However, one does not have to read too long the Obama administration’s new document entitled, “Sustained U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21^st Century,” issued today (January 5, 2012) before realizing that there is not much therein.  Its hallmark is the absence of really new ideas.  South Asia and the Middle East continue to be envisaged as “primary loci” of threats to America’s interests (Page 2).  The long-standing promise of the Obama administration that America is a Pacific power was already formalized when President Barack Obama visited the Asia-Pacific last November.  He also formally opened a new military base in Australia during that trip.  In the context of escalating U.S.-China rivalry, that was indeed a major wrinkle.  A number of East Asian nations applauded that move, while China appropriately expressed its annoyance.

The current document further embellishes that development by stating, “U.S. economic and security interests are “inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities.”  Consequently, the United States’ investment for its prestige, attention, and the focus of its military expenditures emphasizes the role of its old allies, as well as its U.S.-India strategic partnership.  On the latter issue, the Obama administration reiterates its resolve “to support its [India’s] ability to serve as a regional economic anchor and providers of security in the broader Indian region” (Page 8).  Needless to say, this statement would delight India’s leaders.  At the same time, it would also reinvigorate the Sino-Indian naval competition in and around the Indian Ocean.

The new strategic document also restates America’s long-standing gripe that China’s growing military power is not “accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region” (Page 8).  One can rest assured that China will continue to ignore that grumble.

The newly intensified U.S.-Iran rivalry is given its proper space in the new document.  The only added variable is the document’s mention of the increased interactions between the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to contain Iran.  Giving the GCC states a new significance is a deft move in the sense that the Gulf sheikhs and emirs are looking for a pat on the back from Washington, at a time when the long-term prospects of their regime survival appear rather bleak, because of the sustained dynamism of the Arab Awakening (aka the Arab Spring).

Another important aspect of this document is the reiteration of “power projection despite anti-access/area denial challenges.”  The focus of this warfare is the PRC, which has been investing mega-capital in the development of its own asymmetric warfare capabilities against the United States.  In this context, cyber warfare, anti-ship missiles, ballistic and cruise missiles, and even drone warfare have captured major attention of military planners and thinkers in both Washington and Beijing.

What is also important to note is that the U.S. military is fully aware that Iran’s military is also busy emulating China’s asymmetric warfare-related countermeasures either on its own or through secret contacts with the Chinese military.  As was recently highlighted, Iran’s naval doctrine is heavily focused in denying access to the U.S. navy by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

The necessity of issuing this document has a lot to do with the need of the Obama administration to signal to his Republican presidential rivals that he is not about to create a “hollow” military, a phrase that almost invariably comes into vogue during the presidential election campaign.  One can readily recall the spurious “missile gap” between the United States and the USSR, which became a hot issue of debate during the 1960 presidential contest between Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

The bottom line of this document is to assure America’s friends and adversaries that the military is gearing up to doing at least as much in the realm of providing security to the United States as before.  Given its very impressive record of creating new and highly effective warfighting strategies and operational concepts, its adversaries need no further convincing.  China knows that fact only too well and its planners are busy studying the modalities of the AirSea battle concept.

A number of students of global affairs are steadily predicting a power shift from the West to the East and the consequent emergence of a post-American era.[2]  In reality, however, the global power shift might not be from the West to the East, but a multi-directional one, as we also witness the emergence of Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa as new global centers of economic dynamism, along with the PRC and India – two spectacularly rising powers.

Perhaps recognizing that it has long been stuck in the dizzying whirlpool of the Middle East and the need to catch its breath by refocusing on its dominance in the Asia-Pacific, President Barack Obama has already withdrawn America’s forces from Iraq; and has redeployed 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan.  This is part of his promise to bring about complete withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  However, the United States is opening a new military base in Australia.  By withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the lone superpower might also be tacitly conceding its defeat.  The politics of Iraq remains as volatile and divisive as ever.  Except this time, along with the explosive Shia-Sunni division, it is also characterized by the growing presence of al-Qaida.  Afghanistan, on the other hand, continues to prove itself to be the graveyard of empires.  As such, the war in that country continues to underscore the mounting power of the Taliban.

The Asia-Pacific, on the contrary, is welcoming the United States’ decision to escalate its presence, with open arms.  China — whose escalating hegemony appears ominous from the perspectives of small nation-states of East Asia – is creating ample apprehension among them.  Thus, these nation-states initiated a policy of “circling the wagons,” and appear determined to balance the power of China by asking for a resurged presence of the old hegemon, the USA, which has an established record of creating a benign hegemony.[3]  Washington could not have been happier.  The East Asian nations’ welcoming of America to their region only complemented the insistence of the Obama administration that America is a “Pacific power.”  President Barack Obama reiterated that resolve during his trip to Australia by stating that “…we are here to stay.”

India and China, the poorest countries of the not-too-distant past, have long passed the label of “rising powers.”  Now, they appear to be the economic power houses, indeed superpowers, of the future.  China is way ahead of India in this race, and thus remains a focal point of America’s attention.  As the foremost rising power of our time, China has the American example of the post-World War II era to follow.  Its rise not only has to be peaceful, but it also should be eminently constructive in revamping the rules underlying the functioning of the premier global political and financial institutions, like the U.N., the World Bank, and the IMF, etc.  Thus far, however, its leaders have not impressed the world by their proactivism or imagination for playing a constructive role.  They are standing on the sidelines, while being critical of the U.S. and Europe for not being “responsible” in their respective economic policies.  In the meantime, China continues to act as a rising power most comfortable in implementing parochial and inward looking policies of currency manipulation, as well as a heavy reliance on pushing its merchandise to the West.  It behaves as if it is only interested in reaping the benefits of appearing to be a superpower of the future without paying the political or economic price for being one.

India is gradually learning to act as a rising power in its neighborhood.  It has enhanced its presence in Southeast Asia by deciding to explore for oil in the South China Sea and in its cooperation with Vietnam, which has been one of the most vocal critics of China’s assertiveness in that region.[4]  India also has escalated its military presence along its border with China by announcing “$13 billion plans to raise a new mountain strike corps and four mountain divisions.”[5]  That was a clear response to China’s reported buildup on the Sino-Indian borders.   However, the jury is still out regarding the future performance of the successors of the Sun Tzu and Kautilyan styles of Realpolitik.

Europe is facing a crisis related to the future of the Eurozone, which was recently depicted as “a crisis of apocalyptic proportion” by Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland.[6]  As Europe is standing at the edge of a precipice, Turkey is emerging as the new power center of Europe.  In that capacity, it is implementing a “truly multidimensional foreign policy” in which it secretly conducted a joint air force exercise with China last October.[7]  In economic affairs, Russia became Turkey’s number one trade partner, replacing Germany.

Turkey is playing a similarly spectacular role in the Middle East.  Its intermingling of secularism and Islam is emerging as a popular example for the next corps of Arab leaders replacing the autocrats in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening.  In view of these developments, Turkey is transforming itself from a “peripheral state of Europe” into a “central power” of that region.[8]  Its model of secular democracy is already being emulated in Tunisia; and chances are that it would also be emulated in Egypt, as Islamists are winning electoral majority in that country but promising to opt for a coalition with the secularist parties.

The Arab Awakening (aka Arab Spring) continues to capture the world’s attention.  As the aging dictators fall, Islamists are emerging as some of the most prominent leaders of the Arab world.  The question is not an imminent one, but should be asked:  What is the Arab world going to look like in the next 3-5 years?  Are there prospects for the emergence of democracies, Islamic democracies, or would some of those Arab countries slide under the rule of theocracies?  Three current models of theocracy – Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – have not made those countries places of economic prosperity, political stability, or the focal point of enlightenment.  If anything, obscurantism is on the rise in Pakistan, and theological autocracy is the order of the day in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

If the convergence of Islam and pluralistic democracy occurs in the post-awakening Arab world, then the opportunities for people of that part of the world are enormous.  There is tremendous human potential waiting to be liberated, educated, enlightened, and to make a dash toward the globalized world from which it was more or less excluded because the autocrats feared progress related to the information age.  And they were right for fearing it, because modernity was bound to become their enemy.  The Arab Awakening arrived in the Middle East and North Africa riding on the shoulders of some of the most recent advances in social/electronic media.  It was the power of social media that the autocratic and archaic control machine could not control, fight, or stifle.

One of the secrets of the Arab Awakening is that it has been an inclusive movement.  Another shocking aspect of it is that there were no leaders who could issue commands for the masses to follow, or whose arrests or assassinations by the ruling autocrats could have seriously undermined the movement.  As liberated Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are struggling to create a constitutional system of governance, the most important question is whether they will adhere to the principle of inclusiveness, or will they become victims of fissiparous tendencies for which their societies have been notorious?

One has every reason to be wary of the Islamists of the Arab world.  They have spent long years in the dungeons of the autocrats and the Pharaohs.  They have no experience with governance.  They have repeated the slogan, “Islam is the solution,” without having the responsibilities for spelling it out into specific policies.  As they become part of the ruling elites, it will be a test for them.  Their ultimate success may not be that they govern well, even though that would be a wonderful outcome.  Their ultimate success as participants in a democracy is their willingness to accept defeat, if or when they are voted out of office.

One “odd man out” in the rising tide of political change in the Middle East is Iran.  It has increased its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, most ironically, because of the dismantlement of the Taliban regime and that of Saddam Hussein by its arch enemy, the United States.  However, the Green Movement’s abortive attempt to bring about regime change in Iran has left that country exposed to the covert shenanigans of the United States to overthrow the rule of the Ayatollahs.  Iran’s recent capture of the CIA’s, RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone is evidence of that reality.  The CIA’s monitoring of Iran is only the exposed aspect of its covert actions against that country.  The covert actions that are unbeknownst to the theocratic rulers of Iran are likely to hurt their regime the most.[9]  To add insult to injury, Iran’s strong ally, Syria, appears to be the next country to undergo a bloody regime change.  The loss of Syria would also seriously damage Iran’s presence and influence in Lebanon.

However, Iran is not the only country increasingly troubled by the prospects of regime change in Syria.  Israel is equally concerned, because the ouster of the Assad regime promises to bring about the rising presence and clout of the Islamists, who are not likely to loathe the Jewish state any less than the current Baathist/Alawite rulers of that country.

The emerging realignment of power should be worrisome, especially for the great powers of the West, because it is not only aimed at threatening their erstwhile privileged status in the global hierarchy of nation-states, but it also promises to bring to prominence actors and forces that have not been viewed by them as particularly friendly or cooperative.  There are likely to be many uncertainties, even the outbreak of minor or even major military conflicts, before a new hierarchy of nations is formulated.  The emergence of China and India does not promise the evolution of a Sino-Indian condominium of power.  Instead, the two rising powers might be headed toward an era of increased friction and even military conflict, especially on the issue of border dispute.  One minor example of that friction is underscored by the fact that India’s new Agni-V long-range ballistic missile is being dubbed by its defense analysts as the “China-killer.”

The lessening of the economic status of European states and the rising power of Turkey direly requires the emergence of a new set of “rules of engagement,” whereby Turkey can decide whether it is still interested in joining the EU, and, if so, on what terms?  The “sick man” of Europe toward the conclusion of the first decade of the 21^st Century is Europe, not Turkey.  The rising presence and influence of Islam requires a new rapprochement between the Islamists and the secularists for the emergence of Islamic democracy or a new model of democratic pluralism that resembles the Turkish model.  All of these are tall orders.  But they are also in need of acceptance by the powers of the past and the future.

I like watching these former national security officials talk after they leave their respective jobs.  More often than not, they tend to be candid about discussing the most hush-hush aspects of various hot-button issues.  And Jones was quite good about doing just that.

He looked quite baffled when describing his dealings with Pakistan’s top military brass.  His observation was that Pakistan is a country that is hell bent on destroying itself.  He also noted that there is no way General Pervez Kayani and his cohorts in the Pakistani Army did not know about Usama Bin Laden’s (UBL) stay in Abbottabad.  That was the first time I heard anyone inside or outside the U.S. government make that claim.

My sense is that he was saying what the official U.S. national security community really thinks about the knowledge and involvement of Pakistani top military officials about UBL’s long stay in Pakistan.  That might be one reason why the United States is having such a hard time smoothing over its ties with Pakistan.  What seems to frustrate U.S. officials even more is that, not only can they not talk openly about that issue, but the Pakistani Army is being audacious enough to remain angry over what it calls the violation of its territory by the U.S. Special Forces.  For the Obama administration, the real issue is that the Pakistani Army should accept its culpability related to UBL’s stay in Abbottabad.

Jones is also right in stating that Pakistan appears hell-bent on destroying itself.  But, as expected, he did not tell the whole story – he failed to point out that the United States also played a role in that reality.  Of course, I am referring to America’s proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s when the resurgence of the Jihad doctrine served its strategic purpose of defeating the Soviet Union.  The United States played no role in the Islamization of Pakistan, it only exploited it.  Pakistan, under General Zia, was almost an ebullient player in that war.  The United States left the region after defeating the Soviet Union, but Pakistan continued its calamitous march down the Islamization road.  An important point here is that that is only part of the story.  The whole story is much too complicated to be covered here; but the most important aspect of it is that it is still developing.  In fact, the International Conference on Afghanistan held in Bonn, Germany, on December 5, 2011, reminded me of a wake-like ceremony being held for Afghanistan.  The war going badly, the Obama administration is determined to redeploy its forces, and no country – including the lone superpower – has the capacity to throw mega-bucks into the black hole called the Karzai administration.  In that sense, Pakistan may have been smart not to attend.

Updated:  15 Dec 11

The memo is an interesting read.  It was written only days after the assassination of Usama Bin Laden.  That event placed the Pakistani government in an extremely bad light, hugely embarrassed the Pakistani Army because it seemed totally unaware of the violation of Pakistani sovereignty by the U.S. Special Forces when they flew in to assassinate UBL, and created lasting tensions between Islamabad and Washington.  If one momentarily ignores the actual contents of the memo, the timing of its writing, the fact that it was written at all for the reading of top American military officials, and that it requested their intervention at the highest levels of the Pakistani government with a view to bringing about major structural changes favored by the United States, speaks volumes about how powerful and acutely contentious the civil-military divide inside Pakistan remains today.

The memo starts out by describing the tensions that prevailed between the Army and the civilian government in Pakistan in the aftermath of the assassination of UBL at the hands of American Special Forces.  It goes on to state that, if the civilian government of Pakistan were to be ousted by the military, that country is likely to become “a sanctuary of UBL’s legacy and potentially the platform for a far more rapid spread of an al-Qaida brand of fanaticism and terror.”  It then accuses the Army and its intelligence directorate of “complicity in the UBL matter,” which, by itself, is an explosive charge.

The memorandum then requests “direct intervention” of U.S. officials demanding from General Kayani, Pakistan’s Army Chief, and General Shuja Pasha, Chief of the ISI, “to end their brinkmanship aimed at bringing down the civilian apparatus….”  Such an intervention, according to the author of the memo, would result in a revamping of the civilian government that would be “favorably viewed by Washington.”

Knowing what a dark image the highly politicized Pakistan Army and the ISI hold inside American governmental circles, the author of the memo promises wholesale changes that would alter the nature of civil-military relations inside that country.  The memo identifies several such changes; however, the one that stands out is its proposed elimination of the “Section S of the ISI charged with maintaining relations with the Taliban, the Haqqani network, etc.”  Admiral Mullen will be long remembered for his accusation that the Haqqani network “acts as a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI.

Hussain Haqqani, the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, who was accused of writing that memo, has a strong reputation inside Washington of being staunchly pro-American.  Before becoming ambassador, he was affiliated with the high profile think tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  In that capacity, he wrote articles and gave talks that were highly critical of the role of the Army inside his native land.  In fact, he articulated his anti-Army position in his book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military.  That reputation places him as a possible suspected author of that highly controversial memorandum.  The question of the hour, however, is whether he would get a fair hearing in the inquiry of this alleged authorship.  Haqqani’s chief weakness has been that, in his public appearances inside the United States, he went out of his way to identify himself as favoring the United States, a behavior that one does not expect in the public posture of most diplomats.  However, that fact alone should not be held against him in the eyes of those heading the inquiry into memogate.  He should be treated as innocent until the brunt of the evidence proves to the contrary.
If he is innocent, then he deserves to be restored to his position with a full apology from his superiors in Pakistan.

The brouhaha surrounding this controversy should not take the focus away from the fact that Pakistan’s civilian government – even though it has been proving itself incompetent and corrupt – remains a hostage to the whims and fancies of the military, which has been acting no better than a bunch of keystone cops in its highly inept way of conducting operations against the rag-tag group of
homegrown Islamists.  The fact that its ambassador was summoned to Islamabad, was given a hearing in a kangaroo court, and then was asked (or told) to resign, speaks volumes about the continued sway of the military.  If the U.S. government has any influence, it should state publicly that democracy should be given a chance to thrive in Pakistan.  That would be a noble goal.  Let the Pakistani populace, not a bunch of baton-wielding generals, determine when a corps of elected officials ought to be thrown out of office, and then only as a result of a general election.

The United States finds the Asia-Pacific as a region where it is still welcomed as a dominant power of the Cold War years.  As China’s economic power and military preparedness is on the rise, East Asia’s small nations as well as important military and economic actors—Japan and South Korea, for instance—are getting increasingly nervous about the “real” purpose underlying China’s rising
military power.  Of course, China’s rulers have not given any reason for small nations of their region not to suspect their intentions by declaring the South China Sea as an area of their country’s “core interests.”  Since the Chinese authorities have declared that it would not tolerate any dissent
regarding its areas of core interests, issues or items including therein were also regarded as “non-negotiable.”  Such a rigid stance has caused a lot of consternation among small nations of East
Asia, such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.  Their natural reaction was to increase their preference for a proactive American role and presence as a counterweight to the PRC.

The United States on its part was delighted to have such an exuberant clamoring for its presence and
proactive role in East Asia from the countries of that region.  The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warmed the hearts of East Asians when she declared in a speech last year that her country had a national interest in the freedom of navigation in South China Sea, which remains an important passage for world’s trade.  In addition, she insisted that all territorial claims in that area must be settled amicably—not unilaterally, which was China’s modus operandi—and through multilateralism.  As expected, China was infuriated by this American “interference.”  More to the point, China finds itself outmaneuvered by the lone superpower, a situation to which the leaders in Beijing are not frequently accustomed.

As President Obama gets ready to attend the East Asia Summit, the issue of South China Sea will definitely be discussed, much to the chagrin of the Chinese leaders.  Again, outsmarting China, the United States has been encouraging its allies in East Asia to stand up to China and protect
freedom of navigation in South China Sea.  The Obama officials have made their intentions clear that their country seeks to play a larger role in countering China’s claim in the South China Sea.   While
the United States is not interested in confronting China, keeping it at a disadvantage among East Asian nations is an opportunity that the lone superpower relishes.  The East Asian nations are hoping that the United States remains serious about making its presence felt in their region on a long-term basis.  That would be the only way they envision themselves being able to stand up to the rising assertiveness of the PRC.

The United States is also getting ready to establish a new military base in Australia.  Given the significance that both Australia and China attach to the sustained development of mutual economic and diplomatic ties, the U.S.-Australian strategic partnership seems to have outweighed in the
calculation of that country as compared to a potential concern regarding China’s reaction to that decision.  That is another evidence of the success attached by the Obama administration to multilateralism.

The United States’ AirSea Battle concept is another deft move to counter the PRC’s consistently
growing anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities.  As a country whose military capabilities are
not likely to match the awesome power of the United States, China has long relied on “anti-access” strategy.  The chief purpose of that strategy is to severely damage the high-tech capabilities of the U.S. forces in the very early phases of a military conflict, preferably by taking preemptive measures.
Consequently, the focus of the AirSea Battle concept is on preserving America’s power projection capabilities as a counter to the PRC’s growing A-2/AD capabilities.   Since China would want to
blind America’s space-based assets and cripple the high-tech gears based on its aircraft carriers in the wake of a conflict, cyber warfare has also become an incessantly developing area of capabilities on both sides.

It should be emphasized that the propagation of the AirSea Battle concept was not intended to create a war mania toward the PRC.  However, now that China knows quite a bit of unclassified details of that concept, it will have to rethink its own countermeasures to counter that concept.  Such a realization also plays an important role in deterring China from getting overly anxious about resolving the Taiwan issue or about becoming too ambitious about its seeming growing list of core interests.  During the Cold War years, the United States and the Soviet Union developed nuclear doctrines and then negotiated reduction of nuclear arms to transform the potential outbreak of war a distant possibility.  In a similar manner, China’s growing reliance on A-2/AD concept found its match in America’s AirSea Battle.  If the United States and China are assuming that such measures and countermeasures would keep the danger of war to a distant future, they both are on the right track.

Espionage is the world’s second oldest profession, especially among the top echelon of nation-states who, in their never-ending scuttle for modernization, are looking for short-cuts in their rush to get ahead of others.  The United States, despite all of the chatter about becoming a declining superpower, remains the foremost target of those countries who aspire to become its equal, especially in the realm of technological excellence.  Two countries with a dissimilar state of technological development – China and Russia – are accused of conducting technological espionage, or to put it bluntly, stealing the best U.S. technology and technological know-how.  That is the charge of the latest report issued by the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.  It ought to know, because it has long been tracking the activities of these two (and other) countries.

The United States has been a global leader in the field of technological development because it has understood that “…technical progress is by far the most important source of economic growth of the industrialized countries….”[1]

China has known it, especially since 1978, when it initiated massive programs of civil and military modernization. As its economy remained highly vibrant, China’s industrial growth has remained an excellent source for financing modernization.  But espionage has also remained its effective tool.  The Soviet Union also understood that lesson. Before its collapse, it “was widely regarded
as a science and technology powerhouse…” In that capacity, it was “able to hold its own in fields such as theoretical physics and nuclear technology and a world leader in space technologies.”[2]

As a general principle, investments in research and development (R&D) play an extremely crucial role in any country’s ability to remain atop the pile of nations. A report issued by Battelle – an international science and technology enterprise – on global R&D funding, states that, for the United States, “a recession-related drop in industrial R&D spending in 2009 is expected to be recovered by increases in 2010 and 2011 at levels exceeding the rate of inflation.”  Regarding China, the same report quotes a
Reuters headline that stated, “While the world slashed R&D in a crisis, China innovated.”  The Battelle reports goes on to note:

“China entered the recession with a decade of strong economic growth.  During that time, it increased R&D spending roughly 10% each year – a pace the country maintained during the 2008-2009 recession.  This sustained commitment sets China apart from many other nations.”[3]

A table contained in the Battelle report entitled, “Forecast Gross Domestic Expenditures on R&D (GERD),” depicted in billions of dollars, places the United States in the number one position, followed by the PRC, with Russia ranked number 10.  The table of perceived country by country technical strength for 2010 in the same report places the United States at the top, while China and Russia are ranked 4th and 10th, respectively.  However, the ranking of countries for 2015 on the same subject places China as number one and the U.S. as number three.  Russia remains at 10.[4]

What we can extract from the preceding is the fact that China not only understands the significance of R&D for its attainment of superpower status, but – when one reads the aforementioned report of the U.S. Office of the Counterintelligence Executive – it is also determined to get that status, by hook or by crook.

Russia is following the same tactic to get ahead, but its R&D is in a poor state compared to a number of great powers.  Its
defense-related R&D rose in response to the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s, but then it suffered a sharp drop after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The main reason for Russia’s poor state of R&D is the fact that the industrial sectors of its economy are not doing well.  “The collapse of the Soviet economy, particularly the industrial/military complex, to which most Russian R&D investment was directed, brought down a system that was based largely on technological prestige and bureaucratic planning.”[5]  The poor state of its civilian R&D is also showing its effect in military-related R&D.  As one study correctly surmises, “…the Russian machinery for pulling through military R&D to the field may well be broken.”[6]

In the information age, a country’s capabilities to hack into its competitor’s super-secret computers have become a major way of getting ahead by hook or by crook.  No country is generally considered to be as effective in hacking into the highly sensitive computers of the U.S. government as the PRC.  One can glance through Defense News or other military-related publications and come up with a list of incidents of hacking where the PRC is suspected as the major culprit.  However, when considering the actual incidents of hacking, one has to keep in mind that not all such incidents are reported by the U.S. national security agencies, for security reasons.  Thus, the actual incidents are likely to be more frequent than reported in the news media.  As the New
York Times dispatch on cyber espionage by China and Russia states, “Many companies are unaware when their sensitive data is pilfered, and those that find out are often reluctant to report the loss, fearing potential damage to their reputation with investors, customers and employees.”[7]

Consequently, the United States has remained very much on the defensive through establishing a national cyberspace strategy and countless other defensive as well as offensive tactics to neutralize potential hacking from China, Russia, or its so-called nameless friends and allies.  However, getting ahead through cyber-theft will not only continue, but, no group of nations is
likely to come up with a code of conduct for others to follow.  One of the chief reasons is that individual hackers may be arrested, prosecuted, or even put into jails, but no such disciplinary measures will be taken against a country accused of hacking,
especially when it makes a lot of noise every time it is accused of conducting this “cyber theft.”

[2] Mario Cervantes and Daniel Malkin, “Russia’s innovation gap,” OECD Observer, page 10, http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/554/Russia_92s_innovation_gap.html

[3] “2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast,” R&D Magazine, December 2010, http://www.battelle.org/aboutus/rd/2011.pdf, p. 3.

[4] Ibid., p. 30.

[5] Cervantes and Malkin, Op. Cit. http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/554/Russia_92s_innovation_gap.html

[6] Steven Bowns and Scott Gebicke, “From R&D investment to fighting power, 25 years later,” http://www.technology-futures.co.uk/MoG5_DefenseR&D_VF.pdf

[7] Thom Shanker, “U.S. Report Accuses China and Russia of Internet Spying,” New York Times, November 4, 2011, http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=862593&f=19

There is little doubt that India is about to face a regime change in the next election.  What is tragic is that there seems to be too much significance given to the leadership of young Rahul Gandhi, who is both brash and inexperienced.  For a country of the global significance of India, it has been showing a serious lack of a corps of sophisticated leaders who can continue the march toward becoming the second superpower of Asia in the coming decades.  One reason might be the dominance of Hindu mythology, which excessively emphasizes the role of heroes (or even superheroes) that can singlehandedly conquer mighty evil forces.  The Hindu books of mythology are full of narratives of such heroes.  Since religious legacies – even the mythical ones – color the frame of reference of ordinary people in all societies, India seems to be enthralled by the idea of “hero-leaders.”  Mohandas Gandhi was certainly one such hero, whose nonviolent ideology turned out to be more powerful than Samson’s “bone of an ass,” which he used to slay “a thousand men.”  

Jawaharlal Nehru created a similar legacy for himself.  As an astute student of history, a philosopher, and a shrewd politician, he had the makings of a leader that Hindu books of mythologies describe.  But Nehru was not a religious man.  In fact, as a declared secularist, he had little use for religion.  He emerged as one of the leaders of the nonaligned movement (NAM) of the 1950s and 1960s.  That movement played a major role in serving as the conscience of the world in underscoring the immorality of the Cold War.  But Nehru was no vacuous moralist.  He used morality only selectively, and ignored it when it served India’s national interests.  The best evidence of that was India’s strong friendship with the Soviet Union, the leader of the communist camp of the Cold War years.  Nehru played a powerful role in the enduring nature of that friendship.  While he regularly criticized the Cold War, he continued to show preference for the Soviet Union.  As such, India became a major recipient of Soviet civilian and defense technology at a preferential rate.  Nehru also remained a giant in India’s domestic arena.  No one could challenge his leadership.  That leadership became a prototype that no Indian Prime Minister could match.

Nehru’s daughter, Indira, also emerged as a giant of Indian politics.  However, unlike her father, she was quite ruthless and often wrong-headed in dealing with opposition.  She initiated a 21-month-long emergency rule (25 June to 21 March 1977), which is still regarded as a dark spot on India’s otherwise immaculate commitment to democracy.  She asserted a highly controversial policy (aka Indira doctrine) that assigned India to play a central role in resolving political conflicts of South Asia.  For the Indian political culture – which emphasizes more the Gandhian morality than the Kautilyan version of Machiavellianism – that was a gross aberration.  It was under Indira’s premiership that India succeeded in dismantling East Pakistan into Bangladesh.  Those who live by the sword also die by the sword.  Her mishandling of the Sikh movement’s demand for the creation of a separate Sikh state, Khalistan – and especially her decision to send troops inside the holiest of the Sikh shrines, the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) in June 1984 (Operation Blue Star) to arrest Sikh extremists and their leader, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale – eventually led to her brutal assassination at the hands of her two disgruntled Sikh bodyguards.

Indira was quite clearheaded and resolute about India’s role as a great power during an era when that country was not at all qualified to be labeled as such. However, to the extent that she had no doubts about India’s future potential, she was indeed a visionary.  In that sense, she also possessed the eadership qualities of India’s mythical heroes.

Since Indira, India did not have leaders of mythical quality.  Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was more of a Machiavellian than anything else, in his decision to bring India’s closeted nuclear weapons program into the open by conducting nuclear explosions in 1998.  From India’s strategic perspectives, that was indeed a brilliant move.  The United States – the self-styled policeman against nuclear weapons proliferation – was angry about India’s nuclear weapons test and imposed sanctions, but then got over that anger.  The decision of the administration of President Bill Clinton to conduct strategic dialogues with India in 1999-2000 eventually resulted in the remarkable evolution of the U.S.-India strategic partnership.

India’s emergence as one of the states possessing nuclear weapons should be viewed in conjunction with its economic reforms program that Dr. Manmohan Singh carried out in the early 1990s in his capacity as India’s Finance Minister.  Thus, Prime Minister Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh together emerged as two technocrats who made major contributions toward India’s emergence as one of the rising powers of Asia.  They hardly possessed characteristics of mythical heroes of the Hindu holy books.  Vajpayee was at times referred to as charismatic, but certainly not Singh.  In fact, Singh is not even a Hindu.

Still, the public quest for another hero-like leader continues.  That quest has a genuine base in India’s political culture.  People love to find heroes in different walks of life. When they find them, they continue to worship them unless they do something awful to dismantle their god-like aura.  The Indian mass media also plays a crucial role by incessantly keeping the notion of mythical heroes alive, as part of public discussion and debate.  Those discussions only become intense when a government in power gives them reasons to argue that its time has passed.  Unfortunately for Dr. Singh – who has the reputation of a brilliant technocrat – such a discussion is becoming voluble with the passage of time.

Given India’s incessant quest for heroes, Rahul Gandhi’s chances of emerging as Prime Minister appear quite bright.  However, not many are willing to take bets about his competence in that office, because he lacks experience.  Despite the visibility that he has been given as a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, he has yet to impress observers with his shrewdness, maneuverability, or craftiness – traits that were part of the political profile of his great grandfather and grandmother.  His mother, Sonia, has also nurtured an aura of a great leader in the past few years.  However, to be fair, Rahul might shock his critics and prove himself when given a chance.  But if he fails, India will move on.  His failure would not be regarded as the failure of a hero.  Heroes never fail; that is the judgment from the holy books.  And India will move ahead in its quest for another hero.

First, the republics of Central Asia, like the Arab states, are predominantly Muslim.  Second, they are being ruled by aging autocrats; they have a high number of people that are below the age of 30; a number of them have acute poverty; and they have highly corrupt and inept governments.  Third, even though Islamic practices are not as prevalent in a number of Central Asian
states as they are in the Arab countries, Islamist forces have been active inside the borders of a number of them.  The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 turned out to be a major setback for the Islamist groups of Central Asia.  A number of them were in that country because they had fled their home countries or they were there to receive insurgent training from al-Qaida.  The most well-known Central Asian Islamist group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was cause for much insomnia for
President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan (who was ousted in 2006, but not by the Islamists), and President Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan.  No one knows for sure how strong the Islamist forces really are in today’s Central Asia.

While the Islamist groups of Central Asia may not pose a serious threat to Central Asian regimes, the dictators of those countries are fearful of an Arab Awakening-like social movement, which is secular and staunchly pro-democratic.  As such, it can garner
worldwide support and encouragement once it gathers momentum.  It is these features of a social movement that are the constant source of consternation in the capitals of the Central Asian republics, as well as in Moscow and Beijing.

In order to fully comprehend how afraid those countries really are about a potential birth of an Arab Awakening-like social movement inside their own borders, one has to examine the foremost objective underlying the military exercise – Tsentr-2011 – of the Russian-dominated military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).  Aside from Russia, its membership comprises Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Belarus.  Prior to that military exercise, which lasted from September 19 through 27, General Nikolai Makarov, head of the Russian Army, said that the focus would be to deal with any Arab Awakening-like “social uprisings” and “the increasing threat from military Islamists.”

The Central Asian dictators are reported to have been studying how the Arab Awakening was born and grew like a tsunami of change.  Since the global media presented a comprehensive picture of the role of the social media in the awesome surge of
that movement, Central Asian rulers are already reported to be monitoring social media websites within their respective borders.  Nursultan Nazerbayev spoke about “the need to build an ‘impregnable wall’ to prevent any spillover of such revolutions in Central Asia.”  Referring to the Arab Awakening, he also expressed high concern about “an unregulated information space” that posed “threats to regional security and stability in the CSTO member states, especially in light of the latest developments in the
world.”  Kazakhstan is also studying the possibility of constantly monitoring the Internet cafes nationwide by requiring the installation of video cameras.

The Secretary General of the CSTO, Nikolai Bordyuzha, provided a comprehensive view of what CSTO has on its planning board, in terms of what he labeled as “cyberterrorism.”  He said CSTO aims to develop new plans of “information counteraction” to fight cyberterrorism, which, to him, included all cyberspace activities aimed at destabilizing a state.

It should also be noted that Kazakhstan, after studying the fate of former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak, abandoned a previous plan to declare Nazerbayev the country’s unelected leader until 2020.  Instead, the government hastily organized another sham election to “prove” Nazerbayev’s “democratic credentials.”  Another country, Uzbekistan, systematically endeavored to filter out all images of the Arab Awakening from the Internet.

A number of Arab autocrats have found out that a social movement is considerably stronger than their tanks and their repressive security forces.   Those dictators who refused to believe that reality are still fighting, the rulers of Yemen and Syria, for instance. When people are willing to die for what they believe in – in the case of the Arab Awakening, it is the powerful will to be free – no force can crush them.  That may be by why the autocratic regimes of Central Asia (and even of China and Russia) are trembling in anticipation of the time when political change becomes an inevitable reality.  In their hearts they know a paraphrased version of Victor Hugo’s immortal words – no matter how much they attempt to suppress, they cannot resist an idea whose time has come.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are traditional competitors, but unlike what most American “specialists” on Iran claim, the chief reason is not the religious differences between them.  The chief reason is that in the post 9/11 era, Iran has remained a major Middle Eastern power.  In that capacity, it has consistently remained opposed to the American hegemony of that region.  After the United State’s dismantlement of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iran had the golden opportunity to assert itself in Iraq, which it has been doing to the utter chagrin of the administrations of George W. Bush and now Barack Obama.  As American forces are getting ready to leave Iraq, Iran’s political prestige in that country remains unchallenged.   On the contrary, the Saudi strategic stock in the Middle East has been dwindling at the same time, and the Iran-Saudi rivalry has remained lopsided in favor of Iran.  Thus, the government in Riyadh is in dire need of asserting itself in the region.

Saudi Arabia faced an entirely different world during the same era.  In the post-9/11 and the post-Saddam eras, Saudi-American
relations have witnessed lots of lows.  Fourteen of the nineteen hijackers of the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil were Saudi citizens, thereby triggering the charge of the administration of George W. Bush that the Wahhabi world views and the Saudi educational institutions have been chiefly responsible for creating self-styled global “Jihadists.”  The authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, at least temporarily, came under pressure from the United States to introduce democracy starting in July 2004.  Saudi
Arabia, along with Egypt, topped America’s demands for such a transformation.  However, once the Islamist-dominated
democratic government captured power in Iraq and the occupied Palestine, the Bush administration quickly abandoned the demands for democratization.  Bush’s dream of introducing Jeffersonian democracy in the Middle East quickly turned into a pipe dream.

Iran also became one of the beneficiaries of the Hezbollah-Israeli war of July-August 2006.  Since Israel failed to achieve its declared objective of eradicating Hezbollah at the end of that war, even after unleashing the fury of its air power over Lebanon, the bruised but still-standing Hezbollah was perceived in the Middle Eastern streets as a “victor” of that conflagration.  Iran was the chief supplier of weapons and military training for Hezbollah.  It was during that era that King Abdullah of Jordan made his detestable remark about the “Shia crescent across the Middle East.”

As much as Iran became a “rising power” of the Middle East between 2004 and 2008 – when there was no Saddam regime to challenge it, and when the U.S. prestige in the world of Islam was at its lowest as an occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan – the rulers
of that country sabotaged their own regional prestige by defrauding the Iranians and stealing the election for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The Green Movement – that wonderful precursor to the Arab Awakening – emerged as the response of the young Iranians to bring about regime change.  The Ayatollahs got lucky, in that they succeeded in viciously suppressing the Green Movement.  However, the Achilles heel of the Islamic regime was exposed, and its legitimacy experienced an unprecedented level of erosion.

The Arab Awakening started in December of 2010 in the streets of Tunisia and became a tsunami of political change, and created a precedent of unimaginable magnitude for all the countries of the Middle East, especially for Iran.  The fact that the Arab Awakening was primarily a youth-driven movement, the fact that it appeared unstoppable because it was carried on the shoulders of the social media, and because it largely remained secular and democratic in its orientation, there is little doubt that the Ayatollahs are shaking in their inner sanctums about the resurgence of the Green Movement.  The chief difference between the failure of the Green Movement in overthrowing the Ayatollahs and the spectacular success of the Arab Awakening in overthrowing the rotting dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya is that the resolve of the Iranian youth fell short.  Otherwise, there is absolutely no difference between the substantive goals of the Green Movement and the Arab Awakening as social movements.  As such, the success of the Green Movement was only temporarily hampered, but it cannot be permanently
denied.

The Arab Awakening is as much a threat to the Saudi Arabian regime as the Green Movement has been to the regime of the Ayatollahs.  Iran was as brutal about suppressing the Green Movement as the Saudi government was when it sent is paramilitary forces to put down the protest movement in Bahrain under the auspices of the GCC.  The world watched in horror the brutality of Saudi forces in the streets of Manama in March 2011, as if the earlier videos of the violence perpetrated by the Iranian security forces against the Green Movement were being played all over again.  Thus, while those two social movements challenged the political status quo in Iran and Bahrain (and indirectly defied the iron-clad status quo orientation of Saudi Arabia), it makes little sense for Tehran and Riyadh to continue their regional rivalry.  The commonality of the challenges that are ahead of them suggests that they should be minimizing the chances of friction and antagonism.

Then why does that irrational rivalry continue?  Possible explanations for such recurring irrationalities in the Middle East are endless.  I will mention only three.  First, given the fact that the Obama administration has taken the lead in alleging the “Iranian plot,” one is tempted to think that some low-level functionaries in Iran might have been involved in their attempts to conjure up an idiotic plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.  Secondly, and alternatively, it is possible that the Obama administration, in its desperation to win Jewish votes in the next presidential election, is overstating the significance of that allegation, but is still remaining careful not to claim that Iran’s top leaders were involved in it.  Third, there is also the possibility that, after losing its strategic dominance in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the turbulence created by the Arab Awakening, the United States wishes to create an anti-Iranian Arab nexus as a smoke screen to recreate its dominance in those regions.  As much as the autocratic Arab regimes served as pillars supporting the U.S. hegemony of the Arab world in the post-World War II decades, the remnants of them may still be counted on to play a similar role in its recreation now.  After all, the relationship between the U.S. hegemony and the autocratic regimes in the Middle East was nothing if it was not symbiotic.

The allegation that Iran’s elite Qods force was involved in the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador is too silly to believe.  The Qods force has ample room to challenge the American hegemony in Iraq and Afghanistan for it to take the suicidal step of attempting to commit a crime inside U.S. borders.   Iran does not even consider Saudi Arabia as a country in the same league to challenge its strategic maneuvers in West Asia or the Middle East.  It is only when one considers the possibilities of U.S.-Saudi maneuvers
to create an anti-Iranian nexus in the Arab world that Saudi Arabia gains significance, and this story also starts to sound familiar.  Even then, the risks of such a potential nexus associated with the long-term prospects of peace and stability in the Middle East are just too grave.

It is India’s obsession with Pakistan that is forcing it to increase its strategic presence in Afghanistan.  India knows that, given the geographic propinquity to Afghanistan, Pakistan will always enjoy an unsurpassable strategic advantage over India.  Still, India has a number of additional advantages.  First, it is a rising economic power and can entice Afghanistan by offering huge amounts for economic development.  As a country whose economy is teetering at the edge of a calamitous precipice, Pakistan has little to offer Afghanistan in terms of developmental assistance.  Second, as a strategic partner of the United States, India is given pretty much a green light by the administration of President Barack Obama to escalate its strategic presence in its immediate
neighborhood.  As recently as only a few days ago, President Obama – who knows as much about the tortured history of South Asia as he does about the convoluted history of Afghanistan – gave Pakistan a public lecture that it should not view India as its “mortal enemy.”  Needless to say, India also believes along the same line.  However, what is more noteworthy is that Pakistan does not.  Thus, it makes a lot of sense for India to persuade Pakistan of that through its foreign policy behavior – its non-threatening posture – rather than a near-obsessive pursuit of enhancing its strategic presence in Afghanistan.

A complete picture of the reality of South Asia is that both Pakistan and India have been behaving obsessively when it comes to Afghanistan.  The darkest days of India’s foreign policy were when Pakistan succeeded in enabling the capture of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.  After that, India, along with Russia and Iran, did its best – albeit quite unsuccessfully –
to provide military and economic assistance to the Northern Alliance of Ahmad Shah Masood in his uphill but enormously courageous military campaign to dislodge the Taliban from power.  The United States succeeded in obtaining that goal where the collective endeavors of India, Russia and Iran failed.  The Taliban regime was dismantled in November 2001 as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan brought the Taliban to power in Afghanistan substantially in its quest for “strategic depth,” which was supposed to provide it some advantage over India in future military conflicts.  India, for its part, had every reason to be fearful of the growing power of Islamist extremism in relation to the Taliban rule of Afghanistan, which provided an enhanced strategic advantage of Pakistan.  That advantage was expressed through numerous incidents of terrorism in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

As the Islamist groups inside Pakistan turned against their own government in the first decade of the current century, and as the U.S.-Pakistan ties remain under enormous stress, the shoe is on the other foot.  India is exploiting the situation to enhance its strategic presence in Afghanistan.  The recent strategic partnership between New Delhi and Kabul, which might turn out to be not worth the paper it is written on – is a persuasive example of that reality.  There is little doubt that it is aimed at undermining the strategic advantage of Pakistan, the strong denials of India and Afghanistan to the contrary.  In that sense, those ties remain the legitimate target of Pakistan’s own future endeavors to undermine them.

One wonders how much of this egregious reality of South Asian power politics President Obama knows, understands, and internalizes, when he stood atop his soap box and started lecturing Pakistan that India is not its mortal enemy.  If the United States were not embroiled in finding a political solution to the war of Afghanistan – a war that it seems to be losing at present –  it may have played a role in bringing the two South Asian arch-rivals together.  However, upon reflection, India is not at all perturbed that the United States is too busy with the war to be playing such a role.  In fact, India is of the view that its best interest will be served while the United States plays no such role, for it is afraid of losing its strategic advantage in its negotiations with Pakistan; negotiations that are not really aimed at resolving anything.

Pakistan, for its part, knows that it does not have much of a strategic advantage over economically powerful and politically resourceful India.  So Pakistan seems to be operating on a slightly different version of the old adage: “The strong do whatever they will, and the weak suffer what they must.”  Pakistan’s version of that adage involving India seems to be “weak will do unto the strong whenever they can.”  Afghanistan serves (and will continue to serve) as an ideal place for Pakistan, regardless of whether the United States stays or leaves that country.  Since it considers that country as a legitimate part of its sphere of  influence, Pakistan regards the “encroachment” of India in that country as a serious “offense,” which deserves an appropriate response.  Thus, and sadly so, the unending Indo-Pak rivalry in Afghanistan promises to be both brutal and bloody.