America Must Let Trump be Trump (The Conservative)

THE CONSERVATIVE| June 2017| Issue 4| Pages: 31-35

by Madhav Das Nalapat

“Treat me as an outsider and I’ll behave as one,” was Rupert Murdoch’s warning to editors who behaved as if their publication belonged to them and not to the proprietor. It also sums up President Trump’s attitude to the media. His administration has sought to box journalists into harmlessness through denial of access and serial invective. Even the sacred Beltway ritual of the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner was boycotted by the 45th President of the United States, who owes much of his fame to artful management of the media. 

As a businessman, Donald Trump was generous in the time he gave journalists, including those who were far from being admirers. There were, of course, threats, legal notices and even lawsuits, but such shadows quickly passed. The Donald bestowed so much of his undoubted charm on reporters that even supposedly negative reports contained anecdotes designed to make readers like him. It helped that Trump was a compulsive reader of newspapers and viewer of television channels, his favourite topic being a certain New York billionaire with a glamorous wife and an unusual hairstyle. He didn’t need to be told that the media were outside the gravitational force of the Trump corporate empire, and therefore needed to be handled more delicately than his employees. 

However, a career incorporate life – or, for that matter, the military – may not be the best way of adapting to the scrum of a political career. Businessmen and generals understand hierarchy and its attendant order, but they are less familiar with the pathways and limitations of politics. Now that he is in the White House, we can see that Trump spent too little time thinking about what needed to get done the morning after the election, including picking his staff. Brave words notwithstanding, it seems that Team Trump was less than certain of defeating Hillary Clinton, whose machine was supremely confident of victory.

"Trump becomes

Trump and places

his stamp over policy

the way that FDR or

Lincoln did."

On November 9, journalists who had wasted so much effort cultivating the Clintons began to work out their anger on Trump. This was predictable – almost none of them had voted for him – but Trump made things worse. This was the day on which he needed to forget past dust-ups. Instead, he seemed to think that his business had expanded to cover the entire country, including the media. He behaved as though he had no further need of them, tweeting his contempt to the world.

Interestingly, doling out tough love to the media has worked for the leader of an even larger democracy. The Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has barred most journalists   from   travelling  with  him  on  visits  abroad,  while  traditional  press  conferences  no  longer  happen. Yet  the  press  in  India  is  largely  adulatory  –  perhaps  influenced  by  the  fact  that  it  is  owned  by  individuals  who depend on government goodwill  for  their  profits.  If   Modi’s   winning   streak comes to an end, the fawning pack is likely to turn on him.

Had President Trump followed the same playbook with the Washington media as Businessman  Trump  in  New  York,  he  could  have  avoided much of the vitriol now  being  directed  at  him.  Approaching journalists in  small  batches,  or  singly, he  could  have  demonstrated  the  warmth  that  is  natural to the man, rather than the faux-disdain affected by him  and  the  entire  top tier of his team.

Newspaper columns have been viciously critical of the new president, going out of their way to represent him as a dangerous break with the past.  The result – despite his disdain for the press  –  is  that  he  seems  to have  decided  not  to  break with the past. In  that  sense,  the  media are winning: their incessant criticism  is  turning  Trump into a president who – certainly  in  the  area  of  foreign  affairs  –  pursues  far more    conventional    policies than expected. Policies, in other words, with which  many media  commentators are comfortable, even if their tribal dislike of Trump means  they  are  reluctant  to admit it.

For example, both Trump’s national security advisor H R McMaster and defence   secretary James Mattis are more conventional in their approach to Nato, Afghanistan- Pakistan and the Middle East than Donald Rumsfeld was 16 years ago. Mattis, for example, wants to persuade the Taliban to surrender their weapons    and    behave as good citizens.  This gravely misunderstands  the  jihadist psyche,  but  the  Washington  establishment  is  comfortable  with  delusions  of “de-radicalisation”.

As for McMaster, after more than a decade of steadily de-hyphenating India from   Pakistan, he has pushed US policy back to the Bill Clinton era by flying into Delhi   directly from Islamabad with a roomful of suggestions for better relations between the two neighbours, one of which was born as a consequence of hatred of the other.   This   has   kindled Indian anxiety about future Arabia, Turkey and other backers of Wahabbism. It is extraordinary   that   Whitehall  does  not  ask  itself  why Christians, Druze, Shia and even  moderate  Sunnis  flee from  zones  taken  over  by Western allies; perhaps it is the  threat  of  being  beheaded by these “moderates”.

"Newspaper columns

have been viciously

critical of the new

president, going

out of their way to

represent him as a

dangerous break

with the past. The

result – despite his

disdain for the press

– is that he seems to

have decided not to

break with the past."

In  short,  if  the  media war   on   Trump   was   designed  to  ensure  that  he would  revert  to  the  Clinton-Bush policy course and abandon  the  unorthodoxy promised  on  the  campaign trail,  it  is  succeeding.  Bear in mind, too, that members of  Trump’s  inner  circle  are above all determine to save him  from  future  impeachment     and     prosecution: they  apparently  think  that embracing   familiar   policies  will  help  achieve  that  result. They are wrong. The more President     Trump moves away from Candidate Trump – who pushed aside more than a dozen Republican worthies in his fight for the nomination – the faster his approval rating  will  fall to  the  low  20s,  a  level  at which  it  will  be  safe  to  call for   his   impeachment   or worse. All that is preventing such a descent are the flashes of the real Trump occasionally visible from the White House, the most important of which is the greater freedom he has given to the military to meet its objectives.

Unlike  the  closet  pacifist Barack Obama, Donald Trump  has  deferred  to  the generals,  so  much  so  that there is finally a chance that the kinetic   force   needed to ensure  the  safety  of  the US, Japan and South Korea from  Pyongyang  will  actually be unleashed. However, to ensure victory in Korea, Trump will need the neutrality of Russia and the participation of Taiwan. Recent policy reversals make both those things unlikely. Unless,  that  is,  Trump becomes  Trump  and  places his stamp  over  policy  the way  that  FDR  or  Lincoln did.   In   their   desperation to “save” the president, his intimates are creating the conditions for his downfall, by diluting him with liberal doses of Clinton and Bush. After his first 100 days of waffling, it is time for the real Donald Trump to stand up. A good first step would be make sure that his administration understands that we are now living in the Indo-Pacific    century, and that the foundations of American policy no longer lie  on  the  other  side  of  the Atlantic.

http://www.theconservative.online/tC-04.pdf 

Saudi Arabia gets a young Crown Prince (Pakistan Observer)

M D Nalapat | Geopolitical Notes From India

Saudi Arabia is a very important country with a young population. Now, after a succession of elderly rulers, it is looking at the unprecedented possibility of a young ruler who has exhibited a willingness to ensure that his country adjusts to the modern world in the way the youth want but which conservative forces have thus far blocked. King Salman of Saudi Arabia, in exercise of the authority vested in him as Ruler, has appointed his son Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) as the Crown Prince, thereby ensuring that the 31-year eldest son of the King and his third wife Princess Fahda will succeed him. Although several commentators have expressed surprise at this move, the reality is that from 2012 onwards, after the death of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz al Saud, he has been next in line to King Salman, who at that point in time became the Crown Prince.
It was only in 2015 that the young business expert was made to give up this prized slot in favour of uncle Nayef, who was made Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia when King Salman took over after the passing away of King Abdullah. Before this, MBS had been appointed State Minister in 2014 and a year later, was made Defence Minister. Since then, the youthful heir to the Saudi throne has been taking a considerable amount of interest in military matters, for example being the prime mover behind the 2015 invasion of Yemen, mainly by Saudi forces out to ensure the return to Sanaa of Mansur Hadi, who for decades has been a loyalist of the Saudi Royal Family, as indeed are several politicians and officials across the region and beyond.
Crown Prince Mohammad is a determined individual fixated on getting his own way, which indeed seems to have been his destiny, seeing how far he has come in five years as a consequence of the complete confidence that King Salman has in him. Despite its immense financial reserves, Saudi Arabia has its limitations, as has been shown by the lack of military breakthroughs in Yemen and Syria despite huge outlays. The example of President George W Bush is before the world. Apparently to avenge the effort made by Saddam Hussein to kill his father George H W Bush, the 43rd US President went to war in Iraq. As a consequence, the Taliban were enabled to return to deadly effectiveness in Afghanistan.
Despite the false claims made by President Bush and his associates, the only link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda was their mutual distaste of each other. Soon after he was deposed and the government of Iraq headed by a US national rather than a native of that country, terrorist groups sprang up throughout Iraq and beyond, militias that include Daesh. More consequently, not only the US but the world economy has been weakened by the wars of George W Bush, none of which he could complete during his two terms in office. The other example the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia should examine is that of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who met only partial success in his efforts at building a Great Society because of the money cost and political turmoil of the Vietnam war.
It is clear from the records that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy would have wound down the war despite advice to the contrary from his Cabinet. However, Johnson lacked the confidence to push aside the bad advice he was getting from Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and his generals. The same fate seems to be afflicting President Trump, who seems unable to moderate the policy options being pushed by his Cold Warrior Defence Secretary James Mattis and his generals, almost all of whom seem to believe that the Atalanticist-Orientalist phase of human history is still relevant, when in fact this construct has been overtaken by the realities of the present Indo-Pacific century.
Should the 45th President not show some of the robust attachment to realities that he displayed while on the 2016 campaign trail, Mattis is on course to spark off a war between the US and a combination of both Iran as well as Russia. Certainly it would appear from the evidence that the US has encouraged Crown Prince Mohammad to create a set of conditions that have the potential to result in an all-out conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a development that would devastate the region as comprehensively as George W Bush and the real power behind Barack Obama, Cold Warrior Hillary Clinton, have reduced Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and large parts of Iraq to chaos. The new Crown Prince has shown his understanding of the imperative of Saudi Arabia going through a reform process that would free the young from the constraints that the hyper-conservative elements within the Kingdom have for long imposed.
To be fair, King Abdullah (despite his age) initiated a process of reform, although this was partial in its effects. The new Crown Prince has been far bolder, challenging those who seek to keep much of Saudi institutions and society in the same straitjacket that existed two centuries ago, before the Kingdom came in contact with the most modern countries then extant on the globe. King Abdul Aziz showed great wisdom in ensuring the independence of the giant country that he created and named after his own family. During his time, Abdul Aziz was as much of an innovator as the new Crown Prince has shown himself to be in matters of society and the economy, unlike in the case of defence, which he oversees with a conservative vision that shuns moderation against those he sees as wholly different from his own country and its people. Should Crown Prince Mohammad focus on peace rather than on war, on conciliation rather than conflict, he could change the destiny of his people as comprehensively as King Abdul Aziz bin Saud did a century ago.

http://pakobserver.net/saudi-arabia-gets-young-crown-prince/

North Korea: Ambassador to India Mr. Kye Chun Yong & Prof. M D Nalapat on WION Gravitas (World is One News)

In a first on Indian television, WION's Ramesh Ramachandran speaks to North Korea's ambassador Kye Chun Yong to understand the official position of the North Korean government. Prof. M. D. Nalapat joins the conversation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8pzRNqlODg&feature=youtu.be

Modi Model should replace Chidambaram constructs (Sunday Guardian)

There is still a strong residue of the past and its practices. Now that three years are over, we are entitled to expect much more Modi and less of the past in the future.

 

News reports are that some Members of Parliament (MPs) asked Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju for “automatic upgrades” to Business Class on all flights, whether these be the national carrier or private airlines. The journalistic fraternity needs to identify the names of the individuals who made such a request. MPs, after all, are expected to be Representatives of the People, and it must occur to even the less curious of them that few of their constituents can even afford to travel Coach Class, as air travel remains a luxury for the overwhelming majority of citizens of a country that remains low income despite seven decades of freedom. In case any MP were to initiate a Private Member’s Bill limiting the moneys spent out of the exchequer for the total expenses of each MP to an annual amount that does not exceed ten times the per capita income of India, that would be welcome. Judging by the SUVs they alight from, and the dresses and watches they flaunt, it would appear that a large proportion of our MPs resemble US Senators, all of whom—bar perhaps the forgiving (Hillary Clinton) Bernie Sanders—are millionaires, if not billionaires. In memory of Mahatma Gandhi, it is time our MPs ensured that their own lifestyles conform to those of what Gandhiji termed the “dumb millions”. Television channels need to regularly air the lifestyles of individual MPs and their families, to check on how closely these reflect the realities of existence of those who voted them to their high responsibility. Public service is precisely that, service to the public, and this is scarcely possible if those involved live in the way this country’s colonial masters did. Gandhiji taught the value of sacrifice, but these days, the only “sacrifice” those who constantly repeat his name indulge in, is to go once every year to Rajghat and sit in mock contemplation, while the cameras roll. 

As for our underpaid officials, an amazing number of them seem to have mastered the art of sending their children to study in expensive foreign universities, or ensuring that their spouses regularly go to Europe for shopping expeditions, despite the pathetic salaries that the Government of India pays even its top officials. It is, of course, entirely coincidental that most of the time spent by successful businesspersons in India is devoted to sharing quality time with officials and politicians. Certainly our officials need to be paid more, and a way of ensuring that would be to create a “revolving door” through which jobs could be exchanged between government and private sector, thereby allowing individuals to spend some years in the underpaid world of officialdom, before replenishing bank accounts in private entities. Those who claim in feigned horror that such a move would encourage corruption, are being hypocritical, as the present watertight silo system of official recruitment and staffing has nevertheless led to substantial graft. Only leaner procedures and greater transparency in operations (for example, through a deepening of the RTI and in more hearings and processes being streamed over the internet) will lead to a cleaner administration, not straitjacketed recruitment systems that consider public and private service as mutually hostile entities. 

A businessperson takes a loan from a nationalised bank, usually after being recommended to the chairperson by a bank director appointed for the purpose. He then ensures inflated prices for imported equipment, thereby getting back the money spent on equity within a few months of the commencement of operations. Further purchases for the entity go to swell external bank accounts, even while the business gobbles up more and more tranches of funds. Finally, when it becomes impossible to lend any more money for the sole purpose of repaying old loans, the company goes “sick”, while the owners create new “healthy” entities that enter the same cycle. A regulatory environment of high taxes, North Korea-model regulations and lack of accountability and transparency in decision-making has ensured that only crony capitalists thrive on one company’s crash after the other, in their path towards hyper riches hoarded abroad, while bona fide entrepreneurs go bankrupt or leave this country. India needs a new class of entrepreneurs not tainted by the practices of the past, but for this to occur, there will need to be a substantial reduction in the difficulty of doing business, and a fall in tax rates. Officials look only to covering the current year’s expenses while fixing tax rates, neglecting the fact that over a three- or five-year period, lower rates lead to much higher collections. We need to exchange the Palaniappan Chidambaram model of vexatious rules and constant harassment for the Narendra Modi model of “minimum government, maximum governance” i.e., low rates and low penalties, leading to high compliance. The absurdly high penal rates set for black money disclosures during the past few years has led to the pathetically low level of recoveries seen thus far. Less than one dollar out of every two thousand dollars of illegal income banked abroad had returned by 2016, when a more rational penalty structure would have led to a manifold increase in such recoveries. Similarly, hyper-high penalties for declared illegal domestic income have led to a similarly low level of success of the black money mop up schemes. 

There is still too little of Modi in several of the fiscal, regulatory and monetary policies of a government the people elected to power with a Lok Sabha majority entirely because of their faith in the PM. There is still too strong a residue of the past and its practices. Now that three years are over, we are entitled to expect much more Modi and less of the past in the future. A qualitatively new generation of entrepreneurship, of officials and of politicians, is needed for India to succeed in becoming a middle income country during the next decade.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/9794-modi-model-should-replace-chidambaram-constructs 

US Senators dance to Europe’s tune (Pakistan Observer)

M D Nalapat | Geopolitical Notes From India

THE Democratic Party establishment in the US worked unitedly to ensure that the nomination for the 2016 Presidential election went to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is the Czarina of the Washington Beltway in much the same way as Sonia Gandhi has been of the Lutyens Zone. Both Hillary and Sonia have spent decades cultivating officials and politicians in their respective national capitals, for example ensuring that “deserving” (through the accident of DNA) children of key officials got scholarships to study in prestigious US universities or well-padded sinecures were provided on retirement to officials who refused to reflect even a second before obeying orders from either.

During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton worked hard to try and finish off the political career of Narendra Modi, including by arranging of teams to visit Gujarat to try and discover human remains from the mass graves her supporters claimed were dotted across the state. Finally, after much searching, a pile of buried bones were discovered.and there was much excitement in the US embassy in Delhi as well as the State Department in Washington. However, on examination, these turned out to be the remains of buffalos rather than of human beings. Hillary Clinton and her friend Sonia Gandhi were disappointed, but refused to end their anti-Modi quest. Officials who obeyed the commands of Hillary and Sonia found themselves promoted and their (sometimes deliberate) errors ignored by higher authorities.

Although Barack Obama prevailed over the Clinton machine in the race for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, he made up for it after the polls by making “his” administration a collection of Clinton associates, while Obama’s own loyalists such as David Axelrod were pushed aside in the administration of the country’s first African-American Head of State. Obama needed (or believed he did) the backing of the Clinton machine during the 2012 race, and for this he was willing to sacrifice his shot at establishing a legacy as deep as that of Lincoln, Roosevelt or even Lyndon Johnson, the under-appreciated architect of the Great Society and of the removal of several of the detestable “Jim Crow” restrictions that had been placed on the country’s vibrant African-American community in order to slow down their progress towards material equality with the white population.

Hillary Clinton was a much weaker candidate against Donald Trump than Bernie Sanders, who ought to have won the Democratic Party nomination but for the unrestrained efforts of the Clinton machine to defeat him, efforts that were partially detailed in emails leaked from (and most likely by) Democratic Party insiders. In order to divert attention from their own bag of tricks against the straightforward but politically naive Senator from Vermont, the Clinton machine set in motion the smokescreen of Russian involvement in the US Presidential election. Certainly Russia must have been involved, but so would a dozen other countries, each eager to ensure a favourable atmosphere for selected policies after the polls. Russophobia suits the Atlanticist-Orientalist lobby in the US and Europe, as it promotes the continuation of primacy of Atlanticist policies in a world where the Indo-Pacific has emerged as the geopolitical heartland.

The longer Washington delays in developing and implementing policies that are based on Indo-Pacific reality rather than Atlanticist-Orientalist romance, the worse it will be for US interests. Coming from the hard-nosed school of the business of property development, Donald Trump appreciates the need for such a policy change. However,judging by the questioning on June 13 of Attorney-General Jeff Sessions by a US Senate Committee, it is clear that the Atlanticists continue to control the US Senate. Interestingly, both Senator Marco Rubio and Senator John McCain tried to damage President Trump through skillful questioning designed to further the cause of those seeking to impeach Trump and thereby weaken the Republican Party before the next Presidential election in 2020.

Senator Rubio clearly hopes to be the Republican candidate in that race, and this would be facilitated were Trump to lose his job through impeachment, the way the Clinton machine seeks to do, including with assistance from the Bush and Romney factions of the Republican Party that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus has ensured still carries enormous clout in the administration. Priebus is clearly a believer in quotas, as he is trying to fit in Romney, McCain and Bush loyalists into key slots at the expense of those who had backed Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries. However,unlike the 44rth President Barack Obama, the 45th US President does not seem willing to jettison his loyalists under pressure, despite an early stumble through the removal of National Security Advisor (NSA) Michael Flynn.

The salty-voiced general was a target of Hillary Clinton because of the knowledge that he would use some of his vast powers as NSA to get her prosecuted. In contrast, the new NSA, General H R McMaster, has never taken sides in any political battle, and indeed has several friends within the list of those who are Clinton supporters Whether Republican or Democrat, the manner of questioning of Attorney General Sessions by the Senators was as if the US and Russia were at war with each other. What the Senators did was to sacrifice US interests in order to promote those of certain European states such as France, Poland and Germany. These want Russia to remain isolated and subject to punitive sanctions from the NATO bloc that would make it inevitable that Moscow turn to Beijing for succour, as indeed has been the case. Such a move is not in the US interest, which would get boosted were Moscow and Washington to work closer together in the Middle East and elsewhere, as sought by Trump and Putin.

However, not if the US Senate can help it. That institution remains committed to continuing the Cold War between the USSR and the US more than a quarter century after the fall of that entity created the conditions for the emergence of the Indo-Pacific as the world’s premier zone of activity. Both the EU as well as China will be happy at the US Senate and at the Atlanticists, including increasingly within the Trump administration, for their refusal to follow the clear-visioned US President in adjusting to 21st century realities, which inter alia mandate close ties between Moscow and Washington.

http://pakobserver.net/us-senators-dance-europes-tune/ 

Insight: China Set Rules to Combat Extremism (Lok Sabha TV)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCZDt6SUsSg

Insight: Karnataka ministers splurge on food; does CM endorse such profligacy? (NewsX)

With bills running to 7.24 cr and upwards, another controversy is brewing In Karnataka. With the Cong govt claiming that the expense is not just for ministers but the entire assembly and the secretariat. Criticism from the BJP is that the Congress CM endorses wasteful expenditure. Athar Khan discusses the issue with Nasser Hussain, GVL Narasimha Rao, Madhav Nalapat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKfRALew0cs 

President Trump’s war talk is bluff: North Korea (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

North Koreans say that as long as there are US troops in South Korea, Japan and Guam, Washington will not initiate hostilities against Pyongyang. 

North Korea will not agree to abandon its nuclear weapons program, as the family-controlled regime in office in Pyongyang regards possession of nuclear weapons and viable delivery vehicles as essential to its continuance in power. This was the conclusion of two individuals, who are accepted by analysts of the peninsula as being in touch with what they term as “Leadership Thinking” in the isolated but defiant state known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The term “Leadership” refers to Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and those whom he entrusts with responsibility at any particular moment in time. The Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) meets almost no non-citizens (and very few even of the latter), and has thus far kept away from the international media. However, some of his countrypersons travel extensively across the region, and a few among them know first-hand Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s mind on the issue of North Korea’s accelerated effort to become a nuclear weapons power, with the capacity to inflict damage initially on the Pacific coast of the United States, including on Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and subsequently on the eastern coast, including the cities of Washington DC, Boston and New York.
WORDS VS ACTION
According to the individuals contacted, Kim Jong Un has made a comprehensive study of US “words and actions” and has reached the conclusion that “the two are often in contradiction, especially where declared rivals of the US are concerned”. They say that as a matter of tactics, high-level (US) officials give assurances of safety and good intentions, including in public, but during that same time, secretly begin processes designed to weaken and eliminate those who are being lulled into a false sense of security through assurances that are “nothing but bluff”. Even those who have allowed themselves to be serially used by US agencies, have, later on, been severely dealt with, an interesting example cited being that of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, “who spent nearly 30 years in a US jail, despite doing all that the CIA demanded on him while in power”. According to them, information collected by a “data collection unit” in a location in South America showed that Noriega was incarcerated to punish him for revealing details of the way in which the CIA had used druglords to conduct “dirty tricks” within the region. They say that the Panamanian strongman was in touch with the “most important geopolitical rival” of the US and had fed them details of the CIA’s actions through a Cuban intermediary, but that the top leadership of this rival country secretly handed over this same information and its source back to US authorities in 1988, “without the knowledge of the (rival country’s) military”. They add that “the drug offences (on which Noriega was charged) were carried out with the connivance of the CIA”, which is presumably why proof of such activities, as would satisfy a US court, was not difficult to find. They also mentioned a list of more than four-hundred names compiled by DPRK analysts, and which “contains the names of those who were ‘neutralised, often with extreme prejudice’, once they gave US authorities all that was demanded”, a list that they confirm includes such obvious names as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. No copy of this “list of the betrayed” was shown to this correspondent, and the only proof offered was the word of the sources talked to. The two have, however, been authenticated as genuine sources of factual information by analysts familiar with the region and its flashpoints.
The “Leadership Thinking” in Pyongyang is emphatic that the US and its military allies “only wage war against a regime after that entity has surrendered its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and has also ensured access to US intelligence to map out every vulnerability in its defences”. Iraq, Libya and Syria were quoted as examples, it being added that President Bashar Assad made US intervention inevitable once he agreed to give up his chemical weapons stockpile. The gesture was under pressure from Moscow, which believed that the gesture would ensure either the ending of diplomatic moves by the US and the EU against the Russian Federation or a significant dilution in them. “Instead, the reverse took place and a year later, harsher sanctions got imposed”. The lesson drawn by Pyongyang is that “good” behaviour (i.e. obedience) is fatal, while only “bad” (i.e. flouting) can ensure regime survival. They say that so long as there are US troops in South Korea (which they call “Occupied Korea”), Japan and Guam, the US will not initiate hostilities against North Korea. However, in their view, “when confronted with a threat to their own cities, the US (administration) will not hesitate to expose Seoul and Tokyo” to attack from the DPRK and hence the DPRK will have immunity to attack once it gains the capability to target the continental US with nuclear weapons.
‘IT’S BLUFF’
They add that Pyongyang seeks nuclear weapons and delivery capability only for its own protection and, hence, will not act against the US, unless it becomes clear that a war by the latter is imminent, which they say will not happen, “as all this war talk is bluff”, designed to make the DPRK expose itself to an attack by surrendering its nuclear weapons. While acknowledging the superiority in conventional weaponry of the Republic of Korea forces, they claim that the “revolutionary spirit of the Free Korean soldiers (i.e., those enrolled in the DPRK armed forces) will prevail over the RoK units, “the way they did against superior US combat units during the 1950s Korean war”. No mention was made by those close to the DPRK’s “Leadership Thinking” of the assistance in materiel delivered by the USSR or the crucial involvement of China’s People’s Liberation Army during those operations.
The sources claim that Kim Jong Un, while having “learnt much” from the example of the life of the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung, the present Supreme Leader of the DPRK sees his father Kim Jong Il as having had on occasion “an excess of trust” in the promises of those governments he was dealing with, and, therefore, initiating steps to downsize the DPRK’s WMD stockpile twice during his 1994-2011 tenure. They say that while Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is open to the idea of unifying with South Korea, he is of the view that the unified entity must be a nuclear weapons state, “to avoid blackmail by Japan and the US”. Equally, the Leadership Thinking is that any merger must include a coming together of the two militaries and state institutions, as well as a “lifetime leadership role” for Kim Jong Un, rather than an Iraq or Libya situation, where an entire governance structure was eliminated and chaos resulted. They regard Kim as “the protector of the spirit of the immortal Korean people”. The individuals spoken to claim that in any future election, Kim Jong Un would emerge as the most popular leader of a unified people, although this claim may never be tested. They add that in the view of the leadership, the US would “not permit unification, unless it was certain that it could control the new entity the way it is still dominating Germany and occupying the country with troops”. Hence, “unification talks with Occupied Korea (sic) are only possible once (the DPRK’s) nuclear weapons are tested and brought to readiness, and delivery systems capable of entering the continental US are operational”. Only then would the US “be unable to block unification talks based on Korean, and not Japanese or US, principles”.
According to them, such a phase (of the DPRK evolving as an intercontinental nuclear weapons power) would “assure peace (in the peninsula),” as the US or Japan would then never have the “spirit” to wage war. But what of President Trump’s warning that the US would not accept North Korea crossing such a threshold of nuclear capability? According to Pyongyang’s “Leadership Thinking”, such talk by Trump is bluff and bluster, “as history shows the US acts only when it is first attacked, or when the enemy is weak”, neither of which is likely, according to others talked to in locations within two cities close to or bordering the Pacific Ocean.
Given that Pyongyang seems unwilling to reverse course, and that within President Trump’s first term, the DPRK will, on the present reckoning, have the capacity to reach the western shores of continental US, it will not be long before the world knows whether Pyongyang is correct in regarding Washington’s warnings of war as being “mere bluff that will not scare the most noble son of Korea”, i.e., Kim Jong Un, or divert him from his determination to make the DPRK a formidable nuclear weapons power.
THE CHINA FACTOR
Another, and hugely important, variable is China. Were Beijing to cut off essential supplies to North Korea, the economy of that country would be brought to its knees in months. The “Leadership Thinking” is that the (North) Korean people would accept death and starvation, but not surrender. Clearly, such a move by China, were Beijing to enforce such a blockade, could lead to unforeseen actions and consequences beyond the civilian.
In the battle of wills between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, both are betting that the other will blink first.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/9749-president-trump-s-war-talk-bluff-north-korea 

India must ensure security in the Indian Ocean (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

Neither India nor the US can ensure foolproof security in the Indian Ocean Region by itself. Moscow should of course remain a friend of Delhi. 

Although Henry Kissinger took for himself in his imaginings of history the credit for the 1970s diplomatic breakthrough between the United States and China, the fact is that he had been dismissive of the prospects for such an understanding until ordered to go to Beijing by President Richard Nixon in 1971. From the time he was elected to office in 1969, Nixon had sought to reach out to Mao Zedong, and finally succeeded in getting a response towards the close of 1970. If there were any “China experts” in the US who thought that Nixon and Mao were capable of forging a friendship, they kept that view a secret, except perhaps to their spouses. The Chinese leader had cold-bloodedly ensured the establishing of a Greater China through incorporation of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet into the PRC within a few years of coming to power. Mao was an original “China Firster” (the way Xi Jinping is), and understood that his country would not be able to geopolitically hobble the USSR on its own. Also, that the only possible partner with the potential for engineering such an outcome was the US. Hence his grasping of the diplomatic hand proffered by Nixon. Together, the two countries fashioned a security alliance that sharply reduced Moscow’s diplomatic space, thereby boosting the capabilities of the US at a time when the country had suffered a military defeat in Vietnam. The de facto alliance between China and the US outlasted Nixon, and was continued by his successors because of its utility. 

Success in geopolitical rankings hinges on a factual assessment of strengths and weaknesses, not the romantic calculus of Jawaharlal Nehru, who mistook dreams for reality and thereby forsook several advantages for India. Even some “hawks” in the Lutyens Zone base their policy prescriptions on the fantasy that India, with its $2 trillion economy, has on its own the capability of establishing by itself primacy in the Indian Ocean. Certainly the Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) is the zone over which India has to aim for numero uno status, and not just when dealing with those states that comprise its South Asia partners. Clearly, given its embrace of Pakistan, China will not step forward as India’s superpower partner in the quest to ensure that the IOR be a zone where India has as much influence as was the case until 1947. That leaves the US, whose geopolitical objectives would be served were a friendly power that is congruent with its values and security to get an upper hand throughout the IOR over regional threats and challengers. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama understood this, but neither could succeed in ensuring a partnership with the depth and scope mandated by the imperatives of US-India security. Were Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to craft a relationship that would, in several particulars, replicate the breakthrough in ties between Beijing and Washington that took place nearly a half-century ago, they would create history, and in the process, keep the Indian Ocean Rim safe. An adequate defence and security understanding with the US would better enable India to ensure that no other country would be able to do anything that would detract from the keystone role played by India within the IOR.

China can make a significant contribution to economic growth in India, including through the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), and hence, there is no question but that Delhi and Beijing need to work much closer together on such matters than has been the case. Simultaneously, however, a defence and security relationship needs to get established with the US that would parallel the tectonic shift which took effect from 1971, as a consequence of the Nixon-Mao understanding. For this, there needs to be a fashioning of Indian policy that is based on existing realities rather than imagined strengths. A holistic India-US understanding needs to be worked out, and this could happen as a result of a coming together of strategies between Trump and Modi. In the same way, substantial forward movement in Sino-Indian relations will need to be both initiated and concluded at the leadership level, i. e. between Xi and Modi, rather than through the bureaucracy, as has too often been the case thus far. Signing of the other two Foundation Agreements with the US (CISMOA and BECA) are desirable. An impression has been created that such a signing would take away discretion from Delhi, but this is false, as any reading of the agreements would show. What should be operationalised early is a US-India “Over the Horizon” radar array based at the tip of our peninsula that would be similar to what is already functioning in Jindalee, Australia. Such an array would enable much better real time information on activities taking place in the IOR, thereby ensuring appropriate responses in the event that threats bubble up to danger level. Later, Washington and Delhi should examine the feasibility of setting up an anti-missile system in India that would better secure the world’s most populous democracy from nuclear-related threats. Whether in the development of nuclear submarine technology or in the expansion of our Air Force and Navy, closer collaboration between the US and India would be helpful. 

Neither India nor the US can ensure foolproof security in the IOR by itself. Moscow should of course remain a friend of Delhi. Under no circumstances should India sacrifice its longstanding friendship with Russia, or indeed countries such as Iran, as a condition of fullscope defence and security ties with the US. Washington and Delhi instead need to cooperate on meeting the threats and challenges that are common to both, which by itself forms a substantial list. The time is overdue for the US administration to “do a China”, this time with India, and for this country to adopt policies that are based on the realism of Mao, rather than the emotionalism of Nehru. 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/9710-india-must-ensure-security-indian-ocean 

Ashraf Ghani should learn from Rajapaksa (Pakistan Observer)

M D Nalapat | Geopolitical Notes From India

The President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, served in international organisations in positions where he had to report to those much higher up. A characteristic of those with experience in international organisations (especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) is that they regard citizens of the US as belonging to the highest caste, followed by those from the UK and France, both of whom are Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) as a consequence of Britain winning the 1939-45 war and ensuring that France was given the same privileges despite having been occupied by the Germans for the duration of that war without having had the chance to contribute significantly even in its own liberation in 1944.
Ghani shares the same trait as other South Asian leaders who in the past have been associated with international organisations, of accepting as Confucian wisdom the scattered suggestions and ill-informed conclusions (or perhaps a better word would be “confusions”) of the many think-tanks in the US and the UK that incessantly clamour for donations to be able to teach Third World countries to obey their betters the way it was in the past, especially during the 19th century. Several of such think tanks had supported the Taliban during the 1990s and have declined to adjust their conclusions, worried that by doing so, they would shatter the perception that they are infallible. Even after 9/11, even after ISIS, these think tanks have in effect acted as Public Relations agents for the Taliban in Afghanistan, by creating the fiction of a division within that entity into “Good” and “Bad” Taliban.
In practice, any offshoot of the militia that condescended to parley with the authorities in Kabul were accepted as “Good” Taloban, while the others remained “Bad”. Needless to say, “Good” and “Bad” switched roles with a frequency that should have alarmed the think tanks that were vouching for them in Washington and London, but never apparently did. As a consequence, despite an uninterrupted record of failure to persuade the militia to desist from its violent campaigns in Afghanistan, to this day the search is ongoing to locate elements of the “Good” Taliban to include in the Ghani government. This would, it is expected by the serially failed Afghanistan “experts” in Washington and London, result in other elements of the militia joining in the spoils of office and ensuring the end of a struggle that the combined strength of NATO has the far been powerless to eliminate.
Owing to his intellectual dependence on such London and Washington think tanks, President Ashraf Ghani is still calling for the Taliban to join his government. What he seems to ignore is the fact that even if a faction of the Taliban joins the Kabul government, its purpose would be to paralyse and wreck it from within, as the final aim of the Taliban is to dominate the whole of Afghanistan in a manner even more thorough than during 1996-2001. Allowing any part of the Taliban to enter his government should be a disaster for Ghani, yet he persists in calling for such an outcome because of the advice coming from two capitals that are regarded as very important in the World Bank and the IMF, London and Washington.
In Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) followed a policy of asking for a ceasefire when they saw that the Sri Lankan Army was gaining an advantage. Largely because of international pressure, the Sri Lankan government would agree. During the halt in hostilities, the LTTE would strengthen its capabilities and replenish its stores of weapons. However, when Ranil Wickremasinghe (the present Prime Minister) was earlier in office, in 2004, he carefully encouraged Colonel Karuna (the most powerful LTTE leader after supremo Prabhakaran) to separate from the organisation. Karuna had been aware from 2003 that Prabhakaran was viewing him with suspicion as having become too powerful, and that it was only a matter of time before the supremo would have him killed the way he finished off so many others whom he regarded as inconvenient in the LTTE. Once Prime Minister Wickremasinghe got information about tensions between Karuna and Prabhakaran, he reached out to the former and gave him an honourable exit from the deadly organisation despite several Sri Lankan army officers opposing this.
The split weakened the LTTE substantially, and further damage was done by the December 26,2004 tsunami.Damage to LTTE controlled regions was severe, and nearly 70% of the budget that had been allocated to weapons had to be diverted for civilian relief. Newly elected President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaka saw an opportunity and with the help of his brother Gotabhaya (Defense Secretary) began a campaign that finally resulted in the elimination of the LTTE in 2009. President Rajapaksa defied pressure from the US and the EU to halt military action against Prabhakarn, but was given assistance from China, Pakistan and India.
President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan needs to learn from the Sri Lankan war and conduct a military campaign that does not stop until it results in the comprehensive defeat of the Taliban. The “Hot Cold” tactics urged on his by Washington and London will only result in chaos and crisis, the way it has happened in so many countries where the leadership made the mistake of outsourcing security policy to US and UK think tanks. Ghani should ensure that the Afghan National Army fight its war with the same determination as an enemy that has humbled NATO but which can yet be defeated by the valiant people of Afghanistan.

http://pakobserver.net/ashraf-ghani-learn-rajapaksa/ 

Opportunities and challenges of SCO expansion (CGTN)

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of deepening mutual trust and regional cooperation especially in tackling extremism, during a speech at the 17th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana. China also expressed hope that Pakistan and India will improve their relations after their ascension to the SCO.

Can the SCO manage existing conflicts between member states? What benefits could Pakistan and India achieve from joining the SCO? Wang Yiwei, Director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, Madhav Nalapat, UNESCO Peace Chair and Director of the Geopolitics and International Relations Department at Manipal University, and Maxim Mikhalev, Director of East Asia and SCO Countries Program of the Center for Crisis Society Studies, share their opinions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuB_9yszW4s

BRICS panel: Deepening cooperation amid global slowdown (CGTN)

6/7/2017: The BRICS nations command a large portion of the world's population, land area and GDP. But can this organization be more than just a talk-shop? 

China is hosting the 9th BRICS Summit in September in Xiamen City, in the southeastern province of Fujian. Ahead of the high-profile event, 25 media groups from the five member countries gathered on Wednesday in Beijing for a forum. Recent years have witnessed some voices expressing belief that the BRICS era could come to an end, however the five national economies are determined to step up their cooperation. The group represents 42 percent of the world's population and 26 percent of its territory, and accounts for 30 percent of the global GDP. How can the BRICS nations remain as solid as a brick? To answer this question, World Insight has invited panelists from the BRICS countries: Zhang Jianping from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation; Alexander Lukin, Director of the East Asian and SCO studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; Charles Tang, President of the Brazil China Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Madhav Nalapat, UNESCO Peace Chair in India and Director of the Geopolitics and International Relations Department at Manipal University; Stephen Gelb, Principal Research Fellow at the Private Sector Development Overseas Development Institute and a former economics professor at the University of Johannesburg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5HC2sO9f8

Freedom of Speech, Rest in Peace (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

Snowden did a public service by showing how exposed the global population is to those state agencies with overwhelming mastery over the worldwide web. 

 

Sensible governments stay away from interference with the internet, save with those exceptional bits and pieces that expose those involved (or are about to be) in matters such as child molestation and terrorism. There certainly are intemperate comments, including sometimes at this columnist, but this is no reason to seek to enforce a blackout. Of course, it may be argued that those who post abusive messages should reveal their true identities. While internet addresses give clues as to the source of specific missives, those proficient in hacking are aware that mimicking an address is adolescent play. An individual trained in techniques of manipulating the internet could post a message from Manila and show its internet protocol address as being from Mumbai. Edward Snowden did a public service by showing how exposed the global population is to those state agencies with overwhelming mastery over the worldwide web. Barack Obama lectured several countries on the need for transparency and the toleration of dissent, but when it came to similar deeds targeting his own administration, the then US President imposed the severest of penalties. The military technician who transferred data to WikiLeaks on US Air Force strikes on innocent civilians was sent to an underground prison and released only after an incarceration lasting several years. Bloggers in Egypt, who followed her line on Arab politics, were hailed as heroes by Hillary Clinton, but those who dared to fall foul of the Secretary’s wishes soon saw themselves being hit by criminal charges. It is particularly nauseating that a country such as Sweden, which preens itself on being “liberal”, slapped criminal charges on Julian Assange and forced him to take shelter in a South American embassy in London. The UK establishment, itself always ready to lecture on the importance of freedom of speech and the need to expose wrongdoing, has since behaved towards Assange with all the sensitivity of North Korea. Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden exemplify in their deeds the devotion to freedom and justice that figure so frequently in the speeches of diplomats and officials from the countries persecuting all three, including “liberal” Sweden and “freedom loving” countries such as the US and the UK.

Senior officials within the Washington Beltway, have sought to cast Julian Assange and his website as a KGB (sorry, FSB) tool. Although there were those who argued for India to offer asylum to Assange and Snowden, it was clear that this was an impossibility, given the cowardice of the Lutyens Zone so far as Uncle Sam or other major powers are concerned. Besides, as can be seen from the way retired officials strategically planted in Right to Information tribunals have smothered the outing of information on several aspects of governmental functioning, the bureaucracy in India believes that the only information needing to be shared with the public is the day, month and year, or in extreme circumstances, the time of day. Neither was it a surprise that Bradley Manning was placed in a US prison and had his (or now her) life ruined. The “crime” was to act in a manner contrary to the Foundation Axiom of NATO, which is that the alliance is incapable of wrongdoing, hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths caused by its interventions in just the 21st century notwithstanding. If US Air Force pilots killed individuals, who were obvious non-combatants in Iraq, the way their predecessors had gunned down helpless villagers in Vietnam, the fault lay in those who got killed, for they should not have left their homes while US aircraft were hovering nearby in strike mode. In the meantime, the contrived noise over Russia that has arisen across both sides of the Atlantic, obscures such other events as who in the US system ensured that almost the entire list of important CIA moles in China was exposed to the Chinese Communist Party, who made short work of them. In the case of India, an outed CIA spy is usually allowed to migrate to the US and enjoy the benefits of his service to the agency. The Chinese have a different approach. Those that are caught are given such a treatment, that what was administered to Bradley Manning would have resembled a school picnic. It does not take much IQ to figure out which approach best ensures that a country rids itself of the risk of its own officials becoming agents of foreign countries.

The outing and punishment of CIA agents in China took place during the precise interval when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and her confidant Leon Panetta was Director of the CIA. The latter would have had access to the true names of key US agents in China, and would have shared it with the then Secretary of State, being a 99.99% Clinton loyalist. Did that list end up in Secretary Clinton’s emails emanating out of the Clinton Foundation, mails that could easily have been hacked and which contained secret information? Few would accuse Hillary Clinton of knowingly revealing lists of spies to Beijing or to any other alien capital, but as yet the FBI has shown little enthusiasm in finding out exactly what hyper-sensitive emails could potentially have been exposed through being sent by the Beltway Czarina on a private server, including from Huma Abedin to Anthony Wiener. Did they include the lists containing the names of US spies? Rather than blame machine failure for the leak, it would have been logical for the FBI to have exhaustively examined how the names of the CIA’s key agents within the secretive Chinese establishment got revealed to Beijing. Equally, it would have been logical for the US media to zero in on this breach of security. However, given the obsession with bringing down President Donald Trump a la Richard Nixon, the spy list story has disappeared from media in the US. And of course, within the lynch mob surrounding Trump, few have questioned how and why establishments such as Washington, London and Stockholm that claim to respect freedoms and the right to information have taken such vicious action against those few who tested that vow in practice.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/9637-freedom-speech-rest-peace