Foreign developments

View 703 Sunday, December 04, 2011

Pakistan has now authorized its troops to return fire on NATO forces firing on Pakistani troops. This in the aftermath of the border incident in which Pakistani irregulars and militia fired on a NATO post and counterfire including air strikes killed 24 Pakistani. Meanwhile, Autralia’s Federal Labor party has voted to approve sale of yellowcake uranium to India. Australia is a major source of uranium ore. It already sells to China, but India was left out because it had not signed (and will not sign) the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. Actual sale of uranium to India won’t begin instantly, but the way has been paved.

Meanwhile former Secretary Gates has made a speech blistering NATO. NATO has always been an entangling alliance within the meaning of George Washinton’s warning. It was deemed necessary to US interests during the Cold War, although as B H Liddell Hart wrote as far back as the 1970’s it was more useful to Europe than the US. Some NATO assistance in Afghanistan has been enormously useful – Canada stands out, as do the Brits – but the notion that the US benefits from alliances with nations encircling the former Soviet Union has been at best questionable.

And in Libya NATO is out of munitions and needs the help of the US. And the French are learning that adopting NATO standards might have been a good idea – they insisted on their own and we don’t make that and neither, apparently do the French, at least in sufficient quantities. NATO was important so long as the USSR existed and posed the threat of a drive to the Rhine, but now that there is no part of the Wehrmacht as a major ally of the Red Army (and for that matter there is no more Red Army) that threat is gone.

The US is backing the Philippines in their naval disputes with China. China is ready to denounce any assistance we give, and will do their best to prevent it. What will we do? And the United Viet Nam has sent many signals indicating that they would like to be our friends, and perhaps allies.

The Democratic controlled Senate Armed Services Committee wants to zero out further development and possible deployment of electric rail guns. There doesn’t seem to be much discussion of this, probably because of a lack of understanding of their possible importance to a modern navy.

In other words, foreign policy is still important, and the US needs people with a long view of history. There is no evidence that the current White House has any view of history at all.

Alexander the Great discovered that it was a lot cheaper to bribe the Afghanis not to attack his supply trains than it was to try to use military force. Gold worked a lot better than war. There is little evidence of much change since. One thing that unites Afghanistani is the sight of armed enemies in their country. One of the things they are united on is that foreigners on their soil are fair game, for looting or for blackmailing. The presence of the foreigners is an insult, but the insult can be washed out by gold. So has it been, so shall it be.

Silver bullets have won a lot of battles and for a long time. There’s not a lot of glory in winning by bribing the enemy commander or buying his supplies out from under him, but it’s almost always cheaper in blood and usually cheaper in gold than fighting it out. Depends, of course, on just what you want, and just how serious the other guy takes your threats. Mostly it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Paying Danegeld is seldom a good idea. Even if you call it foreign aid.