Problems around the World

Here are a few things I have gathered from reading too many articles and online intelligence sources.

US Withdrawal in Iraq and Afghanistan
Obama initially painted Afghanistan as the good war and Iraq as the wrong war, but in the near future, it is in the US interest to be in Iraq, not Afghanistan. The reason is obvious when you remember that the two real threats to the US in the Mideast continue to be Iran and radical Islamists.

There is a reason that the US keeps asking Iraq to renew the status of forces agreement: Iran has been able to insert disruptive elements inside Iraq. If the US wants to really fight Iran, it must keep a strategic reserve of forces inside Iraq. If we are serious about trying to contain Iran, we must stay in Iraq.

Iraq is also the optimum place for power projection in the region for the US. This matters because we also have to deal with the radical Islamists. The Al Qaeda core, for at least two years, has not been at the forefront of radical Islamism – they were defeated decisively by the US. Al Qaeda has moved from being the most important global jihadist organization to essentially an ideological leader with almost no tactical capabilities. It has been deprived of any patronage (from states), and its franchises (which are independent organizations, such as AQAP, AQ in the Arab Megreb, and AQ Iraq) have taken over both tactical and strategic leadership in the Islamist struggle. And none of those organizations is even remotely based in Afghanistan. They are in Iraq, the southern Arabian Peninsula (such as Yemen) and northern Africa (and there is one in Somalia). To fight the current global jihadists the US must have elements in many places, but not so much in Afghanistan.

It is therefore a strategic net loss, in my opinion, to keep substantial troops and resources in Afghanistan. We won the war against Al Qaeda core, so we should now leave the battlefield. (Although on a Wilsonian level I am in favor of keeping some non-military resources there to help build infrastructure, and a few military elements for training, etc.). As recent as a year ago, I was heavily in favor of keeping forces in both countries, but now I agree with the Afghan withdrawal.

Turkey's coming role in the Mideast:
America is drawing down its military presence in the Mideast. Iraq's traditional role as powerhouse and counterweight to Iran has been obliterated by the 2003 Iraq War (according to most intelligence analysts, Iran has extensive capabilities within Iraq). Turkey, the traditional heavyweight of the Mideast, is beginning to flex its own muscles, however.

Turkey has been in a relative shell of isolation ever since Ataturk (who never even used the Turkish military in foreign policy issues after 1922!). But Turkey's military and economy are rapidly expanding and will soon overshadow Iran's might. Meanwhile, it is mostly Sunni, and its secularism is ever so slowly fading (for example, look at the current party in charge, which is not secular). And it is becoming involved in more and more negotiations (for example between Israel and the PA, and in Libya between Europe, the rebels and Gadhafi) and it is having more to say regarding places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

All this means that it is appearing to reemerge as the Mideast's Islamic older brother. I think there's a reason Gen. Petraeus, as he leaves his post in Afghanistan, is making his first stop in Ankara before coming to the US as the CIA director. The US knows that it will be largely up to Turkey to maintain the balance in the Mideast after the US military draws down more fully. It's not quite a return of the Ottomans, but eventually it may prove to be.

Doom and Gloom from Egypt:
In Egypt, most serious intelligence analysts that I am aware of are indicating that the trend is a fracturing of the Islamists - not a weakening of their power, but they are becoming divided. This means that even if an enormous part of the Egyptian populace favors Islamism such as the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood (and it is apparently very difficult to tell, even for Egyptians, what the majority really thinks there), there is not enough consensus and uniform leadership among the MB and similar groups for the country to truly form a strong Islamic government. There will certainly be Islamic elements, but it will become a coalition based government, with parties such as the MB's Justice and Peace party (or whatever it's called, I can't remember exactly) being perhaps the largest component, but only as a plurality.

Meanwhile, the military, which has ruled for decades, is not actually ceding direct power, because there is no real way for people such as the MB and the populace to wrest direct control. What happened in Egypt is nothing like what happened to the Soviets. It is somewhere in between that and what happened in Iran two summers ago - which means that the military is still in firm control, but is simply giving concessions - not a formula for the vast and swift Islamic takeover that some fear.

Operation Odyssey Dawn, and its sequels:
In Libya, the Nato coalition is divided, as usual. They are slowly realizing what their grandparents did in WWII, that you can't win a war with air power alone, and you also can't decisively win this war by granting the rebels only air support. While France, strangely, was initially the most vocal proponent of the war, it is now not so sure. The US is consistently trying to say that it is Europe's war, not ours (which is basically true). Italy is being really scared because they have gotten more and more refugees, and if Gadhafi never ends up leaving, then they will have to deal with the fact that they betrayed him after having so many lucrative deals with him (who wants a crazy guy like Gadhafi mad at you?). And Russia and Turkey are arguing over who is will be the big mediator between it all. Essentially, both the war and the politics are at a stalemate.

Turmoil in the Rest of the Mideast:
In general in the Mideast there is luckily not really a huge sweeping change for Islamism (but also not one for Western style democracy). The Wahhabists and Salafist Jihadists (such as the MB and Al Qaeda, etc.) have been trying to make all the secular governments into Islamists for decades and had only really succeeded in Afghanistan, and now that is tenuous for them (although the Taliban may yet make a major comeback).

In Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Syria, some of the biggest areas of current unrest (besides Egypt and Libya) there are tons of tribal factions and divisions, far too much for Islamism to takeover sweepingly. In Syria, for example, the Alawites are putting down their iron fist. In Yemen, royal family fights royal family. Bahrain has been a playground between Iran and Saudi Arabia (remember the troops sent from Saudi Arabia to help quell the unrest a few months back), and of course Saudi Arabia itself tries to appease the minority Shiite population in the east while it is on the brink of a major leadership transition.

Basically, there are a lot of problems and things going on, but there is no pending crisis in which Islamists will soon form their great Caliphate - virtually all of the current problems have to do with a combination of economic and tribal issues (that is to say, general populations feeling rightly indignant of their repressive governments and minority populations rightly feeling indignant for being so screwed). Hopefully the governments will become more liberal because of it all, but we will see. (liberal in the traditional meaning of the term, not the American political meaning). I believe that the most likely outcome is that the regimes will remain largely secular, while they will institute enough reforms to pacify the populaces, but not enough to fundamentally change their natures.

China's potential for belligerence:
China has recently been acting more openly belligerent towards its neighbors (for example, Chinese military vessels have shot live rounds at Philipino fishers on several occasions in the last six months). A friend of mine, and an astute observer, noted that between China's surplus of young males and growing economy, it could easily begin to have friction with its neighbors.

The most major caveat I have about Chinese aggression, however, is that it will be hard pressed to do much of anything if it can't handle the pressures of slowing its massive inflation without curbing its massive growth - not an easy problem, apparently. China's economic model is basically the same as all the other East Asian "tigers" which went kaput in the 90's and are still struggling to revive their growth - look at Japan, for example, which everyone thought would overtake the US in the 80s, but has now been stagnant for more than a decade.

Additionally, China suffers from major corruption at every level of the government, which is among the many reasons the people of China are restless (examples are the Jasmine gatherings and the weekly problems from strikes to local protests to individuals going postal at the local government). All this means that the government must first master itself before it can really master its neighbors. This has always been China's plight: China has suffered more civil wars and civil strife than perhaps any other nation in history (of course, it helps that it has a much longer history than almost anyone else). While it has had its share of wars with neighbors, its internal struggles have always been of critical importance, and one can only understand China by understanding its internal dynamics which force it to look inward, rather than outward (in particular the previous two centuries illustrate this).

Despite all this, the question remains: is China about to change course and look outward more and more? It did just build its first aircraft carrier (well, finally began working on one they had purchased from Russia years ago) and revealed their 6th generation fighter jet early this year. Nations don’t build aircraft carriers for defense. It is a power projection tool. I think the answer is yes, but the next question is, will they be able to effectively project power?

Russia:
Germany and Russia's entente increases as the Nord Stream Pipeline nears completion (set to be operational this November). This will allow Russia to sell natural gas directly to Germany (which really needs cheap energy now that it has announced it is doing away with all of its nuclear energy) without going through the complex web of pipelines in the East European nations.

Nations in the old Soviet area of influence are very dependent on energy from Russia, and cynical observers note that the most important advantage of the Nord Stream pipeline for Russia is that they can sell energy to Germany directly at one price, and then use price as a weapon against their neighbors that they historically (and currently) try to control. The Baltic nations, for example, get 100% (except Estonia I think) of their energy from Russia, so basically they have to do what Russia says.

More than one coalition of Eastern European states has formed a military partnership, something not seen in 50 years (since NATO) - the Nordic Battlegroup and the Visegrad 4 Battlegroup. This means two things: A) these states consider it an imperative to have some kind of collective security apparatus against a perceived threat (why else spend the vast money and vast political effort, especially between traditionally unfriendly partners such as The Czechs and the Slovaks?), and B) they don't believe NATO is functional enough to provide this for them. The only real threat all these nations have in common is a potential threat from Russia (which, after all, fought an unnecessary war with Georgia a mere three years ago).

Mexico’s Cartels
The two biggest factions of cartels - the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas are becoming so violent that they have been making car bombs (VBIEDs) and also jury-rigged armored trucks (dump trucks with massive armor added, much more than Brinks armored cars). These two cartels have smaller ones working with them, and as two sides control almost all of the cartel landscape in Mexico (though there are still a few independent ones like the newly formed Knights Templar).

The Mexican government has relieved tons of local and state police of their duties in the northeast and has inserted the army to carry on policing duties (and for fighting the cartels). A big problem with this, is that the reason they fired all those police - because so many were corrupt and on the cartels' payrolls - won't be negated by firing them. Any police who really were on the cartel payroll are probably going to be actually hired by the cartels as gunmen, ones who already have good government issued firearms! So, I believe it was a mistake to let them go, although having the army there may be good.