Quotulatiousness

July 6, 2012

US Navy re-thinks their Pacific strategy options

Filed under: China, Military, Pacific, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:07

Strategy Page discusses the historical uses of the submarine in the Pacific and why things would not be the same in the case of a Chinese war:

The U.S. Navy is rethinking how it will use its submarines in a future Pacific War. The problem is that a campaign against Chinese shipping is unlikely, in part because of what actually happened during the last great anti-shipping campaign, which occurred during World War II (1939-45). After the war, the U.S. analyzed its operations against Japanese shipping and found that submarines were important, but not the only weapon effective against shipping. Some 8.9 million tons of Japanese shipping was sunk or so seriously damaged (disabled) at the end of the war. Submarines accounted for 54.7 percent of this. But 16.3 percent was attributable to carrier-based aircraft, 14.5 percent to land- based planes and 9.3 percent to mines (most dropped by B-29s). Less than one percent was due to surface gunfire, and the balance of 4 percent was caused by accidents.

[. . .]

Meanwhile, the U.S. has adopted a new approach to any potential war with China. The U.S. Department of Defense has been told that, for the foreseeable future, there will be no more large-scale land campaigns. The air force, navy, and marines responded with a plan (AirSea Battle) that has been in the work for years. The new strategy is designed to cope with the rising power of China in the Pacific. AirSea Battle involves tighter planning and coordination of navy, marine, and navy forces, plus the development of some new weapons and tactics and cooperation with allies.

[. . .]

AirSea battle concentrates on military operations. But these will be heavily influenced by economic factors. For example, during World War II the United States was a largely self-sufficient “continental power.” We exported much (more than any other nation on the planet), but did not have to import much. That has changed. Now the U.S. has to import a lot of its oil, special raw materials (like “rare earths” from China) and a lot of manufactured goods. The U.S. is now like much of the rest of the world, China included. If there were a maritime blockade of China, the U.S. and many other Chinese trading partners would suffer severe economic disruptions. There would be massive unemployment for all concerned and that would happen despite energetic efforts by everyone to find alternative sources to goods no longer available because of the disruption of the China trade.

[. . .]

Meanwhile, the nuclear submarine community has done the math and found that their greatest contribution these days is not attacking enemy warships, but land bombardment with cruise missiles and intelligence collecting. Since the first nuclear subs showed up in the 1950s, only one, a British boat, has used a torpedo to sink a hostile warship. But hundreds of cruise missiles have been launched at land targets and uncounted (because they are highly classified) intelligence missions have been, and continue to be, carried out. All that is the recent past for subs, and is likely to be the future as well. World War II in the Pacific is not likely to be rerun. The U.S. Navy still expects its subs to go after enemy warships, and its surface and air forces to battle enemy subs. But a major war on shipping is much less likely.

June 30, 2012

Thai farm workers arrested for “causing global warming”

Filed under: Asia, Environment, Food, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:29

A weird little story from Thailand:

PHETCHABUN – Early one Thursday morning, a gun was pointed at Ms. Kwanla Saikhumtung, a 34-year-old mother, because she was farming.

The man who pointed the gun was one of ten armed officers from Phu Pha Daeng, the local wildlife sanctuary in Lomsak district. After observing the villagers for three days, the officers finally informed Ms. Kwanla and twelve fellow villagers from Huay Kontha that they were trespassing on wildlife sanctuary land. They demanded that the villagers come to the police station to talk with them.

They refused. The villager that hired them paid taxes on the plot, leading the villagers to believe they had a right to work the land, and they worried about finishing their work.

[. . .]

This incident was the beginning of a seven-year-long legal battle, pitting Ms. Kwanla against the Thai government. She and the other twelve villagers — the youngest only sixteen at the time — were first charged with trespassing.

The real shock, however, came when they were slapped with a 470,000 baht fine for contributing to global warming under the charge of causing environmental damage.

[. . .]

The Royal Forestry Department (RFD) fined the villagers for cutting down trees and farming, drawing from the 1992 National Environmental Quality Act which forbids “destruction, loss, or damage to natural resources owned by the State.” Their fine was determined according to a formula used to calculate environmental damage. The formula measures the increase in temperature caused by cutting down trees. Any increase in the land temperature shows ‘global warming’. In essence, cutting down trees to farm corn leads to global warming.

The Huay Kontha villagers have a running joke, “Because we pick the corn, the world gets hotter.”

The charges that Ms. Kwanla and the other villagers face shed light on an emerging trend in Thailand. Land dispute issues are becoming increasingly common. According to Pramote Pholpinyo, coordinator of the Northeast Land Reform Network (LRN), there are currently 35-40 “global warming” cases against villagers in Thailand, with charges amounting to almost 33 million baht.

H/T to Anthony Watts for the link.

June 29, 2012

From Maoism to Kleptocracy in one generation

Filed under: Business, China, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:14

China’s economic growth has been one of the wonders of the modern world, as one of the poorest nations has pulled itself well up the economic tables over just the last twenty years. What it has not done, however, is replace the communist leadership with democratically elected leaders. What has happened is that switching from a pure command economy to a freer economy has created fantastic opportunities for graft and corruption. Opportunities which have been grasped eagerly by party leaders and their friends and family:

As I set out in The Fall of the Communist Dynasty, and a HT to John Hempton’s piece within which he contends that the entire Chinese economy is a Kleptocracy , this week we have news from Citron Research who reports that Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd is ‘a deception on a grande scale’ .

Citron quote ;-

‘Evergrande who ranks among the top 5 Chinese property companies. Our analysis and primary research reveal that: 1] Evergrande is insolvent; and 2] Evergrande will be severely challenged from a liquidity perspective. The Company’s management has applied at least 6 accounting shenanigans to mask Evergrande’s insolvency. Our research indicates that a total write-­down of RMB 71bn is required and Evergrande’s pro forma equity is negative 36bn.’

What sparked Citrons interest in Evergrande was the mail order doctorate the chairman claimed from the University of West Alabama, a small college 230 miles north of New Orleans with 2300 on-campus students. Evergrande’s is one of the top 5 players in the Chinese property market that fell for its 8th consecutive month in May. My experience with these types of matters is that small things can be excellent markers to greater problems. Small examples of dishonesty in one area of life are often reflected in larger undiscovered examples in other areas of a person’s life.

[. . .]

Zoomlion has an interesting business model, it is similar in many of ways to Caterpillar, except whereas Caterpillar report falling sales, Zoomlion reports astounding sales growth with a fivefold increase in revenue since 2007. Zoomlion customers sometimes buy ten concrete mixers when they planned to initially by one or two. They have a perverse incentive to buy more than they need because these concrete trucks are purchased via finance packages supplied by Zoomlion.

Then the machines can be garaged and used as collateral to borrow further funds from other lenders. Zoomlion continues to grow while cement sales have plunged. In May, cement output increased 4.3 per cent YoY, down from 19.2 per cent recorded last year. Zoomlion’s new debt of $22.5B buys roughly 900,000 trucks which could produce enough concrete (at six loads a day) to build over thirty Great Pyramids of Giza a day.

[. . .]

All revolutions have class and economic matters at their core. Ironically, the difference in a future Chinese collapse is that the expropriators in China in this cycle have been the Communist Party political class. The CCP have become the Kleptopreneur bourgeoisie who have expropriated from China’s proletariat (the industrial working class), via corruption and theft from the state and state owned enterprises. The Ka-Ching Dynasty is responsible for the greatest looting of a nation in history.

Marx wrote that modern bourgeois society (Capitalism) has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells (Karl Marx)

The CCP ‘sorcerers’ have summoned up a political and economic nether world that is so systemically corrupted it is in the process of spiralling into same revolutionary physics that destroyed the original Chinese merchant bourgeoisie that Mao overthrew.

Earlier posts on China’s economy are here. H/T to Cory Doctorow for the link.

June 28, 2012

Don’t expect Korean re-unification to follow the German script of the 1990s

Filed under: Asia, China, Japan, Media, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:03

Some potentially chilling geo-strategic news from China:

The government has had reports issued denying American and Japanese studies of the rapid expansion of Chinese military power in the last decade. The Chinese reports were issued in Chinese, English and Japanese. China’s official line is that their armed forces are only for defense and are growing at a far more modest rate than foreign analysts are claiming. The Chinese are having a hard time refuting the foreign analysts, given the availability of satellite photos and many cell phone images of new Chinese weapons. China tries to control this sort of information leak, but has been unable to do so.

Another problem for China is the fact that internal propaganda campaigns cannot be kept secret from the outside world. This was never possible, but even with a heavily censored Chinese Internet, such embarrassing news quickly gets to an international audience very quickly. The latest example of this is remarks by Chinese officials about the “Great Wall of China.” The new claims are that the wall was larger than its current official size, and incorporates parts of North Korea. This was alarming news in South Korea, which is preparing to take over North Korea when the communist dictatorship up there collapses. The collapse is expected soon. With this new “Great Wall” argument the Chinese are announcing that if the North Korean government losses control, China will reclaim some “lost provinces” and the foreigners (including South Korea, Japan and the United States) had better stay out of it.

Given the Chinese claims in the South China Sea (that is, almost all of it), it is probably no surprise to the other nations that China might also have designs on part or all of the territory of modern day North Korea. When the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) collapsed in the early 1990s, the Federal Republic (West Germany) was able to pick up the pieces in a relatively co-ordinated manner. China may not want South Korea doing the same thing after a North Korean collapse.

June 26, 2012

China’s aircraft carrier moves closer to operational status

Filed under: China, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:13

And update from Strategy Page on the Chinese aircraft carrier Shi Lang:

China’s first aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang (formerly the Russian Varyag), recently went to sea for the eighth time since it began sea trials last August. The latest trip is to last 13 days. The previous longest trip was last November 28, when the Shi Lang went out for 12 days. The first trip (last August 11) was for three days, most subsequent ones were for 9-11 days. So far, the Shi Lang has been at sea for ten weeks. All preparations have been made for flight operations, which have not taken place yet.

The Shi Lang has apparently performed well during these extended sea trials. Three months ago some aircraft were spotted on the flight deck. This was probably to make sure aircraft could be moved around the deck, and down to the hanger deck, without any problems. Last year China confirmed that the Shi Lang will primarily be a training carrier. The Chinese Navy is supposed to take possession of the Shi Lang later this year. The Chinese apparently plan to station up to 24 jet fighters and 26 helicopters on the Shi Lang.

[. . .]

China is believed to be building the first of several locally designed aircraft carriers but little is known of this project. The only official announcements have alluded to the need for two or three aircraft carriers, in addition to the Shi Lang. Construction of such large ships has not yet been seen in any shipyard.

Earlier posts on the Chinese carrier program are here.

June 18, 2012

Speculation on the intended mission of the X-37B

Filed under: China, Space, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:24

A blog post at New Scientist compares the achievement of the Chinese space program, which just successfully placed three astronauts aboard the ISS and the highly mysterious X-37B spaceplane which just completed a 469-day mission:

China’s space agency took the plaudits for successfully docking its crewed Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with its orbiting lab Tiangong-1 today, but the feat was slightly overshadowed by the weekend landing of the US X-37B spaceplane, which after a record-breaking orbital flight of 469 days showed just how far China has to go to catch up with advanced spacefaring nations.

At around noon local time, the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre relayed live pictures of Shenzhou-9’s docking on state broadcaster China Central Television. The space capsule held off at a distance of 62 kilometres from Tiangong-1 before making its docking approach just before 2pm — and once the crew had manually locked on to the latter’s cruciform docking target it took only eight minutes to latch the spacecraft together safely.

[. . .]

This Boeing-built spaceplane, roughly one quarter the size of the space shuttle, is equally mysterious. It flies to orbit on a regular rocket and when there deploys a solar array that gives its sensors the power they need for extended missions. It also has enough propellant to fire thrusters that make small changes to its orbit in a bid to foil surveillance. The vehicle re-enters the atmosphere just like the shuttle but lands entirely autonomously, making it a space drone.

At no point has the USAF revealed the craft’s purpose: in addition to spacecraft surveillance, it could deploy a robot that repairs (or disables) satellites in orbit, say some, while at the darker end of the spectrum of possibilities — it was a DARPA project in its early days — it could carry a warhead, using its drone homing capability to provide surprise precision strike from orbit.

June 11, 2012

UAVs and the Pakistan problem

Filed under: Asia, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:13

Strategy Page on the Pakistani mess:

American leaders have become very public lately in expressing exasperation at Pakistan’s pro-terrorism policy. Officially, Pakistan denies that it supports Islamic terrorists, but the evidence is extensive and more is piles up daily. One reason Pakistan, at least the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, is so hostile to the American UAV campaign in the tribal territories is that most of the time these pilotless aircraft are just watching what is going on down on the ground. What the UAVs see daily is vivid examples of Pakistani troops cooperating with Islamic terrorists. This surveillance process also identifies Islamic terrorist leaders and the UAVs fire missiles that kill them and their bodyguards and civilians used as human shields. Pakistan doesn’t mind it when terrorists who are, or have, attacked Pakistani targets are killed, but get very upset when terrorists allied with Pakistan are wacked. Pakistan can’t openly admit this, so the military makes a big deal of the U.S. “violating Pakistani territory.” The U.S. ignores the Pakistani complaints, the Pakistanis don’t escalate (like using American made F-16s jet to shoot down the UAVs) and the charade goes on. The Americans are fed up with it, as are the Afghans and a growing number of Pakistanis. But speaking out against the military in Pakistan, especially for a journalist, can get you jailed, murdered or “disappeared.” American are sometimes also in danger and even U.S. diplomats will suffer harassment.

The U.S. is particularly angry at Pakistan’s continued support for the Haqqani Network, a largely Afghan group that operates out of Pakistan to make attacks on enemies (political and business) in Afghanistan. Haqqani is also a major criminal organization, which is how it finances its mayhem across the border. The ISI (the Pakistani intelligence agency, controlled by the army, which handles liaison with Pakistani terrorist groups) has been assisting Haqqani Network efforts to start a new umbrella organization (the Muraqba Shura) to control all Islamic radical groups operating in North Waziristan, a terrorist sanctuary on the Afghan border.) This effort began late last year, and the Muraqba Shura now provides a semblance of unity among Islamic terror groups in North Waziristan.

June 4, 2012

Civilian casualties down in Afghanistan over last year

Filed under: Asia, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

Strategy Page on a hopeful trend in Afghanistan:

The UN recently announced that Afghan civilian deaths to combat and terrorism have dropped 36 percent compared to last year. In the first four months of 2012, 578 civilians died, compared to 898 in the first four months of 2011. Taliban and other Islamic radical groups caused 79 percent of these deaths, Afghan security forces 12 percent and foreign forces nine percent.

Earlier this year the Taliban called the UN a liar after the release of a UN casualty report for 2011. The UN counted 3,021 civilians killed by combat last year, an eight percent increase over the previous year, and 77 percent were the victims of Taliban or other Islamic radical group action. The number of civilian dead has doubled since 2007. Last year the biggest increase was from suicide bombings, where civilian victims were up 80 percent, to 450. But biggest killer remained roadside bombs and locally made landmines, which killed 967 civilians.

Military action (foreign or Afghan) caused 14 percent of civilian deaths and nine percent were from situations where the source could not be determined. Foreign troops and Afghan security forces pushed the Taliban out of many areas but the Islamic terrorists simply continued to make their attacks wherever they could. This meant an increase in violence in areas along the Pakistani border, as well as contested areas in Kandahar and Helmand provinces (where most of the world’s heroin comes from). The Taliban doubled their use of roadside bombs and mines to nearly a thousand a month. But the number of these devices that exploded only went up six percent over last year. That’s because the American anti-IED (Improvised Explosive Device) technology and specialists had arrived (from Iraq) in force and acclimated to Afghan conditions. Most bombs and mines were detected and destroyed.

May 30, 2012

The end of the “predictable” China

Filed under: China, Economics, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:03

Robert D. Kaplan on the end of an era in geopolitical calculations:

The United States has had it easy over the past third of a century in regards to China. Washington has been able to proclaim moral superiority over the Communist Party dictatorship in Beijing, even as those very dictators provided Washington with a stable, businesslike relationship that fostered immense opportunities for American companies in China and for the American economy overall. China’s rulers, ever since Deng Xiaoping consolidated power in 1978, may have been nominally communists, but they have also been professionals and technocrats who have ruled in a self-effacing, collegial style. Yes, they may oppress dissidents, but they have also been enlightened autocrats by the standards of the suffocating rulers who have governed in the Middle East.

But the purging of the pseudo populist boss of the megacity of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, may indicate that a less predictable period in Chinese politics lies ahead. Bo was something not seen in China since Mao Zedong: a leader with real charisma. Bo may indicate that the age of the technocrats will give way to the age of politicians — and politicians, even in liberal democracies, exploit people’s emotions. That could lead to more erratic, nationalistic rulers.

[. . .]

China’s autocrats have for many years been nervously riding a domestic tiger. With communism no longer a philosophical organizing principle for the state, they have had to justify their rule by delivering double-digit annual economic growth — or close to that — to provide jobs for a potentially restive younger generation. Thus, even while China has amassed impressive new air and sea power, it has — by and large — not tried to employ that power in a particularly hostile way. China’s communist rulers have had too much domestically to worry about without creating new problems for themselves by constantly challenging the United States or its allies on the high seas. While China’s push to acquire air-sea power most specifically dates to 1996, when Beijing was humiliated by Washington’s ability to drive two aircraft carrier strike groups through waters near the Taiwan Strait, the building of a substantial air force and navy have so far been part of the natural, organic process of a new and rising great power. At least so far, it has not been particularly destabilizing to the world or regional order, unlike Iran’s push to develop a nuclear capability as part of a drive for Near Eastern leadership. China’s rulers may be dictatorial, but they are not radical and messianic.

May 13, 2012

China increases their naval presence near Scarborough Shoal

Filed under: China, Military, Pacific — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:32

I posted an item last month about the stand-off between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the Philippine ship BRP Gregorio del Pilar (a former USCG cutter) in the Scarborough Shoal. Now there’s a report from Hong Kong’s largest English-language newspaper that China is sending another flotilla to the area:

China has sent five warships to the disputed Scarborough Shoal off the west coast of the Philippines with the warning that Beijing is ready for “any escalation” of the conflict.

That comes as the outgunned Philippines looks to the United States for naval support in South China Sea territory that may be rich in energy sources.

The five warships are said to be among the most advanced vessels in the Chinese fleet.

They include ships with state-of-the-art systems against attack from the sky, while one is an assault ship that carries 20 amphibious tanks and specialized fighting teams among 800 personnel.

Japanese surveillance aircraft saw the flotilla west of Okinawa and sailing south on Sunday.

Without American support, the Philippine navy is completely out-classed by the PLAN (aside from a large number of in-shore patrol craft, there are only 14 combat-capable ships). And it’s not clear that the US will want to escalate tension at this moment, especially over something like the Scarborough Shoal.

H/T to David Akin for the link.

May 11, 2012

Britain’s government websites under attack

Filed under: Britain, China, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:06

Perhaps I’m just cynical, but I had expected that any government website would need to be “hardened” against attack. The British government’s many official websites have indeed been undergoing attacks for quite some time:

The British Ministry of Defense has admitted, for the first time, that it is under heavy attack by hackers. It was also revealed that some of these attacks had succeeded. The good news is that the military is becoming more aggressive and imaginative in dealing with Cyber War defense. China was not directly accused of being behind any of these attacks, but it was mentioned that there are now discussions underway with the Chinese on the matter. All this is an old problem.

Last year, Britain went public to report a higher number of Internet based attacks. The report noted that the emphasis was now on economic assets. This included technology and business plans. For example, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was under heavy cyber-attack for several months, apparently in an effort to obtain secret details of government plans and techniques for supporting British exports. Government Internet security officials were making all this public to encourage British firms to increase their Internet security.

All this was nothing new. Two years ago Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, went public with numerous charges of Chinese Internet based espionage. MI5 accused China of using both agents and hacker software, to obtain secrets from specific companies and government organizations. This approach had Chinese personnel approaching specific British businessmen at trade shows, and offering gifts, like a thumb drive loaded with hidden hacker software that will load itself on to the victim’s PC and seek out valuable information. Internet based attacks, traced back to China, continue to send real looking email that has an attachment containing another of those stealthy hacker programs that seek out secrets, or even quietly take over the user’s PC. Three years ago, MI-5 sent alerts to major corporations warning them of similar attacks and advising increased security of their data.

May 6, 2012

Technology is not the panacea

Filed under: Education, Health, India, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:06

I’m generally very pro-technology, but the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) effort always struck me as putting the technology cart in front of the educational (and cultural) horse. A report at The Economist has examples of technological fixes that haven’t actually “fixed” the problems they were intended to solve:

The American charity has an ambitious mission — transform the quality of education in the developing world by giving every poor student a laptop. Targeting a $100 laptop, OLPC succeeded in creating a usable computer at a very low price point (the actual number was closer to $200). Unfortunately most of the attention in the project was focused on the technology and not enough on its efficacy. In the first rigorous evaluation of the programme, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) found little evidence that the laptops influenced educational outcomes. The study, conducted in Peru four years after the programme was launched, found no improvement in math or language. While the computers did lead to some gains in cognitive skills, the authors concluded that access to a laptop didn’t improve attendance. Neither did it motivate students to spend more time on their homework.

There is similarly disappointing news on cooking stoves. The World Health Organization estimates that indoor pollution from primitive cooking fires contributes to 2m deaths annually. One solution is to use clean cooking stoves. At a cost of $12.50, these stoves are an inexpensive way to reduce respiratory ailments and improve air quality. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC), a public-private initiative, is making a big push for 100m homes in the developing world to switch to clean stoves by 2020. But a new NBER paper by Rema Hanna from Harvard University and Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone from MIT, questions the long-term health or environmental benefits from this programme. The authors evaluated a clean-stove programme in eastern India, covering 15,000 households over five years. Their study found that after the initial year, enthusiasm for the stoves waned and households didn’t make the necessary investments to maintain them. As a result, the programme had very little effect on respiratory health or air pollution.

Both these projects highlight some common misconceptions in using technology for development. For one, solving intractable social problems requires fundamental changes in the target population. It also needs a supportive institutional framework to reinforce the right behaviour. Technology can complement this process, but it is no substitute for the human element. In Peru, simply adding laptops to the classroom, without investing in teachers who were proficient in computer-aided education, meant that the academic impact was limited. The IDB paper rightly points out that in poor countries where wages are low, development money may be better spent on labor-intensive education interventions than on expensive tools.

May 5, 2012

We have always been at war with Oceania

Filed under: Asia, Middle East, Military, Religion, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:22

Strategy Page on the western wishful thinking that contrasts with attitudes in Islamic countries:

The senior commander in the U.S. military recently ordered a course taught at a staff school for the last eight years to be revised to eliminate any mention of a war between Islam and the West. The course (“Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism”) pointed out that Islam, at least according to many Islamic clerics, is at war with the West. The U.S. has officially denied that since shortly after September 11, 2001, despite the fact that many Islamic clerics and government officials in Moslem nations agree with the “Islam is at war with the West” idea. But many Western leaders prefer to believe that by insisting that such hostile attitudes are not widespread in Moslem countries, the hostility will diminish. To that end the U.S. government has, for years, been removing any reference to “Islam” and “terrorism” in official documents. This comes as a shock to military or civilian personnel who have spent time in Moslem countries. The “Islam is at war with the West” angle is alive and well among Moslems.

There is plenty of evidence. For example, twenty nations account for over 95 percent of terrorism activity in the world. Of these twenty (Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Palestinian Territories, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Burundi, India, Nigeria, and Israel) all but four of them (Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, and Burundi) involve Islamic terrorism. In terms of terrorism fatalities the top four nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia) accounted for 75 percent of the world total of terrorism related deaths. All of these were the result of Islamic radicalism, often directed at other Moslems and not just non-Moslems (“infidels”).

This has been the case for decades, and the Moslem world does not like to dwell on this fact. Many Moslem leaders admit that there is a lot of Islamic terrorism but insist that it’s all the fault of Infidels who are making war on Islam, so some Moslems feel compelled to fight back. The catch-phrase Moslem leaders like to repeat is that Islam is the “religion of peace.” It is not, and the historical record makes that very clear.

May 3, 2012

Remembering the heroism and sacrifice of the defenders at Kohima’s Garrison Hill

Filed under: Britain, History, India, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: — Nicholas @ 09:53

A little-known battle had major consequences to the tides of Japanese expansion, and has been called “India’s Battle of the Somme“:

Nestled in the vast country’s north-eastern state of Nagaland, it is a place where two Victoria Crosses were won for outstanding bravery, where a 1,000-strong British and Indian force, outnumbered 10 to one, halted the Japanese army’s relentless march across Asia.

Blood-soaked battles in April 1944 saw the troops of the Royal West Kent Regiment, with their comrades from the Punjab Rifles and other Indian regiments, under siege on the top of Kohima’s Garrison Hill.

Troops fought hand to hand in torrential rain from rat-infested trenches dug on the then British deputy commissioner’s clay tennis court.

The two sides were so close that they could lob grenades into each other’s strongholds barely 50 feet away and, according to chroniclers of the battle, Allied troops sometimes woke in their monsoon mud trenches with Japanese troops sleeping alongside them.

When the siege of the hill was finally relieved some 45 days after it had begun, British officers were appalled at the conditions in which both Japanese and allied forces had fought and compared it to the Battle of the Somme. Some of the Japanese soldiers had died of starvation and disease. By then end, more than 4000 allied soldiers were dead, and 5764 Japanese troops had been killed.

May 2, 2012

Training Afghani troops requires deeper cultural knowledge

Filed under: Asia, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:03

An interesting post at Strategy Page discusses some of the underlying issues behind recent NATO casualties at the hands of police or Afghan soldiers:

While NATO reports incidents of Afghan security forces killing NATO troops (on purpose or by accident) there were not similar reports for incidents where the Afghans wounded NATO troops or fired and missed. It was earlier noted by the media that nearly 20 percent of NATO troop deaths of late were the result of Afghan troops or police. So it makes sense that 20 percent of NATO wounded would be the same percentage. What the media has yet to pick up on (although it’s been in plain sight for years) is the fact that Afghans are very violent to begin with and quick to anger when frustrated. This is the case when foreigners are not around and is worse when foreigners are present because of Afghan frustration at cultural differences. NATO trainers insist that Afghans be disciplined and organized (cleaning their weapons, firing only when ordered to, not taking bribes and abusing civilians). The Afghans resent this alien advice. Most of the time that results in poor combat performance, which often includes firing weapons at the wrong time, accidentally hitting Afghan or NATO troops. This sort of thing is common in any poorly trained force and has been noted by foreign trainers for over a century (since modern firearms became available, and made friendly fire easier to happen.) Thus friendly fire incidents were often the result of poor discipline and sloppiness. More often, the victims are fellow Afghans and it’s not always clear if the shooting was deliberate or not. A lot of Afghans are tossed out of the security forces because of their inability to handle their weapons properly. It’s been more difficult to get rid of Afghan officers who cannot do the job, particularly higher ranking ones with political connections. Moreover, many Afghan commanders have become addicted to having foreign officers along to advise them, even though the Afghans have enough experience now to operate on their own. But the foreign advisors are useful when it comes to getting rid of incompetent Afghan troops. The better Afghan commanders know that the best way to create a competent Afghan army or police unit is to keep firing the losers until most of your troops are winners.

These cultural differences also create the culture of corruption and constant feuding (often quite violent) between Afghans. The implications of the cultural differences tend to be played down by Western government and media, but these differences play a major role in determining what happens in Afghanistan. Bringing peace to Afghanistan means changing the local culture and recognizing that peace is not a common state for Afghans. Life is a struggle, which often includes fighting your neighbors over land, water or personal differences. Sorting out all those causes of violence is time-consuming, even with Westerners offering advice on how to do it.

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