NightWatch

For the Night of 15 October 2009

Japan: For the record. Defense Minister Kitazawa said the alliance with the United States becomes more important with China's rise as a military power, Reuters reported 15 October. Kitazawa said that China is building up its navy and air force and its intentions are not clear. He said that as China increases its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, countries may feel threatened and the value of the Japan-U.S. alliance will increase. Kitazawa said Japan wants to improve the current alliance. He added that the U.S.-Japan joint ballistic missile defense program will be largely unchanged.

The new administration is getting up to speed. At some point not yet in sight, Japan must decide to challenge China’s overt bid to be the hegemon of Northeast Asia.

South Korea: Munhwa Ilbo newspaper reported South Korea has “deployed” Hyunmu-3 cruise missiles that have a 620-mile range, enabling it to reach all of North Korea, and parts of China and Japan. Development began in 2006 and testing lasted until 2008; mass production began early in 2009. South Korea kept the project confidential because of other nations' possible reactions, said an unnamed source. A 932-mile cruise missile is under development.

The significance of this report is that North Korea has no known defense against cruise missiles. Some sources report it is trying to those capabilities, but no sources indicate it has succeeded. With so much attention paid to North Korea’s missiles, this story is an important reminder that South Korea is far from a helpless potential victim. Its modern and powerful conventional forces are a key component of deterrence on the peninsula.

North Korea: Update. North Korean media warned of a naval clash off the west coast and accused South Korea of sending warships into its waters near the offshore islands, The Associated Press reported. A spokesman for North Korea's navy stated that South Korea's military "provocations" have created a serious situation that may cause a naval clash to break out between the two sides.

The image that emerges since last spring is that the naval patrols along the Offshore Islands are engaged in a game of “chicken”. Naval clashes in the past decade have resulted in a draw so a rubber match apparently remains to be played, but it will remain localized.

In contrast to the Navy statement, North Korea today apologized to South Korea for the release of water from one of its dams that flooded parts of South Korea near the Demilitarized Zone.

China-Iran: Update. Premier Wen Jiabao stated that China will maintain high-level exchanges with Iran, Xinhua reported 15 October. In a meeting with visiting Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Wen said the Sino-Iran relationship has developed through leadership exchanges and cooperation in trade and energy. Wen added that China and Iran will coordinate closely in international affairs as his country continues to seek a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

China and Russia both are on the side of protecting Iran. Neither will support new sanctions.

Pakistan: Lahore, capital of Punjab Province, came under attack on Thursday, 15 October, by several teams of militants who mounted coordinated attacks against three law-enforcement facilities, killing at least 30 people before security forces brought the situation under control. The dead included 19 police officers and 11 militant attackers.

The three attacks were launched within an hour of each other – starting at 9.30am with a raid on the building that houses Federal Investigation Agency offices and followed by assaults on the Manawan Police Academy and the Elite Force Training Centre in Bedian.

In separate but apparently related incidents, at least 12 people were killed and 24 injured in two bomb blasts in Kohat and Peshawar in western Pakistan, according to police officials and local residents.

The first attack came in southern Kohat district, where a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the Saddar Police Station at around 8 am, killing 11 people – including three policemen – and injuring 16 others. Police sources said that around 100 kgs of explosives were used in the attack.

In the other attack in Peshawar, a remote-controlled car bomb killed a child and injured 12 other people. In Baluchistan, at least two security officials were killed in separate incidents, reported a private TV channel.

The Pakistani Taliban appear to have pre-empted the Pakistan Army in starting an offensive. The news reports make the situation appear much more unstable than it is. Nevertheless, organized, politically motivated criminals are a threat to the state. Pakistan has the capabilities to eliminate this threat, but it is not clear it has the political will. Stay tuned.

Pakistan-India: For the record. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakimullah Mehsud threatened 15 October to send militants to fight India after the creation of an Islamic state in Pakistan, the Times of India reported.

Many Americans will not know that India has more Muslims than most Muslim states, possibly excepting Indonesia and China. In India, both Hindus and Muslims fear a revival of sectarian conflict. When the Hindus fight the Muslims, the Muslims always sustain thousands of deaths. They are outnumbered.

Thus, Pakistan-based threats to incite sectarian violence in India portend genocide for the Indian Muslims. Apparently the Pakistani Taliban consider that an acceptable outcome. The elected government of Pakistan must choose a new path that rejects state-sponsored terror as an instrument of state policy.

One alternative is for India and Pakistan to enter an entente in which India guarantees the safety of Pakistan’s borders and all requested assistance to suppress the Islamist terrorist threat to the Pakistani government.

This entente would free hundreds of thousands of Pakistan Army troops to respond to the Islamist threat to the state. The US could be the guarantor and honest broker of such an entente. But Pakistan would need to exercise due diligence in suppressing the Kashmir militants, as Musharraf did.

Recent attacks indicate the old way of Indo-Pakistani politics must take a vacation while adults deal with present problems. NightWatch is biased slightly in favor of India which has not retaliated for any of the attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists. Pakistan must do more or risk the collapse of the elected government.

Afghanistan: Italy and NATO on Thursday denied a newspaper report that Italian intelligence secretly paid the Taliban thousands of dollars to keep the peace in an Afghan area under Italian control. Premier Silvio Berlusconi's office called the report in the Times of London "completely groundless." The Italian defense minister denounced it as "rubbish" and said he wanted to sue the newspaper.

In Kabul, a U.S. spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan denied the allegations. "We don't do bribes," Colonel Wayne Shanks said. "We don't pay the insurgents."

"The article has unnamed sources, innuendo and hyperbole," Shanks said. "We see no evidence of any of the accusations."

The Times reported that Italy had paid "tens of thousands of dollars" to Taliban commanders and warlords in the Surobi district, east of the capital, Kabul. The newspaper cited Western military officials, including high-ranking officers at NATO, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Comment: WHY? Why deny a tactic that works? Combat operations have failed dismally. The Italians have suffered significant losses. They should take credit for and brag about finding a way to minimize losses and ensure local security, when no other NATO country has achieved the same results!!!

What does the ISAF/NATO command recommend to keep the peace? Bribes/ incentives and imaginative job creation, all work. Heck, Petraeus showed the way in Iraq: buy off the enemy. Forget counterinsurgency doctrine, money works without casualties.

The late Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe, USAF, Director of DIA, once commented that American citizens would pay any amount of money to prevent the loss of American military lives and to recover American military casualties and prisoners of war from Vietnam. Tighe said, the most solemn promise the US makes to its armed service personnel is to bring them back, dead or alive. He berated in public field grade officers who failed to grasp the instruction of their seniors and betters on this issue.

Tighe remarked it was lunacy to think the US would flinch from paying any amount of money to keep its troops safe, as he dressed down a USAF Colonel who said precisely what Colonel Shanks said, but 30 years earlier. Field grade officers invariably repeat the mantra that the US will not pay. That is why they remain colonels and not generals. If American military lives depend on money, the US always pays. It’s just money. There is no free sandwich and flag rank officers understand that. Afghanistan is not some noble crusade; it’s just another fight.

Bribing is what the US did well in Iraq with respect to the 100,000 Sunni Arab fighters loyal to the Awakening. The REAL surge in US bribes ended the Sunni insurgency. Everybody, except for Fox News and a few no-nothings, knows that.

If the Italians have had success in bribing tribes to keep the peace, then they have provided a proof of the concept for Afghanistan. The Roman government should not be ashamed or embarrassed, but should be encouraging others to emulate them so as to achieve a comparable level of stability in other regions.

Political. A runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, is likely, The Associated Press reported today, citing comments from Afghan Ambassador to the United States Said Tayeb Jawad.

Jawad said Karzai's government is preparing for the election commission to announce 17 October that a runoff will be necessary. The earliest a runoff could be held is late October or early November, Jawad said, and results would be expected two weeks later.

If there is a run-off, it will be an extravagance engineered by the UN and the US and have no relevance to the welfare of Afghans. Some sources assert that any role for Abdullah Abdullah will result in civil war.

Legitimacy in Western terms has little meaning in Afghanistan. The Taliban will not stop fighting because the government in Kabul is more legitimate in the view of the US and its NATO allies. A legitimate government can fall just as easily as a corrupt one if it cannot defend itself. The NATO allies will contribute no more resources to support a US-ordained legitimate government than a corrupt one.

Some US officials, NATO officials and their Afghan lackeys might feel better, but time has been wasted and the outcome will contribute nothing to the fight against the Taliban. Worse it will cost money that Afghanistan should more profitably spend raising more security forces.

China: Too good to omit update. The aircraft carrier near Shanghai turns out to be a building in an amusement park. It is not made of concrete, apparently.

The coordinates provided by Google Earth were off significantly. The building is a 7/8 scale model of a Nimitz-class carrier. Imagine an aircraft carrier as a theme park instead of as a weapon of mass destruction.

Thanks to the many Brilliant readers for feedback about the amusement and youth park west of Shanghai.

So how come the Google Earth coordinates identify a location southeast of Shanghai and different from the amusement park? Feedback is invited.

End of NightWatch for 15 October.