The Peninsula Foundation

Category: International Security

  • The beginning of the end of Israel

    The beginning of the end of Israel

    One year later, the flames of genocide still burn, but after decades of persecution and bloodshed, we may well be seeing the beginning of the end of the settler-colonial project in Palestine.

    We have reached a grim milestone. A full year of gruesome Israeli mass murder. A year of epic Palestinian suffering.

    A year of direct Western complicity. A year of continuous media incitement. A year of shameful inaction by international institutions.

    For twelve months, we have seen relentless persecution of human rights defenders across the West, solely for peacefully opposing genocide and apartheid.

    And fifty-two weeks of a horrified global public helplessly witnessing on their screens the first live-streamed genocide in history.

    The carnage of this past year is unprecedented. The destruction is almost unimaginable.

    Still, this genocide will end. The Palestinian people and their besieged nation will undoubtedly emerge from the ashes of genocide, recover, and reassert their inalienable rights in their ancient homeland.

    But international institutions and the global human rights system will be left bruised and battered.

    The political capital expended by the US empire and the broader West in defence of the slaughter, as well as their global standing and reputation, will never be recouped.

    And, almost certainly, this year of cruelty and lawlessness will mark the beginning of the end for the Zionist project in Palestine and, therefore, of the state of Israel as we know it.

    A formula for disaster

    Of course, neither the genocide nor the current wave of slaughter of Palestinians started in October of 2023. The systematic massacre, purging, and erasure of the indigenous Palestinian people began in earnest with the Nakba of 1947-48, and it has not ceased since that bloody beginning.

    And the genocidal threat was always obvious. Any thinking person could see, even prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, that the Zionist project of the West was a formula for disaster.

    First, at the very historic moment when colonialism was being dismantled around the world, and global human rights rules were being adopted at the United Nations, the West carved out an exception for Palestine.

    It was at this moment that Zionist forces chose to attack Palestine, murder and terrorize its population, chase many survivors away in terror, and begin the erasure of the indigenous people, and their replacement with a European settler colony founded by foreign invaders and radicalized by a deeply racist and fundamentally violent political ideology.

    The colony was to be sustained at the barrel of a gun by waging constant war both against the Indigenous people and against the neighbouring states.

    A colonial education system and a media ecosystem were built to dehumanize the Indigenous and neighbouring peoples and to instil a supremacist ideology into the settler population.

    The settler state, its economy, and its society were thoroughly militarized, enlisting all adults in the project of state violence, arming it to the teeth, including with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and even integrating the field-testing of new weapons on captive civilian populations as part of the business model of the colony’s arms industry.

    They ring-fenced the entire project with western-guaranteed impunity, carving out an exception to the application of all rules of international law.

    And they built an all-encompassing machinery of repression, including laws, policies, practices, and technologies to ensure the constant subjugation, dehumanization, and persecution of the indigenous Palestinian people.

    The toxic cocktail was complete.

    Maintaining Western support

    Of course, an artificially imposed European colony in the heart of the Middle East, which is necessarily maintained by force, could never become self-sufficient. Rather, it has always, and will always, rely on massive support from Western states, especially the US. Maintaining that vital support was to become a key goal of the Israeli state and its transnational network of proxy groups.

    As such, in the intervening years, the Israeli regime adopted a strategy of incremental genocide, with simmering persecution and dispossession, punctuated by periodic full-blown massacres and marked by a continuous march of expansion.

    It was a pace, tried and true over 75 years, with which the regime’s Western sponsors were comfortable, allowing them to continue unbroken the flow of military, economic, and diplomatic support without significant domestic pressure at home.

    And it allowed like-minded media corporations, decade after decade, to continuously disseminate pro-Israel propaganda as a smokescreen to obscure the horrific realities being perpetrated against the indigenous people on the ground.

    Expedited genocide

    But when Israel’s current ultra-Zionist government took power last year, it immediately abandoned the strategy of incremental genocide.

    In its place, it moved to expedited genocide (beginning with waves of ethnic cleansing in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank), betting that its Western sponsors (and their captured politicians and complicit media) would not dare (or care) to take the steps necessary to stop it, even when it launched wholesale civilian slaughter in Gaza.

    They were right.

    So much so that Western countries like the U.S., UK, Germany, and others quickly moved beyond mere acquiescence for the genocide and into direct complicity and participation in it.

    As a result, one year later, we are witnessing unprecedented bloodshed in the region, and the broader world is in deep trouble.

    Axis of Genocide

    Thus, Israel is not alone in its march of terror. It is accompanied, in lockstep, by what has been called the Axis of Genocide.

    Four members of that Axis, Israel, the U.S., the UK, and France, are nuclear-armed states. A fifth, Germany, is a serial genocide perpetrator and a major European economic power. Three (the U.S., UK, and France) have veto power in the UN Security Council.

    Adding to the danger, all of its members share a common ideological grounding in militarism, colonialism, white supremacy, and political Zionism. Most have the stain of genocide on their historical records.

    All have political systems that are deeply compromised and corrupted by the influence of the weapons industry, the billionaire class, and the Israeli lobby. And all are marked by profound societal levels of Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism, and anti-Palestinian bigotry.

    And, in defence of a single, small, oppressive, and violent settler colony in the Middle East, all have quickly abandoned the entire edifice of international law and international institutions built up since the end of the Second World War, and which they once claimed as part of their brand.

    As recent history has shown, these biases, linkages, and incentives have become a formula not only for genocide in Palestine but for catastrophe on a global scale.

    Breaking bones and records

    And, indeed, the cost of Western-secured Israeli impunity has been shockingly high.

    Image Credit: @anadoluagency

    In one year, Israel has set new records for the pace of civilian killing, the rate of destruction of civilian infrastructure, the killing of children, the killing of medical personnel, the killing of journalists, the killing of humanitarian workers, and the killing of UN staff.

    The depravity of Israel’s actions has shocked the world. Collective punishment, a chain of massacres, summary executions, torture camps, systematic sexual violence, starvation tactics, imposed disease, the direct targeting of small children with sniper rifles, and the blocking of humanitarian aid to facilitate starvation.

    We have all seen the images. The methodic eradication of whole neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals, universities, food stores, shelters, refugee camps, agricultural fields, and even cemeteries.

    The mangled bodies of Palestinians, the fear-filled eyes of the children, the terror as bombs fall on bread lines. The cold-blooded murder of innocents, of defenceless children like Hind Rajab, trapped in the family car, terrified for hours and then slaughtered by Israeli soldiers, and of thousands of others like her.

    And we have seen the cold, cruel laughter of the Israeli soldiers, the deranged chants of violent Israeli settlers, the genocidal pledges of Israeli political and military leaders.

    The promise of the Prime Minister to wipe out the Palestinians “like Amalek”, a biblical verse that calls for Israel to “utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

    The calls of Israeli leaders to perpetrate another Nakba, to raze Gaza to the ground, to make no distinction between civilians and fighters. To “bury them.”

    And, by now, we have all memorized the familiar barbarous pattern of Israel’s crimes: target civilians and civilian infrastructure, then target the rescue workers who come to help, then celebrate in Hebrew but switch to English to claim that they were all terrorists, human shields, or collateral damage, then reload and do it again.

    The accumulated criminal guilt of the Israeli perpetrators and their complicit Western partners is staggering. But so too is the historic moral lapse of the wider world, both those who have defended the genocide and those who have remained silent as it has been carried out with their tax dollars, with their government’s political support, or in their name.

    Today, everyone knows. No one can say they were not warned before the catastrophe. And no one can say they did not know of the horrors that followed, broadcast in real-time to all of us.

    Seventy-six blood-soaked years into this colonial enterprise, it is clear to all who will see that what the West has constructed in the heart of the Middle East is not an enlightened project, but rather a rampaging Frankenstein monster that threatens to drag the indigenous Palestinian people, the region, and the world into a conflagration from which it may not recover for generations.

    The darkness spreads

    How long the rampage can be sustained is an open question. But there will undoubtedly be much more darkness before the dawn.

    Israel, drunk with Western-backed impunity, even as it continues its genocide in Palestine, is now spreading its attacks across the region and leaving mountains of bodies and rivers of blood in its wake.

    In a matter of weeks, it has waged terror attacks with booby-trapped communication devices in Lebanon, assassinated leaders across the region, launched military attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, has invaded Lebanese territory, and is now seeking to draw its U.S. sponsor into an all-out regional war of conquest and domination.

    For their part, collaborationist governments in the West show little appetite for reining in the rampaging monster that they themselves created in the Middle East, and to which they continue to provide endless flows of arms, money, intelligence, diplomatic cover, legal exceptionalism, and a heretofore impenetrable cocoon of impunity.

    When the reckoning comes, as it must, the accountability of both Israel and its Western accomplices must be secured, lest these horrors be repeated in an endless cycle of atrocity, impunity, and recidivism.

    Israeli impunity is coming to an end

    But there are flickering lights in the darkness, and they are growing.

    The just cause of Palestine and the steadfastness of her people have inspired millions around the world to stand up and fight back. The civilized world is now more mobilized than it has been in generations to oppose the horrific evil unleashed on the world by Israel and its Western sponsors.

    More and more people are escaping from the distorting matrix of Western corporate media and turning to independent media and first-hand sources on social media, delivering a powerful blow to the controlled, pro-Israel narrative of official Western institutions.

    Today, Israel is on trial for genocide at the World Court, and its leaders are the subject of arrest warrant requests at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, including extermination.

    The ICJ has already issued a series of provisional anti-genocide measures against Israel, and a growing list of countries is lining up behind Palestine and South Africa in the genocide case against Israel.

    A dedicated international tribunal is under discussion at the UN. Cases have already been brought in national courts around the world, and more are certain to follow. Plans are also underway to mandate an international anti-apartheid body to focus on Israel.

    In the meantime, the United Nations, its independent human rights mechanisms, and the leading international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations have all collected massive quantities of evidence, have strongly condemned Israel for its shocking criminality, and are working to ensure accountability.

    Mass demonstrations against Israel are not only daily occurrences in capitals around the globe, but they are actually growing, undeterred by the often-brutal efforts (especially of Western governments) to suppress them.

    The ICJ has declared the obligation of all states to cut off all recognition, aid, investment, trade, weapons, and support of any kind with Israel’s colonial project in the occupied Palestinian territory.

    Israel is increasingly isolated on the global stage. And the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions is growing with every passing day.

    In other words, the age of Israeli impunity is coming to an end, despite the best efforts of the U.S., the UK, Germany, and other complicit Western states.

    And we may well be seeing, after decades of endless persecution and bloodshed, the beginning of the end of the European settler-colonial project in Palestine.

    One year later, the flames of genocide still burn. At this tragic moment, it is hard to see through the smoke that obscures the path forward. But white supremacist settler colonialism was defeated in South Africa, Rhodesia, Namibia, and Algeria. It will be defeated in Israel too. Through struggle and solidarity, with law and politics, in resistance and resilience, this will end.

     

    Feature Image Credit: Palestinian Return Center

    This article was published earlier in mondoweiss.net

  • China and the US: Conventional and Nuclear Military Strategies

    China and the US: Conventional and Nuclear Military Strategies

    Occasional Paper: 9/2024

    China and the US: Conventional and Nuclear Military Strategies

    Abstract

    China’s military strategy focuses on developing asymmetric capabilities to counter the United States’ technological advantages and superior military budget by investing in precision missiles, advanced targeting systems, and system destruction warfare. The US initiated the Defence Innovation Initiative to prioritise autonomous learning systems and high-speed projectiles; however, it diminished under the Trump administration, leaving the US reliant on legacy weapons systems vulnerable to new-generation autonomous and hypersonic weapons. Despite China’s advancements, the US maintains a significant advantage in nuclear warheads, with 5,800 compared to China’s 320 in 2020, consistent with Mao’s “minimum deterrent” strategy. While China’s nuclear arsenal primarily comprises strategic weapons, the US possesses both tactical and strategic types. The US complacency regarding China’s military challenge may stem from its nuclear superiority; however, as China progresses technologically, the US risks falling behind by relying on outdated weapons systems, often maintained due to their economic significance in key congressional districts.

    Key Words: #nuclear warheads, #hypersonic weapons, #precision weapons, #asymmetric capabilities, #system destruction warfare, #autonomous learning systems 

     

    Introduction

    Since the beginning of the millennium, China has decided to outsmart the United States’ military strength through a very particular strategy. It aimed at overcoming America’s technological advantages and much superior military budget by investing significant resources in asymmetrical capabilities. As Mark Leonard wrote, China was attempting to become an “asymmetric superpower” outside the realm of conventional military power (Leonard, 2008, p. 106).

    Asymmetric superpower

    Conscious that the Soviet Union had driven itself into bankruptcy by accepting a ruinous competition for military primacy with the US, China looked for cheaper ways to compete. As a result, it invested billions in an attempt to make a generational leap in military capabilities, able to neutralize and trump America’s superior conventional forces. In other words, instead of rivalling the United States on its own game, it searched to engage it in a different game altogether. It was the equivalent of what companies like Uber, Netflix, Airbnb or Spotify did in relation to the conventional economic sectors with which they competed. A novel by P.W. Singer and August Cole depicts how, through surprise and a whole array of asymmetric weapons, China defeats the superior forces of the United States (Singer and Cole, 2016).

    In essence, these weapons are dual-focused. On the one hand, they emphasize long and intermediate-range precision missiles and advanced targeting systems, able to penetrate battle network defences during the opening stages of a conflict. On the other hand, they aim at systems destruction warfare, able to cripple the US’ command, control, communication and intelligence battle network systems. The objective in both cases is to target the US’ soft spots with weapons priced at a fraction of the armaments or systems that they strive to destroy or render useless. The whole notion of asymmetric weapons, indeed, is based on exploiting America’s military weaknesses (like its dependence on information highways or space satellites) while neutralizing its strengths (like its fleet of aircraft carriers). Michael Pillsbury describes this situation in graphic terms: “For two decades, the Chinese have been building arrows designed to find a singular target – the Achilles’ heel of the United States” (Pillsbury, 2015, p. 196).

    America’s military legacy systems

    To counter China’s emerging military threat, the Obama administration put in motion what it called the Defence Innovation Initiative. This was also known as the Third Offset Strategy, as it recalled two previous occasions in the 1950s and the 1970s when, thanks to its technological leaps, the US could overcome the challenges posed by the Soviet military. Recognizing that the technological superiority, which had been the foundation of US military dominance for years, was not only eroding but was being challenged by China, the Pentagon defined a series of areas to be prioritized. Among them were the following: Autonomous learning systems, human-machine collaborative decision-making, network-enabled autonomous weapons, and high-speed projectiles (Ellman, Samp and Coll, 2017).

    However, as with many other initiatives representing the Obama legacy, this one began fading into oblivion with Trump’s arrival to power. As a result, the vision of significantly modernizing America’s military forces also faded (McLeary, 2017). This implied reverting to the previous state of affairs, which still lingers nowadays. In Raj M. Shah and Christopher M. Kirchhoff’s words: “We stand at the precipice of an even more consequential revolution in military affairs today. A new way of war is bearing down on us. Artificial-intelligence-powered autonomous weapons are going global. And the US military is not ready for them (…). Yet, as this is happening, the Pentagon still overwhelmingly spends its dollars on legacy weapons systems. It continues to rely on an outmoded and costly technical production system to buy tanks, ships and aircraft carriers that a new generation of weapons – autonomous and hypersonic – can demonstrably kill” (Shah and Kirchhoff, 2024).

    Legacy systems -aircraft carriers, fighter jets, tanks – are deliberately manufactured in key congressional districts around the country so that the argument over whether a weapons system is needed gets subsumed by the question of whether it produces jobs

    Indeed, as Fareed Zakaria put it: “The United States defence budget is (…) wasteful and yet eternally expanding (…). And the real threats of the future -cyberwar, space attacks- require different strategies and spending. Yet, Washington continues to spend billions on aircraft carriers and tanks” (Zakaria, 2019). A further quote explains the reason for this dependence on an ageing weapons inventory: “Legacy systems -aircraft carriers, fighter jets, tanks – are deliberately manufactured in key congressional districts around the country so that the argument over whether a weapons system is needed gets subsumed by the question of whether it produces jobs” (Sanger, 2024, p. 193). Hence, while China’s military advances towards a technological edge, America’s seems to be losing both focus and fitness.

    Minimum deterrence nuclear strategy

    Perhaps this American complacency concerning China’s disruptive weapons and overall military challenge could be explained by an overreliance on its nuclear superiority. Indeed, in 2020, in the comparison of nuclear warheads, the United States possessed overwhelming superiority with 5,800 against China’s 320 (Arms Control Association, 2020). This was consistent with the legacy of Mao’s “minimum deterrent” strategy. Within the above count, two kinds of nuclear weapons are involved – tactical and strategic. The former, with smaller explosive capacity, are designed for use in battlefields. With a much larger capacity, the latter aims at vital targets within the enemy’s home front. In relation to tactical nuclear weapons, America’s superiority is total, as China doesn’t have any. Nonetheless, in terms of long-range, accuracy, and extensive numbers, China’s conventional ballistic missiles (like the DF-26, also known as the Guam killer) can become an excellent match to the US’ tactical nuclear weapons (Roblin, 2018). The big difference between both countries, thus, is centred on America’s overwhelming superiority in strategic nuclear warheads.

    China’s minimum deterrent nuclear strategy was based on the assumption that, within cost-benefit decision-making, a limited nuclear force, able to target an adversary’s strategic objectives, could deter a superior nuclear force. This required retaliatory strike capacities that can survive a first enemy attack. In China’s case, this is attainable through road-mobile missiles that are difficult to find and destroy, and by way of missiles based on undetectable submarines. Moreover, Beijing’s hypersonic glide vehicle -whose prototype was successfully tested in July 2021- follows a trajectory that American systems cannot track. All of these impose restraint in the use of America’s more extensive arsenal and undermine its ability to carry out nuclear blackmail.

    there is no US defence that “could block” China’s hypersonic glide vehicle “not just because of its speed but also due to its ability to operate within Earth’s atmosphere and to change its altitude and direction in an unpredictable manner while flying much closer to the Earth’s surface”

    For the above aim, Beijing has developed new nuclear ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and a sea-based delivery system. These include the DF-41 solid-fuel road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (with a range of 15,000 kilometres) or the submarine-launched JL-3 solid-fuel ballistic missile (whose range is likely to exceed 9,000 kilometres). To launch the JL-3 missiles, China counts with four Jin-class nuclear submarines, with an upgraded fifth under construction, each armed with twelve nuclear ballistic missiles (Huang, 2019; Panda, 2018). On top of that, there is no US defence that “could block” China’s hypersonic glide vehicle “not just because of its speed but also due to its ability to operate within Earth’s atmosphere and to change its altitude and direction in an unpredictable manner while flying much closer to the Earth’s surface” (Sanger, 2024, p. 190). All of this shows that America’s overwhelming superiority in terms of strategic nuclear warheads results in more theoretical than practical. What might justify a first American strategic nuclear strike on the knowledge that a Chinese retaliatory one could destroy New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or all of the three together?

    Matching the US’ overkill nuclear capacity

    Being an asymmetric superpower while sustaining a minimum but highly credible deterrent nuclear strategy implied much subtility in terms of military thinking. One, in tune with the best Chinese traditions exemplified by Sun Tsu’s The Art of War and Chan-Kuo T’se’s Stratagems of the Warring States. However, in this regard, as in many others, Xi Jinping is sowing rigidity where subtility and flexibility prevailed. A perfect example of this is provided by its intent to match the US in terms of strategic nuclear warheads. In David E. Sanger’s words: “But now, it seemed apparent, Chinese leaders had changed their minds. Xi declared that China must ‘establish a strong strategic deterrence system’. And satellite images from near the cities of Yumen and Hami showed that Xi was now ready to throw Mao’s ‘minimum deterrent’ strategy out of the window” (Sanger, 2024, p. 200).

    Three elements attest to the former. Firstly, 230 launching silos are under construction in China. Secondly, these silos are part of a larger plan to match the US’ “triad” of land-launched, air-launched, and sea-launched nuclear weapons. Thirdly, it is estimated that by 2030, China will have an arsenal of 1,000 strategic nuclear weapons, which should reach 1,500 by 2035. The latter would imply equalling the Russian and the American nuclear strategic warheads (Sanger, 2024, p. 197; Cooper, 2021; The Economist, 2021; Hadley, 2023). 

    Xi Jinping is thus throwing overboard the Chinese capability to neutralize America’s strategic nuclear superiority at a fraction of its cost, searching to match its overkill capacity. In essence, nuclear arms seek to fulfil two main objectives. In the first place, intimidating or dissuading into compliance a given counterpart. In the second place, deterring by way of its retaliatory capacity, any first use of nuclear weapons by a counterpart.

    As seen, the second of those considerations was already guaranteed through its minimum deterrence strategy. In relation to the first, China already enjoys a tremendous dissuading power and the capacity to neutralize intimidation in its part of the world. Indeed, it holds firm control over the South China Sea. This is for three reasons. First, through its possession and positioning there, of the largest Navy in the world. Second, by way of the impressive firepower of its missiles, which includes the DF21/CSS-5, capable of sinking aircraft carriers more than 1,500 miles away. Third, via the construction and militarization of 27 artificial islands in the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos. All of this generates an anti-access and denial of space synergy, capable of being activated at any given time against hostile maritime forces. In other words, China cannot be intimidated into compliance by the United States in the South China Sea scenario (Fabey, 2018, pp. 228-231). Nor, in relation to Taiwan, could America’s superior nuclear forces dissuade Beijing to invade if it so decides. The US, indeed, would not be willing to trade the obliteration of Los Angeles or any other of its major cities by going nuclear in the defence of Taiwan.

    Simultaneously confronting two gunfighters

    It was complicated enough during the Cold War to defend against one major nuclear power. The message of the new [Chinese] silos was that now the United States would, for the first time in its history, must think about defending in the future against two major nuclear powers with arsenals roughly the size of Washington’s – and be prepared for the possibility that they might decide to work together

    Matching the US’ nuclear overkill capacity will not significantly alter the strategic equation between both countries. If anything, it would only immobilize in easy-to-target silos, the bulk of its strategic nuclear force. However, Xi’s difficult-to-understand decision makes more sense if, instead of thinking of two nuclear powers, we were to think of a game of three. This would entail a more profound strategic problem for the United States that David E. Sanger synthesizes: “It was complicated enough during the Cold War to defend against one major nuclear power. The message of the new [Chinese] silos was that now the United States would, for the first time in its history, must think about defending in the future against two major nuclear powers with arsenals roughly the size of Washington’s – and be prepared for the possibility that they might decide to work together” (Sanger, 2024, p. 201). This working together factor should be seen as the new normal, as a revisionist block led by China and Russia confronts America’s system of alliances and its post-WWII rules-based world order.

    Although the United States could try to increase the number of its nukes, nothing precludes its two competitors from augmenting theirs as well, with the intention of maintaining an overwhelming superiority. According to Thomas Schelling, leading Game Theory scholar and Economics Nobel Prize winner, the confrontation between two nuclear superpowers, in parity conditions, was tantamount to that of two far-west gunfighters: Whoever shot first had the upper hand. This is because it can destroy a significant proportion of its counterpart’s nuclear arsenal (Fontaine, 2024). In the case in point, Uncle Sam would have to simultaneously confront two gunfighters, each matching his skills and firepower. Although beyond a certain threshold, there wouldn’t seem to exist a significant difference in the capacity of destruction involved, nuclear blackmail could be imposed upon the weakest competitor. In this case, the United States.

    Conclusion

    From an American perspective, overreliance on its challenged nuclear power makes no sense. Especially if it translates into a laid-back attitude in relation to the current technological revolution in conventional warfare. If Washington doesn’t go forward with a third offset military strategy, it could find itself in an extremely vulnerable position. Just two cases can exemplify this. Aircraft carriers are becoming obsolete as a result of the Chinese DF21-CSS5 missile, able to sink them 1,500 miles away, in the same manner in which war in Ukraine is showing the obsolescence of modern tanks when faced with portable Javelins and drones. If the US is not able to undertake a leap forward in conventional military weapons and systems, it will be overcome by its rivals in both conventional and nuclear forces. For Washington, no doubt about it, this is an inflexion moment.

     

    References:

    Arms Control Association (2020). “Nuclear weapons: Who has what at a glance”, August.

    Cooper, Helene (2021). “China could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, Pentagon says”. The New York Times, November 3.

    Ellman, Jesse, Samp, Lisa, Coll, Gabriel (2017). “Assessing the Third Offset Strategy”. Center for Strategic & International Studies, CSIS, March.

    Fabey, Michael (2018) Crashback: The Power Clash Between US and China in the Pacific. New York: Scribner.

    Fontaine, Phillipe (2024). “Commitment, Cold War, and the battles of self: Thomas Schelling on Behavior Control”. Journal of the Behavioral Sciences, April.

    Hadley, Greg (2023). “China Now Has More ICBM Launchers than the US”. Air & Space Forces Magazine. February 7.

    Huang, Cary (2019). “China’s show of military might risk backfiring”. Inkstone, October 19.

    Leonard, Mark (2008). What Does China Think? New York: HarperCollins.

    McLeary, Paul (2017). “The Pentagon’s Third Offset May be Dead, But No One Knows What Comes Next”. Foreign Policy, December 18.

    Panda, Ankit (2018). “China conducts first test of new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile”. The Diplomat, December 20.

    Pillsbury, Michael (2015). The Hundred-Year Marathon. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

    Roblin, Sebastien (2018). “Why China’s DF-26 Missile is a Guam Killer”. The National Interest, November 9.

    Sanger, David E. (2024). New York: Crown Publishing Books.

    Shah, Raj M. and Kirchhoff, Christopher M. (2024). “The US Military is not Ready for the New Era of Warfare”. The New York Times, September 13.

    Singer, P.W. and Cole, August (2016). Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War. Boston: Eamon Dolan Book.

    The Economist (2021). “China’s nuclear arsenal has been extremely modest, but that is changing”, November 20.

    Zakaria, Fareed (2019). “Defense spending is America’s cancerous bipartisan consensus”. The Washington Post, July 18.

     

    Feature Image Credit: NikkeiAsia

    Text Image: AsiaTimes.com

  • The NATO Declaration and the Deadly Strategy of Neoconservatism

    The NATO Declaration and the Deadly Strategy of Neoconservatism

    For the sake of America’s security and world peace, the U.S. should immediately abandon the neocon quest for hegemony in favour of diplomacy and peaceful co-existence.

    In 1992, U.S. foreign policy exceptionalism went into overdrive. The U.S. has always viewed itself as an exceptional nation destined for leadership, and the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991 convinced a group of committed ideologues—who came to be known as neoconservatives—that the U.S. should now rule the world as the unchallenged sole superpower.

    Despite countless foreign policy disasters at neocon hands, the 2024 NATO Declaration continues to push the neocon agenda, driving the world closer to nuclear war.
    The neoconservatives were originally led by Richard Cheney, the Defense Secretary in 1992. Every President since then—Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden—has pursued the neocon agenda of U.S. hegemony, leading theU.S. into perpetual wars of choice, including Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine, as well as relentless eastward expansion of NATO, despite a clear U.S. and German promise in 1990 to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch eastward.
    The core neocon idea is that the U.S. should have military, financial, economic, and political dominance over any potential rival in any part of the world. It is targeted especially at rival powers such as China and Russia and, therefore, brings the U.S. into direct confrontation with them. The American hubris is stunning: most of the world does not want to be led by the U.S., much less led by a U.S. state clearly driven by militarism, elitism and greed.
    The neocon plan for U.S. military dominance was spelt out in the Project for a New American Century. The plan includes relentless NATO expansion eastward and the transformation of NATO from a defensive alliance against a now-defunct Soviet Union to an offensive alliance used to promote U.S. hegemony. The U.S. arms industry is the major financial and political backer of the neocons. The arms industry spearheaded the lobbying for NATO’s eastward enlargement starting in the 1990s. Joe Biden has been a staunch neocon from the start, first as Senator, then as Vice President, and now as President.
    To achieve hegemony, the neocon plans rely on CIA regime-change operations; U.S.-led wars of choice; U.S. overseas military bases (now numbering around 750 overseas bases in at least 80 countries); the militarization of advanced technologies (biowarfare, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, etc.); and relentless use of information warfare.
    The quest for U.S. hegemony has pushed the world to open warfare in Ukraine between the world’s two leading nuclear powers, Russia and the United States. The war in Ukraine was provoked by the relentless determination of the U.S. to expand NATO to Ukraine despite Russia’s fervent opposition, as well as the U.S. participation in the violent Maidan coup (February 2014) that overthrew a neutral government and the U.S. undermining of the Minsk II agreement that called for autonomy for the ethnically Russian regions of eastern Ukraine.
    The NATO Declaration calls NATO a defensive alliance, but the facts say otherwise. NATO repeatedly engages in offensive operations, including regime-change operations. NATO led the bombing of Serbia in order to break that nation into two parts, with NATO placing a major military base in the breakaway region of Kosovo. NATO has played a major role in many U.S. wars of choice. NATO bombing of Libya was used to overthrow the government of Moammar Qaddafi.
    The U.S. quest for hegemony, which was arrogant and unwise in 1992, is absolutely delusional today since the U.S. clearly faces formidable rivals that can compete with the U.S. on the battlefield, in nuclear arms deployments and in the production and deployment of advanced technologies. China’s GDP is now around 30% larger than the U.S. when measured at international prices, and China is the world’s low-cost producer and supplier of many critical green technologies, including EVs, 5G, photovoltaics, wind power, modular nuclear power, and others. China’s productivity is now so great that the U.S. complains of China’s “over-capacity.”

    Sadly and alarmingly, the NATO declaration repeats the neoconservative delusions.
    The Declaration falsely declares that “Russia bears sole responsibility for its war of aggression against Ukraine,” despite the U.S. provocations that led to the outbreak of the war in 2014.
    The NATO Declaration reaffirms Article 10 of the NATO Washington Treaty, according to which NATO’s eastward expansion is none of Russia’s business. Yet the U.S. would never accept Russia or China establishing a military base on the US border (say in Mexico), as the U.S. first declared in the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 and has reaffirmed ever since.
    The NATO Declaration reaffirms NATO’s commitment to biodefense technologies, despite growing evidence that U.S. biodefense spending by NIH financed the laboratory creation of the virus that may have caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
    The NATO Declaration proclaims NATO’s intention to continue to deploy anti-ballistic Aegis missiles (as it has already done in Poland, Romania, and Turkey) despite the fact that the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and placement of Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania has profoundly destabilized the nuclear arms control architecture.
    The NATO Declaration expresses no interest whatsoever in a negotiated peace for Ukraine.
    The NATO Declaration doubles down on Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” Yet Russia will never accept Ukraine’s NATO membership, so the “irreversible” commitment is an irreversible commitment to war.
    The Washington Post reports that in the lead-up to the NATO summit, Biden had serious qualms about pledging an “irreversible path” to Ukraine’s NATO membership, yet Biden’s advisors brushed aside these concerns.

    The neoconservatives have created countless disasters for the U.S. and the world, including several failed wars, a massive buildup of U.S. public debt driven by trillions of dollars of wasteful war-driven military outlays, and the increasingly dangerous confrontation of the U.S. with China, Russia, Iran, and others. The neocons have brought the Doomsday Clock to just 90 seconds to midnight (nuclear war), compared with 17 minutes in 1992.

    For the sake of America’s security and world peace, the U.S. should immediately abandon the neocon quest for hegemony in favour of diplomacy and peaceful co-existence.
    Alas, NATO has just done the opposite.

     

    Feature Image Credit: Bloomberg

  • Xi Jinping: Assessing his Foreign Policy

    Xi Jinping: Assessing his Foreign Policy

    All foreign policies must aim at attaining purpose, credibility, and efficiency. Purpose defines the main objectives that the country wishes to achieve through its international relations. Credibility comes from international recognition of its actions in this field. And efficiency allows implementation, at the lowest possible cost, of the desired purpose. These three notions, although interwoven and influencing each other, keep their own specificity.

             How does Xi Jinping’s foreign policy qualify in these three areas?

    Purpose

    Its purpose, in tune with that of the Chinese Communist Party before his arrival to power, is sufficiently clear. By 2049, the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic, China should have achieved a prominence commensurate to its glorious past. According to former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, China marches towards the perception of its global destiny with a clear strategy in mind. Such destiny is none other than the resurrection of its historical glory (Rudd, 2017). Projects such as the Chinese Dream of National Rejuvenation, Made in China 2025, and the Belt and Road Initiative, converge in defining concrete goals that lead in that direction. This includes China’s “Great Unification” with Taiwan, the consolidation of a hegemonic position within the South China Sea, making China the epicentre of an Asian-led world economic order, and creating a global infrastructure and transportation network with China at its head. Xi Jinping visualizes the next ten to fifteen years as a window of opportunity to shift China’s correlation of power with the United States. Hence, Beijing seeks the convergence of energies and political determination towards this window of opportunity. The strategic compass of Xi’s foreign policy could not be more precise. Few countries show a clearer sense of its purpose.

    Credibility

             His foreign policy credibility presents a more mixed result. Vis-à-vis the Western World and several of its neighbours, China’s credibility is at a very low point. However, the situation is different in relation to the Global South, where Xi’s foreign policy promotes four interconnected initiatives to expand China’s influence. Besides the Belt and Road, whose objective is creating a China-led global infrastructure and transportation network, there is also the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative. The first, the Global Development Initiative, aims to contrast the unequal distribution of benefits that characterize the West-led development projects with the inclusiveness and balanced nature of this China-led multilateral development project [Hass, 2023]. The other two initiatives, global security and global civilization, present rational and balanced options clearly differentiated from America’s overbearing approach to these areas. In the former case, China’s proposal promotes harmonious solutions to differences among countries through dialogue and consultation [Chaziza, 2023]. The Global Civilization Initiative, on its side, fosters cooperation and interchange between different civilizations, whereby the heterogeneity of cultures and the multiplicity of identities is fully respected [Hoon and Chan, 2023].

    The Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka is one of thousands project that China has helped finance in recent years – Image Credit: The Brussels Times (The so-called China’s debt-trap is a narrative trap).

           However, three dark areas emerge in Beijing’s credibility with respect to the Global South. Number one is the frustration prevailing in many of these smaller and underdeveloped nations, resulting from the contradiction between China’s openness as a lender and its severity as a creditor. This has given rise to the suspicion of a hidden agenda on its part and has led to the coining of the phrase “debt trap diplomacy”. Number two derives from the arrogance shown by Beijing towards the rights of several of its weakest neighbours, disregarding international law. This seems to delineate a tributary vision of its relations with them. Although this only affects China’s neighbourhood, it projects a haughtiness that contradicts its formulations about a more harmonious, equitable and inclusive world order. Number three is the apparent contradiction between Beijing’s proclamation regarding the value of the heterogeneity of cultures and the diversity of identities and its treatment of non-Han Chinese minorities at home. A feature susceptible to reproducing itself abroad. All the above generates a distance between words and deeds that casts a shadow of doubt concerning China’s sincerity. Hence, even within the Global South, China’s credibility shows a mixed result.

    Efficiency

    Finally, there is the area of efficiency. It is a very complex one, particularly given China’s over-ambitious purpose. It must be said that until 2008, Beijing succeeded in rising as a significant power without alarming neighbours or the rest of the world. It even attained the geopolitical miracle of doing so without alarming the United States. Indeed, few countries have made such a systematic and conscious effort to project a constructive international image as China has done to this date. This included the notion of “peaceful rise”, which implied a path different from that followed by Germany before World War I and Japan during World War II when they tried to overhaul the international political landscape. China’s path, on the contrary, relied upon reciprocity and the search for mutual benefit with other countries. It was a brilliant soft power marketing strategy that gave China huge goodwill dividends (Cooper Ramo, 2007).

    “Observe carefully; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership” – Deng Xioping

    Regarding its reunification with Taiwan, it relied on “one country, two systems” and the economic benefits of their interconnection as the obvious means to propitiate their joining together. Regarding its maritime disputes in the South China Sea, after having deferred the resolution of this issue to a more propitious moment, it proposed a Code of Conduct to handle it in the least contentious possible manner. In general, similar approach was evident in Beijing’s handling of various contentious issues.  Beijing’s leadership followed Deng Xiaoping’s advice to his successors: “Observe carefully; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership” (Kissinger, 2012, p. 441).

    “Like Europe, it has many twenty-first century qualities. Its leaders preach a doctrine of stability and social harmony. Its military talks more about soft than hard power. Its diplomats call for multilateralism rather than unilateralism. And its strategy relies more on trade than war to forge alliances and conquer new parts of the world” – Mark Leonard on China in 2008

    Writing in 2008, before the change towards a more assertive foreign policy materialized, Mark Leonard said about China: “Like Europe, it has many twenty-first century qualities. Its leaders preach a doctrine of stability and social harmony. Its military talks more about soft than hard power. Its diplomats call for multilateralism rather than unilateralism. And its strategy relies more on trade than war to forge alliances and conquer new parts of the world” (Leonard, 2008, p. 109). This phrase encapsulates well how China was perceived worldwide, including by the Western World. Not surprisingly, a 2005 world survey on China by the BBC stated that most countries in five continents held a favourable view of that nation. Even more significant was the fact that even China’s neighbours viewed it favourably (Oxford Analytica, 2005). It was a time when all doors opened to China.

    2008 represented a turning point. The convergence of several events that year changed China’s perception of its foreign policy role, making it more assertive. Among such events the most significant was the global economic crisis of 2008, the worst crisis since 1929, resulting from America’s financial excesses; other important events were the sweeping efficiency with which China avoided contagion; the fact that China’s economic growth was the fundamental factor in preserving the world from a major economic downturn; and the boost to Chinese self-esteem after the highly successful Beijing Olympic games of that year. In sum, the time in which China had to keep hiding its strengths seemed to have ended.

    Although this turning point materialized under Hu Jintao, changes accelerated dramatically after Xi Jinping’s ascend to power. He not only sharpened the edges of the country’s foreign policy but made it more aggressive, even reckless. Xi’s eleven years’ tenure in office has translated into a proliferation of international trouble spots. His overreach and overbearing style misfired, generating a concerted and strong reaction against China. As a result, the costs linked to attaining China’s purpose have skyrocketed. This deserves a more detailed analysis of China’s foreign policy efficiency under Xi.

    Intimidatory policies and actions

             Xi Jinping’s intimidatory policies and actions on international affairs have been extensive, bringing with them immense resistance.

    After dusting off a plan that had remained on paper for years, Xi decided to build seven artificial islands on top of the South China Sea coral reefs. After assuring President Obama they would not be militarized, he proceeded otherwise. Contravening international maritime law, he assigned 12 nautical miles of Territorial Sea and 200 miles of Exclusive Economic Zone to these artificial outposts.

    Under the protection of the People’s Liberation Navy, an oil rig was built in the waters claimed by Vietnam as its EEZ. Disrespecting the International Court of Justice’s ruling about the Philippines’ waters in the South China Sea, China has forcefully enforced its exclusionary presence in them. China’s Coast Guard is now authorized to use lethal force against foreign vessels operating within maritime areas under its jurisdiction claims. This, notwithstanding that China’s claimed jurisdiction, goes far beyond what is recognized by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea or the International Court of Justice while disputed by several other countries.

    The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began to ignore the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which it had respected for decades. Frequent and increasingly bold incursions within Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone and reiterated calls to the PLA to prepare for war in Taiwan have become the new normal. The Senkaku-Diaoyu islands, disputed with Japan, have been declared one of China’s core interests, thus closing the door to a negotiated solution. This has translated into the systematic incursion of Chinese maritime law enforcement ships and planes into the territorial and contiguous maritime space of these islands, currently occupied by Japan. Beijing unilaterally imposed an Air Defence Identification Zone over two-thirds of the East China Sea, forcing foreign aircraft to identify themselves under threat of “defensive measures” by the PLA Air Force.

             Since 2017, China has reneged on the quite borders with India and engaged in a series of border skirmishes. It has resorted to intrusions into border regions under dispute resulting in a major skirmish in Ladakh with significant casualties, the first since 1987. In 2023, China released an official standard map showing India’s state of Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India and Askai Chin plateau in the Indian territory of Ladakh in the west, as official parts of its territory, despite India’s objections. At the same time, it renamed 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh with Chinese names. When South Korea decided to deploy the US Army’s THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence) ballistic missile defence, as protection against the growing North Korean threat, China put in motion an economic boycott of South Korean products and services. When Australia and New Zealand protested against Chinese interference in their domestic political systems, Beijing openly threatened to impose economic sanctions on governments or private actors criticising China’s behaviour. A few years later, it effectively banned most Australian exports when Canberra proposed an international scientific investigation on the origins of COVID-19. When Canada detained Huawei’s heiress, Meng Wanzhou, answering an American judicial request, Beijing jailed and presented accusations against two Canadian businessmen based in China (releasing them hours after Meng was released).

    Antagonizing Americans and Europeans

             Xi’s rhetoric in relation to the U.S. has been highly aggressive. Reversing the terms of Deng Xiaoping’s advice to his successors to hide China’s strengths while bidding for right time, Xi has alerted America about its intent to challenge and displace it as the foremost power soon. He has repeatedly referred; to the primacy of China in the emerging world order as its most important objective, to the next ten to fifteen years as the inflexion point when a change in the correlation of power between the two countries should be taking place, to the need to overcome the U.S.’ technological leadership, to the necessity for the PLA to ready itself to wage and win wars, and to the next ten years as a time of confrontation and dangerous storms.

    Xi Jinping starts his European tour in Paris on May6, 2024, his first in five years as China-EU trade relation have hit a low. Picture Source: Sky News.

             China’s actions have also antagonized the Europeans. These relate to China’s refusal to use the term “invasion” when referring to Russia’s actions in Ukraine; supporting the arguments provided by Russia concerning the causes of the war; placing the responsibility of the conflict on the US and the NATO; abstaining from voting in the U.N. on the West’s resolutions against Russia; demonstrating its strong strategic relations with Russia that is described as “partnership without limits”; the conduct of military exercises with Russia while war rages on in Ukraine; and providing indirect support for Russia’s war effort through surveillance drones, computer chips, and other critical components for its defence industry. Though all of the above are sovereign decisions of China, Europe, as China’s major trading partner, expects some support to their position and a neutral approach to the conflict from China.

    For the most part, Beijing’s above foreign policy actions were duly accompanied by a bellicose so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy”. It aggressively reacted to perceived criticism of the Chinese government.

    Domestic actions impacting its Image Abroad

    However, with its aggressive display in the international arena, some domestic actions have negatively permeated abroad. Brushing aside Deng Xiaoping’s commitment to respect Hong Kong’s autonomy for a period of fifty years, Xi reclaimed complete jurisdiction over such territory since his arrival to power. Within a process of actions and reactions, accelerated by the progressive strangulation of Hong Kong’s liberties, Beijing finally imposed a National Security Law over the territory. This ended the Hong Kong Basic Law, which guaranteed its autonomy. By burying the principle of “one country, two systems” established by Deng, Beijing was, at the same time, closing out any possibility of Taiwan’s willing accession to the People’s Republic. Henceforward, only force may accomplish that result.

    On the other hand, the brutal Sinicization of Xinjiang Province has shaken the liberal conscience of Western countries, with particular reference to Europe. The Uyghur population re-education camps have been compared to the Soviet’s Gulag. Beijing’s combative reaction to any foreign criticism in this regard, has compounded China’s image crisis in Europe.

    Any remaining trace of the so-called peaceful emergence of China has completely disappeared under Xi Jinping. Under his rudder, China has brought to the limelight a revisionist and tributary vision of the international order. Not surprisingly, interwoven policies and decisions emanating from different geographical points have been converging to contain China. In an unnecessary way, Beijing under Xi has been instrumental in multiplying the barriers to realising its purpose.

    Keeping China at bay

    The number of initiatives to keep China at bay has multiplied. Its list includes the following. The U.S., Japan, Australia and India created a strategic quadrilateral forum known as the Quad, which is none other than a factual alliance aimed at the containment of China. More formally, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States gave birth to a strategic military alliance with the same goal. On its side, Japan and Australia signed a security cooperation agreement.

    Leaving aside its restrained post-war defence policy, Japan doubled its defence budget to 2 per cent of its GDP. This will transform Japan to number three position worldwide regarding military expenditure, just behind the U.S. and China. Within the same context, Japan and the U.S. established a joint command of its military forces while agreeing to create a shared littoral force equipped with the most modern anti-ship missiles. Meanwhile, Japan is set to arm itself with state-of-the-art missiles. Overcoming their longstanding mutual mistrust, Japan and South Korea, jointly with the U.S., established a trilateral framework to promote a rules-based Indo-Pacific region. On the same token, Japan, the Philippines, and the U.S. held a first-ever trilateral summit aimed at defence cooperation and economic partnership. They pledged to protect freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China and East China Seas. Several joint naval exercises have taken place in the South China Sea to defend the principle of freedom of navigation, with France participating in the latest one.

    After several fruitless years of attempting to mollify China’s position concerning their maritime dispute in the South China Sea, the Philippines decided to renew its Mutual Defence Treaty with the U.S., which had elapsed in 2016. Meanwhile, most Southeast and East Asian countries on China’s periphery are rapidly increasing their military spending while  still continuing to support the U.S. security umbrella. Although pledging to remain neutral, even Vietnam, a traditional de facto ally of China, decided to upgrade its diplomatic relations with Washington to the highest level.

    America’s several decades policy of “strategic ambiguity” in relation to Taiwan evaporates as a result of China’s increasing threats and harassment to the island. On top of unambiguous support to Taipei by the President and the Congress, the Pentagon has formulated a military doctrine for  Taiwan’s defence in case of invasion. The idea of defending Taiwan if invaded is also taking shape in Japan.

    The European Union adhered to the U.S., the United Kingdom and Canada in sanctioning the Chinese authorities involved in human rights abuses in Xinjiang (the first such European sanction since Tiananmen in 1989). Equally, and for the same reasons, the European Parliament refused to ratify the long-time negotiated investment agreement between China and the European Union. China’s aggressive reaction to such a decision only toughened the European position further. Significantly, European contacts with Taiwan have increased as its democratic nature, and China’s harassment of it are providing a new light on the subject. In that context, the European Parliament officially received Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

    A gigantic containment Bloc

    France and Germany sent warships to navigate the South China Sea in defiance of Beijing’s claimed ownership of 90 per cent of the Sea. NATO’s updated “Strategic Concept” document, which outlines primary threats to the alliance, identified China for the first time as a direct threat to its security: “The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values (…) It strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the Space, Cyber and Maritime domains (…)The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests” (NATO, 2022). Not surprisingly, NATO’s last summit included the heads of state and governments of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

    As a result of Xi Jinping’s actions and policies, China is now being subjected to a gigantic geostrategic containment force—a true block integrated by nations and organizations from four continents. For a country like China, which traditionally identified with political subtlety and enjoyed universal goodwill until not so long ago, this change in its strategic environment is not a small development. Xi’s calculations that acting boldly had become possible as China was powerful enough, its economy big enough, its neighbours dependent on it, and the U.S. resolve as uncertain have proved wrong and grossly misfired. At this point, China’s conundrum might leave China with few options short of war. According to former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the 2020s have become the “decade of living dangerously”, as, within it, a war between China and the U.S. will most probably erupt (Rudd, 2022, chapter 16).

    In sum

    An evaluation of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, using the notions of purpose, credibility, and efficiency as bases, would present the following result. Its purpose is crystal clear, which translates into a high mark. Credibility, on its part, shows mixed results: Not entirely unsatisfactory nor satisfactory. In terms of efficiency, though, Xi Jinping has openly failed. The lack of efficiency associated with his outreach adversely affects the attainment of China’s foreign policy purpose, creating countless barriers to its fulfilment. This lack of efficiency affects the country’s credibility as well. The downturn has been dramatic when comparing the current situation of China’s foreign policy to the one that prevailed before 2008 and, more precisely, to Xi Jinping’s ascension to power.

     

     

    References:

    Chaziza, M. (2023) “The Global Security Initiative: China’s New Security Architecture for the Gulf”, The Diplomat, May 5.

    Cooper Ramo, J. (2007). Brand China. London: The Foreign Policy Centre.

    Hass, R. (2023) “China’s Response to American-led ‘Containment and Suppression’”, China Leadership Monitor, Fall, Issue 77.

    Hoon, C.Y. and Chan, Y.K., (2023) “Reflections on China’s Latest Civilisation Agenda”, Fulcrum, 4 September.

    Kissinger, H. (2012). On China. New York: Penguin Books.

    Leonard, M. (2008). What Does China Think? New York: Public Affairs.

    NATO (2022). “NATO 2022 Strategic Concept”, June 29.

    Oxford Analytica (2005). “Survey on China”, September 20th.

    Rudd, K. (2022). The Avoidable War. New York: Public Affairs.

    Rudd, K. (2017). “Xi Jinping offers a long-term view of China’s ambitions”, Financial Times, October 23.

     

    Feature Image: bloomberg.com – Xi Jinping on visit to Belgrade, Serbia on 07 May 2024 (Xi says China will “never forget” the U.S. bombing of its Embassy)

  • Achieving the Two-State Solution in the Wake of Gaza War

    Achieving the Two-State Solution in the Wake of Gaza War

    Peace can come through the immediate implementation of the two-state solution, making the admission of Palestine to the United Nations the starting point, not the ending point.

     

    The two-state solution is enshrined in international law and is the only viable path to a long-lasting peace. All other solutions—a continuation of Israel’s apartheid regime, one bi-national state, or one unitary state—would guarantee a continuation of war by one side or the other or both. Yet the two-state solution seems irretrievably blocked. It is not. Here is a pathway.

    The Israeli government strongly opposes a two-state solution, as does a significant proportion of the Israeli population, some on religious grounds (“God gave us the land”) and some on security grounds (“We can never be safe with a State of Palestine”). A significant proportion of Palestinians regard Israel as an illegitimate settler-colonial entity and, in any event, distrust any peace process.

    How, then, to proceed?

    The usual recommendation is the following six-step sequence of events: (1) ceasefire; (2) release of hostages; (3) humanitarian assistance; (4) reconstruction; (5) peace conference for negotiations between Israel and Palestine; and finally (6) establishment of two states on agreed boundaries. This path is impossible. There is a perpetual deadlock on steps 5 and 6, and this sequence has failed for 57 years since the 1967 war.

    Two sovereign states, on the boundaries of June 4, 1967, protected initially by UN-backed peacekeepers and other guarantees, will be the starting point for a comprehensive and just peace…

    The failure of Oslo is the paradigmatic case in point. There are irreconcilable differences, such as the status of East Jerusalem. Israeli zealots would force from power any Israeli politician who dares to give up East Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty and Palestinian zealots would do the same with any Palestinian leader who gave up sovereignty over East Jerusalem. We should relinquish the continuing illusion that Israel will ever reach an agreement or that Palestine would ever have the negotiating power to engage meaningfully with Israel, especially when the Palestinian Authority is highly dependent on the US and other funders.

    The correct approach is, therefore, the opposite, starting with the establishment of two states on globally agreed boundaries, notably the boundaries of June 4, 1967, as enshrined in UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions. The UN member states will have to impose the two-state solution instead of waiting for yet another Palestinian-Israeli failed negotiation.

    Thus, the settlement should follow this order: (1) establishment of Palestine as 194th member state within a two-state solution framework on June 4, 1967 borders; (2) immediate ceasefire; (3) release of hostages; (4) humanitarian assistance; (5) peacekeepers, disarmament and mutual security; and (6) negotiation on modalities (settlements, return of refugees, mutually agreed land-swaps, and others; but not boundaries).

    In 2011, the State of Palestine (now recognized by 140 UN member states but not yet as a UN member state itself) applied for full UN member status. The UN Security Council Committee on New Members (constituted by the UN Security Council) recognized the legitimacy of Palestine’s application, but as is utterly typical in the “peace process,” the US government prevailed on the Palestinian Authority to accept “observer status,” promising that full UN membership would soon follow. Of course, it did not.

    The Security Council, backed by the UN General Assembly, has the power under the UN Charter to impose the two-state settlement. It can do so as a matter of international law, following decades of relevant resolutions. It can then enforce the solution through a combination of carrots (economic inducements, reconstruction funding, UNSC-backed peacekeepers, disarmament, border security, etc.) and sticks (sanctions for violations by either party).

    The only conceivable border for creating the two-state solution is June 4, 1967. Starting from that border, the two sides might indeed negotiate a mutually agreed-upon swap of land for mutual benefit, but they would do so knowing that the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA) is the June 4, 1967 border.

    It is quite possible, indeed likely, that the US would initially veto the proposed pathway. After all, the US has already used its veto multiple times to block merely a ceasefire. Yet, the process of eliciting the US veto and then securing a large majority vote in the UN General Assembly will be salutary for three reasons.

    First, US politics is shifting rapidly against Israeli policies, given the US public’s growing understanding of Israel’s war crimes and Israel’s political extremism. This shift in public opinion makes it far more likely that the US leaders will sooner rather than later accept the basic approach outlined here because of US domestic political dynamics. Second, the increasing US isolation in the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly is also weighing heavily on US leaders and forcing the US leadership to reconsider its policy positions in view of geopolitical considerations. Third, a strong vote in the UNSC and UNGA for the two-state solution on June 4, 1967 borders, will help to strengthen international law and the terms of the eventual settlement as soon as the US veto is lifted.

    For these reasons, there is a realistic prospect that the UN will finally exercise its international legal and political authority to create the conditions for peace.

    Twenty-two years ago, Arab and Islamic leaders affirmed in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that the only pathway to peace is through the two-state solution. On February 7, 2024, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs reasserted that a comprehensive peace will only be achieved by recognizing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the capital. The Arab states and the world community generally shouldn’t buy into another vague peace process that is likely doomed to fail, especially given the urgency caused by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the bad-will accumulated over the past 57 years of a fruitless “Peace Process.”

    Peace can come through the immediate implementation of the two-state solution, making the admission of Palestine to the UN the starting point, not the ending point. Two sovereign states, on the boundaries of June 4, 1967, protected initially by UN-backed peacekeepers and other guarantees, will be the starting point for a comprehensive and just peace not only between Israel and Palestine—and also a regional peace that would secure diplomatic relations across the Middle East and end this conflict that has burdened the inhabitants, the region, and the world, for more than a century.

    This article was published earlier in Common Dreams.

    Feature Image Credit: news.sky.com

    Maps Credit: britannica.com

  • Houthi’s attacks in the Red Sea: What does this mean for the world?

    Houthi’s attacks in the Red Sea: What does this mean for the world?

    The Houthis started in the 1990s as an armed group in Yemen, fighting against corruption. They belong to a community called Zaidis, who are a part of the Shia-Muslim minority. Along with Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis have declared themselves to be a part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance” against Israel, the US, and the larger West.1 The Houthis have been attacking commercial ships passing through the lower Red Sea, and this has dramatically increased since mid-November in retaliation to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Due to these events, the Red Sea trade route is significantly affected, impacting the flow of global trade and having the potential to cause further damage. With ships attacked and stranded in one of the leading shipping routes of the world, countries seem to find themselves in yet another geopolitical fix. As the war continues between Israel and Gaza, the Red Sea has become a renewed hotspot for geopolitical and military tensions.

    Situated between Africa and West Asia, the Red Sea is a seawater entrance to the Indian Ocean in the south and goes through the Gulf of Aden and the Bab El Mandeb Strait, meeting the Gulf of Suez in the north. Countries like the US, France, Japan, and China have military bases in the region, including in Djibouti and many along the Horn of Africa, with considerable deployment of ships, weapons, and personnel. Establishing such bases conveys how critical it is to have control of the area as a measure of regional power and as a way of asserting their dominance internationally. Big players, including the Cold War rivals, have long struggled to gain presence and influence in West Asia. Having a military and economic presence in Africa with proximity to the Red Sea was necessary, for it provides access to almost 12% of the world’s trade, including nearly 40% of the trade between Europe and Asia.2 

    Until recently, the Houthis had been targeting ships heading towards Israel or ones that Israelis owned. However, recent developments showing attacks on ships bound for Israel with flags of various countries have raised grave concerns for global trade and security in the immediate future. The US, along with countries like the UK, France, and Bahrain, have tried to stop Houthi attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea under what Washington calls the “Operation Prosperity Guardian”. On the first day of the new year, The US military released a statement conveying that they killed at least 10 Houthi rebels and sabotaged three Houthi ships. Although the US was successful in deterring the Houthis from their attempt to attack, it did not do much to stop the group from being involved in disrupting peaceful navigation through the Red Sea.

    Private shipping companies such as Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and MSC have begun to avoid using the Red Sea route due to the imminent threat from Houthis.3  The ongoing supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could further escalate due to the Red Sea crisis and cause severe concerns for world trade and consumer goods supply. With the suspension of trade via the Suez Canal, traffic through the Red Sea has dropped by 35%.4  The Houthis have raised the shipping cost internationally, imposing additional costs on commerce when trouble at the Panama Canal due to low water levels has already made shipping more complicated and central banks worry about a new inflationary spike. While trade hasn’t wholly stopped, most ships can choose the longer but safer route around Africa through the Cape of Good Hope to reach Europe and Asia from either side. This option imposes significant costs on shipping and, therefore, to consumers and affects local states in the region if the Houthi “blockade” persists. In the worst-case scenario, crude oil prices would rise in 2024 if oil shipments through the canal were stopped entirely, and this could cause a significant disturbance.

    Image Credit: washingtoninstitute.org

    Surprisingly, though, Russian ships have enjoyed free navigation through the Red Sea. Russian ships travel to Asia through the Black Sea, connecting to the Mediterranean Sea, passing through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and joining the Indian Ocean. With sanctions from Europe and the US amid the war in Ukraine, Russia cannot afford to lose its markets in Asia, particularly India and China, since these two countries buy almost 90% of Russia’s oil exports.5  The free navigation of Russian ships could possibly be due to its close relationship with Iran or due to the adoption of a similar stance with the Houthis on the war between Israel and Gaza. In the unlikely scenario that Russia does not have access to the Red Sea, it leaves them with the only other option of travelling through the Cape of Good Hope, adding 8,900 kilometres with an additional two weeks of travel. Such delays in oil shipments and a highly possible hike in price may prompt countries like India and China to start looking for other alternatives to their oil requirement, given the pre-existing energy crisis. Most probable alternatives include Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries that do not need to pass the Red Sea to reach the Indian Ocean and thus Asian markets since they have ports in the Persian Gulf with access to the Arabian Sea.

    The disruption in trade has caused an impact on Indian imports and exports as well. Indian exports traverse the Indian Ocean and reach the Suez Canal through the Arabian Sea to reach European markets. Trade between India and Europe has been rising, at an all-time high in 2022, with goods traded worth $130 Billion.6   As of 2021, India engaged in trade worth $200 Billion through the Suez Canal, making the EU one of India’s main export destinations, with a Free trade agreement in the talks.7  India also procures its oil from Russia using the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. A slowdown or possible pause of oil imports may cause severe concerns amid the ongoing energy crisis. At such a juncture for the Indian economy, if the situation persists, trade will likely take a hit along with India’s domestic economy. If the condition fails to change decisively, the higher fees and the expense of prolonged travel duration will also put inflationary pressure on the global economy and India.

    The Houthis will most likely continue to put pressure on Israel to stop its onslaught in Gaza, and they are likely to keep attacking until they reach their goal. By taking control of the Red Sea and indirectly and directly hurting countries irrespective of their size and power, Houthis pressurize the international community to, in turn, put pressure on Israel. This also means that the group is unlikely to agree on any other way of settlement. Not only does this fall on Israel to stop their attacks but also on the US since the latter has always portrayed itself as a peace negotiator in the Middle East and, therefore, has the responsibility to restore order in the region. The Houthis possess a plethora of Iranian-supplied weaponry, ranging from precision drones to anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles that can strike a moving vessel hundreds of kilometres away. What makes the Houthis more dangerous is the enormous stockpile that can help them continue their campaign indefinitely.

    The attacks have also prompted an unanticipated return of Somali piracy in international seas. As a result, increased expenses are now a worry for merchant shipping lines and seafarer safety for governments worldwide. The ship Lila Norfolk, under the Liberian flag and carrying six Filipinos and fifteen Indians, was taken over by Somali pirates on January 4th, 2024. The Indian navy had already deployed four warships patrolling the Indian Ocean, including INS Chennai, which was involved in the rescue operation during the recent highjack of ship Lila Norfolk. Even though the Indian Navy’s intervention allowed for the sailors’ rescue, it caused further concerns for India’s security and economy. The spill over of these attacks onto the Indian Ocean may threaten India’s security.

    Countries must monitor developments in the Red Sea and, for India, the Indian Ocean. Although India has not joined any Western-led operations on this matter, the country must push the international community to ensure freedom of navigation and the territorial integrity of countries over their sea is upheld under the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas.

     

    References

    [1] Who are the Houthi rebels and why are they attacking Red Sea ships? (2023, December 23). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67614911

    [2] Yerushalmy, J. (2023, December 19). Red Sea crisis explained: what is happening and what does it mean for global trade? The Guardian.

    [3] A new Suez crisis threatens the world economy. (2023, December 16). The Economist. https://www.economist.com/international/2023/12/16/a-new-suez-crisis-threatens-the-world-economy

    [4] Graham, R., Murray, B., & Longley, A. (2023, December 19). Houthi Red Sea Attacks Start Shutting Down Merchant Shipping. Bloomberg.com. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-18/houthi-attacks-start-shutting-down-red-sea-merchant-shipping

    [5] Russia: crude oil shipments by destination 2023 | Statista. (2023, September 14). Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1350506/russia-crude-oil-shipments-by-destination/

    [6] I. (n.d.). First India-EU Trade and Technology Council: Significant Milestone in India-EU Relations – Indian Council of World Affairs (Government of India). https://www.icwa.in/show_content.php?lang=1&level=3&ls_id=9416&lid=6112#:~:text=The%20EU%20is%20India’s%202nd,EU%20total%20trade%20in%20goods.

    [7] Ibid.

     

    Feature Image Credit: dailynewsegypt.com

  • The Morals of Hamas and Israel — A Dharmic Perspective

    The Morals of Hamas and Israel — A Dharmic Perspective

    In this analysis of the catastrophic destruction unleashed by Israel on Gaza in response to the Hamas’ attack on October 7th, Dr Seshadri Kumar poses very pertinent and valuable questions to the Indian policymakers and the audience in general.

    This article was published earlier in medium.com

    I have seen a number of Indians try to draw a moral equivalence between the attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians that precipitated the ongoing war in Palestine and the retaliatory attacks of the Israeli Defense Forces on Gaza civilians. Both are equally wrong, these people say. Cruelty and barbarism are wrong, whatever the circumstances, they say. And they also say, therefore, that the Palestinians deserve the brutal bombardment that Israel is inflicting on them because they acted brutally by attacking first. Basically, they asked for it. The fact that the Palestinians are Muslims, a minority that is hated by the majority of Hindus (and, as I am finding out, Christians as well) in India, helps in developing this response.

    But are these two actions equivalent? Most of my friends are Indians, and Hindus at that, so I will draw upon Hindu mythology, which is revered in India, to answer this.

    First, one must understand what the Palestinians have gone through. The very creation of Israel was an injustice to the Arabs living in Palestine, as they were forcibly removed from their homes and forced to be refugees. Initially, all the other Arab countries supported them and fought many wars with Israel. But they lost every time, and the Palestinians lost more and more land each time.

    But the Bible is not history, and even if Jews used to live in that land centuries ago, brutally uprooting people living in Palestine in 1948 was a gross human rights violation. By this logic, the Chola kings of South India were once in control of Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Thailand, so India is entitled to invade those countries and expel their populations from their lands.

    Some people say that the land that forms the state of Israel was once populated by Jews if we go by the Bible, and therefore Israel has a right to that land. But the Bible is not history, and even if Jews used to live in that land centuries ago, brutally uprooting people living in Palestine in 1948 was a gross human rights violation. By this logic, the Chola kings of South India were once in control of Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Thailand, so India is entitled to invade those countries and expel their populations from their lands.

    After a lot of conflict over decades, the Israelis gave two parcels of land to the Palestinians to live in and self-govern, but the Jews control the lifelines to both areas — the West Bank, ruled by Fatah, and the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas.

    Palestinians are routinely terrorized and humiliated by Israel. Their demand for a Palestinian homeland has come to nought despite years of negotiations. Israel is a brutal occupation force in Palestine.

    If all this were not enough, even the small area still occupied by Arabs is constantly encroached upon by Jews. Jews build settler colonies in Palestinian areas, taking away more and more of the little land the Muslims own. Muslim families living in Jerusalem are often forced at gunpoint from their own homes to make way for Jews. The number of Jewish settlers in Palestinian areas was just over half a million in 2010; today, it is just under three-quarters of a million. This increase has happened because of explicit support and encouragement of forced settlement policies by various governments in Israel, including the current Likud-led government of Benjamin Netanyahu and by the US. Another reason for this is that Jews anywhere have an automatic right to become Israeli citizens, and this has led to a huge influx of Jewish immigrants into Israel. Any protest by Palestinians is met with disproportionate retaliation. Children who throw stones are met with machine gunfire. A single rocket is replied to by a hail of bombs from aircraft. Collective punishment of Palestinians is and has been the norm. Israel has been deliberately provoking the Palestinians more and more, and the US has been openly partisan, as when President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

    If this were still not bad enough, the Palestinians seem to be losing all their Arab friends. There seems to be Palestine fatigue in the Arab world. Egypt normalized relations with Israel long ago. More recently, other countries, including the UAE, Sudan, Bahrain, and Morocco, have normalized relations. Even Saudi Arabia is on the cusp of normalizing relations with Israel. Clearly, there is nobody left to stand up for the Palestinians.

    A peaceful resolution is clearly not getting the Palestinians anywhere. Despite condemnation by the UN, Israel is continuing its settlement policy. At this rate, the Palestinians will all be begging for a living on the streets.

    How should Palestinians fight for their rights? Talks have failed. How should they “fight” Israel? By engaging in a direct military confrontation with the far superior Israeli army, using primitive weapons, and without an air force — to end up with a guaranteed defeat?

    So, if you say you are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, you are giving them only three options:

    1. Have round after round of negotiations, which don’t get anywhere.
    2. Fight a direct war with a far superior army and an air force, which will lead to complete defeat.
    3. Watch Israeli civilians encroach on what Palestinians still consider their land, until nothing is left, and end up as slave labour for the Jews.

    It is worth noting that the Palestinians living in the West Bank, under Fatah rule, have not indulged in violence all these years. Yet, what has it gained them? Israel withdrew all its settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2010 but is briskly building new Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This is what Fatah got by being peaceful.

    People become terrorists when they have no other option. Asymmetric warfare is the weapon of the weak. When one has a just cause, and all acceptable and peaceful ways of securing one’s rights have come to nought, then one adopts unacceptable and violent ways. In other words, the ends justify the means.

    Hindus can understand this by reading the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is the story of a conflict between two sets of cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, for control of a kingdom, Hastinapura. In the Mahabharata, the principle that any means are acceptable in order for a just end to prevail, referred to as the principle of Brihaspati, the preceptor of the Gods, is invoked by both sides.

    The operative portion of the story in the Mahabharata starts when King Vichitravirya dies. He has two sons: the elder, Dhritarashtra, is blind, and therefore is passed over for the kingship. His younger brother, Pandu, is crowned king. But King Pandu is cursed by a dying sage during a hunting accident, loses interest in the kingdom, and abdicates, upon which Dhritarashtra is crowned king by default. The children of Dhritarashtra are called the Kauravas, and the children of Pandu are called the Pandavas. Both the Pandavas and Kauravas therefore have a legitimate claim to the kingdom — the former are the children of the last legitimate king, who was the younger brother, whereas the latter are the children of the elder brother who is the current king, albeit by default.

    Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas, believes that the entire kingdom should belong to him, and that the Pandavas do not have a legitimate claim to “even a needlepoint of land.” The Pandavas, on the other hand, are amenable to a split of the kingdom, with half going to their cousins and half ruled by them.

    Duryodhana hates the Pandavas because they are rival claimants to the kingdom. He tries to have them poisoned and then and burned to death. When all that fails, Dhritarashtra tries to achieve peace by partitioning the kingdom. Duryodhana then cheats the Pandavas for their share of the kingdom by winning a rigged game of dice. The condition of the game is that the Pandavas must go into exile for 13 years. When the Pandavas return from exile, Duryodhana refuses to return their portion of the kingdom to them. He justifies all his actions to his father by quoting Brihaspati — that one may take any steps necessary for the elimination of a powerful adversary.

    The Pandavas decide to fight for their right in the great war of Kurukshetra when Duryodhana refuses to return to their kingdom.

    In the setting of the Mahabharata, there are rules by which one is expected to fight on the battlefield. One must not attack someone who is not fighting them. One must not attack an unarmed opponent. One must not strike below the waist. No fighting at night, except by prior agreement. These rules are referred to as the “dharma” (right conduct) of battle. Violation of these rules would be called “adharma.” (Violation of dharma was viewed in the same way as we view human rights violations today.)

    Now the Pandavas can regain their kingdom only by defeating the Kauravas in battle. But the Kauravas are invincible in battle. They have great warriors who have never been defeated in war: Bhishma, the grand-uncle of the Pandavas and Kauravas, a student of the great Parashurama, the greatest warrior the world has known; Drona, the martial teacher of both the Pandavas and Kauravas, another disciple of Parashurama; Karna, the son of the Sun god, born with impregnable armor, and yet another disciple of Parashurama; and many other great warriors such as Bhurishravas. Duryodhana himself is invincible when fighting with his favourite weapon, the mace or bludgeon.

    While the Pandavas themselves have great warriors, notably Bhima, the second of the five Pandavas, the strongest man of his time; and Arjuna, the third of the Pandavas, the greatest archer of his time; even these cannot kill the undefeated warriors on the Kaurava side.

    But the Pandavas also have on their side Krishna, who is an incarnation of the God Vishnu in human form, who wants to help the Pandavas win because he is on the side of justice and fairness, and he believes that the Pandavas are on the side of dharma.

    Krishna knows that the Pandavas can never beat the Kauravas in a fair fight. So, he resorts to dishonourable tactics, or adharma, to win.

    Bhishma has taken a vow that he will never fight a woman. There is a warrior on the Pandava side, Shikhandi, who was born a woman, but who underwent a gender change and became a man. However, Bhishma still considers this warrior a woman, and his code of chivalry will not allow him to fight Shikhandi. But Shikhandi is incapable of killing Bhishma. So Krishna instructs Arjuna to position himself behind Shikhandi and shoot arrows at Bhishma. Bhishma will not shoot at Arjuna because Shikhandi stands in between, and so allows himself to be killed by Arjuna. This is clearly a violation of dharma by the Pandavas — attacking a foe who is not fighting you.

    Drona is told a lie that his son, Aswatthama, has been killed. On hearing this, Drona loses all interest in life and goes into meditation. When he is thus unarmed and defenceless, a warrior named Dhrishtadyumna chops off his head. Another violation of dharma.

    Karna, similarly, is killed by Arjuna when his chariot is stuck in the mud, and he is unable to fight Arjuna. Dharma would have required Arjuna not to attack Karna when he was unarmed and not engaged in battle with him. But upon Krishna’s urging, Arjuna kills Karna from behind when he is engaged in removing his wheel from the mud.

    Similarly, Bhurishravas is engaged in a fight with another warrior when Arjuna cuts his hand off with an arrow from behind. A disillusioned Bhurishravas goes into meditation, at which point his opponent beheads him while he is unarmed and in meditation.

    In the final battle of the war, Duryodhana and Bhima are fighting with their maces, and Bhima is finding the going tough, because Duryodhana is unbeatable with the mace. At this point, Krishna signals to Bhima to strike Duryodhana below the navel, a violation of the rules of war. Bhima strikes Duryodhana’s thighs and mortally wounds him. More adharma.

    Krishna justifies every one of these transgressions of dharma by saying that the ends justify the means. A dying Duryodhana accuses the Pandavas of violating the rules of war to defeat him. Krishna recalls all of Duryodhana’s evil deeds, and says that without violating the rules of war, without adharma, the Pandavas could never have avenged the great wrongs done to them. Adharma was required to defeat adharma.

    And so, the Mahabharata is a deeply pessimistic story, because it says that the virtuous can never defeat the wicked by following fair play in war. They must resort to trickery, unfair and illegitimate tactics — adharma — in order for dharma to prevail. After trying to follow dharma their entire lives, even not retaliating when their wife Draupadi was disrobed in the great assembly of Hastinapura by the Kauravas during the game of dice, after patiently enduring multiple assassination attempts, after being deprived of their kingdom by fraud, after enduring 13 years in exile, the Pandavas finally come to the realization that they can get their rightful inheritance only through evil and unfair means, through adharma. Even to ensure the victory of virtue, one must embrace vice.

    Similarly, the Palestinians have not gotten justice for 75 years by appealing to dharma, and today Hamas is pursuing the path of adharma. The injustice of the Palestinians began in 1948 with the nakba, the forced expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from the new state of Israel and the destruction of more than 500 villages. Some 5000 Palestinians were massacred by Israel at the time. The injustice has only grown worse in the last 75 years.

    If the present adharma of Hamas is wrong, then the actions of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata were also wrong. And if what the Pandavas did was right, then what Hamas has done is also right. In both cases, adharma was committed to securing justice and fairness. Hindus must decide which course of action they find morally right — but they must choose consistently.

    A system where dharma is never respected and followed can only result in adharma. We have no choice but to accept this reality.

    Had Dhritarashtra upheld dharma when the Pandavas pleaded for their rights with him, they would never have had to engage in adharma to get their rights. If we claim to value dharma, then we must be consistent in upholding it. Otherwise, we are engaging in adharma ourselves.

    Had the world listened to the anguished cries of the Palestinians over the last 75 years, a just solution would have been worked out for them and some of them (i.e., Hamas) would not need to engage in terrorism today. But by turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to their suffering, the West has forced Hamas to engage in the only way that the West pays attention to — terrorism.

    It is not enough to say that you condemn both the violence against civilians by Hamas and the state terrorism of Israel equally. By doing so, you are only enabling the powerful terrorist state of Israel, because your condemnation means nothing to them — they have been engaging in state terrorism for 75 years and getting away with it scot-free. The only people to face consequences for their terrorism are the weak — in this case, Hamas, and in decades past, the PLO. They are blacklisted, their assets are frozen, they are put on Interpol arrest lists, whereas the terrorists who rule the state of Israel roam the world as royalty.

    The world is not equal and fair. The powerful have more privileges. And so, if you value human rights and freedom, you must not condemn equally. If you genuinely care about justice, you must side with the weak, not be even-handed.

    Be like Krishna. Not like Dhritarashtra.

    Feature Image Credit: www.lapresalatina.com

     

  • Hamas Attack – What really happened on 7th October? – Sifting truth from propaganda

    Hamas Attack – What really happened on 7th October? – Sifting truth from propaganda

    As Gaza is under a catostrophic military assault by Israeli forces it is important to analyse the trigger for the Israeli assault – the Hamas attack of October 7th. Evidence is now emerging that up to half the Israelis killed were combatants; that Israeli forces were responsible for some of their own civilian deaths; and that Tel Aviv disseminated false ‘Hamas atrocities’ stories to justify its devastating air assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This article, a persuasive analysis, was published earlier in The Cradle.

    Two weeks after the Hamas breakout assault on Israel on 7 October, a clearer picture of what happened – who died, and who killed – is now beginning to emerge.

    Instead of the wholescale massacre of civilians claimed by Israel, incomplete figures published by the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz show that almost half the Israelis killed that day were in fact combatants – soldiers or police.

    In the interim, two weeks of blanket western media reporting that Hamas allegedly killed around 1,400 Israeli civilians during its 7 October military attack has served to inflame emotions and create the climate for Israel’s unconstrained destruction of the Gaza Strip and its civilian population.

    Accounts of the Israeli death toll have been filtered and shaped to suggest that a wholesale civilian massacre occurred that day, with babies, children, and women the main targets of a terror attack.

    Now, detailed statistics on the casualties released by the Israeli daily Haaretz paint a starkly different picture. As of 23 October, the news outlet has released information on 683 Israelis killed during the Hamas-led offensive, including their names and locations of their deaths on 7 October.

    Of these, 331 casualties – or 48.4 percent – have been confirmed to be soldiers and police officers, many of them female. Another 13 are described as rescue service members, and the remaining 339 are ostensibly considered to be civilians.

    While this list is not comprehensive and only accounts for roughly half of Israel’s stated death toll, almost half of those killed in the melee are clearly identified as Israeli combatants.

    There are also so far no recorded deaths of children under the age of three, which throws into question the Israeli narrative that babies were targeted by Palestinian resistance fighters. Of the 683 total casualties reported thus far, seven were between the ages of 4 and 7, and nine between the ages of 10 and 17. The remaining 667 casualties appear to be adults.

     

    Age Distribution of the Israelis killed during Hamas’ October 7 operation (as of 23 October)

    The numbers and proportion of Palestinian civilians and children among those killed by Israeli bombardment over the past two weeks – over 5,791 killed, including 2,360 children and 1,292 women, and more than 18,000 injured – are far higher than any of these Israeli figures from the events of 7 October.

    Revisiting the scene

    The daring Hamas-led military operation, codenamed Al-Aqsa Flood, unfolded with a dramatic dawn raid at approximately 6:30 AM (Palestine time) on 7 October. This was accompanied by a cacophony of sirens breaking the silence of occupied Jerusalem, signaling the start of what became an extraordinary event in the occupation state’s 75-year history.

    As per the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, around 1,500 Palestinian fighters crossed the formidable Gaza-Israel separation barrier.

    However, this breakout was not limited to Hamas forces alone; numerous armed fighters belonging to other factions such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) later breached the armistice line, along with some Palestinians unaffiliated with any organized militia.

    As it became apparent this was no ordinary resistance operation, hundreds of videos quickly flooded social media, most of which have been viewed by The Cradle, depicting dead Israeli troops and settlers, fierce gunfire battles between various parties, and Israelis being taken captive into Gaza.

    These videos were either taken on the phones of Israelis, or were released by Palestinian fighters filming their own operation. It wasn’t until hours later that more gruesome and downright dubious allegations began to surface.

    Unsubstantiated allegations of ‘Hamas atrocities’

    Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriter for the Israeli mission to the UN, was the first Israeli of note to spread the claim that there were reports of “Israeli girls being raped and their bodies dragged through the street.”

    She posted this on X at 9:18 PM (Palestine time), on 7 October, although an op-ed Klompa published with Newsweek at 12:28 AM (Palestine time), on 8 October, made no mention of any sexual violence.

    Klompas is also the co-founder of Boundless Israel, a “think-action tank” that works “to revitalize Israel education and take bold collective action to combat Jew-hatred.” An “unapologetically Zionist” charitable group that works to promote Israeli narratives on social media.

    The one case touted as proof of rape was that of a young German-Israeli woman named Shani Louk, who was filmed face down in the back of a pickup truck and was widely assumed dead.

    It was unclear whether the fighters filmed with Louk in the Gaza-bound vehicle were members of Hamas, as they do not sport the uniforms or insignia of the Al-Qassam troops identifiable in other Hamas videos – some even wore casual civilian clothing and sandals.

    Later, her mother claimed to have evidence that her daughter was still alive, but had suffered a severe head wound. This rings true with information released by Hamas that indicated Louk was being treated for her injuries at an unspecified Gaza hospital.

    Complicating matters further, on the day these rape allegations arose, Israelis would not have had access to this information. Their armed forces had not yet entered many, if not most, of the areas liberated by the resistance and were still engaged in armed clashes with them on multiple fronts.

    Nevertheless, these rape claims took on a life of their own, with even US President Joe Biden alleging, during a speech days later, that Israeli women were “raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies” by Hamas fighters. It is important to note that The Forward’s article on 11 October reported that the Israeli military acknowledged they had no evidence of such allegations at that point.

    When the army later made its own allegations of decapitations, foot amputations, and rape, Reuters pointed out that “the military personnel overseeing the identification process didn’t present any forensic evidence in the form of pictures or medical records.” To date, there is no credible evidence of these atrocities that has been presented.

    Other outrageous allegations, such as the story of Hamas “beheading 40 babies‘ made headlines and the front pages of countless western news outlets. Even Biden claimed to have seen “confirmed photos of terrorists beheading babies.” The claims trace back to Israeli reserve settler and soldier David Ben Zion, who has previously incited violent riots against Palestinians and called for the West Bank town of Huwara to be wiped out. No evidence was ever produced to support these claims and the White House itself confirmed later that Joe Biden had never seen such photos.

    The Hamas plan

    There is little to no credible evidence that Palestinian fighters had a plan to – or deliberately sought to – kill or harm unarmed Israeli civilians on 7 October. From the available footage, we witness them engaging primarily with armed Israeli forces, accounting for the deaths of hundreds of occupation soldiers. As Qassam Brigades’ Spokesman Abu Obeida made clear on 12 October:

    Al-Aqsa Flood operation aimed to destroy the Gaza Division (an Israeli army unit on Gaza’s borders) which was attacked at 15 points, followed by attacking 10 further military intervention points. We attacked the Zikim site and several other settlements outside the Gaza Division headquarters.

    Abu Obeida and other resistance officials claims that the other key objective of their operation was to take Israeli prisoners that they could exchange for the approximately 5,300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention centers, many of whom are women and children.

    Hamas Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Saleh Al-Arouri, in an interview after the operation, stressed: “We have a large and qualitative number and senior officers. All we can say now is that the freedom of our prisoners is at the doorstep.”

    Both sides play this game: Since the start of its military assault on Gaza, Israel has rounded up and imprisoned more than 1,200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. To date there have been 38 prisoner exchange deals between the resistance factions and Tel Aviv – deals that Israelis often resist to the very last minute.

    While these kinds of testimonies trickle out, reports are emerging that Israeli authorities have dialed up the mistreatment, torture, and even killing of Palestinian prisoners in their custody – a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ironically, a non-state actor like Hamas appears to have followed to the letter.

    In relation to the events of 7 October, there are certainly some videos depicting possibly unarmed Israelis, killed in their vehicles or at entrances to facilities, so that Palestinian troops could gain access.

    There are also videos which show the fighters engaging in shootouts with armed Israeli forces, where there were unarmed Israelis taking cover in between, in addition to videos of fighters shooting toward houses and throwing grenades into fortified areas. Eyewitness testimony also suggests grenades were thrown into bomb shelters, though by whom is unclear.

    Even at the Israeli “peace rave”, which has been cited as the single deadliest attack committed by Palestinian fighters during their operation, videos emerged that appeared to show Israeli forces opening fire through a crowd of unarmed civilians, toward targets they believed to be Hamas members. ABC News also reported that an Israeli tank had headed to the site of the festival.

    An Israeli massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri?

    In its report on the events at Be’eri Kibbutz, ABC News photographed artillery pieces resembling Israeli munitions outside a bombed-out home. The reporter, David Muir, mentioned that Hamas fighters, covered in plastic bags, were found in the aftermath.

    Additionally, videos of the scene show homes that appear to have been struck by munitions that Hamas fighters did not possess. Muir reported that about 14 people were held hostage in a building by Palestinian fighters.

    A Hebrew-language Haaretz article published on 20 October, which only appears in English in a must-read Mondoweiss article, paints a very different story of what went down in Be’eri that day. A Kibbutz resident who had been away from his home – whose partner was killed in the melee – reveals stunning new details:

    “His voice trembles when his partner, who was besieged in her home shelter at the time, comes to mind. According to him, only on Monday night (9 October) and only after the commanders in the field made difficult decisions — including shelling houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages — did the IDF complete the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri people were killed. Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble.”

    Photo evidence of the destruction in Be’eri corroborates his account. Only the heavy munitions of the Israeli army could have destroyed residential homes in this manner.
    Aftermath or Be’eri Kibbutz after the fire power of the two sides cease

    Hamas behaviors: Evidence vs allegations

    Yasmin Porat, a survivor from Kibbutz Be’eri, said in an interview for an Israeli radio-show, hosted by state-broadcaster Kan, that Israeli forces “eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” going on to state that “there was very, very heavy crossfire” and even noted tank shelling.

    Porat had attended the Nova rave and testified to the humane treatment throughout different interviews she conducted with Israeli media. She explained that when she was held prisoner, the Hamas fighters “guarded us”, telling her in Hebrew to “Look at me well, we’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm, you’re not going to die.” She also added the following:

    “They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous they calm us down. It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.

    Increasingly, and to the horror of some Israeli officials and news outlets, Israeli eyewitnesses and survivors of the bloodshed are testifying that they were treated well by Palestinian fighters. On 24 October, Israeli state broadcaster Kan bemoaned the fact that prisoner Yocheved Lifshitz, released by Hamas the day before, was allowed to make statements live on air.

    As she was handed over to Red Cross intermediaries, the elderly Israeli female captive was caught on camera turning back to squeeze the hand of her Hamas captor in her last goodbyes. Lifshitz’s live broadcast, in which she spoke about her two-week ordeal, “humanized” her Hamas captors even further as she recounted her daily life with the fighters:

    “They were very friendly toward us. They took care of us. We were given medicine and were treated. One of the men with us was badly injured in a motorbike accident. Their (Hamas) paramedics looked after his wounds, he was given medicine and antibiotics. The people were friendly. They kept the place very clean. They were very concerned about us.

    More questions than answers

    It is essential to recognize that in many reports by western journalists on the ground, the majority of information regarding the actions of Hamas fighters comes from the Israeli army – an active participant in the conflict.

    Emerging evidence now indicates that there is a high probability, especially due to the scale of the infrastructural damage, that Israeli military forces could have deliberately killed captives, fired on incorrect targets, or mistaken Israelis for Palestinians in their firefights. If the only source of information for a serious claim made is the Israeli army, then it has to be taken into account that they have reason to conceal cases of friendly fire.

    Israeli friendly fire was rampant, even in the days that followed, from an army with very little actual combat experience. In the city of Ashkelon (Askalan) on 8 October, Israeli soldiers shot dead and shouted insults at the body of a man they believed to have been a Hamas fighter, yet later realized they had executed a fellow Israeli. This is just one of three such examples of friendly fire in one day, resulting in the killing of Israelis by their own troops.

    Amid the fog of war, parties to the conflict have different perspectives on what occurred during the initial raid and its aftermath. It’s not disputed that Palestinian armed groups inflicted significant losses on the Israeli military, but there will be plenty of ongoing debate regarding everything else in the weeks and months to come.

    An independent, impartial, international investigation is urgently needed, one that has access to information from all sides involved in the conflict. Neither the Israelis nor the Americans will agree to this, which itself suggests that Tel Aviv has much to conceal.

    In the meantime, Palestinian civilians in Gaza endure ongoing, indiscriminate attacks with the most sophisticated heavy weapons in existence, living under the persistent threat of forced and potentially irreversible displacement. This Israeli air blitz was made possible only by the flood of unsubstantiated ‘Hamas atrocities’ stories that media began to circulate on and after 7 October.

     

    The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of TPF.

    Feature Image: Gaza under attack – Politico

  • The Atomic Executioner’s Lament

    The Atomic Executioner’s Lament

    While the world focuses on the trials and travails of the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, little attention is paid to the hard positions taken by the nuclear executioners, the men called upon to drop these bombs in time of war.

     

    Crew of the Enola Gay, returning from their atomic bombing mission over Hiroshima, Japan. At center is navigator Capt. Theodore Van Kirk; to the right, in foreground, is flight commander Col. Paul Tibbetts. (Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

     

    There is an interesting scene in Chris Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, one which could easily get lost in the complexity of telling the story of the man considered to be the father of the American atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer.

    The Trinity test of the first nuclear device has been successfully completed, and Oppenheimer is watching as two men in military uniform are packing up one of Oppenheimer’s “gadgets” for shipment out of Los Alamos to an undisclosed destination.

    Oppenheimer talks to them about the optimum height for the detonation of the weapon above ground, but is cut off by one of the soldiers, who, smiling, declares “We’ve got it from here.”

    Such men existed, although the scene in the movie — and the dialogue — was almost certainly the product of a scriptwriter’s imagination. The U.S. military went to great lengths to keep the method of delivery of the atomic bomb a secret, not to be shared with either Oppenheimer or his scientists.

    Formed on March 6, 1945, the 1st Ordnance Squadron, Special (Aviation) was part of the 509th Composite Group, commanded by then-Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets. Prior to being organized into the 1st Ordnance Squadron, the men of the unit were assigned to a U.S. Army ordnance squadron stationed a Wendover, Utah, where Tibbets and the rest of the 509th Composite Group were based.

    Mission map for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945. Scale is not consistent due to the curvature of the Earth. Angles and locations are approximate. Kokura was included as the original target for Aug. 9 but weather obscured visibility; Nagasaki was chosen instead. (Mr.98, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

    While Oppenheimer and his scientists designed the nuclear device, the mechanism of delivery — the bomb itself — was designed by specialists assigned to the 509th. It was the job of the men of the 1st Ordnance Squadron to build these bombs from scratch.

    The bomb dropped on Hiroshima by Paul Tibbets, flying a B-29 named the Enola Gay, was assembled on the Pacific Island of Tinian by the 1st Ordnance Squadron.

    Concerned about the possibility of the B-29 crashing on takeoff, thereby triggering the explosive charge that would send the uranium slug into the uranium core (the so-called gun device), the decision was made that the final assembly of the bomb would be done only after the Enola Gay took off.

    One of the 1st Ordnance Squadron technicians placed the uranium slug into the bomb at 7,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.

    The bomb worked as designed, killing more than 80,000 Japanese in an instant; hundreds of thousands more died afterwards from the radiation released by the weapon.

    For the pilot and crew of the Enola Gay, there was no remorse over killing so many people. “I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we’d be doing that I thought, yes, we’re going to kill a lot of people, but by God we’re going to save a lot of lives,’ Tibbets recounted to Studs Terkel in 2002. He added:

    “We won’t have to invade [Japan]. You’re gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we’ve never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn’t kill innocent people,” Tibbets told Terkel. “If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: ‘You’ve killed so many civilians.’ That’s their tough luck for being there.

    An atomic bomb victim with burns, Ninoshima Quarantine Office, Aug. 7, 1945. (Onuka Masami, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

    Major Charles Sweeney, the pilot of Bockscar, the B-29 that dropped the second American atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, held similar convictions about his role in killing 35,000 Japanese instantly.

    “I saw these beautiful young men who were being slaughtered by an evil, evil military force,” Sweeney recounted in 1995. “There’s no question in my mind that President Truman made the right decision.” However, Sweeney noted, “As the man who commanded the last atomic mission, I pray that I retain that singular distinction.”

    History records the remorse felt by Oppenheimer and his Soviet counterpart, Andrei Sakharov, and the punishment they both suffered at the hands of their respective governments. They suffered from designer’s remorse, a regret — stated after the fact — that what they had built should not be used, but somehow locked away from the world, as if the Pandora’s Box of nuclear weaponization had never been opened.

    Having designed their respective weapons, however, both Oppenheimer and Sakharov lost control of their creations, turning them over to military establishments which did not participate in the intellectual and moral machinations of bringing such a weapon into existence, but rather the cold, hard reality of using these weapons to achieve a purpose and goal which, as had been the case for Tibbets and Sweeney, seemed justified.

    Ignoring the Executioner

    Brigadier General Charles W. Sweeney, pilot of the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

    This is the executioners’ lament, a contradiction of emotions where the perceived need for justice outweighs the costs associated.

    While the world focuses on the trials and travails of Oppenheimer and Sakharov, they remain silent about the hard positions taken by the nuclear executioners, the men called upon to drop these bombs in time of war.  There have only been two such men, and they remained resolute in their judgement that it was the right thing to do.

    The executioner’s lament is overlooked by most people involved in supporting nuclear disarmament. This is a mistake, because the executioner, as was pointed out to Oppenheimer by the men of the 1stOrdnance Squadron, is in control.

    They possess the weapons, and they are the ones who will be called upon to deliver the weapons. Their loyalty and dedication to the task are constantly tested in order to ensure that, when the time comes to execute orders, they will do so without question.

    Image of a younger Petrov from a family album.
    (Stanislav Petrov’s Personal Library, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)

     

     

    Those opposed to nuclear weapons often point to the example of Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces who, in 1983, twice made a decision to delay reporting the suspected launch of U.S. missiles towards the Soviet Union, believing (rightly) that the launch detection was a result of malfunctioning equipment.

    But the fact is that Petrov was an outlier who himself admitted that had another officer been on duty that fateful day, they would have reported the American missile launches per protocol.

    Those who will execute the orders to use nuclear weapons in any future nuclear conflict will, in fact, execute those orders. They are trained, like Tibbets and Sweeney, to believe in the righteousness of their cause.

    Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian prime minister and president who currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council, has publicly warned the Western supporters of Ukraine that Russia would “have to” use nuclear weapons if Ukrainian forces were to succeed in their goal of recapturing the former territories of Ukraine that have been claimed by Russia in the aftermath of referenda held in September 2022.

    “Imagine,” Medvedev said, “if the offensive, which is backed by NATO, was a success and they tore off a part of our land, then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia. There would simply be no other option.”

    Some in the West view Medvedev’s statement to be an empty threat; U.S. President Joe Biden said last month that there is no real prospect of Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering the use of nuclear weapons against either Ukraine or the West.

    “Not only the West, but China and the rest of the world have said: ‘don’t go there,’ ” Biden said following the NATO Summit in Vilnius.

    Ignoring Russian Doctrine

    But Biden, like other doubters, emphasizes substance over process, denying the role played by the executioner in implementing justice defined on their terms, not that of those being subjected to execution.

    Russia has a nuclear doctrine that mandates that nuclear weapons are to be used “when the very existence of the state is put under threat.” According to Medvedev, “there would simply be no other option,” ironically noting that “our enemies should pray” for a Russian victory, as the only way to make sure “that a global nuclear fire is not ignited.”

    The Russians who would execute the orders to launch nuclear weapons against the West would be operating with the same moral clarity as had Paul Tibbets and Charles Sweeney some 88 years ago. The executioner’s lament holds that they will be saddened by their decision but convinced that they had no other choice.

    Proving them wrong will be impossible because, unlike the war with Japan, where the survivors were given the luxury of reflection and accountability, there will be no survivors in any future nuclear conflict.

    The onus, therefore, is on the average citizen to get involved in processes that separate the tools of our collective demise — nuclear weapons — from those who will be called upon to use them.

    Meaningful nuclear disarmament is the only hope humankind has for its continued survival.

    The time to begin pushing for this is now, and there is no better place to start than on Aug. 6, 2023 — the 78th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, when like-minded persons will gather outside the United Nations to begin a dialogue about disarmament that will hopefully resonate enough to have an impact of the 2024 elections.

     

    This article was published earlier in consortiumnews.com

    The views expressed are the author’s own.

    Feature Image: The devastated city of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb blast – bbc.com

  • The South Asia Nuclear Zero

    The South Asia Nuclear Zero

    The nuclear tests, of May 1998, by India and Pakistan, marked an epochal juncture for South Asia. The Doomsday Clock maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, jumped from 11:43 to 11:51, or just “9 minutes to midnight.”

    While, in India, the “Shakti” tests, do find celebratory mention, Pakistan observes the Chagai series of nuclear tests, as a national day, termed “Yom-e-Taqbir.” On the 25th anniversary of this event, Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai (Retd), currently, advisor, to Pakistan’s National Command Authority (NCA), delivered an address at the Arms Control and Disarmament Centre of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.

    Kidwai, who served, for 14 years, as the Director-General of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD), was at the heart of Pakistan’s NCA, and oversaw the operationalisation of its nuclear deterrent. Although his talk was for public consumption, given the historic absence of an Indo-Pak nuclear dialogue, some of Kidwai’s statements – if taken at face value – contain worrisome undertones, which need analysis.

    After mentioning the rationale for Pakistan embarking on nuclear weaponization (“humiliation of the 1971 War followed by India’s nuclear test of May 1974”) Kidwai proceeded to enlighten the audience about the implications of Pakistan’s new policy of Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) and how it kept, “India’s aggressive designs, including the Indian military’s Cold Start Doctrine, in check.”

    While retaining the fig leaf of Credible Minimum Deterrence (CMD), Kidwai went on to mention the “horizontal dimension” of Pakistan’s nuclear inventory, held by the individual Strategic Force Commands of the Army, Navy and Air Force. The “vertical dimension,” of the Pak deterrent, he said, encapsulated “adequate range coverage from zero meters to 2750 km, as well as nuclear weapons of destructive yields at three tiers: strategic, operational and tactical.”

    While the missile range of 2750 km, corresponds, roughly, to the distance from a launch-point in south-east Sindh, to the Andaman Islands, and indicates the “India-specificity” of the Shaheen III missile, it is the mention of “zero metres” that is intriguing. Pakistan already has the 60 km range, “Nasr” missile, projected as a response to India’s Cold Start doctrine. Therefore, unless used as a colloquialism, Kidwai’s mention of “zero metres” range could only imply a pursuit of ultra short-range, tactical nuclear weapons (TNW), like artillery shells, land mines, and short-range missiles, armed with small warheads, of yields between 0.1 to 1 kiloton (equivalent of 100 to 1000 tons of TNT).

    By shifting from CMD to FSD, with the threat of nuclear first use, to defend against an Indian conventional military thrust, Pakistan is aping the, discredited, US-NATO Cold War concept of Flexible Response. Fearing their inability to withstand a massive Warsaw Pact armoured offensive, this 1967 doctrine saw the US and NATO allies deploy a large number of TNW to units in the field.

    However, the dangers of escalation arising from the use of TNW were soon highlighted, by US Secretary Defence, Robert McNamara’s, public confession: “It is not clear how theater nuclear war could actually be exe­cuted without incurring a very serious risk of escalating to general nuclear war.” This marked a turning point in US-NATO nuclear strategy.

    Kidwai’s speech contains three statements of note. Firstly, he attempts to dilute India’s declared policy of “massive retaliation” (MR), in response to a nuclear strike, by claiming that Pakistan possesses an entire range of survivable nuclear warheads of desired yield, in adequate numbers, to respond to India’s MR. He adds, “Pakistan’s counter-massive retaliation can therefore be as severe (as India’s) if not more.”

    Far more significant is Kidwai’s declaration that, since Pakistan’s missiles can threaten the full extent of the Indian landmass and island territories, “…there is no place for India’s strategic weapons to hide” (emphasis added).

    Secondly, in an attempt to downplay India’s (inchoate) ballistic missile defence (BMD), he declares that in a “target-rich India”, Pakistan is at liberty to expand the envelope and choose from counter-value, counterforce and battlefield targets, “notwithstanding the indigenous Indian BMD or the Russian S-400” (air-defence systems).

    Far more significant is Kidwai’s declaration that, since Pakistan’s missiles can threaten the full extent of the Indian landmass and island territories, “…there is no place for India’s strategic weapons to hide” (emphasis added). The assumption, so far, was that, given its limitations in terms of missile accuracy, real-time surveillance and targeting information, Pakistan would follow a “counter-value” or “counter-city” targeting strategy. The specific targeting of India’s nuclear arsenal, especially, if undertaken by conventional (non-nuclear) missiles, would add a new dimension to the India-Pakistan nuclear conundrum.

    Delivered in the midst of Pakistan’s acute financial crisis, as well as the ongoing political turmoil and civil-military tensions, one may be tempted to dismiss Lt Gen Kidwai’s recent discourse. However, as the longest-serving, former head of the SPD and architect of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent, his views are widely heard and deserve our attention.

    Having voluntarily pledged “no first use” (NFU), India’s 2003 Nuclear Doctrine, espoused a “credible minimum deterrent” and promised “massive retaliation,” in response to a nuclear first strike. Since then, our two adversaries, China and Pakistan, have expanded and upgraded their nuclear arsenals, presumably, with corresponding updating of doctrines. India’s strategic enclave has, however, not only maintained a stoic silence and doctrinal status quo but also defended the latter.

    BJP’s 2014 Election Manifesto, had undertaken to “revise and update” India’s nuclear doctrine and to “make it relevant to current times,” but this promise has not been kept. Thus, India, currently, faces a moral dilemma as well as a question of “proportionality”: will the loss of a few tanks or soldiers to a Pakistani nuclear artillery salvo, on its own soil, prompt India to destroy a Pakistani city of a few million souls? Since India, too, has developed a family of tactical missiles, capable of counterforce strikes, does it indicate a shift away from CMD and NFU, calling for a response from our adversaries?

    These are just some of the manifold reasons why there is a most urgent need for the initiation of a sustained nuclear dialogue between India and Pakistan, insulated from the vagaries of politics. Such an interaction, by reducing mutual suspicion and enhancing transparency, might slow down the nuclear arms race and mindless build-up of arsenals.

    This article was published earlier in Indian Express.