AS ONE DOOR CLOSES...

Last week in his State of the Union speech U.S. President Barack Obama declared that by the end of 2014 "our war in Afghanistan will be over." Aside from finally bring the soldiers home the end of this phase of the war in Afghanistan could have some long term consequences, including a slow but steady decrease in Western security interests, an increase in drug traffic and terrorism in Central Asia.  Will the West wash its hands of any involvement in Central Asia, something that will please Russia, the Peoples Republic of China and the drug dealers and the terrorists alike?

At the moment at least, US (and Western) policy is based on an assumption that the 350,000-strong Afghan National Army (with US assistance and advisers), will be able to hold off or at least manage the Taliban. After 2014, unless there is a political deal, the Taliban will stay in the field with varying degrees of control in most of the Pashtun areas and perhaps beyond them. How far have we come since the heady days of 2001, when the suggestion that a battered Taliban would still be active in the field thirteen years after the invasion, would have been treated with disbelief.

As the Soviet Union faded into history in the 1990s, Taliban were in control of much of Afghanistan, their success (and the support of Pakistan) encouraged other extremists in Central Asia. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who had fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan was responsible for bomb attacks in Uzbekistan and kidnappings in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. After the invasion in 2001, splinter groups like the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Uzbekistan and targeted the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Tashkent (in 2004).

At present both the IJU and IMU have sought safe refuge in those parts of Pakistan which could politely be described as being effectively ungoverned.  Once NATO leaves Afghanistan their fight may yet be carried back to Central Asia, no doubt fuelled with the support and encouragement of Pakistan’s military and intelligence community. Power, politics, water and Islamic inspired insurgency are just some of potential problems that may feed Central Asia’s future insecurities.

Power and water are connected by plans to construct dams in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan which while boosting their economies also may threaten to reduce water for agriculture (cotton) in neighbouring Uzbekistan. There is already talk of ‘water wars’,  the flash point may be the lush (and relatively green) Ferghana Valley (which divided between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) with its complex mix of ethnic groups, it’s badly drawn borders (which date back to Stalin’s time) and fresh oppression, and a recruiting ground for Islamic jihadists. Back in 2005, Uzbek security forces killed hundreds of protesters in Andijon (in Uzbekistan).

Ethnic tensions have been simmering for years, several hundred Uzbeks and a smaller number of Kyrgyz died in bloody ethnic clashes in Osh (in Kyrgyzstan) and in nearby areas. To make things worse a historical cesspool of corruption in Central Asia (dating back to Soviet times) has worked to undermine most people’s belief in effective or fair governance. Transparency International’s corruption perception index of 174 states, lists Kazakhstan at 133rd, Kyrgyzstan at 154th, Tajikistan at 157th, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are 170th. Afghanistan incidentally comes in at 174th; the UK comes in at 17th and Ireland at 25th.

Unfortunately for Central Asia, as the West’s interest in Afghanistan (and the rest of Central Asia) wanes as the Afghan war winds down, the region remains between ambitious reborn great powers in the shape of Russia and China. While some in the West may occasionally speak out against any moves by Russia to manipulate the CIS customs union to "re-Sovietize" Eurasia, soon there will be no Western boots (virtual or otherwise) on the ground let alone and desire to offer an alternative.

Kazakhstan, while resisting political union, is a member of the Russian dominated customs union. Neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with one-third to one-half of their economies being dependent on migrant-labour based remittance payments from Russia may not have the luxury of playing for time. As NATO influence wanes and it pulls out of its bases in the region, Russia may increase the pressure by offering protection by expanding its military foothold in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan which already reluctantly host Russian military bases.

For Central Asia, any choices may be stark ones, Russia to the north, Islamic fundamentalism to the south or the People’s Republic of China to the East. Already the PRC looms large in Central Asian economies, with opportunities for trade and inward investment. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan now ship energy long distances to the PRC, something that hope may help reduce the effectiveness of Russia’s effective control of export pipeline routes to the West.

The PRC already uses the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to boost its Central Asian interests, for now admittedly these are mainly economic and energy related. While the PRC does not at least publicly challenge Russia's geopolitical role, as China's economic and political influence increases the Central Asian states freedom of action may be further reduced.

As NATO troop reductions in Afghanistan proceed, so NATO's need for logistical support via the northern distribution network in Central Asia will further diminish. The Central Asian governments, who are increasingly concerned that a NATO pullback (let alone a pullout) will leave the region more exposed to subversion and increased Russian and Chinese influence. Ironically the Central Asian States want continued Western support to hold off the IMU and IJU, to counter narcotics smuggling, and to help them keep Russian and Chinese power at arm’s length.

The brief 12 year period when the West’s had relative freedom of action in Central Asia is closing. Back in 2001, Russia effectively gave the USA and its coalition partners the go ahead to use bases in the region to support operations in Afghanistan. Now a more confident Russia is actively working to remove any NATO presence and influence from the region and is opposed to any Western involvement in dealing with the ongoing narcotics and terrorism problems.

In many ways the West failed to either effectively or consistently deal with the emergence of the newly independent Central Asian states and more widely failed to deal effectively with the demise of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the independent successor states. Western aid was relatively scare, and not tied into a respect for human rights and civil liberties. The often authoritarian governments have quite happily used security tools against their domestic protesters, something that has quite often fed political unrest and fundamentalism.

As NATO prepares to leave Afghanistan (and the region) what legacy if any will it leave behind? There should be some areas for security cooperation, information exchange and border security with the Central Asian states. There should be a more robust sharing of intelligence about terrorism, narcotics, and criminal threats. This could add to the solid, low-key work by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union that has already been undertaken.

After 2014, it is quite possible that Central Asia will go back to being the focal point of yet another new Great Game, this time the battleground where outsiders seek to impose their influence may well only have two players, Russia and the PRC. Central Asian governments may well need assistance to securing themselves against external dangers, but the reality is that historic autocratic rule, weak governance and grim human rights records are as big a contributors to political instability as the threat of home grown or foreign Islamic insurgencies.

SECOND TERM, SECOND CHANCE?

 US President Barak Obama

Having secured a second term, and fought his last campaign, US President Barak Obama  is as free as a US President can get when it comes with what to do with his new mandate.  He may do more with his second term than he did with his first, having no special interest groups to soothe or cultivate for future electoral support – Bill Clinton was said to have accomplished more in his last 80 days in office than in the first term and most of the second term. President Obama won re-election at a time when US unemployment stands at 7.9%, no US President since Franklin D Roosevelt has won re-election with unemployment at that level.

A poor economic situation can be pretty terminal to an incumbent chance of getting back into the White House: George Bush Sr, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Herbert Hoover being good examples. Fortunately for the 44th President of the United States, the US economy appears to be slowly recovering from the worst economic depression since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. US unemployment has dropped but it remains relatively high, standing at 7.9%, and job recruitment remains a problem, with millions of unemployed Americans seeking work this remains a key issue.  US economic growth also still remains sluggish; it was 2% in the third quarter of 2012.

Managing the Tax base is also an important issue, as on January 1st, unless Congress steps up to the plate, a raft of tax rises and government spending cuts which will affect nearly every American (one way of another) and impact on the relatively weak economy will kick in. This is no accident waiting to happen, it is a result of the 2011 compromise between President Mr Obama and the Republican dominated Congress which happened because of the need to focus on cutting the vast US budget deficit over the next few years.

A potential Iranian crisis may loom on the horizon even as other US global commitments begin to wind down i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. The Israel/Palestine situation, the war on terror in general (and more specifically in the Yemen), efforts to retain US access to energy supplies and keeping the lid on nuclear proliferation all remain major issues. The USA remains committed to stopping Iran gaining nuclear weapons while Iran continues to state that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes, and it continues to resist economic sanctions. Fending off Hilary Clinton (a hawk when it comes to Iran) may also prove a challenge for the new President.

On the domestic front the ongoing problem with the enormous government healthcare programme for over-65s and disabled Americans - known as Medicare or the third (lethal) rail of US politics - has been projected to run out of money in 2024 and may become 3.4% of GDP by 2035.  The programme (almost 50 years old) and one the Democrats' significant achievements, is under two pressure from the increasing cost of an inefficient healthcare system and the rapidly approaching retirement dates of the baby-boom generation, growing numbers of whom are increasingly eligible for benefits.

The President if he is unlucky may also find himself facing domestic legislative gridlock having to deal with a bitterly divided congress. Admittedly this is no new situation as President Obama has had to deal with it for last four years. As has been noted elsewhere a bipartisan approach would be nice and sounds good but the reality is that the political parties within the gridlocked legislature have barely looked beyond their deeply entrenched partisan positions.

There is no sign soon that Congress will cease to be divided, as the Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats have maintained their exceptionally narrow (and occasionally a single-vote) majority in the US Senate. So in the short term, the Republicans (some of whom have serious personal issues with the President)  control the House and can secure enough vote in the Senate to stall any legislation, will be no more willing to compromise with the President and the Democrats in his second term that they were in his first term.

Now may also be the time for the President to revisit the banks and the problem of tax evasion.  Back in January (2009) President Obama announced two more than reasonable measures to curb the banks, the first aimed to stop banks from engaging in proprietary trading, private equity, or any other activity for their own profit unrelated to serving customers. The second measure aimed to take further steps to limit the balance sheet size of banks so that they cannot in future acquire “too big to fail” status.

The President was absolutely right to characterise his proposals as a victory for common sense and while we still have some way to go before the banks are forced to act responsibly, the first steps were undertaken. David Cameron and the Tories (despite everything that has happened in an almost unregulated, greed driven finance sector over the last few years) are still far to enamoured with their friends, the dodgy money men in the City of London.

We also need to a degree of similar rules for financial institutions across the globe, off shore must become a matter of historical record – there must be no where the financial institutions can hide and no more endless threats of taking their “ball” (businesses operations) elsewhere and relocating because they have lost their so called special status. It is important to remember, that no one, not even bankers (or MPs) are above the law and no one is above financial regulation and scrutiny.

President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan had a valid point - if you believe in the ‘free market’ (and the City money men claim to) then no organisation can be too big to be allowed not to fail. Basically if you claim to live by the free market then you can die by it too. The massive public subsidies effectively made some of the banks 'publicly owned’, yet they are still largely run by bankers who are so thick skinned or self interested that they carried on regardless when it came to the awarding of bonuses - would that they had been more generous when it come to advancing loans to small to medium sized and large businesses in their hour of need.

It’s also time to tackle tax evasion on a global scale because it is a global industry. The OCED estimated that some $10 trillion dollars worth of private wealth (in 2010) is hidden away in Paradis Fiscaux (tax havens). These financial dead letter drops are used by banks, multi-national companies, corporations, the super (and not so super) rich, drug dealers, dictators, terrorists, fraudsters and other criminals who use them to hide and launder their wealth. One side effect of Paradis Fiscaux is that they enable people and organisations to avoid paying their fair dues to the society in which they live, unlike the rest of us.

To put things in perspective - the $10 trillion dollar figure produced by the OCED means that the lost taxation normally accused would be more than double the entire planet's global aid budget. Gordon Brown (remember him?) waffled when it came to tax evasion, as have the Con Dems as they are in the pockets of the money men in the City or under the influence of Lord Ashcroft - who's heart may be in Belize with his wallet? President Obama, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel are all on record when it comes to saying that off-shore capital needs to be properly regulated – so now may be the time for action.

DEVELOPMENT COSTS

The first quarter of the 21st Century may be written up by future Historians as the years when the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) rose to greatness and flexed its muscles on a global if not an imperial scale. Future historians may also note that these were the years when the PRC's influence in sub Saharan Africa grew at an exponential rate. There has been an almost imperial acquisition of resources in the sub-Sahara with one of the most sweeping, bare-knuckled, and bare faced acquisition of resource to feed the PRC's population and it's economy.

The USA (and the West) have been struggling economically and politically with the consequences of the War on Terror and the consequences of the World wide Banking crisis. In barely a few years, the PRC has become one of the more aggressive investor-states in Africa. This admittedly commercial invasion has been (and is) probably the most important economic and political development in the sub-Sahara since the Cold War ended, the economic map of the world has been quietly redrawn.

There are more Chinese citizens resident in Nigeria than there were Brits during the height of their empire. Chinese state-owned and state-linked corporations and small entrepreneurs have roll led across the continent in an almost unstoppable wave. It has been estimated that potentially around a million Chinese citizens are at work in sub-Saharan Africa. The PRC has created collateral economies and population monuments across the continent as it searches for and seeks to develop and control minerals and food resources.

No other world power has come close to showing the same interest (or muscle for that matter) or sought to cosy up to Africa's leaders. Now this is no War on Terror, democracy (flawed or not) is no being encouraged, nurtured or spread by the PRC - this is solely about finding what the PRC needs to feed China (figuratively and literally). Aside for having a political impact and snaffling up increasingly scare resources there has been an impact within the Sub Saharan African nations.

This has been manifested as trade unions begin to fight against some pretty grim (PRC imposed) working conditions (obviously and somewhat ironically the People's Republic of China (a notional communist and pretty repressive state) is obviously no great lover of any real trade union's and any political opposition for that matter. And as indigenous local farmers (and their families) find themselves pushed off their land as governments swayed by the PRC's largess sells  the land form underneath them. Pro and anti Chinese candidates fight elections in those Sub Saharan states where meaningful elections take place that is, and you can guess which ones get the benefits of PRC funding.

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11TH

We are all still far to close to the murderous events of September 11th 20001 to fully assess the long-term consequences that have flowed from the brutal attacks on America that day as a result of the terrorist attacks. Whilst my family lost no one that day, some of my family have seen active service in both Iraq and Afghanistan since, something we could never have envisaged prior to September 11th. Our thoughts today should be with those who lost family members in the attacks on New York and Washington and with the families of service personnel who have lost family members or had family members injured since 2001.

GUESS WHO CAME TO DINNER?

It's always difficult when people drop by for a meal, food aside what do you talk about? It's especially difficult when those awkward silences arise! Last night (Thursday) Prime Minister David Cameron had a not particularly unexpected or unannounced dinner guest, in the shape of President Zardari of Pakistan, who dropped by on the off-chance of catching the PM in at Chequers.

Mr Zardari (whose own money matters (and misdeeds in the past) would make Lord Ashcroft's money matters pale into insignificance) was Mr Cameron's guest at a private dinner at the PM's country residence. The after-dinner conversation would have left little room for any uncomfortable moments of silence, as there was much to talk about with plenty of lively conversation with counter-terrorism co-operation, NATO operations in Afghanistan and trade amongst the topics of conversation. No doubt there was a free and frank exchange of views - which is usually diplomatic language for 'a full on shouting match'.

Any exchanges would have been a tad more intense because of the PM's diplomatic blunder in India which caused a significant amount of muttering and some anger in Pakistan last week. The PM, during his India trip, did wonders for UK - Pakistan diplomatic relations, when he said elements in Pakistan should not be allowed to "promote the export of terror whether to India, whether to Afghanistan or to anywhere else in the world".

Now, the real issue was not so much what David ("Call me Dave") Cameron said, as where he said it that ruffled feathers in Islamabad. Had Dave said it in Islamabad or anywhere else he may have got away with it. It was saying it in India, which no doubt earned him a few points with New Delhi what really rubbed Islamabad up the wrong way. Most independent strategic analysts accept that elements in Pakistani military intelligence and within the army have been trying to play both ends against the middle over recent years in Afghanistan.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall!

A MATTER OF SPENDING PRIORITIES?

The BBC has revealed that the Westminster Governments figure show that the cost of the fighting and the reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan has passed the £20 billion mark. Some £18m has been spent on military operations, and that's on-top of the ordinary defence budget, and some hundreds of millions has been spent on aid and security for UK officials in Irag and Afghanistan.

This, however, is not the final total as the £20 billion figure does not include troops' salaries or care for the wounded, which is expected to be much higher. Some critics have questioned why the UK was spending so much on conflict when the UK's public finances were in a dire state.

Now that's a good question...I wonder who's is going to answer it? 

AFGHAN STATS

I am just about old enough to have distant TV memory of the fall of Saigon to the Communist North Vietnamese, but, am not old enough to remember seeing first hand any American TV reports that talked about 'body counts' and showed cumulative totals of dead insurgents, etc. Many people have, however, noted the parallels, the similarities and the differences between the TV based Vietnam War and the current Afghan conflict.

Measuring success or failure it something that concerns both the Pentagon and the Taliban; with references to the number of Taliban dead or a recorded decline in poppy production or the Allied death toll being used in recent years to gauge the success of Allied operations in Afghanistan. Yet even the use of these basic figures makes it difficult to quantify success or failure.

The Taliban are incredibly quick to reclassify their dead as being civilian casualties and any recorded decrease in poppy production does not clarify whether opium production has ceased or simply that cultivation has simply moved on elsewhere.

Some years ago, when traveling in Tajikistan in the mid 1990's, I can recall our attention being drawn to burned areas of cultivated land, where the local police had recently burned opium fields, as part of the war on drugs, only to be told in the same breath with a degree of irony that the growers, amply warned by local police (who were on the take) had simply moved to areas where their activities were less prominent, so everybody got to tick the box, so to speak.

The new NATO commander Gen Stanley McChrystal wants to change the emphasis in the conflict in Afghanistan from defeating insurgents to helping and protecting civilians, as part of this process, there will be new ways of measuring success, which will help to measure the success (or failure) of the new counter-insurgency strategy.

The Allies will measure:

• The number of District officials actually living in the district - currently many government officials live out of area but still pile up pretty nice salaries by Afghan standards.

• The cost of transporting goods - this varies depending upon the level of violence, and the scale of extortion by government officials, the Afghan police and the Taliban bribes.
  

• The number of shops and businesses that are active and open in the local bazaars

• the recorded number of reported improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - the frequency of reporting by local people to Carlton forces will be used to measure the level of support for the Taliban.
  
  
• the number of Children going to school - at present 95 schools closed out of 235 in total in Helmand, the Taliban actively target schools and teachers
  

So there we are, we now face a new type of war on terror and the Taliban and a whole new way of measuring the success (or not) of the Allied counter insurgency programme. For the record, just how did we end up even having a counter insurgency programme - this is a classic case of what can best be described as 'mission creep' that has not so quietly taken place as Allied soldiers have moved slowly from liberating Afghanistan and hunting the Taliban, to supporting the 'civil power', to full blown counter insurgency, and to dealing with opium production at source and beyond.

DEMOCRACY POSTPONNED

The Afghan Electoral Commission has, stating that a lack of funds and security considerations being the primary cause, has announced that Afghan parliamentary elections that were set to take place prior to the 22nd May 2010, have been postponed for four months until September 2010. A few things strike me, in the bad old 'Cold War' days, unpleasant, corrupt, unstable and undemocratic regimes would usually announce that democratic elections would take place ' within 6 months' so 4 months is an improvement - and oddly enough said promised 'democratic elections' usually never took place.

While the Afghan Government is hopelessly corrupt, ridden with warlords, paedophiles, former (and current) drug dealers and criminals, and a few honest persons, there is a more than fair chance (with Western support) that the Afghan parliamentary elections will actually take place, if the UN manages to complete its passing around the hat operation to find the funds, whether or not any UK forces will be on the ground (or busy packing their bags) is another matter, somewhat dependent upon whether of not David Cameron manages to keep the appeasement wing of the Conservative Party quiet. And I suspect that Gordon Brown, wishes he could put back the forthcoming Westminster election by four months...