Sweden Joins NATO’s Emerging War Against Russia

Eric Zuesse

Sweden, which historically has been a ‘neutral’ country between the U.S. and Russia, is joining the NATO buildup against Russia, allowing NATO to place nuclear weapons in Sweden for an attack against Russia, and, like NATO (of which Sweden isn’t a member) lying about it to their people, and to the world.

The alleged reason for joining the operation is that "Russian aggression against Ukraine breaches international law and challenges the European security order”, according to Sweden’s ‘defence’ minister Peter Hultqvist. He denied nuclear weapons would be part of it.

He also said, "I have sometimes wondered if there has been deliberate disinformation” by opponents of the proposal. (Let him call this report such ‘disinformation’, because I’m going to link here to solid sources that expose his and ‘The West’s’ other vicious lies leading straight to World War III.)

This is being done by Sweden in the leadup to the NATO Summit on July 8-9 against Russia, and in the context of America’s installation on Russia’s borders of weaponry to disable Russia’s capacity to retaliate against a Western blitz-invasion from NATO. The first successful test of that BMD or “Ballistic Missile Defense” system occurred on 19 May 2016 and constituted a breakthrough in the ability of the United States and its allies to conquer Russia; the test had occurred in Hawaii. Just seven days earlier than that test, the first installation of the system had occurred, which took place in Romania on May 12th. So, U.S. rulers have started to install the ultimate mass-killing system, for the ultimate conquest; it’s the system to block an enemy from defending itself from an invasion. Russia is increasingly surrounded by an expanding NATO, and that expansion up to Russia’s borders is supposed to be accepted by Russia as if it’s not a very aggressive move against Russia. And Sweden’s rulers have decided to be on the winning side of World War III.

The news report on Sweden’s joining this mega-disgusting operation against Russia was published on May 26th, in EU Observer, and added this: "Sweden is also likely to join Nato’s strategic communications centre, Stratcom, in an effort to strengthen the country's counter propaganda efforts.”

NATO has already been prominently promoting the lie that Russia invaded Ukraine and stole Crimea from Ukraine — which is the basic lie upon which NATO is preparing to invade Russia. Swedish officials are already using that baldfaced lie in order to fool the Swedish public to accept their country’s becoming a staging area for NATO’s buildup to invade Russia (even though Sweden isn’t in NATO) as a measure supposedly to ‘defend’ Sweden and NATO countries from being invaded by Russia. Get that! Since they can’t find any realistic excuse for preparing to invade Russia, the lie that Russia ‘seized’ Crimea suffices.

Here are the facts about this, the West’s Big Lie:

The most important of all parts of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy plan to take over Russia was the one that enabled him to slap economic sanctions against Russia and that enables NATO to treat Russia as an ‘aggressive’ enemy: this is the matter regarding Ukraine and its former peninsula, Crimea, which Russia accepted back into the Russian Federation after Obama’s coup seizing Ukraine had terrified the Crimean people.

Certainly, Obama’s extremely bloody coup in Ukraine isn’t known to most Americans nor to others in The West: the official line, promoted both by the U.S. aristocracy’s government, and by the U.S. aristocracy’s media, and by the media of its associated aristocracies, is that a ‘democratic revolution’ overthrew the democratically elected President of that country, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. The official line is that this ‘revolution’ arose spontaneously after Yanukovych, on 20 November 2013, had rejected the EU’s offer for Ukraine to join the EU. Not part of the official line is that the U.S. Embassy was already starting by no later than 1 March 2013 to organize the overthrow that occurred in February 2014. Also not part of the official line is that the EU’s membership offer to Ukraine came with a $160 billion price tag, and so was entirely unaffordable. Yanukovych had no real choice but to turn it down. After all, The West needed an excuse to explain the ‘Maidan democracy demonstrations’ that provided a pretext for the overthrow. If one is starting on 1 March 2013 to organize a fascist coup that’s to occur a year later, then one won’t want to provide the victim (Yanukovych and the Ukrainian people) an offer that will be accepted by him. One will need the offer to be rejected, in order to have a ‘justification’ to overthrow the victim. Such a ‘justification’ was that he was corrupt, but they didn’t mention that all post-Soviet Ukrainian leaders have been corrupt. Another was that Yanukovych had turned down the proposal from ‘the democratic West.’ All of it was lies.

Ukraine is the key in Obama’s plan for four reasons: it’s the main transit-route pipelining Russia’s gas into Europe; it’s also a large country bordering Russia, and thus ideal for placement of American nuclear missiles against Russia; it has (at that time it was on a lease expiring in 2042) Russia’s premier naval base in Sebastopol Crimea, which, for the U.S. to take, would directly weaken Russia’s defenses; and, most importantly of all, the entire case for sanctions against Russia, and for NATO to be massing troops and weapons on and near Russia’s borders to ‘defend’ NATO (now to include Sweden) against Russia, consists of Russia’s ‘aggression’ exhibited in its ‘seizing’ Crimea, and in its helping the residents in the breakaway Donbass far eastern region of Ukraine, Donbass (where the residents had voted 90% for Yanukovych) to defend themselves against the repeated invasions and bombings coming from the Ukrainian government. Crimea is especially important here, because, though Russia refused to accept Donbass into the Russian Federation (and so America’s accusations that the massive bloodshed in Donbass was another ‘aggression’ by Russia was ridiculously false) Russia did accept Crimea.

However, the people in Crimea had voted 75% for Yanukovych and had also wanted to become again a part of Russia, ever since the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 arbitrarily transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. And therefore Russia — not finding acceptable Obama’s soon-to-be seizure of their naval base — supplied protection for Crimeans to be able to hold a peaceful plebiscite on 16 March 2014 in order to exercise their right of self-determination on whether to accept rule by the bloody new Ukrainian coup-regime, or instead to accept Russia’s offer to regain membership (and protection) in the Russian Federation.

97% chose the latter, and Western-sponsored polls in Crimea both before and after the plebiscite showed similarly astronomically high support for rejoining with Russia. But that made no difference in Western countries, because their media never reported these realities but only the official line — as Obama put it: “The days in which conquest of land somehow was a formula for great nation status is [sic] over.” Although he was there describing actually himself (in his ultimate plan to conquer Russia), he was pretending that it described instead Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, who was merely protecting Crimeans, and, in the process, protecting all Russians (by retaining its key naval base), from an enemy (Obama) whose gift for deceiving the public might have no equal in all of human history.

And that ‘seizure of Crimea’ is actually the pretext upon the basis of which Obama’s NATO alliance is now mobilizing to invade Russia.

Here is how Sweden’s ‘defense’ minister, in his 25 May 2016 Stockholm speech, described his reasons for Sweden to join the Western forces surrounding Russia:

The upcoming NATO Summit will take place in a security environment that continues to be challenging. And these challenges affect us all.

First of all, the security order that was established in Europe after the Cold War is challenged by Russia. The illegal annexation of Crimea is the first example in more than 70 years where one European state has occupied territory belonging to another state using military force. If we allow the annexation to become a status quo we make ourselves guilty of destroying one of the very pillars of the European security order as we know it. We see no signs that Russia has changed its position or have softened that.

Moreover, there are no indications that Russia is planning to leave the Donbass region. Instead, Russia is building up its proxy army there, with 25,000 soldiers and more tanks than any EU Member State has. The intensity of the conflict in eastern Ukraine can be Increased or decreased depending on what best serves the interests of the Kremlin at any given moment.

He alleged that all violations of the Minsk agreement (the agreement regarding the war in Donbass) were from the Donbass side, and none at all from the Ukrainian side — the side that has actually been attacking Donbass — but the evidence clearly contradicts that lie. The residents of Donbass fire back when fired upon. What are they supposed to do? Then he listed Sweden’s military increases, and he said: “We do this from a platform of non-alignment.” He’s as much a liar as Obama is.

The U.S. doesn’t actually need additional military bases in countries such as Sweden. The U.S. already has around 800 military bases in foreign countries, according to researcher David Vine in his 2015 book, Base Nation. But when tightening the noose, every little bit of extra pull helps. And after the coup in Ukraine, America’s aristocracy has been giving an extra yank at every opportunity. And they (actually U.S. taxpayers) pay well for it. Hultqvist will get his. It’s a nice business.

Back in 1990 the precondition (and Western promise) on the basis of which the Soviet and then Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved in 1991 both the Soviet Union and its NATO-mirror the Warsaw Pact, was the promise by the representatives of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, that if that happened, then NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” — which also turned out to have been a lie.

And the same news-suppression that causes Western publics (such as in Sweden, where this article was even offered as an exclusive to Dagens Nyheter, and was turned down by them) not to know these facts, will now probably cause this news-report to be likewise rejected by virtually all Western ‘news’ media, to all of whom it has been submitted (after its having been declined there). The ones that don’t publish it are sharing in the blame for causing WW III. The few that do publish it will not be to blame for WW III. They all make their choices. (And, if any of them have any allegation to make against this news-report, then any who have honor will publish that allegation, so that the crucially needed public debate can begin, before WW III itself does. The utter lack of that public debate is what’s especially damning against The West.)

Putin Warns Romania And Poland Against Installing ABM Missiles

Eric Zuesse

On Friday, May 27th, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin again said that American President Barack Obama lies when saying that the reason America’s anti-ballistic missile (“ABM”) or Ballistic Missile Defense (“BMD”) system is being installed in Romania, and will soon be installed in Poland, is to protect Europe from Iranian missiles that don’t even exist and that Obama himself says won’t exist because of Obama’s deal with Iran. Putin is saying: I know that you are lying there, not being honest. You’re aiming to disable our retaliatory capacity here, not Iran’s. I’m not so dumb as to believe so transparent a lie as your assurances that this is about Iran, not about Russia.

Putin says that ABMs such as America is installing, disable a country’s (in this case, Russia’s) ability to retaliate against a blitz invasion — something increasingly likely from NATO now as NATO has extended right up to Russia’s very borders — and that Russia will not allow this disabling of Russia’s retaliatory forces.

He said that “NATO fend us off with vague statements that this is no threat to Russia … that the whole project began as a preventive measure against Iran’s nuclear program. Where is that program now? It doesn’t exist. … We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us.”

In other words, he is saying that the West is ignoring Russia’s words, and that therefore Russia will, if this continues, respond by eliminating the ABM sites before they become fully operational. To do otherwise than to eliminate any fully operational ABM system on or near Russia’s borders would be to leave the Russian people vulnerable to a blitz attack by NATO, and this will not be permitted.

He said: "At the moment the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won’t know.”

In other words: Only the Americans, who have designed and control the ABM system, will be able to know if and when Russia is left totally vulnerable. Not even the Romanians will know; and Putin says, “Russia has ‘no choice’ but to target Romania" — and later Poland, if they follow through with their plans to do the same.

By implication, Putin is saying that, whereas he doesn’t need to strike Romania’s site immediately, he’ll need to do it soon enough to block the ABM system’s upgrade that will leave Russia vulnerable to attack and (because of the fully functional ABM) with no ability on Russia’s part to counter-strike.

He is saying: Remove the ABM system, or else we’ll have to do it by knocking it out ourselves.

Putin knows that according to the Article Five, “Mutual Defense,” provision of the NATO Treaty, any attack against a NATO member, such as Romania, is supposed to elicit an attack by all NATO members against the nation that is attacking. However, Putin is saying that, if NATO is going to be attacking Russia, then it will be without any fully operational ABM system, and (by implication) that Russia’s response to any such attack will be a full-scale nuclear attack against all NATO nations, and a nuclear war resulting which will destroy the planet by unleashing all the nuclear weaponry of both sides, NATO and Russia.

Putin is saying that either Romania — and subsequently Poland — will cancel and nullify their cooperation with U.S. President Obama’s ABM installation, or else there will be a surgical strike by Russia against such installation(s), even though that would likely produce a nuclear attack against Russia by NATO, and a counter-strike nuclear attack by Russia against NATO.

When Putin said “No one is listening to us” on the other side, the NATO side, Putin meant: I don’t want to have to speak by means of a surgical strike to eliminate a NATO ABM system, but that’s the way I’ll ‘speak’ if you are deaf to words and to reason and to common decency.

He will not allow the Russian people to become totally vulnerable to a nuclear attack by the United States and its military allies. He is determined that, if NATO attacks Russia, then it will be game-over for the entire world, not only for Russia.

He is saying to Obama and to all of NATO: Please hear and understand my words, and be reasonable, because the results otherwise will be far worse for everyone if you persist in continuing to ignore my words.

Political Implications Of Climate Change

Anandi Sharan

Article 3 of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC)states“the Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects.” The U.S. is a signatory to the UNFCCC, as are all other countries in the world. Yet there is a free-for-all of fossil-fuel production and consumption. Armies and MNCsbreak the provisions of the treaty and no one takes them to court.

Similarly article 6 of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) states that each country shall “integrate, as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies.” The U.S. is not a party to the CBD. But Japan, Russia, Ukraine, France, India, China, Canada, UK, Australia and all other countries barring Andorra, are. Yet they continue to manufacture and use nuclear energy, fossil-fuel and nuclear operated ships, plastics and chemicals that destroy millions of plants physically as well as the genetic material of life. A people’s movement is needed to hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable. But there isn’t one. It shows that the democratic systemthat is supposed to uphold the rule of law has collapsed.

Recently the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) brought out a report called "Delivering a Sustainable Financial System in India."The only legally binding duty that requires companies to behave sustainablyis that big companies must spend 2% of profits on corporate social responsibility. The authors list the credit agencies such as the Reserve bank, public and private banks and multilateral fundsthat provide credit. Finally they conclude that companies have no underlying incentive to perform better as far as sustainability goes. They suggest that there should be an incentive for shareholders to send signals to the companies that environmental and social governance is important. Not once do they mention that there is a sovereign nation with a constitution that gives the government in power the power to issue the legal tender of the country. They do not question why money is created as credit, increasingly by private banks, and that governments create public funds through bonds, which, if they are not cancelled, create hardship and cause millions to commit suicide. The fact that a report written for an entire nation by a United Nations agency so painfully lists every flaw of the western capitalist system and then simply laments its inadequacy, without once supporting the government in question to use its constitutional powers to remedy the problem, shows that national sovereignty has become meaningless.

Indigenous people, women, untouchables, religious minorities, the unemployed, the landless and the rest who make up the 90% majority of humans who are not in charge of this world should realize what has happened. Western civilization is incompatible with the UNFCCC and the CBD. The law is not upheld nor can democracy uphold it. Surely this means western civilisation has collapsed and nation states along with it. You cannot be a civilisation based on the rule of law if your continued existence is based on breaking the law. If there is a continued free- for-all by all means we should be a part of it. But we should keep as a back up plan the greater wisdom inherited from our ancestors, -to live within our means and within the means of nature regardless of whatever civilisation comes and goes.

Half recognized as this state of affairs is, problems inevitably arise. Individual political identities are superimposed on a person’s traditions that provide ancestral wisdom. The patterns of behavior from competitive party politics interfere with the live-and-let-live culture of tribal or community living. Land is stolen and humans turned into labourers. Modern education teaches a separation of observer and observed, work and culture, faith and knowledge. Caste based on hierarchy and word-wide division of labour interferes with the instinct for equality in tribal society.

Life if it is to be lived according to ancient wisdom requires a certain innocence with regards to things that cannot be changed, a willingness to exert one’s self and do manual labour with regards to things that can. All this requires huge knowledge and skill learned from daily observation and is alien to those who grew up in western civilization. Democracy and nation-state are things of the past, the new is yet to be born. Land rights are yet to be given.

Manual labour is a key feature of tribal life. Knowledge emerges from doing, from loving, from falling in love and raising a family, from committing to other living creatures, to land, water, trees and animals. Homes must be built, seeds sown and crops harvested. Trees and animals and water must be understood and respected. Everything must be enjoyed. Life does not have a mission, vision or goal. Life simply is, and our work makes it so. Commercial energy and money are irrelevant at best but in reality they are part of the old, destroyers of harmony and environment.

Thus the new is far away from western civilization, from nation state and democracy, hidden away, where it cannot be perverted.But even this idea when spread through modern media, gets perverted, such is the destructiveness of western civilization, democracy and the nation state. The human species will certainly survive but only in those places where it remains untouched.

What A Water Situation!

S.G.Vombatkere

This year has seen the globally hottest-ever April, and indications point to the worst-ever summer. The media is reporting rock bottom reservoir water levels at the start of summer, and dire predictions of worse days to come for farmers and rural people, and also urban dwellers. Due to this worst drought in living memory that has hit most of India, around 300 million people, as estimated by one source, are migrating. One can only wonder why this on-going tragedy does not make it to the front pages of newspapers.

The callousness of many leaders towards this national crisis is revealed by their finding the time to pat themselves on the back, announce and celebrate their “achievements” at public expense and give themselves raises in their own salaries, but not finding time to visit drought-hit people or allocate sufficient funds for drought relief. It needed the Supreme Court of India to goad state and central governments to commence serious action to provide water to thirsty populations.

There are fears of water-based conflicts within and between the societies of rural and urban areas. These have happened in the past, but the scale of conflicts may be more intense and widespread in 2016 if, for example, the heated official exchanges regarding water demands of downstream Delhi and Haryana and upstream Punjab over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal are any indication.

While there are several important aspects to the water issue, only two major aspects are addressed here due to space restrictions, namely, the governance involved in urban water supply, and the “solution” of interlinking rivers (ILR).

Water governance in urban areas

Governments are giving conflicting reports in the media, with some officials saying that it is possible to tide over the urban scarcity, and others saying that conditions are going to get much worse. Officials of course insist on anonymity, for fear of action against them, while politicians do their standard politicking, and grandly pass orders to the officials to “ensure that drinking water supply is not interrupted”.

Always at the receiving end of slipshod governance, most people get water for a few hours once in two or three or seven days while some get water daily, enabling their domestics to wash cars and driveways with a hose. When a water pipe bursts (not uncommon because of inferior materials and/or poor workmanship due to corrupt practices) the water supply authority reacts tardily, and millions of litres of precious water gush away into the drains, even while thousands line up with pots at street pipes, and the better-off purchase water from tankers operated by a water-tanker mafia.

Public announcements calling for water conservation are rare and, when issued, they politely call upon citizens to cooperate and use water carefully, even while non-working water meters, illegal water connections and unpaid water bills place financial strain on the water suppy system. The reason for politeness of tone and request for cooperation in a decidedly grim, even desperate situation, is clear evidence of weak governance stemming from systemic corruption. Public determination to handle the worsening situation is essential, to find a viable course of action.

Essential measures

When the sources of water fail, focus needs to shift from demand-driven supply augmentation to managing available water through realistic demand management. Some of its essential facets itemized are:

# Improve system efficiency including planning distribution and delivery, infrastructure and renewals, electrical energy costs, personnel training.

# Revise tariff with steep rates for high consumption.

# Enforce existing by-laws and rules regarding functioning of meters, illegal connections and unpaid bills, with appropriate penal action against defaulting consumers and staff.

# Address system water-loss and assure minimum supply timings.

# Periodic public programs for water conservation.

# Use IT management tools (GIS and MIS) for realizing revenue.

Interlinking rivers

The interlinking rivers (ILR) project estimated in 2002 to cost at least Rs.5,60,000 crores (but more likely Rs.10,00,000 crores), seeks to link 30 major rivers with 37 mega canals, involving acquiring an estimated 6,00,000 hectares of land, for mass-transfer of flood water from “water-surplus” areas to drought-prone “water-deficit” areas, to simultaneously relieve flood and drought. While the proposal appears attractive, it has serious inconsistencies, only two of which are outlined here. (For more details, please see References).

Firstly, flood water is to be sourced from Ganga near Bhagalpur which is at about 60-m elevation above MSL, where flood flow averages 50,000 cumecs. The maximum that a canal of 100-m width and 10-m depth can carry is 2,000 cumecs of water, which will “relieve” the flood by a mere 4%. Apart from the huge initial and annual maintenance costs to keep the water flowing into the canal and removing sediment, this 2,000 cumecs can only flow by gravity to levels lower than 60-m elevation on the East coast, whereas the drought-prone areas are on the Deccan plateau at levels over 1,000-m elevation. Thus neither flood nor drought can be relieved by interlinking.

Secondly, the flood season is for four monsoon months. During 8-months dry season, Ganga flows at an average 5,280 cumecs. The headworks of the interlinking canal will be far from the main flowchannel, and feeding the canal with water will call for expensive heavy engineering every year besides, much more importantly, handling the strong resistance of people of the region who will resist transfer of 2,000 cumecs (38% of water) in the dry season when they need it most.

Thus, since neither flood nor drought can relieved, and the system will have questionable utility during monsoon and be useless in the dry season, making it economically unviable. The argument of mass transfer of water from “water-surplus” to “water-deficit” areas is fundamentally flawed.

The promotion of water-sharing through grandiose plans of dams and canals to interlink rivers, by quoting the mandate of a distant Court of Law will not slake the thirst for water for drinking or agriculture. The fact that there are several unresolved inter-State water disputes before water disputes tribunals indicates that water-sharing between States is essentially problematic. Even between districts within the same State, water disputes have had to be bulldozed by State governments, leaving sullen, disillusioned, water-starved populations. In the general context of national water stress, pressing ILR can only lead to more social unrest and political instability.

The fact is that every State needs and wants water and they are loathe to part with water. In situations of dire water shortages, whatever the method of its computation, local compulsions will predominate over the dictates of distant seats of executive or judicial power. Enforcement of the writ of governments, whether due to their own political expediency or their being forced by superior courts of law, can only be by use of state police, central police and military force. Resort to such strong-arm measures with regard to water will indicate that governance has failed and the situation is outside the scope of political management. Indeed, in Latur (Maharashtra), Police have been posted near water sources to protect the water and ensure that people do not “steal” water from the source!

What a situation!

The present water situation is at best sub-critical. Only efforts to holistically understand the problems and their magnitude can provide genuine relief in the present, and effect a relatively easy transition to a future of certainly lowered water availability.

The ILR project is essentially a demand-based, supply-augmentation, systemically flawed macro “solution”. The examples of the SYL Canal (an incomplete canal for water-sharing between three States) and the Cauvery River (the water of the river being less than the total demand of the riparian states) should be indication enough of the political problems of ILR, which can snowball into constitution-shaking proportions.

India, already severely water-stressed in a warming globe, is in the midst of a water-crisis which is predicted to repeat itself. We have entered the era of the consequences of thoughtless supply-side management practices. The urgent need is for socially sensitive, economically viable demand-side water management.

Failing to build democratic and effective water management structures for democratic governance processes will risk violent social situations due to water conflicts. Political leaders in the States and the Centre need to come out of their “Nero-fiddling” role and firmly steer a course away from impending chaos and disaster. The way forward is local water conservation and management.

Tolerance And Framework Of Islamic Democracy

Gulam Asgar Mitha

Whereas knowledge breeds humility among great people,Ignorance breeds arrogance among little people---an opinion by this author

Thus far, the image of Islam has been one of extremism, intolerance and terrorism. That certainly is not what Islam means. It means peace. So what has happened that this religion has been so vehemently tarnished? Historically all great religions have gone through this phase, predominantly by the misrepresentations by the clergy who have exploited the illiterate and impoverished followers. In the past half century Muslim clerics too have misrepresented Islam starting with those who've been exposed to Wahhabi teachings and fundings through their madressas (religious schools) in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of such madressas then sprung up in Pakistan’s cities, towns and villages giving rise to the vulnerable students known as Taliban. Pakistani political leaders picked the cue and bowed to the will of the masses giving rise to “political Islam”.

In 1974, a violent campaign, led mainly by the Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami, began against the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan, on the pretext of a clash between Ahmadis and non-Ahmadis at the railway station of Rabwah (district of Chiniot, province of Punjab, Pakistan). This campaign resulted in several Ahmadi casualties and destruction of Ahmadiyya property, including the desecration of mosques and graves.

As a result of pressure from this agitation, legislation and constitutional changes were enacted to criminalize the religious practices of Ahmadis by preventing them from claiming they are Muslim. These changes primarily came about due to the pressure of the Saudi King at the time, King Faisal bin As-Saud, according to Dr Mubashar HassanNOTE, Prime Minister Bhutto's close confidant at the time. Pakistan's parliament adopted a law that declares Ahmadis non-Muslims.
On 26 April 1984, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, then President of Pakistan, issued the anti-Ahmadiyya Ordinance XX,[22] which effectively prohibited Ahmadis from preaching or professing their beliefs.

Myself and a friend recently visited the Ahmaddi mosque in Calgary and were cordially greeted and given explanation of the Ahmadi Muslim faith. We also heard the mid-day afternoon (duhr) call to prayers(adhan). Many misconceptions that have been created as a result of political animosity were cleared with my own understanding of the faith, not only as a result of the visit but through my own research verification following the visit. This does not mean that I've adopted the faith (mine is none other than Islam). So what is Ahmadiyya belief and how is it different from Islam? Except for a very few deviations of no great significance, they're Muslims and no one has any rights to condemn the faith without knowledge.

One thing is certain that it is a peaceful movement significantly different than Wahhabism that is based on intolerance. Islam - through the Holy Quran and the teachings of all the prophets preaches tolerance and encourages the seeking of truth and knowledge. Ahmadi Muslims believe that there cannot be a conflict between the word of God and the work of God, and thus religion and science must work in harmony with each other. Ahmadis follow the five pillars of Islam (which includes Shahada or Faith i.e. Unity of God and Muhammad as the last Messenger of God) and the six articles of belief and as such they're Muslims. There are, however, a few deviations but such exist in every Islamic sect or in every religion. There is no basis that such deviations should be used as means of condemnation that Ahmadis or any other Islamic sects are non-Muslims.

Zafarullah Khan (besides Dr. Abdus Salam) has been among the most talented of Pakistanis- a nationalist. He hails from an Ahmadi family. It'd be prudent for Muslims, specially Pakistanis, to conduct an unbiased research to understand Ahmadiyya faith and discard their misunderstandings created by illiterate clergy and two of the most biased leaders of Pakistan who themselves least understood Islam and used it for their political aspirations. Both leaders (Zulfiqar Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq) met their fates - one at the end of a rope and the other in mid-air.

As Pakistan's first Foreign Minister, Zafarullah Khan addressed the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in the days leading up to the passing of the Objectives Resolution. The Objectives Resolution, which combined features of both Western and Islamic democracy, is one of the most important documents in the constitutional history of Pakistan. It was designed to provide equal rights for all citizens of Pakistan, regardless of their race, religion or background.

It is a matter of great sorrow that, mainly through mistaken notions of zeal, the Muslims have during the period of decline earned for themselves an unenviable reputation for intolerance. But that is not the fault of Islam. Islam has from the beginning proclaimed and inculcated the widest tolerance. For instance, so far as freedom of conscience is concerned the Quran says "There shall be no compulsion" of faith... — Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Addressing the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, c. 1949

In 1954, Zafarullah Khan became a Judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, a position he held until 1961. He was the Vice-President of the International Court of Justice from 1958 to 1961. Between 1961 and 1964, he was Pakistan's Permanent Representative at the United Nations. From 1962 to 1964, he was also the President of the UN General Assembly. He later rejoined the ICJ as a judge from 1964 to 1973, serving as President from 1970 to 1973. He died in Lahore, Pakistan in 1985 at the age of 92.

Islamic democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Islamic principles to public policy within a democratic framework. Islamic political theory specifies three basic features of an Islamic democracy: leaders must be elected by the people, subject to sharia (religious legal system) and committed to practicing "shura", a special form of consultation (national assembly) practiced by Prophet Muhammad, which one can find in various hadiths, with their community. Countries which fulfil the three basic features include Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia. Note: Many western and Muslim jurists agree that countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan are not part of Islamic or western democracy.

Asma Jehangir, Human Rights activist - AHMADIS HAVE IT THE WORST- on Rabwah Times, speaking at the Hudson Institute on May 18, 2016 and moderated by Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani Ambassador to the US.
https://www.rabwah.net/ahmadis-have-it-the-worst-asma-jahangir/

NOTEVideo of Dr. Mubashar Hassan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfmdDlTCtPU on why Saudi Arabia pressured Bhutto to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims

Building Trust In Afghanistan

Kathy Kelly

Nisar Works in the Centre Garden

Here in Kabul, I read a recent BBC op-ed by Ahmed Rashid, urging a “diplomatic offensive” to build or repair relationships with the varied groups representing armed extremism in Afghanistan. Rashid has insisted, for years, that severe mistrust makes it almost impossible for such groups to negotiate an end to Afghanistan’s nightmare of war.

Glancing upward at one of the six U.S. manufactured aerostat blimps performing constant surveillance over Kabul, I wonder if the expensively high-tech giant’s-eye view encourages a primitive notion that the best way to solve a problem here is to target a “bad guy” and then kill him. If the bad guys appear to be scurrying dots on the ground below, stomp them out.

Crushing only the right dots has proven very difficult for a U.S. drone warfare program documented to have killed many civilians. News sources speculate that the recent drone assassination of Taliban leader Akthar Mansour makes an end to this war far less likely. A commentator for the highly respected Afghan Analyst Network has written that “with the U.S. killing Akhtar Mansur, it is unlikely the Taleban will be set on anything but revenge for now, as can be understood from the movement’s political psychology… There is no reason to believe the fighting will de-escalate with the new leadership.”

Was that simple prediction available to the U.S.' giant's-eye view?

My young friends among the Afghan Peace Volunteers have shown me a vastly different approach toward problem solving. In a sense, they’ve been launching a diplomatic outreach, refining their approach through trial and error over the course of several years, taking careful steps toward building trust between different ethnic groups, and also relying on their own personal stories to help them understand the cares and concerns of others. Throughout their efforts they’ve tried to be guided by Gandhi’s advice about considering the poorest person’s needs before making a decision.

What has brought a non-violent future closer to Afghanistan – giant sized military and surveillance systems or the accomplishments of young volunteers working to develop inter-ethnic projects?

20 teams are working at the Borderfree Center organizing practical activities within communities coping with multiple economic woes, including food insecurity, unemployment, and inadequate income for meeting basic needs.

Young people travel to and from the Center along unpaved roads lined on both sides with sewage filled drainage ditches. Traffic is chaotic, and the air is so polluted that many wear protective face masks. Day laborers congregate at intersections waiting in desperation for the opportunity to perform hard labor for $2.00 a day or less.

Even those fortunate enough to receive an education will likely face extreme difficulty in finding a job. Unemployment is at an all-time high of 40% and many jobs are attained only through ‘connections.’

Throughout Kabul, refugees crowd into squalid, sprawling camps where people live without adequate protection from harsh weather. According to The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between Jan. 1 and April 30 this year, “117,976 people fled their homes due to conflict.” And, the U.N. says it has only received 16 percent of funds needed for humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan this year.

Nisar, one of the students at the Borderfree Center’s Street Kids School, understands destitution all too well. He has been earning an income for his family since he was a small child, working as a shoeshine boy on Kabul streets and also in a butcher shop. Now, at age 17, he will soon graduate from three years of classes with the Street Kids School. In the past year, he has been a steady volunteer, taking on responsibilities with the duvet project and the organic gardening team. Nisar says that when he first came to the Center, three years ago, he felt astonished to see people from different ethnic backgrounds sitting together. Nisar’s family comes from the Wardak province, and relatives of his are among those who recently fled the Taleban. He clearly understands the terrible risks that armed struggle could bring, even here in “Ka-bubble” as Kabul is sometimes called because of the relative calm that still prevails here. In spite of tensions, Nisar feels sure that when people learn to overcome their fears and start talking with one another, they can set aside hatreds taught to them at young ages.

U.S. planners, heads lost in the sky, seemingly pay little heed to developing ways of building trust. Resources are gobbled up by gigantic multinational “defense” companies dedicated to the task of further, trampling warfare, while withholding anything like the quantity of resources needed for the task of repairing the wreckage they themselves have caused.

U.S. think tanks cleverly promote cartoonized versions of foreign policy wherein the mighty giant strikes a fist and eliminates the “bad guy” whom we are told has caused our problems. But I believe U.S. people would be better off if we could see the often-suffering communities that show admirable qualities as they try to survive. We could learn from their efforts to build mutual trust and solidarity, and their courage to reject war. We could insist that the massively well-endowed US and NATO powers finally acknowledge that the best hopes for a lasting peace come when communities experience a measure of stability and prosperity. The giant powers could help alleviate the desperate need faced by people enduring hunger, disease and homelessness.

U.S. people should earnestly ask how the U.S. could help build trust here in Afghanistan, and, as a first step, begin transferring funds from the coffers of weapon companies to the UN accounts trying to meet humanitarian needs. The “giant” could be seen stooping, humbly, to help plant seeds, hoping for a humane harvest.

Is Humankind Suffering Of A Global Alzheimer Disease?

Ugo Bardi

The human brain is the most complex thing we know in the whole universe. It is also fragile, and prone to malfunctioning. Civilization is also a complex system, fragile and prone to malfunctioning. Perhaps some ailments of the human brain, such as the Alzheimer disease, have their equivalent at the civilization level. (image source)

My parents had been married for 58 years when my mother died. That was a terrible loss for my father, then 86 years old, and I was much worried about his health. But I was relieved when I saw that, after a few months, he seemed to have recovered from the shock. He remained active and he could manage his everyday life without special assistance. He could take the bus, alone, and walk alone in the neighborhood. He even made new friends and spent time with them.

However, something was wrong with my father. Terribly wrong.

I remember a conversation that my father had, at that time, with my son about some plants that were growing on a steep slope of the garden. He wanted to cut them down and my son, who is a geologist, was trying to explain to him that it wasn't a good idea; the roots of these plants were keeping the ground of the slope stable. But my father didn't agree and he insisted that he wanted to get rid of those plants. I watched that conversation, more and more distressed, while my father kept building up all sorts of arguments to counter my son's ones. Jumping from one subject to the other, he was able to move the conversation in a cycle; never really answering on any point, but always switching to something else. It went on, perhaps, for one hour and it ended with my father not having budged of an inch from his position, leaving me and my son looking at each other, baffled.

That conversation was the first evidence of the onset of the Alzheimer disease for my father. At that time, I didn't really understand that, mainly because I didn't want to. But the symptoms kept mounting until my father died at 92, his mind gone. Nevertheless, for a few years, he managed to hide very well the symptoms of his mental decline. He was both intelligent and brilliant and he had developed all sorts of strategies to avoid finding himself trapped in a situation that would show his problem. He would get out of troubles by a joke, a witty comment, a humorous quip, or simply by changing subject.

But my father could get away with his problem only with acquaintances. For the members of his family, his condition was evident. Maybe you know the metaphor of the "ghost in the machine;" it says that there is a little ghost in the brain or somewhere that controls the bigger machine that's the human body. That ghost wasn't inside my father anymore. He was gradually becoming something like an answering machine, a very sophisticated one, but a machine. He was like one of those computer programs that purport to simulate human intelligence. He would be able to speak to people, and even to answer to them in ways that seemed to be superficially correct. But, like an answering machine, he wasn't really listening, the ghost was gone.

This story of some years ago came back to my mind as I was reading an article by David Dunning, titled "The Psychological Quirk That Explains Why You Love Donald Trump" You may know Dunning in relation to the "Dunning-Kruger" effect, a feature of the human mind that makes people convinced that they are competent in some subject, and that makes them the more convinced, the less they know about that subject. Or course, the Dunning-Kruger effect is not the same thing as the Alzheimer disease, but in his article Dunning highlights the fact that there is a mental problem with many people engaged in the political debate. I think it is true. There is such a problem.

When I read or hear Donald Trump's statements, I can't avoid thinking about that ill-fated conversation when my father argued with my son about cutting those plants in the garden. It was the same kind of exchange: people who just appear to be debating, but aren't really understanding each other. In the political statements by Donald Trump, I see something of the way my father would react during the initial stages of the disease. The same unsupported statements shot at random, the same absolute certainty shown by someone who, really, had no idea about what he was speaking about.

That doesn't mean that I can say that Donald Trump has Alzheimer. He might, others seem to have noticed that there is something badly wrong in the way he behaves (h/t Clark Urbans for the link). But there is no way to diagnose Alzheimer with any certainty when it is in its early stages. However, the problem is not specifically with Donald Trump. No; this sensation of discussing with an Alzheimer patient comes often to me when following a political discussion in the media or in the comments of a blog or on social media. The debate doesn't seem to be among people who listen to each other. Rather, it seems to be among people who throw statements at each other as if they were tennis balls. Think of tennis players: they are not interested in the color of the ball they play with, only to throw the ball back to their opponents as fast as possible. So, in these debates, people don't seem to be interested in the meaning of what's being told to them, just to throw something back at their opponents as fast as possible.

Do you know the political tactics called the "Gish Gallop"? It consists in drowning an opponent in a torrent of arguments, one after the other, ignoring the counter-arguments. It can be used by perfectly sane people, but, at the same time, it is the ideal strategy to conceal one's mental disease. It describes very well the strategy that my father used for that purpose. So, those people whom we call trolls, are they just nasty, or are they sick? How many people in high-level position could be affected by the Alzheimer disease and yet be smart enough to hide the early symptoms? We already had a president, Ronald Reagan, who may have been in the early stage of Alzheimer during the last period of his presidency. That may not have caused big problems, but don't you have the sensation that the world is ruled by people affected by some form of dementia?

Could it be that we suffer from an Alzheimer-like civilization disease? That would explain why civilization never arrives at doing something useful about the terrible threats if faces, first of all, climate change. Maybe there really is no ghost in the machine we call civilization. It is a giant machine that stumbles around while arguing with itself in an endless squabble and getting nowhere.

My father, Giuliano Bardi (1922-2014) was an architect and a high school teacher. As an architect, he didn't have the chance to build many structures, but those that he built show the cleanliness of lines that was typical of the modernist school of architecture. He designed and had built the house where he lived until his death and where his family still lives today. I remember him for his keen spirit of observation that made him able to discover unsuspected details on anything. He was also a brilliant teacher, much loved by his students. So much that at his funeral many of them remembered him well enough that they came to say farewell to him for the last time.

India: Four States, Five Trends

D Suba Chandran

On 19 May 2016, results of legislative assembly elections of four Indian states – two from South India (Kerala and Tamil Nadu) and two from the East (West Bengal and Assam) – were announced. While there were no big surprises in the results and not much in common between them, they do project certain trends. Some of these trends reflect continuity with the past, while the others are new and need to be watched closely for their likely implications.

Challenges for the BJPFirst, the election results in these four states (and a Union Territory – Pondicherry, a former French Colony) do highlight the challenges for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to penetrate into all of India. Barring Assam, where the BJP overthrew the long-standing Congress rule led by former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, in the other three states, the Party’s performance has been marginal and insignificant. In Kerala, it was able to win only one of the total 140 seats; and in Tamil Nadu, it could win none of 232 seats (declared so far). In West Bengal, although it has secured more seats than in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, its tally of six seats out of 294, is insignificant.

Assam has been the only exception for the BJP. The unpopularity of the Congress rule (Gogoi had been the chief minister for the past three consecutive terms) and the BJP’s sustained campaign should have tilted the voting in its favour. In the other three states, the BJP has never been strong (or even present strongly) despite its strong campaign. However, in terms of vote share, the BJP has made an important beginning. Having its leaders talking in TV shows and occupying a media space is different from having a substantial vote share.

Decline of the Congress PartyThe second major trend that should extremely be worrying for those who are watching national politics is the further decline of the Congress. While the BJP never had a strong presence in these states, the Congress always had a substantial contribution to the state politics, either as a ruling party, or as its coalition, or a strong opposition. Barring Assam, its performance in all other four states has been pathetic in the recent elections. It managed to secure 26 of the total 120 seats in Assam; but its performance in Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu do not augur well either for the Congress’s future, or for national politics.

National Parties and the PeripheryThe third major trend is an extension of the above two – the failure of national parties to have its presence in the periphery, and the relevance of strong regional political parties. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal, along with Jayalalitha’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, signify the power of regional political parties. While few nationalists project this as worrying factor, in a large multi-ethnic country such as India, strong regional political parties actually strengthen federalism by playing a crucial role in the national parliament.

At times (in fact, more often than otherwise) regional political parties are accused of sabotaging national interests in terms of pursuing New Delhi’s foreign policy vis-a-vis the neighbourhood. New Delhi has to take into account the interests of Tamil Nadu vis-à-vis Sri Lanka and West Bengal vis-à-vis Bangladesh. And this should be seen in a positive framework where the Centre accommodates and works with its periphery in framing foreign policy. Strong regional parties play a substantial role in strengthening federal fabric.

In a large federal country, it is important to have strong regional presence in the national parliament. All three (federation, regional parties and parliament) should have a symbiotic relationship for successful national governance.

Women LeadershipThe fourth trend in these elections is the continuation of women power. While other political parties were looking for alliances, Jayalalitha decided to fight on her own in Tamil Nadu. Mamata Banerjee led the campaign in West Bengal for the TMC. With Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh and Mehbooba Mufti in J&K, India can boast of strong women leadership at the state levels. Significantly, they are outside the Congress family and did not come from a political dynasty. Mehbooba Mufti is the only exception in this – her Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was founded and led by her father, who was earlier with the Congress. And none of the four women leaders belong to the BJP. All of them are extremely strong-willed and independent.

Strong women leadership, especially at the regional levels portends well not only for the politics, but also for social equations. Predominantly a patriarchal society, South Asia needs strong women leadership, that too evolving on their own and not from a political dynasty owing their rise to their fathers or husbands. Mayawati, Mamata and Jayalalitha have evolved from the grassroots and should be seen as a part of social evolution and not through their family connections. Male leaders not only respect leaders like Mamata and Jayalalitha, but also fear them. Undoubtedly, there is an also an element of sycophancy. For example, Tamil leaders refer to Jayalalitha as Amma (mother) and visibly carry her photo on their pockets and fall on her feet to take blessings. Such trends though do not portend well for democratic politics, do indirectly play a role in women becoming confident in an otherwise male dominated society in South Asia.

They are not only independent and strong, but also avowedly secular, liberal and even business friendly. On the negative side, they are known for their autocratic and arrogant attitude; and their earlier terms have also been marked with corruption.

Decline of the Left

The fifth trend, which is an extremely worrisome one, is the continuing decline of the Left. Though the Left front has bounced back in Kerala, it has lost completely in West Bengal, which used to be its stronghold. Of the total 294 seats for West Bengal, they came third with only 33 seats and that too below the Congress’s 44. The decline is not only taking place at the party level; there is a leadership and ideological crisis within. The fact that they had aligned with the Congress in West Bengal (while fighting them in Kerala) would highlight the hypocrisy within.

While the Left in South Asia is on the decline all over, such a trend does not portend well, as the Right has been increasing its electoral power in the Assemblies and muscle power in the streets. Given the need for a strong secular state and social equality between the classes, a declining Left bereft of a strong ideology is a disaster in waiting. The Left in India has to blame itself for reaching this situation. Preaching about Marx and harping on anti-American and capitalist critiques will not sell any further.

Barbarism and the Smell of Cordite

Vijay Shankar

Aggregation of power is never more apparent than when there is dramatic increase in state controlled power-activism. Equally impactful is the growing disregard for moral principles when power (political, corporate or military) is exercised. The wars and repression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Xinxiang and Tibet are continuous reminders of the nexus between state policy and savagery on the field despite the messianic goal of delivering freedom to the “downtrodden.”

Historically, whether it was the Kremlin’s control over its satellites, Japan’s atrocities in Manchuria, fascist Italy’s carnage in North Africa, China’s subjugation of Tibet or Pakistan’s genocide in the erstwhile East Pakistan; the pattern of state policy unleashing barbarism is familiar. What is not fully recognised is the manner in which technology serves to intensify violence exponentially, on all sides. Unfortunately, the advance of science and technology in the last century and indeed over the epochs has not gone with any comparable advance in human understanding of conflict and how best to mitigate the physical gore of warfare. Instead, the increase of knowledge has repeatedly intruded to generate new forms of atrocities on scales that are unprecedented.

At the state level, the idea of killing machines controlled from great distances executing their missions with chilling precision with neither the palpability of a human in combat nor an ethical code of restraint is most unsettling. Experience from the ‘drone war’ currently being waged in Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan presages the advent of far more lethal systems employing advanced hypersonic remotely operated weapons at hair trigger notice, bringing to the fore all of our techno-moral anxieties. The recent testimony of Brandon Bryant, a former US pilot and ‘predator’ drone operator, at the UN and in the German Parliament leaves a slithering sense that screens and sensors have stolen from reality human feelings, replacing it with a one-sided dystopian view of conflict. The drone operator stated, “... And I watched him bleed out of his femoral artery. And [sic] he’s rolling on the ground, and I can—I imagined his last moments. I didn’t know what to feel. I just knew that I had ended something that I had no right to end.”

Bertrand Russell in his 1915 essay titled “The Ethics of War” suggested that the “fundamental facts in this, as in all ethical questions, are feelings.” However, contemporary mores of conflict gives first propriety to instant success with low or no casualty return. This places power in a position of primacy and in the process relegates ethics to abstraction. In its station is a self-ordained faultlessness of cause, making justification of killing a juridical issue played by the rules of the powerful. In the process, legitimising the extermination of as many as modern armaments makes possible, becomes a foregone conclusion. Whatever became of “the smell of cordite?” Is all now simulacra?

The real issue is the absence of an accepted and well complied rule book (notwithstanding the Geneva and Hague Conventions), opening the question as to why it is that right or wrong is determined solely on the power status of a nation, thereby absolving states of the consequences of their actions. Clearly extrapolating a law and order approach internal to a state in matters of international relations is not only in transgression of the idea of sovereignty but brings with it the natural abhorrence of a super cop. Unfortunately, national interests, corporate fortunes, political insincerity and primordial prejudices besides the ideal propel international relations. The reality is that leadership is wedded to antiquated beliefs to make policy, while instruments to implement are driven by technologies that have long outpaced these beliefs (in terms of their destructive potential and the ability to generate an illusion that the very same beliefs can be clinically realised). This would also appear to be the strategic crisis of these times.

To advocate democracy by war as is being done today in Afghanistan, West Asia and elsewhere through recent history, is only to repeat, on a vast scale and with far more tragic results, the error of those who have sought it hitherto by covert means, the terrorist’s bomb or through ideological indoctrination. Contemporary geopolitics exemplifies the predicament.

Pacifists have long suggested that there is no reason why settlement of all disputes by the UN cannot be undertaken. Their plea that this great trial of our times has worked itself out towards only one conclusion and that is global disaster and suggested that “when the passions of hate and self-assertion have given place to compassion with the universal misery, nations will perhaps realise that they have fought in blindness and delusion, and that the way of mercy is the way of happiness for all” (Bertrand Russell). Actually, very little stands in the way of such romanticism other than nationalism, religion and the pride of leadership who wish to remain uncontrolled by anything higher than sovereign will. In truth, these are all formidable human traits; they are also at the root of violent struggles that trend towards a one-sided faultlessness of cause. Brandon Bryant’s testimony was an articulation of the absence of ‘feelings’ that pushed morality out of the frame and ushered a dystopian vision of warfare.

Ethics in warfare is a complex and often intriguing subject. Killing, at the individual level, has long been taboo with most civilisations; and yet when the scale of proportions is expanded to the state level, there appears historically an attempt to define just cause, just conduct and in more recent times, a morality in post-war settlement. The Christian tradition that exerted to propagate such a perspective saw for both jus ad bellum and jus in bello an awkward and often partisan arbiter, the Catholic Church. Yet, what perhaps provides a more elegant and convincing standpoint are the dialogues between Lord Krishna and the warrior prince Arjuna in the Indian epic Mahabharata.

The discussions begin with the right to war and the criteria that make for a righteous one; the various gradations that postulated proportionality, just means and morality in the conduct of operations were central to the discourse while equality of combatants, their fair treatment and honour in war termination were of essence if victory were to be considered ethical. But then the problem has always been and remains: how, who or what will intercede on the side of the just? Particularly so when exceptional virtuosity is the right of the victor.

Not to labour the point, a quarter of a century ago on 20 December 1989, President George HW Bush launched Operation Just Cause, sending troops and combat aircrafts into Panama to execute a warrant of arrest against its leader Manuel Noriega (noisily condemned by the UN). A one-time CIA asset and close ally, he faced charges of drug trafficking. The country was invaded; its dictator incarcerated, brought to trial and sentenced in the US. The operation set a trend for power activism in the 1990s and the first two decades of the new millennium. The dictum seemed to be a quick, surgical and internationally unsanctioned ‘in’ followed by regime change and a clean exit. Obviously the surgical ‘in’ was a point of view, it invariably left in its wake non-combatant casualties numbering in the thousands.

Before falling into the trap of reducing international relations and it’s sometimes sequel of conflict to a “morality melodrama,” it has to be recognised that humankind in its endeavour to come to grips with trans-national violence has arrived at a stage when the (general) use of force has been legally proscribed. But there remain conditions. And it is within these conditions of self-defence, right of intervention, pre-emptive protection of interests and indeed, the use of comprehensive force that nations bring to bear the weight of unbridled nationalism. It is also under these conditions that veto-wielding Ayatollahs of the UN flourish. This then, is the rub, how can power be subsumed to a larger goal of collective accord? The short answer is that it cannot as long as the idea of nation states lies at the heart of the international system allowing states to internally promote centralisation of power and externally present a Janus-faced approach to moral principles.

Contemporary global order is unmistakably swayed by power, an expedient-slant to morality, and a distinct readiness to use barbaric force as long as the smell of cordite remained sequestered. This perhaps is the lamentable ‘bulletin’ of the day.

Chinese Military Modernisation: Takeaways from the Pentagon Report

Bhartendu Kumar Singh

Every year, the American Department of Defence (Pentagon) publishes a report on the military and security developments of China under the National Defence Authorisation Act (2000). The report is supposed to address the current and probable future course of military-technological development of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), probable development of Chinese security and military strategy, and operational concepts supporting such developments. In a similarly annual ritual, the Chinese Defence Ministry issues a protest statement rubbishing the findings of the report.  2016 was no different when the Pentagon’s recent report came with some startling revelations, except the tone and tenor of the Chinese response was largely symbolic.

 

When the Pentagon started its annual report, Chinese military modernisation was largely shrouded in a veil of secrecy. Not much was known to the outside world and a large amount of literary work on Chinese military modernisation was based on guess work. Over the years, Pentagon reports have made Chinese military modernisation a contested discourse wherein the Chinese are confronted with irrefutable findings. For example, this year’s report has published detailed satellite pictures of Chinese construction and outpost activities in the disputed South China Sea (SCS). Also, the Chinese Military Regions (MRs) of Guangzhou and Nanjing are shown to have clear and precise locations of different arms of PLA, something that is not possible without intelligence inputs.

 

While studying Chinese military modernisation, Pentagon has shattered many myths surrounding the Chinese PLA. One myth that came from Beijing was about the invincibility of People’s War, making the PLA a powerful army. The Pentagon report established that the PLA was quite weak and its so-called People’s War strategy unworkable. It also engendered the global debate on Chinese defence expenditure and debunked the myth, again propagated by China, that it was spending too less on its defence. An exclusive chapter was dedicated, in annual reports, on China’s defence expenditure and the ubiquitous conclusion was that China was spending at least 2-3 times more than its official expenditure. The pressure from the report was so high that China was forced to bring more accounting reforms in its defence expenditure administration;  thereby making it relatively more transparent and bridging the gap with the Western estimates on its defence expenditure. Today, the debate on China’s defence expenditure is almost dead since there are little takers for Chinese whispers.

 

The Pentagon report has also pushed China to induce greater transparency about its military objectives, strategic culture and force restructuring. The biannual Chinese White Paper on Military Strategy is largely a response to US’ demands for better transparency in its defence policy. The May 2015 White Paper, for instance, reflects a new sense of openness by the Chinese leadership on military modernisation. It is quite candid about accelerating the modernisation of the PLA. It appears to be reasonably happy on the Taiwan front, and shows concerns about the US’ rebalancing strategy and military alliances in the Asia Pacific region. China’s immediate focus is on force development in critical security domains like the seas and oceans, commensurate with its national security interests. It is upgrading its combat readiness in the name of preparing for military operations other than war (MOOTW). It is this strategy that has been defining China’s low intensity coercive activities in the Asia Pacific region.

 

Along with the Pentagon report, other reports have also been hypothesising about China’s military build-up. According to the 2015 RAND report on the US-China military scorecard, though China is not close to catching up to the US military in terms of aggregate capabilities, it does not need to catch up to challenge the US on its immediate periphery. China has made relative gains in most operational areas, in some cases, with startling speed. For example, Taiwan is no more the core flash point endangering Asian security since the asymmetrical power gap across the Taiwan Straits has almost closed any space for the island territory to assert itself vis-à-vis the mainland.

 

The Pentagon report is not without gaps. It does not throw light on many crucial aspects such as the power push given to the PLA through Sino-Russian collaboration, the maturity of Chinese domestic military-industrial complex (MIC), China’s decreased dependence upon imported arms in its military modernisation and China’s force mobilisation in the Tibet area remains an enigma that are yet to be fully comprehended. Above all, it is focused on hot spots that impinge upon America’s security interests in the Asia Pacific region and does not throw light on China’s force mobilisation in the Tibet area that has ramifications for South Asian security.

 

Indians will have little use for the Pentagon report. The report is unlikely to cast statistical presentations on China’s military build-up in Chengdu MR, which covers a major portion along the Indian border. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study China’s military modernisation from the Indian perspective for peace and tranquility on the Sino-Indian border.