Interesting - I suggested a while ago, in something of a whimsical mood, that US should fore go attempts to reform Afghanistan, create a secure military zone in the North, attract what serviceable Afghan allies they could to that enclave which I assume would include Kabul, and leave the Pashtun south to the Taliban - with the understanding of course that the US will continue to blow up and shoot to kill anything suspected of involvement with Al queda. Now some Pakistani officer who is receiving training at the US War College has written an article suggesting a strategy very similar to that - saying essentially Afghanistan is ungovernable as a whole so create a northern enclave, save the parts that can be saved and adopt a policy of slowly isolating and wearing the Taliban down until the Pashtuns themselves rise up and fight for better lives - or don't, his point being Afghanistan has always been a tribal mess, highly prone to civil war, and nothing is going to change that until the people themselves are motivated to do so.

Two obvious problems though: it will at first look like a defeat and will certainly be portrayed as one by Islamists; I'm not sure about the logistics of keeping AQ out - that border with Pakistan seems unsecureable and that means killing the bad guys after they've already gained access to the 'outlaw' south - I'm not at all sure how effective that can be - although I would think the US wouldn't have a problem finding lots of young Afghan men, poor young men, willing to make big bucks serving as human assets for covert operations.

Obama awarded Nobel Peace prize. Ah... a development that is so absurd it almost defies comment? Possibly. The world is collapsing into farce. Eventually some cunning, calculating, cold hearted bastard is going to exploit that weakness and bad things are going to happen - whether it's a year from now, twenty years from now, I dunno, but it will happen. Sorry people but electing the black guy president doesn't change the fact that the species is defined by conflict, not peace.

Didn't Arafat win a Nobel Peace prize? Quick search... yes, 1994. Well, it all makes sense then.

update: as many are pointing out this absurdly unwarranted act of blatant politicking on the part of the Nobel committee may end up doing more harm than good to Obama in so much as it reaffirms the image of him as more celebrity than qualified leader and of being the favoured child of internationalists who dislike the US and would enjoy nothing more than to see it reduced. It also complicates his decision on Afghanistan: if he rejects the recommendations of his military his motivations and his character will be judged with even more scrutiny as people wonder if this is him dutifully obliging a global, left wing elite; yet if he escalates, this silly award will be used to stoke the fires of anti-Americanism - the Nobel committee has essentially handed a perfect platform to the enemy from which to hurl rocks at Lady Liberty by offering up a false ideal of peace so that when America inevitably betrays those airy dreams its infamy will seem that much more repugnant. It's truly a moronic decision on the part of the committee - I suppose the only people who prosper here are those who view the idea of a post nation state internationalism as unworkable and naive - certainly would seem to be the case if it proffers up pompous idiocy of this sort.

Robert Kaplan in the NY Times:

Everyone keeps saying that America is not an empire, but our military finds itself in the sort of situation that was mighty familiar to empires like that of ancient Rome and 19th-century Britain: struggling in a far-off corner of the world to exact revenge, to put down the fires of rebellion, and to restore civilized order. Meanwhile, other rising and resurgent powers wait patiently in the wings, free-riding on the public good we offer. This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions.

Of course, one could make an excellent case that an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is precisely what would lead to our decline, by demoralizing our military, signaling to our friends worldwide that we cannot be counted on and demonstrating that our enemies have greater resolve than we do. That is why we have no choice in Afghanistan but to add troops and continue to fight.

But as much as we hone our counterinsurgency skills and develop assets for the “long war,” history would suggest that over time we can more easily preserve our standing in the world by using naval and air power from a distance when intervening abroad. Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others.

I guess I pretty much agree with all of that - except to add this is the last war like this we should involve ourselves in unless we are willing to go all the way, by which I usually mean [perhaps naively if not with ignorance] acknowledging and accepting the consequences of the culture changing imperative at the heart of occupation and an attendant and necessary belief in full spectrum, or I might say total war. I wonder if this means Kaplan shares my scepticism vis COIN? He seems to be echoing my point that counterinsurgency possibly makes sense on a tactical level but loses merit the more it comes to dominate an entire strategy - although his last paragraph seems a bit contradictory on exactly what he means.

Obama pissed by McChrystal going rogue? Has McChrystal gone rogue? He's certainly ruffled some feathers with the leaking of his recommendations to the president a couple weeks ago and now making very public comments on what needs to be done in Afghanistan if you wanna win. Rumour is that when Obama saw fit to make time for him while in full rut with Olympic committee it was to dress him down. Possibly. His actions only seem to make sense if he believes Obama is going to reverse course and go against his recommendations and he wants to either try and forestall that or simply make sure it's a matter of public record so that if things go badly he can't be made the fall guy.

I take McChrystal's actions and possibly more significantly Petraeus' silence regarding those actions to be an indication that the military has come to share my opinion that Obama is a charlatan and was playing politics when he embraced the war in his campaign and then again when he set in motion, soon after taking office, facts on the ground which led McChrystal et al to believe that embrace to be serious only to find now Obama waking up the next morning, looking over at what he crawled into bed with and saying 'Jesus, that was a mistake'.

Now, I've criticized COIN as McChrystal and Petraeus have expressed it and possibly the criticism has been unfair or misguided or not grounded in reality - I dunno - but whatever the truth is the real question now becomes has Obama made the Afghan situation untenable by employing aggressive rhetoric that he either didn't mean or didn't understand the consequences of? Certainly, if Obama has already decided to not follow through on McChrystal's recommendations and these deliberations are merely more political game playing to give the impression they truly laboured and agonized over these weighty decisions - well, you can see how that could cause some serious tension between the military and its civilian overseers.

"... I suppose it's curious to contemplate that China, not as Mao imagined it but as it exists today, is an engorged dependent feeding off the excesses of a fostering capitalism... that it is in effect the bound and regimented bastard offspring of democratically enabled free markets roiled by a liberality of desires... raised by our freedoms, our innovations, our progressive thinking, the dynamics of our view of the rights and values that belong to and abide with the individual... a creature created by us but not capable or willing or interested in becoming what we are and therefore no doubt destined to repudiate us when they come to imagine they no longer need us... I suppose it's curious to think that repudiation is increasingly near and at hand..."

Interesting story in Washington Post today about former key tribal Sunni players in the Anbar awakening, backbone essentially of the successful surge, feeling abandoned by America now, feeling resentful, embittered, at the mercy of Shiites - tribal leaders who have seen the power they acquired while working with the American now gone. In short the story gives the impression that the success of the surge will be short lived if growing Sunni disenchantment of post-surge world coalesces into open opposition.

Also interesting in the story is description of to what lengths American troops on the ground in these restive regions have gone towards indulging and showing respect to the prevailing culture, relating in one instance a CO explaining to new officers the proper way to serve tea when meeting with tribal elders - and yet they're still distrusted, resented, hated.

Again, we're in these countries because of events engendered by the prevailing culture - I have trouble understanding how a military strategy based on preserving those cultures can be successful in the long term - as a short term means to an end? Yes, possibly - but then that necessitates nation building, no? And doesn't that in turn dictate you change the prevailing culture? I assume if we were to attempt a remaking of Afghanistan we're not foolish enough to replicate what was there before.

It perplexes me - I look at COIN and see what they're thinking and understand up to a certain point how they might have faith in it - but after that I come to see the whole idea as resting on a fragile base of vague assumptions and contradictory, or maybe simply disingenuous reasoning. We're an occupying force yet we don't want to be seen as or act like an occupying force - I'm not sure the brutal logic of war can be made to make sense within the confines of those limitations. What's worse, I think the insurgents, the Taliban have figured out how to exploit this self-imposed weakness. We possibly can protect the population and separate it from the 'bad guy' [dubious but possible] but if the Taliban is thinking 'what you're protecting doesn't belong to you, it belongs to us, it will never trust you, but we don't need its trust, we know what they fear and are more than willing to deliver that fear into their huts and places of worship; your soldiers long to go home but this is our home and we are willing to wait forever to return' - if that's how the Taliban see COIN what good is it doing us in the end? Unless of course you're going to engage in nation building which means committing to a culture changing occupation and the idea of total war.

Which brings me back to the above referenced story: if things go south in Iraq how will that impact an American military establishment that has made a commitment to COIN?

China celebrated the 60th anniversary of the birth of the communist state yesterday with a huge, huge military parade [odd that Western styled democracies don't feel the need for grandiose military parades - we've got Santa Claus - a Sino cynic may wonder what that means [what?]] - but what struck me is how Chinese nationalists here were running round the city in cars [largely Japanese models - the irony lost on them it seems] with Mao's red flag fluttering proudly from windows. Since they've chosen to live in a democracy and since China was actually born many centuries ago which means what they're really celebrating is the advancement of communism under the dictatorship of a megalomaniac responsible for the deaths of millions of people, which seems odd given the choices they've made, ya know, living in a democracy, driving Japanese cars - I would liked to have asked them what the hell they were thinking, but realized their answers would not have untroubled my mind. And we would have argued, tempers would have flared, punches would have been thrown, all ending with me no doubt being arrested as an intolerant agitator. The world baffles.

related: from Financial Times via Marginal Revolution blog, as just one fact of many adding weight to my question 'just what in the hell exactly did they think they were celebrating with those bloody Mao flags?' [to be fair, it's a little hard to celebrate being Chinese and avoid the whole Mao thing - yes, but that's because China is still a communist oligarchy! - so were they celebrating being Chinese or being Chinese communists? or do they not note or care about the distinction? was it just mindless nationalism then? which, sure, every state and culture indulges in - but that thought still doesn't exactly warm my cockles because most states and cultures cannot lay claim to more than a billion loyal citizens all more or less under the control of an elite cadre of ideologues! that's not cockle warming]:

Today's Financial Times writes about the Central Organization Department of China:

To glean a sense of the dimensions of the organization department's job, conjure up a parallel body in Washington. The imaginary department would oversee the appointments of US state governors and their deputies; the mayors of big cities; heads of federal regulatory agencies; the chief executives of General Electric, Exxon-Mobil, Walmart and 50-odd of the remaining largest companies; justices on the Supreme Court; the editors of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post; the bosses of the television networks and cable stations; the presidents of Yale and Harvard and other big universities and the heads of think-tanks such as the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.

All equivalent positions in China are filled by people appointed by the party through the organization department.

I would not want to be on the bad side of the Central Organization Department. The full article, which is interesting throughout, is here. It's also related to why I don't see China just evolving into a normal democracy.

If China can't or refuses to or avoids through twists yet unknown becoming a 'normal' democracy, or can only approach such by means of a significant social upheaval that may in fact result in a more threatening, more reactionary, less progressive dictatorship than the one currently in power then it's to make a rather indulgent assumption to conclude economic concerns will continue to placate and render ostensibly irrelevant the ideological strain between it and America. I'm thinking history offers none or few examples of facts on the ground tolerating such an optimistic view of things.

Tending to find fault in everything he does [now how is that fair? It isn't - but life isn't fair - don't blame me, friendo - it's life you should be pissed at - life] I haven't really considered the possibility of what happens should Obama's Iran strategy succeed. So - I'd imagine the only thing more dangerous than Obama and his cadre of clever progressives thinking they're right would be evidence that seemed to demonstrate to those not yet indoctrinated into the way that yes indeed those clever bastards are right - this would be because one, Iran is not negotiating away the nuclear option - any agreement they enter into that appears to be a concession on this point will be a lie, they will not honour it - and two, those who understand Obama's approach to foreign policy to be proof of weakness will be emboldened. [so what you're saying with apparent shameless bias is that he fails even if he succeeds - no, what I'm saying is that success as Obama and his cadre understand it will be an illusion, a thin web of wishful thinking - now if he actually succeeds, which would mean compelling Iran to submit to verifiable limits on its nuclear program and warm to the resumption of normalized relations with the US - well then, I'd be shocked, dumbfounded - but I wouldn't deny him his victory - still, as I said, any agreement the present regime in Iran enters into that is in the least way watered down or is not accompanied by proof of a desire on the part of Iran to move away from its 'great Satan' framing of the past will be about as viable and sincere as Molotov-Ribbentrop]

For being quite well known and respected Ricks seems to write a lot of things that I find off the mark if not entirely wrong and in some cases just flat out dumb - he also tends to be a bit of an Obama apologist, although the post that prompted the response below was ostensibly meant to take Obama to task. I only repeat this 'cause I liked my jab at Obama's books - childish of me I suppose. Indeed.

"On Iran, I think, he has done pretty well-trends are certainly pointing toward a multilateral containment effort."

Where in the hell do you get that from? There's absolutely nothing that has happened to suggest that statement is true in any way. It is not in the interests of the oligarchies governing Iran, China and Russia to comply with what we want - so by containment I guess you mean the de facto condoning of nuclear proliferation amongst 'rogue' nations while hapless Western leaders make various aggrieved gestures and Obama climbs yet another stage to intone 'well, you see, this just isn't right - did these people not read my books?'.

And as far as Obama and Afghanistan are concerned you reporters completely missed the story here: Obama embraced the war as part of a political calculation to get elected and now he wants it to go away and he wants McChrystal to tell him how to make it go away but McChrystal is not telling him what he wants to hear and so he's stuck with a war he needed by didn't want. The 'dithering' you so lightly, almost harmlessly label him with is actually the result of a serious miscalculation that caused him to commit to a war he didn't understand and has now backed him into a corner: retreat and he'll look weak and America's reputation in the region will be further damaged no doubt leading to dire consequences; advance out of fear of losing and there's a good chance Afghanistan becomes his Vietnam.

News that doesn't surprise at all - Russian official closely linked to Putin says world should just relax a little when it comes to Iran etc etc etc. Of course - didn't see that one coming. This thought though: resisting sanctions benefits Russia and China both as regards economics and strategic influence, but one can also see how limited sanctions, sanctions that hurt but not enough to move Iran off its course, can also serve the interests of Russia and China in much the same way by making Iran more dependent on their good graces and bringing it more explicitly into their spheres of influence. It's really hard to see a scenario here that fits Obama's agenda of engagement that doesn't rely on China, Russia and Iran behaving in entirely unexpected ways, ways that seem quite at odds with their evidenced natures and reported histories.

Should we call Obama et al naive then? Blindly idealistic? Or left to the mercy of events by their proclivities and unfounded assumptions?

[you shouldn't just simply ignore that China is playing a tricky game here seeing as how it's still very much dependent on the US economy - trying to undermine the extent of American power without adversely impacting the economic component may prove a strategy with a limited future - and so probably the key question to ask is: does China's desire to maintain the autocratic status quo politically while continuing to exploit a blended, top down, state sponsored genus of capitalism, does that make China less or more likely to take unwise chances or make bad calculations viz its provisionally anti-American strategy? Dunno - but certainly a decision to hedge American power with a nuclear Iran would open itself up to concerns about whether their actions are myopically reactionary or seriously flawed in some other way and lead one to wonder that if China is so concerned about American power that it is willing to condone WMD proliferation amongst dubious nations - let's not forget N Korea - then what does that say about the long term viability of the current relationship between the two behemoths?]