Mr. X By HENRY A. KISSINGER

The NYT gets Henry Kissinger to review John Lewis Gaddis's book about George Kennan for the Sunday Book Review.  Kissinger delivers a compliment or three about Gaddis, and then reviews Kennan's career, not the book.  

And as you might imagine, the Kissinger imperative works its way into the story:

Kennan often shrank from the application of his own theories. In 1948, with an allied government in China crumbling, Kennan — at some risk to his career — advanced the minority view that a Communist victory would not necessarily be catastrophic. In a National War College lecture, he argued that “our safety depends on our ability to establish a balance among the hostile or undependable forces of the world.” A wise policy would induce these forces to “spend in conflict with each other, if they must spend it at all, the intolerance and violence and fanaticism which might otherwise be directed against us,” so “that they are thus compelled to cancel each other out and exhaust themselves in internecine conflict in order that the constructive forces, working for world stability, may continue to have the possibility of life.” But when, in 1969, the Nixon administration began to implement almost exactly that policy, Kennan called on me at the White House, in the company of a distinguished group of former ambassadors to the Soviet Union, to warn against proceeding with overtures to China lest the Soviet Union respond by war. 

Kissinger refers to Dean Acheson as "the greatest secretary of state of the postwar period."  False modesty or a ghostwriter?  Gotta be one or the other, but we are leaning towards the former because no Kissinger Associates staffer would risk the repercussions from making a call like that.

Kissinger - the great Balance of Power practitioner - admired that Kennan (at least at times) shared his Metternich-influenced approach:

Stable orders require elements of both power and morality. In a world without equilibrium, the stronger will encounter no restraint, and the weak will find no means of vindication.

(...)

It requires constant recalibration; it is as much an artistic and philosophical as a political enterprise. It implies a willingness to manage nuance and to live with ambiguity. The practitioners of the art must learn to put the attainable in the service of the ultimate and accept the element of compromise inherent in the endeavor. Bismarck defined statesmanship as the art of the possible. Kennan, as a public servant, was exalted above most others for a penetrating analysis that treated each element of international order separately, yet his career was stymied by his periodic rebellion against the need for a reconciliation that could incorporate each element only imperfectly. 

Kennan's dissenting view on Vietnam is portrayed as follows:

In a turbulent era, Kennan’s consistent themes were balance and restraint. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he applied these convictions to his side of the debate as well. He testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the Vietnam War but on the limited ground that there was no strategic need for it. He emphasized that the threat posed by Hanoi was exaggerated and that the alleged unity of the Communist world was a myth. But he also warned elsewhere against “violent objection to what exists, unaccompanied by any constructive concept of what, ideally ought to exist in its place.” He questioned the policy makers’ judgment but not their intent; he understood their dilemmas even as he both criticized and sought to join them.

Kissinger's final judgement:

So emphatically did Kennan sometimes reject the immediately feasible that he destroyed his usefulness in the conduct of day-to-day diplomacy. This turned his life into a special kind of tragedy. Until his old age, he yearned for the role in public service to which his brilliance and vision should have propelled him, but that was always denied him by his refusal to modify his perfectionism.

(...)

Policy makers, even when respectful, shied away from employing him because the sweep of his vision was both uncomfortable (even when right) and beyond the outer limit of their immediate concerns on the tactical level.

Well.  Not exactly accurate.  After he left the State Dept., Kennan was a consultant to the Cold War arm of the U.S. Government from the 1950's until at least the 1990's.

Disgruntled CP Officials with Access to Secret Docs Posting on Chinese Wikileaks-type Sites

We have been informed that in China disgruntled CP officials and others with access to secret docs have been posting them on myriad Chinese Wikileaks-type sites. Just like the theory predicts. Perfect.

Also that Chinese officials' hands have been forced and they have had to address problems revealed by docs.

And USG thinks they will just bluff, threaten, and punish their way through this.

Gov truly doesn't grasp what is at hand here (even though they have had decades of warning). Although the USA is in a much better position than other security states, given the (ostensibly) open nature of our wider society. The problem for the USG is that with so much bread buttered by the secret state, there will always be pissed off (or suddenly awakened/radicalized) people with access who will take matters into their own hands. Live by big numbers, ...

Speaking of that, some want to know why we haven't let LTC Coombs (BM's atty) in on the specifics of what we (and SMC readers) know. Might be helpful, might not. Not a priority of ours, I answered. Sometimes a US Senator will suffice. (Although the BS about "aiding the enemy" (in the indictment) was kinda special.)

They are trying to send the most serious message to acolytes by the treatment of BM.

It ain't gonna work.

The theory says so.

PS: NSA assumes that they are compromised. Saw it in a doc that was in the HBGary email dump.

The theory would predict that type of OPSEC approach would be a good one (even if they are not in fact compromised).

Also, Russia has its hands full with copycat WLs too - but this has been widely reported, unlike AFAIK the China news

This is Disinfo

No frickin' way.

This is disinfo.

A former CIA officer who managed intelligence reports on Saudi Arabia has sent an uncleared manuscript to congressional offices claiming that China supplied nuclear missiles to the kingdom early in the George W. Bush administration.

“I believe the People’s Republic of China delivered a turn-key nuclear ballistic missile system to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over the course of several years beginning no later than December 2003,” writes Jonathan Scherck in a self-published book, “Patriot Lost,” which he provided to SpyTalk on Monday.

He also e-mailed copies to the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Scherck, who became convinced that the White House was covering up the China-Saudi nuclear connection so as not to damage relations with a major U.S. ally and oil supplier, said he formed his conclusions while reading intelligence reports from Riyadh during his 18 months on “the Saudi account” in the Near East Division between 2005 and 2007, as well as talking with other CIA personnel in contact with the Bush White House
-WaPo SpyTalk

OPSEC Afghanistan--Chinks In The Links

You've probably already seen this piece in this AM's NYT, and some of the info is old news (the Canucks uncovering the purloining of the Dalai Lama emails), but this bit is good stuff.

Spying on Computer Spies Traces Data Theft to China

The Canadian researchers stressed that while the new spy ring focused primarily on India, there were clear international ramifications. Mr. Rohozinski noted that civilians working for NATO and the reconstruction mission in Afghanistan usually traveled through India and that Indian government computers that issued visas had been compromised in both Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan.

Securing the Silk Road - The Path of the Torch

We've been meaning to post the following Balkananalysis excerpts for a tardy week now, if only really to highlight the brotherly antics of Greece's butt-jabbing neighbour (Every year Turkey honors Greece's Day of Independence by violating Greek airspace.) The lighting ceremony now passed, this post is already somewhat dated. Perhaps though, somewhat dated can be considered somewhat tested.

With security for the Olympics, which start in Beijing on August 8 at an all-time-high, China’s concerns have reverberated as far as southeastern Europe, where on March 24 the Greek government will conduct the traditional lighting of the Olympic flame. Greece’s security precautions for the event involve new techniques and technology in practice since Athens hosted the last Olympics, in 2004, and are being executed with an eye to possible threats from political opponents of the Chinese regime, including left-wing terrorist groups, the Uyghur Diaspora, Tibet activists and other potential troublemakers.

The most visible dissidents to China’s political program, which are seeking to use the world spotlight cast on the world’s most populous country that the Games provide, are now the Tibetans. Following recent riots and continuing protests against Chinese rule in Tibet, and an outcry from Tibet activist groups outside the country, China is taking a great interest in identifying those involved. This interest has spread as far as the Peloponnesian home of the original Olympics, where on March 10 Chinese Embassy officials in Olympia filmed a group of Tibet activists concluding their own “Olympic flame” relay, a counter-action meant as a symbolic protest. This data will most certainly be shared with the Greek police, busy executing their final preparations for the March 24^th event.

Greek-Chinese Relations: Smooth Sailing

Bilateral relations between the two countries have greatly expanded over the past few years, facilitated by the expanding role of China in world markets and by the role of the Greek merchant marine, which now transfers the bulk of China’s energy needs, especially its oil.

Diplomatic relations were formally established in 1972, during the time when Western policy formally opened up to Beijing as a counterweight to the then-Soviet Empire. According to information relayed by the Greek Foreign Ministry, “Greek-Chinese relations are excellent… China has a positive stance on the Cyprus issue and Greece supports the principle of One China.”

In the economic sphere, there is strong bilateral collaboration as well, especially in the shipping sector. The COSCO Group is willing to invest in Greek ports by buying controlling stakes, while the shipyards of China are filled with hundreds of orders from Greek ship owners rushing to take advantage of low-cost Chinese labor. In the tourism sector, Greece expects to accommodate some 300,000 Chinese visitors, a market recently making its entrance in Greece but with high potential due to explosive annual growth and high spending per capita.

Chinese Security Concerns

The Olympic Games 2008 will provide a unique opportunity for China to present its heightened role on the world stage. The security concerns of Beijing are mainly concentrated in the existence of minority groups, as now seen in Tibet, with communities scattered across the world that along with political demonstrations may attempt sabotage and even terrorist attacks on the Games themselves. Bloomberg reports that China is spending approximately $300 million on Olympic security (whereas the Greek government spent $1.5 billion to safeguard the 2004 Olympics). According to security expert and an official advisor to the Olympic Games, Dr. Darko Trifunovic, “China is paying considerable attention to terrorism assessment for the Olympic Games. It does not want the event to be associated with anything that can damage its reputation as a safe destination.”

Among the Chinese counter-terrorist efforts is the participation of America nuclear experts in removing radioactive materials from the vicinity of Olympic sites, “part of a security sweep focusing on highly radioactive devices in hospitals and research labs” reported The Canadian Press. “The fear is they could be detonated using conventional explosives - effectively becoming a ‘dirty bomb’ that would spew radiation and sow panic at the global sporting spectacle set for August.” Charles Ferguson of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations described for the Canadian media the security operation as being “precautionary,” adding that “if terrorists were able to take explosives, let’s say, and target a radioactive source that’s located at or near an Olympic site venue and blow up that facility… then that could be a huge international event.”

Chinese Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang has stated that “we face the challenges of terrorism, separatism and extremism.” Attesting to this concern, Beijing recently announced that it had foiled a plot devised by terrorists seeking to take over a passenger plane and crash it in a major city. According to Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the western region of Xinjiang, there were plans “to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics.” CNN reported that “two people were killed and 15 captured in the raid, along with weapons and extremist religious literature.”

Xinjiang province is home to the Uyghurs (also spelled Uighurs), a Turkic minority that has often clashed with the Chinese minority, motivated by dreams of independence, for a region it calls East Turkistan. During the 1990’s it collaborated with Islamic networks and Al Qaeda, and even with the Turkish state, which at the time was trying to expand its influence among the Turkic countries of Central Asia. Should the allegations prove to be correct, an initial serious security threat may have now been found. However, Western observers have also expressed skepticism over the veracity of the allegations, suspecting that China would like to voice security concerns to intimidate its restive minorities.

However, there are demonstrated links between a small number of Chinese Turks and international terrorist outfits. Dr. Trifunovic points out that “Uyghur trainers of Al Qaeda ended up in Guantanamo Bay [prison] in 2001. Six of them were released and they are presently in Albania.” The small Balkan country was the only one that would do the US a favor by accepting the men. A significant Uyghur community also resides in Munich, Germany, which would mean relatively easy access for any troublemakers looking to disrupt the Olympic flame lighting ceremony in Greece.

Another Chinese security concern which has implications for events in Greece next week is the Falun Gong religious sect, which has been in conflict with the Chinese government for years. Via its European representation, the group has made numerous connections in Greece, and developed a network of local supporters and collaborators, materializing in the past in the form of demonstrations in Athens. This activity has occasionally created slight strains in Athens-Beijing bilateral relations.

It is possible that the cult groups may try to hold demonstrations just before the lighting ceremony, in order to voice their public disapproval for the Chinese Olympic Games. It is notable to mention that in 2004 three members of that sect sued the Chinese government in a Greek court, claiming that it practices “genocide and torture” against minority members. Even though it cannot be estimated how many members of the sect reside in Greece, unofficial tallies suggest a community of approximately 1,000 members.

Lastly the ever-pressing issue of Tibet, one which has received much more popular support from Westerners, means another headache for Greek security tasked with safeguarding the lighting ceremony. On the 10th of March, a group of 10 Tibetans tried to enter the archaeological site of Olympia in order to symbolically light up their own fire, using benzine, but were prohibited by the police, though no arrests were made. The arrival of a wave of tourists from China and various European countries for the ceremony has kept local authorities on alert, as they fear similar incidents might be attempted.

Greek Security Preparations for the Olympic Lighting Ceremony

The lighting ceremony will begin at noon on Monday, the 24th of March, at the home of the original Games, Olympia in the Peloponnese. As before every modern Olympics, the torch will then travel throughout Greece – some 1,528 km in all – passing through 43 cities and finally arriving at Panatheneum Stadium in central Athens on the 30th of March at 3PM. On the following day it will be flown to China. During the week-long ceremony, 605 people in all will be involved in handling the torch.

Other concerns for the Greek government which do not involve China-related troublemakers regarding the high-visibility torch ceremony include the existence of certain radical leftist groups, such as the Revolutionary Struggle. The latter was reportedly involved with staging an attack against the American Embassy in January 2007, and is considered to have a considerable arsenal of illegal weaponry, as well as relations with the contraband arms trade in the Balkans, and possibly even with organized crime networks operating in Kosovo; in 2007, Kathimerini reported that the missile launched against the American Embassy had been imported from Albania via the largely Albanian-populated secessionist province of Serbia.

Finally, the generally fragile situation in the Balkans may now be affected as the Greek police are forced to temporarily expend their efforts on the lighting ceremony, rather than on other regional security issues.

Controlling the Path of the Torch, and the Holiday

The path upon which the Olympic flame will pass is considered generally safe. It will follow national roads, which are easily monitored and secured. Nevertheless, the country will be on a heightened state of alert for other reasons as well. The 25th of March is also the national Day of Independence in Greece, traditionally marked by a military parade in Athens. This simultaneous event also means the activation of Greek military units, as Turkey by tradition honors the holiday by violating Greek airspace, as a form of minor psychological warfare. Thus the Greek air force, and the army and navy as well, will have to be on standby.

Route and Itinerary of the Olympic Torch, March 24-30, 2008

1. March 24: Ancient Olympia-Patra-Messologi (Stay overnight)
2. March 25: Agrinio-Arta-Ioannina (Stay overnight)
3. March 26: Metsovo-Grevena-Kozani-Veroia (Stay overnight)
4. March 27: Naoussa-Edessa-Ginniatsa-Ancient Pella-Thessaloniki (Stay overnight)
5. March 28: Larissa-Volos-Lamia (Stay overnight)
6. March 29: Kalamos-Marathonas-Rafina- Panellinios Stadium (2 km from the final destination) in central Athens (Stay overnight)
7. March 30: Delivery of the torch to Chinese Olympic officials at 3PM in Panatheneum stadium (close to the presidential palace, and the most secure area of Athens). The torch will be flown the same night or early the next morning for China.

SOS - Subprime Olympics Securitization

It's not as if there aren't exploitable vectors a plenty to keep negotiating positions vis-á-vis a PR-prickly PRC in bettered balance, particularly during the peri-Olympic interval.

Heck, with competent opportunity managers at our helm it would perhaps not be considered holding hopes too high if one entertained notions of a reasonably coerced Chi-subsidy quietly directed at lessening the blow of the $200 Billion Bernanke-bail-outs scooped from the treasury and handed over to a Wall Street suddenly in love with Keynes. Chi-games and their stash of our treasury securities in some kind of sufficiently stabilized order in exchange for the lessening of indignation and wrath surely felt by the many friends of Friedman now gnashing their principled teeth at the actions of a hyper-interventionist Fed.

Enough of conspiratorial silliness. While considerable Chinese focus in securing the Beijing Olympics will be on terrorism-related scenarios likely to arise from foreign terrorists, likely scenarios from domestic disgruntled elements might deserve attention. Among these one could mention the Uighur jihadi terrorists who have close links with Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF), the Tibetan activists, the members of the Falun Gong and irrational Chinese individuals. On the basis of the evidence presently available, it is assessed that the Uighur terrorists have a capability for diversionary attacks in Xinjiang and against Chinese nationals, interests, diplomatic missions and offices in Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics. The Tibetans have motivated activists, who might indulge in political acts such as shouting slogans, demonstrations, self-immolation etc. The Falun Gong could also indulge in such political acts. In the case of irrational elements, one cannot rule out acts of copy-cat terrorism similar to what happened at Atlanta.

From a paper by Director B. Raman, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai:

After a long interval of inactivity in the Xinjiang region of China, Uighur extremist elements have again been involved in two incidents reported by the Chinese authorities from that region.

The first incident took place at Urumqi, the capital of the province, on January 27,2008. There was reportedly an exchange of fire between the police and some Uighur extremists when the police raided a hide-out of a suspected sleeper cell of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an associate of Al Qaeda with close links to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or Group, another Uzbek group. While the objectives of the IMU are regional and confined to Uzbekistan and other Central Asian Republics and Xinjiang, those of the IJU are global. The IJU projects itself as a global jihadi organisation with no specific ethnic identity.

According to the official version of the raid, two Uighur extremists were killed and 15 others arrested by the Police. Five police officers were injured. Chinese officials refrained from giving publicity to this incident for nearly a month. They officially gave out the details only after the regional media in China started reporting about it, presumably on the basis of briefings from officials at the lower levels.

The Chinese authorities have assessed this incident as an indicator of a revival of the ETIM's activities as a prelude to a possible terrorist strike to be staged just before or during the Beijing Olympics of August,2008. While there is no reason to doubt the veracity of the facts as reported by Chinese officials, their linking it to the Olympics seems to be based more on precautionary speculation than on concrete evidence.

The second incident was reported to have taken place on board a Chinese commercial plane flying from Urumqi to Beijing on March 7,2008. Security guards travelling on board the plane overpowered two suspected Uighur extremists, who tried to create an incident. The Chinese media has characterised the incident as an attempted terrorist strike. The plane made an emergency landing in the northwestern city of Lanzhou. The two persons overpowered by the security guards were handed over to the local police for interrogation. The other passengers were also questioned. The police claim to have found some inflammable liquid in one of the toilets on board the aircraft. Further details are not yet available.

It is to be expected that anti-Beijing elements in the Uighur community in China as well as abroad would try to embarass the Chinese authorities and draw attention to their demands in the period before and during the Olympics. These elements fall into two groups. The first group consists of those inspired by the pan-Islamic ideology of Al Qaeda and acting in co-operation with it. In one of his messages of 2006, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No.2 of Al Qaeda, had included Xinjiang in the list of lands historically belonging to the Muslims now under the control of non-Muslims. He wanted all these lands to be "liberated" from the control of non-Muslims. The pro-Al Qaeda Uighurs mainly operate from the camps of the IMU and the IJU in the North Waziristan area of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. It has been difficult to quantify their number. Different reports estimate their number differently----ranging between 30 and 100.

The second group consists of pro-Western Uighurs, who mostly operate from Albania, Kosovo and Turkey. This group includes three or four Uighurs, who were handed over by the Pakistani authorities to the US for being interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba. They were released subsequently since no evidence could be found against them that they posed a threat to US nationals and interests. They settled down in Albania and keep moving between there and Kosovo.

For the last two years, two anti-China video films purported to have been produced by unidentified Uighurs have been disseminated through the Internet. They do not appear to have been produced by As-Sahab, the Psywar and propaganda division of Al Qaeda.

While there is so far no specific evidence that these two groups are planning to stage Olympics-related incidents, the possibility of such incidents has to be factored into in any security plan for the Olympics. The possibilities are incidents not involving the use of violence by the pro-Western Uighurs and incidents amounting to acts of terrorism by pro-Al Qaeda Uighurs.

Meatball Proverb: Crowded Elevator Smell Different to Midget

China will tighten its restrictions on foreign performers following an appearance last Sunday in Shanghai by the Icelandic singer Bjork, who shouted “Tibet, Tibet” after performing her song “Declare Independence.” China’s Ministry of Culture responded to Bjork’s action on Friday by posting a statement on its Web site, saying that she “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people’s feelings”.

DNI's 2008 Threat Assessment (version: Baby Talk)

A week of windy and format-challenged posts it would seem.

The Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (unclassified version) [47-pages pdf} was released earlier this week. Baby talk aside, passages of sufficient noteworthiness were nonetheless not completely in the lacking. Chosen for reasons undulating between the cynical and the significant, here are excerpts we found almost worth the excerpting effort:

Meddled East

• The brutal attacks against Muslim civilians unleashed by AQI and AQIM and the conflicting demands of the various extremist agendas are tarnishing al-Qa’ida’s self-styled image as the extremist vanguard. Over the past year, a number of religious leaders and fellow extremists who once had significant influence with al-Qa’ida have publicly criticized it and its affiliates for the use of violent tactics. [A claim as a picture perfect expression of a Strategic PSYOP in play]

• Many Sunnis who participate in local security initiatives retain a hostile attitude toward Shia parties that dominate the government, and some Shia leaders still view many anti-AQI Sunni groups as thinly disguised insurgents who are plotting to reverse the political process that brought the Shia to power. Security in southern Iraq probably will remain fragile in the coming months as rival Shia groups continue to compete violently for political power and economic resources. In Al Basrah, security remains tenuous. Security also is a problem in northern Iraq. Violence has increased in Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, as both Sunni resistance elements and AQI increasingly focus their activities in the area. The Iraqi government will have to address Sunni Arab concerns over representation on the provincial councils, defeat AQI and the insurgents, and address Kurdish expansionism to improve security in northern Iraq .[Filed under Significant]

• Approximately 90 percent of all suicide attacks in Iraq are conducted by foreign terrorists [Oh? and Really?]

• Negotiations on hydrocarbon laws continue to be stalled by disagreements between the central government and the Kurds over control of resources and revenue sharing. [We keep meaning to write a Mosul for Dummies Like Us]

• Although Riyadh also has made strides against key supporters and facilitators of extremist attacks in Iraq, Saudi Arabia remains a source of recruits and finances for Iraq and Levant-based militants and Saudi extremists constitute the largest share of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq.

Pakistan

• We judge the ongoing political uncertainty in Pakistan has not seriously threatened the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist. The Pakistan Army oversees nuclear programs, including security responsibilities, and we judge that the Army’s management of nuclear policy issues—to include physical security—has not been degraded by Pakistan’s political crisis. [Filed under Significant; 5-page pdf]
  

Russia

• ...we will be alert for signs of systemic changes such as an indication that [Russian] presidential powers are being weakened in favor of a stronger prime minister.
  

• Russia is positioning to control an energy supply and transportation network spanning from Europe to East Asia. Aggressive Russian efforts to control, restrict or block the transit of hydrocarbons from the Caspian to the West—and to ensure that East-West energy corridors remain subject to Russian control

• [Russian] demographic, health problems, and conscription deferments erode available manpower [in the military].

Balkans

• We judge that the Balkans will remain unsettled in 2008 as Kosovo’s drive for independence from Serbia comes to a head and inter-ethnic relations in Bosnia worsen. [Filed under - Definitely not sexy]
  

China

• China’s global engagement is not driven by Communist ideology or military expansionism, but instead by a need for access to markets, resources, technology and expertise...

• Beijing is seeking a constructive relationship with the US and the rest of the world, which will allow China to fully capitalize on a favorable strategic environment. Indeed, Chinese officials consistently emphasize the need to seek cooperative relations with Washington, because conflict with the United States would risk derailing China’s economic development. They also seek to alleviate international concerns about China’s strategic intentions.
  

Ahfriiica

• Persistent insecurity in Nigeria’s oil producing region, the Niger Delta, poses a direct threat to US strategic interests in sub-Saharan Africa. Ongoing instability and conflict in other parts of Africa pose less direct though still significant threats to US interests because of their high humanitarian and peacekeeping costs...

• Tensions between longtime enemies Ethiopia and Eritrea have increased over the past year, with both sides seemingly preparing for a new war. The last war killed about 80,000 soldiers on both sides. If conflict reignites, Ethiopian President Meles’s own hold on power could be put in jeopardy if the war went badly for him.

Resources

• With about 70 percent of global oil reserves inaccessible or of limited accessibility to outside oil companies, competition between international oil companies to secure stakes in the few countries open to foreign investment is likely to intensify. [Filed under Darfur et al]
  

• Global food prices also have been rising steadily over the past two years driven by higher energy prices...The double impact of high energy and food prices is increasing the risk of social and political instability in vulnerable countries.
  

Germs

• The most direct threat to the US is the spread of infectious pathogens to our shores, or within areas where US personnel are deployed.

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Report

From the new report [released yesterday] of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission [364-page pdf]:

• Several Chinese advances have surprised U.S. defense and intelligence officials, and raised questions about the quality of our assessments of China’s military capabilities.

• Chinese military strategists have embraced disruptive warfare techniques, including the use of cyber attacks, and incorporated them in China’s military doctrine. Such attacks, if carried out strategically on a large scale, could have catastrophic effects on the target country’s critical infrastructure.

• China has developed an advanced anti-satellite program consisting of an array of weapons that could destroy, damage, or temporarily incapacitate an adversary’s satellites. The use of high energy lasers to temporarily blind U.S. satellites in late 2006 and the use of a direct-ascent anti-satellite kinetic weapon to destroy an aging Chinese satellite in early 2007 demonstrate that China now has this capacity.

• The Chinese defense industry, while still lagging far behind that of the United States, has begun achieving noteworthy progress over the past ten years. New generations of warships, fighter aircraft, spacecraft, submarines, missiles, and other sophisticated weapon platforms are coming off production lines at an impressive pace and with impressive quality.

• The pace at which each of China’s defense industrial sectors is modernizing varies in direct proportion to its degree of integration in the globalized production and R&D chains, because such integration provides access to the most up-to-date technologies and manufacturing expertise.

• China is supplementing the technologies that its defense industry obtains through commercial transfers and direct production partnerships with an aggressive and large-scale industrial espionage campaign. Chinese espionage activities in the United States are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies.

(...)


Mao Zedong said that maintaining control over information is as important to ensuring continuation of communist rule as maintaining control over the army. This belief still permeates the government of the People’s Republic of China. The obsession with controlling information is one of the cornerstones of China’s internal security strategy. In practice, it seeks to suppress public awareness of endemic corruption, income inequality, growing social instability, democratic ideals that are emerging in some places despite the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to extinguish them, and human rights violations committed by the government. Beijing hides these issues and substitutes messages that attempt to repress dissent and maintain control.

The Chinese government accomplishes this through a carefully crafted system whereby it owns and controls many of China’s media outlets, and oversees the content delivered by the remaining media outlets in China. Under the direction of the Politburo and the government’s Central Propaganda Department (CPD), China’s journalists and editors at every media level are instructed to avoid issues deemed ‘‘sensitive’’ by Chinese leaders, and instead are encouraged to paint positive pictures of life in China. Additionally, those foreign publications and websites that are permitted access to the Chinese market must avoid topics the Party has forbidden. Special filters are used to block Internet messages containing ‘‘undesirable’’ information and to keep Chinese users away from ‘‘unhealthy’’ foreign websites such as The New York Times, Human Rights Watch, and this Commission’s website. Tens of thousands of ‘‘Internet police’’ monitor user activities and online content within China.

(...)

The PRC government has established a group of agencies that work together to manage China’s media content. This network oversees every aspect of China’s media—from television and radio to newspapers and the Internet—and operates under the explicit direction of the Politburo. This group of agencies is practiced and proficient in its censorship function. Journalists are subjected to a number of control mechanisms. Most Chinese reporters are required to participate in mandatory training sessions to indoctrinate them with political propaganda. If they do not attend, their reporting licenses are not renewed. ‘‘Propaganda Circulars’’ prepared by the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) are distributed to all media outlets in China to instruct editors and reporters how to handle developing issues and sensitive topics in their news stories.

(...)

According to a recent report by Dr. Anne-Marie Brady at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, the CCP has divided its propaganda work into two categories: internal (for which the CPD holds primary responsibility) and external (for which the Office of Foreign Propaganda [OFP] holds principal responsibility). Dr. Brady found that both these ‘‘highly secret’’ organizations are very closely linked and coordinated. The OFP is supervised by the Foreign Propaganda Leading Small Group, consisting of a handful of senior CCP leaders led by Mr. Cai Wu, who also heads the State Council Information Office. In her report, Dr. Brady lists China’s guidelines for propaganda. They include (1) issue no bad news during holidays or on other sensitive dates, (2) demonize the United States, (3) do not promote the views of the enemy, and (4) use international news to mold public opinion on issues relating to China. She goes on to explain the guideline pertaining to use of international media:

Selective reporting on international news has proven to be a very effective means of molding public opinion on issues relating to China. Hence, throughout the 1990s, the Chinese media gave detailed coverage of the problems of post-communist societies, while ignoring success stories. Such stories helped to mold public opinion on the likely outcome if China [were] to become a multi-party state. Similarly, China reported factually, but without comment, on the difficulties North Korea faced throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. This served as a caution to those on the left who were critical of China’s market-oriented reforms.

During the lead-up to the Iraq War the Chinese media [were] instructed by the Central Propaganda Department to bring the thinking of the Chinese people in line with that of the party centre, which held the view of opposition to the U.S. invasion. Coverage of the war was used as a means to attack the U.S. government’s position on human rights and other sensitive topics. Reporting on the war was strictly controlled; only officially designated Chinese journalists were permitted to travel to Iraq to report the war.

The 'Nation Brand' Marketplace

From a new Council on Foreign Relations analytical brief, The ‘Nation Brand’ Marketplace:

National public-relations campaigns typically raise eyebrows. The whole idea of a country advertising itself evokes propaganda—and history’s most notable propaganda efforts, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, for instance, or Nazi Germany, carry dark connotations. Yet just in the last ten years, an industry has emerged to help countries better tailor their image. As a new Backgrounder outlines, “nation branding” has established itself as a hip new field, both in academia and consulting.

It’s no mystery why countries find the idea compelling. Public-relations concerns loom over some of the world’s geopolitical heavyweights—and the stakes include economic prowess and diplomatic power, not just tourism. “Brand China,” for instance, finds itself increasingly threatened (BBC) following a flurry of scandals over dangerous lapses in the quality control of Chinese exports. The United States, too, is besieged with bad press. Recent polling data from the Pew Research Center shows global perceptions of the United States at a nadir in many parts of the world, particularly among Arabs and Muslims, but also in Europe and Latin America. These numbers represent a stunning shift from the years between 1989 and 2001, when the world’s views of the United States, even in Islamic states, were overwhelmingly positive.

Red CyberWar Tomorrow - Capitalist CyberInsurgents Now

While we may fret over prospects of a nefariously minded red China cyberattacking the Yahoo out of us tomorrow, there is a growing middle market of domestically based and commercially driven cyberinsurgent (SMC term) entities engaged in personal data theft online and the retailing of such goods to third party cyberinsurgents who deploy these capital goods for further commercialized cyberinsurgent activity.

The U.S. is the country most frequently attacked by commercially driven cyberinsurgents. The U.S. is also where most of these cyberinsurgent attacks originate.

What once perhaps were asymmetric cyberattacks designed to destroy data and collect trophies de chaos have now given way to attacks designed to steal data outright for profit. Not unlike the insurgency raging within Iraq, this cyberinsurgency has progressed to being an amorphous and distributed beast fighting smart and dirty for market share where resources brought to bear against it by the state represent just one more scrapping party (and increasingly marginalized at that) in the maelstrom of market conflict. Settling grudges and collecting scalps simply don't pay enough to keep the production of chaos this long in play.

Based on reports obtained from the FBI, Symantec estimates that commercially driven domestic cyberinsurgent activities, including malicious software development and sales, extortion, and wholesale and retail sales of personal information and credit card data, at present turn over hundreds of millions USD per annum.

As can be said of the technical solutions employed by the IC at large (as Kent's Imperative doth profess), today’s [Cyberinsurgent] activities, even those conducted in the far flung corners of the globe, are more likely to involve commercial off the shelf items and kludged and duct-taped solutions than the things of precision and beauty. To be sure, there is still – and always will be – a certain amount of specialized hardware, and a few new cutting edge platforms. But this new age is a very different one – dominated by Small Stuff, and dual use.

What can and will be said about the resources and strategies needed to counter a commercially driven cyberinsurgency at home? Leave it to Symantec? Time for a domestic cyberCOIN doctrine? Will we need cyberPMCs? Maybe declare a GWOCyT? Rest assured, the odds of knowing somebody adversely, and directly so, affected by commercially driven cyberinsurgents dwarf any reasonable risk of getting bruised by any other spooky entity we're at war with. Or do we perhaps best leave this particular insurgency to the cops and the criminal justice system? Or is this insurgency good for business at large? (Some are) Shallow thoughts tendered for deeper minds to dwell a moment or so upon. Perhaps.

Below are some choice excerpts and conclusions drawn and quartered from Symantec's semiannual Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) Volume XII, covering the six-month period from January 1, 2007, through June 30, 2007. According to Symantec, it is based on Symantec data collected from more than 40,000 sensors deployed in more than 180 countries in addition to a database that covers more than 22,000 vulnerabilities affecting more than 50,000 technologies from more than 8,000 vendors. Symantec also reviews more than 2 million decoy accounts that attract e-mail messages from 20 different countries around the world allowing Symantec to gauge global spam and phishing activity.

The latest Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), Volume XII released today by Symantec Corp. concludes that cyber criminals are increasingly becoming more professional -- even commercial -- in the development, distribution and use of malicious code and services. While cybercrime continues to be driven by financial gain, cyber criminals are now utilizing more professional attack methods, tools and strategies to conduct malicious activity.

During the reporting period of Jan. 1, 2007, through June 30, 2007, Symantec detected an increase in cyber criminals leveraging sophisticated toolkits to carry out malicious attacks. One example of this strategy was MPack, a professionally developed toolkit sold in the underground economy. Once purchased, attackers could deploy MPack's collection of software components to install malicious code on thousands of computers around the world and then monitor the success of the attack through various metrics on its online, password protected control and management console. MPack also exemplifies a coordinated attack, which Symantec reported as a growing trend in the previous volume of the ISTR where cyber criminals deploy a combination of malicious activity.

Phishing toolkits, which are a series of scripts that allow an attacker to automatically set up phishing Web sites that spoof legitimate Web sites, are also available for professional and commercial cybercrime. The top three most widely used phishing toolkits were responsible for 42 percent of all phishing attacks detected during the reporting period.

"In the last several Internet Security Threat Reports, Symantec discussed a significant shift in attackers motivated from fame to fortune," said Arthur Wong, senior vice president, Symantec Security Response and Managed Services. "The Internet threats and malicious activity we are currently tracking demonstrate that hackers are taking this trend to the next level by making cybercrime their actual profession, and they are employing business-like practices to successfully accomplish this goal."

Additional Key Findings

* Credit cards were the most commonly advertised commodity on underground economy servers, making up 22 percent of all advertisements; bank accounts were in close second with 21 percent.

*Malicious code that attempted to steal account information for online games made up 5 percent of the top 50 malicious code samples by potential infection. Online gaming is becoming one of the most popular Internet activities and often features goods that can be purchased for real money, which provides a potential opportunity for attackers to benefit financially.

*Theft or loss of computer or other data-storage medium made up 46 percent of all data breaches that could lead to identity theft. Similarly, Symantec's IT Risk Management Report found that 58 percent of enterprises expect a major data loss at least once every 5 years.

The "Genocide Games" PSYOP and the Burma Crisis

The "Genocide Games" PSYOP -- which for months has concentrated on exploiting China's desire not to allow international political considerations (their support for the Sudanese government, the repression in Tibet, etc.) adversely effect their own propaganda showcase of the decade -- has received a boost of inestimable value from the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Burma.

China's role as the key economic and political facilitator of the Burmese junta is being heavily advertised for all to see. Protests outside Chinese embassies worldwide are "spontaneously" erupting.

By holding China responsible for their friends' actions in Burma, the information campaign aims to, at a minimum, compel action from Beijing to restrain the Burmese generals from continuing the violence against the protesters.

Toward the high end of the scale of desired behaviors from China is for them to coerce the Burmese junta into a power-sharing agreement with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

China's own interests are in play here. Their inexpensive access to Burmese gas and oil under the current regime is being weighed against the prospect of a spoiled 2008 Olympics. And how to handle this mess while preventing a revival of their own democracy movement has to be a big consideration as well.

At this point, the crisis can be resolved only by an effort on the part of China. Hence the ratcheting up of the "Genocide Games" pressure op.

If the Burmese junta fails to pay proper attention to the messages sure to be forthcoming from their Chinese friends and massacres more protesters (the true number to date is much higher than publicly reported), the generals may be invited to relocate permanently to another country.

China would be a likely destination.

Democratic Voice of Burma - Truth as Propaganda Enough

Sometimes the truth is destabilizing propaganda enough. Sometimes.

The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) was launched in 1992 by a group of Burmese students in Europe after an election in which the opposition win was nullified by the country's ruling military junta. Initially only supported and funded by the Norwegian government, DVB now receives funding from Worldview Rights in Norway, National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, and the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute (as part of The Burma Project).

Station manager Khin Maung Win estimates that some 75 % of international news reports about Burma originate from stories and sources developed by the station and its clandestine network of reporters inside of Burma.

Of course there are weightier matters at play than mere freedom agendas, especially when both Soros and the NED are found teaming up - but let's just keep this narrative tight and clean and instead let a jacked and hacked BBC weigh in where I just wavered off:

While the editorial team sits in safety in Oslo, television journalists on the ground risk arrest by secretly filming footage inside Burma, and smuggling the tapes to a neighbouring country.

News editor Moe Aye talks regularly on the telephone to his secret contacts in Burma.

Having established the line, he spends some minutes making sure it is safe, and that the contact cannot be overheard.

The contacts "really want to inform and let us know what is happening inside Burma," explained Mr Moe. "On the other hand they're really concerned about their lives and their security."

The Democratic Voice of Burma says its television programmes are an important part of the non-violent fight in support of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

She was banned by the military from travelling to Oslo to receive her Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

The Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranks Burma third worst for media freedom, after North Korea and Cuba.

Its Burma expert, Vincent Brossel, welcomes the new TV station, and hopes people will risk watching it.

"There is a law against satellite transmission, and you can go to jail if you have a parabole [satellite dish] without a licence," he told the BBC News website.

"But we know now so many people have paraboles and can watch this TV programme. People inside can understand that outside the Burmese are also fighting for democracy.

"A friend told me that recently in Bassein, outside Rangoon, the electricity was cut off when the DVB [Democratic Voice of Burma] programme started. So it means the authorities are afraid of the DVB TV influence."

But back at the television station, editor Khin Maung Win is not worried that the military will stop the programme. He thinks the generals themselves will tune in.

"At the beginning they jammed our radio, but later on they became our regular audience, because they wanted to get real information, even about their own country," he said.

"They cannot rely on reports from their subordinates. So they have to listen to our radio to get real information, or to measure the feeling of the grassroot people. We believe that will happen with television also."

For now Democratic Voice of Burma TV broadcasts two hours of news and educational programmes weekly. [That's been recently ramped up to 9 hours/day due to the crisis at hand -M1]

It wants to expand to become a daily source of television news for viewers inside Burma.

And as long as the media situation remains unchanged, the station will continue to broadcast from far-away Norway.

People's Information War

As a follow-up to yesterday's China Info War post, we bring you the gist of a pretty decent piece by a Hong Kong-based defense analyst.

A careful look at articles and seminars on the topic of "information warfare" from within the People's Liberation Army reveals that the PLA is now placing high priority on this type of computer warfare. A top-level information warfare command has been established under the Fourth Department of the PLA General Staff Headquarters.

At previous conferences and seminars on this subject, Chinese military experts have put forward the concept that information warfare should include a peacetime "information struggle" in the political, diplomatic, financial, cultural and economic areas. At one such conference, the Fourth Department of the PLA raised the idea of establishing the information warfare leadership group at the top level of the Chinese military.

The PLA is also carefully researching U.S. military strategies in this field. Most textbooks on computer warfare used by the U.S. military have been translated into the Chinese language, including "FM 100-6 Information Operations" and "JP 3-13 Joint Doctrine for Information Operations" compiled by the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the PLA has also published two textbooks on information operations. At the level of research institutes, the PLA has established two centers for information operations.

Experts from the 81178 Unit of the PLA believe that a future information war will require combined offensive and defensive tactics. Their offensive tactics include electronic attacks, network attacks and military deception; defensive tactics include information counterattacks, information protection and recovery. This yields insight into how the Chinese military views the relationship between military deception and network attacks.

As for information warfare in joint landing operations, experts from the Command Headquarters of the Jinan Military Region said in an article that an enemy's C3I system should be a prominent target of attack, and emphasis should be placed on disabling the whole network of the adversary, training and employing "cyber warriors" (hackers) and establishing a "Special Cyber Force."

Experts from the Chinese National Defense University also stressed in a report that cyber attacks would become the greatest threat in future warfare. As a consequence, "cyber warriors, cyber spies, cyber propaganda teams and cyber hacker teams" should be employed to crack the enemy's military intelligence and disrupt its computer network and intelligence systems, the report said.

It also put forward the concept of a "people's information war" for the first time, describing this as a form of national non-symmetric warfare, with the people at the core, computers as the weapons, knowledge as the ammunition and the enemy's information network as the battlefield. These experts believe that ordinary people can be mobilized to provide global information support, spread global propaganda and conduct global psychological warfare. Such attacks could be launched from anywhere in the world at the enemy's military, political and economic information systems. If necessary, the experts suggested, computers currently under the control of Chinese enterprises could be dispersed among the people and connected to volunteer Web portals around the world, which would become a combined strategic cyber attack force. The article concluded by emphasizing that training "hacker warriors" should be a priority within the Chinese military.

The Chinese military has also started applying so-called "human wave" tactics to establish its cyber war network, which is internally referred to as the information network squad. The first such cyber operation unit to be set up was the Shandong Zaozhuang Municipal Militia Information Network Squad, with members comprising staff from the Zaozhuang Municipal Telecommunications Bureau. The 48 members of the squad all hold professional titles in computer technology.

The hacker attacks upon overseas Web sites were quite likely launched by similar military cyber operation squads. The establishment of this "information militia" warfare network means that the concept of a "people's war" has been officially introduced in the realm of information warfare.

The Chinese military has paid high attention to computer warfare over the years, and its capability to engage in information operations is now taken as an important benchmark in the improvement of the overall "soft combat power" of the Chinese armed forces. As a result, the PLA has introduced such slogans as "control information" and "information is combat strength."

After the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was mistakenly bombarded by NATO aircraft in 1999 during the Kosovo conflict, Chinese hackers launched waves of attacks upon U.S. networks. Most of these attacks were from the "information militia" -- who claim to have set a record of successfully invading 10 U.S. government Web sites each hour.

In a strategy aimed at attacking the enemy from the rear, China is already launching an information World War, a new type of People's Information War.

China's Cyber Probes -- Test of Disruption Tactic?

China's current military doctrine stresses "information dominance", achieved not necessarily through advances in technology, but instead by tactical innovations in the operational sphere.

We have likely been seeing one of these tactical gambits in practice lately.

When suspected Chinese hackers penetrated the Pentagon this summer, reports downplayed the cyberattack. The hackers hit a secure Pentagon system known as NIPRNet – but it only carries unclassified information and general e-mail, Department of Defense officials said.

Yet a central aim of the Chinese hackers may not have been top secrets, but a probe of the Pentagon network structure itself, some analysts argue. The NIPRNet (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network) is crucial in the quick deployment of US forces should China attack Taiwan. By crippling a Pentagon Net used to call US forces, China gains crucial hours and minutes in a lightning attack designed to force a Taiwan surrender, experts say.

China's presumed infiltration underscores an ever bolder and more advanced capability by its cybershock troops. Today, of an estimated 120 countries working on cyberwarfare, China, seeking great power status, has emerged as a leader.

"The Chinese are the first to use cyberattacks for political and military goals," says James Mulvenon, an expert on China's military and director of the Center for Intelligence and Research in Washington. "Whether it is battlefield preparation or hacking networks connected to the German chancellor, they are the first state actor to jump feet first into 21st-century cyberwarfare technology. This is clearly becoming a more serious and open problem."

China is hardly the only state conducting cyberespionage. "Everybody is hacking everybody," says Johannes Ullrich, an expert with the SANS Technology Institute, pointing to Israeli hacks against the US, and French hacks against European Union partners. But aspects of the Chinese approach worry him. "The part I am most afraid of is … staging probes inside key industries. It's almost like sleeper cells, having ways to [disrupt] systems when you need to if it ever came to war." ...

Probes of the Pentagon system that would bring US intervention should China attack Taiwan are part of a program dating to the 1990s that links cyberwarfare to real-world military action by China's People's Liberation Army. The very probe shows success in China's long-term program, experts say.

"The Chinese want to disrupt that unofficial network in a crucial time-frame inside a Taiwan scenario," says Mr. Mulvenon. "It is something they've written about. When you read what Chinese strategists say, it is the unclassified network they will go after … to delay deployment. China is developing tremendous capability." ...

Of particular alarm for Washington and other world capitals are so-called "zero-day attacks" – cyberpenetrations that look for software flaws to exploit. This is not an uncommon pastime for hackers. But in China's case, suspicion falls on professional hackers, says Sami Saydjari, a Defense Department computer-security veteran who now heads a firm called Cyber Defense Agency in Wisconsin. ...

For several years, China has focused most of its military research and production on a high-tech air and missile-attack force – to overwhelm Taiwan. Hence, China's probe of the Pentagon NIPRNet. "They want to be able to attack the Net. They don't need a supersexy penetration program," Mulvenon argues. "They just bomb the Net itself. They disrupt the deployment of our military, simultaneously saturate Taiwan, delay the US arrival, and Taiwan capitulates. It's what they talk about."

A Bridge As Wedge - Foreign Devils' Silk Road Games

Some 2,300 years ago, a dignitary from the Western world came to the foothills of the Pamir Mountains, and he wondered how he and his army would cross the mighty Oxus River to reach the Hindu Kush. That was when Alexander the Great paused in Bactria to rest his exhausted army and allow the winter to pass, before heading toward the Indo-Gangetic plains in the summer of 326 BC to invade India. The great warrior finally decided to sew up the leather tents and use them as floats to cross over to Afghanistan.

Last month, the US Army Corps of Engineers plugged the gap in Alexander's logistics by building a bridge across the Pyanj River to connect Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The poignancy of the occasion was obvious. US President George W Bush made it a point amid the distractions over Iraq to send a cabinet-level official to be present at the bridge opening ceremony on August 26 in Tajikistan.

What is the significance of a 670-meter bridge? Previously, a sporadic ferry service connected the Tajik town of Nizhny Pyanj with the Afghan town of Shir Khan Bandar. The torrential river currents didn't allow the ferry to operate for months at a stretch when the ice and snow melted in the Pamirs and flooded the tributaries. But the new bridge can easily handle as many as 1,000 trucks per day.

Strictly speaking, US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez didn't have to come all the way to witness the commissioning of the US$37 million project. But the US administration evidently regarded this as a showcase project. Gutierrez said the bridge would become "the widest connection between Afghanistan and the rest of the world". That was an interesting enough diplomatic statement - relating Afghanistan to its northern neighbors.

But more important, he went on to describe the bridge as a "physical and symbolic link between Central Asia and South Asia". Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was present, took a step further ahead and called it a link that "unites Central Asia with Southern and East Asia". China enters the podium.

Great game accelerating

It is extremely rare that the geopolitics of an entire region comes to be encapsulated within a single occasion. To be sure, the ceremony on the banks of the Pyanj River provided a movable feast for politicians, diplomats, the media and strategic thinkers alike. Anyone even remotely interested in the Great Game took note.

It was a microcosm of the highly complex calculus of the politics of Central Asia. Three things became clear:

First, the Great Game in Central Asia not only shows no signs of abating, but it is actually accelerating. Second, Washington is pressing ahead with its "Great Central Asia" strategy, no matter the fluidity of the Afghan (and Pakistani) security situation. Third, Washington has knowingly facilitated an efficient access route for China that leads to the markets in South Asia and the Persian Gulf. Here, the conventional wisdom among the strategic thinkers concerning Sino-US rivalries in Central Asia takes a beating.

The United States has not cared to hide the fact that the primary objective of the bridge over the Pyanj was to provide Tajikistan with a transportation route to the outside world that bypasses Russian territory. But Tajikistan's trade with Afghanistan amounted to a paltry US$25 million last year. Tajikistan is not a great manufacturing center and is unlikely to be one in the near future, though it is rich in precious metals and minerals. It has a subsistence economy. With mountains accounting for 93% of its territory, one potential export item would be electricity and water resources, but Tajikistan doesn't need a bridge across the Pyanj to export those.

Of late, the Great Game, which has been keenly pursued in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, has spilled over into Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The transfer of power to a new leadership in Turkmenistan after the death of Saparmurat Niazov last December opened a window of opportunity for the US to contest the lead role established by Russia and China in accessing the country's vast resources of natural gas.

That is the new great-power rivalry brewing in Turkmenistan. Simply put, the US wants the new Turkmen leadership to take a serious second look at the 10-year-old idea regarding a trans-Caspian gas pipeline for the European market via Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey, which would cut down Europe's growing dependency on Russian energy supplies.

But what is unfolding over Tajikistan is indeed 19th-century Great Gamesmanship - "foreign devils on the Silk Road". Briefly, in October 2002, then-US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld made a tactical error of judgment in choosing to set up military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. During a memorable visit by Rumsfeld to Dushanbe, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon ostentatiously spread a Soviet army map in front of him and made an open offer that Washington could pick and choose any of the military bases that the Soviet army had built. Rumsfeld was not interested.

But hardly five years has passed and the geopolitics of Central Asia had changed so dramatically that Rumsfeld, now a pensioner, must be ruing his error of judgment. With the rupture of US relations with Uzbekistan after the uprising in Andizhan in 2005 and the descending anarchy in Kyrgyzstan after the "Tulip Revolution", Tajikistan's importance has increased as a gateway to Central Asia for the US influence entrenched in Afghanistan.

Tajikistan's strategic importance needs no repetition - it is a corridor leading to the turbulent Ferghana Valley; it borders China's Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region; it is a hotbed of militant Islam; it is an oasis of Iranian (Persian) culture; it controls the region's watersheds; it is a principal route for the drug traffickers from Afghanistan; and it is the furthest post-Soviet military outpost for the Russian armed forces on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Over and above, of course, Tajikistan is integral to the stabilization of Afghan politics. There are more ethnic Tajiks living in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan itself. Tajik nationalism can also be a potent weapon in the hands of Uzbekistan's adversaries.

America's 'Great Central Asia' strategy

Thus, for any number of good reasons, prying Tajikistan from the orbit of traditional Russian influence has become a key objective of US diplomacy. Washington is pressing Japan and the European Union to take interest. EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana visited Dushanbe last week.

The thrust of the United States' so-called "Great Central Asia" strategy is to pull Tajikistan toward Afghanistan by the scruff of its neck, as it were, in an effort to draw the Central Asian region itself incrementally toward the South Asian countries - with Afghanistan acting as a hub, or a revolving door. With the consolidation of US strategic influence in the recent years in the South Asian region, Washington estimates that its skillful midwifery in Central Asia has a fair chance of success.

The US has brought in financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to explore the possibility of funding trans-regional projects aimed at strengthening the infrastructure and communication links among the countries of the Central/South Asian region.

Russia has taken serious note of the United States' Great Central Asia strategy, and signaled that it will resist the alleged US policy to "detach" the Central Asian countries from Russia's sphere of influence. Equally, Chinese commentators have taken exception to Washington's strategy, which in essence aims at stimulating rivalries among the South Asian countries on the one hand and China and Russia on the other at no direct cost to US regional interests.

But in the US understanding, a strategic alliance between Russia and China in Central Asia within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a long way from materializing. More important, the US estimates that it can avoid a strategic alliance by balancing Russia and China individually or off each other. There is a wide range of possibilities for US diplomacy to exploit the differing priorities of Russia and China within the SCO.

Alexander Khramchikhin, chief analyst of Russia's Political and Military Analysis Institute, wrote in Izvestia newspaper recently:

Russia is clearly inclined to turn the SCO into a military-political bloc to confront and counter NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization]. Moscow would like a merger of the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, but our partners are still resisting the idea. Beijing may not be entirely opposed to a military alliance, but its policy is entirely rational and pragmatic ...

Beijing is more inclined to see the SCO's economic component as dominant. China's priority is oil and gas supplies, of course ... SCO is perfect for China's purposes. All SCO countries except Uzbekistan share borders with China, so energy resources can be delivered via safe land routes ... Another advantage [is] an energy market in the SCO framework so that several oil and gas suppliers [Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and perhaps Iran and Turkmenistan] would be competing for one buyer, China ... The economic format of the SCO is advantageous for China because of its powerful economy ... From China's perspective, SCO countries are an important transit corridor for contacts [with the world market].

US-China equations

Not surprisingly, the core agenda of the US policy is to create a wedge between Russia and China. The point is, over the near to medium term at least, Washington doesn't perceive China's growing presence in Central Asia as a pressing challenge to its interests.

Washington's comfort level is due to several factors. First, much as China has made impressive gains in Central Asia, it faces many challenges and competitors while furthering its political, diplomatic and economic presence in the region. Even assuming that Russian influence in the region is waning (which is not the case), the hard reality is that at the end of the day, the Central Asian elites feel far more at home in harboring close ties with Russia than with China. Again, despite recent setbacks, the US remains a major contender in the region. So is Japan, which is fixated with the idea of countering Chinese influence in Central Asia.

Second, in the US perception, Chinese diplomatic strategy in Central Asia is mainly driven by China's domestic imperative of developing and sustaining stable and productive relations around the country's periphery so as to create a beneficial external environment within which Beijing can meaningfully address the enormous sociopolitical and developmental challenges within. Of course, China cannot be faulted if it strives to legitimize its image as a benign regional leader. In other words, the US has no reason to feel "threat perceptions" over the proactive Chinese diplomacy in Central Asia.

Third, Washington appreciates that China has several legitimate national-security interests at stake in Central Asia. The huge territorial concessions that China made in settling its border dispute with the Central Asian states, and the key agreements of 1996 and 1997, showed that China regarded that the region's goodwill needed to be cultivated, and therefore making compromises was every bit worthwhile in China's medium- and long-term interests. China's obsession with the "three evils" manifest in the region (terrorism, separatism and religious extremism) is palpable.

Again, the US would have no reason to quarrel with China for exploring trade and economic cooperation with Central Asia. In fact, it suits the US regional strategy that China is increasingly competing with Russia both in the energy and non-energy sectors. For instance, there is a good possibility that China will replace Russia's UC Rusal in the US$1.3 billion aluminum-cum-hydroelectric project in Tajikistan.

A degree of rivalry already exists between China and Russia in gaining access to Turkmenistan's gas reserves. The fact is, as China moves up the economic ladder, it is better placed than Russia in providing much-needed capital, technology, expertise and the range of consumer goods that the Central Asian countries need. Furthermore, it is possible for the US to harmonize its Central Asia strategy with China's focus on building transportation infrastructure, especially a multilateral highway system, which would only weaken Russia's Soviet-era stranglehold on the region's communication links.

Finally, Washington estimates that since China's relations remain at a relatively early stage in the region, it is only through a strategic partnership with Russia that Beijing can venture into any balance-of-power games. Of course, looking further ahead, Washington and Beijing could find themselves competing for influence in Central Asia as their regional priorities continue to expand beyond immediate security concerns and touch on great-power influence and diplomatic strategy.

In other words, in the short term at least, the US is pursuing a careful policy to engage China in the region and assuring that China's emergence is consistent with US interests. This indeed helps Washington to focus on the immediate task at hand, to roll back Russia's traditional standing in the region.

The bridge on the Pyanj brings out these various templates of the United States' regional policy in Central Asia. It is extraordinary that the US is prepared to go to any extent to undercut the SCO and isolating Russia in Central Asia. There is no denying the fact that China will be the single biggest beneficiary of the bridge that connects Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

Curiously, China seems to have anticipated that Tajikistan will eventually prove to be as crucial as Pakistan as a transportation route. Beijing has been paying enormous attention to Tajikistan by earmarking the bulk of its US$900 million export loan for the SCO for its projects in Tajikistan. China's assistance to Tajikistan in the past five years exceeds US$600 million. Trade touched US$157 million in 2005. But the first half of 2006 alone saw a quantum jump to US$114 million. China is generously investing in Tajikistan's light industry.

The US-funded bridge across the Pyanj River leads in the north to China's newly developed road links with Tajikistan. It provides China's Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region with yet another all-weather communication link with Karachi port, which the Karakorum Highway cannot.

The bridge underscores that China doesn't necessarily have to depend on the SCO for developing its transportation routes to the South Asia/Persian Gulf region.

In fact, a US State Department handout in Washington last week highlights this by pointing out, "On the Tajik side, the bridge will connect to routes leading north, west and east through roads that Japan plans to build or modernize; on the Afghan side, it will connect to Afghanistan's nearly completed ring road and Pakistan's port of Karachi through roads constructed with ADB financing."

There is enough food for thought here for strategic analysts rooted in their belief that China's access to the warm waters of the South Asian/Persian Gulf region would be completely antithetical to US strategic interests.
-M.K. Bhadrakumar at UzReport
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).