is saying something, that's a sure sign the matter needs reexamining. But all we are saying is that the matter is sufficiently serious that everyone involved, particularly scientists, need to be extraordinarily careful. Articles like this one from London Times undermine the credibility of anyone who says the sky is falling. Which is fine, but then we don't want to see a situation where the sky really is falling but the world is in denial because of bad science by a few people..
• It does not help when people with political agendas use false science. We're referring particularly to Mr. Al Gore, who according to some has become a billionaire on this "The End is Near" stuff.  By the way, at the Copenhagen climate conference Mr. Gore said that 2009 was our last chance to get it right. So the world muffed that chance as when push came to shove, countries started saying: "wait a minute: should we be rushing into hugely costly decisions that become the hallmark of an entire century when we are not really agreed on the policies we should implement?" So will Mr. Gore now please stop pontificating? By his definition its too late - 2009 has passed, no action has been taken, we're doomed.
• A man who believes he invented the Internet and that "Love Story" was written with him and his wife - who, bless her, is very much well and alive these past four decades - as the models for the protagonists, is not to be trusted to give you directions to the nearest Seven-Eleven.

0230 GMT January 16, 2010

• Goodbye Hollywood, hello Bollywood? We've often remarked that soon America will become an exporter of commodities and Hollywood movies. and that will be it.
• We might have to restate the bit about Hollywood movies. In 2008, an Indian conglomerate, Reliance, paid $1.2-billion for a stake in SKG Dreamworks. Now the same Indian company is making a bid for MGM, according to the Times of India. In the first round of bidding, no one met the MGM minimum demand; so there is a second round next week and Reliance will be there. It's said to be in the lead for acquiring MGM.
• So what's the Big Deal, you say. The Japanese tried to buy American entertainment and got burned, why should India be different? Its different because India is buying at the bottom, not at the top. Also, the Indians are not buying trophies; they want to make money. If they don't see money, they won't buy. Last, the Indians know a few things about running frugal companies.
• One more thing: the Japanese knew nothing about running entertainment companies. India's Bollywood makes many more movies than the US, and the Indians know a lot about running entertainment companies.
• A constitutional challenge to the President's health care plan seems inevitable The US President says he has authority to require everyone to carry health insurance under the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. As supporters of mandatory health insurance say, it's like the government mandating auto insurance.
• Not quite so fast, Kemo Sabey, say opponents of the plan. You have the option of not buying a car. Your choosing not to buy health insurance means you are opting out of a particular commerce deal. When no commerce takes place if you choose not to buy health insurance, where does the commerce clause come in?
• Aha, say supporters. It does come in because people who choose not to buy health insurance become a burden on public and private healthcare. Commerce is affected.
• Does not, say opponents. If public and private hospitals choose to treat you free should you be unable to pay, that is their problem. They are not required to give free treatment. As reader Flymike has said: "I am starving, I rob the grocery store, I get sent to jail." Food is even more basic than medical care. If the grocery store chooses to give you free food, it has the right. But the grocery store cannot give free food and then ask the taxpayer to make up for the income loss.
• We have to make this distinction because Editor has come to realize not all the opposition to mandatory health care comes from the Robber Barons of Healthcare Companies. These people, who take 1 dollar in every six earned by America and ration health care on top of that. need to be hung from the same lampposts as the Bankers and Traders. Soon they will be taking one dollar of every four, and health care will be just as rationed. If we leave healthcare to the private sector, the American economy will collapse sometime after 2020.
• Be that as it may, many ordinary people with no stake in healthcare companies are against mandatory care. Young people oppose it because they are being asked to subsidize the old. Many people of all ages oppose it because they do not see why they should have to subsidize the unhealthy life styles of others that push up health costs. And some oppose it on ideological grounds.
• So what does Hollywood and healthcare have to do with the GWOT? Oddly, more than one would think. We can agree an economically declining America cannot remain the super-power for long, and cannot remain even a great power for long after that. So America's economic power is very much tied up with the GWOT.
• Okay, fair enough you say. But where does healthcare come in? Simple. Healthcare is just one more example where Americans cannot get their acts together even when the threat is dire. Without devoting much thought, the Government put together a 2000-page plan that it says will be paid for by savings, but it's already clear the Government's plan will raise costs. The Government's plan and all compromises on the table are a marvel of bureaucratic cesspools and inefficiency. Yet that doesn't stop the government from lying; and by the way, the Robber Barons also keep lying and lying and lying.
• If you can't get the government to get something simple as health care right, how can the government get the complicated things like GWOT right?
• The horrible truth is that the government of the US is no longer able to get anything complex done. There are many reasons. First is the special interests who run the White House, Congress, and the Fourth Estate. They are in the game for whatever they can steal from Americans. Second is the immense sense of entitlement we Americans have created for ourselves. We all claim rights, but few claim duties. Third is the way competence in the government has been steadily reduced in the name of outsourcing, which leads to higher costs and greater inefficiency. The government people laid off now work for the private sector, which has to add fat profit margins on top of its own inefficiency. Etc. etc.
• Editor does not understand why Americans can no longer have a truthful discussion about anything. Every major cause has battalions of spinners - i.e., liars, who manipulate data and the delivery of that data.
• By all means lets have universal health care. But the American people have to be told its true cost, and told it will do nothing to stop the catastrophic upward spiral of costs that will bankrupt us. Tell them the truth, and let them decide. Likewise, tell hospitals that they have no expectation of reimbursement of costs at taxpayers expense for free patients.
• Let individuals pay for the consequences of their bad decisions. Editor does not drink, smoke, eat more than 10-ounces of meat in a week or eat fried food, and he drags his aging carcass to the gym every day (at a total cost of $1100/year, which he can ill-afford, plus $800 in true car costs). Please believe that it is really painful when you are old and stiff and worn out to do the gym thing every day. So why should Editor have to pay health-care costs for those Americans who are dysfunctional? 
• Let the government come up with a plan - and to heck with the special interests - that is simple and economical.
• Oh but the government/Congress wont last long if the special interests are not appeased. Okay, fair enough. But then don't think this country will remain great for much longer.

0230 GMT January 15, 2010

We got delayed updating today, and no interesting news was quickly at hand. Please read Terry Shifflet's orbat for US relief forces to Haiti. Mr. Shifflet has also written a book for us, America's Line of Battle listing the ships of the Revolutionary War.

0230 GMT January 14, 2010

• AQ steps into south American-Europe narcotics traffic In case you don't have enough worry about, read this Reuters report  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60C3E820100113
• The report says that drug traffickers, sometimes with government protection, are using a number of aircraft to transport drugs from South America to West Africa and the Sahel for onward shipment to Europe. AQ has involved itself in the trade.
• Equally dangerous, it appears likely that the aircraft are also being used to bring arms into the region, which is plenty unstable to begin with. This opens the possibility that AQ has new sources of weapons; to be honest, however, AQ has never been short of weapons, so the impact of the arms is likely to be almost entirely on the regional countries.
• For the umpteenth time, we have to repeat ourselves US is engaged in a hundred year war. The only way very long wars are successfully prosecuted is by NOT wasting resources running hither, thither, and yon. US is wasting colossal sums in military operations and so-called "Homeland Security". The latter is an utter farce - we are not referring to the Nigerian bomber. The US remains one of the easiest countries in the world to infiltrate, both from its sea and its land borders. As for the military operations, they are so expensive the US cannot pay adequate attention to all the other countries, such as Somalia and Yemen.
• Going 100 years also means being calm. The US, after the Nigerian bomber incident, has decisively proved, once again, that it is anything but calm, and that it still believes that if you spin your wheels faster, you will get quicker to where you need to go. That's fine if you're on a road. If you're in a swamp without rims and tires, to paraphrase the great American poet Bob Dylan, you aint going nowhere. Americans have become hamsters in cages.
• Here's another true World War II story http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6986802.ece We'll comment on it tomorrow.

0230 GMT January 13, 2010

• Iran N-scientists dies in bombing in Teheran, and the government was quick to blame the death in Zionists/CIA.
• Problem is, the man was obscure, had no known connection to the Iran N-weapons program, and was an avowed opposition supporter. Logically the only people with anything to gain from killing him is the Iranian government itself.
• The counter-problem is, the man is apparently insufficiently  important an opposition supporter to merit assassination.
• End result: more questions than answers.
• Big fight coming in Helmand? US Marines say their next bight is going to be the Taliban stronghold of Marja, in North Helmand province. http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2010/01/marines_confident_on_marja.php 10,000 Marines are expected to be committed - we are unsure if this is the reinforcement MEB coming in or the one that was in South Helmand.
• Problem: as happened in South Helmand, there is unlikely to be a big fight as the Taliban will simply lay low. From time-to-time the Taliban do try the Americans' patience by hurling themselves at the Americans; inevitably they get beaten back with ghastly losses.
• The Taliban, however, are not stupid. The last time they staged a big attack - and lost a lot of fighters - was against the tiny American outpost in Khost province. The Americans had been thinking of withdrawing from the outpost anyway, because it was highly exposed. So the Taliban scored a tactical success by getting their valley back. The Marines, however, are not deployed in penny packets holding remote outposts. They cannot be overrun and we must presume the Taliban know that. So lying doggo will be the sensible thing. After all, the Taliban live in Afghanistan, the Americans' home is America.
• The penalty for failure to perform on a date: death We kid you not: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6985338.ece The niece of a junior British minister was given 15-years in jail in Paris for unpremeditated murder. The lady picked up a man, took him back to her flat, for er- religious studies, and he - er - failed to rise to the occasion. Whereupon she stabbed him to death. Note from Editor to himself: avoid these hot-blooded English ladies. Readers need not worry: Editor is quite safe, as he knows no ladies, English or otherwise.
• Dutch court says Netherlands entry into Gulf II illegal The court has ruled there is nothing in UN Resolution 1441 on Iraq that permits individual states to go to war. If you're interested, read the details in Deutsche Welle http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5117916,00.html
• We're a bit confused because Netherlands did not participate in the invasion. It joined later in the occupation force, but that was intended to rehabilitate Iraq.

0230 GMT January 12, 2010

Al-Qaeda Leadership in Yemen

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/most_wanted_al_qaeda.php

• Pakistan says Lakshir-e-Zil (the "Shadow Army - see www.longwarjournal.org for details) is responsible for the attacks in Pakistan Kashmir. This is bad news for India and Pakistan, as LeZ is affiliated not just with the Taliban, but also with Al-Qaeda. India is ready for a renewed war in Kashmir, which it expects will start heating up this year.
• Nonetheless, for India fighting Kashmiri insurgents, domestic and Pakistani, was one thing, the volatile mix of AQ and the Taliban is totally another. India has fought the insurgency dating from the 1980s defensively, never once counterattacking Pakistan-held territory. But people forget that India has fought at least one major CI against Pakistan offensively. That was in 1965, when after 12,000 Pakistan Army personnel masquerading as simple Kashmiri freedom fighters invaded Indian Kashmir. After weeks of escalating battles, the Indian Army moved against the Haji Pir pass in Pakistan Kashmir and against several other insurgent-entry points.
• This in turn led Pakistan to attack Indian positions in Chaamb-Akhnur. Since this was disputed territory, Pakistan felt it had violated no international norms by directly attacking India proper. Pakistan failed to heed years of warnings by India that any attack on Kashmir was an attack against India. Accordingly, to relieve pressure on Chaamb-Jaurian, India counter-retaliated by crossing the international frontier on September 6, 1965.
• To both the Taliban and AQ, these international complications are of no relevance. It seems inevitable that they will attempt to strike against Indian Kashmir and the complications be darned.
• Incidentally, Indian Kashmiri Muslims follow a mild and tolerant variant of Islam, though of course they have been affected by radicalization across the border. Nonetheless, they will not welcome intervention by hard-line Islamists who care nothing for Kashmiris and are heck-bent on their own fundamentalist objectives. We will be in for interesting times.
• Taiwan to buy another 8 FFG-7s from US Defense News quotes Taipei Times to say Taiwan is planning this. The ships will be upgraded to what we figure is a mini-Aegis configuration. Taiwan needs to replace several old destroyers, and it already has 8 Perry class frigates built in ROC. Presumably Taiwan wants more ships to replace the 8 Knox frigates it has,
• Currently its surface ships are 4 Kidd-class DDGs, 8 FFG-7 class, 6 Lafayette (French) frigates, and 8 Knox.
• El Dorado finally found on Brazil-Bolivia border This fabulous mythical city, for which explorers have searched for 500 years, has finally been located thanks to Google Earth images. It rewrites the history of the Amazon, which was supposed to have been inhabited only by small tribes - the city could have supported a population of 60,000. For details, read the excellent Times London story at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6982391.ece

0230 GMT January 11, 2010

• India has lost "substantial" territory to China in last 20 years We suggest you read this article from the Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-has-lost-substantial-land-to-China-Official-report/articleshow/5430564.cms
• It is the perfect counterpoint to our several stories last week about the Indian military buildup against China. What is the point of this build-up when (a) the Government of India is unsure how much territory has been lost and where; because of lack of accurate mapping; (b) when the GOI says there is a lack of institutional memory as well as lack of policy which has caused loss of territory; and (c) when the meeting from which the report came is attended by: 1. The head of the county government; 2. The Brigadier General Staff of the corps based in the county; and 3. What seems to be the intelligence officer of the corps.
• In other words, you cannot get to a much lower level of discussion than that achieved. Shouldn't such a serious matter merit a cabinet level meeting with the Chief of the Army staff attending and not the BGS of the local corps?
• But this is India for you. Our point is: let's be fair here. If you were the Chinese and you were reading this report, would you worry that you are provoking the wrath of a power that is militarily stronger than you in the region or would you be rolling on the floor with laughter? A country that doesn't even know how much territory is lost cannot be taken seriously.
• US non-supervisory and production workers earn 9% less today than was the case in 1973, with is 36 years ago. These workers make up 80% of the work force. This information comes from Business Week, January 18, 2010, p. 39.
• The official unemployment rate is 10%. The actual rate, called U6, is almost 18%. The majority of that additional 8% want to work full-time, but can find only part-time work. Just 1.5% have given up looking for work or did not look for work in the past 4-weeks.
• The article says another 26% of people are working "non-standard jobs": people who work less than 35-hours for an employer, independent contractors, temps, day laborers, and employees of contractors. Now, clearly most of the 26% are working the way they do because they want to. But some percentage are working that way because they have no choice. That figure is not counted in U6.
• The article further makes clear that jobs that have gone are not coming back, and the trend toward hiring workers as temps and contractors so they do not have to be paid benefits like health or retirement will grow.
• Now, we don't entirely agree with the bit about the jobs are not coming back When China becomes a high per capita income economy, say in the 2050s, jobs will come back because Americans will cost less to hire than Chinese. We spoke of Wisconsin some time back, where most of its exports are commodities. That will be the fate of the US: you cannot take away from America that it is blessed with bountiful space and abundant resources. We will grow food for the Chinese and the Indians, and supply raw materials and intermediate manufactures.
• A country that can show only a 9% loss in real wages over 36 years for four of its five workers is no hyper power, super power, or even power. It is a country in decline, maintaining its status increasingly through the display and use of armed force. The EU already has a greater GDP than the US.
• Too dire? Exaggerations? Look folks. By the time 2050 rolls around, Editor will be gone to his heavenly reward, which the Upstairs Person has already told him will the fast down escalator to the Very Hot Place. Editor's children, being born of an Indian national who remains an Indian national, have the right to go to India to work. They have an escape. Editor, therefore, is not worrying for himself or his children.
• But what's going to happen to the Americans that have nowhere to go? Maybe Central/South America will take 10-million, and the Old Country another 10-million or more - they need population. Australia might take some. But India and China will take no one: they have plenty of people.
• Just a thought.

0230 GMT January 10, 2010

• More oil than believed We've made this point before, but Business Week January 15, 2010 makes it again. The world is not running out of oil. It is running out of cheap and easy oil. We've taken likely one-third of conventional oil. Now people are working on the second third, which will see us through this century. Of course, these estimates include major reductions in oil usage in the West because of the high prices, and the push by India and China to reduce the percentage by which oil use climbs every year by going for alternative energy.
• As an example, Business Weeks mentions a billion-barrel field lying on the German-Dutch border. The oil was considered too expensive to mine. Now, however work is underway to extract 120-million barrels over 20 years, and much more as technology increases. Sure, that's only 55,000-bbl/day, but this has to be multiplied by the many, many new discoveries and increasing oil recovery from fields that were considered depleting, such as in Russia and Oman.
• So are we going to be looking at $1/gallon gas soon? Hardly. First, oil is not a freely produced/marketed commodity. It operates in a situation where, whether or not you are part of OPEC, it makes no sense to increase output and reduce prices. Second, many of the new extraction technologies require oil to be at $60/bbl, and some of the even newer technologies need prices of $70-bbl and up.
• So if you want advice - though we are no experts - we think soon you'll be looking back nostalgically to the days oil was $3/gallon. In any case, we're talking US. The Euros already pay $6/gallon and up.
• Is Hugo losing it? we hope not, because of he is ousted who will we make fun of? In his latest, President Chavez of Venezuela devalued his country's currency from 2.15 to the USD to 4.3. More confusing, basic goods will be priced at a rate of 2.6/dollar. In one stroke Hugo has halved the value of those citizens who save in the local currency, and doubled the holdings of those who hold dollars. He also gets twice as much currency for his oil, which apparently was the idea. He can now keep his promises to channel money to the poor, except his moves will raise inflation so the money they get is worth less.
• BTW, we'd like both India and the US to consider knocking a decimal off their currency. In the US you might need to issue 1/2 cent coins (worth 5 cents old money) for a while. In India is not clear what 10 paisa ( tenth of a rupee) gets one any more. Okay, so this is cosmetic, but appearances matter, perceptions matter.
• Wow, that's some ticket! Next time you want to complain about the $40 speed camera ticket you get in the Washington DC region, consider the Swiss gentleman who was fined $260,000 for going 137-kmph on country toads and 100-kmph as he went through a village. These speeds equate to 80- and 60-mph, which may not seem all that much in the US context, but is actually very fast for country/village roads in Switzerland. (Reuters.)
• India's China buildup Reader RV disagrees with details as given by us regarding the Indian buildup in the Northeast. He says that the IV Corps AOR has already been split between IV Corps and III Corps. IV Corps has a new division, 55th, not 71st as the media has been saying, and will focus on western Arunachal Pradesh and Eastern Bhutan. III Corps will focus on eastern Arunachal and the border with Burma. It also has three divisions now (2, the new 56, and 57th which is on CI operations.
• Frankly, RV's orbat makes more sense than what the Indian press has been saying. IV Corps as till now has an almost 1500-km border with China and Burma, and most of the border, perhaps as much as 80% was covered by a single division. Given China's improvement of its communications network with Burma and in Southwest Tibet (from India's position the Northeast) something had to be done about the inordinately long AOR for 2 Division.
• Pakistan I Some Pakistan orbats show 25th and 26th Mechanized Divisions, and we've been wondering where people get those numbers. The corps reserves of XXXI and V Corps carry different numbers and are designated armored divisions.
• Much to our surprise, Mandeep Bajwa tells us that the Pakistanis also use those numbers for the corps reserves. Which leaves us wondering what is going on. In 1971, the Pakistanis in East Bengal at the last minute designated two ad hoc HQs as 36 and 39 Divisions, giving them 5 divisions (9, 14, and 16 were the real divisions) but with no increase in actual strength.  Presumably this was for deception purposes as war was imminent. But the Indians were not fooled and nor should anyone have expected that to happen. We've been expecting two new Pakistan divisions for some years now (aside from the corps reserves) and have seen no signs of them. Financial constraints are the likely reasons.  IV Corps Reserve is forming, also with an armored division number, but lets see. XXX Corps reserve is planned.
• This orbat business is sometimes strange. Editor's personal theory is only people with no life get involved in it. Editor certainly has no life.
• Pakistan II We don't know what is behind the big increase in US UAV strikes inside Pakistan. either the Pakistanis have said "feel free", which is going to hurt the government if it gets out, or the US is saying "we feel free", in which case there is a major change in US policy where Pakistan's sensitivities are no longer important. You might think Editor being in Washington would know what's going on with the Americans, but actually he doesn't. He is too busy trying to make ends meet.

0230 GMT January 9, 2010

• The US Ambassador to Pakistan We are impressed with Ambassador Patterson's vast command of the English language. She termed "silly" the Indian Army Chief's comments on Pakistan. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/06-patterson-terms-remarks-of-indian-army-chief-as-silly-rs-01 We don't think her remarks are silly, because they are "thilly, as a lithping 4-year old might thay.
• We assume she refers to the recent remarks by the Indian COAS that in case of war with Pakistan, India would not be deterred by Pakistan's nuclear weapons. We did not see neccessary any comment on that statement, because it happens to be Indian doctrine. Ms. Patterson perhaps does not know that two nuclear armed states have indeed fought a war. That was the Kargil War of 1999 between India and Pakistan.
• She obviously also does not know that India and Pakistan have fought even a longer war under a nuclear "overhang" to use the Indian COAS's metaphor. This is the Fourth Kashmir War, fought without break between 1985 and 2004, and still continuing in a low key.
• Why should India be intimidated because Pakistan has a few N-weapons, which may or may not be reliable?
• And who exactly is Ambassador Patterson speaking to here? Is the Indian Army chief or the Government of India going to pay the least attention to her comments? The next time Pakistan provokes India as in 2008, India should not retaliate because the US ambassador to Pakistan thinks its "silly"? Is she speaking to the Pakistanis? If so, she should beware least the Pakistanis think this means if India attacks Pakistan the US will stop India.
• India and the US have been growing closer over the last two decades. They have been allies in the GWOT. But the US cannot stop Pakistan from continuing to attack India, so how can it stop India from attacking Pakistan?
• UK gives permission for 32 GW off shore wind power about a quarter of its current electricity consumption. This is possibly the biggest effort by a European nation to shift to "green" power. The Independent reports that there are cost issues, in part because of lack of competition between suppliers, and doubtless there will be other issues to be worked out before the projects become a reality. But it's a great start.
• University of Bristol says globe has absorbed additional CO2 production since 1850 Reader Flymike sends a press release which says (quote):
• New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.
• This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO₂ than had been previously expected.
• The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO₂ should start to diminish as CO₂ emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.
• http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2009/6649.html
• Phew! we would not like to get into the middle of this fight, given our ignorance of the science.
• India buyer low-level radars - after a six year competition Groan. Pardon us while we beat our head against a stone wall. Bang bang bang bang. That feels so much better. Nineteen low-level radars have been contracted for. The request was made back in 2003. Nineteen radars is a small contract, perhaps $3-400-million. Imagine what happens to the big contracts.
• Parenthetically, Boeing has tendered to supply India 22 AH-64Ds and 15 CH-47Fs. Who knows when this requirement will be filled and by whom.

0230 GMT January 8, 2009

• The Jordanian Double Agent at Khost Media says the Jordanian physician who killed seven CIA officers and US contractors plus his Jordanian handler was recruited after he got into some trouble re AQ back home. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/20101693624289948.html
• We are not particularly interested if he was an informer and not a double agent as the Jordanians are saying. The Jordanians say he was not recruited, he came of his own accord.
• But people, if he was jailed by the Jordanians, who - they say - let him go because they couldn't find evidence, you have to suspend disbelief. As with intelligence agencies anywhere, the Jordanians are pretty brutal, and effective too because their country's existence depends on their agencies. There is no such thing as "no evidence was available". Just to be a suspect is good enough for the Jordanians to take the harshest measures. Jordan did not get to survive for 60 years by giving suspects civil rights.
• It seems evident to us that the man was let go and made to spy on AQ. If the Jordanians did that, they violated the first rule of spying: every school girl knows you do not force a person to become a spy for you. This is not like a criminal enterprise, where you let a man go after he agrees to tell tales.
• Are we blaming the Jordanians? No, not a bit. The real world is a lot more messy than all the "would, could, should" that media and "experts" play after the event. Sometimes the situation is desperate enough you have to turn the screws on a suspect.
• In this case we do not see what was so desperate as to require turning the screws.
• Again, we are not second guessing or criticizing. We are only advising our younger readers who may one day join intelligence that you have to think many times before you "turn" a suspect by using threats.
• Okay, you will say, but didn't the East Bloc have great success by getting people to spy by catching them in compromising situations and blackmailing them? Perhaps they did. We've always been suspicious of people who when caught say: "Gulp! I was being blackmailed, it would have meant the end of my career." Anyway, we're getting off point.
• Read Bill Roggio's article on the bomber http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2010/01/cia_suicide_bomber_promised_za.php
• Re. China Mandeep Bajwa again yesterday warned us that the Indian Army has become prone to putting out disinformation to mislead people.
• He also told us that several China-front brigades have been put on CI in India's Northeast. These insurgencies are expected to continue for years, and in the past 15 years the Government of India has been happily diverting large numbers of China-front forces to internal security.
• In light of the trouble with China, which is unlikely to go away soon, the Government is obviously no longer comfortable semi-permanently diverting China-front forces to CI.
• For example, 5 Mountain Division which covers a enormous front in Central and Eastern Arunachal has only one brigade at this time. The others have been diverted to Operation Rhino, a CI op that started in 2007 and continues. 27th Division (Sikkim) has only just returned after several years in Kashmir. 8th Division (formerly III Corps) never returned to the Northeast after being sent in the late 1980s to Kashmir for the CI there. One of the new divisions is simply replacing 8th Division, something that should have been done 20 years ago. 39th Mountain Division. which returned to its peace stations last year in Northern Command was also gone for almost 20 years.
• The Kashmir insurgency could flare up anytime - pessimists such as Editor are expecting a major push this spring. In light of all this, perhaps we should look at India's buildup not as a new development, but as a two-decade delayed increase in force.
• In 1984 or thereabouts the then Indian Army Chief of Staff put to the government that India needed an army of 40 divisions: four tank, 8 mechanized, 7 RAPID, two airmobile, and 19 mountain. The government accepted the plan in principle but then got diverted by the Kashmir insurgency. Previous to the new raisings, the last raisings took place in 1983 if we recall right, and they were intended to meet Pakistani increases in strength in Kashmir. They brought the division strength to 34. No raisings took place for 26 years even as threats increased.
• Now, of course, India did raise six divisions worth of infantry for CI duties. So in a way you can say Kashmir absorbed the six division increase planned. Still, you need artillery, engineers, reconnaissance, and support troops for conventional warfare, not just infantry.
• Meanwhile, while the new raisings are a welcome remedial action, please remember about half of the Indian Army's equipment is obsolete because even as demands on the armed forces increased from 1985 on, spending on defense as a percentage of GDP dropped by half, from a true 4.5% or so to 2.3% or so. So modernization suffered.
• Ultimately, for China to say India is the provocateur is plain absurd. India stripped its China front defenses down to mere show in the 1980s through 2009. Why would India provoke China, starting in 2004 at that, when the Kashmir insurgency was at its peak and the non-stop cycle of Northeast India insurgencies continued unabated?
• In the last thirty years the PLA has undergone an enormous modernization. In 1980 the Chinese said they were spending $5-billion on defense. Sridhar Rao and myself did a study, costing in Indian rupees and not US dollars, and concluded that the Chinese were probably telling the truth. Now China is spending 10-11 times that. India is spending six times its 1980 figure.
• It is NOT okay for China not just to modernize across the board but also to push India around and then say Indian catch-up is a provocation. India is not China's vassal, and if China will not accept this, it must learn the hard way. China would do well to remember that the new generation of Indians, the under 40s, are completely different from the weak nellies who have ruled India for sixty years. In another ten years the younger generation will start taking power.

0230 GMT January 7, 2009

Bill Roggio notes that Pakistan jihadi groups have avoided Indian Kashmir. But now that they have started attacking Pakistan Kashmir, we at Orbat.com wonder how long will it before before they attack Indian Kashmir. India has a very clear policy on this: as long as the insurgents are Kashmiri, it is prepared to confine action to its territory. But if non-Kashmiri, particularly jihadi and foreign jihadi elements, start infiltrating then you are going to have a war for sure. For Bill's story, see

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/suicide_bomber_targe_4.php

• More on the Indian buildup Mandeep Bajwa cautions that India's raising of four new mountain divisions (one raised, one raising for 2010, and two more planned for 2012) is not a simple matter of preparing to confront China. There are deeper ramifications.
• First, one Indian mountain corps, III (Eastern Command) which should be the Command reserve, is perpetually on CI duties in the North East. Its 8th Division was transferred to Northern Command without replacement for the Kashmir CI, so simply to restore the previous capability one division is needed for this corps.
• Second, India does not want in the event of a China emergency to pull troops out of CI and send them to the China border. (a) Unlike in previous decades when war meant anti-national elements in India froze their activities as their "patriotic" contribution to the war effort, Indian Army now apprehends that some insurgent groups may actually step up their activities in the event of a China confrontation. (b) In the past India was willing to dump troops on the northern border even if they had been on CI duties for several years, as a consequence of which their conventional warfare training is limited or non-existent. So providing additional troops to III Corps means that at least one division of the Corps will have regular conventional warfare training and be able to reinforce the northern border without calling on the other two divisions in the corps. Conversely, for short periods of peak insurgent activity the division can be used for CI without calling on other Eastern Command resources.
• Third, India wants to expand its offensive options against China as well as acknowledge that China's capability to quickly reinforce Tibet has greatly increased, So IV Corps (3 divisions) is to get a fourth division, prior to a move to split Arunachal/East Bhutan into two corps for additional flexibility in offensive or defensive operations.
• Fourth, however, Mandeep notes that on present plans two new divisions are to go to Northern Command, and this is where things get interesting. Mandeep warns that plans keep changing all the time, and the Army has been playing the usual games with division numbers, locations, and tasks to mislead the adversary for as long as possible. So this part should not be taken as given until the divisions are actually raised.
• Both the divisions will go to Command reserves. One will replace 39th Division which will return to XVI Corps after several years of CI operations under that Corps. 39 is the command reserve, so it needs to be replaced. The other division, while designated a command reserve, is likely to be permanently stationed along the northern Kashmir border.
• At which point, you can already see, some interesting possibilities arise. Currently, five divisions are stationed against Pakistan Kashmir (10, 25, 19, 28, and 8). Now there will be seven. The implication is that India will have a "Cold Start" capability against Kashmir. Previously, India always had to reinforce XVI Corps before commencing operations, as well as the north. This will no longer be neccessary. Further, the offensive capability against China without compromising on Pakistan front defenses increases.
• Now, the thing about the mountains is that they absorb manpower in unbelievable quantities. Room for maneuver is limited, the routes of advance are well known and well defended. Economy of force is easy to achieve, because a brigade plus can hold off a division. In the Kargil operations India realized that forget the usual 3-1 superiority at the point of attack, for results 6-1 is required. So these additional divisions, with more to follow after 2012, are designed to help India gain serious ground both in Pakistan Kashmir and Chinese-held Ladakh.
• Fifth, and this point you must strictly treat as Mandeep and the Editor's view. This is by no means official policy. It seems to both of us that India for the first time is coming to appreciate it is much bigger and much more economically powerful than Pakistan. For 60 years, force deployments have been determined by a doctrine of adequacy - whether this doctrine actually exists is irrelevant, the net effect has been to aim for adequacy. We think India has realized there is no need to aim just for adequacy, which basically means matching Pakistan and then a bit more as a safety. We feel a real new doctrine  - as opposed to ad hoc actions and thoughts - is likely to emerge in this decade that calls for overwhelming superiority against Pakistan - and against China.
• Lastly, Editor would like to give a hint to our enthusiastic readers. India likes to pretend that its China front and Pakistan front forces are two separate categories. But for decades, Indian mountain troops have been used against Pakistan in war and in mobilization emergency. But the converse is also true: India has the capability, and in at least one mobilization crisis activated part of this capability, to shift infantry divisions to the China border and against Pakistan Kashmir.
• So: we trust we have discussed the Sino-Indian situation bare and can go on to other things.
• Oh yes, Mandeep confirms the purchase of 145 M777 lightweight medium howitzers through US FMS. India has an immense backlog of artillery modernization: indeed, apart from the Bofors guns (which need updating) and Russian heavy rocket launchers, the rest of India's 6000 guns/rocket launchers need replacement. The M777 purchase is a tiny, but welcome, start on breaking the backlog and to get things moving.

0230 GMT January 6, 2010

The US wants Pakistan to enlist villagers in the fight against the Taliban. Here's what happens when the villagers do stand up. Just a few days ago, 96 locals were murdered by a bomber in a village that took the Government side. Now read this: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/taliban_torch_villag.php

• So we've now decided to go all out in Yemen Editor supposes even the most cynical among us will have to concede, what else can the US Government do given the North West Airlines would-be bomber was trained in Yemen. The head of the Yemen government asks the US not to repeat the mistakes it made in Afghanistan and Iraq. We wonder if US will listen or are we heading for another snafu?  And after messing up Yemen will we just move on to the next place where AQ has gained strength while we focus on Yemen, such as Somalia or the Mahgreb?
• BTW, the AQ double-agent who killed 7 CIA officers and a high-level Jordanian officer - his handler - at Khost Air Base, was a physician, not another low-life dead end scum. So the enemy has made it clear he is willing to die for his beliefs. What exactly is it that the American people are willing to die for? Sure, we're ready for our military and intel agencies to die for us. Is this sufficient to beat AQ?
• At least skim this article by a Pakistani  who says even if Pakistan and America parted ways tomorrow, the Taliban would not stop their war against Pakistan. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/19-whose-war-is-being-waged-hh-05
• China says time not right for Iran sanctions reports associated Press. Big surprise. Not.
• Meanwhile,  AP says that Iran "plans to hold naval maneuvers in the strategic Strait of Hormuz late this month or early in the next, a move that's likely to heighten tension at a time when the West is at a standoff with Iran over its nuclear program."
• This kind of mindless, formulistic journalism is why the mass media is losing credibility by the day. Why should it raise tensions? The US has a big gun cocked at Iran's heart, Iran is staging maneuvers, what else is Teheran supposed to do? Shouldn't AP mention that the continued western threats over the past years have also raised tensions?
• We firmly believe Iran has a right to decide its own national security and develop N-weapons if it feels these are neccessary.
• Equally, we believe the US has a right to decide its own national security and to blow Iran to bits if it feels this is neccessary.

0230 GMT January 5, 2010

• India to raise additional 2 mountain divisions on top of the two scheduled for 2010. We're a bit confused, because as far as we know, two divisions were raised in 2008 and scheduled for service in 2010. So are they being counted as 2010 divisions? Probably yes.
• The new divisions will be ready for service in 2012.
• Avik Bhattacharyya sent us the news which he sources to Force.com, an Indian defense magazine. Force says that India is preparing to fight 2 1/2 wars simultaneously , i.e., Pakistan, China, and counter-insurgency.
• We feel a 4 divisions expansion is adequate for now, but as always the question is what is happening to equipment programs. Avik yesterday sent a story sources to the Indian Daily Telegraph that India will buy 145 M777 lightweight howitzers from the US under FMS. This is a government to government deal, and obviates suspicions of payoffs. Of course, that also means a single-source contract, but in the case of the lightweight medium howitzer there really is only the M777 as a brand new yet combat-proven system. The howitzer weighs 12,000-lbs versus 24,000 for the M198, mainly due to widespread use of titanium alloys.
• Okay, so 145 howitzers are better than zero howitzers. but its still only seven regiments including some for the schools and a few for attrition replacement. India has more than 5000 guns and howitzers needing replacement, so that total leaves 97% of the requirement unmet.
• We'll be intrigued to see how China responds Our evaluation at this point is that China will not respond. The PLA is going through a huge modernization combined with major experimentation. In our opinion, China is likely to (a) focus on modernization existing formations rather than raising new ones; and (b) that China believes, thanks to its enormous expansion of Tibet transport infrastructure, it can for the first time rapidly shift divisions from any region to Tibet. Of course, you cannot just randomly takes plains divisions and throw them into combat on top an average 4000-meter plateau. But from previous experience China will likely deduce it has several months warning time. India, it may be noted, regularly rotates its infantry battalions between the plains and the mountains; so reinforcing from the plains is easier in terms of acclimatization and highly altitude know-how.
• There is a (c) to why China will likely not respond to the Indian buildup. China does not face a 2-front situation. So it does not need to raise additional formations when it can rely on (b) above.
• To the Chinese psychology is 90% of the battle, and as long as they have India psychologically intimidated, they will not be particularly bothered about the military equation.
• There is also a (d): since 1962, that's almost 50 years now, China has lived with a military balance severely in India's favor. Because of India's 1962 defeat, most people are under the impression that the Chinese are strong in the north and the Indians week. Since 1962 its been the other way around by wide margins. And even in 1962, India got beaten because it went to war unprepared, not because it didn't have troops.
• When hostilities were eminent, India basically had three infantry brigades in position on the entire border compared to between 6 and 12 PLA divisions, and only of the brigades (114 in Ladakh) was provisioned and ready to fight. The other two brigades (7 and 11 in NEFA) had no artillery. 7 Brigade did have two (that's right, two) 75mm guns - without their sights, so the "no artillery" statement holds.. The leading battalion of 7 Brigade had - hold your breath now: one-sixteenth of the small arms ammunition requirement for one day, 3/4ths of one day's requirement for 4.2" mortars, and the two field guns had half a day's of ammunition. (Figures are from the them DMO's book "Indian Army in crisis 1962" by Major General (then Brigadier) DK Palit. He waited 29-years to publish because of - Editor feels - a misplaced sense of loyalty to the Army. By comparison, nowadays just 3 Division alone has 180-days of stores and supplies on site.

0230 GMT January 4, 2010

• Our story last year about India sending 120,000 troops to Afghanistan This story has bothered us all year long. It came to us from Mandeep Bajwa, who has very close connections with the Indian Army. For Editor's part, he was extremely worried about the story because he thought it was one of the dumbest things the Indians could do, to join with the US in making war anywhere in the world, because India would have been left holding the bag when the US dropped Afghanistan and jumped into its next fad.
• But we were unable to get further details of the story. After a year, the closest we have come to resolving the issue is this: on some level US had said it could use Indian help in Afghanistan; Indians said if you need help; this is what we can do; Army was asked to go through the paper exercise of identifying formations, and that's all there was to it.
• For US to have taken the Indian offer would have meant jettisoning Pakistan; at the start of 2009 the US was far from arriving at any such decision. Realistically, a year later there is even less chance of the US jettisoning Pakistan because the US focus is now on getting out, not on fighting the war. So there is no need for drastic changes of course.
• Reader Avik Bhattacharyya asks Editor's comment on recent statement by the Chief of Army Staff and General Officer Commanding Training Command that India is comfortable with a 2-front hot war situation should it come to pass. He asks also if we foresee a 2- or 3-front war situation. Three-front would be Pakistan, China and Bangladesh.
• The COAS and GOC ARTRAC should say what they are saying: they need to make clear to India's adversaries that we are ready for every eventuality. And if push comes to shove, India can fight an offensive war on one front and a defensive war on another.
• Why not offensive on both fronts? India will lose flexibility on both fronts if it went for a 2-front offensive because many mountain divisions are dual tasked to add to the offensive punch in the west. So it would be better to act offensively on the major front and defensively on the minor.
• That said, its important to appreciate that for all the wild pronouncements in Bangladeshi discussion forms and media, Bangladesh and India are friends. They have no major outstanding issue that requires a war to resolve. A 3-front war is out of the question.
• It is also important to realize that the Chinese still are very cautious when it comes to directly helping Pakistan against India. In 1971 China did nothing to help Pakistan. Okay, so that was 40 years ago. In 1986/87, which is 25 years ago, China mobilized against India in Tibet during the Trident/Brasstacks/Chequerboard/Falcon crisis because India was very openly signaling offensive intent against China. But China did not take advantage of India's preoccupation with Pakistan to settle any scores. We are told that in the 1999 Kargil War China prevented the move of 3 Infantry Division to the Kargil sector by making threatening moves on its side. But it is impossible to imagine the Chinese would have attacked Ladakh to help Pakistan is impossible. if India really was constrained in shifting 3 Division, it speaks more to our insecurities than strategic realities.
• If China were to attack India, Pakistan could not participate because the US would stop Pakistan. The equation has changed in recent decades, as India and the US have become allies. We are not referring to US telling Pakistan "we'll cut off aid to you" or any such feeble response. US will threaten a robust military response.
• Readers may have noted that the earlier series of air and naval exercises held regularly between India and US are designed for the following purposes: (a) Indian Navy participation in US-led maritime coalition operations in the Indian Ocean, and (b) wartime integration of US fighter units into IAF command, control, and operations. While the first is oriented against short-term threats like piracy or UN peacemaking/peacekeeping, the second is oriented against China, and quite overtly.
• Army exercises have mainly taken the form of jungle warfare and CI operations. By in 2009 a US Army Stryker battalion exercised with an Indian armored brigade from I Strike Corps. This corps' sole orientation is offensive operations against Pakistan.
• It is always dangerous to rely simply on interpretation of exercises as guidelines for wartime scenarios. But when you fit the exercises into the growing US-India strategic cooperation, then the implications are clear.
• If it is a Pakistan front only war the US will not intervene. Though as long as the US is in Afghanistan, US will seek to restrain India. If it is a war with China, US will step in just to remind the Chinese that the US is available to help the Indians if asked.
• But we really need to back off now and reiterate: neither India nor China will deliberately go to war against each other. if the Chinese do not change their ways, a clash will become inevitable. If China cannot back down when India stands up to Chinese provocation, then things will escalate. Where it goes from there is anyone's guess.

0230 GMT January 3, 2010

• India opens up 104 Ladakh peaks for climbers As conditions improve in Kashmir, in a surprise move, the Government of India has allowed mountaineering expeditions to climb 104 peaks, include 14 that over 6000-meters high. While approach paths will be specified by the government as the peaks are in operational areas, and a liaison officer will be attached to each expedition, no permission is required anymore from the Ministries of Defense or Home.
• Editor is very sad at the decision, made for the sake of a few hundred million tourist dollars, a sum of complete insignificant for a $1.2-trillion economy. Now you will have pristine mountains environmentally trampled. Government is no position to ensure that expeditions pick up every aluminum can and plastic bag of waste.
• The Himalayas are the abode of India's gods. For a handful of silver, we have given permission for the world to defile God's Home. Perhaps it is just another sign of Kalyug, the Age of Iron, that we respect money over God. But as every Indian knows, this story cannot end well.

Letters on India and China

• Letter from Arvind Sainathan With all due respects, the Editor seems to be misinformed about India-China dynamics.
• First off there isn't going to be a war at least for the next 20 years. The last thing the Chinese need is their miraculous growth of the last two decades to crash because of war. After that who knows? But then US China war is probably more likely.
• Second regarding  the moves and bullying by China two things. First is if you want to be a superpower "balance of power" would indicate you create a sphere of influence and have no other country that can challenge you in this sphere. Second is Chinese have very well calibrated that Indian are going to do nothing either because they can't or because of their "do goody good" values. So why not just bully them for the fun of it? But again there would be no war because of this.
• Third one should not assume that India's "do goody good" and moralistic values are the yardsticks Chinese use to conduct foreign policy. They are much more nationalistic and are also "realists". As a side note, for all its goody goodness India is reviled by all of her
  neighbors except maybe Bhutan.
• Fourth China doesn't treat India as "equal" because it is not viewed as an equal. And for good reasons. While China's security is bulletproof (for most part) India has numerous insurgencies it is struggling to cope with and public property is destroyed with
  impunity. Even UN data on Human Development Indices show India is decades behind China. Indian cities are congested and dirty with a lack of even basic sanitation. Shanghai and Beijing nay even cities like Shenzhen, Dalian and Xian would put to shame Mumbai and Delhi which are just no comparison. India's trade is a drop in the bucket
  compared to China's. Former PM of Singapore Mr. Lee Kuan Yew summed it up best when he said these countries are in different leagues.
• Finally forget about CPC, even most of the Chinese would not want the democracy as practiced in India. Trust me they are definitely not envious of it seeing the conditions in India. Their system has worked much better in providing a basic standard of living for them.
• Editor's response Agreed, a deliberate war can be ruled out. Editor's concern is that war is coming and it is not in anyone's control. All it takes is for India once not to back down, and for China to refuse to back down when the Indians stand up for themselves. So far no real clash has taken place because India has ignored the provocations from 1999 onward. India has not reacted even when China has built a road in Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh. We explicitly said that war will start unforeseen. In our experience nations have far less control over calibration of military responses than they think they have.
• Letter from Avik Bhattacharyya Would it please be possible for you to write in Orbat.com the pathway to the oncoming Sino-Indian military conflict? My request is if you could enlighten us on how the various issues between India and China will inevitably lead to a military conflict and why? Why is it necessary for the India-China conflict to take on a military dimension and not stay limited to a political-economic dimension?
  Finally, it would also be very helpful if you could provide , in some ways, milestones (or escalation ladder) that will serve to signal an impending military showdown?
• Editor's response There is no reason at all for PRC and India to be in conflict. The provocation comes 100% from China's side and is increasing as China is getting stronger. The Chinese cannot accept an relationship of mutual respect with anyone.
• The Taiwan issue is almost done with. There is no way China is either going to invade Taiwan - or that the US is going to fight for Taiwan. In China's handling of Taiwan you see the same elements of its provocations against India since 1999. China has built up overwhelming military force facing Taiwan, it continues with its buildup, and it uses the military option - the sword half-drawn from its sheath - to intimidate Taiwan. It is just a matter of time that the people of Taiwan take a democratic vote to accede to China and a large part of the reason will be is that the Taiwanese increasingly feel helpless in the face of China's growing military might.
• India is not China. Spending something a bit more than 2% of GDP India will soon have as many division-equivalents as China has brigades - India is increasing its army, China conversely is reducing its army. And India has no such thing as Category B or Category C divisions: all divisions are fully manned, equipped, and ready for deployment. So intimidation is not going to work.
• This is not going to stop the Chinese from attempting intimidation. Editor believes it will get worse because India's response in the past 10 years has been so feeble. In such a situation the room for war by mistake grows year by year. If the constant stream of incidents taking place between India and China was taking place between any two other countries, you'd have had a war long ago.
• We haven't had a war because India has wimped out again and again. How long can this last? Indefinitely many people will say. We disagree. All that is required is one incident serious enough and that gets to become public knowledge, and the pressure on India - by its citizens - will force the government to act. After which things will fall apart very quickly because the Chinese cannot afford to back down.
• There is no need for an escalation timeline. We've hesitated saying this because we don't want to create tension, but the reality is the Indian Army has been deployed to its forward positions for some time now. To use the American expression, the Indian Army is locked and loaded. This does not mean that most high-altitude warfare reserve formations are on the border. They are at their peace stations. But they are ready to move, starting in the case of some units, within four hours of the warning order.
• The Army is ready, even if the government is behaving in its usual IQ retard fashion about the long-term strategic buildup, and even if on the tactical level there are the usual shortages of specific items - all armies are in this state.
• The best way to defuse the situation would be for India to act on a war urgent  basis. The Chinese have to see that should it come to war, they will lose and massively so. This will deter them because like any sensible nation they respect force.
• At this point reader Arvind Sainathan will likely interject: "Editor, you are talking of military equations, China is playing psychological games. It is not afraid to push India despite India's already formidable military power because it knows the Indians will wimp out - as always - on the political level."
• That is why Editor sees conflict as inevitable. War will not be because of deliberate policies. It will be because things get out of hand.

0230 GMT January 2, 2010

Were the media hung-over yesterday? There seems to be little news.

• Israel and Egypt in Gaza: the case for equity Israel gets the short end of the stick for its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, and deservedly. There is probably no worse ghetto in the world today than Gaza.
• OK, so Editor has frequently joined in the Israel bashing on the Gaza issue. But Editor would like to ask: "Why does Israel gets bashed and Egypt escapes censure?" On its border with Gaza, the Egyptians also maintain a tight blockade on Gaza, helping the Israelis. So the Egyptians are not as efficient as the Israelis, and are more susceptible to bribes when the smugglers are conveying harmless stuff like consumer items, food, and building materials. But the Egyptian intent is very clear in aligning itself 100% with Israel.
• Now, in case Egypt has forgotten, it is a Muslim country. Till Gaza was conquered by the Israelis in 1967, Egypt ruled Gaza. Palestinians are kin to Egyptians. The 3rd world has plenty to say about Israel's oppression of Gaza. Few seem to have anything to say about the sad reality: Gaza is twice oppressed: once by the Israelis, and again by its own brothers in Egypt.
• Egypt's latest is it is going to flood the tunnels smugglers dig between Egypt and Gaza, on top of several crackdown measures already in force. Egypt plans to bill Israel for the operation. Do the Egyptians not get the irony? They are saying in effect, "We're doing it for your benefit, not ours, so you'll have to pay." Doesn't this make the Egyptians the running dogs of the Israelis?
• Which is more shameful? We think Egypt's oppression, hands down.
• BTW, the Israelis keep saying: "Blockade? Have you been to Gaza and seen the way they live over there? They have TVs, they have mattresses, they have refrigerators. No one is dying of hunger, there's no shortage of anything, and if someone needs treatment unavailable in Gaza, we allow them to enter Israel and treat them. All we are doing is keeping out materials that can be used to make weapons for use against us." Sound reasonable.
• So presumably Israelis will have no problem moving 100 randomly chosen Israeli families to Gaza, and treating them Gaza residents are treated. Then lets see if 100 families feel they have been humanely treated.
• Once again, a futile message to the Palestinian people Editor has nothing against armed resistance. He can't, because the United States was born of armed resistance, and kept together by force. US has used force to fight the aggressor - Germany and Japan, and it has used force to expand and maintain its hegemony.
• But Editor would like the Palestinian people to renounce force in their struggle against Israel for the simple reason it hasn't worked. And as long as there exists an Israel, force will not work.
• There is a sound public relations reason for renouncing force. Like it or not, the west runs the world, and the west is mostly white. So are most Israelis. So yes, like it or not, the west does value the life of 1 Israel as much as the lives of a 100 or 1000 Palestinians. It's not fair, but its the reality. So force is a losing proposition: the Palestinians kill 10 Israelis and the Israelis say they are justified to kill 1000 Palestinians in retaliation, and again, fair or not, the majority of the west buys this argument. So there's no point to killing any Israelis,
• But there is a moral reason also, to renounce force. And that is is, it doesn't matter what the provocation, killing Israeli civilians is unjustifiable. Yes, so is the Israeli killing of Palestine civilians. But (a) refer to the PR angle, above; and (b) Palestinians lower themselves to the level of the Israelis.
• Since the Palestinians cannot win by force, armed resistance should end and be replaced by non-violent resistance. The Palestinians should not sink to the level of the Israelis, but should rise above.
• If the west regularly sees on its news casts Israelis killing Palestinians who have abjured violence and maintain a non-violence resistance, sympathy will shift against the Israelis very fast and Israel will become the pariah regime instead of the Palestinians. Again, its the west has to be influenced. It really doesn't matter how many 3rd Worlders support the Palestinian people.
• And parenthetically, lets be realistic. Except for left of center intellectuals, very few 3rd Worlders care one hoot about the Palestinians. And the left of centre intellectuals care because they think is fash, and sadly, supporting the Palestinians is no longer fash. Particularly since Hamas took over, because the leftist intellectuals dislike Islamic fundamentalists more than they dislike Israelis. And rightfully: Islamic fundamentalists are a threat to the whole world; outside of its own little corner of the Middle East, no one is affected by what the Israelis do or not do.
• It wont work, the Palestinians may say. Hasn't worked in Tibet. First, Tibet is media inaccessible. Palestine is not. If every day we saw on the evening news the Chinese oppressions of the Tibetans, money or not, the Chinese would be in deep trouble with the west.
• Second,  so what have you to lose? What you're doing now is 100% not working and is not going to work. Try it our way. If it doesn't work, you aren't worse off than you are now, and you will firmly hold the moral high ground.
• And please don't forget: it's not just the west you'll impress by renouncing violence. About half of Israelis don't agree with their government's treatment of the Palestinian people. But every time you kill a civilian, you destroy the credibility of those Israelis. You hurt the very people who if they increase in numbers, could win for you what you cannot win by force. Israel is a democracy, why not make that work for you?

0230 GMT January 1, 2010

Editor knew what he wanted to write tonight, but he wondered what would be the point. so he had dinner and read 200 pages of a thriller, to see if the answer would come. Oblique approach and all that: when stalled, think of something else, let the unconscious mind work. No answer came, he's still wondering what is the point of what he's about to say.

India and China

I

• Readers know by now that behind all the bonhomie, India and China are heading for a showdown, big time. For several years now China has for no reason at all been provoking India in the north, and doing it again and again. Aggressive patrolling, building roads across Indian territory, arms to Indian insurgent groups, just a non-stop series of provocations.
• Editor is not a China expert outside of its military, but he has a theory why China is doing this when there is zero need.
• First, China is getting closer every year to the day Taiwan will bow to the inevitable and join China. But for near 50 years, India has not bowed to the inevitable and it has refused to agree to China's claims on Indian territory in Ladakh and in the Northeast. The Chinese for a long time have been pushing what to them seems a perfectly reasonable compromise: we'll recognize Indian sovereignty over Northeast India, if you'll settle the Ladakh border on the Actual Line of Control, expel the Dalai Lama, demilitarize the region etc etc. The Chinese are aggrieved. "We beat you in a war, we're much more powerful than you are, we're willing to compromise, and you guys refuse to budge? Y'all being so obdurate, we're gonna have to teach you a little lesson, and lets hope you see sense so we don't have to teach you a big lesson."
• Second, China is worried about the burgeoning alliance between the US and India so you'd think the reasonable thing would be to tell India, "look, you have nothing to worry about from us, let us take steps to reassure you, and in turn would you be more sensitive to our worries about encirclement."
• But the Chinese cannot do this, because it means treating India like an equal. The Chinese have a slave mentality: they know how to be emperors, and they know how to be slaves. They don't know how to be equals. Indeed, it doesn't occur to them they have to be fair because the Chinese are so great and the Indians are so inferior. They're doing India a favor by pretending China and India are equal states, and India should not confuse the outward politeness with the reality.
• There is another reason why the Chinese cannot have normal relations with India. This is because for some weird reason they are jealous of India. Why should they be jealous? No reason. India and China are two different countries with two different political systems and different histories and different culture etc etc. Why would an orange be jealous of an apple? We'll share with you our theory of why. Its because India is a democracy, and for all its very many flaws, India gets respect in the world. For all China's growing economic power - PRC is about to overtake Germany as Number 1 exporter, just another statistic - no one respects China, or even likes it, because after all is said and done, it remains a brutal dictatorship.

II

• But our purpose is not to speak of China, it is to speak of India. Readers need background on what we're about to say, so we had to go back to the reasons for the growing Sino-Indian confrontation.
• By the way, are we being alarmist? Are we exaggerating? After all, there seems to be no sign of a confrontation. That's because both governments deny a problem exists, because if they went public, they'd have to do something about the problem. India definitely does not want a problem with China. As for China, it's entire pretence as a superpower ready, willing, and able to take its place a responsible. solid member of the international community will get blown sky-high.
• Okay, so since the late 1990s China has been pushing India, and the stronger India grows, the more badly the Chinese react. The isn't isn't what China is doing. It's what India is doing.
• 1. India is denying there is a problem India is a democracy, and if the government spoke truthfully to the public about the endless series of petty provocations, India would rise up in outrage, and force the government to act. Government does want to act, and neither does most of the elite, because they are all cowards and poltroons.
• 2. At the same time, India is doing its usual passive-aggressive thing Its refusing to admit there is a problem, but at the same time it is refusing to back down. This is a big, big error, because it makes the Chinese think the Indians are posturing and bluffing and don't have the courage to stand up to the Chinese. On one point both PRC and Editor agree, and that is yes, India does not have the courage to stand up. India's strategy, for ever and a day, has been: we're not aggressive, so we're not going to smack you, but if you smack us, we're not going to back down.
• Isn't that a contradiction, to say India wont stand up to the Chinese and yet say India is not going to back down? If you know India, not really. The Red Queen believed in believing six impossible things before breakfast, the India's do one better: they act in six contradictory ways before breakfast.
• So how is India demonstrating its resolved? By military means. Since 2004, India has steadily built up its military posture in the north. We can't go into details of an operational nature. But here are some of the things the Government has told the press, so we can tell you. A buildup of road and rail communications in the zones of tension. Two new mountain divisions already authorized, just the tip of a very big buildup that will see between 5 and 9 new divisions depending on how things go. Every closer relations with the US. The point of the Indo-US air exercises is to permit seamless integration of American air reinforcements if there is trouble with China. Stepping up India's paramilitary presence on the northern border with new raisings in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Assam Rifles - also useful for counterinsurgency. Sealing the Nepal-Bhutan border with India: this is the mission of the rapidly increasing paramilitary force the SSB. A build up of strategic communications and a complete modernization of tactical communications. Plans to convert all mountain artillery brigades, divisional or coprs, to 155mm lightweight howitzers and heavy rocket launcher. Bids out for a major expansion of helicopter mobility. Reopening of disused airfields and Advanced Landing grounds, and expansion of both. New air transporters from the US, a modernization of the An-32 fleet - this sturdy little fellow can bring in 40 troops or near 5-tons cargo into the high-altitude air strips, many of which are being upgraded to airfields. Bids for cargo helicopters . Priority to air force modernization to get more Su-34s into the inventory - this large, two-crew, long-range fighter is ideal for carrying large payloads to Tibetan targets. Etc etc
• Three things of an operational nature Mandeep can tell us. After decades of drawing down forces in Ladakh, including the withdrawal of medium armor and mechanized infantry, India is buildup again. And for the first time, India actually has a corps tasked to the Nepal border in wartime, both to fight the Chinese if they come through Nepal, and to force them to station substantial forces in a lengthy sector where previously the Chinese just had minimal paramilitary forces. Last, after many decades India has reconstituted Eastern Command reserves previously thought unnecessary as war with China was believed impossible.
• we keep forgetting to mention that oddly enough, India's entire strategy against China is completely offensive. You wouldn't think the Indians had the stomach to do this, but it's unlikely the politicals have the least clue what the Army's strategy is anyway.
• So what is Editor whining about? He's whining because the Indians think they have the proverbial forever and a day. They are moving with flank speed that would embarrass a snail. Ten years have gone by, and the first two reinforcement divisions are not even raised. Army for the Nth time is running yet another competition for the medium artillery - aside from heavy rocket launchers, there has been no meaningful modernization of Indian Artillery since the mid-1980s. The helicopter awards were cancelled at the last minute because the American companies suddenly increased prices. Okay, so why did India not immediately send a mission to Russia/FSU to pick up every Mi-17 available, refurbish the beasts, and have something in hand while the longer-range problems are being worked out? The Indians have yet to finish their rail link Jammu-Srinager and are inching along (centimetering along?) with the new rail links as if we all have eternal lives. India orders 10 C-17s when the minimum requirement is for 60. India should have moved heaven and earth to get CH-47s into the inventory - buy C versions from the US, get them refurbished in US and Italy. India is talking of six CH-47s with a possibly buy of six more, and for all we know, these are actually for the special forces.
• And Editor is whining because government is not standing tall and saying: yes, we are being pushed every day, and we are working at top speed to build up our defenses, which like fools we let down thinking peace with China was a done deal.
• The problem is that India cannot in any way control events on the border. All it takes is one incident where the Chinese insist the Indians withdraw a post from Indian territory, and the Indians refuse, and there goes the balloon. If things escalate, it will be very hard to deescalate for both sides.
• Particularly when one side, China, is in any case in an ugly mood and determined to teach the Indians lessons, and on the other side you have an Indian Army that is itching for another round to avenge the humiliation of 1962. The Indian Army is completely under government control - more so than is the American Army, BTW. But lets not forget the 1.2-billion Indians who will go ballistic if a major clash takes place. After all, India is a democracy. If its citizens are unifiedly up in arms, the Government will ignore them at its peril.
• How much simpler than to put all the new divisions and corps under raising: India can raise 10 new divisions a year without problems. How much simpler to get equipment even if it is not perfect. How much simpler to demonstrate in a practical way to China: "This far and no more."
• But what if the Chinese see this as aggressive intent? Well, so what? China is not going change its ways, a major war, which will last months and years is inevitable. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after. The only thing the Chinese respect is force.
• So: the Editor has said all this but what is the point? The politicals and the elite don't want trouble. But babaloos, trouble wants you. In case Editor drops dead before the war, somebody please remember to tell the Indians: Editor said so.
• With that he will have to be content.