We’ve covered Blackwater a few times in the past here on GD, and when the founder of the firm was implicated in murder in two sworn depositions back in August, you might have thought that the firm’s star was waning.  Not according to The Nation, though, which has just published a lengthy piece on what the company is up to in Pakistan:

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found.

The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

And if you liked that, you’ll love this:

Some of the Blackwater personnel, [the source] said, work undercover as aid workers. “Nobody even gives them a second thought.”

Read the whole thing.

- With President Obama embarking on his visit to Asia, John Plender examines the nature of China’s challenge to US dominance. Cheng Li and Jordan Lee suggest what the President has to do in striking the right tone for US-China relations going forward. Kishore Mahubani, meanwhile, views Asia’s rise through the prism of Francis Fukuyama’s End of History twenty years on.

- In a wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev talks about Stalin, democracy and the rule of law, his relationship with Vladimir Putin, and ongoing Western entanglement in Afghanistan.

- Elsewhere, Stefan Theil argues that, aided by the financial crisis, the EU’s global standing is on the rise:

“The EU’s modus operandi — sharing power, hammering out agreements, resolving conflict by endless committee — can be boring and even frustrating to watch”, he argues, “[b]ut in an increasingly networked and interdependent world, it has become the global standard.”

Julian Priestley, meanwhile, suggests four conditions if the EU is to get the most from its “institutional architecture”.

- Finally, writing in the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh explores US concerns about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal amid growing instability.

On climate, campaigners are unbelievably craven when it comes to the big emerging economies. China, in particular, gets treated with kid gloves. Within NGO circles, it is now more or less obligatory to kowtow to Beijing’s domestic track record on clean energy. Which is all very well – but I see absolutely no signs of Chinese leadership internationally (although its track record in the G20 shows how quickly it can pull out its finger when hard economic issues are at stake).

Weakness on China is especially egregious now that the country is above average global per capita emissions. Campaigners should be demanding that China ties itself to a date when its emissions will peak and then to commits to deep cuts by mid-century. (Armed with such a commitment, of course, China itself could then begin to turn the heat up on America – rather than allowing the US congress to bleat about US competitiveness.)

A failure to ask hard questions of China is bad for lower income countries. Not only will they suffer worst as the climate changes, they are going to wake up in ten years’ time to find that most of the global carbon budget for 2 degrees has been spent. Their interests are being sacrificed on the altar of G77 solidarity, with the global NGO community helping sharpen the knife.

The problem is similar, if less extreme, for the world’s other rising powers. Their per capita emissions may be lower than China’s and NGOs less terrified of offending them. But still, a country like India has 17% of the world’s population – which gives it quite a stake in our collective future. It is also massively vulnerable to a changing climate (especially as a lack of water disrupts food production).

But yet India is notoriously rubbish at international climate talks. So all the more credit to Malini Mehra, from the Center for Social Markets, for her persistent (and unusual) attempts to shine a light on India’s failings.

“In recent months, India has sought to challenge its image overseas, and in growing quarters at home, as recalcitrant and obstructionist on climate change,” she writes in her latest critique.

“[But] in a showdown this week with the old guard, the reformist environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, had to tone down his climate advice to India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Political correctness won, but the loser was India’s climate security.”

Here’s the rest of her analysis: (more…)

From the September 10 resignation letter of Matthew Hoh, the US State Department’s Senior Civilian Representative for Zabul Province in Afghanistan:

I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc.

Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons. However, again, to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan. More so, the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries.

Finally, if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.

- With the upcoming anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Timothy Garton Ash surveys the current debate about the causes behind those dramatic events twenty years ago. Commenting on the role of the superpowers, he suggests: “They made history by what they did not do… both giants stood back partly because they underestimated the significance of things being done by little people in little countries.” Adam Roberts, meanwhile, explores how civil resistance has fared around the world since 1989. When confronted with the reality of power politics, he suggests, choosing the right time for action from the bottom-up is critical.

- Looking to Copenhagen, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita propounds the predictive capacity of game theory and rational choice theory to explore what the climate negotiations might hold. Der Spiegel, meanwhile, has a report about the Danish island of Samso – at the forefront of the country’s green revolution.

- Elsewhere, Robert Skidelsky assesses the current debate raging between New Keynesian and New Classical economists over the financial crisis. Fully grasping the “implications of irreducible uncertainty for economic theory”, he suggests, would lead to a better understanding.

- Finally, Mihir Bose explores the contemporary state of Anglo-Indian relations, suggesting that fragility, rooted in history, is still very apparent. And with Indian and Chinese officials set to meet, Kapil Komireddi argues that rivalry between the two rising superpowers will come increasingly to define the 21st century.

Another object lesson from NATO on how not to work together:

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.

Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

Even more bizarrely, it seems that the Italians’ behaviour only came to light because US intelligence was listening in on its calls. Farcical.

Reading the papers over breakfast in Lahore, I was dumbfounded by the story of a US diplomatic official being attacked while she attempted to distribute – personally! – aid to a hundred or so Christians who have been victims of communal violence.

Sitting on a stage, Carmella Conroy, who heads the US consulate in Lahore, kicked off proceedings by presenting a relief package to Shahbaz Hameed.

Hameed, who saw 7 members of his family burnt alive in Gojra after an alleged desecration of the Koran, was not happy. He refused the aid, saying that Christians needed not food, but justice. A minor riot ensued, with the crowd throwing aid parcels back at Ms Conroy.

This story seems wrong in so many ways.  Does USAID really see its job as spinning charity into PR opportunities (and doing so hamfistedly)? And is the US’s mission in Pakistan to act as a defender of the Christian faith? It certainly seems that way when you read the newspaper report. (more…)

As we reported last week, Pakistan’s governments is attempting to crack down on seditious texts and emails. Its attempt to avoid ridicule, however,  is being met by growing… ridicule. This from the Telegraph:

Pakistanis who send jokes about Asif Zardari by text message, email or blog risk being arrested and given a 14-year prison sentence.

The country’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, announced the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been asked to trace electronically transmitted jokes that “slander the political leadership of the country” under the new Cyber Crimes Act.

Pakistan, the observant among you will have noticed, has been having a tough time the past few years. This graph sums it up for me (March 2009, Pakistan public opinion survey):

There’s one hopeful sign, though – a new generation that is beginning to get its act together to agitate (often online) for change. So what’s the government done? Yes, you’ve guessed it: announced a crackdown.

An official announcement by the interior ministry said that the government was launching a campaign against circulation of what it called ill-motivated and concocted stories through emails and text messages against civilian leadership and security forces.

The announcement does not elaborate what is meant by ill-motivated e-messages, but it is believed that the ‘civilian leadership’ meant President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Interior Minister Rehman Malik and other politicians.

A senior official of the ministry said: ‘Sending indecent message is a crime under the Cyber Crime Act and liable to punishment.’

Isn’t that just fantastic? Pakistan’s government can’t get deliver universal primary education or reliable electricity to major cities. It’s fighting an insurgency against the Taliban with little clue how to win it. But yet it’s making it a priority to crack down on seditious text messaging.

And one other point – someone should ask where the monitoring equipment has come from. Specifically: was it supplied by the American or British government to help Pakistan fight the War on Terror?

Is Afghanistan just the prologue? The Times of India thinks so:

A leading defence expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from “unprecedented” internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country.

“China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century,” Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said.

Verma said the recession has “shut the Chinese exports shop”, creating an “unprecedented internal social unrest” which in turn, was severely threatening the grip of the Communists over the society.

Among other reasons for this assessment were rising unemployment, flight of capital worth billions of dollars, depletion of its foreign exchange reserves and growing internal dissent, Verma said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of the premier defence journal. In addition to this, “The growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness,” he said, adding that US President Barak Obama’s Af-Pak policy was primarily Pak-Af policy that has “intelligently set the thief to catch the thief”.

Verma said Beijing was “already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India.” “Above all, it is worried over the growing alliance of India with the US and the West, because the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.

“All these three concerns of Chinese Communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives,” he said.

“Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast,” Verma said. But India is “least prepared” on ground to face the Chinese threat, he says and asks a series of questions on how will India respond to repulse the Chinese game plan or whether Indian leadership would be able to “take the heat of war”.

So, time to stop worrying about Helmand and learn more about Assam…

We’re so obsessed with Islamic insurgency – see Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla – that we risk ignoring other types of insurgency. Like the Naxalite Maoist revolt in central and eastern India.

Michael Spacek, at India’s Forgotten War, writes about how the Naxalites recently took control of a large district in West Bengal, albeit briefly – “the Maoists have successfully been exploiting the seething resentments against West Bengal’s communist government and have steadily been increasing their influence in the state”.

I may be going out on a limb here, but like evangelical Christianity, Maoism is going to have a big future in violent and poor places in the 21st century. Maoism and Christianity are revolutionary creeds which have successful and adaptive operating systems. Both have simple but effective messages which speak powerfully to the dispossessed in society. Both have many disciples who aggressively preach and die for the cause. Both exploit local grievances and traditions to the max.

Der Spiegel has a fascinating interview with Pakistan’s former dictator statesman Pervez Musharraf:

SPIEGEL: Are you disappointed by Obama?

Musharraf: No, he is aiming at the right things. He is showing intentions of improving the dialogue with the Muslim world, which is good. He is right when he says that more forces must be deployed in Afghanistan. There is an intention of increasing funding for Pakistan, which is also good. But he also has to understand the reality in Pakistan and I am not sure he does.

It turns out that “the reality” is all about Indian intelligence subversion. But for me the takeaway (literally) from the interview is this:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Musharraf, there’s a bon mot that states that ruling Pakistan is like riding a tiger. You were in power for nine years. Are you bored now?

Musharraf: I recently was in Saudi Arabia, China and London giving lectures. I have engaged the famous Walker Agency …

SPIEGEL: … which Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder all work with …

Musharraf: … In Prague, I am giving a lecture on leadership in front of high-level managers at a company which owns Pizza Hut and KFC.

Um, er, ah… no actually, I am lost for words this time.

European security policy doesn’t exactly inspire big new ideas every day. So hats off to James Rogers, who has a very big idea indeed: the EU has been worrying about land forces too much, and needs to turn to naval strategy instead. Like Robert Kaplan, Rogers thinks that the Indian Ocean will be central to twenty-first century geopolitics:

All the major powers are now expanding their influence along the Eurasian coastal zone, a region rich in energy, raw materials and fertile land. Within this space, China, India, Russia and the United States have begun to reorient their foreign and security policies. Unfortunately, the EU’s main trade route – until now threatened only by pirates – ploughs through this littoral space and connects Europeans to the energy supplies of the Middle East and the manufacturing centres of China, South Korea and Japan. It carries a quarter of global maritime commerce, making it the most important trade line on Earth.

The region stretching from the Suez Canal to the city of Shanghai – and perhaps as far as Seoul – is therefore particularly critical to Europeans. But the same space is important to others too. With a rapidly growing navy, China has put together a “string of pearls” – naval stations, harbours and land-based infrastructure – to extend its maritime reach into the Indian Ocean, East Africa and the Middle East. Russia also has plans to build new naval stations around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, potentially in Syria and Yemen.

India has been busily kitting out its fleet with new aircraft carriers, submarines and stealth destroyers, which it claims are needed to complete its “manifest destiny” to control the Indian Ocean. And the United States has undertaken a “global posture review” since 2004, where it has repositioned many of its naval assets, away from Europe, and towards East Asia.

And what is the EU doing about this? Not much, other than its anti-piracy patrols off Somalia. Rogers thinks that’s the Union’s “most important” operation yet. I think he may be a bit over-excited (we let the pirates go free). But his long-term vision is compelling:

First, the EU needs to rethink certain parts of its foreign and security policy, and concentrate more on the affairs of the Eurasian coastal zone. Europeans need to build up strong partnerships with countries in key geopolitical nodes – like India, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore – in order to keep the peace in the region most likely to experience competition and disorder in the years ahead. This will allow the EU to prevent conflict and insecurity from threatening key European interests throughout the area.

Second, the EU should take part and lead more naval operations along its principal maritime trade route, particularly in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The EU mission to quash piracy in the Gulf of Aden is just the beginning, and Europeans must step up their visibility throughout all the maritime approaches to European home waters. Increasingly, port calls, anti-piracy missions and surveillance and presence operations will all be required to uphold the peace.

Third, a European strategic defence review is needed to allow for the construction of common warship classes, which should replace the costly and inefficient mishmash of vessels currently operated by European fleets. An integrated EU coastguard should be put together to free up naval vessels in the Baltic and Mediterranean for use elsewhere. And ultimately, standing EU naval forces equipped with aircraft carriers and amphibious platforms for power projection into troublesome areas should also be developed and built.

It’s sound strategy, even if doesn’t feel that likely politically. But we will hear more of this Jolly Rogers.

As regular readers will know, Global Dashboard is a hotbed of David Kilcullen fandom – so bravo to David Miliband for noting on his blog that Kilcullen’s his ”favourite Australian analyst”.  But it also raises an interesting question, which I’ve just put to Miliband via the comments section on his post:

Out of curiosity, what do you make of Kilcullen’s argument on US use of drone attacks in Pakistan? He wrote recently that,

” While violent extremists may be unpopular, for a frightened population they seem less ominous than a faceless enemy that wages war from afar and often kills more civilians than militants. Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent — hardly “precision.”

“Expanding or even just continuing the drone war is a mistake. In fact, it would be in our best interests, and those of the Pakistani people, to declare a moratorium on drone strikes into Pakistan.”

Do you think that’s right?  And if so, is there a case for the UK disassociating itself from US policy on this – particularly given how much of a focus for grievance drone attacks are becoming among UK-Pakistani diaspora communities?

Update: David Miliband has now replied to my question – see his subsequent blog post here.  David Steven has done a detailed response to Miliband’s reply here.