Every time I try to get out, the New York Times’ op-ed pages just pull me back in.
Willy Lam, in a piece headlined ‘Equals at Last, for Better or Worse’:
Chinese GDP, 2008: $4.33 trillion. US GDP, 2008: $14.2 trillion. Military spending as % of GDP, China: 1.96%; US: 4.28%.
Conversely, of course, the United States and China have talked as veto-bearing equals on the United Nations Security Council since 1971. Not 2009.
I give up.
I’ve been following the preparations for the Pakistani army’s offensive all week, as part of the day job. Permit me some nerdish comment here. Not affiliated to or representative of RUSI in any way of course: this is just my personal reaction to a key operation in a big war, which will change as events develop.
Sending just 28,000-30,000 lowlands-recruited soldiers to kick 10,000 professional militants off of a lot of mountains?
I’m rather sceptical.
The Pakistani army did win with 30,000 troops against a similar number of fighters in this year’s Battle for Swat, actually – but the locals had already turned against the Taliban, who were not fighting for their home base, and were not intimately tied to the Mehsud network; and unlike Waziristan, Swat didn’t offer the prospect of uprooting Al Qaeda from a very significant sanctuary.
The idea of sustaining a three-way, month-long “pincer movement” is really odd too, especially because the pincers will close at Makeen, which is right in the middle of South Waziristan.
At the same time, one pincer has the job of deploying all along the border with North Waziristan, an area which I would guess will be the main escape route for fleeing militants. This is going to be a rather difficult operation.
Also, having followed the Pakistani Taliban’s own preparations for the Pakistani army’s offensive all week too, including the attack on army HQ – I suppose it’s not surprising that the Taliban were able to cut all communications in the region just as the army got started. It’s still worrying though.
In which case, lots to follow and learn about over the next month.
PS
The Wikipedia article on the War in North-West Pakistan is exceptional.
Sorry to bang on about Anglo-Libyan relations again.
Still, further to what I said about the haphazard nature of the UK’s Libya policy – it’s striking it should also have led to the Government not to support compensation for victims of terrorism, in case it leads to a “secure energy future” for the UK.
Not just any energy future – a future that will increasingly depend on a man who asked the United Nations to abolish Switzerland last month.
This will not end well.
I read through the official documents on the al-Megrahi affair on Tuesday, just after they were released. (I was rejected for work experience by Newsnight once again, so I thought I may as well do something vaguely journalistic to make up for it. Yeah, I’m a sad individual.)
The UK Ministry of Justice, the UK Foreign Office, and the Scottish Government all released papers “relevant” to the Megrahi case because of media reports of a conspiracy. This Times analysis is a good summary of the document drop’s Megrahi-related revelations.
But the documents are far more interesting than just for what they say about the decision to release Megrahi. They are a devastating snapshot of UK policy towards a key state in the War on Terror since 2007.
And I’m going to argue that they provide more than a hint that those relations have evolved very haphazardly, very incompetently, and into a very dubious state indeed.
Full details below the fold.
This is Joseph Cotterill's memex. You can find out more about it in the colophon.
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