The New Great Game

"KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 28 — The commander of NATO said he expects Taliban forces to regroup over the winter in Afghanistan and retake areas previously secured by the British."

In a BBC radio interview, US General Dan McNeill has said that although NATO forces have had success this year in driving Taleban fighters from the valleys of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, where about 25 British soldiers have been killed in the past six months, the Afghan national security forces have not been as successful in holding the captured territory and that there is a chance the Taleban could return to the area in coming months, forcing NATO troops to do the clearing work again.

Perhaps, as many predicted, we are now beginning to learn the lesson of The Great Game: No army has ever conquered Afghanistan ... and none ever will.

Russian Provocation

On Monday, two Russian "Su-type" jets launched a missile that landed just outside the Georgian village Tsitelubani, 60km north-west of the capital Tbilisi, though did not explode.

Yesterday Russia resumed its Cold War practice of flying long-haul missions to areas patrolled by NATO and the United States, with one of its Tu-95 "Bear" bombers undertaking a 13 hour sortie to an American military base on the Pacific island of Guam, where they "exchanged smiles" with US pilots who had scrambled to track it.

Last month, two Russian Tu-95 bombers briefly entered British air space but turned back after British fighter jets intercepted them. Norwegian F-16s were also scrambled when two Tu-95s headed south along the Norwegian coast in international air space.

Coming on top of Russia's "conquering" of the Arctic seabed and desire to restore its permanent base in the Mediterranean, its withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, threats to aim its missiles at European targets, and debates with the West over Iran's nuclear programme, Kosovo's possible sovereignty, and America's missile defence plans, can anyone now deny that a new Cold War has begun?

The question is, how should we respond? To what extent should we turn a blind eye to Russia's deliberate and calculated challenges?

Russian Ambition

Following its successful Arctic stunt to plant its flag on the seabed 14,000 feet beneath the north pole this week, Russia has again ramped up the Cold War rhetoric with the country's senior admiral calling for the establishment of a permanent naval base in the Mediterranean for the first time since the Soviet era. The Washington Post quotes Admiral Vladimir Masorin as saying "The Mediterranean Sea is very important strategically for the Black Sea fleet" and calling on the Russian Navy to restore its permanent presence there.

It's The War, Stupid!

George Bush - under enormous political pressure at home - needs to ensure that his voters cannot say that now even the Brits are deserting him. He will know what it is that his visitor needs to go home happy and he will want to deliver it.

Key to that is a war - not the one which Britain and America started but one which they hope to help stop - the war in Darfur. Both men are backing a UN resolution this week which will not merely establish a 19,000 strong peacekeeping force in Darfur and will not only back a peace process between the warring factions but will also offer Sudan a package of long term economic support if it agrees to co-operate - a carrot to accompany the sanctions stick.

For Gordon Brown this would prove that something can be done to tackle what he calls the greatest humanitarian crisis the world faces. For George Bush it would prove that America is willing to act on the world stage to build and not just to destroy.

Nick Robinson seems to think that the rebranded trans-Atlantic alliance might finally bring about decisive and long overdue action in Sudan. Much as I would love to believe it, with the likes of China and the EU still making "more time for diplomacy," I can't see the Brown-Bush summit being that successful.

Cyber Jihad

"As with nuclear or biological warfare, the Web is a dual-use technology. Technically adept Muslims, using out-of-the-box PC software and hardware, are outputting an electronic torrent of slick Web sites, discussion forums, videos, e-magazines and long-form movies, all with one purpose--to incite Muslims to join the jihad against the enemies of Islam in Baghdad, London, Glasgow or New York. Forget those Iraqi attack videos on YouTube; this is a sophisticated, globally distributed propaganda operation ... The language is invariably religious. There's no effort here to appeal to nationalistic sentiment; thus, for a global audience, the Islamic argument becomes wholly religious."

So writes Daniel Henninger in today's Wall Street Journal, describing a new study of Islamic media propaganda, "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas" from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The report documents in significant detail the extent that media outlets and products created by Sunni insurgents in Iraq and their supporters seek to win hearts and minds by creating an alternate reality that feeds into the global jihadist media, and how this is "undermining the authority of the Iraqi government, demonizing coalition forces, fomenting sectarian strife, glorifying terrorism, and perpetrating falsehoods that obscure the accounts of responsible journalists." The authors argue that efforts to counter insurgent media should not focus on producing better propaganda than the insurgents, or trying to eliminate the demand for the insurgent message, but rather on exploiting the vulnerabilities of the insurgent media network:

"The popularity of online Iraqi Sunni insurgent media reflects a genuine demand for their message in the Arab world. An alternative, no matter how lavishly funded and cleverly produced, will not eliminate this demand. But this does not mean we should concede the battle without a fight. The vulnerabilities of insurgent media remain to be exploited."

"The lack of central coordination impedes coherence and message control. There is a widening rift between homegrown nationalist groups and the global jihadists who have gathered under the banner of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Moreover, insurgent media have not yet faced a serious challenge to their message on the Internet."

With the White House's interim Iraq report today warning that although military progress is satisfactory, political reconciliation is lagging, quite clearly it is not just the security situation in Iraq itself that remains "complex and extremely challenging." The battle is being waged right here in cyberspace.

Life Is Not Cheap

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such." [Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan]

"A whistling.
Laila dropped her books at her feet. She looked up to the sky. Shielded her eyes with one hand.
Then a giant roar.
Behind her, a flash of white.
The ground lurched beneath her feet.
Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. It knocked her out of her sandals. Lifted her up. And now she was flying, twisting and rotating in the air, seeing sky, then earth, then sky, then earth. A big burning chunk of wood whipped by. So did a thousand shards of glass, and it seemed to Laila that she could see each individual one flying all around her, flipping slowly end over end, the sunlight catching in each. Tiny, beautiful rainbows.
Then Laila struck the wall. Crashed to the ground. On her face and arms, a shower of dirt and pebbles and glass. The last thing she was aware of was seeing something thud to the ground nearby. A bloody chunk of something."

Earlier today, I finished reading Khaled Hosseini's latest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Laila's story may only be fiction, but it makes the Afghan President's criticism of "indiscriminate and unprecise" operations by NATO and US-led forces, which he says have killed 90 civilians in just over a week, all the more poignant.

Not Another Cold War

"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Asserting that John F. Kennedy overstated his case in his inaugural address in 1961, the International Herald Tribune has an interesting take on last week's speech by President Bush on Communism, Islamism and freedom:

After Sept. 11, Bush replicated the excesses of the Cold War when he established a prison outside the law at Guantánamo Bay, circumscribed domestic civil liberties, encouraged the use of torture abroad, and alienated long-time allies by insisting on invading Iraq without their support.

"Like the Communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail," Bush said. He is right, but why strengthen their cause by abusing human rights and embarking on a divisive military intervention, much like those in the Cold War?

See also: The New Cold War and Star Wars

Sex, Drugs But No Power

Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll — The 1960s is the decade most people would most like to live in. Now, it seems, today's "youf" are trying to re-create that bygone utopia of sexual and social liberalisation, but I have to wonder whether they have not forgotten one crucial ingredient: flower power.

The Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV (IAG) says there is an indisputable link between alcohol, drugs and risky sexual behaviour, describing the threat as fuel for a sexual health crisis. Given the failure of the Government's Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, drug policy, and approach to teenage binge drinkers, this should come no surprise.

Noting that sexual health in the UK has been deteriorating over the last twelve years, the group warns that young people are starting to have sexual intercourse at a younger age, are becoming more promiscuous in their behaviour, and have the highest rate of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies in Europe. Their report asks, "As adults, are we reneging on our responsibilities?"

Rather than answer what seems a blindingly simple question with a blatantly obvious answer, I want to turn the query around: Are today's youth reneging on their responsibilities? If they've rediscovered the sex (earlier and riskier) and the drugs (stronger and more dangerous), why haven't they stumbled onto rock'n'roll? They've got their Vietnam (Iraq), so where are the non-violent anti-war protests? They've got their nuclear causes (renewal of Trident and next generation of power stations), so where are the sit-down demonstrations? They've got their gun crime and armed police, so why is nobody giving flowers to policemen?

The IAG claims "young people do not engage in risky behaviour: they experiment and explore" but I'm not convinced ... It seems to me that Generation Blair has missed the point.

Quote of the Day

"There are, in a sense, no final victories, for the struggle against evil in the world is never ending. Tyranny and violence wear many masks. Yet from victory in the Falklands we can all today draw hope and strength."

[Lady Thatcher, speaking on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Liberation of the Falkland Islands]

The New Cold War

"A more efficient sword can be found for every shield."

This latest salvo was the threatening response of Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister and likely successor to President Putin, Sergei Ivanov, to last week's uncompromising remarks from America about its missile defence shield plans. Without actually pledging to opt out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, he described the pact as "a relic, a rudiment of the Cold War" and maintained that "Russia is one of the leading global powers, and it will remain such, not only because of its powerful military but also because of its economy and intellect."

Despite his belligerent tone, in a wide-ranging speech seen by many as laying out his personal manifesto, the former KGB spy rejected claims that the world has embarked upon a new Cold War. This is a man we would do well not to alienate.

Terminator: Rise of the Machines

The American Army already deploys robot soldiers in Iraq. Equipped with tank tracks and automatic weapons, these robotic units, known as SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems), allow humans to attack the enemy by remote control.

Last week an engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Centre, an American weapons-research and test establishment, published a set of laws to govern operations by killer robots. Citing the precedent set by the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile, CAPTOR Mine, Aegis Ships, automatic Cruise missile defense, and Patriot automated air defense, John Canning made the following proposals:

• Let the machines target other machines
  • Specifically, let’s design our armed unmanned systems to automatically ID, target, and neutralize or destroy the weapons used by our enemies –not the people using the weapons.
  • This gives us the possibility of disarming a threat force without the need for killing them.
  • We can equip our machines with non-lethal technologies for the purpose of convincing the enemy to abandon their weapons prior to our machines destroying the weapons, and lethal weapons to kill their weapons.
• Let men target men
  • In those instances where we find it necessary to target the human (i.e. to disable the command structure), the armed unmanned systems can be remotely controllable by human operators who are “in-the-weapons-control-loop”
• Provide a “Dial-a-Level” of autonomy to switch from one to the other mode.

Canning quotes a legal specialist as saying, "We can target objects when they are military objectives and we can target people when they are military objectives. If people or property isn't a military objective, we don't target it. It might be destroyed as collateral damage, but we don't target it. Thus in many situations, we could target the individual holding the gun and/or the gun and legally there's no difference."

Now, The Economist reports on the research of Ronald Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who is generating an artificial conscience for battlefield robots to ensure that their use of lethal force follows the rules of ethics, based on existing ethical decision-making protocols (e.g. the Geneva Convention), rules of engagement, and other ethical and military requirements.

Incidentally, for anyone feeling a little lonely, Mr Arkin is also working on behavioural development for a humanoid robot "with the long-term goal of providing highly satisfying long-term interaction and attachment formation by a human partner."  Hardly bears thinking about, does it...?!

So much for Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics!

No More Slavish Indulgence

Over the years, Tony Blair's manifestly lopsided relationship with George W Bush has seriously damaged both the special relationship between Britain and America and our two countries' international reputations. As in other areas, we appear to have frittered away our moral authority.

Today's announcement by the international development secretary that Britain is to stop using the disingenuous phrase "war on terror" is therefore to be welcomed, especially if it means in a post-Blair era we will begin to question some of the other questionable policies and practices that have come out of the present US administration, such as outsourcing torture by extraordinary rendition and the reported mistreatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Britain's relationship with America should be characterised by honesty and, as in the closest of friendships, the space to express criticism. Only then will the "West" truly be a global force for good.

Afternoon UPDATE: A three-part series examining the origins of anti-Americanism starts on Radio 4 at 8pm tonight: Death to America

Just War

On the back of last night's Question Time Iraq Special, here's a couple of paragraph's from Christopher Catherwood's article Christians, Iraq and Just War in the first issue of The Difference Magazine:

"The war in Iraq poses considerable problems. Morally speaking, as those who defended it, from William Hague in the Conservative Party to Nick Cohen on the left, remind us, anyone who opposes the war has to answer the hard question, 'Would you have left Saddam Hussein in power?'

"As someone who, like Ken Clarke, Malcolm Rifkind and Andrew Lansley, opposed the war, I am very aware of the force of this moral argument. There is a sense in which getting rid of Saddam could be seen as just cause. Yet, as I was asked at the time on the Christian radio station Premier Radio, if evil and oppressive dictatorship is in and of itself just cause, why are we not after, for example, Robert Mugabe as well? That, too, is a fair point."

After explaining why Iraq fails to satisfy a number of the criteria of a just war, including requirements that it be defensive, have a clear outcome, and be based on legitimate authority, Christopher then goes on:

"Iraq is a war I would in many ways love to have supported, but felt that from a Christian viewpoint I could not. Apart from anything else, we changed a secular regime in Iraq that gave full freedom of religion to the very large Assyrian and Chaldean Christian minority there – not of course forgetting Saddam’s psychopathic oppression of his opponents – and have ended up with an increasingly Shiite theocratic regime which actively persecutes the rapidly dwindling Christian population. It is responsible for attacks on the Sunni Muslim minority, who, unlike the Christians, fight back militarily and are thus plunging the nation into civil war."

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