Trump going the Ariel Sharon way (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India | M D Nalapat

 
LET it be admitted that this columnist is an admirer of the Jewish people and fully supports the right of Israel to exist in safety. However, he is not among those who believe that the leaders of the (tiny in territory but large in global importance) state which came into being as a consequence of the devilish conduct of Nazi Germany, especially during the World War-II were always correct. They made several mistakes,including Yitzhak Rabin, but none more so than Ariel Sharon, who in 1982 inserted the Israeli Defence Forces into the civil war in Lebanon. This was between the Maronite Christians and the Shia, and Sharon ensured that the troops under his command took the side of the Maronite Christians.
The chain of events that such an intervention resulted in has had a severe impact on the security of Israel, which is the only country in the world where terror groups that are Shia seek to regularly strike. Israel would have been better served by adopting a more nuanced and neutral position rather than taking sides. Now, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is similarly taking sides in the ongoing rivalry (indeed, conflict) between the Shia and Wahabbi groups within the Middle East. The motivation for this has been his obsession with Iran, a country that admittedly gives substantial backing to groups in Lebanon and elsewhere that effect strikes against Israel.
However, Iran is not the only country giving such backing. In a greater or lesser way, almost every state in the Middle East has within it groups (and sometimes governments) that seek to promote those groups that resort to violence against the population of Israel. Less than 80% of the total amount of donations going to anti-Israel groups comes from within countries other than Iran, and yet the refrain of the Netanyahu government has been that it is only Iran that is the threat. The Prime Minister of Israel would have been delighted, had President George W Bush used force in an effort to effect regime change in Iran. Indeed, between 2001 and 2007, it was indeed possible without harsh collateral damage to US interests to take out the military in Iran through the use of air and naval power.
However, since then, Tehran has built up its retaliatory capacity, with the consequence that any conflict between the US and Iran would ensure a knockdown effect on the region, including on regimes that have for generations been allied with London and thereafter Washington. Given that, the nuclear deal reached between Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani were a plus for the US, in that it has considerably slowed down the development of indigenous nuclear technology in Iran and made the achievement of nuclear weapon capacity close to impossible during the period that the agreement is in active operation. Obama clearly calculated that the post-agreement integration of Tehran with Europe and the US would ensure that the politics of the country became less theological and more conventional, as indeed would fit better the genius of the people of this ancient country than armed confrontation with the Jewish state.
Even as the Republican Party candidate for the US Presidency, Donald John Trump declared himself opposed to the nuclear agreement with Iran signed by the US as well as the EU with Tehran. However, once in office, the administration re-certified the agreement rather than disavow it, despite heartburn in some quarters about the change of stance. Indeed, there is no reason to walk away from the Iran nuclear agreement, in view of the fact that President Hassan Rouhani has ensured Teheran’s compliance with its numerous intrusive conditions, despite having got back much less in the way of concessions than was promised during the negotiations. Of course, the agreement is opposed by Israel as well as Saudi Arabia, which for different reasons seeks to overthrow the regime in Teheran at the earliest, ideally through the deployment of the US military.
The impact of such a move on oil prices, international trade and the overall economy does not seem to have figured in the calculations of those goading Donald Trump to launch cruise missiles and worse against the largest Shia-majority country in the world. Such a step would result in the US joining Israel as a global target of terror groups within the Shia community, an outcome that would be as destructive to US security as Sharon’s intervention in Lebanon has been for the State of Israel. Should the US withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, there would be little incentive for President Rouhani to continue with the agreement. Should he do so, the EU would seek to get further concessions from Iran, including in the form of withdrawal by Tehran of regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as the imposition of terms that would be even more consequential than was agreed upon in 2015. Kim Jong Un of North Korea would draw the conclusion that the US and its European allies are unreliable partners in any agreement, as indeed they showed itself to be in Libya in 2011.
Despite Muammar Kadhafi surrendering all WMD (or because of that), France and the UK led the charge against his government that ended in the gruesome murder of the Libyan dictator and much of his family and friends. Billions of dollars of reserves disappeared into the vaults of NATO powers, while the country itself has become a symbol of chaos and insurgency from the relative tranquillity it enjoyed during the decades when Kadhafi was in charge. Given the significant weakening of Rouhani’s position within the councils of governance in Tehran should Trump tear up the nuclear deal, it is a certainty that a withdrawal by Washington would soon result in the unravelling of the entire agreement. This would result in tensions between Iran and NATO, not to mention a spike in friction between the GCC and Teheran.
Overall, not simply regional but global stability would be impacted as a consequence of the US doing what President Trump has hinted will be the case, which is (after the Paris climate agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the tossing of the Iran nuclear deal into the nearest available White House waste paper basket. The chain of events that this will cause may result in the same consequences for the US as are being endured by Israel for more than three decades, which is to face the full fury of terror from not just Wahabbi but Shia groups. Walking away from the Iran deal would be as big a mistake for the US as intervening in the Lebanese civil war has been for Israel.

http://pakobserver.net/trump-going-ariel-sharon-way/ 

Cash from Mideast may be helping Kim Jong Un ignore sanctions (UPI)

By M D Nalapat

Despite U.S. envoy to the U.N. Nikki Haley's confidence in the efficacy of U.N. sanctions on North Korean behavior, sources close to the core of the Kim Jong Un regime claim that the supreme leader has succeeded in setting up a "capillary" system that remains unaffected by sanctions.

Such a system feeds into the largely cash-based informal economy and affiliated unregistered sectors, from which assistance gets channeled to the North Korean nuclear and missile program.

U.N. sanctions affect only the formal sector, which in the case of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, has only a limited role in the overall economy. Those privy to the thinking of the Pyongyang regime say that fresh sources of cash for the nuclear and missile program have been developed since 2013, mainly from the Middle East, that have resulted in an acceleration of efforts at achieving the objective of having the capacity to reach the U.S. mainland through missile-borne thermonuclear weapons.

The capital of Nepal is among the locations where a North Korean embassy is located, and it is, together with Phuket and Abu Dhabi, the preferred location for secret meetings between representatives of the DPRK and GHQ Rawalpindi, with whom Pyongyang has long had numerous "under- and over-the-radar" contacts.

Those familiar with Kim's leadership style, say he is far from an amateur but is instead a "thoughtful and brilliant individual, very similar in attitude and objectives to his grandfather," Kim Il Sung. They say that the young leader spends hours each day studying reports from across the world, especially from the United States, China, Japan and South Korea, so as to ensure that the regime's "master plan for Korean unification gets fulfilled before his 50th year."

Kim Jong Un was born in 1984 and assumed charge of the DPRK in 2011. The previous South Korean administration led by Park Geun-hye had framed its policies on the assumption that Kim Jong Un was unpopular and could be toppled, either through assassination or a coup organized by the military and security forces of the North.

Those familiar with his working style say such calculations are unrealistic, and that Kim Jong Un enjoys wide support within the DPRK, "much more than his father Kim Jong Il," who was regarded as being "too much trusting" of the promises of South Korean politicians, "especially of President Roh Tae-woo." They say that the slew of reform measures introduced by the new leader have ensured strong support, especially among the youth. At the same time, his staring down of the United States "has ensured the sincere support of the military, especially its middle and lower ranks."

A source with knowledge of the inner workings of the Kim regime claims that Kim Jong Il, even while his father Kim Il Sung was still alive, "leaned in favor of working out an agreement with South Korean President Roh that would potentially involve the eventual shutting down of the nuclear weapons program." However, they claim that "pressure from the Bill Clinton administration," which was opposed to the Sunshine Policy as carried out by the peacenik president, ensured the disgrace of Roh and "the withdrawal by his successor Kim Young Sam of most of the concessions offered by Roh," thereby killing the chances for a nuclear deal between the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the DPRK.

By the time Kim Jong Il took over full power in 1994, Kim Young Sam was president of South Korea and "the [Clinton-inspired] withdrawal from the terms of peace offered by Roh Tae-woo was in full swing," thereby causing Kim Jong Il to change his stance from supporting a deal to waiting for better terms than were offered by Kim Young Sam, "who was entirely in the hands of the U.S. administration, so far as policies toward the DPRK were concerned."

Perhaps as a consequence of the earlier history of harsh conditions sought by the United States "under the inspiration of Japan," Kim Jong Un has, from the start of his assumption of office in 2011, the same mistrust of the United States that his grandfather Kim Il Sung had, believing somewhat improbably that Washington wants to ensure that "Tokyo becomes the overlord of the noble and mighty Korean race, because they know that the Japanese will always do the bidding of the U.S., while we Koreans have a will of our own."

Mideast cash flows

According to those familiar with the supreme leader's style of functioning and his approach toward issues, by 2013 the grandson of the DPRK founder was in full charge of the state. Over the preceding two years, Kim Jong Un removed (sometimes by execution) those he suspected of looking askance at his declared efforts at charting a course different from that of his father.

Since that time, "our brilliant and courageous supreme leader," they said, "has worked at multiplying alternative sources of financing and supply for the missile and nuclear programs." Part of the funding for both has come from dedicated information technology warriors able to penetrate financial systems across the globe to pecuniary advantage. Such money-raising methods focus on "zones less sensitive to U.S. radar, such as Africa and parts of Asia, rather than most of Europe, "although Ukraine is an exception."

However, an alternative track has developed. Increasingly, funding for the program has come from high net worth individuals in the Middle East, many of whom have been connected to DPRK cash supply chains through individuals in Pakistan who have long had an association with the DPRK. "Patriotic [Middle Eastern] individuals wish to revenge themselves on the U.S. for its domination of Arab countries, and regard the development of our [the DPRK's] nuclear defensive program as being a means of ensuring such revenge."

Apparently,the calculation of those active in providing clandestine funding for Pyongyang's strategic strike force is that a fully developed nuclear offensive capability (by the DPRK against the United States) will at the least divert the attention of Washington from the Middle East to East Asia, thereby "giving an opportunity for local patriotic forces [within the Gulf Cooperation Council] to take control of regimes from those controlled by the U.S. warmongers."

It may be mentioned that Army GHQ Rawalpindi, with its reach into a network of hawala operators, is certainly a potentially effective conduit for the channeling of substantial amounts of cash to North Korea, presumably after Pakistan army officers and associates keep a part of the proceeds for themselves and for funding GHQ operations in Afghanistan and India.

Especially after 2013, the Pakistan army has reduced its clandestine operations with its U.S. counterparts, even while it has significantly ramped up such linkages with the Peoples Liberation Army, "which has a different perception regarding the DPRK than that held by the U.S. security establishment."

Indeed, it is clear that Russia and China do not realistically need to fear an attack even by a fully nuclearized North Korea, lines of communication between both and Pyongyang having remained substantial since the 1950s. Both Russia and China are vital to the survival of the ecosystem maintaining the Pyongyang regime and it would be unimaginable for either to be a military target of the DPRK. In contrast, Japan and the United States would be the most likely targets for offensive actions by the DPRK. However, the contacts spoken to repeat that Kim Jong Un would order an attack "only if it is clear that Japan and the U.S. are about to attack" North Korea.

They say that Kim is no warmonger, but a leader "devoted to the peaceful reunification of the Korean people and the global rise of the Korean people." The expectation is that the window for such reunification would open, "once the U.S. and Japan desist from interfering in a matter involving only the Korean race," presumably because of worry that in retaliation for such intervention, North Korean nukes would land on U.S. cities. Clearly,the bargaining position of Pyongyang with Seoul would get boosted, were the former to gain WMD capability of the highest order. Although verification of such claims is difficult, those contacted say that already "missiles that can reach California and Alaska" have been perfected, together with "tested" warheads, and that "this knowledge was made available last month to Tokyo and Washington through intentional dissemination of technical details."

Although there are credible reports of outside assistance to the North Korean missile and nuclear program, this is denied by those spoken to. They say that it is an insult to Korean brains to say that the DPRK needs help from "other races" in order to move ahead with the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and thermonuclear warheads, "which technology is after all six decades old."

The sources familiar with the workings of the Kim regime core claim that although the Russian and Chinese governments are "regrettably imposing U.N. sanctions", "ordinary Russians and Chinese who are opposed to U.S. hegemony ignore such rules and ensure help to us." Such informal channels have created multiple small supply lines, the way that Ho Chi Minh created a capillary system for ferrying materiel and fighters to South Vietnam in the 1970s, despite the merciless bombing of highways, rivers and much else by the United States, acting under the direction of Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger.

The persons contacted reveal that the Middle East is a location that has influential individuals who are "very sympathetic to the mission of the supreme leader to show the U.S. hegemons they can no longer rule the world." They admit that "some of our friends in Pakistan have been helpful in connecting such [Mideast HNI] elements to the informal cash network that feeds the nuclear and missile program. They, however, deny any link between such individuals and the Pakistan military, saying that the military in that country "will not stray from what Washington and Beijing want them to do, which is to assist in cruel and unjust sanctions." Despite such denials, however, there seems to have developed another A.Q. Khan-style network operating within Pakistan, this time supplying the North Koreans not so much technology and components, as access to Middle Eastern cash, although it is likely that there exists clandestine to and fro flows of such items as well between the DPRK and Pakistan.

No trust in U.S. promises

One fact seems clear from the discussion held with elements considered privy to the thinking of the DPRK leadership. This is that (1) any trust in U.S. assurances of safe conduct following the election of President Donald Trump has dwindled to zero, and that (2) Pyongyang will therefore press ahead with the nuclear and missile program without pause, irrespective of international diplomacy. (3) That Middle Eastern individuals opposed to the United States and its allies have started to be involved in ensuring that sufficient cash gets funneled toward DPRK entities, including those not registered or regarded as such, so as to ensure a supply of brainpower and materiel that would improve DPRK delivery systems and thermonuclear warheads within Trump's term in office. (4) That the George W. Bush administration missed an opportunity to take out through force the DPRK's strategic capability (as it did in the case of Iran), the way Israel has occasionally acted in the case of its neighbors and may do so again.

The successor Barack Obama administration remained focused less on significant practical concessions than the provision of verbal guarantees of safe conduct that were shown to have been worthless in Iraq, Libya and Syria. In other words, "they offered just promises but expected in return not just words but irreversible action from us."

The North Koreans believe that NATO pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his followers to (in effect) commit mass suicide rose substantially after his stock of chemical weapons was destroyed "with a part [according to these sources] kept apart to use occasionally so as to blame Assad for their use by [NATO] proxies."

(5) Kim Jong Un believes that only a capacity for mutually assured destruction between the United States and the DPRK will protect the country from a U.S.-Japan attack. As for South Korea joining the United States and Japan in a future conflict, the calculation within the leadership core in Pyongyang is that "the Korean people would revolt against the South Korean government, were Seoul to join Japan and the U.S. in attacking the heart of the Korean nation."

This may be an incorrect assessment, given the willingness of the South Korean military to take on the North. (6) Kim Jong Un is fixated on the same objective sought by his grandfather, which was to unify the peninsula under his leadership, and believes that nuclear capability would help ensure this without a war with the South.

Nearly immune from U.S. attack

As time (and the nuclear program) moves ahead, the window for success at an affordable price in U.S., Japanese and South Korean lives in a military operation designed to destroy the North Korean nuclear and missile program seems to be closing. Kim Jong Un believes the Trump administration's fiery rhetoric to be a bluff, and thus far, events are bearing out such a view. Focusing exclusively on U.N. sanctions on the formal economy of the DPRK, the United States seems unaware of the way in which a vast and secretive sanctions-proof capillary network has been set up by the Pyongyang leadership to ensure that the nuclear and missile program meets the objective of reducing large parts of cities on both U.S. coasts to radioactive rubble.

In other words, Kim Jong Un is dismayingly close to reaching a stage that would ensure immunity from attack from the United States and Japan. This would leave Pyongyang free to administer jabs and pinpricks at both, the way a nuclearized Pakistan has been doing with India since the 1980s, beginning with the fomenting of the Khalistan insurgency and the revival of the Kashmir troubles.

Russia and China would watch from the sidelines as Japan and the United States experience the effects of asymmetrical warfare from a regime that makes itself immune through possession of deadly retaliatory force. Trump has a very short time to act, while his country will have generations to rue the fact, should he lose his nerve and allow the DPRK to evolve into a perpetual threat to the population and interests of Japan and the United States.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/Voices/2017/09/18/Cash-from-Mideast-may-be-helping-Kim-Jong-Un-ignore-sanctions/7391505743893/?spt=su&or=btn_tw 

GHQ assists Kim Jong Un to ignore U.N. sanctions (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat 

Increasingly, funding is coming from individuals in Middle East, many of whom are connected to North Korean cash supply chains through individuals linked to GHQ Rawalpindi.

 

The capital of Nepal is among the locations on the globe where a North Korean embassy is located, and it is, together with Phuket and Abu Dhabi, the preferred location for secret meetings between representatives of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and GHQ Rawalpindi, with whom Pyongyang has long had numerous “under and over the radar” contacts. Those familiar with the leadership style of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, say that he is a “thoughtful and brilliant individual, very similar in attitude and objectives to his grandfather”, Kim Il Sung. They say that the young leader “spends hours each day studying reports from across the world, especially from the United States, China, Japan and South Korea”, so as to ensure that his “master plan for Korean unification gets fulfilled before his 50th year”. Kim Jong Un was born in 1984 and assumed charge of the DPRK in 2011. The previous South Korean administration led by Park Geun-hye had framed its policies on the assumption that Kim was unpopular and could be toppled, either through assassination or a coup organised by the military and security forces of the North. Those familiar with the working style of the Supreme Leader say that such views are unrealistic, and that Kim Jong Un enjoys wide support within the DPRK, “much more than his father Kim Jong Il”, who was regarded as being “too much trusting (of the promises of South Korean politicians), especially of President Roh Tae-woo”. A source with knowledge of the inner workings within the Kim regime claims that Kim Jong Il, even while his father Kim Il Sung was still alive, “leaned in favour of working out an agreement with South Korean President Roh that would potentially involve the eventual shutting down of the nuclear weapons program”. However, “pressure from the Bill Clinton administration”, which was opposed to the Sunshine Policy as carried out by the peacenik President, ensured the disgrace of Roh, and “the withdrawal by his successor Kim Young Sam of most of the concessions offered by Roh”, thereby killing the chances for a nuclear deal between the Republic of Korea (RoK) and the DPRK. By the time Kim Jong Il took over full power in 1994, Kim Young Sam was President of South Korea and “the (Clinton-inspired) withdrawal from the hand of peace offered by Roh Tae-woo was in full swing”, thereby causing Kim Jong Il to change his stance from supporting a deal to waiting for better terms than were offered by Kim Young Sam, “who was entirely in the hands of the US administration, so far as policies towards the DPRK were concerned”.

Perhaps as a consequence of the earlier history of harsh conditionalities sought by the US “under the inspiration of Japan”, Kim Jong Un has,  from the start of his assumption of office (in 2011), the same mistrust of the US that his grandfather Kim Il Sung had, believing that Washington wants to ensure that “Tokyo becomes the overlord of the noble and mighty Korean race, because they know that the Japanese will always do the bidding of the US, while we Koreans have a will of their own”.

GHQ ENSURES MIDEAST CASH

According to those familiar with the Supreme Leader’s style of functioning and his approach towards issues, by 2013 the grandson of the DPRK founder was in full charge of the state. Over the preceding two years, Kim Jong Un had removed (sometimes by execution) those he suspected of looking askance at his declared efforts at charting a course different from that of his father. Since that time, “our brilliant and courageous Supreme Leader (their description) has worked at multiplying alternative sources of financing and supply for the missile and nuclear programs”. According to analysts tracking the clandestine financial operations of the Pakistan army, while part of the funding for both has come from dedicated Information Technology warriors able to penetrate financial systems across the globe to pecuniary advantage, a new source of money has opened up, thanks to elements linked to GHQ. The IT operations focus on “zones less sensitive to US radar, such as Africa and parts of Asia, rather than most of Europe, “although Ukraine is an exception”. However, increasingly, funding for the program has come from High Net Worth individuals in the Middle East, many of whom have been connected to DPRK cash supply chains through individuals linked to GHQ Rawalpindi. “Patriotic (Middle Eastern) individuals wish to revenge themselves on the US for its domination of Arab countries, and regard the development of our (the DPRK’s) nuclear defensive program as being a means of ensuring such revenge,” say Korean sources. The calculation of those active in providing clandestine funding for Pyongyang’s strategic strike force is that a fully developed nuclear offensive capability (by the DPRK against the US) will at the least pull away attention by Washington from the Middle East to East Asia, thereby “giving an opportunity for local patriotic forces (within the GCC) to take control of regimes from those controlled by the US warmongers”. GHQ Rawalpindi, with its network of hawala operators, is an effective conduit for the channelling of substantial amounts of cash to North Korea, presumably after its officers and associates keep a part of the proceeds for themselves and for funding GHQ operations in Afghanistan and India.

Especially after 2013, the Pakistan army has reduced its clandestine operations with its US counterparts, even while it has significantly ramped up such linkages with the Peoples Liberation Army, “which has a different perception regarding the DPRK than that held by the US security establishment”. Indeed, it is clear that Russia and China do not realistically need to fear an attack even by a fully nuclearised North Korea, lines of communication between both and Pyongyang having remained substantial since the 1950s. Both Russia and China are vital to the survival of the ecosystem  maintaining the Pyongyang regime, and it would be unimaginable for either to be a military target of the DPRK. In contrast, Japan and the US would be the most likely targets for offensive actions by the DPRK. However, the contacts spoken to repeat that Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un would order an attack “only if it is clear that Japan and the US are about to attack” (the DPRK). They say that Kim is no warmonger, but a leader “devoted to the peaceful re-unification of the Korean people and the global rise of the mighty Korean people”. The expectation is that the window for such re-unification would open, “once the US and Japan desist from interfering in a matter involving only the Korean race”, presumably because of worry that in retaliation for such intervention, North Korean nukes would land on US cities. Although verification of such claims is difficult, those contacted say that already, “missiles that can reach California and Alaska” have been perfected, together with “tested” warheads, and that “this knowledge was made available last month to Tokyo and Washington through intentional dissemination of technical details”.

Although there are credible reports of outside assistance to the North Korean missile and nuclear program, this is denied by those spoken to. They say that it is “an insult to Korean brains” to say that the DPRK needs help from “other races” in order to move ahead with the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and thermonuclear warheads, “which technology is six decades old”. They claim that although the Russian and Chinese governments are ”regrettably sincere” about imposing UN sanctions, “ordinary Russians and Chinese who are opposed to US hegemony ignore such rules and ensure help to us”. Such informal channels have created “multiple small supply lines”, the way that Ho Chi Minh created a capillary system for ferrying materiel and fighters to South Vietnam in the 1970s, despite the merciless bombing of highways, rivers and much else by the US, acting under the direction of Nobel Peace Prize awardee, Henry Kissinger. The contacted persons claim that the Middle East is a location that has influential individuals who are “very sympathetic to the mission of the Supreme Leader” and admit that “some of our friends in Pakistan have been helpful in connecting such (Mideast HNI) elements to us”. They, however, deny any link between such individuals and the Pakistan military, saying that the military in that country “will not stray from what Washington and Beijing want them to do, which is assist in sanctions”. Despite such denials, however, there is clearly another A.Q. Khan network operating within Pakistan, this time supplying the North Koreans not so much technology and components, as access to Middle Eastern cash, although it is likely that there exists clandestine to and fro flows of such items as well between the DPRK and Pakistan.

NO TRUST IN U.S. PROMISES

One fact seems clear from the discussion held with elements considered privy to the thinking of the DPRK leadership. This is that (1) any residual trust in US assurances of safe conduct following the election of Trump has now dwindled to zero, and that (2) Pyongyang will therefore press ahead with the nuclear and missile program without pause, irrespective of international diplomacy. (3) That Middle Eastern individuals opposed to the US and its allies are involved in ensuring that sufficient cash get funnelled towards DPRK entities (including those not registered or regarded as such), so as to ensure a supply of brainpower and materiel that would improve DPRK delivery systems and thermonuclear warheads within the term in office of President Donald J. Trump. (4) That the George W. Bush administration missed an opportunity to take out through force the DPRK’s strategic capability (as it did in the case of Iran), the way Israel has occasionally acted in the case of its neighbours and may do so again. The successor Barack Obama administration remained focused less on significant practical concessions other than the provision of verbal guarantees of safe conduct that were already shown to have been worthless in Iraq, Libya and Syria. In other words, “they offer just promises but expect in return not just words but action from us”. The North Koreans believe, for example, that NATO pressure on Bashar Assad and his followers to (in effect) commit mass suicide rose substantially after his stock of chemical weapons was destroyed “with a part (according to these sources) kept apart to use occasionally so as to blame Assad for their use by (NATO) proxies”. (5) Supreme Leader Kim believes that only a capacity for Mutual Assured Destruction between the US and the DPRK will protect the country from a US-Japan attack. As for South Korea, the calculation is that “the Korean people would revolt against the South Korean government, were the Seoul regime to join Japan and the US in attacking the brave Korean nation”, although this may be an incorrect assessment, given the willingness of the South Korean military to take on the North. (6) Kim Jong Un is fixated on the same objective sought by his grandfather, which was to unify the peninsula under his leadership, and believes that nuclear capability would help ensure this without a war with the South.

NEARLY IMMUNE FROM U.S. ATTACK

As time (and the Pyongyang nuclear program) moves ahead, the window for success at an affordable price in US, Japanese and South Korean lives in a military operation designed to destroy the North Korean nuclear and missile program seems to be closing at speed. Supreme Leader Kim believes the Trump administration’s fiery rhetoric to be a bluff, and thus far, events are bearing out such a view. Focusing exclusively on UN sanctions on the formal economy of the DPRK, the US seems largely unaware of the way in which a vast and secretive sanctions-proof capillary network has been set up by the Pyongyang leadership to ensure that the nuclear and missile plans meet the objective of reducing large parts of cities on both US coasts to radioactive rubble. In other words, Kim Jong Un is dismayingly close to reaching a stage that would ensure immunity from attack from the US and Japan. This would leave Pyongyang free to administer jabs and pinpricks at both, the way a nuclearised Pakistan has been doing with India since the 1980s, beginning with the fomenting of the Khalistan insurgency and the revival of the Kashmir troubles.

Russia and China would watch from the sidelines as Japan and the US experience the effects of asymmetrical warfare from a regime that makes itself immune through possession of deadly retaliatory force.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/10945-ghq-assists-kim-jong-un-ignore-un-sanctions 

Syed Waseem Rizvi heals the wounds of history (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

History has to be based on facts and not geopolitically convenient fictions such as that Aurangzeb was actually a patron of the Hindus, rather than their scourge.

 

The Wahhabis would like the world to believe that the tenets of Islam are intolerant, when in fact the opposite is the case. All human lives are children of the Almighty, and not simply those who believe in the verities expressed with such eloquence in the Holy Quran. Compassion, beneficence and mercy are the virtues that are sought to be inculcated in the community of believers through the message revealed to Prophet Muhammad 16 centuries ago. However, what Wahhabi theology does is to seek to mainstream the opposite of such values, creating in the process an exclusivist, hate-filled vision of the world that is in perpetual internecine conflict. Unfortunately, for more than a century, the UK and later the US backed and boosted Wahhabism in order to achieve specific geopolitical objectives. Initially, the theology was deployed against the Turks and their empire, through creating an opinion within Arab communities that the Sufi doctrine favoured by the Caliphate was a perversion of the true faith, rather than an embodiment of its virtues. Indeed, an inversion of reality took place, with Wahhabism being touted as the faith in its “purest” form. Subsequently, Wahhabism was put into service in the 1960s against Arab nationalists such as Ahmed ben Bella and Gamal Abdel Nasser, and finally in the 1980s against the USSR in Afghanistan. The CIA, out of consideration for its (dog-wagging) ISI tail, declined the assistance of Pashtun nationalists in its battle against the Soviet invaders, preferring instead Pashtun and Arab Wahhabi groups nurtured by the Pakistan army, which since the time of Zia-ul-Haq in the 1970s has seen itself as the principal Wahhabi sword bearer against infidels. Decades later, in 2001, President George W. Bush made the same error, brushing aside the offer of help from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in favour of a renewed alliance with Pervez Musharraf and his toxic army. Much of the difficulties that the world has been experiencing since owe their origins to the fateful Bush post-9/11 decision to anoint a lead arsonist as the principal fire-fighter. 

Jawaharlal Nehru, in effect, sought to inculcate a collective guilt on the Hindus of India for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. This had been perpetrated by an individual whom this columnist believes to have been a dupe of a section of the colonial bureaucracy. The conspirators, although discovered by the authorities, were allowed to commit their fell deed. The Viceroy-turned-Governor-General wasted less than a minute after the shooting before correctly identifying the killer as a Hindu, although this indiscretion has been sought to have been passed off as a stray remark. Nehru kept in place the numerous acts of discrimination against Hindus that had been perpetrated by the colonial authorities (such as the takeover of temples), and since then, he and his successors have only added more items to the list, making India among the few countries (Bahrain being another) where the majority community has been discriminated against. To the credit of the Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi, they have been open about such a bias, for example by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitting to the tilt with pride. History has to be based on facts and not geopolitically convenient fictions (such as that Aurangzeb was actually a patron of the Hindus, rather than their scourge). Several temples were destroyed during the Mughal era and alternative houses of worship built atop their ruins. The wound that this has created in the psyche of a community that is almost a billion strong needs to be healed, and the surest path to such an outcome would be to restore the Ram and Krishna janambhoomis to their pristine state, and to do the same at the Vatican of the Hindu community, which is Varanasi. These three rectifications and these three alone would suffice to ensure that a wound, which has for generations had the capacity to engineer destructive splits within the national fabric, gets healed. While Wahhabis, who always look to create tensions, would oppose such moves, yet the compassion and mercy that suffuses the Holy Quran would get perfectly met by such an act of beneficence by the Muslim community towards their Hindu brothers and sisters. 

That Muslims are overall as moderate as any other community in India has been shown by the welcome they have accorded to the Supreme Court decision to do away with the triple talaq and its attendant injustices to Muslim women. Another example of fealty to the divine virtues extolled in the Holy Quran has been shown by the efforts of Shia Wakf Board Chairperson Syed Waseem Rizvi to ensure an amicable resolution of the Ram Janambhoomi dispute, through ensuring both that Hindu sentiments get respected and simultaneously, prayer facilities for Muslims be not simply retained, but enhanced, they being non-existent at that location at present. Should a similar spirit of accommodation be found at Mathura and Varanasi as well, our Hindu and Muslim communities would join together exactly as they ought to have a century ago, before Mahatma Gandhi decided to side with the Wahhabis in the matter of the Khilafat agitation, thereby strengthening that group over the rest of a vibrant community in a way that directly led to the 1947 partition of India. 

Both Hindus and Muslims should ignore the fanatics within their midst and ensure that an understanding be reached by the moderate majorities of both faiths on those three locations, so that the unity so needed between Hindus and Muslims becomes as hard as a diamond. The efforts at conciliation of Syed Waseem Rizvi indicate that such an outcome is possible, and indeed, that it could be near. 

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/10905-syed-waseem-rizvi-heals-wounds-history 

Talking Foreign Policy: How India Sees the World (Asia Society)

Asia Society India Centre hosted Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador, and Madhav Das Nalapat, India’s first Professor of Geopolitics and Vice Chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, for a discussion centred around Saran’s career as a senior foreign Diplomat and his new book ‘How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century’. The discussion began with an analysis of India’s national identity. Saran observed that there is no single idea of ‘India’ - that by virtue of its location at the intersection of various caravan and maritime routes, India has historically been able to assimilate from many different cultures, making it cosmopolitan and comfortable with plurality, which is an asset in today’s globalized world. Nalapat asked why no serious attempt had been made to define core elements of nationhood in India, Saran responded saying there can be no one idea because India is too diverse and heterogeneous, and trying to utilize a singular model of national identity would be counterproductive for a country as plural as India. As the discussion moved to foreign policy, Nalapat sought to understand what the need was for a substantial country like India to follow the policy of non-alignment in its early years. Saran argued, that it made complete sense for a country like India, which had just achieved independence from colonial rule, to avoid becoming subordinate to another power. Saran also pointed out how India had managed to maintain strategic alliances, such as with the Soviet Union, despite the non-alignment policy. He said that this “strategic autonomy”, has always been a goal of Indian foreign policy and one that successive administrations have tried to achieve and maintain. Regarding India’s immediate neighbours, Saran opined that China has been India’s most significant foreign policy challenge till date (both in terms of being a threat as well as an opportunity) and is likely to grow in significance. Saran emphasized that there is much potential for cooperation between the two countries, recounting instances during his own career when he had witnessed this, such as during the Copenhagen climate change negotiations of 2009 or negotiations on general trade issues. 

http://asiasociety.org/india/talking-foreign-policy-how-india-sees-world

 

Rohingya crisis in Myanmar: Where is the safe haven? (CGTN)

Chaos in the Rakhine province of Myanmar has caused a large number of casualties and rendered thousands homeless. The Myanmar government has been accused of attempting ethnic cleansing and has been heavily criticized by the onlooking world. Why is Aung San Suu Kyi so quiet on this catastrophe? How can the ethnic Rohingya of Myanmar find a safe haven? And what action must be taken to bring an end the mistrust and violence besetting Rakhine?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BdHjU36r8&feature=youtu.be 

PM Modi, free India from ‘Feardom of Speech’ (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

The control through intimidation of what is said and written is not the monopoly of any particular party, but has infected most of them. 

 

Gauri Lankesh was a woman of enormous courage and a certain daredevil attitude, and this is probably the trait that aided those who took away her life. A more cautious individual would have sought—and insisted—on being provided protection against the many who daily poured vitriol at her. Not that she was alone in getting such attention. There are dozens of journalists and writers who have received threats as ugly as those directed at Ms Lankesh. In just a single case, the individual concerned began getting telephone calls and SMSs mentioning where his daughter or wife was at the time the particular call was being made, and explicitly being told that their lives would be cut short, were he to continue to write what such callers described as “lying filth”. Needless to say, his writings have become way more anodyne and a lot less padded with sensational facts after that series of calls was made. His understandable explanation is that he has no right to subject his family to the risk of being killed just so that he continues to enjoy the luxury of writing or saying in public what he pleases. Rather than freedom of speech, what he has been experiencing may be described as “feardom of speech”. Such control through intimidation of what is said and written is not the monopoly of any particular party, but has infected most of them. In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Gauri Lankesh, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi held the BJP guilty of the crime. Either Rahul is talking through his Gandhi topi, or he has facts about the case that he is concealing from not only the public but the investigating authorities. The Congress heir apparent’s continuing silence as to the evidence on which he has based his sensation allegation of the BJP’s culpability is being interpreted by the overwhelming majority even of traditional Congress voters as evidence that he has no evidence.

The shooting to death of Gauri Lankesh should not be viewed as an isolated act, but part of the dismaying reality that freedom of speech, although mentioned as a right in the Constitution of India, remains distant in practice. Some of the most smelly colonial-style legislation came about during the decade when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister. Aided by a BJP Parliamentary Party that seemed during that decade to specialise in spending more time in walkouts over a miscellany of issues, the UPA passed laws that would have pleased Winston Churchill and other racists, who believed that the birthright of the Indian was slavery to the government and not control over his or her own destiny. Assisted by a plenitude of laws, it has become child’s play to fling a citizen into the criminal justice system, a construct where hundreds of thousands remain in jail, sometimes for more than a decade, without a single court having found them guilty of any crime. In other major democracies, people are sent to jail only after being found guilty by a jury of their peers. In those countries where the justice system regards imprisonment as the exception rather than the rule, those convicted are given notice of a month, and sometimes more, to put their house in order before going off to prison. In India, they are taken away a few minutes after the judge pronounces sentence. Very often, those convicted come to court to hear the verdict from the jail they are in as under-trials. The power to reform India’s colonial-era justice system vests with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Justice Dipak Misra. Should either or both decide to re-format the justice system so that the bar gets raised substantially for taking away the liberty of a citizen, including for issues involving freedom of expression, a significant step forward would have been traversed in the reconfiguration of India into more of a 21st century construct. 

Why is freedom of speech so important, and conversely, why is “feardom of speech” so harmful to the future of our country? Because of the impact of either on the Knowledge Economy, the success of which hinges on a culture permissive of ideas that mainstream opinion may disagree with. Apart from the regulatory system, which is still a mass of weeds choking initiative and activity, another difficulty faced by the knowledge sector in India is that Chidambaram-Sibal creation, the Information Technology Act. Bureaucracy everywhere lusts for power over citizens, and once this is given in the form of measures that make it mandatory to get permissions serially from miscellaneous authorities, dilution of such control systems gets resisted by the civil service. This band remains as convinced as the British were that the natives of India are a collection of potential hooligans, needing constant chastisement and supervision. Before her death, Gauri Lankesh had been harassed multiple times through use of the anachronistic laws of defamation so tenderly preserved in India. Admirers of Narendra Modi anticipate that he will brave the fury of the bureaucracy and take an axe to the jungle of unproductive (save for bribe generation) laws and prohibitions that keep India at the bottom of the international ladder on the ease of doing business. Until “What You Know” becomes more important in the success of a business than “Who You Know”, India will continue to be denied the double digit growth it needs to stave off a future societal catastrophe. At the root of the many ugly manifestations of anger that are shown on television screens are tens of millions of the young who lack work that is productive for the country. It is they whose interests need to be tended, not fund managers based in London, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Zurich and Frankfurt, who collectively promote government policies that cause mass misery, so that they increase their own wealth at the expense of ours.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/10828-pm-modi-free-india-feardom-speech 

Clinton-Bush-Russia morass continues (Pakistan Observer)

M D Nalapat | Geopolitical Notes From India

EVEN before he was sworn in on January 20,2017 as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump was advised by those close to him to go easy on Hillary Clinton. The expectation was that such a show of goodwill would ensure that the formidable Clinton machine would stop or at least significantly reduce their campaign against her Republican opponent in the 2016 presidential contest. While it was correct for Trump himself to stop his campaign rhetoric against Clinton, what was unexpected was the complete cessation of what little investigation there was on the Clinton Foundation and other activities during the Obama period. This freed Hillary Clinton to go into full combat mode, and it must be admitted that she has done a superb job of ensuring that President Trump remain within the policy matrix of the Clinton-Bush years rather than evolve his own path towards ensuring security and prosperity for the US.
This is particularly evident in the matter of policy towards Moscow, whether it be to deal with North Korea or with global terrorism,or in gaining extra leverage with the other superpower (China), a strong US-Russia relationship would have been helpful. However,such a move is anathema to the Atlanticists, who wish to keep the focus on Moscow as Enemy Number One. Donald Trump’s intimate circle is of the view that any move from the admittedly toxic policies of the Clinton-Bush years would increase the chances for the 45th US President to be impeached. Hence their adherence to the failed Russia (and other) policies of past US administrations. A historic opportunity to reset ties was lost during 1992-97 thanks to the Europeanist mindset of the Clinton security team.
The USSR had collapsed by the time Bill Clinton took over as the 42nd US President, but instead of working out a long-term close relationship with Moscow, the Clinton administration sought to do what Henry Morgenthau had wanted for Germany after the 1939-45 war, which was to seek to pastoralize the country and drain it of technology and industry. Boris Yeltsin gave away several miles of concessions to the US and the EU without gaining an inch in return, at least so far as Russia was concerned. Of course,the gangster industrialists patronised by him prospered,and many still serve as a reliable Fifth Column within Russia for NATO. The globe’s largest country in area was serially humiliated, including by the humiliation administered to a once-proud Slavic nation, Serbia. President Clinton began the process of expanding rather than downsizing and re-converting NATO into a different kind of fighting machine, more suited to the wars of the future rather than those fought between Hitler and his victims.
The expansion of NATO was conducted in a manner that made it obvious that the main target of the alliance was still Moscow. This despite the shameless manner in which President Boris Yeltsin had unilaterally surrendered Russia’s strategic advantages in an act of self-abegnation that was reminiscent of Jawaharlal Nehru’s similar 1950s generosity at the expense of Indian interests. Unfortunately for Russia, Yeltsin followed another leader who was comfortable with giving away Moscow’s advantages in exchange for favourable newspaper headlines in US and EU media. This was Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought down a USSR already weakened by the refusal of Leonid Brezhnev to use the military assets available with the USSR to ensure victory rather than defeat and stalemate in military and quasi-military operations in Asia, Europe and elsewhere.
North Korea is well on the way to gaining immunity from attack through the development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems capable of targeting the continental US. The window of opportunity for ensuring that such an outcome gets avoided is unlikely to be even as long as two years, given the rate of progress of the WMD program supervised by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Because of the persistence of the one-sided and indeed humiliating Clinton-Bush policies towards Moscow ( a course of action that was faithfully followed by Barack Obama), an essential ally in dealing with Pyongyang has been lost. Vladimir Putin is a patriotic individual very unlike Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The new President of Russia has clearly had enough of the efforts by the US and its allies to cage Moscow and render it unable to reach anywhere close to its previous status of global superpower.
On North Korea, it is likely that both China as well as Russia will veto any further sanctions on Pyongyang. Should the US carry out its own threat of enforcing punitive measures against any entity that deals with North Korea, it would run into friction on an unprecedented scale, especially with China. The options for the US have become narrower and more dangerous because of the frictions with Moscow caused by the successful efforts of the Clinton-Bush Atlanticists to prevent Donald Trump from attempting a genuine reset of relations between Washington and Moscow. The hype and hysteria about Russia that has been swirling around Washington since January 20 brings back memories of the years when Senator Eugene McCarthy terrified large parts of the US establishment by falsely labelling them as agents of Moscow.
A decade later, the ill effects of that manifested itself with a vengeance during the Vietnam war, in which hundreds of thousands of US personnel ( and over a million Vietnamese) were killed in a war that could have been ended during the tenure of John Fitzgerald Kennedy itself rather than dragged on by the two US Presidents who succeeded him. There will be a heavy bill that the US will be paying for the way it is dealing with Russia these days, and a large part of that will be in the North Korean muddle. The rift between Moscow and Washington, a chasm encouraged by Germany and France, will assist Kim Jong Un in becoming (in effect) the most potent threat ever to the US.

http://pakobserver.net/clinton-bush-russia-morass-continues/ 

Modi, Xi ensure peace between India and China (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

The decision to build the road at the trijunction had been taken by PLA officers of four-star rank. They did not understand the sensitivity of what they were attempting to do.

 

Nearly nine weeks ago in India, and about four weeks back in China, key decisions concerning the Doklam standoff between two of the world’s four largest armies began to be handled at the top of each government. In other words, by consultations on the subject with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. From that time onwards, despite the swear-words and jostling by troops, it was a given that the issue would get settled without recourse to force. Indeed, the very fact that the Ladakh encounter (which went viral on the internet) between Indian and Chinese troops saw both well-equipped armies literally relying only on Stone Age weapons against each other, indicated the tight control that both Xi and Modi have exercised over their men in the field. The cause of the Doklam standoff, which was the PLA’s decision to build the road at the India-Bhutan-China trijunction, objected to by India, had been taken by officers of four-star rank. They did not understand the sensitivity of what they were attempting to do, and hence initially failed to refer the issue back to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. The PLA decision-makers had assumed that the Indian side would do little beyond verbally protest the building of a road, the only utility of which to the Chinese side would be to serve as a jumping-off point for an attack on the “Chicken’s Neck” linking the Northeast with the rest of India. Building such a capacity was significant in the background of credible reports by multiple agencies both at home and abroad that GHQ Rawalpindi was working to secure a NATO-style agreement with the PLA. This would oblige the latter to come to the armed defence of the former, should the Pakistan army find itself in a war with India caused by its own misdeeds. Reports from agencies located in different capitals had indicated that more than a few senior officers of the PLA were leaning in favour of such a partnership with the Pakistan army. In other words, they were apparently willing to transfer the decision as to when China would go to war, in the hands of the generals at Rawalpindi. However, those tracking the Chinese Communist Party say that such a view was clearly not acceptable to the CCP leadership, which under President Xi has understood the importance of India as a potential global partner in economics and geopolitics.

 

ROBUST INDIAN RESPONSE

The fact that the Doklam heavy duty road was fast becoming a reality in mid-June, caused concern at Army HQ in Delhi. The robust Indian response to the road was scripted by Chief of Army Staff Bipin Rawat, who took care to keep National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in the loop. Both felt confident in their refusal to follow the longstanding Indian precedent of feeble responses to such action by the other side. The reason was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had conveyed by the middle of last year itself to the armed forces that they were free to take any action deemed vital to the protection of national security interests. During the UPA period, all such actions had to be, in effect, cleared by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which almost always meant that any recommended military response to provocative acts on the border got vetoed on the civilian side. Since last year, however, the Army has been in a revved up mode against both internal as well as external (Pakistani) provocations, and these had been replied to with robust kinetic force. These received tacit support from the Prime Minister, who communicated through the Defence Minister his willingness to countenance determined counter-measures by the military. It was within the parameters of the policy of robust response cleared by the Prime Minister that the Army took unprecedented steps to ensure a stoppage to the road construction being carried out in the vicinity of Doklam by the other side, a program that had caused anxiety in Thimpu, which had promptly communicated its misgivings to Delhi. It was in that context that the decision of General Rawat to resort to force was taken. To the disappointment of the Pakistani side, the PLA refused to adopt the recommended GHQ tactic of using firepower to clear away the Indian contingent, confining itself to the bulletless feints and jabs that have characterised Line of Actual Control (LoAC) encounters between China and India for years. The troops on the Indian side were similarly disciplined, refusing to use weapons other than their fists (and in the case of another incursion in a separate sector, a few stones). The mutual forbearance of the two powerful militaries indicated the effect on the field of the high value placed by Prime Minister Modi and President Xi on improving relations between India and China, a sentiment not shared by all of those at lower levels in both administrations.

GHQ WANTED NATO-STYLE AGREEMENT

Since mid-2015, GHQ Rawalpindi had put onto the fast track a plan of converting the existing loosely structured understanding with the Chinese military into a formal alliance that would include the condition that either side immediately get involved in any attack by a third country against the other. Simultaneously, GHQ Rawalpindi had spread scare stories to the PLA of illusory Indian plans to open a “Himalayan Front” against China, should that country find itself in battle with the US-led alliance in the Korea, China Sea or the Taiwan sector. GHQ had concocted reports that road building and other logistical works that were being undertaken in some parts of the LoAC were “in preparation for Operation Himalayan Front”, when in fact these were entirely defensive in intent. The relative lack of contact between the Chinese and Indian militaries made it easy for GHQ Rawalpindi to plant seeds of suspicion and distrust within some officers of the PLA about the intentions of the Indian Army, thereby ensuring the sanctioning by the PLA brass of moves that would be provocative to the Indian side, such as the road sought to be built in the vicinity of Doklam. A road that was the cause of the 73-day standoff that got resolved only because of the involvement of the highest levels of the Chinese and Indian states.

Once a NATO-style agreement got put into operation between China and Pakistan, the latter was intending to substantially ramp up its provocative actions, thereby triggering an inevitable response by India’s armed forces. Under the proposed NATO-style treaty with China, this would almost immediately involve the PLA on the eastern front. GHQ Rawalpindi would simultaneously activate sleeper and active cells throughout India to conduct acts of sabotage against rail and road traffic, besides instigating a rash of suicide attacks in key cities. The Modi government would therefore have to fight what Chief of Army Staff Rawat termed a “two-and-a-half front war”.

The generals in Islamabad calculated that the India-US alliance had yet not reached the “NATO stage” of immediate involvement of the US in any attack on India. This meant that, in their reckoning, the US would not get directly involved in the India-Pakistan-China war in which they were planning for India to find itself. They, however, calculated that by a second Modi term, such an alliance between Washington and Delhi would become a reality, hence (in their calculus) the need to ensure that a conflict erupt before such an elevated defence understanding between the US and India took place. In the meantime, they would goad their proxies and hangers-on in both the US and India to join with others in opposing moves for closer security cooperation with the US, by constantly bringing up the refrain that doing so “would abandon non-alignment” and “dilute sovereignty”, rather than assist in the defence of India against potent threats.

MILITARY RESPONSE STRICTLYCONTROLLED

Sino-Indian tensions over the Doklam road caused champagne corks to pop across the ranks of the senior officers at GHQ Rawalpindi, as they anticipated a Pakistan army-style reaction from both sides, of shooting first and asking questions later. Unfortunately for them, the control exercised by Xi and Modi over their respective militaries ensured that not a single shot was actually fired during any of the more than two months that the standoff commenced, although some harsh words were exchanged, much of which in the form of media commentary screaming for war by “studio and print warriors” in Beijing and Delhi, who would run away in fear at the mere sight of even a revolver actually getting fired.

Only those in China completely in the grip of the false logic purveyed by GHQ Rawalpindi would consider (in exchange for the completion of the Doklam road) as justifiable the sacrifice of a potential $100 billion dollar trade between India and China. Or the two former victims of colonialism bickering with each other in international fora, to the delight of those wishing either or both ill. Now that the “Pause” button has been activated, the Chinese side is expected to conduct an exhaustive review of the trade-offs of the proposed road, before mulling over when and if to resume construction. This hiatus has removed India’s cause of action for sending troops into the Doklam area. Hence, both sides have achieved a win through the decision taken by the leaders of both countries that Sino-Indian cooperation had a much greater priority than succumbing to the siren calls of third countries eager to witness another military conflict between India and China. In matters such as China’s decision to oppose India at the NSG, and India’s decision to oppose the entire $2 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), rather than just that segment passing through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, which has been misnamed as a “China-Pakistan” corridor, the two leaders had signed off on the recommendations of their subordinates. However, once the ice once again melts between Xi and Modi at Xiamen, as expected during the 3-5 September BRICS Summit, it is expected that the two leaders will continue the Doklam precedent of direct supervision of the details of the all-important geopolitical relationship between China and India, and will propel it forward in the manner desired by Modi and Xi, when they had so cordially met each other in 2014 in Gandhinagar and Xian.

Rather than champagne bottles, the generals at GHQ may need to reach for a stiff single malt in order to dull the pain they must feel on seeing Xi’s China and Modi’s India escape from the trap of conflict that had been so carefully laid for them by the generals in Rawalpindi.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/10761-modi-xi-ensure-peace-between-india-and-china 

Ensure PM Modi be given accurate assessments (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

Only a bureaucracy still impervious to the modernism of the Prime Minister could have brought down the rate of growth to a level almost as low as 5%. 

 

At least a tenth, if not a third, of those inhabiting the Lutyens Zone claim to know Prime Minister Narendra Modi well. Let it be admitted that this columnist neither lives in the Lutyens Zone, nor knows Narendra Damodardas Modi at all well. However, the very limited contact he has had with the architect of the BJP’s 2014 Lok Sabha triumph, reveals an open-minded individual, who welcomes honest appraisals of any situation. During his 13 years as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi built around him a team of individuals who avoided publicity or show, but who worked very hard at helping him ensure that the state broke several international records in governance. However, finding those of a similar temperament within the Lutyens Zone may be more of a challenge, and this has most recently been illustrated by the reaction in some official nooks to the news that almost the entire volume of cash that had been rendered worthless on 8 November 2016 was returned to the banking system. During the initial weeks of turbulence caused by the manner in which the Reserve Bank of India and others responsible for the rollout of demonetisation handled the fallout, they had numerous times claimed that a huge amount of the cash withdrawn from circulation would, in effect, be burnt or buried, and that this would not only serve to punish holders of cash, but enrich the RBI and therefore the exchequer. It is therefore disconcerting to hear from the same individuals who had made such a claim that in fact, the return of practically all the old currency was a major plus for the scheme. Growth during the last quarter has fallen to below 6% (or half of what is needed to prevent the widespread social unrest that is raising its head in several parts of the country in the form of caste, community, diet and lifestyle protests). Presumably, this reduction in growth represents a still bigger success of those who have been given charge of the economy by the Prime Minister precisely to ensure double digit growth. Not just the public, but it is the duty of those in authority to ensure that the information they present to the Prime Minister is accurate, rather than representative of fantasy.

Prime Minister Modi has worked with zeal since 26 May 2014 to ensure honesty in administration. While in the past, about a quarter of those in the middle and higher rungs of the government clearly lived way beyond their recorded income, this seems to have been reduced to about a tenth, and hopefully will diminish still further. Hence, it ought to have been obvious to those tasked with implementing the 2016 demonetisation that centuries of oppressive and overbearing governance in India have ensured that the population of this country have acquired the skills of Houdini in escaping the regulatory snares placed in their way by bureaucrats looking for bribes. Unfortunately, the colonial system of administration in India that has been carefully preserved and added on to by Jawaharlal Nehru and almost all his successors, has resulted in the more crooked having an advantage over the honest citizens in avoiding getting caught in the hundreds of thousands of rules and prohibitions that are the norm in what is considered to be a democracy. While the Income-Tax Department may send notice upon notice, the net increase in collections as a consequence of such exertions is likely to be small. Although in theory demonetisation should have hit the holders of vast sums of undeclared currency the hardest, in practice the blow fell hardest on the sector that has ensured that the country has thus far avoided bouts of violence of the level witnessed in the past, including during Partition—the “informal” sector. To say that this is a rogue sector is to be unaware of the fact that most of the employment in the economy is from this sector, as well as the market for the output of the manufacturing sector, apart from the fact that substantial sums get paid as “informal” taxes, i.e. bribes. The RBI and other agencies ought to have made continuing liquidity in this sector a priority, rather than ignoring the effect of withdrawal of 86% of cash on output, income and employment in this all-important segment of the economy. Had liquidity in the form of new currency been pumped into the economy on a scale sufficient to fill the gap caused by the 8 November 2016 withdrawal of old currency, the economy would have been boosted by the bold measure. It is clear that Prime Minister Modi approved the move to demonetise only because he was confident that the agencies tasked with implementation would perform properly rather than poorly. In practice, the way in which banking regulations, for example, were changed almost by the hour has made at least the Reserve Bank of India an object of global ridicule.

It remains to be seen how many of the new taxpayers who have come into the system after demonetisation will continue in the tax net. What is certain is that much more gentle methods of compliance (such as low rates and amnesties) would have ensured several tens of millions more taxpayers, all of whom would have been willing, rather than forced. A colonial-minded bureaucracy looks only at its own interests and convenience while designing and implementing measures that may affect millions, and the way demonetisation was rolled out is an example of this. Only a bureaucracy still impervious to the modernism of the Prime Minister could have brought down the rate of growth to a level almost as low as 5%. “Naya soch” is needed, and this includes analysing problems objectively rather than through the distortion of PR machines. To ensure double digit growth, Prime Minister Modi needs objective assessments from his team, especially post-mortems of programs that are being implemented. This is what those chosen by Modi for responsible positions need to ensure during the remainder of his term, so that by 2019, the country’s rate of growth gets back at least to 8% in preparation for the double digit growth mandatory over the next five years to avoid unbearable social turmoil.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/10712-ensure-pm-modi-be-given-accurate-assessments

Xiamen BRICS Summit a game-changer (Pakistan Observer)

M D Nalapat | Geopolitical Notes From India

THE BRICS Group brings together five large countries, of which three are from the Eurasian landmass. These are Russia, China and India, two of which are neighbours to China. During the 1960s,friction developed between the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), in large part because Moscow expected Beijing to behave towards to the way the USSR’s East European allies did. In other words, accept both the leadership and the superior position of Moscow over Beijing in global affairs. This was anathema to Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Chairman Mao Zedong, who saw his country as being on the way towards once again taking over the leadership of the global community.
In 2017, the roles have been reversed, and it is China that is now the superpower rather than Russia. Of course, the Chinese leadership has shown much more tact than had been the norm while Nikita Sergeyvich Khruschev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As a consequence, the alliance between Russia and China has been treated in Beijing as a partnership of equals, with Russia given high honour and respect. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has moved up the geopolitical tables and is now no longer a peripheral but a major player.
In the Middle East and in Europe, the influence of Moscow is strong and growing. Should Putin be able to fashion an economic policy that harnesses the dynamism of the genuine Russian entrepreneur rather than the robber barons and business mafia patronised by Boris Yeltsin ( his predecessor), it would not be long before Russia entered a period of growth at the same rate as China and India. It is an inevitability that Russia will once again emerge as a superpower, given not only its landmass but its immense human resources. Russian brainpower overcame their German rivals during the 1941-45 war, and even during the Yeltsin years (when President Clinton had made it a priority to destroy Russian R&D with the help of collaborators in Moscow) the output of science and technology centres was phenomenal. Russia has for hundreds of years been a great intellectual power, and this gift is likely to witness the country’s emergence among the Big Four in the years to come,the others being China, the US and India.
Three of the four are meeting at Xiamen during May 3-5. This is an attractive coastal city in China that vies with Lhasa to be the cleanest city in the Peoples Republic of China. It is also well known to President Xi Jinping of China, who headed the city administration for many years in the past. Indications are that the 9th BRICS Summit will be among the most consequential since the group was formed ten years ago, with several initiatives planned that would bring the five countries ( India, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and China) close together in a manner that they have not been in the past
Thus far, the leaders congregating during BRICS sessions have been hesitant to go in for Big Bang changes, preferring to concentrate on incremental changes. What is needed is for a bold vision for the future, combined with the determination to carry them out. Of the BRICS nations, Russia, India and China have strong leaders in Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping. As for Zuma and Temer of South Africa and Brazil, their political careers would get a boost from the returns possible through closer cooperation between the five powers. The time has arrived for ensuring automatic access to each of the five countries from any of them. Doing away with traditional visa procedures would increase tourism between the five. As an example of unutilised potential, less than 60,000 Chinese tourists came to India during the previous year, while 103 million Chinese tourists travelled across globe, many to rich countries but several to countries outside Europe and US.
There is a flourishing Buddhist tradition in China that has resonance in India, the land from where Gautama Buddha came from, and already there are circuits for pilgrims from Japan and Thailand who come to those great sites of the Buddhist faith as are located in India. A Chinese circuit would be a welcome addition. Wherever Indians and Chinese congregate and live together, as in Singapore or in California, the two communities get along very well. As for Russia, that country has been a traditional and reliable friend of India since the 1950s. In the case of Soyth Africa, it was India who first unconditionally backed the African National Congress and its leader Nelson Mandela, much before the rest of the world did. Brazil has become a major partner of India since the time Lula de Silva was in charge of the administration of that immense country, and the potential for closer ties is immense. Overall, the Xiamen BRICS meeting could be a game changer for the alliance. The leaders need to aim high rather than low, look at the big picture rather than only at bits and pieces of potential cooperation. Amity and collaboration between the BRICS powers would be a major factor promoting global stability and economic progress. Prime Minister Modi is expected in Xiamen in days, and can be expected to unveil a plan for BRICS to become a truly effective grouping that promotes both economic as well as people to people contacts. The host nation, China, is led by a strong leader, Xi jinxing, who is pursuing the Chinese Dream and in the process, building the Asian Century.

http://pakobserver.net/xiamen-brics-summit-game-changer/

Desh Deshantar : Vice President emphasises on meaningful debate in Parliament (Rajya Sabha TV)

Guests: PDT Achary, Constitutional Expert / Former Sect.General,Lok Sabha; Nirmal Pathak, Editor, Bhasha PT; Prof. Madhav Nalapat, Political Analyst 

Anchor: Qurban Ali

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8ISYSexv7I&feature=youtu.be