Campaign for the Land of the Pure, Part 2

I began Part 1 by briefly considering the case of Raymond Davis, then touching on other topics, such as the fact that Colonel Imam had reportedly been killed, to introduce the fact that so much of what is happening in Pakistan is happening well beneath the surface.

Well, that is true anywhere.

But, I also called attention to why it is important to focus on Pakistan:

But what else we are seeing is the Pakistani Deep State, which is involved in nuclear proliferation for profit, heroin smuggling, and other lucrative activities, as well as support for Islamic terrorism, battling other factions of Pakistan's elite.

I finished that post with this:

The War on Terror will be decided mainly in Pakistan.

A major battle in the War on Drugs will also be decided there, as, until the War on Terror in Afghanistan is ended, the instability there will foment trafficking of high-quality heroin as Afghanistan essentially corners the world market for both quality and quantity.

And, there is profiteering and the Great Game going on.

All of this fuels corruption in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and, of course, in London and especially in Washington.

There is a covert fight occuring to decide Pakistan's future, and even Pakistan's existence as a sovereign nation.

We now examine that covert fight.

First, we define a few terms. Overt action refers to when everyone knows something is happening, and everyone knows who is doing it. Covert action is when everyone knows something is happening, but no one really knows who is behind it. Then, there is clandestine action: people don't even know that something is going on.

The fight in Pakistan is covert - you can read the paper, watch TV and surf the 'net and know something is going on, but we do not really know who is behind it or what their agenda is.

David Coleman Headley was indicted, charged with twelve counts of being on the wrong side in the War on Terror. Legal proceedings are ongoing, and from an article entitled Implicating ISI in terror, Headley says hatred of India after 1971 war drove him to LeT by Shalini Parekh & Chidanand Rajghatta, May 24, 2011, we learn the following:

CHICAGO/WASHINGTON: Hatred of India arising from Pakistan's defeat in the 1971 war drove him to the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani expatriate who involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack told a Chicago court on Monday while implicating Pakistan's spy agency ISI in nurturing terrorism.

First, a little bit about Lashkar-e-Taiba. From Bad Company: Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan, testimony before Congress by Lisa Curtis, dated March 11, 2010:

My name is Lisa Curtis. I am a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, poses a threat to U.S. citizens as well as to critical U.S. national security interests, including promoting stability in South Asia and degrading the overall threat from terrorism emanating from the region. The U.S. government has previously associated the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT — "Army of the Pure") primarily with the Indo–Pakistani dispute over Kashmir and has viewed the group as less inimical to U.S. interests than al-Qaeda, although the U.S. State Department has listed the LeT as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since December, 2001.

Notice that Lashkar-e-Taiba, by whatever spelling, means "Army of the Pure".

This series is entitled Campaign for the Land of the Pure, and a previous series (see sidebar) was entitled The Land of the Pure.

Where do these names come from?

This trial addresses connections to the Mumbai terrorist attack, and is bringing up connections between LeT and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI.

For more background, we consider an excerpt from The Threat to the US Homeland Emanating from Pakistan, Congressional testimony by Stephen Tankel with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, dated May 3, 2011:

Lashkar-e-Taiba (the Army of the Pure or LeT) is one of Pakistan's oldest and most powerful militant groups. India has been its primary enemy since the early 1990s and the group has never considered itself to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, but LeT did begin contributing to al-Qaeda's global jihad against the United States and its allies after 9/11. The spectacular nature of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and target selection suggested LeT continued to prioritize jihad against India, but was moving deeper into al-Qaeda's orbit. Despite repeated calls by a chorus of U.S. officials on Pakistan to take actions against the group in the wake of Mumbai, LeT's position remains relatively secure. There are several reasons. First, Pakistan is facing a serious insurgency and LeT remains one of the few militant outfits whose policy is to refrain from launching attacks against the state. The security establishment has taken a triage approach, determining that to avoid additional instability it must not take any action that could draw LeT further into the insurgency. Second, the Pakistan army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) have long considered LeT to be the country's most reliable proxy against India and the group still provides utility in this regard. LeT also provides potential leverage at the negotiating table and so it is therefore unrealistic to assume support for the group will cease without a political payoff from India in return. As a result, the consensus among the Pakistani security establishment appears to be that, at least in the short-term, taking steps to dismantle the group would chiefly benefit India, while Pakistan would be left to deal with the costs. Finally, LeT provides social services and relief aid via its above ground wing, Jamaat-ul-Dawa, and its activities in this sphere have led to a well of support among segments of the populace.

To understand LeT and how it grew so powerful, one must recognize the two dualities that define it. The first is that it is a missionary and a militant organization that for most of its history has placed an equivalent emphasis on reshaping society at home (through preaching and social welfare) and to waging violent jihad abroad. The second is that its military activities are informed both by its pan-Islamist rationale for jihad and its role as a proxy for the Pakistani state. LeT was able to grow into a powerful and protected organization in Pakistan as a result of its ability to reconcile these dualities. Jihad against India to liberate Muslim land under perceived Hindu occupation aligned with LeT's ideological priorities and also with state interests. This enabled the group to become Pakistan's most reliable proxy, which brought with it substantial benefits including the support needed to construct a robust social welfare apparatus used for missionary and reformist purposes. However, this approach also necessitated trade-offs and compromises after 9/11, since preserving its position vis-à-vis the state sometimes forced the group to sublimate its pan-Islamist impulses. As the decade wore on, internal tensions increased over who LeT should be fighting against.

Finally, for some additional background, we review Lashkar-e-Toiba 'Army of the Pure', excerpts of which are quite eye-opening:

The LeT has consistently advocated the use of force and vowed that it would plant the 'flag of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.

[snip]

Arrests made during March-April 2004 near Baghdad brought to light links between the LeT and Islamist groups fighting the United States military in Iraq.

[snip]

LeT has an extensive network that run across Pakistan and India with branches in Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East Asia.

The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is the main source of LeT's funding. Saudi Arabia also provides funds.

The LeT maintains ties to various religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya primarily through the al Qaeda fraternal network.

The LeT has also been part of the Bosnian campaign against the Serbs.

It has allegedly set up sleeper cells in the U.S. and Australia, trained terrorists from other countries and has entered new theatres of Jihad like Iraq.

The group has links with many international Islamist terrorist groups like the Ikhwan-ul-Musalmeen of Egypt and other Arab groups.

LeT has a unit in Germany and also receives help from the Al Muhajiraun, supporter of Sharia Group, (Abu Hamza Masari- of Mosque Finsbury Park, North London) and its annual convention is regularly attended by fraternal bodies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Myanmar, USA, Palestine, Bosnia, Philippines, Jordan, Chechnya, etc.

[snip]

The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is the main source of LeT's funding. Funds also come from some sources in Saudi Arabia.

We now skip down in indicted, charged with twelve counts of being on the wrong side in the War on Terror. Legal proceedings are ongoing, and from Implicating ISI in terror, Headley says hatred of India after 1971 war drove him to LeT, where Headley is discussing LeT:

He chronologically mentioned his handlers in LET, including the others charged along with Rana, in a recent second superceding indictment, including Pasha, Kashmiri, Saajid and Major Iqbal. He also related various types of camps he attended in different regions of Pakistan, ranging from essential espionage, to arms training, surveillance training and hand to hand combat.

"These groups operate under the umbrella of the ISI... They coordinate with each other," Headley told the court, recalling that one time, when he suggested that LeT sue the U.S government for designating it as a terrorist organization, LeT leader Zaki-ur Rehman said "he would have to consult the ISI."

Headley also related how his LeT handler Ali took his phone number and told him that a "Major Iqbal" would be calling him about an operation in India. The prosecution case mentions a "Major Iqbal," believed to be a serving ISI officer, who is alleged to have coordinated the Mumbai attacks.

Allegations surfacing in credible expert testimony before Congress, and elsewhere in a criminal trial, that Pakistan's ISI is pulling the strings on the terrorist organization behind the Mumbai attacks, the LeT (the "Army of the Pure"), and discussions of one "Major Iqbal" - a name growing in importance.

Then there are claims by the LeT that they will plant the flag of Islam in Washington, D.C., as well as credible reports that they are connected to terrorist organizations all over the world, including having sleeper cells right here in the United States.

Do you think the "Campaign for the Land of the Pure" is only a fight for control of Pakistan?

Stick around!

Desiccated Land, Part 2

In this post, we try to put the Jammu and Kashmir situation into perspective. You may wish to review Part 1.

First, a brief update on some news from the region.

We begin with an initial excerpt from 24 hour gun-battle leaves 2 ultras dead, trooper injured, dated March 14, 2011, which outlines an incident in the town of Sopore, in the district of Baramulla (the English is a little choppy):

SRINAGAR, Mar 13: In a 24 hour long gun battle in Sopore that ended this morning police claimed to have killed two militants, including a top Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) commander while an army trooper was injured. Suspected militants also hurled a grenade in area.

According to police, Wasim Ahmad Ganai a local militant of HuM who was holed up in Kralteng locality of Sopore town was killed in the fresh exchange of fire with a joint team of 22 Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group (SOG) this morning. A trooper identified as Nitender Kumar of 22 Rashtriya Rifles was injured in exchange of heavy fire.

Police said that Wasim gave a stiff resistance to police and army and kept them engaged during last night in gunfight that ended this morning. The encounter started Saturday after troopers of 22 RR, SOG and CRPF cordoned off the private clinic of Dr Sofi Muhammad Ramzan.

As search party entered heavily armed militants opened fire on police and army triggering a fierce encounter. In the initial exchange of fire, police claimed the killing of divisional commander of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) Chhota Kalimullah alias Shamsher alias Talwar Bhai and Wasim managed to take shelter in drain and engaged the forces in 24-hour long gun-battle.

In the aftermath of the fight, security forces seized a "large" cache of weapons and ammunition.

It should be noted that Sopore was the scene of a 1993 event known as the Sopore Massacre, described in an article in Time thusly:

PERHAPS THERE IS A SPECIAL CORNER IN HELL reserved for soldiers who fire their weapons indiscriminately into a crowd of unarmed civilians. That, at least, must have been the hope of every resident who defied an army-enforced curfew in the Kashmiri town of Sopore last Thursday to protest a massacre that left 55 people dead and scores injured. It was India's latest blow in a three-year campaign to crush the predominantly Muslim state's bid for independence. In retaliation for the killing of one soldier, paramilitary forces rampaged through Sopore's market setting buildings ablaze and shooting bystanders. The Indian government pronounced the event "unfortunate" and claimed that an ammunition dump had been hit by gunfire, setting off fires that killed most of the victims.

In that incident, hundreds of buildings were destroyed; how many hundreds, and how they were destroyed, depends on who is asked.

This most recent incident is given some perspective, as we consider the first part of Rise in militancy related incidents, also dated March 14, 2011:

SRINAGAR, Mar 13: With the onset of spring the militant relatives incidents seem to be increasing in valley and in less than a week seven militants were killed in Srinagar, Shopian and Sopore. Police claim that around 100 militants are active in North and Central Kashmir.

The highest number of militants, police claim, are active in the apple rich Sopore town of North Kashmir. "The number of active militants in Sopore and Rafiabad is around 20-25," deputy inspector general of police North Kashmir Muneer Ahmad Khan told Kashmir Times. "We have groups of militants active in Rajwarad, Hafrudda Handwara and Lolab area in Kupwara. There is also a group of militants active in Bandipora district," he added.

The article goes on to explain some controversy over how a militancy-free zone was declared, though the officials in the zone don't know who declared it; but, they point out that in that particular zone, militancy is down. This is temporary, though, as the militants move around from region to region, and many of them infiltrate in from Pakistan. However, we are reassured, alert troops are watching the Pakistan border to minimize this.

A general alarm is sounded in an article entitled Target India: 700 militants waiting at Pak launchpads, dated March 17, 2011:

Pattan (J&K) Noting that turbulence in Afghanistan and Pakistan will have an impact on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, Indian Army on Thursday said 700 militants were waiting at various lauchpads to infiltrate into the state.

"India, Kashmir and Pakistan are all at the peripheries of the problem area of Afghanistan. So if peace does not exist in Afghanistan and there is turbulence in Pakistan, obviously there will be turbulence around us," General Officer Command (GOC) of Srinagar-based 15 Corps Lt General S A Hasnain told reporters here, 30 kms from capital Srinagar.

Lt Gen Hasnain was replying to a question about the impact on Kashmir after the US forces withdraw from Afghanistan.

"The problem is always that of turbulence. An area that is turbulent will always send waves of turbulence into the other areas," he said.

He said the Army has reports that militants across the Line of Control (LoC) will attempt to infiltrate into the state in the next few days.

So, there is immediate concern about further violence in Jammu and Kashmir, but in the long term, there is concern about how that situation could deteriorate if the US withdraws from Afghanistan without adequately stabilizing the situation there.

Of course, it is an oversimplification of the problem to point at Afghanistan. Instability there in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 was dealt with by Pakistan via proxy forces from across the Durand Line; we now call these forces the Taliban, but they are the same kinds of militants that infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir.

But, to blame it all on Pakistan is also an oversimplification; were there not a volatile situation in Afghanistan and J & K, the "stabilizing" influence of Pakistani-supported militants would not be so profound.

For me, it is interesting to view the whole situation in a broader context.

To a recent article entitled China's arms sales to Pakistan unsettling South Asian security, I made the following comment:

China's strategic partnership with Pakistan serves China far more than it serves Pakistan.

If China needed to do so, it could move its powerful ground forces, supported by aircover, overland to defend the port facilities in Gwadar. Such inland lines of communication would be challenging even for the US to interdict. The trick would be getting Chinese naval units all the way around Southeast Asia and India to Gwadar.

Far more likely, though, is that the build-up of Pakistani power is intended to offset US influence in Pakistan, and to keep India otherwise occupied, allowing a freer hand for Beijing throughout the rest of Asia.

Pakistan needs to rethink its adversarial relationship with India. By defining itself as a Muslim country, juxtaposed against India, and by support of Islamic militants as proxies and for strategic depth, Islamabad has painted itself into a corner, where Pakistan's policy can easily be manipulated by Washington (though the US does not have the finesse to do so) and especially by Beijing. If Pakistan could reinvent its relationship with India, Islamabad would have a far freer hand in its foreign affairs, defense and other matters, and Pakistanis would benefit by less blowback from ISI's upport of militants.

For background, I suggest my Tale of a Tiger series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), which paints a picture of growing Chinese influence in South Asia and the Persian Gulf, a drive towards a capability to challenge US naval power, a growing ability to project naval power into the Indian Ocean, and which addresses Sino-Indian issues. Furthermore, in Part 6, I point out the advantages of a Chinese strategic move into South Asia, which would help stabilize Xinjiang, a region where China is currently dealing with its own Islamic militants.

China's arms sales to Pakistan unsettling South Asian security details how China has benefited from arms sales to Pakistan; one benefit is a big, reliable foreign customer, allowing for development of China's arms industry.

However, China is not the only competitor nation to be building its arms industry.

An article from March 4, 2011, entitled US air power: Made in India? addresses how India's aerospace industry is growing in part due to a policy of "offsets". Basically, India agrees to purchase aircraft from the US, provided the aircraft are built at least partially in India.

The benefit to the US corporations is that manufacturing can be done in India, rather than in the US, where labor costs are higher.

This means Americans lose jobs so Indians can have them.

But, a big benefit to India is that the manufacturing facilities are in India, not the US.

In a hypothetical scenario where relations between the US and India deteriorated to the point of war (obviously, extremely unlikely), India would have the industrial base to support the war; an industrial base that belongs in the US, but which was exported for profit by US corporations.

But wait, there's more!

India hopes to qualitatively improve its aerospace industry through the technology transfer that would naturally accompany coproduction of late-model US combat aircraft.

On the US side, it is assumed that by the time India learns the ins and outs of the aircraft it is coproducing, the US will have fielded a newer generation.

(I'll bet that, when you began reading this article about militants in some Indian town that few Americans have ever heard of, you never suspected this article would turn in the direction it has!)

For India, this is a big plus, because India's aerospace industry is growing quantitatively and qualitatively, placing it well ahead of Pakistan's, and on a par with China's; this, in part, at American expense, just as China's military-industrial complex is developing in part at Pakistani expense.

(Of course, when you consider how much money the US government is giving to Pakistan, I could argue that China's development is also at US expense.)

In the long run, this will leave India in a much better position vis-à-vis both Pakistan and China for a fight with both that could be sparked by an incident in some town like Sopore.

But, my American readers may be asking, where will that leave US?

;)

Tale of a Tiger, Part 6

Picking up where we left off at the end of Part 5, business between China and India may be on the upswing, but border issues remain border issues. From India, China shake hands on trade, but border disputes prove intractable, December 16, 2010:

India and China sealed $16 billion worth of trade deals during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi, but many of the sore points between the Asian giants were left to future diplomacy to sort out.

Perhaps most alarming to analysts are the two countries' longstanding border disputes, which have proven intractable and contributed to wider Asian nervousness about China.

While Mr. Wen and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged to resolve such disputes "at an early date," and also agreed to set up an emergency hotline and hold more frequent high-level visits, some analysts are concerned that the continued failure to resolve the border standoff has created an atmosphere of mistrust and military wariness in the region.

"It's 29 years of negotiations on the border with nothing to show because the Chinese have been taking India around the mulberry tree, they commit to something and reinterpret it later," says Brahma Chellaney, a Sino-India expert at the Center for Policy Research, an independent think tank in New Delhi. "The talks are deadlocked now."

The two countries fought a brief border war in 1962. The ceasefire left China in control of a Switzerland-sized area known as Aksai Chin that India still claims, while the Indians have held on to Arunachal Pradesh, a territory the size of Austria claimed by the Chinese.

Arunachal Pradesh - this is the area mentioned in Part 5; from China/India Border Disputes: Arunachal Pradesh, India or South Tibet, April 14, 2009:

Apr. 14 – With yesterday's news that China has vetoed plans for an Asian Development Bank loan to India for development of the Arunachal Pradesh region, we take a look at why the region is disputed, where it is, and the commodities and economic benefits possession of the area brings.

The political problems with the region go back to the days of the British Raj, and predate the current government of China's authority. Indeed, Taiwan claims ownership also under its position as an alleged government of China. Historically, the region was a kingdom, with several mentions of it being made in a number of Vedic texts. It is also mentioned in the Indian epic, the Mahabharata, although it is usually acknowledged that much of the region was a de facto vassal state of Tibet, and that tributes were paid to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa.

Parts of the region however are known to have been administered by Bhutan, and to the east, Burma, until the British annexed India completely in 1858. The region was an important trading route with Lhasa, and connected Tibet to the nearest port, at Calcutta. The sixth Dalai Lama was born in Tawang, in the northwest of the region.

Problems over sovereignty go back therefore to the Chinese claim over Tibet, which was enforced in 1949, and to the "Simla Accord", of 1914, when China was ruled as a republic, in which representatives of Britain, China, and Tibet were to define the borders. The purpose of the agreement was to designate borders of Inner and Outer Tibet, in addition to borders between Tibet and British India. An 890 kilometer-line was designated as the border. British and Tibetan officials agreed on the demarcation; however the Chinese had issues with the designation of “inner” and “outer” Tibet, and walked out of the discussions. Fast forward to the Chinese civil war, and the Nationalists fleeing to Taiwan, and the Communist Party’s moving into Tibet in 1951. Since then, the Chinese government has made it clear that its position has remained constant, and that it inherited the Nationalist position that the agreement over the borders in 1914 was never agreed to by China. It subsequently has refused to do so, and in 1962 fought a brief border war with India over the territory. China won, but subsequently withdrew from its territorial gains in the region and allowed India to repossess them.

China and Taiwan accordingly jointly claim Arunachal Pradesh as belonging to Tibet and being the province of "South Tibet" as neither signed off on the original border demarcation. India claimed the area as under its sovereignty in 1950, while the Tibetan government in exile continues to identify Arunachal Pradesh as belonging to India and recognizes the Simla Accord and border demarcation between Tibet and India.

Arunachal Pradesh is agriculturally rich, with rice, maize, millet, wheat, pulses, sugarcane, ginger and oil seeds all grown in the region and processed here. The region also has some 61,000 square kilometers of forests, and this represents an important sector of the local economy, however tree felling and saw mills are prohibited on conservation grounds. It is understood part of the disputed loan India was to obtain from the ADB was to deal with water management and ecological problems caused by deforestation on the Chinese side and impacting on Arunachal Pradesh. Limited trade with Tibet has commenced, with roads having been constructed by China up to various borders crossings up to the border, with routes leading back to Lhasa. However, the Indian side remains distrustful of Chinese intentions in the region, and similar infrastructure on the Indian side remains downgraded.

Returning now to India, China shake hands on trade, but border disputes prove intractable, December 16, 2010:

Indian history of the border dispute has tended to cast China as an aggressor, with Beijing launching a surprise military incursion.

A new book by Indian lawyer A.G. Noorani suggests that in the years running up to 1962, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru contributed to the eventual standoff. Mr. Nehru drew border lines unilaterally in areas with undefined borders, and then ordered old maps to be destroyed. In 1960, China offered to settle the borders but India did not see a deal through, claims Mr. Noorani.

[snip]

Dr. Chellaney disputes that the Chinese were in the mood to settle in 1960 – or at any other point.

"The fact is the Chinese have never put forward a concrete proposal," says Chellaney. "You can’t talk about missed opportunities when nothing has been put on the table."

Indian and Chinese negotiators have met 15 times since 2003 and an additional 25 times since 1981, he says, arguing that it’s a deadlock that should concern the wider world.

I concur that this is a deadlock that should concern the wider world.

If Beijing can get what Beijing wants through diplomacy, why resort to war? But, the Communist Chinese are hardly pacifists, and neither do they tolerate a great deal of anti-government dissent; consequently, when they decide to hedge their diplomatic bet by preparing and positioning military capabilities, we can't expect this to be stopped by by some Chinese president elected on a platform of "change", nor can we expect a flood of protesters in Tiananmen Square to turn the tide.

"This border dispute has the potential of creating not only bilateral military conflict but a conflict that involves other military powers," says Chellaney. "This dispute includes not just land but water issues which is central to the future of Asia."

Specifically, should China fight a war with India, and win a decisive military victory, the ramifications for Taiwan are clear: settle the border dispute (in other words, submit to Beijing's authority) or else; and don't expect South Korea, Japan and the United States to save you.

From there, it would be easy to establish dominion over the rest of East Asia, and, that done, China's unruly neighbor to the south, Vietnam, would be in an awkward position to push any claims on the Spratly Islands, or do much else, for that matter.

I do not believe that the current regime in Beijing is actually planning to do this; again, why risk so much on such a roll of the military dice, when diplomacy works? But, the capability is being put into place, and who knows when the international situation - or a change in power in Beijing - will change China's foreign policy calculus?

It is not just Early Light that questions China's motives and the utility of China's Pakistan alliance to Islamabad.

From A convenient alliance?, by Nadir Hassan, December 20, 2010:

To invert Ayub Khan's phrasing, it is Pakistan's lot in life to have allies who are masters, not friends. Pakistan joined 17 other countries in refusing to attend the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobao last week. As expressions of solidarity go, this was purely a symbolic one; our absence was barely remarked on both here and abroad. Leaving aside the human rights question, a topic on which Pakistan can speak with as much moral authority as Bill Clinton can on fidelity, it may be time to ask if our alliance with (or servitude to) China is serving our national interest.

Hassan's frank assessment of Pakistan's human rights record, and his brutally accurate reference to Clinton's scandals, go a long way toward establishing Hassan's credibility! :)

The umbilical cord that chains Pakistan to China is a mutual suspicion of India. In guarding against real and imagined Indian designs, Pakistan even negotiated away part of Kashmir that it had earlier staked a claim to in the Sino-Pakistan Agreement of 1953. The China-Pakistan alliance made sense during the Cold War, when India had allied itself to China's Communist rival, the Soviet Union. China needed us to put a spanner in India's ambitions whenever possible while we sought an ally that would, unlike the US, reliably deliver military aid whenever we were at war with our eastern enemy. This was an alliance based on convenience not ideology, and out of it arose incidental benefits like the construction of the Karakoram Highway and bilateral trade.

There is evidence that the closeness of the alliance may now be an anachronism. As long as we hew to our traditional anti-India stance, we will always need China to keep Indian ambitions in check. China, though, may not need as close a relationship with Pakistan for much longer. Bilateral trade between China and India is now close to $50 billion, up from below $150 million just 25 years ago. The former – and likely future – rivals are also cooperating on energy and civilian nuclear projects. For the moment, China is concentrating on building its economic strength rather than projecting military might. In that situation, Pakistan is sure to lose out.

Certain elements in Islamabad - those who support militarized madrassas and an endless supply of jihadis along the Afghan border to provide strategic depth and proxies as a counterweight to India - would probably also view the China alliance as important to their interests.

But, beyond that, Pakistan's alliance with China is a bit anachronistic - to Pakistan, but not to China.

While we have significant trade activity with China ourselves, we also need to reconsider its value. Our manufacturing industry is unable to compete in terms of price and quality with China. Despite this, Chinese manufacturers are granted trade benefits, which is leading to the closure of similar small-scale industries in Pakistan. Add to that the massive trade deficit Pakistan has with China and it is reasonable to ask if we couldn’t find a more complementary trading partner – India perhaps, where we could export agricultural products while importing from them the same items we currently get from China.

I am sad for Pakistan to see that Pakistanis are suffering economically due to competition from Chinese manufactured goods. This is also an issue for the world, as more economic opportunity in Pakistan might mean fewer people with time and motivation to listen to extremist militant viewpoints being propagated in some of the madrassas.

It does, however, confirm what I know about the US economy - this "free trade" bill of goods that we have been sold is not in the best interests of the American people, any more than a similar policy is helping Pakistan; how can workers in either country compete with what has been described as slave labor in China, which is working with minimal (to say the least) environmental regulation?

The rise of Islamic militancy has also forced China, which has a restive population of Uighur Muslims who get training in Muslim countries, especially Pakistan, to seek out alliances with traditional foes like Russia. Even if Pakistan starts cracking down further on militancy, China is unlikely to give us the same importance as emerging countries like Russia.

Trouble in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has indeed been tied to general Islamic militancy in South Asia, and the heroin trade from Afghanistan plays a role, as well - the source of much of this just a drive down the new-and-improved Karakoram Highway!

A military situation that requires China to move troops into Pakistan would help gain control of the XUAR, as well as give China significant leverage and ability to deal with the source of some of the troubles there.

This is not to argue that Pakistan should abandon its partnership with China. We simply need to diversify our diplomacy. Our reliance on China right now is such that any diplomatic dust-ups will have profound effects on us. And the next time a jailed dissident is honoured, we may even show up.

Pakistan may find itself maneuvered into a war with India to support Chinese interests.

More to follow.

Tale of a Tiger, Part 5

In Part 4 we looked at how new reckoning in Beijing chopped off about 1000 miles of Sino-Indian border, and a logical conclusion: China now seems to feel Jammu and Kashmir belong to Pakistan, not India. We then examined how China might be reinforcing a strategic choice to side with Pakistan against common enemy India.

First, we pick up where we left off at the end of Part 4; continuing with The mystery of missing thousand miles in J & K by C. Raja Mohan, December 19, 2010:

Xinhua's reference to 2,000 km of Sino-Indian border was based on an official briefing by the Assistant Foreign Minister of China, Hu Zhengyue to the Beijing press corps on Monday.

Minister Hu's shortening of the border with India does not appear to be a one-off comment. The figure 2,000 km appears to have become the new normal in the official Chinese characterisation of the border with India.

A day before Wen arrived in India, The Global Times - an English language newspaper published by the People's Daily, the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party - contradicted the Indian figure of 3,500 km for the operational border between the two nations.

In an interview with the Indian Ambassador to China, S. Jaishankar, the Global Times asked about the reported tensions on the border. In response, Jaishankar said, "The reality contradicts any alarmist depiction of the situation on the border, whether in India or in China. We have a long common border of 3,488 km."

In publishing the interview in its Tuesday's editions, the editors of the Global Times chose to add in parenthesis the following: "There is no settled length of the common border. The Chinese government often refers to the border length as being 'about 2,000 km.'"

Given Beijing’s new emphasis on a shorter border with India, Delhi can't ignore the issue any longer. After all, the Chinese are quite careful and very definitive in articulating their boundary claims.

Beijing's official figure for the Indian border at about 2,000 km makes sense only if the boundary between J&K and China is disregarded. From the Indian count, the western sector that covers the frontier of Jammu & Kashmir is 1,597 km (nearly 1,000 miles).

For decades now, Delhi and Beijing have discussed, as a mater of routine, the western sector of J&K as part of their boundary talks. The first signs of trouble on the western sector came nearly a decade ago during NDA tenure, when Delhi tried to exchange maps of the border with Beijing as part of an effort to clarify the Line of Actual Control on their vast frontiers.

The maps for the central sector were quickly exchanged; but Beijing was reluctant to do the same in the western sector. Part of the problem was said to be Chinese concern about Pakistan's sensitivity to the delineation of the Sino-Indian border in J&K.

The new Chinese approach to the western sector reveals that India's problem could be much larger than the question of stapled visas. It might be about a fundamental ambivalence in Beijing about India's sovereignty over J&K.

Just as the Chinese decision to call Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet' [see Part 6 - EL] has begun to gain international traction, the repeated references to the length of Sino-Indian border as 2,000 km is bound to have an impact on the global discourse about J&K.

Beijing's new position underlines China's centrality in J&K. While the Indian debate on Kashmir is usually focussed on Pakistan, China's presence in the state might be emerging as a decisive new factor.

India claims that China is in occupation of nearly 38,000 sq km of Indian territory in the Ladakh region of J&K. China is also in control of nearly 5,000 sq km of Shaksgam valley in PoK ceded by Islamabad to Beijing in March 1963.

Until now India has sought to negotiate its territorial disputes in Kashmir separately with Pakistan and China. India might now have to come to terms with the changing geopolitics of J&K, where India's two fronts with Pakistan and China come together.

But, is my analysis wrong, and is India - where the above-quoted article originated - perhaps a little paranoid?

From In trip to India, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao takes cues from Obama, December 15, 2010:

While China is putting business deals front and center with India, the two largest countries on earth have major strains to hash out behind closed doors. Obama's earlier visit put China on notice that its recent assertiveness over disputed territory has galvanized neighbors like India to deepen ties with the United States as geopolitical insurance.

China has long been nettled by New Delhi's sheltering of the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, India has been particularly unnerved over the past couple of years by:

• The refusal of China to stamp visas inside the passports of Indian residents – and even an Indian military general – from the disputed Kashmir region; Chinese officials have stamped separate, stapled papers instead.
• Chinese border incursions along the Himalayan border that remains disputed since a 1962 border war; India has quietly begun large infrastructure buildups in response.
• The Chinese buildup of naval port facilities in the Indian Ocean, a strategy dubbed the "string of pearls" that's designed to choke off Indian naval emergence.

Obama's November trip tapped into growing trepidation in Asia over Chinese assertiveness and drew together a similar "string of pearls" of major democracies with navies that surround China – India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea. Strategist Robert Kaplan has called attention to the semicircle that those nations form around China.

"It's not a war I'm predicting, but what I am alluding toward is a very complex, Metternichian arrangement of power from the Horn of Africa all the way up through the Sea of Japan," the Monitor quoted Mr. Kaplan as saying at a book event in Cambridge, Mass. "We don't have to interfere everywhere, we just have to move closer to our democratic allies in the region so they can do more of the heavy lifting."

As I showed in Part 2, China is definitely developing a naval capability that has ramifications in the Indian Ocean.

And, as alluded to in Part 4, moving the People's Liberation Army down the Karakoram Highway could allow China to threaten India's western flank, providing a military agreement with Pakistan to do so existed - and, in the event of an Indo-Pak war, I doubt Islamabad would refuse such an agreement.

China is talking business with longtime rival India; but, is China squaring off for a fight with India? By setting in place the pieces - a legal pretext to deny Jammu and Kashmir to India, a capability to move naval forces into the Indian Ocean and support their operations there, a line of communication to move ground and air forces into Pakistan - is Beijing preparing to secure its western flank by eliminating a big pearl off Obama's string?

Is this a strategic move to deny the US an ally on China's western flank should China have to square off with the US?

Stay tuned for Part 6!

Tale of a Tiger, Part 4

In Part 1, we briefly looked at China's move to increase influence in the Persian Gulf region, touching on China's espionage establishment and Beijing's theft of US nuclear technology, and Beijing's subsequent passing of that technology to Pakistan.

In Part 2, we looked at China's naval expansion in the direction of the Indian Ocean, and in Part 3, we looked at the growing threat China poses to the US Navy. Here, we begin to consider Chinese disputes with India.

First, we review The mystery of missing thousand miles in J&K by C. Raja Mohan, December 19, 2010:

As questions of territorial sovereignty return to the centrestage in Sino-Indian relations, Beijing has added a new twist to the long-running boundary dispute between the two countries by knocking off nearly 1,600 km from its definition of China's border with India.

A Xinhua report from Beijing earlier this week on the eve of premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India described the Sino-Indian border as nearly 2,000-km long. The Indian count of the operational border is a lot longer at nearly 3,500 km (not taking into account the line separating Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and China). The discrepancy is too large to be treated as an inadvertent error in Beijing.

So, where did the hundreds of kilometers disappear? China apparently no longer treats the line of nearly 1,600 km separating Jammu and Kashmir on the one hand and Xinjiang and Tibet on the other as a border with India.

That's it in a nutshell - China no longer considers the Jammu and Kashmir border as a border with India; therefore, China must consider this disputed area to belong to Pakistan.

China's recasting of the length of the border with India appears to be part of the Kashmir puzzle that Beijing has unveiled in recent years. The other pieces include the recent policy of issuing stapled visas to Indian citizens from J&K, the reluctance to host a visit by the Northern Commander of the Indian Army Lt. Gen. B.S. Jaswal, the dramatic expansion of the Chinese activity in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir that includes the modernisation of the Karakoram Highway and the plans to construct a new rail line and oil pipeline between Kashgar in Xinjiang and the Gwadar port on Pakistan's Makran coast.

Interesting...

A couple of years ago, a blogger pointed out the evidence of Pakistan's support for the Taliban in the mid-1990's as a means of stabilizing Afghanistan to open up Central Asia for trade via Pakistan, and specifically via the port facilities in Gwadar that China was helping Islamabad to develop:

All these warlords and their armies -- self-appointed toll-collectors -- are not good for any real business. To conduct business, there is a need for security along the highways, and for one understandable and consistent set of rules (and tolls, customs, taxes, etc.) by which to abide. That requires subduing all these warlords, and getting them to toe the line or back off.

Any group that wanted to undertake this task would have the support of the people, whose economy was hurting due to these armies of highwaymen, and of businesses -- not just local businesses, but any business that needed products to traverse Afghanistan.

In this light, it is interesting to note that one year earlier, Pakistan began feasibily studies for development of Gwadar. Gwadar was then planned to become, and is currently being developed as, a major seaport. From here, Central Asian products, especially oil and gas, could be shipped to world markets, and products from around the world could arrive for overland transshipment to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

All of this assumes, of course, an overland route to Central Asia that is secure.

There is no point in bringing goods through Pakistan and then sending them to nearby Iran, when Iran has port facilities in its southeast that could be developed, cutting a few kilometers off the trip, and when one does not in any case know what kind of deal one might get from Tehran. Not only would such an Iranian option not benefit Pakistani business interests, but it would also not be as palatable to Western governments and Western business interests.

So, the alternative is to go north through Afghanistan, which has always been a crossroads of greater Asia, and Kandahar is perhaps the first and perhaps the biggest hub along likely routes on the Afghanistan side of the border.

In 1993 the feasibility studies of improving Gwadar as a major seaport begin, and in 1994 the Taliban magically appear in Kandahar, riding shotgun on a Pakistani convoy with a Pakistani consul.

Would it be too paranoid of me to suggest that perhaps China is / was / has been somehow helping to support the Taliban - hoping at first to have the Taliban stabilize Afghanistan, and later hoping merely that the Taliban would bog the US down in another Vietnam-style conflict?

The same blogger also addressed the significance of Karakoram highway upgrades:

The Korakoram Highway is, in many ways, very symbolic.

Winding its way from Islamabad and Rawalpindi northward, the Korakoram Highway skirts areas subject to Indian control as it makes its way to the Chinese border. From there, it skirts the Afghan and Tajik borders as it winds towards China's interior.

[snip]

As alluded to above in the news article about road upgrades in Tajikistan, the Korakoram Highway upgrade, significant by itself, is nevertheless part of a broader plan, reaching all the way to the development of new port facilities in Gwadar, as the Wikipedia article touches on:

China and Pakistan are also planning to link the Karakoram Highway to the southern port of Gwadar in Balochistan through the Chinese-aided Gwadar-Dalbandin railway, which extends up to Rawalpindi.

Why is this highway symbolic?

[snip]

The Korakoram Highway, built under Benazir Bhutto's father, seems to symbolize Pakistan's pragmatism, given the dynamics of international politics.

Now, we see China beginning to establish the legal framework to physically distance India, an enemy common to Beijing and Islamabad, from the important road being upgraded to connect China with Pakistan - a Pakistan which would be rejuvenated by increased trade from Central Asia via a friendly and stable Afghanistan, assuming the Taliban win.

And, even if the Taliban lose, the Indian frontier would still then be miles farther away from this important new line of communication connecting China to key ally Pakistan and all the way to the Persian Gulf - a line of communication the Chinese Army and Air Force could, with Pakistan's help, defend against both the US and Russia!

Stick around for Part 5!

Tale of a Tiger, Part 2

In Part 1, we explored connections from China, which has a considerable espionage network targeting the US, and Iran. Furthermore, we touched on China's assistance to Pakistan, especially with military - including nuclear - technology, and Pakistan as another route for such technology to wind up in Iran's hands.

I now present the first part of China's navy cruises into Pacific ascendancy, by Peter J. Brown, April 22, 2010 (please read the entire original for content and to review cited sources):

In mid-April, two Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers, the Choukai and Suzunami, unexpectedly encountered several Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships, including a pair of submarines and eight destroyers, approximately 140 kilometers west-southwest of Okinawa near the Nansei (Ryukyu) Islands.

The Chinese warships were heading out of the East China Sea and into the Western Pacific. They passed north of Miyako Island - the northernmost island in the Nansei group - through the Miyako Strait and then proceeded to head southeast.

They were there to practice anti-submarine warfare, underway refueling and helicopter flight training, to name a few of the procedures.

During one PLAN helicopter flight, the Suzunami was subjected to a close encounter which prompted a formal protest by Japan's SDF Joint Staff Office. The presence of the PLAN subs also sparked a protest.

Japan's Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi was upset that so many Chinese warships had sailed so near to Japan on their way to the western Pacific Ocean without any prior notification by China. [1]

Kitazawa said nothing about whether or not any of the five new Chinese earth observation/military reconnaissance satellites launched since late 2009 were engaged in assisting the PLAN warships during their unannounced passage.

Gary Li, a PLA specialist at the London-based Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) said the PLAN's actions in this instance were very significant. Li describes the incident as unprecedented and an attempt by China to "send a very clear message to the region that it should be prepared to see a China unafraid to really test its reach and move into new areas". [2]

Drew Thompson, director of China Studies at The Nixon Center in Washington, DC, did not agree with Li, adding that the recent PLAN "blue water" activity off Japan did not prove that the PLAN has entered a disturbing new phase in its development.

"Calling this a new phase is overly dramatic. The PLA has been working for a long time on expanding their ability to operate farther from their shores and conduct joint operations closely coordinating air, land and sea platforms," said Thompson. "These PLAN exercises certainly demonstrate expanded capabilities, or at least the willingness to exercise the hardware they have more vigorously, but it should be viewed as part of a continuum rather than a departure from a previous period of development."

The article goes on to address the developing capabilities, predicting as many as four carrier battle groups and four amphibious groups in the next two decades. Current capabilities include support of naval operations by a satellite network that is growing in size and quality, and by land-based airpower - and it should be noted that the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF - the Chinese Air Force) is very large, if not as technologically equipped as western air forces.

[Abraham] Denmark [a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC] cautions that whatever conclusions are drawn, there is no question that PLAN still has a long way to go before it can be classified as a formidable "blue water" naval force.

"The PLAN currently does not have the experience required to operate for extended periods of time far from home, nor does it have sufficient numbers of ships to be able to operate in the Indian Ocean without significantly diminishing its ability to respond to threats closer to home," said Denmark. "Moreover, the PLA is traditionally dominated by leaders with experience in ground operations, and significant doctrinal and conceptual changes will have to take place within the PLA before the PLAN would be able to protect SLOCs."

Operations far from home - for example, in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East - do not have an adequate support network, leaving the Chinese Navy at the end of a long and tenuous supply line that stretches through places where the line is easy to interdict, and past potential enemies, including the US and India.

But such operations are increasingly becoming potentially necessary, as Chinese interests spread around the globe, both increasing the possibility that China may need to defend those interests, and increasing the opportunities China has to establish bases from which to defend them. (For some pretty pics, see Time Photo Essay: China Goes to Africa.) From China's Navy Grows, and the World Watches Warily by Ishaan Tharoor, May 13, 2009:

Though publicly muted, there is growing concern in capitals across the rest of Asia over Beijing's burgeoning pre-eminence. "There's no escaping the fact that, in the past ten years, China's negotiating power has increased while others have weakened," says C. Raja Mohan, a leading Indian foreign policy expert and professor at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies.

(See also The Chinese Navy: How Big a Threat to the U.S.? by Bill Powell, April 21, 2009, for thoughts on how recent developments present historic opportunities.)

Though China appears determined to challenge US naval supremacy during the course of this century (and, while Americans think perhaps as far as the next election, China plans in decades), current capabilities and trends seem to target the Indian Ocean.

Here we review the last half of Who will rule the waves? by Harsh V. Pant, August 7, 2009:

As China's economic and political prowess rise, there has also been commensurate growth in its Indian Ocean profile. China is acquiring naval bases at crucial choke points not only to serve its economic interests but also to enhance its strategic presence in the region. China realizes that its maritime strength will give it the strategic leverage to emerge as the regional hegemon.

China's growing reliance on bases across the Indian Ocean is a response to its perceived vulnerability, given the logistic constraints that it faces due to the distance from its own area of operation. China is consolidating power over the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean with an eye on India, something that comes out clearly in a secret memorandum issued by the director of the General Logistic Department of the PLA: "We can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as only for the Indians. We are taking armed conflicts in the region into account."

China has deployed its Jin class submarines at a submarine base near Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan Island in the South China Sea, raising alarm in India. The base is merely 1,200 nautical miles from the Malacca Strait and will be its closest access point to the Indian Ocean. The base also has an underground facility that can hide the movement of submarines.

The concentration of strategic naval forces at Sanya will further propel China toward consolidating its control over the Indian Ocean region. The presence of access tunnels on the mouth of the deep water base is particularly troubling for India as it will have strategic implications, enabling China to interdict shipping at three choke points in the Indian Ocean.

As the ability of China's navy to project power in the Indian Ocean region grows, India is likely to feel even more vulnerable and restricted in its freedom to maneuver despite enjoying distinct geographical advantages. Of particular note is what has been termed China's "string of pearls" strategy of bases and diplomatic ties, which has significantly expanded China's strategic depth in India's backyard. This includes the Gwadar port in Pakistan, naval bases in Burma, electronic intelligence-gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal, construction of a canal across the Kra Isthmus in Thailand, a military agreement with Cambodia, and the buildup of forces in the South China Sea.

Given that almost 80 percent of China's oil passes through the Strait of Malacca, Beijing is reluctant to rely on U.S. naval power for unhindered access to energy and so has decided to build up its naval power along the sea routes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. China is also courting other states in South Asia by building container ports at Chittagong in Bangladesh and at Hambantota, Sri Lanka, as well as by helping to build a naval base at Marao in the Maldives.

China will have great difficulty in exerting as much sway in the Indian Ocean as India does. Still, the steps that China takes to protect and enhance its interests in the region will generate apprehensions in India, thus engendering a classic security dilemma between the two Asian giants.

Even from its southern base near Sanya, to get to the Indian Ocean, PLAN units still have quite a distance to travel. It is 1200 NM across the South China Sea from Sanya to the Malacca Straits.

These 1200 NM are past Vietnam, a nation with which China has historically not had the best of relations, despite their de facto cooperation against the US during the Vietnam War. Today, Vietnam's relations with the US are warming considerably, and India is cultivating Vietnam as an ally as well.

The Malacca Straits area itself is choke point vulnerable to interdiction, running between Malaysia and Indonesia. Once there, Chinese naval forces must transit the Andaman (or Burma) Sea.

One border of the Andaman Sea is India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory, a location the Indian Navy routinely exercises to defend.

Once past this barrier of islands, Chinese units, far from home, will be in an ocean geographically dominated by India, whose air and naval forces, operating from home bases and with secure internal supply lines, will be positioned to interfere at will with Chinese operations - assuming the military capability to do so has been developed by India.

As this series continues, we will look at other aspects of China's projection of economic, political and military power into the coastal regions near the Indian Ocean. Assuming the PLAN will not be able to credibly threaten US interests this far from home, but may be able to threaten the interests of traditional rival India, we will, in other posts, also examine some of India's strategic and political countermoves, as well as relevant Indian military developments. For now, may I suggest a previous post entitled Indian Naval Upgrade?

Desiccated Land, Part 1

In Jammu and Kashmir, India is sure trying to do something (I'm not sure what).

From Terms of Kashmir dialogue finalised (July 24, 2010):

JAMMU: The Indian government has finalised the terms of dialogue that it intends to open with all the groups in Jammu and Kashmir, including the separatists, highly placed sources said on Saturday.

The sources here, in touch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and union home minister P Chidambaram, told IANS that the central government would open dialogue with the groups in Kashmir with a straight offer to dilute the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the legal cover that shields armed forces from prosecution for any acts of omission and commission in counter-terrorism operations.

Other initiatives include efforts to find employment, to get local young people working instead of throwing rocks (or maybe even grenades).

But, meanwhile: Curfew imposed in Sopore, Kupwara (July 23, 2010):

Srinagar Curfew was clamped on Friday in Bandipora and Kupwara districts and Sopore town in view of a call given by separatists to hold demonstrations to protest the killing of several youth during clashes with security forces in the past one month.

Elsewhere in the Kashmir Valley, restrictions continued on the movement of people.

For some background, we consider Jihadis set to spill over into Kashmir, July 21, 2010:

LAHORE - There was hope but no great expectations for the dialogue between India's External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi on July 15. And so the headline of a major English-language Pakistan daily read, "They talked but said nothing" - an outcome which proved pessimists' predictions.

Pakistan's bottom line had always been for progress on the disputed Kashmir region and the Siachen Glacier dispute, with the reduced flow of downstream water in the Indus River connected to the overall equation. The Indian side declined to take up these major issues, saying it did not have the mandate. Khrishna instead remained fixated on blaming Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) for terror activities in India, bringing the talks to a virtual standstill, according to people with direct knowledge of the discussions.

The Siachen Glacier lies just east of the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, it has been the scene of an ongoing battle between the two countries since 1984. The glacier's melting waters are the source of the Nubra River in Indian-controlled Ladakh, which drains into the Shyok River and in turn joins the Indus, Pakistan's main water source. India abandoned plans to withdraw from Siachen after Pakistan's incursion into Kargil in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1999.

The larger Kashmir dispute encompasses much more than water rights. It is an emotive issue stretching back to 1947, when Pakistan was carved out of British India on the understanding that the sub-continent's Muslims constituted a separate nation. Religion alone determined the territorial demarcation of the two states. Kashmir was made an exception, which set the stage for two of the three wars between the two countries in 1947 and 1965. Whether this was contrived or accidental is moot, and both India and Pakistan suffer the consequences.

There are parallels to be drawn between Kashmir and many other contested regions in the world.

Skipping down:

In the South Asian smoke and mirrors game, encouraging India and Pakistan to work together will clearly take much more than the Americans bargained for. The LeT, the organization India accuses of masterminding the Mumbai carnage, has long been identified as a Pakistan proxy, bred to boost the independence struggle in Kashmir yet reportedly bending only to Pakistan's military establishment.

The LeT was given free rein to collect funds and recruit members in Pakistan before the 9/11 attacks in the US. Post-9/11, however, a large number of LeT "strays", or breakaways, were found in the company of al-Qaeda-linked jihadi groups that had adopted an anti-American position. This drew another picture and the organization was banned. But it was not disbanded: its leaders simply advised LeT members to keep a low profile in Pakistan, with the doors to India purportedly left open.

Inevitably, the LeT was seen by the Indian ruling elite as complicit in terror attacks that rained down on India. These include the December 2001 assault on the Indian parliament that killed 12; the October 2005 Delhi bombings that killed 62; the September 2008 Delhi bombings that killed 30: the November 2008 Mumbai assault which left 175 dead after a three-day rampage; and the February 2010 Pune blasts that killed nine. However, the organization denied any connections to the assaults, claiming that targeting civilians went against its religious principles.

Pakistan meantime was confronted by a vicious campaign of terror, beginning in 2001. This ran all the way up from Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi to the Khyber Pass in the north. The restiveness in Pakistan's Balochistan province was an added problem. Bomb blasts from 2007 through 2009 alone accounted for 5,500 civilian deaths, and nearly every Pakistani was convinced that India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was behind the killings.

Elements in Pakistan are supporting the militants/ separatists/ terrorists, and that support is causing blowback in Pakistan.

Skipping down again:

The "clear and present danger" spelled out from the failure of the Indian-Pakistan talks and the conference episodes, is that the jihadis are gathering momentum and set to spill over into Kashmir. From there, or so the region's political pundits have it, al-Qaeda had planned to move on into India to secure "strategic depth" with heightened terror tactics. Then it can trek onto Central Asia to forward the jihadi movement for the liberation of Palestine.

Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban, in the introduction of his new offering Descent into Chaos, described the support system of al-Qaeda's human resources succinctly when he wrote, "to a handful of Muslims, al-Qaeda posed a civilizational solution - albeit an extreme one - to the justice denied to Muslims in Palestine [and] Kashmir". The failure of India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute will provide the international jihadi movement with all the space it needs.

Honestly, for the jihadists "Palestine" and "Kashmir" are merely buzzwords, excuses to do what Mohammed commanded but which many Muslims had outgrown.

For some analysis regarding India's actions in Kashmir, we go to India's strategy of suppression in Kashmir could backfire, July 23, 2010:

Police say only four protests occurred across the Indian-controlled Kashmir region. One protest in Srinagar swelled to 1,000 people, though tear gas quickly broke its ranks. In the village of Palhalan, someone from within the protest crowd shot a police officer twice in the leg.

But separatist leaders and police officials are now warning that the government's apparent strategy of curfews and suppression lacks a political roadmap and could, in the long run, send the current generation of rock-throwing boys back to the gun-and-grenade warfare that dominated the 1990s. Human rights groups say 19 civilians have died since June 11 in clashes between protesters and security officials.

Kashmir back to the future

"You have the environment that you can push the people again toward what had started in the early '90s. But we don't want that to happen," says Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, one of the two top separatist leaders. Both are currently under house arrest. "Today boys are out pelting stones. Tomorrow these are the same boys who will probably pick up the gun."

He and most Kashmiris say their struggle is not religious at its root, but about self-determination. However, Mr. Farooq warns that the closure of main mosques – smaller mosques have remained open – starts down a dangerous path.

"If the government is not letting the people pray then it's mandatory for the people at a certain time to declare war against the state. And I think this is something the muftis and the religious scholars will have to think about," he says.

What separatists want

New Delhi has called for meetings that would involve a wide range of voices, including separatists. But before any dialogue begins, separatists have demanded an easing of draconian security laws, release of prisoners, and pullbacks of street forces. The two sides appear at a standoff.

Though economics is a factor - there is a need for more job opportunities, and many of the job opportunities that the region offered are now gone due to the standstill caused by the crackdown - many of the rock-throwing youths say economics is not the reason, but rather the crackdown is causing the problems: if they can't vent peacefully, then simmering problems will boil over into violence. The issue: self-determination, promised during partition in the 1940's, but never realized.

However, the mixture is made more potent by support for militants from across the border in Pakistan.

But, India's response as if all the protesters are Pakistani-backed instigators is itself helping to foment the trouble, and simultaneously giving militants an issue.

More to follow on Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian Navy Upgrade

Here's an interesting piece of news, entitled India commissions its first stealth warship April 29, 2010:

MUMBAI: India on Thursday commissioned its first indigenously-built stealth warship with sophisticated features to hoodwink enemy radars and gained entry into a top club of developed countries having such capability.

Inducting 'INS Shivalik', the first of the three-ship Project-17 frigates, at the Mumbai-based Mazagon Docks (MDL), Defence Minister A K Antony called it a red letter day for the armed forces.

The 143-metre-long warship, with 6,000-tonne displacement, has "versatile control systems with signature management and radar cross-section reduction features." The other countries having the capability to build stealth warships are the US, the UK, Russia, France, China, Japan and Italy.

[snip]

The Navy currently has a 130-warship-strong fleet which includes an aircraft carrier, 20 landing ships, eight destroyers, 12 frigates and 16 attack submarines based in four commands headquartered in Mumbai (Western Naval Command), Visakhapatnam (Eastern Naval Command), Kochi (Southern Naval Command) and Port Blair (Andaman and Nicobar Joint Command).

Shivalik class warships can deal with multiple threat environment and are fitted with weapon suite comprising both area and point defence systems. It has sensors for air, surface and subsurface surveillance, electronic support and counter equipment and decoys for 'soft kill measures'.

[snip]

"Shivalik is a steep jump in the indigenous design effort of the Directorate of Naval Design that has since 1954 designed 17 warships of different classes with 80 units built out of them. Currently, there are four designs from which 11 warships are under construction," he said.

See also India commissions its first stealth warship, joins elite club and India commissions its first stealth warship, though the Times of India article gives far more information.

For a target to be detected on radar, it must reflect radar energy back to an enemy detector. Stealth technology consists of minimizing this by 1) reflecting the energy in another direction, 2) absorbing it instead of reflecting it, or 3) transmitting it through the target - though this latter approach may be difficult with a large metal warship. Along with stealth features there are typically measures to reduce the target's heat signature and possibly its acoustic signature, as well:

"INS Shivalik has the latest stealth features to outsmart the enemy with low radar cross section, be it of the hull, infra-red or sound signatures," according to Navy's Director General for Naval Design Rear Admiral K N Vaidhyanathan.

India has two island groups, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Indian Navy typically stages exercises where their forces have to protect these islands from an attacker, hence the need to project power, including landing ships, naval airpower, and submarines.

A powerful enough naval force would also be useful against India's traditional enemy, Pakistan, as the Indian Navy could conceivably execute a landing on Pakistan's coast, outflanking Pakistan's ground forces along the border. Realistically, the threat of such a landing might be more useful than a landing itself, as Pakistan's army might be tied up defending the coastline against possible Indian attack in many places.

An ability to intervene elsewhere in the Indian Ocean is also significant. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been dominated by the military since the early 1960's, and has been the scene of anti-government instability in recent years.

In the context of power projection, it is worth considering India's fossil fuel situation. It might be useful to begin by examining natural gas.