Guest Post: Economic Complications of the Senkaku Island Dispute

I get a lot of requests for guest posts and am quite picky in what I put forward--this one I like a lot.

My guest author today is from One Minute MBA, and they break down the economic complications of the Senkaku Islands dispute between Japan and China, going a bit deeper than I have in the past. They illustrate the story below, pointing out some of China's options if the US takes a stronger pro-Japan stance than it has now.

My take:

1) I think China's economic retaliatory responses are all much more painful to China than they are the US. The US does have a few options to move some of its outsourcing (to Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc), and cheap selling of US bonds would cost the Chinese hundreds of billions--more than the damage done to Japan so far.

2) A boycott of US goods would hurt some key exporters and would likely prompt some US aid for some of the exporters if they would otherwise go under. If the US similarly boycotted Chinese goods, it would need to be selective. Consumer goods boycotts would hurt US retailers; industrial goods boycotts would hurt US manufacturers. 

3) I must admit my previous post on the Senkaku Islands, framing it as a distraction, was ultimately wrong. Whether it was originally intended as a distraction (for I'm still not sure of another good reason why the Chinese would escalate it after so many decades) or not, it has become a mainstay of Chinese foreign policy that they're not currently willing to put down.

4) The Chinese are unlikely to let the matter go entirely. As Professor M Taylor Fravel points out in "Strong Borders, Secure Nation," (a book I contributed some research to way back in the day), Chinese foreign policy is focused largely on maintaining territorial integrity, which (to Beijing, at least) requires a very consistent stance on territorial claims made at the end of the civil war, based on Ming dynasty maps of Chinese territory. In Beijing's eyes, giving up on any of these (including the Spratlys, the dispute it India, and the Senkakus) opens them up to lower bargaining power on future territorial disputes of greater import to their ultimate security.

Why Did Israel & Hamas Go to War?

For better or worse, this post is likely to leave the reader with more questions than answers. I'd love any input/comments that readers have on the matter here (as always).

Before the assassination strike on Hamas' military leader Jabari, Hamas political leadership was making serious noise about a permanent truce with Israel (in fact, Jabari was literally reviewing a draft peace agreement the day he was assassinated and had been part of discussions with Israel and Hamas' political wing about making it happen), and West Bank PM Abbas mentioned he was potentially willing to waive Right of Return for Palestinians as part of a final peace deal with Israel. It seemed, politically, that Israel was largely getting its way.

Then why the assassination? Why the war?

There are potential motivations on both sides for going to war, which we'll outline below. Not clear at all to me which was the primary motivator.

HAMAS:
Hamas is, of course, far from a united organization. In particular, I must be careful in the use of the word "Hamas" when describing behavior from Gazan militants, as not all are necessarily formally associated with Hamas and may not represent Hamas' interests. In this case, Hamas extremists or other militants likely wished to disrupt the peace process, unsatisfied with its provisions and worried that it might go through if the peace process continued unabated. Hundreds of Hamas rockets were the opening salvo in this eight-day war, and so the above explanation is a reasonable one to answer the question, "why did these rockets launch _when they did?_" If the motivation was 100% on the Hamas side, then we would say that Israel simply "took the bait" and was manipulated into war that disrupted a peace process that they would otherwise be in favor of. The assassination of Japbari, in this case, would have been a strategic blunder to an Israel otherwise very interested in peace.

More legitimate wings of Hamas may have also approved of these rockets in order to sabotage the peace process themselves, in order to make sure there was a clear pretense of peace on the Hamas side without risking having to actually stick to it, in order to win the support of the Arab world, in particular Morsi. If this was the intent, it worked--Morsi was able to broker a ceasefire and very clearly backed Hamas in the war, which would be the first time Egypt supported Hamas against Israel since the 1970's.

ISRAEL:
Frankly, the Israeli defense authority is highly sophisticated and I believe it is unlikely they simply made a mistake and, in response to rocket fire, assassinated _in error_ the man most likely to be able to broker a peace deal with Hamas permanently. The reason I am particularly suspicious is that the assassination of Jabari was among Israel's first strikes, rather than simply strikes against Hamas' rocket sites. I believe, like in the case of Hamas, there are some political incentives that made parts of the Israeli government want to disrupt the process as was.

One explanation is simply that Netanyahu could not appear "soft" during negotiations. If Israel calmly/peacefully negotiated peace as rockets hit its civilian cities, it could potentially be seen as "soft" on Hamas and thus in a weak bargaining position. If Israel saw Jabari as trying to play both ends--authorizing strikes against Israel and also trying to push a peace deal--then Israel may have intended to send a message to his successor that "playing both sides" against Israel would not do. Unlike Israeli troops, Hamas rocketeers are generally woefully under-accountable in the international media for their attacks, and if Jabari intended to use this to his advantage, Israel may have felt the need to put a quick lid on it and allow Jabari's successor to restart such negotiations with more caution and restraint.

Israel could have also "read" Hamas' intent--if it was to simply gain an upper hand with the Arab world through credible noises of negotiation, rather than actually push for peace--and wanted to stop this process in its tracks before it lost leverage in the region, though Israel seemed to summarily fail in this.

Israel's current leadership may well not intend for peace with Gaza any time soon. Peace in general may simply be unacceptable to an administration that sees Gaza as an eternal threat for Iranian influence and other forces that may be out for the demise of the Jewish state. Israel may have a quiet policy of no peace with Hamas until Israel's legitimacy as a state is recognized. For various reasons, Israel may see constant war with Hamas (including a blockade of Gaza to minimize the armaments and militants that can enter) as a safer alternative to peace, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. If this is the case, it will continue to sabotage peace efforts until there is a better way to guarantee security in a free Gaza situation, or until a more short-term risk-accepting administration takes the helm.

Finally, Netanyahu may simply want to take advantage of wartime fear for his own election in January. Hamas rockets may have been just the pretense a Machiavellian-style Netanyahu (if that is actually his thinking, which is not clear) would need to have a brief flare-up with Gaza in order to convince swing voters in Israel to vote for Likud rather than Kadima or Labor, keeping Netanyahu in power for another term.

Whatever the reasoning, it is more or less evident at this point that some parts of both Israel and Hamas had interest in disrupting the peace process, and took advantage of this time period to act. To set the record straight, Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel did happen before the assassination of Jabari and seemed unprovoked--this accounting of events is not clear in all texts. But I also believe it is fairly naive to think that Israel's assassination of Jabari specifically (rather than simply a precision strike against Hamas rocket sites, which it also successfully executed) was simply part of a general defensive strategy rather than a very political move.

Such an interpretation would suggest that peace is likely to be elusive in the area for some time to come.

A Breakdown of US Presidential Candidates' Foreign Policies

This will be our second breakdown of presidential foreign policies in as many presidential elections, making the event at this point a bit of a tradition. Our aim is to keep it simple, objective, and to the point.

So what of the candidates' foreign policies? Ultimately, despite attempts to simulate wide gaps, there are few. The president has, over the past four years, moved to a more traditionally conservative foreign policy stance, and Romney has more or less given up trying to find new ways to be even more aggressive on the international stage.

There are a few key differences, but we can mostly summarize their vision for the United States as such:

Obama, channeling Teddy Roosevelt, advocates that we "speak softly and carry a big stick."

Romney, on the other hand, differs mostly on the desire to "speak loudly and carry a bigger stick."

(Bonus points to readers who caught the Looney Tunes reference, though the comparison to Sam is not meant to be derisive of the Romney approach.)

Because they're more interesting, let's highlight the differences first.

Actual Differences:

Rhetoric: This is important to highlight because you may notice some other glaring gaps in the list of differences below. Romney and Obama obviously believe in having very different rhetoric (Romney's of a "strong America" and Obama's of a more "understanding America") behind very similar policy behavior. Romney is likely genuinely concerned that soft rhetoric is going to weaken the United States' credibility of deterrence (critical in the Pax Americana state in which the US tries to keep a lid on major warfare), where Obama believes that the United States will lose its ability to lead if it is not loved.

Both approaches have flaws. Obviously opinion of the United States crashed during the Bush administration of tough-talk, but it has also gone down since Obama took office in 2009, particularly in Muslim countries where the attempts of compassionate rhetoric have been strongest.

Russia: Romney sees Russia as a long-term threat that must be contained, where Obama sees it as a nation that can be bargained with and potentially partnered with. No doubt Russia's influence and military might are growing, and the United States must address Russia (where in the '90s it was largely able to ignore Russia completely). The two questions on the table here are whether Russia is a credible future threat and whether the US should be moving to oppose it and contain it, or whether it should be working with Russia to make it part of the wider "good guy" community. 

Israel: Short version: Romney sees Israel as an ally that can take action in the Middle East that the US simply is unable to, and can serve as the bastion of force against Iran. Obama sees it as a dangerous ally that can get the US reined into unwanted conflicts. Paraphrasing Bill Clinton on Netanhayu, "he doesn't know who the superpower is." 

Priorities in US Military Spending (and Strategic Approach): Obama's priorities in US military spending have focused on the ability to execute tactical strikes to deal with terrorist threats--more funding for drone strikes and a focus on special forces has been his focus (where Navy and Air Force spending--the big ticket items--has dropped). Romney, though unlikely to decrease this, wants to beef up the size of the US Navy with two extra Aircraft Carrier Groups in order to better position the US strategically against potential threats with more credible "hard" assets like Iran, Russia, and China. These Carrier groups would be used to protect the Strait of Hormuz, Taiwan/Japan/Korea, and the Baltics, as well as generally make sure that the US controls trade sea trade routes throughout the world.

Iraq?: There's a question mark here because it's not clear whether there will be any real change in action or just rhetoric. Romney is frustrated at the lack of the Status of Forces Agreement over the past 4 years and wants to use US troops to keep influence in Iraq and serve as a second force bastion against Iran.

Key Similarities:

While the candidates share a great deal in common, we will highlight the key--and sometimes surprising--similarities between their approaches. 

American Primacy / Exceptionalism: Despite Obama's 2008 rhetoric about the United States being a bit of a bully, his rhetoric has changed to embrace US Exceptionalism and, generally, its role in the world. Romney and Obama differ on how the US should posture itself with rhetoric and "outreach," but generally they both see the US as the force that should be running around keeping a cap on bad stuff. Both believe in "Pax Americana."

Iran: Ultimately both sides see the critical need to stop Iran from developing a nuke and want to oppose Iranian influence at all turns, which is why Obama (for example) is supporting the rebels in Syria. Romney is tougher-worded but not foolish enough to want war with Iran--both will have similar policies there.

War on Terror: Both will continue the new "precision" style War on Terror that was pivoted into around 2007 as the War in Iraq started to wind down. It will be a war of precision strike from drones and special forces as the US continues to support operations by Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, Egypt, Iraq, etc to eliminate terrorists locally.

Afghanistan: The War in Afghanistan is unpopular and will come to an end no matter who is president. It is unpopular as well to pull out immediately (fears of a Vietnam-style collapse remain) so the 2014 departure will be stuck to by both presidents.

China: Both will be aggressive with China about trade policy and keep the implicit threat of the Mutual Defense Treaty with Japan on the table in case there is any tricky business in the Senkakus, but neither is going to either back down on Beijing nor try to incite war. 

Author's Notes: Both candidates are going to have statements on their websites different from those above. We encourage you to take a look, and we're also writing with some interpretation and analysis (rather than simple aggregation of what's already written). Our intent is to write what we believe will be actual policy enacted (or attempted) by each candidate, rather than simply what they're declaring.

We can talk at length about why they have strong incentives to say-one-thing-and-do-another--we obviously saw a great deal of this from Obama in the 2008 campaign and how much the presidency has changed its tone since coming to office--ultimately, a state's security interest generally takes over unless something very strange happens, and there's no reason for that to happen here, which is why we'll see so many similarities going forward. 

The Syrian Uprising: Part II, "The Military Reality on the Ground"

Just to make sure I'm adequately managing expectations: the military situation on the ground in Syria is very fuzzy, and is made up of very contradictory reports of government supporters and Free Syrian Army supporters. We'll do what we can.

What we do know is that the Free Syrian Army is now capable of occasionally holding serious bits of territory. The Syrian Army recently took back a big chunk of Damascus suburbs, and the rebels seem to have taken a suburb of Homs.

That said, I don't think this is going to be a territorial war like Libya was (this is closer to "everywhere at once"), nor as much civilian terrorism as Iraq (though that certainly is happening). It is definitely a wide-ranged insurgency, designed to keep the Assad government off its toes and on the defensive. And it may be working: the anti-Assad international community is increasingly excited about supporting it, though nobody has ponied up (officially) yet. (But more on their prospects later.)

It's still tough to figure out the current size of the FSA. The Army itself says their fighters are above 40,000--and with the amount of trouble they're causing over increasingly large areas simultaneously, this may be right. But it's hard to tell. And if they do have 40,000, they won't all be armed. Many will be in support and logistics roles, coordinating ambush-style attacks. But we know that the FSA is capable of hitting and destroying Syrian tanks (which are mostly sitting ducks in city streets against insurgencies), attacking major bases (like airfields), and even setting up roadblocks in areas near Damascus.

But keep in mind: the Iraqi insurgency, which was far larger, better-funded, and better-armed, failed against the US-led coalition and the burgeoning Iraqi military. That said, the Syrian army is not equivalent of the US army, but the will to remain is incredible. Like the Ghaddafi regime, the Assad regime is very unlikely to willingly go until near the end. Assad is very likely less delusional than Ghaddafi, and will therefore call it quits before death, but a prolonged insurgency won't be enough to cause him to voluntarily leave.

In short: the rebel opposition, made up mostly of the Free Syrian Army, is vast, increasingly organized, and has a safe haven in Turkey. It has serious staying power... as long as it is funded (the Syrian army has coffers to pay their soldiers; the FSA does not). We will see many continued months of insurgent attacks against the Syrian army, likely attempting to convince rank-and-file soldiers or even entire companies to defect. The Assad regime does not have total control on the ground, and this should be a matter of serious concern for the regime.

More to come on what this means with respect to the FSA's prospects for victory, but it'll have to wait until next time.

The Syrian Uprising: Part I, "The Nature of the Opposition Movement"

Syria is not Egypt, is not Tunisia, is not Libya, is not Iraq, is not Afghanistan. Getting a sense of the nature of the uprising will require a relatively detailed analysis that requires us to more-or-less throw out any preconceived model we have based on these previous uprisings. Let's take a look.

What we'll discuss over the next few posts:
1) The nature of the opposition movement.
2) The military reality on the ground.
3) Prospects for opposition victory.
4) Options for foreign powers and the directions the conflict could go.

Today, we're discussing: 1) The nature of the opposition movement.
Libya's opposition was largely regional: the east and west were largely separated by vast desert, and had developed very separate identities.
Bahrains was largely religious (Shiites dominated by Sunnis).
Afghanistan's is ethnic (mostly Pashtuns).
Iraq's was both ethnic and religious (Sunni Arabs dominated Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds).

Of course, the above descriptions are grossly oversimplified (Tripoli had major protests until they were quashed, for example), but give us an idea of where the base of power of the opposition movements come from.

The opposition movement in Syria appears to be primarily Sunni in nature (which is interesting in that Sunnis are the largest ethnic group in the country and the largest group represented by the government), and regionally diverse. If we use protester deaths as a proxy for the intensity of the opposition activity in Syria, we can see below that we have intense protests in all of Syria's major geographical areas, and that they do not focus on a particular religious area. Interestingly, we also don't see significant unrest in areas of Kurdish majority, which has been the case in neighboring Iraq & Turkey (although the Kurds are demanding greater rights & protection under the government).




There are scattered reports that the protesters have an anti-minority bend, particularly against Christians and Alawites. The opposition is, in turn, accusing the Assad government of inciting religious violence. It's not clear how much sectarian violence is actually happening, and how much of it (that is happening) is government-caused.

The demographic diversity of the movement helps us understand the nature of its political aims. The opposition, beyond calling for Assad to step down, is apparently seeking wider democratic reforms and civil rights. This has, of course, been the banner of the opposition movements in other countries, though the opposition groups do seem to be keeping in line with their original ideas so far.

The question for The West will be: is this an opposition that wants a liberal democracy, or one that wants a more Islamist democracy? The former will tend to be more Western-friendly, and the latter tends to be more at odds with US allies like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel. It'll be tough to say--the Muslim Brotherhood definitely has a strong showing in the area, but in Syria, many other faces make up the various oppositions, and all sorts of strange alliances might arise (and, to be fair, the Muslim Brotherhood is relatively moderate).

So, to some extent, there is a wait-and-see on the political reality of this opposition movement, just as there has been in previous revolutions across the Middle East.

But before we think about it too hard, we need to get a good sense of the military reality on the ground in Syria, which we'll discuss next time.

Baltic Solidarity to an Emerging Russia

1) The Visegrad 4: Eastern Europe as a Major Player
2) The Re-Emergent Russian Bloc
3) Baltic Solidarity to an Emerging Russia
4) The EU Periphery: "Core" EU's Albatross
5) The Atlantics: A Return to Arms-Length Continental Management

Dear readers,

Sorry about the wait. Today we conclude our 5-part series on the Blocanization of Europe with our final installment: Baltic Solidarity to an Emerging Russia.



The Baltics have worried about Russia for a long time, likely surprising nobody. When Russia looks west, it sees both vulnerability and opportunity. Its vulnerability comes from open plains stretching from Moscow all the way to the Alps, giving potential invaders an easy route in (which we've seen taken advantage of many times), as well as St. Petersburg being potentially bottled up by European maritime powers in the Baltic sea. Russia thus seeks to create buffer space and exert influence over its western neighbors in order to protect its land and sea periphery.

The opportunities are in natural resources (Finnish timber, Norwegian oil, etc). Russia has made moves to squeeze control of these resources or the processing of them out of the Nordic holders.

So Russia has thus spent most of the 20th and 21st centuries attempting to exert control over these areas to in order to protect itself and realize financial opportunities.

So the Baltics have been traditionally fearful. Much like the V4, their faith in NATO has started to erode. Estonia has been the constant victim of political manipulation and cyber-attacks for a decade; Finland has been pressed by tariffs.

So the rest of the story is short. The Baltic countries are looking to each other for solidarity, especially military. Sweden and Norway sport surprisingly powerful military forces that will make any incursions by Russia a much more painful contest than the invasion of Georgia.

In particular, Sweden and Poland are discussing potential alliance-making; nothing as strong as the V4 itself or the Baltic's grouping, but something that could potentially functionally replace NATO altogether.

The Atlantics: A Return to Arms-Length Continental Management

1) The Visegrad 4: Eastern Europe as a Major Player
2) The Re-Emergent Russian Bloc
3) Baltic Solidarity to an Emerging Russia
4) The EU Periphery: "Core" EU's Albatross
5) The Atlantics: A Return to Arms-Length Continental Management

Today we continue our 5-part series on the Blocanization of Europe by discussing the changes that will happen to the UK, US, Canada, and Iceland as the Continent splits into blocs.



The Atlantics are largely a classic story, and largely a bloc that has existed since the beginning of the second World War. The question of The Atlantics bloc has always been about just how much the Atlantic powers get distracted from each other.

To be clear, the Atlantics consist, fundamentally, of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom--I've (controversially, I supppose) tacked on Iceland due to perceived mutual benefit and a few historical interactions.

The United States, Canada, & United Kingdom have the exact same interest on the Continent: prevent any power from amassing enough wealth, power, and influence that it could project that power out of the Continent. For the UK, this threat is more immediate. But for the US & Canada, the fall of the UK to a Continental power would spell long-term disaster (if one consolidated the Continent from Moscow to London, its economy would be a bit larger than that of Washington & Ottowa combined).

We saw this during the first and second World Wars, as well as the Cold War--the US, Canada, and UK have a "special relationship" not despite geopolitics but because of it (which generally makes such a relationship more reliable and less fickle). It will continue to be so.

So why are we even discussing this? Trends looked, briefly, like they would turn awry for the North America / UK relationship in the 2000s, while Europe was upset with the US over Iraq and wildly enamored with its own experiment: a politically strong European Union. It appeared as if the UK had turned its attention towards the Continent, and would actually embrace a unified Continental power.

But this was never to be. The UK managed to sneak in a Eurozone deal in which it had the option of keeping the Pound as a currency for as long as it wanted (it will keep the Pound, for sure). The UK has lobbied against a stronger European military or foreign policy cooperation, preferring to limit its involvement to free trade, and a few domestically popular legislative concepts.

The UK has been skeptical of its involvement with the European Union, and has now grown exceptionally so. Unlike the United States, the European Union would not go to war with itself to maintain its cohesion--there is too much Nationalism at the level of each country, and the EU's tendrils of cohesion are already too weak, and getting weaker. As the UK pulls away, the European Union will do little to stop it.

The United Kingdom is very worried about recent Franco-Russo-German cooperation in military & economic matters. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was usually 2 of these powers versus the other, and the United Kingdom always sided with the underdog to prevent Continental consolidation. But the UK shudders to think of facing all three at once, and will turn increasingly towards the US for support if this cooperative trend continues on the Continent among its major powers.

And of Iceland? Iceland has no military at all, and depends on NATO for protection. But if NATO's cohesion weakens (which it will), it will need to cling to one of the Blocs for security. Why the Atlantics, and why not the Baltics?

As we'll discuss in our final installment on The Blocanization of Europe, the Baltics are too preoccupied with defending their borders from Russia to reach out to protect Iceland. The US, UK, and Canada will pick up the slack--the US rarely backs off an opportunity to have a forward base of operations in exchange for military protection, and will take the opportunity here as Russia's power grows (as much as Iceland may hold its nose during the deal).

Ultimately, the US, Canada, and UK will work together to play European powers off each other and try to keep the continent divided. They will back the underdog (in this case, the Visegrad 4) against powers like Russia & Germany that are looking to expand their influence across larger swaths of the Continent. North American / UK cooperation will only grow into the future as the Atlantics return to their old strategy of managing Europe at an arms length.

The Changing US Strategy in the AfPak Region

There is writing that is moving from the walls directly to the Oval-Office-sealed paperwork: the United States will be removing the vast majority of its presence from Afghanistan, and soon.

A few pretty obvious signs are pointing to this:
-Defense Secretary Gates is stepping down
-The extremely popular General Petraeus has been moved to the position of CIA Director
-The President is making it clear he plans to accelerate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
-The US and Pakistan are finally working together to hunt down a list of Al-Qaeda / Taliban leadership using CIA/ISI resources

These signs are indicative of 2 major changes:
1) The US strategy in Afghanistan is becoming one that focuses on anti-leadership attacks
2) The US has discussed this strategy with Pakistan--and finally gotten real cooperation

As we discuss this strategy, we must keep in mind the US' overall goal: to prevent jihadist groups from being able to either unite the Middle East against the West, and from being able to organize and launch coordinated trans-national attacks.

The US has largely succeeded in its first goal. The Arab Spring is (mostly) a relatively liberal-democratic movement, rather than a jihadist one. The US has won the "hearts-and-minds" campaign; al-Qaeda and its affiliates lack support from large populations, except perhaps in Yemen and Somalia.

In the second, the US has largely succeeded in all places but Yemen and the AfPak region. Yemen poses a different problem, but the AfPak region can be managed without the total collapse of the Taliban.

In fact, much of the Taliban these days consist of a Vietnam-style nationalist movement. Yes, they're still unsavory folks that want to bring a twisted form of Sharia to Afghanistan, but that is largely not the US' problem, as much as we may cringe to say it. There's little indication that much of the Pashtun Taliban know much about al-Qaeda or, if they do, care for the trans-nationalist doctrine.

On the other hand, much of the hardened leadership of the Taliban and other associated groups pose the bigger threat to the US' interests. These leaders can and sometimes will coordinate strikes, as we've seen in Pakistan and India. The new strategy calls for their systematic elimination by drones or CIA/ISI strike teams coordinating both tactics and intelligence. So far, it looks like it stands a chance at being relatively effective.

In the general push for Afghan security, a few benefits arise:
1) Focusing on the leadership hampers the Taliban's ability to coordinate, resupply, etc, when facing offensives
2) Withdrawing troops hurts the Taliban's nationalist message
3) The Taliban actually do want a negotiated settlement, and seem to be willing to do so once the US withdraws. Yes, they will have much more bargaining power then, but a negotiated settlement (at this point) is a much more palatable option than continued warfare for either side. They have reached a "painful stalemate," and are ready to talk.

Ultimately, we must remember that most of the Taliban are folks with very well-defined and limited aims, that don't include attacking the US (as angry as they may be). To a large extent, we can use the NVDA/Viet Cong as an analogy for most of these fighters, even if international interests are involved in funding them.

The most important part, though, is finally getting Pakistan's full help. Pakistan is shifting for 2 reasons:
1) US promises of quick withdrawal have now made helping the US politically palatable. The Taliban are not popular in most of Pakistan, and carry out attacks against the Pakistani people all the time. If Pakistan can help the US in a way that is politically palatable, it will--the US has just given it that opening.
2) With the US withdrawing, Pakistan is now legitimately worried about the Taliban threat growing, and is going to take higher responsibility to deal with it, and take control of the Waziristan region. The US withdrawal has been a bit of a "wake-up" moment for both the Pakistani leadership and its people.

Ultimately, total defeat of the Taliban is unlikely. Unlike Iraq, where the there was a small group of "irreconciliables" that were systematically destroyed, the Taliban represent a large group that is afraid of marginalization (much like the Sunnis in Iraq felt), and it must be negotiated with and brought into the government in some way.

Focusing on strikes against the leadership is likely the way that the US can bring this negotiation to the forefront, while keeping the Taliban as weak as possible, and ultimately preventing any transnational attacks from occuring.

The Re-Emergent Russian Bloc

1) The Visegrad 4: Eastern Europe as a Major Player
2) The Re-Emergent Russian Bloc
3) Baltic Solidarity to an Emerging Russia
4) The EU Periphery: "Core" EU's Albatross
5) The Atlantics: A Return to Arms-Length Continental Management

Our series on the "Blocanization of Europe" continues with an exploration of the factors behind the rise of Russia over the past decade, and what implications it will have for the continent.

As we discussed in our last post, Russia faced imminent marginalization in 2004, as NATO planned to incorporate Georgia and Ukraine into its alliance. A Western-led push into Ukraine had formented the Orange Revolution and the election of a pro-Western Yuschenko. Georgia's strongly pro-Western government was knocking at the gates of NATO and the EU. The US had successfully coaxed Europe into accepting the Baltics, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania into the EU in a fell swoop. Russia appeared to have an insurmountable united front poised against it.

This united front dissolved over the next 4 years. Some of it was due to Western distraction in the Middle East and complacency over Russia; some of it was the rift between the US and Europe over the Iraq war. But credit must be given to the Russian leadership, which successfully took advantage of every mistake the West made in order to shatter the united front:

-The carefully-timed invasion of Georgia highlighted Gerogia's vulnerability and the inability of NATO to come to its aide, and also turned popular support against the pro-Western elements that enraged Russia.
-Russia has engaged Iran and assisted its nuclear programme, enabling it to grow more assertive in the Middle East and largely upset Western plans for a hastier withdrawal from the region.
-Russia's intelligence forces engaged in a full-court press (both clandestine and propaganda operations) in Latvia and Ukraine, shaking Western support and mobilizing pro-Russian citizenry to become a more powerful political force.
-Russia threatened Germany and France with interruptions in oil & gas supplies, causing (in part) both countries to back off their bid for Ukraine and Georgia to enter NATO, thus kaibashing the entire attempt.

With NATO's plans successfully disrupted, Russia has been able to focus on two major geopolitical goals:
1) Solidifying its gas & oil supply dominance in Europe
2) Expanding its influence back towards the former Soviet states

Central Asia built strong ties with Russia during the Soviet Union, and they remain. The only major competitor for their support is China, which is a much more inward-looking nation.

Backlashes against the pro-NATO governments in Ukraine and Georgia have put these two states closer to the Russian bloc. Ukraine's ouster of the pro-Western government has eased ties with Russia and opened up stronger economic channels between the two countries. Russia's warm-water navy base near Sevastopol will remain in Russia's control. Moldova is currently a toss-up.

Russia has begun throwing its weight around as its power has grown. It has used Iran and Afghanistan to distract and frustrate the US, and shaken up confidence in the governments of Estonia and Latvia (while driving the Baltics closer together in defense--more on that later).

Furthermore, Russia is taking advantage of the EU's disharmony to build economic ties with key "Core" EU members--particularly Germany and France. Russia's vast natural resources and low-cost labor pool poses a great opportunity for the Core EU's largest (but slow) economies to start growing again and begin to bounce back from the weight of the falling EU Periphery.

What all of this means is that Russia is becoming a global player. Its base is sound (internal threats to the Putin regime are shaky at best), and it will continue to grow economically. It is rebuilding its military--in particular, its power-projection capabilities. It will grow to challenge the US on the global stage.

The thing that will make Russia different from the US--and the thing that will ultimately give the US a key advantage--is that Russia will spawn stronger and stronger alliances against it. The Visegrad 4 and the Baltic Bloc exist primarily to protect themselves from Russian domination. The US/UK will keep its power checked on the continent: their key interest is making sure no major power controls the resources and military of Europe. China will oppose Russia if it grows too strong.

The US, on the other hand, has scattered opposition at best. Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Libya form the bulk of Anti-US governments (and Russia is stuck supporting these unsavory regimes)--besides Iran, they are largely irrelevant (or are becoming less relevant quickly). If Russia can pull Ukraine into its bloc for good, it will become a relatively significant ally, but it is unlikely to grow beyond that.

But at the same time, Russia will prove a highly disruptive force in Europe, and will test the loyalty and priorities of the US/UK onthe global stage. To a great extent, Russia will be the primary driver behind the major geopolitical changes in Europe into the forseeable future.

The Visegrad 4: Eastern Europe as a Major Player

Our "Blocanization of Europe" series will include a number of posts, each outlining what the new bloc will look like, why the bloc is losing faith in the NATO/EU system (if it ever bought in at all), and why each country is choosing the group it's choosing. Our upcoming posts should look like this:

1) The Visegrad 4: Eastern Europe as a Major Player
2) The Re-Emergent Russian Bloc
3) Baltic Solidarity to an Emerging Russia
4) The EU Periphery: "Core" EU's Albatross
5) The Atlantics: A Return to Arms-Length Continental Management



Today, we'll be discussing the Visegrad 4, if for no other reason than we find them the most interesting and most potentially game-changing bloc of Europe.

The formation of a Visegrad 4 "Battle Group" was the original even that prompted our thinking about the blocanization of Europe; it is both a symptom of and (will be) an emerging cause of declining European solidarity.

Ultimately, NATO's inability to completely defeat the Russian Bloc (by failing to integrate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO) meant that European security could not be completely ignored; that, combined with NATO's attention locked in the Middle East (and thus not on Eastern European security: the United States has pledged only a single army brigrade to the defense of the Visegrad 4) have led to a serious security crisis for the V4. With a strong Russia and a weakened will by NATO to commit to Eastern Europe's defense, the Visegrad 4 had to take matters into its own hands.

The Visegrad 4 battle group certainly projects a strong regional commitment to a unified defense of the plains from Russia; perhaps more importantly, it will have a significant material impact on the region's ability to defend itself.

The Battle Group will allow each country to streamline its military to adopt regional command and control; sharing resources will allow each country to reduce redundancy and redirect freed resources to extra firepower or new specialization. Shared intelligence will lead to greater regional awareness, and thus better response times and effectiveness. Most importantly, the Battle Group means that the V4's entire military force could potentially focus on a single area quickly (both due to bureaucratic reductions and effective regional planning on troop mobilization and transportation), thus making it much harder to "pick off" individual countries in the region.

Historically, such "picking-off" has been a key strategy for both Germany and Russia in consolidating power in the region (Germany and the Soviet Union were both successful in such a strategy in the 20th century); the V4's Battle Group nearly guarantees such a strategy will not work, as long as the will to support it remains (which it should into the medium-term future).

Romania and Bulgaria similarly recall the harsh rule of the Soviet Union, and wish to avoid any similar arrangement. They joined the EU and NATO in order to guarantee security against any repeat incidents, but the relative aloofness of NATO and a breakdown of confidence in the EU as a supranational structure is likely to push these two countries towards the next-best alternative: the V4.

Neither Romania nor Bulgaria has yet shown commitment to join the V4; in particular, Hungary and Romania have had regional disputes over territory and mutual security. But, if Russia's regional assertiveness continues to grow, these two countries will need to seek shelter. There is potential, especially in Bulgaria, to fall into Turkey's sphere, but a European rejection of Turkey's bid for EU membership is likely to push it towards the Arab region (where it already seem sto be facing).

The Visegrad 4's strengthening has implications beyond its own interactions internally and with Russia. Eastern Europe is currently the EU's most dynamic economic region, with highest yearly GDP growth on the continent. While the region is still economically troubled, its structural advantages set it up to continue to grow over the next decade.

If the EU's financial strength continues to weaken, the V4 may become the economic stronghold of the continent--and its influence over the region will grow as many countries come to depend on its growing economic strength.

Practically-speaking, the US and UK will not abandon the V4 entirely: they see the V4 region (in particular) as a stronghold against an emerging Russia, and will support it when times become dire enough. But Middle Eastern distractions have turned the attention of the V4's major allies, and this group will wisely remember not to depend too heavily upon Western allied support against Russia--it has failed multiple times in the 20th century (during the German invasion of Poland, the Hungarian and Czech revolts against the Soviet Union), and the Visegrad 4 will not sit by to allow another such failure.

Expect, in the future, for the Visegrad 4 to grow increasingly strong and assertive as it finds its center of gravity. The region faces many risks to its long-term security, but it is likely to have the influence and weight, when the situation grows "dire," to man its own front lines and call upon the help it will need from the US and UK.

The Blocanization of Europe: An Introduction

I'll keep this one quick.

I've been doing some thinking about how Europe has been changing in the past decade, especially with the military rise of the Visegrad 4. It has been a dramatic change indeed.

A large portion of my next few posts will be focused on this series: The Blocanization of Europe. In short: the vision of a single unified Europe is beginning to show the signs of fray -- a "blocanization" of the continent is beginning, based on natural lines of national interest and security.

In particular, as we see NATO's commitment to European Security weaken, and the financial integrity of the European Union shaken, the ability to depend on the hope of a strong, unified Europe is diminishing.

We'll be focusing on the reasons for this, and the new blocs emerging--and what each means. As a teaser, I've attached a map of these blocs, built on my current understanding of the geopolitical makeup of the new Europe.

What Bin Laden's Death Means

Bin Laden's death at the hands of American special forces sheds insight in two ways: learnings for the present, and implications for the future.

The Present (Answering the question "What does this demonstrate about the current state of the world?"):

1) Arab Muslim Sentiment: There has been little Arab outrage over the death of Bin Laden, or any other signs of upswollen support for the Al Qaeda movement. It's a sign that Al Qaeda has low popularity among the Arab Muslim world, which will cause it to be increasingly marginalized: "grassroots" movements like Al Qaeda rely on some popular support for both resources and sanctuary. It's a sign that Al Qaeda's message of global Jihad is falling on relatively deaf ears... and a sign that its ability to commit high-casualty transnational attacks is severely limited (as much as from pressure in Afghanistan as from losing the "propaganda war" for the hearts/minds of the Arab Muslim population).

2) Pakistan: one must be asking, "How did Bin Laden make it for nearly 10 years in Pakistan without being caught?" He wasn't even deep in a remote mountain area; he was in a relatively safe and populated town near Islamabad (people less than 1km away were tweeting about the noise from the American helicopters). Is Pakistan's intelligence service lacking in competence, or loyalty? Did Bin Laden have inside help? The US will need to figure this out.

Implications (Answering the "So What?"s hanging out there):

1) Al Qaeda Leadership: Damaged some, though not necessarily in any serious operational capacity. Al Qaeda became a relatively independent "cell" network that did sometimes interact with central leadership, but not terribly often. Tactics are generally left to the cells, and strategic (even if not "visionary") leadership is currently delegated to regional authorities (like Al Qaeda of the Arabian Penninsula, Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, etc).

Visionary leadership may well end up being lacking for Al Qaeda, but it may have been lacking for some time now. Bin Laden's grainy audio messages to go bomb this country or that country have largely failed to inspire any results, even if a few extremists were inspired to try.

2) The ground situation in Afghanistan: Little to no effect. Al Qaeda has been driven into Pakistan, and NATO is currently fighting a nationalist Islamist movement (the Taliban) rather than a transnationalist movement. The Taliban are certainly "bad guys" in the Western moral sense (in a much more clearly morally outrageous way than, say, the Viet Cong), but don't answer to Bin Laden and largely don't support his views of transnationalist Jihad. The Afghanistan "ground" situation won't change--the US hasn't beheaded the Taliban's leadership.

3) US Strategy: Ultimately, the signs are generally pointing to the fact that we may be slow to accept: that Al Qaeda, while still technically "in existence," is largely eliminated as a threat to the US. Other Islamist networks exist (in Algeria, in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia), but they have little traction to go transnational.

Not because of Bin Laden's death, but based on leading indicators from the response worldwide to Bin Laden's death, it may be increasingly clear: the War on Terror is won. Transnational terror movements are fractured and unpopular; the Arab world is more concerned with nationalism and democratic reform than it is with beating back the spread of Western culture through jihad.

Not to say there aren't many, many problems remaining in the Middle East. The US cannot ignore the region, but it can largely move towards a state where it is no longer burning its resources--and losing its sons--to the region.

The Coming North/South Sudan Split

I had the pleasure of doing some work Conflict Dynamics (a UN-partner NGO) on the question of Sudanese independence. My boss at the time (Gerard Hughes) was contracted to do some work on alternative models for the South Sudanese independence vote coming in 2011.

(Background: the vote was part of a peace deal ending a 30-year civil war between the predominantly black traditionalist/spiritualist south and predominantly Arab Muslim north.)

In short, there are a number of models out there that exist in a continuous spectrum between "unity state" and "two separate unity states." There are a number of "federal" style unions, including the US, Germany, Russia, UAE, Bosnia, etc, that have varying levels of legal autonomy at the state level, and (at least) unified defense and representation at the central level. The EU represents a union of a number of states, but with free transit/trade across borders, and some collectivization of resources, defense, etc. Other options exist, too. In fact, Sudan already had a semi-federal state where the South was given some legal autonomy.

Ultimately, I left Conflict Dynamics before we finished the work, but the report that came out aimed to help the UN, AU, and North/South Sudanese governments create options besides total unity and total independence. If implemented, the risk was (of course) confusion as to the details of an arrangement, which could make the referendum a disaster.

In the end, the report (and those of us that worked on it) were unable to garner political support for a more complex, nuanced relationship between North and South Sudan, and the referendum is coming, with two options: Unity and Independence (see photo). And last I checked, the measure had over 90% support amongst Southern Sudanese, who see it as an obviously better alternative than growing closer to Khartoum. Let's assume the referendum will pass.

The result is likely to be disastrous. Southern Sudan has most of Sudan's oil. Currently, a wealth-sharing mechanism is in place, but there's no plan in place for wealth-sharing after independence. Khartoum will lose a great deal of money... and Southern Sudan will be land-locked, and will likely have to pipe its oil through Northern Sudan, anyway. Piping costs will be a massive point of contention.

Three regions between Northern and Southern Sudan are in conflict (as to which side they belong). Only one is going to have a referendum on its choice for sides in 2011--the other two have no solid plans as of yet.

Northern Sudan is currently accusing Southern Sudan of supporting Darfuri rebels, and threatening war.

And, generally, there remain many displaced people (from the war) on either side of the border, and where they fall out in the census is questionable.

But ultimately, oil is going to be the big sticking point, and there's likely not a great solution for it that can be built after the referendum. I could be wrong, but the two sides are sufficiently uninterested in productive discussion, and the groups leading the mediation are sufficiently ineffective, that war may be coming. Again. Even if the disputed territories (disputed largely due to being chock-full of oil) are resolved "democratically," neither side is interested in accepting defeat and establishing a status quo out of their favor.

And, in the end, the great powers have very little interest in doing more than making enough noise to look like they're not ignoring the situation. Strategically, war would lead to a number of interesting alliances. Darfur and Southern Sudan would almost certainly combine their efforts (if the JEM is interested in independence, as well), and may even see more support from Chad and Eritria if victory looks possible. Al-Bashir, though, will shore up military support he needs before engaging in war, and may well gain support from Egypt and China, both of whom have a strong strategic interest in political stability and central power in oil-rich Sudan.

It'll be a situation worth keeping an eye on, and one that might begin chewing through one of the few tentative areas of peace in east Africa.

The American Response to the Korean Provocation

There are a few potential reasons for the North Korean artillery attack on a disputed South Korean island, and a few potential responses. Both are likely more complicated than meets the eye.

Potential Reasons for Attack
1) Kim is trying to re-set the "red line." In order to make sure it can secure a working nuclear weapons and deployment system, Kim Jong-Il might be trying to re-set what behavior actually leads to war (such that the nuclear program won't).

2) Kim Jong-Un is trying to display his power. Kim's successor may be trying to show domestic and international players that he is strong-armed and sufficiently aggressive that nobody thinks the shift in power will lead to a period of "softness" which could be taken advantage of.

3) An anti-Kim faction within the North Korean military may be trying to weaken the regime. After Kim Jong-Il came to power, a purge of military leadership struck fear into Kim's enemies, but also bolstered their sense of cohesion. Worries of another purge--or simply a sense of opportunism with the change of leadership--may be leading such a faction to provoke South Korea and the West into taking moves to weaken the Kim regime, up to war. Such a weakness or chaos might present an opportunity to stage a coup and replace the leadership.


Potential Responses by South Korean and Allies
1) The current response: the US joins South Korea's military exercises. The artillery shelling came during annual South Korean inter-service exercises in the Yellow Sea (which may tell us something about its motivations in North Korea). South Korea's response is measured, but the US has sent a carrier battle group to join the exercises. This serves both as a reaffirming of its commitment to South Korea's security, and also leaves open the option of precision air strikes against North Korea in the near future. Ths risk is that this response may look weak.

2) A tit-for-tat response. South Korea might attempt to show that it won't tolerate unprovoked attacks by reacting similarly: hitting a North Korean base. The risk is that North Korea may choose to escalate to show that it's willing to keep pushing to make sure it has the upper hand.

3) Tough sanctions. The US could rally a coalition for more sanctions against North Korea, but it's running out of options. Already, most countries avoid trading to North Korea in luxury goods (particularly those of which Kim Jong-Il is quite fond, like Mercedes cars). Broad sanctions would hurt an already-starving population, and would likely bolster North Korea's support for the regime, thus presenting a positive feedback to the North Korean military.

4) Significant escalation. South Korea could launch heavy surprise strikes against North Korea, both damaging its ability to wage war, and delivering an unambiguous message that further provocations would lead to destruction of the North Korean military (as South Korea would not make this move without US and Japanese support). The risk here is that North Korea would respond with artillery strikes against Seoul, where 25% of the South's population lives. Currently, North Korean artillery is so numerous and well-bunkered that it would be nigh-impossible to eliminate it before serious civilian tolls were suffered in Seoul.


The Chinese Response
The Chinese response has been intentionally cautious. North Korea as a tenuous ally has proven a liability, but China is largely unable to stop supporting the regime. If the regime collapses partially or entirely, China would be left with a humanitarian disaster and a refugee flood at its border (and under the Geneva conventions, it would be required to give them "reasonable" accommodation). China's current approach to North Korea is to make sure that the regime in power--whatever it may be--is stable. Unfortunately for China, this means supporting a temperamental and unpredictable Kim. At the same time, China will try to keep Kim in line as much as possible.

But Kim knows China is unable to stop its support, so China cannot use it as a serious threat (much like Israel knows the US is unwilling to drop its support entirely, and therefore the US cannot use it as a bargaining chip). China will need to find a way to temper North Korea's behaviour if it is going to be able to keep South Korea as a friend and trading partner (lest it lose South Korea to US/Japanese influence entirely).

Wisdom in the US Response
The US response shows strength and initiative to not only North Korea and China, but to the entire world. This is particularly important in a time when countries like Iran and Russia might see the US as exhausted or resource-drained from its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The movement of its carrier battle group reminds potential rivals that its sea and air forces--the primary implements it would bring to bear in any engagement that wasn't a full-scale invasion--are still free, well-funded, and willing to move.

It also shores up South Korea's confidence in the US, which has balked at supporting countries like Georgia, Poland, and the Czech Republic against growing Russian influence and assertiveness. The move has marginally damaged relations with China, but the United States is showing South Korea that such damage is worth it in order to stick to its obligations.

A Petraeus-Style Plan Emerges in Afghanistan

It's being called "Inteqal," which is both Pashtu and Dari for "Transition." It's the NATO / Kabul plan (masterminded by General Petraeus) for a phased transition of military control, by province, to the Afghan military and police force.

The fact that there's a plan doesn't necessarily mean that it will work. Even if it's a good plan, it needs excellent execution to achieve "victory" (where "victory" is a very difficult and vague definition, anyway). But, holy smokes, it's a plan, which is something the Afghan War has seriously lacked for the last 8 years.

The concept very closely maps the Iraqi transition plan (my blog posts in 2008 focused largely on tracking the progress of this transition plan). Similar to Iraq, Afghanistan's map will now be colored red, orange, yellow, light green, dark green (indicating, respectfully: Not Ready for Transition, Partially Ready for Transition, Ready for Transition, Transitioning Within Six Months, and Transition Complete). The idea is that NATO develops capability internally in the "easier" provinces, transitions them, and consolidates its forces to progressively more "difficult" provinces.

This kind of plan has two advantages: first, it gives the Afghan Army and Police (as well as civil administrative) forces "practice" in these early-transition provinces, such that the kinks can be worked out in a lower-risk environment. Second, it gives NATO forces an opportunity to progressively consolidate, which allows them to maintain security forces in more hotly contested provinces, even as the troop draw-down begins. the plan has some merit.

Unfortunately for the sake of my curiosity, Petraeus is not keen on publishing the transition plan right now, lest it arm the Taliban with a document around which to develop a detailed strategy. But we can know a few of the provinces coming soon (like Herat), as well as some of those definitely not being transitioned for a while (like Helmand and Khandahar).

Small outposts and bases have already been transitioned--in part as a trial for the strategy, and in part due to the need to show progress.

The plan is good--though progress may need to be measured with some skepticism. The fact that a province is "transitioned" does not necessarily mean it's secure. With a pullout schedule looming over US forces, Petraeus will be under the gun to move quickly with the transition. The risk, of course, is that the "early" provinces are transitioned quickly in order to maximize security presence in Khandahar, Helmand, and Zabol.

Furthermore, NATO has to define the end-game. The Taliban are not going to disappear before NATO leaves. There is much talk of negotiations, but it's not clear whether those are actually happening.

In the end, this plan needs to be able to pose the following threat: "The Taliban cannot reach a sweeping victory after NATO leaves. A continued civil war will be a bloody stalemate." If such a threat is credible, negotiations can begin in earnest. Therefore, while Petraeus cannot divulge the details of the transition plan, results and progress will need to be publicized impressively, to put the Taliban in a position where it makes sense to seriously consider collaboration.

What the Afghan Endgame Looks Like

The Taliban don't want a protracted civil war in Afghanistan. This seems difficult to comprehend, given the last 30 years or so of fighting.

But it should be made clear right away--fighting an invading power is much different from fighting a full-on internal civil war. Defeating an occupying power requires great patience, but the Taliban can largely avoid losing major resources and manpower by avoiding a NATO army that is not large enough to cover the entire country.

Fighting a civil war is much different. No waiting will do--fighting against the central government and its own Warlord allies will be a knock-down drag-out war of attrition, and one the Taliban may well not win, if US intelligence and drone attacks remain on Kabul's side. Such a civil war would be devastating, even if the Taliban won.

This scenario is very unlike the complete power vacuum left when the Soviet Union withdrew--the Soviets had not conducted in massive, extensive state-building that NATO has. The central government may not have driven the Taliban out of much of the country, but it does not mean the Taliban is close to secure.

The other point worth keeping in mind right now is that a player in a war or other disagreement wants most to negotiate when its relative advantage is peaking--that is, the point that it's going to be able to squeeze the most out of the other side. After peaking, time erodes the advantage, and less can be won.

Thus, the Taliban are coming to negotiate. Not the big-wigs (like Mullah Omar), but some of the elite near the middle that are feeling the pinch and the pain. Omar himself can't afford to appear to be willing to negotiate with an occupying power for an instant--too large a proportion of his followers (as well as is Pakistani ISI patrons) oppose such negotiations, and are likely to outright kill him if he becomes a collaborator.

The same risk applies to the leaders coming to negotiate. That said, they are not nearly as safe as they used to be in Pakistan, given the uptick in the frequency and success of US drone attacks against leadership of this level.

NATO is doing an excellent job of promising and reliably giving safe transport and harbor to those coming to negotiate--it might be personally safer for many of these leaders to come to talk, rather than hide in Pakistan.

But, ultimately, the top Taliban leadership is not declaring any readiness to negotiate--even if they may be leaning towards it. But in the end, the Taliban will not be able to sweep through Afghanistan and claim victory as NATO leaves. There will either be a negotiated settlement or a crippling civil war, and the former is more likely.

The biggest deciding factor for the top Taliban leadership will be whether they actually think their advantage is going to grow into the future. If it becomes obvious that their bargaining position is declining, the hard line against negotiations from the top will begin to soften--and many of the middle-level elite leaders will already have the initiative in talks.

US Attack Plan: Posturing with Iran

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chariman Adm. Mullen said today that the United States has a plan of attack for Iran in order to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Such a declaration is an incredibly important (and unsubtle) part of a US intimidation/containment strategy with Iran in order to prevent such an acquisition from happening.

By announcing these plans, the US is publicly showing that, despite its draining presence in Afghanistan, it is willing to commit to striking Iran's nuclear infrastructure and dealing with the painful consequences. In short, it made it clear that a nuclear Iran is a worse scenario than a war with Iran.

With that clarity, of course, Tehran must try to guess whether the US is bluffing, or if it's serious. If it's serious, Tehran must seriously begin re-thinking its decision to pursue nuclear weapons.

The US air force and navy are minimally committed in Afghanistan, and have bases all around Iran (and can invade the Persian Gulf very easily). Iran's anti-air infrastructure would probably quickly crumble, allowing the US air forces to move with relative ease throughout Iran, and blockade the country from oil experts.

The most negative consequences for the US would likely be unconventional:
-The Chinese and Russians have strong economic/oil ties to Iran, and would protest furiously, if for no other reason than to make sure the oil keeps coming.
-Iran has a lot of power over Hezbollah, Hamas, and groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. No doubt, it could make life very difficult for the United States.
-There is some risk of alienating the anti-Iranian coalition, but odds are good that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey would be, generally, in support of such action. Jordan and Syria would be the toss-ups.
-The Revolutionary Guard could actually be highly disruptive in Iraq, although if the US is able to bomb out roads heading towards Iraq, it could mitigate such issues.

Attacking Iran would be seriously costly in a number of ways, but if the US is actually committed to it (it likely is--the US has never been caught bluffing since the Bay of Pigs and the anti-Soviet Hungarian Revolution).

This could be a game-changer in the Iranian nuclear contest.

An Afghan Exit Strategy

A conference in Kabul was held today about the international exit strategy from Afghanistan. A few things came out of it:

1) There's a goal date for Afghan Army leadership of every province in the country for 2014. Karzai and international forces are agreed on it (though it's non-binding).
2) The US will still keep drawing down forces in 2011. It will probably start slow--it's not the optimal time to draw down, but Obama has domestic promises he'll need to keep.

That said, let's think about the strategy itself.

First, what's the minimum goal of ISAF? To prevent an al-Qaeda (or other anti-Western international terror force) from taking hold. Certainly, if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan (or controls a large portion of it in a stable way), the risks of this will be very high--the war will be a failure.

The more control that the Kabul government has over Afghanistan, and the weaker the Taliban is, the higher the chances a pro-Western stable equilibrium will arise. Thus all the focus on state-building.

But at the end of the day, Afghanistan does not even have to be as strong and stable as Iraq to be a "success." That said, they're very different situations--Iraq was mostly a sectarian civil war, and Afghanistan is mostly an ideological insurgency (a la Vietnam, as much as that's a scary thought).

The strategy suddenly sounds a lot like the Petraeus strategy in Iraq. It includes:
1) Get the troops out onto the ground. Have them standing side-by-side with Afghani soldiers as patrollers in the streets. This not only trains the Afghani soldiers, but helps keep NATO soldiers looking like the good guys.
2) Focus on handing over one province at a time. Kabul will need to slowly and gradually develop its statecraft. Readers from 2006/2007 may remember Foggofwar's close tracking of the progress of province handover. I continue to believe this will be an important performance indicator. The strategy will allow NATO to continually consolidate troops into more and more troublesome provinces, as "easier" provinces are taken by Afghani troops. The "easier" provinces will provide areas to build experience for the Afghani Army, so that veterans can be cycled to "tougher" provinces that fall under Afghani control after stints in these "easier" provinces.
3) A focus on aggressive raids. The trick here will be to continually deny safe haven to the Taliban. Special forces should be employed at night to make it as scary for the Taliban to sleep as it is for pro-Western collaborators. Constant raids in Iraq against al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups went a long way in eliminating the actual insurgent part of the war.

Some new parts of the strategy:
1) A high reliance on Pakistan. The US needs to continue to be very diplomatic with the Pakistani people. Luckily for the US, it has managed to make drone bombings in northwest Pakistan enough of a status quo that it doesn't seem to be making the Pakistani people angrier. The US will almost certainly be sending special ops to assist Pakistan in offensives in Northern Waziristan and other hot spots to deny the Taliban cross-border support and organization. We'll continue to stress here at Foggofwar the importance of making sure there aren't "safe zones" for the Taliban to fall back, regroup, heal, resupply, organize, command, communicate, etc. It must be made into a fractured and confused force if it can be broken.
Pakistan also has a fair amount of success in breaking the Pakistani Taliban, though the Pakistani Taliban is generally considered to be "softer" and less experienced than its Afghani counterparts (who have been fighting a tough guerrilla war for most of the last 25 years). That said, lessons can be learned by the thoroughness of the Pakistani offensives.
2) Dealing with supply problems. Iraq really had few supply problems for the US. Basrah, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia all provided easy entry points for supplies. As news of attacks on NATO supply convoys in Pakistan/Afghanistan suggests, NATO must sometimes operate with fewer supplies than it would like. This can easily hamper offensive efforts.

That said, conditions in Afghanistan are currently terrible. Roadside bombings in Q1 2010 are double those in Q1 2009. June was the deadliest month in the 9-year war for ISAF forces. A previous post of mine suggests that this may be a better sign thatn one would immediately think, but it does indeed still risk running ISAF (or parts of it) out of Afghanistan. For every country that breaks and peels away, the Taliban strikes a victory.

They also have control of most of the southwest of the country--it's a big territory with a fair number of people. Getting potential sympathisers to work with the Afghan government will require such a massive and sustained disruption of Taliban operations there that they cannot hunt and kill the sympathisers at night--one of their most effective terror tactics.

Going forward, NATO will have to keep drone missiles, special ops, and the occasional small offensive in the Pashtun region (along with brilliant cooperation with Pakistan into the north) as it consolidates northern provinces under Afghani government control, in order to prevent the Taliban from mobilizing into a full offensive itself. As the Afghani Army grows, NATO will need to prepare a full invasion force--prepped by special operations, spearheaded by the Marines & Army, and then garrison by massive numbers of Afghani police and army, to take control of the Pashtun region. It will need to be huge, swift, and incredibly costly.

The exit strategy is a tough one. This is a much more difficult war than Iraq ever was. Ultimately, it will depend on being able to win over parts of the Taliban, and breaking the top-level leadership to prevent sufficient collaboration by the various Taliban factions for a full takeover.

Afghan War Intensity Up--A Sign of Hope?

100 ISAF servicemen died in June--the most since the Afghanistan war began. it's a terrible number and a tragedy, absolutely.

But: there is a sign of hope in the increased intensity of the Afghan war.

The Taliban is increasingly on the offensive--bold (and sometimes reckless) attacks against American and Afghani targets are well on the upswing.

What's this mean? Why the change? The easy answer is to say, "they're getting stronger, and want to deal a finishing blow." This is, certainly, what the attacks are meant to imply.

But the story is more complicated.

The question to ask is: what is the Taliban's winning strategy?

The answer, by the way, is to wait out the US. The US will leave eventually. It will not stay there forever. If the Taliban can slowly swell its safe base of operations, it will win, as the US will eventually grow tired and fade away.

Three series of events are happening in parallel:
1) The US is stepping up drone/special operations in Taliban strongholds in Southern Afghanistan (like Helmand).
2) Pakistan is stepping up full-scale military assaults in Taliban strongholds in northern Pakistan (like Swat and Northern Waziristan).
3) The Taliban is stepping up bold offensives against the Pakistani Government, the Afghani Government, and ISAF.

I think you might be able to see where I am going.

Why the boldness, if the Taliban wants to wait for the US to leave?

The obvious guess is that the wait-it-out strategy is not currently viable.

ISAF and Pakistan are working together on an offensive. As we saw in Iraq, offensives cost lives. They hurt, the numbers look bad, and the American public grows quickly impatient.

But, potentially, they work. Certainly, a lack of offensives will fail. Preventing at all turns a stronghold for the enemy is a necessary (though not sufficient) part of COIN. It seems like this costly measure is starting to pay off: bold Taliban attacks on ISAF sites imply that there may be a desperation on the part of the Taliban to pressure NATO out of Afghanistan quickly. If that's the case, then the Taliban thinks that waiting is no longer in its favor.

The alternative hypothesis is that the Taliban is so strong that it's trying to deliver the "final blow." First, this doesn't make particular sense, strategically--the Taliban is traditionally quite terrible against ISAF in straight-up gun battles, as the past month has shown. If the waiting-game is a winning strategy, then there's no reason the Taliban would grow impatient and start putting its fighters at higher risk. It's been fighting a 25-year war for Independence. Its time horizon is much longer than a few months.

Second, the US is already scheduled to start pulling out of Afghanistan--there is no particular need or reason to try to "hurry" them. This is the perfect situation to, if possible, keep the "wait-it-out" strategy going.

If the Taliban is on the offensive, it's because it can't be on the defensive. Its strongholds and safe areas are being threatened and broken up. For sure, we know its lines of communication are being disrupted--making its attacks decreasingly coordinated and effective.

There is hope. There is a whole lot more to do than disrupting the Taliban's footing in the AfPak region to ensure victory in Afghanistan. But it is necessarily the first and most important step in winning the war (creating a stable, functional, credible central government to take its place is another story altogether).

Keep your eyes up in the next few months for Petraeus to continue to apply his modified strategy from Iraq--potentially successfully.

NATO's Persistent Karzai Problem

It's tough propping up a government when said government seems to want to fight you every step of the way.

Hamid Karzai has gone on a recent bender of accusations against, in particular, the United States, but also the UN and NATO in general. The particular meat of the accusations is that Western powers have "meddled" unjustly in Afghan elections, undermining the legitimacy of said elections and giving the Taliban a political talking point (specifically, the most recent rants mention the throwing out of 1/3 of the votes for Karzai in the first round of presidential elections).

The accusation is probably rather preposterous, but I might be wrong. Either way, the lower house of the Afghan parliament unanimously (that being everyone) voted against Karzai's decree that the UN can no longer hold 3/5 majority of the electoral fraud commission--instead, Karzai would himself appoint the entire body. Unfortunately, the upper house (1/3 of which are hand-picked by Karzai) decided that, procedurally, they could not vote on the matter within a year of the elections. Unfortunately, this means the decree will stand. for the indefinite future.

This isn't the first worrisome think Karzai has said about his relationship with the West. Recently, a visit by Ahmedinejad prompted Karzai to call him a "brother" and otherwise generally cozy up to Tehran. Karzai occasionally has fits about throwing out the Western occupiers, despite his dependence on them to keep his government afloat.

Karzai is, no doubt, a very frustrating character for the West. Somehow, the US has managed to build a relatively rosy relationship with a country that it is illegally invading and drone-missile-attacking to squash a Taliban force that said country has some interest in maintaining (this, of course, being Pakistan), but has not managed to keep on good terms with the tinpot dictator it's trying to support. I'm not quite sure whether Clinton has muttered the words, "Well, if you really don't want us..." but Karzai might just understand that the US (and in particular, the administration) has so much to lose that unilateral withdrawal is just not an option--and if that's the case, Karzai has a great bargaining position, despite his relatively flaky power.

It's not actually all that uncommon for a propping state to have trouble keeping its client state's leadership in line. al-Maliki has been a mostly excellent partner to work with, but this is the exception. The US and UK often fight bitterly with Israel; the US leadership groaned famously over the Saigon government in Vietnam, the KMT/GMD in the Chinese Civil War, etc.

But the question that comes to mind is this: why should Karzai be such a darn pain the butt? What incentive does he have to make the lives of the US leadership as difficult as he does? Wouldn't his life be easier if he wasn't publicly ripping into his supporters? Can't we all just get along?

Well, as you probably know, Karzai's in a pretty tricky position. As much as he loathes the Taliban at a very personal level, Afghanistan is obviously a very long way from being a Taliban vs. anti-Taliban kind of show. All those pesky warlords, tribes, ethnic groups, and what have you make Iraq look like Disneyland in terms of being able to reach a unified consensus and build a unified state.

At the end of the day, Karzai's got to make a lot of rather unsavory people happy enough that they won't directly challenge his claim to power. He's also got to build legitimacy with the general population, so they'll throw support behind him directly (meaning that the other power players in Afghanistan also have to side with Karzai to keep their own popularity and legitimacy). Karzai's in a rather precarious position.

And so, of course he's going to be rather cross when a little election fraud here and there (which he may not have even ordered personally) gets dragged out of the gutter and displayed for all to see--it's going to cast a whole lot of doubt on his personal legitimacy that he probably believes would not be cast if everything looked peachy. At the same time, of course he's going to get friendly with the Iranians--Iran and Afghanistan share a border, and Afghanistan's got a non-trivial Farsi-speaking minority that Karzai needs in his opus-coalition in order to keep power.

And it makes sense that Karzai would call Clinton right after to apologise--there may be a frustrated understanding that Karzai has to look tough against the US in order to try to build legitimacy among (the winnable) tougher nationalists or Islamists, and to show that he isn't implicitly condoning the prevailing impression of election fraud (without selling out the ground-level loyalists that worked so hard to stuff ballots and intimidate voters--such a rebuke would seem like an implicit betrayal).

So the guy's in a pretty tough position. Combine said position with a truly maniacal obsession with defeating the Taliban, a slightly-bigger-than-healthy paranoia, and a penchant for micromanaging that verges on power-obsession, and you've got the Karzai we know and groan today.

But what can be done about it? Well, this is the tough part. Ultimately, the leadership positions of Afghanistan need to be shored up without turning them into tyrants in order to do so.

The big win is probably going to come in developing the Afghan army. When regular folks in Afghanistan see the friendly neighborhood soldier keeping them safe and helping them out, there will be a lot more state buy-in. This can, in theory, be done in time (the New Iraqi Army was mostly built from scratch after the US de-Ba'athification... but it was tough). Furthermore, said army will make the local warlords a decreasingly viable alternative and decreasingly important force in the new Afghanistan.

Second, NATO has to show that the Taliban is a losing alternative. To this end, first, NATO needs big, flashy, high-profile victories in places like Marjah (which haven't yet been delivered, because they are militarily difficult). Second, NATO needs to win the PR war by showing that the Taliban are actually baby-killing extremist nutbags, and won't make life better for the average Afghani. Somehow, this is easier said than done.

Finally, the local police & administration need to be developed. This will be toughest of all. As you've probably heard a bunch, Afghanistan is not used to having any sort of serious central authority. Current administration is underpaid and corrupt, either selling out the central government for cash (usually from the Taliban) or thugging on locals to help prop up their warlord, or even the state. (Step one here is clearly to use our vast sums of wealth to start paying police officers more, and hire cross-functional accountability officers).

But it's going to be tough. Karzai's going to continue to be a problem for the West, and the West is going to have to live with it and work with it, or lose Afghanistan. But the friction between Washington and Kabul shows that we've got a very, very long way to go.