Asia-Pacific Archive

WARDAK, Afghanistan — The most surprising thing, initially, is how difficult and time-consuming even the most basic tasks are — like getting around between coalition camps, for instance. I had left Forward Operating Base Airborne — where I am based with U.S. Army units from the 10th Mountain Division and a French army training team — for a short trip to a nearby combat outpost, only a few miles away. The objective had been to take water, food, and building materials to the new outpost. The trip, which had promised to be relatively easy and painless, ended up consuming the […]

For those in the West eager to uncover another Tiananmen-like crackdown by Chinese authorities last week in the Xinjiang provincial capital of Urumqi, the true story disappoints, even as it points to a potentially far-more-destabilizing social phenomenon: the emergence of race riots inside allegedly homogenous China. Note that President Hu Jintao’s embarrassingly rushed departure from the G-8 meeting in Italy was not provoked by Sunday’s riots by angry Uighurs, but rather by Tuesday’s even uglier revenge riots by even angrier — and better-armed — Han Chinese. The makings of this unrest should strike us Americans as painfully familiar. The influx […]

The United Nations has issued a blunt assessment of the dismal state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, criticizing families, local communities and government officials for complicity in failing to address a social system that continues to set women up as victims. “Afghan women have limited freedom to escape the norms and traditions that dictate a subservient status for females. Women in Afghanistan are also subjected to the violence inherent in armed conflict that has intensified in recent years and is exacting an increasingly heavy toll on Afghan civilians,” the report says. Intimidation, direct psychological and physical attacks, and high profile […]

In the end, the Italians’ legendary talent for snatching success out of impending disaster won the day, and the G-8 summit in the quake stricken town of l’Aquila this week was “a tour de force of last-minute organization,” as the New York Times called it. There was no major breakthrough on any of the main problems confronting world leaders. But there was a useful clearing of the air on such issues as global warming, as well as a burst of generosity by “have” nations towards struggling economies in the developing world and welcome help for agricultural development. Above all, the […]

Robert Farley thinks I’m holding onto the past in my defense of piloted fighter planes, and he’s probably right: The question isn’t really one of the relevance of air superiority, orthe likelihood of war with China. Rather, we’re talking about theimminent reality that drones (with human controllers) will, in theforeseeable future, be better able to handle air superiority missionsthan aircraft with human pilots. He goes on to explain why, before adding this: Finally, I’m singularly unconvinced by the notion that we need tomaintain industrial and training capacity into the indefinite futurefor weapon systems that we’ve identified as obsolete. Right or […]

In a WPR Briefing yesterday, Joshua Kucera mentioned in passing Turkey’s response to the Xinjiang riots. Yigal Schleifer has more today. The keywords for Turkey are Turkic Uighurs, leading to both public outpourings of sympathy, but also official declarations of concern and a promise to bring the matter before the UNSC, where Turkey is currently a non-permanent member. But the other keywords are ethnic separatists, leading to a bit of sheepish self-consciousness, given Turkey’s stance towards separatists among its own Kurdish minority. All this at a time when Turkey is actively courting China. President Abdullah Gul recently paid a state […]

When I taught American foreign policy, I always began my lectures on Vietnam by showing the class Lesson No. 9 from “The Fog of War,” Errol Morris’ penetrating documentary about former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. The lesson? In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. Undoubtedly, that contradictory logic has justified some of the United States’ most ferocious acts abroad. The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the bombing of North Vietnam, are two extreme examples. Immediately after the clip ended, I would survey the 40-odd college students’ faces looking up at me […]

As someone who grew up devouring books on WWI-era fighter aces, and spent countless hours building model WWI and WWII fighter planes (I could probably put together a Spitfire with my eyes closed), I’m probably not a very objective judge of the idea making the rounds that the F-35 might be that last generation of U.S. piloted fighter/fighter-bomber planes. David Axe kicked things off, based on a comment by Adm. Mike Mullen in Senate testimony. Matthew Yglesias and Robert Farley make the case based on the relative expense compared to drones, with drones obviously coming in far cheaper. And Abu […]

Reading through this European Voice article by Richard Gowan and Bruce Jones (it’s sub. req., but Global Dashboard has a write-up here), I can’t help but think that the G-8 would be more relevant if it returned to its exclusive Euro-Atlantic roots, as opposed to the neither/nor affair it has become. As Gowan and Jones explain, U.S.-EU splits prevent any broader agreements from being reached with the emerging powers, while the broader format prevents the U.S. and EU from meaningfully hashing out their differences. They argue for maintaining the current format, while simply doing a better job of organizing it. […]

I somehow overlooked Jim Molan’s outstanding assessment of the state of play in Afghanistan in my daily read of the Interpreter, but luckily caught it the second time around thanks to the gang at SWJ. Molan, a retired Australian general, says everything there is to be said for the time being — namely that, rhetoric and opinion shaping to the contrary, we’re in a holding pattern in Afghanistan. According to his estimates, we’ll need to triple troop levels before we break out of that holding pattern, and the necessary resources will come from the U.S., not NATO. That pretty much […]

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won another five-year term in office, signaling voters’ rejection of opposition campaigns that promised tough government and promoted nationalism and big business interests. A craving for stability and success in holding regional terrorist threats at bay, coupled with a comparatively sound economy, was behind the victory. The election, widely viewed as free and fair, was also considered a major step forward for the democratic process in the world’s largest Muslim country. “My first step will be recovering the economy,” the 59-year-old president told reporters. Pre-electoral polls had forecast that Yudhoyono, or SBY as he […]

The ethnic rioting that has rocked China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang over the past few days has badly poisoned the already tense relations between the region’s Uighurs — Muslims who make up a plurality of Xinjiang’s residents — and the Han Chinese. It could also complicate China’s increasingly important ties with its neighbors in ex-Soviet Central Asia. The Chinese presence in Central Asia has grown in recent years, especially in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Trade between China and Kyrgyzstan — much of it exports of cheap Chinese manufactured goods — tripled between 2004 and 2006 (the last year for which […]

NEW DELHI — While India’s immediate military aim is to build a potent strike force against Pakistan, it also harbors long-term plans to field a credible deterrent against China. This reflects the fact that although military efforts to counter Pakistan, such as the strengthened deployment along India’s western frontiers, are usually given precedence, the perceived threat from China remains very much on the radar. A case in point is India’s recent decision to buttress its military presence in the Northeast frontiers by basing its latest “air dominance” Russian Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters there. The move is meant to check China’s buildup […]

There are still a lot of question marks surrounding the violence in Xinjiang. Two things, though, seem obvious. First, this is the sort of deferred maintenance China will be facing for quite a while with regards to transforming its inchoate territory into a truly coherent nation. (Tibet is the other obvious flashpoint.) The costs will remain significant in terms of power investsed, both hard (domestically, in terms of security forces) and soft (abroad, in terms of pushing back against international pressure). And it points to the degree to which the risk of violent conflict involved in China’s rise will manifest […]

In a Time of Crisis In the past year, we have witnessed a global emergency, with the world experiencing the worst economic meltdownsince the 1930s. This crisis will not be a one-off. Over the next 20 years, we will be confronted with a series of systemic and interlocking risks that will cross national borders with alacrity. As a result, the divide between domestic and international policy will largely be erased. To carve out a strategic response to these risks requires huge effort. Our assumptions about the world were formed in another age and are ill-suited to contemporary challenges. The international […]

In 1946, George Kennan keyed the famous “Long Telegram,” which identified the Soviet Union as an enemy of the United States. In 1947, the original telegram was reworked and published in Foreign Policy magazine as “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Together, these documents formed the codex for the U.S. Cold War strategy of containment, and thereby the basis of the eventual U.S. victory in that conflict. Here’s what a “Kennan” might have written for the 21st century. The Nature of the Threat Posed by Globalization We are now engaged in a conflict that will dictate whether we succeed or fail […]

As a kid, I was constantly subjected to fear-mongering on population growth, which was not only out of control, but certain to lead to widespread conflict, political repression, and freakish efforts at human survival. (“Soylent Green,” anyone?) Now, in my middle years, I find myself increasingly assaulted with the opposite “dangers”: too few babies, and a rapidly and unevenly aging world. Somehow the dire predictions of what the consequences will be have remained the same. Funny how that works! Some things we know intuitively from our history, both personal and global. An easy example: In the modern world, single men […]