Nepal's transformation into a republic hasn't been worthwile. Nepal's monarchy has a role of unifier since Prithvi Narayan Shah's time. The current leaders also failed to consider the sustainability of monarchy for tourism. Nepal's unique monarchy appealed to a lot of foreign visitors. If countries like UK, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands can remain a monarchy despite strong parliamentary system, it was a tragedy that Nepal was forcibly transformed into a republic. The King's role as a unifier among diversity has been completely ignored.
The Seven Party Alliance and Maoists bear responsibility of Nepal's deterioration. The advent of multi-party democracy in 1990 was skilfully exploited by anti-democratic extremist forces. The Maoists, the chief driving force behind this extremist movement got away with all of its demands. Making Nepal a republic has been a terrible blow to Nepal's image. I honestly think Nepal's friends abroad have no interest to see Nepal sink into the abyss of lawlessness and insecurity. The bottom line is Nepal has lost its identity.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Images...
Gaze at rocks,
Stern and permanent.
Look at highways,
seemingly infinite.
Talk to people,
Beautiful and gay.
Stroll in Van Nuys,
Uncouth, bland...
Stern and permanent.
Look at highways,
seemingly infinite.
Talk to people,
Beautiful and gay.
Stroll in Van Nuys,
Uncouth, bland...
Friday, May 15, 2009
Defense of Chad - a chivalric episode
October 14, 1986
The French bombing of Wadi Doum airfield has enraged Libya's leader Muammar Qaddafi. Qaddafi has ordered his air force to wreak havoc on Chadian capital Djamena. To destabilize Hissein Habre, Qaddafi has ordered his army to invade Northern Chad after weakening French allies with his air force. French President Francois Mitterand has counseled with former President Valery Giscard de Estaing has asked an elite force from the EC5 (Escadre de Chasse) in anticipation of Libyan air raid on Chad. Captain Claude Schramm and Lieutenant Jean Pierre Montpelier, detached as Luftflucht Kondor are deployed to Bangui with one E-2C Hawkeye and one Boeing 707 tanker under a secret ad hoc command.
Yevgeni Shevchenko, a Soviet air force Polknovnik turned mercenary for the Libyan Air Force is tasked by Libyan commanders to strike Djamena. France's foreign intelligence arm, DGSE gives accurate flight profile of jets flying out of military airfields at Tripoli and Benghazi.
Agent Bernice posing as a laborer Abdel passes secret coded SATCOM sigals to his controllers aboard a French patrol vessel off Corsica. As Shevchenko takes off, Bangui command alerts Cicogne controllers, and Schramm and Montpelier scramble at Bangui. The Boeing tanker is already on station while the E-2C patrols northern Central African Republic airspace. Each Mirage F1C is armed with two Super 530s and two R550 Magics, two tanks and one supersonic jammer.
Der Fall:- Captain Scramm and wingman Montpelier maintain altitude at 40,000 ft and establish BARCAP north of Djamena. As Shevchenko's Tu-22 approaches, the E-2C cues Luftflucht Kondor on interception position toward bearing 045, exactly six o'clock of the quarry. Schramm orders Montpelier to break formation and attack the enemy maintaining strict radar silence. 'Errinern die Pobacken Kanone,' (Remember the tail guns) keys Schramm in the highly secure and encrypted data modem. Montpelier, excited for his first kill quickly positions himself behind the Blinder. Still undetected, Montpelier unleashes IR guided R550 magic at a range of six clicks, way beyond the Tupolev's 23mm guns.
The attack is detected. Shevchenko launches his newly developed high intensity IR flares and performs evasive maeneuver. Unfortunately for Montpelier, his both missiles fail as they chase the flares. Shevchenko quickly programs his attack radar on Chadian power station and quickly launches an As-4 Kitchen cruise missile. The E-2C detects the attack and quickly alerts Schramm. 'Scheiss,' he screams breaking radio silence. He quickly moves to intercept the missile and turns on his Cyrano IV set. "Montpelier, zerstoeren das Feind," (Montpelier, destroy the enemy) he orders Montpelier.
Schramm orders a quick lock on and fires two Super 530s for a passive passive radar guided attack. Montpelier without the fire and forget Magics achieves a lock on on the enemy bomber and launches both of his remaining Super 530s. Meanwhile, Shevchenko orders his assistant Virkin to turn on ECM and jam enemy radar. Shevchenko nervous but calm with long experience climbs to 50,000 ft on Mach 1.8.
Schramm bags the AS-4 with a single hit and the missile reportedly falls on an uninhabited jungle area. A moment of tension on his face disappears as he is notified by the Hawkeye that he has succeeded in his mission. He has thus saved the life of 300 Chadian civilian workers and countless other civilians. If the missile had hit populated area of Djamena, the casualty count could have been terrible.
Schramm then orders Montpelier to quickly withdraw engaging the Tu-22. 'Montpelier, the whole Libyan air force will try to shove a spear up your ass if they get you,' he says. 'Retire, repeat, retire,' he roders hotblooded Montpelier who is furious at his failure. Both pilots have almost exhausted their fuel tanks and due to extreme supersonic maneuvers, they refuel once on air with the Boeing 707 tanker and then land at a KARI system defended base at Gemena. Chadian President Makosso, successor to previous leader Jean Bedell Bokassa, is a firm French ally. Anxious of the Libyan threat but eager for French assistance to continue his rule, Makosso wants French forces out of his capital Bangui, well within striking range of Libyan Blinders, even though only two were servicable. President Makosso feared Libyan reprisals and had invited French forces.
Once they landed, Schramm lambasts Montpelier for failing to destroy the Blinder in a sneak attack. "Hundreds could have died," he screamed at Montpelier. "I have to report to Paris." Before he relieves Montpelier, he gives a stern look to the young man and smiles. "Enjoy at Le Courbet's (with your girl). What is her name?"
"Marie, Monsieur."
"Ok go."
Schrammm returns to his quarters and writes to Elizabeth, his wife in Metz. He thinks of his son's Abitur and wants to be there in his school to watch the annual football game.
THE END
The French bombing of Wadi Doum airfield has enraged Libya's leader Muammar Qaddafi. Qaddafi has ordered his air force to wreak havoc on Chadian capital Djamena. To destabilize Hissein Habre, Qaddafi has ordered his army to invade Northern Chad after weakening French allies with his air force. French President Francois Mitterand has counseled with former President Valery Giscard de Estaing has asked an elite force from the EC5 (Escadre de Chasse) in anticipation of Libyan air raid on Chad. Captain Claude Schramm and Lieutenant Jean Pierre Montpelier, detached as Luftflucht Kondor are deployed to Bangui with one E-2C Hawkeye and one Boeing 707 tanker under a secret ad hoc command.
Yevgeni Shevchenko, a Soviet air force Polknovnik turned mercenary for the Libyan Air Force is tasked by Libyan commanders to strike Djamena. France's foreign intelligence arm, DGSE gives accurate flight profile of jets flying out of military airfields at Tripoli and Benghazi.
Agent Bernice posing as a laborer Abdel passes secret coded SATCOM sigals to his controllers aboard a French patrol vessel off Corsica. As Shevchenko takes off, Bangui command alerts Cicogne controllers, and Schramm and Montpelier scramble at Bangui. The Boeing tanker is already on station while the E-2C patrols northern Central African Republic airspace. Each Mirage F1C is armed with two Super 530s and two R550 Magics, two tanks and one supersonic jammer.
Der Fall:- Captain Scramm and wingman Montpelier maintain altitude at 40,000 ft and establish BARCAP north of Djamena. As Shevchenko's Tu-22 approaches, the E-2C cues Luftflucht Kondor on interception position toward bearing 045, exactly six o'clock of the quarry. Schramm orders Montpelier to break formation and attack the enemy maintaining strict radar silence. 'Errinern die Pobacken Kanone,' (Remember the tail guns) keys Schramm in the highly secure and encrypted data modem. Montpelier, excited for his first kill quickly positions himself behind the Blinder. Still undetected, Montpelier unleashes IR guided R550 magic at a range of six clicks, way beyond the Tupolev's 23mm guns.
The attack is detected. Shevchenko launches his newly developed high intensity IR flares and performs evasive maeneuver. Unfortunately for Montpelier, his both missiles fail as they chase the flares. Shevchenko quickly programs his attack radar on Chadian power station and quickly launches an As-4 Kitchen cruise missile. The E-2C detects the attack and quickly alerts Schramm. 'Scheiss,' he screams breaking radio silence. He quickly moves to intercept the missile and turns on his Cyrano IV set. "Montpelier, zerstoeren das Feind," (Montpelier, destroy the enemy) he orders Montpelier.
Schramm orders a quick lock on and fires two Super 530s for a passive passive radar guided attack. Montpelier without the fire and forget Magics achieves a lock on on the enemy bomber and launches both of his remaining Super 530s. Meanwhile, Shevchenko orders his assistant Virkin to turn on ECM and jam enemy radar. Shevchenko nervous but calm with long experience climbs to 50,000 ft on Mach 1.8.
Schramm bags the AS-4 with a single hit and the missile reportedly falls on an uninhabited jungle area. A moment of tension on his face disappears as he is notified by the Hawkeye that he has succeeded in his mission. He has thus saved the life of 300 Chadian civilian workers and countless other civilians. If the missile had hit populated area of Djamena, the casualty count could have been terrible.
Schramm then orders Montpelier to quickly withdraw engaging the Tu-22. 'Montpelier, the whole Libyan air force will try to shove a spear up your ass if they get you,' he says. 'Retire, repeat, retire,' he roders hotblooded Montpelier who is furious at his failure. Both pilots have almost exhausted their fuel tanks and due to extreme supersonic maneuvers, they refuel once on air with the Boeing 707 tanker and then land at a KARI system defended base at Gemena. Chadian President Makosso, successor to previous leader Jean Bedell Bokassa, is a firm French ally. Anxious of the Libyan threat but eager for French assistance to continue his rule, Makosso wants French forces out of his capital Bangui, well within striking range of Libyan Blinders, even though only two were servicable. President Makosso feared Libyan reprisals and had invited French forces.
Once they landed, Schramm lambasts Montpelier for failing to destroy the Blinder in a sneak attack. "Hundreds could have died," he screamed at Montpelier. "I have to report to Paris." Before he relieves Montpelier, he gives a stern look to the young man and smiles. "Enjoy at Le Courbet's (with your girl). What is her name?"
"Marie, Monsieur."
"Ok go."
Schrammm returns to his quarters and writes to Elizabeth, his wife in Metz. He thinks of his son's Abitur and wants to be there in his school to watch the annual football game.
THE END
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Amelia's rescue
Amelia was a Distinguished Service Cross Winner aviatrix par excellence. She could cross the Atlantic and break other aviation records at at time many women hardly had full freedom. Till yet, no woman has won presidential elections in this magnificent wonderland. Accept it; women do not control power here.
But when Amelia dispappeared in Howling Island, the US goverment mobilized several naval platforms and scores of aircraft to search for AMerica's most revered treasure. My granddad, Flying Officer BK Singh was seventeen when she dispappeared or was probably shot down or intercepted.
BKS, my granddad, was indeed a revindicarer extraordinaire. He was too young to do anything then. But he enlisted in the RAFVR and became the 2904th pilot of the British Empire. Thhe ongoing struggle between Europe and Asia over possession of vital markets and resources e.g spice, raw materials and trade was ravaging the world after the Great Depression. As an idealist Punjabi youth educated by the British, he could not afford to sit back and watch.
But if Priam would have been alive then. he would have migrated to US on a special training. he would have jumped to rescue Amelia as she represented the epitome of Ameican woman's achievement. A B-17 rigged for rescue would have been piloted by Captain Doolitle. Doolitle would have taken his elite rescue squad on a rescue run. And then, voila they spot an emaciated Amelia on a dinghy. It had happened that her plane was spotted by Imperial Japanese Army Hayabusas and intercepted. After threatening to shoot her down, the Jap pilot had damaged her rudder with 13mm machine gun fire. After loosing control Amelia lost control and ditched her abode at sea. As a Japanese destroyer approached her dinghy, the ghost ship appeared out of the blue and firebolted the destroyer Nishi. Nishi's captain gave in as he feared American reprisal. Then Captain Priam jumped from the B-17 in a special line designed by Noonan. With a tube in his shoulder, Priam reached the emaciated thinning body of a woman he admired. Carrying her in his shoulder. he gently lifted her and shot called WO Noonan aboard the Green Gull. With a gusto, the line lifted the rescuer with his prize. Aboard, a blanket was thrown open and Amelia's husband Putnam comforted his wife. With a cup of hot coffee and caramel, Amelia whipsered,"Where am I..".
But when Amelia dispappeared in Howling Island, the US goverment mobilized several naval platforms and scores of aircraft to search for AMerica's most revered treasure. My granddad, Flying Officer BK Singh was seventeen when she dispappeared or was probably shot down or intercepted.
BKS, my granddad, was indeed a revindicarer extraordinaire. He was too young to do anything then. But he enlisted in the RAFVR and became the 2904th pilot of the British Empire. Thhe ongoing struggle between Europe and Asia over possession of vital markets and resources e.g spice, raw materials and trade was ravaging the world after the Great Depression. As an idealist Punjabi youth educated by the British, he could not afford to sit back and watch.
But if Priam would have been alive then. he would have migrated to US on a special training. he would have jumped to rescue Amelia as she represented the epitome of Ameican woman's achievement. A B-17 rigged for rescue would have been piloted by Captain Doolitle. Doolitle would have taken his elite rescue squad on a rescue run. And then, voila they spot an emaciated Amelia on a dinghy. It had happened that her plane was spotted by Imperial Japanese Army Hayabusas and intercepted. After threatening to shoot her down, the Jap pilot had damaged her rudder with 13mm machine gun fire. After loosing control Amelia lost control and ditched her abode at sea. As a Japanese destroyer approached her dinghy, the ghost ship appeared out of the blue and firebolted the destroyer Nishi. Nishi's captain gave in as he feared American reprisal. Then Captain Priam jumped from the B-17 in a special line designed by Noonan. With a tube in his shoulder, Priam reached the emaciated thinning body of a woman he admired. Carrying her in his shoulder. he gently lifted her and shot called WO Noonan aboard the Green Gull. With a gusto, the line lifted the rescuer with his prize. Aboard, a blanket was thrown open and Amelia's husband Putnam comforted his wife. With a cup of hot coffee and caramel, Amelia whipsered,"Where am I..".
Monday, May 04, 2009
Israel-LA ties strong
US-Israel ties strong
By P Rana
Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley, May 3, 2009
LASD Chief Lee Baca Sunday stressed on cordial US-Israeli ties. On the 61st anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state, the LASD chief also spoke of lasting bond between the 490,000 strong Jewish community in LA and Israel.
The Woodley Park event in San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County was attended by Wendy Greuel (D), LA City Councilwoman, Gil Artzyeli, assistant consul general of Israel and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. Stalls selling food, T-shirts, water filters as well as insurance, education and Judaica were present. Tel Aviv's famous Dizenghoff street was featured in the pavilion. The Ben Gurion pavilion displayed a stall featuring Israel's famous El Al airline. Councilman Jack Weiss (D) stall featured free combs to supporters. NCJW, thrift store chain, displayed its famous Judaica art. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's biography was also displayed. The GOP also had a stall.
The most striking feature was the parajump. Five skydivers carried flags of Israel and the United States. A chute painted with French tricolor was also among the others. DJ music, rock climbing and children's games were also part of the program. Israel's famous export, orange juice was also featured while a film festival display included art films to shore up Israeli culture.
Sixty-one years ago Israeli Jewish residents and migrants who escaped World War II, many of them victims of genocide, declared a Jewish state of Israel in Palestine, a backwater in the Ottoman Empire although culturally significant to Europe. Arab residents opposed its creation and the newly independent Arab states of Syria, Egypt and Jordan declared war. Israeli volunteers defeated the Arab invading armies and the new state was born. Israel today is the leading democracy among mostly authoritarian and sometimes hostile neighboring states. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are cultural and learning centers in the Middle East.
*Data credit goes to Wikipedia.org while the writer was present there at the program.
By P Rana
Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley, May 3, 2009
LASD Chief Lee Baca Sunday stressed on cordial US-Israeli ties. On the 61st anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state, the LASD chief also spoke of lasting bond between the 490,000 strong Jewish community in LA and Israel.
The Woodley Park event in San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County was attended by Wendy Greuel (D), LA City Councilwoman, Gil Artzyeli, assistant consul general of Israel and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. Stalls selling food, T-shirts, water filters as well as insurance, education and Judaica were present. Tel Aviv's famous Dizenghoff street was featured in the pavilion. The Ben Gurion pavilion displayed a stall featuring Israel's famous El Al airline. Councilman Jack Weiss (D) stall featured free combs to supporters. NCJW, thrift store chain, displayed its famous Judaica art. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's biography was also displayed. The GOP also had a stall.
The most striking feature was the parajump. Five skydivers carried flags of Israel and the United States. A chute painted with French tricolor was also among the others. DJ music, rock climbing and children's games were also part of the program. Israel's famous export, orange juice was also featured while a film festival display included art films to shore up Israeli culture.
Sixty-one years ago Israeli Jewish residents and migrants who escaped World War II, many of them victims of genocide, declared a Jewish state of Israel in Palestine, a backwater in the Ottoman Empire although culturally significant to Europe. Arab residents opposed its creation and the newly independent Arab states of Syria, Egypt and Jordan declared war. Israeli volunteers defeated the Arab invading armies and the new state was born. Israel today is the leading democracy among mostly authoritarian and sometimes hostile neighboring states. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are cultural and learning centers in the Middle East.
*Data credit goes to Wikipedia.org while the writer was present there at the program.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Lt. Meir's Angst
Iran-Syria axis against Israel- A typical scenario
Time March 24, 2012
The US has undertaken limited military operations against Iran. Iranian reactor at Busehr was hit by conventional Peacekeeper wing from North Dakota based 23rd ICBM Wing. Iran threatened immediate reprisal against US assets and military personnel based in the Middle East. Blaming the attack on Israeli lobby, Iranian parliament passes a bill to undertake limited military operations against Israel. As the Iranian government under Ahmedinejad faced immediate Israeli counterstrike, the Iranian IRBM tipped ballistic missile force was to be used only as a last resort. Iranian IRGC chief General Hajestani auhtorizes a transfer of four former Iraqi Mirage F1EQ strike aircraft to Syria. Painted in Syrian Air Force markings but flown by veteran Iranian pilot, Major Rashadeh, the elite strike unit is despatched to Damascus. The four planes are configured as follows:-
-BS353 Mirage F1EQ two tanks and two AS-30 Laser guided anti-surface missiles (Maj Rashadeh)
-BS354 Mirage F1EQ two ARMAT anti-radiation missiles and two tanks (Capt. Rashani)
-BS355 Mirage F1EQ two Matra Magic and two AA-10 'Alamo' IR guided AAMs (Capt Dagestani)
-BS356 Mirage F1EQ two Matra Magic and two AA-10 'Alamo' Semi-active radar AAMs (Capt Mojiar)
-MT135 Ilyushin 76 Candid tanker
-MS136 Ilyushin 76 'Mainstay' AWACS
The self styled 'Jurrat' force leaves Mehrabad airbase and heads straight to Damascus. Brig. Gen. Nuristani, a Russian air force acaedemy graduate IRGC officer takes command of this unit. The Glonass, the Russian GPS system, backs up this task force while another strategic Iranian airlift deploys SA-10 'Grumble' batteries in Damascus airport. Syrian armored units equipped with T-72s and T-80s accompanied by BMP-3s roll to Southern Lebanon, screened by SA-11 Gadfly batteries with advanced jammers and Kolchuga passive sensors.
On October 25, 2012, Maj. Rashadeh attempts to strike Israeli border post, a barrack of the Golani brigade reconnaissance unit beyond the blue line. Another unit of Su-33 Flankers, piloted by Ukrainian mercenaries, organize a Barrier Combat Air Patrol in case Israeli fighters try to intercept the strike package. Beirut based Lebanese MiG-29 unit is already on alert in case Israeli air force attempts to take em out. On dawn 3:00 AM, Rashadeh's flight attempts to lase the barrack and strike it. But, IsAF quickly foils the attempt by scrambling F-15Cs. As the AS-30 Strike is foiled, Capt. Rashani fires two ARMAT at a Hawk battery and manages to take it out despite attempts by the battery crew to switch off the system and use the new Elbit designed jammer. Four IDF soldeirs including a Sergeant is killed. Ten others were injured. The IsAF quickly attempts to manage a hasty fighter sweep but is foiled by SA-10 batteries to penetrate deep into Damascus sky. As the F-22 Raptors were grounded due to prodcution problems associated with the global economic crisis, the F-15s had to return back. At that moment, Nuristani decides to outflank IsAF defenders.
Intel sources obtained from Moscow both HUMINT and IMINT has detected a US relief convoy of two ships, one 10,000 ton SS Maria and a 6,000 ton SS Vadim, Ukrainian freighters, loaded with 100 M1A2 Abrams hastily purchased from US stocks and sent to IDF as immediate replacement for its Merkava fleet. The Jewish Lobby had persuaded Senators and the president to despatch this immediate relief in light of Iranian threat to send thousands of Sipah e Basij e Pasdaran volunteers on trucks through Iraq via Syria to the Golan to evict IDF 'occupation of Syrian territory'. Feindish Nuristani asks Rashadeh to quickly pounce on these. Rashadeh and his flight quickly move toward Northwestern Syria and land at Baniyas airbase. From a missile cache built up from French blackmarketeers, Syrian groundcrew load newly acquired AM39 Exocets, three each on Shehadeh and Rashanis multi-role jets while the other two Mirages escort the strike package. The Israeli air patrol in this area was limited and the two Iranian pilots score a major victory. The two ships receive two hits each causing both ships to capsize and sink with its cargo. Some crew escape but a precious cargo of Abrams tanks costing the US government nearly five hundred million dollars is lost. The Iranians achieve this victory with spending just around a hundred million dollars. There is immediate UN brokered ceasefire and as in 2006, Israel is left without a decisive victory for the second time.
Time March 24, 2012
The US has undertaken limited military operations against Iran. Iranian reactor at Busehr was hit by conventional Peacekeeper wing from North Dakota based 23rd ICBM Wing. Iran threatened immediate reprisal against US assets and military personnel based in the Middle East. Blaming the attack on Israeli lobby, Iranian parliament passes a bill to undertake limited military operations against Israel. As the Iranian government under Ahmedinejad faced immediate Israeli counterstrike, the Iranian IRBM tipped ballistic missile force was to be used only as a last resort. Iranian IRGC chief General Hajestani auhtorizes a transfer of four former Iraqi Mirage F1EQ strike aircraft to Syria. Painted in Syrian Air Force markings but flown by veteran Iranian pilot, Major Rashadeh, the elite strike unit is despatched to Damascus. The four planes are configured as follows:-
-BS353 Mirage F1EQ two tanks and two AS-30 Laser guided anti-surface missiles (Maj Rashadeh)
-BS354 Mirage F1EQ two ARMAT anti-radiation missiles and two tanks (Capt. Rashani)
-BS355 Mirage F1EQ two Matra Magic and two AA-10 'Alamo' IR guided AAMs (Capt Dagestani)
-BS356 Mirage F1EQ two Matra Magic and two AA-10 'Alamo' Semi-active radar AAMs (Capt Mojiar)
-MT135 Ilyushin 76 Candid tanker
-MS136 Ilyushin 76 'Mainstay' AWACS
The self styled 'Jurrat' force leaves Mehrabad airbase and heads straight to Damascus. Brig. Gen. Nuristani, a Russian air force acaedemy graduate IRGC officer takes command of this unit. The Glonass, the Russian GPS system, backs up this task force while another strategic Iranian airlift deploys SA-10 'Grumble' batteries in Damascus airport. Syrian armored units equipped with T-72s and T-80s accompanied by BMP-3s roll to Southern Lebanon, screened by SA-11 Gadfly batteries with advanced jammers and Kolchuga passive sensors.
On October 25, 2012, Maj. Rashadeh attempts to strike Israeli border post, a barrack of the Golani brigade reconnaissance unit beyond the blue line. Another unit of Su-33 Flankers, piloted by Ukrainian mercenaries, organize a Barrier Combat Air Patrol in case Israeli fighters try to intercept the strike package. Beirut based Lebanese MiG-29 unit is already on alert in case Israeli air force attempts to take em out. On dawn 3:00 AM, Rashadeh's flight attempts to lase the barrack and strike it. But, IsAF quickly foils the attempt by scrambling F-15Cs. As the AS-30 Strike is foiled, Capt. Rashani fires two ARMAT at a Hawk battery and manages to take it out despite attempts by the battery crew to switch off the system and use the new Elbit designed jammer. Four IDF soldeirs including a Sergeant is killed. Ten others were injured. The IsAF quickly attempts to manage a hasty fighter sweep but is foiled by SA-10 batteries to penetrate deep into Damascus sky. As the F-22 Raptors were grounded due to prodcution problems associated with the global economic crisis, the F-15s had to return back. At that moment, Nuristani decides to outflank IsAF defenders.
Intel sources obtained from Moscow both HUMINT and IMINT has detected a US relief convoy of two ships, one 10,000 ton SS Maria and a 6,000 ton SS Vadim, Ukrainian freighters, loaded with 100 M1A2 Abrams hastily purchased from US stocks and sent to IDF as immediate replacement for its Merkava fleet. The Jewish Lobby had persuaded Senators and the president to despatch this immediate relief in light of Iranian threat to send thousands of Sipah e Basij e Pasdaran volunteers on trucks through Iraq via Syria to the Golan to evict IDF 'occupation of Syrian territory'. Feindish Nuristani asks Rashadeh to quickly pounce on these. Rashadeh and his flight quickly move toward Northwestern Syria and land at Baniyas airbase. From a missile cache built up from French blackmarketeers, Syrian groundcrew load newly acquired AM39 Exocets, three each on Shehadeh and Rashanis multi-role jets while the other two Mirages escort the strike package. The Israeli air patrol in this area was limited and the two Iranian pilots score a major victory. The two ships receive two hits each causing both ships to capsize and sink with its cargo. Some crew escape but a precious cargo of Abrams tanks costing the US government nearly five hundred million dollars is lost. The Iranians achieve this victory with spending just around a hundred million dollars. There is immediate UN brokered ceasefire and as in 2006, Israel is left without a decisive victory for the second time.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Dragon Fury
A limited force takeover of Taiwan by Beijing
The Republic of China and its political community had to contend a strong movement - The Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Tse Tung backed by Russia, communist Americans and other Third World leaders. In 1911, Sun Yatsen's Nationalist Republican movement deposed the ancient Manchu rulers after the country became extremely poor and ineffective. The country's major ports and trade were controlled by Europeans and Americans. From early 1930s Imperial Japan also asserted control over vast Chinese market and occupied with its land forces. The Nationalists and the Communists both fielded propaganda cadres and field armies. The Russians also helped the nationalists with aviation units and pilots according to Russian military newspapers available in Nepal. It is sold in Bajeko Pasal in Biratnagar, Eastern Nepal. These pilots conducted bombing missions against the Imperial Japanese positions inside China in apparently a broader effort to follow Russia's policy of containing Japanese power in Siberia, Sakhalin, Mongolia and Northwest China. Communist Chinese propaganda also spoke of Hitler's help to Nationalist forces in form of possibly monetary aid or technicians or aircraft and tanks and probably military experts like General Liman von Sanders who went to Turkey to counter Russian advances against Turkey's eastern provinces.
The Nationalists were also backed by Americans who sent their able General Stillwell who was quartered in Kunming, South China according to Robert Leckie's Delivered from Evil. Initially the Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalists) and Chinese communists fought among each other but briefly were diverted to fight the foreign Japanese invaders. After regular defeats at the hands of Japanese, US pilots under General Stillwell's orders organized the American Volunteers Group or the Flying Tigers under Colonel Claire Chennault. These valiant men attacked Japan's aviation and military logistics. Interestingly, these men wore jackets marked with the Nationalist flag, the red rectangle with blue corner with the white sun. Accompanying the Chinese flag were Cantonese characters asking peasants to save these pilots and spare them from Japanese retribution. To my chagrin, my father had a Hino Maru riddled with bulletholes, a family memento acquired by some veterans.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Deecmber 7, 1941, in a bid to isolate US trade with China and assert total control of the Pacific. After surprising US naval units and incapacitating US Pacific Fleet, the Imperial Japanese forces quickly landed troops in Pacific theater ranging from Singapore, Siam, South Pacific in addition to the already occupied China. The Japanese also had a broader aim of invading and controlling Australia from European control.
Japan's European Axis allies Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy also declared war against US which was in my opinion a disastrous move by the German government. Germany should have left England alone and focused on Halsford Mackinder's lectures and moved swiftly to isolate communist control of Russia and the vast resources in Central Asia. Hitler's lack of foresight led to Germany's defeat in Africa despite the brilliant leadership of General Erwin Eugen Johannes Rommel. Also his failure to convince Churchill as he persuaded Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that Germany's only threat was in the East and Germany could compete favorably with France and the British Empire in a freer hostilities free free trade in Africa and Latin America. Such was Germany's fate then.
The US became hopelessly engaged in European crusade against Germany and failed to help Germany to rescue the backward Russian people from Eurocentrism and enlightenment. Germany could have better managed Russia's natural resources and helped Russian people from throwing away the yoke of forced collectivization and godless anti-individual communism. Besides, Stalin was building a strong army - millions of men with tanks and airplanes to threaten Eastern Europe. His eventual goal was to spread communism throughout Europe and the Third World. Lenin had already produced a thesis severely criticising Euopean presence and supposed exploitation and control of Africa and Latin America by Europeans. Therefore it was natural for Germany to send its forces eastward to contain this Marxist threat.
But the United States government under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued warfare against Axis forces. Sending war materials to England created the Battle of the Atlantic, a fearsome struggle of Allied ships (British, Canadian and US) against Germany's vaunted U-Boats. German Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl 'Papa' Doenitz attempted to check US resupply of England and Russia in the high Atlantic. But the British forces prevailed and defeated Germany's pocketbatleship force as well as the U-Boats after a long and costly struggle. Allied invasion of Normany on June 6, 1944 diverted German troops from the Eastern Front leading to the collapse of German resistance against Russian advance. As Germany surrendered and Japanese were contained in the Pacific, anti-democratic communist forces became stronger. After the agreement to divide Germany into Allied zones, the Russians stamped out German culture in Eastern Europe. Ethnic Germans were kicked out of traditional German cities like Koenigsberg and other Polish towns like Danzig (renamed Gdansk by the victorious Russians and Poles). Iron Curtain, a term popularized by Churchill, descended upon Europe.
The Truman administration (Roosevelt died while in office) was forced to take Hobson's choice of either invading Japanese home islands or to drop newly developed atomic weapons to force the reluctant Japanese for unconditional surrender. The Army under General Douglas McArthur had already produced plans for Operation Olympic - the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost Japanese home island. A more audacious albeit highly risky plan was the Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu island near Tokyo, the capital city. According to a Newsweek report Operation Coronet was likely to produce a million casualties for US servicemen. Therefore to mitigate casualties and to quell calls by servicemen to return home after a long and bloody armed conflict, Truman decided to use the untried weapons - Little Boy and Fat Man - against Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulting in over 200,000 Japanese casualties plus the radiation and cancer for many generations of Japanese city residents. But what could have he done? Could he ask one million US soldiers to die in vain effort to control a Samurai state? Tibbets just did what he was ordered to.
After Japan's unconditional surrender, communist Chinese forces swiftly asserted control of mainland China and defeated the Nationalists in one after another battles. The Nationalists retreated to Formosa with a million supporters while Mao Tse Tung declared victory and established a People's Republic, a communist dictatorship, in 1949.
The Taiwanese had to fear China's eventual invasion of Taiwan (Formosa) and they valiantly held small islands of Quemoy and Matsu despite artillery raids and constant loudspeaker propaganda. China has acquired vast quantity of arms from Russia and produces many aircraft and tanks of mainly Russian design without license in its state arsenal factories. It has the world's largest standing army while its military potentail remains largest due to its vast population of one billion and huge industrial capacity. China has strategic steel industry theoretically giving it expertise to produce ships as large as wartime Japan's massive battleship sisters Shinano, Yamato and Musashi. The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has acquired a Varyag (Kuznetsov class) carrier from Russia to expand its blue water capability. In addition its Jianghu frigates, Luhu destroyers and other fleet escorts have been available to other interested buyers from Southeast Asia.
The author would like to describe a scenario in which the PLAN equipped with Russian designed Sovremenny class destroyers (two were delivered in December 1999 and November 2000, while the other two were delivered in December 2005 and September 2006 according to www.naval-technology.com) armed with supersonic cruise Surface to surface missiles (SSMs) can support an amphibious operation to forcibly take control of Taiwan. At a time when Taiwan's traditional security guarantor the United States is already overtaxed with farflung contingencies and a global economic crisis, the Chinese generals and admirals Admiral Liu Huajing and Chi Haotian can plan a quick takeover of Taiwan with a principle of economy of force as well as their indigenous Sun Tzu's Art of War. A sea incident in pirate infested Molucca Straits against China's trade ships by US Navy boarding for suspected arms material to Third World rogue states or a standoff between Taiwanese Navy and PLAN vessels in Spratlys and Paracels disputed islands can easily falre up an already existing tensions to volcanic proportions. The Chinese military leaders can plan a swift conventional ballistic attack (nuclear weapons not preferred as Taiwan's infrastructure and population is to be saved) against Taiwan's Ministry of Defense and other defense facilities as well as political and military leaders like Dr. Lian Chen, former defense minister and Admiral Hau Peitsun by heliborne special forces. The Chinese J-11 (Su-27 copies) can swiftly establish offensive sweeps and BARCAP against Taiwan's F/A-18, F-16 and Mirage 2000-5 units. After sweeping the Taiwan's air force with sheer numbers (the same human wave Maoist tactic used successfully against infantry opponents) but backed by Ilyushin Il-76 Mainstay AWACS platform and a squadron of converted Boeing tankers acuired from Israel. Replicating Nazi takeover of Crete, the force majeure can quickly turn the tide of world opinion for a 'unification' on Beijing's terms.
The Taiwanese air force and navy units attempt massive resistance. Its air force strikes and disables a single Sovremenny destroyer Admiral Chu Teh and quickly orders an orderly withdrawal to Japan. Naval platforms also withdraw to Japan and the US. The Taiwanese diaspora is permanently lodged in San Francisco and Los Angeles planning for a comeback which is a far cry. The Third World quickly accepts Beijing's unification campaign while the US is unable to do anything for fear of provoking a nuclear exchange with Beijing's newly built fleet of rail mobile ICBMs. Also the president and the Pentagon cannot discount threat posed by China's SSBNs or in a limited scenario an unrestricted submarine warfare conducted by China's Mao class of SSNs. The threat posed by Chinese ocean going diesel boats in choke points like the Straits of Molucca cannot be discounted. And, recent threats by North Korea's missile test over Japanese airspace and UN's inability to tame the ambition of Pyongyang's unpredictable leadership and its reclusive leaders Kim Jong Il and his son recounts the volatility of the international system.
THE END.
-Pritam S Rana
Note:-This article lacks logos appeals of up to date statistics and is basically enthymematic. I recommend to interested parties to insert more objective tools and graphics to enhance this article into a professional piece on par with those produced by writers of Jane's and IACSP Journal. Much of the original information and name credit goes to Jane's Defense Weekly, apublication registered in Surrey, United Kingdom. I became a defense analyst reading their materials and the JDW magazine in 1990-91 period. The publication gave me rights to use their material with proper accredition. I remember a letter by editor Michael Howard, if the name is still correct in my memory.
The Republic of China and its political community had to contend a strong movement - The Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Tse Tung backed by Russia, communist Americans and other Third World leaders. In 1911, Sun Yatsen's Nationalist Republican movement deposed the ancient Manchu rulers after the country became extremely poor and ineffective. The country's major ports and trade were controlled by Europeans and Americans. From early 1930s Imperial Japan also asserted control over vast Chinese market and occupied with its land forces. The Nationalists and the Communists both fielded propaganda cadres and field armies. The Russians also helped the nationalists with aviation units and pilots according to Russian military newspapers available in Nepal. It is sold in Bajeko Pasal in Biratnagar, Eastern Nepal. These pilots conducted bombing missions against the Imperial Japanese positions inside China in apparently a broader effort to follow Russia's policy of containing Japanese power in Siberia, Sakhalin, Mongolia and Northwest China. Communist Chinese propaganda also spoke of Hitler's help to Nationalist forces in form of possibly monetary aid or technicians or aircraft and tanks and probably military experts like General Liman von Sanders who went to Turkey to counter Russian advances against Turkey's eastern provinces.
The Nationalists were also backed by Americans who sent their able General Stillwell who was quartered in Kunming, South China according to Robert Leckie's Delivered from Evil. Initially the Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalists) and Chinese communists fought among each other but briefly were diverted to fight the foreign Japanese invaders. After regular defeats at the hands of Japanese, US pilots under General Stillwell's orders organized the American Volunteers Group or the Flying Tigers under Colonel Claire Chennault. These valiant men attacked Japan's aviation and military logistics. Interestingly, these men wore jackets marked with the Nationalist flag, the red rectangle with blue corner with the white sun. Accompanying the Chinese flag were Cantonese characters asking peasants to save these pilots and spare them from Japanese retribution. To my chagrin, my father had a Hino Maru riddled with bulletholes, a family memento acquired by some veterans.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Deecmber 7, 1941, in a bid to isolate US trade with China and assert total control of the Pacific. After surprising US naval units and incapacitating US Pacific Fleet, the Imperial Japanese forces quickly landed troops in Pacific theater ranging from Singapore, Siam, South Pacific in addition to the already occupied China. The Japanese also had a broader aim of invading and controlling Australia from European control.
Japan's European Axis allies Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy also declared war against US which was in my opinion a disastrous move by the German government. Germany should have left England alone and focused on Halsford Mackinder's lectures and moved swiftly to isolate communist control of Russia and the vast resources in Central Asia. Hitler's lack of foresight led to Germany's defeat in Africa despite the brilliant leadership of General Erwin Eugen Johannes Rommel. Also his failure to convince Churchill as he persuaded Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that Germany's only threat was in the East and Germany could compete favorably with France and the British Empire in a freer hostilities free free trade in Africa and Latin America. Such was Germany's fate then.
The US became hopelessly engaged in European crusade against Germany and failed to help Germany to rescue the backward Russian people from Eurocentrism and enlightenment. Germany could have better managed Russia's natural resources and helped Russian people from throwing away the yoke of forced collectivization and godless anti-individual communism. Besides, Stalin was building a strong army - millions of men with tanks and airplanes to threaten Eastern Europe. His eventual goal was to spread communism throughout Europe and the Third World. Lenin had already produced a thesis severely criticising Euopean presence and supposed exploitation and control of Africa and Latin America by Europeans. Therefore it was natural for Germany to send its forces eastward to contain this Marxist threat.
But the United States government under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued warfare against Axis forces. Sending war materials to England created the Battle of the Atlantic, a fearsome struggle of Allied ships (British, Canadian and US) against Germany's vaunted U-Boats. German Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl 'Papa' Doenitz attempted to check US resupply of England and Russia in the high Atlantic. But the British forces prevailed and defeated Germany's pocketbatleship force as well as the U-Boats after a long and costly struggle. Allied invasion of Normany on June 6, 1944 diverted German troops from the Eastern Front leading to the collapse of German resistance against Russian advance. As Germany surrendered and Japanese were contained in the Pacific, anti-democratic communist forces became stronger. After the agreement to divide Germany into Allied zones, the Russians stamped out German culture in Eastern Europe. Ethnic Germans were kicked out of traditional German cities like Koenigsberg and other Polish towns like Danzig (renamed Gdansk by the victorious Russians and Poles). Iron Curtain, a term popularized by Churchill, descended upon Europe.
The Truman administration (Roosevelt died while in office) was forced to take Hobson's choice of either invading Japanese home islands or to drop newly developed atomic weapons to force the reluctant Japanese for unconditional surrender. The Army under General Douglas McArthur had already produced plans for Operation Olympic - the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost Japanese home island. A more audacious albeit highly risky plan was the Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu island near Tokyo, the capital city. According to a Newsweek report Operation Coronet was likely to produce a million casualties for US servicemen. Therefore to mitigate casualties and to quell calls by servicemen to return home after a long and bloody armed conflict, Truman decided to use the untried weapons - Little Boy and Fat Man - against Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulting in over 200,000 Japanese casualties plus the radiation and cancer for many generations of Japanese city residents. But what could have he done? Could he ask one million US soldiers to die in vain effort to control a Samurai state? Tibbets just did what he was ordered to.
After Japan's unconditional surrender, communist Chinese forces swiftly asserted control of mainland China and defeated the Nationalists in one after another battles. The Nationalists retreated to Formosa with a million supporters while Mao Tse Tung declared victory and established a People's Republic, a communist dictatorship, in 1949.
The Taiwanese had to fear China's eventual invasion of Taiwan (Formosa) and they valiantly held small islands of Quemoy and Matsu despite artillery raids and constant loudspeaker propaganda. China has acquired vast quantity of arms from Russia and produces many aircraft and tanks of mainly Russian design without license in its state arsenal factories. It has the world's largest standing army while its military potentail remains largest due to its vast population of one billion and huge industrial capacity. China has strategic steel industry theoretically giving it expertise to produce ships as large as wartime Japan's massive battleship sisters Shinano, Yamato and Musashi. The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has acquired a Varyag (Kuznetsov class) carrier from Russia to expand its blue water capability. In addition its Jianghu frigates, Luhu destroyers and other fleet escorts have been available to other interested buyers from Southeast Asia.
The author would like to describe a scenario in which the PLAN equipped with Russian designed Sovremenny class destroyers (two were delivered in December 1999 and November 2000, while the other two were delivered in December 2005 and September 2006 according to www.naval-technology.com) armed with supersonic cruise Surface to surface missiles (SSMs) can support an amphibious operation to forcibly take control of Taiwan. At a time when Taiwan's traditional security guarantor the United States is already overtaxed with farflung contingencies and a global economic crisis, the Chinese generals and admirals Admiral Liu Huajing and Chi Haotian can plan a quick takeover of Taiwan with a principle of economy of force as well as their indigenous Sun Tzu's Art of War. A sea incident in pirate infested Molucca Straits against China's trade ships by US Navy boarding for suspected arms material to Third World rogue states or a standoff between Taiwanese Navy and PLAN vessels in Spratlys and Paracels disputed islands can easily falre up an already existing tensions to volcanic proportions. The Chinese military leaders can plan a swift conventional ballistic attack (nuclear weapons not preferred as Taiwan's infrastructure and population is to be saved) against Taiwan's Ministry of Defense and other defense facilities as well as political and military leaders like Dr. Lian Chen, former defense minister and Admiral Hau Peitsun by heliborne special forces. The Chinese J-11 (Su-27 copies) can swiftly establish offensive sweeps and BARCAP against Taiwan's F/A-18, F-16 and Mirage 2000-5 units. After sweeping the Taiwan's air force with sheer numbers (the same human wave Maoist tactic used successfully against infantry opponents) but backed by Ilyushin Il-76 Mainstay AWACS platform and a squadron of converted Boeing tankers acuired from Israel. Replicating Nazi takeover of Crete, the force majeure can quickly turn the tide of world opinion for a 'unification' on Beijing's terms.
The Taiwanese air force and navy units attempt massive resistance. Its air force strikes and disables a single Sovremenny destroyer Admiral Chu Teh and quickly orders an orderly withdrawal to Japan. Naval platforms also withdraw to Japan and the US. The Taiwanese diaspora is permanently lodged in San Francisco and Los Angeles planning for a comeback which is a far cry. The Third World quickly accepts Beijing's unification campaign while the US is unable to do anything for fear of provoking a nuclear exchange with Beijing's newly built fleet of rail mobile ICBMs. Also the president and the Pentagon cannot discount threat posed by China's SSBNs or in a limited scenario an unrestricted submarine warfare conducted by China's Mao class of SSNs. The threat posed by Chinese ocean going diesel boats in choke points like the Straits of Molucca cannot be discounted. And, recent threats by North Korea's missile test over Japanese airspace and UN's inability to tame the ambition of Pyongyang's unpredictable leadership and its reclusive leaders Kim Jong Il and his son recounts the volatility of the international system.
THE END.
-Pritam S Rana
Note:-This article lacks logos appeals of up to date statistics and is basically enthymematic. I recommend to interested parties to insert more objective tools and graphics to enhance this article into a professional piece on par with those produced by writers of Jane's and IACSP Journal. Much of the original information and name credit goes to Jane's Defense Weekly, apublication registered in Surrey, United Kingdom. I became a defense analyst reading their materials and the JDW magazine in 1990-91 period. The publication gave me rights to use their material with proper accredition. I remember a letter by editor Michael Howard, if the name is still correct in my memory.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Al Qaida draws US Navy into Hornet's Nest
-Pritam S Rana or Priam
The waters of Somalia is known haven for pirates, formerly Somali coastguard workers who are unemployed after the United Nations and Europeans failed to set up an orderly state in Somalia. These men have taken up law against neutral shipping and broken the Ten Commandment law of "Thou Shall nOt Steal and Kill", earning a lable of pirates. The same group are highly vulnerable to recruitment by Al Qaida. Al Qaida number two front man, Aiman Al Zawairi invoked the Salafists to send volunteers and fight US interests in Somalia. And US has engaged these terrorists since 2006 and is busy forming the African Command, a joint military command to police the restive continent of Africa from would be transnational terrorists and states that have a history of supporting terrorism.
The kidnapping of Captain Richard Philips and other crewmen of SS Maersk Alabama denotes the pirates are inspired by Al Qaida and seek hostilities with the United States. These same forces, the clans engaged in intercenine warfare among themselves, were active in kidnapping the crew of Saudi supertanker Sirius Star and its cargo of two million tons of crude oil. According to respected German magazine Der Spiegel, the merchandise was worth nearly $100 million in the world market. The pirates however did a commendable job in kidnapping Russian arms peddler MV Faina in September 25, 2008. This Africa bound ship was carrying a cargo of 33 T-72s , enough to arm an armored battalion. This powerful force of tanks was reportedly destined for Juba in Southern Sudan. It would probably have been used to conduct military operations against Darfur rebels by the Islamist Sudanese regime. Or worse, it could have ended in Al Qaida's undisclosed camps in Sudan to rehearse a possible combat with US XVIII Airborne Corps rapid reaction force or NATO's Allied Command Europe's Mobile Force or France's numerous contingents supporting various peacekkeeping and security forces throughout Africa.
When Indian naval forces including frigate INS Tabar (sourced from AP/Der Spiegel picture, issue Nr48, 24/11/08) conducted bombardment of these pirate forces, Al Qaida cells responded swiftly by conducting terrorist raids against Bombay areas of importance, chiefly frequented by American and Western tourists, including a rabbi. The signature attack which killed 173 and wounded 308 corresponded with Al Qaida's anti-Western, anti-Jewish footprint. This writer believes intuitively that there is a strong link between India's participation in NATO naval operations and the Bombay attacks.
These pirates have defied the world community and made a mockery of international trade. The dropping of $2 million dollars denote how vulnerable international oil trade is to blackmailing and terrorism. Greater danger looms ahead as US Navy is being drawn to combat these fierce clansmen who fear nothing. The men are professional killers and butchers. The whole idea of kidnapping US merchant mariners could be a ploy by Al Qaida to draw American ships into free fire zone and again use the same technique used to destroy US Navy destroyer USS Cole in 2000. Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was the main culprit, according to US magazines Newsweek.
Establishing a functioning state in Somalia is a titanic task given the enormous risk and costs involved in the invasion of the country plagued with intercenine clan warfare. Since Siad Barre's fall from power in 1991, the country has been rife for terrorist exploitation. Presence of anti-American forces under such fanatical clans like Mohammed Farah Aidid whose forces attacked UN forces and engaged US Army rangers in 1993. President George Herbert Walker Bush's policy to allow orderly distribution of food and restore order met with fierce clashes with Aidid's Habar Gadir militia. Possible infiltration by Arab Jihadis who trained local Somali fighters to shoot down US helicopters using rocket propelled grenades was artistically presented to public eye in Hollywood bluckbuster, 'Black Hawk Down'. But the sight of parading of US soldiers by the militia was unpalatable and revulsive to most Americans. It seems the mother of all battles began in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia's defense. However, the focus is in Horn of Africa. The big oil's footprint is clearly visible in the new Great War. And, Somalia's decay can partly be blamed on its bloody war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden region. The then Soviet Union and its Cuban communist proxy forces destroyed Somalia's military manpower and left the country dry of bright and able leaders.
Although US intelligence has bird's eye view of the world through its massive network of spy satellites, the terrorist forces are studying ways to circumvent US surveillance of hotspots through recruiting quality technical manpower. According to April 9 report on the Wall Street Journal by Mr Gorman, the Russians and Chinese hackers now have the capability to map US electrical grid ostensibly to shut it down in case of future armed conflict with the US and its NATO allies. If US grid can be mapped, it can be assumed that these foreign states now have the technical capability, resources and organization to map every US Internet based architecture and possibly disable it to through destructive virus program once US is militarily enaged with rogue states and hostile organizations. The scenario described in Dan Brown's Digital Fortress is now real as ever before.
Information and intelligence warfare has evolved radically in favor of hostile powers and transnational groups. Although the technology and its architecture is US built and controlled, foreign sofware engineers have mastered much and are capable of controlling information superhighway as exemplified by China's grip on access to Internet within its borders. Der Spiegel report further speaks of presence of spies among foreign expatriate laborers in Arab countries who use widely available Internet and sophisticated communication devices like satellite phones to report movement of cargo ships to terrorists and pirates abroad in places like the Horn of Africa.
Furthermore, piracy is rife also in other poorer states like the Straits of Malacca. Allied with such terrorist outfits as Khaddafi Janjalini's Abu Sayyaf terrorist outfit, the threat is tangible. Much of Japan's trade with Asia still passes through the straits and Singaporeean military although armed with latest US platforms cannot be everywhere to curtail carefully planned or massed terrorist operations by such groups seeking media exposure or hard cash. The depreciation of US and World economy further heightens threat to existing commerce. The author feels that US government should chose to delegate sea policing tasks to private security companies so as to lessen the burden on scarce budget resources. The private firms operation under international maritime law might be questionable. But latest incidents have denoted that private sea security firms are likely to be licensed by US maritime authorities. Eric Prince and his Blackwater has much potential to lucrative contracts in an insecure world infested by pirates and arms traffickers.
"The safe return of the captain is the top priority," AFP reporter Andre des Nesnera quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Washington. Rogue state leaders and transnational terrorists know the weaknesses of current Obama led Democratic administration. Obama's lack of service record, low business confidence and his quarrels with US captains of industry is closely watched by foreign intelligence and diplomatic corps. North Korea's recent missile launch over Japan was most likely a test to check US resolve. The Democraic Party's utopian foreign policy objective of dialogue over realpolitik can easily be deduced by such states as weakness or a move to neo-isolationism. Venezuela is openly flouting Monroe doctrine and building up an arsenal of Russian arms. Cuba is still under grip of Raul Castro after ailing Castro gradually retires from power. Georgia is crushed and as the administration tries to release pressure on the military by withdrawing from Iraq and focusing on bin Laden in Afganistan, there looms a greater danger of a nuclear armed Iran. As US vacates Iraq, Iranian revolutionary Guards can pour into its ally, Syria's defense in large convoys of trucks to Diyar Awz Zor, a city attacked by Israeli forces in 2007. The Sipah e Basij e Pasdaran, a volunteer force of upto 15 year olds armed with latest Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-100s, Heckler and Koch G-3s and Austrain Steyr high powered sniper rifles can overwhelm Israel's defense line in the Golan. If we see 1973 again, the US Army Reserves and the National Guard will be called in to defend Israel, thanks to the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. In such a scenario, the US$900 million earmarked for Palestinians can be channelled to purchase light arms, anti-tank missiles or even tanks and possibly light East European aircraft to attack Israeli and US military personnel in the war zones. It is notewrthy that even puny Lebanon has ordered MiG-29s from Russian arms manufacturers, making it risky for Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and drones from observing frontline positions near the Blue Line. The Offek satellites do work for now, but in a broader conflict, these can be knocked down by Russian and Chinese ground based laser or photon guns readily available for such client states as Iran and other would be SCO powers.
The Global War on Terror or the Third World War began in 1993 although 2001 is the 1939. To supply these forces, there exists a network of arms providers as exemplified by Faina's capture off Somalia. African dictators' insatiable appetite for arms is being fulfilled by Russian and Chinese arms manufacturers like Rosoberonexport and Norinco. In sharp contrast, US arms sales is regulated by Congress and the General Accounting Office (GAO). While US is overstretched; its military personnel pool engaged in difficult campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, China has launched a major diplomatic offensive involving trade and aid to the Third World. Its military has now joined United Nations so that they gain first hand experience in Third World. After teaching the world about Maoist guerilla strategy and becoming a nuclear power able to balance the United States nuclear arsenal with its strategic rocket forces, China is busy increasing its military spending by 17 percent according to Wall Street Journal news snippets. Its enormous one trillion two hundred billion trade surplus with the United States has enabled it spend a lot of its money on R&D as well as industral and ther forms of espionage by paying qualified technical personnel abroad. Having acquired photon gun capability and aerospace technology on parity with US 1970s-80s level, the communist country with capitalist trading practices now commands awesome authority. Spending around $40 billion annually on its military (ref: AP reports), this country's once peaceful coastal defense force, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has already acquired guided missile destroyers of the Sovremenny class from Russia. Its blue water capability with Russian carrier Kuznetsov (Varyag) and submarines will give it enormous power projection capability. Australia can be quickly overrun ala the stark reminder of the Darwin raid by the Imperial Japanese Navy in February 19, 1942. Australia's puny military still depends on Australia New Zealand US Treaty (ANZUS), requiring US military manpower to defend its landmass in case there is an invasion of Australia as attempted by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the heights of the Pacific campaign in World War II.
THE END
The waters of Somalia is known haven for pirates, formerly Somali coastguard workers who are unemployed after the United Nations and Europeans failed to set up an orderly state in Somalia. These men have taken up law against neutral shipping and broken the Ten Commandment law of "Thou Shall nOt Steal and Kill", earning a lable of pirates. The same group are highly vulnerable to recruitment by Al Qaida. Al Qaida number two front man, Aiman Al Zawairi invoked the Salafists to send volunteers and fight US interests in Somalia. And US has engaged these terrorists since 2006 and is busy forming the African Command, a joint military command to police the restive continent of Africa from would be transnational terrorists and states that have a history of supporting terrorism.
The kidnapping of Captain Richard Philips and other crewmen of SS Maersk Alabama denotes the pirates are inspired by Al Qaida and seek hostilities with the United States. These same forces, the clans engaged in intercenine warfare among themselves, were active in kidnapping the crew of Saudi supertanker Sirius Star and its cargo of two million tons of crude oil. According to respected German magazine Der Spiegel, the merchandise was worth nearly $100 million in the world market. The pirates however did a commendable job in kidnapping Russian arms peddler MV Faina in September 25, 2008. This Africa bound ship was carrying a cargo of 33 T-72s , enough to arm an armored battalion. This powerful force of tanks was reportedly destined for Juba in Southern Sudan. It would probably have been used to conduct military operations against Darfur rebels by the Islamist Sudanese regime. Or worse, it could have ended in Al Qaida's undisclosed camps in Sudan to rehearse a possible combat with US XVIII Airborne Corps rapid reaction force or NATO's Allied Command Europe's Mobile Force or France's numerous contingents supporting various peacekkeeping and security forces throughout Africa.
When Indian naval forces including frigate INS Tabar (sourced from AP/Der Spiegel picture, issue Nr48, 24/11/08) conducted bombardment of these pirate forces, Al Qaida cells responded swiftly by conducting terrorist raids against Bombay areas of importance, chiefly frequented by American and Western tourists, including a rabbi. The signature attack which killed 173 and wounded 308 corresponded with Al Qaida's anti-Western, anti-Jewish footprint. This writer believes intuitively that there is a strong link between India's participation in NATO naval operations and the Bombay attacks.
These pirates have defied the world community and made a mockery of international trade. The dropping of $2 million dollars denote how vulnerable international oil trade is to blackmailing and terrorism. Greater danger looms ahead as US Navy is being drawn to combat these fierce clansmen who fear nothing. The men are professional killers and butchers. The whole idea of kidnapping US merchant mariners could be a ploy by Al Qaida to draw American ships into free fire zone and again use the same technique used to destroy US Navy destroyer USS Cole in 2000. Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was the main culprit, according to US magazines Newsweek.
Establishing a functioning state in Somalia is a titanic task given the enormous risk and costs involved in the invasion of the country plagued with intercenine clan warfare. Since Siad Barre's fall from power in 1991, the country has been rife for terrorist exploitation. Presence of anti-American forces under such fanatical clans like Mohammed Farah Aidid whose forces attacked UN forces and engaged US Army rangers in 1993. President George Herbert Walker Bush's policy to allow orderly distribution of food and restore order met with fierce clashes with Aidid's Habar Gadir militia. Possible infiltration by Arab Jihadis who trained local Somali fighters to shoot down US helicopters using rocket propelled grenades was artistically presented to public eye in Hollywood bluckbuster, 'Black Hawk Down'. But the sight of parading of US soldiers by the militia was unpalatable and revulsive to most Americans. It seems the mother of all battles began in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia's defense. However, the focus is in Horn of Africa. The big oil's footprint is clearly visible in the new Great War. And, Somalia's decay can partly be blamed on its bloody war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden region. The then Soviet Union and its Cuban communist proxy forces destroyed Somalia's military manpower and left the country dry of bright and able leaders.
Although US intelligence has bird's eye view of the world through its massive network of spy satellites, the terrorist forces are studying ways to circumvent US surveillance of hotspots through recruiting quality technical manpower. According to April 9 report on the Wall Street Journal by Mr Gorman, the Russians and Chinese hackers now have the capability to map US electrical grid ostensibly to shut it down in case of future armed conflict with the US and its NATO allies. If US grid can be mapped, it can be assumed that these foreign states now have the technical capability, resources and organization to map every US Internet based architecture and possibly disable it to through destructive virus program once US is militarily enaged with rogue states and hostile organizations. The scenario described in Dan Brown's Digital Fortress is now real as ever before.
Information and intelligence warfare has evolved radically in favor of hostile powers and transnational groups. Although the technology and its architecture is US built and controlled, foreign sofware engineers have mastered much and are capable of controlling information superhighway as exemplified by China's grip on access to Internet within its borders. Der Spiegel report further speaks of presence of spies among foreign expatriate laborers in Arab countries who use widely available Internet and sophisticated communication devices like satellite phones to report movement of cargo ships to terrorists and pirates abroad in places like the Horn of Africa.
Furthermore, piracy is rife also in other poorer states like the Straits of Malacca. Allied with such terrorist outfits as Khaddafi Janjalini's Abu Sayyaf terrorist outfit, the threat is tangible. Much of Japan's trade with Asia still passes through the straits and Singaporeean military although armed with latest US platforms cannot be everywhere to curtail carefully planned or massed terrorist operations by such groups seeking media exposure or hard cash. The depreciation of US and World economy further heightens threat to existing commerce. The author feels that US government should chose to delegate sea policing tasks to private security companies so as to lessen the burden on scarce budget resources. The private firms operation under international maritime law might be questionable. But latest incidents have denoted that private sea security firms are likely to be licensed by US maritime authorities. Eric Prince and his Blackwater has much potential to lucrative contracts in an insecure world infested by pirates and arms traffickers.
"The safe return of the captain is the top priority," AFP reporter Andre des Nesnera quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Washington. Rogue state leaders and transnational terrorists know the weaknesses of current Obama led Democratic administration. Obama's lack of service record, low business confidence and his quarrels with US captains of industry is closely watched by foreign intelligence and diplomatic corps. North Korea's recent missile launch over Japan was most likely a test to check US resolve. The Democraic Party's utopian foreign policy objective of dialogue over realpolitik can easily be deduced by such states as weakness or a move to neo-isolationism. Venezuela is openly flouting Monroe doctrine and building up an arsenal of Russian arms. Cuba is still under grip of Raul Castro after ailing Castro gradually retires from power. Georgia is crushed and as the administration tries to release pressure on the military by withdrawing from Iraq and focusing on bin Laden in Afganistan, there looms a greater danger of a nuclear armed Iran. As US vacates Iraq, Iranian revolutionary Guards can pour into its ally, Syria's defense in large convoys of trucks to Diyar Awz Zor, a city attacked by Israeli forces in 2007. The Sipah e Basij e Pasdaran, a volunteer force of upto 15 year olds armed with latest Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-100s, Heckler and Koch G-3s and Austrain Steyr high powered sniper rifles can overwhelm Israel's defense line in the Golan. If we see 1973 again, the US Army Reserves and the National Guard will be called in to defend Israel, thanks to the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. In such a scenario, the US$900 million earmarked for Palestinians can be channelled to purchase light arms, anti-tank missiles or even tanks and possibly light East European aircraft to attack Israeli and US military personnel in the war zones. It is notewrthy that even puny Lebanon has ordered MiG-29s from Russian arms manufacturers, making it risky for Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and drones from observing frontline positions near the Blue Line. The Offek satellites do work for now, but in a broader conflict, these can be knocked down by Russian and Chinese ground based laser or photon guns readily available for such client states as Iran and other would be SCO powers.
The Global War on Terror or the Third World War began in 1993 although 2001 is the 1939. To supply these forces, there exists a network of arms providers as exemplified by Faina's capture off Somalia. African dictators' insatiable appetite for arms is being fulfilled by Russian and Chinese arms manufacturers like Rosoberonexport and Norinco. In sharp contrast, US arms sales is regulated by Congress and the General Accounting Office (GAO). While US is overstretched; its military personnel pool engaged in difficult campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, China has launched a major diplomatic offensive involving trade and aid to the Third World. Its military has now joined United Nations so that they gain first hand experience in Third World. After teaching the world about Maoist guerilla strategy and becoming a nuclear power able to balance the United States nuclear arsenal with its strategic rocket forces, China is busy increasing its military spending by 17 percent according to Wall Street Journal news snippets. Its enormous one trillion two hundred billion trade surplus with the United States has enabled it spend a lot of its money on R&D as well as industral and ther forms of espionage by paying qualified technical personnel abroad. Having acquired photon gun capability and aerospace technology on parity with US 1970s-80s level, the communist country with capitalist trading practices now commands awesome authority. Spending around $40 billion annually on its military (ref: AP reports), this country's once peaceful coastal defense force, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has already acquired guided missile destroyers of the Sovremenny class from Russia. Its blue water capability with Russian carrier Kuznetsov (Varyag) and submarines will give it enormous power projection capability. Australia can be quickly overrun ala the stark reminder of the Darwin raid by the Imperial Japanese Navy in February 19, 1942. Australia's puny military still depends on Australia New Zealand US Treaty (ANZUS), requiring US military manpower to defend its landmass in case there is an invasion of Australia as attempted by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the heights of the Pacific campaign in World War II.
THE END
Monday, April 20, 2009
Achham incident: Another debacle
by Pritam S Rana
Published on Saturday, February 23, 2002 in either The Kathmandu Post or Space Time Today
The recent attacks by Maoist rebels in Achham on army police and civil administration has demonstrated that despite the emergency in effect, the rebels have not yet lost the initiative. it also proves our Prime Minsiter wrong when he exclaimed that the rebels have been defeated after the imposition of the emergency. The incident also demonstrates the weakness of the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and the largely ineffective police (vis a vis the Maoist insurgency).
The government's main fighting arm in countering the armed rebellion is the RNA. during the emergency, the RNA deployed itself to the remote corners of the country, especially the affected areas and arrested thousands of people suspected of rebel ties. it also neutralized by fire those unwilling to surrender. However, the Achham incident has shown that these efforts were simply not sufficient. The rebels simply appear to have relocated to areas where the security presence was the minimum, trained in those areas and struck out somewhere. It is ad that only incidents of this magnitude attracts the attention of the government and causes it to take some meaningful steps.
Whether anyone likes it or not there is a war going on in this country. Who is winning is pretty hard to tell. After the declaration of the emergency, many were convinced (that) it was the government that was, which was winning. But sadly the present Accham incident has proven that it is too premature to expect government victory. To combat the rebellion, the government should change its political and military tactics. There should be greater measures for security. The security forces have to be further furnished with modern equipment(s). The mental status of officials and leaders of the security apparatus should be changed.
In the Accham incident, an entire platoon (a unit of upto 40 soldiers) of RNA was wiped out. Hundreds, possibly a thousand or more rebels, did it. Here the culprit was lack of modern automatic weapons. An RNA platoon has only three automatic weapons while the US Army squad (7 soldiers) has seven automatic weapons. This shows that the smaller US unit has greater firepower than a much larger Nepali unit. If all the soldiers in the RNA platoon at Accham had automatic weapons, they would have been able to put out a massive volume of fire at the enemy forcing them to scatter and retreat. The standard RNA rifle is semi-automatic (Fusil Automatique Leger, Belgian design produced in UK and India) and fires at a slower rate. The Maoists used automatic weapons stolen from their past raid on the Dang barrack.
It has been demonstrated time and again that hte Maoists rely on human wave tactics to overwhelm police and Army. The only answer to counter this threat is to rely on massive firepower. The RNA and the police both have to procure automatic rifles as their individual weapons. The police will have to give up their vintage 0.303 (lee Enfield English design) rifles for more modern weapons. The army must also procure belt fed light machine guns and distribute it to sections, subunits of the platoon. It should do way with its magazine fed light machine gun for they are slow and need frequent changing of the magazine.
The RNA should also procure night vision goggles to detect and fight with the rebels at night. the news that some Army (Mil, Russian design) Mi-17 helicopters having night vision system is promising, but units in the field, the infantry also need night vision goggles. In counter-insurgency operations heavier weapons like the mortar should be given to front line units rather than held centrally by the battalions. if RNA troops in Accham had mortars, by their fires, they could have well dispersed the rebels at a distance making it much easier to defend.
nepal is a mountainous and hilly country. Much of the rebel activities are also in such remote and inaccessible terrain. So the primary means of movement is by foot. The RNA and police units have to move on foot to maintain their presence on the ground. But moving on the foot is terribly slow process. The alternative expensive means of transport is helicopters. Helicopters due to their vertical take off capability can reach all types of terrain. Helicopter does not even need to land or touch the ground to embark or disembark personnel or other loads. It can simply hover above the ground and do the job. The current inventory of helicopters is insufficient. The government should procure a large number of helicopters. It is well known that it is difficult for the government to purchase high cost helicopters. But it should look for other ways. Some time ago US Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Nepal. Nepal should ask for security assistance from US at atime hwn the US administration is up against fighting terrorism globally. The US provides miliatry aid to many countries in the world. (Note stress on the visit of generals Krishna Rana and Singha Rana during World War II and Nepal's crucial support to Allies especially the British whose crown colony India escaped Axis
The helicopter would be highly useful in the current counter-insurgency. Troops can be ferried rapidly from one point to another. isolated outposts like Achham garrison could receive ammunition, food and other supplies via helicopter. . A helicopter can also carry rockets, machine guns and canon capable of supporting ground troops. injured troops can also be rapidly evacuated to hospitals and other health facilities. Helicopters can be put to other uses as well: carrying out rescue operations in the aftermath of floods and famines.
The loss of RNA and police lives has also made it imperative that government boos the fighting capability of the security forces. A serious evaluation of the past strategy is to be undertaken. New tactics ought to be considered. If possible the RNA and the police should launch offensives against suspected territories where rebels have sanctauries and training facilities. it should invite experts from overseas in form of military advisers from countrie slike the US who have a history of counter-insurgency warfare.. in case of the US, it has Special Forces, who are elite troops capable of fighting in difficult terrain against all sorts of opposition. The US Special Forces include the Green Berets, rangers and Delta Force who have latest experience in Afghanistan.
(to be continued...)
(to be continued...)
Published on Saturday, February 23, 2002 in either The Kathmandu Post or Space Time Today
The recent attacks by Maoist rebels in Achham on army police and civil administration has demonstrated that despite the emergency in effect, the rebels have not yet lost the initiative. it also proves our Prime Minsiter wrong when he exclaimed that the rebels have been defeated after the imposition of the emergency. The incident also demonstrates the weakness of the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and the largely ineffective police (vis a vis the Maoist insurgency).
The government's main fighting arm in countering the armed rebellion is the RNA. during the emergency, the RNA deployed itself to the remote corners of the country, especially the affected areas and arrested thousands of people suspected of rebel ties. it also neutralized by fire those unwilling to surrender. However, the Achham incident has shown that these efforts were simply not sufficient. The rebels simply appear to have relocated to areas where the security presence was the minimum, trained in those areas and struck out somewhere. It is ad that only incidents of this magnitude attracts the attention of the government and causes it to take some meaningful steps.
Whether anyone likes it or not there is a war going on in this country. Who is winning is pretty hard to tell. After the declaration of the emergency, many were convinced (that) it was the government that was, which was winning. But sadly the present Accham incident has proven that it is too premature to expect government victory. To combat the rebellion, the government should change its political and military tactics. There should be greater measures for security. The security forces have to be further furnished with modern equipment(s). The mental status of officials and leaders of the security apparatus should be changed.
In the Accham incident, an entire platoon (a unit of upto 40 soldiers) of RNA was wiped out. Hundreds, possibly a thousand or more rebels, did it. Here the culprit was lack of modern automatic weapons. An RNA platoon has only three automatic weapons while the US Army squad (7 soldiers) has seven automatic weapons. This shows that the smaller US unit has greater firepower than a much larger Nepali unit. If all the soldiers in the RNA platoon at Accham had automatic weapons, they would have been able to put out a massive volume of fire at the enemy forcing them to scatter and retreat. The standard RNA rifle is semi-automatic (Fusil Automatique Leger, Belgian design produced in UK and India) and fires at a slower rate. The Maoists used automatic weapons stolen from their past raid on the Dang barrack.
It has been demonstrated time and again that hte Maoists rely on human wave tactics to overwhelm police and Army. The only answer to counter this threat is to rely on massive firepower. The RNA and the police both have to procure automatic rifles as their individual weapons. The police will have to give up their vintage 0.303 (lee Enfield English design) rifles for more modern weapons. The army must also procure belt fed light machine guns and distribute it to sections, subunits of the platoon. It should do way with its magazine fed light machine gun for they are slow and need frequent changing of the magazine.
The RNA should also procure night vision goggles to detect and fight with the rebels at night. the news that some Army (Mil, Russian design) Mi-17 helicopters having night vision system is promising, but units in the field, the infantry also need night vision goggles. In counter-insurgency operations heavier weapons like the mortar should be given to front line units rather than held centrally by the battalions. if RNA troops in Accham had mortars, by their fires, they could have well dispersed the rebels at a distance making it much easier to defend.
nepal is a mountainous and hilly country. Much of the rebel activities are also in such remote and inaccessible terrain. So the primary means of movement is by foot. The RNA and police units have to move on foot to maintain their presence on the ground. But moving on the foot is terribly slow process. The alternative expensive means of transport is helicopters. Helicopters due to their vertical take off capability can reach all types of terrain. Helicopter does not even need to land or touch the ground to embark or disembark personnel or other loads. It can simply hover above the ground and do the job. The current inventory of helicopters is insufficient. The government should procure a large number of helicopters. It is well known that it is difficult for the government to purchase high cost helicopters. But it should look for other ways. Some time ago US Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Nepal. Nepal should ask for security assistance from US at atime hwn the US administration is up against fighting terrorism globally. The US provides miliatry aid to many countries in the world. (Note stress on the visit of generals Krishna Rana and Singha Rana during World War II and Nepal's crucial support to Allies especially the British whose crown colony India escaped Axis
The helicopter would be highly useful in the current counter-insurgency. Troops can be ferried rapidly from one point to another
The loss of RNA and police lives has also made it imperative that government boos the fighting capability of the security forces. A serious evaluation of the past strategy is to be undertaken. New tactics ought to be considered. If possible the RNA and the police should launch offensives against suspected territories where rebels have sanctauries and training facilities. it should invite experts from overseas in form of military advisers from countrie slike the US who have a history of counter-insurgency warfare.
(to be continued...)
(to be continued...)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Sir Juddha's Legacy
Sir Juddha Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana became Nepal's prime minister in September 1, 1932 succeeding Bhim Shumsher. His legacy is important as he is the first among those who chose to keep Nepal firmly under Western security alliance. His attempts to industrialize agrarian Nepal is witnessed by Juddha Match Factory, a commodity of extreme importance to Nepalese kitchens and smokers of cheroot and bidi (mini cigars).
Sir Juddha's contribution to Nepal's isolated economy was seen in his willingness to be allied with Western nations against Japan's Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere alliance which was raising nationalist opposition throughout Asia. Sir Juddha understood that Western powers namely England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States were its principal allies and not Imperial Japan lead by nationalists and revisionists. Nationalist Japan wanted Asia's markets for itself and wanted to impose its monopoly and kick out its British, American and Dutch competitors from India, the Philippines and East Indies, respectively. Imperial Japan also wanted to takeover vast riches of Australia, a sparsely populated European haven but with poor population and military resources to defend itself. Comprehending this complex strategic scenario, Sir Juddha's crucial support to Allied Forces in World War II was a factor that kept Nepal a sovereign entity and free from communist manipulation until now.
Nepal's youth of Sir Juddha 's era were poor peasants. The Mongolian stock, who migrated to the Himalayan middle ranges from Tibet in the long course of migration (see Dor Bahadur Bista's people of Nepal) are broadly categorized into Magars, Gurungs, Tamangs, Rais and Limbus. During Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, born in 1723 and reigning king from 1768-1775, the Mongolian Magars of the principality of Gorkha were recruited along with Gurungs into the Gorkha Army. King Prithvi ordered the formation of Purano Gorakh company and other companies armed with European muskets and contact blades (Famous khukuris, scimitars and rapiers)purchased from Europeans in India. It can be deduced that during unification of Nepal and during the prolonged siege and subsequent takeover of Kathmandu Valley, the main trade center between East India company held India and Tibet, Gorkha soldiers destroyed a relief force led by Captain Kinlock in August 1767 ref:http://www.ecs.com.np/archive/oct_03/article_5.htm).
The 2,400 man force was defeated by King Prithvi's battle groups and they again captured a large loot of European arms. The battle of Pauwa Gadhi cost East India company's Bengal Army contingent to 1,600 men which finally dwindled to 700 after its failure to relieve Kathmandu's King Jaya Prakash Malla. The East India Company government was further involved in armed conflicts with Nepal's Gurkha soldiers in 1814-1816, the same time their government was enaged in the War of 1812 against the Thirteen Colonies in North America. After Nepal's defeat and loss of its Far Western territories to British forces, the English began recruiting in Nepal primarily from Hill Tribes of the Mongolian Stock and some Chhettris, a nationality associated with the Brahmins, a chief educated and priestly class of kingmakers and court scribes and administrators. The Brahmins have been involved in serious conspiracies against Jung Bahadur in the infamous Bhandarkhal conspiracy and Damodar Pande's seizure of Rana Bahadur Shah's attempt to assert control.
The peasant rural Nepalis received critical skills in first aid, cash crops, and of course expertise in the operation of modern armamments. Chinese civil war was raging then between the Kuomintang nationalists and Mao Tse Tung's communist forces. The communist army had retreated to China's interior from urban areas and were organizing a massive Long March to take over the country into single xenophobic rule. Greater threat to European interest was the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere economic and miliatry alliance propounded by extreme nationalists in control of Imperial Japanese Affairs. Army officers who organized these fanatical movement in Tokyo advocated freedom from restriction imposed by Western powers. Total control of China for Japan's interest was the objective of this cliche which preached arming and move away from League of Nations and restrictive naval agreements.
After brief success due to strategic surprise obtained at Pearl Harbor, US Navy stymied Japan's invasion plan of Australia in famous Coral Sea and Midway Battles. And recognizing immense industrial capacity of the United States, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and his assistant Admiral Chuichi Nagumo attempted to use Japan's land forces against both Australia (in New Guinea and other Oceanic islands like Guadalcanal and Bougainville) and British ruled Burma. The Japanese 18th Division under its 33rd Army attempted to invade India and push out the British and its allies including the Ranas from South Asia.
But the Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Nepali rana leaders saw the contribution of the British in education, infrastructure and industrial development of South Asia and their respective areas of interest. Sir Juddha mobilized the Nepalese military units as the Purano Gorakh regiment and sent them to Burma front against the invading Japanese. Officer corps in India also generally supported British effort to ward off the yellow peril. The Allies were victorious and the Japanese forces could never make it beyond Nagaland and Assam border. In Burma, British and Allied forces including US Rangers and Chinese nationalist Y-Force broke the back of Japanese power in South East Asia. Singapore was avenged and the Dutch were restored in Java and Sumatra.
But Sir Juddha foresaw returning Nepali soldiers would bring with them socialist ideas. Churchill lost to Labor as war weary Englishmen returned home. In the colonies, nationaists pressured British to vacate India while communist and Congress manipulated returning Gurkha soldiers as the Liberation Army. After several bloody incidents, King Tribhuvan was taken to India while Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher annaounced present King Gyanendra as the new Nepalese monarch. Sir Juddha since left for Argheli palace as sage king after allowing the mantle of power to go to Padma Shumsher and to Chandra Shumsher's son Sir Mohan Shumsher.
Juddha Shusmsher Rana can thus be surmised into a pontificate of authority at a time when restive populations were being manipulated by agitators to follow Marxism-Leninism. His alternative native benevolent autocracy favored sustainable development of politics. Nepal's position as an integral state is owed much to his recognition of tidal waves of political movements which swept away once strong leaders like Chilean Capitano General Bernardo O'Higgins. Bernardo built Chile out of the chaos of post Bolivarian Latin America. But today Chile is in a better position than say Mexico vis a vis Nepal.
(Sir Juddha's birthday is in April 19, 1875 and all from his clan are celebrating it with great dignity and honor.
Sir Juddha's contribution to Nepal's isolated economy was seen in his willingness to be allied with Western nations against Japan's Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere alliance which was raising nationalist opposition throughout Asia. Sir Juddha understood that Western powers namely England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States were its principal allies and not Imperial Japan lead by nationalists and revisionists. Nationalist Japan wanted Asia's markets for itself and wanted to impose its monopoly and kick out its British, American and Dutch competitors from India, the Philippines and East Indies, respectively. Imperial Japan also wanted to takeover vast riches of Australia, a sparsely populated European haven but with poor population and military resources to defend itself. Comprehending this complex strategic scenario, Sir Juddha's crucial support to Allied Forces in World War II was a factor that kept Nepal a sovereign entity and free from communist manipulation until now.
Nepal's youth of Sir Juddha 's era were poor peasants. The Mongolian stock, who migrated to the Himalayan middle ranges from Tibet in the long course of migration (see Dor Bahadur Bista's people of Nepal) are broadly categorized into Magars, Gurungs, Tamangs, Rais and Limbus. During Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, born in 1723 and reigning king from 1768-1775, the Mongolian Magars of the principality of Gorkha were recruited along with Gurungs into the Gorkha Army. King Prithvi ordered the formation of Purano Gorakh company and other companies armed with European muskets and contact blades (Famous khukuris, scimitars and rapiers)purchased from Europeans in India. It can be deduced that during unification of Nepal and during the prolonged siege and subsequent takeover of Kathmandu Valley, the main trade center between East India company held India and Tibet, Gorkha soldiers destroyed a relief force led by Captain Kinlock in August 1767 ref:http://www.ecs.com.np/archive/oct_03/article_5.htm).
The 2,400 man force was defeated by King Prithvi's battle groups and they again captured a large loot of European arms. The battle of Pauwa Gadhi cost East India company's Bengal Army contingent to 1,600 men which finally dwindled to 700 after its failure to relieve Kathmandu's King Jaya Prakash Malla. The East India Company government was further involved in armed conflicts with Nepal's Gurkha soldiers in 1814-1816, the same time their government was enaged in the War of 1812 against the Thirteen Colonies in North America. After Nepal's defeat and loss of its Far Western territories to British forces, the English began recruiting in Nepal primarily from Hill Tribes of the Mongolian Stock and some Chhettris, a nationality associated with the Brahmins, a chief educated and priestly class of kingmakers and court scribes and administrators. The Brahmins have been involved in serious conspiracies against Jung Bahadur in the infamous Bhandarkhal conspiracy and Damodar Pande's seizure of Rana Bahadur Shah's attempt to assert control.
The peasant rural Nepalis received critical skills in first aid, cash crops, and of course expertise in the operation of modern armamments. Chinese civil war was raging then between the Kuomintang nationalists and Mao Tse Tung's communist forces. The communist army had retreated to China's interior from urban areas and were organizing a massive Long March to take over the country into single xenophobic rule. Greater threat to European interest was the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere economic and miliatry alliance propounded by extreme nationalists in control of Imperial Japanese Affairs. Army officers who organized these fanatical movement in Tokyo advocated freedom from restriction imposed by Western powers. Total control of China for Japan's interest was the objective of this cliche which preached arming and move away from League of Nations and restrictive naval agreements.
After brief success due to strategic surprise obtained at Pearl Harbor, US Navy stymied Japan's invasion plan of Australia in famous Coral Sea and Midway Battles. And recognizing immense industrial capacity of the United States, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and his assistant Admiral Chuichi Nagumo attempted to use Japan's land forces against both Australia (in New Guinea and other Oceanic islands like Guadalcanal and Bougainville) and British ruled Burma. The Japanese 18th Division under its 33rd Army attempted to invade India and push out the British and its allies including the Ranas from South Asia.
But the Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Nepali rana leaders saw the contribution of the British in education, infrastructure and industrial development of South Asia and their respective areas of interest. Sir Juddha mobilized the Nepalese military units as the Purano Gorakh regiment and sent them to Burma front against the invading Japanese. Officer corps in India also generally supported British effort to ward off the yellow peril. The Allies were victorious and the Japanese forces could never make it beyond Nagaland and Assam border. In Burma, British and Allied forces including US Rangers and Chinese nationalist Y-Force broke the back of Japanese power in South East Asia. Singapore was avenged and the Dutch were restored in Java and Sumatra.
But Sir Juddha foresaw returning Nepali soldiers would bring with them socialist ideas. Churchill lost to Labor as war weary Englishmen returned home. In the colonies, nationaists pressured British to vacate India while communist and Congress manipulated returning Gurkha soldiers as the Liberation Army. After several bloody incidents, King Tribhuvan was taken to India while Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher annaounced present King Gyanendra as the new Nepalese monarch. Sir Juddha since left for Argheli palace as sage king after allowing the mantle of power to go to Padma Shumsher and to Chandra Shumsher's son Sir Mohan Shumsher.
Juddha Shusmsher Rana can thus be surmised into a pontificate of authority at a time when restive populations were being manipulated by agitators to follow Marxism-Leninism. His alternative native benevolent autocracy favored sustainable development of politics. Nepal's position as an integral state is owed much to his recognition of tidal waves of political movements which swept away once strong leaders like Chilean Capitano General Bernardo O'Higgins. Bernardo built Chile out of the chaos of post Bolivarian Latin America. But today Chile is in a better position than say Mexico vis a vis Nepal.
(Sir Juddha's birthday is in April 19, 1875 and all from his clan are celebrating it with great dignity and honor.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Defending Old Glory
Year 2011
US led NATO and Russia-China axis SCO relations have reached a new low. SCO Navy intervened in a border dispute between the Kingdom of Bonga and Republic of Piconesia. Taking the side of the Piconesians a powerful naval force consisting of Russian Kuznetsov class carrier Admiral Ushakoff and an Atlant class cruiser Marshall Zhukov attempt to bombard Port Eden, the capital of Jonga. Captain Priam has been asked by Washington to strike the Russian task force with his hodge podge force of 28 World War II era aircaft. The high tech stealth aircraft and other expensive jets are committed elsewhere as this backwater is only defended by seasoned oldtimers.
The main bomb squadron 3 X B-29 and 1 X EB-29 are the main strike force. The B-29 airfarme is equipped with a powerful search and track radar and is armed with modified AGM-86 Tactical Anti-ship Missiles (TASMs), a version of ship launched Tomahawk. The EB-29 is a powerful jamming platform equipped to mask the strikers in case they are detected or intercepted by enemy aviation or sea surveillance. However, satellite surveillance remains a threat. Engineers have retrofitted these old bombers into a launch platform each able to carry four of the cruise missiles. Further ECM support is provided by a refurbished flight of EP-38 each equipped with one ALQ-161 Airborne Self protection Jammer (ASPJ) pod and a new powerful IR jammer pod developed by an undisclosed UK aerospace firm. These systems can jam powerful long range Russian radars and theoretically also able to mask the strike force from enemy attempts to intercept with carrier based interceptors. However, a severe risk exists if the MiG-29Ks or Su-33s attempt an close range gun/IR missile attack. No plan survives contact with the enemy, said Murphy.
Captain Priam devises a layered attack plan. In case his bombers fail or are destroyed by Fulcrums or Flankers, a second tier raid will be launched by Major Lander's transport flight of 4 X C-47. The old Gooneybird has been rigged with Mk48 ADCAP naval torpedoes, two each in the four attacking aircraft. Major Lander operates from Black Raven, a separate C-47 platform equipped with powerful jamming and Electronic Support Measure (ESM) sets. In case this task force fails, a backup strike force of 3 X SBD Dauntless force equipped with Mk50 Barracuda torpedoes will be asked to conduct a near fatal strike. This third task unit is actually meant for anti-submarine warfare.
As news reaches Washington of heavy casualties among Bongan natives, the Congress urges President Van Windberg to immediately relieve the US protectorate. Admiral Manston, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff authorizes a secret unheard unit of the Air National Guard to prick this blatant aggression in the Pacific.
"Do something, Peter, I am bogged down in Europe and the Middle East".
Secretary Blackwell shuttles to Europe trying to persuade the Europeans to form a joint pressure group to force Russian leader Zhinonevsky from using force against our backyard.
"Sir I doubt this freak will kowtow to us," said a hardnosed Admiral Manston. A tall but trim figure. Manston was a veteran of the Persian Gulf War logistics effort to save Kuwait but was inexperienced. Maston picks up a black briefcase equipped with dark brown switches. He orders CINCPAC to initiate engagement.
'A risky gamble,' he murmurs to himself. What if the North Koreans join this adventure, he pondered. He quickly dials 3 coded text.
"Gen. Framm, please ask your men to be under extreme caution. Coordinate with Speccom once for LRS insertion at short notice.
Meanwhile in San Diego, Captain Priam basks in his private pool with his wife Georgine. "Honey, when will this be all over?"
"I dunno. But I will be back, I guarantee," said a slightly relaxed Captain as he smiokes a fresh scented tobacco from his father's Carvi pipe. The same evening on 8pm he drives to local airport and flies to Honolulu on a UA flight. He then boards a C-2A Greyhound in Oahu and flies to Wake.
At Wake, CINCPAC and his staffers have arranged a meeting at Westing's Cafe. As there was massive monitoring by Glonass and other camera equipped satellites, the officers had to change to civvies, T-shirts and Shorts to mingle with civilians. They began riding ordinary cars to their rendesvous points. As per the plan, Captain Priam's task force will launch a three tier strike.
As the bombers takeoff from Wake, the heavy overcast prevents an orderly flight but provides an excellent cover just in case. Major Trevor leads his bomb group straight toward the Russian task force. And froma standoff range of 190 kilometeters, he lets go a volley of 12 TASMs. The Russians quickly scramble a flight of four Su-33s to intercept. A pair of patrolling Flankers shadow the attacking American squadron from a distance. They refuse to switch on their firecontrol radars relying instead relying on Glonass surveillance datalink for fear of detection. Their mission is to reconnaissance and Admiral Markov wants to use them only just in case.
(to be continued...)
Note:-Pri(t)am's pulp fiction is entirely his own creation. Knowledge credit goes to the British publication Jane's which provided me rights to use their material with proper citation.
US led NATO and Russia-China axis SCO relations have reached a new low. SCO Navy intervened in a border dispute between the Kingdom of Bonga and Republic of Piconesia. Taking the side of the Piconesians a powerful naval force consisting of Russian Kuznetsov class carrier Admiral Ushakoff and an Atlant class cruiser Marshall Zhukov attempt to bombard Port Eden, the capital of Jonga. Captain Priam has been asked by Washington to strike the Russian task force with his hodge podge force of 28 World War II era aircaft. The high tech stealth aircraft and other expensive jets are committed elsewhere as this backwater is only defended by seasoned oldtimers.
The main bomb squadron 3 X B-29 and 1 X EB-29 are the main strike force. The B-29 airfarme is equipped with a powerful search and track radar and is armed with modified AGM-86 Tactical Anti-ship Missiles (TASMs), a version of ship launched Tomahawk. The EB-29 is a powerful jamming platform equipped to mask the strikers in case they are detected or intercepted by enemy aviation or sea surveillance. However, satellite surveillance remains a threat. Engineers have retrofitted these old bombers into a launch platform each able to carry four of the cruise missiles. Further ECM support is provided by a refurbished flight of EP-38 each equipped with one ALQ-161 Airborne Self protection Jammer (ASPJ) pod and a new powerful IR jammer pod developed by an undisclosed UK aerospace firm. These systems can jam powerful long range Russian radars and theoretically also able to mask the strike force from enemy attempts to intercept with carrier based interceptors. However, a severe risk exists if the MiG-29Ks or Su-33s attempt an close range gun/IR missile attack. No plan survives contact with the enemy, said Murphy.
Captain Priam devises a layered attack plan. In case his bombers fail or are destroyed by Fulcrums or Flankers, a second tier raid will be launched by Major Lander's transport flight of 4 X C-47. The old Gooneybird has been rigged with Mk48 ADCAP naval torpedoes, two each in the four attacking aircraft. Major Lander operates from Black Raven, a separate C-47 platform equipped with powerful jamming and Electronic Support Measure (ESM) sets. In case this task force fails, a backup strike force of 3 X SBD Dauntless force equipped with Mk50 Barracuda torpedoes will be asked to conduct a near fatal strike. This third task unit is actually meant for anti-submarine warfare.
As news reaches Washington of heavy casualties among Bongan natives, the Congress urges President Van Windberg to immediately relieve the US protectorate. Admiral Manston, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff authorizes a secret unheard unit of the Air National Guard to prick this blatant aggression in the Pacific.
"Do something, Peter, I am bogged down in Europe and the Middle East".
Secretary Blackwell shuttles to Europe trying to persuade the Europeans to form a joint pressure group to force Russian leader Zhinonevsky from using force against our backyard.
"Sir I doubt this freak will kowtow to us," said a hardnosed Admiral Manston. A tall but trim figure. Manston was a veteran of the Persian Gulf War logistics effort to save Kuwait but was inexperienced. Maston picks up a black briefcase equipped with dark brown switches. He orders CINCPAC to initiate engagement.
'A risky gamble,' he murmurs to himself. What if the North Koreans join this adventure, he pondered. He quickly dials 3 coded text.
"Gen. Framm, please ask your men to be under extreme caution. Coordinate with Speccom once for LRS insertion at short notice.
Meanwhile in San Diego, Captain Priam basks in his private pool with his wife Georgine. "Honey, when will this be all over?"
"I dunno. But I will be back, I guarantee," said a slightly relaxed Captain as he smiokes a fresh scented tobacco from his father's Carvi pipe. The same evening on 8pm he drives to local airport and flies to Honolulu on a UA flight. He then boards a C-2A Greyhound in Oahu and flies to Wake.
At Wake, CINCPAC and his staffers have arranged a meeting at Westing's Cafe. As there was massive monitoring by Glonass and other camera equipped satellites, the officers had to change to civvies, T-shirts and Shorts to mingle with civilians. They began riding ordinary cars to their rendesvous points. As per the plan, Captain Priam's task force will launch a three tier strike.
As the bombers takeoff from Wake, the heavy overcast prevents an orderly flight but provides an excellent cover just in case. Major Trevor leads his bomb group straight toward the Russian task force. And froma standoff range of 190 kilometeters, he lets go a volley of 12 TASMs. The Russians quickly scramble a flight of four Su-33s to intercept. A pair of patrolling Flankers shadow the attacking American squadron from a distance. They refuse to switch on their firecontrol radars relying instead relying on Glonass surveillance datalink for fear of detection. Their mission is to reconnaissance and Admiral Markov wants to use them only just in case.
(to be continued...)
Note:-Pri(t)am's pulp fiction is entirely his own creation. Knowledge credit goes to the British publication Jane's which provided me rights to use their material with proper citation.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Women in Nepal
Published in Space Time Today, March 21, 2002
Women of Nepal enjoy secondary position compared to men. They face oppression and injustice. they are least educated and subject to violence and crime. There have been efforts to rectify this from both government and non-government sectors, but much more needs to be done.
Nepalese society is patriarchal. Historically, women in Nepal were confined to the house. Only household jobs were relegated to womenfolk. Traditionally women's position was that of a slave to either the husband (or to her father if unmarried. Now, times have changed. Increasing number of women are being educated and many feel women should break free of traditional bondage and make themselves equal in all respects. Some women in Nepal have achieved a lot. However, a solid majority live in backwardness and oppression.
One of the most important fields of life where Nepalese women lag behind is education. Although there are many girl students in urban areas, the overwhelming majority of girls in rural areas do not go to schools. In fact only about 40 percent of all females in Nepal can read and write. Since most mothers in rural areas are themselves uneducated, it is hard to expect these mothers to send their children to school. There exists gross discriminatory practice of sending only boys to school. And girls, if they are sent to school, are forced to leave school early while boys continue school till much later time. The person who removes girls from school usually happens to be the mother. So, there exists a practice where women themselves are responsible for the backwardness of their sex.
It is due to lack of education that women are not in leading positions in Nepalese society. In the national parliament, there are only a handful of women parliamentarians. Although there have been women heads of government in other countries in South Asia like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, we in Nepal are yet to see a women leading HMG. Men run most of businesses in Nepal and most proefessionals are also men. In workplaces, there have been complaints of sexual harassment. Women in profession have to work many times harder than men to achieve the same status as men. The view that women are inferior and inefficient compared to men is widespread.
Another issue concerning women is their right to parental property. This has been a very hot issue and everyone seems to be talking about it. The current law entitles a woman right to parental property but she has to return it after marriage. This law is most discrimanatory in its conception. This law institutionalizes gender discrimination. The sate itself has become party to discrimination against women due to this law. It is ironic that the state should instead draft and formulate laws, which should drive the society into gender inequality. However, our legal system upholds patriarchal male dominated culture. Women should have the same parental property rights as enjoyed by men. One reason for women's backwardness is their lack of control over property. It is with property they gain influence. Therefore equal property rights is an important step towards women's liberation in Nepal.
The most horrendous aspect is trafficking of Nepalese girls to the sex industry in India. Each year thousands of girls, as young as 13, are duped into this most demeaning profession. This practice is a disgrace to our nation. Many of these girls are sent back to Nepal after contracting AIDS. there are now organizations like Maiti Nepal, which rehabilitate girls rescued from brothels in india. However, more needs to be done. First of all the government here should enter some form of agreement with the government of India on trafficked girls. At the home front, all pimps and other agents involved in flesh trade should be taken into custody. Economic hardship, which is the main cause of this problem, should also be dealt with.
Another visible problem is associated with the increasing number of women employed by Maoist rebels. Women in rural areas have no hope. Their future is dark due to poverty and lack of education and employment. Such women are easy prey to rebel promises of brighter future after they have destroyed the present system. It is due to failure of the government and nongovernmental organizations to bring them into the mainstream that many women are members of the violent movement.
Women in Nepal certainly deserve more. Nepalese women themselves have proved that there is no limit to what they can do. However, their progress is impeded by tradition, unprogressive ideas present in society and lack of available resources. Women should ask for equality and men too should give in because improvement in women's status means improvement in the future generations. Women must consolidate what they have achieved and move on.
Women of Nepal enjoy secondary position compared to men. They face oppression and injustice. they are least educated and subject to violence and crime. There have been efforts to rectify this from both government and non-government sectors, but much more needs to be done.
Nepalese society is patriarchal. Historically, women in Nepal were confined to the house. Only household jobs were relegated to womenfolk. Traditionally women's position was that of a slave to either the husband (or to her father if unmarried. Now, times have changed. Increasing number of women are being educated and many feel women should break free of traditional bondage and make themselves equal in all respects. Some women in Nepal have achieved a lot. However, a solid majority live in backwardness and oppression.
One of the most important fields of life where Nepalese women lag behind is education. Although there are many girl students in urban areas, the overwhelming majority of girls in rural areas do not go to schools. In fact only about 40 percent of all females in Nepal can read and write. Since most mothers in rural areas are themselves uneducated, it is hard to expect these mothers to send their children to school. There exists gross discriminatory practice of sending only boys to school. And girls, if they are sent to school, are forced to leave school early while boys continue school till much later time. The person who removes girls from school usually happens to be the mother. So, there exists a practice where women themselves are responsible for the backwardness of their sex.
It is due to lack of education that women are not in leading positions in Nepalese society. In the national parliament, there are only a handful of women parliamentarians. Although there have been women heads of government in other countries in South Asia like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, we in Nepal are yet to see a women leading HMG. Men run most of businesses in Nepal and most proefessionals are also men. In workplaces, there have been complaints of sexual harassment. Women in profession have to work many times harder than men to achieve the same status as men. The view that women are inferior and inefficient compared to men is widespread.
Another issue concerning women is their right to parental property. This has been a very hot issue and everyone seems to be talking about it. The current law entitles a woman right to parental property but she has to return it after marriage. This law is most discrimanatory in its conception. This law institutionalizes gender discrimination. The sate itself has become party to discrimination against women due to this law. It is ironic that the state should instead draft and formulate laws, which should drive the society into gender inequality. However, our legal system upholds patriarchal male dominated culture. Women should have the same parental property rights as enjoyed by men. One reason for women's backwardness is their lack of control over property. It is with property they gain influence. Therefore equal property rights is an important step towards women's liberation in Nepal.
The most horrendous aspect is trafficking of Nepalese girls to the sex industry in India. Each year thousands of girls, as young as 13, are duped into this most demeaning profession. This practice is a disgrace to our nation. Many of these girls are sent back to Nepal after contracting AIDS. there are now organizations like Maiti Nepal, which rehabilitate girls rescued from brothels in india. However, more needs to be done. First of all the government here should enter some form of agreement with the government of India on trafficked girls. At the home front, all pimps and other agents involved in flesh trade should be taken into custody. Economic hardship, which is the main cause of this problem, should also be dealt with.
Another visible problem is associated with the increasing number of women employed by Maoist rebels. Women in rural areas have no hope. Their future is dark due to poverty and lack of education and employment. Such women are easy prey to rebel promises of brighter future after they have destroyed the present system. It is due to failure of the government and nongovernmental organizations to bring them into the mainstream that many women are members of the violent movement.
Women in Nepal certainly deserve more. Nepalese women themselves have proved that there is no limit to what they can do. However, their progress is impeded by tradition, unprogressive ideas present in society and lack of available resources. Women should ask for equality and men too should give in because improvement in women's status means improvement in the future generations. Women must consolidate what they have achieved and move on.
Nepal's Navy
An Open Proposal for a Joint Stock Company
The International Trade Community and the World Trade Organization, the IFC and the World Bank should fund the establsiment of an independent trading company with its own ships for the Kingdom of Nepal. If RN ships can be named after it, money should be raised like the East India Trading Company and ships bought from Cammel Laird, Swanhunter or Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited to purchase world class cargo ships. If Aristotle Onassis can run a private merchant fleet, why can't I, Priam Shumsher Rana, a a former seamman recruit can't do the same. The ships will be registered in Crete and will stop at Calcutta, Bombay, Perth, New York, San Francisco, Rotterdam, and other major ports. No dependence on foreign ships, especially Russian and Ukrainian which peddle arms to massacre the Africans. The most glorious name of Nepal will be remembered in Lloyds register, a country sovereign and independent since time immemorial and recognized in 1923 by His Majesty's Government of United Kingdom and the British Empire. I invoke Crown Prince paris to pilot this project and save Nepal's youth from corruption and exploitation abroad. I will bear this burden of commanding the vessel(s).
The International Trade Community and the World Trade Organization, the IFC and the World Bank should fund the establsiment of an independent trading company with its own ships for the Kingdom of Nepal. If RN ships can be named after it, money should be raised like the East India Trading Company and ships bought from Cammel Laird, Swanhunter or Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited to purchase world class cargo ships. If Aristotle Onassis can run a private merchant fleet, why can't I, Priam Shumsher Rana, a a former seamman recruit can't do the same. The ships will be registered in Crete and will stop at Calcutta, Bombay, Perth, New York, San Francisco, Rotterdam, and other major ports. No dependence on foreign ships, especially Russian and Ukrainian which peddle arms to massacre the Africans. The most glorious name of Nepal will be remembered in Lloyds register, a country sovereign and independent since time immemorial and recognized in 1923 by His Majesty's Government of United Kingdom and the British Empire. I invoke Crown Prince paris to pilot this project and save Nepal's youth from corruption and exploitation abroad. I will bear this burden of commanding the vessel(s).
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Role of Army in Nepal
Published in The Kathmandu Post, Sunday, April 22, 2001
The Army in Nepal, officially known as the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) has been proud and prestigious institution of the country, part of Nepalese national government and a revered organization since early times. Its history goes back to the time of the expansion of the Gurkha state, led by the Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal whose martial and diplomatic skill laid the foundation of of the sovereign Nepali state entity.
Traditionally, armies have been employed by states for such roles as territorial expansion, defense from external aggression, and maintaining internal law and order as well. The RNA too has been called upon to perform all these roles in addition to such duties as being part of UN peacekeeping forces in foreign countries. Additionally the Army has taken part in disaster relief and road construction part of its peacetime responsibility towards the nation. The Nepali Gurkha soldiers were redoubtable in King Prithvi Narayan Shah's unification campaign. he, in fact, launched a war against a multitude of independent and divided principalities to forma single monolithic mountain kingdom, a single political entity. The relativey small Gurkha Army which accomplished the task, was avery cpabale fighting force despite the shortage of modern arms. (ref: The Rise of the House of Gurkhas, Fr. Ludwig Stiller, S.J.)
The Gurkhas will to fight was of such great magnitude that it withstood the chinese onslaught in 1789 stopping the main Chinese-Tibetan forces at Dhaibung, Rasuwa and foiling their attaempt to assault Kathmandu. in 1814, the Nepali Gurkha Army waged a defensive war against the mighty East India Company government. The British were so impressed with the hardy Gurkhas taht they began recruiting from their own sworn enemies. in the 1857 Indian mutiny, Jung Bahadur Rana supported the beleagured British with a military force of thousands of Nepalese troops who helped suppress the mutinous native Indian soldiers. this was duly recognized by the British with a large schunk of seized Nepali land being returned to Nepal.
In the First and Second World Wars, thousands upon thousands of Nepalese youths served in the British and Nepali units fighting for the Allied cause. many never returned while a few distinguished themselves with the Victoria Cross (ref: Victora Cross originals built with copper from Russian cannons captured in Crimean War, circa Florence Nightingale's times), the highest British gallantry award for valour. The year 1950 saw a civil war between the Rana government led RNA and the Congress' Mukti Sena, whose ranks were filled with many World War II veterans. from 1960 to 1990 there were incidents when the Army moved against armed revolutionaries, like the 1975 Okhaldhunga incident. The Army slaughtered Congress armed cadres, wishing to use force to overturn the then Pnachayat system. Also in the early 1970s (ref: 1974 according to wikipedia.org), the RNA disramed Tibetan Khampa rebels, thus averting possible Chinese intervention in Nepal. In the later stages of the People's movement for restoration of democracy in 1990, RNA soldiers enforced a military curfew, but fortunately His majesty the King averted blodshed by giving in to popular pressure.
The beginning of Maoist insurgency has brought another challenge to the security of Nepal. What began as a low-key movement with sporadic anti-police raids has now incresed to such levels that after the disastrous incidents of Dunai, Vorletaar, Rukumkot, and Naumoole, the Maoists are a force to be reckoned with. Able to mount large scale attacks with upto a thousand personnel, the Maoists have progressed with muskets to (Lee Enfield) )0.303 rifles (apparently(captured from the police) and explosives used in large amounts. Recent reports speak of police deserting their posts due to fear shaking th every foundation of law, order and and the right to live. The government committed the cardinal sin of not consulting the Army (the author put this matter to then Army chief of Staff Gen. Pyarjung Thapa at Shah residence private party) when this terrorist movement was still in its infancy. If the Army had utilized its counter-insurgency skills early on, the low intensity conflict (term borrowed from Jane's Defense Weekly, 1990 issue with interview of Gen Lindsay, USA, SOCOM commander) would have been over by now. Instead, the government now wants to use the Army in a rush (caution to Obama adminsitartion as it moves to rescue 21 Americans held hostage by Somali pirates remebering Desert One), which could lead to panic and thus to a disaster.
Now, the Army itself is ina danger of being outgunned and outnumbered and defeated by the rebels. Although better trained and equipped than the police, small group deployments of soldiers could be overwhelmed by large hordes of Maoist rebels who could theoretically overrun Army positions, and capture modern arms belonging to the Army. besides the standard rifle of the Army, the SLR (ref: Fabrique National Herstal Fusil Automatique Leger, Belgian design) which is a large, long and and semi-automatic (one bullet at each trigger pressure) is unsuited in commando style raids where automatic arms are considered suitable (upto 10 bullets at each trigger pressure). The only automatic rifles are with the two Army Special Forces companies, which should have been employed early on. (There is still time to use these highly trained anti-terrorist professionals provided no political strings are attached including the catchword "human rights"). Also, the three light machine guns (LMG) in an army platoon (40 soldiers) are old and bulky and in fact not light by modern standards (over 10 kg, useless in battle manoeuvre scenarios).
Recently the government has asked the Army to monitor the customs along the border, thereby significantly increasing government revenue. However, the Army's requests to buy a an airplane and run a bank (ref: US has a Federal Credit Union and The Royal Thai Air Force gave birth to the famed Thai Airways; US tacit approval of these activites resulted in Thailand becoming secure from Communist Threat from Laos and Vietnam, and a successful world tourist destination. The US maintained strategic defense ties with Thailand including basing rights for bombers and fighter aircraft in the hights of the Vietnam War) have been turned down. Has the government been sympathetic to to the Army's wish to properly manage its welfare fund?
As the Army is the only means at ists disposal with the potential of wiping out the five year old insurgency, which has taken over 1,600 lives, the government should be careful before it makes any decision in a hurry. It also has the potential of a failure if utilized in an improper manner. Therefore, it ought to use its silver bullet (ref: Fighter Combat in the Jet Age, Bill Sweetman, purchased in 2001 in Ekta Books by the author) in a manner that recognizes its strength and weaknesses.
Author's note:- The author was once a member of Nepal Scouts, cub in 1986 when he first visited the Royal Palace. This work is in tribute to King Birendra and especially to Princess Shruti Shah and Prince Nirajan Shah, who fell to unseen and mysterious plotting. I stillsuspect that the anti-monarchist forces of plotting this coup d'etat in a Grand Design to destroy all Royal leaning Nepalis. The author saw Crown Prince Dipendra closely as he played tennis in Tribhuvan Army Club in 1990s (can't rememember exact date. Also, the author heard Crown Princess Shruti speak to him in telephone while the author lived in New Baneswor residence of an aeronautical engineer in Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation. My granddad Flying Officer BK Singh flew the Crown Prince Dipendra to his school in Darjeleeng during his school days. RNAC owes much of its organizational and engineering skills to the elite group of RAFVR pilots who first started military and commercial avaition traffic into the forbidden Rana kingdom.
The author wanted to be an F-16C Falcon pilot in the USAF when he was in his eighth grade. But due to myopia, it was not possible to fly as there is acute danger of human error. He however wrote to the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, but was asked to attend the Academy through Nepalese government channels. As the author felt increased competition to take control of $3,070 million of foreign debt sponsored scholarships within the Army, he gave it up and only cherished a dream to fly. The author resented going to India as there too competition was severe and russian penetration deep. India has only begun to introduce US platforms. Many Indian pilots die in Russian built MiG-21 airframe, which according to AP reports, is considered a "flying coffin". The author prefers to write like Nick Cook of Jane's andf Interavia and lead a successful writing career as Bill Gunston.
The Army in Nepal, officially known as the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) has been proud and prestigious institution of the country, part of Nepalese national government and a revered organization since early times. Its history goes back to the time of the expansion of the Gurkha state, led by the Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal whose martial and diplomatic skill laid the foundation of of the sovereign Nepali state entity.
Traditionally, armies have been employed by states for such roles as territorial expansion, defense from external aggression, and maintaining internal law and order as well. The RNA too has been called upon to perform all these roles in addition to such duties as being part of UN peacekeeping forces in foreign countries. Additionally the Army has taken part in disaster relief and road construction part of its peacetime responsibility towards the nation. The Nepali Gurkha soldiers were redoubtable in King Prithvi Narayan Shah's unification campaign. he, in fact, launched a war against a multitude of independent and divided principalities to forma single monolithic mountain kingdom, a single political entity. The relativey small Gurkha Army which accomplished the task, was avery cpabale fighting force despite the shortage of modern arms. (ref: The Rise of the House of Gurkhas, Fr. Ludwig Stiller, S.J.)
The Gurkhas will to fight was of such great magnitude that it withstood the chinese onslaught in 1789 stopping the main Chinese-Tibetan forces at Dhaibung, Rasuwa and foiling their attaempt to assault Kathmandu. in 1814, the Nepali Gurkha Army waged a defensive war against the mighty East India Company government. The British were so impressed with the hardy Gurkhas taht they began recruiting from their own sworn enemies. in the 1857 Indian mutiny, Jung Bahadur Rana supported the beleagured British with a military force of thousands of Nepalese troops who helped suppress the mutinous native Indian soldiers. this was duly recognized by the British with a large schunk of seized Nepali land being returned to Nepal.
In the First and Second World Wars, thousands upon thousands of Nepalese youths served in the British and Nepali units fighting for the Allied cause. many never returned while a few distinguished themselves with the Victoria Cross (ref: Victora Cross originals built with copper from Russian cannons captured in Crimean War, circa Florence Nightingale's times), the highest British gallantry award for valour. The year 1950 saw a civil war between the Rana government led RNA and the Congress' Mukti Sena, whose ranks were filled with many World War II veterans. from 1960 to 1990 there were incidents when the Army moved against armed revolutionaries, like the 1975 Okhaldhunga incident. The Army slaughtered Congress armed cadres, wishing to use force to overturn the then Pnachayat system. Also in the early 1970s (ref: 1974 according to wikipedia.org), the RNA disramed Tibetan Khampa rebels, thus averting possible Chinese intervention in Nepal. In the later stages of the People's movement for restoration of democracy in 1990, RNA soldiers enforced a military curfew, but fortunately His majesty the King averted blodshed by giving in to popular pressure.
The beginning of Maoist insurgency has brought another challenge to the security of Nepal. What began as a low-key movement with sporadic anti-police raids has now incresed to such levels that after the disastrous incidents of Dunai, Vorletaar, Rukumkot, and Naumoole, the Maoists are a force to be reckoned with. Able to mount large scale attacks with upto a thousand personnel, the Maoists have progressed with muskets to (Lee Enfield) )0.303 rifles (apparently(captured from the police) and explosives used in large amounts. Recent reports speak of police deserting their posts due to fear shaking th every foundation of law, order and and the right to live. The government committed the cardinal sin of not consulting the Army (the author put this matter to then Army chief of Staff Gen. Pyarjung Thapa at Shah residence private party) when this terrorist movement was still in its infancy. If the Army had utilized its counter-insurgency skills early on, the low intensity conflict (term borrowed from Jane's Defense Weekly, 1990 issue with interview of Gen Lindsay, USA, SOCOM commander) would have been over by now. Instead, the government now wants to use the Army in a rush (caution to Obama adminsitartion as it moves to rescue 21 Americans held hostage by Somali pirates remebering Desert One), which could lead to panic and thus to a disaster.
Now, the Army itself is ina danger of being outgunned and outnumbered and defeated by the rebels. Although better trained and equipped than the police, small group deployments of soldiers could be overwhelmed by large hordes of Maoist rebels who could theoretically overrun Army positions, and capture modern arms belonging to the Army. besides the standard rifle of the Army, the SLR (ref: Fabrique National Herstal Fusil Automatique Leger, Belgian design) which is a large, long and and semi-automatic (one bullet at each trigger pressure) is unsuited in commando style raids where automatic arms are considered suitable (upto 10 bullets at each trigger pressure). The only automatic rifles are with the two Army Special Forces companies, which should have been employed early on. (There is still time to use these highly trained anti-terrorist professionals provided no political strings are attached including the catchword "human rights"). Also, the three light machine guns (LMG) in an army platoon (40 soldiers) are old and bulky and in fact not light by modern standards (over 10 kg, useless in battle manoeuvre scenarios).
Recently the government has asked the Army to monitor the customs along the border, thereby significantly increasing government revenue. However, the Army's requests to buy a an airplane and run a bank (ref: US has a Federal Credit Union and The Royal Thai Air Force gave birth to the famed Thai Airways; US tacit approval of these activites resulted in Thailand becoming secure from Communist Threat from Laos and Vietnam, and a successful world tourist destination. The US maintained strategic defense ties with Thailand including basing rights for bombers and fighter aircraft in the hights of the Vietnam War) have been turned down. Has the government been sympathetic to to the Army's wish to properly manage its welfare fund?
As the Army is the only means at ists disposal with the potential of wiping out the five year old insurgency, which has taken over 1,600 lives, the government should be careful before it makes any decision in a hurry. It also has the potential of a failure if utilized in an improper manner. Therefore, it ought to use its silver bullet (ref: Fighter Combat in the Jet Age, Bill Sweetman, purchased in 2001 in Ekta Books by the author) in a manner that recognizes its strength and weaknesses.
Author's note:- The author was once a member of Nepal Scouts, cub in 1986 when he first visited the Royal Palace. This work is in tribute to King Birendra and especially to Princess Shruti Shah and Prince Nirajan Shah, who fell to unseen and mysterious plotting. I stillsuspect that the anti-monarchist forces of plotting this coup d'etat in a Grand Design to destroy all Royal leaning Nepalis. The author saw Crown Prince Dipendra closely as he played tennis in Tribhuvan Army Club in 1990s (can't rememember exact date. Also, the author heard Crown Princess Shruti speak to him in telephone while the author lived in New Baneswor residence of an aeronautical engineer in Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation. My granddad Flying Officer BK Singh flew the Crown Prince Dipendra to his school in Darjeleeng
The author wanted to be an F-16C Falcon pilot in the USAF when he was in his eighth grade. But due to myopia, it was not possible to fly as there is acute danger of human error. He however wrote to the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, but was asked to attend the Academy through Nepalese government channels. As the author felt increased competition to take control of $3,070 million of foreign debt sponsored scholarships within the Army, he gave it up and only cherished a dream to fly. The author resented going to India as there too competition was severe and russian penetration deep. India has only begun to introduce US platforms. Many Indian pilots die in Russian built MiG-21 airframe, which according to AP reports, is considered a "flying coffin". The author prefers to write like Nick Cook of Jane's andf Interavia and lead a successful writing career as Bill Gunston.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Gingerbreadman
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001633gingerbread_man_cookies.php
It was long time ago when I saw this particular cookie in Good Housekeeper magazine from Australia. I also had cavalry soldiers with me, Indians and Cowboys. But they are gone now.
From seventh grade onwards, I began to build Tamiya tank models. I had five of them. On the order of purchase, they were M-42 Duster (US Army), M-10 Wolverine Tank Destroyer (US Army), Centurion Mk3 (UNC Korea then modified for Israeli Army 3rd Armored Corps) and then Type 90 (Japanese Self Defense Force 7th Hokkaido Division). Buth these are not in my possession anymore.
In 2005, I began collecting several modern avaition platforms. They were AV-8B Harrier 2 (US Marines VAW-XX), F-16 Falcon (USAF 388th Fighter Wing, Hill AFB, Utah), MiG-15 Fagot (flown by Pepelyayev, 20 kills) and MiG-29 Fulcrum (in green camouflage of the Finnish Air Force based in Kubinka). Besides these jets, my favorite was F-51D Mustang (USAF flown in Korea by William McConnel and James Jabara before they graduated to F-86 Sabres).
It was long time ago when I saw this particular cookie in Good Housekeeper magazine from Australia. I also had cavalry soldiers with me, Indians and Cowboys. But they are gone now.
From seventh grade onwards, I began to build Tamiya tank models. I had five of them. On the order of purchase, they were M-42 Duster (US Army), M-10 Wolverine Tank Destroyer (US Army), Centurion Mk3 (UNC Korea then modified for Israeli Army 3rd Armored Corps) and then Type 90 (Japanese Self Defense Force 7th Hokkaido Division). Buth these are not in my possession anymore.
In 2005, I began collecting several modern avaition platforms. They were AV-8B Harrier 2 (US Marines VAW-XX), F-16 Falcon (USAF 388th Fighter Wing, Hill AFB, Utah), MiG-15 Fagot (flown by Pepelyayev, 20 kills) and MiG-29 Fulcrum (in green camouflage of the Finnish Air Force based in Kubinka). Besides these jets, my favorite was F-51D Mustang (USAF flown in Korea by William McConnel and James Jabara before they graduated to F-86 Sabres).
Friday, March 27, 2009
Seewulf von Atlantis
Es gibt ein Panzerschiff in Africa das agreffen Handelschiff von England, circa 1949. Einige Seewulf habe ein Name fuer das Geistschiff. Seewulf, Kapitan Kidd oder Kraken?? Well ein Englisch zerstoerer war ueber Azores gestosst und war schnellig tiefligend. "Torpedoes out of nowhere," sagt das Amerikaner Kapitaen des Haitian geflaggt Gross Handelschiff Jamestown. (to be continued...)
bei Denkfabrikerleutnant Priamos Rana, Esq.
bei Denkfabrikerleutnant Priamos Rana, Esq.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Dronenkrieg gegen Russland will erfolgloeisgen
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/17/america/drones.php
The American government is using drones against a band of Pashtuns with no defensive capacity. However, if used against Russians in Georgia, the new band of Russian, Chinese and Indian hackers can jam and disable US Predators.
The new Warsaw pact, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), has defense ties with India, China and Russia along with new Central Asian states. These states do not adhere to international arms control agreements as seen in 2008 with the tarnsfer of 33 T-72 tanks to unspecified buyers in wartorn Africa. The Russian arms sale along with China's refusal to curb its Manportable Air Defense System (MANPADS), (ref: AP and AFP reports 2006-2007) handheld anti-aircraft guided missiles, will allow notorious armed groups a capability to down US or NATO aircraft in contested zones of future combat operations. In late 1990s, a US fighter aircraft, an F-16 Falcon was brought down by a Serbian operated SA-6 'Gainful' (Kub) Surface to Air Missile (SAM). The SA-6 is an old SAM unveiled in Red Square around 1967. If an upgraded SA-6 can down a US F-16 equipped with radar absorbent paint and sophisticated jammers, what will be the fate of NATO and US fourth generation aircraft to Russian designed SA-11 'Gadfly' (Buk). The Chinese and Russians are set to deploy SA-10 'Grumble' (S300) to protect their key assets like the SS-25 Sickle mobile ICBM (ref: Soviet Military Power, 1990). If Iran acquires SS-25s the whole US nuclear superiority and its deterrence policy and its security guarantee to US will collapse. The B-2 unveiled in late 1980s by John Tower (ref: Newsweek) is the only hope in this scenario.
The Russians are quickly copying stealth technology to adapt it into their next generation of interceptors. Even this author had access to mathematical calculations over stealth technology in an aerospace magazine in a third world country . Aerospace engineers employed by Iran and other Arab countries can one day build an infrastructure to rival Israel's aerospace industry and mass produce ballistic missiles. China already has a range of mobile ballistic missiles.
To challenge the supremacy of the US Navy, China has two aircraft carriers in order most likely of Russian design. Armed with MiG-29K equiped with antiship missiles, this platform allows China to flex its muscle anywhere from the Pacific to the Indian ocean. Then, Japan too would want aircraft carriers as its sailors often get in trouble with Chinese, thanks to their historical dispute over energy resources and broader supremacy issue in Asia.
Military Intelligence magazine published in US Army Intel School, Fort Huachuca, AZ predicted the Korean peninsula might go under Chinese spehere of influence as early as early 1990s. Russia too is in this great game. It has wooed Central Asian energy states to impose high rent on US bases being used to support combat operations in Afghanistan. The crux of the matter is that these authoritarian states fear US intrusion into their undemocratic political system and persecution of minorities. In the name of suppressing terrorism, Russia and China with its staellites have trampled upon ethnic rights of many of these peoples. Outright force was used in Georgia while the West watched. In 1997-1999 Kosovo crisis, Russia even threatened to despatch airborne troops to support the Serbs, in a bid to threaten NATO punitive operations against Serb mass murder supsects like Radovan Kardzic and Vojslav Seselj.
The current economic crisis and left leaning Obama administration is a boon to foreign adventurism in hotspots around the world. In Nepal, terrorists cling to power while in Africa and Venezuela is under increased Russian arms sales. The Russians have even thretatened to station Tu-95 Bears in Cuba, according to some reports. Reports say Chavez is assembling Su-27 'Flankers' to flex his oil muscle against any US attempt to support his rivals in Caracas. While cocaine wars fueled by Colombian suppliers continues in Mexico, US should revive plans to destroy the cocaine plantations just as it was done in Vietnam. Once supply is extinguished at production site, the whole supply chain will wither in one stroke and done. Millions of young lives will be saved!
The American government is using drones against a band of Pashtuns with no defensive capacity. However, if used against Russians in Georgia, the new band of Russian, Chinese and Indian hackers can jam and disable US Predators.
The new Warsaw pact, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), has defense ties with India, China and Russia along with new Central Asian states. These states do not adhere to international arms control agreements as seen in 2008 with the tarnsfer of 33 T-72 tanks to unspecified buyers in wartorn Africa. The Russian arms sale along with China's refusal to curb its Manportable Air Defense System (MANPADS), (ref: AP and AFP reports 2006-2007) handheld anti-aircraft guided missiles, will allow notorious armed groups a capability to down US or NATO aircraft in contested zones of future combat operations. In late 1990s, a US fighter aircraft, an F-16 Falcon was brought down by a Serbian operated SA-6 'Gainful' (Kub) Surface to Air Missile (SAM). The SA-6 is an old SAM unveiled in Red Square around 1967. If an upgraded SA-6 can down a US F-16 equipped with radar absorbent paint and sophisticated jammers, what will be the fate of NATO and US fourth generation aircraft to Russian designed SA-11 'Gadfly' (Buk). The Chinese and Russians are set to deploy SA-10 'Grumble' (S300) to protect their key assets like the SS-25 Sickle mobile ICBM (ref: Soviet Military Power, 1990). If Iran acquires SS-25s the whole US nuclear superiority and its deterrence policy and its security guarantee to US will collapse. The B-2 unveiled in late 1980s by John Tower (ref: Newsweek) is the only hope in this scenario.
The Russians are quickly copying stealth technology to adapt it into their next generation of interceptors. Even this author had access to mathematical calculations over stealth technology in an aerospace magazine in a third world country . Aerospace engineers employed by Iran and other Arab countries can one day build an infrastructure to rival Israel's aerospace industry and mass produce ballistic missiles. China already has a range of mobile ballistic missiles.
To challenge the supremacy of the US Navy, China has two aircraft carriers in order most likely of Russian design. Armed with MiG-29K equiped with antiship missiles, this platform allows China to flex its muscle anywhere from the Pacific to the Indian ocean. Then, Japan too would want aircraft carriers as its sailors often get in trouble with Chinese, thanks to their historical dispute over energy resources and broader supremacy issue in Asia.
Military Intelligence magazine published in US Army Intel School, Fort Huachuca, AZ predicted the Korean peninsula might go under Chinese spehere of influence as early as early 1990s. Russia too is in this great game. It has wooed Central Asian energy states to impose high rent on US bases being used to support combat operations in Afghanistan. The crux of the matter is that these authoritarian states fear US intrusion into their undemocratic political system and persecution of minorities. In the name of suppressing terrorism, Russia and China with its staellites have trampled upon ethnic rights of many of these peoples. Outright force was used in Georgia while the West watched. In 1997-1999 Kosovo crisis, Russia even threatened to despatch airborne troops to support the Serbs, in a bid to threaten NATO punitive operations against Serb mass murder supsects like Radovan Kardzic and Vojslav Seselj.
The current economic crisis and left leaning Obama administration is a boon to foreign adventurism in hotspots around the world. In Nepal, terrorists cling to power while in Africa and Venezuela is under increased Russian arms sales. The Russians have even thretatened to station Tu-95 Bears in Cuba, according to some reports. Reports say Chavez is assembling Su-27 'Flankers' to flex his oil muscle against any US attempt to support his rivals in Caracas. While cocaine wars fueled by Colombian suppliers continues in Mexico, US should revive plans to destroy the cocaine plantations just as it was done in Vietnam. Once supply is extinguished at production site, the whole supply chain will wither in one stroke and done. Millions of young lives will be saved!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Nachrichten auf Russischer Kraft gegen Vereinigten Staaten
Neues Kaltkrieg?
Neues Weltkrieg bei August 1914*
March 15, 2009
Associated Press
MOSCOW - A Russian air force general said that the country could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, news agencies reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically.
The U.S. and Russia have been trying to reset their relationship, severely strained over U.S. plans to position missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic and by Russia's invasion of U.S. ally Georgia last year.
Russia has nothing to gain strategically from basing long-range bombers within relatively short range of U.S. shores, independent military analyst Alexander Golts said, calling the military statement a retaliatory gesture aimed at hitting back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters near Georgia.
The chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, was quoted by Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies as saying Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had offered Russia to use an airbase on La Orchila island.
"Chavez has offered us a whole island with an airfield, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers," Zhikharev was quoted as saying. "If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island ... by the Russian Air Force is possible."
Interfax also quoted Zhikharev as saying that Cuba has four or five air bases with runways long enough to host the Russian long-range planes.
"This is possible with Cuba," it quoted Zhikharev as saying. "If the two heads of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there."
But Kremlin spokesman Alexei Pavlov told The Associated Press that "the military is speaking about technical possibilities, that's all. If there will be a development of the situation, then we can comment."
Mike Hammer, spokesman for President Barack Obama's National Security Council, said, "We do not comment on hypotheticals."
Officials at both Venezuela's presidential administration and Defense Ministry refused immediate comment and Cuban officials could not be reached for comment.
But Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Sept. 7, "All these long-range planes and boats must have a place to stop. Where are they going to stop? Are they going to stop in territory belonging to countries that don't like them? No. They'll look for their strategic allies."
"Russia will be welcome - the air fleet or the naval fleet," Chavez said. "We're Russia's strategic ally."
Venezuela and Cuba, traditionally fierce U.S. foes, have close political and energy relations with Russia, which has been working to reassert itself as a military force. Russia resumed regular long-range bomber patrols in 2007 after a 15-year hiatus.
Venezuela hosted two Russian Tu-160 bombers in September for training flights and later joined Russian warships for exercises in the Caribbean.
The bombers visit marked the first time Russian strategic bombers landed in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War times, when the Soviet aircraft sometimes made stopovers in Cuba.
In the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba pushed the world to the brink of nuclear conflict after U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced their presence to the world. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles.
The military analyst Golts said basing Russian bombers in Venezuela or Cuba "has no military sense. The bombers don't need any base."
He said the bombers are considered strategic because they are capable of reaching an attacking range of the United States from Russia without the need for stopovers.
Moscow and the new Obama administration have appeared to want to mend their relations,
U.S. plans initiated under former President George W. Bush to put elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic had particularly irked Russia, although the United States insists they are intended to counter potential future threats from Iran.
Russia has welcomed Obama's apparently more cautious approach to the divisive issue.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva earlier this month to push a symbolic red "reset" button, another sign of the desire for a clean slate.
Cuban authorities made no comment last summer when a Moscow newspaper reported that Russia could send nuclear bombers to the island. While neither confirming nor denying the report, ailing former President Fidel Castro at the time praised his brother President Raul Castro for maintaining a "dignified silence" on the report and said that Cuba was not obligated to offer the United States an explanation.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Copied from Military.com as an issue for private consideration. Pritam has purchased AP Stylebook, AP Newswriting Guide and AP reporter's Handbook from New York bureau book center and from family source in Los Angeles, California. Any copyright infringemnent issue should be communicated to Pritam in facebook.
*August 1914 bei Alexander Solzhenytsyn
Neues Weltkrieg bei August 1914*
March 15, 2009
Associated Press
MOSCOW - A Russian air force general said that the country could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, news agencies reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically.
The U.S. and Russia have been trying to reset their relationship, severely strained over U.S. plans to position missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic and by Russia's invasion of U.S. ally Georgia last year.
Russia has nothing to gain strategically from basing long-range bombers within relatively short range of U.S. shores, independent military analyst Alexander Golts said, calling the military statement a retaliatory gesture aimed at hitting back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters near Georgia.
The chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, was quoted by Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies as saying Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had offered Russia to use an airbase on La Orchila island.
"Chavez has offered us a whole island with an airfield, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers," Zhikharev was quoted as saying. "If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island ... by the Russian Air Force is possible."
Interfax also quoted Zhikharev as saying that Cuba has four or five air bases with runways long enough to host the Russian long-range planes.
"This is possible with Cuba," it quoted Zhikharev as saying. "If the two heads of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there."
But Kremlin spokesman Alexei Pavlov told The Associated Press that "the military is speaking about technical possibilities, that's all. If there will be a development of the situation, then we can comment."
Mike Hammer, spokesman for President Barack Obama's National Security Council, said, "We do not comment on hypotheticals."
Officials at both Venezuela's presidential administration and Defense Ministry refused immediate comment and Cuban officials could not be reached for comment.
But Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Sept. 7, "All these long-range planes and boats must have a place to stop. Where are they going to stop? Are they going to stop in territory belonging to countries that don't like them? No. They'll look for their strategic allies."
"Russia will be welcome - the air fleet or the naval fleet," Chavez said. "We're Russia's strategic ally."
Venezuela and Cuba, traditionally fierce U.S. foes, have close political and energy relations with Russia, which has been working to reassert itself as a military force. Russia resumed regular long-range bomber patrols in 2007 after a 15-year hiatus.
Venezuela hosted two Russian Tu-160 bombers in September for training flights and later joined Russian warships for exercises in the Caribbean.
The bombers visit marked the first time Russian strategic bombers landed in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War times, when the Soviet aircraft sometimes made stopovers in Cuba.
In the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba pushed the world to the brink of nuclear conflict after U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced their presence to the world. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles.
The military analyst Golts said basing Russian bombers in Venezuela or Cuba "has no military sense. The bombers don't need any base."
He said the bombers are considered strategic because they are capable of reaching an attacking range of the United States from Russia without the need for stopovers.
Moscow and the new Obama administration have appeared to want to mend their relations,
U.S. plans initiated under former President George W. Bush to put elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic had particularly irked Russia, although the United States insists they are intended to counter potential future threats from Iran.
Russia has welcomed Obama's apparently more cautious approach to the divisive issue.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva earlier this month to push a symbolic red "reset" button, another sign of the desire for a clean slate.
Cuban authorities made no comment last summer when a Moscow newspaper reported that Russia could send nuclear bombers to the island. While neither confirming nor denying the report, ailing former President Fidel Castro at the time praised his brother President Raul Castro for maintaining a "dignified silence" on the report and said that Cuba was not obligated to offer the United States an explanation.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Copied from Military.com as an issue for private consideration. Pritam has purchased AP Stylebook, AP Newswriting Guide and AP reporter's Handbook from New York bureau book center and from family source in Los Angeles, California. Any copyright infringemnent issue should be communicated to Pritam in facebook.
*August 1914 bei Alexander Solzhenytsyn
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Resume March 11, 2009
PRITAM S. RANA
C/O Poonam Singh,
14540 Hartland Street, #206,
Van Nuys, CA 91405
Tel. (818) 988 9623
Email: pritamrana@yahoo.com
OBJECTIVE:-
To become a successful writer/researcher with a goal to become a bestselling
author.
Carry out day to day operations in most scientific and professional manner.
Meet highest safety standard and company goals.
Set an ethical standard and work with élan.
EXPERIENCE:-
Sub-editor,
Business Bureau, The Kathmandu Post, Kantipur Publications, P. B. No 8559, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 4480100, URL: www.ekantipur.com
Edited news stories filed by reporters. Advised reporters on English language usage, clarity of news and checking of facts, graphs and other quantitative analysis tools used in the pages. Selected international news from AP and AFP. Wrote headlines of news stories. Assisted in layout of pg7. Translated captions of photos and finalized the aforementioned page.
***** Upgraded language and style to AP standard; reduced error to zero and promoted premium international as well as unnoticed cottage and agricultural products.
R & U Personnel,
Renewal and Update Department, Everest Net Pvt. Ltd., Ekantakuna, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 5546010, URL: www.enet.com.np
Handled customer care calls. Called clients with stale accounts in order to determine problems, to persuade them to renew accounts near expiry and assisted support department to determine clients with problems. Updated expired accounts and worked to retain customers.
***** Recovered hundreds of customers; run a major campaign to reduce addiction to internet porn, and helped reduce operational cost by implementing advanced managerial tools.
News Reporter (Journalist, Electronic Media),
News Department, Channel Nepal Television, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 4487750, URL: www.channelnepal.com
News reporting with camera crew, read TV news reports, translated news items from Nepali to English, assisted video editors and handled production of daily news bulletins.
***** Helped renew diplomatic and donor interest in Nepali development, security and social issues. Conducted responsible public information campaign with conservative editorial line.
Customer Service Representative,
Himalayan Telecommerce Pvt. Ltd (ASK ME), Sigma House, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 2111290, URL: www.askme.com.np
Worked in national and international call centers. Provided information to customers like phone numbers and about service and products of various business organizations based upon a database. Performed telemarketing to potential customers in the United States. Undertook customer care training.
***** Met and exceeded sales targets. Marketed to consumers wishing to save by choosing affordable products. Adopted guerilla raids (ref: Phillip Kotler’s marketing stratagem) against established giant telecom providers like AT&T and Verizon.
Administrative Assistant,
Everest Net Pvt. Ltd., Ekantakuna, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 5546010, URL: www.enet.com.np
Assisted administrative manager in his daily operations, arranged meetings including the agendas and minutes, circulated administrative information to other staff members, documented and filled up company reports, updated staff profile and monitored media for notices with implications to the company.
***** Bagged the best employer award, maintained high standards of professionalism.
Junior Sub-Editor,
The Kathmandu Post, Kantipur Publications, Subidhanagar, New Baneswor, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 4480100, URL: www.ekantipur.com
Edited feature articles contributed to the opinion-editorial page. Was responsible for the then Page4, the opinion page. Prepared initial draft for editorials.
***** Selected for copyediting op-ed page, the main opinion building arm of the newspaper.
SKILLS:-
News analysis with specialization on defense issues.
Familiar with MS Office package, e-mail and Internet.
EDUCATION:-
Master of Arts, Tribhuwan University, Kirtipur, NEPAL, Political Science,
2003-present.
Bachelor of Arts, Campion College, Lalitpur, NEPAL, English Literature and
Sociology, 1999-2002
High School, St. Xavier’s School, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, NEPAL, 1987-1992.
PUBLICATION/AWARDS:-
Published more than thirty times in national dailies in Nepal since 2000
(ref: Google search)
First position, College Essay Competition, Campion College, 2001
LANGUAGES:-
English-fluent; German-beginner; Sanskrit-beginner
AFFILIATION:-
Association of the US Army, www.ausa.org, 1997-1999.
INTERESTS:-
Books, movies, tennis, model airplanes and tanks.
C/O Poonam Singh,
14540 Hartland Street, #206,
Van Nuys, CA 91405
Tel. (818) 988 9623
Email: pritamrana@yahoo.com
OBJECTIVE:-
To become a successful writer/researcher with a goal to become a bestselling
author.
Carry out day to day operations in most scientific and professional manner.
Meet highest safety standard and company goals.
Set an ethical standard and work with élan.
EXPERIENCE:-
Sub-editor,
Business Bureau, The Kathmandu Post, Kantipur Publications, P. B. No 8559, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 4480100, URL: www.ekantipur.com
Edited news stories filed by reporters. Advised reporters on English language usage, clarity of news and checking of facts, graphs and other quantitative analysis tools used in the pages. Selected international news from AP and AFP. Wrote headlines of news stories. Assisted in layout of pg7. Translated captions of photos and finalized the aforementioned page.
***** Upgraded language and style to AP standard; reduced error to zero and promoted premium international as well as unnoticed cottage and agricultural products.
R & U Personnel,
Renewal and Update Department, Everest Net Pvt. Ltd., Ekantakuna, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 5546010, URL: www.enet.com.np
Handled customer care calls. Called clients with stale accounts in order to determine problems, to persuade them to renew accounts near expiry and assisted support department to determine clients with problems. Updated expired accounts and worked to retain customers.
***** Recovered hundreds of customers; run a major campaign to reduce addiction to internet porn, and helped reduce operational cost by implementing advanced managerial tools.
News Reporter (Journalist, Electronic Media),
News Department, Channel Nepal Television, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 4487750, URL: www.channelnepal.com
News reporting with camera crew, read TV news reports, translated news items from Nepali to English, assisted video editors and handled production of daily news bulletins.
***** Helped renew diplomatic and donor interest in Nepali development, security and social issues. Conducted responsible public information campaign with conservative editorial line.
Customer Service Representative,
Himalayan Telecommerce Pvt. Ltd (ASK ME), Sigma House, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 2111290, URL: www.askme.com.np
Worked in national and international call centers. Provided information to customers like phone numbers and about service and products of various business organizations based upon a database. Performed telemarketing to potential customers in the United States. Undertook customer care training.
***** Met and exceeded sales targets. Marketed to consumers wishing to save by choosing affordable products. Adopted guerilla raids (ref: Phillip Kotler’s marketing stratagem) against established giant telecom providers like AT&T and Verizon.
Administrative Assistant,
Everest Net Pvt. Ltd., Ekantakuna, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 5546010, URL: www.enet.com.np
Assisted administrative manager in his daily operations, arranged meetings including the agendas and minutes, circulated administrative information to other staff members, documented and filled up company reports, updated staff profile and monitored media for notices with implications to the company.
***** Bagged the best employer award, maintained high standards of professionalism.
Junior Sub-Editor,
The Kathmandu Post, Kantipur Publications, Subidhanagar, New Baneswor, Kathmandu, NEPAL.
Phone: (977) 1 4480100, URL: www.ekantipur.com
Edited feature articles contributed to the opinion-editorial page. Was responsible for the then Page4, the opinion page. Prepared initial draft for editorials.
***** Selected for copyediting op-ed page, the main opinion building arm of the newspaper.
SKILLS:-
News analysis with specialization on defense issues.
Familiar with MS Office package, e-mail and Internet.
EDUCATION:-
Master of Arts, Tribhuwan University, Kirtipur, NEPAL, Political Science,
2003-present.
Bachelor of Arts, Campion College, Lalitpur, NEPAL, English Literature and
Sociology, 1999-2002
High School, St. Xavier’s School, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, NEPAL, 1987-1992.
PUBLICATION/AWARDS:-
Published more than thirty times in national dailies in Nepal since 2000
(ref: Google search)
First position, College Essay Competition, Campion College, 2001
LANGUAGES:-
English-fluent; German-beginner; Sanskrit-beginner
AFFILIATION:-
Association of the US Army, www.ausa.org, 1997-1999.
INTERESTS:-
Books, movies, tennis, model airplanes and tanks.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
American Women- Zenith to Nadir
Yesterday, I was thinking of two contradictory characters. One is Amelia Earhart, America's aviatrix and the other is Nadia Suleman.
The formula I conceived yesterday was:
Amelia Earhart > zenith
Nadia Suleman > nadir
Amelia stood ahead among her generation, becoming a record breaking pioneer flyer. In sharp contrast, Nadia represents the irresponsibility of the 13th generation, to which I have the dubious dictinction of belonging, ref: Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe, (ISBN 0-688-11912-3).
Do the words nadir and Suleman have etymological link? Nadirshahi means pillage in Persian or Urdu. And, Suleman's irresponsibility has caused US taxpayers to fund her children who are totally innocent. The doctor who performed the operation should be immediately asked to pay for her children's health, education and upkeep.
The medical industry has to maintain a minimum of ethical standards. This is United States not Iraq or other third world mecca of quacks.
I wonder how many college girls can remember Amelia's achievement. Are 99s no longer revered? God save America!
The formula I conceived yesterday was:
Amelia Earhart > zenith
Nadia Suleman > nadir
Amelia stood ahead among her generation, becoming a record breaking pioneer flyer. In sharp contrast, Nadia represents the irresponsibility of the 13th generation, to which I have the dubious dictinction of belonging, ref: Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe, (ISBN 0-688-11912-3).
Do the words nadir and Suleman have etymological link? Nadirshahi means pillage in Persian or Urdu. And, Suleman's irresponsibility has caused US taxpayers to fund her children who are totally innocent. The doctor who performed the operation should be immediately asked to pay for her children's health, education and upkeep.
The medical industry has to maintain a minimum of ethical standards. This is United States not Iraq or other third world mecca of quacks.
I wonder how many college girls can remember Amelia's achievement. Are 99s no longer revered? God save America!
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer in RUSI
15:30, 18 Sep 2008
RUSI, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET
Link to map: multimap
Listen to lecture (59mb)
Watch excerpts
"Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
About two weeks ago, an exasperated NATO Ambassador asked a question to his colleagues around the Council table: Why is it that we always see so many crises happening in the month of August?
The question was, of course, a rhetorical one, so no one felt compelled to respond. But there can be no doubt that August 2008 will go down in history as a key
moment in international security. “The Guns of August”, to borrow the title of a famous book, will sound in our ears for some time to come.
We saw a war erupt in the Caucasus – with a Russian military response so disproportionate that some observers started musing about a second Cold War. As I will try to explain later in my remarks, I don’t believe that a second Cold War is in the offing. But one thing is clear: the role that Russia wants to play in the new international system still remains uncertain.
At the same time, the month of August and the first two weeks of September have also seen fierce fighting and a large number of casualties in Afghanistan – many NATO soldiers and many Afghans have lost their lives, and I want to use this opportunity to express my sympathy to the loved ones and friends of all those British soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
We have also seen the Taliban and other extremist forces strengthen their positions in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. It is thus becoming ever clearer that success in Afghanistan can only be achieved if we engage Pakistan in a common effort against extremism which threatens the future of the entire region.
Conflict in the Caucasus, instability in and around Afghanistan – these two theatres alone would seem more than one can handle at any given time. Yet we all know that these crises are not happening in a vacuum. Both conflicts will reverberate far beyond their points of origin. I don’t have to explain at length why Russia’s justification for recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia could set a dangerous precedent – with truly global consequences. Nor do I have to explain at length why the conflict will have longer-term implications for our energy policy, notably for the discussion about alternative transit routes.
The conflict in Afghanistan, too, is more than a regional issue. It is about
our response to the global phenomenon of international terrorism. It is about our readiness to support fragile young democracies that are trying to take their people out of poverty and into the modern world. It is about long-term stability in Central Asia. And it is about the struggle of moderate Islam to prevail against the forces of fanaticism.
Samuel Johnson once said that the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind. I am not suggesting that we are in any immediate danger of being hung, but if we don’t want this world to take a turn for the worse, we’d better concentrate on how best to deal with the challenges we face. So let me give you my thoughts on the way ahead – with respect to Russia, and with respect to Afghanistan.
First; Russia. Here, the issues are crystal clear. Irrespective of who did what and when in the August conflict, Russia has demonstrated a disregard for the sovereignty of a small neighbour, and for international law. This has created a major challenge for our partnership. Both NATO and the EU have made it abundantly clear that the very notion of partnership implies due respect for certain agreed standards of behaviour. As long as Russia chooses to ignore these standards, there can be no business as usual. Russia has long demanded to be treated with respect, as becomes a global power. But respect has to be earned – by taking one’s global responsibilities and the defence of universal values seriously, rather than by abusing one’s military might.
In both her actions and her accompanying rhetoric, Russia has shown much assertiveness. But what worries me even more is Russia’s apparent readiness to stand against virtually the entire international community. Russia’s perceived temporary gains in Georgia have come at the cost of her strategic isolation. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin tell us that the West needs Russia, but that Russia doesn’t really need the West. I have no problem with the first part of their statement. Yes, the West does indeed need Russia. But it is an illusion to believe that Russia can go it alone without the West. Going it alone in this global world is simply not an option.
What next? Let me be very clear. A solution to this crisis is possible.
But it will only be found if all parties are willing to make concessions and to walk back from where they are today. Such a solution cannot be found if we simply seek to “punish” Russia. NATO is not in the punishment business. Nor is there any need for us to engage in rhetorical escalation. We do not need to crank up the volume. So let me tell you how I, as the NATO Secretary General, see the way ahead.
As a starting point, we need a sober analysis of the implications of the Caucasus conflict in general, and of Russia’s policy in particular. And then we must devise a sound policy based on that analysis. This exercise has only just begun, so I don’t want to pre-empt its outcome. A few things, however, should be evident.
First, I do not foresee a U-turn in NATO’s policy vis-à-vis Russia. You need to make a U-turn when you’ve gone totally wrong. We, however, have not gone wrong. The key tenets of our Russia policy – a policy of constructive engagement – remain sound. We may have to make adjustments in the way we approach Russia, but we do not need a new policy. No matter how much we may disagree on some issues, the fact of the matter is that both NATO and Russia face a number of common challenges – and both NATO and Russia will be better off by facing them together. That is the reason why we invested so much in the NATO-Russia partnership.
Second, in this new security context, some have called for a reappraisal of the balance between an expeditionary NATO and our core task of collective defence.
Such a discussion is certainly justified. But, again, I do not foresee a 180 degree change in our approach. Article 5 already exists, we don’t have to reinvent it. Neither does upholding Article 5 require us to return to a Cold War military posture in Europe.
Third, irrespective of our approach vis-à-vis Russia, we must support Georgia. Indeed, in many respects, this is the most important thing that we need to do in the short-term. And we are doing it. We are helping Georgia to assess and repair the damage caused by Russian actions. And we will continue to support this country in realising its Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
Earlier this week, I visited Georgia together with the Ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council. During that visit, we inaugurated the NATO-Georgia Commission. It conveys the message – to Georgia, as well as to Russia – that geography does not have to determine your destiny, and that the era of spheres of influence is over.
In addition to our meetings in Tbilisi, we also saw the refugees from South Ossetia who were camped around Gori. It was a sobering experience. And it reinforced us in our strong conviction that the people of Georgia cannot afford any more conflict. We will continue to stand by Georgia, but we also expect it to remain firmly committed to democracy and reform. And we made that very clear to all our interlocutors.
Georgia may remain a bone of contention between Russia and the West for some time to come. But this must not prevent us from seeking to cooperate with Russia wherever our interests converge. One key area where this is the case is Afghanistan.
When Russia decided last month to suspend most of her cooperation with NATO, this did not include cooperation on Afghanistan. This is a clear indication that common interests can transcend disagreements in other areas. And it reminds us of the singular importance of Afghanistan in the broader security equation.
The outbreak of the Georgian crisis eclipsed Afghanistan from the headlines – but not for long. Now we are back to the torrent of bad news stories of which Afghanistan seems to offer a limitless supply.
There is an old adage which says that only bad news sells. And if that were true, the publishing industry must have been doing rather well recently.
And yet we have no reason to be so pessimistic. An objective assessment of the situation in Afghanistan should make that clear. Not only is our cause a just cause, our key objective of creating a safe and secure Afghanistan that is able to look after itself remains entirely within our grasp.
What gives me reason to be so confident? Again, let me confine myself to three points. The first one is on security. Yes, there is a widespread perception of a Taliban resurgence, as a result of some spectacular attacks. But, no, the Taliban have not been able to capitalise much on it. They continue to suffer heavy losses. And contrary to some alarmist predictions, they have not been able to strangle Kabul. ISAF will not be defeated, neither tactically nor operationally. And our training of the Afghan National Army is now enabling that new force to engage alongside our own – with increasing success, and with popular support. The ANA now participates in more than two thirds of ISAF’s operations. As the ANA expands, it will increasingly be able to deny our opponents their freedom of movement, hold the gains we make, and ultimately allow Afghanistan to take responsibility for its own security.
The Taliban will not be able to reverse this positive momentum. What they did achieve, however, is to create a sense of uncertainty that permeates the country and hinders progress. It is a cruel irony that the Taliban have now realised that our development efforts in Afghanistan are bearing fruit. That is why they are targeting these very efforts. What we build, they seek to destroy. Their aim is clear: to convince the Afghan people that neither the International Community nor their own Government can provide security for them. And to convince our own publics that our engagement in Afghanistan is doomed to fail.
It is up to us to prove them wrong. And this is my second point: We must see through their propaganda – and do whatever is necessary to defeat them. This does not just mean to provide the military resources that are critical for success. It also means to further enhance our training for the ANA. It means to capitalise on the recent decrease in drug production, by stepping up ISAF’s support for the Afghan Government. It means to lobby even more extensively for a Comprehensive Approach by the International Community – for an approach that will close the gap between security and development.
It means to support the preparation for next year’s elections, which offer a genuine opportunity to re-energise the political process in the country. And it means that our Governments and Parliaments must redouble their efforts to explain to their constituents why it is in our own security interest to prevent Afghanistan from sliding back to pre-“9/11” days.
Within a few months we will have a new Administration in Washington. Whoever wins, I expect the new President to increase US forces in Afghanistan and to focus even more US effort and attention on stabilising Afghanistan and on improving security along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Indeed, President Bush has already started this effort.
While I of course welcome an even greater US effort, I believe that it is important that we continue to make this not just a US responsibility but a collective transatlantic responsibility. When the telephone rings early next year, I hope that the other Allies will also be ready, not just with additional forces, but also with extra contributions to training Afghanistan’s National Army and Police, strengthening its institutions and developing its economy.
Success in Afghanistan also means stepping up our political engagement
with her neighbours, notably Pakistan. And this is my third point. As long as Pakistan’s border region remains a sanctuary for insurgents, Afghanistan will never become truly secure. Clearly, it is up to Pakistan to define its own security interests. Let’s be honest: there are some who believe that instability in Afghanistan is somehow in Pakistan’s security interest. And there are others who believe that extremism in Pakistan could be dealt with by diverting it into Afghanistan. But I fail to see how a permanently unstable Afghanistan would somehow be conducive to Pakistan’s own long-term security.
This should be a key argument in our dialogue with Islamabad – a dialogue that we must intensify.
I will be going to Islamabad next month to meet with Pakistan’s new civilian leaders as well as the Chief of Defence. We all need to do a better job together of monitoring and controlling the border, and we need to intensify the work of our Tripartite Commission where our military commanders meet to coordinate their approaches. Above all, we need to establish a permanent dialogue between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the international community to develop a joint strategy. The election of a new Pakistani President gives me hope that this is the right time for a new approach.
At the same time, we need to develop a framework for the broader region. Afghanistan’s neighbours also suffer from the turmoil in that country – just think of the problems that Iran is currently facing from Afghan narcotics. We need to bring as many as we can into a process of regional cooperation. The pacification of the Afghan-Pakistani border is not the panacea for all our problems. As in so many other parts of the world, long term stability and prosperity can only come from the development of a regional framework and economic integration. And I believe that more thought should go into how we achieve this.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The events in the Caucasus and in Central Asia remind us of the challenges our transatlantic community must face. But they also reaffirm the logic of Europe and North America acting together. When we do, we can bring about real positive change.
And NATO will remain a unique tool at our disposal. What started as an idea in the minds of Ernest Bevin and Dean Acheson 60 years ago has become an indispensable pillar of international order. Let us use our Alliance, and use its potential to full effect.
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"Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
About two weeks ago, an exasperated NATO Ambassador asked a question to his colleagues around the Council table: Why is it that we always see so many crises happening in the month of August?
The question was, of course, a rhetorical one, so no one felt compelled to respond. But there can be no doubt that August 2008 will go down in history as a key
moment in international security. “The Guns of August”, to borrow the title of a famous book, will sound in our ears for some time to come.
We saw a war erupt in the Caucasus – with a Russian military response so disproportionate that some observers started musing about a second Cold War. As I will try to explain later in my remarks, I don’t believe that a second Cold War is in the offing. But one thing is clear: the role that Russia wants to play in the new international system still remains uncertain.
At the same time, the month of August and the first two weeks of September have also seen fierce fighting and a large number of casualties in Afghanistan – many NATO soldiers and many Afghans have lost their lives, and I want to use this opportunity to express my sympathy to the loved ones and friends of all those British soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
We have also seen the Taliban and other extremist forces strengthen their positions in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. It is thus becoming ever clearer that success in Afghanistan can only be achieved if we engage Pakistan in a common effort against extremism which threatens the future of the entire region.
Conflict in the Caucasus, instability in and around Afghanistan – these two theatres alone would seem more than one can handle at any given time. Yet we all know that these crises are not happening in a vacuum. Both conflicts will reverberate far beyond their points of origin. I don’t have to explain at length why Russia’s justification for recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia could set a dangerous precedent – with truly global consequences. Nor do I have to explain at length why the conflict will have longer-term implications for our energy policy, notably for the discussion about alternative transit routes.
The conflict in Afghanistan, too, is more than a regional issue. It is about
our response to the global phenomenon of international terrorism. It is about our readiness to support fragile young democracies that are trying to take their people out of poverty and into the modern world. It is about long-term stability in Central Asia. And it is about the struggle of moderate Islam to prevail against the forces of fanaticism.
Samuel Johnson once said that the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind. I am not suggesting that we are in any immediate danger of being hung, but if we don’t want this world to take a turn for the worse, we’d better concentrate on how best to deal with the challenges we face. So let me give you my thoughts on the way ahead – with respect to Russia, and with respect to Afghanistan.
First; Russia. Here, the issues are crystal clear. Irrespective of who did what and when in the August conflict, Russia has demonstrated a disregard for the sovereignty of a small neighbour, and for international law. This has created a major challenge for our partnership. Both NATO and the EU have made it abundantly clear that the very notion of partnership implies due respect for certain agreed standards of behaviour. As long as Russia chooses to ignore these standards, there can be no business as usual. Russia has long demanded to be treated with respect, as becomes a global power. But respect has to be earned – by taking one’s global responsibilities and the defence of universal values seriously, rather than by abusing one’s military might.
In both her actions and her accompanying rhetoric, Russia has shown much assertiveness. But what worries me even more is Russia’s apparent readiness to stand against virtually the entire international community. Russia’s perceived temporary gains in Georgia have come at the cost of her strategic isolation. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin tell us that the West needs Russia, but that Russia doesn’t really need the West. I have no problem with the first part of their statement. Yes, the West does indeed need Russia. But it is an illusion to believe that Russia can go it alone without the West. Going it alone in this global world is simply not an option.
What next? Let me be very clear. A solution to this crisis is possible.
But it will only be found if all parties are willing to make concessions and to walk back from where they are today. Such a solution cannot be found if we simply seek to “punish” Russia. NATO is not in the punishment business. Nor is there any need for us to engage in rhetorical escalation. We do not need to crank up the volume. So let me tell you how I, as the NATO Secretary General, see the way ahead.
As a starting point, we need a sober analysis of the implications of the Caucasus conflict in general, and of Russia’s policy in particular. And then we must devise a sound policy based on that analysis. This exercise has only just begun, so I don’t want to pre-empt its outcome. A few things, however, should be evident.
First, I do not foresee a U-turn in NATO’s policy vis-à-vis Russia. You need to make a U-turn when you’ve gone totally wrong. We, however, have not gone wrong. The key tenets of our Russia policy – a policy of constructive engagement – remain sound. We may have to make adjustments in the way we approach Russia, but we do not need a new policy. No matter how much we may disagree on some issues, the fact of the matter is that both NATO and Russia face a number of common challenges – and both NATO and Russia will be better off by facing them together. That is the reason why we invested so much in the NATO-Russia partnership.
Second, in this new security context, some have called for a reappraisal of the balance between an expeditionary NATO and our core task of collective defence.
Such a discussion is certainly justified. But, again, I do not foresee a 180 degree change in our approach. Article 5 already exists, we don’t have to reinvent it. Neither does upholding Article 5 require us to return to a Cold War military posture in Europe.
Third, irrespective of our approach vis-à-vis Russia, we must support Georgia. Indeed, in many respects, this is the most important thing that we need to do in the short-term. And we are doing it. We are helping Georgia to assess and repair the damage caused by Russian actions. And we will continue to support this country in realising its Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
Earlier this week, I visited Georgia together with the Ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council. During that visit, we inaugurated the NATO-Georgia Commission. It conveys the message – to Georgia, as well as to Russia – that geography does not have to determine your destiny, and that the era of spheres of influence is over.
In addition to our meetings in Tbilisi, we also saw the refugees from South Ossetia who were camped around Gori. It was a sobering experience. And it reinforced us in our strong conviction that the people of Georgia cannot afford any more conflict. We will continue to stand by Georgia, but we also expect it to remain firmly committed to democracy and reform. And we made that very clear to all our interlocutors.
Georgia may remain a bone of contention between Russia and the West for some time to come. But this must not prevent us from seeking to cooperate with Russia wherever our interests converge. One key area where this is the case is Afghanistan.
When Russia decided last month to suspend most of her cooperation with NATO, this did not include cooperation on Afghanistan. This is a clear indication that common interests can transcend disagreements in other areas. And it reminds us of the singular importance of Afghanistan in the broader security equation.
The outbreak of the Georgian crisis eclipsed Afghanistan from the headlines – but not for long. Now we are back to the torrent of bad news stories of which Afghanistan seems to offer a limitless supply.
There is an old adage which says that only bad news sells. And if that were true, the publishing industry must have been doing rather well recently.
And yet we have no reason to be so pessimistic. An objective assessment of the situation in Afghanistan should make that clear. Not only is our cause a just cause, our key objective of creating a safe and secure Afghanistan that is able to look after itself remains entirely within our grasp.
What gives me reason to be so confident? Again, let me confine myself to three points. The first one is on security. Yes, there is a widespread perception of a Taliban resurgence, as a result of some spectacular attacks. But, no, the Taliban have not been able to capitalise much on it. They continue to suffer heavy losses. And contrary to some alarmist predictions, they have not been able to strangle Kabul. ISAF will not be defeated, neither tactically nor operationally. And our training of the Afghan National Army is now enabling that new force to engage alongside our own – with increasing success, and with popular support. The ANA now participates in more than two thirds of ISAF’s operations. As the ANA expands, it will increasingly be able to deny our opponents their freedom of movement, hold the gains we make, and ultimately allow Afghanistan to take responsibility for its own security.
The Taliban will not be able to reverse this positive momentum. What they did achieve, however, is to create a sense of uncertainty that permeates the country and hinders progress. It is a cruel irony that the Taliban have now realised that our development efforts in Afghanistan are bearing fruit. That is why they are targeting these very efforts. What we build, they seek to destroy. Their aim is clear: to convince the Afghan people that neither the International Community nor their own Government can provide security for them. And to convince our own publics that our engagement in Afghanistan is doomed to fail.
It is up to us to prove them wrong. And this is my second point: We must see through their propaganda – and do whatever is necessary to defeat them. This does not just mean to provide the military resources that are critical for success. It also means to further enhance our training for the ANA. It means to capitalise on the recent decrease in drug production, by stepping up ISAF’s support for the Afghan Government. It means to lobby even more extensively for a Comprehensive Approach by the International Community – for an approach that will close the gap between security and development.
It means to support the preparation for next year’s elections, which offer a genuine opportunity to re-energise the political process in the country. And it means that our Governments and Parliaments must redouble their efforts to explain to their constituents why it is in our own security interest to prevent Afghanistan from sliding back to pre-“9/11” days.
Within a few months we will have a new Administration in Washington. Whoever wins, I expect the new President to increase US forces in Afghanistan and to focus even more US effort and attention on stabilising Afghanistan and on improving security along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Indeed, President Bush has already started this effort.
While I of course welcome an even greater US effort, I believe that it is important that we continue to make this not just a US responsibility but a collective transatlantic responsibility. When the telephone rings early next year, I hope that the other Allies will also be ready, not just with additional forces, but also with extra contributions to training Afghanistan’s National Army and Police, strengthening its institutions and developing its economy.
Success in Afghanistan also means stepping up our political engagement
with her neighbours, notably Pakistan. And this is my third point. As long as Pakistan’s border region remains a sanctuary for insurgents, Afghanistan will never become truly secure. Clearly, it is up to Pakistan to define its own security interests. Let’s be honest: there are some who believe that instability in Afghanistan is somehow in Pakistan’s security interest. And there are others who believe that extremism in Pakistan could be dealt with by diverting it into Afghanistan. But I fail to see how a permanently unstable Afghanistan would somehow be conducive to Pakistan’s own long-term security.
This should be a key argument in our dialogue with Islamabad – a dialogue that we must intensify.
I will be going to Islamabad next month to meet with Pakistan’s new civilian leaders as well as the Chief of Defence. We all need to do a better job together of monitoring and controlling the border, and we need to intensify the work of our Tripartite Commission where our military commanders meet to coordinate their approaches. Above all, we need to establish a permanent dialogue between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the international community to develop a joint strategy. The election of a new Pakistani President gives me hope that this is the right time for a new approach.
At the same time, we need to develop a framework for the broader region. Afghanistan’s neighbours also suffer from the turmoil in that country – just think of the problems that Iran is currently facing from Afghan narcotics. We need to bring as many as we can into a process of regional cooperation. The pacification of the Afghan-Pakistani border is not the panacea for all our problems. As in so many other parts of the world, long term stability and prosperity can only come from the development of a regional framework and economic integration. And I believe that more thought should go into how we achieve this.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The events in the Caucasus and in Central Asia remind us of the challenges our transatlantic community must face. But they also reaffirm the logic of Europe and North America acting together. When we do, we can bring about real positive change.
And NATO will remain a unique tool at our disposal. What started as an idea in the minds of Ernest Bevin and Dean Acheson 60 years ago has become an indispensable pillar of international order. Let us use our Alliance, and use its potential to full effect.
NATO coverage of Lecture
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