Comment & Briefs

Security planners often grapple with the question of how far out they should be looking and planning, and it is not a problem to take lightly. Many believe that as the pace of technology quickens and the number of possible interactions in a globalized, flattened world increase, the real horizon of meaningful forecast moves ever closer. But in my view that only forces us to look farther out, to things that seem distant today, but can be anticipated, and to take a longer view.

Since the early 1950s, two factors have remained constant in Japan - the political domination of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the continuation of the Japan-US security alliance. The first factor is expected to undergo a change as the LDP is likely to give way to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the forthcoming elections for the lower House. Given this prospective political change, one might see a perceptible shift in Japan’s foreign policy, particularly its relationship with the US.

An editorial in the New York Times on July 18, 2009 ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India - ‘Secretary Clinton goes to India’, has generated a lot of interest.

The recent clashes that occurred between the Uighur Muslims and the Han Chinese workers in a toy factory and the subsequent spread of violence throughout the Xinjiang Uighur region have elicited strong responses from around the world. The clashes led to the death of over 184 people and left hundreds injured. The issue has also drawn world attention for the way it has been handled by the Chinese government.

Indonesian police confirmed on July 19 that the twin blasts at the Ritz Carlton and Marriott Hotels in Jakarta two days earlier, which left nine people dead (including two suicide bombers) and more than 50 injured, was the handiwork of Jemaah Islamiyah. This shows that terrorism and terror networks are still existent in Indonesia, a nascent democratic country with the largest Muslim population in the world. These blasts are meant to create panic and show that the nebulous terror groups like Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) are trying to come out of their oblivion.

In a conference on socio-economic development in Kamchatka Kray in 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that if Russia does not step up the level of activity of its work in the Russian Far East (RFE), it may risk losing territory. The tone of his remarks was ‘unprecedented’ and reminiscent of former President Vladimir Putin’s even more direct and straightforward warning, who observed in 2000 that “if the authorities failed to develop the region, even the indigenous Russian population will mainly be speaking Japanese, Korean and Chinese in a few decades.”

The photo-ops with CEOs and students notwithstanding, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s much anticipated visit to India did not reach anywhere near the euphoria that marked the visit of her husband President Clinton to India in 2000. Her interactions also seemed to lack the genuine bonhomie between two friends that was seen during the visit of President Bush in 2006.

Diplomatic and political naivety, coupled with enormous pressure from a clueless America helplessly flailing its superpower muscle in the Af-Pak region, and of course that old disease that all Indian Prime Ministers’ suffer from – a sense of manifest destiny to normalise relations with Pakistan – have led to a Joint Statement by the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in Sharm-el-Sheikh which is full of concessions, compromises and climb-downs by India.

Due to the long and porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the situation in the region could worsen with Taliban groups from both sides joining hands to fight the US and Pakistani forces

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Gilani and Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh signed a joint statement on July 16, 2009 at Sharm el-Sheikh inEgypt on the margins of theNAM summit. In India the statement has been seen as a softening of India’s stand towards Pakistan. In Pakistan it has been seen as a “victory” for Pakistani diplomacy.