AL QAEDA: A YEAR AFTER THE DEATH OF OBL

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 746

B.RAMAN

There is an air of nervousness all over the world where there is a strong US presence regarding the dangers of Al Qaeda-inspired attacks on US nationals and interests coinciding with the first anniversary of the killing  of Osama bin Laden by US Navy Seals during a clandestine raid into his hide-out in Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 2 of last year. A terrorist alert has already been sounded and US intelligence agencies and security forces are already in a state of preparedness to counter any attack.

2.The greatest danger is feared in the Af-Pak region where there is considerable US presence offering tempting targets to Al Qaeda and its affiliates. This is also an area where there is maximum anti-US anger. The US is particularly concerned over Pakistan where the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have not been  co-operative with the US in unearthing and neutralising the remnants of Al Qaeda.

3.After seeing the impunity with which Osama bin Laden had been living and operating from right under the nose of the Pakistani Army in Abbottabad, one has reasons to fear that those remnants of Al Qaeda that have escaped death from the US Drone strikes must be similarly living in sanctuaries in the urban centres of Pakistan and biding their time for an opportunistic attack on US targets.

4.Among those still believed to be living and operating from Pakistani territory is Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over as the Amir of Al Qaeda, after the death of OBL. He is not as charismatic as OBL and not as innovative in conceiving and having executed terrorist operations of a catastrophic nature on a global scale similar to the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US.

5. Under his leadership, the anti-US PSYWAR campaign of Al Qaeda is showing signs of losing some lustre. I have seen no evidence to show that Al Qaeda under Zawahiri’s leadership is making as effective use of social media networks as other traditional fundamentalist organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt have been doing.

6.In fact, none of the six organisations that have emerged as terrorist organisations with Al Qaeda like potential for catastrophic acts of terrorism have shown a capability for imaginatively using social media networks for promoting their ideological campaigns and terrorist strikes. These six organisations are the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) popularly known as the Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen; al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in Algeria and Mali; al Shabaab of Somalia; and Boko Haram, of Nigeria.

7. The loss of momentum of PSYWAR operations after the death of OBL has led to a decline of “lone wolf” terrorist attacks of the kind witnessed in Glasgow in June,2007.   Individual Muslims inspired by online radicalisation and training launching terrorist attacks on their own is no longer as dreaded as it was before the death of OBL

8. Organised jihadi terrorism is still a major threat to be reckoned with. The six organisations mentioned above have shown a capability for sustained operations in their respective areas and sporadic strikes outside their territory like the LET’s 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the AQAP’s failed attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound US plane on December 25,2009. The death of OBL at the hands of the US Navy Seals was followed by the death of Anwar al-Awlaki of the AQAP reportedly by a US Drone strike in Yemen on September 30,2011.

9. OBL, a Saudi of Yemeni origin, Ramzi Yousef of  Pakistan, now in a US jail, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, another Pakistani now in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre,  al-Awlaki, a US citizen of Yemeni origin, and Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed of the LET of Pakistan were the conceptualisers and executers of well-orchestrated and imaginatively planned terrorist strikes outside their traditional areas of operation. Of these, only Sayeed has presently the motivated cadre and infrastructure to organise trans-national terrorist strikes of Al Qaeda kind.

10.Zawahiri is more an expert on jihadi intifada, a kind of regionalised insurgency in areas where there is a high level of alienation as in Somalia, Algeria, Mali and Nigeria. Thus, after the death of OBL, one sees two jihadi trends--- an intifada-cum-insurgency kind of a regional dimension inspired by the thoughts and exhortations of Zawahiri and trans-national  terrorism of Al Qaeda inspiration promoted by the LET and the TTP, either on their own or with the collaboration of Al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network of Afghanistan.

11.Of the five conceptualisers of global or trans-national terrorism, two---OBL and al-Awlaki --- are dead and two---Ramzi and KSM—are in US custody. This leaves Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed as the terrorist with the greatest lethal potential for global or trans-national operations. Unless he is eliminated by India and the US—either acting alone or jointly--- the continuance  of global or trans-national terrorism of Al Qaeda kind will remain a major threat.

12.Al Qaeda and its affiliates are now operating on two planes----regional and trans-national. The regional has its epicentre in Somalia, Algeria, Mali and Nigeria. The trans-national has its epicentre in the Af-Pak region and Yemen. While the neutralisation of the regional terrorism has to be the responsibility of the States concerned with appropriate outside assistance,  that of the trans-national kind has to be the responsibility of the international community with the US playing the leadership role.

13.While the US is now convinced of the trans-national dimensions of the threat posed by the LET, it is still hesitant to mount against the LET a counter-terrorism operation, with no holds barred, of the kind mounted against Al Qaeda and bin Laden. Unless it does so, the threats emanating from trans-national terrorist groups and the remnants of Al Qaeda operating from the Af-Pak region will remain as high as ever.

14. The magnitude of these threats could increase after the thinning down of the US and other NATO forces in Afghanistan. The implications of the continued non-cooperation of the Pakistani Army and the ISI in dealing with the LET and the remnants of Al Qaeda and of a premature withdrawal of the US and other NATO forces from Afghanistan are factors that have to be carefully analysed in any assessment of the terrorist scenario after the death of OBL. In its anxiety to thin down its presence in Afghanistan, the US is not paying adequate attention to these factors.

15. The thinning out of the US and other NATO forces from Afghanistan is likely to lead to a transfer of large quantities of arms and ammunition of different kinds to the Afghan security forces by the departing US forces. There are dangers of the leakage of many of these into the hands of  the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Al Qaeda, the LET and other Pakistani jihadi organisations.

16. The Af-Pak region is again likely to be awash with arms and ammunition as it was before 9/11. There is a danger of some of them finding their way into Jammu & Kashmir along with surplus trained cadres of the Pakistani jihadi organisations. If India is not  careful, it may face a repeat of 1989 when surplus trained cadres and arms and ammunition from Afghanistan made their way into Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir to assist in an ISI-organised proxy war to annex J&K.

17. OBL is dead, but the threats emanating from the region will remain as high as before until the jihadi terrorist remnants operating from this region are neutralised and their sources of funding and arms and ammunition are forced to dry up. ( 27-4-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )

DEALING WITH MAOIST TACTICS: WANTED COOL THINKING, NOT BRAVADO

B.RAMAN

The Maoists have been increasingly resorting to abduction as one of their tactics for cowing down the State and society and for demonstrating their ability to enforce their will on the State.

2. The recent incidents of abduction of two Italian nationals and a member of the legislative Assembly of Odisha to force the State---unfortunately successfully--- to concede their demands for the release of some arrested Maoists have been followed by the abduction of Alex Paul Menon, the32-year-old Collector of Sukma District in Chattisgarh, on April 21,2002.

3.Citing Ram Nivas, Additional Director of Police in charge of Naxal operations in the State, media reports have stated that a group of 20 Maoists killed the two personal security officers of the Collector and abducted him while he was having a meeting with some villagers in the Majhipara village of the District. The Collector had reportedly gone to the village on a motorcycle as part of a Government-initiated campaign to wean the villagers away from the Maoists. S.K.Vaidya, a Sub-Divisional Magistrate, who had accompanied the Collector, was not abducted.

4. The young Collector, like other officers of different services serving in the areas affected by the Maoist insurgency in different States of India, deserves the highest praise from the citizens of this country for his personal courage and devotion to public service. Unmindful of the dangers faced by him, Menon had kept up his village touring in order to interact with the people and address their grievances against the State. It is the courage and devotion of officers like Menon which gives us hope that we will ultimately prevail over the Maoists despite the gloomy situation that prevails at present. It is important to underline this before discussing the options available to the State in dealing with the use of repeated abductions as a tactic by the Maoists.

5. Denying success to rural insurgents operating from forests who indulge in such tactics is always much more difficult than denying success to urban terrorists who operate from urban hideouts. Collection of preventive and operational human intelligence is more difficult in  rural areas ---particularly with a heavy forest cover---than in an urban area. Technical intelligence is equally difficult to come by since rural insurgents do not use modern means of communication like the urban terrorists do.

6. Confronted with a situation of almost zero intelligence regarding the specific plans of the Maoists, the only preventive option is a heavy security cover for touring officers and political leaders and a saturated security presence in the areas worst affected by the insurgency. It is not an uncharitable criticism of the young officer to state that one was surprised that Menon ventured into an area reportedly heavily affected by the insurgency with a very thin security cover. One is not certain whether Menon was accompanied by a police contingent in addition to his two personal security officers. Apparently not, because otherwise, there might have been an encounter between the police contingent and the Maoists who came to abduct him.

7. It is important for our officers and political leaders to keep travelling in those areas without letting themselves be cowed down by the insurgents. At the same time, they should ensure that they do not neglect the importance of a heavy security cover in the form of personal security officers and a protection contingent which would provide area protection.

8.Touring officers and political leaders probably avoid a heavy protection contingent as the presence of a large number of policemen in their entourage might unnerve the villagers and defeat the purpose of their touring for interaction with the people. But this cannot be helped. There is no point in venturing out into such areas without a satisfactory security cover.

9. The Maoists have also been abducting not only public servants, but also innocent civilians as one saw in the case of the two Italian tourists. It would become difficult for the State to provide dedicated protection to all civilians who have to travel in the areas under the control of the Maoists. All that the State can do is to brief them periodically on the dangers that they might face and what precautions they should take.

10. The Maoists have been using two tactical weapons effectively in their attempts to intimidate public servants and discourage them from touring--- the use of road mines and abduction. We still do not seem to have an effective answer to deal with the use of landmines by them. This calls for action on various planes such as preventing the flow of explosive material and mines into the hands of the Maoists and effective mine-clearing operations in the areas where the Maoists are active.

11. To ensure that normal village administration and village touring for interactions with the villagers is not affected by the intimidatory  tactics of the Maoists, we should provide helicopters to all Districts in the areas affected by the insurgency.

12. There is no satisfactory answer to the question as to how to deal with an abduction in a rural or forest area. The basic principle is never concede the demands of the insurgents to secure the release of the abducted persons. Once a person is abducted, various pressures start operating on the political leadership and the administration----from the relatives, sections of the political class itself, human rights activists etc. It becomes difficult for the political leadership to resist these pressures and stick doggedly to the principle of not conceding the demands of the insurgents, come what may.

13. Dealing with abductions is partly a game of patience, partly a psychological game and partly a game of calculated risks. Patient negotiations with those involved in the abduction are necessary to give the police and the intelligence agencies time  to collect intelligence and to the special intervention forces to prepare themselves for a possible rescue operation. The psychological game involves giving the abductors cause for hope that the State may concede their demands while sticking to the principle of not doing so The game of calculated risks is about undertaking a rescue operation if there are reasonable chances of success.

14.The difficulties faced by our political leadership in dealing with an abduction in a rural or forest areas arises from two factors--- the lack of precise intelligence as to where the abductors have kept their captive and the absence of a specially trained force for interventions in the rural and forest areas. The National Security Guards is more a special intervention force for urban than for rural areas or forests. The time has come for us to think in terms of a special intervention force for rural areas and forests.

15. Ultimately, the decision as to what the State has to do has to be taken by the political leaders and professionals jointly. There will always be political and public criticism of their final decision. If they concede the demands of the abductors they will be accused of being soft. If they stand firm and the victim is killed by the abductors they will be accused of being heartless and incompetent. It is an occupational hazard for a public servant having to deal with terrorism or insurgency. He should act according to his best judgement unmindful of the brickbats that might follow.( 22-4-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )

OUR CHINA-CENTRIC MILITARY CAPABILITY

B.RAMAN

We don’t need Agni-V, the intermediate range ballistic missile that we successfully tested on April 19,2012, to give ourselves a deterrent capability against Pakistan. We need it only for a deterrent capability against China.

2. Agni-V is a Chinese-centric missile. The Chinese rightly know it and would be evaluating any changes required in their defence strategy vis-à-vis  India in the light of India having at its disposal a missile capable of hitting targets in mainland China, including Beijing. The operational missiles that we have at our disposal  now are in a position to successfully target Chinese-occupied Tibet and Western China such as Sichuan, which are not yet economically as developed as Eastern China. Once Agni V becomes operational, India should be in a position to target those parts of Eastern China on which its economic prosperity depends.

3. China’s plans to protect itself against a possible Indian missile strike have to cover the whole of China, instead of only Western China as it is till now. Our intelligence agencies have to be on the look-out for indications of Chinese thinking on this subject.

4. While we are now in a strategically better position to protect ourselves against China by discouraging Chinese temptations to intimidate us with its missile capability, this does not mean that our capability to protect ourselves tactically against China will improve with the induction of Agni V into our arsenal.

5. Our ability to protect ourselves tactically will depend on our conventional capability to deter a surprise Chinese strike across the Himalayas to occupy areas---particularly in Arunachal Pradesh which it describes as southern Tibet--- that it claims as its territory.

6. During the last 10 years, the entire Chinese military planning vis-à-vis India has been focussed on giving itself such a surprise strike capability. Its improvement of its road and rail networks in Western China, particularly in Tibet, its attempts for road-rail connectivity with Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh, its improvement of its air bases in Chinese-occupied Tibet and live firing air exercises in Tibet are part of its plans to strengthen its surprise strike capability.

7. Our Army did badly in the 1962 Sino-Indian war not because it was a bad fighting force, but because our policy-makers had not given it the required capability to neutralise a Chinese surprise strike. If you do not give the Army the required capability, you cannot blame it for doing badly.

8.Have we now learnt the right lessons from history and given the Army the capability to blunt a surprise Chinese strike and throw them back after inflicting a prohibitive cost on them? Unless we confront the Chinese with the prospects of a prohibitive cost and outcome if they indulge in a surprise strike as they did in 1962, the temptation on their part to launch a surprise strike, if they lose patience with the border talks, will remain.

9. While we are steadily closing the gaps in our strategic military capabilities with China, the gaps in our tactical capabilities remain and need to be identified and redressed. In our euphoria over the successful Agni V test, we should not lose sight of the continuing gaps in tactical capabilities and the need to close them.

10. The tactical situation that we face today is less favourable than what the Chinese face. In 1962, China had no military relationship worth the name with Pakistan. Today, China has a multi-dimensional military relationship with Pakistan, much of it focussed around the Gilgit-Baltistan axis. In 1962, China had no military-related presence in our periphery. Today, it has in Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In 1962, we didn’t have to worry about the Chinese Air Force and Navy. Today, we have to.

11. In 1962, the war plans of the Chinese Air Force were largely focussed on Taiwan. Today, there are indications of a partial shifting of the thinking of their Air Force towards India. In 1962, they had no Navy worth the name. Today, they have a Navy increasingly capable of operations in the Indian Ocean.

12. It is my assessment that if the Chinese mount a surprise tactical strike across the Himalayas now, it will be a joint Army-Air force operation. It will be a lightning strike designed to satisfy their territorial objectives in the shortest possible time without running the risk of a prolonged war. The role of their Navy will be insignificant for some years to come.

13. We have to have a multi-pronged strategy designed to enable us to pre-empt a tactical Chinese strike with the co-operation of our Tibetan friends and to blunt their strike and throw them back if pre-emption fails. Such a strategy would call for better intelligence collection, better road-rail-air connectivity to the border areas, more well-equipped bases near the border from where our Army and Air Force can operate and a better logistics trail well-tested during peace time.

1`4. We have already taken steps towards giving shape to such a multi-pronged strategy in the Himalayan area, but the progress in implementation has been slow. Our policy-makers should pay urgent attention to this. Our strategic and tactical thinking continues to be largely Pakistan-centric.

15. Whatever Chinese-centric thinking there has been is largely in the context of our power projection with US blessing. We must remember : If there is another limited border war with China imposed on us by Beijing, the US will have no role in helping us. We have to fight and win the war alone. Are we in a position to do so? (21-4-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )

KAYANI’S SMILE: HOW GENUINE?

B.RAMAN



During a visit to the site of the devastating avalanche near Skardu in Pakistan-Occupied Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) on April 18,2012,which killed about 125 military personnel and 15 civilians,Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), is reported to have made ----for the first time since he took over as the COAS from Gen.Pervez Musharraf--- some positive references to India.


2. The Pakistani media has quoted him as saying as follows: “Peaceful coexistence between the two neighbours is very important so that everybody can concentrate on the well-being of the people…… The decades of enmity between India and Pakistan should be resolved through negotiation.”


3.It needs to be underlined that these remarks should not be interpreted as indicating a change in the hostile mindset of the Pakistan Army towards India. Nor do they indicate a definitive desire of the Pakistan Army for a thaw in Indo-Pakistan relations.


4. These remarks were made by Gen.Kayani in the context of the tragedy caused by the avalanche and were apparently designed to prod the international community to revive pressure on India to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement with Pakistan on the Siachen issue that could lead to a mutual withdrawal of troops from the glacier.


5. Pakistan is paying a heavier price than India in Siachen in terms of financial and human costs. Moreover, signs of alienation among the Shia population of GB have been increasing steadily. The fact that the majority of those who perished in the avalanche were from GB--- possibly Shias--- and that none of them could be rescued has added to the anger against the Army in the area.


6. Talk on the urgent need for a stand alone Siachen agreement with India is, therefore, assuming a desperate urgency for Pakistan. Kayani has to respond to this desperation if he has to prevent a further erosion of support for the Army from the people of the area.


7. His remarks have the tactical objective of responding to the local anger and projecting India as responsible for the lack of a forward movement on the Siachen issue. His remarks thus have an international and domestic angle.


8. It would be unwise for India to agree to any stand alone agreement on Siachen. Any ultimate agreement on Siachen has to be part of an overall package that would address India’s concerns relating to the suppression of the Shias of GB who have ethnic links with our Shias of Jammu and Kashmir and the increasing Chinese presence in the area.


9. The induction of Chinese construction teams and security personnel ---all reportedly from the People’s Liberation Army---- into the GB area have totally changed the complexity and complexion of the Siachen issue. It is no longer a simple question of mutual withdrawal of troops. Other dimensions having an impact on our security interests in Jammu and Kashmir have emerged since we started talking to Pakistan sporadically on Siachen.


10. This is not the time for re-opening any talks---substantive or exploratory --- on Siachen. We need to have a clear understanding of the implications of the recent developments in GB in order to revisit our strategy in respect of Siachen-related talks.


11.While we should be cautious and slow-moving on this particular issue, we should not spurn cynically the new---a little more benign--- rhetoric of Gen.Kayani on Indo-Pakistan relations in general. This seeming willingness to move away from a compulsive demonization of India has to be encouraged.


12. I have been advocating for more than a year the beginning of a military-military relationship between the two countries in order to enable senior military officers of the two countries, including the chiefs, to know and assess each other personally instead of depending on third parties and sources for this purpose. This is the time to take advantage of the overtures of Gen.Kayani to set in motion an exercise in this direction. Let us invite Gen.Kayani for an exploratory visit. If he seems reluctant to come, let us request him to depute some other senior officer to come to India on a getting to know each other visit--- without a formal agenda. ( 19-4-12)



( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )

AFGHANISTAN: ALL IS NOT YET LOST

B.RAMAN

All is not yet lost in Afghanistan. The Taliban and its affiliates such as the so-called Haqqani Network are alive and active not only in the interior provinces, but even in Kabul.They still retain the surprise element in a large measure. Their morale is undented.So too their capability to improvise and innovate complex attacks on multiple targets using multiple modus operandi.The flow of suicide volunteers for their operations is not showing signs of drying up.

2.Their Tet-like co-ordinated attacks in Kabul and some provinces on April 15,2012, were almost as spectacular as the co-ordinated attacks launched by the Vietcong on the Vietnamese New Year's Day (called Tet) in 1968, but not as effective and as lethal.


3. Just as the US and South Vietnamese intelligence were taken by surprise by the Vietcong attacks of 1968, the US and the Afghan intelligence were also taken by surprise. They had failed to detect the infiltration of the cadres of the Taliban and its affiliates into the areas to be targeted and their preparations for the attacks.It is easy to infiltrate men undetected, but should have been difficult to infiltrate RPGs and other medium weapons and the explosive devices if the physical security barriers had functioned effectively.


4. The fact that neither the intelligence agencies nor the physical security barriers could detect the smuggling of such weapons into Kabul and other cities indicates that the Taliban has probably built up caches of arms and ammunition in different parts of the country that could be used for such surprise attacks.


5. While there was thus a worrisome failure of intelligence and physical security as there was in Saigon and surrounding areas in 1968, the Afghan Security Forces----unlike their South Vuietnamese counterparts--- have shown a remarkable agility to recover quickly from the surprise and retaliate and repulse the attacks. Whereas the South Vietnamese Army---with odd exceptions---literally folded up before the Vietcong's wave of attacks, the Afghan security forces stood and fought valiantly thereby denying a spectacular victory to the Taliban and its associates. This speaks highly of teir training, reflexes and motivation.


6.Whereas the US failed to train and mould the South Vietnamese Army into an effective fighting force, they have done a better job of their training in Afghanistan.The Americans should slow down their pull-out from Afghanistan and spend more time and money for further training the Afghan security forces.


7.It may not be a walk-over for the Taliban and its affiliates in Afghanistan as many of us fear it would be.The Afghan security forces could still prevail if they maintain their unity.It is the lack of unity among soldiers of different ethnic origin that had in the past proved the bane of Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in the late 1980s, the Soviet trained Afghan Army headed by Najibullah fought valiantly against the Mujahideen and repeatedly repulsed their attacks.


8. But once Najibullah, a Pashtun, and Rashid Dostum, an Uzbeck, fell out and many Uzbecks deserted from the Army, the effectiveness of Najibullah's Army evaporated,paving the way for the Mujahideen take-over.Pakistan is hoping a similar scenario will be repeated after the US troops withdraw, but this should not be allowed to.The ability of President Karzai to maintain inter-ethnic unity will determine whether history will be repeated in Afghanistan.


9.The other ever-worrying danger is the infiltration of the Taliban into the security forces and intelligence agencies and the creation of sleeper cells which can be activated at short notice.This has to be guarded against by strengthening the Karzai Government's counterp-intelligence capability.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )

NORTH KOREA: US COMMITTING A SERIOUS MISTAKE

B.RAMAN

The US is committing a serious mistake in imposing fresh food sanctions against North Korea for attempting to launch a rocket on April 13,2012, in defiance of international appeals not to do so and in violation of its past commitments not to do so in return for a resumption of food aid.


2.The launch---which the US described as an attempt to test a long-range missile and North Korea projected as an attempt to put a satellite in orbit to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grand-father Kim Ul-Sung--- failed. After the launch, the second stage failed to separate from the first and the rocket disintegrated.


3. It was a double humiliation for North Korea, its leaders and people. The first humiliation arose from the failure of the rocket and the second from the fresh food sanctions sought to be imposed on North Korea at the instance of the US for trying to test the rocket.


4. The double humiliation has come at a time when Kim Jong-Un, who succeeded his father as the ruler four months ago, seemed to have consolidated his position. On the eve of the launch, he assumed the posts of the First Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, the Chairman of the Central Military Commission and the First Chairman of the National Defence Commission, a newly-created post.


5. North Korea has had rocket/missile failures in the past which it never admitted and instead projected as a success. This time, it had to admit the failure, because, in a rare act of transparency in an otherwise closed society, Kim Jong-Un had about 150 foreign journalists invited for the launch at the risk of any failure becoming public knowledge.


6. This act of transparency seems to have had two objectives. Firstly, to convince the world that North Korea was placing a satellite for peaceful purposes in orbit and not testing a long-range missile as alleged by the US and South Korea. Secondly, to attempt an opening up of the closed North Korean society.


7. This act of transparency required great courage on his part. It should have been rewarded by the opponents of North Korea led by the US in order to encourage him to continue on the path of gradually opening up North Korea. Instead by seeking to strengthen the food sanctions for attempting to launch the rocket, the US is unwittingly proving to the North Korean leadership that its experimenting with transparency was unwise.


8.North Korea may now reverse its experimentation with transparency and any hopes of a wind of change in North Korea under the new ruler will stand belied. By humiliating Kim in the eyes of his people, the US has lost any chance of experimenting with a new policy which would have had the objective of encouraging Kim Jong-Un to gradually come out of his shell. ( 15-4-12)


( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )

MY QUICK TAKE ON SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF ECONOMIC RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN

B.RAMAN

I have received many queries from my readers asking for my comments on the security implications of normal economic relations with Pakistan.I will categorise them as follows:

LOW SECURITY IMPLICATIONS: Trade in goods. Expansion of bilateral trade in goods can reduce the trust deficit between the two countries and facilitate a forward movement in improving the comfort level. Its security implications will be the least in the form of an increasing flow of Pakistani intelligence personnel and jihadi leaders to India under the cover of businessmen for establishing contacts with leaders of organisations such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM), for funding them and for giving them instructions. These threats could be managed by the intelligence agencies which have a long experience of dealing with Pakistani intelligence activities in Indian territory and have a good data-base on this.Trade in goods would not enable the ISI to destabilise our economy.

MEDIUM SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

Trade in services and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).This could enable the Pakistani intelligence to acquire a key presence in sensitive sectors of our economy such as banking, telecommunications, information technology etc and use the presence to disrupt our economy and collect strategic intelligence regarding our economic deficiencies that could be exploited by them.Our intelligence agencies are not yet in a position to deal with such threats effectively and do not have a good data-base on the likely threats and modus operandi of the Pakistani agencies.Even in the case of China, we went slow in these two sectors and even now our intelligence agencies have strong concerns over the wisdom of our allowing Chinese telecom and internet companies a presence in India. It has taken our intelligence agencies nearly 15 years to build up a data-base on Chinese companies with suspected links to their intelligence.They managed to build the data base because they got a lot of data from the intelligence agencies of Western countries which closely monitor Chinese companies.Such data-sharing will not be possible in the case of Pakistani companies which have a little presence in the economies of Western countries. We should, therefore, go slow and build up the capabilities and data-bases of our agencies before we allow Pakistani companies in these fields.

HIGH SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

Foreign Institutional Investments in our stock markets. This has the highest security threat.Allowing either China or Pakistan to invest in our stocks will give them a capability to disrupt our economy through manipulation of their stock holdings.Our intelligence agencies will always be against any FII by either Pakistani or Chinese investors in our stock markets.Should not be allowed.( 14-4-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter @SORBONNE75 )