Move the UN to Ethiopia (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Those responsible for the creation of the United Nations conglomerate were idealists, intent on seeking to avoid another international conflict.

They succeeded in the conventional sense. The prospect of another conventional world war is remote, though regional and intercontinental conflicts continue and groups like al-Qaida -- not specifically nation-states though tied to one or more of them -- have emerged to fight a global war against the values and the systems of pluralist democracies.

The Peoples Republic of China is seeking to create a self-perpetuating super state independent of the people as a means of securing its interests. The PRC is supporting a slew of similarly authoritarian structures across the world with missile and nuclear technology.

Several democracies are having to battle against insurgencies and terrorism while AIDS has replaced tuberculosis as the primary killer of the world's poor.

What are the conflicts that the UN has succeeded in preventing?

The threshold of effectiveness appears low. In a few instances the UN system as such -- as distinct from the actions of a few of its member states -- was able to prevent a conflict or stop it once begun. The organization's principal value has been as a talking shop, a pulpit for the preaching of verities. Much of the "work" of the several thousand functionaries is comprised of going from one meeting to the other, organizing yet another "talk-a-thon" after getting through several.

Stripped of verbiage, the UN has value only as a clearinghouse of concepts and policies. It has value in a world in which several countries are below the radar of the attention of the powerful. If there were no United Nations, it would need to be invented -- but not along the lines of how the current organization as taken shape.

The Battlefield is the Mind (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- After World War I, the consequences of the Versailles "peace" were the rise of the National Socialists and World War II. That conflict was followed by the Marshall Plan, the democratization of Germany, Italy and Japan and their bonding with the United States and the United Kingdom into both a security alliance as well as an economic partnership. Both British values and American culture permeated the three former Axis powers, vacuuming away the hostility in the minds of their populations to the victors.

Today, some Germans (as indeed many Britons and more than a few French) may be against what George Bush did to Saddamite Iraq. Almost none are anti-American except in a narrow political sense -- in other words, except in the same way as many Britons are "anti"-Blair and several U.S. citizens "hostile" to Bush.

Why did the Peace imposed after World War II create a benign backlash while that which followed World War I create the Hitler-Tojo-Mussolini monster? The reason was that conquest was achieved in the 1914-1919 conflict only on the ground, over physical territory. In the second, it won over the mind of the "enemy" population pool as well. It can be argued that the extremely liberal treatment given to the Germans after they had backed the most loathsome dictatorship in history, a policy of forgiveness that took within its fold more than 95 percent of those who had been active in the NSDAP, helped avoid a second Hitler.

It is now clear that the formal respect paid to the Emperor of Japan and to the non-militaristic aspects of the culture of that civilization, together with an efficient MacArthurite democratization and integration into the modern economy of Japan, transformed a power that had been first suspicious of and then hostile to the West (at least for the previous two centuries) into a reliable ally, despite the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Operation Enduring Freedom ought to have been conducted by giving the same billing to a "Free Iraq" leadership as was given to its U.S.-U..K participants. A Free Iraqi general conducting press briefings jointly with the non-telegenic Tommy Franks, four stars glistening on his lapel, would have had an effect similar to that created by projecting Charles De Gaulle as the heroic leader of a multitude of "Free French," when the reality in German-occupied France was that the level of resistance was far lower than that found in the eastern theatres, while active collaboration was high. The "Free French" were, however, wonderful in cinema newsreels and on the BBC and VOA, which was enough to preserve French pride in the postwar period, avoiding the kind of backlash that made Paris the prime mover behind the Versailles Treaty.

To Win in Iraq, Change Tack (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Foreign troops arrive as liberators, receiving a rapturous welcome from the local population. Soon after, small forces of armed men begin to emerge occasionally from the shadows, shooting at the occupiers -- who must respond indiscriminantly if at all because they cannot distinguish between friend and foe.

Civilian casualties mount. The welcome evolves into suspicion. The resistance grows bolder, thanks in no small part to increased support from within the population. The minor attacks multiply until the occupation force is goaded into carrying out major military operations that cause countless civilian casualties.

Post-war Iraq? No. It is Sri Lanka, circa August 1987, the year an Indian military force landed on the island to enforce a peace between Sinhalese and Tamils.

Within weeks irregulars from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched an offensive against the IPKF, using civilian areas as cover. Liberation movement guerillas would pop up from within a crowd, spray a passing IPKF convoy with bullets and disappear -- while the soldiers fire back on a crowd of non-combatants.

After more than a year of this, the Indians changed their tactics.

They began to emphasize medical and other services to win the hearts of the civilian population, and they used used radio and print to disseminate information about the ruthlessness of the LTTE towards any individual who opposed it.

U.S. losing Mind War in Iraq

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, June 23 (UPI) -- After World War I, the consequences of the Versailles "peace" were the rise of the National Socialists and World War II. That conflict was followed by the Marshall Plan, the democratization of Germany, Italy and Japan and their bonding with the United States and Britain into both a security alliance as well as an economic partnership. Both British values and American culture permeated the three former Axis powers, vacuuming away the hostility in the minds of their populations to the victors. Today, some Germans (as indeed many Britons and more than a few French) may be anti-Enduring Freedom. Almost none is anti-American except in a narrow political sense.

Why did the peace imposed after World War II create a benign backlash while that which followed World War I create the Hitler-Tojo-Mussolini monster? The reason was that conquest was achieved in the 1914-1918 conflict only on the ground, over physical territory. In the second, it won over the mind of the "enemy" population pool as well. It can be argued the extremely liberal treatment given to the Germans after they had backed the most loathsome dictatorship in history, a policy of forgiveness that took within its fold more than 95 percent of those who had been active in the NSDAP, helped avoid a second Hitler. It is now clear the formal respect paid to the emperor of Japan and to the non-militaristic aspects of the culture of that civilization, together with ruthless MacArthurite democratization and integration into the modern economy, transformed a power that had been first suspicious of and then hostile to the West (at least for the previous two centuries) into a reliable ally, despite the horror of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Forget that Operation Enduring Freedom ought to have been conducted by giving equal billing to a "Free Iraq" leadership as was given to U.S. participants. A Free Iraqi general conducting news briefings jointly with the non-telegenic Tommy Franks would have had an effect similar to that created by projecting Charles De Gaulle as the heroic leader of a horde of "Free French" when the reality in German-occupied France was that the level of resistance was far lower than that found in the eastern theatres, while active collaboration was high. The "Free French" were, however, wonderful in cinema newsreels and on the British Broadcasting Corp. and Voice of America, which was enough to preserve French pride into the postwar period, avoiding the kind of backlash that made Paris craft the Versailles Treaty.

Constrain, not contain, China (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, June 6 (UPI) -- Second of two parts

The Clinton administration tried to recruit Communist China as a strategic ally that would help Washington defend U.S. interests, but that strategy failed because China's long-term interests are significantly different from those of the United States.

China seeks the strategic withdrawal of the United States from Asia, and sees itself as the replacement.

It would like to ensure that an Asian Common Market get formed that would give member-countries -- principally itself -- preference over countries outside the bloc.

An Asian Common Market that included the Middle East, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Asia would isolate Japan, suck in South Korea, and in the view of the planners in Beijing, ensure Chinese prosperity at a time of increased tensions with Washington.

Today, throughout Asia with the exception of Japan and, until recently India, China has been conducting a quiet but persistent diplomacy designed to wean the countries of the region away from their "dependence" on the United States.

This has been only partially successful in the ASEAN region of Southeast Asia, as most of the countries belonging to this group are wary of the giant nearby, seeing it afar as a safer option, at least in private.

Constraining China (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPUR, India, June 3 (UPI) -- After it became clear that Winston Churchill had been right at Fulton, Missouri after World War II and that the Soviet Union had imposed an "Iron Curtain" on postwar Europe, the United States began a policy of "containment" against Moscow.

This involved the putting in place of a cordon sanitaire that blocked Moscow from access to significant sections of Western markets and technology. Countries that were not already communist were sought to be kept away from Soviet influence, while within that bloc, those republics such as Yugoslavia that demonstrated some independence of the Soviet Union were encouraged in their behavior by access to Western financial and other resources

The Soviet Union, both individually and through its satellites, imposed a quarantine on Western -- principally American -- scholars and others from civil society, who were given either zero or highly restricted access to the Soviet bloc. However, the choking-off of such non-official contacts was not one way. Successive Cold War U.S. governments encouraged neither tourism nor investment to the Soviet bloc. In the case of countries such as Cuba, they were explicitly banned by Washington

This denial of markets and direct knowledge of the functioning of a modern economy resulted in the Soviet Union having to re-invent not one but several wheels, either by stealing or by developing technology on its own. Refused the chance of cross-fertilization with Western financial and mercantile infrastructure, the Soviet economy remained mired in a command system that often relied exclusively on quantitative measures of performance.

Why not an Asian NATO? (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 


MANIPUR, India, April 26 (UPI) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other war planners in the Pentagon may bridle at the comparison, but the reality is that the U.S. military establishment follows the example set by the State Department in at least one crucially wrong assumption: the belief that European traditions and analytical models can suffice to analyze Asia.

After all, since Asia was carved up among different European countries until a few decades back, clearly that meant the Europeans knew their way around.

However, times have changed, and today's Asia is a fusion of local with Western mindstreams that paradoxically make the peoples of the world's biggest continent more difficult to understand by Western scholarship.

An example is Iraq. Several Asian scholars -- including the writer, in these columns -- had warned that the absence of involvement of local anti-Saddam Hussein militias and the prominence given to the British -- the former colonizers of Iraq and therefore a people the locals are understandably sensitive about -- by U.S. war planners was likely to lead to a bulge in support for the Saddam regime, fighting what is perceived as a new Western war of conquest.