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.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Iran: Time for an Embassy
We need to can all this talk about Supporting the People's Will in Iran. Paradoxically, our outpouring of support for the protesting students and people in Iran is making things worse. We are cutting them off from the military support they need. Instead, we need to initiate a military and diplomatic rapprochement with Iran, to allow the Iranian military to support the people.
The Iranian people are protesting and counter-protesting over their presidential election results. The unrest is similar to the protests of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, the Tiananmen Square event, and the Berlin Wall. (Or the Israeli and Indian independence movements.) What happens next will depend very much on the bureaucratic actors in Iran. The American response therefore needs to shape and influence these bureaucratic actors.
As Mao Zedung famously observed, "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun." Political transition cannot occur without military power. It is all fine and good that people are marching in the streets, but they cannot change the government if the military balance is against them. For example, in Ukraine and in East Germany, the military sat out on the protests, neither embracing nor opposing the marchers. The people could march in peace and effect change. In Israel and India, the independence movements attacked the British colonial administration with sabotage and assassinations. The British government decided to stop fighting and withdrew. In Western democracies, the military protects the political transitions of elections. Without a military component, protests will cry unheard.
Therefore we need to look at the military dimension in Iran right now. The military opposition in Iran is very small. For example, Michael Totten visited some Iranian Communist Party militia in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2006 [Correction: 2007], and they numbered in hundreds at most. We hear about ethnic separatist violence in Iran from time to time (Iran is an empire), but they were few in number and limited in effect. The student protesters do not seem to have a military wing, judging by my perception that there have been few assassinations of the secret police officials in Tehran. For the Iranian protest to become an Iranian revolution, we will have to look toward the government bodies.
Iran has several militaries. There are the usual Iranian Army, Navy, and Air Force. There is also the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which has ships and planes of its own. There is the Iranian National Police, which shares the paramilitary and law enforcement portfolio with the Revolutionary Guards. How will they respond to the protest and possible constitutional crisis?
Ahmadinejad came from the Revolutionary Guards, so the Guards will probably side with Ahmadinejad. More importantly, however, the Guards exists to support the Iranian Guardian Council, so they will do what Khamenei says. The Iranian military, on the other hands, competes with the Revolutionary Guards on military matters, so may be inclined to support the students. On the other hand, the Iranian military probably views the current unrest as an American/Israeli conspiracy. Therefore, we need to give the Iranian military the breathing space to make up its mind.
We need to signal the Iranian military that we are not going to take advantage of their current political weakness. We can employ confidence building measures such as officer exchange programs and military visits. These things take time to set up, but by starting the planning process for them, we demonstrate our intentions to the Iranian military. Further, we should decrease the military tension when possible. Our forces in the Persian Gulf can stand down their tempo of operations, such as decreased patrols and training flights. The US Army can minimize its patrols near the Iraqi-Iranian border.
Furthermore, we need to tell the Iranians what we are doing. President Obama can put his mega-watt smile on TV and tell the Iranians that we are standing down militarily to show them we harbor no ill will toward them. He can make a historic announcement to normalize our diplomatic ties with Iran, such as setting up an embassy in Tehran. He should tell them that, regardless of who ends up being president of Iran, the United States will continue the rapprochement. We need to show respect for Iran's constitutional process so that the Iranian military can stop focusing on us and start focusing on their constitutional crisis.
Many commentators in America are saying that we need to "Show our solidarity with the Iranian people and support their democratic dreams." That, in my opinion, is precisely the wrong thing to do. Our support will only feed the Iranian conspiracy theory that the protest is an American/Israeli plot. Instead, we need to back off on the aggressive democratic talk, and demonstrate our respect for Iran's institutions. We need to do what we can to let the Iranian Army support the students.
Edited: The Stimulist looks at the next step here. Anne Applebaum wants to up the democratic rhetoric. Patrick Lang looks beyond the current protest stage, toward the possibly next stage of armed revolution. Adam Silverman analyzes revolutions in general.
Edited for format and inserted links.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Thanks for Reading!
To the Readers:
Thank you for subscribing to this blog. I noticed that many people have subscribed to this blog over this past week. Thank you so much for reading. Y'all have inspired me to further procrastinate at work and write articles!
If I come across biased against India, it is because I don't know much about India, its cities, nor its people. Please let me know anything I got wrong!
Thank you,
Jimmy
Thank you for subscribing to this blog. I noticed that many people have subscribed to this blog over this past week. Thank you so much for reading. Y'all have inspired me to further procrastinate at work and write articles!
If I come across biased against India, it is because I don't know much about India, its cities, nor its people. Please let me know anything I got wrong!
Thank you,
Jimmy
The Post-Recession Geopolitics, Trade, and Global Guerrillas
Galrahn of Information Dissemination posted a great speech by Stephen Carmel, VP of Maersk. Mr. Carmel talked about how interconnected we have become as a world, and how mundane activities in Bolivia and Africa, for example, have global, economic, and strategic repercussions.
For example, he mentioned that the electric/hybrid car is all the rage in the United States, right now, which is a good thing [Oil and all that.] Electric cars use lots of lithium batteries. 40% of the world's lithium supply comes from Bolivia, and much of the rest in other Latin America countries. Bolivia's president does not like the United States much. He is also facing economic and political unrest in Bolivia. In comes the mining industry. Because the government there is not very effective and plagued by corruption, the mining companies pay bribes and fund private security, company town's utilities, etc. Essentially, the mining companies maintain stability at the mines by exporting instability to the rest of the country, in the form of bribes, prostitution, alcohol problems (of transient miners), resentment of non-accountability, etc.
We then will re-ignite a Maoist movement in the country against foreign domination. We will try to prop up the government there, because lithium is now strategically important to the United States. It will be Banana Republics all over again.
Another big point he made is the bottlenecks in our global supply system. In addition to the physical bottlenecks like the Malacca Strait and Hormuz Strait, there's also the capacity bottlenecks of Ports of Los Angeles and Hong Kong and railroad systems, the information bottlenecks of the undersea fiber optic cables, network-node bottlenecks of our power grids, etc. The Just-In-Time philosophy of capacity over-utilization has taken out the slack in our global economic system. This tautness made our system vulnerable to Global Guerrilla attacks, and magnifies the effect of the attacks on our economies.
The speech is long, and full of interesting reflections. It's a must read for anyone thinking about the future.
For example, he mentioned that the electric/hybrid car is all the rage in the United States, right now, which is a good thing [Oil and all that.] Electric cars use lots of lithium batteries. 40% of the world's lithium supply comes from Bolivia, and much of the rest in other Latin America countries. Bolivia's president does not like the United States much. He is also facing economic and political unrest in Bolivia. In comes the mining industry. Because the government there is not very effective and plagued by corruption, the mining companies pay bribes and fund private security, company town's utilities, etc. Essentially, the mining companies maintain stability at the mines by exporting instability to the rest of the country, in the form of bribes, prostitution, alcohol problems (of transient miners), resentment of non-accountability, etc.
We then will re-ignite a Maoist movement in the country against foreign domination. We will try to prop up the government there, because lithium is now strategically important to the United States. It will be Banana Republics all over again.
Another big point he made is the bottlenecks in our global supply system. In addition to the physical bottlenecks like the Malacca Strait and Hormuz Strait, there's also the capacity bottlenecks of Ports of Los Angeles and Hong Kong and railroad systems, the information bottlenecks of the undersea fiber optic cables, network-node bottlenecks of our power grids, etc. The Just-In-Time philosophy of capacity over-utilization has taken out the slack in our global economic system. This tautness made our system vulnerable to Global Guerrilla attacks, and magnifies the effect of the attacks on our economies.
The speech is long, and full of interesting reflections. It's a must read for anyone thinking about the future.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Fictions of the "New Medicare"
On March 5 at CNN, President Obama said that the rising cost of healthcare will destroy any healthcare reform initiative, unless we do something about it. White House then came out with a report claiming that we can save 30% of Medicare's costs. The blog world tried to square this claim with Obama's healthcare reform initiative, the obvious question being, Why is the government wasting 30% of our Medicare money? The followup question is, How do we know that the Federal Government won't screw up Obama's healthcare reform, or what I'd like to call the "New Medicare"?
Well, some people have already started thinking about how the New Medicare, envisioned by President Obama and Peter Orszag, will look like. This is an on-going story, being posted in a serial fashion. It is an engrossing and sad vision of our future.
People who have faith in a government solution should be careful. They might get what they wish for.
Well, some people have already started thinking about how the New Medicare, envisioned by President Obama and Peter Orszag, will look like. This is an on-going story, being posted in a serial fashion. It is an engrossing and sad vision of our future.
People who have faith in a government solution should be careful. They might get what they wish for.
Friday, June 5, 2009
China, India, Brides, and War
Kenneth Anderson wrote an interesting post on Volokh Conspiracy about Surplus Males in China and Libertarian thoughts. The comments were very interesting as well and covered most of the common angles.
One of the commenters brought up the burgeoning mail-order bride industry in China, specifically touring Cambodia and other Southeast Asia countries. His remarks got me thinking about the geopolitical implications of this development.
As many of you know, Southeast Asia has a complex attitude toward China. Vietnam, for example, drove out many ethnic Chinese as “boat people” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Indonesia and Malaysia periodically have anti-Chinese riots. Vietnam and the Phillipines have claims against China on the Spratly Islands. Yet Indonesia is cooperating with China in the defense industry, and Burma is using China to balance against Thailand and India.
As China and India both have a surplus male population (explored in Bare Branches), both are experiencing social stress as men compete for mates. Entrepreneurs are pushing the mail-order bride industry in both countries, with a large target demographic.
I believe that bride importing countries generally provoke resentment among the bride exporting populations, due to increased competition for mates in the exporting populations. I don’t have evidence to back up this claim.
However, this sentiment can easily become coupled to local nativist sentiments in the Southeast Asian states. Thailand and Myanmar have cross-border insurgencies and drug trade problems. Vietnam has disputed territories with Laos and Cambodia. Indonesia has ethnic separatist movements. The region has suffered economically over the past 20 years, from competition with the Chinese and Indian export economies and from the currency crises. These are all factors that can lead to war.
China and India both possess nuclear weapons and thus are unlikely to directly confront each other. However, the Southeast Asian states have many flash points and have been balancing against each other. If a crisis were to erupt, demagogues will drag anti-Chinese and anti-Indian sentiments to the surface. India and China will get dragged into such a crisis because of the complex bilateral defense relationships in the region, and because of domestic responses to the nativist sentiment in the crisis countries. The conflict can quickly widen across the penninsulas. Such a conflict will be difficult to resolve, because the belligerents can easily claim seemingly legitimate causii belli in this environment.
Therefore, the bare branches in China and India may indirectly destabilize Southeast Asia. We need to recognize this and increase our crisis response capability in the region.
One of the commenters brought up the burgeoning mail-order bride industry in China, specifically touring Cambodia and other Southeast Asia countries. His remarks got me thinking about the geopolitical implications of this development.
As many of you know, Southeast Asia has a complex attitude toward China. Vietnam, for example, drove out many ethnic Chinese as “boat people” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Indonesia and Malaysia periodically have anti-Chinese riots. Vietnam and the Phillipines have claims against China on the Spratly Islands. Yet Indonesia is cooperating with China in the defense industry, and Burma is using China to balance against Thailand and India.
As China and India both have a surplus male population (explored in Bare Branches), both are experiencing social stress as men compete for mates. Entrepreneurs are pushing the mail-order bride industry in both countries, with a large target demographic.
I believe that bride importing countries generally provoke resentment among the bride exporting populations, due to increased competition for mates in the exporting populations. I don’t have evidence to back up this claim.
However, this sentiment can easily become coupled to local nativist sentiments in the Southeast Asian states. Thailand and Myanmar have cross-border insurgencies and drug trade problems. Vietnam has disputed territories with Laos and Cambodia. Indonesia has ethnic separatist movements. The region has suffered economically over the past 20 years, from competition with the Chinese and Indian export economies and from the currency crises. These are all factors that can lead to war.
China and India both possess nuclear weapons and thus are unlikely to directly confront each other. However, the Southeast Asian states have many flash points and have been balancing against each other. If a crisis were to erupt, demagogues will drag anti-Chinese and anti-Indian sentiments to the surface. India and China will get dragged into such a crisis because of the complex bilateral defense relationships in the region, and because of domestic responses to the nativist sentiment in the crisis countries. The conflict can quickly widen across the penninsulas. Such a conflict will be difficult to resolve, because the belligerents can easily claim seemingly legitimate causii belli in this environment.
Therefore, the bare branches in China and India may indirectly destabilize Southeast Asia. We need to recognize this and increase our crisis response capability in the region.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A Humane Strategy to Support Our Afghan Policy
In this post I am advocating a strategy to protect the Afghan civilian population from the ongoing violence in Afghanistan, as far as we can. Population protection will no longer be a mission for the Coalition forces. However, we still have the moral imperative to protect Afghan civilians. Therefore, the Coalition forces need to construct, staff, and protect refugee/resettlement camps to shelter the "Internally Displaced Persons" in Afghanistan. We need to give Afghan civilians a place to get away from the fighting.
The American government appears to be changing our policy direction in Afghanistan. Our stated policy has remained the establishment of a civil, democratic society in Afghanistan. The US Army is planning a "surge" of forces into Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban. However, COL(ret) Lang believes that President Obama is revising our policy aim in Afghanistan away from Nation-Building(tm). Obama's ideological faction is generally opposed to a Big Military solution, more congenial to surgical strikes and commando raids. With the appointment of LTG McChrystal as ISAF Commander, we may be giving up on building a Western society in Afghanistan as a policy goal. Instead, our Afghanistan policy is focusing on destroying the Al-Qaeda leadership.
With this change in policy focus, the special operation forces become our strategic main effort in Operation Enduring Freedom. Our conventional forces and the Afghan National Army/Police become the strategic supporting effort. As the supporting effort, their mission is not to establish central government control in the provinces or other population-centric COIN goals. [Although they may conduct population-centric COIN operations to gather intelligence to support the SOF, for example.]
The Afghan people may lose out under our policy change. Under the original policy, securing the Afghan population was a strategic goal, whereas under the new policy, we may cede the Afghan countryside to the Taliban. Some Afghan tribes and families have risked Taliban retaliation to cooperate with the Coalition forces. Under the new policy, we will reduce our operational support, and maybe logistical as well, to our local allies. The reduced support leaves our local allies vulnerable to Taliban attack. As the Taliban has murdered entire families to make an example of "traitors", our strategic retreat from the country side makes us culpable, to a degree, for their deaths as well.
The families of the ANA and ANP are vulnerable to Taliban reprisal as well. If the Afghan soldiers and policemen worry about their far away families, they are less combat effective. We need to secure the families of the ANA and ANP.
In addition, our new policy means that we will start favoring certain warlords over others. Currently, we are officially supporting some warlords who covertly sponsor the Taliban. Instead, we will starting playing one warlord against another to disrupt Taliban safe heavens. In the renewed Afghan Civil War, civilians will get caught in the crossfire.
We need to do something to protect the Afghan civilians from the coming violence; that is the moral thing to do. We will not station basecamps throughout the country to protect the population, because the resulting cost in blood and treasure outweighs our strategic gain. However, we will have enough spare resources to protect refugees and internally displaced persons. We need to include refugee camps in our campaign plan, to minimize our impact on civilians' lives and livelihood. In addition, the unsupervised refugee population is destabilizing the region and further stressing Pakistan.
Therefore, I am proposing that we set up refugee camps near Kabul, for any civilian that needs a place to go. We should organize these camps on the model of John Robb's Resilient Communities, where the residents will work for a living. Idle refugees are susceptible to extremist propaganda of all stripes. Make it a place where the people can stay and make a new life, or catch their breath then go home, whichever they choose. Keep the place safe from insurgent violence so that the people can get on with their lives.
Such a place is a low cost endeavor. It is centrally located with Kabul, so it is close to military bases. The Afghan National Army can train and protect the settlement at the same time. They can practice patrolling and checkpoint operations at the settlement. The Afghan soldiers and policemen can keep their families at the settlements, where they know they'll be kept safe from reprisals. We will involve the refugees in constructing and operating the settlement. These tasks keep them occupied, and give them a stake in the resulting city. By utilizing refugee labor, we reduce the need of expatriate labor, which is expensive and adds to camp life support needs. By having the refugees organize and govern themselves, we give them the opportunity to practice clean government. We will have a centralized place to teach them advanced agricultural techniques, machine repair skills, and other training that can make their lives back home easier, should they ever leave.
The current Afghan refugee population is impeding our policy goals by stressing the social welfare systems of surrounding countries and providing a fertile recruitment ground to Al-Qaeda. We need to at least try to sway them to our side. The ANA and ANP need a sanctuary where their families will be safe from reprisals. We have a moral obligation to give the civilian an alternative from the Taliban-controlled towns and Pakistani slums. These factor argue for Coalition support to refugee camps near Kabul. Moreover, this is an endeavor in which money is more important than American boots on the ground, and for which donor countries are sympathetic.
Edited to add: This post builds on my earlier statement of policy paradigm change. We cannot depend on the host nation bureaucracy to implement our policy for us. Instead, the US military may have to take on the job of city manager/administrator from time to time. Refugee camp is a prime example of the capability the US military needs in the post-Nation-State World we live in.
The American government appears to be changing our policy direction in Afghanistan. Our stated policy has remained the establishment of a civil, democratic society in Afghanistan. The US Army is planning a "surge" of forces into Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban. However, COL(ret) Lang believes that President Obama is revising our policy aim in Afghanistan away from Nation-Building(tm). Obama's ideological faction is generally opposed to a Big Military solution, more congenial to surgical strikes and commando raids. With the appointment of LTG McChrystal as ISAF Commander, we may be giving up on building a Western society in Afghanistan as a policy goal. Instead, our Afghanistan policy is focusing on destroying the Al-Qaeda leadership.
With this change in policy focus, the special operation forces become our strategic main effort in Operation Enduring Freedom. Our conventional forces and the Afghan National Army/Police become the strategic supporting effort. As the supporting effort, their mission is not to establish central government control in the provinces or other population-centric COIN goals. [Although they may conduct population-centric COIN operations to gather intelligence to support the SOF, for example.]
The Afghan people may lose out under our policy change. Under the original policy, securing the Afghan population was a strategic goal, whereas under the new policy, we may cede the Afghan countryside to the Taliban. Some Afghan tribes and families have risked Taliban retaliation to cooperate with the Coalition forces. Under the new policy, we will reduce our operational support, and maybe logistical as well, to our local allies. The reduced support leaves our local allies vulnerable to Taliban attack. As the Taliban has murdered entire families to make an example of "traitors", our strategic retreat from the country side makes us culpable, to a degree, for their deaths as well.
The families of the ANA and ANP are vulnerable to Taliban reprisal as well. If the Afghan soldiers and policemen worry about their far away families, they are less combat effective. We need to secure the families of the ANA and ANP.
In addition, our new policy means that we will start favoring certain warlords over others. Currently, we are officially supporting some warlords who covertly sponsor the Taliban. Instead, we will starting playing one warlord against another to disrupt Taliban safe heavens. In the renewed Afghan Civil War, civilians will get caught in the crossfire.
We need to do something to protect the Afghan civilians from the coming violence; that is the moral thing to do. We will not station basecamps throughout the country to protect the population, because the resulting cost in blood and treasure outweighs our strategic gain. However, we will have enough spare resources to protect refugees and internally displaced persons. We need to include refugee camps in our campaign plan, to minimize our impact on civilians' lives and livelihood. In addition, the unsupervised refugee population is destabilizing the region and further stressing Pakistan.
Therefore, I am proposing that we set up refugee camps near Kabul, for any civilian that needs a place to go. We should organize these camps on the model of John Robb's Resilient Communities, where the residents will work for a living. Idle refugees are susceptible to extremist propaganda of all stripes. Make it a place where the people can stay and make a new life, or catch their breath then go home, whichever they choose. Keep the place safe from insurgent violence so that the people can get on with their lives.
Such a place is a low cost endeavor. It is centrally located with Kabul, so it is close to military bases. The Afghan National Army can train and protect the settlement at the same time. They can practice patrolling and checkpoint operations at the settlement. The Afghan soldiers and policemen can keep their families at the settlements, where they know they'll be kept safe from reprisals. We will involve the refugees in constructing and operating the settlement. These tasks keep them occupied, and give them a stake in the resulting city. By utilizing refugee labor, we reduce the need of expatriate labor, which is expensive and adds to camp life support needs. By having the refugees organize and govern themselves, we give them the opportunity to practice clean government. We will have a centralized place to teach them advanced agricultural techniques, machine repair skills, and other training that can make their lives back home easier, should they ever leave.
The current Afghan refugee population is impeding our policy goals by stressing the social welfare systems of surrounding countries and providing a fertile recruitment ground to Al-Qaeda. We need to at least try to sway them to our side. The ANA and ANP need a sanctuary where their families will be safe from reprisals. We have a moral obligation to give the civilian an alternative from the Taliban-controlled towns and Pakistani slums. These factor argue for Coalition support to refugee camps near Kabul. Moreover, this is an endeavor in which money is more important than American boots on the ground, and for which donor countries are sympathetic.
Edited to add: This post builds on my earlier statement of policy paradigm change. We cannot depend on the host nation bureaucracy to implement our policy for us. Instead, the US military may have to take on the job of city manager/administrator from time to time. Refugee camp is a prime example of the capability the US military needs in the post-Nation-State World we live in.
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