It's time for a major, major strategic reappraisal

*****

So now it's time to shift "Left" a bit.

Redeploy, bring 'em home.

It's time for a major, major strategic reappraisal.

As the "fog of war" swirls around the long term impact of the oily invasion of the Gulf Coast, a reduction of the American military presence in Afghanistan is essential for this nation's security.

We must cease living in a fantasy land. Those who seek to fly too high will have their waxen feathers melted by the sun.

It is time for a "rolling reassessment" -- to find a creative way to tamp down Afghanistan.

Without destabilizing the entire region and creating new sanctuaries for terrorism.

That will not be easy.

But ways must be found to reduce the American military "footprint" in Afghanistan, support local and regional accommodations among competing warlords, even to support competing factions from a distance. The Taliban could win complete control, but there may be other outcomes.

Above all to focus American goals on the demolition of Al-Qaeda base areas.

Mr. President, you are not so good at waging war....so focus on the vital ones.....

Crises such as the Gulf oil spill have the potential of doing as much long term damage to the economy of parts of this country as Al-Qaeda.

You have no choice but to win on issues such as the new "Battle of New Orleans" -- and other battles, challenges facing this country.

Learn from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan....Bring 'em home.

*****

Back to Basics: with the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the legacy of an oil slickened Gulf, it important to remember the thousands of young soldiers and their mothers whose lives are caught up in the tribal flames of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over extension can be the Achilles heel of great nations.

Obama must exercise leadership to protect many more from a lifetime of pain.

Now it is time to win this new "Battle of New Orleans" -- a symbol for many challenges facing the U.S.

Scarlett Tide

"When the Crater Meets Afghanistan"
Obama's War: to Lift the Fog or Tap the Passions
The way Ahead: Does Obama Need a Bit of Clint Eastwood

We Are All Soldiers: Honoring the Miracle of Survival
Obama's Sophie's Choice: a Blind Media
"Tipping Point:" guns or doctors? China watches
What Will We See When the "Fog of War" Clears?
Obama's New Policy: Senator Kerry's Speech
Obama's Great Grim Gamble: He Holds a Weak Hand
A Digital View of Afghanistan: Obama and a Hybrid Strategy
Rudyard Kipling Warns President Obama
Will Obama Follow Lord Roberts Advice: Get in Fast, Withdraw
Pick off an Occupying Army: Updating an Old Story
Following Alexander the Great to Afghanistan
Should Prez Obama Take Advice From a Russian
Left, Right, Join In: Ring the Bell on "Obama's War"
US in Afghanistan: Bearing Gifts to Other Nations
America, China: Circling the Afghan Carcass: a Bamboo Curtain Dead
"The Kiterunner" as a Guide to Afghanistan

******

Treasure box for those who survive horrible events

Written for those who survive horrible events
by a friend who as a child lived through the bombing
of Germay (but not Dresden) in WWII

A Treasure Box

The winds of fortune blow hot and cold,
No one's pot holds only gold.

The tides come in and the tides run out,
bringing and taking promise and doubt;

Joy and pain, all the same;
unpredictable, on any given day,
the winds of fortune will have their way,

What you imagine is yours to hold;
in a treasure box much more true

than anything else that happens to you.

You can fire it up on the darkest day,
and the winds of fortune won't have their way.

Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter....

It is good to remember the longing refrains of "Shenandoah, I love your daughter."

Listen below to the traditionalist Tennessee Ernie Ford version of this song I recently sang in a New Bern concert.

One of America's greatest ballads. It is many a man's voyage: a song of leaving, roving, but always loving...with the heart forever open to the dream of peace, a return home.

The trapper and the Indian maiden, the "archetypical" image of the American frontier.....where love and movement sometimes uneasily coexist. Centuries of romance have swirled around "Shenandoah's Daughter:"

'Tis seven years,

I've been a rover,

Away you rolling river,

When I return,

I'll be your lover,

Away, I'm bound away

'Cross the wide Missouri.

It was once informally the state song of Virginia, before that a boatsman's song on the Missouri River, then a shanty song shipping around the world with the clipper ship crews out of New Orleans.

Listen to Paul Robeson's 1936 version. The great Afro American singer was a classmate of my father at Columbia Law School, class of 1923. This son of a slave, obsessed with the battle against lynching, threw in his lot as an apologist for the Soviet Union. He lost his show business career in the "Red Scare" of the early 1950's.

Few are the Americans who have not sung or heard this tale of the American voyage. Check out a vast panorama based in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley as painted out on the melody of this great ballad. And click below to listen to a golden white robed choir of youth following with Bruce Springsteen's glistening arrangement.





Now it is truly international. Hear the words of the equisite Norwegian singer Sissel. Compare with New Zealand's teenage superstar Hayley Westenra (the version on my cellphone ringback.) Hear a violin version by Celtic Woman. Then there's Arlo Guthrie. Top it off with Anna Sophia-Henry, a nine year old soprano.

Lastly, listen to actor Jimmy Stewart's Hollywood version of "Shenandoah" -- tailored to a post Civil War call for peace and healing.

And here is a standard version of the grand old ballad:

Oh Shenandoah,

I long to hear you,

Away you rolling river,

Oh Shenandoah,

I long to hear you,

Away, I'm bound away

'Cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah,

I love your daughter,

Away you rolling river,

I'll take her 'cross

Your rollin' water,

Away, I'm bound away

'Cross the wide Missouri.

'Tis seven years,

I've been a rover,

Away you rolling river,

When I return,

I'll be your lover,

Away, I'm bound away

'Cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah,

I'm bound to leave you.

Away you rolling river,

Oh Shenandoah,

I'll not deceive you.

Away, I'm bound away

'Cross the wide Missouri.

The origin of the name Shenandoah is much debated. One theory holds that Shenandoah is an Indian word meaning "sprucy stream" or "river flowing alongside high hills and mountains."

Acccording to Wikipedia, that great source of modern wisdom. the word Shenandoah does come from Algonquian-Wakashian American Indians and mean Beautiful star daughter; maybe spruce-lined stream or vast prairie.

Another theory is the origin of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, Indian, of course, and also means "daughter of the skies."

Other claims are that Shenandoah is Iroquois for "great plains" and less likely, that it is derived from the Schind-han-dom or "spruce stream."

Whatever the source, the ballad lives on -- and its sounds ever change along the rivers of life.

#############

Ah, sweet Indian maid, where has thee been before? In "Song of the Indian Maid," by John Keats, 1818:

Young Stranger!
I've been a ranger
In search of pleasure throughout every clime;
Alas! 'tis not for me!
Bewitch'd I sure must be,
To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.
Come then, Sorrow,
Sweetest Sorrow!
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:
I thought to leave thee,
And deceive thee,
But now of all the world I love thee best.

Let us come down from the highbrow lyricism of English poetry and explore the dozens of love songs about Indian maidens published in the "Tin Pan Alley" parlor music of a century ago (Click on the link to enjoy both the lyrics and the sounds).

Centuries of romance have swirled around "Shenandoah's Daughter."

China, US: both hit by fast movin' trains

*****

****

As China pulls ahead with its fast moving trains, Americans ponder whether Sarah Palin scribbles notes on her lovely hands.

Could it be that Sarah Palin is a fast movin' train?

****

We all know what Sarah Palin can do to a crowd.

Let's take a look at another "picture from life's other side" to see a bit about what fast trains can do for some Chinese:

TIPS for the US?
all aboard the
GUANGZHOU-WUHAN EXPRESS

"Once the speed gauge hits 350 kilometers per hour, or 217 miles per hour, passengers charge down the aisle to photograph the electronic display.

"'If we go any faster, we'll take off!' jokes Hu Qing, cracking open another can of beer on China's world-record-breaking train.

"The Dec. 26 opening of the high-speed link between south Chinese cities Guangzhou and Wuhan is the latest example of massive state spending to keep China's economy roaring.

"The fast-expanding network of high-speed trains is stoking patriotism, too."

China's "black ops:" hacking away at U.S. power

****

Who would have expected the agressive forward strategy of a more assertive China?

In a cyber attack on Google and other Western computer companies.

Well, it should be no great surprise.

For China's capacity to assert itself has been growing -- and so has been its annoyance at the ability of the internet to penetrate its "closed" society.

So China now has its own brand of "black ops."

****

Hacking open Google mail accounts is minor compared to the possibility, but not probability, that Chinese and other cyber warriors could bring the American economy to its knees.

China is just one of several nations which need on occasion to stand up to the United States.

Countries such as North Korea, Iran, and Russia already have or will soon have cyber war capacity.

In the wake of U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, nations confronting the US more than ever seek nuclear weapons and cyber arsenals to put limits on American power.

More frequent cyber attacks ahead?

****

China sees its cyber war arsenal as an important insurance policy to assert its influence and stave off American dominance.

It is a carefully orchestrated cockpit of conflict -- where a Chinese government sensitive to internal dissent threatens an assault on the very technology which is part of its opening into the modern world.

As China grows stronger, it can be expected, as in the past, to insist upon standing up.




It need not actually take down the American economy or the global internet.

Still, demonstrating its capacity carries a big, if quiet, stick.

This then, for now, is one flavor in today's sometimes dysfunctional America-- China relationship.

In the insecurity of the Chinese government lies the need for an aggressive outward kick.....

So it has often been with authoritarian, insecure regimes.

But this time we have a modern one -- with the power to punch --- to enlist skilled hackers into military style units with orders when and where to strike.

The importance of a little minor hacking is that it reminds of far more aggressive steps which could be taken to undermine American power.

Some experts believe China's underground stable of hackers could bring the American economy to its knees.

So what can or should Americans do?

****

Should they threaten or take retaliation? Should they even, under certain circumstances, strike first?

From The New York Times on China's more agressive rise.

From The New York Times on how the U.S. finds no easy "digital deterrent."

Haiti quake: a wakeup call for a new "war" ahead

Haiti: Fighting a "New Kind of War"

****

"A picture of life's other side" includes the dark futility of much rescue effort in Haiti.

Maximum outpouring of international concern, but slow access to the trapped, wounded, homeless, and hungry.

Against a "deadline" after which hundreds, even thousands, of those trapped will be dead.

The dark picture also contains a compelling wake up call: to step up prediction and contingency planning for a new form of "war" which may lie ahead.

*****

Despite all the international attention, very little in the way of medical aid and rescue assistance made its way to those in need during the window of opportunity during which entrapped survivors were still alive.

And then thousands who could not be reached quickly were dead.

Looking Backwards: What Happens Without Planning

****

As bottlenecks opened, aid workers and thousands of U.S. soldiers poured in to help sustain those who survived.

An exercise in futility?

Hardly, for the money collected and the attention aroused could be used for future long term recovery -- after the dead are buried.

After the failure to save those who could not be quickly reached comes the second major challenge: to maintain interest, commitment, and co-ordination for long term recovery.

*****

And the broader challenge: to step up prediction and contingency planning for a new form of "war" which may lie ahead.

Looking Ahead: One Guide to Choice

Stepped up international planning will be necessary to meet fresh emergencies.

From unpredictable weather, earthquakes, climate change, and a rise of ocean water levels which may threaten coastal settlement in both poor and rich parts of the world.

There is a need to learn from Haiti, to improve precautions against bottlenecks, methods of co-ordinating aid, establishing security, getting medical teams in fast.

Haiti may be an extreme case but the challenges it presents will occur again and again.

Coastal Flooding: Waves of the Future?

Climate Change: To Mitigate and Adapt

It matters little whether climate change is "man made."

To one degree or another we can expect the consequences will be there.

In some cases there will be sudden catastrophes.

In some cases gradually developing, more manageable problems.

But stepped up international planning and co-ordination will be necessary to minimize bottlenecks, confusion, rivalry.

As we push forward ahead, let us learn from Haiti.

New forms of "war" lie ahead.

As the World Turns: is the U.S. "Play It Again Sam?"

*****

It can be argued the U.S. has been a "bird dog state."

"Locked on" in global conflict for decades with enemies of choice, bad guys who have challenged it, who repress their peoples, and have leaders wearing funny clothes.




A militarized state with vast overseas troop deployments -- whose diplomacy sometimes seems forever habitually locked in "Play It Again Sam."

A country used to pushing others around, used to getting its way.

America, a country with lots of military power, a wonderful capacity to make quirky extremist enemies.

A country which defines the world into good guys and bad guys.

A country which never forgets.

*****

Perhaps it began with the crusade to destroy Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Sustained by forty years of Cold War with the Soviet Union.

In sustained confrontation with China from 1949 to 1971. Moderated conflict to 1979,

"At war" with North Korea from 1950 to the present.

"At war" with Iran from 1979 to the present.

"At war" with Castro's Cuba from 1959 to the present.

*****

Oh, it did not work with Vietnam.

The Vietnamese defeated the U.S.

It seemed to work in Iraq -- at a cost.

Now, will it work in Afghanistan?

Stay tuned.

"As the World Turns," does the U.S.?

As the World Turns: say "bye bye" to being on top?

*****

Is American world dominance a thing of the past?

Is the Obama Administration's aggressive forward strategy to stabilize and reshape Afghanistan a glamorous, quick flashing cover for an over extension, then a lessening of American power?

Will China match or even win over American power?

Anyone can have an opinion.

Let's hear one.



Geopolitical strategist Parag Khanna suggests that three centers of competing but cooperating power are emerging.

His argument emerges in his volume The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century, Random House, February, 2009

Read Khanna's provocative views directly in this New York Times article, "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony," March 6, 2008.






Here is how Publisher's Weekly summarizes his thinking:

Khanna, a widely recognized expert on global politics, offers a study of the 21st century's emerging geopolitical marketplace dominated by three first world superpowers, the U.S., Europe and China.

Each competes to lead the new century, pursuing that goal in the third world: select eastern European countries, east and central Asia, the Middle East Latin America, and North Africa.

The U.S. offers military protection and aid.

Europe offers deep reform and economic association.

China offers full-service, condition-free relationships.

Each can be appealing; none has obvious advantages.

The key to Khanna's analysis, however, is his depiction of a second world: countries in transition.

They range in size and population from heavily peopled states like Brazil and Indonesia to smaller ones such as Malaysia.

Khanna interprets the coming years as being shaped by the race to win the second world—and in the case of the U.S., to avoid becoming a second-world country itself.

The final pages of his book warn eloquently of the risks of imperial overstretch combined with declining economic dominance and deteriorating quality of life.

******

And here is how The New York Times Book Review puts it:

"No shots will be fired. Instead the three imperial rivals will woo and coerce, relying on distinct styles.

The United States offers military protection, along with the promise of democracy and human rights.

The European Union dangles the prospect of membership in, or affiliation with, the world’s most successful economic club, provided that applicants undertake specific reforms.

China talks trade, investment and infrastructure projects, with no annoying demands for political reform in its would-be client states.

“To a large extent, the future of the second world hinges on how it relates to the three superpowers,” Mr. Khanna writes, “and the future of the superpowers depends on how they manage the second world.”

As the World Turns: China pushes "new great game"

******

While the U.S. plays its "great game" to preserve some kind of hegemony, China pushes ahead cementing energy supplies with Turkmenistan.

By inaugurating a pipeline with the central Asian state of Turkmenistan which will transfer natural gas to China without passing through Russian territory.

It is a pioneering stage in China's "New Great Game."

Chinese, Turkmen leaders celebrate
(watch the video)

China wins a race with both Europe and the U.S. -- which sought their own pipelines from Turkmenistan.

The new pipeline does not pass through Russian territory.

It shatters a bit Russian efforts to control energy resources passing from former republics of the Soviet Union.

*****

Monday, December 14, 2009 8:26 AM

Mark MacKinnon, The Toronto Globe and Mail's Beijing bureau chief, blogs on life and happenings in China and East Asia:

Beijing – A few hours ago, in a place called Samadepe on the rarely visited border between the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the global balance of power tilted ever so slightly.

Flanked by the leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Chinese President Hu Jintao today turned a symbolic wheel as oil started flowing into a new 1,833-kilometre pipeline that snakes east from Turkmenistan and across Central Asia to Xinjiang in the far west of China, where it will connect with China’s own pipeline network.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has insisted that Russia is not bothered by the opening of the pipeline, but that’s difficult to believe. Mr. Putin’s nine years in power (the first eight as president) have been spent trying to reestablish Russia as a global force. Key to that effort has been its role as one of the world’s biggest producers of natural gas, a position that was strengthened by its effective monopoly over the pipelines coming out of the former Soviet states of Central Asia.

That monopoly has now been broken. The Turkmenistan-Xinjiang pipeline is the first that will transport gas from Turkmenistan, the world’s fourth-largest producer, to market without going through Russian territory. When it reaches full capacity in another three years, it will pump up to 40 billion cubic metres annually, feeding China’s rapidly-growing and energy-starved economy, meeting half of the country’s current demand.

In building the new pipeline, China can also claim victory in a race with both the United States and Europe. Both have sought for years to establish a route to bring Turkmen gas west without going through Russia, efforts that were repeatedly thwarted by interference from Moscow as well as Iran, which blocked efforts to build a pipeline underneath the Caspian Sea.

Quick In; quick out: a search for U.S. hegemony

The Great Game Mural tells the story of the
perennial search for hegemony

"Back Baby, Back in Time"

Gen. Roberts' forces watch Afghan retreat

*****

It is reassuring that President Obama chooses to follow at least in part the advice of Lord Frederick Roberts, who commanded Britain's successful 1880's Afghan campaign.

Quick in and quick out was the Roberts strategy.

No "nation building," no direct rule. Negotiate and rule indirectly was the path forward.

Yet so far, despite Obama's emphasis on early withdrawal, we see an ultra-muscular "forward strategy."

The new policy includes both a troop increase and an escalation of goals.

It seems increasingly clear that the U.S. becomes a more vigorous player in a new version of the classic Central Asian form of politics known as The Great Game.

The aim: to build American hegemony in Afghanistan -- as a precondition for troop withdrawal.

Stabilization under American leadership of the broader region, including Pakistan with its nuclear weapons, appears to be the objective.

A remaking of Pakistani politics in a more pro-American direction is part of the goal.

The new strategy has both offensive and defensive aspects -- to dominate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan as well as to weaken, destroy al-Qaeda.

In many ways the Obama approach is far more aggressive than that of former President George Bush.

Stepped up drone attacks in Pakistan, stepped up pressure on Pakistan to join forces with the U.S. against the Taliban -- all are hallmarks of a renewed "forward strategy."

*****

The strategy of "quick in, quick out" worked well for Gen. Roberts in those days "way back in time."

But the world was much simpler then.

Roberts withdrew in part because William Gladstone succeeded the aggressively imperialist Benjamin Disraeli as Britain's prime minister.

Roberts seemed adept at adapting to the anti-imperialist Gladstone.

Lord Roberts' memoirs on the internet give a most graphic description of the battle against Afghan resistance.




The Brits firmly controlled what is today an independent Pakistan only partly allied with the Americans.

Today's Pakistan is sometimes a sanctuary for the Taliban and al Qaeda -- and itself vulnerable to militant attack -- especially if American pressure destabilizes it.

It is hard to be optimistic.

Still let us hope that what worked in the past will work once again.

*****

Much will depend on how Obama interprets the "advice" of Lord Roberts.

To what extent will he restrict the areas of occupation and nation building during the surge?

To what extent will the U.S. rely on more mobile attacks not requiring long term occupation?

These critical questions have so far been left, at least publicly, unanswered.

The way they are addressed will heavily impact the feasibility of a rapid exit.

"The devil is in the details."

For the moment the Obama strategy is agressive and far reaching -- showing an extraordinary willingness to up the ante, to take the risks.

Sir Frederick Roberts, 1832-1914

On his 82nd birthday

*****

In Afghanistan it's time for the "God of War" to create his own fresh harmonies.

Once combatants are fully joined, blood must be shed to establish either a clear victory or a new balance of forces.

There is no substitute for killing.

How to follow Lord Roberts' advice
WITHOUT following in Soviet footsteps?

*****

Back in September it became apparent President Obama would "need" to escalate in Afghanistan.

I decided to dedicate the next few months to research and writing on that Central Asian land -- including the options available to the President.

I pledged to myself to cease "reporting and writing" -- once the President announced his new strategy.

At first favoring withdrawal, I gradually concluded some kind of limited surge followed by some kind of rapid withdrawal was necessary -- but that chances of success in combining these two ingredients were marginal.

I support what the President seeks to do -- but am pessimistic about the prospects for success.

(For a quick, incomplete, no doubt carefully spun account of how President Obama reached his decision, try The New York Times, December 5, 2009.)

*****

Back in September I decided to do once again what I had done in the days of yore -- back in 1978 when China's Deng Xiaoping planned to enlist American support to invade Vietnam.

For three months I did my best to penetrate Chinese thinking to profile the coming escalation of a border war.

Then retreated to the sidelines after exhaustion and breakdown in Beijing.

To watch and report from a distance the 29 day February, 1979 war in which up to 40,000 Chinese and Vietnamese died.

Deng Xiaoping: invasion was in his mind

It was an avocation I began in the mid 1950's when studying Sidney Bradshaw Fay's "Origin of the World War" (1928).

That famous groundbreaking diplomatic history which punctured holes in the wartime propaganda that the cause of World War I was as simple as German militarism.

I have long been fascinated by a common theme of diplomats, politicians, and journalists making often blind decisions from inadequate or misinterpreted information.

War is very often deliberate and calculated, but often grows in a sea of "fog" -- where terrain, armies, intentions, consequences are deeply obscured.

*****

It is now time to "Exit Stage Left" -- from the tiny moving platform of my blog.

*****

One other thing: as war unfolds, media becomes even more a player and a tool of politicians and vested interests.

If judge you must, wait for the verdict of historians such as Sidney Bradshaw Fay...

Be patient.




Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Hungary and his wife Countess Sophie shortly before their assassination in Sarajevo, Bosnia, June 28, 1914.

The killings sparked World War I.

Not to worry.

Americans have been fighting small wars which did not become world wars for two hundred years.

*****

"Back Baby, Back in Time," this time
by the "Punch Brothers"

Standing on the corner with a nickel or a dime
There use to be a rail car to take you down the line
Too much beer and whiskey to ever be employed

And when I got to Nashville, it was too much soldiers joy
Wasted on the wayside, wasted on the way
If I don’t go tomorrow, you know I’m gone today

Back babe, back in time
I wanna go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I wanna go back when you were mine

Black highway all night ride
Watching the times fall away to the side
Clear channel way down low
Is comin’ in loud and my mind let go

Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall
If I can’t have you all the time, I won’t have none at all
Oh, I wish I was in Frisco in a brand new pair of shoes
I’m sittin’ here in Nashville with Norman’s Nashville blues
So come all you good time rounders listenin’ to my sound
And then drink a round to Nashville for they tear it down

Hard weather, drivin’ slow
Buggies and the hats in town for the show
Oh darlin, the songs they played
All I got left of lovin’ me

Back babe, back in time
I wanna go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I wanna go back when you were mine

*****

Need a Job: Why Not Try Afghanistan?
Obama's Battle Plan: Step Carefully Amidst Craters
When The Crater Meets Afghanistan
Obama's War: to Lift the Fog or Tap the Passions
The way Ahead: Does Obama Need a Bit of Clint Eastwood
We Are All Soldiers: Honoring the Miracle of Survival
Obama's Sophie's Choice: a Blind Media
"Tipping Point:" guns or doctors? China watches
What Will We See When the "Fog of War" Clears?
Obama's New Policy: Senator Kerry's Speech
Obama's Great Grim Gamble: He Holds a Weak Hand
A Digital View of Afghanistan: Obama and a Hybrid Strategy
Rudyard Kipling Warns President Obama
Will Obama Follow Lord Roberts Advice: Get in Fast, Withdraw
Pick off an Occupying Army: Updating an Old Story
Following Alexander the Great to Afghanistan
Should Prez Obama Take Advice From a Russian
Left, Right, Join In: Ring the Bell on "Obama's War"
US in Afghanistan: Bearing Gifts to Other Nations
America, China: Circling the Afghan Carcass
"The Kiterunner" as a Guide to Afghanistan