Beijing's ambitious 'Hu Doctrine' claims the South China Sea (The National)

By M D Nalapat

For the quarter-century after the People's Republic of China began its high-growth trajectory in 1982, Deng Xiaoping's maxim of "speaking softly" was obeyed. Unlike the US and its Nato allies, China has not been involved in a shooting war since the brief conflict with Vietnam in 1979. The huge land border with Russia has been settled, although less urgency has been shown in the case of the Sino-Indian border. Indeed, more than two dozen rounds of negotiations since 2001 have yet to register any substantive progress.

On other bilateral issues of concern to India, such as UN action against Pakistani agents blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, New Delhi has received no comfort from Beijing. Meanwhile, China has displaced India as the primary partner of both Nepal and Sri Lanka, just as it already had with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Since Hu Jintao took over the Chinese Communist Party in 2002, Beijing has shed its earlier reticence and these days is open about its interests, as are the Nato powers. In the East and South China Seas, in particular, Mr Hu has - in effect - embraced a version of the Monroe Doctrine that gives not just primacy but dominance to the PRC's perceived interests in these regions over any other claimants.

Since 2009, the definition of China's "core interests" (those for which it would go to war) has expanded from the first island chain in the China seas to the second, thus bringing the Philippines into the "core" zone, and potentially embracing Malaysia, Indonesia and of course Vietnam. Given such an expansive definition of "core interests", it was no surprise when the Chinese navy recently challenged an Indian naval vessel as it was steaming away from a Vietnamese port, as was reported last week. Indeed, 2011 has seen increasing incidents of the PRC asserting its privileged position in the South China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines have both had their navies challenged by the vastly superior Chinese navy on many occasions.

Mr Hu at least deserves credit for transparency in his actions. On his watch, China has formally told the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (the UN body monitoring oceanic boundaries) that the entire South China Sea is part of China and that Beijing has "complete sovereignty" over South China Sea islands. By framing it as a domestic Chinese issue, Beijing has prevented the new doctrine from being formally discussed at forums such as the Asean defence ministers meetings.

All of this is being watched with increasing alarm by India, which sees itself being steadily pushed aside because of the Chinese military's rapid increase in capabilities. But the reality is that the Chinese military, particularly the navy, is not focused on India as much as the United States. The PRC is expanding its naval power, including the recent launch of a secondhand aircraft carrier, to protect its access to the sea routes linking China with Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

Chinese interest in aircraft carriers began in 1980, when the military strategist Liu Huaquing toured the USS Kitty Hawk. Impressed with the carrier's capabilities, Mr Liu told the Chinese military's general staff that "carriers were preferable to land-based platforms because of the mobility of the former". Since then, China has bought four decommissioned carriers, the latest of which (the Soviet Varyag) has metamorphosed into the Chinese navy's first operational aircraft carrier.

Once an adequate number of flight personnel and other crew are trained on the carrier, the navy is expected to introduce three more carriers into service by 2020 if not earlier. China has already mastered the manufacture of ship-borne aircraft, which India has not. Indeed, the steady increase in the indigenous capabilities of the Chinese military is in contrast to the situation in India, where the navy, air force and, to a lesser extent, army still rely on foreign technology and materiel.

Given the number of missile batteries targeting Taiwan, it seems clear that the role of these Chinese carriers would not be to join action across the Taiwan Strait - the role will be to enforce China's claims in the South China Sea as mandated by Mr Hu in 2003 when he called for "strengthening the defence of sea rights and interests" of China.

Although there is much being made about increased military spending in China, the fact remains that the US outspends China by a factor of more than 10, while the overall Nato budget far exceeds China's spending. But the difference is that Nato fields a very expensive military.

It costs an estimated $1 million (Dh3.7 million) a year to sustain a single Nato soldier in combat operations. For that price, the Chinese could field at least nine times as many soldiers, even if they were supplied with top-end equipment. Fielding more poorly equipped units would of course be even cheaper. A war would drain Nato treasuries far faster than China's.

It is here where India comes in. The other Asian giant has economies of scale similar to those enjoyed by China; an alliance between Nato and India would significantly boost overall capabilities. But that partnership does not seem to be visible on the horizon. China, therefore, seems to have as clear a field for the Hu Doctrine as James Monroe and the US enjoyed in 1823.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/beijings-ambitious-hu-doctrine-claims-the-south-china-sea?pageCount=0

To kill or not to kill (Sunday Guardian)

	People protest the death sentence given to the convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, in Chennai last month. PTI oor Rajiv Gandhi. Not only have individuals associated with groups that backed the LTTE been accommodated in senior governmental positions since 2004, but now the Tamil Nadu political class has demanded that his killers be pardoned "so that Tamil sentiments get respected". Those involved in the battle against terrorism point out repeatedly that any identification of individual terrorists with the greater community gives them a potential support base that is undesirable from the point of view of creating a climate against such acts of violence. Those within the US, the EU and India who — for example — moan about "Islamic Terror" are in fact playing the game of the extremists, who seek to blur the lines between them and the broader community by donning the cloak of champions for the many. There is therefore a fallacy in seeking clemency for Rajiv's killers on the grounds of their ethnicity. Those in Tamil Nadu who are vociferous in such a demand are doing the Tamil people a disservice in identifying a unique and peaceful culture with a small group with most un-Tamil proclivities. That hypocrisy is at the root of the entire political spectrum has been once again proved by the different approaches to the approaching execution of Al Qaeda sympathisers such as Afzal Guru, the Khalistan fanatic Devinder Bhullar and the killers of Rajiv Gandhi. That stalwart ally of Sonia Gandhi, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, weeps at the prospect of Tamils being put to the gallows, although he seems to have fewer qualms about a similar fate being met by Wahhabi or Sikh desperados. The BJP would like the Wahhabis to be hanged, and the sooner the better, especially because of their own poor record in suitably ending the lives of convicted terrorists during the six years when Atal Behari Vajpayee was PM. They sympathise with the Akali Dal demand that Bhullar be spared, and are not very vocal about the Rajiv killers. As for the Congress, that venerable force is in what may be termed the Mother Teresa mode. Both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra have visibly forgiven the killers of Rajiv Gandhi, and are eager to move on without any fresh blood being spilt. Had either of the two ladies shown a similar enthusiasm in opposing death penalty in general, they may have garnered more goodwill from their admirably merciful attitude. However, their compassion seems thus far to have been restricted to the killers of India's youngest PM. India is in the happy position of being totally Gandhian at last. We have a pacifist as UPA supremo, another as PM and a third as Defence Minister. Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and A.K. Antony wear their obsession with the avoidance of conflict on their sleeves, and prove it by their responses to the security challenges being faced by the nation. Very different from the full-blooded response of Indira Gandhi in 1970-71 or Rajiv Gandhi in 1986-87, and matching the serial appeasement favoured by Jawarharlal Nehru. Given such a trio at the apex of the national security pyramid, it is no surprise that India's diplomatic footprint has dwindled to insignificance across its neighbourhood. Recently, Sri Lanka revoked the visa-free entry it had given holders of Indian passports, while joining Pakistan in giving PRC nationals that privilege. Throughout South Asia, India has receded in public importance and consciousness, being replaced briefly by the US, but since the 2008 financial turmoil, by China. Those not particularly respectful of Indian concerns (as seen in the policy kitchens of North and South Block) know that Sonia, Manmohan and Antony can be relied upon to avoid tough options. Indeed, that the defining characteristic of policy by the UPA has been to look the other way in the hope, perhaps, that the problem will go away.
	regime less prone to sporadic fits of the type of mercy demonstrated by the Sonia-Vajpayee decision to commute Rajiv assassin Nalini's death sentence or the heart warming visit of the vivacious Priyanka Vadra to connect with those who killed her father may have executed the whole batch of terrorists by now, whether LTTE, Wahhabi or Khalistani. That would of course be completely out of character for the regime, which is even more "soft" than the squidgy consistency of the Vajpayee approach to national security (that saw ceasefires being offered to Kashmir terrorists just when the military was at their throats, and which ferried terrorists to freedom with a Cabinet-level escort). Let it be admitted that this columnist opposes capital punishment. It is a brutal and barbaric punishment, that satisfies nothing other than the most degenerate and atavistic cravings of the human race. Hence, were he in the position of the merciful Sonia, the compassionate Singh and the even saintlier Antony, he would take steps to abolish capital punishment altogether. However, short of this, to prolong the wait of those convicted is to be guilty of inflicting on them an inhuman punishment. Either the government should execute them all — and swiftly — or do away with capital punishment across the board, including in the case of those who do not have champions within the political spectrum. What is steadily degrading the national security environment of India is less bad policy — although there are numerous examples of these, especially in the Kafkaesque Home Ministry — than an absence of the will to implement any policy. Decisions are ricocheting across the governmental interface, getting attenuated, sometimes accentuated, and often vetoed by players who ought to have had only a marginal effect on policy. For six years, this government has reached for the lowest common denominator. These days, it is getting paralysed into either incoherence or spasms of unwise action in its search for options even less favourable than that. It would seem that a sentence of capital punishment has been carried out, not on terrorists but on the functioning of the UPA. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/to-kill-or-not-to-kill

Will Asia follow western example? (PO)

By M D Nalapat
The continued growth of China is leading to considerable alarm in capitals in North America and Europe. After having almost mastered the production of a stealth fighter, the PRC has converted a pile of scrap metal into a usable aircraft carrier. Given the advantage of such a sea borne weapons platform in neutralising air attacks on submarines and surface craft, and as a means of transporting fighter and bomber aircraft across vast distances, the advantages of having aircraft carriers in a fleet is obvious. India has had one and then two and now once again a single carrier for decades, and it is clear that the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) intends to use the “Varyag” as a platform for training pilots and others in the intricacies of operating on the moving, shortened surface of an aircraft carrier. Another is reportedly under construction, and it seems likely that the PLAN will have four carriers in operation by 2020,if not earlier.

The PLA is already one of the biggest militaries in the world, although it has been kept largely away from combat since the 1979 action against Vietnam. Although analysts in the US and in other NATO capitals describe the Taiwan Straits as “among the most dangerous flashpoints in the world”, the reality is that war between Taipei and Beijing is very unlikely. While the ruling KMT (Kuomintang) is very clear that it will not provoke a conflict with China by declaring Taiwan independent, even the opposition DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) has changed significantly over the past four years. Under previous President Chen Shui-bian, the DPP administration constantly spoke of the possibility of declaring Taiwan to be independent, in the expectation that any resulting war with China would bring the US and Japan immediately on the side of Taiwan. This may have been an optimistic estimate. The reality is that both the US as well as the Japanese economies depend for a lot of their resilience on China, and hence war with that country would ruin economic prospects for all three. While the Chinese people have undergone hardship in the past and are therefore in a better position to once again pass through tough times, the Japanese have stoically and with nobility undergone a huge slowdown in growth for the past decade and more. However, the shock waves created by the 2008 financial collapse in the US have made it very unlikely that Washington would risk economic catastrophe by going to war with China.

Given this, the reality is that Taiwan would almost certainly be on its own. History has shown that those who trusted in the goodwill of the NATO powers seldom got rescued. In the 1970s,Taiwan was in a much better position than Pakistan to become a nuclear weapons state. Its economy was larger and its technological base significant. With help from Israeli scientists, a nuclear program was launched by Taipei, especially after 1971,when Richard Nixon abandoned Taiwan in favour of the PRC. However, by the 1980s,consistent and strong pressure from Washington resulted in the program being abandoned. Had Taiwan been in the same league as Israel by possessing a nuclear device and the capacity to deliver it to targets even just 1500 kilometres, the defense environment of the island would have been very different from the present, when Taipei has been reduced to beseeching the US to sell it advanced F-16 fighter jets to help create a defense shield against air attack.

Of course, given the fact that the US needs China’s cooperation in order to get over the present economic crisis, there is thus far no sign that the Obama administration is willing to make the sale. They know that such a step would be seen as a provocation by Beijing Now that it had buckled under to US pressure and abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons, the next opportunity for Taiwan to get security in the event of a conflict with the PRC came in 2001,after 9/11.

The temporary boost in US geopolitical strength that followed the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon created a window that allowed Washington to set up an Asian version of NATO. This would have linked up India, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, Japan and the US into a military alliance. At that time, Atal Behari Vajpayee was PM of India and John Howard the PM of Australia. Both would have been willing to participate in an Asian NATO.

However, because such a construct would have excluded the Europeans, it was opposed by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, both of whom saw the US as a North American outpost of Europe. The NATO members in Europe also weighed in against an Asian version of NATO, arguing that their own construct was fully capable of keeping the peace anywhere in the world. George W Bush therefore abandoned the plan for an Asia-based regional security system, and instead continued to rely on NATO for such a role. Not surprisingly, the organisation has proved a failure even against a ragtag bunch such as the Taliban. In Iraq, “success” came only when US and other NATO troops withdrew to the barracks. An Asian version of NATO would have served to ensure security for Taiwan, although not to the extent that nuclear weapons could. After all, Kim Jong-II of North Korea knows that it is only his nukes which keep him from going the way of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Kadhafi. The brutal military attack by NATO on two countries that gave up their WMD programmes — Iraq and Libya — has ensured that North Korea, Iran and Syria would never agree to go the conciliatory way Baghdad and Tripoli did.

These days, the NATO powers talk incessantly of the “mass graves” in Iraq. They forget that more than 90% of these were the result not of Saddam Hussein but the genocidal sanctions that they got the UN to enforce on Iraq for twelve years after the reckless and unjustifiable invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Of course, no public discourse in NATO capitals ever brings up the effect of sanctions. In a way, this is similar to the situation in Cambodia, where all the deaths of the civilian population in the 1970s has been laid at the door of Pol Pot.

There is no doubt that the dictator was cruel and a mass murderer, but at least as many Cambodians were killed by the merciless carpet bombing of the US Air Force as by Pol Pot. Naturally, no one in NATO ever brings this fact up. By definition, a NATO bomb cannot kill, it can only heal. By definition, each action of NATO is benign and peaceful, else there may have been at least a reference to the same in the hyperactive International Court of Justice at The Hague. Instead, there is a shameful silence, including about the numerous civilian deaths caused by NATO bombing in Libya, and the thousands of innocents massacred by the thugs who have been armed by NATO While it talks a lot about peace and democracy, the reality is that the first instinct of the NATO powers is to reach for the gun when an inconvenient geopolitical reality emerges to challenge them.

Worst of all, NATO has once again begun to use military might in order to gain commercial advantage, as has become very clear in Iraq and in Libya, where companies based in NATO territories claim special consideration at the point of a bayonet, thereby displacing entities from powers that do not routinely use military force in order to secure commercial advantage. By their resort to force and their greed, the NATO powers are tempting emerging powers to follow their example. What if China, Russia and India threaten to bomb National Transitional Council strongholds in Libya if they are denied petroleum blocks because these are reserved for the NATO powers? What example id NATO setting for Asia? In an era when the economic strength of Asia is rising and that of NATO is coming under strain, this is a question that the alliance will need to ask, before Asian copycats emulate its brutal recourse to force as a first option.


http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=112420

Remember Lord Keynes, Mr Prime Minister (Sunday Guardian)

	Manmohan Singh with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj during a function in New Delhi last week. PTI anmohan Singh may have studied economics, but he has clearly not heard of John Maynard Keynes, who claimed that "in the long run we are all dead". Else the PM would not be constantly repeating the refrain that we should all "wait" for the government to put in place genuine anti-graft measures. In such tardiness, he has got the support of the country's "recognised" NGOs. For example, Aruna Roy, and it is to the credit of Roy that she has shown herself to have the courage to be unhesitatingly loyal to be the UPA's most prominent NGO face against the Anna Hazare movement. However, despite the exertions of Ms Roy, her efforts at discrediting the anti-graft movement seems to have led to the present effort to paint the group as being a front for RSS headquarters in Nagpur. Those familiar with the core residents of that venerable enclave would smile at the thought. After having been fed rich doses of kheer and gulab jamun during the Vajpayee interregnum, many, if not most, RSS leaders lack any stomach to battle for the principles of their movement, which is why the RSS has ensured that BJP MPs remain in the firm control of Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj, two Vajpayee loyalists who are charter members of the Save the System Club. The reality is that "Team Anna" has been given oxygen by the country's refusal to give any more time to a political system that has failed to provide the people with the requisites of a civilised life since 1947, a political system that includes the BJP as much as it does the Congress. It is a pity that Ms Roy, in her numerous television appearances, has thus far not reminded the government about some of the many laws that were passed in the past and yet not notified, or laws that were proposed (for example, in President Pratibha Patil's annual speeches to the nation) but not acted upon. None of these initiatives were proposed by Varun Gandhi or Subramanian Swamy. Indeed, the Anti-Benami law that got passed in 1988 was the brainchild of Rajiv Gandhi, who was surely never a foe of the UPA core. However, since then this excellent piece of legislation has remained un-notified, and is, therefore, still inoperative. Several other enactments and administrative fiats that could make a genuine difference in the war against graft have suffered the same fate over the years, even as the NAC continues to suggest more and more legislation in their energetic effort at civilising the natives of India. Another issue for Ms Roy to perhaps pay attention to is the Government of India's signing a disclosure agreement with Switzerland that has only prospective effect, and which is, therefore, an eyewash. Granted that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi seems to have no influence whatsoever over the Manmohan Singh government (or else, as so many foreign diplomats and journalists have testified, she would surely have eliminated corruption in India), it seems desirable for the NAC to at the least record its disgust at such a patent means of enabling those who have salted away an estimated trillion dollars since 1947 to escape detection. But why reach back to Rajiv Gandhi and to 1988? In 2006, the Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Veerappa Moily (who does not appear to be a votary of the RSS) suggested several anti-corruption measures in its tome on "Ethics in Governance". The Moily committee (which included V. Ramachandran of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which is hopefully not a clandestine instrument for the RSS takeover of the government) gave several recommendations, many of which are first-class and worthy of immediate implementation. They relate, inter alia, to freeing the CBI of political bias through making it a statutory body. Amendments to the Serious Frauds legislation have been suggested. There are detailed proposals on the Lokpal and the Lokayukta, which would certainly commend themselves not only to Team Anna but to those citizens not part of the Corruption Machine that governance has descended to in India. As happened to Ram Jethmalani in the Vajpayee period when he sought to introduce legislation that would make the judicial system in India less of a nightmare for those not privileged to have a lifespan exceeding 300 years, Veerappa Moily has been divested of the Law portfolio. And by the looks of it, for the same reason as Ram Jethmalani: for the "crime" of seeking a more transparent, accountable and speedy judicial system. But what has happened to his volume on ethics?
	his is still "under study" by a Group of Ministers, who till now have presumably not found the time to even too many pages, for there has been total silence about their views on the ARC recommendations. Even Moily, who otherwise has an equable nature, felt constrained to send a letter of remonstrance to his own government in October 2010, asking about the fate of his recommendations. If he has received any reply, it is probably that the Group of Ministers has reached Page 15 (out of nearly 600 pages) and hence a decision will be taken by about AD 2067, or in roughly the same time as it takes for a typical case to get finally settled in India's superb legal system. And yet television commentators known to be close to the Powers That Be claim that Team Manmohan ought to be "given more time". Yes indeed, in case they discover an elixir that lengthens the average lifespan by several times of what it is today. Till that happens, the impatience of the rest of the population is understandable. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/manmohan-singh-may-have-studied-economics-but-he-has-clearly-not-heard-of-john-maynard-keynes-who-claimed-that-in-the-long-run-we-are-all-dead-else-the-pm-would-not-be-constantly-repeating-the-refrain-that-we-should-all-wait-for-th

NATO destroys yet another country (PO)

By M D Nalapat

Some years ago, in the Indian site www.bharat-rakshak.com, this columnist had written of the NATO militaries as resembling an army of simians. Such a force - if let loose within a confined space – can create immense damage, but are unable to clean up the resultant mess. This is precisely what the world has witnessed in Iraq. Despite more than a decade of sanctions that directly resulted in nearly a million extra deaths during that period ( because of shortages created by the UN-approved measures), the regime of Saddam Hussein was able to provide food, energy and housing to the people of Iraq, whereas eight years after “liberation” by key NATO members, the country and its population are worse off than before the 2003 invasion that led to the execution of Saddam Hussein. As for Afghanistan, after a decade of the world’s most modern military force fighting against a ragtag band of insurgents, more than a third of the country is back in the hands of the Taliban, while a fifth of the rest is on the brink of a similar fate. As a consequence of its failure to subdue this force, NATO is desperately clutching at plans for engaging the “moderate Taliban”, an oxymoron if ever one was created.

Serbia has yet to recover from its brief burst of battle with NATO, and now Libya has joined the lengthening list of countries devastated by the attentions of NATO. Clearly, the top brass in a military alliance designed to do battle in Europe against the USSR were reluctant to close shop. They have therefore redesigned NATO as a military instrument with multiple uses, especially against “asymmetric threats”, a term which refers to countries that have ramshackle militaries. Both Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafy followed the dictates of the NATO powers in surrendering whatever WMD was in their possession, unlike Syria and North Korea, two countries that have been left undisturbed by NATO as a consequence. Clearly, military planners within the alliance are ready for action only against those rivals that have had their conventional capabilities degraded to the point at which they do not represent any significant risk against the alliance. Had George W Bush and Tony Blair truly believed their own rhetoric about Saddam Hussein having WMD, they would never have sent their armies into Iraq the way they did.

As mentioned in these columns, Gaddafy’s fate got sealed when he accepted the advice of his Europe-dazzled sons to disarm and place the survival of his regime in the hands of NATO. Since 2003, Muammar Gaddafy dismantled his WMD program, synchronised his intelligence services with that of NATO and generally accepted each of the prescriptions handed over to him. Had NATO been an alliance that respects reciprocity, all this ought to have made NATO turn as blind an eye to his battle with sections of the population as we have seen in the case of Bahrain, where the ruling family has been given a free hand to sort out the situation. Instead, the situation changed when Nicholas Sarkozy was informed by French banks that Colonel Gaddafy may withdraw the immense bank deposits of Libya from them to institutions in China, and when he learnt that several contracts that French enterprises were expecting to come to them would vanish because Gaddafy wanted to spend less on French military and other toys and more on social services. Libya had to be made an example of, lest other Arab governments think of shifting their money elsewhere than within the NATO bloc as a consequence of the loss of $1.3 trillion by the GCC and its people alone because of the financial fraud perpetrated in 2008 by banks and other financial entities headquartered within the NATO bloc.

These days, companies based within NATO are finding it difficult to retain the monopoly position they have enjoyed, sometimes for generations. In particular, Chinese companies are challenging them in numerous markets, as are companies based elsewhere in Asia, including within South Korea and India. As a consequence, they now rely on military force to retain their privileges. This has been illustrated with commendable transparency in the case of Iraq and Libya. In the latter case, even though the fumes of battle have not ceased (and are unlikely to), oil companies such as ENI and Total are hard at work figuring out the assets they can seize because of the local victories of the Sarkozy-appointed “National Transitional Council”. Interestingly, even though the NTC is a creation of Paris, the UN has accepted it as the legitimate government of Iraq. Indeed,in the 21st century the UN seems to have regressed into the period between 1919 and 1939,when the League of Nations awarded “mandates” to dominant countries that permitted them to rule weaker ones. In the past decade, similar mandates have been proferred in the case of Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan. In the case of Libya, President Sarkozy’s takeover of the Libyan state via the creation of the NTC has been similarly legitimized by the UN in an astonishing abdication of principle.

However, just as in other locations, facts on the ground may not follow the script favoured by NATO. In the case of Libya, this columnist has warned for five months that the NATO intervention would only result in civil war and in the steady destruction of the infrastructure that made Libya one of the more prosperous countries in the region. All this is at risk today, as chaos descends in the form of armed gangs set loose by NATO across the country. Not that there is ever any chance of those responsible for such a catastrophe being held accountable by so-called “international” bodies, most of which are now firmly in the control of the NATO powers in a way that their own economies are not. Over the past decade, tens of thousands of civilian deaths have resulted from NATO operations, without even a mild protest from the International Court or the Human Rights Council. Such inaction is leading to the same loss of respect for the UN system as took place in the past with the League of Nations, which became seen as being controlled by a small group for their own purposes.

Whether it is Libya or any other country, each has the right to develop its societal dynamic in its own way. Unless a country poses a threat to others, the way Talban-controlled Afghanistan did, it is not legitimate target for international action. In the case of Libya, since 2003 Colonel Gaddafy disarmed his military of WMD and fully cooperated with the US-led War on Terror. His fate has become a lesson to others who may have been tempted to follow in his path of conciliation with NATO. Small wonder that the other regimes in the sights of NATO - Syria and Iran in particular - are in no hurry to follow the Libyan example. Rather than seek to finish off a leader who buried the hatchet publicly and fully the way Gaddafy did, NATO would have been better advised to show its magnanimity and its willingness to keep agreements in good faith. That would have acted as an incentive for Syria, Iran and even North Korea to follow suit, thereby making the globe a safer place. Today, all three states - understandably – have zero faith in the bona fides of the NATO powers, and as a consequence are each going their own way. Combine this with the economic desolation seen within NATO ( much of which has been caused by the huge spike in military spending caused by foreign adventures), and overall even the medium-term prognosis for NATO is dim, despite the smiles of congratulation at the advance of NATO proxies into Tripoli.

Unlike during the Vietnam war, when the Pentagon extensively sourced its procurement from Asia, the Bush-Cheney team sought to give US entities a monopoly over the supply of the items needed, even items as militarily inconsequential as toothpaste. The result of such an autarchic policy has been a big increase in spending, with the US alone spending more than a trillion dollars in its wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, we have seen this use of the state machinery to block competition across several sectors. The EU, for example, has banned Indian pharmaceuticals from its market, despite the low cost and high quality of medicines produced in India. Just now, the EU has banned Samsung hi-tech products. A time will come when Asia bans German cars and French defense equipment in retaliation for the frequent bans on Asian products on specious grounds. The US and the EU cannot protect their way out of economic trouble. They need to give their citizens access to the benefits of a global market, rather than break every canon that they have been preaching for decades. As for NATO, it will soon become clear that while it may be possible to defeat a ramshackle force with the massive use of airpower, that may not translate into monopoly privileges over Libyan oil reserves. Should China or India come up with better terms than Italian or French companies, the people of Libya will ensure that their government act in a way that protects their interests, rather than only those of NATO. The use of military power for commercial advantage ought to have vanished when the 19th century did. Its reappearance in Iraq and Libya is a worrisome sign that NATO has not learnt the lessons of history.

—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=111013

Politicians must free Indians (Sunday Guardian)

	Anna Hazare greets his supporters after coming out of Tihar Jail in New Delhi on Friday. PTI ome years ago, this columnist chanced to visit the corridors of Mumbai's pricey Breach Candy Hospital when the incomparable Raj Kapoor was in his final days of life in a room there. Knots of people congregated outside the door of the room where the thespian was, most talking, some smiling, a few laughing at what must surely have been an unrelated subject. However, as soon as a media person got sighted, the talk would cease, the smiles and laughter get retracted, and the most sorrowful of countenances would in seconds form on faces that wore very different expressions before a scribe or a cameraperson was sighted. Our politicians react in much the same way as did the visitors to the Kapoor bedside. Each time elections come by, they sacrifice those holidays in London and the Maldives, don homespun and tramp through miles of slush in heat, cold and rain. With each step, they repeat the mantra that "the people are supreme". Really? Since when? Certainly not from 15 August 1947, the date at which "the country" became "independent". For although there were cosmetic changes, in substance, little got altered. Before and after, those outside the privileged portals of government had to get permission before carrying out even actions that are the right of any citizen in a genuine — as distinct from what may be termed a "colonial" — democracy. Indeed, based on the facts (as distinct from perceptions and theories), a case could be made out that in the so-called "post-colonial" system, all that happened was that the political upper crust of governance took on the mantle formerly worn by Whitehall, while the civil service (which continued unmolested despite having been created by London as an instrument of repression) got transformed into the Raj. Those Brits holding fort in India for the greater glory of the Mother Country. Certainly, our politicians and civil servants have the view that they, and they alone, have the right to take the final decisions about the future of the country. Decisions that almost always get taken with personal or sectional interest firmly in view. Hence the hysterical reaction within the political-administrative phalanx about Anna Hazare and his movement. For here has arisen a man who forgets that this phalanx alone has the qualities needed to govern India effectively. Forget that over the past 65 years their record in governance has been abysmal. If there has been some small improvement in people's lives, it is despite the exertions of this indigenous class of colonialists. Only when this ruling stratum gets weaker relative to its strength in more palmy days, does the rest of the country escape, to an extent, from the stifling clutches of a system of governance that places a premium on implementing the Lowest Common Multiple whenever it can. Whether in agriculture or in industry, in healthcare or in education, habitation or energy, the policies pursued have been suboptimal, which is why voters respond so strongly to the few politicians such as Narendra Modi who have somehow escaped from the colonial complex found within the politico-administrative phalanx created by the British Raj and preserved and strengthened by the tenets of Nehruism. In no democracy would the administrative system have the panoply of powers that is extant in India. At each level, from the village to the megapolis, government agencies spin webs designed to trap the citizen, who can escape only after payment of a bribe. If the anger of the people at the colonial treatment meted out to them by their self-professed "servants" has boiled over during the term of the UPA, it is because — as during the period of Indira Gandhi — the governance structure has since 2004 been engaged in a systematic increase in its discretion and in its reach. Some months ago, a friend in Bangalore had the misfortune to be within the list of taxpayers subjected to raids and harassment by the Income-Tax department in the zeal of its officials to meet the arbitrary quotas that have been set for them since Palaniappan Chidambaram took over the Union Finance Ministry in 2004. Mani Shankar Aiyar waxes eloquent all across the world about the rich texture of democracy in India, not surprising from an individual who has always depended on the exchequer for his monthly paycheque. Were he to witness a tax raid, see families forced to remain indoors for days at a stretch, watch as cupboards get overturned and records get taken away — sometimes for ever — he may have at least a faint quaver in his voice the next time he brags about our democracy. For both officials and their political masters know that democracy is a farce in India, and that the only nostrums that work in practice are money and power, a duo that almost always appear in tandem. Coming back to this friend, his wife, who was in the final stages of pregnancy, was dragged about the city to multiple locations, in the course of which she delivered prematurely. Thus far, there has not even been an apology for such conduct. And why should there be? Mistreatment of the citizen by the ruling caste is commonplace.
	ontrast this with the ferrying around of Sonia Gandhi. Once, this columnist had the misfortune to have his flight land a bit before that carrying this distinguished daughter of privilege did at Palam. For more than an hour, he had to wait along with other motorists while the great lady dawdled inside the airport. We were freed from captivity only when Sonia Gandhi's immense cavalcade swept past at an accelerating pace, the very tyres indicating contempt for those waiting out of sight in the shadows, much like "unseeables" waited in gullies in Kerala while the upper castes walked past. To her or to Manmohan Singh or to the many thousands of others in the post-1947 colonial matrix of power, it is a given that only from within their ranks can there be people found to man the fastnesses of government. A Nandan Nilekani is an aberration, when he ought to be the norm. The political class and the administrative echelons of the IAS and the IPS spend much of their time infiltrating into as many nooks and crannies of the governance structure as they can fit into, whether these be airlines or wheat storage yards, intelligence agencies or old-fashioned policing. The Jan Lokpal Bill suggested by Anna Hazare challenges the monopoly of power within the politico-administrative ruling caste that has done so little to the country, yet gained so much from it since 1947. Small wonder that they are apoplectic at this small, unprepossessing man who had had the nerve to say that Old British or New British, enough is enough, and that the people deserve to be free. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/politicians-must-free-indians

Should the thief be the judge? (PO)

M D Nalapat
If during Ayub Khan’s Pakistan 40 families ruled the country, as mentioned before in these columns, these days around 400 families are ruling India. They comprise politicians, civil servants, businesspersons and even a few journalists. Indeed, India is blessed with what may be termed “Sarkari journalists”, those who are adept in currying the favour of any dispensation that gets elected to power. When the BJP rules, they take out their Sanskrit phrase book and speak with authority of the ancient classics, while during Congress rule, they show off their knowledge of French wines, aware that Europe has a special place in Sonia Gandhi’s heart. In the infrequent intervals when smaller parties grab the Prime Ministership, such scribes abandon their Savile Row suits for rough homespun pyjama-kurta,and speak in Hindi rather than in English or (even better) French. Small wonder that fr years, several of these “defenders of the public interest against the establishment” were each given talk shows by the national broadcaster, Prasar Bharati. These usually comprised of interview formats that were of such scintillating brilliance that not even their spouses could bear to watch a full segment. Of course, despite the nil viewership, several lakhs of rupees were paid each month to each “independent editor” by the state broadcaster

Small wonder that there has been an amazing transformation in the lives of the Sarkari journalists over the past two decades. Most have exchanged tiny flats for impressive mansions, and routinely send their children abroad to expensive educational institutions for study. The price of such munificence is silence about VVIPs, the very section of Indian society that accounts for much of the country’s problems. Despite frequent boasts about India being a democracy, the mainstream media is almost totally silent about the rampant wrongdoing indulged in by VVIPs and their friends and relatives. Thus, the public remain ignorant about the frequency of the foreign travel of the VVIP set, or of their business interests and personal lives. Even something as non-controversial as health is kept a close secret, as witness the total blackout over the health condition of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The result is rumor, with some saying that she has a skin cancer, while others aver that it is a brain tumor. Such reticence would be unthinkable in Europe or in North America, but is taken for granted in the feudal culture of South Asia, where some aspects of politics resemble the situation in North Korea more than they do a genuine democracy

The British-bequeathed system that has been the gift of Jawaharlal Nehru to India has ensured that the forms of democracy get preserved, even while the entire substance gets drained out. The very process of contesting elections involves large dollops of Black Money, as the legal limit for election expenses is absurdly low. This money gets provided by dubious interests, including narcotics smugglers and other crime syndicates. The help they give a politician to get elected results in the criminal class getting immunity from prosecution. Many, of course, become elected politicians themselves. Either no case is filed, or if a case get filed ( usually because of the pressure of public opinion), the prosecuting attorneys ensure that their case get presented so badly that the judge gives the benefit of the doubt to the accused. This was the modus operandi used under both the Vajpayee as well as the Manmohan Singh governments to enable the fugitive influence peddler from Italy, Ottavio Quatrocchi, to be acquitted in both Malaysia as well as in Argentina. Government agencies rely on the Law Ministry for counsel, and these are secretly briefed to ensure a walkover for the other side, of course for a price. Small wonder that Law and Justice ( a double misnomer in the case of this particular ministry) is so much sought after by greedy polticians. In any case, the justice system in India functions so slowly that it will be years - if not decades - before a case even gets heard i court.Hence the judicial system is no longer a check on wrongdoing

How can an individual who has spent millions upon millions in Black Money to get elected have the mindset needed to cleanse India of the corruption that is choking the country? The answer lies in the fact that for six decades,the political class in India has refused to get passed laws that subject them to scrutiny and punishment. The laws passed are so riddled with loopholes and exceptions that few get enmeshed in its coils. Which is why the entire political class in India is so horrified at Anna Hazare,who is asking for the Jan Lokpal Bill to be passed.This is an enactment with real teeth,and hence the palpable reluctance of the political class to get it passed. Instead,they are moaning about the “anti-democratic” War on Corruption that is led by Anna Hazare,Sri Sri Ravishankar and Baba Ramdev.Of the three,it is Sri Sri Ravishankar who has the greatest following,that too across the globe. All three are secular leaders. While Hazare is a social activist, Sri Sri Ravishankar is the founder of the Art of Living,that teaches an individual to adopt a harmonious lifestyle. Baba Ramdev teaches yoga,the ancient science of exercises designed to improve health. All three have united to lead the effort to ensure that the India of the 21st century gets free of the filth of the India of the 20th,an era in which only the unethical have jumped ahead,while the honest languish

It ought to be compulsory for every legislator,at the regional as well as the national level, to submit to a polygraph test to determine if she or he spent Black Money during the campaign,or has any undeclared assets.Any person failing the test should get disqalified,and the person with the next highest number of votes should be declared elected (provided that person passes the lie detector test). The political class in India has made common cause with the many academics singing hosannas to “Nehruism” in making a fetish of the so-called Westminister Model.The reality is that India is not the UK,and ought to have evolved its own system rather than borrow wholesale the very system that was created by the UK so as to keep India in submission. Today,there is a growing popular movement against a series of laws and institutions that are in essence no different from that during the colonial period. What India is seeing is a Cultural Revolution,where Mao Zedong’s cry of “Bombard the Headquarters” is being reproduced by a saintly 74-year old from the village of Ralegaon Siddhi in Maharashtra. And the people are responding, with the government ( that is so effective in blackmailing and slinking the corrupt,including much of the so-called Opposition) helpless against an honest man. As predicted in these columns,a tide of anger is sweeping across India that will end in the creation of a system of governance that is more transparent and more pro-people ( rather than pro-politician) than the present. Setting a thief to catch a thief has been the prescription of the political class,which has only ensured that corruption grow each year rather than diminish. In contrast, Anna and Sri Sri say that only the honest can catch the crooked,so they should be given the authority to do so.No wonder India’s well-fed political class is reaching for blood pressure medication.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=109658