INDIA/PAKISTAN: Hoax Call Hyped by Media – Get Hostilities to Brink

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Dec 7 (IPS) – A hoax phone call from India to Pakistan’s President threatening military reprisals in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Mumbai city, hyped up by media, brought the nuclear-armed neighbours close to conflict.

However, analysts believe that the hostilities arising from the attack and the media hype can still be contained.

The three-day standoff in Mumbai was barely over on Nov. 28 when the late-evening phone call was made, supposedly from India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. Because of the heightened tensions, his staff bypassed routine procedures and transferred the call to Zardari.

The imposter ”directly threatened to take military action if Islamabad failed to immediately act against the supposed perpetrators of the Mumbai killings” according to a report in the daily Dawn, Pakistan of Dec. 6, which reveals that the call was a hoax that sent Pakistan into a state of ‘high alert’ last weekend, ”eyeing India for possible signs of military aggression”.
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Re-Envisioning Defense: An Agenda for US Policy Debate and Transition

Republished with permission on the Global Intelligence News
A Global Geopolitics Net Site

PDA, Project on Defense Alternatives
5 December 2008

Read the full article in pdf format with graphs and charts on the PDA site.

The US defense policy paradox: less security at increasing cost

The United States is entering a critical period of policy transition. Beginning with the advent of the Obama administration, and continuing through the end of 2010, all of America’s national security and defense planning guidance will be revised. Certainly the need for change is broadly felt by the public. And it is not difficult to understand why.

Recent defense policy evinces a disturbing paradox: it has been delivering less and less security at ever increasing cost. With national defense expenditures approaching $700 billion per year, the United States today accounts for about 46 percent of all military spending worldwide – up from 28 percent in 1986. Approximately 440,000 US troops are presently stationed or deployed overseas, which is close to the number overseas at the end of the Cold War. But, in no area of concern has this prodigious effort produced substantial or sure progress – not in the “war on terrorism”, weapon proliferation, relations with allies, relations with China and Russia, or in the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Mideast, or Africa. Indeed, the world seems less stable and more polarized today than it did in 2001. And anti-Americanism is at a level not seen since the Vietnam war years.

On a world scale, what parallels the present paradox in US security policy is a process of global re-polarization and re-militarization. If unchecked, this portends a return to conditions reminiscent of the Cold War, with the world consciously divided into contesting nation-state and “civilizational” blocks. Such an eventuality would fuel arms races, weapon proliferation, and conflict potentials. In this light, the process of re-polarization and re-militarization might be considered the greatest threat to our security and global peace over the next 50 years. The challenge this poses for US policy makers is to find ways to address current security problems that do not inadvertently or unnecessarily feed re-polarization and re-militarization.

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U.S.: Diplomacy, Multilateralism Stressed by Obama Team

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (IPS) – Introducing the top figures in his national security team in Chicago Monday, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama promised a ”new dawn of American leadership” that will be marked by much greater emphasis on diplomacy and multilateralism than was accorded by the incumbent, George W. Bush.

Obama said all of his appointees, who featured current Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Obama’s former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, shared a ”core vision of what’s needed to keep the American people safe and to assure prosperity here at home and peace abroad.”

”…(I)n order to do that we have to combine military power with strengthened diplomacy,” he said. ”And we have to build and forge stronger alliances around the world so that we’re not carrying the burdens and these challenges by ourselves.”
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Popularity: 18% [?]

POLITICS-US: Realists to Reign

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Analysis by Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (IPS) – Less than two months before taking office, President-elect Barack Obama is making clear that realists — some more identified with Republicans and the military than with Democrats — are likely to rule the incoming administration’s foreign policy roost, at least at the outset.

While Obama is expected to formally unveil his Cabinet-level national-security picks Monday, a plethora of leaks to the media over the past week has made it virtually certain that Pentagon chief Robert Gates will remain at his current post for at least a year; Sen. Hillary Clinton will be nominated as secretary of state; and ret. Marine Gen. James L. Jones will become the new president’s national security adviser.

In addition, ret. Adm. Dennis Blair appears to be Obama’s choice as the director of national intelligence (DNI), while Susan Rice, a former top Africa policy aide under President Bill Clinton, will be made ambassador to the United Nations, a post that some modern presidents have accorded Cabinet rank.
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NICARAGUA-RUSSIA: Ortega Embraces Kremlin

Global Intelligence News / IPS

José Adán Silva

MANAGUA, Nov 25 (IPS) – The government of Nicaragua is seeking Russia’s support in a strategy that some analysts view as risky for the future diplomatic relations of this Central American nation.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has reestablished friendly relations and economic ties with the Kremlin, after over 16 years of a virtual freeze.

Nicaragua was the second country, after Russia, to recognise last August the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway provinces of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August precipitated the greatest crisis between the West and Moscow since the end of the Cold War, which stretched from the mid-1940s, shortly after World War II, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
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Popularity: 32% [?]

TRADE: Report Sees Bonanza for U.S., Iran if Sanctions Scrapped

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (IPS) – Think of it as a stimulus package without deficit spending: Were the United States to normalise trade relations with Iran and were the Islamic Republic to liberalise its economy, Washington could cut its fuel costs and add tens of billions of dollars to its economy, say U.S. exporters.

Such moves could lower world oil prices by as much as 10 percent, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) says in a report aimed at the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Obama, who is to take office in January, has signaled willingness to explore new approaches to his country’s long standoff with Iran. During his election campaign, opponents lambasted Obama for favouring appeasement at a time when Washington seeks to tighten the screws on Tehran for its alleged support of terrorism and nuclear ambitions.
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Popularity: 27% [?]

U.S.: Hemispheric Group Calls for Major Changes in Americas Policy

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (IPS) – An elite inter-American commission sponsored by a think tank that is considered close to likely key policy-makers in the administration of President-elect Barack Obama is calling for sharp break in U.S. policy toward Latin America, a substantial opening toward Cuba, greater diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, and a major reassessment of its war on drugs.

In a 32-page report entitled ”Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations” released by the Brookings Institution Monday, the 20-member ”Partnership for the Americas Commission” is urging Obama, among other things, to lift all restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S, citizens and take other steps to ease the nearly 50-year-old U.S. embargo against Havana, and to put far greater emphasis on reducing demand for drugs at home and the export of guns to Mexico.

The Commission, which was co-chaired by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and Washington’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering, is also calling on the U.S. Congress to phase out tariffs on ethanol imports from Latin America and subsidies on corn-based ethanol here as part of a larger initiative to develop sustainable energy resources, combat climate change, and foster greater regional integration.
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POLITICS-JAPAN: Aiming For Middle Power Status?

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Analysis by John Feffer

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (IPS) – Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is nose-diving in the polls, its gaffe-prone prime minister Taro Aso has acquired a reputation as his party’s funeral director, and a pivotal election may transform the Japanese political landscape before September.

Particularly at stake is the country’s military and foreign policy. Currently, Japan is caught between its ”peace constitution” and a much more assertive military policy envisioned by the conservative wing of the LDP.

With the country dealing with economic decline and political uncertainty, some scholars are trying to find another way for Japan to relate to the world. Yoshihide Soeya, a professor of political science at Keio University and a member of several government councils, has been one of the leading proponents of a middle way for Japan.

Speaking at a seminar in Washington, DC on Nov. 20, sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Soeya outlined his vision of Japan as a middle power staking out terrain between the great powers of the United States and China.
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Popularity: 13% [?]

ECUADOR-COLOMBIA: No Thaw in Sight

Global Intel Net / IPS

Kintto Lucas

QUITO, Nov 19 (IPS) – The cancellation of a meeting between delegates of Ecuador and Colombia aimed at restoring diplomatic ties, which were broken off in March, shows that it will be an uphill battle — especially with the latest round of mutual recriminations this month.

What was to be a two-day meeting Tuesday and Wednesday, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organisation of American States (OAS), was to take place in Pasto, the capital of the southern Colombian province of Nariño.

In the cancelled meeting, ”Colombia-Ecuador: Building Bridges”, representatives of the two countries, including Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez and the governors of border provinces, planned to attempt to smooth things out in the areas of politics and cooperation.
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Latin America’s Response to Narco-Fueled Transnational Crime

Republished on the Global Intel Net – Global Geopolitics Net Sites

Read this article in its original form on the Council for Hemispheric Affairs, COHA, website.

By Tomás Ayuso, COHA Research Asssociate

Intra-Mexican Violence

2008 has proven to be one of the most violent years witnessed by Latin America in decades. A massive crime wave seemingly striking all corners of the region is being recorded in daily horrific figures. Nowhere has this been more painfully obvious than in Mexico, the crime wave’s epicenter. Homegrown drug cartels operating from both within and outside the country are engaging in a vicious turf war to seize control of major trafficking corridors while engaging in almost open warfare against the mobilized forces of the state. These brutal confrontations between rival cartels and those fighting the combined forces of the Mexican police and military have left over 4,300 people dead through November, 2008. By comparison, total deaths due to drug-related violence in all of 2007 were approximately 2700. This confrontation is shaping up to be a war of master proportions. Due to pervasive corruption at the highest levels of the Mexican government, and the almost effortless infiltration of the porous security forces by the cartel, an ultimate victory by the state is far from certain. Finally, and alarmingly, the Mexican citizenry is gripped by a grim debate over whether the death of Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mouriño and drug prosecutor José Luis Santiago in a plane crash on November 4 of this year was an act of murder or a regrettable accident.

President Felipe Calderón’s administration, with renewed aid and expanded support from the United States (the so-called Merida Initiative) has fiercely pursued the local drug barons and their minions since his controversial electoral victory in 2006. Despite these efforts, the cartels’ penetration of Mexico’s anti-drug forces and the stepped up tempo of its violent victories have shown no sign of relenting. Their tactics have, if anything, only grown more sanguinary and their weapons more deadly.
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Popularity: 21% [?]

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