Libya and Nation-State Paradigm

Well, the Obama administration sure did dodge a big fat bullet there w/ the Libya crisis.  Before the passage of the UN Security Council resolution, the Benghazi people did everybody a favor by declaring independence from the Qaddafi regime.  With a nominally state structure, we are now able to negotiate with Benghazi for aid and assistance.  The US didn't have to figure out how to deal with a non-state actor.

But the question remains un-resolved.  If Benghazi did not declare independence, could the US provide overt assistance such as a publicized shipment of ammunition?  Like I said earlier, the CIA could provide covert assistance when Obama signs a presidential finding, but not the Defense Department.  The weapon export regulatory regime (ITAR) requires a specific, drawn-out process to make this overt assistance happen.  With this drawn out process, Congress would get involved, slowing things down further.

Maybe this Libya adventure will provide the legislative impetus for Congress to start working this problem.

Mirage Followup: Pakistani Prospects

Anonymous questioned my analysis on the prospects of Pakistan getting the 62 Mirage 2000s from United Arab Emirates. Rumor says that UAE wants to swap the Mirages in exchange for new-built Rafaels from Dassault. I said that Pakistan is not likely to be a recipient of these planes. Anonymous disagrees, because Pakistan is the largest operator of Mirage IIIs and Vs in the world today, thus a long-term relationship with Dassault and in need of replacements. In addition, Pakistan is looking for advanced systems to arm its future JF-17s, such as RC-400 radars and MICA missiles.

Yes, Anon, Pakistan would absolutely love to have 62 Mirage 2Ks. However, as an analyst, we always need to separate wishful thinking from analysis based on facts. I will be upfront myself and admit my personal bias to see a Taiwanese Air Force strong enough to deter the PLA Nanjing military district. Even taking that into account, though, Taiwan still remains the most likely candidate for these Mirage 2Ks, eventually.

The most important factor to understand here, is the business imperative of the Dassault corporation. Dassault has been searching for an export customer for the Rafale. Without an export customer, Dassault will have to shutter the Rafale production line, at least temporarily. Having to restart the production line would raise the Rafale unit cost dramatically, further hurting its export prospects. Despite all the hype of the armed UAVs, the end of the Rafale may mean the end of high-performance fighter airplanes for Dassault [either manned or unmanned], with the attendant loss of the engineers and the craftsmen. Without the human capital, it will take Dassault a generation to rebuild its in-house capability to design and build airplanes capable of high-Angle-of-Attack maneuvers. Therefore, getting a Rafale export, and thus keeping the line warm, is synonymous with Dassault surviving in the fighter business.

Therefore, Dassault absolutely does not want to endanger its Rafale sales prospects. According to Wiki, the Rafale is in the running in India. Brazil has also supposedly chosen the Rafale. With this stock of Mirage 2Ks, Dassault may now offer the Mirages as temporary stand-ins to India and Brazil, while they waited on the Rafales.

With the business consideration, Dassault is unlikely to offer Mirages to Pakistan, at least for now. Dassault needs India's MMRCA order. A sale to Pakistan right now will shut Dassault out of the Indian market. Pakistan may get Mirages later, after MMRCA award, but by then, JF-17 production will be in full-swing in Pakistan. A Mirage 2K acqusition will be competing for funding against a more indigenous JF-17 production program. Egypt is also discussing a co-production deal with Pakistan for the JF-17s, which elevates the political importance of the JF-17 program. If JF-17 is fighting for funding against Mirage 2Ks, JF-17 will probably come out ahead. Pakistan may well buy RC-400s and MICAs, but that does not translate into Mirages.

Based on the business case, Dassault is unlikely to offer the UAE Mirages to Pakistan. Based on the timing and politics, Pakistan is unlikely to seek Mirages. Therefore, Pakistan is not a prospect for the UAE Mirages.

UAE's Mirage 2000s and Strategic Balance

Arabian Aerospace reports that, as a condition to purchase the Rafale fighter, UAE will require Dassault to buy back its 62 Mirage 2000-9s. The question then becomes, who will buy these 62 Mirages? These 62 Mirages may end up altering a strategic balance in the world.

This question is a tough one for Dassault because it no longer markets Mirage 2000s. It has staked its future on the Rafale, and its sales efforts focus on that. This batch of Mirages can interfere with Rafale prospects.

Wiki shows that the current operators of Mirage 2000s are: France, India, UAE, Taiwan, and Greece. Egypt, Qatar, Peru, and Brazil each operates less than a squadron of Mirage 2000s. We can knock off India and Brazil off the list right away, as they both have a current fighter competition in which Rafale is a contender. Greece is having economic difficulties and cannot spend its EU bailout on surplus aircrafts. We can probably say the same [economic difficulties] about potential new prospects such as Argentina, who currently operate older Mirages. Qatar Air Force and Peruvian Air Force are too small to absorb any significant quantities.

Egypt and Pakistan are good prospects. However, Egypt has been buying F-16s, and is talking with Pakistan to jointly manufacture the Sino-Pakistani JF-17. A Mirage sale to Pakistan may also upset India, whose Air Force got Rafale back into MRCA.

So the remaining customer, however improbable, is emerging as the most likely prospect: Taiwan. Taiwan already operates 60 2005s, and wants to retire the last 33 of its F-5s. Dassault is unlikely to sell Rafales to Taiwan anytime soon. Taiwan is shopping for more F-16s from Lockheed, but Obama has not been warm to a sale. The stars are lining up for Taiwan, so to speak. It has the money, the will, and the capacity to pick up as many 2000s as it can get. A direct sale from UAE to Taiwan is unlikely to draw major diplomatic heat from China, due to UAE's status as a petroleum exporter. Another 60 2000s would address the growing cross-strait military imbalance nicely.

If Obama continues to drag feet on F-16 sales, Taiwan may end up a Mirage 2000 country. France still has 300+ 2000s it would like to replace with Rafales at some point. India has 51 2000s that were supposed to be placeholders for the MRCA, and it could unload those to Taiwan to help balance against China. As the F-16 line closes down, these surplus 2000s will be Taiwan's only choice.

PS: Edited for links and labels 1JUN2010.

The Tanker Drama Back To Square One

Northrop has decided not to bid for the tanker RFP, and EADS will not go it alone. So Boeing is now the de facto winner of the KC-X competition, as was the case nearly 10 years ago. France and Germany are crying foul and may punish the US for a narrow RFP, we'll see how that turns out. Some of the observers seem to have forgotten that this is merely the first stage of the USAF tanker replacement program. There are the KC-Y and KC-Z to come.

So France and Germany need to pace themselves on that protesting part. The KC-330 has never been a good replacement for the KC-135s; its performance more approximates the KC-10(KC-Y/Z?). The USAF is clearly interested in a wide-body tanker, they just screwed up their own acquisition program in pursuing the KC-330.

Still, I'm glad that we will start saving on the O&M money of maintaining the outdated KC-135s.

ETA: Formatting and links

Russia: Climbing the Export Tree?

Galrahn at Information Dissemination analyzes more news on the Russian Mistral LHD purchase and talk about the Russian shipbuilding industry and why it is importing French shipbuilding technology. He also talks about the US Senate reaction to this pending purchase.

I have earlier talked about the Mistral purchase as reviving the historic Franco-Russian relationship. Galrahn's discussions reminds me that France may be actively pursuing this geo-political realignment as well. France is betting on Russia becoming the next China.

For all the abuses of the Soviet era, it has left Russia with a relatively well-educated work force familiar with modern manufacturing technology. Although Russian quality control was deplorable, its heavy industries sustained the mighty Red Army for decades. Even today Russian metallurgy is still state of the art. Compared to India and Brazil, Russia is probably best prepared to take on China in mass manufacturing. Moreover, China itself is trying to climb the export tree and leaving the export manufacturing business behind. If France injects capital and technology into Russia, it stands to profit from Russia's re-industrialization and China's de-exportation.

At the same time, France is trying to balance a multipolar world. From France's perspective, an economically ascendant Russia is a nice counter against China. Russia is a potential ally who shares France's distrust of both the US and China. With the communist party still popular in both countries, they share a social affinity as well.

Therefore France hopes to re-industrialize Russia, starting with its ship-building sector. They may be working on a Korean model, where the heavy industries spin off into the light manufacturing industries. There are certainly many challenges, not the least of which is Russia's demographic collapse. But the time is right for a geo-economic/political partnership between France and Russia.

Clarifications on Russia and Western Europe

An anonymous commenter responded to my thoughts on the Mistral order. He objected to my analysis because

I think Russia's present security preoccupations are NATO expansion towards
Russia's Near Abroad. Islam is a very minor threat to Russia, and entire
point of the SCO is to manage Sino-Russian interests without butting heads.

I responded:

Yes, Russians are pre-occupied with NATO expansion. However, as Defense
Secretary Gates has said, there's the war you're preparing for, and there's the
war that you're actually fighting.Yes, NATO is expanding. However, that does not
pose a security threat, per se, to Russia. Rather, it is more over spheres of
influence, prestige, and control.

In addition, NATO expansion is driven, in large part, by former Warsaw
countries such as Poland and Czech. If you think about intentions, these Central
European countries are more hostile toward Russia than, say, England and France
are. England and France may object to Russian internal politics on humanitarian
grounds, but that could change if Russia becomes more Westernized. Poles and
Czechs, on the other hand, will forever hold Russians in suspicion.

So geostrategically, England and France may be rekindling their strategic
relationship with Russia. Here I am thinking on historical timescales of
decades. Historians in the 22nd Century may well mark this Mistral order as the
start of the trend.

Ref SCO and China: For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the SCO,
Russia is deeply worried about China due to the demographics. With the sporadic
anti-Chinese riots and actions in Moscow, and the de-facto Chinese colonization
of Russian Far East, China is Russia's biggest security risk at this moment.

As Russia is fighting its Muslim minorities right now, Islamic insurgency is
Russia's biggest security task. The war you're fighting today, like I said.

Iran: Preparing for the Aftermath

New and old media report violent suppressions in Iran at this time. How this will turn out depends on the bureaucratic analysis I presented in the previous article: The Reformers need the Iranian Army on their side. The reformers have already lost this round, but the Army might still come in to minimize the bloodshed. In this article, I will explore what we, the US, can do to minimize the humanitarian disaster likely to follow, because that is all we can do now. I will also explore how the Iranian Army might help the protesters.

About the only action we can take right now, is to set up refugee camps for the current-protester, future fugitives, on the run from the authorities. Obviously we cannot invade Iran to set up these camps, but we can do so in Iraqi Kurdistan and in Afghanistan. As Kurdistan has a history of supporting Iranian dissident movements, they are a natural ally. Afghanistan's western provinces have a large Persian population, so that is an ideal site as well.

As the Revolutionary Guards have started fighting the people, we have moved past the opportunity window for enacting the policies I laid out in my previous post. Now we can go on with our democracy talk. A Persian Voice of America should start broadcasting. We should also convince the EU to join our economic embargo against Iran. We can still set up an embassy in Tehran, but the embassy's mission is not to normalize relation with the regime, but rather to provide books and media to the Iranian people through its on-site library and cultural programs.

Arming the dissidents and training them is not an option, though. As I said before, if the 2nd Iranian Revolution is to succeed, it needs the Iranian Army's backing. Our arming the dissidents would erase the maneuvering space for the Iranian Army. Besides, there are plenty of light weapons available in Iraqi markets if the dissidents are looking for guns.

Possible Outcomes of Current Clashes

It is still possible that the Iranian Army will come to the aide of the people. However, the Army cannot openly side against the Guardian Council. The Army could unilaterally move into the cities to "assist" the Basij's riot control efforts. Infantry units could race ahead of the Basij to take control of the streets. Then, they can turn the Basij away and shelter the dissidents.

Another possibility is to send in the medical units to set up mobile hospitals or to beef up the current hospitals. Obviously, because of the dangerous rioters, the Army doctors need their own Army escorts as well, to secure the hospitals. The militarization of the hospitals would also protect the patients from all intruders.

If the Army had a military exercise right outside Tehran, they could create a sanctuary from the Basij.

So these are some possible, low profile ways for the Army to rein in the excesses of the Revolutionary Guards and minimize the bloodshed. Hopefully the Iranian Army has enough bureaucratic latitude to carry them out.

The Asian Geopolitical Implications of the Ossetian War

Figured I should put in my 2 cents about the Ossetian War here. I don't have anything to add to the news out there. But this conflict is glaring in the absence of some major players.

China and India aspire to super power status. The Ossetian War presented many opportunities to a power looking for good press: Russia took a side, America the other. A third way to mediate the crisis, as a semi-neutral third party, is an obvious opening. At the end of hostilities there will be a need for peacekeepers/observers to enforce the ceasefire, for which China and India has plenty of bodies to deploy, and which will be a great occassion for photo ops in a low-risk environment. The role of a mediator does not require any commitments and has a great return on international good will.

Both China and India are for "Non-intervention", "territorial integrity", etc. China in particular can use another friend to face off Russia. At the same time, both countries have a huge diaspora population abroad and can use that to relate to Russia.

Of course, France took the diplomatic opening and is working to mediate a ceasefire. India and China should have been jumping on the bandwagon and everything. Yet there is nary a peep from either of them. One wonders why.