“America tends to underestimate the political cost of this. One post-communist minister recalls trying vainly to convince his American counterparts that staying in Iraq was rather unpopular at home. American military aid to the new democracies has been stingy. And the cost and hassle of America’s visa policies grate harshly. “Estonians don’t understand why their sons are dying in Iraq for democracy and freedom, and yet their families can’t get visas for the United States,” says Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a former foreign minister.

So far, only Slovenia’s 1.9m people have visa-free travel to America. Poland and the Czech Republic have lobbied hard; so did Mrs Vike-Freiberga on her recent trip. But there is little sign of change. In most post-communist countries, each visa application costs a non-refundable $100—a week’s wages. In Romania, even the appointment costs $11, for seven minutes of telephone time.” (Empahsis Mine)

Comment
To be fair to the Bush Administration, the US has lobbied hard for the “Big Bang” approach that has led many of “New Europe” states to be accepted into the EU and has given Central Europe some voice in the world stage through branding them as part of a “New Europe”.

However, the US must follow though on building a relationship with these states. While sending troops to Iraq has bought countries like Estonia closer ties to the US, simple things like visa-restriction fail to show what clear benefit such sacrifices provide back.

Just like at home, the Bush Administration should pursue a campaign to show the people – of Estonia, Poland etc – the benefits of closer ties with the US. Currently, we’re not doing that (or enough) and worse than that we’re losing our chance to prove these people right the next time around.

Additionally, while countries like Bulgaria and Slovenia are small, they represent members of a growing bloc – the European Union – and a post-nation-state identify of “Europeanness”. The US must reach out – both at government and public level – to those who are receptive to the US.

Indeed, reaching out to the Central Europe region (where in Hungary there is a statue in honor of Ronald Reagan in remembrance of the Cold War), can act as a balance to the German and French states, while the US could also provide security against the fear of a possibly reassertive and aggressive Russia (as long as the EU remains anemic in security terms).

Let’s hope that the Post-Bush Administration, whatever that maybe – will take things into the positive direction, if the current Administration cannot.

Noah Schachtman of DefenseTech is always a persistent source of great information regarding the technology and equipment that is used in today’s battlefields. (Via Op-For) In PopularSciences, Schachtman and David Axe write on “Winning—and Losing—the First Wired War“: “U.S. forces in Iraq are waging a pivotal campaign in modern warfare—combat on the first “networked” battlefield. One problem: the enemy has a few networks of its own ”

Schachtman and David Axe go to the heart of the issue in Iraq:

“But now, more than three years into sectarian conflict and a violent insurgency that has cost nearly 2,400 American lives, an investigation of the current state of network-centric warfare reveals that frontline troops have a critical need for networked gear—gear that hasn’t come yet. “There is a connectivity gap,” states a recent Army War College report. “Information is not reaching the lowest levels.”

This is a dangerous problem, because the insurgents are stitching together their own communications network. Using cellphones and e-mail accounts, these guerrillas rely on a loose web of connections rather than a top-down command structure. And they don’t fight in large groups that can be easily tracked by high-tech command posts. They have to be hunted down in dark neighborhoods, amid thousands of civilians, and taken out one by one.”

Net-centric Warfare v. Global Guerillas
Net-centric Warfare defined in a monograph at DODCCRP (same folks who published “Shock and Awe”):

“We define NCW as an information superiority-enabled concept of operations that generates increased combat power by networking sensors, decision makers, and shooters to achieve shared awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater lethality, increased survivability, and a degree of self- synchronization. In essence, NCW translates information superiority into combat power by effectively linking knowledgeable entities in the battlespace”

As Schachtman and Axe noted, NCW is layman’s term the “Walmart-ification” of warfare. (Indeed the monograph of the excerpt above, goes into great detail analyzing the logistical success of Wal-Mart and Dell and other corporations.) But what does NCW look like on the battlefield, Schachtman and Rose describes the following:

“The air-ground collaboration is one of dozens of different ways that network-centric tools are slowly starting to rejigger the military’s hidebound hierarchies. In the Gulf War, the various armed services didn’t talk to one another much, except at the highest levels. That’s partly why there was a six-week air campaign and then a ground attack. During the 2003 invasion, the air and ground assaults struck at once.”

But one of the most powerful tools in battalion command posts like these, notes Garstka, the network-centric theorist, may be one of the simplest: a Web browser, so junior officers can log into secure online forums. There captains and lieutenants can swap tactics, well before they appear in printed field manuals. This is critical in a place like Iraq, where insurgents’ strategies change almost daily. ”

With exception of advance weapon systems and resource intensive efforts like building a Carrier battle group, it is John Robb’s “Global Guerillas” which are best suited to adopting and adapting to technology. For more information on “Global Guerillas”, I strongly suggest reading John Robb’s “THE Bazaar of Violence in Iraq” and “THE Bazaar’s Open Source Platform “. It is required reading in my book.

The US Military and Global Guerillas are both fighting as net-centric agents, but the US Military is after all a hierarchal system, a tool of the nation-state and thus structurally it is slower to adapt. Meanwhile as decentralized and organic entities, “Global Guerillas” naturally evolve into ever more sophistication: the weaker insurgent groups get killed and captured, while the more successful groups sharing and help others replicate their success.

The advantage of the US military (or conventional militaries in general) is its ability to focus its resources into a certain direction in a more coordinated fashion, while the “Global Guerillas” can afford to use a slower trial-and-error method – attrition is not as much as a concern for them.

John Robb’s “Global Guerillas” will always be more nimble and faster that traditional nation-state militaries. The state and its military are by definition more slowly moving, more hierachial and more bound by policies and laws – then numble, adapting, loosely networked, nimble and Global Guerillas. Its not so much that the Global Guerillas are networking better than the US Military, its that the Global Guerillas can afford to adapt more quickly.

Net-Centric Warfare – Myopic Pipedreams
Setting aside the “Global Guerilla” issue, NCW has great limitations. When reading defense experts and their whitepapers/monographs on “Net-Centric Warfare” and “Effects-Based Operation”, we see terms phrases like “information dominance” and “complete situational awareness” and the like.

But the case-studies such war studies experts like to review – Amazon.com, Wal-Mart and Dell – are a world aware from an actual, fluid and “fog” ridden battlefield. There are collecting and analyzing information from a relatively static “battle space” so to speak.

Planning, preparing, executing and adjusting to the changing and fluid battle-space of fourth generation warfare is utterly different than keeping an excellent inventory over your retail logistics network – basically what the Wal-Mart, Dell and Amazon.com case studies are all about. It’s a joke to assume that future soldiers will be equipped with electronic devices to depend on a full host of communication and information share – where will the electricity come from? Are these devices anti-virus proof or even from protected from rough use?

The “Fog of War” will always be a factor that will be foolish to underestimate. Thus, the premise of complete “information dominance” and complete “situational awareness” is a false hope. Net-Centric Warfare is one of the new components of warfare, but it won’t be the last nor the only.

John Podhoretz has done an excellent job in trying to provide some clarity on the immigration debate by understanding that what is the “immigration debates” is actually three different, but overlapping debates:

There are really three immigration debates. There is the cultural debate, there is the economic debate, and there is the security debate. (Emphasis StrategyUnit’s) On matters of culture, I believe as everybody else here does that our immigration policy makes no sense if it is not directed at the process of turning non-Americans into Americans through the instruction of English, knowledge of civics and American history, and helping to instill a sense of pride and commitment to the country.

On economic matters, I agree that if immigrants are not of net benefit to the country, it makes no sense for us to allow newcomers to do harm in this way — and here, in my opinion, the case made by restrictionists is by far the weakest. On security matters, an uncontrolled border is clearly unacceptable, and a panoply of measures, including a border fence, is more than called for.

As for dealing with the illegals already here, there’s a sense in which this debate has been radicalized to such an extent that the Right won’t be satisfied with a policy that does not explicitly advocate expulsion — all other policies being dubbed “amnesty” and therefore illegitimate — while the Left refuses to consider any policy other than special-treatment affirmative-action line-jumping legalization. In other words, there is nothing our politicians can do, absolutely nothing, to satisfy the activists — because neither extreme will be reflected in any kind of law or policy that emerges even from a Washington energized to deal with them. (link)

All discussions on immigration must be careful to not freely mesh-up these differing strands (intertwined as they may be at times) – cultural, economic and security spheres.

Immigration – An International Issue
While the US debates and (hopefully) finds its own path towards intelligently reforming the process of immigration – from Europe to Africa. Note also how these select news items below (by no means representative or exhaustive) can under the issues of security, culture and economic.

Botswana (Via AfricanFiles):
” Zimbabweans are fleeing their politically and economically troubled nation in large numbers. The relatively prosperous Botswanans resent this influx as a threat to their livelihoods, especially the possibility of the spread of foot and mouth disease to their cattle, their second largest earner after diamonds. The electrified fence Botswana is building along the border is viewed by one group as a barrier against animals; it is considered an insult to humans by the other.”

Spain – (Jamestown Foundation, 04 May 2006):
“Spanish security officials continue to worry that members of al-Qaeda will take advantage of the clandestine immigration pipeline route by inserting terrorists to make their way to either the enclaves or to the Spanish mainland. To this regard, the Directorate General of National police recently advertised 357 posts for anti-terrorist officers to monitor potential Islamists in areas where the presence of Muslim immigrants is well known, such as Melilla, Ceuta, Granada, Malaga and Alicante.”

Belgium (Via Brussels Report, 11 May 2006):
“The crisis between the Catholic Church and the government is escalating in Belgium. So far over 30 Belgian churches have been occupied by illegal immigrants or so-called “sans papiers” (“people without papers” [=staying permits]). The latest church taken over by squatters is the Saint Susanna Church in the Brussels borough of Schaarbeek, where a group of thirty women with small children have installed themselves. They were invited in by the local parish priest.”

Conclusion
Immigration is an issue that is not going away. Any historian will tell you that the migration of people has been a fact of human history well before the development of states and of nations. It is simply that globalization has accelerated the course of human migration as compared to decades pasts.

Understanding how to deal with immigration – from the cultural, economic, and security perspectives – will be an important factor in the success of many states, be it those in Europe, United States to Botswana to Japan.

A state built as an anti-immigration fortress will fail in its isolation, but an open door policy may bring more change than a state and its society can be able and willing to handle. As with all things, it is through the middle we will find the answer. I hope that the leaders – in political circles and activist groups – in the US will understand this.

Summary
In a move echoing Nixon’s trip to China, India and the US have announced a groundbreaking nuclear deal, which many have warned as “Nuclear Madness” helping to accelerate dangerous nuclear proliferation. “Unsettling” this thought is, the reality is that nuclear proliferation cannot be stopped, so the US must well to play the nuclear card when it can. The hope is that this deal is the beginning of growing closer ties between the two world’s leading and largest democracies, which includes the recognition of a new Core power into the fold of the Core states.

The great challenge is for the Post-Bush Administration to carry on with increasing US ties with India for the Bush Administration and the one after to resist temptations to make India a bulwark against China. India is too confident, important and practical to be a pawn for the US; hopefully, the US will not only recognize that, but can see India as a way for bringing more stability to the South Asia and its neighboring region and expanding the Core. India should not play any role in competing against China, but rather help bring China in to the Core as a responsible and productive partner.

Click here for further analysis including sections on:
- Nuclear Fears
- Risking Nuclear Issues for New Realities
- India and the Anglosphere? And What about China?

Related Past Postings:

1. Needed in Asia: Security and Energy Cooperation”
2. Year of Chinese-Indian Friendship…on Oil?
3. Getting India Right : Recreating the Anglosphere

Nuclear Fears
The grand deal between India and the US on India’s nuclear program was seen as a major concession by the US to India (at what many say, a high cost), as the Economist (March 02) reports:

Details of the final separation plan have yet to be made public. It is understood to list as civilian 14 out of 22 reactors, accounting for some 65% of india’s nuclear-power capacity. India will have the right to choose how to classify any future reactors. In return for assurances about the supply of nuclear fuel, it has accepted that once it has put a nuclear facility under international safeguards, it will not be able to withdraw it. These arrangements—giving India far more leeway than America had been demanding—may not be enough to enable Mr Bush to fulfil his offer to amend American laws and persuade other countries to change international rules which prevent nuclear trade with states that do not accept full safeguards.

Many fear that the weakening of the NPT and nuclear proliferation will be the prime consequence of the nuclear deal, especially considering questions on India’s nuclear weapons ambitions. The Economist notes that India has arguing against any agreement that would cap their ability to rapidly produce plutonium (fast-breeder reactor), raising fear of India’s nuclear ambitions especially when it initially stated that it would produce only enough to deter as a defensive weapon. Bob Herbert of NY Time, expresses such fears, when he calls the US-India nuclear deal “Nuclear Madness”

Additionally, there’s the question of the difference between India and Iran (despite that fact has signed the NPT, and India has not signed the NPT). Indeed, this Monday, the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns stated that “while Tehran was trying to extricate itself from the obligations to the IAEA, India was moving towards it. ‘India is the responsible one, Iran is the irresponsible one,’ he said.”

Risking Nuclear Issues for New Realities
While everyone has been concentrating on the nuclear consequences, especially on nuclear proliferation vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea, a wider dimension is required than the limited view of nuclear weapons.

As William Langewiesche of the Atlantic has pointed out proliferation is at the “Point of No Return”, so any analysis on the Indian nuclear deal must understand that the risk of proliferation is not as great when measured against getting building a relationship with a major New Core power.

The Economist does rightfully warns that are “there are plenty of opportunities for the world’s richest democracy and its largest to cement their friendship. Helping India to hone its nuclear skills is hardly a good place to start.” However, its misses the point that China, Russia and Japan can also offer India business deals and even coordination on hydrocarbon energy policy, but blessings on a nuclear program is something only the United States can do at this time.

If the US can reach out to India by addressing its security needs – especially difficult considering India’s energy dealing and stance on Iran and on US relationship with Pakistan – the US can then take the next steps of furthering and sealing economic ties, helping solidify India’s place in the Core and in the Anglosphere. Indeed, beyond helping India both modernize and normalize its nuclear energy program, what else does the US offer that China, Japan and Russia cannot readily offer as well?

Security has to be the foundation of a US-India and eventually an Anglosphere alliance, economics and energy will help solidify it.

India and the Anglosphere, but what about China?
Stephen Green of VodkaPundit is a little too eager when he announces “Welcome to the Anglosphere, India” last Thursday, a single deal wont make an Anglosphere with India a fait compli. But, its a great step indeed.

A number of pundits have commented on India as a potential counterweight against China. This is seen not only by folks in the US but Australia, Indonesia, Japan and others. But this is a false a dangerous hope.

Firstly, China is not a threat as long as it can become ever more integrated with the Old and New Core in the economics. An embraced China is less of a threat than an encircled stubborn China.

Secondly, India (like China) are too much of pragmatist and confident to acquiesce itself as a pawn in Washington’s game. India is recognizing its place in the world as a major partner and will pursue its interests as it sees fit, even if it means friction with the US.

The Bush Administration risked nuclear proliferation and the NPT to bring closer ties with India, recognizing that a new world paradigm is shaping up. Hopefully, the Bush Administration and one after take the next step to not only strengthen ties with India but also reach out to China.

The StrategyUnit has recently posted several articles relating to India, with the strongest being “Getting India Right : Recreating the Anglosphere“, where it is declared:

“There has been discussion that just as Great Britain gracefully passed its world power status to the United States, the United States must look to do the same with India or else face decline in the face of a raising China.”

Now the Economist (Feb 25), ahead of Bush’s March visit to India, leads with two articles highlighting the Bush Administration’s approach with India. The second article, “The Great India Hope Trick“, goes through the three major topics: 1) the difficulty surrounding the Bush Administration’s nuclear technology deal with India; and 2) the American temptation to see India as part of an anti-China axis partner; 3) while India needs and wants to be seen as an equal in any partnership with the US.

The article also touches moves by the US to offer technology to assist with India’s energy security needs, while it faces the difficulty dealing with India’s relationship with Iran, Syria and China on energy projects.

As mentioned earlier on StrategyUnit, India’s geostrategic location near the Middle East, Asia and Central Asia make it an essential ally and a practical ally with its shared Anglo history, language and democractic institutions. While somewhat differing from StrategyUnit, the Economist ends the article highlighting the attractiveness of India highlighting its “Stabiliy, Democracy, and Demography”:

Nevertheless, in the long term, India has two great attractions. One is stability. India has proven mechanisms for the peaceful transfer of power and the ability to withstand terrible internal conflicts—in Kashmir and the north-east, for example—without danger to its integrity. China’s eventual transition to democracy could be traumatic. Another attraction is demography. China’s one-child policy ensures that it will grow old before it gets rich: a generation of only children may suddenly find themselves struggling to support the parents who once pampered them. India will remain younger and more dynamic well into the middle of the 21st century.

For many reasons, a close partnership between India and America seems both desirable and inevitable. The fraught negotiation over the nuclear issue, however, has revealed how difficult it will be to achieve. To America, and to many Indians, it must seem inconceivable that India—still so poor, and so desperately in need of just the sort of help America is offering—should not jump at the chance of a special relationship. How on earth, for example, could the idea of siding with Iran instead be seriously debated? But for many in India, “non-alignment” is a synonym for independence, and should not be sacrificed, however enticing the prize. Moreover, so confident is India’s mood at the moment, that many seriously believe America needs it more than the other way round. Tomorrow belongs to Asia.

Other articles by StrategyUnit for 2006 on India:
1. “Needed in Asia: Security and Energy Cooperation”
2. “Year of Chinese-Indian Friendship…on Oil?“

While the need for a security forum is apparent to all players involved, the specific issue that should help bring a security forum into fruitarian is Energy Security. The need for energy security coordination in a region highly dependent on imported oil is well overdue.

Indeed, even in the OSCE, the current chairman has called for a conference for all OSCE members to discuss the need for better coordination on energy security matters. It is time for the even more imported energy dependent nations of Asia to do the same and much more.

Introduction
Many pundits have been talking about the Asian Century; indeed, the Economist recently ended its special report” article on India with “Tomorrow belongs to Asia”. Asia has been roaring ahead in economics, technology, science and beginning to match such might with political and military power. Yet, there lacks an mechanism to discussion security issues and more importantly coordinate on energy issues

Asia is home to many of the biggest importer of oil, such as China (40%), India (70%), South Korea (~100%) and Japan (~100%), who are also additionally major players in the world economy. Taken into account that some experts have claimed Peak Oil has already passed (December 16, 2006), we see the dire need for such states, many with rapidly growing economies, to take energy security extremely seriously.

Setting-Up Energy Cooperation
As StrategyUnit has mentioned, China and India has already made some steps into energy cooperation, but there is a need for a more formal network towards regional security and coordination in energy security. An organization similar to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is in order to coordinately, share and develop market strategies that benefit all the players in the region, including Russia and the United States. Cooperation/coordination on energy-conservation, diversification of energy types and sources and transportation of energy resources are key areas deserving attention by all states in the region.

A forum that would enable cooperation, coordination and (at least) discussion on energy matters would also lessen the occurence of fierce competiton of energy resources that could lead to unnecessary friction and strain among the Asian states.

The ASEAN, APEC and the East Asian Summit are either not effective enough or does not includes Russia, the United States and India. The participating states in the Six-Party talks (North Korea excluded) along with India should be the initial members in this security organization. Having all states from Burma to the Philippines would prove too unwieldy.

Conclusion
Will such an organization ever appear? In the short-term, there appears to be no major players willing to publicly support such a move, but the India-China cooperation is a sign that in the medium-long term momentum may build as it will become obvious that regional energy cooperation is to the benefit of all.

The one issue fo the United States is Iran, as any talk of energy security would invovle China and India’s energy dealings with Iran. But, ultimately, the US cannot let this one issue (albiet a major issue) lock itself out from having any positive influence in contributing to the energy and security discussions of the growing powers in Asia.

From Port Call:

Cancelling the port deal could mean the end of U.S. basing rights in the UAE, strained relations with other regional partners, and the potential loss of a key defense contract, all viewed as critical in fighting the War on Terror. Collectively, those factors probably explain why the deal hasn’t already been nixed, and why the Bush Administration may put up a fight–even with political allies.
…
Cancellation of the contract would be viewed as an insult to the UAE and its leadership; regional critics would accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy–anxious to utilize UAE bases and sell its defense hardware to the Dubai, but unwilling to let a UAE company manage operations in U.S. ports. Such criticism, in turn, would cause other Gulf allies to question Washington’s long-term committment to the region, and make it more difficult for the U.S. to sustain basing rights in such countries as Qatar and Bahrain.

In the domestic area, the Bush Administration is in a tightspot as it defends the deal, while the Democrats are taking advantage of the UAE deal to look strong in homeland security. However, as Spook86 mentions, the deal has wide geopolitical implications. There’s a lot at stake for the US, the Middle East and the War on Terror (GWOT). Congress has a right to be concerned, but these concerns must be placed in greater political and international context.

For more on US Military Bases in UAE check out GlobalSecurity.org

Via Oxblog, comes a harsh but truthful critque of the QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review) by two MIT grad students:

The Pentagon’s guide to military spending for the next four years will disappoint anyone who believes the U.S. military must adapt to a world where threats come from insurgents and terrorists rather than nation-states.
…
The Navy still gets to build seven DD(X) destroyers, at $2.5 billion apiece, even though the war on terror is not fought on the high seas. The Army keeps its Future Combat System, a $145 billion network of unproven technologies largely irrelevant to defeating insurgents.

Worse, the review recommends building 183 of the Air Force’s F-22A fighters at $165 million each. Designed to counter Soviet fighters in the 1980s, the F-22A is virtually useless in a world where countries prefer surface-to-air missiles over expensive air forces of their own. Moreover, the United States already has a large arsenal of F-15 and F-16 fighters and is building more than 2,000 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

The QDR does nothing to shift funding to the services most relevant to today’s threats.

In a $440 billion budget (excluding war costs), the Army gets about 25 percent, the Air Force 33 percent, and the Navy and Marines another 33 percent. The rest goes to departmentwide operations.

If the QDR took its own analysis of threats seriously, it would reduce the Navy and Air Force’s budgets to fund the Army and Marines. Ground forces fight insurgencies and stabilize broken states like Bosnia and Haiti. If the United States ever occupied Iran, North Korea or Pakistan, these would be the forces needed to keep order.

The QDR does bless the Army’s decision to increase the number of its combat brigades from 33 to 42, but this is sleight of hand. The new brigades take soldiers from the old ones, meaning the same forces are simply spread into more units. The QDR preserves a military built to fight China or Russia, not the wars we are fighting.

While saying nothing groundbreakingly new, it succintly sums up what’s wrong with the QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review). Read it all here.

More all around QDR bashing found at Christian Science Monitor and the Council on Foreign Relations. Does anyone support the QDR?

Note: Apologies for the light posting…we’ll resume back to normal soon!

Update 01: Max Boot Joins the QDR Bashing

In today’s Christian Science Monitor, Max Boot throws in his two-cents regarding the QDR: “Needed: more troops, not high-tech gadgets“. Excerpt below:

What gives? Why is the Pentagon still throwing money into high-tech gadgets of dubious utility while ignoring the glaring imperative for more boots on the ground? Part of the answer may be politics: Big-ticket weapons have more champions on Capitol Hill than do ordinary grunts. But there also appears to be a large element of strategic miscalculation here.

For all the QDR’s genuflections toward irregular warfare, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld still seems to think that Iraq and Afghanistan are the exceptions, not the norm – that in the future we won’t need so many ground troops. The US has already paid a high price for the misguided decisions not to send enough troops to secure Iraq or to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. Now, it appears, we are fated to make the same mistake on future battlefields, simply because we won’t have enough troops available.

On Central Asia
Tech Central Station has a new article by Ariel Cohen, of the Heritage Foundation, featuring the (tired) title “The Great Game Returns“, where he covers Condoleeza Rice’s imporant trip throughout Central Asia.

Central Asia is the important flash point for the United States, China and Russia (its former imperial power) for several reasons:

• Most hot on everyone’s mind is the resurgence of Islam and the threat of radicalization – of a reason known to embrace sufism and a distinct school of Islam
• Central Asia, while landlocked, has a enormous amount of natural gas resource and a good amount of oil. Kazakhstan alone is set on an ambitious path to exceed the production of the North Sea

Key points from Ariel Cohen:

[On the Purpose of the Condi Rice Trip]
The visit demonstrated Sec. Rice’s balancing act skills. On the one hand, she needs to propel further President Bush’s democratization agenda. But on the other, just like in the Middle East, the imperatives of the war on terrorism and U.S. energy security dictate a more Realpolitik approach.

The stakes are high. Afghanistan and Central Asia are where the rubber of President Bush’s democratization doctrine meets the rocky road of authoritarianism. What’s more, Central Asia is important as a major source of oil and gas. By 2015, the Caspian Sea basin, including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, will produce four million barrels a day — more than Kuwait and Iraq today combined. The region is also surrounded by the emerging giants, energy-starved India and China, and bordered by key Islamist states Iran and Pakistan.

[On the challenge from Russia and China]
In August SCO sent a strong message to its Central Asian members when they conducted unprecedented joint military maneuvers in the Far East. The new de-facto Moscow-Beijing bloc is aimed at U.S. “hegemony” as well as to American rhetoric of democracy.

In the meantime, Islamist radicals are spreading their tentacles in the impoverished and drug-ridden villages and slums of the region. Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Sunni clandestine organization which aims to overthrow secular regimes and create a Califate, has made Uzbekistan its primary target. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is allied with Al Qaeda and active in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border areas.

[Reason for the Special Rice Visit to Kazakhstan]
…
Kazakhstan may be a key to U.S. interests in the region. As Nazarbaev announced in his September speech to the parliament, in ten years his country may surpass Kuwait and Nigeria as an oil exporter, pumping over 2.5 million barrels a day.
…
One hopes that Sec. Rice also encouraged Mr. Nazarbaev to finally authorize construction of a pipeline connecting Kazakh oil fields to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which takes Caspian oil to the Mediterranean and global markets.

She could also praise and encouraged Kazakhstan to promote its unique model of peace and harmony among Muslims, Christians and Jews around the Islamic world. Finally, she could encourage Kazakhstan to sponsor the U.S. gaining observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, so that Washington can alleviate Beijing and Moscow’s fears as to its intentions in the heartland of Eurasia while continue playing an important role there.

I think its a great summary, but on Kazakhstan, I ‘d like to add one more thing to place Kazakhstan’s relationship with the U.S. in greater context: President Nazarbayev has almost alwaysed followed a multi-vectored foreign policy, trying to balance all the major powers in the region:

• Nazarbayev has sought good terms with Russia, its larger and power neighbor in the north and also the original homeland for a sizeable number of Russians in Kazakhstan
• At the same time, Nazarbayev has reached out to China. This year China and Kazakhstan completed the creation of a major pipeline expected to deliver a million bbl of oil per day to China. Before the Sino-Kazakh pipeline, Kazakhstan was wholely dependent on Russia for export of its oil. They are also looking to export Kazakhstan’s natural gas through China.

With Kazakhstan already playing well with Russia and China, naturally Kazakhstan needs to pay attention to the other player in Central Asia: the United States. Especially with the lost of Uzbekistan as a partner in Central Asia, U.S. is in dire need of finding other partners – although Kazakhstan would probably never reach the level of military cooperation with the U.S. that Uzbekistan once did.

And with all this in mind, we move on to the Caucaus…

On the Caucasus
Check back tomorrow…

In a few days, I’ll put my two-cents on the “El Salvadore” option that he mentions.

First, out-innovating the insurgency will most likely prove unsuccessful. The insurgency uses an open-source community approach (similar to the decentralized development process now prevalent in the software industry) to warfare that is extremely quick and innovative. New technologies and tactics move rapidly from one end of the insurgency to the other, aided by Iraq’s relatively advanced communications and transportation grid – demonstrated by the rapid increases in the sophistication of the insurgents’ homemade bombs. This implies that the insurgency’s innovation cycles are faster than the American military’s slower bureaucratic processes (for example: its inability to deliver sufficient body and vehicle armor to our troops in Iraq).

Second, there are few visible fault lines in the insurgency that can be exploited. Like software developers in the open-source community, the insurgents have subordinated their individual goals to the common goal of the movement. This has been borne out by the relatively low levels of infighting we have seen between insurgent groups. As a result, the military is not going to find a way to chop off parts of the insurgency through political means – particularly if former Baathists are systematically excluded from participation in the new Iraqi state by the new Constitution.

Third, the United States can try to diminish the insurgency by letting it win. The disparate groups in an open-source effort are held together by a common goal. Once the goal is reached, the community often falls apart. In Iraq, the original goal for the insurgency was the withdrawal of the occupying forces. If foreign troops pull out quickly, the insurgency may fall apart. This is the same solution that was presented to Congress last month by our generals in Iraq, George Casey and John Abizaid.

Unfortunately, this solution arrived too late. There are signs that the insurgency’s goal is shifting from a withdrawal of the United States military to the collapse of the Iraqi government. So, even if American troops withdraw now, violence will probably continue to escalate.

What’s left? It’s possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting I.B.M.’s embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state’s monopoly on violence by using Shiite and Kurdish militias as a counterinsurgency. This is similar to the strategy used to halt the insurgencies in El Salvador in the 1980’s and Colombia in the 1990’s. In those cases, these militias used local knowledge, unconstrained tactics and high levels of motivation to defeat insurgents (this is in contrast to the ineffectiveness of Iraq’s paycheck military). This option will probably work in Iraq too.