Orbat.com

  Please bookmark Orders of Battle as a backup in case site is inaccessible.

Editor
Ravi Rikhye

Associate Editor
Mandeep Singh Bajwa

Chief Technical Officer
Dale Atkins

Publisher
Ravi Rikhye

Concise World Armies 2010

Ravi Rikhye

1268  orbat pages

$75 E-book

Order via Paypal, account of editor@orbat.com

Analysis

Swat, Pakistan North West Frontier Province

[February 13, 2009]

 

WE BRING YOU THE WORLD ©
PUBLISHED ON AN AD HOC BASIS

 

Long War Journal on new US Afghanistan Strategy

For general news about US deployments/operations, visit www.globalsecurity.org  

For solid reporting from Iraq from the US military's view, read Bill Roggio at www.longwarjournal.com  

 

 

Somalia Piracy

September, 2009

30 ships from 17 nations


European TF Atalanta

HQ Northwood, London

  • Canarias (FF, SPA)

  • Bremen (FF, GER)

  • Brandenburg (FF, GER)

  • Lafeyette (FF, FRA)

  • Amethyste (SS, FRA)

  • Maestrale (FF, ITA)

  • Fridtjof Nasan (FF, NOR)

  • Malmo (Corvette, SWE)

  • Trosso (Corvette, SWE)

  • Stockholm (Corvette, SWE)

  • 2 P-3, 1 Atlantique, 1 AWACS

Authorized to December 2010

US CTF 151

Turkey, Command

  • USS Gettysburg (Flag)

  • Canada

  • Denmark

  • France

  • Netherlands

  • Pakistan

  • Singapore

  • United Kingdom

  • Australia

 

Independent command

Japan (2 destroyers)

PLAN (2 destroyers)

India (1 destroyer)

Russia (2 ships)

 

 

Support by US 5th Fleet

CTF 150

Primarily oriented toward operations in Afghanistan/Iraq but steps in whenever possible

Ideas for US Energy Independence

Energy Facts

New At TOE

100+ pages of Vietnam era TOEs 

 

Concise World Armies 2010

If you have purchased CWA 2009, particularly with updates, there is no need to buy CWA 2010. We are changing the publication cycle from July 1 each year to 1 January. There is not enough new material in 2010 as yet to justify the expense of a new purchase.

E-Book $75; hard copy $200 (two volumes, not yet published) 1268 orbat pages (11 point type, pages  537 x 697 points).

List of Countries

After you order, kindly let the Editor know at rikhye1@hotmail.com

Purchasers are reminded that 95% of the material in CWA 2009 is copyrighted proprietary information and is sold to you in the explicit understanding it is solely for your private use.

CWA Updates 2009-2010

#23. February 14, 2010

US Army, US Marine Corps, and BMD (new 132 pages, earlier 79 pages)

#24. February 17, 2010

Sweden

#25. March 4, 2010

Iran update

#26. March 9, 2010

Argentina

#27. March 13, 2010

Croatia (4.5 pages; previously 2 pages)
#28. March 15, 2010 Falklands
#29. March 16, 2010 Serbia (6+ pages, previously 3 pages)

New Orbats open to the public

12.23.2009 Myanmar 2009 (6 pages) Richard M. Bennett

US Relief Forces to Haiti

January 14, 2010 v.1.1

Terry Shifflet

 

0230 GMT March 18, 2010

 

 

0230 GMT March 17, 2010

  • The return of al-Sadr When al-Sadr went off the radar screen following his losing battles with the US Army, told his followers to store their weapons and to turn to social service, we believed the US had made a great mistake in not dispatching him to his just reward in the Very Hot Downstairs Place. This man is a very dangerous snake, and there are some people who are so murderous, so violently criminal, that's it's better for everyone to get over one's squeamishness and to kill them. Had the US not mounted its surge, it's possible that al-Sadr would have created the greatest blood-bath in modern times.

  • So it does not make us joyously happy to learn from the New York Times that this killer has returned, and may win as many as 40 seats, becoming a kingmaker in Iraq. Doubtless someone will say "oh, but we forced him to renounce violence and he turned to democratic political action, and this is a good thing."

  • Nothing to do with a live al-Sadr is a good thing. This man is not a democrat. He wants to rule all Iraq, and if it means a few hundred thousand people or more must die, to him that's just an inconvenience equivalent to a fly in one's soup. He is young, ruthless, energetic, and possessed of a cunning that many twice his age lack. If he indeed becomes a kingmaker, the coalition that he crowns will owe him, and big time. Money, guns, key positions will come his way again. Remember what he did last time when he had those resources.

  • Wind-power a money loser, writes Reader Flymike Further, he points that the costs of subsidizing wind power, while creating jobs in one sector, takes away resources from other sectors. Some believe more jobs are destroyed than are created by wind power.

  • Quotes from an article Flymike cited (he is sending us the URL).

  • "...researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain released a study showing that every "green job" created by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy.
  • Research director Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power itself, but found that when a government artificially props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical costs (31%), tax hikes (5%) and government debt follow. Fact is, these subsidies have the same "Cuisinart" effect on jobs as wind-generating propeller blades have on birds. Every green job costs $800,000 to create and 90% of them are temporary, he found.
  • Alvarez made no bones about the lessons of Spain for the Obama administration, which has big plans for "green jobs." His report warned of "considerable employment consequences" from "self-inflicted economic wounds." It forecast that the U.S. could lose 6.6 million jobs if it followed Spain, and it "should certainly expect its results to follow such a tendency.""
    •

  • That wind power cannot stand on its feet at this time is irrefutable. Nonetheless, there may be sound reasons to subsidize certain things. America's phenomenal prosperity in the 30 years 1940-70 was built on subsidies: automobiles, computers, aircraft, advanced materials - to give just a very few examples - used US spending on defense. Nuclear power, of which we are great fans, is subsidized in that the government does - or at least did - the bulk of the R & D. Coal is subsidized because the true cost of the pollution, health, and environment, is passed on to us, the consumers.

  • America is falling behind in many technology areas precisely because other governments do not hesitate to subsidize technologies they believe will give them the lead in coming decades. Our wanting to maintain our doctrinal purity results in our falling further behind.

  • But as far as the Editor is concerned his concern in not global warming. It is national security. America needs to throw everything it has into weaning ourselves from imported oil. A whacking great chunk of our national security budget - Editor once estimated it as 15% of all security spending: homeland, defense, intelligence, foreign aid, nuclear weapons, space etc; a case can be made its higher. You and I are not just subsidizing oil, but the government is leaving us completely vulnerable to disruption of oil supplies.

  • As far as we are concerned, America has to do everything possible to eliminate oil imports from the Gulf, North Africa, and West Africa. If it means subsidizing wind or solar-electric or passive-safety reactors or fusion power or whatever, we believe all sources have to be developed on a crash, highest-priority basis.

  • Army revamps physical training Read this great article sent by Reader Luxembourg. Daily Herald | Army drops bayonets, busts abs in training revamp

0230 GMT March 16, 2010

Iraq Election 2010 Results
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/maliki_allawi_surge.php

  • Pentagon questions value of Israel as an ally Frankly, we consider this a plant to try and get the Israelis to behave themselves better, subsequent to the US Vice-Presidential visit fiasco. Nonetheless, it's worth a read because - if true - US has stopped being a limp-wimp re. Israel. But how long this thinking will last when the Israelis start pushing back is something to be seen.

  • http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7063214.ece

  • Would Islamic fundamentalism again the US disappear if Israel was no longer an issue for the Arabs? Not one bit. Sure, Arabs get propaganda value out of the US-Israel connection. Maybe they even get a recruit or two on occasion. But Israel has no relevance to the Islamists.

  • So while Editor personally would like the US to have a more even-handed approach to the Palestine-Israel issue, it's best to remember that AQ and its various offshoots, the Pakistani jihadi groups, the SE Asia jihadi groups and so on, don't give a hoot about Israel. And please do note we said "Palestine-Israel issue", not "Arab-Israel issue". The Arabs do not care half a hoot about the Palestinians. Never did. Never will. The people who said they really cared about the Palestinians are the Egyptians and the Jordanians, because they were impacted by the creation of Israel and the subsequent wars. And they are now America's BFF in the Middle East. Egypt, indeed, is Israel's BFF when it comes to oppressing the Palestinians.

  • Just occurred to us that our overseas readers may need BFF clarified: it's not what you're thinking, but Best Friends Forever. As for Friends With Benefits and Friends Without Benefits, that we leave to readers to figure out

0230 GMT March 15, 2010

  • Why the US has no credibility on non-proliferation Yesterday's Washington Post carried an article describing Pakistan's N-weapons cooperation with Iran. The British journalist Simon Henderson has obtained papers and interviews with people to document the relationship. None of this is unknown to US intelligence agencies; the sole difference is that since they would not or could not talk about it, there has been little by way of hard evidence in the public domain. Pakistan's proliferation efforts re. Libya and Saudi Arabia – and heaven knows who else – are also well known, as are the connections between AQ and Dr. AQ Khan, the so -named “Father of the Pakistan Bomb”.

  • So has Pakistan been labeled a rouge state and punished? No, because the US is allied to Pakistan. In the same way, US never has anything to say about Israel's N-weapons, and it had little to say about South Africa's program. This is because these are/were pariah states, creating situations where the US might find it inconvenient to come to their direct defense. Also in the same way, it is common knowledge in the N-weapons community that Japan, ROK, and Taiwan have created the capability to go nuclear within months if the need ever arose. These nations too are US allies.

  • So when the US turns around and punishes Iraq and then Iran for its N-weapons program, for much of the world the question becomes: how do you spell hypocrisy?

  • Now let's be clear. Editor tends to look at global security issues through a US lens, so he is all for Iran being denuclearized. He completely understands that US allies's N-weapons programs have to be treated on a different level from those of its enemies.

  • But here's the thing. US wraps everything it does in high-sounding moral tones, when the US is no more nor no less moral than any other state. US, like everyone else, does what it has to do to secure its interests. You don't see the British and the French and the Russians and the Chinese giving others moral lectures.

  • If the US simply made it clear it acts in its own interests, very few people will have a problem with America. Even the Arabs would have little problem because they of all people know that the strong make the rules, the weak follow those rules or pay the price. They have been strong in their time, and if you didn't obey their rules, they simply put you to the sword.

  • Nothing we say is going to make the US change the way it does things. We want only for our Americans readers to appreciate why the rest of the world does not see non-proliferation the same way when America insists on reserving the right of first-strike, insists on maintaining enough active and reserve weapons to devastate the world, and on top of all that, turns a Nelson's eye tyo the proliferation by its friends and allies.

  • Letter from Adam Lloyd on the current contretemps in US-Israeli relations Maybe the US they are distancing themselves in order to minimize backlash to the US of an Israeli military operation.  They are both still allies thanks to mutual enemies regardless of the Soviet Union being gone.

  • Letter from a reader who wishes not to be names You have not mentioned the biggest factor in the US's pro-Israel and anti-Arab stance, which is racism.

  • Editor's Comment Well yes, racism does have a lot to do with it. Israelis are in the main from Europe. But there is another side to this, and this is the anti-Jewish prejudice – also a form of racism – that runs very deep in the West. So this is not a simple matter of racism as most people use the term.

  • And yes, we acknowledge Mr. Lloyd's point about common enemies. The Arabs have to in their turn accept their responsibility for bad relations with the US. Yes, we know all about the colonialism factor and how the US, thanks to the Cold War, turned from its anti-colonial stance from World War 2 days to becoming a champion of colonialism. Editor is a 3rd Worlder, and knows first hand the damage the colonial and post-colonial attitudes have done to the Arabs. At the same time, US has done its share of damage: US supporting the Shah is the sole reason the Iranians hate America. The cavalier manner in which US puts Israel's interests ahead of everyone else's also plays a role.

  • But: irony abounds. These days America is hated by most Arabs for another reason altogether. And that is the rock-solid American support for the Arab world's tyrants, chief among them the Egyptian and Saudi governments. In a sense US is repeating the mistakes it did with the Shah.

0230 GMT March 14, 2010

 

  • US to Israel: you are a naughty little boy - but adorable If you opine in Washington DC that Israel runs US Mideast policy, you will get scornful looks from the idiotatti - the people who run this town. How Washington cannot see this is a great mystery. Most 3rd World types see Washington's tolerance, backing, and protecting of Israel as proof the US does not care one whit for the Arabs.

  • When the Editor replies yes, you are quite right, US indeed does not care for the Arabs, but it's got nothing to do with Israel, it's got to do with the buttotti kissing the Arabs insist on before handing over their oil, people argue back "then why does the US blindly support the Israelis no matter what they do?"

  • When Editor says every nation has its blind spot where logic ceases and there's no explanation for it, people retort "you're the one being illogical."

  • See, folks, the Arab hating part is simple. For 40 years the Arabs have been standing between the US and its big cars. You can rob an American's house, you can steal the house, you can sell his children into slavery, and you can run off with his wife under his nose, he will merely wave and say "Whatever". But when he is told: "Sorry, fella, gasoline has gone up another 20-cents", you have declared war. Indeed, Arabs should be thankful they haven't been nuked yet.

  • But what about the pro-Israel part? Well, you must remember that while the US was instrumental in the creation of Israel, it wasn't really pro-Israeli till the 1967 War. The Arabs, having got their behind kicked for the third time in 20 years fell into the Soviets' lap, and after that it was downhill between the US and the Arabs. Okay, you say, the Soviets have been gone for 20 years. True, but old habits are hard to change.

  • We mean, after all, would you throw out your kid because he's behaving badly? Some parents would, but most wouldn't. As far as Editor is concerned its not much more complicated than that. Sure, the Israeli lobby has a ton of money and media influence, but look, people, if it were only a question of money, the Arabs who have more loose change than anyone in the world would be Kings of the Hill. Capitol Hill, that is.

  • Anyway, that's the Editor's opinion for what its worth, after pondering the latest US-Israeli teacup in a tempest.

  • The Israelis are terrifically sadistic toward Uncle. Mr. Biden went to the Mideast to get peace talks started, and while he was there Israel said it would build 1600 new housing units in Jerusalem. An exquisitely placed kick to the shins.

  • So the brouhaha is not even over, and American apologists are all over the issue like flies on bull-poop. The Israeli Prime Minister had no knowledge the announcement was going to be made, we are being told. Really? Israel has about the population of the Greater Washington Metro area and the Israeli PM doesn't know what his own cabinet is doing?  But the plan will not be implemented for several years, we are being told. First, in this case we'll wager an Israeli year is a month for normal people. Second, if someone is deliberately trying to mess up Israeli-US relations, why has the Israeli PM not had the man's head served up to Mr. Biden? Oh, but you see the Israeli PM has a tricky coalition; he depends on religious extremists and they see Jerusalem as part of Israel. Okay, but why is the US making internal Israeli politics its problem?

  • Mr. Biden said that no matter what, talks must go on. Thank you, Mr. Biden, for giving Israel's line to the Arabs. This has greatly enhanced your credibility with the Arabs. A Nobel for the Veep for sure.

  • So with one kick the Israelis have set US Mideast plans back a few years, and the US's response? Naught, naughty, but you are so adorable.

  • Out of the 6-billion or so 3rd Worlders, there may have been one who believed the Editor when he says Washington is just being its usual Big Fat Idiot self, and really, there's no conspiracy.

  • Now any minute the Editor expects an email from that one person yelling: "I will never let you con me again, may you rot in that hot place where the usher is dressed in a red clown suit and sticks people in the rear with a trident." Okay, One-Person-Who-Believed-Me, you have every reason to be angry. If it's any satisfaction, my place with the Red Clown is already booked.

  • The mushroom that ate the world!  This ugly fat feller covers 8.8-square-kilometers in Oregon  and kills trees as it advances. Oh yes, its 2400 years old. Safety tip: do not go drinking in the Oregon woods and pass out.

  • http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/oregons-monster-mushroom-is-worlds-biggest-living-thing-710278.html

 

0230 GMT March 13, 2010

 

  • US/NATO to retrain Afghanistan Police They have decided that they made a mistake in the way they were training, and feel it is better to start from scratch. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of police will be sent to Turkey and Jordan for training.

  • http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031103148.html 

  • To add 12,000 police by October,  40,000 have to be recruited to offset attrition and desertion. Right there you can see a huge, huge problem. If attrition is so high, then the recruits are not properly selected. If desertion is so high, the men are not properly trained.

  • Indeed, the Coalition has the temerity to say that the best-trained units suffer 75% annual attrition rates. These are the paramilitary forces which are heavily deployed.

  • Okay, we'd like these Coalition geniuses to explain how we are seeing 75% attrition each year for units they call "best trained"? If the US Army lost 75% of its elite units due to annual attrition, wouldn't you call for an investigation of how the men are recruited and trained?

  • So 8 1/2 years have elapsed, and we have to start from scratch? Isn't there a high standard of accountability for leaders in wartime? So where's the accountability for this colossal boondoggle?

  • We need to make clear that NATO/EU have snafu'ed as much as the US, but then is anyone seriously expecting anything from EU/NATO?

  • French Navy captures 35 pirates in three days, destroying four mother ships and six skiffs. The lot has been packed off to Kenya for trial. Typical western move: you all so frightened of trying them yourselves you've outsourced the job to a local country.

  • We told you speaking first thinking later is not just a Pakistani trait but is a subcontinental trait. Now the Indian Home Minister has announced that the Maoists, who are active in one-third of India's districts (counties) will be defeated in three years. What's so sad about this amazingly stupid statement is that the Minister is actually quite a brainy fellow and an effective administrator. The Maoist problem has plagued India for 40 years, and a lot of it tied up with social injustice. Its absurd to think its going to solved in three years when India has not been able to defeat straightforward secessionist insurgencies in its northeast for 40 years.

 

 

0230 GMT March 12, 2010

 

  • China's rapid growth cannot continue says an opinion piece in yesterday Washington Post. Because China's growth has been export led, an IMF document says that to maintain 8% annually, China will have to double exports by 2020. Seeing as it has already edged out Germany as the world's biggest exporter, this is unlikely to happen. China can shift to consumer demand led growth, this will be much slower though it can continue for decades.

  • China is facing serious structural instabilities of which readers are aware, such as the investment bubble and non-performing loans. An example of the investment bubble: China has enough installed steel capacity to supply the entire developed world plus Russia.

  • So you thought Americans refuse to pay higher taxes We certainly thought so - till we read about Los Angeles. It seems Angelinos have agreed to increase their sales tax by half a point to 8.75% - which is a whacking great sales tax - to fund a rebuild/expansion of their very strained transportation infrastructure. And the measure passed 67-33.

  • [Incidentally, we gather from the California Government web site that Californians pay a tax above and beyond the sales tax, called a user fee. With that fee, Angelinos actually pay - gulp! - 9.75% on purchases. See http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi?LETTER=L&LIST=CITY and if we have it wrong, please write!]

  • Even more peculiar, all they've asked of Uncle Sam is that he guarantee the loans they will pay off using the sales tax increase - they don't want Sam the Man's money. The US Government has recently agreed to guarantee $8-billion worth of loans for new N-reactors. It also guarantees the student loans I take out to finance my education. When we first bought our house, we put down only 2% because the feds guaranteed the loan. Of course, we bought at the very bottom of the Washington DC housing slump in the 1990s, and paid $135K for a house at a time our joint income was $65K

  • What's going on here? Well, apparently Angelinos first built a consensus on which projects were to be undertaken. The conclusion is they are willing to pay more taxes if they believe it will benefit them. If we can extrapolate, this seems to indicate Americans are not against taxes, but against taxes that simply disappear into the maw of the Government dragon which takes in more and more money, and produces nothing but dragon poop.

  • Angelinos also seem to have realized something the rest of California fails to appreciate: you cannot have beer taxes and champagne budgets. You either cut spending, or you raise taxes. If you don't, you build deficits and pretty soon US is going to begging for money the same as Greece.

  • To the extent the Obama Administration is still promising increased benefits with no increase in taxes, the administration is lying to us and pretty soon when the piper's bill comes due, we will realize it has done us no favors.

  • So, for the health care bill, we at least would have been happier if the Administration did not fudge every figure in sight, and just told us: you want care for everyone, you have to pay more taxes. Then we could vote yes or no as is our wont.

  • Mr. Obama promised change: we call on him to deliver that change in the budget process. Transparent budgets without ten gazillion riders attached to the calculations, so that we can at least see what it is we are voting for.

  • As it is, thanks to the profligacy of Mr. Bush, a tradition Mr. Obama has happily embraced - so much for change we can believe in. So we are going to end up paying much higher taxes while having to severely cut services. The worst of all worlds.

  • Ashley Tellis testifies before Congress on Pakistan's Let Prof Tellis is a national security analyst currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He sends this link for those of our readers who want to know more about the terror group and its complex relationship with Pakistan.

  • www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=40330  

  • Letter from Josef Chamberlin on Predator targeting What they're using to track and/or home missiles on insurgents is basically a souped-up active RFID chip type/system, whereas before they had to use laser designators/beacons, which are more easily detected. All it takes is for someone close to leave it anywhere...it's literally the size of a fingernail.  If it was at your door, you would never notice it.  But the Predator overhead would.

  • Now, let's hope the Jihadi's never acquire cheap, commercial RFID tag-read equipment...although the frequencies aren't the same.  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,64189,00.asp http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=11976

  • Given you can use cheap, off-the-shelf Russkie software and two modified Dish-Network units, it's only a matter of time. Luckily Afghanistan has a very low literacy rate. This isn't like building an IED, this is like building a Heathkit, more tech. skills required.) Plus if Predator encrypted frequencies are anything like normal military encryption tech, it's going to be really difficult to divert Predator to false targets.

  • The Americans are so incredibly fortunate that their main enemy is so completely technically backwards.  Wouldn't happen with even a moderately  educated insurgency/populace.

  • Also, Josef sends a warning "And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing … a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods." -- Huxely.

  • So folks, we are already there and we don't know. But of course the best mind-control successfully hides it is controlling you and me.

 

 

0230 GMT March 11, 2010

 

  • US SecDef says some US troops US may leave Afghanistan earlier than President Obama's July 2011 date. We saw the news yesterday late morning on CNN, but when we updated, we could not find the article. So we are quoting TV station KSAT http://www.ksat.com/news/22793742/detail.html

  • Now look, people. We've said US is about to abandon Afghanistan, and given the US has neither the will or the means to fight the war as it should be fought to win, getting out is sensible.

  • What we have strenuously objected to is the continuing of the war to give President Obama cover. He opposed the war before he took office. Let him have the courage to get out now instead of wasting more time, money, and lives. US may think its drawing things out will let it influence the future shape of Afghanistan. But no Taliban or enemy will negotiate seeing as it costs them nothing to hang in there till the US leaves.

  • We'd like to ask President Obama, his cabinet members, and Congress: would you buy political cover at the cost of your children's lives?

  • Then why are you buying it at the cost of other people's children's lives?

  • Mexico's oil: a coming strategic disaster for the US In the last two years US has imported 12% of its oil from Mexico. But since 2004, Mexican output has fallen from 3.5-million/bpd to 2.5-million, and is likely to fall further at a time Mexico's increasing prosperity is driving up domestic demand. By 2020, it is feared Mexico will become an oil importer as production falls to 1.9-million.

  • Why is this so? New York Times points out the sacrosanct 1938 law nationalizing oil production cannot be touched for political reasons. So, just as in Venezuela, output is falling. Of course, Mexico does not have to endure official government corruption in disposition of oil revenues, but the reality must be faced. Capital goes where it can get the best return, and Mexico is not such a place at this time.

  • But given the emotive issue of oil ownership, Mexico may change only after it is too late for the US.

  • Meanwhile South Africa's SASOL and India's Tata conglomerate are discussing an $8-billion investment in an 80,000-bbl/day coal-to-oil project. That is a huge investment, $100,000-per barrel. But India has perhaps a quarter-trillion tons of coal and is a big oil importer, so anything that cuts dependence on oil is welcome.

  • We urge the US to reduce its dependence on imported oil which last year accounted for 50% of a $500-billion trade deficit. This dependence cannot be reduced by investing in alternate energy alone, because solar and wind-power are years away from providing base-load power. Indeed, because of the environmental difficulties with alternative energy, there is no alternative to investing in every conventional source, including coal to oil.

  • If US finds coal so distasteful - and we accept coal has caused enormous environmental damage in terms of air quality and the destruction of Appalachia - then US needs to go very rapidly into nuclear. We cannot sit around for the rest of our lives vetoing this, that, and the other, and expecting conservation and alternates will suffice. We have expressed our personal preference for nuclear.

 

0230 GMT March 10, 2010

 

  • Zabul, Afghanistan Washington Post notes that after US withdrew one of three infantry battalions deployed in Zabul Province - two American and one Romanian - for the Marja offensive, Taliban has been returning in hundreds. The battalion was in the western part of the province.

  • As always, the Americans on the ground know exactly what is happening. They are under no illusions. Zabul is an important province and has a border with Pakistan to boot. But the American commanders are clear about their current mandate: clean out Helmand and Kandahar. To do that, they say they have to pull in outlying forces. A lot more than Zabul is going to see the Americans gone. As for the Afghans taking over, in Zabul - as elsewhere - its clear the Afghans are not taking over anything.

  • That's life when you fight a war with insufficient resources, and the American commanders are wasting no time feeling sorry for themselves or Zabul. We suspect if one could talk to them, privately, they'd say: "This place was a mess, is a mess, and will forever remain a mess. We're ready for this last push and ready to go home."

  • Who can blame them? If Orbat.com and its readers grow increasingly frustrated at the futility of the Afghan war, think how much worse it is for the soldiers. We're merely bloviating; the greatest risk we run is carpal tunnel or eyestrain or sore vocal cords.  The soldiers are doing the fighting. They're risking a lot more.

  • Sarko AND Carla having affairs He is - ahem - "dating" his 40-year old environment minister, who is also a karate champ. Carla is - um - "dating" a 37-year old musician sic years her junior (he looks like he's 17 to the Editor, but then at Editor's age anyone under 60 looks like a teenager).

  • Got to give the French credit: equal opportunity philandering and all that.

  • Meanwhile, Editor still has no date. Sigh.

  • Gotta to give the Chinese credit...Editor fell in love with America because in the 1950s and 1960s because it was the land of engineers. Now America has become the land of Starbucks and the Chinese have snatch the engineer's crown.

  • Their latest scheme is to extend their high-speed rail network to London through 16 countries. The trains will run at about 350-km, making the journey between Beijing and London in 48-hours.

  • The Chinese say the project will take time - 10-15 years. Surely the Chinese jest. In Washington DC, the capital of the Free World, serious planning for a Metrorail extension to Dulles began in 2000. The Silver Line will be complete in 2016, or sixteen years. It will be 37-km long versus ~8000-km for the Chinese proposed project.

 

 

0230 GMT March 9, 2010

 

Taliban versus Taliban in Afghanistan

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/taliban_hig_infighti.php

 

 

  • Israel plans civilian N-power Israel is suffering a critical short of power. It is operating at 98% of available capacity, with only 2% in reserve. One big plant goes off line and you have a crisis.

  • Israeli environmentalists have stalled a coal plant, so thoughts have turned to N-power.

  • Small problem, the Israelis are telling themselves. There's the IAEA and all that rot. But, they comfort themselves, perhaps a deal similar to India's can be worked out. India, they say, is not an NPT signatory but was  "allowed" to develop civilian N-power  http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/ScienceAndEnvironment/Article.aspx?id=170440

  • Sigh. why is it no one offers the Editor the real good stuff they keep for their private use? Selfish, selfish, selfish.

  • India was never "allowed" to develop civilian N-power despite not signing the NPT. It developed civilian N-power, then weaponized and declared itself an N-weapon state in the late 1990s. It continued to develop civilian N-power all the while. The idea of a separate agreement with India where it would open its civilian reactors to IAEA inspection while keeping its N-weapon plants safeguard-free was developed by the Americans as a way of getting into India's civilian reactor pants while trying to find a way into its N-weapons pants.

  • India's agreement to the deal was one of the stupidest things the country has done in 60 years, but anyway, the deal is done and it does seem to have a lot of support in India even though it has clamped a lid on future Indian N-tests. And anyway, the Editor makes his fair share of dumb mistakes. Today there were donuts in the staff lounge, and the Editor took only two, as opposed to his usual quota of four to six (if he can get away with it), under some poorly thought out idea that more than two would gain him weight. The reality is if you eat 8 donuts at a sitting (Editor has done that) you are so stuffed that you skip half of lunch and so you actually save yourself the 300 calories you would otherwise have eaten had you had a whole lunch. (We understand this sounds crazy, but really, it is no more crazy than India's agreement to the US plan.)

  • Israel has no civilian N-facilities, and what's more, refuses to declare itself a N-weapon state. Further, there is a slight difference between a market for 2 reactors at the max - Israel is less than half the size of Delhi - and 200 reactors. The Indian market is big enough for everyone, which is why UK, Russia, France etc supported the two-track US plan. Who is going to risk political capital the way the US did for India for the sake of two reactors?

  • Yeh Hai Pakistan Mayree Jan (This is Pakistan, my heart.) The Pakistanis first say they have arrested the AQ spokesperson, who happens to be an American convert to Islam. Then they say, sorry, mistaken identity, initial reports were not right. "Scuze me, please, aren't you supposed to confirm this sort of thing before jumping to announce it?"

  • Then the top Taliban commander in Baijur, whom the Pakistanis said was deader than a door knob, turns out to be hale and hearty. This goes on all the time.

  • By the way, the Pakistanis are hardly unique in speaking before thinking. Its a subcontinetal thing.

 

 

0230 GMT March 8, 2010

 

  • Hugo says Hilary is a blond Condaleeza according to an article forwarded by reader Luxembourg. Er, shouldn't that be "blonde"? But no matter, much is lost in translation. We suspect Hugo was smacked around but good by his mama; he seems to have a morbid fear of strong women.

  • Hugo says all is well with Spain the Spanish PM was only asking a few questions, says Hugo. I answered, and the matter is behind us, he says.

  • Now let's see. If a judge indicts the Editor, and he gets a call asking a few questions, if Editor thinks the matter is over, is he (a) an idiot; (b) a moron; (c) a retard; or all three?

  • Hugo doesn't believe in the rule of law, so one supposes he would have no idea of how legal proceedings are gone about.

  • Hugo wouldn't have talked to the judge, and further along, he would maintain he was railroaded because he never got a chance to explain. So the Spanish PM called him. But the Spanish PM was not making a friendly call out of curiosity. He was in effect recording your statement under authority of the judge.

  • This matter has not ended, it has begun, and knowing you, Hugo, you probably blabbed away non-stop instead of letting a lawyer do the talking. (Do they have Miranda rights in Spain?)

  • Now, of course we don't know how this will play out. There are all sorts of reasons why the Spanish PM may want this matter dropped. But in Spain, it's not up to him, it's up to the judge. If the PM is to go against the judge, to us it seems that Parliament would have to give permission.

  • Look at it another way. If the Spanish PM didn't want to harm relations with Hugo, he could simply have told the court "you guys handle it, why are you involving me?"

  • We suspect the Spanish PM called because (a) he has seen the evidence; (b) he is very upset about it.

  • Why should Spain get upset about FARC? After all, US has much the same evidence of Hugo and FARC, US hasn't sought an indictment of the man, and the US is much more directly affected by Hugo than is Spain.

  • The reasons the Spanish are upset is because of the ETA connection. That any state has any dealings of any sort with ETA would send the Spanish government and establishment straight up the wall.

  • Aircraft would have survived Detroit bomber says a British aviation expert http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8547329.stm who conducted an actual explosive test in a derelict Boeing 747 at BBC's request. The explosion would have killed the bomber and the passenger next to him, injured others, but no one else would have died and the aircraft's flightworthiness would not have been impaired.

  • We had to read this three times to make sure we weren't seeing wrong: "However, the experts said that the death of the suspected bomber and the passenger sitting next to him would have been traumatic for passengers. "It would have been quite horrific. Obviously the blast itself would cause eardrum rupture," said Dr Wyatt. Captain Joseph said the noise and the smoke would have been awful, "not to mention the parts of the bodies that were disintegrated as part of the explosion".

  • Oh the poor widdle things! We weep for the trauma they would have suffered at witnessing body parts flying about. Good grief, mon. What about the trauma they would have suffered if the bomb had blown a hole in the plane?

  • India and Pakistan Two readers have written asking how can things be put right between India and Pakistan. Both readers, a westerner and an Indian, are appalled at Pakistan's lost opportunities since 1947 and the cost of the rivalry to India and also to the Pakistani people on account of the rivalry.

  • We wanted to assure the readers we have not forgotten them. We've been trying to figure out a simple, short answer that will make sense to people who are unaware of the myriad details of the conflict.

  • More acronyms People are suggesting BRIC is dead - Brazil-Russia-India-China - because of the slowdown in Russian economic growth and its seemingly unsolvable political and economic structural problems.

  • So just in time we get an acronym: Portugal-Ireland-Greece-Spain - that's PIGS to you.

  • Don't people realize that words have real power? When you create an acronym to simplify a complicated concept, you end up defining reality in a certain way. Then you react in a certain way, and miss all the subtleties of the situation. Then obviously your solutions are going to end up wrong and you're going to create a bigger mess.

  • What, you say skeptically, words can do that?

  • Indeed they can.  Think about the misconceptions that arise from calling American states Red and Blue. Someone did a graphic by counties of the 2008 Presidential vote, and guess what? The United states ended up not Red or Blue, but Purple. Meaning that actually Americans have a common consensus, whereas the Red/Blue division polarizes the discussion and creates something that is not the reality. It does not help that extremists on either end of the spectrum grab the most media attention.

 

0230 GMT March 7, 2010

 

We did not update yesterday: Editor was researching and by the time he looked at the clock it was past bedtime.

 

  • Pakistan to ask EU for compensation for being front-line in GWOT Pakistan's case is that it has suffered $45-billion in economic losses because of the GWOT, and it wants aid/trade to compensate.

  • You have to admire Pakistan's chutzpa. Pakistan is a front-line state in the GWOT, but in the sense of being the major terrorist player. Editor must be careful to state he is not attaching any moral judgment to that statement. We've said many times that the support of insurgent/terror attacks against India and Afghanistan are part of Pakistan national security policy. We're not going to comment on Pakistan's support of AQ and if this is related to its national security policy, because we don't know enough. We don't believe Pakistan supports AQ's attacks outside South Asia because it serves no Pakistani purpose. Rather, Pakistan turns a blind eye to AQ's out-of-area attacks because of whatever utility AQ has for the local situation. What this utility is, we don't know.

  • Pakistan's behavior is straightforward and easily understood. The great mystery of the GWOT as far as we are concerned, is US behavior. Editor hopes he lives long enough to see the first historical judgments on the US misadventure in South Asia.

  • Can a country be awarded a Klasse Klowne Awarde? Orbat.com has not been giving these out lately because we feel there's very little happening that deserves this highest of our awardes. So now we learn from Times of India that a judge estimates India will require 320 years (you read right - three hundred and twenty years) to clear the backlog of court cases. So we're wondering if we should give India a KKA. Your thoughts are welcome.

  • BTW, we're having trouble calculating India's GDP. If we go by official economic stats, by end 2010 it should be $1.2-trillion (at Rupees 46 to the dollar). If, however, we go by announcements that say India's Fiscal 2010-11 deficit is 5.5% of GDP, we get a GDP of $1.5 trillion. Either way, this doesn't count the non-declared economy. People like to talk about about how large this is in PRC, but if you want large in capital letters, best study India. People argue that if you count the non-declared economy, India's GDP growth is faster than China's.

  • UK Special Forces suffer crippling losses in the Afghan and Iraq Wars. Approximately 120 have been killed or wounded so badly they can no longer serve in first line positions. The Afghan-Iraq breakdown is 2-1. The problem, as you will see from the Times article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7052605.ece is that the UK SF are very small, possibly around 500 active duty members, and since UK cannot contribute mass to GWOT, its been riding its SF very hard.

 

0230 GMT March 5, 2010

 

  • Hugo indicted in Spain for collaboration with FARC and ETA to kill Columbia's President Uribe. Reader Luxembourg reminds us about the indictment issues by a Spanish judge. Several ETA members who fled Spain settled in Venezuela, in case you're wondering about the Basque separatist terror movement's involvement.

  • The Spanish Prime Minister has asked for an explanation from Hugo and spoken to him on the telephone. Hugo says there is nothing to explain as he has nothing to do with FARC or ETA, and says if Spain persists, relations between the two countries will be harmed.

  • Here's the problem. Spanish judges rarely if ever back down once they've indicted someone, and this one seems to have enough evidence that the Spanish PM is asking for answers from Hugo. This makes the matter much more serious than if the judge had been an iconoclast or publicity hound. This now on a government to government level.

  • If the judge issues arrest warrants, then Hugo has a rather serious problem. We'll have to wait and see how this unrolls.

  • US/NATO reorganize command for Kandahar offensive Regional Command South has been split in two: Regional Command South West, which focus on Helmand, and Regional Command South East, which will focus entirely on Kandahar. This is an indication of how seriously US/NATO take their southern offensives.

  • As always, the defeat of the insurgents in Kandahar is foregone. The problem - as we have repeatedly said - is that there is no way the Afghan security forces can achieve sufficient capability to fight the Taliban on their own. Once US and NATO withdraw, Pakistan Army will step in openly as it did 1994-2001, so that even if the Afghan forces achieve a certain minimal efficiency - even this is in doubt - they will not be able to fight the Pakistanis.

  • When we say openly, we don't mean Pakistan send brigades into Afghanistan. It formed new brigades, manned by Pakistan Army soldiers and officers on official leave from the Army. The brigades included armor and artillery. Artillery is something  at which the Pakistanis are quite proficient, and we just do not see how the Afghan Army will hold together when artillery and armor is thrown into the mix. Right now the Afghan Army cannot even protect itself against Taliban armed with just company-level weapons.

  • Moreover, please remember that the Taliban is an irregular force where fighters fight when they want and go home when they want. The Pakistanis are long-service professionals. And please don't think the performance of the Pakistan Army against insurgents is in any way indicative of its actual capabilities. It has been fighting a mock war to impress the Americans and there is also vast sympathy for the Taliban in the Pakistani rank and file. And why not: the Taliban is just another arm of the Pakistan military. When it comes time to throw off the disguises, the Pakistan Army will do very well.

  • One thing to watch out for is a Pakistan copy of India's 1971 strategy. India recognized the East Pakistan government as the legitimate government and as far as the Indians were concerned, they were merely responding to a request for help from the legal government.

  • Pakistan acquires FFG-7 class frigate from the US and is negotiating for five more. It is probable the ships will replace Pakistan Navy's six Amazon Type 21 frigates. Pakistan has two new China built F-22P frigates with a third due this year and a fourth under local assembly. Pakistan's Type 21s were commissioned in the Royal Navy in 1974-78, and transferred in 1992-93 after US sanctioned Pakistan over its N-program and refused to extend the lease of eight US frigates.

 

0230 GMT March 4, 2010

 

Read Bill Roggio on Pakistan statement that Baijur is cleared

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/bajaur_cleared_of_ta.php

 

  • Pakistan searches for four army men in Benazir murder says Dawn of Pakistan. The main accused, who is absconding, has eight relatives in the Army. Four are serving, but four, who had retired before the murder,  cannot be traced.

  • Correction The Pakistani cleric who condemned suicide bombers does not live in Pakistan, but in the UK. So at least he will be safe.

  • Syria supplies SAM-16 Igla to Hezbollah says Debka. It further says that Israel had warned Syria any supply of strategic weapons to Hezbollah would lead to Israeli strikes against Syria. If this is true, Syria appears not to be overly concerned. Igla is not a strategic weapon, but if available in sufficient numbers, could marginally erode Israeli air supremacy. Igla is a contemporary of the US Stinger and embodies technology almost 30 years old.

  • The Dubai police chief says from now on anyone with an Israeli accent will be refused entry if the passport is issued by a European country. Dashed clever, the Dubai police chief. The Editor knows a few Israeli dual nationals and they speak with impeccable American,  Australian, and British accents. Of course, police chief will say he has no problem with dual-nationals, only with people with Israeli accents.

  • Meanwhile, we wonder if El Chiefy has an opinion on why many of alleged murder team used genuine passports?

  • As if the whole circus is not confusing enough, Al Jazeera says many of the false passport people used their false documents to obtain employment with American companies. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201033465170139.html

  • Dashed clever these Israelis. They'll go to any extent to hide their real origins. So Mossad has large hit teams with long-term identities all worked out, for example, a second life in America, but is so stupid that Dubai so easily - within days - busted their cover identities?

  • Oh yes, Chiefy also says he will seek arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and Mossad head. This man protests too much. Orbat.com intelligence sources tell us Chiefy is actually on Mossad's payroll and in fact is not even a human being, but an advanced Israeli biorobot. Has anyone checked Chiefy's accent?

 

0230 GMT March 3, 2010

 

  • NATO general estimates Taliban strength  at 25-36,000, and the leadership (all levels) at 900. This is the first time we, at least, have seen anything resembling a definitive estimate. We assume this is only the Afghanistan Taliban: the lot based in Pakistan could number somewhere between 50-100,000.

  • Its hard to tell exactly, because most Taliban fighters wander in and out at will, fighting when they want, and relaxing when the want. The next problem is, how do you count the fighters? After all, if you counted fighters in a Western Army, even if you include all combat support arms, you probably would get 1 in 5 soldiers as fighters. The Taliban have a large number of supporters who help out at need. We don't think the NATO estimates includes these people.

  • Original story at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7047321.ece

  • Pakistan says Baijur cleared and it will next advance on Orakzai and Khyber Agencies.

  • Now, before you start snickering - as you would be justified to do given how many times Pakistan has claimed victory over the same battlefields - our information is that for the last 8-9 months Pakistan has been furiously negotiating with its recalcitrant Taliban groups to get them to focus on Afghanistan. Previously, the "bad" Taliban groups fell over themselves laughing. But now, after leadership losses caused by UAV strikes and very serious civilian damage caused by Pakistan forces, it's possible that the "bad" Taliban are willing to agree to get back to the original task, i.e., Afghanistan.

  • So it is possible, we feel, that Pakistan can show the US positive "gains" by appearing to defeat the Pakistan-facing insurgents, while actually stepping up pressure on US in Afghanistan.

  • You have to remember why some of the Taliban groups turned against Pakistan. It was because they felt the Pakistan government had become to cozy with the Americans, and they resented restrictions Pakistan asked them to accept to make it look to the Americans that they, the Pakistanis, were pulling their weight in this war.

  • Pakistan's greatest enticement to the "bad" Taliban is that the Americans will leave soon, so why are you guys beating us up. Let's focus on Afghanistan, and if you behave you'll have a seat at the table. If you don't, well, the US will keep UAV-ing you and maybe you won't have a seat at the table.

  • Pakistan cleric issues a 600-page fatwa against suicide bombers as being anti-Islam. We applaud this man's courage. We hope other clerics follow him. And we very much hope that Pakistan, having now really suffered at the hands of suicide bombers, will see it is in Pakistan's interests these attacks stop, even if it means giving up a weapon against India. If the Pakistanis see sense, they will protect this cleric and others who speak out against the bombers.

 

 

0230 GMT March 2, 2010

 

  • President Obama pondering sharp reductions in US N-arsenal but still refuses to accept no-first-use doctrine.

  • President Obama has to safeguard the US national interest as he sees best, but we'd appreciate if US defense experts could just sit still for a minute and listen: as long as the US believes it has to keep a N-force of thousands of warheads, even if that comes down to 1000 or 800, there is absolutely no country in the world - and we include India, Pakistan, Iran etc - who will de-nuclearize. America can try till the cows come home, are sent to the glue factory, the glue is recycled and maybe nano-technology is used to turn the glue into new cows, no one, but no one, will agree. If the US cannot see that, then Editor has to regretfully conclude American planners are incompetent. The only the only way to get anyone to de-nuclearize is to offer to get rid of the US arsenal as part of universal N-disarmament.

  • Further, if US will not renounce first-use, well, sorry about that, but everyone else will consider N-weapons not just legitimate, but imperative to deter the US. If US N-planners cannot see that, then - sorry about that - we have to suspect they are regularly dropped on their heads from great heights.

  • The reality of the matter is that the US tacitly accepts N-weapons for allies - such as South Africa in the past and Israel in the present, and expects everyone else not a US ally to give up their weapons. The US has zero credibility in the matter of N-disarmament.

  • If the US feels it must posses not just N-weapons, but a vast array and the right of first-use, we are not going to judge the US. Where we will judge the US is in its ever-present hypocrisy on the issue. We'd suggest the US simply shut up about other people's N-programs because all that hypocrisy does is aggravate others and makes the US look foolish.

  • India stages offensive airpower exercise Observers from 30 countries were invited - but not from China and Pakistan. The exercise was designed to demonstrate precision-bombing capabilities such as are required to eliminate terror training camps in Pakistan Kashmir.

  • It was hardly a subtle message, nor was subtlety the intent.

  • Our problem with such demonstrations is that Pakistan is perfectly aware that Indian airpower can attack the terror camps - and probably without entering Pakistan-controlled air space in most cases. But the Pakistanis believe, with excellent justification based on decades of experience with India, that India does not have the guts to hit back.

  • So what's neccessary is not to stage another exercise to impress anyone, but to actually get up and do the job. That will send the message India wants, not puffery. To us this exercise looks a lot like whistling in the dark, from the political angle. From the military angle, like anyone else, India has to stage full-scale exercises on a regular basis. As far as we are concerned it does nowhere near enough in this area.

  • A TOE question from a reader What is the TOE of a German mechanized infantry company? Do the company's platoons have three Marder 2s or four?

  • Editor's note Can any of our readers help: I think its 2 Marders in the company HQ and three platoons with 4 Marders each, but its been years since I looked into any TOEs except for US and South Asia.

 

 

0230 GMT March 1, 2010

 

Is Hakeemullah Mesud dead? Top Pakistan/US officials say he is. But Long War Journal sources say he may well be alive. Read http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/taliban_release_vide.php

 

  • Dubai police chief wants Mossad head to man up and admit Hamas murder If this is what passes for Arab cunning, then we must admit we have overestimated the Arabs. We'd like the police chief to man up and admit he has no idea who dunnit. We think we're pretty cunning too.

  • Reader Luxembourg forwards a Wall Street Journal article by former US CIA operative Robert Baer. Mr. Baer does not think a 26-person hit team is too large. We were willing to accept 16-18 as neccessary and were highly skeptical when the Dubai police increased the suspects to 26. He further says that Dubai has top-notch security consultants that can quickly correlate cell-phone calls and images from security cameras and suggests that several calls placed to suspect numbers may have provided the consultants with clues as to identities.

  • We're wondering what happens is an innocent guest at the hotel happens to overhear a friendly accent and says to one of the suspects "What ho, Old Bean, are you also from XYZ?" The suspects, acting normally, have a normal conversation with their fellow countryperson and continue on to their skullduggery, but the cameras have captured the innocent person talking to the guilty. So does he now get labeled as suspect?

  • Intelligence agencies do make the most ghastly errors and to say: "Oh, the Mossad is so professional it would never muck up like this" is to use illogical reasoning.

  • At the same time, we have to ask: Israeli informers permeate Palestine. Why go to all this trouble to kill the man abroad? And, okay, so perhaps there is a reason he had to be killed abroad. We find it difficult to believe that Mossad did not know about Dubai cameras etc.

  • You may say, "Well, what about the American snatch team who got the cleric out of Italy? They left a a trail as wide as the Mississippi." We're unsure if that lot was actually undercover. They seem to have used their legal diplomatic identities. They would have seen no need to use covers if they were working with an Italian police or intelligence agency.

  • Of course, the general problems with these episodes is the more you analyze, the more you are likely to miss the truth.

  • A different perspective on Pakistani militants A Pakistani economist says that "Various groups find it extremely easy to create parallel states within the state, when the "national" state fails to take care of individual security and cannot provide basic services such as food, shelter, health, and education to everyone. Growing militarization in Pakistan can be understood in this context. Generally "militants" are perceived to be Islamic hard-liners. However, many "militants" are those who are outraged by chronic hunger, endemic corruption, unfair courts, and the government’s inability to supply basic services." http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2010-weekly/nos-27-02-2010/pol1.htm

  • He further notes that "Food security ranking of 131 districts in Pakistan, according to FIP 2009, indicates that 48.5 percent of the total population in 76 out of 131 districts of Pakistan is food insecure. The population in another 26 districts is on borderline and extremely vulnerable to any external shock.

  • The 10 most food insecure districts according to this report include Dera Bugti, Musa Khel, Upper Dir, North Waziristan, Muhmand, Dalbidin, South Waziristan, Orakzai, and Panjgur. Other worst food insecure districts, according to FIP2009 are Bajur, Laki Marwat, Lower Dir, Shangla and Malakand etc. The international community might not have heard of these districts in the context of food insecurity. However, many people would easily recall that these districts are perceived as the "axis of evil" within Pakistan. There is no empirical evidence to prove that food insecurity is the only cause of militancy in the above-mentioned districts. However it is an established fact that food insecurity leads to violence and conflict."

  • We've been told by Pakistanis that most militants are not driven by religion, but because of the feudal nature of the Pakistani state, and particularly because the little man gets no justice when he runs afoul of vested interests.

  • The first Patriot battery to deploy to Poland as part of the interim ABM defense will arrive in April. Readers will recall that President Obama cancelled deployment of 10 Ground Based Interceptors on grounds that the utility of the move was not proved, and promised to replace them with 30 ground based Aegis 3s in one field, with another field to follow somewhere in North Europe. At least one Aegis ship will be kept on permanent station in the Persian Gulf, at least as part of the interim defense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Somalia Piracy

 

America Goes To War Resources 2001-2004