The End of the Once Mighty British Navy...



HMS Kent (courtesy of Financial Times)



It appears it's finally over. The British Empire effectively geographically collapsed in the 1950's and 1960's as colonies sought and fought for independence.  India is the most notable example.  But Great Britain maintained a strong military, especially their legendary Navy.  We all grew up with the historical lore: the British Navy sailed the Seven Seas, controlling the Deep Blue from Hong Kong to India to the Suez Canal to the North Sea.  Nelson, Trafalgar, the sinking of the Bismark. The British Navy conquered the world. True,  for most of the last century, The Brits accepted the emergence of one of their former colonies enormous global navy -- the Americans emerged to rival the British and Teddy Roosevelt's orders to send the US Navy around the world to project our power was a seminal moment.  But we were (and are) proud allies and our interests were (and are) essentially aligned.

Today, the British Navy, under new budget proposals from Tory Prime Minister David Cameron this past Friday, will reduce the size of the British Navy to that of King Henry VIII.  Moreover, the UK's aircraft carriers will have no planes on them until 2018 - yes, you read that right: the British Navy's aircraft carriers will have no jets. Instead, they will simply carrier helicopters. They seem to be hinting that as a compromise, they will (gasp!) share the carriers with the French and have French Rafale jets possibly fill the void.



And it is not just the UK Navy.  The Royal Army is also facing intense cuts.  So much so that they are now seeking to develop a large array of decoy armaments (literal translation: inflatable tanks, inflatable armored personnel carriers, inflatable artillery).  The Russians -- another disappearing great power, has already

Russia's New "hot air" Military

launched a similar "hot air" strategy (see attached picture).

Needless to say, senior aadmirals and generals are pounding the table, threatening to quit, talking non-stop about the disturbing implications to the future of  "Great" Britain as they currently grapple with terrorists at home, a war with an uunflinching radicalized insurgency in Afghanistan. 

Britain is not alone.  The rest of the NATO members are slashing their defense budgets, seemingly pretending we are in peacetime.  The unilateral disarmament of the West has begun.http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7e575386-d670-11df-81f0-00144feabdc0.html

The Atlantic Magazine: The New Global Financial Order - The Seismic Changes Underway...

Excellent and fascinating research - really gets to the long-term global impact the financial crisis has created, the implications of which we've barely begun to comprehend. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/new-global-financial-order/64493/

Al-Qaeda Takes it to the Streets..

Steve Simon and Jonathan Stevenson have a very good piece in today's Washington Post on Al-Qaeda's evolving strategy of terror (see attached link).  In essence, what we saw in Mumbai is what we can expect in the future (and what we may have blessedly escaped in around Europe in recent weeks as an apparent combination of drone attacks in Pakistan and hardcore counter-terror efforts in France, the UK and even Germany rolled up).

German jihadi Eric Breininger,
reportedly recently killed in Pakistan.

What I find of particular concern is the fact that there appears to be a new class of Jihadis in training to carry out these attacks - specifically, Westerners who have converted to Islam and swallowed the radicalization poison, mostly I suspect as a way of getting back at the fractured Western culture they grew up in (divorce, alienation, rampant materialism and a general dehumanization of our lives).  Evidence of this is that amongst the successful drone attacks in Pakistan recently was one strike that reportedly killed five Germans -- blond, blue-eyed, native Germans.  If this is true and there is some sort of real spike in Western jihad converts, then the entire game has changed.  And we are not prepared as a country and a culture to deal with it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/08/AR2010100802664.html

Interpol Issues Arrest Warrents for Pakistani Officers for Mumbai Attacks

While this is not a surprise, it does give a deeper glimpse into the how corrupt and dangerous the Pakistani military is and what a threat they pose not only to achieving stability in Afghanistan but to the entire region.  The question really is what can the Pakistani government do to fix it? Answer: nothing.  Every day it moves deeper into chaos and failure.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8050866/Interpol-issues-Pakistan-army-arrest-warrants-over-Mumbai-attacks.html

Jones Departs; Donilon Steps in -- Is Obama's Foreign Policy Team in a Tailspin?



New National Security
Advisor Tom Donilon



A big day in the Obama White House - and for US foreign policy.  The question is can Donilon step up to the job or will he be, as Defense Secretary Bob Gates apparently told Bob Woodward in his latest book, "a disaster." 

Donilon is clearly a smart, experienced Washington player.  But reading that his recent jaunt to China two months ago with Larry Summers was his first visit to China and seeing his relatively thin foreign policy credentials -- former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Warren Christopher and later a senior executive at Fannie Mae (well, after all, it was the Chinese who bought huge tranches of Fannie debt, right?).  Watch for incoming Republicans to launch a particular new focus on Donilon's activities at Fannie, especially since he in charge of their then-vaunted lobbying operations in the Franklin Raines years.



Clearly, he's no Brent Scowcroft.  Or Zbignew Brezinski.  Or Steven Hadley.  Maybe more a Judge William Clark figure (Ronald Reagan's close and highly trusted friend).  What is particularly interesting is the ties to Vice President Biden -- Donilon's wife is chief of staff to 2nd Lady Dr. Jill Biden and his brother is an advisor to the Vice President.  Is this a signal Biden is asserting his foreign policy views in the Obama Administration?  This is going to be interesting...

ex-NSA General Jim Jones

And going forward, will be read interviews with new NSA Tom Donilon like the one General Jone's gave this week in Der Spiegel?  A bit doubtful.  Most of our NATO allies have little or no idea who Tom Donilon is -- the Chinese are just starting to.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,722139,00.html#ref=nlint

"Kyrgyzstan Has Become an Ungovernable Country"

Are we watching the beginning of an implosion of the entire region?  And what role, if any, is Islamic radicalism playing into this?  I'm rather surprised that we have not seen more focus on the threat Kyrgzstan may serve if it slides completely the category of "failed state." 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,720631,00.html#ref=nlint

Weekend Reading: Yemen -- Dancing on the Head of Snakes...

Yemen has sporadically drawn the attention of the West in recent years. While adventurous tourists remember it as the land where the ruins of the Palace of the Queen of Sheba lie and where local men spend a good portion of the day chewing enormous wads of semi-narcotic Qat leaves, it is also where the USS Cole was attacked by Al Queda suicide bombers in the 1990's, claiming the life of 17 American sailors.

What we in the West has failed to focus on is that Yemen has long been a violently tribal land that is now running out of natural resources such as water and oil and in its place is becomig an incubator for a new generation of terrorist planning and activity - a third generation of Jihad.

And, as importantly, Yemen is geographically poised to wreak havoc two of the most critical aspects of the global economy (namely, Saudi oil and all shipping coming and going through the Suez Canal - which comprises more than 60 percent of all shipping globally).

Moreover, it is an increasingly clear it is drifting into what foreign policy experts refer to as a "failed state" with remarkable similarities to Afghanistan and even Pakistan in terms of tribal and intra-regional rebellions.

In her penetrating and quite fascinating new book, Victoria Clark, offers a number of unique perspectives of this centuries-long troubled land. A former foreign correspondent for the Observer and the daughter of the BBC's former South Arabian Correspondent, the late Noel Clark. She was born in what was Britain's colonial city of Aden, Yemen.

Clark divides up the book into several parts, all of which weave into a rich and multifaceted portrait of Yemen.

The first half of her book presents the history of the country, century upon century of which was consumed in tribal fighting when not at war with the outside world. Clark points out, since the earliest days of the Ottoman Empire and advance of "Frankish" invaders up to and including British colonization, Yemenis have, in essence, been fighting foreign intrusion almost literally forever.

But this is not to say Yemen does not have its charms and a unique cultural heritage. It is from Yemen, Clark reminds us, that coffee was first cultivated and grown. Where the ancient (and now crumbling) city of Mocha once served as the greatest exporter of this most addictive bean to the rest of the world.

But the romantic memories are in large part drowned out as Clark takes us through Yemen's bizarre civil war 30 years ago the resulting plinterring into two states, one of them the Marxist Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen - the only predominantly Muslim country aside from Afghanistan to turn Marxist since the end of World War ll.

Clark then takes into the current "reunified" Yemen: A corrupt, confused and qat-addicted state struggling with at least two signficant tribal/regional insurrections as well as a revived Al Queda branch (Al Queda of the Arabian Peninsula - AQAP. We forget Osama bin Laden is A Yemeni and a surprising number of Al Queda members are of Yememi heritage).

All the while with Saudi Arabia hovers over the country as it increasingly sees Yemen as a potentially significantly distablizing force for them as well as the rest of the region.

As we watch the continued chaotic free-fall and Islamic radicalization of Somolia just across the Gulf of Aden with their growing piracy activity,Clark's book is an important and highly instructive primer on a nation and a region we cannot continue to ignore. And we can only hope it returns to a time - albeit a very brief time in Yemen's history - where peace and tourism returns.
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2966570-frank%22%3EView all my reviews</a>

The Scrutiny of Lula's Legacy Begins...

We do not know who actually won the election in Brazil to succeed President Luiz Lula (although it appears is chief of staff and hand-picked successor Dilma Rousseff will win the run-off).  But the analysis of Lula's legacy has begun and it's quite interesting to see Jorge Castanada, the former Mexican Foreign Minister, lead off with a mixed review of his tenure. 

But is also a good indicator of what his successor will face -- and it will have plenty of challenges.


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=119903#axzz11CcBIb00

China Offers to Buy Greek Debt

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabou and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou

Brilliant foreign policy.  Brilliant economic policy.  And there is nothing the U.S. or the EU can do to counter this (or want to do).  The message to the rest of the world?  China is a superpower, both economically and politically.  Soon, militariliy, too.
http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2010/10/2010102195730121409.html

Uhmmm... Yes, Mr. President, We Are.. Sort Of...

Taliban and U.S. in Media Battle: Stone Age Goes Toe-To-Toe with Techno Age.. and Does Well

And we think these guys are a bunch of angry, insane, unreasonable goat herders.  Think again: they are going toe-to-toe with the Masters of the Internet Age...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100106644.html

The Passing of One of the Soviet Union's Key Foreign Policy Advisors...

Georgy Arbatov was one of Leonid Breznev's and Yuri ("Mr. KGB") Androprov's top advisors on how to crush  deal with the United States.  He passed away yesterday,  Arbatov was for years the Director of the US & Canada Institute which spied focused on the US, reached out to engage key US policymakers and media.  But to some degree, Arbatov was seen as a key force within the Kremlin advocating for reform, realizing the Soviet system was unworkable and destined for failure - thus paving the way for Gorbochev and Yeltsin.  He was 87.  RIP.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gwr08Nrq14nB-zQDnJB0vziSq6OgD9IJ3KQ00?docId=D9IJ3KQ00

Lulu Leaves on Top...

Who would have predicted President Lulu would have presided over Brazil's leap into the ranks of rising superpower status?  We will be studying his strategy and tactics for years to come.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11458409

Americans Again Under Heightened Threat of Terror - in Europe...

We thought the drone attacks in Pakistan last week was enough to cause the terrorists from striking in Europe in the same form and fashion as they did in Mumbai.  We were wrong.  State Department putting high alert out for US tourists in Europe - stay away from areas typically frequented by tourists.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/02/source-issue-travel-warning-public-places-europe/